The Rich Roll Podcast - Roll On: Everything Roll On

Episode Date: July 21, 2022

After a brief hiatus, the boys are back with a classic "old school" edition of 'Roll On', the version of the podcast where we ramble on matters of interest across culture, sports, art, politics, self-betterment, and more. This might be the most Roll On Roll On of all Roll Ons. As always, my co-host is Mr. Adam Skolnick, an activist, veteran journalist, and David Goggins’ Can’t Hurt Me co-author. Specific topics discussed in today’s episode include: Rich’s recent adventures in Colorado (and getting COVID—again); how Jim Thorpe was finally restored as sole winner of 1912 Olympics; Kaitlin Armstrong’s capture in Costa Rica; Francois D’Haene, Kilian Jornet & Courtney Dauwalter’s impressive Hardrock 100 results; Yoshihiko Ishikawa stunning performance at the Badwater 135; the importance of the Webb Telescope images; and  women’s healthcare rights and the future of abortion in America. In addition, we answer the following listener questions: Is an unbalanced life centered on work a rite of passage when it comes to success? How do you embody gratitude? What books changed your life? If you want your query discussed, drop it on our Facebook Page, or better yet leave a voicemail at [phone]. Today’s episode is also viewable on YouTube. Show notes:+ MORE: https://bit.ly/richroll693 Peace + Plants, Rich

Hey everybody, welcome to Roll On, where after a few minutes off, a non-voluntary COVID-induced free speech impinging mini sabbatical, the boys are finally back. And once again, in the seat across from me, we find the hooch to my Turner, the aisles to my Rizzoli,

the Murtaugh to my Riggs, the chef to my chef, inside joke, for all you fans of the bear, we're gonna get into that later. The literary line himself, Mr. Adam Skolnick. And today as is our want, we bring a fresh perspective on sports, art, culture, world events, try to make a little more sense

of this insane world we all inhabit and have a few laughs along the way. So today we got a bit of catching up to do because how many weeks has it been since we've done this? I feel rusty. Yeah, you feel rusty? I do. When's the last time you were in that captain's seat?

You mean doing a podcast? Oh, last week. Oh. Just not with you, I'm rusty with you. We have to- I feel like you're right. Our relationship has to get in sync. It's gonna be like a couple that has like- We haven't talked in a bit.

Yeah, hasn't, you know? And then the first time back, it's like, you know, but I think we're doing okay. I think we'll hit our stride. So yeah, today we got some interesting stories from the world of athletics and ultra running as usual. We share a few things we've been enjoying respectively based on the outline in front of me,

which I'm willing to toss out the window and just free will if you want. But I'd characterize what we've kind of thought about talking about today as a pretty classic version of roll-on, an old school roll-on if it can be old school. Yeah, a retro roll-on. Have we been doing it long enough that we can do vintage roll-on at this point?

It's a vintage roll-on. Let's see what the listening public has to say. Anyway, well. They were concerned. I was getting messages saying, where's roll on? Are you, did something happen? Did you guys, are you guys in a fight? Did you stoke that conspiracy theory?

I sprinkled it. I have a Reddit thread that you're not aware of. I did tweet out that I had COVID and we were gonna have to take a break. But you know, not everyone's on Twitter, so. Well, I mean, I think we should, one thing we should dispense with, before we get into the Adam check-in,

tell us how you're feeling. COVID for the second time in what, six weeks? Why don't you check in first and we'll get into it. Okay. I'm happy to share about it. All right. Well, I'm excited to announce my new career. I've tendered my resignation at Ben and Jerry's. Is that shirt part of the uniform

for whatever this new career is? No, it's just a shirt. That might be the most Skolnickian shirt I've ever seen you wear. There you go. It's a Skolnickian by way of Patagonia. But I've been spending the last several weeks while when you haven't been returning my calls,

just really connected to the LA Sheriff's Department where I've been training as a driver's license revocator. And so what that means is I've been deputized with the power that if you flout the rules of the road in front of me, I can and will revoke your license on the spot. So that means if you cut me off by changing lanes or turning late onto the road right in front of me and then immediately hit your brakes,

by the time you get home, you will no longer be a licensed driver. Are you feeling disempowered in your life? No, I'm just saying- Where is this impulse coming from? If you run a four-way stop while I'm running while pushing a stroller, no more license for you. That's where this comes from.

Right, so I'm just trying to play this out, like the practicalities of it. So you're gonna chase this guy down and potentially get into a physical altercation? No, no, no, I just get the license plate. And then we do, we work all the little ring cameras. There's an algorithm that I work. All the ring cameras that I can find,

all the public cameras, we's an algorithm that I work. All the ring cameras that I can find, all the public cameras. We get the driver's face recognition and immediately I can do it virtually. That's how good I am. That's what this training is all about. How much time have you invested in this fantasy? Fantasy, this is a real thing. If I see you creeping along the road at rush hour traffic

with a long line of cars behind you, and you're looking for a parking space for you, I will issue a warning. And if it doesn't happen again, that's fine. What are you supposed to do if you're looking for a parking spot? Listen, I'm tough, but fair. You need to slow down to find that spot.

I know, but there's ways of doing it, Rich. We're in this together. This is a team game. Well, I might need to deploy your services because my eldest daughter, Mathis, she just got her driver's license and she's been driving around for all of 10 days at this point as a newly minted licensed driver.

And she already got her first moving violation. Really? So in that case, assuming your temperance for fairness, would you revoke the license? I might ask you to revoke the license. I'm not against speeding. Speeding has its time and place. I'm not gonna revoke a license over mere speeding.

It's really more about the driver that is not aware of the rules, not the one that flouts the rules for specific purpose. I'm still trying to get at what's behind this. This irritation with people that don't follow the rules. It's not really that. What is the temperament? My irritation with people who can't drive.

That's where my irritation is. You live in the wrong state. I should move to, you know, move to Germany or something. You're at that zone two heartbeat. Like if you see an idiot driver out there that doesn't bother you. I get ruffled from time to time. That's all I'm saying.

Yeah, I know what that's like. But I heard that when you were at the DMV getting math as her license, or she got it herself, she passed the test. Yeah, I had- You ran into a friend of mine. I had a celebrity encounter at the DMV. Who was it?

Thousand Oaks. Your buddy, the Malibu artist. Carlos. Yeah. Malibu artist, how was that? Was it a funny interaction? His name comes up with more regularity on this podcast than most people.

I know, he's doing great work. You know, he was just in Florida, maybe he's still there, but he was working in Jupiter, out of Jupiter, Florida. He was reporting on a shark fishing tournament where there's this sanctioned tournament. Noah has given permits to these boats. There were 57 boats in the competition, apparently. Only 12 came to weigh in, 11 bull sharks were taken.

And it's a tournament that claims to support conservation science. And they claim that hundreds of sharks were tags on a catch and release basis. But undercover footage has since emerged with tournament organizers saying, suggesting to the fishermen to kill as many sharks as possible

and don't dispose the bodies. Don't just take the jaws and toss them over because divers will go looking for them and they're afraid of the environmentalist to sensationalize things. But the fact of the matter is no evidence of tag data registration has emerged from this competition. There's no videos of tag and release

that have been put forward by the organizers. Fishermen often do participate in science, but there's no evidence that that happened here. And so, personally, I have no vendetta against fishermen. I respect anybody who dedicates their life to being on the water. I don't respect the, you know, sport hunting of, you know, sharks at all.

You know. Just out of curiosity, how would you steel man the support conservation science argument behind this? Like, what is that argument? Their argument was that they were tagging sharks and then they were releasing them. So then the tags, you know, shark scientists can then theoretically

track migration patterns and you can learn about shark behavior. But in fact, there was no tagging? In fact, we don't have any evidence there was tagging. I can't say there wasn't. I just know that we haven't seen any evidence emerge yet. And these same organizers have planned to hold a statewide tournament soon.

And that's what's really kind of like, you see certain countries like French Polynesia has banned shark fishing entirely. Sharks are a huge part of the culture. It's completely banned there. Hawaii shark fishing is banned. You can't do it. There's no reason to have sport shark fishing.

Sharks are needed to control certain populations that might eat sea grass or kelp beds, which are important for reabsorption of carbon. They are the apex predator, therefore they manage the whole ecosystem. So when you remove sharks from the water, you are damaging the ecosystem. I've written about this, we've talked about it before.

So this is kind of an example of it. It's a great like 11 minute video in Malibu artist style side, definitely urge you guys to check it out. Yeah, if you're watching on YouTube, you're seeing clips from it and we'll link the video up in the show notes, of course. But it is amazing to me that this is not outlawed.

Yeah. And what is the sort of legislative resistance to making that happen? Well, it's Florida. It's a state by state thing. In terms of hunting and fishing laws, I believe it is. And now that the EPA, there's that Supreme Court decision that was handed down

that makes it harder for the EPA to, I guess, manage greenhouse gases. I don't know where that comes along in terms of this. Bull sharks are not endangered, so that's probably part of it. You can hunt them. I just think that we need to think differently about hunting and fishing laws.

Like I said, I'm not against fishermen doing their business and making a living as long as it's an environmentally sustainable way. I respect them. This is not that. Aren't we on the cusp of shark week? I think it's happening. Yeah.

Is it started yet? The great free diver that was swimming with the tiger sharks. He's in shark week this time. Yeah, he's in it. With friend of the pod, Paul DeGelder, your friendly shark. Yeah, but I don't know if he's in that one.

He's with, I forget who he's with. Someone else we haven't talked about, but she's a reporter. It's interesting that despite mass enthusiasm for Shark Week, that the laws aren't changing more rapidly. I mean, I would have to assume that Shark Week helps enhance sort of public awareness around these issues in a positive way?

Or does it make people just scared of sharks? I mean, Paul's whole thing is helping people to understand much like the Malibu artists, that these are important animals that we need to be protecting. Yeah, I mean, you know. Not hunting and fishing. I've been diving around professional divers for a long time. And I think that the awareness

around sharks contributions to the ecosystem and its importance and the fact that they're not choosing to eat humans and that they're not this predator to be feared as much is growing definitely. So that's happening. It's just, you know, the leap from that to legislation is a different thing.

You know, I can't answer that. I will say that I think social media has made activism actually more impotent, to be honest with you, because like you think that you're doing something by tweeting or posting something on Instagram and you're not doing shit because that doesn't do anything. Right.

So, how you can do something is talking to people who make those decisions. So that if anything, we can learn from another thing we're gonna talk about soon. I don't wanna, but obviously the abortion issue and Roe V. Wade getting overturned is that those were activists

that were definitely boots on the ground for years and years and years and never stopped. And so like that's how change happens, not by posting about it. Yeah, it is a weird thing because you have that pressure valve release if you talk about it on social media, but it's rather ineffectual.

I mean, it's- It affects culture. I suppose good if you have a large platform and a large audience, it's important to say something and share your perspective and perhaps that can move the needle in terms of public opinion, but ultimately change happens through relentless pressure, boots on the ground type activism, old school style.

But you know, let's get to that later. Most important, how the hell are you? I feel good right now. Good. It's been an interesting couple of weeks. I'll start with my visit to Boulder, which I guess was two and a half weeks ago at this point. I traveled to Boulder to do some work with Solomon,

who's my partner, longtime partner, friend of the podcast, podcast supporter. They were doing an event in Boulder to celebrate Solomon's 75th birthday, which was super cool. And also to celebrate their best male ultra runner on their team, Francois Den, who is a wonderful human being and incredible ultra running champion

who lives in France, but had traveled to the United States to get ready for the Hard Rock 100, which just transpired last weekend. And so I was to do a Q&A with Francois and there was like an event at this running store and there was a fun run and all that kind of stuff. So I went, it was great.

The Q and A was amazing. I was able to do also in addition to that, a podcast with Francois, which went really well, which we'll be releasing at some point. And also- A classic on the road podcast from back in the day. Yeah, I did too. And a real old school one with Gordo Byrne,

who is a former Ultraman world champion, who I'd never met in person. He's a coach and just a wise human being and somebody I'd wanted to meet for a very long time who's inspired me and kind of mentored me from afar. And we had an amazing podcast, so. Why is that a real old school one? Just because he was a very early

and profound influence on me when I was training for Ultraman as somebody who had had his own life transformation from being kind of a heavyset investment banker, when I was training for Ultraman as somebody who had had his own life transformation from being kind of a heavy set investment banker, hedge fund type guy living in Hong Kong to transforming his life and performing at the highest level as an elite in Ironman and Ultraman.

So he won Ultraman, he also got second at Ironman Canada. Like he was training with Scott Molina and living it like full time. Like, and he would share in the early days of the internet on his blogger, WordPress, whatever, like stuff that he learned. And he had a little podcast at the time

called Endurance Corner, where he would share training techniques, et cetera. And I just learned a lot from him and he was very helpful to me and it was cool to be able to finally meet him. So that'll be coming out at some point as well. But the point being that I had a great experience in Boulder and then on the flight home,

I started to feel not so great. What happened? What was the first symptom? Just a little congestion, a little heat in the forehead, a little scratchy, like little- Were you the guy everyone was looking at with like hate in their eyes? I was trying, I had a little tickle.

I had a tickle in the back of the throat and it reminded me very vividly of my experience flying home from Miami less than three months prior where I had hosted a conference and interacted with a lot of people and felt my first COVID symptoms on that flight. And here I was again, having an analogous, very similar experience.

Sure enough, COVID round two, I think 11 weeks after I'd had it the first time. So that was not fun. I was down for the count for six or seven days, which is why we didn't have a roll on the other week. I'm feeling good now, but it was interesting. It was different from the first go around. I'd be interested to hear from other people

who have had it multiple times. First time I got it, I had two consecutive nights of pretty high fever and chills. This time I only had one. So I thought, oh, well, maybe I'm gonna get over this more quickly. But then I had a couple of days of real depression and darkness.

And this is something Julie experienced when she had it. Like it got really dark for her in a not great way, mental health wise. And I got a taste of that, like not suicidal per se. I don't think it was that severe, but definitely this sensation of like nothing matters. And like, what's the point? I live there.

That's where I live. Yeah, well, maybe I was able to crawl up into your skull for a couple of days. Pessimism was looming, the dark cloud. I take nothing matters as a point of optimism, nothing matters. No, but seriously, I did see you like had a cryptic treat in there where you were like talking about,

I forget what it was. It was like, I needed that today or something like that. I wonder if it was aligned with that moment. I don't think so. No? I think at some point I was like, here I go round two or something like that. But I don't think I shared anything truly cryptic

about that. Maybe I'm wrong, I don't know. But yeah, so that was different and new the second time. And then just, you know, weakness and it lingered for a while. And then when I thought I was basically on the cusp of crawling out of it and starting to feel better, suddenly I had a fever again on like day eight

or something like that. Did you have to retest? Yeah, I was testing like every couple of days. So yeah, I was still positive obviously at that days. So yeah, I was still positive, obviously at that point. So this one lasted a little bit longer. I feel fine now, but yeah, not fine. That's why I sent you that story from the Taiyi. I'm like reluctant to even share this story, but this post on this site called the Taiyi, T-Y-E-E,

get ready for the forever plague, is the most depressing COVID story I've ever read. I don't know what's depressing about that graphic. Fear mongering image to correspond to it. But essentially the thesis of this article, and I would basically tell people not to read this, but basically what it says is, it's not going away. These variants are gonna continue.

The vaccinations and the boosters can't keep pace with the complexity of the, you know, always, you know, new and different variants. And this is just something we're gonna have to live with. And not for nothing, once you've had it, like we're seeing the efficacy of like your own immune system response dwindling. And we're seeing the efficacy of like your own immune system response dwindling. And we're seeing more and more people

with longer negative health predicaments as a result of repeated exposure. Right, and I think what it's an appeal to is basically, you know, be smart, continue to mask up in certain environments. It's not advocating shutdowns at all. It's saying like, if you're indoors in a tight space, you probably should still mask up.

Outdoors, you're probably fine. But this idea that six feet is enough is not really there either. And there is long-term health that we're not hearing about, like long-term impacts on immune system and immune response and even vital organs. So they're finding this stuff. It's real science.

We're not hearing about it as much. I think people are also just don't want to bother with it anymore. Cause you know, it's not really so much. That's the case. We're seeing a huge spike in Los Angeles right now. Nobody's masked up. People are just not willing to do it anymore.

Well, I think we, you know, we've been abandoned in some ways and getting information from the leaders. I think it's not, we've been abandoned. We don't really want it. You know, I think we also just aren't mature enough to handle the truth. Well, we've also been misled so many times

without pointing fingers. Like the public policy response has been so bungled in so many ways that there is a level of distrust and people at this point wanna just get on with their lives. Right. And it is what it is. I mean, I this point wanna just get on with their lives, you know? And it is what it is. I mean, I don't wanna turn this into a, you know, COVID podcast. No, no, no.

I will say that it seems that COVID might be the price of international travel these days. I've heard it from multiple people who've come back from awesome getaways that got COVID on the way back. Just a lot of people are getting it right now. You've had our swim teacher for Zuma and a couple of his, and like three of his friends went to Barcelona for a couple of weeks.

By the way, swim teachers, they get paid so well now. Are you aware of this? I taught swimming in college. Did you teach swimming growing up at all? I was a lifeguard and a coach, but I never taught swim lessons. Maybe I did briefly. I taught swim lessons. Maybe I did briefly. I taught swim lessons.

You can definitely charge a premium, especially in Los Angeles. I think I made 25 an hour at the most, like on a private lesson. These swim teachers today, and I'm not gonna pinpoint her because it's everyone, I got quotes from multiple. It's like 30 bucks a head

for like a 30 minute lesson with toddlers. So they'll get- Not for a private, for a group? For a semi-private, it's like 120, it's like lawyer money, like 120 bucks for 30 minutes. It's amazing. And of course she goes to Barcelona, but then she got COVID and we didn't get her to,

we missed another week, but I hope she gets well. Yeah, well, one final thing on this before we move off of it. The other weird thing that happened when I had COVID was, you know, as I've shared many times, I've had this lower back pain, but during COVID that seemed to exacerbate. And in addition to that, I had insane,

insane nerve pain down my right quadriceps. That's crazy. So much so that I couldn't move my leg, let alone put any weight on it. So I was like hobbling around, like I needed like crutches. And I believe it was a pinched nerve at L2, L3, the pinched lateral femoral cutaneous nerve, but it was unbelievably painful.

Very acute experience that I've never had that before. So I thought, well, maybe all the lying down in bed, you know, created this. But I did come across some information because of course you Google it and then you get down these crazy rabbit holes. I don't know if this is the case, but there does seem to be some evidence

that as a complication of COVID-19, there's this thing called acute transverse myelitis, which is inflammation on both sides of one section of spinal cord that damages the insulating material covering nerve cell fiber. So essentially, That sounds good. So essentially like inflammation of the,

what covers the nerves and that inflammation caused an impingement at L2 or L3. Does that regenerate that? And so I don't know, I mean, here's a research study that you can read that I can link up. All I know is that I was praying that it would just go away and it did eventually. And I don't know where it went away.

Yeah, prayer. I don't know if it went away naturally as a result of me getting over COVID, but I was also doing electric stimulation therapy in these little devices and attach these electrodes to kind of loosen up the muscles and that seemed to help.

But I'd be curious if anyone else out there has experienced anything similar to that. Interesting. Because I haven't heard of anybody, but it was very strange and extremely painful. But like I said, I feel good. I'm back. How's the back generally?

It's getting better. Good. Yeah, slowly, slowly getting better. Building back a little bit, trying to get reconnected with fitness and doing all these little exercises to improve glute strength and pelvic mobility and all that kind of stuff.

How are your glutes and your pelvic mobility? They are so awesome right now. I was doing good and then COVID hit and I wasn't doing anything during that. And I gotta be really, one thing everybody has told me is just be really conservative and cautious about getting back into fitness too quickly.

So you don't have some kind of relapse. So that's it. Julie turned 60 this week. Happy birthday, Julie. Yes, on Thursday, as a matter of fact, the day this podcast comes out. So that's exciting. Throw a big party for Julie.

Are you throwing a big party? Throwing a little party at the house for her friends. Nice. Which is fun. And yeah, man, happy to be back with you. She's gonna perform with the boys. Really? Fantastic.

It'll be good. So let's move off of this. What else do we wanna talk about? Well, first of all, let's take a minute to just recap the fact that Cory Booker was on Roll On. You mean Cory Booker, my favorite wellness influencer? He is, he is your new self-help guru.

I get his every day. He posts videos every day of empowering advice. It's very inspirational. It really is. It is. You know, so it was pretty cool. I think what was funny about that is we were so stoked that we actually got his office to agree

to a 15 minute interview. Amazing. And I was like being very cautious of not trying to run over our time allotment and be respectful of him. And if you listen to it, I keep kind of interjecting trying to run over our time allotment and be respectful of him. And if you listen to it, I keep kind of interjecting trying to end it. And he was like, no, I wanna keep going. And he kept talking.

And I think we went for like 45 minutes, which was unbelievable. He was fabulous, inspiring. And really the voice we needed at that moment, it was really cool of him to take the time and to talk to us and the fact that he's a listener and that he's on a run streak inspired by Hella is the same thing that Jason's on basically.

Yeah, the run streak. Right, right, right. Hella's reach. Hella is- Knows no boundaries. Right, he's just, he's amazing. And he's so inspiring and he's inspiring senators. And it just shows you what you can do,

what social media is good for, which is this kind of some ideas do get into the culture and he has influenced change people's lives. Yeah, it's pretty cool. Yeah. But anyway, yeah, Senator Booker, that was a great experience.

Yeah, so yeah, I think we're on a bit of a jag here because now we got Malcolm Gladwell on the podcast this week. That was definitely like a huge get from day one. He was somebody I wanted to have on, took a long time to make it happen, but we made it happen. He couldn't have been cooler or more delightful. I'm really proud of that conversation.

We had a lot of fun. I think you had a chance to listen to a little bit on the way in. I loved it. It's like the perfect geek out where you guys can just like, you drop into a topic and then you just immediately go deep and then you go to another one because you have great overlap. Right, but it all comes back to running. Yeah, well topic and then you just immediately go deep and then you go to another one because you have great overlap.

Right, but it all comes back to running. Yeah, well running and then also, but also media. Yeah, you also have the media, yeah, podcasting too. So, you know, all of that and his new show, Legacy of Speed, which is kind of, it's built around, I caught an episode of that, which is, you know, with coach Bud Winter and that whole thing. And it's like a perfect Gladwell deep dive

into something that we thought we understood or we've all heard about. And he shows it in such new light, which is really cool. And I think I said it in the podcast, it might be the most Gladwellian of all Gladwell projects ever, because it has aspects of all the things that he loves and is interested in starting with track and field,

but also when a certain group of people end up at the same place at the same time and some kind of magic ensues, like that's a big kind of recurring Gladwell trope and the intersection of like sport, culture, politics, and also of course, the sort of misunderstood aspect of all of it, because there was a lot that was misunderstood

about those protests, what they meant, how they were interpreted at the time, and what happened to those athletes as a result of taking that really courageous stand. Yeah, I mean, I think what happened to them isn't misunderstood. I mean, they were basically treated as pariah and it wasn't respected.

It was like, they were widely thought that they tarnished the Olympics. And so, I mean, that I think was very clear. And then I forget which one of them ends up in the desert as a professor or something, or as a coach. One, is it John Carlos? I think it's John Carlos. I could be wrong, but I think it is John Carlos.

But you know, reading about them later, you obviously, you know, by the time I came, became aware of what happened, it, you know, reading about them later, you obviously, you know, by the time I came, became aware of what happened, you know, always respected those guys. I mean, imagine the courage that took in 1968 to do that and how selfless that act was. Now we see kind of people speaking out on issues and they make it kind of almost performative,

but that was like, really, they took a huge risk and suffered for it. And it's remarkable. You know, that happened. And a lot has changed and a lot hasn't when you look at Colin Kaepernick realize what he has suffered as a result of the courageous stand that he took. And also, you know, contextualizing the impact

of like Bud Winter and Professor Harry Edwards, like without those two guys at that place at that time, you don't get Colin Kaepernick and you don't get Usain Bolt. Right, Usain Bolt coming from the Bud Winter strategy of relaxing, relaxed sprinting, relaxed effort. Yeah, so it's all, it's an amazing deep dive. Thank you for turning me onto that.

I love that you brought up the LeBron, like Malcolm challenging LeBron to a mile in your podcast with him, that was amazing. I know, I'd like to see that happen. I don't think LeBron ever got back to him. The risk is too high on his end. Have you seen that video though of LeBron? No, I wanna see that.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you have that? Are you putting that in the show notes? Well, why don't, let's take a break, quick break, and we'll be back see that. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you have that? Are you putting that in the show notes? Well, why don't, let's take a break, quick break, and we'll be back with that. And also some other kind of related stuff to Legacy of Speed. We're brought to you today by recovery.com.

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treatment option for you or a loved one, again, go to recovery.com. All right, we're back. Before we, I did find the LeBron video. I'm going to show that to you guys for a second, those of you who are watching on YouTube, but I forgot to tell this really embarrassing Malcolm story. Hey, do I have your attention? Yeah, I'm just watching Le YouTube, but I forgot to tell this really embarrassing Malcolm story. Hey, do I have your attention? Yeah, I'm just watching LeBron. I know, come on. All eyes over here, buddy.

I thought I was supposed to be watching this. No, we're getting to that in a minute. Oh, okay. So this is probably, can't believe I'm gonna tell this story, six years ago, seven years ago, I can't remember. I was in New York City and I was gonna be speaking at this event that was upstate.

It was for Engine 2, Rip Esselstyn's company. They do this annual thing at the Esselstyn farm called Plant Stock and all these plant-based people come and speak and it's really fun actually. I've been a couple of times. So anyway, I was taking the train north out of Manhattan up into the Hudson Valley. And I got off at this small town

and somebody from the event met me at the train station, picked me up and we're driving down like the main street of whatever this little town was on our way to travel out to this farm. And I'm just looking out the window and we pass a cafe and sitting out in front of the cafe, like eating a muffin is Malcolm Gladwell. Oh, you've told me this story.

Did I tell you this story? Yeah, yeah, yeah, this is a great story. And it was so like the juxtaposition of like, if I'd seen him like walking down the street in Manhattan or running in the park or something like that, like that would be sort of to be expected. Right. Like he's in his natural environment.

I didn't realize that he had a place upstate. Right. I now know that he, you know. That's where he lives,. I didn't realize that he had a place upstate. I now know that he- That's where he lives, right? That's where he lives, I think, probably all the time now. But six years ago, I just thought he was somebody who lived in Manhattan.

And so when I'm in this small town in the middle of nowhere, and I see Malcolm Gladwell sitting by himself, in his running gear, eating his breakfast, something came over me. We live in LA, you see celebrities all the time, right? I don't get like, I don't get like off kilter. Proclamped. Proclamped.

But I lost all motor function and I like rolled down the window and I just blurted out like, I love a revisionist history. Like I just completely lost control of myself. And he kind of like looked over, like, like side-eyed me and was kind of like, eh, you know, like that.

Did you tell him this story? No, I was too embarrassed to. And then I like kind of rolled up the window and like, then I just slunk down into my seat. Like, oh my God, I can't believe I did that. Like I literally, it wasn't a conscious decision. It just like something came over me because like I have so much respect for that guy.

And I'm such a fan of everything that he does. Truly, you know, that I just, I was like completely starstruck. See, this is six to seven years ago before being a podcast super fan was cool. Now like everyone is listening to podcasts. And so it's like, that was just starting. Like it was just starting, like you guys were-

And it dated before that too, through his books and- Well, of course, but you know what I mean? It's like podcast super fandom, which is now a normal thing. Yeah, it's weird. Listeners, that's what I want you to take from this story. Not only does he podcast, he is a huge podcast fan. Are you not?

You're a huge fan of the forum. I am, I love it. So if you see me sitting outside eating a muffin somewhere, roll your window down and blur something out. And scream. And I'll know that you listened to this episode of the podcast. And scream, scream illegibly.

Anyway, I did find the video of LeBron. Blake's gonna pull it up right there. So basically he's doing laps around the perimeter of a basketball court. And he's got a guy posting up around the free throw line on each side, feeding him basketballs. And he's just doing layups and dunking and stuff like that. And he's running pretty fast.

And I think this video, which has something like, this one has 4.6 million views, it looks like, is what led Malcolm to think, this guy is an unbelievable endurance athlete. And if we were to do a mile challenge, I think he would beat me. He is such a beast, man. I mean, like his physical conditioning is second to none.

Yeah, I mean, it's interesting to hear him talk about also the elite athletes and longevity versus peak performance. It's almost as if like, cause LeBron is in his 20th year. I know. 20th year. And he did, do you see him? He was at the, you know, they have the,

this kind of a pickup type of game. I think it's called Drew. I forget what it's called, but they used to do it in New York in a park and they did it in a gym. Oh, that park down by fourth street. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Off sixth avenue. Yeah, I know what you mean.

And so now they're doing, Rucker Park or something. They'd have it there sometimes. This was at a gym. I don't know where it was. I saw him in New York City in a gym, like working out with a bunch of people. Was that in New York City? Yeah, and he, but no, this is a basketball scenario.

So he went with DeMar DeRozan, another NBA player, and they went and played against some of these guys that are really good, but not obviously at the NBA level. And it's famous for people coming in and just putting on shows. And he hadn't been there since 2011. And he just took over the gym and owned it. It was pretty fun.

Was Kevin Love part of that too? He wasn't on the floor this time. Yeah, he wasn't on the floor this time. It was him and DeMar DeRozan were the two NBA guys. Yeah. Well, on the subject of legacy of speed and all things Gladwellian, I think it dovetails pretty nicely into this next story

that we wanna talk about, which is super interesting. So set this up. Yeah, and even the LeBron mentioned dovetails into it because we're talking about the greatest athlete in the first half of the 20th century. So if you, you know, of his era, Jim Thorpe, who is the winner of the 1912 Olympic gold medal for the decathlon and the pentathlon,

also a professional baseball player, renowned and like beloved college football player before the Olympics, pro football player before the Olympics, pro football player after the Olympics. He was just restored as the sole winner of his 1912 Olympic medals. And when he won them, he destroyed the field and it wasn't even close.

And he was the star of the ticker tape parade down Broadway after that. Jim Thorpe is of indigenous heritage. He's a native American of the Sauk and Fox. I don't know how to pronounce it. Sauk and Fox nation in Oklahoma. And he grew up in those tribal schools where the kids had to cut their hair

and they couldn't speak their native tongue and similar kind of order. I don't exactly know where, how his school compares the ones in Canada, but you know, people were, a lot of children were mistreated and even died under the care of these tribal schools. There was a big controversy of these masquerades

that were found in Canada. Certainly some abuse happened in America too. So he's a product of those schools, but becomes this amazing athlete, you know, takes over the Olympics along with Duke Kanemoko, who was the other star, happened to be native Hawaiian. And they became friends on the steamship over to the 1912 Olympics.

Which is like a scene out of Chariots of Fire. Yeah, just unbelievable. These two native guys representing America, having been victims of America, yet also representing and showing with pride and dominating. And anyway, a year, not even maybe less than a year after winning those Olympic medals and being celebrated, he had his medal stripped because he had earned $25 a game

playing minor league baseball when he needed money years before the Olympics. Which is where it intersects with legacy of speed. And the kind of legacy of Avery Brundage, the IOC president who had this fanatical concept of what it meant to be an amateur athlete and his staunch position that politics and sport should never intersect.

But that allegiance to this idealized notion of amateurism, you know, played into decisions that Brundage made over the many decades that he lorded over the IOC. Obviously this is many years prior to that, but that concept comes into play. Like I'd never heard this story, but the fact that like, okay, you know, he had to pay some bills, he had to like,

make a little money. So he picked up 25 bucks to play. A different sport. Like semi-pro baseball or whatever, which was like, it's not baseball as we think of it now. He wasn't a major leaguer. No, it wasn't. Yeah, and they use that to strip him of his gold medals.

Like I didn't even know that that had happened. And not only strip him, but that made him ineligible to again, compete in 1916 and 1920. And, you know, because at that time, the decathlon champion was the best athlete in the world. That was the revered and it's remained that way all the way through probably through 76 with Bruce Jenner

was kind of the peak of that. But in 1913, he gets stripped. And so he, what does he do? He goes and plays pro baseball. Right. What's interesting is he went to this small school called Carlisle, right? And then in 1911, they beat Harvard.

Right, and Harvard was the best team because of him, because he was so dominant and he was like a running back and a kicker. And so he played pro baseball for whatever, six, 70 seasons. And then in 1920, he decides to play pro football and he plays till he's 41 years old. And he's like one of the best football players,

maybe the best. So, I mean, this is one of the great athletes ever and he's now been restored as the sole winner. I think it's some years after he was again, restored as like co-winners, like they elevated, the guys they elevated. In the 80s, they made him co-winner. So he had to share his gold with the people

that he actually beat. And he was, I mean, I don't know. I think he was dead then already. And when the other guys to their credit, when they were told they won, they were like, no, they weren't really stoked on the idea of being told they won. Cause it's weird, cause they know they were there.

It wasn't their decision. They knew they got their asses handed to them. Like now I'm supposed to like wear this gold medal. Right, and so now he's restored as, you know, what is it, 110 years later and he's restored. Took 110 years to set matters to rights on this, which is crazy. And my sense from that article was that the reinstatement

of his titles happened kind of quietly. Right. It was a native American publication that somehow picked up on the story and ultimately how it ended up in the New York Times. But it wasn't like there was a press release or any kind of big announcement around this. No, and you know, Jim Thorpe, AKA Bright Path Strong,

which is, I mean, what a name. That's ballsy. Is golden again. Why has there never been a biopic about this guy? Can you imagine today a guy who wins, let's say he didn't get his amateur status revoked. So he wins gold in decathlon and pentathlon. Pentathlon doesn't exist anymore.

There is pentathlon, it's different in the Winter Olympics. He returns in 1916 and wins again. Then he goes, like that could have happened, right? Well, that's what happened with Duke. He kept going back. He didn't take money. The biopic is the relationship between those two guys

and telling those two stories, I think. But then for Thorpe to go on, play pro baseball for six years and then play pro football for until he was 41, but he started in 1920. So how many years was that? 15 years or something like that? I mean, he's out of college in 1911,

so it's nine years after college. No other athlete in modern history in the second half of the century has been able to do that. The only thing you can think of is David Robinson, who was an elite college basketball player. And then he had to take a year off before going to college to be able to play pro. He had to stay in the Navy for like a year.

It was supposed to be five years, but they let him out. I think it was a year they gave him a special dispensation. Was he on the Olympic basketball team also? I think he was. I believe he was. But I think he was on the Olympic basketball team as a pro later when it was okay for pros to play. Right. I think he was on the 88 team.

This is different. Yeah. But yeah, super interesting to read that after listening to Legacy of Speed. Yeah, he was on, I think David Robinson might've been on the 88 Olympic team and the 92. He was on the Dream Team for sure, I would think. I mean, he was that year or maybe the next one.

I think so. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. Too old to remember. Anyway, that's an amazing story. Somebody should definitely make that movie though. Yeah. I mean, we probably could find it. I wonder if there's ever been one,

but there should be one, you know. There must be some kind of documentary. No one watches movies anymore. Now it's gotta be a limited series. A Netflix limited series. Limited series. Or a Pushkin limited series podcast. Or a Rich Roll limited series podcast.

Should we move into that? We'll see. The next story is also quite amazing. And this, you know, created kind of a tidal wave of news across the world. It's a story about Mo Farah, the legendary track and field athlete.

He disclosed in a documentary that I believe is coming out this week by the BBC, that he had been trafficked to the United Kingdom from Somalia three decades earlier under a false name and had been essentially a house servant for many years until he finally told his gym teacher at school what actually was happening. And apparently the authorities were apprised of this.

He was able to get out of that and the like, but he's kind of quietly held this secret for a very long time. Crazy. Can you imagine being so gifted and celebrated as an athlete, but also carrying that secret for so long, all the way through being knighted, it's unbelievable. I mean, this guy, yeah, in 2000,

he was granted UK citizenship. 2012, he won two golds in the Olympics, the 5K and the 10K. 2016, he repeated with golds in both of those events, despite accidentally getting tripped in the 10K and still winning. 2017, he gets knighted. And then he kind of hangs up the spikes in track and field,

gets into the marathon and runs 205. Unbelievable. In 2018. Unbelievable. I mean, from the 10K to the marathon. I think he's gonna run the London marathon this year. Yeah, yeah. So on the theme of Avery Brundage, Unbelievable. I mean, from the 10K to the marathon. I think he's gonna run the London Marathon this year. Yeah. So on the theme of Avery Brundage, slavery Avery, what would Avery Brundage have made

of Mo Farah's amateur status and his relationship with amateurism? Because he wasn't really a citizen of England or something like that? Yeah, I mean, he would, yeah, basically, like he's not really a citizen. It would have given that. Yeah, I mean, he would, yeah, basically, like he's not really a citizen. It would have given his racism an excuse to strip him of his notes.

He would have found a way, but- Anyway, the New York Times wrote a, there's a couple, there's two stories in the New York Times about this. Talia Mintzberg, my editor, wrote the first one, which kind of came on the heels of the, right before the BBC documentary. So she was the one to kind of break this for them.

And then this other one, I think it's Jarrett Longman, Jerry Longman, I don't know how to pronounce first name. That's the second one here. How Mo Farah outran his son. Yeah, that's someone who has covered him many times and kind of knows his story back and forth. So, that's a good one too. It's crazy to think of that,

but it's not uncommon. You know, East Africa has had that. Sudan, there's been people who've been smuggled out of Sudan or they're told they're coming over and they're gonna earn money as a domestic worker in say Saudi Arabia or in the Arabian Peninsula

and then are not given any money and are basically like the fishermen that you've heard about on the Burmese fishermen on Thai fishing boats. There is slavery to this day happening. I mean, there is, and this is an example of it. I can't recall another instance in which a super high profile person has disclosed that this happened to them.

This is a whole nother level. And he even had an autobiography that this happened to them. This is a whole nother level. And he even had an autobiography that this wasn't in. Right, yeah, that's the thing. So imagine the courage of coming out and disclosing this. I guess there were some rumblings about how that would affect his UK citizenship. And downstream of that, like would he be able to retain his Olympic titles?

But they've kind of put that to rest. That's not gonna happen. Right, he was a victim and he was underage. Sure, as it should be. Yeah. I love this quote in this article, "'Ferrer's racing style was not dissimilar "'to the way he faced the vicissitudes of his life.

"'Starting from behind, persevering lap after lap, "'patient and resilient, "'and finishing with an illuminating sprint to the tape. Amazing. Beautiful guy. I'm gonna rewatch that 2012, 10,000 meter. Is that stuff on YouTube? Oh yeah.

Yeah. Any race you want, any concert you want, it's all on YouTube. Right, right, right. Did you watch the old Bud Greenspan Olympic movies like 16 Days to Glory? No. Oh, they're fantastic.

Yeah. Really? He made one about the 1984 Olympics called 16 days of glory, I think he would like. But he was sort of the official documentarian of the Olympic movement in the modern era. And there's tons of his stuff on YouTube. See, but you know, we're talking about Jim Thorpe and you know, Mo Farah and Juan Carlos and Tommy Smith.

It's like the idea of stripping people, banning people, boycotting, the more I think about it, the more ridiculous it is. And it's like Wimbledon just happened. The Russian athletes couldn't play there. I mean, these are not Russian athletes that are involved in any way in the Ukraine invasion. They just can't play because they're in Russia

or 1984, I think it was a mistake. 1980. In 1980, it was a mistake for us to boycott the Soviet. And then 1984 is a mistake for them to boycott in response, the United States, LA Olympics. So it's like all of that, I think it's very clear those are mistakes and it's always better to get all the best athletes

out there together. It's the only way to, if sports is gonna help in any way deal with world issues, all the athletes have to be present. That's my opinion on it. Yeah, I mean, this came up in the conversation with Malcolm. He does a whole episode in Legacy of Speed on this subject of exit voice or loyalty, right?

To boycott is to exit. You can use your voice as these athlete activists did, or you can be loyal and fall into line with the Avery Brundages of the world. And I think if history tells us anything, it's that voice is the most powerful. And over time history, you know, always favors the bold when it comes to that.

I mean, has anybody performed a high level, high visibility protest at something like the Olympics or the Olympics itself that decades later you think, yeah, that was a misstep. Like usually it ends up being a really powerful symbol for some kind of necessary positive cultural shift or change. Yeah, I mean, in this case, obviously,

they suffered in the immediate term, but now- Yeah, they pay the price short term, but long-term, it's a lever for progress, I think. I mean, I think Muhammad Ali is the best example of someone who refused to go to join the army, refused all the entreaties to, it'll be easy, you don't have to go to war, blah, blah, blah. And he just said, no, I'm not a part of your machine

and became even more of a hero. Yeah. Yeah. Shifting gears. We need to report on an update in the case that we discussed at length. Was it the last time we did roll on? Dung, dung. Yeah, I know.

True crime. If you listen to the last roll on that we did, I think it was the last one. I think it was. We discussed the murder of this professional gravel cyclist, Mo Wilson. And the leading suspect in that case being Caitlin Armstrong, the girlfriend of another professional cyclist,

Colin Strickland, sort of this weird love triangle thing. I don't wanna to rehash all the details of the relationship that led to this. But when we last left off over six weeks ago, Caitlin Armstrong had sort of disappeared. She was in the wind. She was in the wind. She was on the lam. A photograph of her at LaGuardia airport in classic kind of security footage, blurry, you know, take, you know, was seen. Why is security footage always blurry? Well, that was the meme with the web telescope.

Did you see this going around? Like we're gonna talk about the web, the images from web being like, yeah, it's like, on the one hand, the web image of like, we can see billions of years into the past. And then on the other hand, security footage from 10 feet away. And you can't make out years into the past. And then on the other hand, security footage from 10 feet away and you can't make out the person's face.

Yes, yes. Yeah, in the era of like, you know, incredible photography on cell phones, you'd think like we can upgrade our security cameras. I know. Anyway, you could see it in lots of the press. Like it's a very blurry image. It's surprising that you could even tell it was her.

Right. Well, Tommy Lee Jones knew it was her. Yeah, exactly. So fugitive on the lamb, the US Marshals are on the hunt. Yes. And it literally took six weeks to run her down, but she was captured in Costa Rica, this town called Santa Teresa,

which is kind of a surf spot in this place called Don John's Lodge, where she was using an alias, Ari Martin, and kind of teaching yoga and staying in hostels, but not necessarily hiding, kind of like living her life. And we're kind of joking around about it. I mean, it's quite tragic. Mo Wilson was beloved.

She, by all accounts, I mean, I had never met her, but she was a wonderful human being. And she was literally slain in cold blood by this woman, Caitlin Armstrong, who split. I think the leading kind of idea is that I think she was seen at Newark Airport. Like she flew to LaGuardia. And then there were four days

where she was unaccounted for, but apparently her sister lives in upstate New York. And then she shows up at Newark airport and that's where she catches the flight to Costa Rica. She had a valid passport, just not her own. And I think the idea is that she borrowed her or stole her sister's. I don't know if that's verified.

And, you know, goes down there and bops around taking buses and spending time in hostels and little surf villages throughout Costa Rica. Crazy. Until finally these marshals, I'm still not clear entirely how they tracked her down. Maybe it was following this passport, I'm not sure. Maybe she was like working as a yoga instructor.

She dyed her hair, she changed her name. They did find a receipt for $6,300 for plastic surgery that had a different name on it. The implication being that she had undergone plastic surgery. I guess she was seen with a bandaid on her nose. Why would you keep that receipt? Like, can you return the plastic surgery? I don't know, for tax purposes. Why would you keep that receipt? Like, can you return the plastic surgery? I don't know, for tax purposes.

Why would you keep that receipt? Yeah. So, I mean, this story is bananas, is it not? And this, I just pulled up an article from the Boston Globe. I mean, there is two photos of her before and after, and she does look. She doesn't look any different.

She's got different color hair. Maybe, it depends. You would have to know her, I suppose. But I mean, that looks like two different people to me. Doesn't it? I mean, the one thing I'll say, which I said at the time, which was right before the shooting in Uvalde

was that like, if she didn't have access to a gun, her mental health breakdown would not have led to the shattering of three plus lives. I think the gun, I could be wrong about this, but I think the gun was owned by Colin Strickland. No, I think they bought them, like he bought, they both had, I think they both had them, if I remember correctly,

but it's been a while since I read it, but yeah, I mean, she shouldn't have been empowered to be able to take the life of Mo Wilson. The other interesting thing is that at the onset of the case, she was obviously a suspect and they brought her in for questioning based on an outstanding warrant

that was already out there because she had skipped out on paying for Botox, like 600 bucks or something like that. Okay. And so they use that warrant to bring her in, but apparently there was an error on the warrant, like they had her date of birth wrong or something like that, so so they use that warrant to bring her in. But apparently there was an error on the warrant. Like they had her date of birth wrong or something like that.

So they had to release her. So that basically she then knew like, oh man, I need to get out of Dodge quickly. And she immediately went and sold her Jeep for like $12,000. And that's when she split. But did she like, what did she think? Like did she delude herself into thinking

she was just gonna build this whole new life down in Costa Rica and no one would be the wiser? Anyway, my heart goes out to Mo Wilson's family and her friends. Sorry I joked about it. I'm glad that this person is in custody now and she's being charged with first degree murder as well as, you know as battery of other charges.

Switching gears. How's that for a segue? We need some sound effects. I know. Jason, can you work on that? Switching gears. How do you switch gears? In news from the headlines of people running

across the United States, another recurring old school theme of the Roll On podcast, right? Like people tend to do this frequently. It appears. People you know tend to run across all countries. I would say this person is an internet friend. We haven't met in person yet,

but I'm gonna get him on the podcast soon. We're trying to schedule it. His name is Mike Wardian. And he recently ran from San Francisco to Rehoboth Beach on the East Coast in Delaware. Michael is a very accomplished elite ultra runner. He's 48 now. And he's got this, you know, giant beard and he does kind of evoke this Forrest Gump,

you know, kind of vibe. Yeah, he does look like a stunt double. And what I like about him is that he, you know, he has a normal life too. Like he's this incredible runner, but he also works as a partner in an international ship brokerage firm. I don't know what that means.

Yeah, what does that mean? It sounds like a real job. Does that mean he's like- He's brokering in like cargo ships. He's brokering big yacht deals or cargo? I think like shipping, like shipping boat, like cargo boats, who knows? Like he's selling-

We need to get to the, this will be the focus of the podcast with him. So what do you do when you're not running? I need to know more about international ship brokerage. Yeah. He's got two kids. Seems like he has a great vibe. He's got a wife, two dogs.

He seems like a super cool guy. Yeah. And here's the thing, he ran across the United States and he did it in 61 days. Amazing. So just for context, Robbie Ballinger, who's an absolute beast, did it in 75 days. So this guy did it literally two weeks faster,

3,234 miles, 132,000 feet in elevation change, running more than 50 miles a day, basically along for, I think for the majority of this run along Route 50. And raising money for World Vision, trying to provide clean drinking water to the developed world. So that's pretty cool.

My favorite anecdote was the stray dog that came upon them in Missouri. And they named him Yellow, I guess it must've been a yellow lab and ran alongside them for 40 miles. That's a pretty cool story. It's a cool story. 40 miles.

Yeah. And I like how this story was picked up by People Magazine. Oh, really? Yeah. Look at that. He's got such a happy vibe. Like I loved reading about him today. It's actually the perfect thing to wash down the world with.

So I would definitely click on this, you guys, in the show notes. Yeah, I like how in the People Magazine article at the bottom, it says related video, 12 year old golden retriever returns to Boston Marathon after miraculously surviving tumor. We need more good news like that. Yeah, we do.

You're saying there needs to be more cat videos is what you're saying. We need more cat videos. I'm down with that. More cat videos. Here's the Washington Post did an article on him too. He lives in Arlington, my old stomping grounds, the metropolitan Washington DC area.

That's right. So anyway, good on you buddy. Did you grow up in, where did you go? You were Silver Spring, right? Bethesda. Bethesda. Yeah, man. Been there. I think Mike also ran the perimeter of the beltway, which is like 90 miles.

Like he's done some other cool stuff. I've been there too. Name another place. Name another place. Just name a place. We're not playing. Just name one place. We all know you're the lonely planet guy.

One place. What's the loneliest place on the planet that you've been? Oh, the loneliest place on the planet. Here's Mike with his wife and kids and dogs. See, like what's not to love about this dude. I know. The only place on planet I've ever been rich is in my own head.

There you go. That's the best answer. All right. Moving on so much news from the world of ultra endurance. Oh yeah, we got like a stacked agenda. We still have so much more to get through. So let's take a quick break. We'll be back with news from the Hard Rock 100,

from Badwater, and then we got some heavier stuff to cover, some listener questions and more. Cool, let's sell some products. All right, we're back. We got news from the Hard Rock 100. Lay it on me. So the Hard Rock 100 is one of the most prestigious and difficult ultra races in the world. It is this loop that kind of traverses

Southern Colorado, San Juan range. It has 66,000 feet of elevation gain. I've been there. And this is like a showdown race every year. Like Durango out of Durango? Telluride, Durango, Silverton. I think it starts and ends in Silverton.

One year they go clockwise, one year they go counterclockwise. Francois Den, who I referenced earlier this year, he won it last year and broke Killian Journet's course record. And he was returning this year to defend his title. Super cool guy, originally hailing from the Beaujolais region of France.

He was a vintner, like making his own wine. He gave me a bottle of his wine. I didn't have a heart to tell him that I don't drink. Right. But super cool. If only your co-host drank. He's since moved more to the mountains, but just a really sweet guy, family guy with kids.

Cool. Who's this unbelievable ultra athlete, also super tall for an ultra runner. How cool is that? Yeah, very cool dude who's just crushing it right now. He's also, I think he's won UTMB five times. Like everyone knows Killian Jornet, but not as many people, particularly in North America

are familiar with Francois, but he's just an unreal talent. What's how do you pronounce his last name? Den. Den, okay. Dehaine would be the butchering of it. But I think Francois Den. Francois Den. Thathaine would be the butchering of it, but I think Francois Den. Pasquois Den. Francois, that's good.

That's very good. And so it's gonna be a showdown between Francois and Killian and they right out of the gate, pretty much ran together throughout the majority of the race along with this other amazing athlete, Dakota Jones, they ran as a threesome. Yeah. Kind of trading lead.

I think Dakota was out in front for quite some time, but ultimately Killian prevailed, Francois was second. Killian broke Francois' record and was crowned the victor for the fifth time at this race. Unbelievable. 21 hours, 36 minutes. Francois' record was 21.45 set last year and Francois ran 21.51.

So it's crazy that in a race this long with this much elevation gain, that literally only a couple minutes separated them and Dakota ended up third in 23.06. In addition, Courtney DeWalter finally conquered this race, was the first to cross the finish line in the women's category. And it's also the first time

that she's actually finished the race. Last year, she ran into digestive problems that sidelined her. And of course, as is Courtney's want, broke the women's course record running 26 hours, 44 minutes. I think she was sixth overall. I could be wrong about that, but just kind of unbelievable performances

around all the way across the board. In second place was Stephanie Case who ran 33.52. So that gives you a sense of just how much faster Courtney is than everyone else. Because whereas the men's race was fairly tight, Courtney won by a significant margin and Hannah Green came in third at 34 hours, 26 minutes. But epic race and very cool to see that.

I think ultra running needs like a rivalry like this. I think these guys are friends and they get along really well. But cool to see, you know, two athletes really at the top of their game, like going tete-a-tete for, you know, almost 21 hours, which is cool. And then the same weekend, the Badwater 135 went down.

Is it always like that? Is Hard Rock and Badwater always on the same weekend? I don't know. That's a good question. I should know the answer to that. I don't, I don't think they're generally on the same weekend. I was surprised to see always on the same weekend? I don't know. That's a good question. I should know the answer to that, I don't. I don't think they're generally on the same weekend. I was surprised to see them on the same weekend. So this is 135 miles through Death Valley

and up the Mount Whitney portals. Everyone knows about it being like, the race that's in the hottest place on earth, temperatures can reach around 120 degrees. There are stories of shoe soles melting on the pavement, et cetera, but there's also an unbelievable amount of elevation gain. And that last 13 miles, when you're going up the portals,

you've probably been up there, right? I've been there. It's steep. Like you're literally going straight uphill for the last half marathon. I can't imagine running that. Of this insane race. Or even walking it.

Harvey Lewis, friend of the pod, won it last year. He came in fourth this year, I think, right? I don't wanna get that wrong. Yeah, he finishes 11th Badwater in fourth place. He ran 27 hours, 16 minutes. Unbelievable. But really cool, his partner, Kelly Odell, completed her first Badwater in 46 hours and 57 minutes.

There's a 48 hour cutoff. So she made it within an hour of that 48 hour cutoff, which is really cool. But the winner was the course record holder, Yoshihiko Ishikawa, who won for the second time. He negative split the course, which is unbelievable, The course record holder Yoshihiko Ishikawa, who won for the second time, he negative split the course, which is unbelievable, running 23 hours and eight minutes.

He set the course record in 2019 with 21 hours, 33 minutes. And the legend there is that when he crossed the finish line he proposed to his girlfriend. So that's pretty cool. That's how you do it. Where it gets interesting here- Win Badwater and then say, marry me my darling. You better hope she says yes.

If you win bad water. I guess. Yeah, they're gonna say yes. Where this whole story gets interesting is in the women's race. So Ashley Paulson, who's a professional triathlete and a pretty well-known I-fit instructor, set the new female course record

with a bit of a question mark. Let's just say there's a little controversy swirling around. I read about this, yes. So she ran 24 hours and nine minutes. She's coached by Ryan Hall. She got third overall, so one place ahead of Harvey. And she beat the course record by a little bit under four minutes.

But the controversy is sort of multifold. And it begins with a six-month USADA ban that she received when she was a triathlete testing positive for something called Ostarine, which is a selective androgen receptor modulator, an SARM. She's held firm on her innocence. So that was, you know, look, that was seven years ago, six years ago, but there's also been past allegations

of course cutting. There was a half marathon where there's a lot of kind of controversy around her finishing time. In this particular Badwater, she had an unbelievable finishing split that sort of defies logic. Yeah, I think only one of the fastest in the last several years, only one of one man.

If you look at that, which is the hardest part, like we said, 13 miles up the portals. Like Ishikawa was slower than her and Harvey Lewis is everyone, except for one guy has beaten that time over the past, I think the last 20 male fastest times or something like that. There was a graph on that.

And apparently there were some observations on the course and now there's an investigation underway. There's a website called Marathon Investigation where there's a post all about this, which I'll link up into the show notes. So this is, you know, look, more will be revealed here. It's unclear exactly what transpired. All I'm saying is that there are some questions

being asked about her performance and there are people who are trying to get to the bottom of it. On her Instagram, she posted something about like, I'm posting my Garmin data. Like she's aware that there's controversy and obviously, and she's, you she's defending herself. So, at this point, I don't know, I wasn't there.

All I know is that here is this article and take it for what you wish. Here's the, if you're watching on YouTube, here's the list of splits for that last section of the race. Faster than Scott Jurek. Yeah, exactly. So it's just, it's reasonable to be asking questions right now.

And in the event that something untoward happened, it's just disappointing. Like this is, one thing that's so beautiful about the ultra running world and community is there is a certain kind of purity to it and not to be in a sort of a Aubrey Brundage, purist on amateurism. know, sort of a Aubrey Brundage, you know, purist on amateurism. Right, you're very Aubrey Brundage right now.

It's, you know, there is something kind of, you know, it's not like prize money or anything like that. Like, you know, people are doing this for the love. And so. You're revoking her bad water license. If, if. I'm doing nothing of the sort. Camille Heron, another friend of the pod,

has weighed in on this as well. You can see her comments in this blog post on marathoninvestigation.com as well. Yeah, so kind of, you know, podcast roundup with Francois, Killian, Courtney, Harvey Lewis, Camille Heron, all of these names coming up, all past guests on the podcast, popular podcast guests in the past.

Right. Which is cool, right? Yeah, I mean, this is the bread and butter baby. We were gonna talk about the Tour de France, but I gotta tell you, I'm not enough up to speed. Right, I'm not either. I had COVID. I'm not either.

My attention was devoted elsewhere. So maybe next time we can chime in with some thoughts there. The only thing I'll say is that my new favorite rider is Magnus Cort, the Dane with the mustache, who's just crushing it early into the polka dot jersey and just continued to be in breakaways and winning stages with flair on the EF team.

I love that guy. But just the other day, he got COVID, had to drop out of the Tour de France. Damn. That's kind of the end of my Tour de France commentary for now. COVID. COVID on the tour. COVID's never, it's just keeps going.

I know. Should we weigh into the sticky waters of our main topic today, which we've promised not to spend more than five or six minutes on? Six minutes, three minutes each. Actually four minutes for you. You just randomly decided six minutes

was the limit for this? I randomly decided because when we were talking about it, you were like, it's been a while, but we should say something. We have discussed this in the past when the leak happened that this was going to go down. We had a longer discussion about it. And of course talking about the Dobbs case

and the overturning of Roe versus Wade. And the clock is ticking, so go Adam. Okay, Clarence Thomas seems cool. Right, am I right? My reaction. You think he's a good hang? I think he's a cool hang. So on the one hand, when I heard about this,

all I wanna do is listen to Lily Allen sing, fuck you. Your point of view is medieval, fuck you very, very much. We hate you and we hate your whole crew, that kind of song. You know that song? It's a great song. But hate will not win this fight. And what we're dealing with are people, boots on the ground, people who really do think they are saving babies lives.

They do. Sure. I don't agree with that perspective. I think it's a skewed perspective. Everyone loves babies on both sides of this fight. There's something grotesque about trying to suggest that one group of people likes babies more. It's ridiculous.

But that said, that is their point of view. So like we need to be able to meet that with love as well. And we have to understand that. So, you know, they're unified in their purpose. They are outnumbered and yet still managed to get this through. And we can't even say out loud that this is a women's rights issue

because there was someone who was testifying in front of Josh Hawley and made Josh Hawley seem reasonable saying that it's not a woman's issue. Of course, it's a woman's issue because of certain words that are supposed to be said. We can't even say that. So that's why we're getting beat and it's upsetting. I was listening to Diggable Planets lately, 1993 album.

Throwback. Throwback album. La Femme Fatale is a song on that record. And here's a lyric. If Roe v. Wade was overturned, would not the desire remain intact, leaving young girls to risk their healths, doctors to botch and watch as they kill themselves?

That's what we're dealing with. That was a 1993 album. Clarence Thomas' name checked in that as an enemy of Roe. And it's come to fruition. That shows you how long people who've wanted to overturn Roe v. Wade have been working. And they've been working even longer than that. I think you're gonna get into it.

The one thing of the links that you shared with me is that I didn't realize kind of Clarence Thomas' motivation and going back, I think that's a really interesting story about how he was actually a black radical. Very influenced by Malcolm X, which is not what you would suspect. Yeah, and he ended up in the conservative wing of things because of his distests for white liberals like ourselves,

but mostly white liberals who weren't really out to change anything, but were more out to make it less bad. At least that's what this article kind of is written by, I think Columbia law professors. It's a very interesting opinion piece. I highly recommend it. It was very eyeopening.

It's important to know where people are coming from, but in the end, when this comes down to human rights issue, and on the one hand, you can't tell people not to carry a gun. You can't tell people to wear a mask, but you can tell women what to do if they get pregnant by rape. I mean, it's grotesque. Yeah, another interesting kind of nuance to this article

is the extent to which the left has attacked Thomas in a pretty bald-faced racist way, right? The party who's meant to be for the expansion of human rights, like sort of defaulting to some, you know, not so great behavior. Phrasings, yes. Yeah. But yeah, listen, you know, I'm pro-choice.

I believe in a woman's right to choose. I think this decision is wrong headed for a multitude of reasons and it's dispiriting and disappointing and frightening. But I think it's important to understand the context in which this exists. It is in many ways, the culmination of, you know, a 50 year campaign to undo Roe versus Wade. And they have succeeded in that

by having a very long-term strategy that dates all the way back to the 1970s. And I think what is truly fascinating about all of this is the history behind the anti-abortion movement. I sort of always assumed that the Christian right or the kind of evangelical population of this country has historically and always been anti-abortion,

but that's actually not the case. There's a really amazing article on Politico about this history. It's called the religious right and the abortion myth. And it really unearths the beginning of conservative activism in this terrain. And basically what happened was that in the 1970s, these evangelical churches were attempting

to double down on segregation. And in response, the IRS was going after them with the one tool that they have, which is to revoke their tax exempt status to sort of strong arm churches to abandon their segregationist policies. And in response, evangelicals realized that doubling down on segregation probably wasn't gonna win

hearts and minds and allow them to avoid the, you know, IRS's strategy of revoking their tax exempt status. So what did they do? They ended up changing the narrative. They flipped the script and they make it all about government intrusion. And the kind of tip of the spear

for that government intrusion narrative was adopting anti-abortion as the cause to rally their base and garner support. And they were very successful in doing that because where it gets fascinating is that prior to the 1970s, the church and we're setting Catholics aside actually cared very little about abortion. And as the history kind of bears out,

they supported it in many, if not most cases, this was not a thing until this IRS kind of situation. That's the whole point. It's like the reason people think they're saving lives of babies is because they've been convinced of that. And that starts here, that's where this comes from. This idea that like that's how they whipped people up

into a frenzy. And it's funny that they did this to avoid government intrusion into their affairs. That's nice. Yeah, it's super interesting. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, the irony there is pretty palpable. So here we are, it's retrograde in so many ways.

I don't even know where to begin. We've already sort of eclipsed our six minutes, but there's plenty more to say about this before we move on. I think it's gonna be really interesting how this gets played out and how it will ultimately end up getting enforced state by state, right? I think, obviously if you're well-heeled, you're gonna be able to get access to an abortion.

If you're in a red state or a state where it's outlawed and it's difficult, we're already seeing situations in which women are being persecuted, medical practitioners are being persecuted. And the kind of next culture war is, how are we going to regulate and police the abortion pill? Because a huge percentage of abortions carried out in the US and internationally is via this abortion pill, which a huge percentage of abortions carried out in the US and internationally

is via this abortion pill, which is a two pill regimen. The first is a hormone blocker to kind of arrest the conception. And the second is what causes the discharge or the hemorrhage. And that pill is by prescription. And right now there are kind of online telehealth sources for that that are overseas, that are in states where it's legal.

So what's gonna happen when all of this goes into effect and in many places that already has, how are, what is access to those pills gonna look like and how are states going to enforce or regulate that access? Are they gonna go after the women? Like it's not possible, right? So we're gonna enter this weird prohibition era type situation where either people are gonna be,

you know, kind of under the table trafficking in this stuff, or there really will be a true black market, but networks are gonna get set up to provide people with access to this. And I think a very likely scenario is that a lot of women will end up, and I'm not recommending this, but they'll be able to get access to that second pill because it's prescribed for ulcers.

And if you go to your doctor and say you have an ulcer, you can get the second one. And there seems to be some efficacy in using just the second pill without the first, if you do it within the first 10 weeks, I think is the window, but not recommended, right? So we're gonna enter that era of, you know, kind of backroom dubious practices

that are driven out of desperation. Reenter that realm. Reenter, of course, yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's interesting. People are not gonna stop having sex. No. And there's, you know, not that we know of.

There's not gonna be a halt to unwanted pregnancies. No, they happen. And it's not like this is being met with an increase in funding and intentionality going into federal and state programs to support children who are born in such circumstances or mothers who are in a predicament of having to suddenly raise a child that they didn't really wanna raise.

No, because the people that are in favor of these kinds of anti-choice measures also are anti welfare state stuff. So you're never gonna see that. You're never gonna see. The concern ends with birth. Yeah, it's interesting. There could be some weird cases that come up.

Do you see that woman who was in a carpool lane pregnant and got pulled over by a Texas state trooper or something. And she said, he's like, where's the second person? She pointed at her belly. And basically she now has a line because she was using that same legal argument. Which is personhood. Personhood of the fetus.

And so she technically could get out of it on personhood of the fetus. She was in the HOV lane, right? The carpool lane. Yeah, so pregnant women. And the cop was not having it. Pregnant mothers. But she's like, either this is a person in my belly

or it's not. Right. If it's not, then that offends the entire argument. Right, right, right. So that kind of stuff could happen. I like Malcolm, bringing it back to Malcolm, his take on this is basically that we have, the Supreme Court is unchecked.

They have too long a life. You need term limits. Ezra Klein had an 18 year term limit suggestion in his article, which is what gave rise to Malcolm writing about this in his newsletter, OMG, which is I recommended. It's a fun read. O-H comma M-G. Yeah, and it's always a quick and fun read and educational.

This one is, he thinks that every year, the longest tenure judge should have to retire, or I guess it wouldn't be called retired, be stand down. And then whoever's, whatever president is in power can appoint the next and the Senate, the same kind of structure to appoint. But then that gives a nine year term limit, basically by definition, which in his mind is,

it offers that kind of depoliticization. They're not necessarily a creature of the political cycle because this idea that they are removed from the political cycle now is obviously bullshit. We've seen it now. Right, so Malcolm goes through like the multiple times throughout the majority opinion that they make clear that they're not, you know,

beholden to political interests. It's sort of a, he doth protest too much type of thing. Yes, yes, yes. so it's hard to imagine a counter argument to that. Like the wisdom of term limits seems to make sense. Well, the arcana argument is it was in the constitution. I mean, that's all anyone ever wants to say. Come on. I mean, the idea, I just, I can't stand this idea that we're trying to read the minds of people

who lived in a world that looks nothing like ours and people who couldn't conceive of what type of problems we would face and the complexity of the culture as it exists today. And I think certainly we can extract principles and tenets that hold true, that provide kind you know, kind of the architecture of the constitution.

But when we get into strict constructionist mind reading, I think we're really having to do some crazy gymnastics in order for, you know, our agenda to kind of fit what these people might or might not have imagined. And that applies to second amendment issues, et cetera, and all the way down the line. You know what, Rich, those are fighting words and I'm gonna go get my musket.

I'll be right back. Right, I mean, when the 14th amendment was passed, are you supposed to think about what they were thinking in 1780, whatever, or at the time that the 14th amendment was passed? There were more liberal people in 1780, whatever, or at the time that the 14th amendment was passed. There were more liberal people in 1480. I'm sure we can find more liberal people than Alito. Listen, the people who were setting up house in Jamestown

were some serious wackos. That's the whole point. Like this country, this idea that we have regressed, but it's like, it's not like this stuff wasn't handwriting on the wall. Like the Puritans who came to Massachusetts were kicked out of England because they were making everyone stop drinking

and having fun and like burning down the Globe Theater. It's like nobody wanted them there anymore. And so then they came to Boston. It's the truth. I know, it's pretty funny when you think of it that way. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's the truth. Well, you mentioned diggable planets. Well, you mentioned diggable planets. Yes, speaking of diggable planets.

That's a good, you know, natural segue as my other segue into the web telescope images. I love it. What did you make of all this? Man, I loved it. I loved seeing those photos. I'm a big Carina Nebula guy now. By the way, I think we went for like 18 minutes

on the abortion thing. Go ahead. That's probably my fault. Everyone's gonna blame me anyway. All your political opinions get blamed on me. There might be a little bit of that. I get a fair amount of blame. Listen, you can't talk about that subject matter

without people getting upset. Right, and we were supposed to be able to be grownups. This was great. I loved the, I think, is it Shannon Sterone, the opinion piece about the extraordinary images. I love that piece. Oh yeah, it's right here. She wrote-

We're gawking in awe at the universe together. Yeah, she wrote that, this is like one of those things where we can, yeah, it's like a public, we're all together watching this thing and it's a good thing and it's a positive thing. And how rare are those? I mean, that's why I love writing stories

about people pushing human limits and successful ones at that, because they are good, inspiring stories and we need those. So this is another one of those. And the images are just tremendous and spectacular. And like, it just shows you how glorious the world is and the universe is. Is this the one thing we can all agree on?

Are there debates going on right now? Divisive debates about this? I don't know, man. It does feel pretty unifying. Like if this can't unify us, I really, I don't know. Think about it. It's like a collaboration among NASA, European Space Agency, Canadian Space Agency.

I mean, like the International Space Station is often held down by Russia. We were sending people for like American astronauts from Russia, like the space area is the one place we can all agree on. And Elon will find life in outer space, he will. Yeah. If he can get out of this Twitter contract.

We'll see about whether he can, he's trying hard. Lawsuits are afoot. They might hold his hand to the flame this time. I think that'll end up settling. How did this land for you? You were deep in second COVID when this was going on. I was. I mean, listen, it's hard to, you know,

look at those images and not just be inspired with awe and wonder and humility. The thing that really got me was the paragraph, I think it's on the NASA site where they say, for a sense of scale, like if you take that main image, like you can see it on the screen right there, the one that got shared first. Shannon wrote this one you're talking about, yeah.

Oh yeah, for a sense of, if you could hold a grain of sand at arm's length up to the sky, that speck is the size of the view. In other words, everything that you see in that image, which is so much, can be held in that grain of sand. And then there's everything else. So it is one minuscule sliver of our universe filled with thousands of galaxies,

each with billions or trillions of star systems, and each of those with its own planets. I mean, it's so hard to, you can read that and you can try to intellectualize it, but the numbers are so big that you can't grasp it. And it's only in seeing an image like that, that's so crisp and detailed that you can begin to kind of grapple

with the vastness of scale. And I don't know, I look at that and I just think there's no way we're alone. Like how could it be possible that we're alone? Where's dune? Which one's dune? Which one's dune? You mean the sand dune in Malibu?

Which one's dune? Where's the spice? And the worms. Where's the worm planet? And then that's not even getting into the fact that like you're looking back in time. Right, yeah. Like, so our brains aren't,

we can't understand that, what that means. We can't. Oh, what you're seeing is that's billions of years ago. Yeah. And it's far away. That's why you said that when you were feeling depressed, like feeling insignificant or whatever, that's where feeling insignificant is a positive thing.

Right? Like the humility aspect of it, but also just the fact that you are just this one note in a concerto. And it's like, it's a beautiful thing to think of yourself that way. It's freeing. It's liberating.

I don't find that depressing at all. I find that to be, you know, calming. Yeah. And like your problems are smaller than that grain of sand because you're a grain of sand. So nobody really cares, so why are you caring so much? You know, like, and that's not to say to not take your life seriously

or not take yourself seriously or contend with your own issues, I think you should. But the stakes we often put upon ourselves and the pressure is so high and it doesn't have to always be that way. You know what I say, Adam? What? I say Cory Booker look out

because Adam Skolnick is coming for your crown. Your inspirational self-help guru crown. What? No. Yeah. No! You just delivered an awesome monologue. I delivered a rich roll. I opened a can of rich roll. Clip that. I opened a can of rich roll.

Clip that. I opened a can of rich roll. There's your reel for Instagram. See if I can get cameo to cut it. I love these web images. I mean, it's really just absolutely stunning. Cool. And yeah, man, it's cool.

It's cool that we live in a time where stuff like this is coming out. You know what I stumbled upon? I was at the, what's the museum down in Westwood? You know what I mean? The art museum in Westwood. Mathis was just there, the Hammer. Isn't there a Barbara Kruger exhibit there right now?

Yeah, there's something going on and there's like a moon thing. We were at this, I just went stopped into the gift shop. I love a museum gift shop. Who doesn't love a museum gift shop? The best gift shops. The best gift shops. There's always some kind of weird clock.

You know, they're always trying to reinvent the clock. The clocks are completely useless now. But I picked up this cool book. I'll show it to you, but it's basically from all the Apollo expeditions, all the Apollo missions, the photographs taken by the astronauts themselves and then edited in a certain way.

And with like kind of excerpts and writings from E.B. White, who was covering the Apollo missions for the New Yorker at the time, he's got one essay in there. And then there's other writings, but it's just so cool to see these images of the moon, like a moon rock in the moon desert, the earth rising above the moon.

And it just makes me feel so good. And watching when Zuma looks up at the moon, it's like the greatest thing in the world, right? You know, it's like that simple stuff. So like something about space just still hits us hard. I mean, as we talked about earlier, I grew up in the Washington DC area in Bethesda, which is a suburb of Washington.

And I still remember when the Air and Space Museum opened and what a big deal that was and how cool it was to go there. And at that time, there was no, the subway didn't reach all the way out to Bethesda, but when it finally did, then I could take the subway as like a young person and go to the Air and Space Museum with my friend,

like as young people, like without parents. And I used to go there like all the time. Like I have that museum like imprinted in my long-term memory. I just loved it so much. A little ritual rocking around the museum. They had a Star Trek exhibit and like, you know, the lunar lander and the spirit of St. Louis,

the original Eames film, powers of 10, you know that movie where, yeah, like I just, man, it was very influential on me as a young person. Still my favorite museum. Let's just go be astronauts, huh? Let's just leave this behind. Are you into For All Mankind on Apple Plus TV? Which one is that?

Is that the one with Jared Harris? It's the alternate universe where the Russians win the space race and then kind of what happens as a result of that. So it's by Ronald Moore, the guy who created Battlestar Galactica. No. And I think they're on season three now.

It's a pretty cool show. If you're into space. I've not seen that. I did just rewatch Point Break. Have you heard of that film? I have. It's a great film. Bodhi short for Bodhi Zatpa.

And I watched that. Does it hold up? It's so good, dude. It's so good yet not good, but that's what makes it good. but that's what makes it good. Yeah, all I can say is I'm gonna watch everything Anthony Kiedis is in from now on. I forgot how great he is in the movie.

I love him. He's probably in a bunch of movies and cameos. I'm gonna start watching them. That's funny. He gets shot in it, he's so good. He's perfect. He's perfect. How's Keanu? Listen, man, I love Keanu Reeves.

Don't come at my guy. Don't come at Keanu Reeves. Unless you have positive things to say. I love Keanu Reeves. I also think Patrick Swayze put on an epic performance. He's amazing. Underrated master. Yes.

Of the cinematic arts. Yes, I heard a rumor that he got so into skydiving that that exit is actually his exit. He got super into it during the filming and did a lot of it. And like he's literally skydiving himself doing stunts. So that's pretty cool. Maybe we should do a whole episode breakdown

of Point Break. I was wondering, did rewatchables do Point Break? They had to have, they had to have. That's a good question. If they haven't, it would be shocking if they haven't. Not recently, maybe way back in the archive. I can't imagine they have it. I mean, that's right up Bill Simmons alley.

But that end when Keanu is satisfied that he's gonna get Bodhi or Bodhi will get got by the huge swell at Bell's Beach. And he just tosses his FBI badge aside into the shallows. And he's like, I'm done with this bullshit. I was just thinking in real life, you keep that badge until you get to US customs, you get through customs.

Only then do you toss, because there's no, remember, keep in mind, this is a long time ago. There's no- Pre 9-11. Yeah, it's pre 9-11. And there's no global entry. So you have to wait in that line. Trust me, you hold onto that badge

until you get stateside. Yeah, but it's Keanu, one phone call, don't overthink it. It's. Trust me, you hold onto that badge. Yeah, but it's Keanu, one phone call. Don't overthink it. It's not Keanu, it's an FBI agent. It's, what's his name? All right, we're done talking about that. Okay, sorry. But I do wanna share one thing that I've really enjoyed.

I binged this entire series while I was laying in bed with COVID, which is the bear on FX. Yes. Have you watched the whole, all of it? I'm seven out of eight, done seven out of eight. We're saving the finales tonight. It's so fucking good.

It's my favorite new thing. It's good. And each episode is only is under 30 minutes. Right. I think there's eight episodes. I don't get commercials anymore. Yeah, we were talking about this the other night. You're like, I hate the commercials on Hulu.

I thought everyone got commercials on Hulu. I thought everyone got commercials on Hulu. You got that Goggins cash. You can pay six bucks a month or whatever it is, 10 bucks a month. At least for a limited time and you can cancel it later. Yes, yes, yes, yes. I won't cancel it.

I love the bear. Bear is a story of this young chef who goes to New York, chefs that, you know, under the greatest chef at the best restaurant in the world. It would appear that he was a sous chef at Noma. They talk about Noma a bunch of times. Chef de cuisine, I think. Chef de cuisine just below executive chef.

Right. Yeah. There's cameos by the Noma cookbook and the Noma fermentation book, which was written by David Zilber, who's somebody that I had the opportunity to meet and I've been to Noma fermentation book, which was written by David Zilber, who's somebody that I had the opportunity to meet and I've been to Noma. I love how they kind of make fun of 11 Madison Park too. But basically it's the story of this guy

who was really on this trajectory towards chef superstardom. He was best, best young. He won a James Beard award. And food and wine's best young new chef or something. And his older brother dies. His brother had a history with addiction and he moves home to Chicago and takes over the family owned sandwich shop.

Kills himself, the older brother, I think. Right, yeah, commits suicide. And he takes it upon himself to try to get this capsized enterprise back on its feet and perhaps even do something interesting there. And it's sort of a comedy, it's sort of a drama. The performances are just off the charts. Jeremy Allen White as the chef,

Evan Moss Bacharach as like, they call him the cousin. I think he's just like a friend who works there. He's kind of a hothead. He was like the best friend, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Of the older brother. And then he had been running things in the absence, like after it happened. So he stayed in charge of basically,

and the chef came in and started ruffling his feathers basically. Right, and just crushes the Chicago accent. And you had said he's like shades of a young Gary Oldman from State of Grace. I think so. Not as maniacal as that because he's not a killer, but certainly the operatic acting.

He has the juicy part. Oh yeah, he's amazing. And he just absolutely crushes it. Amazing. People would know him from Girls, if you watch that show, he had a part in Girls. He's a phenomenal actor. And Oliver Platt has a great part in this as well.

What's interesting is that Oliver Platt's brother, Adam Platt, he just retired, but he was a food critic for many, many years. He was the chief food critic for New York Magazine. And when I went to Noma with Jeff Gordoneer, I was also with Adam Platt. Oh, okay. It's cool that like Adam's brother, Oliver,

is in the show, which is about food. Yeah, Oliver Platt's never been better in my opinion. He's fantastic in this. So I love everything about this show, particularly episode seven. We don't need to get it. I want love everything about this show, particularly episode seven. We don't need to get it. I want people to experience this show without us spoiling anything,

but episode seven, just bear in mind, the entire episode is one shot. It's a tracking shot for all of 28 minutes or something like that. It's an unbelievable cinematic achievement. And the tension, the humor, the pathos, like everything about this is just wonderful. And exactly what you would want from the best of what television has to offer.

What about the fact that it's like, I mean, for your, not for your listeners or whatever, but it's all about, it's basically a French dip restaurant, right? Like it's like a roast beef sandwich and hot dog joint. Yeah, I mean, it's a classic hole in the wall, family owned sandwich shop, neighborhood sandwich shop in Chicago. Right, do those seared beef images

actually make you kind of like, you know how they're shot in a way to make you- I'm past it, I'm over it. You're past that? Yeah. Not even a little bit. Listen, I've spent my fair share of time in spots like that, particularly like, feel like you go out drinking, you're in Buffalo,

you're in Philly and you want that cheesesteak late night. Like this is where you go. So here's my one critique of the show. Why is it only open from three to 10? There is a weird thing about that. It's a sandwich shop. Like Philippe's downtown is open at like 9 a.m. or 7 a.m. or something like that.

It does seem that they don't open until like three o'clock or something. They open at three, they go three to 10. But is it possible that they have an earlier shift and then they close and then they reopen? In episode seven, there's a shot of the hours and it says three to 10. This whole time for the first several episodes.

I understand the late night, but they're not open till like two in the morning either. So that's my whole thing. They missed lunch and who wants a sandwich for dinner? That's my point. And then they're not open when the bar's closed. No wonder they're struggling. That's what I was saying,

this whole time I was saying to April, I'm like, but when do they open? I couldn't figure it out. And she was like, and she couldn't figure it out. We couldn't, and so now it's, they're open three to 10. Sorry, spoiler alert, they're open three I couldn't figure it out. And she was like, and she couldn't figure it out. We couldn't. And so now it's, they're open three to 10. Sorry, spoiler alert, they're open three to 10. There it is.

You know, it's been a good time for me to watch it. Pull up that page I just put up so people can see who have not heard of this show. Yes. Anyway, I love it. I love it too. We can overlook that. I do overlook it, I'm just joking. But I love the fact that I've also been

on a Anthony Bourdain deep dive. And so I just read Kitchen Confidential, which so interesting, because there's the parallels with the chef and the whole, with the chefing and even the suicide angle and all that, and the misanthropic kind of undertones of it. And the intensity.

And the intensity. And the collegiality, like the family aspect. And the machismo of a kitchen and all that, like because that's deep in the kitchen confidential, which is if you have only watched the television shows and you'd like Anthony Bourdain, I highly recommend. You'll love the bear. And you'll love the bear.

And anyway, so just having watched that at the time that I'm reading that book has been kind of fun, you know, feedback. And they just got renewed for a second season. Of course, I mean, come on. The performances in this show are fantastic. I think especially the first episode and episode seven, both of those, where there's so much of the entire cast in it

at all at once in a tight confined space and talking over each other, it's almost like a play. Yeah, it's very theatrical. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think a lot of these actors come from the theater. Right. Anyway, I love it. I come from the theater.

Highly recommend, do you? Yeah, I just was at a theater down the street. The theater of the demented mind. Thank you, that's me. Let's do some listener questions. We haven't done these in a long time. What, listeners? They got interrupted by Cory Booker. Thank you. All right. That's me. Let's do some listener questions. We haven't done these in a long time. What? Listeners?

They got interrupted by Cory Booker. Yeah. Sorry, guys. This is Anna Grace from Charlottesville, Virginia. Hi, Rich and Adam. I'm Anna Grace. I'm from Charlottesville, Virginia, and I'm going into my fourth year of college here.

I know that I want to do public service work in the international affairs area. A lot of your interview guests talk about the importance of prioritizing your own well-being and living a holistic life that isn't overly focused on gaining accolades or a narrow definition of success. However, it seems like a lot of them did have a very work and accolade centric beginning of their career. And this is definitely something I feel a lot of pressure to do because the jobs where I feel that I can ultimately have the most impact kind of require it. Do you think that having a sort of very unbalanced and maybe unhealthy focus on work is a rite of passage to launch yourself

into a position of impact, or is there a better way to think about this for young people specifically? I'm curious to hear your thoughts. I really admire you both and thank you for all of the work that you do. Thank you. First of all, Anna Grace, great name. Very good name, right? Great question and great name, Anna Grace. And I love the delivery. The delivery was fabulous. All I'm thinking, like I barely heard what she said, other than this thought that kept recurring in my mind,

which is, Adam, can you imagine being in your fourth year of college and thinking about things in the way that Anna is thinking about them in such a mature way? No, because I would be like dropping acid or smoking a bong rip. Yeah, I mean, first of all, like whatever I say almost doesn't matter, Anna,

because like you're gonna be fine. If this is where your head's at and you're kind of weighing these things in this way, you're already like miles down the road. Like you'll be fine, right? Yeah, I mean, I'm- You'll figure it out. I think it's an incredible question

because I don't even, you're right. I don't think people 10 years, 15 years older than her think things through so well. Just the fact that you're asking yourself this question and trying to figure it out puts you in rare company. So let me just say that to begin with. And then second to that, I think it's worth noting

that you should be congratulated on having some conviction about what you wanna do and how you wanna do it. And a sense of how to go about it in a healthy way, like again, speaks to your maturity and intelligence. And I think the way that I would launch in answering this is to first sort of acknowledge your youth. I mean, I assume as somebody

who's in their fourth year of college, you're in your early twenties. And I think of that time as a time for exploration, for gathering experiences, all kinds of different experiences, and a time where it makes sense to incur some risk, right? Like you don't have a mortgage, you don't have a family, you don't have dependents.

It's a time in your life where you will be as free as you ever will be to try lots of things without having to really suffer any amazing consequences. Like this is the time for that. And I think in the context of what you wanna pursue, which is public service in international affairs, what's interesting about that is that it is both specific and broad.

Like it's specific in that, like it's a kind of a thing in a certain type of area that you seem to be attracted to wherein there is probably a very specific path for moving upward. But it's also pretty broad. And I think when you say international affairs, like that could be anything. And as somebody in your 20s, I immediately leap to like, we'll travel,

like immerse yourself in foreign cultures, be an international citizen. And I think long-term, even though that doesn't seem specifically wed to a particular career track, it will be extremely valuable as you progress in that world in terms of what you have to offer. So again, think about how you can accumulate experience in that field from that broad perspective, because within it, I suspect that there are many jobs in paths, probably most of which you may not even be aware

of at this juncture. On the work hard thing, that's a really interesting wrinkle to all of this, because it is important to work hard, right? Like you cannot excel or, you know, kind of accelerate yourself into a lofty position without working hard. I think the key is being aware of your attachment

to specific jobs and to specific outcomes and to learn how to hold those loosely, to work hard and focus on the things that you can control, but to not get irrationally attached to any specific job or track or externalities like accolades, et cetera. And again, back to this idea of international affairs. I mean, that seems to me to be something

that could be anything, it could be self-dictated. And right now, my advice would be that your job should really be about becoming internationally educated. Again, back to travel and experience and not getting caught up in externalities and to focus on like what excites you, what lights you up in the field of international affairs and to try lots of things and develop expertise

in a variety of areas, a la David Epstein and his book, Range, which if you have not read that book, you should certainly read it. And I think over time, all of those experiences will like sort of congeal and come into play to uniquely situate you for the role that you ultimately wanna play and might position you to be the only person in the world suitable

for that specific thing because of the unique set of experiences that you've had. And I think within that, it's important, as a young person coming out of college, there's a sense of expediency, like I gotta move forward, I gotta climb the ladder, I'm missing out, people are getting ahead of me. And I think you should really just embrace the idea

that you're at the beginning of a very long journey. And within that, you can kind of relax and prioritize self-care as important and valuable, but not to confuse that with laziness because you will have to work hard. But I think that hard work should come within the context of a strategy that relates to playing the long game. Like you can work hard and you can take care of yourself.

They're not necessarily mutually exclusive or orthogonal ideas. And I think that's a mistake I see a lot of young people make like they rationalize laziness as self-care or as an excuse to not work hard. Because to be successful, you're gonna have to work hard. But ultimate success means avoiding burnout and designing a life that aligns with your values

over an extended period of time so that you can continue to get better at what it is that you do without burning out or without suffering the negative ramifications of like an unhealthy work schedule. And I think now is the best time to get clear on what that might look like and lay the foundation for that.

100%. That's so well done. You do these so well, these listener questions. I did make notes. Can I say that? You do these well. I'm getting shades of Samantha Power in Anna Grace. You know what I'm saying?

Samantha Power, the Obama ambassador to the UN, I believe. And she wrote a book called the education of an idealist. And I heard her on, I think it was on Terry Gross or something. And she's phenomenal. I wonder if Anna has read that. Listen, I am someone who decided I wanted to write my way around the world and I did that.

And I was able to do that because I really did, was single-minded in that pursuit. That doesn't mean I was the most, always the most work obsessed, but by the time I started doing it for a living, it did demand months at a time with no days off. So that kind of stuff does happen and you have short deadlines and you have to meet them.

And so there's time and place for that kind of single-minded pursuit. And I think the idea of doing that young when you don't have the kind of the baggage that comes with just being older and being more established, you're sleek, you can move around. Sure. So I think- And you can make it fun.

Yeah, you can make it fun. You can bust your ass. And if it is really what you love doing, there should be a significant aspect of that. It's going to be exhilarating. It's gonna bring you joy, but also you're gonna have to, you gotta learn that when that's the case, you're even more in a danger zone

because then you'll never take a break. Well, so, right. And you don't wanna get to that point. But I think the great part about international life is that you're always, it's always, something's always happening. It's pretty sick. It's like Jason Bourne.

Yeah, it's pretty awesome. And you're gonna work hard and then you're, there's gonna be opportunities to hang out and have fun and explore different places because it's all, you're international. I think the best piece of advice you gave is be international. And that means best piece of advice you gave is be international. And that means learning languages that, you know,

you need, you wanna be bilingual, maybe trialing. Learning language. Yeah. Experiencing those cultures, boots on the ground, understanding their politics and their history. A hundred percent. And that's the greatest piece of advice you gave. And I think that I would say that like, just go, get lost,

go to wherever you wanna go and explore it and be part of it. And you will not go wrong, whatever comes out of that. The other thing is, you know, it's funny how, when you have this idea that you wanna do or be something, then you kind of get there and then you realize how limiting that was and something else comes up.

So like for me wanting to write my way around the world, then after doing Lonely Planet book, after like basically doing that for seven, eight years, that's all I did. I realized, well, that wasn't really the pinnacle of the craft of writing. And so I had other ambitions that kind of came up. That's part of growth.

Right, so that's going to happen. So that idea of holding things lightly, it's not just because, hey, it may not work out. It's actually because, hey, you might evolve and your ambitions will evolve with you. And therefore, it's okay to hold certain destinations lightly in terms of career destinations, because things could change for you too.

So the idea that this is just an experience to get the most out of and to dedicate yourself to it, whether it's working 60 hours a week or not, I like that attitude. I see success in Anna Grace's future. Like I said, I'm not worried about Anna. No. She's gonna be fine. I'm jealous.

Sounds like she's getting ready for an awesome life. It's true. You wanna go back in time. Yeah. You wanna be Rich Roll 21. Growing up in the greater Washington DC area, I was in a perfect position to become a spy, an international spy. I had a friend whose dad was a CIA.

That's exactly what an international spy would say. What you just said. Is it? Yes. I would be so good as a spy. All along. Wink, wink. Yeah.

That's what really has been happening. All right, let's move on. Let's move to Dan from Silver Spring. Dan from Silver Spring. Dan from Silver Spring. 301 Silver Spring, get it? Back to DC. Listener, you think this is Dan from Silver Spring with a question, but really it's a message

for his operative. This is my handler, my handler at Langley. He lives in Silver Spring, He works in Langley. He commutes. He commutes. Okay. Hey, Rich and Adam. This is Dan from Silver Spring,

just outside D.C. Rich, thanks for your passion. I'll be six years sober in September, and your show helps me stay on the path. But I wanted to call today to ask both of you about gratitude. You both talk about how important it is in your lives, and many of your guests have as well,

most notably Tommy Ribs, who's a personal hero of mine as well. I have a lot to be grateful for. Sobriety, a loving wife who is my best friend, two kids who are hilarious and awesome, my health. I had a brain tumor removed a few years ago, and I'm back and running and hiking,

just like before. So there's a lot there. I'm having trouble grasping this idea though. Every time I think about all of the things I have to be grateful for, it's kind of like, yeah, okay, things are good. Cool. How do you guys embody gratitude?

What am I missing here? And how do people like you and Adam and Tommy Rives live that gratitude? Thanks so much, guys. Peace. I feel like that last sentence there is the cipher. Yeah, the radio. That will unlock how we decode the rest of this message.

The radio. That shows who he really is. And dropping all these keywords, right? Yeah. Tommy Rives, gratitude. What's gratitude really mean? I've been found out. Yeah, I've been discovered.

Anyway, this is a really good question, Dan. Thank you for that. And I appreciate you sharing that story. Obviously you've gone through some really hard stuff and must've been really challenging to endure all of that. And you're on the other side of it and you're asking yourself the right question, right? Like how can I connect more deeply with gratitude?

My sense just from your tone of voice and the way that you kind of laid this question out is that, and I could be totally wrong, but it sounds like you're kind of living in your head and trying to intellectualize this idea of gratitude. And perhaps that's serving to block you from just emotionally connecting with it because it's like this equation

you're trying to solve with your mind as opposed to an allowing or a letting go that will open you up emotionally to this type of experience, which is hard to do. And I'm very sympathetic and empathetic to that. Like gratitude is tricky. I've talked about this a lot on the podcast. As I've said many times, I don't naturally exude it.

I'm petty, I'm competitive, I'm super jealous of Adam. I'm even more envious of Adam, grouchy. I can be entitled all of it. All true. And gratitude is just one modality, a powerful modality, a practice that can be deployed to keep those baser emotions at bay and help you connect with the things

that are most important. And the tasks for cultivating it, again, as I've discussed many times, are multivariate. You could do a gratitude list, writing down every single day before you go to bed or the minute you wake up in the morning, a list of 10 things that you're grateful for. Although that can be an intellectual exercise

and it sounds like maybe you have even tried that and it's not working. And I get that too. You can be of service to those in need. You can call up an old friend that you haven't spoken to before and tell them that you miss him or her. You can write a letter to somebody you care about.

In other words, practicing the expression of gratitude aids in cultivating that sense within yourself. But I really hear what you have to say, Dan, because often in doing this myself, I find that connecting with gratitude is difficult, that it can be this intellectual pursuit that doesn't really pay off emotionally. And it's really a struggle to figure out how to feel it,

like feel it with your body. The way that I've been able to kind of turn the page and pull the covers on that is through mindfulness and meditation. Because I think the more that you can be present with yourself and opt out of the looping patterns of your brain and just be at one with others, the environment, then the more attuned you can become

to the emotional states that you're experiencing. And in particular, in this case, gratitude. And if you look at Tommy Rives, I think it's pretty clear that he's somebody who is very heart-centered. Like he lives in his heart, not in his head. And as such is very adept at being able to connect with gratitude.

Like myself, on the other hand, I have to really practice just to experience glimpses of it, but I do think it's possible. And it does come more easily with a consistent practice. It is a practice of trying to strip away the non-essentials from your awareness. And in your case, I would say, you know, the intellectualization of not just this experience, but of probably a lot of things in your life and trying to move that awareness down into your heart and then giving of yourself freely to other people

with your attention, your time, your empathy. I think that breaks the chain of self-obsession that can come with intellectualizing or over-intellectualizing things. And beyond that, I don't know what else to tell them or tell you, Dan, other than that, and to continue to pursue it because it is a worthwhile investment

of your time and energy. Yeah. What do you think? I agree with you. I think what's worked for me is just this awareness of that, the interconnectedness of all things. So, that's why I love getting in the ocean so often, because to me, that's like the physical expression of you're now in this other world

and you're kind of taken out of your own head. You have to be, and you're now just experiencing life as opposed to analyzing it at the same time. So much of us, all we're doing is analyzing all the time. You know, we're not really experiencing. You have to interrupt that default mode state. And I think, you know, for you, it's jumping in the ocean. I mean, that works for me as well.

You can look at those images from the web telescope. And for a lot of people that inspires that sense of awe and wonder. But for other people, they could look at those images from the Webb telescope. And for a lot of people that inspires that sense of awe and wonder. But for other people, they could look at that and say, that's cool, but I don't, whatever. So it's an individual thing. And so I guess what you're saying and what I would suggest is that Dan figure out the thing that does provide him

with a sense of awe and wonder. When was the last time that he felt like a heart centered, profound sense of awe and wonder and try to figure out ways of recapturing or recapitulating that experience in his life? Yeah, and the thing is you can't force it, right? It's like one of those things where, you know, if you're on the hiking trails,

sitting down and breathing to give yourself a chance to get there is a good way of saying it. Like mindfulness meditation. The breath work can be really powerful. Breath work and meditation and just like looking at cloud formations and just kind of keeping it super simple is one way of doing it.

But at the same time, I also empathize because when you hear it all the time, when you're a father and your wife's about to give birth and you hear like, wait till you see the baby, there's gonna be this like emotional Shaktipat payoff kind of thing, like where you realize, ah, and you have this thing. And I didn't expect that to happen to me.

It did not happen to me. But some of that comes from expectation. And so this idea that there is a place to get to, to experience it can get in your way. So I wouldn't worry about that. And being self-critical when you're not experiencing it. Yeah, because listen, we're guys and we're not always that in tune with our emotions.

That's just the way it is. Speak for yourself. I mean, you are very in tune with your emotions. And I think I am too, to a point, but like, but, and so I'm with you, Dan, I think it's not always gonna be right there for us, but I also understand what Rich is saying. It's a practice.

And if it means, you know, every day trying to connect with really basic things, not necessarily, I'm grateful for my wife, I'm grateful for my kids, I'm grateful for where I live, blah, blah, blah, that helps, that's nice. But even just as simple as I'm grateful for that sunset. I'm grateful for where I live, blah, blah, blah. That helps, that's nice. But even just as simple as I'm grateful for that sunset or whatever, eventually you might get that hit might come. And then once it comes, it just grows.

Once that practice will just grow. And anyway, that's all I can say. Does that make sense? That makes sense. All right, I'll stop talking now. Let's go to Kyle from Massachusetts. Hey, Rich and Adam. My name's Kyle Stanley.

I'm from Massachusetts, and I'm a longtime listener of Rich's podcast. And my question revolves around the fact that I'm doing Ryan Holiday's Read to Read Challenge currently, which is a paid course by Ryan Holiday where he teaches you how to read more efficiently and how reading can help improve your life, which I believe myself. The challenge for this week is to ask five people who you respect for a book recommendation

that changed their lives. So you two are people that have already changed my life. My question for you two is, what is a book in your life that has transformed or changed the way that you view the world or the way you act? Thank you, Kyle. Message received. Get it. I'm currently sending it to my Cypher colleague. He's sending the books. He's sending the books. My answer to this is not that sexy, but it's true for me. The book that has changed my life the most hands down is the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous.

I don't know if Kyle needs to read that book, probably not. No. Maybe he does. If I'm being completely honest, like I come with some sexy book, obscure title that would make me sound cool. But honestly, the big book changed my life more than any other book. And then second to that-

Can you describe the big book? Cause I've not heard of the big book. It's basically, you've never heard of it? No. I'm sure you've seen it in various Starbucks with people sitting huddled over it. It's the Bible of Alcoholics Anonymous essentially, which lays out the 12 step program

and has stories of people who have battled with and overcome alcoholism. And it's sort of the guidebook and the centerpiece to the whole kind of 12 step architecture of Alcoholics Anonymous. Fair. Yeah. So obviously that book changed my life, continues to change my life.

It's a book that I'm, it's not like a book I read and put down, it's like an operating manual for life. Right. The other operating manuals for life that have been incredibly transformative for me are also no surprise to anybody who listens to this podcast. The War of Art by Steven Pressfield

absolutely has been essential in helping me, you know, craft this, my professional life and how I think about and pursue creativity. Second to that, The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron, which is sort of a workbook way of unleashing creativity and kind of finding your voice. And a fourth, if none of those satisfy you, would be Autobiography of a Yogi

by Paramahansa Yogananda, which will blow your mind with tales of spiritual prowess and magical, mystical possibilities. Love it. You've read that book, haven't you? I have, I have. In fact, when I was doing early on in the LA yoga world, I was doing- That's right.

I always forget about the LA yoga chapter of your life. Yeah. And one of the first, like the first features we did were kind of the history of yoga in LA. And so we focused on the 1920s era, which was Pomerantse Yogananda. And I went to the Self-Realization Fellowship in Mount Washington, which was his real house.

The original. The OG. And we were supposed to, I was supposed to meet and talk to this particular monk in the conference room, but I guess that had been booked out. And so he sat me down in like by the fireplace and he goes, when we sit down, he said,

Parmanansa Yogananda used to spend every evening here or Yogi G or whatever you call them. He used to spend every evening here talking to whoever guests came by. And it said that sometimes when you sit here and talk for a while, you can actually feel his presence when you leave. And I'm like, yeah, sure.

And so then I sat and had my interview with him and the guy was fine. Like I didn't feel like, you know, when you're speaking to some people who have like the spiritual connection, you can feel it. I didn't feel anything special. But then when I left, it was like I was walking, like I walked out of the house,

all of a sudden I was like walking on air. Like I felt so alive and like, you know, live and high. And so I did have that feeling there. So that's interesting. That's saying a lot coming from you being a natural born skeptic. Well, you know, it's- A recalcitrant.

I'm a many layered lotus, many peddled lotus. That's true. But that lotus is just opening up. It's just opening up. With every roll on episode. This is my mission, Adam. Well, it's funny that you- Blossoming and flowering.

It's funny you should say that because my book, the book I'm thinking of is called Hua Hu Qing. It's the Unknown Teachings of Lao Tzu. It's a follow up kind of like the Lost Scrolls of the Dao De Qing. And I'm thinking of a moment. It was in, I think in 1995, I was sitting on a bluff in Isla Vista,

overlooking the beach with my good friend and podcaster Kelton Reed of the Writer Files, a guy who I was a screenwriting partner with when we were both trying to become writers, him right out of Boulder University of Colorado and myself kind of trying to figure out what I wanted to do. And we were working for this, like grind them to the bone environmental group

that we were out there kind of getting members for the Sierra Club or whatever is summer canvassing, like boots on the ground campaign work. And it was like the summer getting ready for the big summer canvas season. And I came up late, I was kind of bummed out. I'd been burned out. I've been working for this organization

for like almost two years. And I was like ground to the bone of a lot of work, hard work and not feeling the reward. And he sits me there and I'm feeling like, I became friends with him up in Portland few months before. And he hands me this book. I didn't know him well at the time. He hands me this book and I read it

and I just get overwhelmed with that same feeling I got at Parmanahansa Yogananda from this lightness in my body. It was almost like the only thing I can compare it to is like a psychedelic feeling, like when it's coming on, but I hadn't taken anything, I didn't drink anything and it was available to me. And then for the next week,

we just spent the week kind of reading this book and on that beach, sleeping on that beach illegally and just hanging out with a group of friends for that week. And that book taught me to, for the rest of that week, I was focused on positives. Everything that came at me was, I was misinterpret, I was taking it apart and just bringing the positives to my life and that's all I thought about.

And that really was the beginning of me seeing life as a quest, as a quest for myself versus as a life to just, you do one thing, then you do the other thing. All of a sudden life became a quest for myself versus as a life to just, you do one thing, then you do the other thing. All of a sudden life became a quest. I started getting into like the esoteric Carlo Castaneda teachings of Don Juan books, you know, and getting out into nature as much as possible and feeling the power of nature.

And that kind of set me up for everything. I think I could give you a million books I like better that, you know, amazing works of literature, but that book more than anything, kind of that moment changed everything for me. That's pretty powerful testimony. I feel inspired to read this book now. Look at that.

Who's making speeches on Rich Rolls podcast? I'm so inspired by you, Adam. See this Lotus flower, those pedals are opening up and the power that is emanating forth, the vibration, the audio vibration going out into the universe. Look at you. See?

Stepping into your own power. You see me as a skeptic? Yes. I am a little bit of a skeptic. The quest manifest. Yeah, quest baby. Life is a quest. I like it, man.

And you got through that whole thing without dropping a Kerouac reference, but you kind of, there was an intuitive kind of like reference to like an on the road kind of vibe. Those guys were the first. Speaking of questing, the beat poets. They were the ones that really shot. Yeah, they saw it as life as a quest in modern life.

The origin of that is, you know, this sort of. Yeah, the deeper stuff. Yeah, exactly. And then, you know, since then, the Dao De Ching is kind of a daily companion or almost daily, so. I think that was a solid roll on. Hey, thanks, man.

I think that was too. Yeah. How do you feel? What's the title of this episode? Digable Planets. That's good. That kind of brings it all into one, doesn't it? Yeah. Let me just say, you look great.

Thank you. I mean, you look great. Post-COVID. Even better than before COVID. Look at you, exuding- COVID agrees with you. Exuding gratitude, empathy, thinking about others. I know. Look at you. What did you think I was? But if you cut me off,

I will revoke your motherfucking driver's license. All right. Starting with Mathis. All right, let's end it. We'll see you back here in a couple of weeks. Thanks for taking this crazy rollercoaster ride with us. Hope you guys had fun and we'll see you back here soon. Peace, plants, all your day. Thank you.