The Rich Roll Podcast - Roll On: Life Lessons Learned From 10 Years of Podcasting

Episode Date: September 15, 2022

Welcome to ‘Roll On’, the semi-bi-weekly version of the podcast where Rich Roll & Adam Skolnick indulge in some good-natured banter and ramble on matters of interest across culture, sports, art, literature, politics, self-betterment, and more. Today Rich reflects on what he has learned from his almost 10 years hosting this podcast, plus endurance news, recent episode recaps, streaming selects, listener questions and more. Watch on YouTube Show notes + MORE: bit.ly/richroll704 Newsletter Sign-Up: https://www.richroll.com/subscribe Peace + Plants, Rich

Hey everybody, welcome to Roll On, where the Twitter to my Instagram, the LinkedIn to my YouTube, the Microsoft Word to my Google Docs, Mr. Adam Skolnick and I- Wait, wait, why am I Twitter, LinkedIn and Microsoft? Because I'm the one who wrote that, that's why. I'll take it.

Are you more LinkedIn or YouTube? Do I watch more YouTube or check LinkedIn? No, what do you self-identify with? Oh, self-identify? Which platform? Friendster. If a platform was a person, who are you? If a platform were a person,

I am not an Excel spreadsheet, I can tell you that. Yeah, is that a platform? That's an app, I don't know. All right, let's not get bogged down. Spotify. Spotify, okay. We are here back in the lime green chairs to banter across an admittedly absurd long table

to dissect matters niche, trivial and vital across the spectrum of our whimsical curiosities. Today, I've got a couple of cool announcements. We're gonna recap some behind the scenes on recent episodes which is a new little feature we're gonna test out. We're gonna share as always a few highlights from the subculture of endurance. We're gonna impart some truths and lessons learned

from 10 years of hosting this podcast. We're gonna recommend some high quality content we've been enjoying. We're gonna answer a few listener questions and probably go off on a few random tangents along the way. But first... We're brought to you today by recovery.com. I've been in recovery for a long time. It's not hyperbolic to say that I owe everything good in my life to sobriety. And it all began with

treatment and experience that I had that quite literally saved my life. And in the many years since, I've in turn helped many suffering addicts and their loved ones find treatment. And with that, I know all too well just how confusing and how overwhelming and how challenging it can be to find the right place

and the right level of care, especially because unfortunately, not all treatment resources adhere to ethical practices. It's a real problem. A problem I'm now happy and proud to share has been solved by the people at recovery.com, who created an online support portal designed to guide, to support, and empower you to find the ideal level of care tailored to your personal needs. They've partnered with the best global behavioral health providers to cover the full spectrum of behavioral health disorders, including substance use disorders, depression, anxiety, eating disorders, gambling addictions, and more. Navigating their site is simple. Search by insurance coverage, location, treatment type, you name it.

Plus, you can read reviews from former patients to help you decide. Whether you're a busy exec, a parent of a struggling teen, or battling addiction yourself, I feel you. I empathize with you. I really do. And they have treatment options for you. Life in recovery is wonderful. And recovery.com is your partner in starting that journey. When you or a loved one need help, go to recovery.com and take the first step towards recovery. To find the best treatment option for you or a loved one, again, go to recovery.com. We're brought to you today by

recovery.com. I've been in recovery for a long time. It's not hyperbolic to say that I owe everything good in my life to sobriety. And it all began with treatment and experience that I had that quite literally saved my life. And in the many years since, I've in turn helped many suffering addicts and their loved ones find treatment. And with that, I know all too well just how confusing and how overwhelming and how challenging it can be to find the right place and the right level of care, especially because, unfortunately, not all treatment resources adhere to ethical practices. It's a real problem. A problem I'm now happy and proud to share has been solved by the people at recovery.com who created an online support portal designed to guide, to support, and empower you to find the ideal level of care

tailored to your personal needs. They've partnered with the best global behavioral health providers to cover the full spectrum of behavioral health disorders, including substance use disorders, depression, anxiety, eating disorders, gambling addictions, and more. Navigating their site is simple. Search by insurance coverage, location, treatment type, you name it. Plus, you can read reviews from former patients to help you decide. Whether you're a busy exec, a parent of a struggling teen, or battling addiction

yourself, I feel you. I empathize with you. I really do. And they have treatment options for you. Life in recovery is wonderful, and recovery.com is your partner in starting that journey. When you or a loved one need help, go to recovery.com and take the first step towards recovery. To find the best treatment option for you or a loved one, again, go to recovery.com. How goes it fine, sir? Oh, am I on? Yeah, you're typing. Are you typing?

We're recording right now. Are we live? The typing was supposed to happen before. Is this thing on? We started recording. Sorry, guys. We're off to an incredible start. I'm still hot.

Yeah. I'm still sweltering hot. You know how like you go for a run and you come back and you sweat for another like for almost as long as the run now I'm sweating for like three hours after every. It's downright tropical out there. There's a wave of humidity that is unprecedented in my, I don't know how many years I've lived here since 1996.

I don't ever remember. I mean, we just endured like a heat wave that was pretty epic. This is the last day of it, I think. Of 110 plus every single day. And what was unique about that was it didn't cool down at night. Like usually the desert here,

even when it's super hot during the day, it'll still go down at night. Didn't do that at all. It was like 90 degrees at like one in the morning. And then we had a little bit of rain and that brought upon us like this humidity, which feels like we're in Hawaii or the East coast. It's very- Even further South.

It's like full tropical. I was running at night. I was running- It doesn't matter. Yeah, it didn't matter. I was trying different things, but I'm not really one of those people that complains about weather. I don't like people who complain about weather.

Are you sure about that? Here I am complaining. Here I am complaining about the weather. When you have an opportunity to do it on a large platform, you're gonna take advantage of that and complain about the heat, aren't you? Cause that's what everyone wants to hear. It has been warm.

Yeah, it has. Sorry guys, I didn't have a- Is that all that's going on with you? A It has been warm. Yeah, it has. Sorry guys, I didn't have- Is that all that's going on with you? A funny intro. What's going on with me? No, things have been good, busy, working hard on some projects I can't tell you about right now.

Right, when is that gonna change? That's generally the case. I'm doing all this cool stuff and we can't talk about it. Pretty soon. Good. Yeah, maybe like five, six weeks, we can talk about some of it. But that's been good, the family's well,

no real complaints. My one complaint is that I've been trying to look- Beyond the weather. Beyond the weather. My second complaint, we're trying to figure out travel stuff and I'm stunned at how expensive like renting crappy condos can be in Hawaii these days. Have you seen that? Well, everybody's back to traveling.

Is that what it is? So everything is at a premium now. Yeah, so now that we're coming out of this tunnel of work, we're trying to figure out a way to fly around again. So hopefully next year there's more travel content in my life, but otherwise good. Been watching a lot of tennis. Can we talk about the tennis?

We can, I didn't watch any of it. Although I know it was fire, the US Open, but I was too busy to tap into it too deeply. Carlos Alcaraz, Carlitos, the youngest number one player in the history of men's tennis. He won the US Open. He's been kind of this guy that we,

that people who watch tennis have said, this could be finally the young guy that's as good or is on the same trajectory as the big three, right? We know Novak and Rafa and Roger Federer. And all the young guys that have come up have always hit against that glass ceiling of those three guys. They couldn't get through them.

This guy, Alcarez, earlier in the year, his third tournament he won, he had to go through Novak and Rafa two days in a row. And then he won a tournament against Zverev, another highly ranked player. And this time though, Rafa got beat by Francis Tiafoe, who was the best American in this tournament.

And he's one of the best Americans around, a little bit older than Alcaraz. Alcaraz is 19, Tiafoe I think is 24. And they had an epic, epic five set match. And I found it interesting because they have kind of like parallel stories in a way, Alcaraz, Carlos Alcaraz was raised around a tennis center. His grandfather helped found and build.

Francis Tiafoe was raised at a tennis center, the tennis center at College Park in Maryland. His father, his parents immigrated in the 90s from Sierra Leone when it was like civil war. And they came to the DC area and Tiafoe's dad, Constant, I believe is his name, was one of the construction workers building that tennis center.

And he worked so hard and was the best worker that they asked him to stay on as maintenance for the whole facility. And so he lived there five days a week. They lived in a back office and he lived with his two sons. And Francis was seen hitting balls against the wall one day and these coaches found him.

And they basically, within a few years, by the time he was 14 years old, he was the number one junior in the history, number one junior in America. Yeah, it's such a cool story. Yeah, and so time he was 14 years old, he was the number one junior in the history, number one junior in America. Yeah, it's such a cool story. Yeah, and so I just was thinking about how it's very Gladwellian, you know, like, like. The polarities.

Yeah, but they both basically had the same access, you know, one required, you know, one was like a little more traditional. If your grandfather runs a tennis center, it makes sense that you would, the other one is kind of seems more good fortune, but in the end that doesn't matter to the kid. The kid's still there without all that access.

Yeah, access. It's sort of like the, yeah, like the Gladwellian story about, was he the one who told the story about Bill Gates having access to the mainframe? Yeah, it's exactly that. I mean, obviously you have to have the hunger and they both did and it was an amazing match.

It's worth seeing if you haven't seen it, it's a long one, it's five center. But Carlos went through three matches kind of like that and then got to the final and is just a magnificent athlete. It does feel like the ushering in of a new era though. You hope so. But at the same time Novak couldn't come because he didn't get vaccinated.

So he wasn't allowed in the country and Rafa lost. So if Novak's there, does he defend the glass ceiling? Right, well that will, you know, when that tete-a-tete happens, it'll make for must watch tennis. Yeah, but anyway, enough about my television watching of tennis. How are you?

What's going on? Oh, the humidity. Adam, I'm gonna complain about the heat. That's on here. No, sorry, I was just distracted by all the sea monsters on your shirt. Yeah, this is not a good shirt for the video, right? Video they want just plain stuff.

What kind of- Paisley's? Crustaceous- Oh, these? Sea life is that? Well, this is something I discovered in the waters at Point Doom. And because I discovered it, I got to name it. And this is the Richiest Rolliest jellyfish. It's gonna be some skull Nicky and all right.

Okay, I'm good. I don't know what to tell you. How's your back? You've been exercising more. It's not amazing, but it's tolerable enough that I can get out there and do some zone one and some zone two stuff as long as I don't push it too much. So I've been out on the bike with some regularity,

which has felt really nice. You were running too, right? Doing some trails? Like more like hiking with a little bit of jogging to test things out. And that definitely ended up with some tightness back there. So I'm trying to be really cautious about that, but at least I'm getting out there and feeling good.

Yeah, I don't know. Everything's good, man. My boys, my older boys and their band Blood Ocean is out on tour right now. They're going up and down the West coast. Nice. Which is really fun to see them finally take their music on the road and play these little venues.

And that's cool. Visit these cities and do the whole jam into a van thing. Which is pretty cool. So getting some cool reports from the road. Shout out to a friend of the pod and friend in real life, Jesse Thomas and Lauren Fleshman, who opened up their guest house to my boys and their bandmates when they played in Bend

the other night, which was really cool. So they've been, you know, they played in Portland last night. I think they're going up to Seattle. They're gonna be in San Luis Obispo. I've shared their tour schedule. Maybe I'll share it again. I love what you posted and they sound fabulous.

Yeah, they're doing good. So that's been cool. Have they been a groupie yet? Is there one groupie? I don't know. They don't tell you? No. I've been getting reports on the road,

like the slow disasters and the highlights and the low, like they play a show, nobody shows up. Or there was the venue in San Francisco that basically wasn't gonna pay them and like all that kind of stuff. I was like, good, that's the way it's supposed to be. Like you're having that real life experience. You gotta go through it.

Are they, did they destroy Jesse and Lauren's home? Like real rock stars? Hopefully not. Like real rock stars throw like a rager party back there and just like paint the walls? Hopefully not. Okay, good. I cautioned them and explained to them

that they had to acquit themselves as gentlemen. So hopefully- Gentlemen rockers. They seem like gentlemen rockers. They are, they're very solid young men. Super proud of them. Couple announcements before we get into it. The first thing is, well, I should say that, you know,

this podcast is slowly moving away from being a free diving podcast to an Anvil, free promotional fan. Speaking of less show. Show rockers. So for all of you that caught the last roll on, you'll remember the story that I shared about my friend, Sasha Gervasi,

and the improbable story behind his documentary, Anvil, the story of Anvil, one of the greatest rock docs of all time, which is being re-released next week in 200 theaters across the United States, 13 years after its initial run. So it's a really cool thing. We're recording this on Monday, but two days from now,

and before this podcast will actually air September 13, the movie is premiering in New York City, which will be last night, if you're listening to this podcast right after it posts at the Angelica and it's an event that was hosted by Sasha and Peter Dinklage, who starred in Sasha's HBO movie, My Dinner with Irvay. That's cool.

So you guys missed that, but I wanted to let you know. He also starred in something called Game of Thrones. He did, yeah. You might wanna mention that. Yeah, but I'm trying to connect why Peter would be, you know, co-hosting Sasha's premiere in New York, because they work together. In any event, I get you.

But for all of you Los Angelenos, Los Angelenos, or for anybody contemplating a track to the City of Angels, allow me to entice you because Anvil will be premiering the newly restored and mastered print in Los Angeles on September 23rd at the Saban Theater. And I wanted to offer up to you guys, the audience, two free pairs of tickets for the screening, which will include a, not to be forgotten,

I promise you live Anvil rock show. Like you've never seen anything like these guys rocking out after the screening that's gonna happen. And that's gonna be hosted by friend of the pod and real life friend, Steve-O, who I believe is gonna be doing a Q&A with Sasha and the band. And there's gonna be some other yet to be disclosed,

super special guests that I'm forbidden from mentioning at this moment. So that's pretty cool. I mean, Sasha wanted me to help, kind of open it up to you guys. So to enter to win these tickets, you can send an email to giveaway at richroll.com. Please send that in before September 18th

and put the word Anvil in the subject line. And we'll select the winners at random on September 19th. In the meantime, if you wanna just buy tickets to that event, you can do that as well. It's just Anvil, I think it's Anvil the meantime, if you wanna just buy tickets to that event, you can do that as well. It's just Anvil, I think it's Anvil the band, oh, anvillethefilm.com. Blake, if you could just pull up that screen for everybody to see.

These special guests are these potential, like other musicians that might share the stage? Yeah, maybe. All right. Maybe. Yeah, anvillthefilm.com. So you could just buy tickets and go to this premiere screening. I'm gonna be there.

We're probably gonna do a meet and greet. It's gonna be super fun. Saban Theater, I never knew it was Saban. I always thought it was Steve Saban. Saban, no, I think it's Saban. Yeah, I think you're right. Pretty sure. How are you an Angeleno? And you don't know that.

I didn't, I missed that. Anyway, you missed the memo on that. The second announcement I wanna make is that some of you may remember, long time listeners will remember that towards the end of last year, we released a special episode called Prophets Walk Among Us, stories from our listeners,

which was an entire episode that was devoted to sharing voice messages sent in by all of you guys. It was one of our most unique and impactful episodes to date. Really proud of that. It was just a beautiful thing, putting that together and sharing it with everyone, just a total joy to produce.

If you haven't heard it, I recommend adding it to your queue immediately. And it was so meaningful to us and everyone who listened and reached out that we're gonna do it again. So if you're willing to participate, please consider sharing with me your personal journey of transformation,

how the podcast and its many guests have inspired you, and maybe some things about what you've learned, you've practiced, you've implemented or shared with others along the way. And in other words, like how has the show served you in your life? How has it benefited you? How has it orientated you, inspired you to reframe

your vision of family, of work, your sense of self. And we're gonna take those messages and compile a portion of the submissions into the next edition of this listener focused format. So if you're keen to participate, you can leave your story on a special voicemail that we've set up. So call 805-421-0057.

And we look forward to hearing from you. Yeah, and if I've helped you in any way, don't hold back, put it all out there. Yeah. We need to hear about it. I want messages all about Adam. I think that would be great. If I've done anything for you at all,

even if it's negative, I wanna hear about it. Put it on the voice. Are you sure about that? All right, cool. Yeah, again, 805-421-0057. And we'll put that voicemail number in the show notes as well. Yeah, that sounds cool.

Can't wait for that one. Let's do this thing where we kind of recap some of the most recent episodes. What should we call it? I know that, I don't know. Well, maybe they leave that on the voicemail too. The recapper? That's already Bill Simmons thing.

He has a recap? Well, he has the rewatchables. This wouldn't be the rewatchables, the re-listen. I don't know, the behind the scenes. I don't know. Well, let's not debate that now. In other words, what I wanna do is, there are podcasts out there that kind of recap

the episode that you've just heard by sharing a little behind the scenes thoughts. And they generally do that in the intros or the outros of the respective episodes. We don't do that or have not done that historically, but my sense, my spidey sense is that maybe some of you out there might enjoy a little bit of storytelling around some of the guests.

So we thought that we would do that here and see how it goes. So since we last sat down Adam, where there's been three episodes, you can write out episode, Gabor Mate and the one that just went up today, Max Fisher. I don't know, we can start with Ken Rideout. Although you didn't, you haven't listened to that one.

You don't actually listen to the show. Do you? Wait, what? This has changed? So this is not in here. I don't know how this is gonna go. I do listen to the show, do you? Wait, what? This has changed? So, I don't know how this is gonna go. I do listen to the show. I know you do. But- Not every, you're busy.

The problem with me is I don't commute. And so my podcast listening has to be very strategic. Elitist. I don't commute and they say you're not supposed to listen to podcasts in front of young children, infants and toddlers. Did you say that? No, I didn't know that.

Why is that? Because you're distracted from giving your full attention. That's not a great way for language for them to pick up language. And it's like disassociated talking. And it's not like- Oh, that's interesting. I didn't know that.

Well, that's the stuff when you read these early childhood development kind of materials. That's one thing that has come out, but that's- Convenient excuse. That's not a great excuse, but Ken Rideout I'm very familiar with because I think we talked about him before when Futterman's story came up

and you were talking about that you wanted to get him on. So I am familiar with his story, that he was a corrections officer that hit wall street and went nuts. And then after that had kind of an addiction issue, right? That kind of almost submarine his entire life. And now is the fastest marathoner over 50. Yeah, it's a crazy story. I mean, everything that he overcame to be the person

that he is, is super inspiring. And I think his story kind of hits on the real sweet spot of this podcast, which are these personal stories of transformation, overcoming obstacles and odds to accomplish something laudatory. And his is very powerful as his sort of command of telling the story too. And he's got this totally nuts backstory.

What he overcame is immense. And it was funny, like I was sort of intimidated to meet him because he's a super, like at least how I, what I was sort of projecting onto him was that he would be super alpha and like- Macho, macho. Difficult to, yeah. And he wasn't like that at all.

He was a really sweet guy and that episode really connected and his stuff blew up as a result. And he was on the receiving end of like a lot of, you know, attention as a result. That's awesome. And he was so grateful and he was so like almost, you know, emotional in his kind of overwhelm with, you know, the response to that, which was really sweet.

And it just made me realize, like, there's lots of guys out there with tough guy exteriors. And a lot of them don't have what Ken has, which is this huge heart. Like to me, that's the differentiator. Like he really is a sensitive soul who cares deeply about other people. And in a way that, you know, not that,

not that other people don't do that, but there's a way that he wears it on his sleeve. Right, it's accessible. Yeah, he's like very vulnerable with his emotions around that, which you don't often find with guys that are, you know, kind of tough guys or grew up in tough circumstances. There was one cool story that we didn't get to

in the podcast that maybe I can share now, which was that when Ken was a corrections officer, I guess I'm not supposed to call it a prison guard. Although I think that's the term he used, but I got in trouble because I used prison guard and corrections officer is the correct. I did a story on prison reform once. Oh, you did?

And I had a copy editor look at it and the copy editor inserted typos, but tried to tell me not to use the term prisoner. And so basically he wanted to call prisoners incarcerated persons. And so the he wanted to call prisoners incarcerated persons. And so the copy editor changed all prisoner references to incarcerated persons. And that made like that created typos

and like really bad sentences. And so I'd have a negotiation to call them inmate. How long ago was that? It would be 2017, when I think 2018. We can't use the word prisoner anymore. Prisoner you can't use, even though they're residents of a prison, you can't use prisoner.

Even though I wasn't suggesting they belonged in prison, I was saying they are prisoners. But you can call it a prison. That's okay. That's my point. Incarcerated person facility. I don't know, I didn't get the memo this week. There should be like a white paper

that comes out every Monday. Like these are the words that are allowed. Oh, these words are back. Okay, I can use these words again. But these words are out. Yeah, it's a corrections officer. Corrections officer. But when he was a corrections officer,

he actually worked with Mickey Ward who- Who was also a corrections officer? I guess so, yeah. And people, if that name sounds familiar, it might be because he was the boxer who was played by Mark Wahlberg in the movie, The Fighter with Christian Bale, who played Mickey's half brother, Dickie Eklund.

That movie being directed by David O. Russell, which was an incredible film. And I think that, I think it's probably fair to say that that movie was an accurate depiction of the type of environment in which, you know, Ken grew up in. And to see that- He grew up in South Boston? Yeah, I think, yeah, yeah.

I don't know exactly the neighborhood in Boston, but you know, basically, you know, but basically pretty chaotic and rough and tumble. And I just think, I'm so glad that people enjoyed listening to him and hearing his story. To me, he's an example of like a healthy alpha male, a solid role model for young men and older men too. Yeah. Or maybe all people, whether we're in corrections or not. All people.

Incorrect, incorrect. It doesn't have to be a male. That's true. It's cool, man. And I love stories like that. Yeah, yeah, any story. And I love like, when people ask me all the time, well, who's your favorite guest?

And you know, I can't say there is a favorite guest, but I think I do have a sweet spot for, you're not a guest, you're a co-host. Okay, right. Right? You being all indignant over there. It's these stories of personal transformation. I think that are kind of the bread and vegan butter.

Well, it's funny that these three that we're gonna talk about are all three of the kind of pillars that you bring that you've always brought out, which are at least kind of under reported, amazing stories of transformation that are instantly inspiring and can inspire transformation in others.

Doctors that kind of look at the medical world with a more critical eye and have a different take necessarily than the mainstream medical mind. And then the book that we're gonna talk about the end and like you're sitting down with an author and going full Terry Gross. I mean, I think that that's what makes the show so special is that you go into these different worlds.

It's the curiosity model. Well, this is why you're my co-host because you butter my bread. I encapsulate and then serve that softball right back. You try to like make me look better than I am, but I appreciate that. I mean it. Dr. Gabor Mate, another episode you haven't listened to.

Didn't get to that one. In fairness, we only came up with this segment like yesterday. So I didn't give you a lot of heads up or time. No. But maybe going forward, we'll figure that out. I did watch some of Gabor Mate's rich roll content on the- The reels?

On the slot machine. The slot machine, yeah. I did watch that. And very interesting. You know, I always find, especially now, cause it's like, for years, I didn't have health insurance. I don't know if you can believe that, but I couldn't afford health insurance. I don't know if you can believe that, but I couldn't afford health insurance.

Nor could I. For years. And I would pay out of pocket for things like acupuncture and alternative health stuff, because I actually didn't really want to go to the medical doctor. And I think in the last years for many reasons, I think starting with April being pregnant and finally having health insurance, that's one part of it.

After Obamacare passed, I was able to get health insurance and moving forward, I kind of still, I tapped into it, but I still kind of stayed a little bit halfway. And I think there had been a time in my life where I would fully resonate with everything he said. And this time I would watch the content and he referenced drugs used for MS and rheumatoid arthritis. And it's very interesting because I actually have a story

about rheumatoid arthritis. A friend of mine had rheumatoid arthritis and turned down all the drugs. And he decided he didn't believe in that because the doctors were basically saying, you're incurable, you're gonna take these drugs the rest of your life, it won't help you that much. So in that sense, that's where I believe

Dr. Maté is coming from, is that that's the only thing people can recommend for you and it doesn't necessarily help you. In fact, maybe it does hurt you or shorten your lifespan. He decided to look for a nutritional change, got rid of all grains and still kind of went through the process. But in the meantime,

lost all the connective tissue cartilage in his hands. He went through incredible pain. Like it's a miracle he survived. Two years later, he's come out of it. He's growing that cartilage back. He's not eating grains. That's what really did it. He figured his own way out, but it was hell.

And so like, that's the one thing, his recommendations, I'm not saying they're false, I'm saying there is a price to be paid. Yeah, I mean, I think that clip really triggered certain people. And part of that is my fault. It is taken a bit out of context, but he is pushing the boundaries of, you know,

what we're kind of accustomed to hearing when it comes to how we treat medical conditions. And that specific reel, he basically is saying like, listen, as you said, like there are, you know, in certain cases with certain conditions, the medical prognosis and the, you know, prescriptions that are part and parcel of that are not necessarily the solution.

And there is an opportunity to go beyond that and to look deeper to probe into somebody's emotional psyche. Like in the case of your friend, he discovered a nutritional solution that ultimately put him on a better path. Dr. Mate is suggesting an emotional exploration. Which is even another level. That's hard, you know,

especially like if you're somebody who suffers or you have a loved one who suffers, who's going through hell and has tried all sorts of things, or, you know, really has, you know, found a way to live well on these medications. That's a difficult thing to hear. And I'm compassionate towards that. I don't think what he's saying is that in all cases,

this is the solution, but perhaps instead, there is something to be learned, gleaned, or experienced by opening your aperture and trying to delve into what's going on with you emotionally as a path towards some version of healing, whether in partnership or not with traditional Western medical approaches to whatever ails you. And it's something that's worth exploring and considering.

And given, he's not some wackadoodle guys coming out of nowhere, this guy's been treating people forever. And his thesis emerged out of his work with thousands of basically low bottom addicts in Vancouver and realizing the relationship between unhealed childhood trauma and drug addiction later in life.

And this recent book that he just came out with the myth of normal is really about extrapolating upon that thesis to say at the root of many diseases lies things like unhealed trauma or emotional distress that is compartmentalized and not actually healed, right? And if we can go in and heal that, what are the downstream ramifications of that on health? And his, you know, he would say that they're profound

and that we need to start paying attention to that. And I think there's, you know, it's like, it's a challenging thesis and, you know, at times like I feel like I challenged him, he challenged me, you know, this is, this is something that happened in our first podcast conversation as well, because I'm so indoctrinated into 12 step,

I tend to view addiction and recovery through that lens and that lens specifically, and he's challenging me to broaden that aperture and see a path to healing that's a little bit more expansive and that, I can bristle at that, or I can take that and say, well, maybe there's something for me to learn here. or I can take that and say, well, maybe there's something for me to learn here.

Anyway, I think that that's another episode that is doing really well. And I think he's helped a lot of people and is a really important voice. He's got a great face, wouldn't you say? Incredible face. Incredible face. Best face, I think he wins best face

of all these three guys. He do, yeah. He has an unbelievable unmistakable face. Before we get to these, well, I'll ask you this at the end. I wanted to ask you kind of like a nuts and bolts question about the podcast, but I'll ask you at the end. But yeah, great face, a great voice.

And yeah, I'm not suggesting that any of his conclusions are wrong. I'm just suggesting that when you venture off the path to try some other methodology, whether it's emotional or nutritional or whatever, there often is a price to be paid in pain. And that's okay if you can handle that. But I just think that that's important to also say.

It's not like an easy, like, it sounds like a better fix. It's not an instant fix or an easy fix either. None of these things are instant or easy. Of course not. But in the- I'm not saying he's saying that, I'm just trying to clarify. Yeah, yeah, I understand what you're saying.

I also think that there's some additional connective tissue between Gabor's message and Ken Rideout's message and what we're about to talk about, Max Fisher's message and Ken Rideout's message and what we're about to talk about Max Fisher's message in that many of our larger social problems are being driven by men, a lot of young men who are disenfranchised, lacking means, lacking opportunity, you know, who many of which I suspect are managing wounds and trauma without any help, without any direction, without any resources, without any strong, healthy male

role models, all of which make them vulnerable to less than stellar online influence, which, you know, manifests metastasizes into untoward behavior in the real world, right? This is a big part of what Max Fisher talks about. Max Fisher? I know we're gonna talk about that. And why I think people like Ken Rideout are important because they're an opposite to that in a healthy way.

So in the context of what Max is talking about, I mean, first of all, to segue into him inelegantly, I know one thing you wanted to talk about. The name Max Fisher? His name is Max Fisher. His name is Max Fisher, which is one of the great characters in recent film history.

Yes. Wouldn't you say? I mean, indelible, right? Yes. Timeless. Explain for people that might not know. Max Fischer was the character played in Rushmore by Jason Schwartzman.

It's Wes Anderson's second film. It's arguably, you could argue it's his best film. I don't know if you would. I think it's one of the top five. It's in my top five. It's definitely in the top five. I don't know that it's his best. But it was the one that really like,

Bottle Rocket was good, but this was like another level. Sure. And Bill Murray kind of, I don't know if it's accurate to say rebooted Bill Murray, but maybe it did. Yeah, I think it did. And so it's an incredible movie about a high school senior.

Traumaturge. Yeah, who's like this wacky high school. It's amazing. If you haven't seen Rushmore, please stream Rushmore. It's unbelievable. Do it for Max Fisher. Do it for Max. Max Fisher.

Yeah. So this one just dropped today. You listened to a little bit of it. The early response like right out of the gate has been pretty voluminous. I think this episode is gonna do really well. I think it's a really important conversation. And it's something that we can all relate to

as creatures who live to some extent by and through the internet and the vicissitudes of the social media platforms and the algorithms that make choices about what we see and what we don't. Yeah, it hooked me right off the bat. I have not read the book. What's the title?

The Chaos Machine. Chaos Machine. You know, it's another, yet another kind of take on how social media is twisting society basically. And this one has a much more global overview and you can encapsulate it better than I can, but like he's a foreign relation,

foreign, what was it? It's a like he's a foreign relation, foreign, what was it? He's a foreign correspondent. Yeah, foreign affairs correspondent. Like investigative reporter, Pulitzer Prize finalist. Yeah, and he's not the tech reporter that you'd think would normally cover this. You say that right off the bat.

Yeah, I mean, that's not his beat. He came into it through the work that he was doing overseas when he was seeing the kind of ramifications of what social media was doing in the developing world. Yeah, and how it was fueling, you know, the Rohingya genocide in Myanmar and how it was, which he covered for the New York Times

and then fueling some rampages of Hindus destroying Muslims homes in India and those riots in 2012, which he didn't recognize the social media component there. And he kind of feels ashamed of that now, which he talks about with you. So that is really interesting. I've covered Myanmar a lot.

So that really piqued my interest as well. And then, you know, talking about Zuckerberg's quote, did you have that quote or was it he that had the quote of? What's the quote? About rewiring society, like society is a math or is a problem. Oh, I think it was Zuckerberg who said that, yeah, like that, you know, basically,

I can't remember the exact quote, but it's something along the lines of like humanity as an engineering problem. Yeah, humanity is, you know, basically, I can't remember the exact quote, but it's something along the lines of like, humanity is an engineering problem. Yeah, humanity is an engineering problem. And so the arrogance and kind of, I guess, glee, that kind of is both arrogance, glee, and excellence, that kind of came together to create what we are now kind of all armed with, which is a slot machine basically,

he says so eloquently in our pockets. All that was, it's all intentional. It's basically, we're all dopamine addicts. He wants you to see. It's intentional on the front end, but it is unpredictable on the back end because I don't think anybody could have foreseen what would transpire as a result of their creation.

And now everyone's in, I don't know if it's damage control, but they are trying to figure out like how to rectify this thing that clearly is driving us apart from each other, creating social division and ultimately, wreaking untold havoc. Yeah, I mean, and the arrogance I think is part of that. And I don't know, I mean, I find it really compelling.

I know you're really into the book. What else should we share? I mean, the way that I think of the book is if you watch that documentary, The Social Dilemma, this is the equivalent of a semester long college course on that subject matter, where each thing that comes up in The Social Dilemma is just probed a little bit more deeply.

And it does have a global focus beyond the parameters of the United States. And I think, you know, another important takeaway is that it's less about vilifying the Zuckerbergs of the world and more about understanding the inherent incentives of the systems and the platforms themselves that are built to take maximum advantage

of the systems. I mean, basically most of them are there to sell ads and they're there to command your attention so that they can serve up as many ads as possible. And with those built-in incentives, you're creating platforms that ultimately, you know, are so addictive that it's almost impossible for the well-intentioned human being

to have a healthy relationship with them. It's interesting right off the bat, you guys start talking about the Rohingya Myanmar issue, which was a Facebook issue and how the UN has actually said that Facebook exacerbated what ended up being kind of a series of pogroms that destroyed settlements and basically killed and murdered and maimed and raped the Rohingya people

from the majority Burman population was involved in that. Some of them was the military. The military has been doing that to ethnic groups around Myanmar. I've covered that several times. But in this case, it wasn't just the military. It was also regular people kind of going in similar to like what happened in India.

And the, I'm not suggesting that that obviously happens. The thing is he also talks about how much of this is human nature. Is this human nature mixed with kind of this new tech problem? And I think that's interesting because- He acknowledges the human nature mixed with kind of this new tech problem and I think that's interesting because. He acknowledges the human nature component of it as being a huge aspect of it.

These problems as you know and have pointed out existed prior to social media. Yeah, India like there's been mobs destroying Muslim settled homes and settlements and slums in India for generations. There's been in Indonesia, there was Muslim mobs that went and killed and destroyed a whole Chinese,

ethnic Chinese neighborhoods in Jakarta and other parts of Java. I mean, and across Indonesia, this stuff has happened. Koreatown was destroyed during the riots. And that was intentional that it was Koreatown. And so these things have happened before social media, but now social media is kind of like exacerbating it. And it's funny, cause you point out quite rightly

that like this, what we're talking about in Myanmar and India and other places is like the polar opposite of the Arab spring where everyone, all these same platforms were exuberant about their possibilities to really change the world for the better. And then this is like the dark aftermath, which is the real dragon that they built.

So that was interesting. Yeah, listen, it's a fascinating and far reaching problem. I do believe, like I'm not a fan of villainizing like the execs and making them like the ultimate bad guys here. Like I do feel like, I don't know, maybe there's exceptions. Are you defending the man right now? No, I feel like as individuals,

there is an understanding that there's a problem that needs to be dealt with. And I think that they're probably grappling with how to solve a problem that structurally just feels impossible to solve, right? Like when you have a structure, a business plan that is a for-profit enterprise, short of turning off the platform,

like how do you fix this? Like content moderation with human beings or through some kind of artificial intelligence is never gonna hit the mark. It's always gonna be too much or too little. It's gonna be pissing people off. He called it like air freshener outside a toxic waste dump.

And whoever's trying to propagate, who's not on a bender to propagate some kind of campaign, whether well-intentioned or not, is always gonna have the advantage in terms of figuring out an end round around whatever moderation is going on. So it's almost like a Sisyphean task of trying to solve it. Like, I don't know how it can be solved,

but ultimately in the meantime, it's massively problematic. Oh, a hundred percent. Do you feel conflicted in the fact that like, you're on Instagram today with these tiles, basically talking about these same problems, but by doing that, it's kind of, it's like the, the argument we had, we talked about last time,

which is the medium is the message. It's almost like, and I think I referenced last time, which is the medium is the message. It's almost like, and I think I referenced last time, this book, Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television. It's about like, no matter what you put on the television, this is the argument, like the way the television works is we're not seeing the picture, we're seeing pixels.

And the picture is actually being put together in our brain different than film, which is light, was supposed back in the day was light through a film. And so it was an image on film. It wasn't being built in our brains, but because of the way television works, it's being built in your brain. That was one of the arguments

for the elimination of television, this old book that is a great book, but I'm sure out of print now. This reminds me of that kind of book. It's like, these are the arguments for why the internet and social media should not exist probably. Right, but you know, I'm a product of the internet.

Like I make a living as a, if the internet didn't exist, if social media didn't exist, I would not be able to do this thing right now, right? And I try to leverage the pipes for good. But the truth of the matter is, is that I'm completely dependent upon these platforms in order to like do this thing that we're doing right now. Right.

So it's complicated, right? Like, yes, I'm on Instagram, I'm on Twitter. I share clips from the podcast. Like I try not to allow it to consume me and really use it as a creator. Like I'm using it as a place to broadcast the work that I'm doing as opposed to a place for consumption. And I plead guilty to being a consumer of it as well.

Like to me, like that's where my work needs to focus. My work, my personal work, I mean, like in terms of like, what are my habits around my social media usage, not as a broadcaster, but as a consumer. But I think if you can reframe the relationship into one of productivity and creativity to use it to create rather than to consume,

then it can be unbelievably powerful. Like I owe my entire career to the internet. So it's like, far be it from, so what am I gonna do? Like cast stones and shoot arrows at this thing that has given me an unbelievable living. And if I could be so bold to try to put like a positive message out in the world

and impact people in a meaningful way. So, you know, how do you reckon with those polarities? I don't think you do. I mean, you're someone as well. Same, same. Like I was a guidebook author and like a freelance journalist primarily. And those were great days.

But also like all my content always went on the internet from way back when, and now I'm on this show and I've had the good fortune to work with David whose book became a hit on Amazon as purely like without Amazon, there'd be no can't hurt me in this particular incarnation. It would be a different type of a thing through more of a publisher, but even publishers,

like it's not just you, it's like these days, major publishers, they wanna know how many followers you have. Like everything, they have rewired. The point is they have rewired sites, certainly have rewired media. And now it matters like how many followers a journalist has, it matters. And I don't know how many Max has,

but like there's a lot of people that do very well in journalism because they have a lot of followers. So they're playing that social media game. We can argue about whether that's a good or a bad thing, but it is true. It's true. That is the reality in which we live. And like when it comes to YouTube, like I love YouTube.

I love that YouTube exists and we get to make these videos and put them out there and share them with people and people enjoy them. Like that is a net positive in my life, but we have to recognize that there are problems with it as well that need to be solved and hopefully they can be solved. I don't know how to solve them.

We're feeding the chaos machine either way. I think is what the medium is the message kind of argument would be. I'm not saying I'm not making the argument or judging anything, cause I'm doing the same stuff. But the argument would be the meat, anytime you feed the chaos machine, you're helping the chaos machine, even'm doing the same stuff. But the argument would be the meat, anytime you feed the chaos machine, you're helping the chaos machine,

even if it's good stuff. Because you are the product. And one of the most powerful things that has stuck with me in that conversation with Max was this idea that we all think on some level that we're exempt from that manipulation. Like, oh, all these people are being manipulated and they're going down rabbit holes,

but like, I'm not me. You know, like I'm witnessing all of this. But I am immune. Yeah, and he's saying nobody is immune from this. And that is a very common reaction. Like we all think that we're too smart for that. And yet subtly incrementally, we're all being lured in one direction or another

as a result of these like tectonic tech plates. He's clearly extremely smart, but also humble, which I liked. I mean, I just think it's a great podcast. I can't wait to finish the rest of it. I think it's interesting though, when it comes down to it, maybe we should all unplug and just go do things that have no productivity involved at all.

Like just go, maybe I should just spend most of my day under water. Can I get paid to just stay under water? Follow your bliss, follow your passion. Maybe that's why Killian is the greatest. The universe will conspire to support you. Maybe that's why Killian is the greatest endurance or like ultra runner of all time.

He does what he wants to do. All he wants to do is just run on a trail. He doesn't wanna look at all that shit. No, and look what it did for him. Hundreds of thousands of followers on social media. Yeah, that's his accomplishment to you, come on. All right, let's take a quick break and we'll be back with an endurance sports check-in.

All right, so during the break, Adam had to check to see how many Instagram followers Killian Jornet has. 1.3 million. Good for him. I undersold him. Yeah. Yeah. Just running on mountains.

Yeah. Doing his thing. Exactly. Well, that brings us to- Even he's feeding the machine. He is, right? It's not his fault. We all are. We all are.

We all are. We're all complicit. At this point, it's not new news, but Killian firmly established himself as the all-time GOAT by winning UTMB. Jim Walmsley gave him a run for his money, really went after it, but ended up third. Killian took home gold in that race.

And we don't need to recap the whole race cause it was a couple of weeks ago at this point. But I thought what was interesting was- 100 mile race, right? Yes, UTMB, the most prestigious mountain race. Was this article about his UTMB training and race data. A lot of this data was made public and there was an article in Trail Running Magazine,

Trail Runner Magazine, kind of analyzing it and briefly synopsizing some interesting takeaways. So from that, which I think is instructive, they saw, and this is just what he kind of shared publicly, maybe he's doing more training beyond what was in his Strava and kind of his Coros data from his GPS watch, but he logged 1200 hours of training annual over the year, right, 1200 hours.

88% of that training was at lower intensity and included a ton of cross training. And most instructive was just the incredible amount of zone one and zone two training. So 56.9% of his training was in zone one, 20.2% in zone two. Crazy. At the highest end zone five, only 3.8% of his training,

which I thought was super interesting. We'll link up this article in the show notes, but it kind of goes through zone by zone, his approach. And I think if you're somebody who thinks that marathon runners and ultra runners log a bunch of junk miles and like, let's get rid of the junk miles. I think Killian is powerful proof

that those are not junk miles. Like he's building this just implacable foundation, this base that makes him bulletproof and very resilient as a runner. So anyway, I thought that was really cool. Super interesting. Zone one, I can't pack a bag in zone one, so. You can't, but you don't have,

see for Killian to run in his zone one, which is like walking for a normal human being, he's probably running like, he could probably run like seven minute miles in his zone one. You think in zone one? Because he's so efficient in his movements. On flat ground, seven minute miles.

And he's been building this base for so long. Like his zone one pace is, I'd be very interested to know what his zone one pace is. Yeah, I'd be interested too. Anyway, speaking of long distance running, the 3,100 self transcendence run is underway. I think they're on day nine at this point. Long time listeners will remember Sanjay Rawal,

who was on the podcast back in 2018, that was episode 389. He is a runner and a filmmaker. He made a documentary called 3,100 Run and Become, which is all about this race following some of the participants. Essentially this, you know what this race is, don't you? No. So this is, I talked about it with Camille Heron

cause she's interested in doing it, but it's a 3,100 mile running race where you basically run around this city block in Queens. That's like, I don't know, half mile long. For, they open up the course in the morning and they close it at night. So it's not like, you know, no sleep, like you sleep at night and you show up in the morning

and you run as much as you can until they close the course. And you have to complete the 3,100 miles in 52 days or less. So basically you have to run an average of 59.6 miles a day. The 2019 winner did it in 47 days. And this is just like one of the most insane races in existence. A crazy maker.

Yeah. And the people that compete in it, interestingly, I mean, you should watch Sanjay's documentary. We'll link it up in the show notes. You can get it on Amazon Prime. This guy, I think the same guy who won in 2019, his name is Ashprahnal Alto. He's 40, he was 48 years old in 2019 and he's 51 now.

I think he's like a postal worker in Finland or Denmark. Okay. I thought you were gonna say that's his route. No, no, no. But like a lot of these competitors, they're not professional athletes and they look sort of like lay people. They don't look like race horses.

And it's just, you know, the prize goes to the tortoise in this thing. It's like the guy who can, or woman who can like keep moving the longest. It's this war of attrition. It's kind of an unbelievable thing. Crazy. The goal is to transcend the self. Well, yeah, it's this war of attrition. It's kind of an unbelievable thing. Crazy. So the goal is to transcend the self.

Well, yeah, it was created by Sri Shenmue who's sort of this, you know, guru figure from that part of New York city who created, who, you know, part of the kind of spiritual philosophy is that you can achieve self-transcendence through endurance. Right. Sort of like the marathon monks.

It's a similar kind of thing. And so this race was kind of born out of that. Anyway, you can also follow Sanjay on Instagram. He's been updating people through his stories. He's at Mr. Sanjay R, Mr. Sanjay R on Instagram. Amazing. Before we get into the water stuff, can we talk about Tony Riddle's upcoming?

Yeah, please. September 15th, he is gonna be running Britain's longest trail, the Southwest Coastal Path. It's a thousand kilometers. He's gonna be doing it in 10 days to beat the current record. So he's going for an FKT. So that's a hundred kilometers a day for 10 consecutive days.

And the elevation is equivalent to scaling Mount Everest four times. So what is that? A hundred thousand plus feet of elevation gain. And so he's doing that starts September 15th. He's gonna be posting about it on the natural lifestylist. So that's a place to see it on Instagram. And he's raising money.

He's raising money for the Southwest coast paths. I guess they have a restoration fund and also a documentary highlighting Brazil's next indigenous Congresswoman. So he's like his main, his pet causes are the environment, indigenous rights, indigenous people. So he's got three causes that he's raising money for.

So if you are feeling it, go over to his Instagram and you can read a little bit more about it and then kick in some money or just watch the show. Do we have links for those nonprofits that we can put in the show notes? Where's our link guy? I don't know. You're our link guy.

Okay, I'll find them. I'll give you your links. When I was in London, I did a podcast with Tony. So we talked all about his preparation for this challenge. Just with the post-production schedule and all the guests that we've had, unfortunately that episode's not going up in advance of this challenge.

So when it does go up, bear in mind that it was recorded prior to that. In the meantime, if you wanna get down with Tony, you can listen to the first podcast that we did. I don't know what number it is. I love that one. Search Google for that. Where he got you barefoot running.

He did and we made a little video where he took me through some drills and things like that, which is fun to watch. And he has a documentary out about his three peaks challenge which is called one man, two feet, three peaks. I think it's like an hour long or something like that. It's a pretty good watch and it gives you some good context for who this guy is and how remarkable he is.

He is a remarkable human being. Running in his Vivo barefoot and climbing these peaks barefoot. Family man. No furniture in his house. No, family man. A lot of squatting, a lot of natural movement. They sit on the floor, they sleep on these pads, right?

Yeah, but they don't have chairs, you know? And he's a beautiful, wonderful guy. I just love that guy to death, so cool. A transcendent self. Should we talk about this 100 mile offshore challenge? Is it even a challenge? I don't, no, I mean, no. I remember when this came up.

It's not, actually. Did you post it? I wonder if I saw it on your Twitter or on one of my other many daily forays into social media. This came up and was suddenly everywhere. So this rapper. Young Thug. Young Thug posted from jail, I guess.

So his roommate is a fellow, was incarcerated person, his roommate? What do you mean his roommate? I'm talking with my roommate and we're wondering if you- Oh yeah, I think so. When I read that tweet, I didn't realize it was Young Thug. I thought it was just some dude talking to his roommate.

I did too, because we're old men and we don't know what's going on. But Young Thug said, I'm talking with my roommate. We tweeted this, I'm talking with my roommate and we're wondering if you could swim a hundred miles from the middle of the ocean back to shore, Michael Phelps. And Michael Phelps retweeted it and said, yeah, I think I could make it.

And this kind of like exploded the internet for a minute. Yeah, especially in the open water circles, like there please can Michael Phelps bring some star power to our sport. So like CBS sports ends up writing an article about this, taking it seriously. Like, could he actually do this? Like what would it take?

And talks about like who Young Thug is and all the like. And he was in jail at the time? Reportedly been charged with a wide ranging Rico case. What's RICO? Waiting trial, racketeering. Okay. So I don't know anything about that part of the whole deal. Okay.

You're not endorsing his RICO case. What do you think? Could Michael Phelps do this? Well, I think he could. You know, I think people have done longer swims, right? I think Cameron Bellamy was preparing a swim that's about that long at one point. Pablo Fernandez broke the record

for longest distance ocean swim in 2021, traveling 155.3 miles in 26 hours. Incredible. And then we know Neil Ageeus, the guy who swam from Italy to Malta in 52 hours, that was a hundred and, or no, 78.48. That must be, cause he's an Olympic swimmer. So that must be the guy that like that felt,

cause later Phelps talked to his coach, I guess, and they figured it would be 50 hours. So they must've been talking about Neil's swim. That must've been part of that calculus there. Maybe not. I think he could do it. I think that it would, what would be cooler would be to have him try to go for a record

at like the English channel or try to find like one of these crossings to do first. You'd have to do some training anyway. So you'd have to do long swims to prepare. You couldn't just do the 100. So, wouldn't it be cool if he decided to like go for the triple crown, the record, the FKT and some of these channel swims.

I'm telling you people who cover channel swimming. I'm sure that's gonna be big motivation for him. I mean, let's be honest here. Could he do it? Of course he could do it. Like if Michael Phelps set his sights on a goal like this, he's going to accomplish it. If he says he could do it course he could do it. Like if Michael Phelps set his sights on a goal like this, he's going to accomplish it. If he says he could do it, he could do it.

But here's the thing, this is never gonna happen. Like this is not a real thing. I love that there's news articles about this as if he's actually contemplating it. He is living his best life right now. He has accomplished everything there is to accomplish. Like could he? Yeah, if he wanted to put his time into this,

but why would he do that? He looks fit, he's enjoying his kids. Why would he do it? He's going to golf tournaments. Cause the inside milk, man, he needs something else. I don't know. He needs the primal nature. But how long, what, you know, like, listen,

like, first of all, what ocean and you know, where in, you know, what is listen, like, first of all, what ocean and, you know, where in, you know, what is his longitude and latitude here? Is it cold water? Is it tropical water? Is there chop? What are we talking about here? Well, I mean, if he's planning on doing, he's not planning on it.

He's not, but it's like, I love the whole conversation, like imagining that he's actually planning for this. He decided to. He tweeted that and then he never thought about it again. Most likely. But if he decided to take it on, I think you end up having to pick a window

and within that window, you deal with the conditions as they are. Like that's how it usually goes. But where in the world would you set your sights on doing this? Like where would his first window be? Well, first of all, geographically where? I should ask you that because you've done ultra events.

I usually interview people after they've done them, but I know- What do you want? You want relatively warm water and you want calm water. Not necessarily. Like if you're gonna try to do like the challenges that I know of, the best biggest swims. I mean, you could do, he could go to Hawaii to start there,

but the currents can be really rough there. Wherever you go, there's going to be current, there's going to be tides. So, you know, at some point- What you wanna do is swim within the Gulf stream current and have it just carry you. Right, you want the, yeah, right. With maximum speed.

But those conditions can be rough too. I mean, that doesn't always work. I think you would have to put on quite a bit of weight for buoyancy and for warmth. Cause even if you're in warm water, let's say the water is 76 degrees, that's still considerably colder than your body temperature.

And a lot of your energy goes towards maintaining core body temperature, right? So you don't wanna be expending a ton of energy to stay warm. So that's why a lot of these open water marathon swimmers, they look like they're out of shape because they have so much body fat on them. Right.

There's a movement now though, within a water swimmer, that's not necessarily, that was thought to be true, but it's not as necessary as you think. You don't have to carry as much weight as it was thought. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So there's some people who don't think, I mean, Antonio likes his bioprene,

but there's others that are preparing swims that they don't necessarily look like Michael Phelps looks in a Speedo, but they're not necessarily looking too overweight. Well, the best line in this CBS article is how it ends at the very end. It says, The last line in this CBS article is how it ends at the very end.

It says, as of now, there doesn't seem to be actual plans for Phelps to attempt Young Thug's challenge. Yes. But I think- Way to bury the lead there. I think Young Thug's onto something. I don't know if he tweeted this from jail.

Do you think Young Thug was actually challenging him? He was asking a question. What I think we should start doing is have Young Thug go around challenging athletes to ultra events. Like whoever he's rooming with. He's in charge. He and his roommate. Of dispensing with challenges,

dispensing challenges to the world. He should be the commissioner of ultra. While he's awaiting trial. Yes, Young Thug, you could be the commissioner of Ultra and you can create events and go around and you just tap people with Twitter. Tap them and said, you Rich Roll, I've read about you. Great book by the way.

Now you are going to swim Catalina. Okay, right. See, this is why we need social media. Yes, this is the why we need social media. Yes, this is the good side of social media. Okay. Should we talk about this 70 year old lifeguard? Which one?

The guy at the Jersey Shore. Oh, the Jersey Shore lifeguard. You know what I'm talking about. So you're talking about Eric Greensmith? I am talking about that very man himself. This popped up on Instagram under the Wall Street Journal page at WSJ. This guy, Eric Greensmith, who-

Looks great. He looks amazing. He's a retired anesthesiologist, I think. Okay. Was worried about getting bored in retirement. So as his career started to wind down last year, he started getting into shape and started dreaming about recapturing some of his teenage years

by returning to becoming a lifeguard on the Jersey shore. He trains for it. There's all these tests that you have to pass. Like you gotta run in the sand and do some kind of routine. And he passed all of those. And there he is like sitting in the lifeguard chair, saving lives.

There he is, man. It's shades of Jim McConaughey, and the other old heads that I see in Malibu, you know who Jim McConaughey is, right? Jim McConaughey was a collegiate swimmer at USC. And his claim to fame is he beat Mark Spitz in some collegiate race. And then fast forward, he was 50 and working like,

I think he owned some like car dealerships or something in Ventura. And he was all out of shape and he was kind of disgusted with himself. And he decided to swim, break the record from Catalina. And now he's something like 70. I covered him when he and the deep benders did some channel swims in the channel islands.

And he at one point held every record of all the channel islands. Wow. And he's like, I think he's 70 plus now. And when he decided to become a lifeguard again, like I forget how old, I think he was a little bit after 50. He won that race. He still can compete with the top guys in speed,

in swimming and running. That's pretty cool. How do you think he would measure up against Dr. Greensmith? I think he would defeat Mr. Greensmith. Yeah, Dr. Greensmith, sorry. I got a soft spot in my heart for this guy. Oh yeah. Check him out.

But I mean, Meconica is like, yeah, I get it. I get it. Yes. It's cool though. Yes. Like I applaud this. Do you think you want to- I think it's cool that the Wall Street Journal decided to write this really cool article. I love it. I love it too.

You know, it's interesting, cause I've been, you know, as we get on in age, you kind of want to create new skills, get new skills, get back to, you know, you do feel the pull to do something of use that's different than feeding the chaos machine. Right. I think about those different things. And age is just a number.

Yes. Your greatest challenges await you, Mr. Skolnick. They do? Yeah. Okay. Voluntary, voluntary challenges. Okay, I've been through some challenges. Some of them I'm not eager to go through again.

Life has a tendency to dole things out. Like we don't get out of this thing alive. So no, no, no, nobody does. Expect more challenges. This morning I stared death right in the bloody mouth. What happened? Someone texted me a picture of a beach dolphin. This is the chaos machine.

I stared at it. At work. And I meditated on it. Did you? Yeah. Wow. That's how I confront death on a near daily basis. That's your amor fati?

That's my amor fati. What's that? The stoic phrase for death is, what is it? Yeah. What does it translate to? I feel like Ryan holiday. You will die. I think like Ryan holiday stares at like dead animals

on his Instagram every morning before he does a stoic. I don't think so. No? I love it. He has some practice around that, but I don't think that's what it looks like. That's what it looks like. Anyway, let's switch gears. Okay.

We're going into the gutter here. Can I talk about a TV show I watched? Is this the time or are we doing that later? Let's do the main topics. Oh, let's do the main topics. The main topic first. Main topics. Yeah.

So, we're like an hour and a half into this thing when we're hitting our main subject here, but hey, this is roll on, right? This is what happens in roll on. So I thought as we slowly inch towards the 10 year anniversary of this podcast. When is that? It would be in November at some point,

late November, I think. It would be good to kind of reflect on some things that I've learned as a result of this journey that I've been on. So I just jotted down some thoughts, a few pillars of things that I've learned from podcasting and from life and athletics, business, sobriety, lessons,

not just applicable to podcasting or being a podcaster or to being a content creator, but honestly, you know, to and for anyone for any purpose. And I think, how many did I come up with? We were like cramming to get this podcast together. Maybe I'll come up with like five things. And I came up with one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10.

I came up with 12. So it's like the 12 steps, perfect. Rich rolls 12 steps. Roll on 12 steps. I don't know how much time we wanna spend on this. We can go through them quickly. But the main thing is- Would you like me to try to poke holes in them?

Or just- You can. I want this to be conversational, Adam. I told you that. The first thing is to invest in your curiosity. And I think that's not to be confused with follow your passion. It's to pay attention to yourself.

Like what are you naturally curious about? And to learn to honor that and to pull on those threads and be open to where they might lead you. And often they're not dramatic lightning bolt types of things, but I think being in a mindset and cultivating a practice of honoring your curiosity has been a huge piece and how the show went from idea to what it is today.

And I think it's applicable to anything that you choose to invest your time in, because if you're not naturally curious about where that time investment is going, then it's probably not gonna work, right? Like you have to be curious about the work you're pursuing, the endeavors that you're investing in. Stay curious.

Yeah, like could you write a great book or a great article if you're not curious about the material that you're investigating? No. Of course not, right? Can you achieve an athletic goal if you aren't curious about what that journey is gonna reveal about who you are and where it might lead? Maybe not one that-

You could, you could force yourself to, but it's not gonna be a sustainable thing. Right, it might be a one-off, yeah. And this podcast is really built on curiosity. I mean, you wanted to talk earlier about like how I choose the guests. Right. And it's really all about curiosity.

It's a gut instinct thing. It's not like, oh, here are the people with the big books that are coming out, or here's the people who've expressed interest in coming on. At this point, it's not about like, who can I get? It's about like who's right. And who's right often doesn't match up with like who's most popular

or who's got the biggest thing going on. It's about who I'm naturally curious to learn from, who I feel a gravitational pull towards. And that's really been like the guiding principle or light and it's all about curiosity. Love it. Second thing, listen, Adam, you need to hear this. Preparation. Oh.

Preparation. There are no shortcuts to anything. You can't cram for a competition. You can't fake readiness. In order to be present, in order to be able to execute to the best of your ability, I cannot overemphasize the importance of preparation. And in the context of this podcast,

I would say on average, maybe between six to eight hours goes into each guest, reading their books, listening to other podcasts they've been on, reading all the material that I can find, background material, news articles, blog posts, et cetera. And then synthesizing all of that material, coming up with an outline. Like I probably go way too far on the preparation thing,

but it's that thing, like if you're an actor, you can't just memorize the lines. They have to become so rote that you forget them and you can show up and be present for the performance. Similarly, like I have to digest all of this and allow it to kind of percolate in my unconscious mind so that when I show up to do the podcast, I'm not reliant upon looking on notes,

even though I have the iPad open in case like I have a brain fart or something like that. And I just trust in the preparation and try to be as present as possible and allow it to be what it wants to be. But I think what you see are a lot of people like faking the preparation part and trying to kind of, you know,

get through certain experiences and play it off as if they have been, as if they had prepared, but you know, you can always tell. Yeah, a hundred percent. I mean, I'm all about- It's like a short term versus long-term thing. Sorry, go ahead. No, yeah, I'm all about the over-researching

when I'm writing something, I always over-research, talk to too many people. I have too many people's quotes that I wanna get in there that I can't always do. You feel bad about it sometimes because you can't get to everything. So it creates this other problem, but in the end it always delivers better material.

So I think in media preparation is key. Six to eight hours sounds like, cause it seems like you put in, like I wouldn't be surprised, I wouldn't have been surprised if it was 30 hours based on some of the interviews you get into. Yeah, I mean, and it depends, it depends on, with authors it's generally more

cause you have to consume their books and all of that. But, and this is applicable to everything. Like if you're gonna be an athlete, you wanna show up for your competition prepared. Like you don't wanna be trying to get away with something that you actually didn't earn. And all the things that you seek through participating in a competition,

like the enhanced sense of, the enhanced sense of self and pride and all of that are really a function of preparedness. Like if you didn't really put the preparation in and you kind of get away with it, even if you get the good result, you're not getting that feeling. You're not getting that enriched experience

that you would have had you put yourself on the line and tried your hardest, which means investing in that preparation piece. Love it. Next thing, listening. Most people are terrible listeners. If you can master listening, the art of listening, you're already gonna be way ahead

in just about everything important in life. I think that's true. I'm sorry, what'd you say? See, I know. This is why roll on never works, right? I agree. When you can match the preparation with listening, I think people ask me like,

oh, give me some advice about how to conduct an interview or how to do a podcast. It's like, follow your curiosity. There's only one you. Be super prepared for what you're gonna do and then show up and listen. And I feel like so many people are in their own heads or thinking like in the very narrow context of podcasting,

so many hosts, they're not listening to their guests. They're just waiting to ask the next question or they're just biding their time until they can tell their story about their take on something. And not just in podcasts, you see that on television interviews, you see it all over.

And it's terrible, right? Yeah, it's not the best interviewing. And the best interviewing is when you can find a spot that you can dive deeper. You can find a little rabbit holes and burrow into them. But also like if you're taking that to daily life, how would you, if taking the listening piece,

most people are terrible at this, how does that, how would you transfer that? I'm less skilled in the real world than I am. I don't believe that. Yeah, it's about being present, right? Are you actually listening to the people that you're engaging with during the day? And that's like, you know, that's definitely something

that I still need a lot of work on, you know, I'm busy and I'm trying to get from one place to the next. And I don't really wanna sit and listen to what somebody is trying to tell me when I'm perceiving them to be like an obstacle to where I'm actually going. So I think it's inextricably linked with trying to be in the moment.

And also that's what another thing that the phones get in the way of, right? Sure. Good listening skills. Right. Cause we're constantly- I listen to my phone really well. Yeah, everyone listens to their phone to the tip top. Right. Cause we're constantly. I listen to my phone really well. Yeah, everyone listens to their phone to the top tip top.

Yes. But yeah, that idea of over distraction gets in the way of it. So that's something we now have to be especially conscious of, right? And I think we always had to, but good listeners, the less you talk, the more you hear. Right. Yeah.

The next thing is consistency. And this is just applicable to everything in life as well. Whether you're an athlete or professional, whatever it is that you're trying to improve at, consistency is the most underrated and important piece in the whole equation. In the context of this podcast, consistency has been everything.

Like just keep moving forward. Every week you put up an episode, some, you know, like they're not all gonna be home runs. Like just keep moving,. Every week you put up an episode, some in the, you know, like they're not all gonna be home runs. Like just keep moving, let go of perfection and create a sustainable model that factors in self-care so that you're in the best position to continue doing the thing for as long as you remain curious and passionate about it.

And, you know, on the subject of preparing for guests, like I listened to a lot of podcasts, right? If a guest is coming on, I'll check out some other podcast appearances they've done to get a sense of who they are or some backstory. And what I found, not all the time, but there's a large percentage of hosts who are either ill-prepared, like we talked about earlier,

or who are not listening, just waiting to ask the next question or to tell their story. Or in certain cases, it's great, but then I realized that host is no longer podcasting. Like this was from a couple of years ago and they quit or they stopped because they couldn't maintain consistency

because they couldn't find a way to make it sustainable. Like that's my only inference. So consistency is super important. And that means creating a system that is sustainable. So paying attention to how you've set everything up. And this is, I've had to learn from my own mistakes, like starting off trying to do everything, being super perfectionist about everything,

and then learning how to let go and empower team members and create a schedule that has allowed us to like batch work and schedule way in advance so that everybody has an enhanced quality of life and then taking time off at the end of the year so I can reboot. All of that has been huge so that I can remain as curious and as excited about doing this thing

10 years after it's begun. I love it. That's for sure a hallmark of anyone in the creative arts consistency is paramount because you won't even, most of the time, you won't even get anywhere for the first five years. So if you give up in that period of time, then. Yeah, and on that note, like patience, right?

Yeah, you don't get anywhere in five years. Like, you know, we hear all this stuff about like, oh, to change a habit, you need 28 days. Like, first of all, I think it's probably more like a hundred days, but that aside, if you wanna be good at anything, it's gonna take 10 years. Like I think a decade is really the best metric

that I've seen in order to go from, not necessarily beginner, but from competency to maybe not mastery, but like true competency. Like 10,000 hours becomes 10 years for you. Whatever it is, like, I don't know if you can be that reductive about it, but things take time and you can only rush things so much. So instead of trying to rush it,

just understand this is what you're in for, relax into it, you know, build over time, whether you're trying to build a business, develop a client base, like whatever you're trying to get good at, like it's important to think in decades, not in days or months or even years. When you have this dream and you're young

and you don't really see like, God, that seems so far away. Yeah, I remember I- I mean, if you're a new lawyer, it's gonna be 10 years before you have a book of business and you're kind of well-regarded as being somewhat expert in your specific field. I'm sure the same is true if you're a doctor, if you're an engineer, and certainly, you know,

as a podcast, like we're at 10 years now. Like when we started, we were small, now we're larger. I still have tons to learn. I would not consider myself to have mastered this at all. Like I try to approach it with a beginner's mind, but yeah, it took 10 years to go from where we were to where we are today. And that's just the deal.

When I was a swimmer, it took me from age 10 to 20. Right. Obviously there's some physical development in there, but that was a 10 year period. And with podcasting, it's been from 2012 to 2022. You know, it's funny. I, in the end of 2004, beginning 2005, I went to Indonesia for the second time.

And I met up with Elizabeth Gilbert, who I had met my previous trip a few months earlier, six months earlier, we were all there. And my sister was with me and we all went to go see, I forget his last name, but like one of the holy men that she consulted that's in Eat, Pray, Love. And so she went to see him and then she took me to see him. And he did his whole thing where he's kind of

tells your fortune. He predicted the success of Eat, Pray, Love by the way. And he looks at me and he says, I forget exactly what went down, but he said, you're trying to build something. He goes, it's going to happen. He's going to happen. You're gonna achieve great success at 47 years old.

And this was 2004, so I was 33. I think I just turned 33 and I was bummed, man. I was so bummed. You know, I was like, God, that's a long time. Like I could barely make rent at 33. Like I'm thinking, how am I gonna make rent for 16 years? That's where my head went. This is how kind of fucked up I was thinking, how am I gonna make rent for 16 years? That's where my head went. This is how kind of fucked up I was thinking, but it's true.

I mean, it was scary to hear that. I didn't hear that just keep going for 17 years. I haven't even been doing it for 17 years. Right, you could have interpreted that as relax a little bit. Right, but I'd only been trying for like five years, and it had been hard. And so now I'm looking at all the way

to that period of time. But when I was 47, right before I turned 47, I think it was right. Yeah, right before I turned 47, Can't Hurt Me came out. Wow, wow. I wonder if this guy's that right all the time. I don't know, sorry.

I have it on airplane mode. But the thing is if he's wrong, like no one remembers, it's when he's right that you remember. That's the time. I don't know, sorry. I have it on airplane mode. But the thing is if he's wrong, like no one remembers, it's when he's right that you remember. That's the thing. How right are you all the time? But that's pretty right. I mean, 47? Yeah.

Isn't that wild? It's pretty cool. Yeah. So there you have it. Patience is the point. Next thing, process over results. Okay. You gotta fall in love with the process over results. Okay. You gotta fall in love with the process, Adam.

That's what he should have. That's what he was telling me. That's how I was gonna say, that's what he should have told you, right? Yeah, but when you're talking about writing, the process can be torturous sometimes, but you do have to stay true to it because like when you're talking about writing,

the more you can get into the process and be there, it gives time for the beauty to come through. And it's true of everything. The more you're in it for the process, for the right reasons, then the results which you care about become less mission critical. Cause you're not necessarily doing it for the results,

you're doing it to become better at the thing that you care about. And I think that's super important for the mastery of craft. It's hard though, man. And it's not about what happens because of the thing. It's the thing itself that matters. So can you find that thing in your life

that matters so much that it's more important than where it takes you? Or it's actually what matters most is you and that's your own self-development. And the process is really just an arena for your self-development. Yeah, it is the engine of that journey. All the rest of it is pretty much completely not,

it doesn't matter at all. Like whether you're doing it through athletics or through something creative or through business or through family, they're all just vehicles for that growth journey. That's right. There you go. Yeah. And the growth journey isn't always pleasant.

Generally not. Generally not. When you're coasting, you're not growing. As you could have, you can attest from the story that you just shared. When you're coasting, you're not growing. As you could have, you can attest from the story that you just shared. The next thing is to choose your mentors wisely. I've been pretty lucky with mentors.

When I was early in my career, I didn't have great mentors. I could have really used them, but I found an amazing collection of mentors later in life. And that's been crucial in all the decisions that I've made around personal and professional life. And they don't have to be fancy people, but you do need people in your life who will give you honest, clear feedback on your decisions.

And those should be people that are trusted. They should be few, and they should always have experience in the field of advice. They have to have skin in the game. Like you're not gonna go to your super successful businessman friend who's never been in a healthy relationship

to ask him advice about your marriage, right? You're gonna find somebody with a really stable, healthy relationship for that purpose, right? You can have different mentors for different purposes. And I've, you know, compiled a really robust, stable like a board of advisors for all the different kinds of problems that I run into personally that I can run things by.

And it's been huge, you know? And I think, you know, ancillary to that is the importance of holding yourself accountable to what you say you're gonna do. Like being true to your word, to yourself and to the other people in your life. Like I heard, this guy's a legend in 12 step, my boy, Scotty G.

When I was very newly sober, he said to me, like I screwed something up and I had to make an amends and I felt terrible about it. And he said, if you're gonna eat crow, eat it hot, right? Like take care of your shit. Don't wait around and think it's gonna go away. Like deal with it directly and swiftly and honestly. And then you become like those sorts of actions, like we're all fallible.

We're all gonna make mistakes and we're all gonna fall short of holding ourselves accountable at times. But when you do misstep to just rectify it as quickly and as swiftly and as honestly as you possibly can. Love it. I don't have a stable of mentors. Yeah.

You could tell. You should. You could tell, you said yes. You should. I know, it's obvious. I know I should, but I never thought of it that way. I think I'm gonna build a stable of mentors. Would you like to be in my stable?

I would happily fill that role. Okay. Yeah. I got a stable of one now. There you go. Add some more. Call me anytime, Adam. The next one is around exploring less traveled waters.

Okay. And I think this is sort of interesting. Like when I was developing as a swimmer, I very consciously remember choosing to train for the 200 butterfly, because that was a race that none of the other kids wanted to do. And in my mind, I thought,

well, that gives me a better chance of distinguishing myself because there's less competition there. And that was correct. And I think that would hold true for like, oh, here's Ultraman over here, this crazy long race that not that many people wanna sign up for. Like maybe I could distinguish myself there

in a way that would be more difficult if I was just to sign up for an Ironman where it's already very crowded. And I think in the podcasting sphere, it's been a similar journey. Like when we started this show, podcasting was unripened fruit at the time. Like it wasn't that competitive,

but I did have a sense like, oh, this is a medium with potential. And I have an opportunity to get in early when it's not that competitive and distinguish myself. So I think extracting from those experiences and applying them to your own life, like where is that unripened fruit that matches up with your curiosity

that together provides for, maybe an unassuming opportunity or an opportunity that is not getting the attention that it could. And in my experience, like moving in those directions has proven to be beneficial. If you look at all of this stuff, it's like you could see how your background in athletics

completely fed your success because you're looking at a very strategic- The principles are the same. The principles are the same. Yeah, consistency, perseverance, hard work ethic, showing up, accountability, identifying the opportunity. And then it starts to dovetail into principles of sobriety. Like the next thing on my list is gratitude and impermanence.

Like understanding that nothing lasts. Like I'm very conscious that right now is an incredible time for the show, for my life. But I'm also aware that like, it's not gonna always be this way. Like this is a very impermanent thing. Like it will not always, like we have this sense like, oh, this is the way that it is right now.

It's always gonna be like this. Like I know that it's not, this has an expiration date on it, like everything else. So in the meantime, make sure to express gratitude for what you have, to appreciate the moment while you're in it, rather than to only see that in retrospect later on after that moment's passed. Like, and that's not a default mentality for me.

Like that's something I have to practice to be aware of. Like celebrate the small victories along the way. And the big ones. And understand that the big ones, like as human beings that we have this weird wiring where we think like, oh, like that was great. So it's always gonna be great. Or that was bad, so it's always gonna be bad.

Like everything is in flux all the time. Recency bias. Yeah, recency bias, not taking anything for granted, not creating expectations one way or the other around what it's gonna be like tomorrow. Love it. Which kind of segues into the next thing, which is loved ones first.

Like, and this is a recurring kind of theme on the podcast. I've had many guests recount a version of this notion that every deathbed regret or answer around a lament of time not spent with the people that you love. Like how many times have you heard that? A lot. Right? Yes. And how well do we practice that?

You're asking me how well I practice that? When we get caught up in the chaos machine. I'm always in my head, man. Yeah, it's hard, right? Kids, partners, friends, are they getting the best of your time and attention? Or are they getting the scraps at the end of the day because you're tired

and you've already expended that energy. I could be a better listener. Yeah, me too. Yeah, yeah. Me too, right? I mean, this list isn't a list of things that I'm mastered and I'm now telling you,

these are things that I'm working on myself that I'm very fallible at. And then, continuing in the kind of sober trajectory here, it's all about like contribution. Like, what are you giving back in service? How are you empowering other people? And this is a drum that I've banked many times here on the podcast. I think you do this.

I mean, I think the audience here would tell you that you do. Right, but this is also a for-profit venture at the same time. Yes, and it's like finding those things of like, how can you merge those things? Like there's pure service and then there's, this is, you can make an argument

that this is in service to other people. It's in service to myself too, if I'm being honest. But I think, understanding that whatever you invest your time in, you must also find a way to make sure that it's also about something bigger than yourself, something that allows you to give back in return for the gift given. And I think ancillary to that is this idea of practicing,

entering all scenarios from a perspective of what you can give. Like what can you positively contribute rather than what you can extract, what you can get, how you can get one over on other people or get a leg up, which goes to this idea of long-term strategy versus a short-term approach. Like, yes, if you go into a meeting and you're trying to one-up somebody,

maybe you win that battle, but ultimately you're gonna lose the war. And the war always goes to the person who leads with gratitude, who is giving back, who is contributing more than they're extracting. And I think that that is, again, this is something that, this is not about podcasting. This is about like,

how do you conduct yourself in the world? When you enter into a conversation with somebody or a social setting or a meeting or an exchange with your kids or your partner, like what is your mindset? Are you trying to contribute? Are you trying to improve the environment that you're in? Or are you looking to get what's yours and win? Yes. You looking to win, Adam?

Not that often though. Yeah, I don't see you like that. I'm not like that person, but I think that I like to build rapport. For me, a win is when rapport is built. Like that's why you have me here. I'm the rapport guy. Yeah. You feel the rapport?

A little bit, I'm trying. You feel it? It comes and goes. I feel like we have a rapport. No, we do, of course we do. No, I mean, I'm definitely not one of those. I've always thought that like, obviously it's a foundation of the economy

is the market economy, but the idea of having to profit the most off every deal, I think is, which is a product of the stock market, right? I mean, it's a product of all of that. And then there's a cascading down, even small businesses end up in that same trap, even though they don't have investors to please, but they're always trying to get,

until even if they're not trying to make a profit, like Amazon didn't for years, they were trying to maximize the market. So there's still, there's a greed element there to get the most. I've never been the guy that looks to maximize the market. So there's still, there's a greed element there to get the most. I've never been the guy that looks to get the most. No, you're not a zero sum guy. That's not me.

The universe is infinitely abundant. I think that we can all, we can all, you know, group up and have more together. But that doesn't mean that I don't fall into those traps though. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, one of the greatest gifts of this podcast is it has provided this opportunity for me

to pursue a living that feeds my family. Right. But there is this other aspect of it. It's like, I feel like I, you know, it feels good to know that I'm trying to contribute something positive. And the marriage of those two things has created this vocation that I just feel like so lucky.

Like I can't believe I get to do this. And there's a feeling that you get when you know, like I'm trying to do good, even if I'm not succeeding necessarily, like the intention is there. And hopefully once in a while, like the product is there as well. Well, that's what's cool about kind of creative endeavors

and media in particular is like, is when your goal is a win-win, you can feel that, you know, and like, that's the goal here. Usually when you're sitting down with somebody, you're not trying to take them apart. You're trying to share what they have that's a value to people and to explore it for yourself. And that's always gonna be benefit to the show

and a benefit to the subject and a benefit to the audience. So it's like a win, win, win. And so if you're trying to go into things with win, win versus win, right? Which is definitely your vibe here. Definitely why we connect, I think that's the key, right? Yeah, a hundred percent. I mean, I'm imagining a listener saying,

well, you found this podcasting thing, you're lucky. Like, I don't have that thing. Like, how do you find that thing for yourself? Like, I'm not saying people should become podcasters, but there has to be something that you gravitate towards when you cultivate that curiosity that over time can develop into something that is both a pursuit that nourishes you,

but also nourishes others. And kind of bring it back into the context of the many guests that we've had here. David Goggins would tell you that motivation and inspiration are fleeting. They're not sustainable sources of energy. And Tom Bilyeu would say, instead of trying to rely on motivation and inspiration,

you need to find a quest and how you define that is up to you. But to me, a quest means attaching to something bigger than yourself. Like whether that's a problem that needs solving or a need that needs being met. Like Scott Harrison says, don't fear work with no end. And like Mike Fremont, the centenarian says,

make your life about service. And that's gonna look different for every single people, person, but there's something really beautiful and indelibly true about that. 100%. Yeah. Final thing, number 12.

12, the 12th step. I wouldn't call them steps. Okay. These are ideas I jotted down this morning. Let's not get crazy. 12 points. I didn't put that much thought into this. 12 points.

On the preparation thing, less preparation for today. 12 points of light. Six to eight hours did not go into this. This particular show? Yeah. But they don't need it. It was a mad scramble. I wake up Monday morning

and then we frantically get on FaceTime and on the phone and try to figure out what we're gonna talk about. I called you yesterday. I called you at the normal time. Yeah, you did. We had a call. I think people would like to know

how we put this thing together. We do not sit down and just decide in the moment what we're gonna talk about. Like we throw an outline back and forth over the course of 10 or 12 days that ends up in some form of completion or non-completion. And then over the weekend, we chat on the phone, we try to mature those ideas. And then Monday morning, we get back on the phone, we chat on the phone. We try to mature those ideas.

And then Monday morning, we get back on the phone. We finalize the outline. We make some last minute hectic notes and then we roll the dice. But I would say we put, I mean, basically over the course of two weeks, like I make notes every time I come across something interesting,

like I throw it in the outline or in my notes app on my phone. So I'm constantly always like thinking about like- Yeah, I have a notes app always going. This time it's just been a scramble for me in the last four weeks. I've been less available than my typically always available self.

It's okay. Cause you have private secret projects that you're working on. I've got top secret double secret projects that no one will know about. Ever, how convenient. K2 layer, K2 layer. Adam is unavailable. He's working on a top secret project.

You'll read his next work when he's 67, it'll be a smash hit. All right, final point. This is another drum that I've beaten many times. And that is conversation matters. Because if we can't talk about it, we can't solve it. And I really believe that. Like when we think about the chaos machine

and the episode with Max and the existential problems that we face individually, culturally, socially, politically, economically, the solutions to these problems begin and end with conversation. If we can't talk about it, we can't solve it. We're in a situation right now where there has been a denigration, a dissolution in healthy discourse.

And if there's one thing that I'm devoted to in this podcast, it's endeavoring to have healthy conversations about things that matter because we do need to talk about these things and the solution does lie in conversation. It's not the whole thing, but if we can't have a conversation about these important subjects,

we're in no position to rectify the problems that we face. Too many people out there are trying to win. Aren't they? It's not about winning, it's about listening. It's about compassion. It's about understanding. Love it. Yeah.

12 points. So there it is, 12 points. These principles apply to whatever you're thinking about or striving towards fitness, athleticism, whatever career path you've chosen, writing books, being a creative individual, being a parent, being a partner. Being a chef.

Yeah, like they come, like it is interesting. Like I was writing these down and I was like, well, these are things that I've kind of learned from podcasting, but I kind of learned them from being an athlete. I've learned them being a sobering, but I kind of learned them from being an athlete. I've learned them being a sober person for an extended period of time.

I've learned about them being a parent and a partner and they all kind of congeal. So I can't separate one from the other. Right, but I like that you're analyzing yourself and what your experience and what you've been through, like that kind of stepping back and taking the time to do that is cool. Like I just never do that.

Like, and it is healthy to do that, you know? And if you don't separate yourself from your life to take the time, then you forget too much. You know, like you don't see as clearly the principles that have guided your own life. Even if you are guided with some principles that matter that are true and pure, if you don't see them, it's like you can't leverage them quite as much.

And the way to see them is through meditation and mindfulness practices and journaling. Like if you journal enough, themes emerge, my friend, and you start to see your behavior patterns recurring and you get clarity on like what's driving them and why do I keep doing that? And when I do this, I get better results. And why is it hard for me to do this thing?

Or here's a habit that I've changed or that I need to change. Like I can't recommend or encourage enough, people to engage in their version of that process. Love it. All right, we're gonna answer some listener questions, but before we do that, we wanna, before we do that, do you wanna share a couple things that we've enjoyed?

Yes. Some content. Should I kick it off? Recommendations. Yeah, go for it. I just wrote about this new series from Jimmy Chin and his wife Chai. What's her last?

Vazirelli. Vazirelli. I know that how to spell it. I don't know how to say it. Once you say it though, you can get it down. It's easy. Anyway, they start, they have this new series on through the Nat Geo Disney plus app for streaming.

It's called Edge of the Unknown with Jimmy Chin. And it is an encapsulation of each, each episode is its own story. And basically it came out of this story that I wrote should be up for outside before this episode drops. But I had a chance to have a Zoom call with Jimmy and he talked about how after Free Solo came out, he kept getting approached by people who wanted to know

how come these athletes don't feel fear basically, some version of that. Like, what is it about these guys that they don't feel the fear? How could Alex be on that wall and not feel fear? And so this was kind of his way of showing 12, all of who are the best at what they do, whether it's a big drop kayaker or a big wave surfer,

as Justine DuPont on there, or Travis Rice, the snowboarder, you see them all in the moment where they failed or almost died. And through that lens, you also see how much preparation goes into the sport they do, why they're doing it. You actually see them as these unvarnished human beings

going through this crazy experience and then coming out the other side. These stories aren't necessarily new. They're kind of like some amazing stories from the last 15 years or so of adventure sports. Conrad Anker's heart attack when he's riding a mountain is in there. Jimmy's-

Do they have film documentation of that? It's amazing footage. I mean, it looks phenomenal. Jimmy's avalanche story that's in Meru with Jeremy Jones, that's in there in a much deeper way. So it's like, it just, in the footage, I can't express enough how great the footage is. Some of it's like the Red Bull cameraman

hanging out of choppers, but some of it is people with GoPros in the river, you know, like, and that kind of is even more moving sometimes. So it's, it's really incredible. Um, there are only like 22 minute episodes, I think. So real easy to, to digest. Um, and it's, it's made for the core audience all the way through the kind of casual event, armchair adventure. Yeah. I would imagine for the hardcore adventure person,

they're already familiar with Jimmy, Jimmy's work and they know that he's chronicled these various people and these various challenges, but the average viewer doesn't know. Maybe they saw Free Solo, but how many people saw Meru or some of the other stuff that they've done? I think it's really cool. I'm looking forward to watching that.

I was meant to be in Anaheim last Friday to do a fireside with Jimmy and Alex about the show for some kind of Disney plus upfront event or something like that. But I couldn't do it. I was too busy and kind of bummed that I couldn't make it around like this new series. So I'm really looking forward to checking it out.

Yeah, yeah. It's their first foray into television. They've had Oscar wins for free solo. They made the rescue and they have obviously- The first of many Thai cave productions. That's my next, I'm working on something. There's a lot in the pipeline there, but they were the first, I love that documentary.

I feel like it should have gotten more attention and it did, I thought it was unbelievably rendered. And it is that combination of yes, the guy hanging out of the helicopter with boots on the ground, GoPro, like cinema verite. That he's exceptional and him and Charlie. There's nobody like him who has a boot at the top of both fields.

There's just nobody like that. Yeah, cool. Well, similarly, this is not new, but I finally got around to watching a 100-foot wave on HBO. Yeah, man. And we've talked about it. I know you watched it a long time ago

and you've interviewed Maya and you've covered like Nazare and everything that's gone on there. And so I had kind of an arm's length understanding of all of that, but Garrett McNamara was coming on the podcast. Who's the guy who basically pioneered big wave surfing in Nazare.

And I needed to really, as part of my six to eight hours, like, That's a good one. I'm gonna watch this. That's a pleasure cruise. That's an easy six or seven hours right there. And this show is unbelievable. Like I learned, like I told Garrett

and this episode is not going up for a while, but I told Garrett that the experience of watching that was very similar to me interviewing Alex Honnold after he had free soloed El Cap, but like a year before the movie came out and thinking that I understood what he had done only to watch the movie a year later and realize like, oh, I didn't really understand that at all.

Like, this is like way crazier than I ever imagined. Right. Similarly with the hundred foot wave, thinking like, oh, Garrett, you know, found this wave and just went over there and, you know, figured out how to surf it. No. To discover that he was there like two years

before they finally figured out how to safely surf it and to do it strategically and like all the team building. Yeah, well, he says in the podcast, he's like big wave surfing is, he's like surfing Nazareth is the safest thing in the world or something like that. I was like, that's the craziest thing you ever said. That's not true.

That's not true. It's not the safest thing in the world. Well, you know, he's just like, he's describing these waves, he gets so animated. But how much went into team building and research and strategy and consensus building and getting the government on board and getting the lighthouse open and getting the resources. Like putting those pieces into motion took a long time,

but he understood that. Like he understood the only successful way for him to do this thing was to do all of this foundation building first, which is really smart, right? And obviously ends up being successful in contrast to when the Brazilians show up and think that they're gonna be able

to just go out there and do it and realize very quickly, like, oh, that's not gonna work. Like I just learned a lot and developed a greater appreciation for Garrett's level of mastery and his unique sort of genius. And I thought the storytelling and the cinematography, I mean, they just won an Emmy for best cinematography.

And it's like, it's extraordinary. How do you get better than that? It's extraordinary. And they're doing a season two, which I think they've already shot it. It's already wrapped. Yeah, right. It just hasn't, I think it's coming out in January

or something like that. I think Garrett McNamara is one of the greatest leaders and visionaries in the history of adventure sports. And I think that it's really laid bare in a hundred foot wave why I feel that way. So I don't even wanna say anything more about that. Just watch that if you haven't seen it because- And watch it in advance of the podcast.

Because his leadership is- The podcast will be better if you've watched it. It's incredible. It's challenging, but also very nurturing. And he gets people to do things that they never would have thought themselves they could do. Like he's high, he's training local crew. He knows how to find the right people.

But he's training local crew to run basically safety on jet skis who've never done anything remotely like this. Wave runners. Wave runners. Yeah, wave runners. Yeah. And he, anyway, he's a very special individual and his whole upbringing is special. I mean, just his- Incredible. His back story is incredible. And his wife, Nicole, amazing.

She pops in on the podcast as well. But, and Maya now lives there too. So it's like, she had a, she nearly died there. And I think that's safe to say. Yeah. It's been out there. I think I wrote about it and she nearly died there and she was actually, Garrett was one of the few big wave surfers

or like surf stars that did not ever say anything negative about Maya. No. Like a lot of these, the big surf stars that were out there saying she's dangerous, whatever. And we're kind of treating her negatively. Garrett never did that. He always saw her greatness too.

So that's what I'm talking about with the leadership. Yeah, check that out. Very cool. My big recommendation for the week though is Shia LaBeouf's appearance on Jon Bernthal's podcast, Real Ones. Okay.

Did you listen to this? No, no. Here's another one you didn't listen to. I missed that one. Yeah. I'm not a, I don't really go around looking at Shia LaBeouf. I would strongly suggest dialing that one up for the drive home after the podcast today.

I was very moved by it. Shia is incredible. For people that don't know, he's an actor, he's, you know, suffered problems with addiction and had a very kind of public meltdown with some terrible inexcusable behavior. And he's now in a place where he's really reckoned with his past and is endeavoring to the best of his

abilities to make amends for his mistakes a place where he's really reckoned with his past and is endeavoring to the best of his abilities to make amends for his mistakes and kind of repair his life. And it's very emotional and powerful. Like there's something very pure and honest about it and captivating. And perhaps that's in part due to the fact that like Shia himself is a very charismatic individual, but I found it to be, especially for anybody

who knows somebody who's struggling with addiction or has some connection to that disease and the wreckage that it causes, I think it would be healing and instructive to listen to it. And that's all I wanna say. I don't wanna spoil it. And Bernthal was on the bear. I would say it's special.

Yeah. And Bernthal. I mean, Bernthal is the king. Like that guy's makes everything that he's in better. He was in the bear, right? He was in the bear briefly. That's kind of a, that's a bit of a spoiler, but I don't know at this point. Oh, okay, sorry.

Yeah, Wolf of Wall Street. Yeah, amazing. It's like leaps off the screen. And now of course in American Gigolo. Yeah, right. Did you watch the pilot of this? I've not seen it yet, no. But you know, the classic movie that this is,

this takes place like after the movie, like six years after the movie ends, right? Well, it's basically a re-imagining of the movie, like as if the movie was gonna be like a mini series, all the way down to the Blondie, call me song that was part and parcel of the Richard Gere movie. And I think in watching that pilot,

I was very worried because like that, I mean, that movie launched Richard Gere's career. Is it Paul Schrader who directed that? Yeah. Like how are they gonna do this as a TV show set in modern times? Because that movie is like wed to the eighties. Like the eighties is just like the past

of that whole thing. It's launched the eighties you could say. And I won't spoil, I mean, I've only watched the pilot, but they take it in a pretty interesting direction. And Bernthal is always just a pleasure to watch. He's a very gifted actor with an amazing story in his own right. I really wanna get this guy on the podcast.

Not only is he from DC, like we grew up near each other, his backstory is wild. Like his dad was a big DC lawyer who then became, I don't know what the title is, chairman or director of the Humane Society. He's a big DC lawyer who then became, I don't know what the title is, chairman or director of the Humane Society. Okay. He's a big animal rights guy. And he's got these brothers

who are all super accomplished in their own right. Like his brother, Tom, just married Sheryl Sandberg. Okay. And he's got another brother who's a huge oncologist at UCLA. And John was kind of the kid who would get in trouble all the time and somehow fell into drama and it spoke to him.

And he had some teacher or mentor who knew like John needed some help or he might fall into the wrong crowd and go down a bad direction and got him hooked up with this incredible drama school in Moscow. And so he moved to Russia and lived there and studied acting in the traditional Russian tradition.

I don't know the name of the school for like, I don't know, two years or something like that. And that's where he learned like, you know, like the hardcore Russian school of dramaturgy, drama. Yeah. Of drama, of acting. And there's something like really pure about that guy that I think is really special and cool.

That's a journey. That's called endeavoring into the process. Anyway. Deep in the process. Shia LaBeouf on real ones. Okay. Check it out. Bjork has a podcast. Is this a podcast you've listened to Adam?

I've listened to every episode. I haven't checked this one out yet. This is we're on the same page here cause I haven't listened to this one yet. But I mean, come on, like this has to be on your must listen to list. I need to listen to more podcasts is what I'm getting at. If anybody's gonna revolutionize

like what we imagine a podcast could be, I would put Bjork at the top of that list. So out of pure curiosity, I'm gonna be putting this on my to listen list. You ever listen to Conan O'Brien's podcast? I listen to that sometimes. Once in a while. What was the mental like segue

between Bjork and Conan O'Brien? Celebrity podcasters. Yeah, but Bjork, you can't put Bjork and Conan. That's a weird. No, but they're both quirky offbeat celebrities. Yeah, but Bjork is like an artist beyond. She's legendary. I get it.

So there we go. All right. Sorry. That's all I got. Let's do some listener questions. Let's do it. I don't know, man. Bjork's podcast. Yeah. What I'm learning is I need to listen to more podcasts. Let's see. There you go. Nicole from Dallas. Hey, it's Nicole from Dallas.

It's frequently discussed on the show, the importance of sleep and the implications that poor sleep has on one's health. My question is, and I'm going to intentionally generalize, but what can women do who go years without sleeping through the night because of small children? For those nursing or with a teething baby or maybe have multiple children who wake up mom because they had a bad dream, they wet the bed, or they just needed a drink of water, or even families that have children with type 1 diabetes and have to wake up every night to monitor that child. Do you have any words of advice for individuals that go years in a constant state of sleep

deprivation? Love the show. Thank you for all your hard work. And yeah, you can play this online. Thanks. How's your sleep deprivation, Adam? It's still there. It's been there for a long time. At one point during my guidebook phase, I had been crossing so many different time zones that my circadian rhythms got completely screwy. And I started waking up in the middle of the night, couldn't get back to sleep.

And that's something that's still with me. And sometimes it flares up worse than others. And then obviously having Zuma, whatever progress I'd made is kind of shambles. I had gotten to a point where I was just decided I'm gonna stay in bed until I get my seven hours, no matter what. And that helped me a little bit,

but of course sometimes life won't let you do that. Now that's not an option. So, you know, so it's still there. I've had to deal with it. I know exactly what she's talking about. I even know what she's talking about specifically here. Cause I live, you know, we had Zuma still not sleeping through the night.

He's still breastfeed. So he still sometimes needs mom and it doesn't help for me to go. I go in there sometimes doesn't always help. So I get it. And your experience is just nothing like what it's like to be the mom. No, right.

Let's be clear about that. I mean, let me begin by saying, I got dragged a bit, probably rightfully so, for not delving more deeply into this specific terrain when I had Matthew Walker on the podcast. I apologize for that. We do have plans to have him back on for a very directed listener Q&A session.

And this question, because it's come up in comments to the reels that I've posted with him, like why didn't you ask him about this? So I do have plans to make sure that he answers this very specific question, which is a very circuitous way of saying like, I'm ill-equipped to answer this question. Like I'm not a sleep expert and thus, you know, not one to reliably opine on this specific question. And let's face it, I'm not a mom with young kids. So there's that

too as well, right? Also, there's only so much you can do. That's the thing, like what can be done, right? What I will say in the context of doing the best you can is at first, like you can't change the past. Like what has happened in the past? Like, okay, you have years of this sleep deprivation. You can let that haunt you and you can allow that to exacerbate your anxiety levels. But let's just put that aside because that has happened

and that cannot be changed, right? The important thing is to do your best within the complicated context of your life to not allow the anxiety of that lost sleep in the past impair your sleep going forward. And I think, you know, to begin, it's important to try to maximize the quality. Like what can you control?

You have quality and you have quantity. Right now, the quantity is being impaired by circumstances beyond your control by this young person who has needs and needs that you need to meet. But what you can control to some extent is the quality of the limited sleep that you can or you are getting.

So no devices in bed, no TV in the bedroom, try to keep the bedroom a bit chilled. Like don't eat too late at night. Like all things that Matthew Walker shared on the podcast. If you can try to exercise during the day, even if it's just a little bit or going for a walk, try to expose your eyes to 10 to 15 minutes of sunlight upon waking the Huberman thing

to help set your circadian rhythm, try to slowly wind down in the later hours of the day so that you're gently cajoling yourself into a state optimal for sleep, maybe get an eye mask if you don't have one, if you have a little bit of a budget, invest in some blackout curtains, because to the extent that you're able to grab a nap

here and there to have a dark room in order to do that will be helpful. So it's not about trying to find a way to increase the hours, but again, increase the quality and help you drift back to sleep more quickly after being woken up, right? If you're gonna get woken up and then you go back to bed, are you lying there awake

or are you able to go back to sleep more quickly? If that's a struggle for you, maybe check out some of these meditation or mindfulness apps. Like check out the Calm app. They have these sleep stories. There are podcasts devoted to helping you fall asleep. Like there's one, I forget what it's called.

This guy just drones on, like he does one every day. On calm. And he literally just tells stories and he goes off on all these crazy tangents, but he has a very soothing voice. And I think he's just riffing on whatever comes to mind, but it actually puts you to sleep because it's purposefully super boring.

Like he's like, well, and then I went to the grocery store. It's just like nonsense, right? So yeah, again, like, are you meditating? Do you have a mindfulness practice to reduce your anxiety? Like according to Matthew Walker, anxiety is such a huge piece here, a huge impediment to restful sleep. So if you can reduce that anxiety,

perhaps you can enhance the depth of your sleep, even if it's limited. Of course, like none of these things are things that I'm sure you haven't thought of. Like if you can afford it, could you possibly get the occasional night nurse? Could you splurge on that? Like I realize that isn't within reach for many,

but if it is, that's probably a worthy investment in indulging once in a while so that you can get an uninterrupted night of sleep. Can you get any naps in? Can you try to get a nap in? Again, like if you have the eye mask or the blackout curtains, that's helpful. Can you trade duties with your spouse or your partner?

Or can you set up a schedule so that every once in a while you get the occasional full night of sleep? Like I don't have a magic bullet here. I mean, Adam, it's been many years since I've- It doesn't fully work that way. I know, I know it doesn't. If you have a night nurse in the house

and they're screaming, cause they want mom, that's not going to keep you asleep. But for everything I said, there's a yeah, but. Right, so I would say what I'm hearing from this question is, and this is something that I'm sure you've helped dealt with before, but like, there's such information overload out there. And sometimes when you hear from these experts

that have their hearts in the right place. It's all about optimizing. Some people are like, I can't optimize right now. And I feel guilty or bad or like I should be like, let go of it. You're a mom with a baby. Like it's okay, you'll live. This too shall pass.

Right, it lands as like a task they can't check off. So then it feels like- You're less than or something. Or yeah, they're not, right. And so what can I do? And the real answer unfortunately is we don't know, but like- And it's fucking hard. There's periods of time in life

that these are the conditions of your life and you have to accept them, obviously, because if you don't, there's still gonna be your conditions of your life. And so these are the conditions of life. And you'll just suffer more. We try to, I take, I handle mornings. That's one way I do it is that I'm the breakfast guy always.

I take him out of there when he wakes up, I do two and a half hours with him. She gets a snooze and that's how we do it. Like that's the best thing I can do for her for April is to make sure that she gets at least attempted a snooze. Sometimes things pop up and she can't take that morning snooze. And so then that there's that,

but that's what I've been able to do. And that's the best I can do. Sometimes I go in there at night and it's worked and sometimes not, cause you know, that's not what he wants. So I feel for you. Yeah. I feel for you Dallas. I think like maybe just like an inhale and an exhale

and just like an acknowledgement that it's hard and you have to be kind of a superhero to wake up every day and navigate all of it. And it's okay. You know, like it's okay. You don't like, you're not gonna be able to get these things that Matthew Walker is talking about, but be gentle on yourself.

And that still doesn't mean you're behind. It doesn't mean that you're behind the eight ball or behind other people or not able to live a great life or a long life. Because remember all this stuff is based on percentages anyway and probabilities. And so there are people who will function just fine and your body has a way to get you

through these periods of time. So when you're looking at probabilities and this is what works the best for general population and most medical analysis is based in probabilities. It doesn't mean it's gonna be that way for you. All right, next question. You don't want me to venture into the probabilities? No, professor, scientist, Dr. Adam Skolnick,

sleep science expert, Adam Skolnick. I'm a professor of sleep sciences. Near, you're venturing into galaxy brain territory and I'm trying to save you. I'm frequently called a near scientist, which isn't the same thing. Is that like near beer? Near scientist. I'm a near scientist. Let's go to Georgina from Kentucky. Let's do that.

Hi, Rich and Adam. This is Georgina calling from Kentucky. I'm calling after a long weekend of listening about Eliza Fletcher, who was killed over the weekend after running, and I wanted to ask you some questions that my 14-year-old daughter is asking me right now. My daughter recently started running about two years ago for soccer and was thrilled this summer to start running by herself on our walking trail. She runs about anywhere from one to three miles and carries mace with her. But after the information from this weekend, she came into my room last night and said that she's scared. She doesn't want to run anymore. And running on a treadmill doesn't seem like the answer for her. I know you're probably getting

lots of questions about this, but I'm seeking your advice. Running seems to be what my daughter called her safe place, and now it feels like it's anything but that. I guess what I'm asking for is advice for young girls who want to go running by themselves without a chaperone. It's awful that the world has come to this. Thanks for everything that you do. I love your shows. I've been following you for a long time and thanks for attending to this voicemail. This makes me so angry. You know this case. It sucks so bad. Yeah.

It's just terrible that anyone would have to think about this at all. I mean, everybody deserves to be able to be outdoors, enjoy the outdoors, nature, go running, anywhere, anytime without fear. Yes. Alas, that is not the world we live in. And it's such a bummer.

Here's this 14 year old girl who was falling in love with running and now feels unsafe doing it for valid reasons. I mean, what happened to Eliza Fletcher is just horrific. And I just hate the fact that we have to keep having conversations around this. And we talked about it with Ahmed Aubrey, of course. It's just a bummer, man.

You know, what do you say to this? What do you say to this? You know, can I say anything to Georgina and her daughter that would be helpful that they haven't already thought about? I mean, what can you say? You know, choose your route carefully. You carefully, maybe don't run at night, tell others where you will be and when,

like wear bright colors, reflective gear, keep that mace. All of these things are just like fear impulse though. Like the world is a very scary place, it's a very violent place and you should be afraid all the time. And I just, I fucking hate that. And I say that as somebody of extreme privilege

who goes out running whenever I want, wherever I want, I've gone running in places all over the world. I run through Skid Row in downtown LA and I've run through all kinds of crazy neighborhoods and urban environments that I'm familiar with and unfamiliar with and cities all over the world. And I've never thought about this and maybe I'm familiar with and unfamiliar with in cities all over the world. And I've never thought about this. And maybe I'm naive,

but I think I'm also, you know, incredibly privileged. I don't have to worry about this in the way that, you know, she has to worry about it. It just makes me, it's very upsetting and it makes me angry. Yeah. You know? Like, what do you say? Like, you have to go running with your friends,

you know, don't go alone. I think, I think. Choose your hours and your routes carefully. Yeah, I mean, I think, I think Eliza Fletcher was, she was running at four in the morning, so it was dark. Yeah. This is not about blaming anything. Obviously it's a horrific thing that happened

and she should be allowed to run at four in the morning anytime she wants. But I think when you're talking about a 14 year old girl, I mean, I wouldn't let, I wouldn't want my, even my son at 14 to be running at night. So I think that the real world is you probably shouldn't run at night. Not, not maybe, but definitely not. So that's one thing you can do. That doesn't mean the world is a dangerous place. It is a dangerous place. Doesn't mean that that should be the first thought

that runs through your mind, but there's things you can do. And running with friends is a cool thing. It doesn't have to be a bad thing. It can be a cool thing. It just is not, you know, it's not the same as running- It's more challenging to be spontaneous.

It does. Like, oh, I have an hour, I'm gonna go out. Like, okay. It does, it does. But there are things that you can use technology to be helpful here. Like Strava has a live tracking, you know, sort of option on there. So, you know, you can be broadcasting where you are

to your loved ones so they can see where you are. Or you can share your location with someone using Find My iPhone, if you have an iPhone, so anyone can find you and see where you are in real time. You know, those are things that you can do. I mean, we were talking about this earlier. You had mentioned like taking a self-defense class,

which could be a cool, fun thing to do. That would help soccer with balance. It would also help, it would help in running is usually a part of martial arts classes. But the bigger question is, especially from a parent child perspective is, what are we cultivating in this young person?

Like, are we telling them that the world is a very scary place and they should be afraid all of the time? Or are we trying to instill in them, a sense of self-sufficiency like, yes, be wary, but don't live your life out in fear of bad things happening at all times. Like, I don't think that's a healthy message

to be kind of pounding into your kid. And to that point, like we both kind of came across this Arthur Brooks article in the Atlantic, which is entitled- Friend of the Pod. Yeah, Friend of the Pod. Don't teach your kids to fear the world. So you wanna talk about this article? Yeah, I thought it really applied well to this question.

It's very applicable to this question. Especially because Georgina seemed like she was kind of at her wit's end with this whole thing too. She seemed very sad in that space. And so it's really important. How do you process this kind of information and how do you then teach it going forward, especially if your daughter's coming to you?

And the premise here is not about any specific case. It's a parsing of the science around happiness, which is what he does. And so what, one thing that he says here is teaching the world is dangerous, encourages a negative primal belief. A primal belief is a fundamental belief that can then color opinions, attitudes,

and behaviors going forward. So if you're teaching your kids that the world is dangerous, that can also make them less tolerant of others in particular, or it could make them actually less safe. Because if you think the world's always dangerous, then often your perception of what truly is dangerous is off.

And so that's another thing that they found. It's the same problem that I think Jonathan Haidt wrote about and teaching young people that ordinary interactions are dangerous. For example, people who try to say speech is a form of violence, for instance, or speech is inherently dangerous. That hinders intellectual and emotional growth

that can lead to black and white views of how the world works, good versus evil. And that makes people more anxious. So we wanna stay away from that. I thought that was an interesting takeaway here. But the bottom line is being a kid in America has never been safer. If you look at the stats since 1935,

number of childhood deaths between the ages of one and four fell from 450 to 30 per 100,000. Now that's mostly because of medical science, but it just shows that the fatalities for young people have gone way, way, way, way down. And it's fallen half just since 1990, it's been cut in half again. So that's important to know.

It's not like what happened to Eliza Fletcher is a common thing. It's very uncommon. Yeah, and I think that plays back into the discussion around the chaos machine, because as horrible as these events are, and in no way do I wanna minimize them whatsoever, when we see them go viral on social media

and there's a discourse that begins to swirl around them, it like impulses our lizard brain to believe that this is something more like profligate than it actually is in terms of like frequency. Yes. And we're lured into this sense that this is happening everywhere all the time. And that leads us down the path to that this is happening everywhere all the time. And that leads us down the path

to being very afraid of everything all the time, which is not healthy. Like having some objective context around how often this is happening and how safe or unsafe our streets actually are is a really good tool to help understand that things may not be quite as bad or as unsafe as they seem.

And again, back to like, I say that as this privileged white guy, like I don't, you know. But you know, Arthur Brooks is not saying don't bring up threats, right? So when you're talking about a 14 year old girl going out on the streets and running at night, that needs to be dealt with.

Like that's not necessarily the safest activity in the history of the world these days, unfortunately. So it is important to address that, but also to keep it in the proportion of this isn't, this isn't necessarily the most dangerous thing in the world either. It's not a foregone conclusion that anything is going to happen to you negatively.

More likely the worst thing to happen to you if you're out at night by yourself is you could turn an ankle and have to figure out your way home if you don't have your phone. So it's like, that's probably the more likely thing that could happen to anybody at night. Right. The impulsing is what Brooks calls it negative primals.

Yeah, yeah. And instead he's offering that we should instead teach love primals. Exactly. What he instead teach love primals. Exactly. What he's calling love primals. Exactly, but when there is a threat that there can be, you always talk about control the controllables, right? To me, it's like controlling controllables to make running,

keep running a part of your life. It goes to, sometimes maybe it does have to be a treadmill cause that's what you have to do that day. Maybe you can run on track at school, after school. Maybe you can run around the track. Maybe there's other ways to do it. Maybe you can get on the trail and keep doing it. Maybe it is you bring friends into it or have a self-defense class. These aren't necessarily, it's not how you fell in love with running, but it can help you stay in contact with running. And then when it's night in

summertime and the light stays out later, then you have a much bigger time to where you can engage in it. So I think also making sure that the kids understand that these limitations don't have to be entirely limiting. They could just require you to think and adapt. Right, or chronically anxiety producing. Right, right. Well said. Thank you.

All right, are we gonna to do this third question? We don't have to. We could do it. Well, let's see what comes out. I didn't write any ideas down. I'm interested in how you're going to answer this. See, that's not fair. I don't even know how I'm going to answer it.

Hi, everyone at the RRP. This is Jonathan from Vancouver answering your clarion call for listener questions. This guy's great. Huge shout out to the whole team for such a great podcast. A few props. Adam, I always liked your use of waterman and how you talk about your relationship to the ocean. Rich, like all listeners, endless gratitude for such a great show. And as a teacher, I like how you use the words rubric and part.

Keeping it a little bit light in the spirit of a roll on, my question for you both is, in the time that you have known each other, what's the most important thing that you have learned from each other? Thank you for such a great show and have a great day. Rubric and parse. Jonathan, I feel seen. Yes, I think that that's the one thing I've learned from you is how to use $20 words in a complete sentence. Probably, it's just a mask, Adam.

I want people to think I'm smarter than I am. What have we learned from each other, Adam? I don't know. Do I need a new co-host? Like, what are we doing here? Like, how are we, like, what have I learned from you? Is that where you other, Adam? I don't know, do I need a new co-host? Like, what are we doing here? Like, how are we, like, what have I learned from you? Is that where you're going here? I don't know.

This is my, I jest. This is my intervention. By what rubric are we going to deconstruct this question? Well, with you it's easy though, for me to have learned from you because, you know, I didn't realize how possible some of these endurance feats were. And so I put you in that same category.

You also brought amazing stories. Like today we talked about Ken Rideout, but like the David Goggins interview, I first heard it here. And even before that, having met you, just understanding like that these things are possible, that it's possible to swim and run and ride your bike, this, these lengths. Um, I didn't even really know that was super possible before. So for me, that that's expands what I, what I, what is possible in all

realms. Cause once you start to be more open and flexible in your open-minded, I guess, to what's possible in any one track. It really, it allows you to see how limiting your thinking can be elsewhere. So I think that you're one of those people that shows me that. Yeah, thank you for that. I appreciate that.

I hope that I can continue as your coach. As you're answering that, I was reflecting on when we first met. So we share a literary agent and your book, One Breath was coming out and I read it and I loved it. And I invited you on and what I remember, I don't even remember what we talked about. All I remember is like, it was a vibe check.

Like I just remember that I vibed with you and it was really easy to talk to you. And it's not like we became like immediate best bros and hung out all the time, but I made a mental note. I was like, I really liked talking to that guy. It was really easy to talk to him. He's really smart. Like we had a rapport that was very natural.

And I think like I've learned to appreciate how rare that is as somebody who sits across and talks to a lot of people. Like sometimes you sit in and it just flows and it's easy, but more often than not, like you gotta insert yourself and figure out like, how do I connect with this person? How do I make this work?

And sometimes you can get there and sometimes you can't, but with you, it's always easy to talk to you. And I think that that is under appreciated and an undervalued magical, mystical thing that you can't create, like it either exists or it doesn't. So when the prospect of like trying this new format came out, like immediately, I was like, we gotta get Adam.

Like, I just knew, I remembered that experience. And I was like, you can't put like a dollar figure on that kind of thing. And I think what I value most about you is like, you have such a breadth of wisdom and experience and intellectual capacity and curiosity. Like you read tons of stuff and you're interested in things that matter and you care and curiosity. Like you read tons of stuff and you're interested in things that matter and you care about people.

And we have shared interests that don't align perfectly but that's what makes for like a cool thing here. And this friendship has developed as a result of doing the show. And as I get older, like I've learned to like, how important friendships are. And I've reflected on friendships that I haven't invested in as much as I could have

or should be. And I just wanted to, you know, let you know that I appreciate our friendship. It's fun to do this thing, but it's our friendship that exists outside of this. And, you know, doing this has been an absolute joy and pleasure. And although we like give each other shit

and I'm like, whatever, like I have nothing but like love and respect for you. And I hope that we can continue to do this for however long you wanna do it. Cause it's just been, it's been a beautiful nourishing experience for me. Oh, thanks man. I would love to, I appreciate it, man.

I appreciate those kind words and I feel the same way. And the friendship is the key. Maybe I've learned that Adam needs his own show too. We'll see. Oh, but do this rapport that you think happened naturally, you really think it happened naturally, do you? Yes, this is some Machiavellian. Yeah. I am a builder.

I'm a builder of rapport. You were at home in the mirror, like practicing. You ever seen Taxi Driver? Yeah. That's me. Okay. I knew it all along. You think that Taxi Driver? Yeah. That's me. Okay. I knew it all along. You think that rapport was natural to you?

If that was true, I'd have to go home and really rethink my life. I've built rapport on this. As somebody who considers myself a relatively okay judge of character, that would really rock me.

I've built rapport on the streets of Lagos, Nigeria. I've built it, you know. I've seen you do your thing too. Like when we were, like when we were in Catalina and you were writing about Otillo for the New York Times. I've seen the ease with which you just roll up on people

to try to get the story. And for some reason, like everybody just wants to talk to you. Like that's, you have a demeanor about you, like an affect that like people are like, oh, cool, I wanna talk to this guy. Non-threatening. Yeah.

Non-threatening rapport builder. Non-threatening, yes. Another undervalued skill. No, I appreciate it, man. I think, but I also think that like, as you've learned, since we talked about the podcast and you're coming up on 10 years, another thing that you learn is as a journalist,

and I'm sure you've learned this in the seat you're sitting in right now, people wanna tell their stories. And so if you just open the channel, they're just gonna deliver it to you. And what I think that you're an early adopter of the long form interview too, which I think when you started,

even in the podcast realm, they don't always go uncapped for hours. I mean, you and Joe Rogan, and I can think of a couple of others, but other people had more formatted shows, even the early adopters of podcasting. And so I think that the fact that you go deep, you're willing to listen that long

and give people the space to say whatever they have to say. I mean, that's amazing. So to be a part of this, I'm very grateful for it. Grateful for your friendship, first and foremost. I appreciate that. Thanks for that question. And you're like long reads, long breath holds and going deep back to free diving.

It all goes back to free diving. Thanks Jonathan. And you know, your literary affectation for free diving. Yes, I do have a, you know, who knows? I mean, I try not to think about like the kind of weird winding course of my career, but who knows where it'll lead, but it's been a fun ride. All right, man.

Well, I think that concludes today's roll on. Yeah. How do you feel? I feel good. I didn't even get to the hand-drawn map of the moon. That's right. You have this book sitting here. Yeah, it's this map. I went to the Hammer Museum, which they have the best gift shop ever.

And I found this 1940s, someone who is an astronomer looking at the moon through a telescope in the 40s, drew these hand-drawn topographic maps of the moon, all their craters. And I'm sure this was used in planning for the lunar exploration and all that. Right, that's pretty cool.

Super cool. I like how you're sharing a book that no one else can get too. Yeah, it's a book, it's called Map of the Moon by H. Percy Wilkins. All right. And we probably won't link that in the show notes because it's probably not in print. Yeah.

No, but I think I'm supposed to give an approval to this edge of the unknown story, like right after we sign off. So that should be up. Cool. Well, until we meet again, my friend in two weeks, always as always super fun to chat with you. And for anybody who's still listening,

a reminder, if you wanna share your listener story with us, leave us a voicemail at 421-0057. If you wanna enter to win tickets to the Anvil premiere in Los Angeles, send us an email at giveaway at richroll.com and we'll see you back here in two weeks. Beautiful. Peace, plants.

Namaste. Thank you.