The Rich Roll Podcast - Roll On: War In Ukraine, Floods In Oz, & Sober Wisdom

Episode Date: March 17, 2022

In today's episode, Rich Roll & Adam Skolnick discuss the global effects of the war in Ukraine & the devastating floods in Australia—plus endurance headlines, listener Q's & more. Topics discussed in today’s episode include: The launch of Voicing Change II and the Golden Ticket Sweepstakes—where 6 lucky winners will take home a score of prizes valued over $1,100; Heidi Zuckerman's newest art book Conversations With Artists Volume III; Jesse Itzler's shotgun attempt at Ultraman Arizona on no formal training; The Russian invasion of Ukraine, the towering bravery of the Ukrainian people, and the war's global impact; and The apocalyptic floods devastating Queensland and New South Wales, Australia's relationship with coal & climate change, and how you can help. As always, we close things out by taking a few listener questions. Today we answer: How do you talk about addiction and sobriety with your kids? What advice do you have for someone navigating recovery and treatment? How do you maintain a relationship when one partner drinks and the other doesn’t? To read more and to peruse the show notes, 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. To grab your copy of Voicing Change Vol. II, visit: https://www.richroll.com/voicing-change-ii/ Peace + Plants, Rich

. The Rich Roll Podcast. Hey everybody, welcome to Roll On, where today we're gonna peer into the abyss and all its beauty and pain and try to make some sense out of this extraordinary planet and its curious and oftentimes confusing humans. You guys know the deal.

We rip from the headlines of our mad, mad world. We address some human stories from the front lines of endurance, a few items that have captured our fancy over the last couple of weeks. We answer listener questions and we do it all with a light dusting of frivolity and randomness.

But first of course, we have to welcome the misplaced beat poet of the newest millennium, Mr. Adam Skolnick. How are you going? As the Aussies would say. Well, I don't know actually, to be honest. Oh, come on. Let's get the energy up.

Well, right. It's been a couple of weeks. I know, but it's been brought to my attention recently that I've been saying things without my own knowledge, saying things like, what's up gang?

And let's rock and roll crew. And I don't know, Rich. Where is that coming from? I don't know. It's hard for me to deal with. I didn't even know I was saying it. It's an age thing. I think it's a dad thing.

Yeah. I've been so far, I've been able to stave off the dad bod, but the dad brain is taking over. Yeah, you can't stop that. It's a force of nature. Never in my wildest nightmares did I ever think I'd ever say something like,

let's rock and roll crew. Well, the dad brain, wait till, you know, the kid gets a little bit older, you know, because you're persistently reminded about, you know, your dad energy and how uncool it is. That becomes a theme. That's what being a dad is about. Can I just embrace it? I will embrace about. Can I- You just embrace it.

I will embrace it. Can I shrivel back into my dry sardonic self at some point like after age 14? Just don't expect that it's gonna go over well with the kid. Nothing goes over well. No. Do you say things like, what's up gang?

Oh, I do it on purpose now. I play it up, just ratchet, like just lean into it. It's more fun that way. Anyway, I'm running. How big of an eye roll can I get for this one? Exactly. That's what I'm gonna have to do. Right now, he's just happy-go-lucky, 18-month-old.

I was running this morning, just this morning, and passed another dad who was walking with his two stroller dads. The sun's not quite up yet. And I said, hey dad, how's it going? Like, what's going on? What is happening? What is going on?

That globe trotting, you know, serious journalist energy is being displaced with, you know, a suburban mindset. I used to be uncivilized. Now I'm more civilized, but it feels less civilized. I don't know how to say it. Like I said, just lean into it. I'm leaning in. But on the dad bod issue,

we have news from the front lines. Right, so four by four by 48 happened. Yeah. Yes. The Goggins, the annual Goggins challenge in the books. The annual Goggins ultra festival for the uninitiated. Yeah, how'd it go for you? You know, I had injuries going in, so I wasn't really prepared this time.

And Jason came up to me, I think last time I was here and said, so are you gonna do the Goggins challenge? I hadn't even thought about doing it because I'd hurt my back at the beginning of January. But as his co-author, you have to, you have no choice. Right, so what happened was like my back injury ended. So I ran probably 12 miles in January. And then in February, like I could start running again,

maybe the second week in February, I probably ran less than 60 miles in the two months. Definitely less than 60 miles in the two months coming into March. And so I was thinking, all right, let me just see how the body is. So on the Sunday and Tuesday, I did some repetitions. I did three, three mile runs on Sunday. I did four twos on Tuesday. And if my body held up, I was going to give it a shot, but I hadn't felt good running. Even after even coming back, I had not had a good run since the, before I got hurt. I hadn't felt good. My,

everything was off. And for some reason I was ended up faster by almost an hour in cumulative time. I felt good. My body felt good. Um, and it's a grind. It's a grind doing it. Um, April did it with me as well. She took 72 hours because she couldn't do the middle of the night stuff because we, you know, no one's there to watch Zuma and he wakes up. So she had to carry it a third day. She didn't have to do the middle of the night, she had to carry it a third day. And Saturday, the winds were how, I mean, the winds were bad here, but the winds were like 40 miles,

like over 30 miles an hour in the desert. You were out in the desert. Yeah, and it was like crazy winds all of Saturday, mild hallucinations in the middle of the night. You see like a street sign, you think it's a coyote coming to get you, like just hallucinations in the middle of the night, you see like a street sign. You think it's a coyote coming to get you like just crazy stuff on the second night. And, but you know, it's, it's running at night.

It's the most nightlife I've had since Zoom has been actually since last year, since this time last year it was the most nightlife I've had in a year. Well, congrats. Thank you. Congrats to Jason as well. Yes. Two team members banked it this year. And it's interesting that you had,

what sounds like a more pleasant experience doing it this year. And I think that has to have something to do with the fact that you've done it before. So you have that history, you know you can do it. So it's not as anxiety provoking, even if you hadn't trained adequately for it, like you can kind of wrap your head around like,

okay, I know how this is gonna go. Yeah, the wild card was, will my glutes get twingy with a lower back lock up? And so, that was the only, like the four mile runs are one thing, but that was the wild card that you couldn't really plan for. But in the end, like I said,

and then since then, it's almost like this jump started training camp. Cause since then my running has been better. I felt better. I feel stronger. So I don't know. Last time it was like, I did it. And then I took a little bit of a break

and got back in the ocean. And this time I'm kind of riding the momentum a little bit and trying to get that zone two back to where I want it to be. Meanwhile, the mythos of David Goggins continues to grow. I mean, it was amazing those videos that he shared like so many people, he was going up and down the coast and popping up here and there.

Started in Sacramento area. Yeah, and like helicopters following him and thousands of people and him leaning out of SUVs screaming and people going nuts. It was really something. Yeah, he's a full blown star. Unbelievable. He's got like the sheriff helicopters

shouting out tributes to him. He flew to Ventura. He did the middle of the night ones he kept with just he and Jennifer. And then he had those meetups. Hermosa I think was the largest from what they told me. Hermosa had over a thousand people down the strand there. I mean, just what an experience to be there.

And he signed every single book. He took a picture with every single person that turned up. He did it all, all the way through. And then they had to immediately race down to Costa Mesa. So like, and get there just in time and do it all again. And apparently the final run he finished in sub sevens. Right, of course. Good for him, man, unbelievable.

You've been getting out with the whales? Yes, so it's whale migration season here in Malibu, which I'm sure everyone, well, you know about and the people here local in Malibu, which I'm sure everyone, you will, you know about, and the people here local in Malibu know about. So the gray whales are migrating back up past Monterey first and then Alaska and onto points North Bering Sea, I believe. And so, yeah, you get lucky.

Sometimes you get lucky. So the Malibu artist kind of came, usually I meet him in Santa Monica, in the Santa Monica Bay, but he, this time we met up at Doom and he flew and was able to get me. I was swimming and barely saw, I turned and took a breath and all of a sudden I see a whale fluke about 50 feet outside me

and he happened to get it from the whale's perspective. Yeah, I saw that. So that was pretty cool. So I'm hoping that we have more meetups because when you have a spotter, it's easier. I actually didn't see him in the air and hopefully we can start to coordinate because then you can actually maybe look under

and see something, but- You need some kind of waterproof earpiece where he can direct you where to swim, get right on top of the whale. But you're not supposed to do that, right? So you're not supposed to, if you see a whale out there or even dolphins, you're not supposed to get in their way.

You're not supposed to intentionally swim there. So what we do is we swim there anyway, as anyone can tell, we swim all year round there. And so when they come around, they have to come to you or you have to just get lucky and stumble upon them and then it's fine. And we're not doing anything. We never touch them.

We never do anything. We don't even get that close. Why would you? Right. And so I feel like it's pretty good and we're never in their way. So it's nice when it's more accidental, but at the same time, when you're a floating head,

you can't even see where you are. So it could be 20 feet away from you and you miss it, especially if there's some motion on the surface. So it's nice to be able to have a friend like the Malibu artist who does some epic videos. That's pretty cool. Let's do a quick obit for your man, Jack Kerouac, who probably never lapsed into any kind of dadism

at any point in his life. His niece is a listener of yours. Oh really? His great niece is a listener of yours and she followed me and then we had a little back and forth. She's a photographer and we had a back and forth. I said, Kerouac, interesting. And it's her great uncle.

Amazing. Yeah, I was so touched. That's very cool. Yeah, and so she's a listener. And he just turned 100. He died at 47. But to me, he's obviously, that's where we got the holy inside milk from.

That's kind of where I cribbed it from one of his, I believe that came from Mexico city blues, one of his, one of his poems. And that's probably his best poetry compilation. I'm still on the roads, the seminal work. I love that one. I also love Dharma bums. I love that entire four part book series on the road, subterraneans, Dharma bums, and big sir, which is the saddest one, but it's still great. And I'm a writer because of Jack Kerouac. I think I might've said that before on here

because he opened up a whole world in an ecstatic way. It's literary, but in an ecstatic, open, exploratory way. And so I just always really fell right into the rhythm of his work and that's why I wanted to wander and travel. So it's his fault. Mom and dad, it's Jack Kerouac's fault. Well, happy birthday, Jack. Yeah, I remember reading on the road

when I was driving cross country one year when I was probably 20. That's the time. And yeah, where anything is possible and the world is a vast and glorious canvas for self exploration. Yeah, and I mean, the book is about hitchhiking across America, it takes place.

And right after World War II is when he actually did it, didn't come out, he wrote it in three weeks on Benzedrine, like a speed haze. He was a good alcoholic. He was, and then he, it took seven years for it to come out and it was an overnight smash hit. And he was dismissed, people in the literary world were dismissive of him,

I guess sometime later, I don't know, but you know, I don't really have much, I mean, the literary world is its own little insular place and to me, it doesn't mean much. A guy like Jack Kerouac kind of transcends all of that. And so if you haven't read any of his stuff, if you're a 20 year old that wants to get out and look around, that's the time.

I highly recommend checking it out. Means a lot to people of a certain generation. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Cool, man. Yeah. So what about you, Rich? What's going on with you? I feel grateful today.

I'm happy to be here with you. It's been a couple of weeks, Adam. So that's all good. I'm a little fatigued. It's been an intense last week. Last week I did three podcasts or in the last seven days, three podcasts, two back-to-back speaking gigs.

So I'm a little ragged, but feeling good. In town or were you out of town? One was down in Palos Verdes. So I was overnight in one place and did a speaking thing that was late at night and then had one on Zoom the following morning at like seven o'clock in the morning. So it's all good, but you know,

it takes a little bit of a toll. I did wanna thank you for introducing us to your friend, Oze Pearlman, because he came in and did a podcast the other day. Oze, for people who don't know, is a mentalist. He was a finalist on America's Got Talent back in 2015. And he just absolutely blew people's minds. It was really fun.

I can't wait to share that episode. And I'm not gonna spoil it other than to say, we're still talking about it. Like everyone here at the show is like, and he did this and then this happened and it was unbelievable. I mean, the guy is a straight up wizard. Yes, he turns serious grownups

into like shrieking school children. I know, it's just like, I think John Cena threw a book at him, or something like that on the Today Show. He was so outraged that, he seems to have that kind of effect on people. I mean, it really is remarkable.

And on top of it, he's this incredible ultra runner. He's done all the big races from bad water to Western States. He's a 223 marathoner. So a super interesting guy. So that was really fun. He cracks open minds and like- How did you meet him? What was the point of introduction?

He had a regular live show happening, I think in New York city and he couldn't do in-person stuff at the beginning of the pandemic. And he's friends with David. And so then David. He knows David from way back early endurance running. Right, right, right.

So they're tight. And so David and Jennifer organized a crew of their people to do a Zoom. Basically David hired him to do this Zoom. And so he, and then he invited people. So then he invited us to be a part of that. And so we went on this Zoom and saw, but I'd heard of him before.

So I knew of him cause I'd seen him on ESPN. He did like, there was a period of time where ESPN had him on for like a couple of days and he visited all the shows and did some fun stuff. And so I'd heard of him, I'd seen him before and he was pretty fun, but seeing it in person and getting really personal with people, you just like that brought it to a different level.

And then following him and seeing how great he was as an athlete, I realized, no, this is a different, I didn't really understand who he was. And so ever since then, I've been kind of chatting with him here and there. I wanna cover him at some point. I've been trying to get, you know, to figure out the right thing for the times.

And so it'll happen. But in the meantime, you know, he loves your show and wanted to be here so bad. So it was cool. We had a great time. It was super fun. Speaking of being an athlete, technically I'm meant to be training right now,

but the training has been very erratic and disrupted due to my work schedule and kind of family schedule. I signed up for this open water marathon swim in June. So you did sign up for it. 20 kilometer. 20 kilometer. Yeah, we'll just leave it at that. Yeah, 20 kilometer open water swim race, which is like 12 miles.

That's no joke. I haven't swum more than 3,500 yards. I mean, today I did 4 first swim race, which is like 12 miles. That's no joke. I haven't swum more than 3,500 yards. I mean, today I did 4,000, but that's probably the longest swim I've put in in a couple of years. So I have my work cut out for me. So was that a 4,000 straight? You did a 4,000?

No, in the pool, it's always intervals and sets and things like that. And I'm working with Chris Houth again. And it's a challenge because I don't like to be unprepared at all for any kind of race, but my life is very complicated right now. So it's about like making peace with the fact that I'm not gonna be able to adhere to the training schedule

like I used to when my life was a little less crowded. So we'll see how that goes. But Chris had a great idea, which was for us to do a zoo, like a little segment on upcoming roll-ons where Chris and I do a zoom and we check in on the training. So it's sort of a peek behind the curtain on like how we communicate, how all of this works.

And maybe hopefully that's instructive or helpful for the other athletes out there who are trying to figure out how to train for races amidst the distractions and other obligations of, you know, our busy lives. I love that. So we'll figure that out. So perhaps next roll on, Chris will pop in.

I need Chris's tough love in my life. I know, but he, Chris is, he's softened up a little bit. We're gonna talk a little bit about that with respect to Jesse Itzler, because I wanna talk about his Ultraman Arizona performance this past weekend. But before we do that, in terms of like how I'm doing and what's going on right now,

despite everything being great and me being grateful and happy to be sitting with you here today, I'm a little bit distracted and fatigued. I haven't been sleeping great because on a family level, we're dealing with a little bit of psychic pain that has been challenging and leaving me hard pressed to think about anything else because our youngest kid had his heart broken over the weekend.

He was very intent upon getting into this cinema arts program at LA's Performing Arts High School. And it's a big public high school. He's going into ninth grade. And part of that application process was writing and directing and editing a short film, which he did. And he made a remarkable film. By all accounts, everybody who saw it said, this is unbelievable.

And his older sister goes to this school currently as a senior. And so we thought we were in pretty good shape for him to be accepted into this program. And we found out that he was not accepted, that it didn't work out the way that we all had hoped for him and it's been more than disappointing, like he's devastated.

And so the reason I bring it up, I keep my kids out of the podcast and I don't wanna get too detailed about that situation other than to say, it's been a challenge as a parent trying to figure out how to show up as a compassionate dad. And I can't think of anything more difficult than kind of holding that level of psychic and emotional pain that your child is going through.

It's a sense of powerlessness, like in been a parent for a minute. And this has definitely been one of the hardest chapters in this journey that I've been on as a dad. It's like, you can feel all that pain and you can empathize with it and you try to hold space for them, but you can't alleviate it for them.

And it's hard, man. And I think for me, I have a pattern, like an unhealthy pattern of projecting onto my kid. And that's a pattern that I learned as a child because that's what my mother would do. Projecting how? Like, you know, oh, how are you? And like, you know, sort of in a weird kind of

in meshing way, like I've grown a lot. Like I don't, I'm very conscious of not doing that and like making the problem worse by, you know, saying, oh, we're all so, you know, we're all so disappointed for you, like it doesn't help. Like how can you be solid and strong and compassionate and available and a dad that is signaling to their kid,

like I got your back, like we're gonna figure this out and this is a setback, but we have a plan for you and we're gonna see this through and we're gonna get through it together without becoming too, like reducing your emotional state to that of the child as a way of connecting. Thinking that you're validating their emotion

by joining into the emotion. Right, but that's not a healthy strategy for that. So it's like learning how to check myself and it's been really hard. And I have to say that it has led me to turn back to the wisdom of past podcast guests like Susan David, who writes and talks about emotional agility and Jessica Leahy and her book, The Gift of Failure,

like this idea that, you know, these experiences cultivate emotional agility, but this is a kid who really needed a win. The pandemic has been very rough on him. And this was a North star and it got like pulled out from underneath him, you know, and at that age, it's traumatic, right? And to see your kid in the midst of a trauma is just,

you know, it's very difficult. So that's kind of going on in the background. So if I start to space out in this podcast, it's probably because I'm- I'll take care of it. I'll handle it. Dwelling on that in an unhealthy way. You know, and it's like allowing your kid

to experience their painful emotions is necessary. But as a parent, it's also like a form of psychic torture. Right. No parent wants to see their child in pain. No, right. Isn't that the hardest thing is to see your child hurting. Really hard.

Yeah. So that's what you have to look forward to, Adam. So it gets more complicated is what you're saying. Yes. Yes, it definitely does. So, but even like in this situation, when you first learn about it, you can't even get to the point, we have a plan for you.

We're gonna see this through. It's a setback. You can't even really say anything, right? No, you have to allow them to experience their emotions and not be the person who's like trying to get them over it too quickly or yeah. But also make sure that they're not shutting down too much. It's this weird balance.

And as a dad, like what is the healthy kind of masculinity that you can model and be of maximum support without being like a hard ass or too much of a softie. Right, what's the right amount of stoicism? Right, and also knowing that they don't wanna hear it from you right now. No, your opinion does not matter. We're gonna get over this, you're gonna look back on this

and realize like, you know, that you found yourself in a better, none of that works right now. It's like, so just having their back, I think is the key thing. Yeah. So anyway, that's going on, but let's switch gears. Let's do it. To a very exciting positive note.

It's a big day here at Roll On. We have a big announcement, which is that Voicing Change 2 is now out. Yes. And available. So. Been looking forward to this thing. Comes in this like really cool pizza box.

Yeah. Basically. And when you open it up, let me see if I can open this, has a beautiful like ribbon here that pulls it out. And here we go. So for people that are kind of newer to this show and don't know what we're talking about,

there it is, Adam, yeah. A little over a year ago, we released volume one of Voicing Change, which is this black book that you see here. And it's essentially this compendium of the best wisdom and guests of the podcast over the course of several years in coffee table book form. And we self-published it, it was a success.

It's filled with like gorgeous photography. And we go through the transcripts of all of these guests podcasts and we excerpt out the best parts. And I write an introduction and we have essays littered throughout it and we're really proud of it. And it works as a great introduction to the podcast for people who are unfamiliar with the work that we do here. It's kind of a keepsake for the fans.

It's an awesome gift. But when we created the first voicing change, it was always intended as part one and what would be a series. And so today, a little over a year later, we are announcing volume two, which picks up where volume one left off, of course. And it's even better than the first one.

It's 288 pages of episode excerpts. We have essays, we have stunning photos, 64 guests are featured. And what can I tell you? Who are some of the people in here? We have Matthew McConaughey, Tony Hawk, Dr. Huberman, Maggie Q, Steven Pressfield, Alexi Pappas, the Korean vegan, tons of cool people.

And of course, Adam, you are featured in this book. I made the cut. There's a whole roll on thing in here. There's a whole roll on. And Adam, you wrote it, you contributed an essay to the book as well. I think there's a roll on centerfold in there. There is, let me find it.

You know what, it was when you guys approached me and asked me to be a part of this thing, I was so touched. And I love these books because the way into the show, like it's a great- We have like several pages on roll on in this book. We do. Yeah. You wrote something about it too. Right.

But it took me writing that to realize that your podcast is why I'm married to April. I'd forgotten. Yeah. I'd forgotten. Yeah, explain that. Well, I mean, I wrote in the essay, what I loved about the essay is because it allowed me to reflect back on being a part of this team and being a part of your show.

And for a long time, I was just an independent reporter out there kind of hacking my way through the wilderness. And I liked those years, too. But it's not easy. And you always kind of wish, what would it be like if you were part of a team, if you were part of a newsroom? You always wonder. Even the days when I was doing the Lonely Planet travel guides, there were fellow authors I sometimes ran into on the road. But it's pretty much an independent job.

You're out there by yourself. It's designed so that you work independently together. So you're not really crossing paths unless you go out of your way. And even though you can email and there's some camaraderie, it's not quite the same as coming into an environment like this, where you have a real collaboration and real teamwork. And so on a regular basis, consistent basis. So it's been such a welcome thing for me. And also to get into the audio so on a regular basis, consistent basis. So it's been such a welcome thing for me and also to get into the audio side on a different way from just audio books to the podcast space. It was always great, but I never had a chance to really sit back and analyze it or

consider what made it special for me. So this essay was an opportunity to do that, to consider the show, what the show is, why it's unique, why the audience is unique, to be part of this, which includes, when I say collaboration, I include the audience as part of that, because what's special about a lot of podcasts, but particularly your podcast, is that people are very personally connected to it,

because there's an individual aspect, there's a social good aspect. It's inwardly focused with an outward viewpoint, an expansive viewpoint. And it's a seed bank and toolbox to be able to kind of tinker with your world and the greater larger world and try to make it better. So it's kind of like this real time dreaming

of a different way of going. And at the same time, taking gratitude in what's happening. So that I always knew, but to be part of it and to experience it from the inside has been really enlightening for me because like I'm typically kind of happy being a little gloom and doom to be quite honest with you.

Like the light of the show. Very uncomfortable for you. Yeah, no, it's, the light of your show is now changing me. Now I'm saying things like rock and roll crew. Right. And that's not your fault. So anyway, I was fun to write the essay and, you know, really an honor to explain.

And part of that is yes, after being on your podcast, when I was promoting One Breath, April listened to it. We had known each other a little bit before that and reached out, we got reconnected and then voila. And that was it. So it's, that's all part of that story that I kind of tell in this. And in general, I love the book because it is a way in.

So if you're a fan and you wanna introduce people to the podcast, but it's a heavy lift to get them to listen to two and a half hours of me bothering Rich, then you can give them this voicing change and you can, you know, check out some of these cool guests and you can read a couple of the, of the features and they'll understand why you like it so much. And it's kind of a way into the, to the show in a different way. It's a 288 page visual blinkist. That's it. Yeah. You said it. A synopsis.

I love it. With cool photographs. Yeah. Yeah, well, well said, I appreciate that. It's been such a fun journey and honor to do this thing with you. And it's cool that people are digging it and it's grown. And now you're part of the firmament.

You're in the wallpaper now. You can't get rid of me now. I know. I don't get rid of me now. I know. I don't know what, yeah, now it's like, what would happen if we didn't wanna do this anymore? I don't know. I would show up at your doorstep.

I would be sleeping where Jason's working right now. Right. Anyway, yeah, thank you for generously providing that essay and there's a bunch more essays in it. The book is beautiful. I think, you know, it's even better than the last one. It's really been a team effort. Like I probably worked the least on this book.

We have this amazing group of people, of craftsmen, very talented people who we collaborated with to create this wonderful work of art. And it's just an exciting moment to be able to now share it with everybody. So to sweeten it, we came up with this really cool idea to do what we're calling a golden ticket sweepstakes.

So basically to celebrate this launch and do something cool and unique and meaningful, we came up with essentially a contest, which will entitle six lucky winners will get like a golden ticket in the book. And- It's like a Willy Wonka thing. Yeah, it's a Willy Wonka thing. And basically the winners will get this treasure chest

of prizes that have been gifted from our amazing sponsors that include like a pair of Salomon Ultra Glide shoes, an athletic green starter kit, a pair of Roka glasses, a pair of Jaybird Vista 2 earbuds, a Theragun, a one-year membership to the Plant Power Meal Planner. All told, it's basically an $1,100 value. And so to win, there's a couple of ways to win. Obviously, buying a copy of Voicing Change 2 automatically enters you to win. But also importantly, I need to point out that there is also a no purchase necessary option. Terms and conditions apply.

So if you wanna learn more about the rules behind the golden ticket offering, go to richroll.com slash official dash rules for more details. Can I say, can I interject one thing? I think you only have five Theragun elites left. What do you mean? Did you steal one? I don't know. Did you take one from our stash? I saw a box of them. I didn't think you'd miss them. Come on, man. All right, I'll return it.

We need that one back. Yeah, it's coming back. All right. Like I said, the book is self-published. We do everything in-house. It was this amazing team effort. And for that reason, we are offering the book only and exclusively on our website at richroll.com. It's not available on Amazon. So to learn more about it and pick up your copy, go to richroll.com slash books. We only did a limited print,

so it's not gonna be available forever. So you're gonna have to act now if you wanna get it. And final note. I think Voicing Change 1 sold out. So yeah, I think we have a few left, but Voicing Change 2 is what we're focusing on right now. And we have plenty of copies, but I think they're gonna go fast.

How Voicing Change 2 went, they're gonna go quick. One thing I wanted to point out with Voicing Change 1, there was some complaints and grumpiness around shipping because we're self-publishing and self-fulfilling and all of that and not on Amazon, shipping becomes very tricky. Anybody who sells product can understand that. And I wanna just tell everyone that we

heard you with respect to those complaints. So for this book, Voicing Change 2, we have flat rate, $10 shipping domestically. It probably costs us more in most cases. So we're just going to eat that extra surcharge because we wanted to make it available across the board at one rate for everybody. And we have discounted shipping internationally. So we have heard that feedback and we're doing the best that we can to address that. Right, I mean, not everybody has a rocket ship and Pete Davidson to deliver their boxes

to their front door. That's true. What happened to the Amazon drones? That program never took off. That's in beta bro. We were gonna be able to order pizzas and have them dropped off on our doorstep. Yes, dropped off by Roombas.

Cool, so yes, voicing change too. One more thing before we take a quick break, I wanted to direct everyone's attention to my friend Heidi Zuckerman's new book. It's called Conversations with Artists Three. Heidi is an old friend of mine from the New York City days. I used to date her sister when I lived there and she is an amazing-

Which is just kids chapter. That's right, kind of, not quite, but a little bit maybe. But I've known Heidi for a very long time and she's sort of a big deal in the art world. When I knew her, she was a young gallerist, but she has gone on to have posts at the UC Berkeley Museum of Art, the Jewish Museum in New York City. More recently, she was the director of the Aspen Art Museum, where she did all this really cool, innovative

stuff. She oversaw the construction of the new building there by this famed architect, Shigeru Ban. And she did this thing where she had top artists create artwork printed on the lift tickets, which I thought was very innovative and cool. And so basically she's become one of the leading museum directors in the United States and left Aspen in 2019 and is now in California where she is the new director of the Orange County Museum of Art,

where they're building this massive new building that I think is pretty close to being completed at this point. Where is that? Is that in Santa Ana or something? I think it's in- Orange or something? San Clemente or something like that.

I don't know exactly. But yeah, the building is designed by Tom Main, who's a legendary kind of modern architect. He was the mentor to the architect that built our house. So in any event- Santa Ana. In Santa Ana, cool. So Heidi, when she left Aspen,

she started this kind of digital platform that included a podcast, conversations about art, which I was a guest on, along with people like Ricky Gates and Eve Behar. She had Rufus Wainwright on, Tom Sachs, Lance Armstrong. And then she published the series of books, which are kind of an analog to Voicing Change in that they're excerpts from her conversations

with these many artists over the years. And this is her volume three. So she's one volume ahead of us. Oh God. On the same kind of plane of, you know, turning the best of what a podcast offers into a book form. She shares insights and access

to some of the world's most engaging artists. And in this book, who does she, I mean, Tom Sachs is in here. He's one of my favorites, Doug Aiken, Daniel Arsham, Sam Falls, Jennifer Guidi, Glenn Cano. Anyway, it's a cool book. I love Heidi. She's a really interesting person.

Perhaps she'd make a great guest on this podcast. So if you wanna check out that book, it is only available on the Orange County Museum of Art website. So go to ocmaocma.art slash pop dash up. And I'll link that up in the show notes. Beautiful. Cool. So let's take a quick break and we'll be back.

We're gonna talk about Jesse Itzler's Ultraman and we're gonna solve Ukraine basically, right? We're solving Ukraine. We're gonna solve it. You and me. Yeah, we solved it already. Yeah, well, we can solve it. All right.

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 overwhelming and how challenging it can be to find the right place and the right level of care, especially

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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 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. All right, and we're back. We're gonna talk about Jesse Itzler's Ultraman Arizona. This is my favorite story from the weekend.

Perhaps the best Instagram stories on the entire platform the past couple of days. For those that are unfamiliar, Jesse's a friend, a two-time podcast guest, one of the founders of 29029, that Everesting Challenge. He's a amazing entrepreneur and a very kind of inspiring individual. And his whole thing is about like building your life resume and like making the most out of your day. And he's got this big calendar and he calendars out all his goals and his dreams and he shares everything on Instagram.

And he just has a very beautiful infectious energy. And he signed up for Ultraman Arizona. He'd never done an Ultraman before, but he's done some hundred milers and he's an experienced ultra runner. But what made this great, in addition to the fact that he's 54 years old, is that he showed up to compete in this race

with ostensibly doing no training. None at all, just his normal stuff. I mean, he gets out there and he's very active and he's running and riding his bike or whatever, but there was no structure at all to his training. And like Ultraman is a double Ironman distance triathlon. It's 320 miles. Day one is a 6.2 mile swim and a 90 mile bike.

The second day is 171 miles on the bike. The third day is a double marathon. People who know my story know that I've done this race in Hawaii a couple of times. And so I was very invested in seeing how this was gonna play out given that he hadn't really trained, but he is somebody who never gives up also. So that tension between being physically unprepared for this

with the strong mental game of like, I don't quit, makes for a very interesting, you know, tableau for storytelling. And it didn't disappoint. So Blake, can you pull up Chris's, this tab that I have for Chris Houth, who was helping Jesse as well. And of course, as my coach posted this on Instagram,

I think the day before the morning of the race, where it's just a handwritten note. If you're watching on video, you can see it, but I'll read it. Like Jesse says to Chris, Chris, you think I should do Ultraman Arizona? I haven't trained, Chris. you think I should do Ultraman Arizona? I haven't trained, Chris.

I think taking the unconventional path has served you well so far in life. Why have your athletic self be different? And then Chris says, where is the greater adventure, being prepared, familiar in doing it, or being unprepared in unchartered territory and being on the edge? So that's the kind of context

in which Jesse towed the start line at this crazy race, not a conventional quest from an athlete perspective, but I think there's something cool about him as Chris notes, choosing to step into the arena only with past endurance experience, a strong mind, a willingness to endure and a strong support team. You know, it's interesting about this whole thing.

I mean, obviously the double marathon is super intense and long days on the bike. I mean, 171 miles, no joke, but a 6.2 mile swim, if you don't swim, like that might be the hardest one. Well, here's what happens. So basically they show up, it starts on Friday morning and there was so much wind, you know, cause you were out in the desert, it was super windy in LA.

I guess it was windy in Arizona as well. So there was tons of swell and chop. They started the swim. I think the water was like 57 degrees. So, you know, not warm. Jesse's got like a full suit with, he's got the mitts and the booties and the whole thing. And like, and they start to swim,

but they soon realize like this is not a safe situation. And they call off the swim when I think there are maybe a kilometer or a kilometer or a half into it. But they had to change it from, I think what was a point to point to a loop so that they could monitor everything. And then after the first loop, they're like, we're done. But Jesse had already started his second loop

and wasn't aware that they called it. And so there was all this chaos trying to find him and get him out. And then they got everybody out and then they just said, all right, you have one hour and we're gonna start the bike portion. So they didn't end up swimming 6.2 miles. So I suppose there's a bit of an asterisk on all of this

because yeah, 6.2 mile swim, if you're not a, you don't have a competitive swimming background is like not a joke. And I think that's what distinguishes Ultraman from typical triathlons that cater to the non swimmer. Like this one, you actually really have to have an ability there and it can be meaningful in terms of, you know, whether you're gonna finish the race or not,

or how well you're gonna do. Well, cause you also, you would get seasick. Like I've talked to many open water swimmers. I mean, it's almost like a guarantee. If you're not used to it, you will throw up at some point, which impacts the beginning of your bike ride. Right, so Jesse, who doesn't have a background in swimming was spared a little bit of that, I suppose.

But you know, the drama continued. It's a long enough race where everyone gets it. He made it through the 90 mile bike on day one. He looked a little bit beat up, but in okay shape after that. But the day two, 171 mile bike almost buried him. And he had to make it, you know, they have time cutoffs, right?

So he basically just wanted to like finish before the time cut off. And he was successful in that with 15 minutes to spare. So it was touch and go. And there were tons of headwinds. And I think on the second day, there's something like 8,000 feet of climbing. So, you know, a challenging ride and he gets it done

and he just looked like hell. I was like, oh, that poor guy, man. He couldn't walk. I mean, he was like, oh, that poor guy, man. He couldn't walk. I mean, he was pretty banged up. And then on day three, his ankle looked like the size of a grapefruit. Before starting? Before starting the run.

Jeez. And he suffered through it and finished that run, which had a 12 hour cutoff with 23 minutes to spare. So 1137. So he completed it. I wonder if some of these Instagram stories are still up here. Yes, some of them are.

Here you can see him. He's in pretty bad shape. Yeah. His ankle beforehand, that was at the end. So anyway, yeah, these will be gone off of Instagram stories by the time this podcast goes up. But for anybody who went along for the journey, like I was riveted.

Maybe he'll save it. I was riveted to all of these things. I'm sure they'll make some videos out of this. So I'm scrolling back. I'm trying to find, there he is. Here he is crossing the finish line. He's trying to run to it. He can't even run to it.

I know. But he did it, man. He did it, man. He made it. He made it. Yeah, he can't. He can't even run to it. I know. I mean. But he did it, man. He did it, man. He made it. He made it. Yeah, anyway. There must be so much pain there. Yeah, the race is so much harder

than the numbers on a piece of paper. It really is a brutal race. And I'd love to have him back on the podcast and share what this journey was all about. You got to, that'll be fun. Yeah, it's cool. So congrats to Jesse, we love you. And I love how it was all shared so transparently

on social media. I think that's very inspiring for a lot of people, which is really Jesse's greatest gift. Like he has this ability to get people enthusiastic about doing hard things. And he does that by modeling it in his own life. So are we gonna get to the hard stuff now? You mean the dueling existential crises of our time?

Explain. You know, the light news of the world, Ukraine and apocalyptic flooding in Australia. Right, climate change versus nuclear annihilation. A wink, a wink at nuclear annihilation, just a wink. A throw away smile at nuclear annihilation. What wink, a wink at nuclear annihilation. Just a wink. Right. A throwaway smile at nuclear annihilation. What are your thoughts, Adam? My thoughts, I mean, I think people are more interested

in what you were thinking as this was unfolding, but my thoughts were, you know, kind of in disbelief. I think as it unfolded, you know, when it first started happening, I thought, okay, just like everybody else, this will be quick. It'll be over quickly and it's sad, but it won't take long because I thought Russia's military might

and all that like everybody else. And then I started to see these pictures of these old grizzled vets kind of lining up to sign up for the army. And I started seeing signs of like the gritty Ukrainian people and how they were feeling about it and what they were going to do. And I thought, wait a second, this might not be so easy.

But at the same time, when I was worried that if it was easy, it wouldn't just be Ukraine, because he was starting to talk about Scandinavia and he was starting to talk about other places and kind of daring us to get involved and then bringing up the nuclear weapons. And so like everyone else, I thought this could be World War III. I really did think that it could, like what happens if China decides to move on Taiwan and all of this, like where does this all go?

And so I was very highly, highly concerned about the potential for World War III. And so that's how it started for me. How about you? Yeah, I would share that. I mean, I'm certainly no geopolitical expert and I don't know that I have a take that's gonna be any different from,

anybody who's paying attention to what's going on, but I can share my devastation at this unprovoked aggression that's sacrificing lives. It's surreal that in 2022, one human being like this dictator, who's clearly not operating on a completely rational plane can wreak so much havoc and devastation on the world by dint of like an ego that's out of control. And we're in a very precarious place that reminds me of what it was like back in the early 80s when I was a kid.

I mean, I'm old enough to have lived through a significant portion of the Cold War as a kid growing up in Washington, DC, where basically politics is all anybody talks about. And it feels similar to that, like this inching towards, you know, an increasingly more alerted DEF CON status and a guy who, you know, has his finger on a button

that could cause unimaginable damage. It's frightening, it's scary. And I think, so I think the fear is real. Yeah, I mean, for Gen Xers, it brings us back to war games and like Red Dawn and all these kinds of seminal kind of like, you know, Rocky IV and like, you know, Soviet Union and all of that. And for people older than us,

it goes back to the Cuban Missile Crisis and all of that. And so it right away, you know, that's what you're thinking. And then out of that comes this other story that's more like 300, like the Ukrainian people rising up and proving that actually Russia doesn't have the best military that you might think. They have a lot of firepower and it's proving out now as they're hammering Kiev today,

but they aren't necessarily the machine that we feared. Sure, sure. To your first point in the list of movies that you just spoke about, the one for me is the day after. Right, that one. So this is a Gen X staple, right? If you're my age, like I remember seeing the day after,

I was probably in ninth or 10th grade. I think it was 1983 when that movie came out, which is a chronicle of the weeks leading up to and following a nuclear strike in Kansas. It had like John Lithgow in it and Jason Robards. And this movie was seen by a hundred million people during its initial broadcast. And it was traumatic for me

because you essentially see nuclear devastation and like how this plays out. And I was shook by that. And I still think about that movie because I was at that age where I was very impressionable and this was kind of going on in current events. So it felt very like real and visceral. And so, yeah, what's going on now kind of evokes that memory on some level, but it is true.

Like this idea that Russia was gonna go in and in two or three days take Kyiv, that Zelensky would flee and they'd install their, you know, puppet government. And of course that's not what has happened. And we've seen, you know, the world has borne witness to, you know, this guy, I mean, the story has borne witness to this guy. I mean, the story of Zelensky is unbelievable,

but him kind of shouldering the mantle of leadership in a way that perhaps nobody predicted and the resilience and determination of the Ukrainian people to fight for their country has been remarkable to witness. And in juxtaposition to a Russian armed force that, you know, it was kind of unprepared. Like I think-

Unprepared. Swaths of them weren't even told what they were doing. Like this was some kind of military exercise. And even in Russia now, you can't talk about it being a war. Like that's not how it's characterized. And we can talk about the information war that's going on in the propaganda

within the boundaries of Russia. But I think the Russian forces were quite surprised to meet the resistance that they've met. And I don't know what the will of the Russian armed forces is to withstand that kind of defense. Well, unprepared and undersupplied. of the Russian armed forces is to withstand that kind of defense. Well, unprepared and underfunded, undersupplied. I mean, they're 18 year old kids

who have three days of training and Kalashnikov. And eating 10 year old MREs. Yeah, the video of the MREs that expired in 2015 is a window into what's actually going on in Russia versus what Putin would like us to believe. The truth is Russia's GDP is the size of Spain. That's not a criticism of Spain or anything like that, but it's not like they are this great power economically, which is why this is happening, right? Because Ukraine is a great power. So Russia is very rich in natural resources,

but Ukraine has figured out a way to serve the technological space, the tech space. They've got minerals that are poised to help in this new energy economy that's emerging, whereas Russia has the stuff of the old energy economy. Ukraine has combined with Russia, a third of the wheat is supplied, globally is supplied from Ukraine. I think a third of EU's wheat just comes from Ukraine alone.

And then Russia and Ukraine combines a third of the entire global wheat supply. So Ukraine is very strategic. There's a reason he's going after Ukraine. There is not an easy way out of Ukraine. So that's to your point of saying like how gritty, how incredible these people are in Zelensky as a leader who is Churchillian.

I remember during the summer of 2020 and in 2021, you couldn't even, Churchill was on the verge of getting canceled. And now we're using Churchillian to describe Zelensky and rightfully so. And Biden is being criticized as being more Chamberlainian. But he's not really though. I being more Chamberlainian. But he's not really though.

I mean, Chamberlain was like meeting and hanging out with Hitler and that's not what Biden is doing. No, but of course, I mean, I think also to the point of being Gen X, I'm used to and grew up in an era where whenever the United States found itself in some kind of conflict,

it would be the Republicans in their hawkish disposition saying that the Democrats aren't acting swiftly enough, we need to be more aggressive, we need to basically ramp up the military. And what we're seeing now is a mirror image of that, this weird inversion of that, where the administration is trying to figure out the appropriate response that's not gonna overly,

you know, incite Russia to do something rash. Where is that balance? And we can have a conversation around that and what that might look like and whether or not they're succeeding at that. But it is bizarre to see certain facets of the Republican party or the alt-right kind of detouring into ostensibly like,

you know, Putin apology. It's great. Apologies. It's absolutely not. Apologies for this. It's absolutely not. It's like the most anti-Soviet people were always the Republicans. Reagan made a living off of it, Bush too. And Bush won.

The military industrial complex was built off the back of being against Russia. Right, and so a hundred percent. And then you look at it and at first, I think the Republicans have switched their tune now. I think they're going- Those people have kind of gone silent. They've gone silent.

But at first you had Tucker Carlson, like basically saying, what has Putin done that's so bad? He's never done anything to me. He's never called me a racist. And this idea like that the fandom of him because of anti-wokeism or whatever is just is a very strange thing. Like this model of toxic masculinity

that is so attractive for a certain archetype of person is bizarre. And yeah, that whole sentiment has kind of gone dark because the world is united in support of Ukraine right now. And it's pretty obvious that Putin's out of control. And when was the last time that the entire EU like agreed on any one singular thing, like sanctions being essentially a unanimous, you know,

a unanimous strategic weapon at the moment. Yeah, that's interesting. Two things I wanted to bring up. You said toxic masculinity. I'd like to point out that Vladimir Putin rides a tricycle, a motorized tricycle. This has been my mission. As soon as the invasion started,

I've been telling everyone, I wanna make it very clear. Google it, Vladimir Putin rides a tricycle. He's a grownup man who rides a tricycle. There you go. And maybe that's why he's invading Ukraine. The second thing is that I noticed at the beginning was like how fragile it all is. That's what I also thought of because-

Well, that's what makes it so terrifying. Right, because I have a friend, a Negro, marries a great freediver based out of Tahiti, but he was training in Egypt. Then he stopped and saw friends in Kyiv about three weeks before all this happened. And he was literally going out bowling. I was talking to him on the phone.

He was bowling with his friends, having drinks in Kiev and saying what a wonderful city it is. And they were all like carefree. Like, I mean, they were chilling. And then three weeks later, everyone's terrified. The whole place is falling apart. It just shows you how fragile, like what would happen to us? How fragile is our situation?

You know, like it's all so fragile. Much more fragile than we think. Yes. Of course. Yeah. Right? Yeah. This is the first legitimate war armed conflict that is playing out on social media. So I wanna talk about the information aspects of that

because I find that fascinating. But before we do that, can we just talk a minute about like the kind of meta simulation theory quality to all of this as well, starting with Zelensky. I mean, it's unbelievable. Voldemar Zelensky. Comedian, actor, he was on dancing with the stars.

I mean, he's certainly a showman, but the meta nature of his career trajectory is fascinating in that, you know, he's this guy who created the sitcom that he starred in where he's a high school teacher who goes on a political rant that's filmed by one of the students that goes viral. And he ends up president, like that's the narrative.

It's like the West Wing meets Veep or something like that. This is the show, which was really popular. Interestingly, his first language is Russian, right? And I think there's something about the kind of integration between Ukraine and Russia that makes this even more complicated because every millions of people in Ukraine have relatives and friends and et cetera,

that live in Russia and vice versa. Yeah. That makes this tricky. But then, you know, for him to become the president and for Vitaly Klitschko, the multiple world heavyweight champion boxer to be mayor of Kyiv, the fact that Louis CK was meant to be playing a show

in Kyiv, like the second Louis C.K. was meant to be playing a show in Kyiv like the second night of the invasion. It turns out he was never in Kyiv, I guess. No, he didn't make it. But all of this makes it very strange. He shouldn't be on that list. He's not one of those guys. Klitschko is gonna put on a gun at some point.

He's gonna go full Rambo, I think at some point. And the juxtaposition of seeing those images of Putin where he's sitting at the end of a super long table or at the end of one big kind of atrium and his advisors are literally 50 feet away from him versus Zelensky who's in a t-shirt and he's literally doing selfie videos speaking directly to not just his people,

but to the world in this unedited, kind of unfiltered way and standing his ground and saying, this is what we're doing. I mean, is so fascinating and potent. He is and he's saying it, he's dropping one liners like, I don't need a ride, I need weapons or to be or not to be, that is the question.

And for us, let me answer it, to parliament in England, it is to be a great line. And I'd like to say also he is Jewish and that matters because the lie that Putin was telling everybody was that Ukraine had been taken over by Nazis. I mean, this is all stuff I'm sure a lot of your listeners already know, but if you don't, if you're not following it, not everyone's following it as closely.

So that's a lie that they used, an excuse they used to sell this invasion. Like we sold the Iraq invasion with the new, you know, weapons of mass destruction there. Nazis have taken over Ukraine when in reality, you know, Zelensky is the offspring of a sole survivor from a family that was murdered in the Holocaust

from Ukraine. The soul, he's the descendant of a sole survivor. And he's now president and he's wearing this mantle. And also it matters because the, that's why when I was joking, we were joking last week that I was gonna, you know, share this business idea of called Dial-a-Jew. If you or your friends come across somebody

who is trying to use the Nazi argument or say something about Nazis in the service of some- Call a Jew first. Yeah, call a Jew first. Have them walk you through it. We'll walk you through what your talking points, making sure you got it. And so the reason that I was gonna make that joke,

although maybe some people think it's in poor taste, I was gonna make the joke in relation to some of these vaccine requirement people that are using the Nazi comparison or the Holocaust comparison. But it matters because when you use it in a, even in a comparison, like the vaccine thing, which is absurd, it then makes it easier to use it in another way that's absurd. And to use it in this way is the most absurd we've seen yet, but it doesn't start there. The most preposterous. It's the most preposterous, but it didn't start there. The

reason he's able to do that is because it's been used too many times before it's been used in situations, even on the left, using it to, to paint Trump as a Hitler character when he's not. So it's like, it's used on both sides too often. And then you create this situation where the, the Jewish president of Ukraine, the sole survivor is called the lead Nazi. Right, the idea that we must unseat this Nazi regime in Ukraine, and this is a just infiltration of this country

begs the larger conversation around, is it even possible to have an iron curtain of information in 2022, which is what he's trying to achieve. There was a great episode of the daily today. Did you listen to the one today? So it's all about the disinformation propaganda war. And it's told through the story of a guy in Ukraine who hadn't heard from his dad

who lives in Russia. Like they're like, you know, I don't know, seven, 10 days into the conflict, his dad hasn't called. He's like, why wouldn't my dad call me to see if I'm okay? So he calls up his dad and he's like, dad, you know, like just so you know, here's what's going on. We're getting bombed and all this stuff. And his dad just says, no, no, no, no.

Let me tell you what's going on. We're getting bombed and all this stuff. And his dad just says, no, no, no, no. Let me tell you what's going on. And he just parroted the propaganda lie about unseating the Nazis, right? And you know, his dad being an older guy. Do your own research, son. Yeah, he did his own research, right? So he bought into the propaganda lie and it's fascinating the extent to which

you can win hearts and minds with state controlled media. But how does that play out in a social media infused global community? So we've seen Russia shut down Facebook, shut down Twitter. I believe I read the other day that today, Monday, they're gonna shut down Instagram as well, which 80 million people, young people in Russia use for communicating.

I'd read a story that I can't verify and I don't have the article in front of me right now, but that FSB agents were going to the homes of tech executives from Google and places like that to either intimidate them or imprison them. So the war against an open journalistic ecosystem is very much for real. But if you're in your twenties

and you're getting your hands on VPNs, or you know people that live in the West like this, you can't keep it out on some level. And we've seen it for a period of time. You can, but it's gonna be, there's gonna be a demographic split. It's gonna be the older people like this guy's dad, who's getting his information from RT and VK

and the young people who rely on Snapchat and Instagram and all these other platforms where they're getting a more unmoderated, unfiltered version that the rest of the world is exposed to. And the fact that we've seen these protests of people pouring out into the streets in Moscow and the like, knowing that they will be arrested for that and doing it anyway, shows the extent to which

this is an unpopular war, even within Russia. And then the question becomes, does that matter to Putin? Or at what point does Russian unrest with this decision that Putin has made become a substantive factor in how he's making decisions? Or does he not care? At some point that balance tips and he has to take that into consideration.

It could take years though for like the drumbeat on the streets, right? It's gonna take a mass casualties, and he has to take that into consideration. It could take years though, for like the drum beat on the streets, right? It's gonna take a mass casualties. Like it took a decade in Afghanistan, I think for them. And it took them taking on mass, mass casualties. It could take that. To your point about Instagram,

I was messaging with Alexi Molchanov, the great free diver, world champion. And we were talking and he was basically sad about everything and I was just checking in on him and of course expected that. I feel bad for these great Russian friends of mine and athletes that want no part of anything political. And Alexey's a businessman.

He wants his business going. And I said, you know, I said, do you have an international home for your business? He does. So, you know, he's probably taken care of. Is it on his $600 million yacht parked in the Maldives right now? He's not one of those guys.

You know that guy on Twitter who tracks all the super yachts and where they are at all times? Yes. Super interesting. There's the one guy, the one I think they found in the- They found Putin's. They found Putin's, right. Yeah.

Yeah, and it's interesting to pay attention to the oligarchs and whether like their perspective on this becomes meaningful for Putin. You know, I mean, he basically created all of these people and empowered them. So a word about that. So I've looked into some of this. So the oligarchs, the ones that we talk about

when we say the oligarchs like Roman Abramovich, I think the guy that owns the Chelsea football club. Not anymore. Not anymore. Is it Chelsea or Manchester? Chelsea. Chelsea. So basically what happened was Yeltsin sold off the goods, right? Yeltsin sold off the goods.

Yeltsin sold off the goods to people he was connected to. Those people bought, and by the goods means natural resources. They bid on natural resources, they bid on real estate, whatever it is that the state owned. They paid peanuts for it, they got it. They ended up becoming wealth, like oligarchs overnight. Putin, when he came in, he didn't do, he didn't oversee that, but he basically made it legal. He basically came in and tidied up that whole thing and said, okay, you guys have it now. And I'm going to make,

because Yeltsin was a bit of a mess, right? And so I'm going to make this look tidier. And so he enabled them in certain ways, but he didn't sell them the goods. I think that's important just in a point of information. Right, but that engendered a loyalism. For sure. So they know that their largesse is a result of Putin, so there's an allegiance there,

but how tenuous is that allegiance and how important is the tenuous nature of that allegiance should that come to pass. Scott Galloway on the pivot podcast that he does with Kara Swisher, Scott being a professor of business at NYU and like he's a very interesting thinker, basically just said if he doesn't think

that the oligarchs will be problematic because of that loyalism, but at some point, if it becomes a challenge for Putin, he can just take it all back and nationalize everything and then dole it back out to the loyalists at some point. So he always holds that trump card. That's probably what more than loyalty, that's probably what keeps them

from speaking out too vociferously. And thinking about the World War III thing, it's funny that we all know the reason World War II was won by the allies isn't just because the US stepped in, it was also because Russia helped defeat the Nazis, right? They burned down their own towns to starve out the German army. And when this was all happening,

I always thought in the back of my mind, if this really did get to a place where World War III is possible, I bet China becomes the unlikely ally. Because Russia was not an ally of the United States going into World War II. No United States government was really stoked with the new socialist empire that was growing on in,

in close, so close to Europe. So, you know, would China play a role of, cause China wants things stable. Sure, but their allegiance right now to Russia is deeply concerning. And I think the question is, and the uncertainty revolves around how substantive that allegiance is. I don't think it's that.

And I think the fact that Russia is, you could make the argument that Russia is losing this war right now. And that's gotta make China think like, are we backing the right horse or maybe we kind of slowly step back from this. I think that's what's gonna happen. And I think that, but I do think China is in a good position

to actually help end it. You know, if there is an off ramp for Russia, for Putin, it's via China. I think so. Yeah, the off ramp conversation is interesting because there's certainly the argument that, you know, in order to resolve this as quickly argument that, you know, in order to resolve this as quickly and as safely as possible,

we have to provide Putin with a way to save face and to get out of this without, you know, looking like he was the colossal failure that he is in this instance, right? So how do you do that? I don't think you can. You can't. And I listened to another podcast

between Sam Harrison and Garry Kasparov, the world chess champion, who's become this advocate for democracy and is on Twitter, basically tweeting all day about this situation. Where does he live? I don't know where he lives, but I mean, he's been, you know,

decrying the ills of Putin forever, right? And so he has a very interesting lens on this as somebody who was successful in Russia, saw the rise of Putin and has been, you know, decrying sort of calling out like, hey, this is where we're headed, like in a sort of Cassandra way for a very long time. And his whole thing is that like sanctions

are too little too late. Like sanctions could have been more effective prior to the invasion, but now that the invasion is underway, if there's tanks rolling and planes flying, like sanctions doesn't arrest that. And he's calling for, he's one of the few people who's calling for a no fly zone.

And he was kind of articulating that argument. Now, I don't know that I think that's the right idea here, but he's basically saying like, this is like a cancer and you gotta just, you gotta like take it out. You gotta like put the scalpel in there and cut the whole thing out in order to address it. Two things, sanctions, there's an argument that sanctions never work.

They never did work, they never will work. They make the masses suffer. The people in power don't suffer. They're not suffering. They might suffer on the balance sheet, but they're not suffering. But once the masses suffer enough, that becomes untenable for a government.

Well, the argument is to make the masses suffer to the point where they rebel, right? And that's, it is a brutal game to play the sanctions game. You make the masses suffer, but what ends up happening is instead of the people rising up too often, it increases domestic authoritarianism. And Iran is the greatest example of that.

Iran sanctions has not worked toppling this Iranian regime that is not democratic in any way. And there's plenty of people that would like that to not be a theocratic dictatorship that live in Iran, the Green Party, just like there's plenty of people in Russia, the opposition party that majority wants Putin out, doesn't work.

So I'm not saying to not do it because it is kind of, it has been instructive to see how quickly like the global community has siphoned up and crunched Russia economically. I never saw that coming. I didn't think it would have that impact. I don't think we've ever seen an economic sanctions, I guess, a cascade of sanctions quite like this

in our lives. Well, yeah, because the world is so much more interconnected now. So when payment systems go offline in Russia and Samsung is no longer sending, it's like everything that they manufacture in Russia is built on parts that come externally. And when you shut down the import export with Russia,

they can't do anything. So I think that the effect will be more dramatic in the short term than it has perhaps historically in other sanctions scenarios in the past. Yes, and then as to whether we should impose a no fly zone, basically that would be the beginning of World War III, right? That would be, because if you shoot down a Russian plane

and you're Ukrainian, that's one thing. If you shoot down a Russian plane and you're a United States Navy or Air Force pilot, that's a whole different thing. It's weird how diplomacy works that way, because these are subtle differences. Like if we get aircraft from Poland and then provide it to the Ukrainians, If we get aircraft from Poland

and then provide it to the Ukrainians, ostensibly the result is similar, but if we have a no fly zone, then we're just one step closer to being a direct participant in this. But it's somewhat- But we already are, right? Semantics. Right, right.

We already are to some degree. And that goes to the point you were making earlier about the fragile, delicate nature of all of this. Right, because this is a crazy person. Would he push a button, even though it would be annihilation on his part? Would he, like, would he? I mean, would he?

So, you know, you wonder, but you have to wonder and you have to be very careful there. So I don't say it's Chamberlain. I understand why Ukrainians want the no-fly zone. I get it. We should, I think, at least give them what they need to impose their own at the very least.

It's interesting. There's some stories coming out of here that show you the beauty of humanity. We talked about Zelensky. We talked about the grit of people like Klitschko, but just in generally, the Ukrainian people. And like farmers, you know, getting tanks and driving them away.

Like all these crazy stories that, you know, we're seeing play out on social media. Roman Matsyuta, the Ukrainian actor, who's like literally just filmed a movie about being an actor, you know, being an actor and then Russia invading and then having to join the army. And this is him, he actually happened. He just filmed the movie.

The movie's out on Amazon prime, I guess. Again, this meta weird nature of this whole thing. I actually reached out to his PR guy, his PR woman. I did, I tried to get him. I tried to get some quotes from, couldn't be reached because he's in the army now is what she said. But she has a heavy metal band she wants to hook me up with.

A Ukrainian heavy metal band. Yeah, so here's a, if you're watching on YouTube, we pulled up a post of him. So is that him in his garb? That's Holly McKay's, we talked about her before when she was reporting in Afghanistan, she's in Ukraine now. That's where Iay's, we talked about her before when she was reporting in Afghanistan, she's in Ukraine now. That's where I got it, yeah.

But in the garb that Roman's wearing here, is that his costume from the movie or is that him armed and ready to- My understanding, I haven't communicated with her about this post, but my understanding is she took that picture when she was reporting in Kyiv. And here's his actual Instagram account. He only has 715 followers.

Bro, don't, bro. Come on. Come on, don't social media shame. It's off. No, what I'm saying is that like, what this story is unbelievable. Like so anyway. But look at his, look.

Wouldn't you wanna read one of those? Yeah. Look at it, he's on vacation. How many weeks ago was he on vacation? It's so weird how things can change so quick. Oh, right here? Yeah. Yeah. Here he is at the beach.

December? I don't know, man. Yeah, December 2021. So I love that story. I hope he's okay. You know, like really love to all the Ukrainians enduring this debacle and this tragedy. Refugee situation.

There's like TikToks of like teenage girls in the subway, you know how they're all like down in there for bomb shelter reasons. And they're like, here's what it's like in the, you know, like TikTok, like here's a day in the life in Ukraine right now in Kyiv, in the subway tunnels. There's babies being delivered in subway tunnels. There are, what's it called when you pay someone

to carry your baby for you, I forget. Midwife? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Surrogate. There's apparently a surrogate business and there's 18 newborns that can't be picked up by their parents in like a basement in Kyiv. There was a great daily episode on refugees,

a couple of New York Times reporters embedded with refugees leaving the country on their way towards Poland I believe it was. And that's really good. I recommend it. I listened to that, it was heartbreaking. Yeah, it's unbelievable. Like these kids carrying their pets. What's that reporter's name, the woman reporter?

We've read her stuff before. She's great, she has command of the language and she's talking to everybody and there's this caravan of people who's trying to get to Poland and all the people that she meets along the way, spending the night in that kindergarten. Yeah, it's Sabrina Tavernisi.

Yeah, she's fabulous. She's doing some amazing reporting. Fabulous. Right now. And even on the other side of it, the stories of all these Ukrainians showing up, two and a half million, I think, have left Ukraine now, people showing up in the train station in Berlin and thousands of Berliners turning up with,

would you like to organize chaos to trying to find people and feed them and house them? Yeah, I just read two young kids developed an app to try to help pair refugees with places to stay and home. So it's those little beautiful silver linings in all of this that give you hope for humanity. No doubt. Do we wanna talk about Brittany Griner?

Brittany Griner, WNBA player. She was a great college player, WNBA champion, seven time all-star, was traveling to Russia for the Russian basketball season. The other women basketball players, as many of you may know, go to Russia to compete because they get paid five times as much, maybe more in Russia than they do in the United States.

So they go there in the off season, which is really their primary season. And she went and she got arrested at the airport, picked up and was charged with a crime of having, I think, like hashish oil cartridges, just like vape pen cartridges. Yeah, vape pen stuff. But now there's a lot of people think that you can't really take that seriously,

that charge because it hasn't been proven. And plenty of people are picked up for political reasons in Russia. There's, she's one of 50, I think, that's imprisoned right now. And you can't necessarily believe the charges. And so she's just like in the system over there. And there's no update.

No update. Since she's been incarcerated. I mean, you just have to imagine. She's won gold medals for the US. It's crazy. Yeah. I feel like we should be talking about this a little bit more.

I mean, obviously it's one story in the midst of a tragic situation where lots of lives are being sacrificed, but I can't help but think that if, you know, it was Tom Brady or somebody like that, the whole world would be erupting over this. In this story, this is a CNN story by Don Riddle. And he interviews, let me see,

with the Iranian journalist, Jason Rezaian, who was the guy that was in Tehran and was picked up. He'd been there several times before and he was picked up on his last trip and he held for 544 days. And so Jason doesn't believe these charges at all. He doesn't believe they should even be repeated. So I probably already committed a faux pas,

but just to be very clear on the veracity of what's being the accusation here. Meanwhile, the first American journalist was killed in Ukraine, this guy, Brent Renaud. So not to be overly American centric about this whole thing, but. Filmmaker, I think he was working for Time doing a documentary on migration, I think it was,

if I remember correctly. Time Studios, yeah, on the global refugee crisis. Yeah, and I think that word to say about the refugees, as we get into Brent's work, his work has been lauded, he's won awards and people were raving about him. And it is very sad and it is part of the business. It happens almost every conflict,

great journalists are hurt, they put themselves in harm's way, they're called to do it and they do it. And I've been in a couple of different situations where it could have gone bad for me. I've always adopted the idea. It's only a good idea if you can get home. It's only a good idea if you get home safely.

But there is, it takes a certain type of individual and a certain type of disposition to be attracted to this kind of work. I mean, this is something that has come up on the podcast when I had Dan Harris on, like being a war correspondent. Like there's a rush to that. There's a dopamine charge. And I know, I'm somebody who would be very attracted to that because it's so exciting.

And you know, you're right in the middle of what the world is talking about. And that has to be intoxicating. And the danger is an aspect of that heightened allure. 100%, 100%. This is the flip side of that, because that danger is real. It's real and you have no control over it.

And you put yourself into the situation and sometimes you want that rush so badly, you make poor choices. I'm not saying that happened here. He was killed, I think at a checkpoint and he didn't do anything wrong or any, it wasn't his fault. So, but it is being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Other than just deciding to do the job,

which is the job that he wanted and that he loved doing. And the thing about it though, that I would say is that like, the thing I've learned about my job is that we always, we do get wrapped up in these stories and we get wrapped up in telling them and we think they're really important and they are, but they also aren't, you know?

And that's what I've learned over the years is like that there's not one story I've done that you can point to about that's about a humanitarian crisis that has made any difference in that crisis. And I'm not- That's a pretty pessimistic perspective. It's not necessarily being pessimistic.

I'm just saying, I don't, it doesn't, nothing I've personally done. I'm not criticizing Brent's work or anybody's work. It's just something I've noticed is like, as a journalist looking at this stuff and does the coverage help or not? And it does if you can have breaking news that really shows corruption or you can,

there's Pulitzer Prize winning reporting on humanitarian crises that do change the world. But most of it is just more noise about war, most of it. Yeah, and I think it's also important to understand that this conflict in Ukraine is not unique. I mean, there's similar situations going on in Africa and South America that don't get the level of attention that this is getting.

And obviously this is an extreme horrible situation, but it's important to not just see it in isolation. Well, right, the refugee crisis is a good example, right? We had an Indian family of four just froze to death in Canada that was trying to get into the United States, but got dropped, that got screwed by their smuggler. There's people moving all over the place, the Syrians that are still in camps.

Not everybody gets a welcome in Berlin. That's not to criticize anybody involved in any of that. I understand why Ukraine has captured the attention of the world. It's not just because of a connection to European roots, although that's part of it, but it's also that this is an inspiring kind of group. The Ukrainians have inspired the world

in a way that's unique. And so I think it's hard to decouple those two things, but they both are part of it, I think. Quick final thought before we turn our attention to the floods in Australia. Ryan Holiday made this post the other day that I thought was fantastic. He is donating all book sales earnings

that he's received over the years from his many books that have come from Russia and Ukraine and donating those proceeds to Ukrainian causes. And this has kind of caused other authors to jump in and do the same. Tim Ferriss, Robert Greene, Neil Strauss have followed suit. I don't know that I've ever, I don't think that I have any book sale earnings

from Russia and Ukraine because I don't have books that have been published there. But I wanted to just alert people to that fact and to the extent that there are, I'm gonna email and find out though, because if I do and figure out a way to contribute, even if I don't like some other way, but I thought that was really cool

and they've all been posting about it. And I think it's set in motion, this thing where all these other authors are doing the same people have sold books. So that's another kind of cool, hopeful thing. Of course now the middle-class Russians can't buy a single book anymore. No, they're not saying, right.

The library's open. Only for state approved literature. You can burn my books for fire. Right. Yes. Let's talk about the floods in Australia. Second spell of a hundred year floods in two years in Queensland. I think the worst of it was the devastation

was on the border lands, which in Queensland or New South Wales, correct? Yeah. Thousands homeless, injured and dead. So little coverage of this in the US. Incredible. Unbelievable. Like, I don't understand it.

Well, because the last spate of floods were covered well. I mean, these floods, I mean, they're like, you'd see these storefronts that are completely underwater. I mean, 10 feet high, 12 feet high. Higher, I think there was a McDonald's pole. Right, only the top was peeking out above it. Yeah, yeah, 12 feet high. Higher, I think there was a McDonald's poll. Only the top was peeking out above it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Unbelievable that-

Even Sydney was flooded, Manly was flooded. The rains are still going. It is, I think people were saved. People broke out boats a la Katrina. McFanning was going around on a jet ski. Mick Fanning and Joel Parkinson, the Russian, they live up there at Tweed's Head. I think Mick Fanning lives up there and yeah,

they rescued pets and a pharmacist. There was a story in the Guardian where Mick Fanning, someone, a pharmacist wanted to open her pharmacy and she lived in Tweed's Head. She needed a ride in a boat and Mick Fanning turned up on a jet ski and said, come on, let's go do it. And then along the way they had to tow some other boat and they barely made it under an overpass

and you know, incredible. Yeah, I mean, I, you know, feel personally connected to this on some level, just because I've spent time in Byron and my friends and podcast guests, Simon Hill and Ross Edgley are both in Byron Bay right now. And Ross has sent me some videos from what it actually, cause I keep for, because it gets so little coverage,

like it's, you know, we're not being inundated with news about it. We're underestimating just how devastating it is there. And like what a rough go Australia has had with the fires that were occurring when I was visiting there before the pandemic to these floods. I mean, it's just devastating.

Two 100 year floods in two years. Right. That's crazy. And we have to talk about the impact of manmade climate change on all of this and the role like this tool, Scott Morrison, the PM is playing in all of this as this flack for the coal industry.

He is, they call him Scott from marketing over there because he is like really adept at setting up these really transparent photo shoots. Here I am cleaning up graffiti. Here's me with a shovel on that I've never used before. Here's me with a koala bear. But meanwhile, everything he does behind closed doors is to undermine all the things that are contributing

to all of this, like his advancement of coal and fossil fuels and all of that. And this, like his advancement of coal and fossil fuels and all of that, and essentially being like a bit of a climate denier. Well, he was trying to also open up the great Australian bite to oil drilling. Did we talk about that? I think maybe we did.

I think I did a piece on that for WSL Pure ages ago. And that's how I got connected to Sean Doherty, the long longtime surf journalist turned climate environmental preservation champion. And he was heavy involved in saving the great Australian bite. There were a bunch of paddle outs to save the bite. The bite is similar to the Gulf of California

in that it's this confluence of currents that create an incredible ecosystem, several species of whale, sea lion colonies, tuna, a tuna fishery, a lot going on there and an incredible, fragile and important ecosystem. And they wanted to basically drill for oil, explore for oil in the middle of all this at this time. I mean, like knowing what we know now,

it doesn't make any sense. And so he has this great parody account. Basically he just gives- Shano888. Yeah, he just gives ScoMo the business. I mean, it's just a constant tirade of anti-Scomo. Wait, we should play this one video that he posted because this is classic.

Like, you know, this one, this TikTok. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let me start it over. This is coal. Don't be afraid. Don't be scared. It's coal. It was dug up for over 100 years.

Australia has enjoyed an energy competitive advantage. For those that are listening, there's just images of floods everywhere. As ensured, the Australian industry has been able to remain competitive on a global market. There's just images of floods everywhere. Yeah. But it's that melody, Mr. Speaker, that is afflicting the jobs in the towns and the industries and indeed in this country because of their pathological, ideological opposition to coal being an important part of our sustainable and more certain energy future. So on this side of the house, Mr. Speaker, you will not find a fear of coal. This is coal. Yeah. And he went, I think it was during the fires. He loves coal.

Two years ago today, during the middle of the bushfire crisis, he went on a family vacation to Hawaii. Right, I remember that. I remember that. Cause I was in Australia when that was going on. He's basically Ted Cruz. He's Ted Cruz without the personality. He's Ted Cruz. He's Ted Cruz without the personality.

Did you see this article about the snakes and the spiders? I did. Some of these articles are behind paywalls and stuff like that. But basically, as the floodwaters start to receive, Australia is known for its predatory reptiles. Yes, yes. Of course. They're going of course they're coming out.

They're here to party. Exactly, so what does it say? Like you had pythons venomous red bellied snakes and Eastern Browns. The second most lethal on the planet after the inland Taipan also an Australian species are on the move after floods across the populous East forced them

from their low land hideouts. Yeah, it's awful. There was also this, it's another article that's behind a paywall, but on Instagram, you can kind of see the Saturday paper front page image of this guy. And he's talking about a baby and his parents buried almost neck deep in mud.

But they got, the baby survived, right? It's crazy. Nick Fanning also posted some good places to contribute and get involved for those that are interested. This one being, the main one being give it G-I-V-I-T. Okay. Which he shared about on his Instagram. I reposted this the other day.

And I think people were giving in Ukraine, weren't they giving Airbnbs? People were like hiring Airbnbs, like random Airbnbs in Kyiv and just booking it for like a year out or something like that. And then just let it and then donating it. Giving the money, like making sure you can pay right away.

So they had money. That's another thing people are doing for families. Wow, that's cool. All right, well, why don't we turn to some listener questions? Well, I just wanna say another word about fellow journalists out there. I mean, it's not just the rush from being in it,

although that's part of it. First of all, who's the guy, the travel vlogger guy who- Oh, right. Yeah, we forgot to talk about him. What's his name again? Yeah, I'll find him right now. He is not technically a journalist, right? Well, he wasn't before all this.

Right, but he just happened to be there. He happened to be there when this all happened and just sort of stepped up to being somebody who's gonna cover it boots on the ground. Let me find it. Terrell, Terrell J. Star. Cultural ambassador and travel expert for Ukraine. That's what he was, Uzbekistan and Georgia.

I think he's been over there for years. Yoga lover, runner, and he follows, he followed Rich. Yeah, so shout out to Terrell, if you're listening to this. Great work Terrell. This is like, here he is. So there's a part of like what drives us, like I think it's not just to be the one that gets the story.

It's not just to be in the mix. And it's when you're a journalist, you see the world, it's like the ultimate way to see the world. You see it at close range in an intimate way, being accepted and getting the stories from the real local people. And you see it in a way that's different than any other way you can travel.

And there's an empathy there that we share, that we do care about the people generally that we're reporting on. We do care about the cultures that we're injecting ourselves into. How could you not? Because it's not well paid. It's not particularly thought of,

especially now in a positive way by the people, by the majority of the public. It's hazardous. And so I just wanted to say that because I respect all these war correspondents doing it. I devour the work. I love it. I think what I was wanted to say that because I respect all these war correspondents doing it. I devour the work. I love it. I think what I was trying to get across

was that we should also, when we're putting ourselves into those, I was speaking more for my fellow journalists, when we put ourselves into situations to make sure we know why we're doing it and to make sure that we're not trying to make ourselves bigger than, it's not like we go into it

thinking it's going to be this big thing that's going to save people. Like don't do it with some sort of Messiah complex. I don't think he did. I'm just saying in my own mind, sometimes that comes up because you're thinking I'm doing this for you, you know, source or country. But really we do it for ourselves, but we also do it because it's a great way to see the world and a great way to share time with people, really is. And an opportunity for us to express ourselves and to scream and yell and rage and holler and sing, you know, all of that.

So I respect everyone out there doing it. And I think this is a great story. Here's a guy that was more of a travel expert, a social media travel guy, who is now like really bringing out some of the more interesting stories that are coming out of Ukraine. And he's doing it through Instagram as far as I know.

And so, it's big ups to Terrell J. Star. It is an interesting adventuresome life though. Yeah, it is. Yeah, that's great. And to be able to be boots on the ground, tell stories from a firsthand experience and kind of pursue your curiosity. Absolutely.

It's a pretty interesting way to live. I've had a gun pointed at me in a rough part of Honduras for a story. I've almost been attacked by a mob in Lombok in Indonesia. I've had those moments that have happened. I've been, and I actually remember them fondly, but they're not necessarily easy moments or they're scary.

And your pulse rate goes down and you just like, it's very moment to moment. It's unlike anything else I've ever felt really. So if you were dispatched to Ukraine right now, what would this story be that you would be pursuing? Like what would provoke your curiosity? What's the story that you're not hearing about? Rich, I'm no longer a global traveler that-

You're pushing a stroller and saying, what's up daddy? I'm saying, I'm saying, I'm saying, let's rock and roll gang. That's what I do. You know what, of all the stories that I've seen come out, I think the refugee story probably is the most interesting that Sabrina did and like hanging out in that aspect of it. I think where I single and not a father right now,

would I be, since I actually do have the cash to go over there, there's been whole periods of time where I couldn't have funded myself. Would I do it? It's an interesting question. Plenty of like doctors are going to Poland and trying to help refugees on that side of the border. I've tended to be the underreported story guy.

And so when the whole world goes to Ukraine, I probably wouldn't do that because I'm not working. I don't have a connection to daily news editors on that level. So I typically try to find the underreported story, but I will say this, like seeing what's happening in Ukraine and Russia, we are focused on that. For many years, I covered Burma and Myanmar

and they've had a military dictatorship. They just retook the country this military did. They've crunched down social media. You can't get on social media. They've kept their foot on the neck of the people for generations. And we've done business with them. EU's done business with them.

Japan's done business with them this whole time. So it is interesting when you've covered other places that have had similar situations and the Burmese have fought back. There's been fighting. I mean, not just the Burmese, but the different ethnic armies in the provinces have fought back. There's been fighting, I mean, not just the Burmese, but the different ethnic armies in the provinces have fought back against this domination for generations as well.

And nobody's given them a bunch of weapons. So when you see that, you do wonder, but at the same time, like you understand, because Ukraine has actually managed to cut through all the divisive polarized bullshit. And the you understand, because Ukraine has actually managed to cut through all the divisive polarized bullshit. And the United States, aside from people that work at Fox News, typically agree that Putin is a bad person.

We should be rooting at least for Ukraine. That's an accomplishment. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, more will be revealed. More will be revealed. And we'll do our best to bring you our perspective. If that's what you wanna hear, who knows?

Yeah. Do people wanna hear us talk about Ukraine? I don't know. I think we just did Ukraine. We just did. Wait, you wanna do Ukraine again and see if we can do it better? I'm sure we could.

All right, let's get to the listener questions. We have three listener questions and they all pivot around one theme for the most part this time. They're all sobriety, it's a sobriety theme. It is. Before we get into it, let me ask you a quick question. What do you think of these psychedelic day spas

that are proliferating? I didn't know that there were such a thing. Let's do that story next. All right, we can do that next. I have lots of thoughts on that. Yeah, that's important I think. Yeah, I can't answer that in one or two sentences. No, plus that way I can share about my early experience

in the legalized medical marijuana reporting that I was doing years ago. I look forward to hearing that. Spas, where are these spas? Wouldn't you like to know? Maybe I shouldn't know. All right. Julie from Kansas City. Hi, Rich and Adam. This is Julie from Kansas City. Just wanted to say tusen tak, which is Norwegian for a thousand thanks, because that really just expresses the amount of gratitude I have for the podcast.

I wanted to take a brief second just to tell my husband, Drew, of how proud I am of him these past handful of years, and it's been the greatest joy of my life to watch his road to recovery. My question is, as our kids are getting older and are starting to enter the tween years, what are some pointers or advice that you could give us for talking about alcoholism, addiction, sobriety, and recovery with our children? Appreciate you both and hope you have a great day. Thank you, Julie. It's a great question.

It's a really important question. Perhaps one of, if not the most important thing to be thinking about as a parent, as your kids enter these tween and ultimately teenage years. I've been through this myself and I have lots of opinions about this and thoughts on it. I think it's really important to be honest with your kids

and not communicate to them in the way perhaps our parents did where like, it's just drugs are bad. I don't think that really works. This idea of making them scared or labeling with judgment, what drugs are and what drugs aren't. I think it's much more effective, especially since, it sounds like Drew, so Drew, her husband is in recovery. Sounds like it, yeah.

To be transparent about that, to talk openly with your kids about your own history and Drew's history with drugs and alcohol, I think is key. And in that, what I mean by that is, you can just talk to them like on some level, not that they're adults, but you can say, look, I understand that you're gonna be faced with temptations, other kids are gonna be doing this.

There isn't a lure to it. It will, you know, you'll be in a situation where you feel like if you wanna fit in, you're gonna have to do it. And you could talk about like, when I was doing it, here's what happened to me and it was great. And I had fun and this is, you could talk about the positives and the negatives.

I think the more open and honest you are, the more trust you engender with your kids. So you tell good stories too. Yeah, I mean, Julie has told crazy stories to our kids about like stuff that she did when she was really young, like growing up in Alaska, where she got accidentally dosed with acid and what happened to her.

And you can kind of talk about it with, you can do it with levity is what I'm saying. And I think, you know, my perspective has always been, look, here's how it started for me and here's what it did for me. And here's And I think, you know, my perspective has always been, look, here's how it started for me and here's what it did for me. And here's how I think in many ways it like kind of soothed me or was, you know, a bandaid to this emotional wound that I had, but ultimately I couldn't control it.

And here's what happened as a result. And I've taken my kids to AA meetings and, you know, they know my whole history and all my AA, I have lots of AA friends, they come over to the house, they share, like we're all very open about it. And I think it creates an environment of permissibility to talk about it as opposed to it being this voodoo subject that everyone tiptoes around and is scared to talk about

or does it in a very kind of binary reductive way. Right. Do you think that's because it's a foregone conclusion, kids will experiment, it's the rare kid that doesn't try something? Yeah, they're gonna be exposed to it. And if you think otherwise, you're delusional, right? So this is going on all around you.

And if you think, you know, my kid's a good kid, he would never do that. Or, you know, this is not happening with my kid. Like you're not living in reality. Like this is going on all over the place all the time. And to the extent that you have a really good grip on like what your kid is doing at school all day long, like I've learned and I've seen in other people,

like they have their own lives outside of that. And they choose what to share with you and what not to share with you, which gets to my point about like keeping that channel of communication as open and as honest as possible. In my experience, that's absolutely key. And if you just villainize drugs or you talk down to your kids

or you speak about this subject matter in a very judgmental tone, then they're not gonna feel safe or comfortable coming to you to ask you questions about it or to confess to something that has happened or to ask for advice about what they should do because this kid did that and they were in this situation and they didn't know how to behave.

Plus if he's the only been in recovery for a few years and they're gonna be tweens, they've already seen stuff. Certainly, right? Yeah. And at, you know, it's sort of like, okay, tweens, like, so how old exactly? Like you do have to, like, they need to be mature enough to be able to, so I'm talking more about, you know, 15,

around 14, 15. You wouldn't start at 11 or 12 and talk about this stuff? No, I think it's a different conversation at 11 and 12. You can share your experience. And I would encourage taking the kids to these AA meetings. Like that's, they get exposed to, they get to absorb kind of the environment. And I think when they're at open meetings

and they see people get up and share with a level of vulnerability and honesty about their past and their mishaps and their foibles and how they got into trouble and how they built their lives back up. Like that's impactful on a young mind. And they can see, you know, that roller coaster ride that drugs and alcohol takes people on.

And I think also you need to have a healthy appreciation for the lack of control you're gonna be able to exert on these kids as they get older. Like you have to surrender and accept that, you know, you're not gonna be able to dictate their decisions when they're at school. Like you can't be with them 24 seven and these opportunities to drink or use

are going to present themselves. Your kid is gonna make a choice. Quite often, kids make the wrong choice and your job is to provide this safe place for them to process this. I think the kid has to feel like it's their idea. Like I wanna talk to my parent about this or I'm gonna choose not to use,

but it's almost like performing an inception. Like you have to create an environment where it's conducive to them developing like the level of self-efficacy and agency in their life where they're going to make that better decision to have the gumption and the sense of self to be able to say no under social pressure, right? Yeah.

It's tough though, man, you know, self-sufficiency, self-efficacy, self-esteem, the more kids feel good about themselves and feel like they have a direction in their life, they're secure in their social environment, they have a belief in their competence and hope for their future, the less likely they're gonna be to sacrifice those values

or desires for that social approval in those tricky situations. But it's tough, man. This is a tough road to hoe. All kids go through this deep desire to fit in. And this is something that every parent is gonna have to confront and navigate with their kids. And I think the parents that have the hardest time with it

are the ones who think they're not gonna have to deal with this. Right. Because they've parented in a certain way where they're certain that their kid is gonna be able to transcend this. And those are the ones who have the biggest comeuppance and it comes as such a surprise to them

because they feel like they did everything to prevent it from happening. And it happens even when you do that, this stuff comes up. Well, I think it's very clear in life that the more certain you are about a certain outcome, the more fucked up you're gonna be pretty soon. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Pretty soon after. I know, well, as somebody who's been a parent for a minute

and has weathered teen years and, you know, has young adults now and all that kind of stuff. I always sort of chuckle when I meet young parents or parents that are kind of in the situation that you're in. And they're like, here's what we're doing. And they have this whole plan, like here's the school. And then we're gonna expose the kid to this and he's gonna love this.

And this is what we're gonna plug him into. And this is how it's gonna play out. And I'm just like, all right, well, we'll see how that goes. You know what I mean? Yeah. The more you try to exert that control and it comes from a place of love. Every parent wants to see their kid flourish

and they wanna put them in those environments and you should be doing all of that, but you have to hold these things lightly and kind of detach from your expectations. And the more you hold onto it, the more of a lesson you're in for, I think. I think you're right. And to your point about self-esteem being so key,

doesn't it help a kid's self-esteem when their parents are being kind of honest and raw with them? Yeah. Because it makes them feel like a grownup, right? I made these mistakes. Like, I think when parents try to say, I'm the ultimate authority and this is right,

and this is wrong, and you have to do this. Kids are very astute because they see the dissonance between what comes out of a parent's mouth and how they actually behave. And that means that you need to align your behavior with your words, but you also have to be honest and transparent about your mistakes and things that you had to learn the hard way. but you also have to be honest and transparent about your mistakes and, you know,

things that you had to learn the hard way. And I think that creates a relatability and a level of trust that is super important here. And look, when that situation arises and, you know, you find out that your kid got drunk at a party or whatever it is, you want them to feel like they can come and tell you about that and be honest about it. And you're not gonna have to catch them in a lie

or discover it some other way because they wouldn't tell you about it. Like that's because the communication is shut down and they don't trust you or they don't feel comfortable talking to you about this because they're afraid they're gonna be judged. They could still be sentenced to child labor for a day if you want, I mean, after they got drunk at the party.

There can be ramifications for this, of course. Is child labor okay? I mean, I'm new to this, so I just wanna know. Yeah, I don't know. Child labor in what form? Like mow the lawn? A sweatshop or something? We're putting you on a plane to- A Bangladeshi sweatshop?

Yeah. I would also highly suggest Julie that you check out if you haven't, if you missed it the first time around the podcast that I did with Jessica Leahy on her book, the addiction inoculation, that's episode 593. Cause we talk about all of this stuff. And if you haven't read that book yet, I would definitely pick that up.

She's the boss. That was a great question. I have to props to Julie from KC. I love Kansas City by the way. Cool. Big fan. Back to Kansas where the scene of the day after. Did that happen?

I think it was Lawrence, Kansas in the movie. Which is not far from Kansas City. Believe me, if it happened again. I just remember there was a swing set, like there's an empty swing set and then the mushroom cloud. I remember that. Do you remember that? Yeah. It was very haunting. Yeah. I have another, well, it's too late. We've already talked about that. We're moving on. We're getting into some really uplifting stuff like sobriety. All right. Nathan from Boston. Hi, Rich and Adam. This is Nathan from Boston area.

So I have four months before I'm going to be admitted to a 30-day program. That's a joint program for alcoholism and anxiety and depression. So my question is this. What advice would you give somebody that knows they need recovery? what advice would you give somebody that knows they need recovery? My friend and my wife have posed this to me, and I'm accepting it. But I have four months before I go in. And during that four months, I'm starting to wax and wane between completely sobering up and going in as a sober person or giving up.

And I almost said enjoying the next four months, but you know what I mean? Spiritually, pragmatically, cognitively, like I'm struggling on so many levels of how to deal with the next four months. And I want to make the best of the situation,

but it's getting difficult. And so any advice you have is greatly appreciated. Thank you. So Nathan, I would say that you are suffering from the alcoholics paradox, right? Like it's the two wolves, right? Like which wolf do you feed? So on the one hand, listen, you know, you need to get sober.

You've been intervened on. Your friends are telling you, you've got to go. You've relented to this intervention and agreed to go to this treatment center for 30 days. It's not coming up for four months. So the good devil's like, well, you should get sober now. And then when you go get into treatment, you can really hit the accelerator

and create this amazing foundation of sobriety. But the alcoholic is like, I got four months. You got four good months. It's party time. Like it's time to really accelerate this thing, right? And I get that, I understand that. Like, look, I'm going to treatment in four months. I might as well go out with a bang.

Well, don't a lot of people get high the night before they check in? Dude, I did. I showed up on the doorstep of my treatment center completely loaded. Like I tried to make the most out of that last day. I'm not recommending that. I think that Nathan has an amazing opportunity here

because he's got four months to get sober so that when he goes to treatment, he can really unpack his shit and create this amazing foundation for himself. You don't have to wait until treatment to focus on your sobriety. It's been impressed upon you that you are an alcoholic. I gather that you agree with this sentiment

and that elevator's going down. And there's no guarantee that if you decide to drink or use tonight, that you're gonna wake up the next day. You could get into a car wreck. You could kill somebody. You could harm yourself. Like all bets are off. Every time you decide to take that substance

into your body, there is a good chance that something terrible is gonna happen in your life. And that's something that you can't control. And as an alcoholic, that's part of the allure. We can romanticize that. But the harsh truth is that you don't have the luxury of doing that anymore. And I think this intervention probably has put a damper

on how fun that high is gonna be anyway, because every time you drink or use now in the back of your mind, you're like, I'm going to treatment. Everybody knows I'm an alcoholic and the kind of beating up that you do, like I'm a piece of shit and all of that, like, why can't I stop this?

So congrats on agreeing to go to treatment. That's huge. But I really, and you know this, like I'm just reminding you of what you already know, that you can lean into your addiction and just say, fuck it and party down until you have to go. Or you have this amazing opportunity to start taking care of yourself right now.

So why would you wait until treatment when you know you need to get sober right now, you do seem to have some level of willingness that you're trying to like, on some level you're looking for an excuse, right? Like, you know you need to get sober, you know what to do in order to get sober, you go to an AA meeting.

It sounds like he negotiated himself four months. Yeah, he's trying to, I think what he wants is for me to say, it's cool, rock it out for the next four months because you're going to treatment. Or he wants to feel better about that decision that he's already made for himself. And that's not the right decision.

Pick up the phone, find an AA meeting near you, show up, raise your hand, listen, find somebody you can talk to, go out for coffee with them, be honest with them, find a sponsor, start getting into the steps now. You don't have to think about this in the context of four months, break it down into what you're doing today. Is your pillow, is your head gonna hit the pillow tonight

sober or isn't it? What can you control in your exact present moment that is gonna set you up for being the most sober person you can be when you go to the treatment center. I don't know what else to tell you. I mean, the answer is pretty simple. I think that he already knows the answer to this. So it's a matter of cultivating the willingness

to take that action. When the alcoholic is gnawing on the back of your brain saying, it's okay, you can go out. One thing he kept- You got four months. One thing he kept bringing up is how it's enmeshed with anxiety and depression. Does that impact you in any way? Do you have anything to speak to about that?

Well, it's impossible to, first of all, I'm not a psychologist or a psychiatrist, but like it's very difficult to adequately diagnose somebody's mental wellbeing if they're drinking and using all the time. The first thing you have to do is dry them out, right? And then see what you're dealing with. But oftentimes the depression or the anxiety

creates a vicious cycle where it's like the only way out is to use or to escape those painful emotions is to use and you get some relief from that. But obviously, ultimately that is contributing to those conditions. And so you get yourself caught in this like hamster wheel situation with that.

So yeah, maybe if you get rid of it, you stop using, some of those emotions are gonna come to the surface and they might be more severe in the short run, which is all the more reason why you need to seek out help for this. Like, don't do this alone. You don't have to do this alone. There are communities of people ready, willing,

and able to help you who can help instill in you these tools and help you learn how to practice these tools that will alleviate some of that discomfort over time and provide you with the ability to kind of manage your emotional state free of drugs and alcohol that is gonna be super important in not only getting sober, but ultimately staying sober.

Perfect, love it, good luck, Nathan. So Nathan, get over yourself this four months. No, no, you know what he needs to do. You've been intervened on, Nathan. Consider this an additional digital intervention. You've been intervened on twice now, bro. You asked for this. All right.

I like this last one. Sounds like Reno meets Tahoe. Hi, Rich. Hi, Adam. My name is Kate. I live in Reno, Nevada. I am a divorced mom of three boys in my early 30s, and I have 30 days. But I always seem to come back to this area of trying to moderate. In the last year, I have really put my foot down trying very hard not to drink.

Anyways, I have this awesome new partner. We've been together for about six months now. And there are a lot of really great things. He's also divorced. So we came into this looking for very similar things. Knowing what we didn't do great in past relationships, we have very open communication. We do all the same things. We run and ski and hot spring. A lot of great things. And then on the weekends, it's definitely kind of a binge drinking thing and it's become an issue between us. I can't do that. I don't have the ability to moderate. I know that. I either don't drink or I black out, basically. So it's kind of become this thing between us. words of wisdom or advice if someone who is really trying to get sober and be sober forever can be with someone who doesn't want to do that. We have talked about this and he doesn't drink for

emotional reasons. He just drinks because he likes to drink or it's not covering up anything and he doesn't consider his drinking a problem. So he does not want to stop. And it's hard for me to be with someone who wants to do that, even though there's always other amazing traits about our relationship. Any tidbits would help. Thank you guys. Love you both. Talk to you later. Bye. Oh, Kate, I'm so sympathetic to this predicament. It's a tough one, right? Yeah, definitely. I mean, you have a lot, it's tough, I think to find, especially when you're a divorced parent, it's tough to find someone that is gonna jive with all that and to be connected to them and then find someone

that you really like on top of that. And it's all seems to be working on the surface and then find this one thing, right? The six month mark though is when these one things start to really shine. Right, you can kind of present yourself in a certain way for only so long until the true self is revealed. So a couple of things here. I mean, first of all, the notion,

this idea of being able to drink like a gentleman or a gentle woman in moderation is of course the great obsession of every alcoholic. Many take that to their grave. Like, oh, if I just do it like this, then I'll be able to figure it out. And what's cool is that like Kate has kind of come to this place where she realizes moderation is out.

Either you don't drink or she blacks out. So it's not for me to diagnose whether she's an alcoholic or not, that's for her to diagnose. But I think if she's honest with herself, that she is in a place where she realizes that her relationship with alcohol is problematic, right? So she's endeavoring to be sober

and find a way forward with that. And if it wasn't so this wouldn't bother her. Correct, right? If you're not an alcoholic, then you're not, it's- It doesn't bother you if your boyfriend's drinking. Yeah, exactly. I do think it wasn't clear whether Kate is getting any kind of outside help for this.

So I would encourage Kate that you check out AA, get a program going, and then you have a community of people with whom you can communicate about this problem. At the same time, I think with respect to the challenges you're having with your partner, Al-Anon is where you should be. I think you'll find a lot of help in those rooms in terms of helping you guide yourself

through these relationship issues, because it's basically people talking about how they deal with the alcoholics in their lives. And I'm not saying that your boyfriend is an alcoholic or not, but I do think, well, first of all, he's an unreliable narrator. For him to say like, I don't drink for emotional reasons, and it's just like I like to do or whatever,

like you can't trust that. That's something that every alcoholic would say anyway. But either way, do or whatever, like you can't trust that. That's something that every alcoholic would say anyway, but either way, alcoholic or not, what I see or what I hear in what you shared is someone who is resistant to supporting you in this way. Like his refusal to see or to acknowledge that his habits around alcohol are negatively impacting you and his reluctance to modify his behavior in any way leads me to question

just how supportive he is in this relationship. Like he, yeah, you're like, he's awesome. And we like doing all of these things together and it must feel good coming out of a divorce too, as Adam said, find somebody who shares like the kind of activities that you like to do. And it sounds like you guys are on the same page on a lot of stuff. So it's tough, but I think, you know, the thing for you to do is to do a real

honest inventory on what kind of relationship you really want wanna have. Like, is this person helping you become the person that you aspire to be? And it kind of doesn't seem that way. So- Not based on this message. No. Yeah. And why would you wanna be with somebody who isn't willing to be supportive of you in this regard? And why is it so hard for you to have a healthy boundary

around this issue? Like, is this a pattern? Have you been in relationships with guys like this in the past men who don't adequately support or respect you? And I think, you know, the hard fact, hard truth is if you really wanna be emotionally sober and pursue this sober life, having a partner who likes to go balls out on the weekend

really is not a great dynamic. And generally in my experience, doesn't end up boating well. So either you're gonna end up starting to drink again, or this is gonna come to a head and you guys are gonna have a big fight about this. So that's my big speech. I mean, I think getting sober and staying sober,

isn't just about drinking. It's about, like I said a minute ago, emotional sobriety. And emotional sobriety means developing these tools and practicing these tools to help you develop self-respect, to create healthy boundaries. And ultimately, you know, it means surrounding yourself with like-minded people and having the self-esteem to remove yourself from situations

and people who are not in alignment with the kind of emotional stability and support that you frankly deserve in your life. So again, it's hard, it's complicated. It doesn't mean that he's a bad person, but you do deserve somebody who really sees you, who understands you, who supports you, and is living a lifestyle that's congruent

with the kind of lifestyle you aspire to have for yourself. So the question really is, is this guy serving that, or is his presence in your life working at odds with that? And then the final note I would say is, it's not about getting him to change. You know, you need to kind of leave that aside and focus on yourself and what do you want and what do you wanna change?

It's about your own change and it's about valuing that and protecting that. I think well said my friend. Yeah, I don't have much to add, Kate, but I do think, you know, I understand why the good aspects of this relationship too. So I just want to say that I see that and understand why this is a dilemma for you.

Because of the good stuff, this thing is a dilemma. If the good stuff wasn't there, it wouldn't be a dilemma at all. So, um, um, but at the same time, I agree with Rich that, um, that you need to prioritize yourself and your wellbeing, um, within the relationship. And I think that's hard to do, especially like she sounds like she spends her time in Tahoe and Reno. And it's like, I know that crowd. And it's like, the women want to be chill. They don't want to be controlling women

and hanging out with this. People are skiing and snowboarding. They want to be the chill one. They want to party. And I get it. And there's a call to the party around the mountain. I've seen it. I've been there.

So I get it. And I understand that, but you know, I think Rich has some really good and powerful advice for you. And the other thing I'd say is being Tahoe, being Tahoe, you know, there's a lot of guys, the ratio is in your favor. You know the ratio is in your favor.

You don't need me to tell you that, you know very well, the ratio is in your favor. Yeah. So no fear. Right, well, best of luck to you, Kate, and give us an update. Yeah. Cool, I think we did it.

Should we have uncle Jack teach us to meditate on the way out? You know, April, this is how my wife understands me. She was at a bookstore and she just picked up this selected poem. Oh, wow. Not even on the week of his 100th birthday. Adam would like this.

She has what she thought. I like that. I think you married the right one. Yes. How to meditate, lights out, fall, hands are collapsed into instantaneous ecstasy, like a shot of heroin or morphine. Should we stop this?

I wish that my experience of meditation was that palpable. The gland inside of my brain discharging the good glad fluid, holy fluid, as I hap down and hold all my body parts down to a dead stop trance, healing all my sicknesses, erasing all, not even the shred of I hope you or a loony balloon left in it, but the mind blank, serene, thoughtless. When a thought comes a springing from afar with its held forth figure of image, you spoof it out, you spuff it out, you fake it, and it fades,

and thought never comes. And with joy, you realize for the first time, thinking is just like not thinking. So I don't have to think any more. Beautiful. Spuff it out. Yeah. I'm sorry for the heroin and morphine reference. That seems like a little bit off, but.

Basically he's saying like, this is the same thing. Yeah. So here's your healthy alternative. That's it. And meditation is right out of the steps, baby. There you go, baby. So way to land the plane, my brother. It's good to be here. You seem in a better mood.

Was this good for you? It was good, therapeutic. Was it good for you? Yeah, it got my mind off of my dad-ing. Yeah. Dilemmas. You know, you're my dad idol. Please, if you saw what goes on in our house,

you might think twice about that. Set your sights higher, my friend. Noted, noted. No, it's, you know, parenting is, you know, for me has been this accumulation of experiences where there are these notches in my belt and each little experience that you have, you think you become this better parent

and you have a stronger grip on like what to do and what not to do and what to say. And those kind of patterns that you've learned from your parents that you know are not right are less and less frequent. Cause if I'm not taking care of myself, I'll react in a way that is the way that one of my parents did that I didn't like.

I have to be very conscious. But every time I think like I got a handle on this, life throws some crazy curve ball situation at me that I've never experienced before. And this sort of degree of difficulty continues to like ratchet up unrelenting. And that's the gift, the joy, the challenge of all of it. But it's painful when you have these people in your life

that are living in your house and you care for them so much when things don't, you know, like when things don't work out, you're just like, oh, it's so painful to feel their pain. Anyway, it all goes together. That's landing the plane right there. So we'll be back in a couple of weeks. Until then, you know where to find this guy at Adam Skolnick on the socials.

I'm at Rich Roll, easy to find. Subscribe to the YouTube channel if you haven't already. It's easier to spell Roll. All the platforms, Skolnick. How do people misspell your last name? Can I pitch you something for next time before you get into the credits?

Yeah. The Rollies. The Rollies. It's the Oscars. It's Oscar season. We gotta watch the movie. Oh, we gotta do the Oscars? We gotta watch the movies.

I've seen most of them. All right, the Rollies. Have you seen Drive My Car? No. I haven't seen that or CODA. It's three hours long and it's about someone driving around in a car. I know. It scares me. Good, that will beDA. It's three hours long and it's about someone driving around in a car. It scares me.

Good, that will be fun. Let's do that. The Rollies. All right, cool. Awesome. If you would like your message considered for us to discuss on the show, leave us a voicemail at 424-235-4626.

You can find the show notes and links to everything that we discussed on the episode page at richroll.com. Again, please subscribe to the show if you haven't already on whatever platform you're enjoying this content. And I wanna thank the team for all the hard work that they put into creating this show week in week out. Jason, Blake, Dan, Daniel, AJ, Davey, Georgia, DK,

Tyler Trapper, Hari for some music, the theme music. Thanks for the love you guys. See you back here in a couple of days with another amazing announcement. Until then, peace. Plants. Namaste. Awesome. Thank you.