The Rich Roll Podcast - Roll On: What Happened to the Olympics?

Episode Date: February 17, 2022

Marked by endless scandal and rampant corruption, the Olympics are in free fall. Today we explore how the world's most highly acclaimed brand has become corrosive, and what can be done to repair it. But fear not, we also celebrate a selection of inspiring athletic highlights from Beijing to Oahu, answer listener questions, share a few products that have caught our fancy, and more. As always, my co-host for today's rendition of 'Roll On' is ‘His Semi Deepness’ Mr. Adam Skolnick, an activist and veteran journalist known as David Goggins’ Can’t Hurt Me co-author. Adam writes about adventure sports, environmental issues, and civil rights for outlets such as The New York Times, Outside, ESPN, BBC, and Men’s Health. He is the author of One Breath and still uses the ‘new dad’ excuse to avoid working on his novel. Topics discussed in today's episode include: the politics behind the declining global interest in the Olympics; bribery & corruption within the International Olympic Committee; how a Florida town with no ice rink produced three Olympic speedskaters; the backlash levied upon teenage freeskier Eileen Gu; speedskater Nils van der Poel's manifesto on Z2 aerobic base training; how Erin Jackson became the first Black woman to win individual Winter Olympic gold;  Kelly Slater's Pipe Masters win days before turning 50; and the benefits of using "dumb phones" in limiting screen time & phone addiction; and more As always, we close things out by taking a few listener questions. Today we answer: How do you cultivate optimism and gratitude as a natural cynic? How do you stay true to your goals? What advice do you have for young people navigating their twenties? Thank you to Brett from NYC, Bill from Crested Butte, and Evan from Iowa for your questions. If you want your query discussed, drop it on our Facebook Page or, better yet, leave a voicemail at [phone]. The visually inclined can watch it all go down on YouTube. And as always, the podcast streams wild and free on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Enjoy the show! Peace + Plants, Rich

The Rich Roll Podcast. Hey, everybody. Today, we're getting back into our regular bi-weekly roll-on routine. Got a great show for you coming up quick, but first. We're brought to you today by recovery.com. I've been in recovery for a long time. It's not hyperbolic to say that I owe everything good in my life to sobriety. And it all began with treatment and experience that I had that quite literally saved my life. And in the many years since, I've in turn helped many suffering addicts and their loved ones find treatment.

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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, let's do the show. All righty,'s do the show. Alrighty, greetings everybody. Welcome to Roll On where Curious Sir Adam Skolnick and I tap the non-alcoholic keg frothing with frivolity and matters of note. Stories current that have captured our interest.

We share a few products that we have enjoyed. We answer some listener questions, get up to no good. Hopefully have a bit of fun while we're at it. But first soon to inherit Sylvia Earle's crown, Lord of Malibu's underwater currents, his semi deepness himself, Mr. Adam Skolnick, how you doing? Semi deepness.

Semi deepness. Well, you have not gone as deep as Sylvia. No. That's a fact. And to suggest I might inherit her crown anytime soon is, I don't know, it's borderline. It's preposterous. It is borderline preposterous.

But I'm throwing it in your direction. I appreciate it. You know, Rich, I can't complain. I am now the proud owner of life insurance. Wow. You are a middle-aged Jewish man, responsible, taking care of his family. Yeah, if I die tomorrow, April gets a million bucks.

Well, it depends on how you die. Oh shit, wait. Oh no, I haven't signed it yet. Right. So after I sign it. If she kills you, she doesn't get it. Well, not if it's proven that way. Right.

Okay, do you have a plan? If I fake my own death, April gets a million bucks. They have to discover the body though. They need a body? Yeah, there's caveats. Life insurance needs a body? I think so. Oh, fuck.

Back to the drawing board. Rich, are you insured? I am. How well? I don't know. I should know. I think okay. You're pretty well insured, are you?

Okay. Well, mainly because if something happens to me, this whole thing stops and there's no business, right? That's the weird thing with podcasting. Like I don't run a business that could continue without me. Right. So, and you're in the same situation. I am.

I mean, look, listen, Ben and Jerry's has some nice benefits and I like the life insurance plan they got for me, but I need a supplement. I need a supplement. Okay, how's it going over there, Scoopin'? Scoopin' a dream. You know, I came down with a scoop elbow. Have you ever heard of that?

No. Scooper's elbow. Little tendonitis. Yeah, it's like one of the tendons in there. There's so know, I came down with a scoop elbow. Have you ever heard of that? No. Scoopers elbow. Little tendonitis. Yeah, it's like one of the tendons in there. There's so many, I don't even, I can't, I used to memorize all my tendons, but stop. Is that impacting your TikTok game? Oh dude, I don't do it for TikTok.

I do it for the soul of scooping. All right, well, I wanted to say today's Monday, it's February 14th, That makes it Valentine's day. Happy Valentine's day, my friend. Happy Valentine's day to you. And as much as I resent state sponsored holidays that mandate that we show affection for our loved ones, I could not resist the following.

I got you a little something. What? This is terrible. Courtesy of the local CVS. You got me CVS roses? Yes. And CVS chocolates? Roses and candy for the love of my life.

Aw. The bromance that knows no bounds. Thank you, bro. Yes. I got you, your gifts are in the mail. Your gift is in the mail. Yeah. Yeah. There you go.

I think I left the price on that too, if you wanna check. No, but there is a QR code. The Rainforest Alliance. If you turn those flowers upside down, the pedals might all fall off of all of them. There you go. Is it? You got me top quality flowers.

I did. I did. Nothing but the best. Were these left in a car overnight? No. Okay. I picked them up on the way over here this morning. You have a pedal guy at the studio? No. A rose pedal guy? We could use one.

We could use some flora and fauna here in the studio. I wish I had a gecko here. In addition to it being Valentine's day, yesterday was the Superbowl. How was your Superbowl experience? You know, it was great. We thank God for DVR, for the geniuses behind DVR. That way you can check in on a bathing baby

or help prepare food and clean up occasionally and still not miss a second of football action. Right, Rams, the victors, LA celebrating. LA, title town, three titles in what? Two years, something like that. Three sports. Plus an epic halftime show. It really was good. I feared for the halftime show.

Cause anytime a bunch of old guys get together, do their, I knew Kendrick Lamar would be good. And I've had a feeling Mary J. Blige would be great. A voice like that doesn't matter. You're always gonna be good. I worried about the other guys, but they were fantastic. Yeah, I thought it was pretty great. Fantastic.

And it was entertaining to see certain factions of the more conservative part of our culture lose their minds. Do they not like that? No, this marks the decline of human civilization, which is ironic because there was nothing new in that show. I mean, when did 8 Mile come out? 2006 or something like that.

What's the decline of human civilization that there's one show without a country music star? I don't know, I suppose. I liked Anderson Paak as the drummer. Didn't see that coming. One of my top drummers, Ringo, Jason Camiolo and Anderson Paak. He was cool, his outfit was dope.

Yeah, it was great. He was great. I don't know if people know, he's got some wonderful hip hop records. He's collaborating with Bruno Mars a lot now. He's got a band with Bruno Mars. And, but my favorite record of his is called Malibu. And I don't know if you know that record.

I have, I don't know that record. Fabulous. Cool. I had the exciting good fortune of attending a Superbowl party. You did? Yeah, Toby Morse, friend of the pod, invited me to join him at Frank Grillo's house. Okay.

So I went to a Superbowl party. For people who don't know Frank Grillo sort of an action movie star. Yes. He's in like every movie. He's gotta be like one of the hardest working men in show business. No.

I'd never met him before. He was delightful. And he's, I think he's 55. Okay. And just ridiculously fit, maintains like 4% body fat year round. He's a boxer. Anyway, he was super kind

and we'll see if we can't get him on the podcast. Oh, cool. He seemed interested in coming on. So that might be fun. Was it weird to be at a Superbowl party, not really knowing that much about the players in the NFL? Yeah, slightly. I actually don't think I've watched the Superbowl

in like 10 years. I figured. And I was like, well, LA is in the Superbowl. I enjoy the spectacle of the Superbowl, but I don't watch football throughout the year. I'm much more interested in the sports that we're gonna cover in a few moments. The Olympics being at the top of that

sort of pyramid of interest, but professional sports is not my bailiwick. Be that as it may, what I but professional sports is not my bailiwick. Be that as it may, what I love about sports is, I bet you could tell me who the two best players on the Rams are just from watching a game. You haven't seen them play all year. You don't know anything about the team and you probably tell me who they are.

No, we should move on. Oh. I enjoyed the commercials though. It's Cooper Cupp and Aaron Donald. Yeah. Larry David won- Well, Cupp scored two touchdowns Cooper Cupp and Aaron Donald. Larry David won- Well, Cupp scored two touchdowns. He did and Aaron Donald was the-

The game got very exciting in the last five minutes. Although it was a bit of a slog before that. A bit of a slog, a bit of a slog. Yeah. Anyway, enough of that. Let's turn to the topics that we wanna get into today. Specifically the Winter Olympics. But I wanna talk about the Olympics through this kind of interesting lens

of declining interest, right? Have you been watching the Winter Olympics? Like what is your perspective on how this has been transpiring in terms of the media attention and just general public engagement with what's happening? I have not been watching it. But I have been reading stories on it because some colleagues of mine in New York times sports

are over there and they do a fantastic job every Olympics and they're doing a great job again. And so I kind of have been cluing into the main stories and the winners. And for me, it's because it's, you know, it's a tough one just because of my life right now with a little one. Like I can't really make time to like sit down and absorb these longer events

and all these heats and all that, after the kid goes down because I'm up at like five. So there's really no time for it. And so that's really the only reason. And then in general, I kind of don't tune into the Winter Olympics on a regular basis anyway. Like there are some times I do,

there are some years I do, some, it's not years, some, what's the word for four years? I don't know. Sometimes- Quad annual, quadrennial. Some quadrennials I do tune in, but this quadrennial I have not. Yeah, it's interesting. I meanranial I do tune in, but this quadranial I have not. Yeah, it's interesting.

I mean, I think, you know, certainly there's some amazing stories and NBC is covering it in the way that they always do. And now they have Peacock so you can stream it, which wasn't the case in the prior Olympics. And you would think with that, there would be this sort of audience capture, but my sense is that that's not the case.

And it's left me kind of reflecting on what the Olympics mean personally and at large. And when I think back over the course of my own life, the Olympics has been huge as an inspiration and as a motivational force in many decisions that I made in my life. Like I remember being a kid, I'm older than you, and just being obsessed with the Olympics.

And this was a time when Sports Illustrated really mattered and you would wait for that latest edition to come in the mail and it would always be an incredible photograph on the cover. They did such a wonderful job of covering the Olympics. And within that, in the context of the Winter Olympics, like I have vivid memories of the Miracle on Ice,

the 1980 US hockey victory that became this movie, which is actually a really good movie. Have you seen Miracle? I have seen Miracle. It's been a while. Miracle holds up. But I remember, I'm old enough to have been kind of a semi-conscious sports fan in 1980. That was the most remarkable team.

That was probably, if you had to pick the Olympics that really turned me onto it, that was the Olympics, the 1980 Winter Olympics. So my first favorite Olympics was Winter Olympics. Right, so we had the miracle on ice where literally the whole world stopped and everybody was tuned in to what was happening. And it was a incredible monoculture moment

that now in today's fractured kind of media ecosystem is rare. Those moments are few and far between. I mean, the Superbowl is one of the few remaining things like that and the occasional Marvel movie. But beyond that, you're hard pressed to think of things that happen in sports or in culture in general, that make everybody pay attention at the same time.

It just doesn't exist. The Miracle on Ice was like an incredible moment. And I remember, you know, Mike Yerouzioni and Jim Craig and Herb Brooks, the coach and all the intrigue around that. And I think the movie, if you haven't seen Miracle, it does a really good job of capturing that. And it does hold up the rewatchables, which is a ringer podcast where they go over old movies.

They did a recent episode on Miracle, which if you're into that kind of thing was super fun to listen to. I listened to that when I was in Hawaii. And then beyond that, like my personal, one of my favorite athletes of all time from that same Olympiad was Eric Heiden. He won five golds in speed skating,

set four Olympic records, one world record, gathered more medals personally than any other country in that Olympiad, other than the Soviet Union and East Germany. And then he becomes this pro cyclist for 7-Eleven, and he was one of the first crossover athletes. It's like, I remember that cover of Sports Illustrated when he was in the all gold like body suit

and his quads were just enormous. And I just thought that was the most unbelievable coolest thing I'd ever seen. Cause I didn't know anything about speed skating before that. And speed skating is like made for television. It is such a cool thing to watch. It's very cool.

Just the way in which the Olympics, even with sports that are so kind of a scant of mainstream interest could galvanize the world for a given moment in time. It just doesn't feel like that's the case right now. And there's a lot of reasons for that, which I wanna get into. Not the least of which is, you know, doping scandals,

IOC, corruption, and just our fractured media culture where there's too many choices. And it's very difficult to drive everybody's attention into one thing. I mean, when the 80 Olympics was going on, there was like four TV channels and that was basically it. You had to watch when it was happening. You couldn't tape it or, you know, time delay it.

And there was no Twitter or internet. Who they would delay it for you. They would delay it for you and funnel it or time delay it. And there was no Twitter or internet. Who they would delay it for you. They would delay it for you and funnel it to your prime time. It was very easy to avoid knowing what had happened. It didn't matter because the newspapers wouldn't report it till the following day. So it didn't matter if it had happened already. There was like, unless you're like paying attention

to the radio news, you weren't gonna get that headline until the following day. So you had, they could delay it till dinner time or after. Yeah. Yeah. And when you think about why, you know, sort of the sheen has faded off the Olympic brand and why it's this brand that's, that I think you can make a fair argument is in decline,

is the dissonance between what it stands for, which is like principles and values and ethics has been tainted by so much controversy and corruption. And this dissonance between what the Olympics represents and what it actually is in reality, there's a huge gap there. And of course, then that's even further handicapped by our media dispersed culture.

Media dispersed meaning? Meaning like there's just too many choices. Right. Right. You missed the old days when the brainwashing came right to your living room. And I welcomed it gladly. The prop, I let the propaganda wash right over me. Yeah.

As I draped myself in the American flag. And then at like two in the morning, the American flag came on your television. Then it went to the white snow, whatever that is. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, the static. Boy, those were great days. How I wish for that.

But I think that played a big part in me wanting to be a swimmer and just loving everything about the Olympics and the Olympic movement and being able to train with other Olympic athletes. It's played such a huge part in my life, which is why it's so dispiriting to me personally to see this thing kind of falling apart before our very eyes.

And so to kind of further get into the hows and whys of that, I wanted to draw attention to a newsletter that David Epstein puts out, David being a friend of the podcast. He was on in 2016, episode 466. He's the author of some great books, "'Range," the sports gene.

And he has this newsletter called Range Widely. And he posted this article called "'The Olympics Have an Integrity Problem, "'Here's How to Fix It," wherein he interviews this guy, Steve Mesler, who's a three-time Olympian who had won a gold medal in bobsled and is now a board member of the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee.

And what was so interesting about this interview is how frank this guy was because he was sort of talking out of school in terms of what he thinks is going wrong as a current sitting board member of this organization. Being, yes, the USOPC. Right, and we can point to a number of factors. This came up in my podcast with Brian Fogle,

the documentarian behind Icarus, who explored Russian States sponsored doping. So in 2019, Russia gets banned from the Olympics. But as we all know, they're like still competing as the Russian Olympic committee, which is just, and we all just kind of like, okay, well, I guess. They were banned before Tokyo. I mean, I think, so when it first happened

and they had the ROC got to compete in Tokyo, my sympathies were a little bit with the Russian athlete that may be clean. Like maybe my sympathies- Well, if the doping is state sponsored on some level, like that denigrates the culpability of the individual athlete, right? So this is not about pointing fingers at athletes.

This is about systemic problems and power politics that are at play. Right, and so, but the bottom line is if a country continues to violate, then the athletes may get penalized, but that's just part and parcel of it. So you can't like, there might, even if you're an athlete that is under that flag

and you can't trust that country to play a fair game, then I do understand the penalty, but then you gotta actually administer the penalty. You can't like say it's a penalty and then just like- Find some technicality that allows it to take. They did the same thing. Putin was supposedly banned, but then there he is at the opening ceremonies in Beijing

because they created some kind of corollary rule that allowed heads of state to attend despite the Russian ban. So- He was invited by the head of China. Yeah, I mean, the duplicity here is unbelievable. And we have opulent demands by the IOC members, all the corruption that goes on behind the scenes

with the bidding. How about the Uyghur athlete lighting the flame? Which is sort of a political whitewashing of a pretty of political whitewashing of a pretty terrible situation. Of labor camps within China. Within China. And now I guess future Olympiads are being awarded

without bidding because as David points out in this newsletter, there's a decline in cities bidding for this. Like there isn't the demand that there once was. Like it used to be this huge prestigious thing to land an Olympiad. And now very few cities are even interested in hosting. Because you'd have to build arenas.

You'd have to, it costs so much to put it on, but yet you'd still, they would still bid. They would still make these incredible presentations and bid, I don't know if it got to $100 million, but I believe it did. I think it's in excess of that. Didn't LA decide to defer an Olympiad in exchange for like $180 million bonus or whatever?

Like I think David points out, or is it David or Steve? Someone points out what happened in Paris and LA both went for 2024 and they both won basically the Olympic committee said, we'll give it to Paris and we'll give you LA a hundred plus million dollars if you'll take 2028. And then they awarded Brisbane in 2032 without any bids because they didn't wanna be embarrassed by only having one bid or no bids.

And so maybe now it's like, you're almost recruiting. It's almost, they're actually having to pay. So there's a desperation with that. And why Brisbane, Adam? Because it's awesome. Well, maybe, it is awesome, yeah. I can see it being a cool place to host the Olympics, but let's go behind the scenes a little bit.

The Gold Coast. And understand, first of all, the kind of political co-mingling between WADA and the IOC, that's highly problematic. Half of WADA seats are occupied by IOC members, which is insane because basically, you know, one of these organizations is a police force and the other is a promotional force

and these two things should not intersect. They should be checks and balances on each other. And yet they're completely co-mingled so much so that John Coates, who's president of the Australian Olympic Committee and who is on the IOC board, he's VP of the IOC, is also president of the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

So he's overseeing jurisprudence at the same time. I mean, talk about, it's like in government, you have these different houses with different responsibilities. The judiciary and the legislature should not be commingled, right? It's like in government, you have these different houses with different responsibilities. The judiciary and the legislature should not be commingled, right? And he's also the final,

which, well, the court of arbitration for sport is the final arbiter of WADA decisions. And he's leader of the Brisbane bid. I guess they won. So you tell me how that came to pass, right? So here we have this unbelievably corrupt and broken system of bribes and political favoritism and doping scandals and failure to adhere to rules

that I thought we agreed upon. And the writer, like you said, that these IOC members opulent demands basically amount to, David compares them to a concert writer from like a diva star. Right. And like they're demanding. They wanna be wined and dined.

Wined and dined. They want their own traffic lanes. They want, like, I mean, it's crazy the demands they make. And, you know, there's been incredible corruption in how IOC members are being bribed. There's accusations of being bribed with money and prostitutes in that story. It's a crazy story.

I know. So when you think of the Olympics as a brand, right? Yeah. What an incredible brand because of what it stands for. But if you denigrate, like if the foundation of that brand is eroded and the principles and values upon which it stands are no longer kind of like practiced in reality, then what does that brand stand for?

And I think that's really at the root of the denigration of the Olympics. And I think in turn people's interest in it, like there's a cynicism now and a kind of less sanguine, you know, relationship that we all have because we've been clued into some of these things that are going on behind the scenes. And I don't know if it's worse now than it always has been, or maybe we're just pulling the covers better

than we ever have before, but it's a problem. I feel like the Olympic brand is sort of in free fall and they're trying to do damage control at a time right now while the games are going on where it should be all about celebrating the athletes and the spirit of what this is kind of about. I agree with you. I think that we're at a time in human history

where this disparity between the wealthy and the poor is at the biggest, I think of our lifetimes and maybe the biggest in history. And that kind of greed, I think, does infect these brands. And I think it's twofold. I think probably there was always a certain amount of corruption and racism and cynicism built into these structures that we all revered.

But I also think that there was more honor. I do think there was more honor in organizationally. I think there was more honor in terms of how people, you know, being fair and having certain values and honoring the brand itself. I mean, you could look at any sport, like everything's up for sale, corporate sponsorship left and right.

And so when you get into that place, the money becomes the God and the values are secondary. Now maybe money was always that way, but I do think that it has eroded a bit more in recent years and recent decades anyway. At the same time, I think that everything's up for review right now. So it's not surprising to see the Olympics get the,

just as FIFA is being exposed, just as the NCAA has been exposed, USA Gymnastics, the IOC is being exposed, and you can just, you know, peel back every layer of almost every institution and you'll see exposure. And what is kind of scary for me is when all the institutions start to crumble

at different times, what replaces them? You know, so you don't want these things to completely collapse when all the institutions start to crumble at different times, what replaces them? So you don't want these things to completely collapse because we do need institutional pillars to keep us, I think, to keep us within the guidelines of a healthy society. But at the same time, you can't abide some of the crimes that we're seeing, some of the corruption that we're seeing.

So what happens, I'm not so sure, but I agree with you that there's certainly trouble. I also think though, that when fans are back in the arenas and the Summer Olympics come back around, which are more popular anyway, and it's in Paris, it could be a different story. Yeah, we'll see. I mean, I guess the question really is,

is the IOC beyond repair? Can it be, can these problems be resolved within the current context of how it operates? Or do we need to basically create a new IOC from the ground up? Like who polices the IOC? And how can we root out this corruption and hold these people accountable

and get people in there who share the values of the Olympics that have integrity. And how can we eradicate the undue monetary influences that are causing some of these corruptions. I'm not sure you can. I'm not sure you can. Because it used to be, it was all about amateur athletics.

That ship sailed a long time ago. Which is fine. I mean, I think we always wanted the best athletes to compete. I mean, it's like you need the best in the world to compete. The athletes need to make a living. You can't, before you had athletes trying to be amateurs and they couldn't make a living.

And then afterwards, it's still that way, but it's at least they have a chance to make a living when they're at their peak earning potential. And so I think it's still that way, but it's at least they have a chance to make a living when they're at their peak earning potential. And so I think it's great. I think Lindsey Krauss wrote a devastating column. She did. In the New York Times and the lead to this story. I mean, I'll just read a couple of paragraphs.

This is what's happening. This explains why I haven't watched. Imagine a dystopian Olympics. Maybe it would have athletes skiing on fake snow down part slopes, robots mixing cocktails, making dumplings and disinfecting the air. Events staffed by workers, not in sportswear, but hazmat suits.

Instead of a stadium, you are eager to get a seat in a bubble you cannot leave. Yeah. There's a seat in a bubble you cannot leave. Yeah. There's a line in this article, the games reek of societal decline. It's a very pessimistic view. And she says at the bottom of the fourth or fifth paragraph, instead of showcasing the best of what humanity can do,

this Olympic seems to reflect what we can't. And so it's a more pessimistic, you know, take on kind of what David was talking about in his piece. It is. And it's dispiriting and it's not helped by the fact that there's a nuclear power plant right behind the ski jump. Yes.

You know what? But like, it's true. How did that happen? But then there's a lot of people who think nuclear power is an answer to the climate crisis. But the ski jump itself, if you look at it, if you strip it down, like to people like Eric Heiden or the ski jump,

I mean, the ski jump is just mental. They fly so high and so far. And I mean, that's one of the great sports that, that's what the Olympics are about. These sports you don't normally tune into that can be so captivating. So, it still has the core. The core is still there.

The events, the athletes, the purity is in the athletes. It always was. There's a flickering tiny little Olympic flame at the bottom of a very deep hole. And it still continues to flicker. Well, let's put a little more water on it and then we'll fuel it back up with some good stories. We do have some good stories I wanna share,

but what's the final douse of water you wanna throw on this? The Camila Vallejo situation. Yes. The Camila Vallejo situation. So walk me through this. 15 year old Russian figure skater, basically Nadia Comaneci on the ice,

tested positive for an angina drug in December. And she basically is this prodigy. The drug helps you, makes you more efficient, I guess, in athletic endeavors. It's called trimetazidine. Trimetazidine. Yeah. It's a cardiac metabolic modulator

proven to improve physical efficiency. Anyway, this test came in long before the Olympics, but it was still a tested positive for it. And it's a 15 year old girl. So at first they didn't, the Olympic committee did not identify or WADA did not identify who it was, but she had helped Russia to team gold.

She was favored to win gold in the individual rounds as well. And it was sad, because you know, if a 15 year old girl is taking a drug like that, she's doing what she's being asked to do. Of course. And Katarina Witt,

two-time Olympic figure skating champion is quoted as saying what they knowingly did to her if true, cannot be surpassed in inhumanity and makes my athlete's heart cry infinitely. Camila Valieva is a young girl and child prodigy whose highly difficult performances and grace enchanted the whole world at only 15, a minor, depending on adults and she is not to blame here.

So defensive Camilla, I agree with that. What's crazy is the story of who this coach is. And I wanna just make sure I get the name right, this coach. Yeah, before you get, while you're locking that in, I mean, look, you know, complete prodigy, this poor girl, and you could see the stress on her face if you're watching her in the wake of this controversy. First to land a quadruple jump,

helps her team win the gold medal. What's interesting is she tested positive on December 25th, and I believe there were some interim competitions between then and now. And that result was not reported until the day after she won gold or her team won gold, but before the medal ceremony. So like, why did this take so long?

Was there some kind of political machinations that delayed the reporting on that? Because it's not like she's just some athlete, like she's a leading contender for gold. You would think that they would prioritize that test result. Strange, right? And so she wouldn't have had to go to the Olympics at all

because they could have figured it out beforehand. Right, and so RUSADA, Russian's anti-doping agency, lifted the provisional suspension on her. They're the ones who oversee, you know, anti-doping for not Russia. And here we are in this quagmire, which is not helping, you know, the Olympic movement. Like how do we move forward from here with this girl,

this poor girl was caught in the middle of an international scandal regarding once again, Russian athletes and doping. And I think that kind of the institutional problem that the Olympics have had is if you follow gymnastics here in the US, there are these young women and girls and young athletes in general are being crushed by this system, you just don't see it too often.

And now this is an example of someone who is very publicly and it's happening in real time, not like years later after it's over kind of telling the story. Her coach, she competes under a coach named Eteri Tutberidze, a Russian who has just a bonker story. I mean, it's like, it's right out of movie villain, kind of like, you can't even make this stuff up.

She was a skater in her own right, never made it as a top skater in Russia, moved to the US as a young woman, became an ice dancer, like an ice show dancer, just cruising around the United States, ended up in Oklahoma City where she lived in YMCA, in downtown Oklahoma City. She used to have to go to Baptist church services

to get food, to like be able to eat afterwards. She was in Oklahoma City a block away at that YMCA, a block away from the federal building when it exploded. And she wandered around in a daze, broken glass, lit limbs, blood everywhere. She is on the survivor wall at Oklahoma City. That's so crazy. She ends up- She's Russian.

Russian. She moves back to Russia. She could have stayed in the US. She moves back to Russia and decides to climb the coaching ladder. And I guess ice skating coaches, there's a bunch of them over there. So it's hard to find the great athletes

and to get into a top position. So for a decade, she's kind of, you know, running, working her butt off, trying to get there, finds these great athletes. Now she's the top coach. She was the top coach before Camilla, but Camilla was gonna basically cement her name. And who does she work with?

A physician previously banned by Rusada in 2007 in a rowing doping scandal. And so that's the doctor that is overlooking Camila's care. Right. The former athletes of this coach complain of injuries. They quit the sport. They have anorexia, they have depression.

They don't come back to the sport. And so, that's what you worry about with Camila. Right, so if there is a silver lining in all of this, it's that it shines a spotlight on this issue. But like, yeah, that's a crazy story. Blake, there's a NBC Sports article about this called why do figure skaters under this Russian coach have short careers?

So we'll link that up as well. And you can see that if you're watching it on video. And I guess the way that the kind of latest as of Monday, February 14th, how this is shaking out is that they're gonna let her compete in the singles, which is this week, I believe, but they're not gonna have metal ceremonies for the team event that they already won

or for the singles competition. So these other athletes who are innocently caught up in all of this don't get to have their podium moment, which is a tragedy. It is. And not helping. No, none of this is helping. None of this is helping.

Let's get you a story that is helping. But we're gonna turn to some good news cause there's some incredible stories coming out of this Olympiad. Some well-known, some less well-known. And of course, we just picked a few. There's plenty more where that came from because the Olympics is still the Olympics and the athletes are still the athletes.

And there are remarkable performances and stories behind those performances that I think are worthy of noting. The first being Erin Jackson, who's a 29 year old speed skater. And she became the first black woman to win an individual winter Olympic gold, winning the 500 meters in long track.

And the story that in and of itself is such a cool story, but it just gets so much better the more that you learn about Erin and her backstory. So in the Olympic trials, she slipped and her teammate, Brittany Bowe, ended up giving up her spot so that Erin Jackson could go to the Olympics. Like that is crazy.

It doesn't happen. I've never heard of an Olympian or an Olympic prospect who qualifies for the Olympics, donating their slot to somebody else because they think they deserve it or they might be better. Yeah, never happens. I know.

And that is, this is why that little flickering Olympic flame deep down in the bottom of that hole will continue to blaze its light. It just got a little bigger. Because of stories like this, right? I mean, what a beautiful gesture. And then of course, Erin goes on to win the gold

and she's the first woman to win a gold in speed skating period since Bonnie Blair in 1994. So it's been a while. Amazing. And then when you dig even deeper into this story, she starts out as an inline skater. She does roller derby. Roller derby.

And she's from Florida, which is weird. We have more to say about this in a minute. Ocala, Florida. So put a pin in Ocala, Florida for right now. I will, I will put a pin there. And there's video that I saw the other day on social media of her getting on to, even though she was this inline skater which is rollerblading essentially,

which is its own competition, its own sport. Apparently like in 2016, she couldn't skate. There's video of her like going out onto the ice with speed skating skates on. And she couldn't even get her footing. She's like slipping all over the place. Literally four years ago. Although I did read something else that said

she was a figure skater when she was young. So 2016 was six years ago. Oh, that's how old I am. The dementia is setting in Adam. Yeah, I keep thinking it's 2020. That's pandemic mindset, right? We had no Olympics in 2020. You're right, six years ago,

but in six years from going from a place of not really even being able to skate. It's crazy. To winning a gold medal is just a beautiful story. It is, it speaks to dedication. Continuing on speed skating, because it is my favorite. I think it's my favorite

of all the Olympic, Winter Olympic sports. And it's Okala. Because it's, you know, it all goes back to Eric Heiden, of course. This guy, Joey Mantia. Is it Mantia or Mantia? Mantia, I don't know how you say it. I would pronounce it as Mantia, but I don't know.

Could be Mantia, who knows? It's probably Mantia, we should know that, right? So he's this short track speed skater, 28 time world champion, world record holder. He's 5'8", 168 pounds. He didn't medal in this Olympics. I think he competed in the thousand meters and the 1500 meters and he got sixth.

And the team pursuit is still going. It's still going, yeah. So he has another shot at a medal. But what caught my attention about this guy was a photograph from his Instagram of this dude's legs. So if you're watching on video. That's crazy. Check out those quads,

because I've never seen anything quite like that with the exception of a bodybuilder. I will never brag about my quads again. It's unbelievable. Like that's the sort of power bodybuilder. I will never brag about my quads again. It's unbelievable. Like that's the sort of power that you have to generate at the elite level to be an Olympian in speed skating. It's like, I'm looking at like rich rolls legs circa. Mine do not. Big five.

Even at my peak, never looked anything like that. I mean, that's- Epic five. There's some work that went into that. That's a big five, the epic five. I mean, first of all, you look at that and you're like, how does that guy not win every gold medal with those legs? Well, if it's the best legs comp, he's the gold medal winner. He definitely wins that.

It's interesting how those somehow still couldn't power him to gold medals in his, he's older though, right? I think he's- He's 36, yeah. He's 36, yeah. So that's probably why. He's been around for a long time. But here's where it gets even more interesting.

Where do you think he's from? Alberta, Canada. Alberta, Canada. Oh, he's American. Yeah, he is American. He is from Ocala, Florida. Ocala. So the question of course is, what is happening in Ocala, Florida. Ocala. So the question of course is,

what is happening in Ocala, Florida to produce speed skating Olympians? I had to know, I Googled this. And it turns out there's an incredible story behind this, how this small Florida town with no ice rink produced three Olympic speed skaters. The third being that woman, Brittany Bowe, who gave up her spot for Aaron Jackson.

No ice rink. Yeah. So it's like this small inline skating club in Ocala. And this woman who kind of runs this club that has produced all of, like ironically produced all of these talented people that have become Olympians. Unbelievable.

Without any ice rink in the town. Oh, how Olympics is this story? Yeah, it's pretty cool. This feels like a movie. Yeah, it should be. And they don't even know how they've done it. So anyway, I'll link this, this is from Yahoo News. I'll link this up in the show notes.

It's a great story as well. It's a pretty cool story. So the stories are just bonkers. I mean link this up in the show notes. It's a great story as well. It's a pretty cool story. The stories are just bonkers. I mean, like that's the thing about Olympics. And since we're so driven by story, I mean, that's why the Olympics, as troubled as they may be, will always find,

they will always be part of the conversation. Right. Because these stories are too good. And just in case you thought we were done talking about speed skating, we are not done talking about speed skating. we are not done. Not on Rich's watch, folks. We are not done talking about speed skating. Cause the other story that really caught my eye

that I thought was fascinating is the speed skater Nils van der Poel, who set the world record in the 10 kilometers. And he, what caught my interest about this was the fact that he published a 60 page document that chronicles his training philosophy and his training logs. Like everything that went into him breaking this world record.

And you can find that at howtoskate.se. And you can download the document and read it yourself. Like here's what the website looks like. How does how to skate a 10K. And here's what the document itself looks like. Like it's literally like. It's a white paper. That's exactly what it is.

It's a white paper. And this started circulating on Twitter and it caught my eye by dint of Alan Cousins, who is a one of the world's top endurance coaches. Also a great follow on Twitter at Alan underscore Cousins, who is one of the world's top endurance coaches. Also a great follow on Twitter at Alan underscore Cousins, C-O-U-Z-E-N-S. That's how I devoured the white paper through this thread. So yeah, he published a thread

that kind of deconstructs this document, this white paper on how to achieve world beating levels of fitness. And what it really is and why I felt like it was important to talk about is how important this athlete felt about building his aerobic base. So it's back to this zone two discussion. Yes.

And how crucial it is to build a massive aerobic base that you can then layer on top of all of your kind of harder efforts to break through the glass ceiling on your performance. It's almost like he said, what comes out of the white paper is he advocates seasons where it's all aerobic base, then all kind of interval training and threshold stuff, then all aerobic base again.

Right. Yeah. And he doesn't do any threshold work when he was in this like extended period of many months, just building this base. And when you look at the work that he was doing, it's pretty spectacular. So here are just sort of excerpted things from his white paper where he's talking about

the importance of aerobic fitness. The stronger I got aerobically, the more anaerobic sessions I could do later on. I purified the aerobic season, meaning during this number of months, he only trained aerobically, never went above his zone two level of intensity. You think it's zone two only,

or you could it be zone two and zone three? I mean, it gets technical with that. Like it's not an on off switch. There's like a range in between those two, but I would, basically what he's saying is I am in my aerobic fitness building phase. So I don't exceed that threshold. And the top end of his zone two would be max efforts

for like mortal human beings. But he's so fit that he could handle like just unbelievable workouts. There's another Twitter thread where he, here's a typical week, Monday, seven hours of biking at 260 Watts. So for people that aren't cyclists, maintaining like 260 Watts on average

over a number of hours is is you have to be extremely fit to do that. He's doing that at zone two. Next day, six hours of biking at 250 Watts, Wednesday, two hours of cross country skiing, four hours of biking at 250 Watts, Thursday, seven hours of biking at 265 Watts, Friday, six hours of biking at 240 Watts

and then Saturday rest, Sunday rest. So in a five day period, he put in 35 hours of aerobic training and that was just a typical week. So that gives you an idea of like what a beast this guy is. And he was eating like crazy, right? He was having like straight whipped cream, like- 7,000 calories a day.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And putting on weight. Yeah, he put on five kilos, I think. Explaining how this is important. Like a lot of athletes skimp on their calories during this phase, because they're worried about weight gain. And he put on weight and was happy with that.

And it also is a buffer against injury and over-training and these other things. So anyway, fascinating white paper, very good analysis by Alan, who kind of identifies some core principles out of this program, which is A, we already mentioned purifying your aerobic season, not having mixed messages.

The idea that the stronger you get aerobically, the more anaerobic sessions you can do later, because the more aerobically fit you are, then you can go anaerobic and go back to base more quickly. Like you bounce back more quickly, you recover more quickly. So your capacity for that higher intensity work increases the more aerobically fit that you become.

So more aerobic capacity, faster recovery for hard stuff later. And also he talks about finding joy in all of this. Like if you're gonna be putting in that much work, how can you make it meaningful and joyous in doing it? Otherwise it's not sustainable, right? Not everybody is living this guy's monastic lifestyle to be an Olympic world champion and world record holder.

But I think the principles are applicable in all of our lives. So anyway. And he even, he ran, part of his training was running a hundred mile race, a whole mile. Yeah, that's right. That was part of his aerobic training. Which he said was one of the most meaningful

and impactful things that he did. Like it gave him a new sense of what his capacity was and his capability. Pretty exciting. And this is all for a race, like 10 kilometers and speed skating. How long do you think that takes? Right? Right. This is. What is it? It was 12. 12 and speed skating, how long do you think that takes? Right? Right.

This is- What is it? It was 12. 12 and a half, 1230. He set the world record. So this is all of this aerobic work for a 12 and a half minute effort, which is you can characterize that as an endurance event, certainly in speed skating, it is an endurance event, but still this is not an ultra marathon that he's training for.

It's a 12 minute race. And yet he put in that much work into building his aerobic base. So I think that's instructive for all of the endurance athletes out there. I like how that Alan Cousins gave props to the Norwegian saying similar to the Norwegian approach in his thread. The Norwegian, see, I feel like they're more dialed in

on quality. Well, actually- No, but they do both and they don't purify aerobic and intervals, they mix it up, but they are very much about fuel, external fuel is the only fuel. They're very much about eating and training in a particular way and staying true to it.

They're both Scandinavian, which is interesting. Can we talk about my zone two problems? Oh, I can't wait. Oh, this is good stuff. This is really, I mean, really, this is what the podcast is about. Please tell me your zone two problems. I'm not sure if you've been keeping track.

Do you know what your zone two is? Well, I think it's like- Do you know what zone two is? You taught me this stuff. I think it's like- Do you know what zone two is? You taught me this stuff. I think it's like 134 to 147. For running. For running. So I injured my back at the beginning of the year and I had to take basically a month off.

I ran twice in four weeks because I couldn't, I ran, then I got hurt, then I ran once at the two week mark and I just wasn't ready. I had to get some PT. So then I came back to it and I've been, but when I, right before I got hurt, I'd been running my zone two was down

to like a 10 minute mile. And I started at like 12 plus minute mile for zone two. And so I was actually trending really well. And then all of a sudden, now I'm coming back to it and it's like, it's almost like starting over. Yeah, you kind of, it will come back more quickly, but you can't get around that first phase of reacclimating your body to it.

Okay. So yeah, it won't come back immediately. It's gonna take some time, but that patience will pay dividends. Thank you, Rich. So you just have to stick with it. I will. Thank you for that zone two update.

Little zone two update, little thing. Yeah, well, fear not, the good news continues with the Olympics. What do we have next? Actually, this isn't quite great news. It's good news that veers into some sad and also vital news. We need to know about it, but it starts with good news.

Anyway, I'll just get into it. Right. Eileen Gu, freestyle skier. She is an 18 year old, not just the best free skier in the world, which is kind of, if you're not familiar, it's basically X Games on skis. It's like with the, it's slope style,

it's big air and it's half pipe, but on skis. Right, so that's the distinction between freestyle skiing versus aerial skiing. Right, aerial skiing is just- Going off the jumps. Going off the jumps and just doing that. This is big air, which is, you know, the biggest jump you can do with tricks,

half pipe and slopestyle. And she's the best at slopestyle. She already won big air and she's got gold. She's basically set up for a potential of three gold Olympics. And she's also an IMG model. Yeah, she models for like Louis Vuitton and all these like high end brands.

And in China, she's just enormous. She is a super model in China already. And she's budding international that way. And she came up, she grew up in San Francisco. She grew up in San Francisco, started skiing in Tahoe, where her mother used to be a, she was raised by a single mom. Her mother used to be a ski instructor part-time there

when she wasn't working. And now she's a venture capitalist in China. Big time. And, but she started the venture capital stuff in the United States too, as far as my understanding is. But she decided to compete as Chinese. She always spoke the language. She was always connected to the culture

and she just decided to compete under the Chinese flag. And she's gotten a bunch of criticism for it. And more recently, I hate to bring him up cause I don't like to give him any press or anybody who's on a show press, but Tucker Carlson took a run at her. She had, he had a guest on Will Kane. They talked about her turning her back on America,

a betrayal, how we should be, should inspire collective revulsion. And remember this is an 18 year old kid who is making decisions that she's allowed to make for herself, just like Naomi Osaka chose to represent Tokyo. And let's not forget, just because she's a fashion model, she's allowed to make for herself. Just like Naomi Osaka chose to represent Tokyo. And let's not forget, like just because she's a fashion model, she's no dummy.

She got a 1580 on her SAT. She's bilingual and she's headed to Stanford next year. And the implication is she's made a shrewd financial move and or she's made a financial move only and turning her back on the country. It's appalling. First of all, it's a smart thing to do. If your goal is to maximize your value,

it's not a dumb thing to do. It's a very intelligent thing to do. She would never, in this country, an Asian woman to become the biggest model in the country, it's almost impossible. It's so unlikely to happen. It's almost, to become one of the biggest athletes in America, you're competing with LeBron James,

Tom Brady, Serena Williams. It's never gonna happen as a free skier. You know, like Shaun White's as big a winter Olympic personality you're gonna get. And so there, you know, she has an opportunity to really grow and to be big. And if that's what she wants, more power to her. I mean, look at Chloe Kim.

Chloe Kim just won gold again in the half pipe. Second time she's won it in two Olympics. And she has gotten death threats. She's been accused of taking white girls spots on the team. She, Sunny Lee, the gymnast, everyone celebrated last Olympics, the mong girl. She was getting ready to compete and dancing with the stars. And she was pepper sprayed from a car called a slur.

And the reason I bring this stuff up is because what's happening to these athletes who are very powerful women that can handle stuff, it trickles down to the real world. And we have an epidemic of mentally ill, not in the house people attacking Asian elders and women in New York City, in the Bay Area. We've talked about it on this show before.

It happens here. There was another murder just yesterday. Christina Yuna Lee murdered in her New York City Chinatown apartment. She was 35 years old. She was stabbed by an unhoused person or someone in and out of the justice system, a mentally ill person, I should say. Michelle Alyssa Goh pushed in front of a train in the subway. She was 40.

That was weeks ago. I'm sure you all heard about it. These people are quite literally out of their minds, but where do you think this inspiration comes from? It's trickling down from this kind of language and treatment that we give to people like Eileen Gu, who is a great athlete worth celebrating. And yet it trickles down to these kinds of attacks. My wife has had, April, has had three separate scary experiences with people, vagrant type people here in LA, three.

She was, one, someone got into her face, the rest has been yelling at her as they pass by or she passes by. This is happening and Asian women in particular and Asian people in general are feeling it, it's terrifying. And so the reason I'm bringing it up is not to bum everybody out, but it is to please pay attention to this,

intervene if you see something, because it's something that is not ending. And it doesn't seem to be like, we're even trying to understand what's happening. Like how does that even happen? How does there become this epidemic among unhoused people that are like putting all their vitriol, all their anger towards one small group of people?

I don't understand that. It's completely galling. And the fact that Eileen Gu would be used as a political football by somebody like Tucker Carlson to denigrate her lack of patriotism, I just find so upsetting. It's ridiculous. And as somebody who has been an athlete my whole life

and competed in collegiate athletics, I'm no stranger to foreigners coming to the United States to train, like half the collegiate swimming programs in the US, half their rosters are swimmers who came from Europe or Eastern Bloc countries to come to the United States and train. And then they go back home and represent their country in the Olympics.

Like, that's fine. I have no problem with that. She, Eileen in particular has every reason to wanna represent China in the Olympics. She's a big deal there. She's on their 30 under 30 Forbes list in China. She's widely celebrated there. On the cover of Vogue, Elle, everything.

Exactly, it's like she has every incentive to participate in that kind of attention and riches if that's what she's getting versus what she's gonna get here. I have no problem with that whatsoever. And the fact that people are denigrating her and criticizing her and judging her for making that decision just belies a level of ignorance and, you know,

frankly, like racist undertones that is deplorable. And when you hear that, you know what I hear? Why the fuck would she wanna represent this country? That's what I hear. When I hear Tucker Carlson going off like that, I hear, why would she? Like, why would she want to? Like, that's what I hear Tucker Carlson going off like that. I hear, why would she? Like, why would she want to? Like, that's what I hear.

So, you know, you're proving the point. I mean, they are proving her point by going off like that. And so, you know, which is it? Are these girls American? Are they part of the American family? Are they celebrated that way? Or are they traders? It's like, they can't win and it's gotta stop.

Well said, well, let's take a quick break and we'll come back with, I promise, some good news. Yeah, good news. And we're back. You wanna put a button on the Eileen Gu conversation, Adam, because we failed to mention one material aspect of this story, which is her incredible athletic performance

at the Olympics. Right, I mean, just in the first event, she basically was in a battle with her competitor. I don't have the competitor's name offhand, but she was basically, they traded the lead twice and then she had one more run to nail and she pulled out her absolute best trick, landed it and had like a score over 97, I'm pretty sure.

And she got the gold. It's the type of performance that athletes are celebrated for and she should be celebrated. It's the type of performance that athletes are celebrated for and she should be celebrated. And that's the whole point is that she's a tremendous athlete, tremendous individual. And her best event is upcoming. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So like in reality, the way I look at sports, I root for Rafa Nadal and Roger Federer. I root for international athletes too. And so like, I know your listeners do as well. We all, you're the same way. I love a great athlete. I love watching great athlete perform at their best. And the idea that it's a big flag show.

I know the Olympics are to some extent, but at the same time, it's like, that's part of the reason I think Olympic viewership is declining as well. Is that- Is the US metal hall, is that an all time low? But also just like the media that has it, NBC, they typically wanna give you the Americans in the race.

They don't give you necessarily the best athletes in all their heats going in. And that's a problem in the summer Olympics too. And I just think that's myopia. And I think we're beyond that now, especially since we're getting media from so many sources and we know who the greats are and that's who we should be watching.

100%. Let's talk about Wynner Winnicki. Let's do it. This is another great story that I came across by ESPN. I wrote this story about this fantastic young athlete. The article is called Olympics 2020 Wynner Winnicki's Unfathomable Journey Makes Next Stop in Beijing.

And this is a 23 year old aerial skier who's at the Olympics, but her backstory is unbelievable too. Like there's so many crazy stories like this that are underreported. I'm glad ESPN wrote this article. It's a very long read on the history behind this phenomenal athlete

who started competing in triathlons when she was five years old. Right. Five. Her parents were very permissive in letting her get involved in all of these adventures. She was very, you know, kind of gregarious and ahead of her time in terms of like

wanting to conquer challenges. And I think at 12, she had won the Iron Kids National Championship or something like that. And then at 14, she becomes the youngest to complete the seven marathons on seven continents. 14 years old. She ran the Antarctica.

She ran all over the world, Antarctica, Machu Picchu, like all these places. Amazing. And I think she's the youngest by far at this point. And then at 12, she leaves her family and moves to Park City to become this skier and quickly develops. It's only due to injury that she was sort of kept out

of the 2018 Olympics as I understand it. And now here she is in 2021, competing in Beijing in aerial skiing. But it's a very cool heartwarming story that also involves the loss of her father along the way. And a lot of kind of touching heartwarming details in there as well. So I'll link that up in the show notes.

Shout out Aishwarya Kumar for that story. She wrote it or? Yeah, do you know her? No. Oh, shout out. No, but I just wanted to give the reporter some props. For sure. Cool, like there she is on a bike, like raising a child.

I mean, how old is she in that photo? Eight. Right, and then here she is like running in Antarctica. Unbelievable. As a 14 year old with her mom. Anyway, cool athlete, cool story. Very cool. Check it out.

Sean White. Sean White. He's retired finally after getting fourth at the Olympics. So a storied career comes to an end. So he deserves a shout out for being the absolute goat. And I thought he handled, you know, all of it with quite a bit of grace. Oh yeah, I mean, you don't get better than that.

He gets out there, he leaves all his, first of all, he fights, he has to land his best run to get into the final, did you see that? No. Yeah, so he had to come out, he had to pull out an epic run just to get into the final. And he did that and then he was there and he's like, who knows I'm in the final, let's see what happens.

And you never know with him. I mean, he is such a clutch performer, such a groundbreaking athlete in so many ways and obviously the greatest ever. So it was cool to see him when he came in fourth to the same two guys he beat last time when he thought it was his last Olympics. And the Japanese kid won, right?

That guy looks so young. Yeah, still. That's really like how old I am, I guess. But like, I was like, wow, that kid looks like. But four years ago, he came in second, that kid. And he really was young. He was like 16 or something like that. Or something.

So now he's like, I love that Sean White's big realization, his big epiphany was maybe I have been waiting for these guys to beat me. And like having them beat him actually felt good. And I think he was, it must've been surprising for him. That's interesting. Yeah, cause that's how he explained it anyway. And-

Sort of like by being beat, then he can kind of walk away now and feel like it's complete. Yeah. If he had won, then it's sort of like, do I stay in this? Like, what am I gonna do now? And you know what also for them,

it's great for them, cause they got to beat him. Right. As opposed to if he just had hung it up. It's like the passing of the torch works so well because it's such a great moment just in sports, but also between these two great athletes. And so pretty exciting to see that.

And the other thing I thought that, which I didn't know about was his, that came out of this Olympics, a story that kind of bubbled up and now it's been catching on a little bit is his physical therapist. She's a doctor in physical therapy, Esther Lee. Been with Sean for seven years.

And it came out last year that she had stage four. She was fine. She just felt a little fatigued. And then she ended up, she had a tumor on her pancreas and she was diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer then. And that was very terrifying for her, obviously, with for obvious reasons, but her grandmother was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer

and then two weeks later died. So she didn't think she had any time at all. And she used to work with Serena and Venus Williams, was their PT traveling with them on the tour for years. She's only 43. And she's been effusive on social media about Sean White's support of her and their friendship and their connection and how they've laughed together

and cried together. And he insisted on her coming with him and they made it work. And she's been having multiple surgeries, multiple chemotherapy treatments. And it just so happens that like the break from that, like how it works in the medical world. You have to go on these rhythms of chemo treatments

or whatever that just dovetailed perfectly for this Olympics and she made it and then was there for this whole time. And it's just a beautiful story. And it's kind of shows Sean, you know, the one thing I think Sean has had a problem with, he's been so great. He hasn't always appeared human, you know, he's always appeared great. He hasn't always appeared human. He's always appeared great

and kind of above everything in the fray. And he's even had his own kind of semi cancellation, which was last Olympics that came out. And to see this, a human side of him to show that people are more than you assume and think, I think is a great thing. Well, also he's older, he's matured. Like I think that perspective might not have been possible

two Olympians, two Olympics ago. Yeah, right. You know, cause he's a man now. Yeah. He's grown into himself. Yeah. Which is cool. Well, on the subject of goats, we have to talk about Kelly Slater. Hell yeah. It's unbelievable.

Hell yeah. Kelly on the cusp of turning 50, won his eighth pipe masters. Amazing. It's unbelievable. 30 years of dominance, 11 world titles, 56 tour championships, and just an incredible ambassador of longevity in sports,

like all time, right? It's just, it's him and Tom Brady up there. I think LeBron James, considering what he's doing at 38 years old, is he 38 now? Yeah, I think so. What he's doing and he's 29 points a game, he's right there.

I mean, you can't really separate him from that group. And then you have Rafa Nadal who just won his 21st major at 34, 35 years old. That never happened in tennis before. And what is the consistent theme between those three guys? Four guys, yeah, super into wellness, I guess. Super into wellness. Like these guys really care

about what they put in their body and all of the things outside of their sports specific training to take care of themselves and take an insurance policy out on, you know, those kind of long-term career successes that they've experienced. And Tom Brady with his avocado ice cream. I mean, you have Chris Paul, who's a great point guard

and he's the most important player on the best team in the NBA right now. And he went plant-based, which kind of gave him longevity. And he's been, he was public about it kind of, but like he was keeping it to himself because he just doesn't want other people to go plant-based because he doesn't want to give up the competitive edge. Yeah, I like that.

I mean, Tom Brady, I don't think Tom Brady would characterize himself as quote unquote plant-based, but he's very plant predominant in his dietary approach. And I don't know what Kelly's diet looks like, but I suspect that he's very conscious about what he puts into that vessel of his. It's just incredible though, because even the, I forget who won Mavericks last year,

and it was somebody that has been, he's a legend at Mavericks, but he's over 50 and he won. Not McNamara. No, no, no. It was someone who's just a Mavericks guy. He's up there, he's the guy up there, but like that's not necessarily the guy usually wins a surfing competition.

And so it's just interesting to see, it's really exciting to see, these guys continue to do it and women too, Serena is older and she's been going to finals for the last several years until this year. It's crazy how much things have changed. I mean, when I was a kid, if you went to two Olympiads, that was like unbelievable.

And now there's lots of athletes who this is their fifth Olympiad. It does seem that way. Like there was Kareem and Martina and there was nobody else really pushing the age. Well, there was a lot of that is money, because yeah, if you're a professional athlete, you're getting paid and you're incentivized to,

you know, play as long as you can, but in almost every other sport, like you can't make a living, right. And compete at the highest level. But now with sponsorships and the way kind of our economy works, more and more people are finding ways to make that possible for themselves, which is cool.

Yeah, well, congrats to Kelly. Yeah, man. Unbelievable. So I think that concludes the sports part of this podcast. No more sports? Not for today. Okay. What did we leave out?

I mean, look, we left out a lot. We picked a few stories. That's what we always do. We thought were cool. I want people to know that about this show. I know it's long, we do leave things out. I know it's hard to believe. More than a few.

I wanna hard pivot to a different subject matter. So the podcast that went up this week was with, is with Johann Hari. He's the author of this new book, Stolen Focus. And it's all about our declining ability to sustain attention and the reasons for that and kind of the way out of that. And the reasons range from, of course,

social media and big tech kind of the way out of that. And the reasons range from, of course, social media and big tech kind of hijacking our dopamine systems, but also lack of sleep, exhaustion, stress, environmental toxins, all of these things contributing to our declining ability to kind of just do one thing at a time. And in the context of that conversation, we were talking about our relationship to our phones

and Johan in the writing of this book or kind of what prompted the writing of the book was he went to Provincetown for three months. He left his iPhone on the mainland and only brought a laptop that couldn't connect to the internet. And the idea was he was gonna live for three months, like completely in an analog way.

But he brought this, he was like, I need to be able to make a phone call, right? So is there some kind of phone that isn't connected to the internet that I could get? And the only phone that he could find was this thing called the jitterbug, right? Which is for old people, it has big buttons on it. You know, like if you're half blind

and if you fall down, it like automatically calls 911. It's like, it's a geriatric phone. And I said to him, I was like, there has to be a better dumb phone than that. Like I would love a phone that would allow me only to make calls and maybe text people. I'd like to be able to listen to podcasts or audio books and maybe have like a navigation.

Like, so I could, if I needed directions or whatever, I could find my way and just get rid of all the apps and all of that. A semi smartphone. Yeah, like, I don't know, middle school phone. Yeah. You know, I don't know, like kind of dumb, mostly dumb, a mostly dumb phone.

A tweener phone. Yeah, a handicapped smartphone. I don't know what you would call it, but it was brought to my attention by my team here after we finished that podcast that one such phone exists. And it's called the Litephone. I have a link for it. Let me find that.

What did I do with that? Oh, here it is. Litephone, L-I-T-E, the litephone.com. L-I-T-E or L-I-G-H? L-I-T-E, oh, I'm wrong. L-I-G-H? L-I-T-E. Oh, I'm wrong. L-I-G-H-T phone. The Lite L-I-G-H-T phone. And I haven't, this is not a sponsored thing.

I haven't even tried this yet. Not yet. I'm gonna order it though, cause it looks cool. So it has only a couple core functions, phone, alarm. Looks like a Kindle. Yeah, it is. It looks like an iPod Kindle. It's made to have that Kindle screen

without the blue light and all of that. So it doesn't like screw up your eyes. And you can like, you can have podcasts on it. There's a couple like, you know, customizable features to it, but I'm gonna try this thing out. It's premium minimalism. Exactly.

Are you gonna try it? Premium minimalism. Did you just coin that? Well, no, it says they on the website, it says it's called, they call it a premium minimal phone. So I went from that. I did create it, yes. I think it looks cool.

So I'm gonna try it out and I'll keep you posted 299. But I was gonna ask you because I know like social media is so connected to the podcast business. I mean, it is so much about, it is a big way you're able to keep in touch with your listeners and build listenership and shout out to your guests and all that stuff, which is valuable to both listeners and to you out to your guests and all that stuff, which is valuable to both listeners

and to you and to the guests. So how do you, I just wanted to ask you about that. Like how would, like if you decided to go premium minimalist forever, like how would that impact you? Is that something you worry about? I'm not gonna close my social media accounts because that is part and parcel of my career and my business.

But I think there's plenty of room to have a healthier relationship with all of it. And these things can live on a laptop. They don't have to be with me at all times so that every time I find myself in line somewhere, I'm scrolling mindlessly. And that's really what it's aimed at. So I would still like use those platforms,

but be less prone to them using me. I think is the way that I'm thinking about it. Can I get spelling bee on the light phone? Probably not. You can't get Wordle. That's probably not. Does it have a web browser? I think it might be able to get a bit.

I don't want a web browser. If they give you a web browser, it's like the Pandora's box, baby. I know. Yeah, that's not good. You don't want that web browser. If they give you a web browser, it's like the Pandora's box, baby. I know, yeah, that's not good. You don't want that, right? We'll see, stay tuned. The second product I wanted to bring up is my friend Compton Rambada's company

called Ascended Health. And again, this isn't a sponsored thing. This is just something that I use that I've enjoyed and found helpful. Compton is a microbiologist. He's a dear friend and he was very instrumental in helping me when I was training for my Ultraman races by creating these crazy probiotic concoctions

that I would drink for recovery that were all fermented and had all of these adaptogens in it. And he was living in Los Angeles at the time and I would go to his house and he would have giant vats of things that he was brewing up. And he's like, try this. And I'm working on this like a mad scientist, like a mad microbiologist scientist.

And I just, I love him dearly. He's incredibly bright guy. And he's since moved to Utah to kind of grow his company. And he opened up his own facility for his products and suffered a terrible fire where he lost a lot of his fermentations and samples and all the like, and has slowly been trying to rebuild it in the meantime,

and actually could use everybody's support because I think the products that he creates are next level and wonderful. And one of my favorites is the skin oil that he makes called I am beautiful oil that I put on my face. I feel like I've ordered that dish at Cafe Gratitude. Yeah, it's probably is a dish called I am beautiful Cafe Gratitude.

And this is just, it's like a wonderful smelling oil that you put on your skin and it helps with sun damage and aging. And it's got like a marine phytoplankton in it. Like all of these organic, like cool ingredients in it. And I just, I love the smell of it. So here, I'll slide that over and smell that. What do you do?

You drink it? No, you just rub it on your face. Oh, really? Yeah, can you reach that? I can't. I didn't slide it long enough. Oh, good. And I love Compton, I love his products.

So I would start with the I Am Beautiful Oil. It's something I've been using it for over 10 years at this point. It's good, right? Yeah, I'm into it. Check that out as well. And again, not a sponsored thing. Like he's just a friend and I just love what he does.

That can be like, whoa. So if I start using that, how long will it take for me to become beautiful? You're already beautiful. Oh, thanks. You are beautiful. I am beautiful. Yeah, this isn't, you will become beautiful.

You already are beautiful. It's not, you could be more beautiful. I gave you candy and flowers. Like now you're just feeling needy. I know, now I'm just fishing for compliments. All right, let's get to some listener questions for act three of this podcast. Let's do it.

We're gonna start in New York City. Yeah, baby. Hey, Rich and Alan, this is Brad Coy start in New York City. Yeah, baby. Hey, Rich and Adam. This is Brett calling from New York City. Love the pod. Love what you guys do. Keep it coming. My question is mostly for Rich,

although Adam would love for you to weigh in as well if you feel it's relevant. Rich, you have admitted to being prone towards negativity and cynicism. And I have to admit that I myself am inclined in this direction as well. And I'd love to hear from you how you actively work against this to show up in the world, not negative, not pessimistic. You've touched on this in many pods, but today what I'm looking to hear is really practical advice on how you work against this. I think a lot of people out there would really benefit from this type of advice.

With the world being what it is, with COVID, climate change, geopolitical issues, we could all use this really practical advice. Thanks so much, guys. Love you. That's a great question. Brett, is your name, is her name Brett? I think it's, maybe it's Brett. Brett, maybe. Maybe I misheard it. Brett from New York City. I appreciate that question. Um, yeah, you know, it's, it's true that I am not predisposed to optimism. My default is not gratitude nor necessarily even positivity. And I do find myself at times confounded

by guests that I've hosted over the years on the podcast who seem to burst with unbridled optimism. And sometimes I struggle with thinking like, is that really even authentic? Like how is that person actually exuding that level of positivity all the time? It just happens. I can't hold it inside, Rich.

It just comes, it just pours out of me. I know, it's you, I'm speaking directly to you. And like, despite every counterpoint, I hurl in their direction, nothing seems capable of derailing that positivity. And I admire that, that's a sensibility that I wish I could inhabit more and better, but which despite fleeting flirtations,

I do not consistently exude myself. So I feel you, Brett. For example, like just the other day, like two days ago, I woke up feeling not great. I slept poorly and I was just like a disaster all day. I was dark, I was moody. I felt angry. I felt unfit to be around other people.

And I had like no energy or enthusiasm for anything. And this is like a darkness that befalls on me from time to time. In this case, it was directly related to not waking up rested. And so I have over the years developed a couple strategies for combating this and dealing with this. And the first thing is to just accept it,

like to kind of be angry that you're feeling that way is only making it worse and enhances the level of angry that you're feeling that way is only making it worse and enhances the level of suffering that you're experiencing. I also think it's important to always remind myself that like cynicism is kind of a lazy reaction to things. I think it takes a lot more gumption and courage to be optimistic and have a positive outlook.

So I remind myself of that. When I do feel that way, and courage to be optimistic and have a positive outlook. So I remind myself of that. When I do feel that way, I try not to dwell on it or beat myself up for it again, cause that creates kind of a vicious cycle that seems to perpetuate it and make it worse. And then I try to engage in really simple activities to help shift it, like go for a walk or even a 10 minute meditation, or you know what?

I'm feeling off, like maybe I should go to an AA meeting and take those actions because it's only truly through actions that you can kind of shift that perspective. And then beyond that, like trying to remind myself that it's okay to feel however you feel, like being okay with yourself. that it's okay to feel however you feel, like being okay with yourself.

And then from there, I try to engage in practices that lead to or cultivate more optimism, positivity, and gratitude in my life. All of which I've talked about many times at length on the podcast. And I think for the most part are things that are pretty self-evident and not complicated.

And they all trace back to this idea of mood follows action, this mantra, right? If you wanna shift your mental or emotional disposition, you have to do something to accomplish that. So are you getting enough sleep? Are you exercising on the daily? Are you connecting with nature? Are you connecting with other people?

Are you of service nature? Are you connecting with other people? Are you of service to somebody less fortunate? Like often, and this is, you know, completely a 12 step thing. Like if you feel off or you're grinding on your own, you know, self-obsession, like pick up the phone and call a friend who's going through a hard time. It doesn't have to be some huge grand gesture, but anything you can do to kind of get out of your own self obsession seems to ameliorate those kind of negative emotions. And then beyond that, you know, again, simple stuff, meditation, mindfulness practices, a gratitude list,

which helps shift the narrative and helps you identify or kind of appreciate that there are a lot of good things in your life. And maybe, you know, in my case, my life is crazy good. I lose sight of that unless I intentionally practice contrary action and behavior. So stop dwelling on the enormity of problems that you're powerless to solve.

Like you talked about climate change, like these existential things, like you can walk around with a cloud over your head and it will paralyze you. So try to get out of that kind of doomsday scrolling or doomsday thinking, and just focus on and execute the small things that you can actually do on the daily and then do them.

And here's the thing, and again, this is another like 12 step thing. These solutions, it's like, I'm sure Brett already knows all of this, right? Sometimes we need to be reminded of them because inherently as humans, like we're annoyed that the solution or the answer again goes back to these basic things.

We want it to be more complicated or what's the better solution or what's the latest in science that can solve this problem for me? Where's the advanced course? How can I get beyond the velvet rope? And you can tell me the new thing that I can do to deal with this stuff.

But there is no magic bullet. It's the same old shit. And no matter how much you practice meditation or no matter how many times you get a good night's sleep, like it doesn't carry into the next day. These are things you have to do consistently every single day if you're in that place, if you wanna emerge out of it.

It's just doing these things over and over again, rinse and repeat. And that's not to say, you know, sometimes people need some exogenous help. Like if you have a true case of depression, clinical depression, or some other kind of mental condition, then you should seek help for that. Whether that's therapeutic talk therapy,

which is another thing that, you know, I think is good and what I've been practicing for many years or some kind of outside help in that vein. But that's the best answer that I can give you. And I hope that's helpful. That's a fantastic answer. She wanted to hear from you too.

If I felt it was applicable. I think she senses that I have internal buoyancy control, which I don't get into like the, I don't wake up with like the dark drearies. But you have a comedic cynicism to you. I have a deeply embedded, like global cynicism within me. I do, I am concerned for the state of things. But rather than combat it, you cultivate it.

It's part of my persona. And then you deploy that. But like, it doesn't, what I'm saying is it doesn't, I don't wake up like feeling that, you know, what gets me is when I have a lot to do and I don't feel like I have enough time. And like the big stuff, like the real crises, I'm actually good, I'm actually able to deal with

quite well, it's the stuff that is actually not a crisis that I make into a bigger deal than it is and it drives me nuts. So I'm like kind of the opposite, if that makes sense. Like I don't get caught up in like the stuff you- It's not climate change. It's like, why is there a scuff on my shoe? It's like, there's so many deadlines

and there's other things I wanna do. And you know what I mean? Like, and like, when am I gonna, it's looking for the next thing is my big dilemma. But that said, I certainly have really bad days. And sometimes I am the asshole and you always don't wanna be the asshole in the world, but sometimes you are.

And what I usually, if I'm not doing daily yoga in the morning or exercising first thing in the morning, I'm much more susceptible to that. So for me, the big thing is movement. And if I do that and I can usually keep my mind right. Yeah, you can't be the person you wanna be in the world if you're not exercising some basic self care.

Right. And then I like I do, it is important to me to stay in that connection and all that. But like I said, I am cynical in a lot of ways. I just don't end up with, wake up with the juries too often. All right. Well, let's go to Bill from Crusted Butte. Hey, Rich and Adam. Thank you so much for what you guys do. This is Bill Wolfson out of Crusted Butte, Colorado. I am calling to ask a question regarding discipline.

I have the goals and aspirations of being a vegan, socially, physically, and morally, I guess you'd say. And I am lacking some fortitude or some ability to really stick with it, either based on social influences, my own discipline, or just inconsistency. I've gotten past beating myself up for it, but that was also a struggle for a while. And now I'm just wondering if you have any tips or tricks for some of us people that struggle with this. I'm guessing it's a relatively common occurrence for a lot of people who love what you guys do and how you do it, but are not 100% integrated on how we are

doing it in our own lives. Thank you so much. I hope you can shed some light on this and peace plants and namaste to you all. Thanks, Bill. I think that's a great question. It is a common issue that I think we all confront in our own ways. I mean, you use the example of striving to go vegan, but this quandary I think applies to any type of habit change.

So the question first is, why is letting go of bad habits so hard? And why is creating better habits equally hard, if not harder? Many people smarter than me have tackled this terrain. So I would start with the wisdom of James Clear in his book, Atomic Habits. We did a podcast together that was very popular.

It was a couple of years ago, October, 2018, episode 401. So I would check that out if you haven't already. But I think a lot of this begins with identifying your values. And what I mean by that is first being clear on who you are now and who you aspire to be. So the values that you desire to inhabit, like what does that look like for you?

And then getting really clear on the dissonance between the two, the person you are now and the person you aspire to be. And I think that in between zone, within that in between zone, there is a dissonance that creates a psychic toll that I believe is a barrier to really feeling comfortable in your own skin

and living as authentically as you can. So the less dissonance between those two, the more fully embodied and empowered you're going to feel and become. So that's the goal, right? How do we get there? Well, to close that gap and eat away at that dissonance, you need to know the end game first,

the person you aspire to be. So again, back to that clarity. And then you need to backtrack from there and identify the steps that are going to get you there. So there's a goal and then there's the stepping stones towards achieving that goal. And I think as you begin to identify those steps and begin to take them,

it's a perspective that I think is helpful is to look at it through the lens of forming new habits rather than letting go of bad habits. So rather than dwell on the bad habits, which tend to lead you to beating yourself up, sort of let go of that or put it in the back recesses of your mind and focus on the new habits that you're trying to build.

These new steps, these new stepping stones are going to be the fabric upon which you build these new habits until they are fully ingrained. And the way that you do that is you identify and start with really small doable things that you can begin doing right away. Things that are just a little bit out of your comfort zone, but not too much out,

like there shouldn't be too much of a stretch. And then you start knocking them down, like doing them. And that creates momentum. And with that momentum, you'll find yourself more emotionally engaged with the journey itself. And then it's about just continuing to keep the pressure on and increasing the degree of difficulty

of those little doable steps as you kind of progress. And I think when you do this, as you're building these new habits, often what happens is it will crowd out the bad habits and they will fall away without effort. So without even focusing on letting go of these bad habits, the new habits will create so much space that there isn't really any room

for those bad habits anymore. And they will kind of evaporate without having to put a lot of mental effort into them. I think that it's also important to create an environment that's conducive to making those healthy changes and leading you to take those little steps along the way. So in the context of this vegan example,

it's like get rid of the foods in your house that aren't on the program. And that way you make it additionally more difficult for you to veer off the path that you're trying to walk. And I think also it's important to be patient and gentle with yourself. This is not a linear thing. It's not about perfection.

If you slip up or make a mistake, it's not about beating yourself up or abandoning it. It's about doing a forensic evaluation of why you misstepped and trying to understand what led you to that choice and then closing that gap so that next time you're not in that position again. Like, oh, I was feeling tired

or I just had an argument with my partner and suddenly I found myself eating this thing I promised myself I wouldn't. Like, you know, first of all, get the thing out of the house and then understand like, oh, wow, I guess like I veer off the path when I'm in this emotional state. Like all of those things I think

are building yourself knowledge and self-understanding about why you make the choices that you make. And those turn out to be very helpful. Back to the patience thing, progress is generally microscopic. Often other people are able to identify changes that you've made in yourself before you're even able to. So if you're not seeing it in yourself

or you feel like you're not making any progress, that's not necessarily a pragmatic or reliable indicator of where you are. Just keep doing the thing, keep like trotting the path and build on that momentum. And if need be, leverage external accountability, both positive and negative, like bring people into your life to whom you're accountable,

like people that know you're trying to do this hard thing that you're checking in with, who are aware of whether you're doing it properly or not. And they can say, hey, what's up? You said you were gonna go to the gym at this time, you didn't show up or whatever. Like the more you can kind of build in those measures, the more likely you are to remain on that path.

And I think it's also important because these, sometimes these change, like if you wanna make a big change in your life, like I wanna go vegan and let go of these animal products that I've been eating my whole life, like that's a large thing that you're endeavoring to do, right? So the best way is to break it down into tiny little things

and master one thing at a time. So an example that I always like to give in the vegan context is, you know, maybe swap out dairy milk for plant milk, like and put that in your coffee or tea in the morning, or put that on your cereal or however you use milk and just do that for a period of, I don't know, six weeks or eight weeks.

And what you'll find is suddenly you won't think twice about it. It's just the default choice that you make. And then you can move on to another category and you kind of knock those, you know, bowling pins down one at a time. And I think, you know, when you do it that way, then you're kind of knock those bowling pins down one at a time. And I think when you do it that way, then you're kind of,

you can celebrate these little successes too. And the more little successes that you can celebrate, then the better you feel about the progress that you're making and the more emotionally invested you are in the long-term plan of what you're trying to accomplish. Final thing I would say is, is it's important to look inward within yourself and kind of deconstruct your own psychological framework

because you said in your question that your resolve often fails in the face of social influence. So like, why is that the case? And what does it say about how you feel about yourself and your ability to set healthy boundaries? Like the idea that you would cave who you wanna be because someone might be uncomfortable with it. That tells me that you lack a certain level of esteem

to stand in your own truth. The fact that you would change your habits because you're in a certain social setting where people might have a certain opinion about what you're doing. But each act that you take to align your behavior with this value set is like a building block in your fortress of self-esteem.

So what it will do over time is allow yourself to be who you are. And I think you'll find as I have that those people that you're so afraid are judging you, not only don't really give a shit because everyone is self-absorbed and they're just thinking about themselves, but that in fact, they will actually respect you more

for what I would consider to be an esteemable act. Like, hey, I don't do that anymore. I'm doing this. It has nothing to do with other people. This is about your relationship with you and you. And I think getting clarity on that and having the gumption or the courage to stand firmly in your own value set

is a very attractive quality. So that fear of like, oh, I'm gonna cause problems in my social circle. A lot of that you'll discover is truly in your imagination. Like I remember when I got sober thinking, holy shit, I have to go to a wedding in six months and there's a bachelor party. Like, how am I gonna go to that bachelor party

and not drink? Like, not only am I gonna be uncomfortable, I'm gonna make everybody else uncomfortable. Your future tripping on something that hasn't happened yet. And when you get there and you kind of walk through it, you get to the other side of it and you realize like, that just wasn't the big deal that I thought it was. Like nobody actually really cares.

So value yourself and in that valuing, make those better decisions, that self-esteem will begin to flourish and blossom and make those healthier choices that align your behavior with your values even easier. But first you gotta begin. So what is that first step? What is the thing you can do right now today

that will shift that trajectory and start to create momentum in the direction that you wanna move? That was just so beautifully put. I think I didn't realize till just now how much recovery helped you in your approach to integrating a plant-based diet and just your wellness. Oh, it's huge.

It's so the software, like I heard all that and I just heard like the recovery software kind of like go into computation mode and tackle this issue with this software that works and can be applied so many different places. It must be such a core element. It's a rubric for, you know, how I make decisions in all facets of my life.

And certainly, especially when you realize how much we eat to kind of solve our emotional states and you realize there is an addictive nature to that. The template of recovery becomes all the more apt. And I think it's really instructive for any kind of habit change that you're trying to make. I love it, it was great. Can I add just two quick things to that?

For someone who I'm, as I've said before, in about 95% plant-based occasionally, I do eat some seafood. I make sure it's sustainable. I know, I'm so sorry. Sylvia would hate it. There's no such thing as sustainable fishing, Adam. You know this at this point.

Your semi-deepness is now being downgraded. Listen, so 95%, but that's pretty good, right? So- Listen, if everybody was 95%, we'd be in a better place. So I'm not gonna, yeah. So what I'm- I'm not gonna say I'm not gonna judge you. You can judge me on your own time.

This is not my own time. This is your time. This is my own time right now, buddy. The point I'm trying to make here is with Bill, what helped me when I first started, I was just full omnivore. And I also wanted to gravitate and let go of some habitual eating patterns that were deeply ingrained,

just like you described, exactly how you described. And so I'd already, I'd been off dairy milk for years. So that wouldn't have been a good place for me to start. So I'm just sharing to kind of give an idea. And I, our old buddy, Dan Buettner, Blue Zones, I kind of went with his approach, which was, here are all these hotspots around the world, in a good way, blue spots around the world,

Blue Zones, where people are living to over a hundred. And what are the concepts that they all share? And one of them is eating very little meat products. So the idea was you can eat it once or twice a month and it probably won't have a big health impact on you. And so I did that, that's how I approached it. So I would eat meat every two weeks. I'd give myself every two weeks,

because it's also how I quit smoking cigarettes. I smoked cigarettes in my early twenties. And it's the same idea. I just, I don't wanna get into that because it involved a different bad habit, but I saved up this thing that I wanted so badly till the end of the day, or in this case, two weeks. And then eventually what happens is it falls away. And in the end of the day, or in this case, two weeks. And then eventually what happens is it falls away.

And in the course of meat eating, what you'll find, if you do that, you put a container where you can have it so that it makes it easier to say no in the interim. And then when you get there, you eat it and you enjoy it. But eventually what's going to happen is your taste buds will change. I think that's the biggest surprising thing to me

is when you first start going plant-based and you've been eating a lot of meat, it may be the flavor, you lack a certain, you don't have the flavors that you are used to in your meals, but the more you eat plants, when you go back to eating meat, even because I went from twice a month to once a month. And when you go back to it pretty soon,

you'll notice it's actually the meat that doesn't have the flavor and everything else has a lot more flavor. It's all the spices and the flavors and the sauces. Yeah, yeah. And so that I think could be helpful to you. I don't know if it will be, but it could be. And then the other thing I would say is

social pressure wise, Crested Butte, it's in, you know, sometimes living in certain places, it can be very challenging because there are not a lot of options, especially if you're not cooking for yourself all the time. So I do understand that. And I would say, look for, you know, Chinese food, Thai food, look for places that have a good option for you

that might not be what you're normally eating, but really good, healthy plant-based options. Cause Italian, you know, a lot of ethnic food does have that Indian. Yeah, I don't mean to be insensitive to the location or geographic location and whatever constraints that presents. But I will say this,

your response is spoken like a true normie, like non addict, because everything you said does not work for me. Right? Like the idea, like in the smoking example that you would like, okay, well I'm trying to quit smoking. So I'm just gonna like save that cigarette for the end of the day or whatever.

That's not what it was. Do you want me to tell you what it was? What? So I would save it. I would, every time I had the urge to smoke a cigarette, I would just realize when you get home, you can have a big bong hit. And that was the replacement?

That was the replacement. Also, that actually does sound like an addict. Yes, yes. But equally non-workable in practice. I don't think that works for Bill. Here's the thing, like, yeah, I think like this is a thing that people who are not addicts or alcoholics struggle to understand.

Like if you're a normal person, you're like, oh, I'll just have it like once a month. And that works great for me. For me, that doesn't work at all because it keeps me connected to the thing that's the problem. And I can't truly be free until I'm totally liberated

from it. So if you were to tell me, and I've told this, given this example many times on the podcast, so forgive me if you heard me say this before, but if you told me, look, you can go to In-N-Out Burger like once a week and that's all the meat you're gonna eat. I would spend five days a week obsessing upon when I could go to In-N-Out Burger and get that cheeseburger.

Like the amount of mental energy that would go into that would just be unbelievable. So I'm not free of that obsession until I'm truly distanced from it completely. Because I don't have, because of the addict gene in me or whatever it is, like I don't have that luxury. And if I was told I could eat meat once a week, then three months from now, that would be twice a week.

A month later, that would be four times a week. And then, you know, blank, and I'm just eating meat all the time. Right. Like that's the way it works for me. Fair enough. So I have to, and I realize like maybe I'm wired differently than the average human being is listening to this.

That's just what works for me. Like I have to completely step over the line and not go back. And with that, there's some discomfort. For a couple of weeks, it is like detoxing off a drug. You're like, I really want that thing. I crave that thing. The only way out is through.

You get through a couple of weeks of it. Those cravings start to dissipate. A month later, you're barely thinking about it. And then you wake up and you realize like, wow, I haven't thought of that thing in quite some time. Like, I guess I'm free from it. And that to me is a more powerful, long lasting way to do this.

Although for a lot of people, like they're like you, they're like, well, I can kind of dabble here and there. And it's not a problem. Like I wish, you know, I truly, I wish. You make my example sounds so bad. And also for me, it's like, oh, these, it's like, okay, here are these blue zones people, they barely eat meat. So you look at that as, well, I have a license

to eat meat a couple of times a month, whereas I'm the extreme and I'm like, well, I'm just getting rid of that all together. But my point is, is that I don't do that, right? Like the meat that I was talking about was chicken or beef or whatever, I don't touch that at all. So what happens is you get to a place where you realize, actually, it's not good food.

There's no reason to do it. So all those reasons, so in my case, that's how it happened. So in my case, I was like, I don't have a desire anymore for either of those two things, but I couldn't go cold turkey because for what I could have, I guess, but I decided not to and it worked for me. But here's, let me throw this one at you.

As this ambassador for the oceans, the idea that you would eat seafood and then quote unquote classify it as sustainable. See that to me- No, well I have, I have, I have, so I know what sustainable seafood actually is. I understand. But I think that that,

like when we're talking about that dissonance gap, like that gap between what you stand for, which is the beauty and purity and majesty of the oceans, and then like eating a sentension animal from said ocean. To me, those things don't exactly line up. So maybe just something to think about. I'll think about it. It's not the first time I've thought about it.

See, there's the psychic train. I know. Because you know, on some level, you're like, this is an inconsistency. A lot of the best watermen I know also are fishermen. We're not talking about them though. Okay, we're talking about you. Anyway, Bill, you have a couple of options there.

That's okay. Bill, you have a couple of options. I would go with Rich's option, but if it doesn't work for you, come on over to my side. All right, we'll see how it goes. Check in with us in a couple months. We're going to Iowa for this last question. And I love that.

I don't think we've been to Iowa yet. Have we? Have we not? By the way, can I make a plug? We need some questions, people. Yeah. Yeah, call us. We didn't call out the voicemail number. Let's do it, let's call it out. What is it? Do you know it?

It's 424-235-4626. That's 424-235-4626. That's 424-235-4626. Operators are standing by. Yes. Call us if you are going... Well, no, here we go. Hello, guys. My name is Evan.

I'm 20 years old, pursuing entrepreneurship from Iowa. I wanted to ask this question because I hear this statement so often from my parents and a lot of older people and it really bothers me. So the statement is, but you're young. This really annoys me because this kind of triggers a self-assumption that I'm not doing the right thing while I'm quote young no matter what it is. Especially as a person that is pursuing something other than college. Even though I'm doing the right things to progress towards my goals, these older people usually make me feel like I'm doing the wrong thing or not doing enough. Also, how

do I enjoy the moment while I go through this process when I might not be doing all this work but not seeing any of the progress in the present time? But with that being said, I think it'd be great for you both to give an objective statement that could apply to all young people so we might have an idea of what the right and wrong things are. I know this is a pretty dense question, so maybe there's a possibility to create it into a section of one of the roll-ons. I know it would be very beneficial to a lot of people listening. Whatever happens, I appreciate you guys taking the time to a lot of people listening. Whatever happens,

I appreciate you guys taking the time for these questions, and I hope you have a great day. Thanks. Oh, the youth. Yes. The Gen Z. As a representative of older people,

I'd like to hear your take on this. The Gen X take? Yes. I think it's, you know, listen, it is an open-ended question. It can be interpreted so many different ways, but I think it's interesting to get a question like that because it shows you,

cause often you don't, we don't get that. You get it at home, but I don't have, I don't have 20 year olds at home. So I don't get that, that same kind of viewpoint too often. So it's cool to hear it unfiltered here. Yeah, I mean, I'm around a lot of people that are in Evan's age bracket. And I am aware of how, look, there's something like

beautiful about young people, shirking the trends of their elders and believing that they know what's best. And as an older person, you're like, there's so much, you don't know what you don't know. And so as an older person, you always wanna like save people from making mistakes. And oftentimes those people need to make those mistakes.

And then other times they're right. And that's what's incredible about young people. Like we can point our finger and as old men and be like these crazy kids, but this is the way of the world. Like the youth inherit our finger and as old men and be like these crazy kids, but this is the way of the world. Like the youth inherit the earth and they reshape it in their image. And there's something to be respected about that.

So I appreciate Evan's question. Yes, it is a bit vague and open-ended. It's really kind of hard to get a grip on what exactly these older people are telling you that you're doing that's wrong. Like I don't understand the context that's being hurled at you as a specific criticism. So without knowing enough specifics,

it's hard to give you a completely concrete answer, but I'll do my best. And I think the first thing I would say is that I feel strongly that youth, your 20s, is the time in your life for trying lots of things, exposing yourself to as many experiences and cultures and jobs and careers as you possibly can. And being okay with changing your mind,

changing your plans, changing gears, and being even better with failing, right? This is the time to do it. Like not in your 40s when you have a mortgage and a partner and a car payment, this is the time. And I think that at odds with this and probably where some of these older people are coming from is this culture that we live in

that reinforces this mentality that we're in a race. And if you're not on a certain pre-approved track that you're falling behind, but falling behind, what exactly? So much of this is like illusion and projection, but that projection or that fear comes from a very specific place. Because as a parent, I can sympathize with their concern

because we all want our kids to be happy, productive, safe, secure. We only know what we know. And what we know is how we did it and how our parents did it. And breaking free of social paradigms, like when you see a young person who's like, I'm not gonna follow that program,

I'm gonna do it my own way, can be scary for an older person or a parent because it's not only a threat to kind of sometimes our values or the way we made it our way in the world and the way we'd like to see our children make it, like we wanna pass down our wisdom, but also a threat to that compulsion that we have as parents for control and for certainty.

But like I said, those impulses are quite often generally wrongheaded and they're based on this kind of illusion of control anyway. So what I say to you, Evan, is that you should follow your heart. You should pursue what gets you excited, what gets you out of bed in the morning. I would suggest that you might enjoy reading

David Epstein's book, Range. David, who came up earlier on the podcast. A double mention. He's getting a double mention today. What's up, David? Where's that check? And in that book, it's sort of a canvassing of all these amazingly successful people

across a wide variety of fields. And David realized that kind of what unites these people or the trends that he sees in the arc of their life is that these people were dabblers. They tried many, many things before they finally settled on the one thing that they found purpose in. And all of those dabbling endeavors that they did over the course of their life kind of come into play

to create this stew that makes them kind of the only person who could do the thing that they end up doing. Cause it's this mix of interesting past experiences and skillsets. But I say this with two caveats. And the first is that, you know, following your heart, pursuing what gets you excited is not an excuse to be irresponsible.

You still have to live in the world. And if you're gonna do this, you have to live lean so you can invest whatever money and time you have in experiences and not get captured by debt or obligations that don't serve you. So that's super important. Don't end up leveraging yourself so that you owe a bunch of people or you have payments

or you're in an apartment that's too expensive for you. All of those things, like try to live as leanly as possible and that just provides more opportunities and also serves your ability to like change gears if you want to. And the second thing I would say, and I say this because I have no idea if you should or should not go to college

or should or should not be doing what you're doing right now is to do a really honest and open inventory of yourself and your actions. Because perhaps just maybe your elders are correct and you're not seeing something that they can see. And because you're young and full of vim and vigor, you have your blinders up to something they're trying to express to you

that you've just sort of willingly or unwillingly blinded yourself to. So in that inventory, it's about doing a really honest accounting of your actions to identify possible blind spots. Like, are there areas in your life where maybe you are being irresponsible or reactive or petulant?

And what are your true motivations for what you're pursuing right now? Are they truly born out of like a passion and an intuitive knowing pull towards something personally meaningful that is girded with purpose? Or is there a little bit of like, fuck you to your parents built in there somewhere? Because that's true of a lot of young people,

maybe most young people. Like to what extent are you being driven not by this honorable, you know, sentiment, but by some kind of latent resentment or other kind of petty emotion that could trip you up and, you know, cause a lot of undue suffering in your life. So I think getting that part right is absolutely fundamental and key.

Getting clear on the motivation. Yeah, like being really clear with what it is you're exactly doing and what your motivations are. And the only way to get that clarity is to really do this inside work. And everyone's like, well, what is the inside work? And it's hard to give a concrete, clear definition of that.

But it's something that you discover through kind of grappling with your interior emotions. And that can be done with a therapist. It can be done through journaling. It can be done through mindfulness practices. But I really think talking these things out with somebody who is skilled at helping you kind of get this type of clarity is really important.

So if you're capable of seeing a therapist or being in some kind of therapeutic construct, I think that would be helpful in trying to cobble together that kind of inventory and clarity. The other piece that he mentioned was progress, like not feeling like he was making any progress. And to that, I would say that nothing in life is for not. Everything good takes a lot longer

than you can possibly imagine. I'm an example of that. And if you feel like you're not making, Adam raised his hand. If you're not making progress under your definition of what progress is, perhaps you could change, you might wanna change the definition of progress or change or extend the timeline

and ask yourself, irrespective of all of that progress regression, like what are you learning along the way that could be helpful to you in other facets of life? Because even if you feel like you're not making progress, if you're grappling with whatever problems you're trying to solve or business you're trying to build or whatever it is you feel like you're not making progress, if you're grappling with whatever problems you're trying to solve or business you're trying to build or whatever it is, everything that you're experiencing,

particularly the setbacks and the failures and how you kind of tackle and overcome obstacles, that's the curriculum, right? For whatever you end up doing later, even if you never make progress in let's say this business venture that you're up doing later, even if you never make progress in let's say this business venture that you're striving towards building, you are learning many important life lessons along the way

that I have no doubt will come into play in a positive and material way later in your life. So I guess that's my big speech, be nimble. If you really feel like you're not making progress, you can't be afraid to, you can't hold on so tightly. You should be able to let go. And if it's not working, change gears, switch it up. This is what your twenties is for.

The youth is built for this. And if you are living lean and ensuring that you're not under any kind of undue financial constraints, then you're able to do that. And you can pivot your energy and just do something else and not beat yourself up as if you had failed at something, despite whatever these elders are telling you

and kind of, you know, apply the lessons that you learned in that past experience into a new one. Well said, it's exact speech I give to the scoopers on the line every morning. The scoopers on the line? Yeah. What is a scooper and what line? Ben and Jerry's.

Oh. The young scoopers. I forgot that you have a day job. Oh. Just so we're clear, this is a joke, everybody. Some people actually think you work at Ben and Jerry's. I don't work at Ben and Jerry's-ish. That's it, I think it's a great question.

I think you handled it. I think- I mean, the question's pretty vague. Like I can't really tell exactly what his elders are upset about or what it is- No, but you could tell that there's some sort of generational pressure he's getting. He's getting pressure from his parents or some other people that are like,

you should go to college, this is crazy. What you're doing isn't gonna work. And all I can say is what I was doing certainly didn't seem like it was working for a long, long, long time. And so, but at the same time, I got to a point where there was no turning back. So there is something to be the commitment of it.

Yeah, but core to that in your example, there was some knowing that you were a writer. Yeah. Like I am a writer. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What that looks like in the world and how I make a living doing that, that's where you had to be flexible and nimble.

And there was a lot of different incarnations of that along the way. There was, I was a writer and a traveler. But you were always a writer and you knew that. So you had that self-awareness and self-knowledge. Yeah. You know, maybe Evan believes in his heart of hearts. He is an entrepreneur, he's a business person.

It's unclear, but I think that's where it all starts. Right? Yeah. And if you don't know that, all the more reason to do as David Epstein would suggest, dabble, you know, spend your twenties exposing yourself to lots and lots of things. Cause how are you supposed to know? I do think there's this enormous pressure on young people

that you're supposed to know what you wanna do with your life. I mean, you go to college at 18 and you have to choose a major, it's insane. That's what I was about to say. It's like as much as fun as I had in college and meeting my friends and all that, in all that,

in all honesty, I shouldn't have gone for two years. Like, because I didn't take anything specific to something I wanna do later, which is fine too. It got me, mostly the best thing about college for me was meeting friends and reading some books that helped me down the line and at the time. But like the bottom line is, if you do ever decide to go back,

you're gonna know what you wanna go back for and you're gonna get more out of the experience and you'll be probably pay more attention. So I don't think there's any big problem with punting college at all. And I'm with you, I think that this program that people are on is a bit crazy. Yeah, and I would say that, you know,

my history demonstrates, you know, me being a terrible example of all the advice that I just gave, like I went to law school, I didn't know why I was going to law school. I'm practicing law for like a really long time, never enjoying it, never having any passion for it, but so wed to the idea that this is what I had to do because I had invested so much into it.

And I had put myself in a position where I couldn't be nimble and I was overspending and created, you and created financial instability that made it even worse. In your 40s. It was like terrible, yeah. And I'm just like, please. Even that won't work out.

But that's why I feel so strongly about this. Like, please don't do what I did. Right, right, right. Please don't do it. And that's probably all the older generation is trying to tell you is, is please don't fuck up like we fucked up. But at the same time, the fear would be like,

oh, go to law school, it's secure. And yeah, if you lease a BMW and live in a nice condo and have a prestigious job, then I can go to the cocktail party and tell my friends that you're doing awesome. And that's fucked up. Right. And also, unless we don't know,

Evan could be a young Walter White in training. We just don't know what his business is. I don't know. Do you think he purposely was vague to not incriminate himself? Walter White shout out. All right. That's just a joke, Evan.

I hope you're doing good in Iowa. Yeah, yeah. All right. Well, thus concludes another roll on. There was a minute there where I thought we were gonna land this in well under two hours, but here we are again, well over two hours. And we did leave stuff out, we promise.

We did. You feel good? Yeah, I feel good to great. Good to great. Your semi deepness just got a little bit deeper. You know what? I love that we gave two polar opposite answers. Yeah, I think we should strive,

I'll strive for questions where we totally disagree and that way it gives the listener options. Yeah, I think the answer to that question would be good as a standalone video we should put up. So we'll work on that. All right, my friend until next time. In the meantime, thank you for joining us today. I appreciate your attention.

I don't take it for granted. You can follow Adam at Adam Skolnick on the internet. I'm at Rich Roll everywhere. Once again, we do love the questions and could use some messages. So if you've got something on your mind, you want us to discuss the phone number is 424-235-4626. Show notes as always are available on the episode page

at richroll.com. And please don't forget to subscribe to the show. That really does help us out a lot on YouTube, on Apple, on Spotify, wherever you enjoy this content. This show is a team effort. I certainly don't do it alone. So thanks go out today to my team, Jason Camiolo for audio engineering production,

show notes and interstitial music, Blake Curtis and Dan Drake for handling the video side of things, Daniel Solis for graphics, AJ Akpodeite for TikToks, more video content. Dave Greenberg for portraits, Georgia Whaley for TikToks, more video content. Dave Greenberg for portraits, Georgia Whaley for copywriting, DK for advertiser relationships and theme music

as always by Tyler Trapper and Harry. Appreciate you guys, love you. See you back here in a couple of days with another amazing episode. Until then, my friend, Adam, last words. Thanks for all the great reporting out from Beijing. True. Oh, you crew of intrepid reporters.

True, true that. Make sure you go see the Great Wall in winter before you come back home. Safely. Safely. Peace.こよて There you go. Thank you.