The Rich Roll Podcast - Roll On Re-Entry: AMA on Addiction, Lifestyle Change, & A New Format

Episode Date: February 9, 2023

Welcome to the 2023 season premiere of ‘Roll On’, the version of the podcast where we indulge in some good-natured banter and ramble on matters of interest across culture, sports, politics, literature, art, self-betterment, and more. My co-host is Mr. Adam Skolnick, an activist, veteran journalist, author of One Breath, and David Goggins’ Can’t Hurt Me and Never Finished co-author. Adam writes about adventure sports, environmental issues, and civil rights for outlets such as The New York Times, Outside, ESPN, BBC, and Men’s Health. Today Rich and Adam talk about the new ‘Roll On’ format, share their streaming selects, answer listener questions, and more. Show notes + MORE Watch on YouTube Newsletter Sign-Up Today’s Sponsors: Athletic Greens: athleticgreens.com/richroll  Native: nativedeo.com/rrp Calm: calm.com/richroll Birch Living: birchiving.com/richroll Indeed: Indeed.com/RICHROLL Peace + Plants, Rich

The Rich Roll Podcast. Roll on his back. Yeah, it is. What zone are we in? Are we in zone two? I don't know. We'll figure it out. But first.

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Hey, everybody. How's it going? How are you, Adam? I'm doing great, man. It's great to be back here. Welcome back. Thank you. Back to roll on.

Back in the studio, Diggs. It looks great. You look great. I don't quite know what to do. It's been, I checked, it's been since November 10th, 2022. Wow. Since we've done this. Wow.

Feeling a little bit rusty. Right, you and me both. I've been just locked in a room with no windows or doors. I don't know how I got in there. They built it around me. Uh-huh. And there's a trap door and they fed me. They did. Yeah. The darkness retreat. Is that what

you're talking about? Yeah. So I actually have a funny story about that. I thought about doing that as a matter of fact, because I just, the reason we haven't done roll on since November 10th is, I mean, I had a bunch of travel stuff and then I did what I do every January, which is I take the month off. And in this case, I ended up going to Australia and I can share a little bit about that in a minute. But I was kind of looking at experiences to kind of catalyze a little bit of growth. Yes.

And the darkness retreat thing like came across my transom and I looked into it. There's a place I had, I actually had it in the outline. Where is it? Is it in the Pacific Northwest? Well, there's multiple different places, but there's a place called Sky Cave Retreats, which is in Ashland. Okay. And it's kind of like a little boutique-y sort of retreat center, like hotel situation. But yeah, they, you get a room and you basically, I think it's three days, six, I think you can do six days, something like that. I'm not sure. And you're in darkness for the

entire time. And they feed you food, I think through like a trap door thing, but in a way where no light ever like penetrates the room. So like during the day too, there's no light, no light, no devices, no nothing, total, complete darkness with no stimulus. Listen, Rich. Which actually sounds like, you're like, wow, that would be intense. And then the more you think about it, you realize how just utterly terrifying. Right. That does not sound like a vacation to me.

What kind of resort is this? But I think as we speak, our friend Colin O'Brady is ensconced in just such an experience. Of course he is. Yeah, he was talking about it. I think he's in the middle of it right now. Is he really? Yeah, so I thought about doing that.

Good for him. And then I thought, I already live in a prison of my mind. Like I should probably resolve some of those things before I put myself in that situation to torture myself. Like- I guess the idea is you come to the silence at the end. Right.

Right, yeah. Or you work through that level of discomfort to arrive at some level of like peace and immersion in presence. But isn't that like- It's gotta go sideways though for some people, you would think. Right, right.

I mean, isn't that what they did in shawshank redemption with andy dufresne they put them in the it's in the sky cave it's voluntary it's voluntary solitary confinement right except in the dark it's a punishment it's not a retreat well you know isn't an ultra endurance event like, hey, run a hundred miles. You could construe that as a punishment. This is the mental version of that. A Spartan challenge or a cold plunge or any of these things that we sign up for are, you know, they're all voluntary, you know,

exposure to different forms of discomfort. It's true. No, I get it. I understand the idea is to kind of shortcut you to like some Shakti pod moment of self-acceptance. I'm just saying, I think I would rather run a hundred miles to be honest with you. It is a pretty scary prospect, right?

Anyway, we got through line one of the outline before we got sidetracked, which is why I love doing this. For those of you who are tuning in, maybe you're new to this whole format or perhaps the amount of time that's lapsed since the last time that we've done this has led to some kind of memory failure situation. So if that's you, this is the version of the show

where in the most general sense, Adam, Mr. Adam Skolnick sitting across from me, and I play a little fast and loose with items of interest that have caught our fancy and our whimsy, and we share our curiosity on certain things. It's a little bit different from the normal show that we do. And it is also a format that we have now kind of put

under the microscope and maybe playing with in the new year, which we can talk a little bit about. But I think today is gonna be pretty standard, except we're gonna kind of cut to the chase and be a little bit lean. It's gonna be much more of a AMA kind of listener question focused type episode. We're gonna get some stuff off Rich Roll's mind.

Let's just clear the slate. It's been three months. Let's unpack the bags. How about you? My goal when I come here is to share nothing. I wanna share nothing personal. Oh, come on. No, no, no.

Come on. No. How are you? Let's start with the check-in. So I feel like I can describe the essence of fatherhood. I think it's distilled into these little moments. And one of them is my newfound appreciation for Ice Ice Baby. Uh-huh.

How long have you worked on this joke? I'm just saying this is a true story. Okay, go ahead. this is a true story. Okay, go ahead. This is a true story. Do you know what it's like when you, like a song you never liked, but has caught, has become an earworm for your two-year-old? I mean, it's been, you know, a minute.

We're in different phases of fatherhood, but- Slightly. Go ahead. So somehow a while back, he heard Ice Ice Baby and couldn't stop heard Ice Ice Baby and couldn't stop saying Ice Ice Baby. So it became a go-to on the Zuma playlist. And over time, at first I was kind of hesitant.

I didn't, you know, I never liked the song much, even though I grew up in Ice Ice Baby's era. I never really liked it that much, even though I admittedly it's catchy. That's a shocker. I never thought it was a good rap song. But now, now I know it's a good rap song. And is this my love for Zuma? Is it latent appreciation for the artist that is Vanilla Ice? Is it just a good rap song? I don't know. It's confusing. It's all very confusing, right? So what is the truism that

you're extracting from this experience? My point is you can love someone so much that you learn to love the songs they love, even if you don't want to. There's a poem in there somewhere. Yeah, that's my high quote. Less a joke, more a poem. It's kind of poignant.

Learning to love the things that the person you love loves. Right. Right? Because he loves it. He jumps around to it. And to be honest, when it comes to the point in the song where he's like, A1A, beachfront avenue. I say it out loud just like that.

That's what I do. Well, enthusiasm is infectious. Yeah. So I love, I love ice ice baby now. At me if you must. I love it. All right. Good.

All right. So we checked that box, fatherhood. Fatherhood distilled. My foot is a little better, better than it's been in a long time. It's not perfect, it may never be perfect, but I had that two PRP injections. My post tibial tendon has reconstituted itself

of its own accord. That worked well for you. It's worked well, I'm running. I've done like six runs in three weeks. So it's not like I'm hammering it, but I'm back doing that. I'm in the gym, part of my rehab, Dr. Goggins ordered me into the gym to lift weights, which is not my favorite thing to do,

but I've been doing it, enjoying it with the great Nick Nur, shout out. We were in Kauai, we did a mini sabbatical, but not like a total sabbatical, brought the whole family. And that was awesome. Saw some old friends in Kauai because I know we both have a Kauai backstory.

And so that was January for us. We kind of skipped out on a lot of the rain. And other than that, it's just been kind of watching the Goggins book kind of happen and unfold. And that's been really rewarding. Right. So the last time we sat down together

was before the book came out, right? That's right, that's right. Because it came out in January, December? It came out in December, December 6th. Yeah, right, okay, so, I mean, it did what you expected it to do, right? Like it hit number one on Amazon, which is a crazy expectation to actually set

and then achieve, but anyway, it did that. Once again, competing against not only Michelle Obama, but like the Royals, right? Yes, the Royal smash up. But like mixing it up up there. I mean, by all appearances, it seems like it's done fantastically well. It's done really well. You know, we did,

we were number one for that week on Amazon and then Harry came out, but we've been, we were number one on Audible for like five weeks. I mean, we were doing really well. Can't Hurt Me got a bump out of it. Yeah. Is the, is the audio book outselling the hard copy? Yeah. And that's, that's been the way it's been even for Can't Hurt Me. I think it's like, I don't exactly know the numbers, but it's like 55 or 60% of it's audio. Right. Which of course the margin, you know, doesn't even compare, right?

There's no cost. Right. And when you're self-publishing, that's massive. Yeah, yeah, when you're self-publishing, it's massive. And so that's been really cool. And David hasn't even really been, I mean, he was on the Joe Rogan podcast. Right, he did a couple podcasts and that was kind of it. That's it, that's it. So, you know, it's pretty amazing that it's staying up there.

And, you know, I will say that like when we were writing it, David's idea was to, he was always thinking about the reader from the beginning. And that experience more than any other experience I've ever had in writing, including the Lonely Planet books, which are obviously service journalism. And you should be thinking about the traveler. I don't think I've ever been in a space of thinking about my readers more than I am now. And part of that is David, part of that obviously being on the show with you as well, because it is service in its own way. And so obviously like it wouldn't be doing this well

without the readers. We really appreciate you guys. I can't thank you enough for all the support, both personally for the Goggins books. You know, we do care about giving this content in a way that will motivate and inspire you. It does mean a lot that it's working. And also want to thank you because I wouldn't even know who David was if it wasn't for your original interview with him.

Well, you would have eventually. Yeah, yeah. I would have eventually. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But then the fact that we started there and then to come full circle, it's just, it's such a cool thing. And so like to see David, who is this incredible, you know, he really does set an example on so many levels. And I look up to him a lot, even more so than ever really personally. And so it's just great to be a part of it

and really thank all the listeners out there who's been supporting it. Yeah, it's cool, man. I'm proud of you. I'm happy for you. I'm happy for David. It's quite, you know, a trajectory. And, you know, the books are powerful

and they do motivate and inspire people. And, you know, I'm sure countless lives are, you know, kind of permanently transformed by his work. And, you know, the work that you put in to making it the best that it could be is like no small thing. Yeah, man.

It's cool. But it made me a better writer. Like it made me better in so many ways. So it's great to have gone through that process and the process is always different. But the good thing about writing is it is a process and you can rely on the process when you've done enough. And really the process is just continuing

to distill it down and down and down does it put you in a position where now you're getting pitched to be a ghost writer on other people's books well that's happened you know do you want to do that is that something you're interested in doing that's happened since can't hurt me was a hit like i've periodically we get real offers from like real publishers and then just random people who say, hey, I've got this, you know, and some of these random people are Olympians or like, you know what I mean? But who are asking me personally.

I have so far said no to all of it. I'm not against it. Obviously this is the golden age of ghostwriting. You know, we've talked about it. It's obvious. It's the New York Times. It's a story on J.R. Moringer, who's like the alpha ghostwriter

who just did Prince Harry's book. So the fact that it's out there being talked about is interesting. It is this golden age of ghostwriting. So the funny thing is you can get paid more as a ghostwriter than as like writing your own stuff, which is kind of like backwards, right? But typically when someone asks me to write their book,

I do my best to convince them to write their book. That's what I do. That's my first move. I think you should write your book. That's what I say. Well, we'll talk a little bit about that in a minute. But just to kind of wrap up goings on with you, you also just published this New York Times story, which got a pretty good reaction, right? You want to talk about that a little bit? Yeah, yeah. I did a story on Lakpa Sherpa, who is a Sherpa woman from Mount Makalu in Nepal. And she, last climbing season, last May, she became the first woman ever to get

10 summits of Mount Everest. She's the first woman ever to go, to hit the summit and make it back to base camp alive. There was another Nepali woman who in the 90s reached the summit, but died on her way down. And she was the first to do it. Now she's the first to get 10 summits. That's like a hallowed number.

So if you're a sports fan, it's like 500 home runs or 3000 hits in baseball. It's like this number only 36, I think is the number of people have ever done. 24 of them are Sherpa and they're all been men. And so she's the first woman to do it. And her life story is just tragic, but also triumphant in its way.

She survived domestic violence. She moved, she's been working at Whole Foods in West Hartford. She cleaned houses for a living. She's an immigrant woman. She came over here after summing it twice with a Romanian climber and started living in Hartford, Connecticut

and has gone through the ringer like a single mom, but still managed to get back there and add to her summit toll. She was on the mountain living in Hartford, Connecticut and has gone through the ringer like as a single mom, but still managed to get back there and add to her summit toll. She was on the mountain when the big avalanche came through base camp. She was on the mountain when they had the big earthquake. So her mentors have died there.

She is just this incredible woman that has never been sponsored. And so it was a great story. I was tipped off to it by a guy named Ben Pryor, listener of yours, who has done some research for me. And he said, you should do this. And at the time it was like six weeks after she'd done the climb, maybe it was like a month.

And I thought it's too late to do a story like that now. But then I tried to get ahold of her, couldn't do it. And then Badra Sharma, who is a New York Times reporter out of Kathmandu, he and I worked on the NIMS story together. I messaged him and I said, hey, do you know Lakpa or have you ever met her? And it turns out he was there

when she came back to Kathmandu and had this hero's welcome and had a great interview with her. So we started there. We got in touch. I interviewed her after that and we just kind of collaborated on this piece and people have loved it.

Yeah, it's cool, man. Yeah, thanks. I turned it in in September and then it didn't get published till like last it. Yeah. It's cool, man. Yeah, thanks. I turned it in in September and then it didn't get published until like last week. Wow. Welcome to mainstream media publishing, I guess.

I don't know. I think what happened was I interviewed her in July, August, I think in August, but I couldn't get to it until late September because I was finalizing Never Finished. And then by the time I got to it,

I turned it in like a week before the World Cup. And like the time sports desk was all in Qatar. Interesting. Cotter. Cool. Cotter, I think. Cotter. Cotter.

Are you working on anything else for the times? There's a swim race in late April in Arizona. Have you heard of this thing? The SCAR race. It's where it's this four contiguous lakes reservoirs in Arizona that people swim in a stage race. And so I'm gonna do that story for them. That's cool.

Yeah. I haven't heard of that. Yeah, Munitone has turned me on to it. And so he won it last year, but this year apparently a lot of really established and well-regarded open water swimmers who've got like, the resumes on these guys are insane. They're all gonna be there.

So it should be a more interesting kind of weird carnival to follow around in Arizona. So that's on my radar. But other than that, just finishing up this other big project and I'm excited to talk about that at some point. When appropriate. When appropriate. When appropriate. Cool.

Yeah, man. How are you? Good to have you back. Yeah, thanks, man. How was sabbatical? It's good to be back. Sabbatical was great. I'll get into it in a second. Before that, I just wanna make sure I make this announcement,

which is that we are finally reprising our Plant Power Italia retreat. This is something we've done every year up until COVID. And then we canceled it a couple of years in a row. And last year it was sort of on the fence and ended up deciding not to do it. We are gonna do it this year. It might be the last time that we do it.

It's gonna go down April 22 to 29. Right now we're about half sold out. So I think that leaves about, I don't know, somewhere between 15 and 20 open spots at the moment. And it's a pretty remarkable kind of life-changing experience to spend a week with a group of people cooking, doing nutrition, hiking, trail running, doing yoga, meditating, touring, you know, Tuscany, you know, hanging out,

music, like live podcasting, kind of sessions. Like we do tons of great stuff. We have special guests. It's really quite something. And so I'm really looking forward to it. Special guests, meaning like yoga teachers or like experts in their field? Yeah, I don't know, every year, like we've had different kind of people, like, and we'll figure that out at some point, I'm really looking forward to it. Special guests, meaning like yoga teachers or like experts in their field.

Yeah, I don't know. Well, every year, like we've had different kind of people, like, and we'll figure that out at some point, I'm sure, you know, TBD, but it's always pretty cool. We've had the Happy Pear guys come, for example, and we'll do like a live podcast with them, that kind of thing. And we do it at this place called Aisulana,

which is this incredible agriturismo. It's like a working farm, but it's beautifully appointed like villa and accommodations with like two pools and this beautiful yoga room and dining hall. And it's nestled sort of halfway between Siena and Florence, like just an incredible part of the world. Very sky cave.

And it's- This is a very sky cave. This is the antithesis of the sky cave, right? Like, you know, hanging out with like amazing people doing really high vibe shit. So if that sounds cool to you, you can learn more about it at ourplantpowerworld.com, ourplantpowerworld.com.

I'll put that link up in the show notes. Again, about half full. So if you're interested, I'm pretty sure it's gonna sell out quickly. So jump on that. And then just to kind of goings on recently with me, yes, I did the sabbatical, but prior to that, we haven't done a roll on

because I was traveling. I went to Hawaii to crew for the Ultraman World Championships, which is the race that I did a number of times, like 10 years back. I hadn't been back. I've been back to like 10 years back. I hadn't been back. I've been back to the big Island, but I hadn't been back to that race.

And that race is really so much about, not just the Aloha spirit of Hawaii, but also like Ohana, like family, right? And giving back is kind of a fundamental aspect of participation in the race. And that was kind of a glaring omission in my relationship or history with the race. Like I always felt compelled or, you know,

this desire and need to go back and serve the race that had given me so much. And an opportunity arose to go and crew for a friend of mine, Howie Nordstrom, who was competing. He asked me and I said, of course, this is great. Like he's asking right at the moment where I thought, like, I need to do this anyway. Right.

And it was cool. Like, it was weird and cool to be back there after so long. Right. So much of it is exactly the same. Like, it's sort of, to the race's credit, it has not, like, sort of succumbed to the pressures of commercialism. Like, it's very much, you know,

still in its roots of what it is in that kind of purity sense. As opposed to these hundred mile races that have like mushroomed in terms of attendance. Right, like sponsors get involved and then they grow into some, you know, kind of big money-making enterprise and it loses sort of its soul.

Like Ultraman is not that. Like it's still like, wow, this is exactly the same as it was. Same people. Some of the people who were racing when I was racing are still doing the race, which is amazing. Do you think, I don't want to interrupt, but do you think it's because it's so hard

that like the demand is still not great? Or do you think it speaks to just the fact that they've kept it down? I mean, there are like, you know, when there's the Moab 240, like there's a lot of hard stuff out there, right? I think there has been a conscious, you know, concerted effort to keep it that way on purpose. Like there's an intentionality behind that to keep it small, like only, you know,

30 to between 30 and 40 participants, et cetera. And it was great. It was great to be back and reconnect with that, you know, part of myself. And it brought back a lot of memories and then to serve Howie and get him, you know, across the finish line. And, you know, that race is hard for everybody and it had its highs and its lows and all of that. And to be on that side of that equation and appreciate just how challenging the crew role is and being in that service capacity was, you know, an amazing experience. And I did it alongside another friend of Howie's, this guy, Ryan Smoke, who is an Ironman athlete, who is one of those guys that does it in partnership with a challenged athlete.

Like he pushes a younger kid. Yes. But really cool guy. We had fun serving Howie and it was hard and there were highs and lows and all that kind of stuff. And it was cool to meet some of the younger athletes and also see how the quality of athletes continues to improve like on the women's side, especially,

like Dee Dee Griesbauer, who's a very accomplished former Ironman professional triathlete, who's now 52, just absolutely like crushed it, rewrote all the records, got third overall, like just dominated the whole thing and was amazing. And that was really cool to see. On the men's side, Richard Thompson from Australia got first and this guy, Stephen Keller,

who's a veterinarian got second. And those guys were both just superstars and excelling at a pretty high level. So it was cool, a full circle moment to be back. And I feel like that chapter has kind of like, okay, you know, like it's complete now. Julie was like, if you go back and do that, do you think you're gonna wanna do that race again?

Right, or some other kind of ultra. I was like, no, I did it. Like I had that experience. I'd learned what I wanted to learn and what I needed to learn from it. I went back and contributed to it. And it feels like complete. What about ultra in general?

I don't know. I mean, the back has to get healed first, and that's not the case at the moment. So I can't really make any of those predictions until I figure out how to get to the other side of that. Fair enough. Which is longer. But that's pretty cool to be able to do that.

And then I think you remember you telling me that there was this cool banquet afterwards and you got to say your piece too, right? You got to speak to the- No, I didn't speak. I mean, there was a bit, like they do a banquet at the end and every athlete gets to go up to the podium and share their experience of participating in the race.

And so you get to hear all of these stories and all their flavors and everybody's got a crazy story, right? Like you don't sign up for something like that unless you're like, you know, kind of living outside the box. Nobody has an easy day. Yeah.

And you know, all the different flavors of that are pretty cool. And it was also cool like to go back and know like some of these people like listen to the podcast, which is cool too. You know, that was really fun and gratifying and all of that. I'm sure there's people that were there

that because they read your book or heard the podcast, there has to be some. There were a couple. Yeah, there were a couple of people who, well, that was the initial spark or hearing about the race. And frankly, like David Goggins, like reading about Goggins doing Ultraman

was a spark for me, right? Like, so that lineage continues, which is pretty great. But I returned from Hawaii and then, you know, almost immediately while I was in Hawaii, my college swim coach, Skip Kenny, passed away. So when I returned, I had to go up to Fresno for, I didn't have to, I drove up to Fresno for a memorial for him, he was 79 years old.

And that was a interesting experience to reunite with a bunch of teammates from my swimming days. Many people I haven't seen in decades. Some people I've stayed in touch with, but for the most part, like lots of people, I just, I didn't know. I thought maybe a ragtag group of a couple Bay Area people might show up,

but there were a lot, like a lot of swimmers over the many years that he coached that showed up. And that was pretty cool. And, you know, kind of analogous to the Ultraman experience, like another kind of like full circle moment, like putting an end cap on, you know, a life experience, you know, in sort of a sense of completion

and also, you know, sort of a resolution to a relationship with a complicated guy who, you know, sort of a resolution to a relationship with a complicated guy who, you know, was very successful. He, you know, arguably one of the most successful NCAA collegiate athletics coaches of all time. Right. Across any sport. Right. Because his winning streak and his success speaks for itself. He's the John Wooden of swimming, basically, right? Yeah. And, you know, had like, I don't even know the stats John Wooden of swimming basically, right? Yeah. And, you know, had like, I don't even know the stats off the top of my head,

but like, you know, so many NCAA championships, like an incredible streak of winning Pac-10 championships, the number of Olympians, NCAA champion, you know, individual athletes that have passed through the program. It's like, it's pretty crazy. And, you know, I have conflicting emotions about the whole experience because on the one hand, I'm so proud and crazy. And, you know, I have conflicting emotions about the whole experience because on the one hand, I'm so proud and to have been, you know,

a member of those teams and participate. It's like a, it's such an honor to, you know, have competed and trained with so many great athletes during the heyday, that heyday in which Stanford was the reigning, you know, number one swimming program in the world. But also, you know, like reckoning with the fact that, at least for me, like Skip didn't work as a coach.

And it left me kind of reflecting on mentors that I've had in general in my life. And the role that this show kind of plays in terms of providing mentors to other people. And then what is the relationship to, like on an unconscious level, I start this podcast and I started inviting these people on who I guess on some level, I'm sort of like, well, how can this person mentor me now, at least for two hours? And then sharing that there seems to

be some kind of connective tissue between those two things. And is that why you went in? I don't want to jump on you, like push the outline we have here, but you did just do this intense therapy week too. Like that was before Byron Bay, right? Right, so then I get back from Fresno. It's the perfect time for that, right? Yeah, and I'm thinking like, what am I gonna do? You know, what am I gonna, you know, I'm trying to figure out

some kind of growth catalyst to kind of shake me out of my stasis a little bit beyond just going to a nice place and relaxing. And that's where the idea of the Sky Cave retreat thing came up, which I quickly dismissed thinking, I still got some like demons in the closet. Like if I'm in a dark room for six days

without having ever really confronted that in an honest way, what's that gonna look like? That might not go so well, right? So maybe I should find a therapeutic modality to kind of deal with some stuff that's just been a hum in the background for most of my life.

And that's where the idea of doing a week of family of origin therapy came up at Paul Conti's clinic in Portland. So listeners may or may not remember that I had Paul on the podcast. He is a world, you know, one of the leading experts on trauma. And, you know, realizing that I have

all this stuff in my past, you know, I've done a lot of work and I've come a long way and I've, you know, grown, et cetera. But, you know, there's always more growth to be had. And there's a lot of stuff from early childhood that I just haven't really unpacked and made peace with. And I've noticed that it comes up

in certain behavior patterns, like with my wife or in the way that I parent my kids. And Julie is often the one to point out like, hey, you're kind of mimicking this pattern that you said you didn't wanna do, or that is something that, you know, was something your parents did that you didn't like. So she's always like, you know, I'm like,

oh, wow, you're right. Like, I am doing that. Why do I do that when everything about me is trying to not do that and be kind of in opposition to that, right? And sometimes it's so embedded in you, right? And it's so part of just who you are. It's hardwired into your system

because it was implanted there at such a young age. And I just felt like I have this time, like I'm gonna go really dig into this. And it was an incredible experience, five days of like eight hours a day working with a team of different therapists to really figure out know, figure out why I have certain latent anger issues or resentments

and, you know, how to really kind of work through them and transmute them and make peace with myself and the people that I love. And, you know, obviously you're not gonna solve everything in a week, but, you know, coming out of that with a lot of clarity and understanding and tools has been revelatory, it's been incredible.

Are you doing the, you say holotropic breathing exercises, is that a lot of hyperventilation? No, no, no, I put that in the outline. One of the kind of triggers for me that made me realize I have a lot of stuff like percolating in my unconscious is an experience I had doing holotropic breathing many years ago. I've had good experiences

with holotropic breathing experience, but on this one occasion, and this has happened like two or three times, I did a very intense holotropic breathing exercise with a group with Julie. And in the wake of that felt this overwhelming sense of like anger, like almost like rage, which is, I'm not an angry person.

Yeah, you're not a yeller or anything. And I literally had to go into a room and like shut the door and be away from people for more than a day, like almost 48 hours to like reset. And it was very disorienting and confusing. Like, why did that happen? Like, what is going on there? And it just made me realize, and this was many years ago,

like, hey, I got, there must be something driving this. Like, I don't know why that is. And so that was always in the back of my mind. Like, if you really wanna be whole and free yourself from whatever that is, like you're gonna have to go towards it. So six days of intensive therapy. It was five days.

Five days. Yeah, Monday through Friday. And then you get on a plane to Byron. Good reward. I had holidays with the family. And then yeah, it took a couple of weeks in Byron Bay to like kind of reset, which was, it's like my favorite place.

I love it. Yeah, yeah. And this is the fourth year that I've done like a break of this nature to really just stop everything and go inward and meditate and write and engage in a little solitude, sun, surf, you know, all that good stuff.

And it was fantastic, you know. I did do one podcast while I was there. Oh, you did? Yeah. So, you know, this guy, Ned Brockman. Yes, the runner. He's the best. Yes.

I was like, I'm in Australia. Like Ned Brockman is like, you know, an Australian hero right now. This dude like ran all the way across Australia. He's the most Australian dude of all Australians with the bleach blonde mullet. And like, you know, you can't even, like his Australian slang and vernacular

is like so, you know, like intense that you're like, I don't even know what he's talking about, but you can't help but fall in love with this guy. Like he's very, he's so earnest, right? And he's young, he's like, he just turned 24. And tell, remind people what he did. Remind people what he did.

So he, after only running for two years, he only had like two years of running experience, decides he's gonna run all the way across Australia, which is in the range of running across the United States. It's about the same, except like you're in the middle of nowhere for the rest of the time. Except you're in the outback, there's a lot of bugs and like scorpions and shit.

And a lot of like, you know, these, apparently like these trucks, like the 18 wheelers, they go, they're called cargo trains or something like that because they drive together. So there'd be like a whole bunch of them at once. And there's not a lot of shoulder and, you know, so there's a lot of like harrowing experiences that he had, but it's like, I got to meet this guy, right?

And when he finally finished and ended up in Bondi, there were like thousands of people to greet him. 5,000, 10,000, I'm bad at estimating numbers, but it was quite the thing, right? Like all of Australia turned up to like support this guy. That's so cool. And so anyway, I did do a podcast with him. Did you rent a studio space or borrow a studio space?

No, so friend of the pod and personal friend, Simon Hill, who is a Byron Bay resident. He was like my sort of Sherpa introducing me to people. He hooked me up with this place called Soma in Byron, which is a 28 acre meditation retreat center that is owned and run by these two guys, Gary Goro, who's a meditation, Vedic meditation teacher, and this guy, Peter Ostick, who's sort of an entrepreneur, who is the kind of financial partner in all of this. And it is the most beautiful meditation

retreat center I've ever seen. And I'm not alone in thinking that because Hulu, and they built it apparently like right before lockdown and COVID and all of that. Okay. And they complete it, lockdown happens, so they can't even host retreats. But Hulu came along and said, hey, we'd like to rent this place

for this limited series we're doing with Nicole Kidman. It was called like Nine Perfect Strangers. Do you remember that show? I do, I vaguely remember it. She was like a cult guru or something like that. I haven't watched it, but apparently the whole series takes place at this meditation retreat center,

which is like beautiful modern architecture and rolling green hills and like incredible or whatever. So anyway, Peter and Gary made the space available for us to record there. Oh, cool. Yeah, so that'll be coming out at some point. But yeah, I loved Byron. Just brought my bike, rode in the hills there.

It's like, there's a lot of influencers there. There was like, I think there was some sort of show about that, like a funny reality show about the Australian influencers. I think there's a show called like, like a reality show called like Byron Bays or something like that. But I was told not to watch it, that it would ruin my relationship

with this beautiful place. It might, I've seen a little bit. But there are a lot of cool people there. My other Sherpa is this guy, Ben Gordon, shout out to Ben, who is sort of a mayor of Byron. He grew up there and he's a drummer in a pretty successful heavy metal band

called Parkway Drive. Oh, cool. And he also owns this place called the Byron General Store, which is kind of like the cool place to go have brunch or breakfast. Okay. Have your green smoothie, healthy food. He's plant-based, he's a meditator.

And, you know, he's in this like successful rock band, but he's into like surfing. And I got to hang out with him and he took me surfing. I cut my finger open. It was fun though. And introduced me to hang out with him and he took me surfing. I cut my finger open. It was fun though. And introduced me to a bunch of people and was able to go to his house for dinner. I just was, my point being like,

I was made to feel very at home in a place that's very far away from my home. It's spectacular. But felt very much like a home for me, yeah. It's like a blend of like Hawaii. There's Hawaii, there's California. There's like, you know what I mean? There's like a mix of all these-

It also has like a hippie vibe to it. A lot of natural organic markets and vegan food places and stuff like that. To me it was like Topanga meets Maui with like a light dusting of Ireland. Like when I was riding my bike in the hills, there'd be these incredible ranches and everything is so green, like these rolling fields.

But then you have like 80 degree water and just beach breaks in every direction. I mean, incredible, like very surfable breaks all over the place. Like it's pretty cool. Super cool, man. Anyway, so it was good. Did you cry in the departure lounge? I did not. No, I did not. I'm always on the lookout for tears in the departure lounge of a place like that. I did not.

We gotta take a break in a second here. But before that, I will say, I'll kind of round out this story by just saying that it was very productive in terms of cracking open a new book project and getting momentum on that, which I'm pretty excited about. And you were with me the other day

when we were with our mutual friend and literary agent, Bird Level. So I was able to show him- Shout out Bird Level. Shout out Bird, the pages that- Oh, you showed him? Yeah, I showed him some stuff. Oh, because you were talking about it.

I had to leave and you showed him some pages. You had to leave and then I was like, let me show you what I'm doing. And he was very happy. Like Adam's gone, it's safe. Let's show them the pages. So anyway, I feel really energized and excited about that. Yeah. I'm excited. That what I'm doing. And he was very happy. Like Adam's gone, it's safe. Let's show them the pages. Anyway, I feel really energized and excited about that.

Yeah. I'm excited. That's so cool, man. Cause I was listening to the Seth Godin podcast you did recently. And you were talking about like this drive to get back to writing, but this like this block because you're diving into the podcast and you have all these commitments,

but there's a part of you, there's like, the thing about writing that I found is 90% of it is dealing with this insect gnawing at your brain until you deal with it. Like it doesn't go away, right? I mean, it does not go away. You can try to like- It's like the cordyceps in Last of Us, like eating away at your brain stem.

It is, it is. So now you're dealing with it and then it kind of quiets down. Not only does it quiet down, you actually feel good about it. Like you're like, oh, now I feel like a normal person. Right, you feel a little bit more normal. When you're like, yeah, attending to it.

When you're ignoring it, you walk around like just angsty all the time, right? It's cool, man. I can't wait to read some stuff and I'm really excited for you. So let's take a quick break and then we're going to do some listener questions, a few more things to say about the future of roll-on in 2023 in general. And yeah, it's going to be awesome. So stick around. It's going to be awesome. So stick around.

All right, everyone, we're back. We're going to get into some listener questions. Before that, though, we mentioned earlier that we're going to be exploring a few format changes with Roll On. So let's talk about that for a hot minute. Let's do it. So I think what we're gonna do is move Roland to once a month.

And then for the other midweek episode, we're gonna play around with some new kind of supplemental ideas. And we're also gonna iterate on Roland. We're gonna, I don't know, push the envelope here. I think there's a sense that, at least my sense, is that Adam is a very talented man. And the format in which we are engaging

with Roland right now, I'm not sure it takes advantage of your best talents. And I think there are better ways to use this opportunity to be a better servant to the audience. I 100% agree, I think. Not today though, because we're just bullshitting and bantering and people are like, what are you even doing?

Like, why am I listening to this? Right. Like this kind of, I am a good bullshitter. You are. I'm just not as good at that as I am at other things. Have we provided value yet for the audience?

I don't know. You know, I'm excited about doing some original reporting with you, doing some, like we're gonna, I think the idea is to script it a bit more and to do kind of segments. And this is what we've talked about.

We don't really fully know what's gonna happen, but the thought was to put a little more pre and post production into it and create, one idea is to create an audio magazine that reflects kind of the Rich Roll Pod universe and kind of dive into some cool subject matter. And if we're only doing one a month, we have the time and the kind of bandwidth

to do something a little bit more elevated. Yeah, just a little more creative and like a little put more resources in because so many people are just turning on mics now and like you've done that and you're great at it, but fun to see you know uh to create in a different way and i think people who love the banter because i we got some calls about like there's some people who just love this format the banter will be there we're going to sit down and talk about it we're not going to just like throw some segments together and not talk to each other the banter is going to be there

it's just going to be in a different kind of way. Yeah. Yeah, and on that note, I think it's important to throw it out to the audience. What would be most beneficial for you, audience member, in terms of how Adam and I use this opportunity to serve you? And maybe the best place to let us know would be in the comment section on YouTube,

because that's an easy kind of one-stop place to go and canvas through that stuff. Perfect, so if you're like, we're talking about, if you think about it from an audio magazine perspective, like what are the departments you'd like to see? Like what are the worlds you'd like us to explore? And kind of, and sometimes it might just be like what are the departments you'd like to see? Like what are the worlds you'd like us to explore? And kind of, and sometimes it might just be like one thing we've thought about is a Q&A

with someone from the Rich Roll audio verse. Some of it could be an original report like NPR or this American lifestyle reports and anything in between. So, and some of it's gonna be just Rich kind of speaking his mind and writing some stuff and sharing where he's at. And just like we're doing now,

but just a little more elevated. Yeah, and a little bit more creative, I would say. Yeah. Right? And I think, you know, my perspective is always, I wanna serve the audience. Like, is this working for you? Is it not working?

I don't wanna waste anybody's time. And I think now, you know, everybody, there's a lot of content out there. There's a lot of choices, right? And so I wanna be in a position to be delivering at the highest level, the needs and the desires and the wants of the person who's taking time out of their busy day to check this out, right?

And if we're missing the mark, like I'd like to know that. How can we do better? What would be interesting? And then also us on our mark, like I'd like to know that. How can we do better? What would be interesting? And then also us on our own, like pushing the creative envelope and trying to think of things that aren't being done right now that we think that we could do well

and executing on that, I think is exciting. Very exciting. I'm excited to be a part of it. So should we dive into some questions now? Let's do it. We're doing it a little bit differently this time. There was a lot of questions because we hadn't been doing this for a couple of months.

So we had a lot of stuff in the voicemail. So what I did is kind of combed through and found some subject matter that I'm gonna paraphrase. Like headings, like sort of themes. Yeah. So these are questions that have come in in various forms more than once. And that's where we're gonna start.

We're gonna dive right in. The first question we're going to handle is tips on breaking bad habits. And when do you know that a bad habit is actually an addiction, such as gaming or doom scrolling? This one is spurred by a listener whose Ironman training got waylaid by travel and a gaming addiction. So the listener was training for an Ironman and something happened and he got off his game

and then got onto gaming, like video gaming. I think gaming was always a thing. Yeah, Warcraft, I think it was. Right. Yeah. And that like just cratered his Ironman training? Cratered everything, yeah. Everything went into Warcraft.

I love it. You love a good addiction story. Right, so essentially the question is bad habits versus addiction, what is the difference? And there is a difference. There's a difference between what a habit is and what an addiction is. A habit can be like a persistent behavior

that you perpetuate and it might even have negative consequences. But the difference between that and an addiction is that addiction entails a psychological and generally also, sometimes also a physical dependence. And there's a discomfort when we don't engage in the addiction, right? generally also, sometimes also a physical dependence. And there's a discomfort when we don't engage in the addiction, right?

That sense of withdrawal or like craving or yearning. It's something that we do repeatedly despite negative repercussions. Addictions are things that typically escalate over time, whether it's behavior, the frequency of use, the dosage of use in the case of substances. And we do this irrespective of escalating negative consequences, right?

I think there's also like a compulsivity to addictions that's different from just a bad habit, where there's this physiological, again, or psychological need for engaging in this habit. And when we don't do it, there are symptoms, right? Anxiety, irritability, you know, there's physical symptoms with substances like tremors or nausea upon withdrawal or abstinence. That is the state of being addicted, right? And I think addiction, and I've said this many times, is something that is a self-diagnosis. Like only you can diagnose yourself as to whether you are engaging in addictive behavior or just a bad habit.

you are engaging in addictive behavior or just a bad habit. And I think in trying to figure that out for yourself and distinguishing a habit from an addiction, think about choice, right? Like with habit, choice plays a larger role. With addiction, part of addiction is the removal or the denigration of choice in the matter to the point where it doesn't feel like there is a choice. Like there's such a compulsion that it just happens and irrespective of your wish to have a choice over it, it like happens no matter what. I mean, I think that's a good kind of litmus test for figuring it out. So examples, right? Like a bad habit would be like you, you know, you just put your dirty dishes in the sink and you don't wash them or like you don't brush your teeth before you go to bed or something like that, right? Not great. You know, these are not awesome habits, but is there a compulsivity around it? Is there a sense of unease when you wash your dishes?

You're not just leaving them dirty in the sink? No. So that's the difference between something that would be an addiction. So you would put gaming more into the addiction category for a living? Yeah, well, I don't know. Only he has to ask himself that.

There are people that play video games who are not addicted and there are people who are addicted. And often the amount of playing isn't necessarily the determining factor. No. I think a lot of, that's the problem with smartphones.

A lot of people are addicted to the tech now, right? It's low level. Sure. But like they can't put their phone down. They can't stop scrolling. No. Right. Of course not, right?

And it's not, is it low level? No, maybe not. You know, and this is, you know, I've been banging this drum for a while, but let's expand our notion of addiction and how we think about addiction. Like addiction isn't just alcoholics and drug addicts or people that, you know that lose all their money gambling.

It is, the inability to like put down the phone can be an addiction when it is taking you out of the present and robbing you of the experience of being in your life. Video games are another screen version of that where there's an engagement on behalf of the individual, but certainly, you know, plenty of people are addicted to video games. And the fact that this guy like cratered

his Ironman training because he got all caught up in a video game. I mean, that's what it sounds like. I don't know the details of it, but it sounds like an addiction to me. But again, like it's not for me to diagnose this person. Like questions that this person or whoever is relating to this should ask themselves is,

do you feel like this is a compulsion? Do you feel like your engagement with it is outside of your control? Is it something you covet? Is it something that you tell lies about, that you rationalize or downplay? And then getting honest about what the costs of this behavior are to yourself

and also to other people, right? And then the other question I had is kind of going behind the question. Like the question is, is this a bad habit or an addiction? Like, why is he asking this question? If he's asking the question, it's probably a problem. If it's not a problem, you're not asking this question. And there's sort of a light dusting of hopefulness

that like, I'm gonna say this is just a bad habit and don't worry about it. Like, does it matter what I say? Is this a bad habit? Is this an addiction? Because my sense is that this is interfering with this person's wellbeing, right? And he knows it and he's looking for an excuse

or some way to rationalize continuing to engage in the behavior, which is to me indicia of it being an addiction. Does that make sense? Yes, absolutely. Like you already know it's not good for you. You know it needs to be addressed. This is why you're asking.

Because you're not just asking your friend, you're calling a line. There's like a lot of decisions you have to make. Yeah, this person knows the answer to the question already, right? And maybe that answer is uncomfortable, but deep down when the head hits the pillow, the clarity is there. Yeah.

That's why I haven't been insomniac. Is it you? The hive of the brain hive. What are you hiding, Adam? What are you hiding? What are you running away from? It's so deeply hidden, I can't tell you. Right.

Well, maybe you need to go to the Sky Cave retreat and sit with yourself in the dark for six days. I think I would try to get the room next to Colin and I would just be like, hey. There must be some of that. Like, it would be so interesting to know, like whoever, the people that own that place must have stories about people losing their minds.

Exactly, like, did you get the chocolate pudding or just the Jell-O? Because this is shit food. So like, how would you, I don't know, so many questions. Anyway, let's go to the next. All right, next one. How do you speak to friends or family members about lifestyle changes that might help them?

When is it time to help? And when is it better to let them struggle and come out of it on their own? This is a kind of a composite of a handful of questions. Yeah. People, and we've asked, we've answered kind of something like this before, but I think it always bears repeating some of this stuff.

Yeah, it's, this is a very tricky, delicate thing. And by lifestyle changes that could mean like, hey, don't eat crappy food, eat this food, or maybe don't stay up all night or maybe don't drink so much, or it could be anything, right? But one of the things that I've learned in recovery is that I, you know,

I just don't, like, I stay out of giving advice or trying to change other people. And I try to just keep my side of the street clean. And for people that are interested, happy to share my experience. So that's kind of the general way that I approach all of this stuff. So I do have this default reluctance

or kind of reflex to hold back from getting involved in solving other people's problems, especially when it comes to lifestyle changes, which often can be the most recalcitrant of problems to change. And I recognize there's a little bit of irony in this often can be the most recalcitrant of problems to change. And I recognize there's a little bit of irony in this because this show and what I do is fundamentally about change, right?

How can we be better serving as this sort of change agent, as you will. But if you pay attention to the show, I think you'll find that it's quite rare that I ever tell anyone what to do or not to do, right? Like, you know, I'm always trying to kind of abstain from judgment or taking other people's inventory or providing any kind of unsolicited advice.

And this is especially true in my experience when it comes to friends and family. And again, another built-in irony here is that, the people that you care the most about are often, the people that are the most difficult to reach and that, myself or whoever is trying to carry this message are often the exact people that they can't hear the advice from, right?

Like you're just too close to them. And I have countless examples of family members, friends, can't hear the advice from, right? Like you're just too close to them. And I have countless examples of, you know, family members, friends, you know, people who I've worked with who, you know, like I can eat through the show and books and all this things that I do, like I carry a certain message, right?

Right. And I try to be divorced from how that lands or whether it impacts people or changes them or not. But with family members, like there's like a force field around it. Like they can't hear it from you. Like you're the kid that, you know, like- Because they also know where it's not,

you're not always as perfect as it might sound. Of course, of course. So they know all that stuff. So after like, you know, doing this for so long and then suddenly, you know, somebody's like, hey, I just, you know, I'm 30 days plant-based or I did that and I was like, great. Like, how did that happen? Oh, I heard, I read this book from like somebody else

or like on YouTube or something like that has nothing to do with me. And it's always funny. It's like, I'm right here. I've been right here the whole time kind of saying the same thing, but like, okay, that's great, you know? But that's the way it works, right here, I've been right here the whole time, kind of saying the same thing, but like, okay, that's great. You know, but that's the way it works, right?

Yes, that is the way it works. Friends and family, like you can't make somebody willing to change. And when you're kind of forcing your idea, like you've had, okay, let's say you've made a lifestyle change and it's improved your life and you're enthusiastic about that.

And of course you want to evangelize that, but that makes you annoying and people don't want to hear that, right? Like, you know, you become like the antithesis of what you're trying to accomplish in that other person. You're more like, be the example. You're a lighthouse. You put it out there, the light's on.

And live your life, you know? Yeah. Live your life. I would say that the exception is when the advice is solicited. Like if somebody comes to you and says, hey, I need help, like, can you help me? Here's what I'm struggling with, or do you have any advice for me?

That's a different situation. And I think in those cases, the response that I generally offer is like, do you want me to tell you what I think in those cases, the response that I generally offer is like, do you want me to tell you what I think and give you advice? Or do you want me to just listen to you and be supportive? Because those are two different things. And sometimes people who are coming to you under the kind of auspices of seeking advice,

actually they just wanna be heard and listened to. And they don't really want you to tell them what to do. So getting clarity about that, I think is important. They don't want your dime store wisdom. No, they don't, right? And so behind all of this is willingness, right? Willingness is what drives transformation. And without willingness and by willingness,

I mean that internal desire to change that is driven from within the self and not impulsed by something external, any kind of sustainable change is impossible, right? And you can't will somebody to be willing. No. You can't compel somebody to be willing no matter how much they're suffering

or no matter how much you think you have the solution for them. They have to decide for themselves that they want that. And you being in the position of trying to convince them not only how to change, but that they should change

is really kind of a fool's errand. And it's a mistake that I see a lot of people make often. And I think in those cases, you're probably better off like leaving the person alone, letting them know that you love them and that you're available for them if and when they wanna do something different than whatever it is that they're doing.

But in the meantime, like allow them to be because perhaps they need to be in the world and have this experience that might actually catalyze that internal willingness at some point. You don't wanna rob them of that. But it's hard to watch people struggle. I mean, I think that's where this comes from. It's really hard, especially when it's somebody

that you care about. Right, especially. Imagine your child. Of course. Imagine my parents when I was doing what I was doing. Like it's, this is like the hardest thing. Yeah. It's really hard.

Like when do you intervene? When do you, you know, try to help? When do you say enough is enough and you step aside? Like these are very difficult, you know, situations and it's a case by case thing. Life does not fuck around, does it Rich? No, no. Anything else there?

Any other thoughts that I have on that? I think I would just say for that person that you're seeking to be of service to, I don't see a problem in testing the waters from time to time. For example, just, you know, kind of calling them up or, you know, getting together with them and then, you know, posing it as a question, like, hey, how's that thing going for you? Like, you happy? Like, what's

going on? Like trying to strip any judgment or kind of veneer of like, you know, like, I'm here to change you or help you. Just like get rid of that and just be curious about that. Or even just hang out. Like you could just say, hey, I'd like to take you to lunch or I'd like to like, let's go watch a concert or something and just hang out, right? And not even bring it up.

And sometimes that's the thing to do to reach somebody. Right. But when it's family, that's pretty hard to do because there's so much history and baggage. Like, oh, you want to take me out to lunch? What are you going to tell me what to do with my, you know, it's like, it's already fucked up. Yeah.

So, you know. This is why I should not, it's not AMADAM. AMA, ask me anything. Ask Adam anything, it's not AAM, it's AMA. Anyway, those are my thoughts on that. I don't know if that's important or not. Don't listen to me, folks. Cool.

So this is another one inspired. A lot of people called in with, they knew someone that they want you to interview or they had a recommendation for someone they admire that they want to interview. or they had a recommendation for someone they admire that they want you to interview. Josh Lewis recommended Bob Weir, the great legendary Bob Weir, the Grateful Dead for the pod.

I've mentioned Henry Rollins to you in the past. We talked about that privately. And I'm just curious if you want to give us your list of rockers and musicians at the top of your pod guest wishlist. And then also if you wanna talk to the folks and just tell them, because people are asking about booking people,

like how do you generally select guests and book them? Right, so those are two questions. I mean, the general question around selecting and booking guests is kind of an evolving thing and something I've put a lot of thought into when I was taking my sabbatical. I have some ideas about how to do that differently. I would say in general,

like I keep a working list, like a spreadsheet. Like anytime I come across somebody who I think would be cool, I add them to this list. I try to figure out who to contact or who knows who to, you know, we don't work with a booking agency. You know, nobody else books the show except me. Nobody else decides who's gonna be on the show except me.

So it's all about like who I'm curious about and then who I kind of pursue. And some of these people, like, I don't, I'm like, how am I gonna figure out how to get to, I don't know, you know, like I can DM them on Instagram, but, you know, short of that, like it's difficult. So a lot of these take a long time and there's a lot of no's.

And I think I also have, if I'm being honest about my weaknesses with this, I've been overly reactive in terms of booking the show as opposed to proactively going after the people I really want. And I've never been super systematic or about the whole thing. And I think I have a lot of room for improvement there.

And that's one thing I wanna do better this year than I've done in the past because the show's at a scale right now where I get a lot of incoming, you know? And I have a lot of, hey, you know, friends who recommend or whatever. And so it's pretty easy to be like, oh, that would be cool.

Yeah, sure, I'll do that. Like that's being kind of responsive to stuff that's- Easy to fill the slots. People, yeah. Yeah. And it's, but I'd like to think of it differently from the point of view that over the course of a year, with the exception of the masterclasses

and the best ofs and the roll-ons and things like that, I have about 50 open slots for the year. Who are the 50 best people in the world that I can get to come here and sit down with me? Like looking at it, not like, oh, that would be cool. Let's do that. And being very casual about it. I'd like to be a lot more conscious and intentional

about really going after the people that I want the most. And I think what has traditionally gotten in my way is somebody to say, oh, you should get this person in some like fancy, and I was like, well, I don't know that, but they don't wanna do it. I get self-defeating about it. Like, why would they come talk to me?

As opposed to just having more at bats. And if they say no, fine, but like try. But so the answer is like, yeah, I have a list and I'm in communication with lots of people at any given moment. And sometimes it takes a long time before schedules aligned because we only do it in person.

But every time I come across somebody interesting, they get added to that list. And so I kind of slowly work my way through that list. In terms of musicians, that's the other part of the question. Who are the musicians that are on that list currently? Who's on that list? There's some interesting ones.

I mean, I'm not gonna go through all of them, but maybe the ones that are most interesting, Dave Grohl, number one on that list. Gotta get Dave Grohl on. I listened to his audio book when I was in Australia. It's good, man. Have you read his book? I have not.

I should, I'm gonna download it. It's really good. It's super enjoyable. I'm gonna get the audio. I mean like that dude is awesome. Of course. Right? Yeah.

So he's up there. Flea is up there. Of course. Another incredible book. That's a great book. You just read his book, right? I read his book. It's phenomenal.

I love Flea. I love. He's fantastic. We're both Laker fans. He was watching a Laker game on his iPad in Australia while playing bridge over troubled water. It's been a fraught season. And I just, sometimes I watch that. Australian too.

Yeah, Australian. Grew up in Australia as a kid. Both his parents were Australian, yeah. Who else? Bruce Dickinson from Iron Maiden. I'm not like a heavy metal guy, but this guy's life story is bananas. So until I'm, you're saying he flies his own plane?

He has like such a diversity of expertise and like different things that he's into. So yeah, he became a commercial pilot like when Iron Maiden was huge and started a whole like aircraft maintenance and pilot training company. And he would fly the band in a 757. Like he piloted the band in their own 757.

So the reason that's amazing to me is because in Bali, I can't tell you how many times because I used to cover Indonesia a lot for Lonely Planet. And almost a lot of times, not every time, I frequently would fly into Bali and see, in and out of Bali, and see Iron Maiden's plane. Right. That's him?

Yeah, so he flies it. So he's in Bali a lot, obviously. Apparently. Yeah. I don't know about that. He also writes novels and film scripts. He does? Yeah.

I mean, just like Google the guy. I will. It's crazy. Gotta get him. It's perfect for you. So yeah, Dave Grohl, Bruce Dickinson, Flea, Michael Stipe, top of the list too. I'm a massive REM fan.

Did you hear Courtney Love on Marc Maron's podcast? I did not. You gotta check that out. I will. It's wild. All did not. You gotta check that out. I will. It's wild. All right. Like wild. I can't tell whether she's a genius

or like bananas or somewhere in between, but she's got stories. She has stories. You know, it's kind of amazing. She's got a lot more stories. Yeah. I think Bjork would be incredible. Yeah.

I think Sinead O'Connor would be amazing. I mean her life and kind of how she was treated and everything that happened with her. Does Bo Burnham count? Of course, Bo Burnham is incredible. Yeah. I tried to get Tom Morello a while back. I think he had a book coming out

and I went through a publicist who said no. Really? I might have to revisit that. I mean, you mean, who else? Tom York, Trent Reznor. One musician who I quite fancy who people might not be familiar with is this film composer called Ludwig Göransson.

Yes, absolutely. Swedish composer. He wrote the score for Black Panther, the score for The Mandalorian. He works with Christopher Nolan. He wrote the score for Black Panther, the score for The Mandalorian. He works with Christopher Nolan. He wrote the score for Tenet and the score for the upcoming Oppenheimer movie. He also produced Childish Gambino.

And like, this guy's cool. Like he makes these videos where you're in his studio and he'll show you his process. Like he goes through the whole thing about how he came up with the theme for The Mandalorian. Oh, really? Working with all these weird instruments and how it all came together.

And I'll put links up to some of those videos in the show notes. And he's kind of like the new kid in terms of advancing what a film score can be, like iterating on like, you know, kind of a new, like new sound modalities for film. Like if you go and like really listen to the music in Tenet, like it's, it's pretty wild what he does in that movie.

So anyway, I would love to sit down with him. Cool. I'm glad I asked you that question. Yeah. It was kind of a paraphrase, but also it was my curiosity. I don't know if that is that interesting to anybody, but anyway, all right. I think the way you choose your guests is interesting and all of that. And the fact that you've been reactive now,

you're going to be more proactive hopefully and try to break down these publicists, these publicists working with the old game, old media. Don't get me started. Keep going. Then there were a lot of messages from listeners who were actually just calling to thank you, you know, and for a show that enriches their lives.

And I just thought it was cool because it just shows, you know, then they would talk about how they recommend it to friends or they would recommend their friends and mentors to you to be guests on the show. It just speaks to this powerful connection, word of mouth phenomenon and how the branches kind of link back and forth. And, you know, so I just thought

I wanted to share that with you having gone through so many of these messages and curious about how that makes you feel hearing that. Yeah, it's weird, you know, on some level. I mean, it's incredibly gratifying the fact that this thing that, you know, on some level. I mean, it's incredibly gratifying, the fact that this thing that, you know, we started 10 years ago on a creative whim without any kind of plan

and just sort of nurtured with love and curiosity has like grown into this thing that I would have never imagined. And it didn't happen because of any kind of like business plan or anything like that. And we've never advertised or bought reach or done any kind of like business plan or anything like that. And we've never advertised or bought reach or done any kind of paid promotion. You know, we've never really had a viral moment

that produced any kind of huge growth spike. I mean, we've had some shows that have done well, the Huberman one in particular, which did like 12 million, I guess. So that would be an outlier. But in general, like it's just been this very slow creep of growing the show gradually and organically. The analogy is like being an ultra endurance athlete, right?

Like slow and steady wins the race, like being the tortoise. The prize doesn't go to the fastest, it goes to the guy who slows down the least. And we've just maintained a certain pace over a very long period of time. When we began, we were kind of in the right place at the right time. There's a lot of luck involved.

And then a lot of work that went into it behind the scenes that made it what it is today, which like I said, is very gratifying. It's an incredible thing that I feel incredibly privileged. Like I just, you know, I get to do this thing every day. Like, are you kidding? It's amazing.

But it can be a little bit weird and surreal at times because there's this parasocial relationship with the listener that occurs that can create some kind of strange encounters in the world, but also nice. And there are things that, you know, I don't deal with really when I'm at home, but when I travel and I'm at airports or in different cities

and I get approached quite a bit, but it's always like, when somebody comes up to me, it's almost as if we have a preexisting relationship. Like they already know me, like I'm their friend that they just, they were just with the other day and like, oh, now he's here now. So I'm gonna go say hi to him. Right, right, right.

Like, but it's a one-sided thing, you know? And so there is a little bit of awkwardness with that, but it's actually, it's really, it's very endearing. Like, and I guess, you know, the main thing in terms of like what I could impart to the listener or the viewer is that this experience has proven to me that we're all more powerful than we think we are, especially in this internet era

where anybody can, you know, go online with a camera or a microphone and share themselves. And the fact that I'm just a guy and I started this thing and over time it's become important to other people and I don't have any more ownership over it than the audience does. It's as much theirs as it is mine or the team of talented people

that I now surround myself with that work really hard to create this thing every week. Like they work harder, you know, or at least as hard as I do to do this. So it's really not about me. I think it's really about the power of the individual to produce change. Like if I could do this thing, like I just think everybody has something inside of them that they could express to make the world a little bit of a better place. And, you know, if I could do this thing and perhaps change people's lives a little bit,

I think everybody, you know, can make a difference in the world. And I can tell you that being engaged in the process of like trying to offer something positive to the world and not get caught up in metrics and, well, that guy's doing this and he's bigger than me. And like, why is that guest doing that? You know, like when I get, when I free myself of all of that noise and just remember like why it is that we're doing this, it's just, it's just like an overwhelming sense of like gratitude. So I want everyone to feel, you know,

their version of that. And I think it's, we're in a time and a place where that's more possible than it ever has been in history. Boom. So there you go. Well said, well said. We have one more department. Are we gonna do that.

The media diet, we gotta do it. The media diet? We're doing the media diet. One more department, the media diet. All right, introduce this. So I was, Joanne Molinaro, the Korean vegan, had us over for dinner the other night and she was saying how she loved

knowing that you're a binge watching geek, just like everyone else. Yeah, it's so funny, cause I see her at the gym and she's like, oh, I like figured out what to like stream because I was like, really? Yeah. Like you might be the only one, but okay.

So you had a lot of time on your hands. Yeah. In the sky cave of Byron. Did you do some binge watching? Did you stream or not stream? I tried not to stream too much, but I did, I did, you know, I did, I did watch a few things.

So tell us the highlights. Just give everything. Yeah, I don't want to make like a huge thing of this, but I did one thing that I do every year, which is I rewatch Michael Clayton because I need to watch that movie every single year. I love Michael Clayton. It's one of the greatest movies ever made. Fantastic. I single year. I love Michael Clayton. This is one of the greatest movies ever made.

Fantastic. I love it. I love Michael Clayton. Love it so much. It's like an old school suspense movie, you know, like one back, like, yeah. But some great performances. It's fantastic, right?

It is, it is the, I don't know, it's everything that I love in a movie. I love it too. And I think Tony Gilroy, who wrote and directed that movie, is now applying his talents beautifully in Andor, which is the Star Wars spinoff series. Oh, that's him?

Yeah, Tony Gilroy created that. So that would be another streaming recommendation that's also great for the family and the kids and all of that. You know, I'm somebody who likes Star Wars, but I'm not like a huge Star Wars person. And now in this extended Star Wars universe of like all these shows and all these movies, it's sort of like, really?

But Andor stands apart on a quality level. It's like- I've heard. And Tony loves doing it. Like he's like in his prime, he gets to write the stuff that he cares about. And the themes that he explores in his movies are explored in Andoril. It's like Star Wars for grownups.

Okay. And it's almost not even Star Wars, like with the occasional TIE fighter flies by, but like you could forget it's even Star Wars. It's just a very well-crafted story about economic disparity, uprising, revolution. You know, it's political in that regard. Like early, like the first part of Hunger Games.

Well, it's like the early part of the rebellion. Like what caused the rebellion? What is actually happening? What is the empire doing to these people that's causing them to want to rebel? So it's classic sci-fi parable to the present day. It's good. What else?

You know, a lot of the movies that I watch are rewatches. I rewatch Broadcast News. I rewatch Copland, which is Sylvester Stallone's best movie. Never seen it. You've never seen Copland? Never seen it. Come on, man. Also, hot take.

Hot take. Have you seen The Informant by Steven Soderbergh? I have seen The Informant. My hot take is that this might be Matt Damon's best performance of any movie. I like him in Syriana. I like Syriana too. I also love Syriana.

I think that to me that's, and I also, I mean, he's amazing and talented, Mr. Ripley. I really like Syriana. Syriana got like a bad rap from the critics. I don't know why. I think it's great. I do too. And I love Steven Gagin.

I think he's an incredibly talented filmmaker. Yeah. Yeah, who wrote- Well, great writer too. Yeah. And amazing storyteller who would be welcome on this podcast at any time. Yes, I love Siriano.

I don't know why people didn't like him. I like Siriano very much. I rewatched a little known series called Rubicon on AMC, which is kind of like hard boiled,iled, you know, spy tradecraft. I love that stuff. Anyway, what are we talking about here? Like, you know, I watched White Lotus. I like that.

I want to shout out The Climb. Okay. The Jason Momoa and Chris Sharma series, which is really cool. People love that. I have not seen it yet. Really good. Yeah.

Last of Us, are you into Last of Us? I am because my kids are super into it. Yeah. And I've enjoyed that, you know, based on the video of course you are we talked about corey steps we just got into it uh one other kind of off-kilter series that i would recommend on netflix is song exploder it's based on the podcast song we've talked about i've probably talked about it yeah when the rem they have a season two up right now there's only like four episodes per season or whatever, but I just really love that show. It's fantastic. And then in terms of podcasts,

because we're talking about streaming, podcast falls in that. I enjoyed this limited series called The New Gurus by Helen Lewis, who's a writer for The Atlantic. Each episode kind of looks at this secular guru landscape kind of in the way that the Decoding the Gurus guys do it. But she does it in a documentary kind of style and it kind of paints the picture

of what this new world of internet gurus looks like and what it's doing to people and where it's working and where it's going sideways. And Helen is very introspective and insightful on this subject matter. That's cool. So check that out. I had to shake her.

She was trying to tail me here. She's gonna knock on our door. She actually just wrote a really amazing piece for The Atlantic. I'm pulling it up right now. It's called The Internet Loves an Extremophile. The subtitle is online culture favors influencers who pinball from one enthusiasm to the next.

It's a pretty great long read. I'll link that up in the show notes as well. Let's do that. But yeah, I don't know. Cool. What have you been enjoying? So far I haven't seen too many movies. We saw everything everywhere all at once.

Really liked that obviously. Saw White Lotus, Saw White Lotus. Loved White Lotus. The Last of Us, we're just getting into now. But I think of all the things that I've seen or heard, you know what stuck with me the most is David Sedaris' new audio book, Happy Go Lucky. I think it's probably the most um prescient take on the pandemic and the lifestyle that we all kind of had to undertake and his responses to it i mean if you don't

obviously david sarah's he's he's a master at the height of his powers here he's meant to be heard not just read he's so great when he reads it himself. He unpacks his life story, unpacks his family members. He basically puts the light on everything. And he really, I mean, he's merciless. But in the end, there's so many poignant moments. And you learn about kind of his relation with his father, you learn about his relation with his siblings, you learn his own quirks. And he's just obviously hilarious. I mean, I think to me, he's a descendant of Mark Twain. I know Mark Twain was a master novelist. He's not a novelist. So it's not exactly a great comparison. But in terms of an American humorist who kind of can nail the American culture so easily and

mercilessly, here's a guy that does. It is laugh out loud, funny and cringy and awesome. Happy go lucky. Happy go lucky. I will definitely check that out. I love that guy. And I have been listening to Dialogue by Robert McKee. I know he's a guest that's coming up. Yeah, he's coming up soon.

Working on this other project for so long, I'd be like, I get so crazy. Is it good? Is it gonna suck? Whatever. And so like, I ended up diving into like writing. Like how to become a writer. I'm like learning to be a writer. And so I found this book.

And the one thing I will say, I don't wanna, I don't know if he talks about Shakespeare. Do you guys talk about Shakespeare in your podcast? We recorded it so long ago. Did we talk about that? I don't think so. So the one thing I you guys talk about Shakespeare in your podcast? We recorded it so long ago. Did we talk about that? I don't think so. So one thing I'll say, because I'm one of those writers,

I'm not the guy who's in love with Shakespeare. Like I like certain plays, but I'm not, you know, to me, Shakespeare's awesome. I like certain plays, but I've never been the guy that has to read everything. And sometimes I think, you know, why is it overblown? But what I didn't realize and what he says in dialogue is that Shakespeare invented like thousands of words that have

become part of the English language lexicon. Among them, elbow, eyeball. Like when he needed a word, he made up the word. That comes out of dialogue by Robert McKee. And so like that's why there's basically ding, ding, ding. That's why there's, basically, ding, ding, ding, that's why there's this obsession among so many people in English departments with Shakespeare because he didn't just entertain, he crafted the lexicon we're all using now.

Does that mean that we're allowed to make up words now? Yes. Okay, good. Yes, yes, yes, yes. That's cool. Yeah, I didn't know that. Wow, interesting.

I forgot to mention that, on the tip of like sharing movie stuff, I did spend New Year's Eve at the Arrow Theater in Santa Monica enjoying a 70 millimeter print of 2001, A Space Odyssey. So that should like ensure my like film nerd card. Oh yeah. That I would spend New Year's Eve.

Big time. That sounds like a great New Year nerd card. Oh yeah. That I would spend New Year's Eve. Big time. That sounds like a great New Year's Eve. Actually, it was awesome. Was it just you and Julie? And Jaya. Oh, cool. That's pretty cool. That's a great one.

My favorite, we'll wrap it up. Like my favorite movies of this year, because I know the Oscar nominations just came out. Yep. I still think, I mean, Tar is incredible. I gotta see it. You haven't seen Tar is incredible I gotta see it I gotta see all these that you have here but I'm glad that everything everywhere all at once

it felt like maybe that came out too soon but then it got like I want to get like 11 nominations do you think it's gonna win? I feel like it's gonna win I think it's in a good position Banshees of Inushirin, incredible I love that movie

you haven't seen it? not yet, even though In Bruges is one of my favorite movies of all time Colin Far incredible. I love that movie. You haven't seen it? Not yet. Even though I, you know, In Bruges is one of my favorite movies of all time. Colin Farrell, brilliant in that movie. The movie that I think got sort of dismissed or overlooked, and maybe this is a hot take, but I really like this movie is White Noise. Yeah, some people didn't like it, right?

Yeah. I have not seen it. I've seen it on the Dom DeLillo book, Noah Baumbach. Like it takes a lot of big swings and maybe it doesn't always connect. But I don't know, man. I dug it. It's built for middle-aged guys

trying to figure out what life's all about. My choices are like, you know, like I like spy stuff. Like I'm dad core. Like give me Jack Ryan on Amazon. Like I'm happy. You know what I mean? Yes, you are dad core.

Like so. And then the other movie that I really enjoyed is Triangle of Sadness. I don't know if you saw that. I've heard that. That's amazing. We gotta watch all these. We're just reading more and more.

But in the meantime, go see Megan because that movie fucking rules. Megan. Yeah, the AI robot that goes on a killing spree. Come on, Adam. That sounds like Terminator. Terminator. It's a little girl, four foot tall girl.

Oh, even better. Goes on a killing rampage. Come on. All right. You think I'm highbrow? Is AI a good idea? Well, go see Megan and decide for yourself. I've already seen Terminator.

Why are we doing AI? It's a bad idea. Please go see Megan. Okay. And we will reprise roll on again soon, right? But not in some point. Is this it for this?

There'll be a little kibitzing. We gotta have some kibitzing. And you know, like I said, you guys let us know. Leave a comment on YouTube. Tell us what you think. Okay. Is that it? We're out? That's it. Good. Alright. Thanks, everybody. Welcome to 2023. Adam, so good to see you. I love you, buddy. I love That's it. Good. All right, thanks everybody. Welcome to 2023.

Adam, so good to see you. I love you, buddy. I love you too, man. Thanks for having me. Let's have some cool shit this year. Let's do it. All right, cheers. Peace.

Let's ice, ice, baby. Thank you.