The Rich Roll Podcast - ROLL ON is… ON! (+Chris Evans)

Episode Date: August 10, 2023

Welcome to ‘Roll On’—the semi-regular version of the podcast where we ramble on matters of interest across culture, sports, art, literature, politics, self-betterment, and more. My co-host is Mr. Adam Skolnick, an activist, veteran journalist, author of One Breath, and David Goggins’ Can’t Hurt Me and Never Finished co-author. Adam writes about adventure sports, environmental issues, and civil rights for outlets such as The New York Times, Outside, ESPN, BBC, and Men’s Health. Today we exchange updates on personal goings on, discuss listener questions, welcome UK radio legend Chris Evans to the table, and share the whys and hows of my new creative partnership with Swiss sportswear brand On. Show notes + MORE Watch on YouTube Newsletter Sign-Up Today’s Sponsors: Timeline Nutrition: TimelineNutrition.com/RICHROLL On: On.com/richroll AG1: DrinkAG1.com/RICHROLL Indeed: Indeed.com/RICHROLL Plant Power Meal Planner: https://meals.richroll.com Peace + Plants, Rich

. The Rich Roll Podcast. Check, check, check. See if this mic works. It's been since May, since we've done one of these, Adam. We're back after an extended hiatus, interrupted with a few mini docs and monologues, but the people of these, Adam. We're back after an extended hiatus, interrupted with a few mini docs and monologues, but the people have spoken, Adam,

and here we are back with Roll On, hotly anticipated for the hardcore fans. Good to be here, man. Thanks for having me. Yeah, man, it's good to see you. We're a little rusty, unsure, on unsure footing about what we're gonna talk about today, but I'm excited.

I can feel the anticipation in the air. I feel it. As always, we're gonna shoot some shit, maybe answer a couple of listener questions, but we do have a special announcement we're gonna make, and we have a special guest who begrudgingly is gonna be joining us after the break. And his name is Chris Evans, not Captain America.

I would say Captain UK. He is the broadcasting legend himself, host of the Chris Evans Breakfast Show on Virgin Radio every morning, broadcasting from London. He's been a huge supporter of this show. He's on vacation here in Los Angeles. And like, if we're doing roll-on, we gotta bring the guy on.

Oh, yeah. So we're forcing him out of, out of his vacation. He's here, he wanted to watch, but we're not going to allow that. So he's going to be coming on after the break. In the meantime, our voicemail again is 805-421-0057. If you'd like your question answered on air,

you can leave it there for a future roll-on episode, whenever that's gonna happen. I love it. Yeah, man. So let's do the check-in. You know what? It's good to be here. I've been missing you.

I miss being here. I was at the beach not too long ago with the family. You know, I'm at the beach with the family a lot. And I thought of, I saw the way our water fountains are being treated. And I wanted to start, just unpack the water fountain situation. So this woman comes along with her dog.

The dog is thirsty, it's hot out. And she brings it right to the water fountain and turns on the water. It's not the first time I've seen this in Santa Monica. Turns on the water fountain, the dog hops up and starts lapping out of the water fountain. And so this is, I go into this immediate, like I have like one of those go into my brain

and I'm thinking, this is like a David Goggins moment where even the dogs in Santa Monica don't have the dog in them. And I texted him this afterwards. Used to be when we were kids, we would like, those things were oases. We would play really hard. We'd go over there, we drink out of them. Some kids would like lick on them. oases. We would play really hard. We'd go over there.

We'd drink out of them. Some kids would like lick on them. We'd still then drink after them. It wouldn't even matter to us. And now everyone has the little bottle and has their perfect water. And the dogs even won't drink out of the gutter. The dogs used to be happy with the gutter water. What is happening to our society?

So you sent that to Goggins? I did. What did he say? He said, oh man, it's all fucked up. That's why I'm out here smoke jumping. So basically what you're saying is this is the death of civilization in an anecdote, right? In a nutshell, the dog, you know,

refusing to drink water as given. Right, the gutter water is not good enough for the dog. The water fountain water is not good enough for the kids. You know, I'm drinking fucking alkaline water. What is alkaline water? What are we doing here? What is- Do you know that at Air One, there is a bottled water that costs $30.

It's like 24 ounces or something like that. And it's got a, you know, it's like, this is your wellness elixir or something. I don't know what they do to this water. I hope it's something fucking extraordinary. It's blessed by Shaolin monks I hope it's something fucking extraordinary. It's blessed by Shaolin monks. But it's almost like that's the allure, right? We have to buy the $30 water.

Yeah, that's where we're at right now. That's what, that's it. That's what I wanted to talk about. Forget AI, forget everything else. That's the canary in the coal mine. Dogs drinking out of water fountains. Yes. We can, yeah, we can celebrate the room temperature

superconductor at ambient pressure, but if we can't like, you know, figure out the water thing. It's true. Cause you can't. None of it's gonna matter. No, it's, that's where we're at. So I think that's the canary in the coal mine. We're gonna get back into that in a second, but I wanted to also tell you a story.

A helicopter was talking to me the other day. Did you see my post? When this was happening, were you crawling around on the carpet looking for small little white particles to smoke or stick up your nose? No. With the blinds shut? That does sound fun.

Yeah, this is like, I've heard this before. It generally is in the closed rooms of the secret society. Yes, no, no. After four days of no sleep and lots of substance. Exactly, exactly. So that's why you know though, from those stories, it's never a good thing when the helicopters start talking to you.

Yeah. Never awesome. So I'm- I'm thinking Goodfellas right now. Right, exactly. You're like looking for helicopters. So where I swim sometimes at Will Rogers, they do maneuvers. Like sometimes it's LAPD, sometimes it's Coast Guard, sometimes it's the Sheriff's chopper that you often see,

it's like a turnaround spot for helicopters. But this time I'm swimming, doing my normal swim. I get to almost my turnaround and this LAPD copper does like three loops. And then all of a sudden I hear, swimmer, there are five or six sharks 20 yards out from you. And I look up at this helicopter

that's hovering and looking at me. And I'm like, okay. And then I don't do anything. I like, instead I turned behind me as if I would, and I have my mask on. I turned behind me and I'm like, all right, what do I do now? Do I swim in? Like, this guy's like worried about me. Like, I don't like it when people worry about me. I just, you know, it makes me uncomfortable. And so then he says it again, you know,

the swimmer, there's five or six sharks. And I say, okay. So I decided to do it. I'm pretty far out. So I decided around like at the point, no, I'm on far out. So I decided- Are you around like at the point? No, I'm on my way. So I started a little bit further south on the coast. I'm like right at Bel Air Bay Club. So usually I'll swim either to Bel Air Bay and back to Temescal or I'll swim all the way

to the staircase at the Sunset Surf Break or maybe to the point. And so this time it was kind of just to Bel Air Bay. And so I swim back, I'm pretty far out. So I do like a kind of diagonal swim. And I'm thinking about just going in. Cause it's like, even though I'm the guy that says sharks aren't scary,

it's kind of weird to get a car. Do you really believe that? It's kind of weird thing to do and not listen. So I swim in, but then I keep swimming down. Like as soon as it sees me swim close enough to the wave, it feels like, okay, I'm fine. I'm like, I feel like, okay, the sharks didn't follow me. I can go and I just swam back to my spot.

But I thought that was strange. I was hoping he was gonna drop a line or a ladder and you were gonna grab onto it and then he was gonna elevate you out and take you to the shore safely. Yeah, help, help. Yeah, so that was weird, that happened. Well, this just proves your thesis.

It does. You're always saying the sharks are there all the time. It's just now we see them more. Yeah, well, you know who my first call was after that whole thing. The Malibu artist. Right, so I call him and he says, "'Dude, I was there yesterday.

And I think I saw those five or six sharks. But he says, when there are five or six that you can see, there's always five or six you can't see. But he told me, he gave me the down low, which is they're about five to seven feet. So six footers, they're all basically, they're all just getting popped. So it's popping season for great whites.

We've always thought it was a nursery out there. And now this confirms and he says, they're gonna be around for like 18 months. But that also doesn't sound great. If there's a lot of babies around, doesn't that heighten the danger situation? They're eating rays. They're not like even eating marine mammals.

Yeah, but if you get anywhere near any of the pups, doesn't that alert? It's not the same. Once they're out, they're out. It's not the same. Yeah, fuck them once they're born. You're on your own. It's one of those drop and run.

We might eat you. It's a drop and run. All right. Yeah. Cool, man. Well, those are two good stories. Yes, that's where I start. That's where I start.

Yeah, but there's been a turn journalistically, has there not? There's been a turn, yeah. Then the New York Times Sports shut down its sport and New York Times has shut down its sports desk. So New York Times Sports, as it were, I guess it's not gonna exist here in the next several weeks. No one saw that coming, did they?

Nobody saw it coming. Nobody saw it coming, because literally the people- It's pretty crazy. Nobody saw it coming because literally the people that worked at the sports desk weren't told until the story broke. And so everyone, we all found out at the same time. I mean, I'm not even putting myself because I don't work full time for them. So like I found out when the general public found out,

but so did the people that were staffing the sports desk. And I think there's an explanation for that that I'm not privy to, but I would imagine it's like, you don't want rumor and all that's getting around. It's better to be out front and whatever happens. There's lots of, there's no nice way to do something like that.

So to me, it's like, it's just the way they chose and that's the way it is. But it did, I was saddened by it and beyond personal opportunity, I was saddened by it because it was such a big deal to start writing for the New York Times Sports. You know, it all started for me in vertical blue 2013,

my first assignment for them, Nick Mavoli dies. And basically like that assignment changed everything about my career and my life really, because it led to One Breath, which led to Meeting You, which also led to reconnecting with my wife, April. And so then there's Zuma and like the Goggins thing and Can't Hurt Me wouldn't exist without One Breath, without going to that thing.

So the New York Times Sports is so now like, beyond just being proud to be able to work with some amazing editors, great photographers, good people and great at what they do. And to tell the story of these athletes and free divers, open water swimmers, mountaineers, big wave surfers, triathletes, thanks to you. And like I predicted in the New York Times sports

that Christian Blumenfeld would win the Tokyo goal and then also the Ironman. So like the fact that we predicted that, like that's a culmination of so many things in the New York Times, that's because of that first assignment. And so it was like, it's really, it's been important to me. So I'm bummed by it.

John Branch, I was able to work with him on my first A1 story for the New York Times. And he's been on Twitter talking about his feelings about it. I think I'll do something on threads or Twitter or X, whatever the fuck it's called now. I'll do a retrospective and kind of unpack some of the stories because it's over 30,

like 35 stories now I've done for them over the years. And I hope to stay until, I've done for them over the years. And I hope to stay until, I've got other editors there. So hopefully I'll be able to work with the times again. It's sad for endurance and adventure sports because really Washington Post does some of that. But the New York Times, I think with Outside Magazine were like the top for those kinds of stories.

I mean, they really invested in those longer stories. And then the art direction that they kind of infuse them with to create these experiences with video and imagery, like, you know, it was really compelling. Like the stuff that you did with Colin O'Brien when he was going across Antarctica. I mean, nobody else does that. No. And so that's gone.

Gone. Which sucks. It's not about daily box scores as much as it is the more journalistic kind of stories that are human interest as much as they are sports. I mean, they kind of transcend the sports page. So I was wondering whether those kinds of stories could still find a home at the New York Times, just not under the sports page.

Cause they are as much sort of, you know, life and style stories as they are sports stories. It's a very good question. I don't know exactly the answer to that yet, because you're right. Like the idea was this sports desk isn't, I guess, doing the job financially and we bought the athletic. So the story is-

The athletic is taking over all of that. They bought the athletic for 500 plus million dollars. And then as soon as they bought it, I was worried already for the sports, my friends at the sports desk, cause I didn't know how that would all work. But then it seemed to be going along as normal. And then obviously one day it isn't.

And I'm not privy to those decisions. Like I'm not one of those writers that goes on Twitter and yells about my people who I work for. It's like, I'll never be that guy. So like, if you don't have the information, it's impossible for me to be critical about these decisions. To me, it's a decision that I think is a choice. And if it works out or not,

they could always choose to go back. Like I was writing for Playboy pretty regularly when they decided not to do nudes anymore. And I knew one thing that their last move was, we're doing nudes again. So, you know, this kind of thing. That's a pretty predictable move. Right, so they could like, if I don't even know the math, but I had imagined if you want to start up a sports desk,

you could do it again pretty easily. So like this isn't necessarily the end, but you're right, like to me, the New York Times sports was never about, although they've had great basketball writers, had great baseball writers, they have a great soccer writer, Rory Smith right now. He's a fantastic.

And they've had great tennis people, but you're right. The sports section itself was kind of an expanded view of the sports world, which you don't get on the ESPN. Right, you're not reading a story about free diving and looking at these amazing photos of these people because you're a sports nut. It really is a curiosity that's born as much from just trying to understand something

you've never seen before. Right, right, right. And so I think we'll see. I mean, they say like the sports business stories are now gonna be folded under business. So I hope so. I hope the adventure stuff can find a way home under travel maybe, or under like just the global desk.

I mean, I don't know, we'll see. I'm gonna try to find out. Yeah, and what happens to friend of the pod, Matt Futterman? He's cranking away. He's still there. The sports desk still seems to be functioning right now. They say this transition is gonna be over at some point this month or next month, they say,

or they've said this is public stuff. So no one's telling me anything privately, but it sounds like by the fall, whatever the new thing is gonna be locked in place. For you as a consumer, it's still gonna say sports on your New York Times app is just gonna be done by the athletic staff. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And then I guess more broadly, what does that auger in terms of the media landscape? Like, oh, the New York Times like got rid of their sports and no big deal. Well, they had the athletic. So it really is just a shuffling of the deck, I suppose. It is, but I don't think that athletic covers these- Is it sort of like, you know,

Elon comes in, buys Twitter, like, you know, fires like, you know, a massive number of the employees and somehow the app still seems to work. Right. You can argue about how well it works, but then all the other CEOs are like, huh, you know, maybe I can cut my workforce back as well. Like, is there some of that happening as a result of that announcement with other journalistic outlets? They say Bezos is taking an increased interest in the Washington Post, so that's never good.

When the money guys start showing up, right? Like, I don't know. I mean, journalism has been fraught for a long time. This isn't a reminder that anything can happen at any time. No one would have ever predicted this, I don't think. Even after they bought the athletic, it seemed to be a parallel business and it didn't seem to be part of the same thing.

I guess my concern is like you've already said, the endurance and adventure sports, like will they have a home? Because the athletic is more kind of an ESPN, similar than ESPN, their focus is on these very mainstream sports. And so there's not really a lot of coverage of these. There's not a receptivity

to the kind of stories that you do. It doesn't seem to be. And I wouldn't even know who, like the other thing about this business is, you have to know who to approach, right? Like, I don't know anyone in the athletic side of things. Who's your guy? I don't know yet. You don't have an inside guy.

But here's the thing. These stories find a way, right? Like, free diving will not die. As a matter of fact, it found its way all the way to Netflix. It did. And your star is on the rise, my friend, because you made your Netflix debut in a smash hit.

It's A, you know what? The deepest breath, it's cranking. It's been top 10 on Netflix for a couple of weeks. Yeah. It's pretty exciting. Yes, it's been great. I knew that the film had potential when they first were putting it together. Laura McGann, the director and her producers at Ventureland

approached me early on because they were looking at doing a story on Stephen Keenan and Alessia Zucchini. Alessia is a world record holder Italian free diver. Stephen Keenan is the greatest safety diver in the history of the sport with some amazing rescues under his belt and has an Irish national record holder as well.

So their story, I'd reported on kind of the crux of what happens. I'm not gonna spoil it in the deepest breath for outside once before. And then obviously they'd read One Breath. And so they approached me early on and I was very encouraging saying, I've always loved this story.

I think there's a great potential for the story. I'm happy you're doing it. It was an Irish director doing it, which I also liked. And so, but then, you know, they asked me to come to Vertical Blue, but it just didn't work out. Like, I think it was Vertical Blue right after the pandemic. It was like hard for me to get there.

And so I figured I wasn't gonna be in it. Then they came kind of towards the end of production and we did a shoot out here in LA. But the important question is, how much do you think roll-on has contributed to the success of The Deepest Breath? Because- Definitely some.

Despite my best efforts to steer the conversation away from freediving week in and week out, this is the sport that refuses to go away. It really is. You just find a reason to bring it back and now it's on Netflix. And you're playing a role in the ascension of this sport. And how many Skolnick heads were logging into Netflix

and upping up the algorithm there to push that into the top 10? There's no question the Rich Roll Skolnick heads, you know, we're logging into Netflix and upping up the algorithm there to push that into the top 10. There's no question the Rich Roll Skolnick heads have had something to do with this. I've been hearing from them and you know what? Like it's cool to see. I think that the success of the movie is really that people in the mainstream are seeing the sport.

Like you said, the images and the video you can get, especially now is amazing. And in Vertical Blue, they started pioneering this camera that it's a remote operated vehicle that go dive eye and it goes all the way down the line. And so the fact that that exists, it didn't exist when I was doing One Breath,

we only were using sonar. And so you could see it if you dove down for the first 20 meters and then come back up, but you weren't seeing what's happening. The fact that you have that and you can see this footage, it's you really only like dive nerds like me that were watching that stuff on YouTube. It's out there, but now people are seeing it.

And the way the sound design in the film is so great. It really like wraps you up. Cinematically, it's quite beautiful. I wouldn't be surprised if they get some Oscar noms. Yeah, that would be cool, right? Oscar nominated Skolnick. I might have to- Appearing in an Oscar.

So here I'm looking at the outline and you've got like eight more points about free diving in here with a bunch of names, Eastern Bloc and Russian, Ukrainian names in here. We're not gonna do this, Adam. We spent enough time on free diving today. We're not gonna do that. We're not gonna do this, Adam. We spent enough time on free diving today. We're not gonna do that. We're not gonna.

Yeah. We don't need to get into Bifins and whatever. It's cool. Check out the show on Netflix. End of story. End of story. Let's put a button on this. Can I just say one thing?

Alexey Molchanov, two more world records. What? 133 meters, bro. One breath, 133 meters. Cool. That is awesome, actually. I gave you that one. All right.

Maybe I'll edit it out. Yeah, cut it out later. Anything else you wanna share? I'm gonna ask Chris Evans what he thinks about freediving. Trust me, I'm sure he's got an opinion or two. All right. Yeah, what about you, man? What's been going on?

I know you've been working on that. I've just been sitting here waiting for you to ask about me so I could share. Do you sometimes, when you're sitting across from someone, just completely tune out and just plan what you're gonna say next? I do do that or I have done that, but that's also, when I start doing that,

I know that things are going off the rails. This is not gonna be a good podcast. It's not your thing. If I can't pay attention, yeah, it's not good. That's not you, that's not you. I'm good, man. Life is good. I'm dealing with a little in-between hair right now.

I had short hair, I decided to grow it out a little bit, and now I don't know what to do with it. It just looks bad no matter what I do. I think, and this is true. Growing the to grow it out a little bit. And now I don't know what to do with it. And it just looks bad no matter what I do. I think, and this is true. Growing the beard out, getting a little more hair suit. Well, when I first saw you, I said how great you looked. I appreciate that. I like this in-between look.

Well, there's a power dynamic between us though, right? I have to take that with a grain of salt. You don't trust my opinions? No, I do. A lot, man. Since we last did this, again, end of May. I mean, where to even begin? A lot of travel, a lot of family time.

I think the last time we did it was right before I went to Australia. Yes. Went to Australia, did a bunch, did a couple of podcasts, give speech, had some trips with the kids, recorded a ton of podcasts. We're finalizing Voicing Change Volume Three. Oh, exciting.

More on that soon, but that book is on the horizon. Oh, we have Sir Patrick Stewart coming in later this week. Really? Yeah. That's great. That's an exciting guest. For sure. Yeah, that'll be fun. We passed a million YouTube subscribers. I saw that. So thank you everyone who has subscribed to that channel.

That's pretty exciting. Interestingly, did you know that 80% of the views that we get on YouTube are from non-subscribers? No, what does that mean? It means that people watch our videos and don't subscribe. So that means you have potentially like 8 million viewers. Who knows?

So anyway, if you haven't subscribed and you watch on YouTube or you've gotten value from the show on YouTube, just hit that stupid button. That's all I'm asking. Maybe hit a like button too once in a while. 1 million is pretty good. It's free. 1 million is pretty good.

No, it's pretty cool. It's surreal. I mean, not that, you know, I posted about this on Instagram. I try not to get caught up in that kind of stuff because it just, you know, it tweaks with how you think about what you wanna do on the show

when you start thinking about numbers and audience and stuff like that. But I think it's important to celebrate those landmarks. For sure. Also for all of our coworkers here and for the fans and the people that have been on this journey with us. It's a wild thing, man.

That's a lot of people. It's hard, your brain can't really wrap itself around that. Well, the YouTube channel kind of, you only started intensively looking at YouTube not too long ago, actually, in terms of the life of the show, right? Handful of years ago. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. of the life of the show, right? A handful of years ago. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And we're still learning a lot. You know, I would say the vast majority of the audience is audio only still. And we're learning as we go with YouTube. And I think there's a lot of growth opportunity there and it's exciting. And I love the fact that we do it visually

and we have the studio and, you know, we're executing at such a high level in terms of production value and trying to deliver something interesting on that platform. So anyway, it's a cool little thing to celebrate. So thank you everybody for that. Super cool.

On the health front, I've had a lot of progress with my lower back. I know I've shared many times about being kind of hampered, so to speak, through this chronic lower back injury and pain that I've been dealing with for many, many years. But the last person on the whistle stop tour was a guy that I found up in Sonoma County who's really been helping me out.

So I've been going up there like once a month. I've been up there for three visits where I stay for a couple of days. This guy works on me and I've had real progress. I'm not out of the woods yet, but I've had more mobility and flexibility and less pain than I've had since probably like 2017, which was the last time that I was truly like fit.

So I'm not exactly back to training training, but I can move my body in a way that I haven't been able to in a number of years. So I see the light at the end of the tunnel. I still have a long way to go to kind of completely liberate myself of this issue, but I'm pretty optimistic for the first time in a long time. And I think I'm gonna be able to solve this

short of surgery, which was my goal to figure it out. And if I needed surgery, I'm happy to have surgery, but I wanted to explore everything else prior to that. And it kind of lost hope and had resigned myself to getting cut open and having it dealt with that way. But I'm actually having real progress right now. So we'll see where that leads, but I'm back on the bike. I can swim.

I gotta keep it pretty chill. The running stuff is at a very low simmer at the moment, but everything else, like I'm back on the bike, I can swim. I gotta keep it pretty chill. The running stuff is at a very low simmer at the moment, but everything else, like I'm able to, I just, I feel like myself again. That's awesome. It's like you forget, like this is who I am. And when I can't express myself that way, I don't feel myself.

Right. But I really do feel like myself in a way that I'd almost forgotten. And that's pretty exciting and feels good. It's exciting. And is this a PT guy? Is it like a medical doctor? He's a multidisciplinary.

Now it's a long story. He has a lot of different modalities that he works with, but he has a very specific chiropractic technique that is very painful where he cracks my back in a certain way that makes me feel like he's gonna paralyze me, but has really loosened things up for me. Wow. Yeah.

It's been good. Interesting. Yeah, cool. That's really it. I don't have lots of funny stories about water fountains and sharks and stuff like that. I just come to the studio and I do my thing. Although. I think about my warm open for days in advance.

I can tell, it's very scripted. A little state, I have notes, Adam. It felt a little spontaneous, but maybe a little bit too thought out beforehand. But I used to come on here and just say, I'm great, how are you? And then I started getting heckled, remember? I know.

Anyway, life is good. I'm very grateful to be able to do this thing and celebrate it with so many people. So I just wanted to recognize the audience for taking this journey with us. It's good to be back with you. I am headed to London in a couple of weeks, which I'm very excited about. I wanna share a little bit more

about what that is all about, but I think this is a good time to take a quick break and then we'll come back and bring Chris on. Beautiful. Awesome. We're brought to you today by recovery.com. I've been in recovery for a long time. It's not hyperbolic to say

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again, go to recovery.com. All right, are we good? No. We're not good? I'm not good. Come on, Chris. You look fantastic. Look at you.

You're a star. I am over the moon to have you sit here and join us today. I have no idea what's gonna happen. We have a whole outline. I have a feeling we're not gonna get to any of it, but I'm just thrilled to sit across from you and to have you in the studio. So you can share this experience with us,

but also before we even get into anything, like I honestly, from the bottom of my heart, I owe you such a massive debt of gratitude. I just wanted to thank you publicly for heart, I owe you such a massive debt of gratitude. I just wanted to thank you publicly for all the support that you have given, that you continue to give to the podcast to roll on specifically.

And when I go to London, like the popularity of the show in the UK and in London specifically is due entirely to your promotion and advocacy. And it's just, it's, I can't thank you enough for the support that you've given us over the years. It like really means a lot.

And so it's an absolute thrill to have you here today. Thank you so much for all that. However, that doesn't mean I'm not totally opposed to my own appearance on this program right now. I couldn't be more against what is currently happening on Roll On. As a super fan of- Deep down, you love it.

You're happy to be here. I know you are. I was thrilled to be invited out to come and watch you and me, the whole team, who I love, by the way. But there are a few cardinal sins that you commit from time to time on Roll On.

The biggest cardinal sin is when you invite a third party on to the show. So I am now committing the cardinal sin, but I'm not committing it. But I bear the responsibility. I don't know, it's not fair. I'm forcing you. So I take responsibility for it.

People back in the UK always say, he's just saying that he loves beer. I am so against this appearance. That's the first thing. The second thing is when you mess around with the original, actually, that's the third thing. The second thing is when you refer to via emails or text to me, oh, it's going to be an old school Roland, right?

Like Roland's been around forever, right? Roland, in audio entertainment, in our universe, this podcast has been around for about a minute, let alone Roland. Yet you refer to Roland as an, oh, we made you an old school Roland. Oh my God. You've been on the air for about a second, you two. Okay. Get back in your boxes. In the podcast world, actually time moves very, very, very fast. Yeah. Very, very, very fast. Okay. Yeah. Let's go with that.

Yeah. And anyway, the third thing is to mess around with the format and that is, you know, I love Roland. I know. You're the Roland number one fan. I couldn't be more thrilled

to be invited out to Los Angeles to meet Adam and his friend, Rich. That's very kind of you. You're welcome. I want notes though. I like your notes. Like you've always been a big supporter of you. You're welcome. I want notes though. I like your notes. Like you've always been a big supporter of this version of the podcast.

You have strong opinions about when we go astray, what we should do, what we shouldn't do. And you're the fucking legend, dude. So when you say, do this, don't do that, like I'm paying attention. I hope to goodness, I don't say to you to do this, don't do that where this, this, or- Well, you say this works for me,

this doesn't work for me. Yeah, no, you have a certain wisdom. You're not just the average listener. You actually, you know, you've made quite a name for yourself in this broadcasting business. So of course, we're gonna listen to everything you say. Please, please don't do that, please. The number two problem most people have in the world

is getting what they want. Because the number one problem that they have is they don't know what they want, right? And when you refer to, well, you know, the feedback has been this, the feedback... They don't know what they want. People listen to this. They just reverse engineer what they think they want because then they have the agency over, they wanted it in

the first place. They need what you give them. And then they interpret that as to what they want. So you just, you come from the heart and you express yourself authentically and the people will come. That's what happens. Yeah, and the guests will come and your team, I heard the backstory of your team and how they came to be and how Jason came to relocated here and Dan relocated here. And they were all doing different things at different times. And Dan was a pastor.

And he was a whole different human being. And then he realized that he was losing his faith and that he wasn't living to his true nature. And that's why the road of life was bumpy. And then the more you align yourself to who you are, you know, Guru Singh talks about this all the time, then the more things start to happen because you're sailing with the wind

as opposed to rowing against the tide. And suddenly life gets a bit more fluid and fluent and it's all more, and that's how it feels. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah? That's a great way of putting it. Yeah, well, I mean, I think you share that from a place of wisdom and like learned, lived experience because you're somebody not, you know, as a broadcaster,

you've been doing this for a long time, but you've had massive success. You've, you know, as a broadcaster, you've been doing this for a long time, but you've had massive success. You've, you know, kind of come to terms with the emptiness of certain aspects of that. And the way that you live your life now is very different from how you were living it not that long ago. Well, 67 days ago, I had my last drink first.

You've even stopped me drinking. I know, that's fantastic. 67 days? Yeah. Wow. Yeah, I'm my wife. And we stopped on a Saturday morning. Nobody stops drinking on a Saturday morning.

No. You'd leave it till the Monday. You wait till after Sunday lunch, right? We had quite a big Friday. It's Sunday lunch, you gotta have Sunday lunch, then you quit. Yeah, or Saturday night. But we did that thing where,

I told you I went to a meeting. What was happening? Well, nothing really. I mean, you know, why does anybody drink? Why does anybody consume anything from the outside in, you know, to pursue pleasure? For various reasons, at various differing times in one's life, you know.

And I told you I went to this meeting on the beach the other day and this guy described it beautifully. He said, you know, for a long time when I was drinking and I was using and I was abusing things and substances and people and having a great time but without little substance, although all the substances, then you have all the fun.

You can have all the fun and then you have a lot of the fun and you have a few problems and then you have more problems and a bit of fun and then you just have the problems. That's one way of describing it. Another way of describing it, and there are thousands, as you know,

would be you used to have a drink to take the edge off. Yeah, well, I found now that we were having a drink and it was taking the shine off because our lives were shiny and I suddenly felt like whatever was working before wasn't working now and the next day day there was less of the good stuff. And there was more of the good stuff to begin with. It was more palpable. And why would you rough up your own diamond as it were?

And I got up 60, whatever, 67 days ago. And I said to Tash, I don't know this anymore. I'm with you. And then we just stopped. That's beautiful. So it's just athletic greens from here on out ag1 baby yeah run at my place yeah come on i love that but even so you're smoking athletic greens yeah anything mainlining it whatever yeah athletic greens mocktails burning our kids in it and smelling them. Yes. Yeah. Well, I had mentioned before the break that I'm going to London in a couple of weeks. And the main reason for that is I'm gonna be participating

in your upcoming Car Fest event. So I wanted you to share a little bit about what that event is about. But just the fact that it's called Car Fest is interesting because it illustrates a little bit of your arc because it's not, you used to be like a guy with a huge car collection, right? Like you had like a Jay Leno situation going on,

but you don't live that way. You're on vacation, everything you packed is light walk in style and that backpack over there, you've really stripped down your life and gotten more clear on what's important, what's not important. So as a lead into talking about Carfest, like just share a little bit about that journey,

because I think people think, well, that's fine for him to say, but like I need that success and that success is gonna fill that hole for me. And you found otherwise. Yeah, this is turning into a proper show now. I know, I can't help it. I can't help it.

Adam, I told you the outline. People wanted Roland back. And Roland was back for 25 minutes. There is a bunch of stuff I need to talk about. But go ahead. Really? I want to contextualize it. Jeez.

It just came into watch. I promise I came into watch. Now you have to open your heart and soul. Oh, jeez. I know. A tear would be good. Carfest started off as a I always wanted to do a family festival

and so but I knew that calling it family fest or whatever would be something that would be a worthy thing to do

but it wouldn't get people through the door and then one day I was going to this and I wasn't going anywhere it was January it was the third week

in January it was raining even more than it usually does in anywhere. It was January. It was the third week in January. It was raining even more than it usually does in Britain. And it was cold and it was miserable. And there was this car show, an indoor car show in January when nobody had any money. And there was a 25 mile tailback on the motorway, the highway, because people were queuing up to go to this car show. I think, people go to car show, third week in January, indoors. Let's just call our family festival a car show. And so we did and it worked. And so we got families to come to the car.

It was a car festival, but there were bands on as well. And that was 21 festivals ago. And since then it's transmogrified. But I was into cars at the time. Sorry, but I evaded your question. And I didn't want to- No, but I mean, it's a great thing to bring kids to. So it's likeogrified but i was i did i was into cars at the time sorry but i evaded your question and i didn't want to no but i mean it's a great thing to bring kids to so it's like like zuma if it was a if it was like a construction vehicle show yeah we'd be there yeah well you know it's

fun it's fun isn't it you know it gets people through the gate but then every you bring everything else in the back door it's a bit like your podcast you know it's a bit like the fact that it's an easy conversation uh it's you you have a lovely articulation uh you know and a great point of view on life you've you've you've lived and died once and we all know you only get you get two lives not one the second of which only begins when you realize the first one is over and that's the phoenix from the flames and that's the great inspiration for all of us today's a new day every day above ground all this kind of stuff. But it's those,

do you bring these stories in via the back door? Is that too sort of strategic or is it a soft launch or does it make it easy for people to get in or whatever? But that's how our festival started as a car festival.

And now it's still called Car Fest. We thought about changing the name, but it still has great cars and it now has 21 bands and it has loads of people and you'll come to speak at it, but it still has great cars and it now has 21 bands and it has loads of people and you'll come to speak at it. And it's fucking great. Yeah, it's cool. It's great.

And you get like 80, 100,000 people coming through, right? And all the money goes to charity. Every single penny goes to charity. Amazing. Incredible. So I know the happy pair guys I think are coming. Yeah, Russell Brand's coming, Laura's coming. So I don't know where you're gonna throw me in here or there, but I'm willing and ready

to do whatever you want me to do. There are many hay bales that you can sit on and you can, you can rate and you can hypnotize and you can do whatever the hell you like, Rich Roll. Rich, are you still into hypnotism? I had the hypnotism guy on the show. Hypnosis, hypnosis. He told me I was not that hypnotizable though.

They do this test where you look up or whatever with your eyeballs and they can tell how receptive you are to hypnosis. That's good. Did you know that? If you listen to my podcast, you would know this. I knew that. His dad taught him.

But Ed Hawkins, you read Ed Hawkins has written a book called the Men on Magic Carpets. I don't know this book. Do you know this? No. Oh, it's so good. So the U.S. military employed hypnosis, mass hypnosis, you know this? Yeah, it was like the men steering a goat's project.

Yeah, same kind of thing. And from the same seed of the U.S. military, and they brought in some famous sort of psychics from around the world, and they didn't care if these guys were frauds or not, because just in case they weren't, because in war, anything is worth it, depending on your point of view.

And they brought in all these people and they said, there is something here, there is something here. And what they did was, the book is all about the fact that these super hypnotizers with these superpowers of hypnosis who were employed in the military who were soldiers but just happened to have them and they were deployed behind enemy lines to disrupt the vibration of the enemy they then at the end

of any particular conflict were unemployed so sports teams in the US started to employ them to place them in opposing fans areas of the stadium to disrupt the vibration of the crowd that would then influence the players on the pitch and fuck up their whole gameplay. Wow. And it's a real thing. He's a guy called Ed Hawkins and you would love him. He's like the J. Robert Oppenheimer of hypnosis. Wow. And it's a real thing. He's a guy called Ed Hawkins and you would love him. He's like the J. Robert Oppenheimer of hypnosis.

Yes. Yeah. But also they say that- The Manhattan Project of hypnosis. Yeah. But they say that cinema and radio shows and podcasts and literature is all a form of mass hypnosis anyway.

Oh, there's no question about that. Storytelling for sure, yeah. There's no question about that. Speaking of mass hypnosis, I think there's people running around LA still dressed in pink from Barbie. Now they're just filing into SoFi for the- Taylor Swift.

Yeah, I mean, there is something about social media and the group think kind of paradigm, not for good and for bad, that there's a hypnosis of the phone, right? Yeah. For sure. Yeah, we're conducting a massive experiment on brains at the moment. We kind of know it, but we're all signing up experiment on- We just don't know it. Brains at the moment. Yes.

We kind of know it, but we're all signing up for it anyway. Some people know. Yeah. Well, I'm excited to go to CarFest. What's the website for it and the dates? Cause it's not sold out if anyone's listening. CarFest.org, we can always fit more people in.

Come and join us. Even if you can't stand me, just come anyway. There's a hundred thousand people there. You don't have to rub elbows with Chris. Absolutely, you can't stand me, just come anyway. There's 100,000 people there. You don't have to rub elbows with Chris. Absolutely, you don't need to do that. But lots of great people there for all the right reasons. And it's just, somebody once said one of the best things, well, two different people said two different things.

One said, one of the best things you can do is buy a ticket to help someone you'll never meet. And that's what you'll be doing by coming to this festival. And somebody else said, another great thing that a human being can do is give other human beings a reason to get together. And this fulfills both those. Yeah, that's beautiful.

And you will have a great time. Yeah, cool. August 24 to 26? August 25 to 27. 25 to 27. But we'll take you whenever you get there. If you wanna leave early to go to Switzerland, that's coming up by the way.

Yeah, so yeah, exactly. So after I do Carfest, I'm actually headed to Zurich, which I'm very excited about. The reason for that is to visit the headquarters of On, On Running, the running shoe brand. You can see them wearing the On shoes because we have just, I'm taking this opportunity to announce

this incredible huge new partnership that we formed with On. So I'm gonna go to the headquarters and visit with the folks there, which is, honestly, like I'm happy I'm going to Carfest, but really I'm going to Zurich. It's okay. I'm fine.

I'm happy to be the bridesmaid. These guys. We'll take whatever, which role we can get. And, you know, this is a relationship that we've been cultivating for some time. It's a cornerstone partnership and not just the business of this podcast, but I think it's representative of the value set behind the,

you know, the why behind everything that we do. And let's face it, this is a commercial enterprise. The show doesn't exist without sponsors. But I think, you know, it's interesting to kind of address this from a broader perspective to kind of understand the decisions that get made about who to align with in this commercial enterprise. If you listen to podcasts, you're used to hearing ads.

For a lot of shows, it's just, you know, something that people do. Like they just do ads for, you know, whoever will buy ad space on their show. And the longer that we've been doing this, the more I've come to realize that I don't really wanna participate in that game. Obviously, we need sponsors to do what it is that we do,

but I'm not interested in just aligning with whoever. I'd much rather have, and this is the consensus with everyone who works here, to have fewer partners, but more in-depth relationships with those partners. So as you might imagine, we're on the receiving end of a lot of inquiries, people who wanna advertise on the show.

And I would say, we say no to, you know, 95 out of a hundred of those requests, we reject them because there isn't, there's just something that's not properly aligned. But every once in a while, somebody shows up where the values align almost perfectly with what we're doing. And I would say wholeheartedly

that that's the case with ONN. This is a company that is really headed in the right direction. They truly are all about trying to get people out and move in the most kind of community-based way. They are an organization that has big designs on the future of products and sustainability and circularity and the materials that they're working with.

And they're just a high vibe group of people who, I just think we can do amazing things together. So I'm really excited to launch into that. Can I ask you a question about like the inter workings of how you choose, like you say you're hyper selective and obviously the bigger the show has gotten, the more corporate opportunities are coming to you, right? Which I would imagine are pretty lucrative.

So how do you go about, what's the way that you kind of, these opportunities come to you and how you make the selection in terms of on, like how did that come about? So it comes in various ways. I mean, you get incoming emails all the time. And we have a management team that kind of vets all this stuff as a kind of first line of defense. So it all has to pass through their kind of machinery before it even gets to me, a lot of the incoming. But often it's, I'm looking at companies that are out there and going after the ones that, you know, I think would be good partners rather than just reacting to what's out there being intentional. Like here are the people that I would like to align with. And sometimes, you know, that takes a long time to cultivate those relationships

and get to a place where it makes sense on both sides because it's a partnership. It isn't just, oh, you're an advertiser. It's like, hey, I realize like I'm, you know, I need to enter this relationship from a perspective of how I'm delivering value for the brand. It's not just how much money can I get from them so I'll do a 60 second read.

Like, yes, you hear the ad, but what's really going on is this exchange of values and how we can mutually benefit each other through this exchange. And so very few companies make it through that. Or there are some cool companies that are doing really interesting things, but maybe there's something off about them.

Let's revisit that a little bit later. It's kind of like a dynamic organism that's always shifting and evolving. Right. No, I mean, it's good that you to hear that because I know personally, my parents will buy anything you suggest. So the fact that there is a nice,

like you're really vetting it and it's really not just something that kind of topically aligns, but there's a deeper alignment, I think is cool. No like you're really vetting it. And it's really not just something that kind of topically aligns, but there's a deeper alignment, I think is cool. No, they're conscious decisions. They're value-based decisions. But people know, I know when I'm listening. I hope so.

No, but everybody knows, we all know. That's why that show is called The X Factor. Everybody knows. Sometimes we don't even know we know, but we know. I definitely don't know I know I know. Yeah. Chris, how's this going for you so far? It's hell.

It's hell. I'm trying to pretend that it's okay. This is not okay. Even when we got a little bit meaningful before, that's still, none of this is okay. I just came to Los Angeles for 28 days to pretend to live here. Because that's what I do once a year. I come and pretend that I live here.

Then I toy with what kind of jobs, what kind of job could I get if I came here? Top of the list so far. I'll do anything here. Not behind the mic. I would come and work on the team. I'd come here and run Russell Brand's company. I would do that.

But his company's in the UK. So he would have to move his company so I could run it. He lives next door to you, basically. Yeah. So he would have to move everybody just so I could come it. He lives next door to you, basically. Yeah. So he would have to move everybody just so I could come and get a job here. But then I was thinking about,

I could be a pool guy. I'd be very happy being a pool guy up in the hills, up Doheny, up in the bird streets. What about one of those guys that like spins the arrow at the car dealerships? No, no. Not going to spin the arrow. No, not nowadays.

I'm 57. The digits weren't what they, I don't have the dexterity, but at the pool, I could do the pool. It's very meditative. So I could do the pool. I could walk dogs,

nice big GMC van with the sliding door. It's a lot about the vehicle for me because I really want to get a Rivian. Yeah. But you can't get a Rivian

on planet Earth at the moment. I don't think you can get the Rivian on the dog walker salary. No, I know that. Well, this is LA. We were talking beforehand.

There's certain jobs there. We were thinking about new segment on the podcast only in LA. Tell them about your dog whisperer. Because you can be a superstar pool guy or a dog walker in Los Angeles. Or a dog wrangler. Rockstar.

Do you wanna talk about the dog wrangler? Tell us about Hattie's pack. We have the world's greatest, it's an insult to call him a dog walker. So we have two big dogs and there's a guy in our area called Aki and he has developed quite the reputation for being the guy to like take care of your dogs

like during the day if you're off at work. And he shows up with a trailer and he'll come into our house and get our dogs at like 5.30, 6 in the morning. And those dogs will join a pack of about 40 dogs. And he takes these dogs out on trails that he makes his own trails. He goes up in the Santa Monica mountains

and like bushwhacks his own trails. And he rides a horse bareback and he has all these dogs without leashes, no leashes. And he is in total command of these dogs. And they have a blast just running all over, going in creeks and all this kind of stuff. This guy is an absolute wizard. Like he thinks like a dog, he understands dogs.

These dogs respect him. He's a very handsome dog, isn't he? He's a very handsome guy. He's legitimately an alpha dog. He's actually an alpha dog. He makes his own dog food. He delivers it to your house. Like this guy is a superstar, right?

Sounds like he could afford a Rivian. Yeah, I wonder how much he gets paid. That's my Rivian guy. It's not cheap. It's not cheap. I think he's doing fine. But my point being like, you know, only in LA would this guy be able to like do his thing.

And, you know, we got a snake wrangler guy like that. Who's the snake wrangler? Oh shit, what's his name? But what does he do? What's his deal? He dresses up like Crocodile Dundee and he shows up at your house. So if you're, you know, in certain months of the year,

like rattlesnakes are a thing. Like it's a real thing. They're all over the place. So if you're gonna have like a dinner party outside or you're gonna have a wedding at your house or a birthday party, you kind of wanna have this guy come over and do a quick check before a bunch of little kids

are gonna be running around. And invariably, no matter what, he finds a rattlesnake. So I'm convinced that he's releasing them. He brings them with him. He has one rattlesnake. But if he does find them, then he will, if I'm convinced that he's releasing them. He brings them with him. He has one rattlesnake. But if he does find them, then he will, if I'm being charitable, he does find them, he'll relocate them.

And then he does all this snake education. Like he's got binders and he does stuff with kids where he explains to them what happens if you get bit by a snake and all this stuff like that. He relocates them to the next party. So he can exercise them. Exactly. It's circular. It's a it again. Yeah. Exactly. It's circular.

It's a circular economy. Yeah. Yeah. It really is. I know. So I can see that for you. Yeah. But you're like, listen,

you're locked in in London with Virgin. I am. You're not going anywhere anytime soon. No, but I think one day we'll end up here. I love it here. I used to live here. I love it here. Yeah.

What is it about LA? Because I'm falling in love with London. We could do swap if you like. We could swap. We could do half a year, half a year. Yeah. It'd be fine. Yeah.

LA, some people say they don't like America, which is a non-statement. Some people say they don't like Los Angeles, which I think is a non-statement. It's like, because there's some part of everybody and everywhere that is likable, you know? And what is good and what is bad, you know, it is only thinking that makes it so, Adam.

Who said that? You just said it. Shakespeare said it before me, but- Somebody else did beforehand, but that's okay. It's the latest to say it. I heard him. Yeah, for me, it just lights me up. In fact, for a long time, I didn't come here on purpose.

And I didn't come here on purpose because I knew it would light me up so much. It would influence my thinking and my style and all this kind of stuff. Because I witnessed other people that had been over here. Because my wife loves New York, she likes LA, but she really loves New York and likes LA. I like New York and I love LA.

It's horses for courses, I think. But I witnessed a lot of people that came over here and came back to the UK and were too sort of Americana by it all or Los Angelo'd up. And so I left it a while until I was, I think I was 27, 26. I came here with work, first of all,

to do a TV thing. And 27 years old, came out, fell in love with the whole thing, creative to do a TV thing. And 27 years old came out, fell in love with the whole thing, creative process. People mean it, they get it done. You've got to be any good to be in the room. You know that great phrase, if you're the smartest guy in the room, you're in the wrong room.

Yeah. Rarely happens over here. It might happen for one meeting, if it happens for two, you got to have a serious word with yourself. I love all the pre-breakfast stuff. We had a few meetings with, well, we were hot at the time for a TV show and Bernie Brustein was my manager.

You know Bernie Brustein? I didn't know him personally, but I- He was my manager, him and Brad Gray. Right. And came over here. And all the things that happened before 10, breakfast meeting here, breakfast meeting there, it's exciting stuff, it's juicy.

People can say it's BS, I didn't find it BS at all. I find people who call out other people who are doing things it's a lot of projection because they're not doing anything. Well, it's easy to make fun of Los Angeles and there's a lot of problems here in traffic, but I think most people's experiences, they fly into LAX,

which is the world's most embarrassing airport. It's just fucking horrible, right? And then they're on the 405, they're stuck in traffic. It's crowded, it takes forever to get from one side of town to the next. So it's an easy, low hanging target. Also, the problem with LA as someone who's a visitor who doesn't have a connection here is that it's kind of obtuse. It's hard to

wrap your head around. It's like this massive kind of concrete dragon, right? Anything that's going on, especially for years when downtown was like a no go zone. Like there was just nothing culturally interesting happening down there really in terms of like entertainment or restaurants. There was some interesting kind of niches, but there wasn't really like, it wasn't really the happening spot. Now there's a lot more happening in all the different neighborhoods,

but it's just hard to kind of know where to go when and what's happening because it's just so big. And there's like, so you've carved out Venice, right? Venice is your spot. Yeah, yeah. And so you'll notice that you probably won't leave Venice too much, right? No, I mean, not at all,

because we don't have a car while we're here, so. Right, so we just. So that's a good way to carve out a time in LA is to pick your spot. Yeah, and just, you know, get into the detail of it all. Yeah, yeah. And live, pretend, you know, we're very fortunate.

I get four weeks holiday in the summer. So we can, we rent a house. We don't stay in a hotel. So we can pretend to live here. I'm sure it's nothing at all like living here, even from having lived here in the past, but that was up in the hills. But I love it. I think the difference in the demographic

for the people you can see, if you take a run on the boardwalk at 6 a.m., between 6 a.m. and 5 a.m., in five minutes, you've seen so many different kinds of people, different genres, different bents, differentm. in five minutes, you've seen so many different kinds of people, different genres, different bents, different status or whatever that means,

you know. But, you know, the only thing to fear is fear itself. I think, you know, they say, but isn't that a police helicopter hovering over your house

at 500 feet for most of the day? I say, yeah. How much would that cost security-wise? Who's got that? Megan and Harry don't have that. your house at 500 feet for most of the day? I say, yeah. How much would that cost security wise? Who's got that? That's a perspective. Meghan and Harry don't have that. And they're paying through the nose.

This is for free. It's the safest neighborhood in the world. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, it's for free. You said something before we started about Pareto's law of living. Pareto? Pareto's principle.

Pareto's principle. Yeah. Talk to us about that. Because you were saying that there's something on the, like your experience of running on the boardwalk, surfing there, and then like seeing LA come to life in the morning kind of made you think of it? Well, Pareto's principle is the 80-20 rule, basically.

There's different interpretations of it, but 80-20. So for example, in business, in life, friends, whatever, energy, so 20% of your activity gives you 80% of the sort of end product of whatever that may be. 20% of your customers sometimes give you 80% of your revenue. 80% of your customers only give you 20% of your revenue and often 80% or even 100% of your problems. So it's about identifying the most efficient energy you can put into various lanes of your life that will give you the greatest sort of payback.

And you can do it with people and you can do it with energy. And like, for example, in the morning you get up, well begun is half done. So you wake up, somebody said the other day, I woke up and when I was living this life, which wasn't great, I woke up and I'd just been dumped and I didn't like my boss and I didn't

have any money and I was about to get thrown out of my apartment. Well, actually, no, that's not what happened. What happened was I woke up and opened my eyes. That's actually what happened. But the story goes blah, blah, blah. So that's the opposite of what we're going to have done. But you get up in the morning, you do something great. You set your intention for 10 minutes or you have a bit of a moment of gratitude. That's already great. You've already flicked the right switch, not the wrong switch. And then you go for a run or you do some stretching or you drink some water. And that's even better. So if you front load the day or front load your business or front load your friendship or your relationship

or front load your body with something that's great for you, then the rest of the day, it's a bit like living in LA and having all those pre-breakfast meetings. The rest of the day can be administration and bureaucracy to sort of varnish this beautiful thing that you've just created. And often you find that we are expending a lot of the 100% of our energy on zero outcome. And so Preta's principle is all about that. It's 80-20 or it can be 99-1.

And when you're exercising or you're gardening, probably if you see exercising and training is different. So if you exercise, you're exercising. If you're training, you're training via exercise for an event, which is useful, isn't it? Because it So if you exercise, you're exercising. If you're training, you're training via exercise for an event, which is useful, isn't it? Because it gives you sort of something to aim for. But if you are looking, for example,

for the Blue Zones, Dambuna. So one of the number one activities in the Blue Zone is to garden because garden is movement, but it's also community. But sometimes when you exercise, all you have left, from the moment you finish exercising, all that happens sometimes is guilt. Guilt by beginning to destroy the hour of exercise

that you've just achieved by consuming or by sitting down or by doing something else. Whereas if you garden, you get the exercise and after the exercise, you also have a garden. So that's like 99 what? Because it's giving you everything and costing you nothing other than your attention and your energy and your time. And what do they say? Energy grows where attention goes. And the better the attention that you focus on the more it gives birth to more of that stuff that magnetism of stuff that makes you want to not even want to be a better person when you automatically start to be better and when you cross that threshold

of where things that were good for you became an effort and you didn't look forward to doing them even though you wanted the outcome. That moment when you miss a workout and you feel like you did before, not wanting to do a workout, you have the regret of not having worked out. You start to feel off when you don't work out and you cross the threshold. You go, this is the other side of the fence

that people talk about. You want to take this seat? No. Let's go get a drink. You're right. We shouldn't have three people, so I'm going to leave and you can sit here. Can I actually go and watch the rest of it now? You can.

I would love to do that. You can. Well, we're going to take a quick ad break anyway. Can I just apologize to all fellow Roland fans? This was a mistake. Look at that. He just drops like a wisdom bomb and then declares that it was a mistake. I love it, man. How great to have the number one Roland fan sitting with us. Unbelievable. And then leaving us like a puff of smoke. Yes. Thank you, Chris. If we were gonna have a third wheel,

he is the guy to do it. Oh God, yeah, I think yes. So let's take a quick break and we'll be back with more. We're back. We're leaving Chris's chair open in the event that he might wanna return. We'll see, it's up to him.

Can I just switch seats sometimes? Just like hop, seat hop? Tell Jason so he can make sure the mic is hot. No, you can't. No, you cannot. There's a lot of rules around here lately. Well, yeah, like Pareto's principle. Pareto?

Pareto. Pareto. That's your new rule, right? Well, it's now called the Chris Evans rule for living. There you go. Yeah, that was a mic drop moment. For the old school roll on hard cores, we're gonna do a little bit of news,

share a little streaming Rex, I guess, right? We're gonna keep it breezy, but we can't not talk about Sean Conway breaking the Iron Cowboys record for most consecutive Ironmans. This guy clocked off 105. Chris was just saying during the break that he came on twice,

came on twice on Chris's show right before he broke the record or right after? On the day of. The day of. And then he kept going. What was interesting is obviously he wanted to do 102 because then he would eclipse James's record. But then after that, it was like a day by day thing.

He would wake up and decide whether he was gonna keep going and he kept going. And then on the 105th day, he was sort of like, okay, I'm pretty sure this is the last time I'm gonna do it. But he knocked off 105 of them. This is a really interesting guy. He's from Zimbabwe.

He lives in Wales. He started this thing off on April 10th. So again, an Ironman every single day, not missing no days off, 105 total. Also interesting is that after James set his record back in June of 2022, Sean started to, that was his first attempt at doing this. He was gonna try to break James's record.

I think he got like six in and he got injured and had to call it off. And it was like, hey, maybe not so easy, right? We talked about that. But to his credit, he basically healed up and got right back on the horse and went after it again. And he seemed to do it like these guys, I haven't met Sean. I mean, Chris knows Sean

and I guess Sean's gonna be at Carfest, right? Which is cool. I'm gonna try to do a podcast with him in London. But just based on what I have intuited from following him on Instagram, he seems pretty chill. Like he doesn't have that same kind of iron cowboy super intensity. He's got little kids, seems like a super nice guy.

He kind of got fit in the process of doing it. He has a before and after picture on Instagram right now where the image of him without a shirt on before he began, he just looked like a dude, right? He's all ripped up at the end of it. But I don't know. There seems to be a more laid back kind of attitude about doing this in comparison to James.

Did he have a team, like the same idea, like a Peloton for the cycle, for the bike and- It seemed like he did, yeah, yeah. I mean, probably, it didn't gain momentum like James where there were like thousands of people at the end, but I think he had a core crew of people who were showing up pretty much. It's an amazing accomplishment.

I think the reason James thing took off around here in the States, I think was because there were some people that's going there and doing their first Ironman with them. And it became like a community event, you know, partly because he had to do the run slow and that made it more accessible. So it's almost like the injury that James had that forced him to do it a certain way.

It'd be interesting to talk to Sean. It would be slow no matter what though. Yeah, right. You're doing those marathons pretty slow if you're doing it 105 days in a row. Yeah, so it's like it opens itself up to kind of a community experience. Fair enough, fair enough.

But I'm looking forward to meeting him and learning more and hopefully sharing it with all of you on the show. Very exciting. What else do you wanna talk about? Are we gonna talk about, we're not gonna talk about the superconductor, are we? No, maybe not. Let's keep it light.

Let's keep it light. Did you hear about Kristin Harilla? I know it's not on here, but she's the Norwegian climber that just broke Nirmal Purja's record for getting to the top of all the 8,000 meter peaks in the shortest amount of time. I think it's just over three months. NIMS did six months, which took a record from seven years to like six months.

And then Kristen was trying to do it last year and got stymied, couldn't get into Tibet. And so finally got the paperwork. So she still did all 14 of, or I think there's 14 of them. Yeah, 14 of the 8,000 meter peaks, but she couldn't do them in the time. So she didn't get the record. And so she basically got her paperwork lined up

and did her first one in Tibet. So got that done and then fired them all off. And so she broke Nim's record. She originally financed this attempt by selling her condo, I think it was, or her home in Norway. I talked to her once when I was doing the Lakpa Sherpa story. And I talked to her about how hard it is

for female climbers, you know, mountaineers especially to make a living and to get sponsorship. And so she's perfect example. You haven't really heard about this, even though it's big news in Norway, it didn't really hit part of the reason. That's why we love-

Well, this is why, like maybe you would have read about this in the New York Times sports section. Yeah, I mean- In an article written by Adam Skolnick. There was an article about her when she was doing it, going for the record the first time. And then, you know, there was that story. And so I would have thought they'd do a follow-up,

but part of the reason they didn't is because it's kind of in flux over there. But yeah, exactly. So I just wanna give her props because I've covered Nims before and I just wanna give Kristen props, pretty amazing. And you can find her on Instagram and find all about her. And incredible accomplishment for Kristen.

So congratulations to her again. And then like, we should also mention, And incredible accomplishment for Kristen. So congratulations to her again. And then like we should also mention, because in the past, this was never mentioned. She wasn't alone. She had a whole team and one member of her team, Tenjin Sherpa was kind of her primary partner in crime on this. A guide helped fix everything that she needed to be done.

Right-hand man, they took every step together and they did L14 peaks together. So he also did it in 92 days. So it's not just Kristen's record now, it's Kristen and Tenjin Sherpa's record. Dumb question, but how come they don't share the record then? How come it's her? I think they do.

I think they do. That's where I misspoke. I think they do share it, you know, but you know, I think they do. Yeah. Interesting I misspoke. I think they do share it, you know, but you know, I think they do, yeah. Interesting, well, congrats. That's a amazing accomplishment. Yeah, congrats to both. Are we gonna do a little summer entertainment roundup?

Let's do it, let's keep it, let's do a speed round. We'll keep it quick. Speed round. Off the top, we are in the middle of a strike right now. Writers Guild is striking. The Screen Actors Guild is striking. Are we allowed to recommend stuff? Well, that's the thing.

We support labor. Let's just say that upfront. We support labor. I'm sorry, I did do like an event for Netflix around deepest bread. Are you some kind of like scab? I didn't. But you recorded that.

Also like being in a documentary is not a SAG thing. That's what I'm saying. You weren't appearing as an actor. But like, you know. But you're with big streamer. The cast of Op and I walked. You're in the pocket. You're a shill for big streaming.

I'm very cheap. I come very cheap. I did do an event, like Netflix did a screening in LA and I did an event to support Laura McGann, the filmmaker. And so yeah, I did that and I was on. And then Slate did a story about how like they felt like the critic felt manipulated by my deepest breath or something.

And so then I was on Canadian public radio supporting it. So I have done two things now to support Netflix during the strike. And I have felt a little bit funny about that, I will say. Interesting. Yeah, this is like a weird it's a weird like internal conflict in the Skolnick value set. Yes, but I also, as much as I support the strike

and I support the actors and the writers, I mean, let's not make it out like they're coal miners. Okay, let's not. Now you're treading on thin ice right now, buddy. There's a lot of struggling talent out there right now. There's good reason for these strikes right now. It's gonna be interesting to see what happens. There was a big meeting last week.

I thought that perhaps some resolution was on the horizon, but it remains to be seen. In the middle, or let me just say that again. In the meantime, yes, we support the writers. We support the actors. I hope that they can find a way to resolve this quickly because we love our content. In the meantime, I think we can still celebrate

the product of their labor without being- A hundred percent. I think a lot of people are. It's interesting though, sorry to step on your words, but a lot of like actors won't do podcasts now. Well, they won't do podcasts to promote a certain movie or show, right? They won't do interviews. They won't do podcasts now. Well, they won't do podcasts to promote a certain movie or show, right? They won't do interviews, they won't do press junkets,

they're not showing up at premieres. So it'll be interesting to see what happens in podcastlandia because there's a lot of celebrity driven shows out there that are reliant on booking actors as their guests. And I think there's carve outs or cutouts. I think there's something, you know, kind of in between the letter of the law

and the spirit of the law in terms of what they can and can't do. Like if you're promoting a book, you can come on and do that as long as you're kind of talking about that, but you can't come on any kind of press outlet to promote like a show or a movie. Right, right, right.

It's all in flux, right? And you try to get like approval or something from the union. It is interesting to see like, and not only have, I think like broader view on the strike, I made my joke, but like it actually has kind of kickstarted a wave of labor solidarity. And in the wake, there has been baristas that are being organized. The UPS almost went on strike and was averted to the last minute. The LA city workers are now going on strike on Tuesday.

The airport's going to be all but shut down. You know, like the hotel workers here in LA and in San Francisco, they're striking all over the place. I think, I forget how many, tens of thousands of workers are striking because they can't get a fair wage and a living wage. That was the crux of my joke. But really in reality, the writers were first kind of on this front line.

So it's interesting to see writers take the lead in labor. Just as a writer, I find that hilarious. Yeah. And we're going to turn into France. Yeah. But I mean, that's a, that's kind of an unexpected outcome of this, of, of like really kind of kickstarting labor. And I think that's good because we have this society that's cleaving the haves and the have nots. And it's important to like, labor was the reason that when we first had this problem in the beginning of industrialization, it was unions that solved the problem

and created the middle class. So, yeah. Yeah. What an intro into streaming recommendations. Oh, by the way, watch the bear. Yeah, exactly, right? That's what I'm getting at. The bear is back. Not exactly a newsflash,

it's been out for a while, but long time listeners of Roll On know how much we love the bear. Season two was released recently. I will admit after the first, I don't know, two episodes of season two, I was like, I don't know, man, I don't know if they've, they're gonna be able to keep this thing at the level that I had come to expect after season one.

And then it just kicked into a new gear and went insane. And I think that that show, the show, The Bear, is one of the finest television shows ever made. Like season two of The Bear is just off the rails. Good. I loved it. I love it too. I preferred the first season

just because it was so fresh and so interesting and it felt like so vital. And there's episodes, this season two is great. So I'm not meaning to disparage it, but like I still, I think prefer as a piece of work season one, but I think I'm always that guy that likes that. I liked Atlanta season one. I kind of liked the first iteration

cause it's the purest kind of distillation. But I will say Fishes, I watched it again last night in preparation because we might talk about it. And it's like shades of Goodfellas good. I mean, it is on a level of production and in every facet art direction, obviously the dialogue and the script, the acting. I mean, Jamie Lee Curtis.

I mean, is this the year of Jamie Lee Curtis? Yeah, she's off the rails. I mean, this is a tour de force episode. I think it's episode six. Yeah, I think six or seven. Of season two, it's called Fishes. Are we doing spoilers or not? It's been out a long time.

Yeah. We don't have to say everything, but like, go ahead, speak your mind. I mean, I'm not gonna go out of my way to spoil anything, but if you don't want anything to be spoiled, maybe fast forward through this part. Fishes is basically an episode that focuses on Christmas dinner

and all kinds of characters come together and it's just insanity ensues. Like it's just chaos on a whole new level of what you thought was possible rendered on film. It's hilarious. It's poignant. It's heartbreaking. And Jamie Lee Curtis plays the matriarch of the Bersatos.

She's the matriarch of insanity. Her performance is really something to behold. It requires a couple of viewings to really understand what's going on. Every character plays this very unique role. And I think anybody who has any kind of challenging, to really understand what's going on. Every character plays this very unique role. And I think anybody who has any kind of challenging extended family situation, who knows what it's like to go home

into a perilous holiday dinner event will find some way to relate to one of the characters. Yeah, yeah. Because they're all archetypes in their own right. Well, also like if you've ever had a mom that has started a dinner party and it was their idea and then like is losing their mind as they put together this amazing thing

and is like, is wondering why no one's helping and all that, this is like that 10X. Like this is the- Right, it's not, it's yeah, it's at 11, the whole thing. But the, yeah, the person who's like, leave me alone. I'm going to deliver this meal because love is correlated closely with these, what you're going to be eating.

And like, so there's so much intensity going into that. While also saying, why isn't anyone helping me? It's like, come here, I need help. No, go away, leave me alone. Like just to, like, let's just here, I need help. No, go away, leave me alone. Like, just to, you know, like, let's just say I know a few people like this. My mom used to get uptight at the end of these things and I'd be like, I'd be like, I think to myself,

my mom probably gonna listen to this. I think to myself, well, this was your idea. Like this whole- Right, no one asked you to do this. This whole party was your idea. I know, I know. So, you know, I've had many versions of this dinner that are probably at a six or maybe a six and a half. And this is at an 11.

It's just amazing. It's a murderer's row of talent. Like the co-stars that show up in this episode. You got Bob Odenkirk, John Bernthal, who's just electric. Sarah Paulson, the cool cousin who got out, who comes back to let everyone know that there is an exit out of this insane asylum. And then low key John Mulaney,

just like stealing the entire episode with his deadpan humor. I just, I mean, it's extraordinary. I thought it's the best thing I've seen him in. Like it's the most fun. I mean, obviously he's a great talent, but like- Well, he's never, has he ever even had the opportunity to do something like that before?

Maybe not, maybe not. Like, that's what I mean. Like, and it's so period and like the art is so good and everything speaks to a moment and it speaks to the pathos that you understand why Carmi is Carmi. You understand why Richie is Richie. You see it all kind of happen.

It's like, it speaks to everything you've been wondering about these people. That's what's so, it's so rooted. You see it all kind of happen. It's like, it speaks to everything you've been wondering about these people. That's what's so, it's so rooted. Right, it's the origin story for all of these characters. And Julie hadn't watched the bear. So after I finished season two, I went back and started from the beginning of season one. And you see from the very first episode,

everything is established. The drawing of the bear restaurant is like on the wall that Bernthal, you know, like the exchange with Bernthal in fishes. And you know, the clock motif, like that gets hammered home with Jamie Lee Curtis and the, you know, the alarm that's constantly going off and the attention to like the ticking clock

and the pressure cooker of what it's like to be in a kitchen to prepare a meal. Like all those seeds are planted in the early episodes of season one. And then when you get to fishes, you're like, oh, you see it all like played out. It's beautiful. It is beautiful and like a bomb going off. Like, it's like, it's amazing.

And I agree with you, like Jon Bernthal, like, I mean, come on, like, why isn't he in everything? Like, he's unbelievable. He increasingly is in everything. Yes, there's a reason. But like, I mean, incredible, the emotion that these actors go through. And I just wanted to say one thing

about what I think is interesting about this show. And I'm not like a film school guy and I'm not that well-versed in structure in terms of production. But I've noticed a couple of things, two different shows, but the HBO show, it's Euphoria, has this thing where it's like reality at 120%. And because of that, it's so original

and no one really else is doing that. Like reality at 120, 125% is so intense. And you feel that as a viewer, I don't particularly with that show, enjoy the experience of watching it, but I could see why people are just captivated by it because it's so original. And in this show, obviously they're not the first people to do it. The creator is not the first person to do it, but I feel like when I'm watching it, the actors know to step on each other's lines. And so I don't know how it's written on the page, but they're on purpose, not listening, not waiting for the other actor to finish. And that gives it such a, even though it's unnatural, like if you ask them to do it,

they're probably their first chance. They'd want to give everyone space to say their lines and they'd want to listen. And that's how you think about it. But in reality, people are just, it's messy, especially in an environment like that. That episode, it's throughout the show, but that episode really shows it and it creates this speed and organic feel and power. And I just think it's really interesting

because you don't see it in a lot of shows. And I think that's one of the hidden secrets to this show. But it's authentic to the dynamic of this family. 100%, 100%. It's not like an artificial technique. It's just like, this is how these people communicate. Yeah, right, right, right. No one's listening to anybody.

Everybody's kind of set in their way. They're all shouting at each other. Right. You know, it's bananas. How do you feel about the facts? Wait. The facts. Come do you feel about the facts? Wait. The facts. Come on.

I love the facts. Come on. The baseball cards? Yeah, well, Matty Matheson, who plays one of the facts, the main facts guy. The main facts. He's in truth, like a Toronto chef, like a celebrated Toronto chef.

He's not an actor. I think he did some stuff with Vice. Is he the guy that was in, was he in Borden? The heavy set guy with the tattoo, he's got all the tattoos and all's not an actor. I think he did some stuff with Vice. Is he the guy that was in- You know, the heavyset guy with the tattoo, all the tattoos and all that kind of stuff. I love him. He's not really an actor. And I guess the guy who played the other fact,

that was his first time acting. He was a crew member. I don't know what he did on the crew or whatever. They're great together. They're absolutely great together. They're hitting up Mulaney for like 500 bucks for their baseball card thing. And they're like, do you have $500?

It's like, yes, I have $500. I'm a 43 year old man. Incredible stuff. It's amazing. But I will say as wild as Fishes was, the following episode Forks is definitely my favorite in the whole series. This is the episode where Richie goes to stage

at a fancy restaurant and he goes on this arc. And that character played by Evan Moss, Baccarat is just, I mean, that guy is Lord. Like his performance in that episode and the kind of realization that he has and his ability to understand that his gift is service. And it comes through the messenger in that is the guy who got sober,

who says I'm here to serve and I'm grateful to be here. Like, and he conveys to Richie how his life had changed as a result of sobriety. And Richie is in a place where he's able to hear that and understand that he too has that thing that makes him come alive. And that light bulb moment for him changes everything when he returns to the bear and is able to participate

in that community on a whole nother level than he could have previously. And I just thought there was so much heart and beauty in that episode. Like that's the one that as exciting as Fishes is, the episode that follows is the one that really has stayed with me. Yeah, so one is like a rock and roll concert in the 70s

or like a wild funk party. And the other one is like a rock and roll concert in the 70s or like a wild funk party. And the other one is like an ambient kind of like experience because I think, is that the same one that they're in Copenhagen? Does it go back and forth between Copenhagen or is that just a different, I think mixing too? Yeah, it's been like a couple of months since I watched it. Well, there was the pastry chef guy who goes to Copenhagen.

Maybe that's a different episode. Yeah, that's a different episode. But this one too, it feels a lot more months since I watched it. Well, there was the pastry chef guy who goes to Copenhagen. Maybe that's a different episode. Yeah, that's a different episode. But this one too, it feels a lot more, it's more ambient. It's like, it's not like as kinetic. You feel that it's all internal. No, but you can't maintain that level of intensity every episode. So I think going into season two, they realize like,

hey, we gotta let this thing breathe a little bit. I agree. We can choose our moments, we can have our fishes, but what are we doing in between? And that's the real heart and connective tissue that makes it all come together. And it's like a recipe in the kitchen, like how they're baking all these episodes

to create this extraordinary dish that I think is very thoughtful and intentional in how they do it. 100%, it's like it shows the range of the creative power in this team that put it together. Cause the fact that it's all compelling, but they're all delivered so differently. Usually there's a flavor, you know,

this one, it can go any different way. And I don't know that I've ever seen another television show where from the jump, from the get-go, I'm immediately so invested in these characters and emotionally connected to them. That's like a magic trick. So Christopher Storer, who created the show, has done an extraordinary job with this series.

I can't wait to see what happens in season three. And Richie's kind of big moment at the end of Forks, there's a great cameo. Yeah, we won't spoil that. Fantastic. One scene. I mean, they're great together. Yeah, incredible, incredible stuff.

Is there anything that needs to be said about Barbenheimer or has it all been written and said, Adam? Well, did you read about Nolan's reported deal? No. He gets 20% of first gross. That's quite a deal he made for himself. I think Oppenheimer's at 500 million, Barbie's at 1 billion.

Collectively Nolan and Gerwig have saved the in theater movie experience, the relevancy of movies. Do we feel bad for Tom Cruise? No, you can't feel bad for Tom Cruise. He's had a pretty good life. But I think he's in the background, like gnashing his teeth, wondering how come he's not the lead story.

If he is, then I do feel bad for him. I bet he is. He's so goddamn competitive, that guy. No way, he's like right now- Well, I know he was pissed about the IMAX windowing because he wanted Mission Impossible to have kind of purview with the IMAX theaters. And that went to Oppenheimer

and Mission Impossible was amazing. But then once it was the Barbenheimer thing, like it was almost like we forgot that Mission Impossible happened and this guy rode his motorcycle off a mountain. Yeah, he's probably off base jumping somewhere. So I'm not sure he's paying attention to us, but I will say this, I'm on his team when it comes to-

You don't think he's listening, Adam? No. When it comes to why is Oppenheimer on IMAX, I'm 100% with Tom Cruise. Like I just, I watched it. I'm not saying it's not a good movie. I am wondering why- Here comes the hot take.

I am wondering why a movie that is centered around business meetings is on IMAX. I just don't understand it. Like I legit, I mean, the one visual was great. I legit don't understand why it had to be on IMAX. I respectfully disagree. I was at the very first screening of Oppenheimer at the Chinese theater Thursday at five o'clock. I was in like the fourth row

at the IMAX 70 millimeter experience. Now let me tell you something. If you are at the very first screening of Oppenheimer at the Chinese theater at the IMAX 70 millimeter experience, this is a theater full of nerds. Like this is the ultimate film nerd audience come to life. Yes. Right? And I could not have been happier

or more thrilled to be there. Tyler and Trapper bought tickets for, this was like the Father's Day gift. So I cut out of the studio early to make it over there. And it's like, you're sitting down and everyone's, well, I'm gonna watch it in 70 millimeter, but then tomorrow I'm gonna go see it at the other theater so I can compare it, you know, like every,

Wow. Film nerd talk. Wow, that's big time. That's big time. But I can tell you that the other theater. So I can compare, you know, like every film nerd talk. Wow, that's big time. But I can tell you that the tallness of the IMAX screen really changes the experience. And I think this film is a masterpiece and I will never forget the experience of being in that theater to see it for the very first time.

So I disagree with you. I think it's a tour de force of a movie. Okay. And I think it deserves a tour de force of a movie. Okay. And I think it deserves to be seen in that format. And yes, there are a lot of white men talking in rooms. A lot of meetings. But who else could make that utterly riveting other than Christopher Nolan?

I mean, he created a thriller out of like men having conversations. A lot of meetings. There's the Trinity test. That's exciting. Yeah, that's great. I like that part. Yes, I think-

Killian just looks at you. He's like, there's a lot of Killian looking at the camera. Well, he's, I mean, that performance. Okay. He's in a whole, he's at a whole other level now. People are gonna think that I'm just bad mouthing it. I'm not going to. Robert Downey Jr. is amazing.

I think Emily Blunt is fantastic. You'll see them both get nominated. I think obviously Killian's gonna get nominated. I love Matt Damon and everything he's in. So this is not me not liking it. I'm just gonna say there was snoring in my theater. As many as nerds as were in your theater, there was audible snoring in my theater.

For the last hour? Just periodic snoring. Interesting. As you might last hour? Just the controversial last hour. Periodic snoring. Interesting. As you might expect in a long meeting. Yeah, interesting. Yeah, that was not my experience. I loved everything about it. I thought it was interesting.

There's just unreal performances. The filmmaking is extraordinary. It gives us the meme we didn't know that we needed, that image of Benny Safdie lathering himself with sunscreen and putting on the goggles. That was very funny. It's the ultimate meme that you could throw up on the internet when you're,

you know that trope of like, there's drama happening, I'm gonna grab my popcorn. This is now, Mark had corrected that. You can just put that image of Manny Safdie there, like I'm getting ready to see the thing. Yeah, and then Einstein, I loved him, whoever played him, that was great. But one thing I didn't like that I wished was in it was,

and it's hard to say I wish something more was in a three hour movie, but like the uranium came from Australia and had to be come through on ships through the Pacific theater. Like to me, that's interesting. I would have liked to see like how that happened. You know, like you have to travel

through the Pacific theater from Australia in the middle of the war to beat the Nazis. I just felt like story-wise, there could have been ways to up the action and reduce the meetings. That's all. Well, it was a lens into the mind of one man, right? Like Oppenheimer wasn't even in charge

of the whole Manhattan project. He was just in charge of Los Alamos. Right. So it was a portrait of a tortured genius through the lens of Christopher Nolan, who perhaps he considers himself a tortured genius with the message of like, shouldn't we just leave geniuses alone and let them be geniuses, right?

There's a little bit of that. That's true. How much of that is autobiographical? I don't know, but I think Nolan is very interesting because he lives a true artist's life. Like he doesn't true artist's life. Like he doesn't have a cell phone. He doesn't even have an email address.

You can't email the guy. Do you believe he doesn't have a cell phone? How's he listening to music? Well, yes, I'm sure he has a phalanx of assistants. Okay. Right? But he goes out of his way to not be influenced by the cacophony of culture and society and distraction. And I think there's something incredibly courageous

and laudable about that in 2023, that he can be a guy without an email address who has his production. I think he bought the home next door to where he lives and that's his production office. He works with his wife and everything that he does is about creating credibility so that he does is about creating credibility so that he can create outside

the influence of the studio system. Obviously he's partners with the studio system to make his movies, but by delivering extraordinary movies under budget and on time, he has a lot more freedom also due to the extraordinary success of his movies to kind of not be bothered

by stuff that other filmmakers would be bothered. And I think that that is a very intentional career move that he's doubled down on time and time again over the course of his career so that he can make these kinds of movies. And I think there's something really instructive about that lifestyle choice that in 2023 feels very anachronistic.

Yes. But I think is also extremely wise and certainly crucial to his success. If you can do it, I think there is something to be said about being off the main and having an artistic view and an objective view of how things are going, especially as a storyteller. I will say you can't not respect him.

Obviously I have a great amount of respect for him, great amount of respect for Greta Gerwig and what they've done. But I will say, I don't believe everything a filmmaker, a guy whose whole point is to create an illusion. I don't believe everything they say about how they live their life when they're doing press for their movie.

Oh, he creates myths. So the myth of Christopher Nolan. Right. Yeah. I understand what you're saying. I don't know. We won't know. We could test that, which brings me to a few- I'm gonna email him right now

if he gets back to me. I've extracted a few insights I wanted to share from this movie before we move on. And one of them is related to what you just said, which is there is the theory of how Christopher Nolan lives his life, but what is the practice, right?

And this is the message of the movie, is it not, Adam? Theory can only take you so far. Indeed. Right? You have to put theory into action. Next, I also mentioned this one a minute ago, we should leave geniuses alone to be geniuses. This is the message of the movie. Why do you keep emailing me and texting me?

I gotta stop bothering you, right? I needed to see this movie twice in order to really grok that, Adam. Also, being a lefty does not work well with the military industrial complex. Especially as far lefty as he was. Yes. Don't mock powerful people in public hearings.

It always comes back to bite you later. Maybe you were asleep during that part. No, I stayed awake. Okay. I mean, I got to see, I wanted to see, I got to see, who else was in it? Remy. Oh, Remy Malek?

Yes. Yeah, coming in for that one scene at the end. I found him to be distracting with his weird eyeball stuff. You know, there's something very strange about that guy. He crushed that one speech, but in the scene earlier where he- The first scene not so good. Where he drops the clipboard,

I was like, it took me out of the movie. I will give you that. Bad first scene, great second scene. How about this one? No matter what you think of the movie, Adam, we all know if you know anything about Oppenheimer, that at some point he's gotta drop the line, now I have become death destroyer of worlds, right?

This is what, if you don't know anything about Oppenheimer, that might be the one thing you know, like this is how he thought of what he had wrought on the world. But you're thinking going into the movie, where is this gonna happen? Right. When is he gonna say it?

Who's he gonna say it to? Here's the creative choice. Let's do it while Florence Pugh is straddling him naked. Yes. And he utters the line. Now that my friend is a strong creative choice. Reading Sanskrit and making love. That is a bold choice to make as a filmmaker.

He was a real Bohemian. Well, he was a ladies man, my next point, right? Who knew? Certainly not me. Those baby blues. I'm not sure that she, yeah, right? Who knew? Who knew? Certainly not me. Those baby blues. I'm not sure that she, yeah, right. Who knew? He was, he seems like he would sleep with anybody's wife

that was at the dinner party. There was a lot of that. I know, I know. And where did it get him, Adam? It got him married to Emily Blunt. That's true. You know, all of these relationships were fraught. Well, that's the biggest public critique of the movie

is you don't actually, even though you know that it affects him deeply and he feels like in some ways he's failed as a human being, you don't actually see the damage. And that was intentional. And Christopher Nolan has spoken about that, but that is something I'm still hearing about online. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure.

Also not notable for writing strong female characters. Nolan? Yeah. Really, is that right? I thought she was fabulous. She was good, but they could have given her a little bit more to do, but it was nice to see her stand up.

But her job was secondary in her support of him, of course. Right, of course. And it's her story. And that also speaks to the time a little bit too. My final thing, and this bugs me more than anything, is that Nolan needs a new sound mixer. I don't know about you, but I find 70% of the dialogue in Audible in his movies.

I had the same problem with Tenet. At first I thought it was the theater or maybe sitting too close to the screen. But after a second viewing, I found it to be the same. There's a certain muffledness with the dialogue and his movies are so complex and you need to really hear every single thing that everyone's saying just to not get passed by

so you can be locked into the progression of the story. And he adds this extra layer of difficulty on top of it by making it difficult to understand what they're saying. I thought maybe I was just getting old, but this is the thing. Like I noticed it in Tenet. I did some research on it. Like a lot of people have been commenting on this.

So I don't know why he does that, but maybe don't do it next time. Yeah, don't do it. But I love the movie. The good news though, he didn't make Meg 2. So you'll be able to hear everything that happens in Meg 2 real clear. The dialogue will be very audible in that movie, I'm sure.

All right, we just did a movie podcast. We're done. We're not gonna talk about any other stuff. Let's do some listener questions. Let's do it. Wait, are we rolling? Still rolling. All right, let me just,

let me just, because I do want to make a point. So you had mentioned that Christopher Nolan makes 20% of gross off the top, which means that- I've read it, who knows? Well, assuming that's true, he's already made north of $100 million. Yes.

So the question is, will he deploy that $100 million to buy a cell phone? Possibly, maybe not. We don't know. Probably not. You're so cynical. You believe he has a cell phone and he's lying the whole time.

No, I believe- But he has created the myth of Christopher Nolan. I'm saying there's a possible. But I will say, okay. But I will say our friend Chris Evans over here didn't have a cell phone for a long time. Also, emails under an alias. And I think maybe the first time

you emailed me under an alias, you said, well, this is actually me, blah, blah, blah. And then subsequently you emailed me, but I'd forgotten the name that you were using or whatever. I didn't know who this person was and you were trying to communicate. What happened? And I just blew it off.

Come here and tell that story. Chris Evans, everybody. He's back. See how I pulled him back in? Christopher, no phone. you don't believe him here's the thing when you for me to believe that you're so analog

that you're off the beat you don't tell me you don't have an email address what you say is I only have an AOL email address if you say I only have an AOL email address. If you say, I only have an AOL email address, then you're like someone's grandpa and you're really analog because you're really off the beat. But if you just say, I don't have an email address, that could be some bullshit. So they say, Rich will know this, if you spot it, you got it. Yeah. Where's that from?

I don't know. From you. Shakespeare. From the rooms. Sometimes people say that. Oh, that. Yeah. Yeah. So you say some people come in here and they want you to think one thing about them or I don't know, from you. Shakespeare. From the rooms, sometimes people say that. Oh, that, yeah. So you say some people come in here and they want you to think one thing about them or another thing about them.

If you spot it, you got it, Adam. Right, well, yeah, I mean, basically. I'm so open, that is totally not me at all. Another way of saying that is you can't transmit something you haven't got, right? So if somebody is authentically sharing from their heart, you know, right? And if they're bullshitting you,

if your radar is even slightly attuned, you can tell. That's all I'm saying. And so my point is that I don't think most directors in a publicity scenario, this is not speaking about him personally, are gonna be able to be revealing like that. Cause they want, especially a guy who wants to keep his kind of creative potion going. He would have a motivation to not.

But if you're like just some writer guy on a podcast, I'm not faking it. So you think one of the most creative geniuses of our time, yeah, has had to come up with this ruse of not having a phone to promote his amazing film. Yes, thank you. Thank you for concisely making the point had to come up with this ruse of not having a phone to promote his amazing film. Yes. Thank you. Thank you for concisely making the point

that I was struggling to pin him down on. Another mic drop. I retract. Another mic drop, he's walked off again. I retract. Yeah. I retract. Retract.

Well done. Good sir. Where are you going? Are you gonna be here? Yeah. No. I like how he dodged his own email alias question also. I still don't pay my own phone bill.

You don't? No. Yeah, that's a rich man, poor man thing. Either you're so poor you don't pay it or you're so rich someone else pays it. No, there's a guy that we all know who was insistent that I had a phone and I said, I'm not gonna get one.

So he got me one and he still pays the bill. Maybe you can be that guy for Christopher Nolan, Adam. Christopher, if you're listening and I know you are. You'll pay his cell phone bill for him. I got your cell phone bill. And I'm sorry I said that thing about the snoring people. It's their fault, something they were going through. I liked it. I that thing about the snoring people. It's their fault. Something they were going through. I liked it.

I was there for the experience. I'm just saying there was a few too many meetings maybe. And there was, you know. Now you're coming off weak with that backpedal. Like hold your, either, you know, hold your ground. You know what I mean. All right, let's move on. All right.

Question. This is from Matthew, who's calling all the way in from South Korea. Hi, this is Matthew calling from South Korea. I just finished my 18th year of teaching as a middle and high school math teacher. I've taught in public and private schools in the United States and private international schools in Mexico and South Korea. As a teacher, I value teaching students to think, problem solve, understand why things work, and solving non-routine problems, while also items

such as value and mental health, being good people, grit, and empathy. I have three education-related questions. Feel free to answer whichever you like, but I'm asking them in order of importance to me. My first question, leaving it fairly open-ended, what are your thoughts on secondary education system in the U.S.? It could be the status of American education or what do you think are important skills or challenges that teachers and students should focus on? Second question, if you were giving a commencement speech, what would your message be?

And third question, how would you apply James Clear's 1% rule for teachers that want to continue to improve their craft or potentially find new positions in education-related careers that may demand additional skills, such as leadership, that are typically absent from a day-to-day job for a teacher. Thank you.

Wow, a three-parter from Matthew in South Korea. I think I'll tackle the first two parts. The third part, I'm not sure I have a worthy answer to. Maybe you do, Adam. I don't know what the what clears 1% rule is. I think there's a lot to be said about secondary education, at least in the United States as an outdated model

that was shaped by the needs of the emerging capitalist trend that we've been on. Basically what happened was the industrial revolution. And when that happened and gained momentum, industrialists required skilled and disciplined workers to, they needed a continual supply of these people to meet the demands of their growing industries. And the education system was like its feeder program.

And it was really developed out of a need, a desire to cater to those industrialists by emphasizing or creating a curriculum that would create good workers, workers who could be punctual, obedient, efficient. And so the whole infrastructure of secondary education was oriented around teaching people what they needed to know in order to be good factory workers, essentially.

And here we are in 2023, have we really changed this system? Not really, right? We're all walking around, I've said this before, with supercomputers in our pocket that can answer any fact-based question that you could possibly have. We now have all of these incredibly powerful LLMs

that take that even a step further, what the world is gonna look like in three to five years, who knows, but certainly those tools are gonna get refined and enhanced, which begs the question of what are we doing in the classroom, right? Should we be teaching people in a way where we're prioritizing the memorization of facts

and the answering of rote questions that these computers can do for us. I think that the emphasis should be shifted to focus on some of the things that he is already seems to be teaching in his classroom, maybe because he's in South Korea and not in the United States where he would be much more restricted in what his curriculum looks like. But I really think that education needs to evolve beyond the fact-based memorization paradigm that we've had for too many decades and needs to focus on how about developing self-esteem? How about teaching leadership? How about helping young people learn how to tap into their creative voice and express themselves? How about team building?

How do you build a team? How do you work within a team? How do you problem solve as an individual, but also as a member of a team, as a leader or as just a member of a larger team? Like when you go out into the world, what's gonna distinguish you from an AI or something that could supplant you

in the workforce. It's your creativity, it's your ability to look at a problem and solve it with a perspective that is fresh and new. And I think it's your ability to work with other people, to understand how to respect other people as well in the workforce. And with a level of self-esteem that is going to empower you to tackle difficult things

and learn and grow in all the various ways that we need you to. So I don't know. It seems pretty evident to me. I don't know that I'm seeing a lot of that. And it doesn't seem to be a lot of evolution in the secondary educational system. And you have a young person who's coming lot of that. And it doesn't seem to be a lot of evolution in the secondary educational system. And you have a young person who's coming up into that.

We're not there yet. Although he did take a Polaroid selfie when we weren't looking yesterday. And it looks like I can see his teen self, his disaffected teen self in this too close Polaroid of my cute little three year old. Navel gazing, you know, sort of like, yeah, like shut up, dad.

Yeah, I can start to see him happening. I think what you're saying is well said. You know, how do you get there from here? I don't even really know. I couldn't answer because I don't know the status of current secondary education because I don't have a child that's there. It's been a while for me. You, you know, are shepherding people through school. You had two that just kind of one

that just went through it and one that is going through it, right? Yeah, sure. So you have a perfect lens on this. I will say that one thing I don't like is the politicization, politicization, politicization. You know, when we get older, it gets harder to say words like that.

Of everything. Yeah. And the fact that now parents are like having fights at school board meetings is appalling. And so that we had that in Temecula, we had that in Glendale here, just in Southern California. And these fights are going,

whatever the reason, I don't really care what the reason is. It's like, it shows me that anytime you give teachers latitude, it's going to be fought at some point on either side. And that's a problem, right? So for me, it's like, my thing is teachers should be paid more.

They should be given more autonomy. We should take the emphasis off standardized testing, but we can't have the hegemony of the mob kind of dictate what is taught at a particular community. So all of those things are very complex and there's people who know a lot more about it than me, but that's what concerns me about secondary education from someone who hasn't been in the teeth of it for a while. Yeah, so you're not into banning books.

No, I think all books should be available at all times. All books. I mean, I think the system is set up to create people who are really good at taking tests. Right. That's what it rewards. It doesn't reward creativity or thinking outside the box. And I think those are skills

that are becoming more and more valuable. And that needs to get priced in to this whole system. I don't know how you do that. I don't know the answer to that. I mean, let's keep it real. Like for so long, our public education system was basically built on the fact that there was a glass ceiling in place and women couldn't really get high paying jobs in the

corporate world. And so the place that high powered, really intelligent women could do well was as teachers in schools. And so that happened for generations. So that's why, you know, my mother was a teacher in school. She's like a brilliant woman. And so, and there's a lot of teachers that are still brilliant now. This is not shitting on teachers. But what I'm saying is there was a built-in kind of funnel of talent to schools that now there isn't because they have other choices. And so, you know, we have to pay teachers more. I think, you know, given the condition of cities, we have to pay police officers. We have to pay people more. I think, you know, given the condition of cities, we have to pay police officers. We have to pay people more so you get talent that is a top talent so you can compete really and get people that can help us move in that direction. Yeah, I agree with that. But at

the same time, you can pay, you could pay teachers a lot more and obviously a great teacher can make a huge difference. But if they're stuck within the confines of a system that doesn't allow them to have any flexibility with the curriculum or the manner in which they teach, that's only gonna go so far. So it's a systemic problem as much as anything else. And then, to the second question of the commencement speech, I just jotted down a couple thoughts on that note.

I mean, I think in terms of ideas that I like to communicate to young people, first and foremost is to invest in your own creativity and not get caught up in the confined structures of the system that is trying to push you in a certain direction. Go to this school, go to that school, get this kind of job. You know, people who are very good at school,

who are very good at taking tests, tend to also be rule followers. And they become very good at figuring out how to be upwardly mobile in that situation. I was one of those people. It was only in later years that I realized like, why was I doing any of this? Because I hadn't paused to reflect upon what it was that I wanted to do or who I wanted to be.

So I'm always impressing upon young people to engage with that process earlier in life than I did. And sometimes it's difficult because you are in a system that's telling you, this is what's important, getting a good grade on this test or interviewing for this job. And it takes courage and a presence of mind to kind of pause for a moment and say, okay, yes,

but also I need to do this for myself long-term. So I think that's important. And that will help you entertain opportunities that are outside of your comfort zone. And those experiences while you face obstacles and fail and fall on your face and have these experiences over time will help you discover who you are

and what's important to you. And in the meantime, I think it's important for young people to consciously give their energy to things that really light them up and excite them, irrespective of whatever external forces are telling you you should or you shouldn't do. Like if something really means something to you

and gets you excited and gives you energy when you get out of bed, that's something that you should fertilize and cultivate in your own life. It doesn't mean it has to be a job, but I think there's something in that that's communicating to you who you are and it's important to give your attention to that.

And sometimes that means breaking free of the expectations of other people. And those social strictures can be suffocating and very difficult to escape from. And I think developing an awareness around that and the extent to which those externalities are controlling your decision-making or unduly influencing the decisions you're making about what you're going to do with your life are really important to consider. I also,

on a conservative note, think that it's important to learn discipline and the value of hard work and the value of a dollar. Like there is a certain entitlement with, you know, some aspects of the younger generation where they think they should just waltz in somewhere and get a high paid job and get to do what they wanna do and work from home and, you know, basically go on expensive vacations whenever they feel like it.

And, you know, it's just not reality. So I think there's disabusing people of that notion and getting them connected to the idea that if you wanna do something, no matter what it is, it's going to be difficult and kind of acclimating yourself to that earlier in life, I think is important as well. So experience life, say yes to adventure, accumulate experiences and along the way,

figure out you and then commit to being the best version of that authentic you, that is your mission. I love that. Boom, well said. Part three, I got nothing to say. Oh, I was waiting for you to go on. No, I got nothing. I don't know what the one percent rule is.

He's been a teacher for 18 years, what can I tell this guy? Yeah, why are we giving you teaching advice? Yeah, I know. You should give us it. How do we fix it? Yeah, I know. What's happening in Korea?

I don't know. I appreciated that question. That was good. Anytime we could talk about the education system, I think is important. And let's move on to the next one. This is also a Korean transmission. Hey, Rich and Adam. My name is Zach. I'm 22 years old.

I'm originally from Bethesda, Maryland, and right now I'm in the army and I'm living in Korea. So my question was, how do you navigate pursuing challenges and embracing obstacles from a state of completion and, you know, feeling like you're enough. So for a bit of context here, I've been really into Eastern philosophy lately. So I've been reading a lot of Alan Watts and practicing mindfulness meditation. But at the same time, sometimes it feels like the more I consume Eastern philosophy, while it encourages, you know, a state of calm and clarity, it also seems to reduce ambition a little bit along with, you know, my state of calm and clarity, it also seems to reduce ambition a little bit, along with, you know, my desire to like do hard things.

So I was just curious how you guys approach this divide and, you know, these different states of being. And yeah, thank you guys for all the great work you do on the podcast. I'm a big fan. Thanks. How about Zach dropping in with like the ultimate, you know, struggle of mankind, right?

The spiritual warrior incarnate. Being versus doing. I mean, this is the ultimate, you know, struggle of mankind, right? The spiritual warrior in carnage. Being versus doing. I mean, this is the shit, right? Like this is the whole ball game, is it not? Before we unpack that though, you know, I'm from Bethesda. I think I knew you were like, so I thought you were Silver Spring, you're Bethesda. No, I grew up in Bethesda.

And Zach being from the army reminded me, sort of related. So when I was in high school, one of the jobs that I had was delivering pizza. And I delivered pizza for this pizza delivery company called, it was sort of like a Domino's thing, but it was just a one like family owned one shop thing. And it was called Postal Pizza, which is a terrible name

because it's like, we're as slow as the mail. Like I don't get it. No, but back then the mail was respected. It was called Postal Pizza. This was the greatest job though. I love this job because basically you just drive around and listen to music and then you get to knock on people's doors and then look into their house

and see how people live. Like when I was 17 or whatever, I thought it was great. You were a Postmates guy. But what was great about Postal Pizza was, I mean, this is like, I don't know, 1987 or something. It was connected to a video rental store. So you could call up and you order your pizza, but you could also order a movie.

So it would deliver the pizza and the VHS tape. That's awesome. Which was pretty cool. I've never heard of that before. One time Ted Koppel came in, walked in, that was the big moment. Come on. Ordered his pizza in person.

But anyway. How great was Ted Koppel's hair? But here's the thing, like how great is his what? His hair? Yeah, all the time. Is it real? I think it's real.

I think it's real. It's quite coiffed, is it not? Anyway, a lot of the orders would come from the Naval base where like NIH is and what is it, Walter Reed, like when the president goes to the hospital, so there's a Naval base there. The fact that Zach's in the army just reminded me of this. So 70% of the pizza orders were like the enlisted guys

at the Naval base in Bethesda, which is weird, it's not on the water, like I don't know what goes on at that Naval base, but anyway, they order a lot of pizza and they were not great tippers. That's my takeaway. I don't remember that, but you know. Yeah, let's let it go. Let's cut them a break.

Let's try to let it breathe that out. Still thinking about it now. Breathe it out. Okay. Maybe Zach is a good tipper though. We don't know. We don't know. It depends on-

The more Alan Watts he listens to, he probably- He's like, hey, bro, don't look at me like you need a tip. It doesn't really matter. Doesn't really matter, bro. What can we tell Zach about the tension between being and doing, Adam?

I'm gonna let you take a stab at this first. Yeah, I have some thoughts, but- Well- It's not like, hey man, should I go to college or not? Like this is the struggle of man. Right, right. Like, so when I first started to get into

reading the Tao Te Ching, I felt like going with the flow was a kind of a path of least resistance thing. And so, yes, it was like a more, it's okay to be a little more passive and let the world have, you know, like flow with the world, which I guess you can be interpreted

as reduction of ambition, as in you're not trying to actively do something against the momentum that is just existing that you have to kind of merge with. But the more I read it now, I just see it as a different thing. I see it as how you're taming the mind, and that is separate from your goals and ambitions. And so the, how you train your mind and how you come to balance, um, in your mind, does that, does that mean you're not doing hard things? It doesn't mean you don't have ambition in your life. It means like principles,

like humility, adaptability, perseverance, which are to me, are core, their core in the Tao, their core to mindfulness. Those things are really important to doing hard things. So the way I look at that is that when you're first reading into philosophy, it's easy to kind of get the hook. You get hooked by that passive, not passive, I wouldn't even, passive is not even the right word,

but you get hooked by that kind of feeling of flow because that's what hooks you, right? It's like, oh, wow, that we are so small and that we are in awe of how small we are and how beautiful and vast the world is and the energy that's flowing all around us. And so we're in awe of that. Then comes the terror. But then you get into, or you're a householder, you know, like now you're in a different place. Like when I was kind of a pebble getting kicked around the world doing the travel stuff, it's easy to stay in that small space. But when you're raising a family

and you're being tugged on in a million directions, these kind of smaller, but actually deeper realizations of just remain humble, remain adaptable and persevere, which to me is everything. That's, I think, where you can click in to continue to have your ambition, continue to do those hard things. Just look at it at that next level,

or maybe just look at, you know, the way I do it is I don't read a whole book with a doubt of change. I might read one verse every day for weeks until I'm kind of feel like I got one part of that lesson. So that's just that way I look at this particular question. Yeah, well said. The idea that being or investing in a state of being

brings a certain presence of mind and mindfulness to the doing, I think is what you're saying, right? I think when I said terror, what I meant by that is, there is, you know, the more that you invest in this journey of being, the more you realize the fractured illusion of identity, right, the attachments that you've made between what you do and who you are. So here we have a

guy who's in the army, who's in a very regimented situation, sort of dynamic for his life in which there's a priority placed on doing hard things, overcoming obstacles in a certain way. And there's an association of masculinity and success that comes with that. And when you start going down the Alan Watts being rabbit hole, you start to deconstruct that identity. And that's scary, right? Like, well, who am I, right? The futility of it, right? Right, yeah, exactly.

So I think this is kind of where, he finds himself right now. Yes, I was reading that, yeah. This idea that, oh, well, if I'm not in the army or I'm not like climbing a wall or like tackling this difficult problem, who am I? Do I exist? The more I kind of go down this rabbit hole,

it's gonna rob me of that ambition. And that ambition is what I associate with who I am. And when you start to pull the cover on that and realize, well, that's something you do, or it's an attachment you have to a certain sense of your identity that is not actually reality, that's a scary thing, right? So it's like, it's threatening everything

that you've constructed in your mind about who you are. So I think that's also this amazing opportunity, right? Like where you can realize that there's a greater depth and complexity to who you are and a dynamism to who you are and how you show up in the world that is gonna only expand your life, right? So I understand and appreciate the fear

that gets associated with like, hey man, if I keep doing all this stuff, like I'm gonna end up in a cave somewhere penniless and all of that. I found all of those fears to actually be false for the very reasons that you said. Like the more, it just, it basically provides you with a clarity that helps you discern what is worthy of your attention.

And your attention is really all that you have, how you direct it, where you focus it. Those are the most important decisions that you make, right? And the clarity that comes with being will allow you to discard or bypass expenditures of your time, energy, focus, and work that are moving away from the person that you're working towards or that you aspire to be. So it is the being that clarifies what is important and what is not such that you can bring a presence and a mindfulness to the doing.

The doing doesn't fade away or go away. You can still do hard things and exactly the way that you described it, but you're doing it with a level of intentionality and an understanding that by placing your attention on this thing that aligns with your values, you know that that doing is worthy of the being that you're bringing to it.

And just to put a cap on it, like doing hard things, we talk about that as if it's a choice. I mean, the bottom line is we're all gonna have to do hard things, cause it's life, right? Yeah, life is fucking hard. Hard things are coming, you know what I mean? So it's like, that's just the way it is.

And I understand that, I get what you're saying. I think you nailed this. And I just wanna say that the terror, it's like reminds me of existentialism and kind of that you can hear in Bob Dylan and you read in Albert Camus, this existentialist terror that everything is futile. It doesn't matter what happens,

but actually that's the liberation. Isn't that nihilism? No, but that's the liberation of existentialism, right? It doesn't matter the outcome of A, B, or C, because, and if you feel that way, then that allows you to be free in the action of it. And therefore everything is liberated. And so I feel like there's a parallel there

in Eastern philosophy in terms of, as you approach something like that you might have to do at work, it's like, yes, you're gonna give it your all. If it doesn't go your way, you're gonna keep giving it your all because that's what we're here for. Yeah.

I mean, to really answer this guy's question, we would need hours and hours and hours and stacks of books to go through, right? You just cut my last part. You did so good. You tied me and then I think I've spoiled it. Let's go to Austin. All right, Austin, Texas.

Let's get out of Korea for once. We can cut that, but it's funny. Actually for once. I mean, go to Korea. That was good. Let's get out of Korea for once. All right. This is good.

See, didn't you miss me? I knew you missed me. I know. Hi there, this is Brett Enin. I'm from Austin, Texas. And I'm just sitting here doing the very mundane tasks and portion of my work, which I feel generally very excited by. I do experiential marketing and am a consultant for a business, and I really enjoy it. But in sort of doing my own business now, I'm just curious, like, with all of the show that you've grown and just business in general,

knowing that probably 80% of it is just these boring tasks that we have to get through and email and blah, blah, blah. Like if you have any recommendations for how to make the boring parts more stimulating, any mindsets or mental reframes to feel more invigorated and get through the sort of not fun parts. So that's my question. I hope you all have a great day. Thanks. I feel like Brett's question taps into the existentialism that you were just talking about a minute ago.

Yes. You know, is there meaning? Is there, you know, what is beyond here? How are we going to, you know, find, you know, some kind of purpose beyond the mundanity? And I think layered into this question is perhaps a less than fully mature appreciation for the fact that life is not just about leaping from one peak experience to the next, but that in truth, everything worthy of pursuing or doing or building or growing or working towards

involves a lot of fucking boring shit, you know? And you gotta just like Goggins would say, embrace the suck, right? Like you gotta suit up and just do the boring shit. Like, you know, whether it's business, especially in social media, you go online and it's just post after post about, you know, success story and overnight venture capital

funding and product launches and all kinds of sexy, exciting stuff. But behind the scenes of anything successful, whether it's a business or a podcast, or as an athlete or an author or any creative endeavor, there's just a lot of really hard unsexy shit that doesn't travel on the internet, but is the underlying truth in the recipe

of achieving anything worthwhile in the world, right? So rather than trying to turn those boring tasks into just another peak experience, I think it's reframing it and understanding that this is just part of the journey that you're on in the process of trying to build something for yourself. And there's kind of a powerful lesson about life in that. And it's back to your attention, right?

All you have is your attention. How are you directing that attention? And what is the kind of default predisposition that you're bringing that attention that is kind of packed onto or attached to that attention when you have to do boring shit like answer emails, right? Yeah. Can you reframe it and say,

well, this is something that I have to do. And every person who's trying to build something similar to what I'm trying to build has to do it as well. So can I find gratitude in it? Can I figure out that this is just a piece in a greater journey and that it's serving an important purpose as mundane as it is? Like there's no getting around it. Yeah, no. I mean, you brought up David and I have, it's so funny, like how, like months after this

book has come out after working, like I'm find myself like thinking, thinking like David Moore now than maybe after at all in my whole life after having done these two books. And I feel like, I don't know for a fact this is how we react, but I think what he would say and how he would feel about this is, this boring shit is your opportunity to separate yourself from everybody else doing your job.

This boring shit right here is why everybody else comes in second or third or fifth or eighth, because this boring shit just bothers them to the point where they just get half-ass it and give themselves permission to quit. This boring shit is your ticket to be the best there is in your business. I'm not going to top that. So that's another mic drop. I got one. Currency of Goggins, right? Two for Chris, one for Adam, and that's a wrap.

Awesome. Thank you, Chris Evans, for joining us today. As begrudging as you were, it was beautiful to have you. I appreciate you. I love you, buddy. And Adam, good to be back with you, man. Thanks for having me. Should we do this more often?

I'm literally always available. Literally. I will take that to heart. We'll be back when we're back. In the meantime, I do not take your attention for granted. I really appreciate everybody who has listened all the way through to the end of the day. Yeah, thank you.

You made it, congratulations. Well, you started out thanking the listeners. I thank you for having me back and thank you listeners for tuning in. Thank you, Chris, for your advice and your optimism. Appreciate it, man. Yeah, absolutely. All right, man, that's it.

Peace, plants. Namaste. Yeah. alright man that's it peace plants namaste yeah awesome Thank you.