The Rich Roll Podcast - Roll On: Rest, Reflection & Responsibility

Episode Date: February 3, 2022

After a seasonal sabbatical, ‘Roll On’ is back. And it’s time to hash out a bit of drama. After a two-month respite, Roll On returns with a discussion on ‘Moneyball-esque’ advances in sports science, the role of podcasting in the culture wars, the importance of taking a professional pause, how my sleep habits ended up as ‘news’, and so much more. As always, my magnanimous sidecar hype-beast and co-host Adam Skolnick joins me at the round table. Adam is an activist and veteran journalist known as David Goggins’ Can’t Hurt Me, co-author. He writes about adventure sports, environmental issues, and civil rights for outlets such as The New York Times, Outside, ESPN, BBC, and Men’s Health. He is the author of One Breath and is currently using the ‘new dad’ excuse to avoid working on his novel. More specifically, topics discussed in today’s episode include: how the RRP community raised almost $500K for charity: water Adam’s recent NYT article on Norwegian triathlon dominance; the Joe Rogan and Spotify controversy and what it teaches us; lessons learned from Rich’s month-long sabbatical; the Alan Watts collection on the Waking Up app;  why Station Eleven is the best show on TV; and media reactions to Rich’s ‘tent story’ on the Tim Ferriss show. As always, we close things out by taking a few listener questions. Today we answer: How do you optimize zone two training in non-impact workouts? Who do you draw inspiration from when feeling down? What do you do when your motivation for working out runs dry? Thank you to Rebecca from Santa Maria, Sam from Baton Rouge, and April from Santa Monica for your questions. If you want your query discussed, drop it on our Facebook Page or, better yet, leave a voicemail at [phone]. To read more click here. You can also watch it all go down on YouTube. And as always, the podcast streams wild and free on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Enjoy the show! Peace + Plants, Rich

The Rich Roll Podcast. All right, we're back. For those new or newer to the show, Roll On is our inconsistently bi-weekly news slash entertainment slash ask me anything mashup where we loosen the metaphorical ties a bit, discuss matters ranging from important to frivolous. We answer listener questions.

We have a few laughs, hopefully a little bit of fun. Adam, it has been eight weeks since our last roll on. And actually I think this is the longest that I've gone without recording a podcast in the history of the podcast itself. And certainly the longest gap since we began our little thing here. First because of special holiday programming,

like our annual best ofs. And then because I've spent the last month, the entirety of January on sabbatical, which we're gonna talk a little bit about today. But the point is today we make a glorious return. There's so much to cover and catch up on. But first, how goes it my long lost friend, Mr. Adam Skolnick.

Rich, I don't wanna bore you with the many inconveniences of modern life, but are you familiar with the idea that things shrink in cold water? I have heard that rumor. You have, you've heard it. I lost my wedding band in my last swim. You did. In the Pacific Ocean

or two swims ago. You're not a real swimmer and certainly not a real open water or ocean swimmer if you haven't lost your wedding band. Is that right? Yeah, in the vastness of our open seas. You know what, it's funny. I was talking to Goggins like later that day,

I think it was. And he said that almost all Navy seals who were married lost their wedding band in the ocean. And then the ones, when they get the new one, they put it onto their watch because it's guaranteed to go. Oh, wow, that's interesting. But I didn't know it

because I've swam in cold water so many times and it's never been a problem, but it's been really cold here. And I felt it, it was like one of those things, I felt it slip off and then like it registered a half second later and I popped up and I'm like, and it was gone. That was it.

Did you dive down and try to find it? Of course I did. About 85 times, but it was, you know. Yeah, man. I told a story about that in Finding Ultra when I was on my first honeymoon with my short-lived, I don't know what you call it, and lost my wedding band. And I had a very symbolic kind of nature to it. I don't know what you call it and lost my wedding band.

And I had a very symbolic nature to it. But since then I did like people may know, like I don't wear a wedding band and that's because I've lost like three that I've had with Julie. Is that right? At some point I was just like, forget it. Right, so it's no longer a symbol.

This one to be perfectly transparent was I've been married twice and it was a wedding band. I already had, because we decided, April and I decided to get married on like a Saturday and we got married on a Thursday. And it was just like, you either go and get something off the thing or we- So you used your wedding band from your former marriage?

Listen, I didn't come here for your judgment. So my wife didn't mind. Like I came back, I felt really bad. And my wife's like, my wife didn't mind. And she's already conveniently made an appointment to purchase new wedding bands. Good. I think you should have one

that's just between the two of you guys. Until I lose that one. But no, yeah, maybe don't overspend because you're probably gonna lose it again if you go out into the ocean. I think I can't wear it. Because things do shrink in cold water. Things shrink and I was aware of some things shrinking,

obviously, but I didn't know knuckles shrank, but that's what I learned. Well, it's good to be with you again. I feel a little nervous today. I'm out of practice. Like this literally is the longest I've gone without doing a podcast in as long as I can remember. So crazy.

Yeah, I'm like, I have butterflies. I got home last night at like one o'clock in the morning and just came right in here to do this today. So right back in it, but I'm feeling good. Excited to share with you today. I'm excited to be the guy that's here on this breaking back in it, but I'm feeling good. Excited to share with you today. I'm excited to be the guy that's here on this breaking back in. I think if they roll on format is a good one

to get the juices flowing. Yeah, because let's face it, the stakes are really low. Right? Well, I'm just not that challenging. I don't have to impress you. I don't have to win you over. No. You can be sycophantic. Yeah.

If my eyes get glassy from being tired, I know that you can take the reins and run with it a little bit. If your eyes get glassy, you know what I'll say? What? Your eyes look wonderful. See, that's why you have the job. In this echo chamber that we've created here,

where you just say nice things to me and we continue to do this. But I will say over the break, lots of people out there itching and aching for some Skolnick. Yes. Especially we started this new thing called Rollback where on YouTube,

when we don't have a midweek roll on episode or any other kind of episode, we've started sharing audio only episodes from way back in the archive that I've never been on YouTube before. And we've done that twice. We had one with Gabor Mate and what was the one that we just put up the other?

Oh, Joshua Johnny. And in the comment section, people are like, this is great rollback, but like what happened to roll on? There's a lot of speculation and conspiracy theorizing. There was a conspiracy theory. That our relationship has disintegrated, that maybe we got into a fight or something like that. How come there's not, I took a break.

Right, I mean, there was one theory that Brogan murdered me or at least kidnapped me. Is there like some Reddit thread? If you go to deep Reddit, it's not Reddit. It's like the deep Reddit. Some kind of 4chan situation. Yeah, it's like Reddit's 4chan. There's a thing.

A lot of speculation. There's someone in the Facebook. Screen grabs. There's pictures of people seen in the wild. Yeah, prove he's not dead. That's what they said. Prove he's not dead. That's what they said. Prove he's not dead. Well, that's a metaphor for, you know,

kind of the way the world is spinning at the moment. Yeah, it's a minefield out there, Rich. It is. Yeah. I heard there's a culture war afoot. I wouldn't know about it because I'm in an echo chamber within an echo chamber. Well, during my sabbatical, I opted out of paying attention to anything,

but I did hear a little bit about a few things, which we're gonna talk about today. But before we get into all of that, a couple of announcements that I wanna make, especially since I've been gone for an extended period of time. We did create a couple new social media accounts for the podcast,

at Rich Roll Podcast on Instagram and Twitter. When I was gone, it just made it easier for the team here who did a great job in my absence. Clearly I'm not fundamental to this operation because these guys did a great job when I was gone. You're a figurehead. Where under those accounts, there'll be posts about the latest episodes.

So the onus isn't always on me to constantly be sharing on social media about the latest episodes. So the onus isn't always on me to constantly be sharing on social media about the latest episodes. So check those out, subscribe, it frees me up. Cause this, you know, turns out this social media stuff is kind of a full-time gig. If you don't check yourself a little bit. Do you feel like you're gonna be pulling back from your Instagram account in some ways?

I mean, do you feel like- No, it just releases a little bit of the pressure. It's like, I'm reluctant. A lot of people have other people manage their social media accounts. I just don't feel comfortable with that. But then it means that like, oh shit, today there's a new episode up.

I gotta think of something to say and download these photos and put them up and this stuff takes time. So anyway, it just makes my life a little bit easier. So subscribe to those things. Second announcement, you heard me talk about Taco Vega a couple of times on the podcast. It's my friend, Jared Simon's restaurant

here in Los Angeles, all plant-based Mexican. He's an incredible chef. He's also an amazing endurance athlete, has done tons of Ironmans and ultra runs, just a good dude. And I was heartbroken last week when he announced that they were gonna be closing their doors. They just couldn't make it work. But there was this outpouring of support on social media.

And so many people kind of showed up on the final days before closing the restaurant, that he was able to kind of showed up on the final days before closing the restaurant that he was able to kind of keep the doors open and he's doing it on a day-to-day basis right now. So we're recording this on Monday, this goes up on Thursday. I don't know whether he'll still be serving up food. Hopefully he is.

And in the event that he is and you find yourself in Los Angeles, make a point of stopping by Taco Vega in, it's on Fairfax, New York Cantor, it's pretty easy to find, you can Google it. And you can find Taco Vega on Instagram and Jared Simons as well, give him some love support. I shared a little bit on my stories about that

and hopefully we can keep it open. And if not, I'm sure he'll find some new thing soon, but we gotta support our plant-based restaurants. 100%. I tried to order, but out of delivery range. Well, drive into town. I'm going to, I'm gonna drive into town. Make sure you do it.

I will. Another announcement I wanted to make has to do with Charity Water. Some of you might remember back in, I think it was in 2017. Well, I've had Scott Harrison on the founder of Charity Water a couple of times on the podcast,

incredible guy who's just re-imagined philanthropy, pillar to post has created this amazing philanthropic effort with Charity Water to solve the global water crisis, particularly in the developing world. And I raised money for Charity Water for my birthday in 2017. And I think we raised 80 grand through that campaign, which was fantastic.

Then Charity Water started this thing called The Spring, where you can donate monthly some amount that gets just kind of auto-debited from your account. And I created a page to do that for us here at the podcast. We donate monthly. And back at that time, I was sort of sharing that with everybody, but I kind of forgot about it

cause it's sort of a set it and forget it kind of thing. And I decided to check back in and see kind of where we were at in terms of how much money we've raised. And I was shocked to discover that collectively this Rich Roll Podcast tribe has raised $471,000 for Charity Water, which is unbelievable. I had no idea.

Apparently we're the fourth highest donor in this kind of spring ecosystem under Charity Water. We funded 13 water projects, 15,244 people have been aided as a result of all of your collective efforts. So I'm just blown away by that. And I just wanted to say thank you to everybody who has contributed, who heard about it through the podcast. It's just an incredible testament to the power of community

and the good nature of so many people. And all of that occurred without me saying as much as boo for like four or five years, because I literally haven't talked about this, which means that actually we could seriously grow this impact. So please, if you're so inclined, if you wanna learn more or you wanna get involved,

contribute whatever monthly amount you can, do that by going to charitywater.org slash richroll. Unbelievable. involved contribute whatever monthly amount you can, do that by going to charitywater.org slash richroll. Unbelievable and that 15,244 people you've aided is not a temporary thing. I mean, you're aiding them for, Right. That's a generational.

Generations to come. So 13 water projects, which means basically wells in 13 villages where those communities are getting served permanently, which is unbelievable. Is that Africa, India type stuff? I think it's mostly Africa. I think on the website you could find out exactly

where all of those 13 are. But anyway, shout out to Scott as well. It's just, it's super cool. Meal planner update. There's been a significant increase in both new signups and retention, which is awesome. We get so many emails and testimonials from people whose lives have been improved,

benefited in a positive way by the meal planner. So thank you for that. And I just wanna let everybody know who's considering signing up for it or who is already on board that we're gonna be adding even more recipes, including some special ones that feature Shri Mu, Julie's plant-based cheese for Valentine's day

and for the Superbowl, including a discount on Shri Mu. So keep a lookout for that. We're also gonna be offering more fleshed out holiday and seasonal content in the upcoming year. And the service just keeps getting better and better and better. I'm really proud of the team that has built this and who manages it.

It's really a great product. It's super affordable and just great. So for more on that or to sign up, visit meals.richroll.com. Rich Roll, did you just say Super Bowl? I did. Super Bowl is not your thing. You're not in the Super Bowl. Who's playing in, did you just say Super Bowl? I did. Super Bowl is not your thing. You're not in the Super Bowl.

Who's playing in the Super Bowl this year? The Rams, buddy. The Rams and some other team. I do know that. The Rams against the other guys. I flew over when I was flying home last night, we flew over SoFi Stadium. And you know how when you fly over the top,

there's like video playing on the top that like illuminates from the sky. Oh, I did not know that. It's pretty cool. I've never been into SoFi. I have not either. It was a great finish to the game. It was quite something.

It was all going down when I was on an airplane, but. Shout out Cooper Cup, shout out Aaron Donald. It's quite a year. Yeah, but that's about all I have to say about football. That you have a Super Bowl menu. Let's talk about triathlon, Adam. That's something I I have to say about football. That you have a Superbowl menu. Let's talk about triathlon, Adam. That's something I know a little bit about. Let's get into a sport that matters.

You know a little bit about because you wrote this New York Times article on the Norwegians. Why do they swim, bike, run so fast? That article did really well. I mean, it had beautiful placement in the printed New York Times. So congrats on that.

Thanks man. It was great to do. It's further evidence of the ritual podcast effect on the New York Times sports coverage, because I got the idea based on our very last roll on where you kind of had seated it and Christian Blumenfeld who I'd interviewed for a previous story on Ironman,

kind of how they were moving through you. I got connected to Christian. And then he basically blew the record out of the water of the fastest known Ironman time by six plus minutes, breaking Jan Frodeno's record. What was his time like 721 or something like that? Yeah, 724. 724.

No, it's like, it's in the story. Is that wrong? No, it's 721, I think you're right. I think it was 721. And he, anyway, so I called Talbot Cox to kind of find out what's the story behind all of this and how did they do it? Originally, my pitch was kind of more like,

I'd heard they did some data stuff. I heard, and I was just gonna profile Christian. And then the more I got into the story, I realized that it was basically this money ball comes to multi-sport. Cause it's not, I mean, Christian is the tip of the spear, but there's Gustav Iden, I don't know how you say it, I don't know his last name.

And then there's another guy. Casper. Right, so there's a whole thing going on in Norway. Yes, so, and Casper's one has beaten both those guys in different events. And Gustav was an Olympian and is the world champion at the half Ironman distance. And then you got Christian, who's the Olympic champion

in the Olympic distance. And now has the fastest known time. They don't call it a record because of the Cosmo course is complicated and it's not certified. And so it's originally it was called the world record, but they pulled back, a professional triathlete organization pulled back. But that was the first time he's ever even done the distance.

He'd never done the distance ever before. He's never done an Ironman before. No, ever. His first time out. Ever. And he's in, so the distance. He'd never done the distance ever before. He'd never done an Ironman before. No, ever. His first time out. Ever. And he's in, so anyway, the story is about how is that possible? How did that happen?

It's a really interesting, cool story about these three young guys from Bergen and- Who've known each other like their whole lives. Since they were kids, you know, Christian, you know, they both, they all went to a sports kind of focused high school, kind of like we've had the fame high schools here, that thing.

In Europe, there's sports schools that are kind of like that aimed towards Olympic type sports. He was a swimmer that couldn't win swimming races. He was competitive, but he wasn't winning the races. And so his swim coach basically said, he saw him run one day and ran so well and said, you should try triathlon. He went to a local sprint triathlon and won the thing as a high school student, he saw him run one day and ran so well and said, you should try triathlon. He went to a track local sprint triathlon and won the thing

as a high school student, he was 15. And he got a call basically saying, hey, we're starting a, some parent had a kid who wanted to get into triathlons and the parent, the father didn't know much about the sport, but he just decided to form a local team. And Christian was one of the guys and these other two guys also were from Bergen and they showed up in this team. So just crazy local team. And Christian was one of the guys and these other two guys also were from Bergen

and they showed up in this team. So just crazy local talent. But the story itself is really about how the data works and what they do differently. And long story short, serial entrepreneur from the kind of the tech world named Olav Alexander Boo, basically decided to shadow the Norwegian team to Rio

in 2016 to see if, hey, maybe I can help with this sport. Maybe I could, I know the Norwegians have some good young athletes. Maybe I can help them in some way. And basically realized that aside from Dan LaRong, who was a great coach in his own right and is the coach of Jan Frodeno and Lucy Charles Barkley, two of the greats.

Aside from him and what he's done with data, no one's even looking at data properly. Even the coaches that are looking at VO2 or looking at lactate, they're not looking at them together and they're not looking at it properly or properly understanding it. So he saw this huge gap in the knowledge of what's happening to these athletes. And these athletes, they're constantly understanding it. So he saw this huge gap in the knowledge of what's happening to these athletes.

And these athletes, they're constantly on a clock. They're constantly being monitored by their own gadgets. They're constantly eating. There's so much data just there that no one's harvesting. So he kind of, it's about Christian's greatness and about Olaf and Christian working together to harvest as much data as possible and all the funny quirks.

So there's the inevitable kind of money ball analogy of like crunching these numbers and coming up with better strategies for training and racing. I mean, one of the kind of practical takeaways was that Christian was riding too hard, right? So it was, he was suffering on the run. And so they figured out exactly how to dial back

his bike leg to a very precise degree such that his run would benefit tremendously as a result. Like that would be a specific example. A hundred percent. So they were using, they use core heating sensors in a way that no one has, and they use specific sensors where they have a proprietary interest

because Olaf got with different companies that are working on this stuff and said, "'Hey, let us be your resource. "'So you can beta test anything you want through us.'" And so in that part of that deal is this stuff's proprietary. So they have core heating sensors because the skin heat, that's not your real core heat. But if you got the core heat, you can really find out how close you are to redlining.

And so if you pull back just enough, you can maintain that proper temperature because basically the idea is only even the best cyclists, only about 20 to 25% of the calories they take in goes to work. You know, it goes towards work itself. The rest of it just gets burned off as excess heat. So if you're too hot, if your core temperature is too hot, a lot of the calories you're taking in, all that just goes to heat, just gets burned away.

In order to cool, it's going towards cooling yourself. Right, it gets burned off as it heats you up actually. Yeah, so it doesn't go towards cooling yourself. It doesn't do anything productive at all. It just is more, you're feeding a fire that is burning too hot. Right, yeah, the core temperature thing is such a big deal. And it's a big reason why so many elite Ironman athletes

have had trouble when it comes to Kona, because they can dominate in these other races. And then they get to Kona and the heat and the wind and all this sort of stuff. And they start running into stomach issues and overheating issues that they haven't had to contend with. And they don't have appropriate fueling strategies for those because it's so different than these other places.

And so even among the best athletes, the most elite out there, they've had struggles. I mean, Chris McCormick went through this. It took him years to like figure out how to solve that equation so that he could win that race. And he's just one of many examples of that. So I think that's super interesting. In addition to that, I know that Christian also wears a CGM,

a constant glucose monitor, or is that what it's called? Yeah. Yeah. Super sapiens. So they add that like blood glucose detection into that mix as well. And then there's this kind of click baity thing

about the $2,000 water. Yes. What is that about? So it's a $2,000 water. Yes. What is that about? So it's a $2,000 water that's infused with particular isotopes so that when he pees, they can put it into a mass spectrometer and find out how well he's metabolizing oxygen. And then they also burn fecal samples

to find out how well he's metabolizing his carbohydrates. What's funny, it was very cheeky, like Christian sometime last week, or when did the article come out? It came out like 10 days ago or something like that. When it came out, he shared on Instagram stories, him drinking the $2,000 water, which I thought was very funny.

But I think it's important to note, like all of this is really interesting. This is at the very cutting edge of science and sport performance. And we're talking about the most elite athletes in the sport. And I think it's important to contextualize that against the rest of us who are the Huffer Duffers

and the average people. Lindsey Krauss, former podcast guest, New York Times writer. Did you see the piece that she just wrote? I did see that. About ditching her data. Basically that's the other end of the spectrum. Like I'm done with my watch.

Like I just wanna go out and enjoy running in kind of a more purist way. Which is- So both of these have their logic, like what is your goal? Right, yeah, I agree with you. And just real quick, if you wanna take a layman's view, if you are interested in getting faster or in a scientific way, essentially,

basically what people were doing was the American side of the sport was looking at VO2 max, which is kind of your max potential. And you could hit your max performance, but maybe only hold it for 30 minutes or an hour or something like that. Lactate meters from what Dan LeRong told me was more a European thing.

They were checking out the lactate tolerance in the blood and that enabled you to go long, but it wasn't really focused on max performance. It was more focused on maximum endurance. And so what Dan did was mix those two understandings together to try to expand your max fitness and hold it for a longer period of time. And what Ola of Alexander Boo is doing

is basically taking that and jumping five steps ahead using more monitors to better understand it. And Dan says, if there's ever a sensor I can't use, he's happy. So Dan is, and he's coached, arguably the great, certainly the greatest of his generation, three-time Ironman champion, Jan Frodeno,

who's been able to win races deep into his thirties. I think he's 40 now or something. And so he cares about data and Dan and Olaf are friends. And they talk about this stuff a lot. So I don't know. I mean, if you're looking at it from a kind of a layman's perspective, there's definitely something there

in terms of trying to maximize your best performance rate and then expand that ability to stay there for a long time. Cause we have VO2 max here, but that doesn't really dictate how fast you're gonna go. I've never paid attention to that. Right. Ever. Well, it's not a real one anyway, but yes.

But setting my zones based on lactate levels has always been super important to me. I talk endlessly about zone two, but understanding what your zone two is, which is where you develop your aerobic base and your aerobic capacity, you have to be properly lactate tested to establish those zones.

And the more aerobically fit you are, the flatter that curve is in terms of like the lactate increase as you escalate your effort and your intensity and the quicker you kind of go back to baseline. And in endurance sports, like VO2 max, I've always thought of it as being not that important because you're not, what your threshold is isn't really crucial.

It's how vast your aerobic capacity is. Like your ability to maintain a sub threshold effort for the longest period of time possible and recover quickly. So that when you ramp it up into a tempo effort, you can then go quickly back down to baseline. And so what they're trying to do is basically make that- Work both sides of that. Yeah. Yeah, I understand.

And make that max something they can hold for a period of time. But anyway, back to your thing, just to wrap it up, Christian won in Tokyo where the heat was, obviously it's very well documented how hot the Olympics were in July in Tokyo. And he won passing runners that were supposed to be faster than him

because he had dialed it back just enough on the bike. And then he just, they were wilting and he won the race by 11 seconds. And the thing that's not in this story that he told me is he called his shot when he was a teenager, when he was 17, he was interviewed by a local paper in Bergen and he guaranteed an Olympic win, guaranteed it.

Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah, and then he did it. Wow. With this data as part of it, so. But he's not like a boisterous, like he's a very soft-spoken, like sweet guy. Yes, but they are hardcore man, these guys, you know, like they wanna win bad

and so it'll be interesting to see what happens in St. George. I'm hoping to be there. And the funniest part about that story was when I talked to Olav, he's so smart. Like the first time I talked to him for like two hours and I left the phone, I'm like, I don't even know what, like, I shouldn't do this story.

I'm not smart enough. You know, and then I talked to him for like four hours over three different times over a period of time before I fully kind of wrapped my head around, how do I make this simple? How do I make it engaging? Because it's all so engaging. How do you kind of pare it down?

Right. And so that's what it took for me. And it's pretty funny, like how much you have to, cause usually I just drop into a world and I'm able to figure it out enough and get enough good stuff pretty quickly to turn it around. I like over-researching though. So I'm always erring on that side,

but with this, it was a real challenge for me to get to that point of confidence of writing it. Because it was so scientific. So in the weeds. And it's so different from what I do. You know, it's like, I mean, my inner core is like Lindsey Krauss. Like I didn't have a smartwatch till like,

I got a dive watch that happens to have that stuff. You don't even have goggles. You have smart goggles. Yeah, I do. You have smart goggles. Yeah. Yeah, I don't have dumb goggles. That's cool, no, so everyone check it out.

We'll link it up in the show notes along with a couple other articles about these Norwegians. Did you talk before we close this out, did you talk at all about this Sub7 project? I did, I talked to them about it. We didn't include it because that's something for next summer. And so the idea behind the Sub7 project,

I think we've talked about it on here before. I think we have. Yeah, just that there are, it's Christian against, why am I spacing on the other guy's name? It's basically- Gustav? No, it's not Gustav, it's an English athlete. Oh, one of the Brownleys? Yeah, Brownlee, Alistair Brownlee.

They're going head up against each other and they're trying to do it. It's like the Kipchoge two hour model. And so they're allowed to use a certain number of support crew. I think they're allowed to have a Peloton on the bike. It's gonna be a very flat course. It's all gonna be-

They haven't announced the course yet or the dates. So we don't know where this is gonna happen. So the goal is- Did they tell you and you can't say or? No, no, no. Nothing's been announced yet. Can I tell you and you can't say or? No, no, no. Nothing's been announced yet.

And, but yeah, so I think it was 721 and change was his time. So he has to find 20 more minutes, but you know, if you read the story, you'll see Christian was suffering from stomach problems that whole week before Cozumel. And he had a virus or something. But you know, I talked to the guy

who owns the Cozumel Ironman and he owns the company that puts it on. And he said that everyone was raving about Christian, how mellow he was. He showed up there at like midnight at the airport by himself, no entourage, no nothing, not fussy at all. And just, he was like embraced and beloved by the people who put on the race.

So that's cool. Yeah, cool. Good, well, keep us posted. I will. All right, let's take a quick break and we'll be back with thoughts on the whole Joe Rogan Spotify situation. Some thoughts on my sabbatical,

what I took away from that, a couple other cool things, some listener questions and more. 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.

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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. So Adam, I don't know if you know this, but the culture war is a foot. Yes.

It is alive and well. Are we really gonna step into this? Very, very gingerly. There's no winners. Nobody wins in this space. By talking about this. No, no, nobody wins in this space. But it is what's happening right now.

And I guess I feel like it's on a lot of people's minds. And I know that people have reached out to me. They'd like me to offer some thoughts about this, which I have some trepidation around because I'm not one for advice. If there's one thing that I've learned, and I learned this in recovery early and often, I'm reluctant to give advice.

I'm somebody who likes to share from a perspective of experience. So I try to steer clear of treading in waters where I'm not an expert. So we're gonna talk about this perhaps briefly and as kind of gently as we can. But I think as many people know, there's this controversy that's occurred

over the last several days where Joe Rogan is sort of in the midst of a crossfire over particularly recent podcast episodes with McCullough and Malone, these, I don't know how you would characterize them. Doctors. With non-mainstream opinions about vaccination. And the results of these conversations have caused certain artists out there

to decide to pull their music from Spotify, which has put Spotify in this position of needing to or feeling like they have to respond to this. And Spotify, as of yesterday, had published a blog post by Daniel Ek, their CEO, wherein he kind of disclosed publicly for the first time these content guidelines and how they're going to, I guess, label certain conversations from time to time that are potentially in that misinformation space. And so of course this has caused, you know,

quite the outbreak of opinionated puppet masters out there. What is your take on this? quite the outbreak of opinionated puppet masters out there. What is your take on this? Well, I mean, not just opinions, but like Spotify stock went down 6% at one point. Yeah, I think they lost $4 billion in market share. And there's other factors. I don't think you can just point to the Joe Rogan controversy

and say this is all because of that. No, I think it was Barry Manilow getting involved. Yeah, because at first it was Neil Young, then Barry Manilow. But then Barry Manilow tweeted the other day, like, I don't know what people are talking about. I haven't said anything about this. Oh.

Yeah. I'm sorry, that was some misinformation on my part. There's some misinformation right there. Yeah. Barry Manilow, fake news. He was brought into this somehow. Yeah, I know. So you have to take all of this

with a little bit of a grain of salt. Well, my theory on all of this stuff is, first of all, there's only one kind of free speech. And so you're either in favor of free speech, whether that's free speech moderated by companies or free speech moderated by governments or you're not. And you have a problem, you wanna control speech in some way.

And I'm in favor of free speech and may the best ideas win. And secondly, I don't think Joe Rogan traffics intentionally in misinformation. So that's the other thing. He might have opinions that differ from people. He might be a libertarian. Remember he was pro Bernie Sanders also at one point. So he's got a very interesting viewpoints,

but we're not comparing him to Fox News anchors that are intentionally muddying the waters and causing disinformation. I hold him in a completely different space and I don't go to him for medical advice. So those are my ultimate opinions on that. And I think that in this culture war, we are trapped between the righteous and the ignorant.

Those are the two loud viewpoints that we have. We have the righteous, the self-righteous, and we have the malevolent, malevolent, malevolent, the malevolence of ignorance on the other. And it's not that fun to be in that space, you know, because it's loud and it's disorienting. And most of us are not there. Most of us are somewhere in the middle.

We can handle differing opinions. We can figure out what to believe. And the funny part about being between those two poles is that on social media, we all toggle between them. We can all be righteous and we can all be a little bit ignorant. And so, when we do that, when we make the people who have dissenting opinions,

when we try to snuff them out, we make them heroes. We make them the anti-establishment. We make them the punk rockers. We turn people like Matt Gaetz, who's the most punchable face in America, into a hero for all sorts of young people out there that are looking at the mainstream culture and thinking, no.

And that's dangerous. That's why the Balinese have this cultural idea of you can't crush the darkness. There's light and there's darkness and you can't try to obliterate it. That's the point of free speech. You can't try to snuff it out entirely. It's impossible.

That's why you have to cherish speech and let everybody talk because then that only helps you figure out the best way to go forward. I know it's a challenging time, but that's really the only way. Because when you ridicule people like Aaron Rogers and Kyrie Irving and these people who have these, like you said, non-mainstream opinions about vaccines,

you make them heroes. You actually elevate them. And that's the problem. The Streisand effect. The Streisand effect. The Streisand effect. Yeah. How do you feel about Spotify's declarations around content moderation and labeling and the like? I mean, they're sort of taking a page out of the Facebook playbook. Like, are you just a distribution platform or are you a publisher?

And that's a very difficult situation to be in. It's almost an impossible situation for Spotify. I don't see them, you know, like kicking Rogan off the platform. I don't think that's gonna happen, nor do I think that they should do that. So they've kind of issued this somewhat toothless response about, well, we're gonna do a better job

of putting labels on things from time to time or pulling things that clearly violate our relatively vague policy. Right, well, and I like the label because then I could just say, oh, he's gonna talk about COVID-19, I won't tune in. I feel like I'm getting enough COVID information. I don't need to actively seek out more.

That's what's so weird is like, there's a lot of people making a living off of screaming and yelling about COVID. And it's not helping. Well, sure, and the incentives are set up such that particularly on Twitter, there's no incentive to be nuanced and balanced about anything.

You're rewarded for outrage on both sides of this spectrum. So with the exception of the occasional super long thread, it's the hot take that basically travels and that's what we're trafficking in. But I think it is important to point out as you astutely noted a moment ago that most people are not in this space. Like we're kind of in the middle,

we're trying to figure out what's true and what's not and give us a little bit of credit when it comes to discernment, right? Over the course of my sabbatical, I did spend a fair amount of time trying to make sense for myself of this world that feels at times like it's losing its grip on reality, depending upon what your information bubble looks like.

So, on the subject of the sort of polar extremes, on the one hand, we could hold the perspective, are people and institutions flawed and sometimes mistaken? Does science make mistakes or does science from time to time change their mind when new information comes in? Does the scientific, does the consensus scientific community screw up

and at times air egregiously when it comes to messaging the populace? Are the incentives of the media misaligned? Do we have serious problems in government, tech, media, and at times science? Like I would agree that all of those things are true. Yes. Or is there a secret psyops event of untold proportions of foot

where this cabal of organized evil is organizing to control our minds and our bodies? Yes. I mean, no, wait, that's not true. Maybe part of that is true. I don't know. Probably not. But this idea, you know, that either like we should just,

you know, give Anthony Fauci a crown and, you know, name all our pets Fauci and just, you know, put him on our t-shirts and lay down at his feet. Or there's a crazy conspiracy afoot of mind control. Right, are people naming their dogs Fauci? Cause that is a good dog name. That's a thing for sure. A lot of people are doing that.

I didn't realize he was worshiped. So listen, I live in the gray and I live in the nuance. And I defer to that former idea, which is that there are scientists who are working hard to solve a very difficult problem and they're doing it anonymously and imperfectly. And the messaging isn't always great. And there's been lots of flubs

and there's reason to distrust the media. And I don't wanna spend a lot of time on this. I don't wanna go down some crazy vaccine rabbit hole. I really don't wanna dwell on this very long. I am, like I said at the outset, reluctant to even bring it up because it is so unbelievably divisive and because whatever I say

is unlikely to change anyone's mind. But I do feel that it is important to say that although there have been mistakes and there's been overreach I'm not in favor of mandates. And I think that there's been a lot of errors made in terms of kids in schools and what's going on there. And I understand the problems of big pharma and the misaligned incentives there.

But I do, like I said, believe that there are good people, good scientists who are trying to solve difficult problems imperfectly. And as for the Rogan kind of Spotify situation specifically, I'm not into deep platforming. I don't think that's a solution. I don't think that he should be punted off Spotify. And I think this goes back to this issue of incentives.

There are incentives to host heterodox thinkers, and there are incentives to be heterodox in your thinking. And I think heterodoxy is very appealing to many right now, especially with this degraded trust in media and institutions, and even more so when that heterodox thinking entails a conspiracy, there's something about our neurochemistry that lights up,

suddenly the world makes sense. And when you combine that with this media distrust, it creates an interesting and at times problematic scenario. But the truth is just because you are heterodox does not mean that you are correct. Maybe you were correct about one thing, but perhaps you were wrong about a thousand other things. And I think generally the heterodox idea is not correct.

Consensus scientists are not out doing podcasts and many of these heterodox secular guru types, if you look at them, if you kind of canvas these people and try to identify similarities or common themes among them, a lot of them seem to have a past where they have been dismissed or ignored or maligned by institutions, particularly academic institutions.

And as such, their anti-establishment perspectives then become fueled by resentment and jealousy and pettiness. So it's this misunderstood genius problem, right? Like I figured this out, nobody is seeing me. And there's like an irritation there that is driving this need to be seen and to be heard and to become like this secular guru on the internet. Right, and then you take that,

that's a great backstory for, you know, like misunderstood genius X, which is like, it's so true. And then you take that and then what you get is people who are skeptical, but they're only skeptical in one way, right? I'm skeptical of mainstream media or I'm skeptical of big pharma. Then they hear someone like that,

but they don't bring that same skepticism for this random person that they never heard of until they were on a certain podcast. The skepticism is very specifically directed. And you know, my theory on that is- As long as that misunderstood genius aligns with that worldview, then suddenly there's a myopia

when it comes to that skepticism being applied to that person. If COVID-19 has revealed anything specifically to the United States of America, it's that we are intensely self-interested and I would say only self-interested. And these culture wars do the same thing. They focus every, through this lens,

I'm gonna tell myself a story. And I had very good friends that had their four month old in the hospital for a week in the last, right before all this kind of talk broke out. And it was very touch and go COVID, COVID positive, also got RSV. So fighting two of these crazy viruses at four months old on oxygen for three days in intensive care,

baby's fine now, it's all gonna be good. But, you know, I know the stakes, you know, I have a 17 month old at home. I'm very careful. I don't live, we don't live normal life still, even though a lot of people are getting comfortable with the way things are, I'm still very careful. We're still very careful. And so I know the stakes.

But the thing is, is like the people in my position with children under five who can't be vaccinated, you know, we see things and we think people should act in a way that would suit our particular situation. People in your position that have older kids that are dealing with kids that have to be in mass at school or maybe my sister's kids who are a little bit older than mine, they're seeing the same kind of thing.

They're like, well, how can I make this work that's not going to impact my child's early education, my child's language acquisition, which is some of the problems with mass at schools. And so we all see these things through, we have to remind ourselves, we're seeing it through our lens, and nobody else is seeing it through our lens.

Like, and you have your little subgroup, but that doesn't make your subgroup correct that other people should be acting a certain way, but we lose track of that. And you can put any issue on the table. I guarantee it's not that different. It's like, we're so self-interested, we're so obsessed with what's affecting us

that a mask is a big problem or this is a big problem. And then you look at other countries that 95% are in line with whatever the public health information they're getting tells them and that tells me that they care more about the public a little bit more because maybe they don't agree with all of that, but they're willing to do it because that's what they are told the community needs.

And so I'm not making any judgments on anybody. I'm just kind of reminding us all that we are all just self-interested a-holes at heart. Well, there's something very, very American about that. And this idea of rugged individualism and it's all about liberty. But liberty has to be calibrated against responsibility. Those liberties require a certain level of responsibility.

And what is our responsibility to the collective whole? And so sometimes we gotta do things that we don't wanna do for the betterment of everyone. But I think that breaks down with this loss of trust in the media, when we feel like we're not getting the full truth or the whole truth, or we're being misguided. And I think that that distrust has eroded to the point

where it's perhaps irreparable for certain people. And it creates this receptivity to other ideas or a sense of transparency and honesty from other people where the message is coming to them in an unfiltered way. of transparency and honesty from other people where the message is coming to them in an unfiltered way. And there's a lack of skepticism is one word, but also just critical thinking around, you know, the information that we're receiving.

And so I think it, again, like I'm not into de-platforming anyone. And like, I think, you know, that gets, that's a little too close to banning books, which is also the other thing that's going on right now. It's happened. Yeah, it's going, this is happening in tandem and the people that, you know,

it's interesting that the people that wanna ban these certain books from schools are probably by and large like pro Joe Rogan. Right. And the people that wanna de-platform Rogan are railing against the banning of the books. These things, you can't have these things both ways. Yeah, and one book in particular that was more recent

was Mouse, which is a seminal graphic novel about what Jews went through during the Holocaust. And it's amazing book and I highly recommend it. And it just displays in a couple of ways because I don't think the people that are banning mouse in Tennessee in that one school district actually listen to Joe Rogan.

They're just a bunch of, like there obviously is a white nationalist problem in that county. You can't, there's no other way to interpret that. And they're not the only people who are saying, comparing what's happening now to the Holocaust. So that's happening at the same time. So right-wing people are banning the mouse.

And at the same time, people on the right are comparing the what unvaccinated people in this country are going through to the Jews and the Holocaust. And it's extremely irresponsible and very offensive for me personally to hear that. And it's absolutely absurd, but I would never ban them from being able to say that.

You know what I mean? Like I'm like the ACLU, old ACLU. Yeah, not the current ACLU, which seems to have lost its like sort of like footing with all of this. I'm the old ACLU that Which seems to have lost its like sort of like footing with all of this. I'm the old ACLU that says, let the idiot Nazi speak because they're such morons. No one will ever-

Ira Glass, wasn't the guy's name that used to run out. Yeah. Ira Glass? I think that's his name, yeah. Is it really? The other Ira Glass. The other Ira Glass. Anyway, but you hit the nail on the head. Like the mouse book is being banned

and everyone's like, that's impossible. But you're right, plenty of people on the left are looking at Joe Rogan and saying, well, he should be held responsible. And it's like, you can't have it both ways. There's only one way. But you can also make the argument, can you not, that Neil Young saying, I don't want my music on Spotify

is his exercise of speech. There's a subtext to that because it's coupled with his, you know, sort of demand either take Rogan off the pod, off of Spotify, or I'll do this. So it's speech coupled with that interest. So there is a de-platforming energy behind that. Definitely. Which makes it a little bit more than just speech,

but it is an exercise of speech nonetheless. It is, I mean, he's allowed to do that. Obviously he's, come on, everyone loves Neil Young. I have so much respect for Neil Young and his music's incredible. And he's always been very political and I support anyone's, they can try to do it, but then you don't tell me in the very next day

when you release a second statement that you're always pro free speech because you're actually not, you are not. You're pro a certain political point of view, which is you're right, that's fine. And you're using your incredibly powerful music to get a point across and it's had a huge impact. But I don't believe that that is a objectively

old ACLU free speech take. I don't think he probably is in that camp. And so- Meanwhile, Brene Brown announced that she would not, who has an exclusive deal with Spotify. I think she has two podcasts there, is not gonna be releasing any new episodes, which is a, that's a bold move on her part.

Very bold, you know, like it's very interesting to see it happen. And I'm so like, I've become, you know, I was very political in the early and mid nineties. Like I was an activist during a time when everyone was making a ton of money and nobody really cared about these thorny issues. And I was dedicating my life to it, making no money.

And so it's funny to be in this position now where everyone is intensely political. It makes me wanna not be, it makes me wanna be completely apolitical. That's how I think about these intensely political people right now. I'm actually getting a view of what I sounded like. Like being the Nirvana fan from day one

and then deciding you're no longer a Nirvana fan when they left Sub Pop or what, you know? Yeah, something like that. Right, exactly. I'm like, I'm looking at it now, I'm like, God, did I sound like that to people for five years? Cause that's what, you know, you're surrounded by people from different sides

and most people are uninformed. You know, that's the bottom line. Yeah, so again, I just think again, like deplatforming is not the answer here. Censorship is not the answer here. It's taking responsibility for having a more robust information diet and shouldering the responsibility to be a critical thinker

with respect to everything that's coming in, not just the stuff you disagree with, but the stuff that, you know, tends to light you up inside anyway, like rings those dopamine bells. Even more cells. And so I thought it would be helpful, especially for those that might feel the tug or the pull

or the seduction of some of these secular gurus who are spinning heterodox thought out there to offer a couple content pieces that might expand your silo. And one that I found very helpful and enjoyable at the same time entertaining is a podcast called Decoding the Gurus. These guys are great.

It's these two guys, Chris Cavanaugh and Matt Brown. Chris is from Belfast and Matt, I think he lives in Melbourne, he's Australian, an anthropologist and a psychologist who basically deconstruct podcast episodes with some of these secular gurus, particularly the well-known members of the IDW. And they really do a great job

of separating the wheat from the chaff and helping you to understand how to separate or kind of discern what's factual, what's baseless, how to tell the difference and- IDW meaning internet dark web. Intellectual dark web. Intellectual dark web. And kind of distinguishing between good and bad science.

And they do it in a very entertaining way. They have a great dynamic. I mean, nothing like you and me. No, I mean, come on. I mean, they're pretenders to the crown. If you want some good talking head content, come to us. But the accents are great and they have a lot of fun doing it.

And I found it to be enjoyable to listen to these guys. And in terms of like, I hate this word, but like sense-making, right? Like how do we make sense? Like what is true and what isn't? And we all need a little bit of help and we need to step outside of our comfort zones and hear from other people.

We can't just take what we hear for granted. Let's also entertain some critical thought around those ideas. Another suggestion would be rebel wisdom. Scott David Fuller, who's a former BBC journalist, who I would deem basically somebody who's doing responsible heterodoxy, who kind of looks at the heterodox space,

tries to understand what's good heterodox thought and what isn't. And he's got a YouTube channel, makes lots of videos about this subject matter. And I find him to be fairly reliable and smart and informative. And then the third would be, and this is specific to kind of the vaccine space,

Peter Atiyah's The Drive podcast, where he's had a couple, what I would characterize as very balanced, responsible discussions on COVID and vaccines. Early on he was very much saying, no, this is real, COVID's very scary. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, he's very pro vaccine,

but also not afraid to be critical where public health policy seems to disconnect from logic. Right. where public health policy seems to disconnect from logic. Right. Like for example, if young children are in school, they're all vaccinated, the teachers are vaccinated, like why are they all wearing masks? Like, does this make sense?

Like having kind of a grounded conversation around the science and he's done some, I think, pretty responsible advocacy around this in terms of what is true, what isn't true when it comes to vaccines and vac safety. A couple of recent podcasts where he had ZDogg on there, Zubin, I forget his last name. ZDogg?

Yeah, ZDogg. That sounds like Peter likes to, Peter's proud of his physique too, I've noticed. He's very, well, Peter's interesting guy. He's very strong. He is an ultra endurance swimmer. Okay. He's, I think, I'm pretty sure he's tight

with Steve Munitonez. Oh, really? Well, Peter had, I think he did a double Lanai to Maui crossing. Peter did that? Yeah, like a long time ago. That's amazing. And he's done some pretty interesting cycling stuff.

He's very fit. Yeah, very. He's a good athlete. Good answer. And pretty smart and just grounded in his approach to all of this. So maybe check that out as well. As for Spotify, again, they're in a tough spot.

It'll be interesting to see how this story kind of unfolds over the coming weeks. Cause I think we're definitely not done with this. No, but we are. No, maybe we're done talking about it. I mean, this story is still unfolding is what I'm saying. And by the time this podcast comes out on Thursday, who knows where all of this will be.

Well, you know, one final note on the book banning, by the way, the author of the sympathizer, which is a great novel, kind of a Vietnam war novel from a Vietnam, a Vietnamese person's perspective. He's an American of Vietnamese heritage. His name is Viet Thanh Nguyen. He wrote a great piece about books and book banning

and all of that in the New York Times as an opinion piece. He's a professor at USC, great novelist. His novel won the National Book Award, I'm pretty sure. And anyway, he had a great piece about, and very much against any sort of, you know, de-platforming and book banning type thing. And one of the points he makes is anytime you ban a book, look what happens and mouse,

which was banned in this one county in one school district in Tennessee was number four on Amazon when I went to buy it. Cause I'd given my copy away years ago. I noticed that as well. And so it's like, that's the point we're trying to make, right? The deplatforming thing, if you really care,

it doesn't actually help. Like if your problem is too many people are hearing this, de-platforming won't solve that problem. Well, particularly in Rogan's case, the biggest podcast in the world, he could go anywhere and take his entire audience with him. It's a non-issue. Maybe he would be even better off or happier

if podcast or if Spotify found a way to release him from that contract or let him go. Maybe, who knows? So it's not even really- His podcast would still be huge as a podcast. Yeah, it wouldn't suffer in the least. It might even grow larger. Right, right, right.

All right, let's move on. I wanna talk about things I learned on my month off, but before that, we have another little thing that I wanna cover. Another meta, another piece of the metaverse. Yeah, this also relates to like media and news and fake news and misinformation, I suppose. You got served by the metaverse.

A little bit. The meta, yeah. The metaverse? Yeah, isn't it? Well- The internet. The internet, like basically something about you was picked up and examined

by like individuals on the internet. And so it was like an internet thing that was examined by the internet in a hundred different ways. Right, so what happened was a couple of weeks ago, I was a guest on Tim Ferriss' podcast and that was a big deal for me. I mean, he's got this incredible podcast and unbelievable audience.

It was quite an honor for me to be a guest on that show. And I was, in all honesty, in transparency, like I was nervous. Okay. And then even after we recorded it, I was all up all honesty, in transparency, like I was nervous. And then even after we recorded it, I was all up in my head about it. I was like, I don't think I, I don't feel like I did a good job. And I was like, no one's gonna like this.

You get that way? I was totally up in my head about it. Cause that's how your guests feel when they leave here. Now I have a lot more sympathy cause that has been a thing recently with a couple guests. And I'm always assuring them like that they were great. And I literally for like two weeks or whatever, I was like, I blew that.

It was a great opportunity to like, but anyway, people seem to enjoy it. I think it's doing well or did well. And I got a lot of nice feedback and comments from a lot of people. And it was really, again, like an honor to share parts of my story with his audience. In that conversation though, I told the tent story, which I've told many times here.

I don't need to rehash it. I sleep in a tent. I have slept in a tent for a couple of years. There's many reasons for that. I explained the basics of that to Tim. And that story ended up getting picked up by the media while I was away. Insider, which I think is a subsidiary of Business Insider

that covers kind of the creator economy, the internet, published an article called "'A Man Who Sleeps in a Tent in His Yard While His Wife Sleeps in Their Bed." While his wife is confined to the bed. Listen, it could have been worse, but it was kind of a snarky click baby, non-story of an article.

But apparently a lot of people read that cause it was like trending on their site for a day or two. And didn't they use like a piece of content that you'd put up on your Instagram? Well, I had made a video like five years ago or something like that. Yeah, it's like when you first started. Why I sleep in a tent.

It was a video I made forever ago. I know. And that was like- And that resurfaced as a result of this. And now it's gotten tons of views over the last like week and a half or whatever as a result of this. But it was being picked up as if this had just happened.

Like nobody said like, oh, here's a video he made five years ago. It was like, oh, I just made this video yesterday. Right. But it's because I had been on Tim's show. So that kind of, you know, put it into, you know, into kind of a current lens. Right.

And what was funny about that article was like, clearly the journalist didn't really know anything about me. Didn't, you know, didn't appear to even really Google me. It was just a very, you know, kind of what you would expect from, it's sort of a hackneyed whatever piece. But, and so I was like, I'm just ignoring this. Like I said, it wasn't, if you read it,

it's not necessarily that bad. At times it actually kind of defends me, but it's sort of presented as if like this guy, you know, this guy, rich Malibu guy, sleeps in his backyard and like, you know, while his wife's here, claims his marriage is fine, but could that possibly be true? It was like a story written by

the clickbait journalists from White Lotus. It was that kind of a- In fact, I thought of that. Yeah, where Connie Britton dresses her down for her listicles and calling herself a journalist. It was like written by a listicle specialist. That's exactly right. So I was like, I'm ignoring this, it'll go away.

This is not real. And then the news cycle just continued to move along. Like it got picked up. I guess like these articles get syndicated. So then they end up on all these other websites. The same one ended up on Yahoo. They get translated, it was on Yahoo, MSN. It just wouldn't go away.

They're reading about you in Burkina Faso. There was like on Twitter, there was a local radio DJ who did five minutes on it, making fun of me, like in some, I don't even know where. I was like, I can't believe this. And then the Young Turks, which is a big progressive news YouTube channel, they have like 5 million subscribers.

Well, there's, is it Cenk, how do you say his name? Cenk Younger, the main guy on the Young Turks. But there's these other two pundits, Ana Kasparian and John Landarola, who do a show there, I guess. I guess. And so they did a whole thing, made a video, why is his husband sleeping alone in a tent

and did like 10 minutes on me for this standalone video on the Young Turks. That has like over a hundred thousand views where they're just making fun of me and riffing about this. John is kind of defending you. A little bit. He did a little bit. She was taking hits at me, but neither of them,

like just if you just Googled my name or just like, oh, he has a podcast or, oh, he wrote a book or, oh. Oh, he's bigger than we are. No, it was just rich Malibu guy, like, you know, blah, blah, blah. And it just, it wasn't like, again, I just decided to ignore this whole thing. But I think the kind of takeaway, it was weird.

And it was definitely like, it could have gone worse. And it is this weird feeling of vulnerability. I mean, I did make that video, why I sleep in a tent. So I put it out there and I told the story on Tim and I've talked about it many times here. So I'm not hiding anything. No, there was also that. But there's like, when you're at the prey

of some journalist and their hot take, you feel a little bit powerless, like, oh, there's gonna spin this story and I feel defenseless here. It is a weird feeling. And it made me realize also, like, can't believe what you see or what you read or what you, you know, it's like, this is just,

these people are just doing a job. They need to fill this content. Like why are the Young Turks even talking about this at all? This is not about news or politics or anything like that. Was it a slow news day? It's just something that's entertaining for people. Oh, here's something to, you know, here's some, you know, junk fast food story

for you to chew on for five minutes. Well, my biggest takeaway from the Young Turks thing is it reminded me why I've never watched or listened to the Young Turks. Like I'm not interested, but also there's a difference between journalism, actual journalism and what you've described here. And the problem is now people look at that

and I think that's what they think journalism is. And it is unfortunately, like you go on CNN and any major news network, and it's mostly a bunch of talking heads talking about stuff. It's not really reporters on the ground doing the hard work. And so then we look at the young Turks talking about the story and it's as if that's a story,

like it's as if that's a news story to be discussed by people and parsed. And it's very lazy and bad content and strange to go in and take someone's like sleep habits. It's cool for you to talk about because it's important to you, but it's not cool for like, I think it's just bizarre that like people take

these non-stories and make them into things just to fill our ears with sound. Yeah, so anyway, that was a, it was a, I think basically in the wake of the whole thing, I should just, by the way, like I've upgraded the tent since then. Yeah, it's not even your tent. So I got back the way, like I've upgraded the tent since then. Yeah. So I got back last night,

like I got the glamping tent set up. It's super dope. I've got a bed. It's amazing, right? So I think I'm just gonna take some photos in the tent or in front of the tent and just say, fuck you. Yeah, I fucking sleep in the tent. Yeah, here's my tent, asshole.

Yeah. I also think that, I think of the Willie Nelson phrase, where he said, he's told, I once interviewed Jack Johnson and Willie Nelson told him once, you don't read your press, you weigh it. In that like, in your case, it's like, who cares what they're saying about you?

They're saying something about you and that's all that matters. Yeah, it's just weird. It is weird. You know, anyway. All right, let's move on. So, I just spent a full month in Maui.

I flew there on January 1st, just got back last night. Today's the 31st. This is the third year that I've taken this sabbatical. And so I thought it would be kind of instructive to talk a little bit about like why I do this and what I've learned. And it was just a great experience. I mean, it's the most chill and relaxed and distant

that I've been from work in the three years that I've started doing this. And I just feel so refreshed and renewed from the experience. Basically, it was an opportunity to completely break ranks with work, be off the computer, be off email, not have anything to do with anything professional

and just exercise some self-care. So I established like a daily routine. I brought my bike so I would ride every other day. And on the days in between, I'd go to the gym and swim and chill. I just feel better than I have in quite a long time physically and mentally. And I went to Maui.

I was originally, I wanted to go to Byron Bay in Australia again, but just getting to Australia was too problematic with COVID and all of that. And Maui was the one Hawaiian island that I knew the least about. I've spent tons of time on the big island, tons of time on Kauai.

I'd been to Maui before, I did Epic Five there, and I'd been there on one other occasion, but I wanted to learn more about that island. And now in retrospect, it's like my favorite island. It was so great. Yeah. All right. First of all, it has the best cycling of any island in Hawaii.

Cause the terrain. First of all, the pavement. Cause the terrain's varied. First of all, the pavement is great everywhere, which is not the case on some of the other islands, but there's a lot of terrain variability, tons of coastal rides and climbs and a lot of really interesting routes,

up country and inland. And then of course you have the Haleakala climb, which I did last Thursday. Did you? Yeah, shout out to Jonathan Hostick and his beautiful wife, Laura, and their kids, Marin and Isla. So Jonathan was a guy, I was out riding one day

and I was going up this climb and the guy rode down past me, but he shouted my name out. I knew he recognized me and he whipped around. We rode a little bit together and he just said, I'm here for a while, I live in Toronto. I'm just gonna be riding every day if you wanna ride and I'm gonna do Haleakala probably a couple of times. So if you wanna do it, Laura will sag us, crew us up.

So we have some support and I thought that would be cool. So last Thursday we did it. It's a 34 mile climb where you gain 10,000 feet of elevation. And this is half-assed internet research, but I think it's the second longest climb in the world. That's what Jonathan said. We should probably fact check that. But incredible, like to climb to 10,000 feet.

And we had this epic day where usually it's freezing up there when you get to the top, but it was like 63 degrees and totally pleasant above the cloud line, just extraordinary. But that was just one of like many epic rides. So I really kind of fell back in love with riding cause I hadn't been cycling that much.

And because of my back, I'm really taking a break from running at the moment, but I can ride my bike without it being problematic. So it was just fantastic to be on the bike in the warm weather and to really kind of just reset everything. And I think- Did you swim in the ocean?

Swim in the ocean. There's also a great aquatic center in Kihei. I was staying in Kihei, like multiple eight lane pools. And basically not that many people there are free. You can just walk in and go. So great swimming facility, ocean swimming, cycling. Did you cycle to Hana? Not all the way.

I was staying in Kihei, which is not where the great cycling is. So sometimes I would drive to Paia and then ride. I rode like most of the way to Hana one day and rode back, but didn't make it all the way there. I drove up country one day and then rode the road to Hana on the other side, going the other way, which is like you descend for like an hour and a half.

And then you got better turn around. But the grades are like 10 to 13% going back, which is pretty steep. So, you know, all the work is on the way back, but I never made it all the way to Hana. Okay. You need to have like some support. Have you done that?

No, no, no. I've been to Hana one time when I was a kid, like a long time ago. And like, not since I've really been a traveler, so. Yeah. Yeah. I highly recommend it. But part of it of course, is to have this analog experience, right?

And not be on the phone. Right. But I didn't go like under the idea that I was not bringing my phone with me or anything like drastic like that. I was like, I am going to temper my phone use. I'm gonna be a responsible iPhone user. Did you have like a standard that you were going for? Like a certain number of hours a day or something?

You know, these guys here were running the business. So I wasn't worried about having to like be involved in that. Right. But I've got a kid who's applying to a school who is gonna need help on the application. I'm talking to my family every day, we're FaceTiming. There's things that have to get dealt with.

So the idea was like, look, I'll check my email like maybe once every two days. I have an auto responder up and I'm just gonna limit my phone use as much as possible. And I would say that in terms of like where reality met aspiration, I'd give myself like, I don't know, a B minus. Is that because of Wordle? Maybe a C plus.

Would you have gotten an A without Wordle? Wordle was a problem. Wordle was indulgent though, you know. Wordle's self care, buddy. Yeah, I'm not worried about Wordle. It's all the other stuff. I've just noticed Wordle on your Twitter, that's all. And there were times where I found it.

I found myself like, why am I sitting here scrolling Twitter? Like this is my opportunity to not do that. And I have no excuse and no reason, but that allure, that pull is so strong. But then it becomes like this spiral of, then you criticize yourself for doing it. Then you're like beat yourself up. I'm an expert at that.

I'm an expert at that. Wait, what am I, I'm wasting my time. It's hard, man. It's hard. I know. And then you come up with these justifications or these rationalizations. And yeah, then you're just in this like mental looping spiral of like negative emotions.

And then you're like, what am I doing? I'm supposed to be off of this fucking thing, you know? Which is interesting because I have this book here sitting on the counter, a stolen focus by Johan Hari, who's coming in, I think next week to talk about it. So I'm about halfway have this book here sitting on the counter, Stolen Focus by Johann Hari, who's coming in, I think next week to talk about it. So I'm about halfway through this book and this book is about this exact thing.

And part of it is, it's not our fault. Like these things are so powerful that we are powerless to basically rebut their wiles. And it is really difficult. And this book is great. It's kind of about Johan's own version of this experience and also the science behind how our focus is being eroded as a result of technology and kind of our modern world.

And I look forward to talking to him. I always love talking to him about it when he comes onto the show, but I was having my own like lived experience with this problem that I think is relatable to everybody who's ever tried to put the phone away. But when you strip away all of the excuses, like I have no work excuse,

I am here for the specific purpose of kind of simplifying my life and getting clarity and to have it creep into that, like makes me realize just how pernicious it is and how difficult it is to create healthy boundaries around the phone. So for the most part, I did fine, but I had these like lapses that made me realize like how powerless I can be at times

when it comes to this kind of stuff. But in terms of what I learned, like that's sort of the negative aspect of this. I mean, for me, like it was great to not be on social media. Like I didn't post anything about being there. I didn't really want anyone to know that I was there. I really didn't wanna have any complexities. I am a true introvert.

And I realized that I had no problem ostensibly being entirely alone for this entire month and barely talking to anybody. Like I was totally fine with that. Like I needed that to kind of like heal and restore my energy levels. I also realized, and I've learned this in the past, but this idea that, you know,

the way that our culture is set up, you go on vacation for a week or maybe two weeks, but I didn't even feel myself slowing down until I was like in the third week. Yes, it takes two weeks. It takes longer. And I realize how privileged I am and how, you know, how special this opportunity was that I was able

to take advantage of. But the idea that you're gonna go away for a couple days and come back refreshed is ludicrous. It takes two weeks to get into a new state of being. And then if you come home right after it, you never really explore that state of being. So then you start to unwind in the third week. The unwinding doesn't start until like day 15, 16.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's not then until then, it's not until then that you even begin to get any clarity on like how you're living your life. 100%. So I wanna, I have another thought on that that I wanna share. Let me put a pin in that.

But I also, I learned that I like routine even when I don't need it. Like even when you're in a place where it's like, you don't need routine. Like I was happier when I was like, okay, my routine is, I'm gonna ride my bike every other day and I'm gonna go to gym on the other days. But also to say, I'm not here on a training camp.

I don't have to be agenda driven, but to have some kind of structure, I don't know, for some reason made me feel better about the experience than just being like, I'm just gonna like not have any schedule whatsoever. So it was that balance of like having some kind of routine while also not over scheduling things. I learned that the world spins in my absence,

which is great for the control issues and a healthy dose of humility that I'm not that important. That was good. I mentioned that, yes, I fell back in love with cycling. I don't think that I could ever live on an island. No? By the time the month came up, I was ready to come back. What about the island?

So despite all the introverted tendencies that I have, like I really like missed people and it was time to reconnect. But I think to go back to that point that I put a pin in, the biggest thing that I think I took away that I've learned from this experience is, you know, when you get to that, like when I'm in that third week

and I have put enough distance between me and these kind of work patterns to have some level of clarity, I found myself confronting this default setting that I have to always be like achieving, producing, progressing. Like even like, okay, I'm gonna ride my bike. Well, I should ride harder or longer than I did last time.

Or like, what am I trying to, you know, what is my angle here? Or how am I gonna make myself better through the result of this? Like, wait a minute, that, you know, what is my angle here? Or how am I gonna make myself better through the result of this? Like, wait a minute, that's not what this experience is about. You're not at a training camp. You don't have to be agenda driven.

Can you just be? And that's the hardest part of all, right? Like, can you just sit with yourself and be in the allowing of experience without it being connected to or tied to some trajectory that's moving you in a certain direction? No, no I can't. Yeah, it's like, and it was amazing to me,

like I would notice that And it's like, and it was amazing to me, like I would notice that, and then I would really begin to appreciate like how strong that impulse it was. It's like, oh my God, like every time I'm like, oh, I should, or even when I was like, you know what, I'm a little tired today. Like maybe I'll just hang out here and read.

No, you should drive to Hana. No, you should, there's that one trail you haven't checked out yet. You better go check it out because I don't know if you're gonna have time to do, you should, there's that one trail you haven't checked out yet. You better go check it out because I don't know if you're gonna have time to do, it's like all of that, right? Like it's all tied to how am I progressing? How am I improving myself?

What am I missing? What is the thing that I'm gonna like beat myself up for if I don't do it? And realizing how ingrained that is, I think was the biggest kind of epiphany in the whole thing. Yeah, I mean, I think that's pretty, that kind of epiphany isn't,

yeah, I mean, that's the unwinding, right? That's the whole idea of that's why you did it, right? That that nugget is why you did it, right? And that's why you keep doing it because that unwinding is so critical. I remember April and I did a delayed kind of extra honeymoon because we did this very quick ceremony and then we didn't celebrate it for a while

because of work commitments. And then we went on a trip to Fiji, Tonga and Australia. And it was mostly a dive trip and to reconnect with her homeland. And then when we were first planning it, like she was planning it for like 10 weeks or something like that. And I scaled it back to like six weeks

and then about two weeks in, I turned to her and I'm like, why did I tell us to come home? You know, like, cause once you're out, it's good to stay out. You know, like once you're unwound, you know, it doesn't matter how long you're gone really. Cause like you said, the world's always here when you get back.

I don't regret coming back early, but like knowing that it's something I'll never forget next time because it's like, you can always be, it could always be a little longer. That's for sure. Although I would say that I was ready to come back. Right, but you weren't. I was excited to get back.

I miss me some Skolnick. Oh, dude. I miss the guys here. I miss my family. We need you here. And now I'm enthusiastic to be back. These guys were a mess without you. I mean, they did their jobs.

These guys are just fine. But yeah, although- There was a lot of sobbing. Blake's walking around with a cane, something about his back. Is it a cane or a trekking pole? It's a trekking pole masquerading as a cane. It's an emotionally confused trekking pole.

Something about a bad back from all those ultras. Yes. I don't know. He's chuckling back there. All right, let's move on. We're gonna share a couple of pieces of content, right? Yeah, we are. That we've been enjoying. Yeah. You wanna go first? Yeah, we are. That we've been enjoying. Yeah. You wanna go first?

Well, I think my content I have here is keying off of the Alan Watts stuff that you wanted to post. Yeah, so I'll start. I mean, the first thing that I wanted to draw attention to is this catalog of talks by Alan Watts that Sam Harris has made available on his Waking Up app. Okay.

And I spent a lot of time with Alan Watts over the course of my sabbatical. I think I got through maybe somewhere between 30 and 40 hours of this. There's 142 hours of Alan Watts talks on the Waking Up app. For people that don't know, Alan was kind of, he's kind of perceived as the guy

who helped introduce Eastern wisdom to the West. He was a incredible speaker and writer who was influential in the counterculture of the 50s and the 60s. He wrote over 25 books. Particularly Zen Buddhism, right? Yeah, Zen Buddhism. Wrote a ton of books, charismatic speaker.

And this catalog is like a gift. Like I can't believe that there's this one place where you can go and you can listen to as much Alan Watts as you could ever want to. It starts to, you know, cause it's sort of it's broken into categories, but these are talks that he's given over the years. So certain stories repeat themselves

and themes recur and things like that. But I found it to be just incredibly nourishing and beautiful. So that is one thing that I've definitely been enjoying. That's cool. I read one of his books when I was in my early stages of trying to piece together my spiritual worldview, but I found him so academic, like he's so smart.

Like it was just very hard for me to fully engage him, but I think it's taught- You should revisit. I should. I wanted to, just because I know you wanted to talk about that, I just wanted to quickly acknowledge Thich Nhat Hanh's death, a master Buddhist monk who was the number one anti-war, anti-Vietnam war,

peace activist from Vietnam in 1964. He started speaking out against the war and ended up having to be exiled, relocated to France. And he, over the period of time, he got Martin Luther King Jr. to pay more attention to Vietnam War and speak out against the Vietnam War. Martin Luther King Jr. then nominated him for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Written many books. I have a book in my library, "'Old Path White Clouds' it's his, he's basically presenting the teachings of the Gautama Buddha. It looks like you actually read that book too. I actually read it. Look at that thing. Yeah. It's been beat to hell.

Either I read it or I carried it around a lot and then would like take it out to impress people. Both might be true. Just at the right moment at the right coffee shop. Yeah, just like that. Is that how you met April? Yeah, I just, I walked up to April and I said, have you read this book by this Buddhist master?

It's pretty damn good. So anyway, he's a giant obviously. And one of those people that we should always revisit when we're considering kind of our place in the world. I think he's a great writer. He lived in 95. Beautiful man. Beautiful dude.

And in that vein, I wanted to also kind of recommend this book, Rebecca Pacheco, who's a yoga and meditation instructor in the Boston area. She was kind of like one of the, she's a very popular instructor in Boston area. And she's written, this is her second book. She wrote the first mostly about yoga.

And this one is about mindfulness and meditation. And the reason I brought up Thich Nhat Hanh is that Thich Nhat Hanh's, I think his most lasting legacy is he introduced the idea of mindfulness into our culture here in the United States. So everything else that you, when you think about the idea of mindfulness, you know, the Jack Kornfield and all that,

that stems from Thich Nhat Hanh. And then Rebecca Pacheco is kind of making that really digestible and accessible for people. I think particularly women will enjoy this book. It's written from with a very modern kind of even political kind of mind, but also a very understanding, not polemical at all. And I just think it's really well wrought

and very accessible. So if you're interested in getting into mindfulness, you don't know much about it. I mean, this is a great first step and I just wanted to recognize her. So if you're interested in getting into mindfulness, you don't know much about it. I mean, this is a great first step and I just wanted to recognize her. So congrats to Rebecca. Yeah, and that book just came out not too long ago. Nice.

Adam. Yes. Survival is insufficient. I know where you're going with this. I remember damage. Yes, there's some good ones in there, right? What are the other ones? It's so highlighted, I had it in here.

Oh yeah, you highlighted it so that I can't even read it. I don't wanna live the wrong life then die. To the monsters, we're the monsters. Right, it's so good. Of course, we're talking about Station Eleven on HBO Max. This is the best thing I've seen on television in quite a long time. I recognize that I said that about White Lotus.

This is better than White Lotus. I mean, it's different. It's very different. Let's just say they're different. It's just an incredibly rapturous, beautiful mini series. I guess, well, are they gonna, yeah, no, it's completed, right? Yeah, there's no season two.

It's a one and done. I think so. Yeah, it's a one and done. But I haven't gotten to 10 yet. No, no, no, it's done. It's based on a novel by Emily St. John Mandel that became a big deal, sold a lot of copies. And it's this, for those that haven't seen

or don't know anything about it, Station Eleven is kind of this post-apocalyptic pandemic story that actually, they started filming before the pandemic. Did you know that? Yes, I did. Well, the book's five years old, right? They had to take a break for like a year and a half

and then they revisited it. But the inception of the story was birthed before everything that we're living through. And the kind of weathering the pandemic aspect of it is only a very tiny aspect of what the story really is, which is this narrative that follows a group of people and they're intersecting time-shifting multi-narratives as they strive to survive and find meaning and connection

through the lens of trauma, of community, of art, and Shakespeare. And it's just wonderfully wrought. The writing is extraordinary. It's elegant and it's visually stunning. It was created by- Very spooky. Adapted and created by this guy, Patrick Somerville,

who is sort of a Damon Lindelof protege. He worked on Leftovers. He created that show Maniac with Jonah Hill. And some, not all, some of the episodes are directed by Hiro Murai, who was a director on that show, Atlanta. Also Jeremy Padezwa, who's like just a legend in television direction.

And the cast is insane. Mackenzie Davis from Halt and Catch Fire, Himesh Patel from Yesterday, Gail Garcia Bernal, who's just wonderful. Daniel Zavado, who plays the prophet. I mean, it goes on and on and on, but like it's hard to encapsulate or explain what this show is about,

but I just found it utterly captivating. Yeah, I agree with you. I've watched five episodes so far. It's arty and dreamy. And I love the fact that it's nonlinear and it's not nonlinear in a lot of ways, but specifically in time. So you're hopping back and forth from 20 years ago

to 20 years forward to two years after the pandemic, all the way around all the time. And just the, so the creativity involved in that storytelling, I think is really interesting and makes it original. I mean, it's as original as a non-linear type story, I think that I've ever seen. Would you agree?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Some of that storytelling technique is kind of a Damon Lindelof type device that first showed its hand and lost, you know, kind of owes its legacy to that type of storytelling, I suppose, on some level. Right. But this is even more jarring than that though.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But the costumes and the way that these storylines ultimately end up intersecting with each other. And the score. The way in which, you know, people are trying to make sense of their world and they're going back to these texts, whether it's that graphic novel Station Eleven,

or whether it's Shakespeare and these routines, like the traveling theater company that goes in that same circle every year and never varies. And the way that they are able to cultivate community and try to find meaning through these artistic expressions. Like it's just, I don't know, to me it's just brimming with beautiful creativity and this idea that we play out,

like we're all in our story loops, right? And this idea that we play out, like we're all in our story loops, right? Like they're traveling around Lake Michigan with this thing. Or we have this narrative that we tell ourselves about why we are the way that we are, whether that's rooted in trauma or routine. And it's a story about like ultimately trying to break free from those loops and, you know, expand our life experience

in scary new ways. And I don't know, I mean, there's a lot there, I think. It's just also, it's a visual experience as much as anything else, a perceptual experience. Like it's just, it's like, it's a sensory, it's a very kind of like sensory experience. It puts you into a different state of mind and body. It's like a theta state.

It's like, you know how like some films you're just watching and reacting to, and you know you're on the couch watching it. This is like a state of being. It's so, it just puts your brain into a different state, different, a different. And refreshing, like it is this post-apocalyptic dystopian tale, but what that genre generally,

does is show you this kind of like dark palette and everything's gloom and doom and it's horrible. But here we have nature emerging from the cracks and we have levity and we have pettiness and we have all of the complexity of human emotions that are taking place under very difficult, highly pressurized situations. And there's something like really unique about that.

Yeah, I agree. Anyway. Some great, great performances. Wait till you get to the finale. I'll call you. You're gonna cry. Just great performances all around. And I think you mentioned a bunch,

Matilda Lawler, the young Kirsten, Danielle Deadweiler, Miranda Carroll and David Wilmot, Clark. Unbelievable. Clark's, Wilmot Clark. Unbelievable. Clark's he plays Clark. Just amazing. You know, the station 11 texts itself is, it just stays with me. You know, like there was some line about-

Not the novel, you mean the graphic novel. The graphic novel. The text in the show. Yeah, like the idea of escape. You're never more yourself than when you're escaping, which I think is a theme in this as well. And I feel that way. I mean, you just had an experience of that.

Like when I was mostly doing Lonely Planet jobs, I mean, I loved being out there kind of on a walkabout. I definitely felt more permission to kind of be who I really am. And so I understand that idea. And I think it's a really cool idea because you could take that and infuse your life with it. And so there's a lot in here that resonates with me. I think it's a beautiful work.

I think it's haunting as well. It's not just positive, it's haunting. And you're talking to a guy who watched Contagion with his wife in like week two of the pandemic. I did that. I was like, wow, how prescient was this movie? Yeah, I watched Contagion like the day after being at Whole Foods where the shelves were bare.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it is trauma bonding. We're trauma bonding. The one thing that April doesn't get into, and it's a good question is, why is everyone just like always going back to Shakespeare? Shakespeare's had a big year. Shakespeare's always, every year is a big year

for Shakespeare. I know, but this year in particular, the Cohen movie. Right. With Denzel Washington. That's true, Macbeth. What else, where else did Shakespeare crop up? Oh, just almost everywhere all the time. Like Shakespeare is, like That's true, Macbeth. Where else did Shakespeare crop up? Oh, just almost everywhere all the time. Like Shakespeare is like, I mean, I get it.

I mean, succession is very Shakespearean. Well, I mean, Shakespeare told every story. But did he? Did Shakespeare even exist? Did they? Did they? Are we gonna go down the rabbit hole of Shakespeare conspiracy authorship theories?

You know how I've, listeners, I've been trying to push Rich into a spinoff podcast, but we've just found it. It's the Shakespeare Committee. We're gonna get into the deep rabbit hole on the- How heterodox of you. The actual writers of Shakespeare. All right, enough of that.

Let's move on, let's do some listener questions. Let's do it. Rich. Yes. Before we get into listener questions, I've got a title for our Shakespeare podcast. What? The Shakespearecy.

So I guarantee you there's a podcast called that already. Shout out Jason Camiolo on that. Now that's great writing. From the people that brought you Cowspiracy. Wait, that's it. Shakespearecy. They probably already own that. Wait, you know those guys.

We can get this. I do know those guys. We could get this, the Shakespearecy. Why does everyone- Cowspiracy, Seaspiracy, Shakespearecy. There's a reason you're watching, you're having forced to read Romeo and Juliet and Macbeth in class.

And it's not because they're great plays. It's because of white supremacy. George Soros has some role behind the scenes, I'm sure. George Soros. Who is George Soros if not a secret Shakespeare- Shakespeare- Shakespeare- Shakespeare-ist.

Shakespeare-ist. All right. All right. Let's go. Hi, Adam. This is Rebecca Jacobs. I am from Santa Maria, California. I am a 56-year-old woman who is just recently been getting back into weight training. I've always been active. I follow a plant-strong diet and I've always also been a runner, but recently was diagnosed with a degenerative disc disease of which running kind of aggravates that.

I'm starting physical therapy today. So, you know, maybe I'll have some exercises that they'll give me. But so my question is twofold. One, if I cannot get back to running, can I still get zone two workout by doing non-impact type of movements? And if so, what does that look like? Rebecca, I feel you. I'm sort of in the same place and getting back into weight training for the first time in a while.

My back is acting up, so I'm unable to run at the moment without aggravating that. However, the good news is yes, not only is it possible to get zone two work in, there is an even better way to do that better than running, which is cycling. So I don't know if you have a bike or you have an indoor bike or an indoor trainer

or access to a gym where you can get on an indoor trainer, but cycling is actually perfect for zone two training because unlike running, cycling is like this machine where you can perfectly calibrate it for a certain level of energy output so that you can specifically train your aerobic base, your zone two, and stay in that zone for a much longer period of time than you could running, because when you're running,

you're holding your body upright. You can ride your bike longer than you can run. And so it's actually a more optimal way to train your zone two than any other sport, in my opinion. Now you tell me. So my suggestion is to get into the bike in whichever way works with your schedule. Typically, I don't know how deep into kind of

the zone two training world that you're in, whether you've had lactate testing or how you've established your zone two. But in general, the kind of thumbnail, imperfect thumbnail is whatever your range, your heart rate range for zone two on the run is, drop it about 10 beats for the bike. So for me, my zone two running is in the kind of 145 area,

like 135 to 145. So on the bike, my zone two is 120 to 130. Okay. There are ways of dialing that in more exactly through testing. So, you know, my zone two is not your zone two, that heart rate number should be meaningless to you. Figure out what your zone two is for the bike.

If you've done that work on the run, drop it 10 beats like I said. I think the minimum effective dose is something like 45 minutes, three days a week. But if you've been running and have some experience there, you know, you can expand on that as well. So that's what I would do if I were you and that's what I am doing as a matter of fact. I've been spending a lot of time on the bike

doing the zone two work. So for me, that's what it would look like. But I would also suggest that with your physical trainer that you start working on functional strength, some chiropractic, maybe some dynamic neuromuscular stabilization, DNS, which has proved helpful to kind of creating that functional strength to stabilize your back.

I'm not saying that you can reverse your condition or heal it, but to the extent that which you can stabilize your spine through exercising these specific stabilizing muscles, it will put you in a better place to do these other activities without creating further damage or unnecessary pain. Great.

And I say that as I'm not a doctor, I'm not a physical therapist, I'm not any of those people. That's just my experience and maybe some things for you to look into, but consult with the professionals that you're consulting with. Perfect.

Excellent. I know you didn't ask me that question, so why would you? What question? All right, here we go. Sam from Baton Rouge. Hey, Adam and Rich. My name is Sam Bryan from Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

I just listened to the episode, Prophets Walk Among Us, where you had all of the listener call-ins to give their own stories. And you actually played mine, which is pretty cool. Everyone who spoke kind of cited you as their inspiration, their go-to podcast to turn to in times of strife. And I think we all kind of have these pillars of inspiration that we lean on, and you are definitely that for a lot of people. And I wonder if this question is for both of you. Who's your inspiration? Who are your heroes? I guess is the simple question. Who's your go-to hero?

Sam, you're gonna be really disappointed with this answer. I don't have, I get asked this a lot and I really don't have a good answer to this question. It's not like I can rattle off a list of people, this person, that person. I don't spend a lot of time thinking about this kind of thing. I look at it more not like as heroes

or people who inspire me, but more like who are the people that are accessible to me who can provide me guidance, wisdom, goalposts on things that I'm struggling with. And those are just regular people that are in my life. I would add to that guests that I've had on the podcast. Like I'll reflect back on a conversation that I've had with somebody.

Cause the people that come on the show are people that I wanna learn from. Perhaps I'm going through something and I bring on this expert and they help me kind of process in real time how to solve a certain problem or think about a certain situation. And some of those people have become friends

so I can call upon them when I'm in need. But I would say more often than not, like the people that inspire me are like regular people that I have in my life, like anonymous people. Like I'm going through a particular, I'm trying to make a decision about a certain thing. So I have a friend who's really good

at that kind of decision-making and that's the person that I call or I'm having a relationship thing or I'm having a professional thing or I'm having a sobriety thing. Like I have buckets with different people for all of those different kind of aspects of life that we all come across.

So I don't think like I'm like, oh, that person that I put up on a pedestal. I mean, one thing I've learned in doing this for so many years is people are people, man. You know, like I've had some, you know, pretty fancy people come and sit across from me on this podcast and that's always exciting. Thank you. And I get nervous. Oh, thank you, thank you.

You're not one of those people. Of course you are. You don't have to say that. And then you spend a couple hours with them and you're like, oh, it's just a guy or this is the whatever. And then you're like, well, if that's just a guy, then that other person that I'm thinking about in this really spectacular way,

well, they're just a human being too, right? It really helps ground you in that realization. So that's sort of cured me of a lot of hero worship. So I draw my inspiration from all places. And I think for me, the most inspiring people are kind of the anonymous heroes who are doing amazing things and not seeking attention for it.

Thank you. There you are again, you keep cropping up. You're everywhere. I know. You're like termites crawling out of the wood. I'm not asking for this adulation. Right. How badly do you want it,. I'm not asking for this adulation. How badly do you want it, Adam?

How should I deliver the adulation to you? Would you like it on a silver platter or on a gold bar? I'll just eat it like a bowl of soup. I can do that for you. Like a Shakespearean era stew. Yeah, back to the Shakespeare. So I don't know, like I said, probably a very unsatisfactory answer for Sam,

but that's the truth. That's a great answer. I think that's totally real. I too do not have a one particular hero that I look to in times of strife, but I do consult the Tao Te Ching on a regular basis, if not a daily basis. I have a yoga practice.

I try to do almost, I do it daily as lately, it's been daily again, which is great. And then I read a verse from the Tao Te Ching, which I've said on this podcast before, and I contemplate it could, I could be on one verse for 12 days. It could be on one verse for a day. So it just depends on my moment

and what's happening in my life. And that kind of keeps me oriented. And then, but another thing that I think about a lot is the stoics because I get the daily stoic on my Instagram feed. And it's not like I even like I've never even read the book that's a huge hit by the way, Ryan Holiday's book. But it is, the idea of stoicism is something

that I completely dovetail with and like and the idea that you're here, you're not here to have everything be easy or enjoyable. And that wisdom from another age is kind of my answer to that. So, if it's the Dow, if it's Daily Stoic or whatever it is, because I'm like you, I'm fortunate enough to be able to, for my job,

interview people who've done amazing things and are amazing human beings. And I do think about what I've learned from them as well. And it's nice to have advice from friends. But for me, like that's what keeps me oriented. If we're gonna expand this response to institutions and literature. Yeah, I would agree with that.

Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus, Alcoholics Anonymous, the group conscience. There you go. Bill Shakespeare. Bill, back to Shakespeare. Yes. Let your need for inspiration and wisdom lead you where it may.

Bob Marley. There you go. Let's do the last question and tie this thing up. Let's wrap a bow on it. I thought we were gonna get under two hours, but I don't think so. No, I'm too wordy. All right, so the last one,

I'll play it on my phone for you, but then we'll download it. Someone that you may have heard of. You may have heard of her. Hey, Rich. Hi, Adam. I'm calling just because I've been feeling like in a bit of a slump lately when it comes to running. In the last week or so I just haven't felt motivated or even

like enjoyed running. To give you some context, I have been training for the last six months five days a week and have run two half marathons and really enjoyed running up until like the last week so I wanted to ask what you would recommend to help overcome it is it like taking some time off or is it pushing through it and just hoping I end up liking it again? I wanna continue running to maintain the fitness that I've gained, but I just haven't been keen to get into it lately. Anyway, would love to hear your thoughts. Thanks.

Oh yeah, that was April W from Santa Monica. As in April Wong, your wife. Oh, right. This is your wife calling in. Were there no other voicemails on the service? There were. I gave her, she wanted in. So I gave him, come on guys.

All right. Come on listeners. You got to indulge me on this one. Let me make this easy for April. April, you're feeling like you're in a bit of a slump. That has to be because of Adam. This is your fault. It's clearly, clearly.

What are you doing to contribute to April's slump? It's what I'm not doing, Rich. Clearly, you're the issue here. It has nothing to do with running. Are you showing up as a husband? Let's make this about you. Wait, what? Listen, April, thank you for your question.

You've been running for six months, five days a week. Of course, you're feeling like maybe less than enthusiastic about it. These things have to have a season. Take a break, first of all, before you make any drastic decisions about your future as a runner. Every athlete needs breaks.

So if you're worried about losing the fitness that you gain, let's try to do something else, movement oriented for a couple of weeks and allow your body to kind of reset. I mean, going six months, five days a week of running, that's gonna give any runner a sort of malaise over it. So I think that's number one. The second thing is you don't have to be a runner.

Like you're not a professional runner. So if it's not doing it for you anymore, you can feel free to switch it up and find something else that you enjoy doing. But before you do that, take that break and then return to running and maybe put something on the calendar, find something within running that scares you

or excites you and set yourself up for a bit of an adventure. And that might inject your running experience with a little bit more excitement and enthusiasm. Cause it sounds like you're just kind of doing it to do it now. You achieve these goals of running two half marathons. Congratulations by the way. Very quickly too.

So is there another race? Like what's the backstory here, Adam? Like, is there another race on the calendar? What else is going? First of all, you have a baby too. So is there another race? Like what's the backstory here, Adam? Like, is there another race on the calendar? What else is going? First of all, you have a baby too. So there's a lot going on. Yeah, he's a toddler now. She's done amazing.

She's like in incredible shape. She ran the Malibu half and under 150. She's just ran another sub two hour. We had the Pasadena marathon, half marathon, and then the Ventura half marathon on the calendar, but with Omicron and just being with a toddler at home, we are just not equipped to like going into the public and breathing on each other quite yet.

So we didn't do Pasadena and she's not sure she's gonna do Ventura, but she did it the same day. She did her own course. I had, like you, had a back injury, so I had to bag out. But we were gonna do, she was gonna be my partner in the Utila Catalina race,

but that just got postponed. So that was the plan, is do this half marathon and then start getting in the water with me and doing trails with me and doing Utila, but that just got postponed again. So, you know, that's the backstory. Yeah, okay. So, yeah, you know, find something, take a break,

let yourself breathe, maintain your fitness in another way, come back to it with something to put on the calendar that would get you excited, that would be fun. It doesn't have to be even a race. It could just be some kind of adventure that you create for yourself. Right. And also maybe try to make it communal,

like join a run club or meet some new people to go running with or mix it up, go run someplace that you haven't run before. Like, I would make that suggestion because you want it to be fun. But the flip side of that is like, like you were, we were talking about this earlier. You're like, I don't run because it's fun.

Like I run because it's hard. And like, I just do this thing, right? Doesn't have to be fun. You just do it and you push through these temporary phases and these phases shift and change. But I think the fact that April, you've been doing it for six months without a break, like you're due for a break,

take that break and do it guilt free. Beautiful, I love it. April as a person is like the type that has like a favorite thing and then she could just go off it. Like, which is amazing that I've stuck around that she's allowed me to stay. Like I hope the other shoe doesn't drop. She's a test case in David Epstein's book range.

Like just like, I'm trying new things. But also because she's so- You don't have to be a lifelong runner. Like she's so good at like almost everything she picks up. So that's also the other thing. Yeah, I think when people are that, have that kind of aptitude for almost anything, that probably happens.

Must be nice. Yeah, must be nice. All right, I think we did it. We did it, man. How do you feel? I feel good. I feel, you know, I don't really wanna complain about the inconveniences of modern life, so I won't.

Please don't. Nobody wants to, nobody tunes in here. You indulgent West Sider. Right, I don't wanna get into what it's like for me when, you know, like my nest heater goes up too high without me knowing how to man. Have you ever figured out, do you have a nest? Listen, Adam, suffering is suffering.

No, I don't have a nest, no. The nest is winning. Let's say I'm in a battle and the nest is winning. Maybe you should pitch a tent in the backyard. Then you could be another just entitled, rich West Sider dude sleeping in a tent. The young Turks can make fun of you. As appealing as that role sounds,

I'm gonna pass on that. No nest in the tent. You know what? It's nest free nest. You know what would be interesting is if your tent was shaped as a nest. We can't really end this podcast on that note, can we? I think that that was a misfire.

Can I say, but I love you. I love you too. And we're done, okay. All right, I just wanna say that I think it's great to have you back. It's great to be back. Happy to be back. I feel like I'm getting my mojo back, back in the saddle.

Missed all of you guys. And again, this was the longest that I've gone without doing a podcast. And right now I'm feeling grateful and remembering how much I miss doing it. And I still love doing it, which is the whole reason for going away to maintain this love affair with this medium

and doing this thing. So thanks for taking this journey with me. Thanks for having me. Right on buddy. Well, we'll be back in a couple of weeks. Until then you can follow Adam on the socials at Adam Skolnick, I'm at Rich Roll. If you want your question answered for the show,

you can leave us a voicemail at 424-235-4626. And don't forget to hit that subscribe button on YouTube, Apple, Spotify, wherever you listen to the show. I wanna thank everybody who helped put on the show today. Jason Camiolo for audio engineering, production, show notes, and interstitial music. Blake Curtis and Dan Drake

for the video version of the podcast. Daniel Solis for graphics. AJ Acpodiette for TikToks. And also Dave Greenberg for portraits. Georgia Whaley for copywriting. DK for advertiser relationships and theme music as always by Tyler Trapper and Harry. Thanks, I love you guys.

See you back here in a couple of days with another amazing episode. Until then, Adam, peace, plants. To be or not to be. Namaste. Thank you.