Tom Scott On Curiosity, The Power of Story & The Lost Art of Conversation

There is nothing more powerful than a story well told. Built into the very fabric of what makes us human, this ancient art holds the power to transform not just the individual but humanity at large. Nobody understands this better than Tom Scott – a man devoted to the idea that when curiosity, conversation and community converge, the world indeed becomes a better place. A graduate of Brown University with a Masters of Divinity from Yale, Tom is perhaps best known as the co-founder and original CEO of Nantucket Nectars. Founded in 1989 — long before it was cool to be a start-up founder — the fruit juice venture quickly grew to national prominence, making the “Inc. 500” list of fastest growing U. S. companies five years in a row and garnering Tom accolades, including the Mercury Award for Advertising and Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year award. After selling Nantucket Nectars in 2002, Tom reinvented himself as a film and television producer. In 2004 he formed Plum TV, which owned and operated a network of stations around the country and received more than 14 Emmy awards. He produced television ads for companies like Nike and BMW. He created and produced the HBO series The Neistat Brothers with 3-time podcast guest Casey Neistat. And in 2010 he won an Independent Spirit Award for producing the feature-length film Daddy Longlegs (also with Casey). Tom’s current passion is The Nantucket Project. Akin to TED but much more intimate, TNP is both an annual event and a movement — gatherings large and small (plus a new podcast, The Neighborhood Project) that bring together thought leaders across a wide range of disciplines to explore the most relevant, cutting-edge ideas and the implications such ideas pose for the betterment of culture, society and business. I have known Tom since 7th grade. We attended junior high and high school together. These were not my favorite times, so it was incredibly healing to revisit that era with someone who was there. We discuss Tom's entrepreneurial success. What he aims to achieve with The Nantucket Project. And the power of story to inspire wonder, cultivate community, ignite change, and unite us in this most divided time. I've been waiting 30 years to have this conversation. Honest, intimate and personally meaningful, it's exactly the exchange I always hoped it would be. You're in for a treat. Enjoy! For the visually inclined, the podcast is viewable on YouTube here: http://bit.ly/tomscottandrich If you are enjoying the video versions of the podcast, please subscribe! Peace + Plants, Rich Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Rich Roll?

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• 0:44Rich Roll?

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• 1:05Speaker 01

  I think my bliss might be curiosity. You know, I really like to learn. I just love to consume information in whatever form. And in the end, it's very satisfying when I can learn something in the chair. So yeah, I do think in a way storytelling is a big part of what I do, but it's all driven by curiosity.

• 1:28Rich Roll?

  That's Tom Scott, and this is the Rich Roll Podcast.

• 1:42Rich Roll?

  The Rich Roll Podcast. Hey, everybody. What's happening? How are you? What's going on? My name is Rich Roll. I am your host. This is a podcast. It's my podcast, the show where each week... I dive deep with the world's most compelling change makers, people who are making a difference, making a difference in health, nutrition, fitness, sports, spirituality, the environment. And in the case of today's guest, let's see what comes to mind. Business, entrepreneurship, community, entertainment, creativity. Tom Scott, Tom Scott is the guy I'm sitting down with today. Tom Scott is a guy that I've known since seventh grade, essentially most of my life. I must've been 14 when I first met Tom.

• 2:25Rich Roll?

  And he's a fascinating human as well as an incredibly accomplished guy. He's an entrepreneur, he's a filmmaker, he's a family guy. But I think primarily, if I had to drill his talents down to just one word, I would say storyteller. By way of background, Tom is perhaps best known as the co-founder of Nantucket Nectars, which is this juice company that he started almost on a whim, all the way back in 1989. He grew it into this behemoth and ultimately him and his business partner sold the company in 2002. Then Tom has this new chapter where he reinvents himself as a film and television producer.

• 3:08Rich Roll?

  2004, he forms this company called Plum TV, which garners 14 Emmy Awards, operating a network of stations around the country. Tom also created and produced the HBO television series, The Neistat Brothers, which stars, you might not be surprised to hear, three-time podcast guest and giant YouTube star, Casey Neistat. In fact, Tom was the person who first introduced me to Casey back in, must've been 2011 or 2012. Tom also won an Independent Spirit Award for producing, along with Casey, I believe, a feature called Daddy Long Legs, which was a film that premiered at Cannes and also screened at Sundance.

• 3:49Rich Roll?

  But Tom's current focus is this thing that he created a couple of years ago called The Nantucket Project. And The Nantucket Project is How do I describe it? It's an event. It's really a movement. It's sort of like TED, the TED conference, but much more intimate that brings together incredible leaders across a wide range of disciplines to talk story, to talk ideas with an eye on creating a better world. This truly is one of the better conversations I have had in recent memory. I love it. And much remains to be said about it. But first,

• 4:35Rich Roll?

  Tom Scott. Like I said, Tom and I go way back. We went to junior high school and high school together. Those were not my favorite times. So it was great. It was really great to revisit that era with Tom. And I have to say, it was pretty healing for me, in truth. It was, I think it was more than pretty healing for me. I think it was tremendously healing for me. And we talk about that. It was great. We also talk about Tom's story, of course, which is amazing. And we talk about story in general, the power of story to inspire, to raise consciousness, to create community, to really unite us in this most divided time. So even if you've never heard of Tom, you don't know Tom, I think you guys

• 5:17Rich Roll?

  are in for a treat. This one is personally meaningful to me for stated reasons, but I think you guys are going to really connect with Tom and this conversation. So let's do this.

• 5:31Rich Roll?

  So I've had lots of meditation teachers and meditation experts on this show. I just had Bob Roth on. I've had Sharon Salzberg, people like Dan Harris, Andy Puddicombe, who founded Headspace. But nobody has suggested that we do a meditation before the podcast. So that's a first for those that are listening. Tom suggested we do a two-minute meditation before we begin. And that was beautiful, man. Thank you for that. Yeah, I was glad we could. Good. Thanks for doing it. Set the space. We're all on the same wavelength now. We're ready to go.

• 6:06Rich Roll?

  It's uh, it's great to see you, man.

• 6:08Speaker 01

  You too.

• 6:08Rich Roll?

  We were, uh, we were trying to remember the last time that, that we bumped into each other. Um, and I think it was at the five year reunion, um, where I had a brief conversation with you. Prior to that, it would have been high school graduation. So many, many years. But I've kept tabs on you over the years. I'm certainly well up to speed on, on everything that you're doing. It's super impressive and I'm proud of you, man. It's really cool to see what you've done with your life. And I'm excited to talk to you about it. But one thing I think, you know, usually when I go into these, these podcasts, I do a ton of research and I want to be totally up to speed on everything. And for you, I thought, you know what?

• 6:48Rich Roll?

  Like, I know what you're doing. I'd rather just kind of forget about that and try to have a real conversation with you and reconnect with you, man.

• 6:57Speaker 01

  Cool.

• 6:58Rich Roll?

  So I'm glad that you're here. I'm glad that you're here. When I did see you at that five year reunion, I do have a vivid memory of a conversation we had, which was something along the lines of me asking you what you were up to. And it was the middle of winter. It was freezing out in Washington DC. I said, what are you doing? And you said, I'm living on Nantucket. I was like, year round in the winter? And you're like, yeah. I'm like, what are you doing there? You're like, I'm making juice. I have this juice thing that I'm doing. And I remember just thinking, that sounds like the worst idea. Like, who would do that? You know? So the joke is on me with that. And, uh, and you know, that's obviously a huge part of your story, but uh,

• 7:38Speaker 01

  You know, I don't know. Like, I, I think it's your lore. It's part of your lore. But I, I do, I think that any degree that you thought it was crazy makes sense. I'm not just saying that.

• 7:52Rich Roll?

  Like, first of all, how many people live on Nantucket in the wintertime?

• 7:55Speaker 01

  Yeah. More nowadays.

• 7:57Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 7:57Speaker 01

  But yeah.

• 7:58Rich Roll?

  And trying to serve them like a summer sort of beverage in the middle of winter.

• 8:03Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, you know, here's the funny thing. Like, I was thinking, I've followed you as well. And, um,

• 8:12Speaker 01

  I just so admire like the, I don't know, the commitment. I don't know if that's the right word, but, um, but health is a very big part of it, right? And, and I was thinking, you know, there's a big part of me that I feel distant from being in the juice business. I feel distant from that person. I feel distant from that time. And, um, and I don't think of it in terms of, you know, a healthy thing, right?

• 8:45Rich Roll?

  In what, in what way?

• 8:46Speaker 01

  Well, you know, if you go back to those days, it was such a, let me, let me, let me give you a story. I'm 24 years old, so I'm, I'm three years, two years out of college. And someone comes up to me and says, um, "Hey, Tom, you're a real entrepreneur." And my first thought was, "Fuck you." You know, I, and, and because I didn't know what it meant, I thought it meant shyster. And, uh, you know, I tell that story because that's how different it was back then.

• 9:21Rich Roll?

  Yeah, the idea, I mean, now being an entrepreneur is the equivalent of being a rock star. Everybody wants to be a founder.

• 9:28Speaker 01

  Everyone knows the word.

• 9:29Rich Roll?

  Yeah, everybody's social media profile says they founded this, or they're CEO of that, or whatever. But back in, you know, 92, or whenever it was that you started this thing, and no one was talking about starting their own businesses. That was kind of a radical idea back then. The idea of being an entrepreneur, what is that?

• 9:48Speaker 01

  Well, and even, and I still feel that way now. Like, when I think about your life,

• 9:55Speaker 01

  I appreciate, which I think is common. I mean, I appreciate your, what I know of your life. You know, your, your- Your competitiveness, your, I don't know, clearly your health, some of the things that you pursue, and that's what attracts me. You know, I'm not that interested in your business, no offense. I'm not, I'm just not that interested in businesses overall. But the idea that you're, you know, the things that you do on a daily basis, the things you learn, the things you see, it's really interesting to me. So when this person called me an entrepreneur, I legitimately thought, no, I make juice, you know, and it was like an offense to me. Like, I don't want to, I didn't do this to be a business

• 10:39Speaker 01

  person. Well, again, I thought it was a person on the take. I didn't really actually know what it meant. Sounds corny, but it's just that. So this was, you know, we started in 1989, and I'm going to guess this was like 91 or something like that, as you said. But a different time, just a very, very different world.

• 10:58Rich Roll?

  But you didn't get into it to create some massive enterprise. Like, you were just having fun. You love juice. You love making juice. You would get in these boats, right, and like hand-deliver them, you know, home delivery or whatever.

• 11:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:13Rich Roll?

  And that has like, there's a romantic veneer to that.

• 11:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:16Rich Roll?

  You know?

• 11:17Speaker 01

  You know, and it, I must say, like, kind of deservedly so. You know, there came a time, let me be clear, there came a time where we knew this was true. That we, you know, there came a time where we knew this was an interesting idea, that it was an interesting story that could sell and did sell. But not in the beginning. I mean, in the beginning, if you remember, when we graduated from college, the economy was terrible.

• 11:42Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 11:42Speaker 01

  I couldn't get an interview. I didn't know what I wanted to do, but, you know, you go to career services to get interviews, and like, my friends would try to get interviews at Goldman Sachs. I didn't know what that was.

• 11:53Rich Roll?

  I didn't either. I mean, people don't understand that back in that time, pre-internet, you would go to your career counselor office at college. Like, we went to the best colleges in the world, and there'd be pamphlets for like Boston Consulting, and like, I was like, I don't even know what that is. Like, what, it didn't seem like there were that many options, and everybody was just lining up to do interviews at investment banks and consulting firms. And anything outside of that was either med school or law school, and that's kind of where it ended.

• 12:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, I know. That's so true. You know, and I think about like, my friends who would apply, like, they'd

• 12:30Speaker 01

  They wanted to work at Merrill Lynch in banking. So I thought they were going to be bank tellers. Legitimately, I didn't know. I was like, oh, you're going to be so.

• 12:38Rich Roll?

  I still, I moved to New York and lived with three guys who were analysts at Morgan Stanley. And to this day, I have no idea what they went to work and did all day.

• 12:46Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, and that is very different. I mean, kids in high school know what Goldman Sachs is.

• 12:52Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 12:52Speaker 01

  We did not know that. I mean, it was just a very different world.

• 12:55Rich Roll?

  How would you even know that that would be something that you would want to do?

• 12:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, I don't know.

• 13:00Rich Roll?

  I don't know.

• 13:00Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, you know what? It's funny, I'm on my flight tonight or today was Michael Douglas. That was the only thing we knew about Wall Street was Wall Street.

• 13:11Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 13:12Speaker 01

  The movie.

• 13:14Speaker 01

  That was the only thing I knew. And by the way, that might not have been out yet.

• 13:18Rich Roll?

  I don't think it was. I think that came later.

• 13:21Speaker 01

  It may, maybe it did.

• 13:22Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Did you tell him that?

• 13:23Speaker 01

  No, I didn't say a word.

• 13:26Speaker 01

  He didn't want to be bothered.

• 13:27Rich Roll?

  That's really funny. Well, I'm trying to remember, like, I have this memory. You told me that you were just recently back in Washington for a funeral for the wife of Lowell Davis, who was the athletic director of our school at the time. And, you know, I've been thinking and kind of wrapping my head around, you know, seeing you today, like remembering my high school experience, which I wrote about in my book. Like, you know, I didn't have a good time at Landon. Like, that was not the right place for me. The culture just was antithetical to the kind of kid that I was, like this sensitive kid. And I tried, like, I tried to fit in, like, I, you know, I've, I've known you, like, my daughter's 14. Like, I think I was 14 when I met you.

• 14:12Rich Roll?

  Like, I've known you most of my life.

• 14:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:15Rich Roll?

  And I remember joining the basketball team in seventh grade and I was just god awful, you know? And I was appropriately mocked for that. And I remember that you, you know, you were somebody who was always, you know, very good at sports. Excelled at school, extremely handsome. Like you were a popular kid and your best friend was Neil Phillips, who was inarguably the best athlete at the school, who went on to Harvard and we can get into his career and his life because it's inspiring and we were talking about that previously. Somebody who to this day is still, I would, I presume is your best friend to this day.

• 14:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:51Rich Roll?

  Right? And the two of you guys always treated me kindly and fairly. When you didn't have to as sort of the kingpins of the school. When some of the other kids weren't. And, and so I wanted to thank you for that. Because I, you know, it was, it was, that was a difficult, like seventh, eighth, ninth grade, it was just really hard years for me. And it's funny because I'm interested in your recollections of Landon and your, your thoughts on that. Because when my book came out, like they reached out to me. They're like, oh, will you sign a copy of the book? We want to put it in the library. And I was like, did you read the book?

• 15:30Rich Roll?

  Like, I didn't exactly paint, you know, the, the best picture of the school. And, and that's something that I've had to kind of come to terms with and make peace with over the years. Like it was what it was, it was fine. I got an amazing education, all of that. But I think, you know, it, it damaged me socially and probably contributed to my alcoholism in some way. And I'm cool with it now. And so I think for you to be sitting across from me is a very, you know, it's, it's a symbolic kind of full circle moment for me to kind of reflect back on that time. So when you think about that period of your life, like what comes to mind?

• 16:09Speaker 01

  Yeah. You know, it's funny, I didn't know. You know, I know the story from the book. And I didn't know most of that, honestly, I just.

• 16:22Speaker 01

  Maybe I should have paid more attention. I don't know.

• 16:24Rich Roll?

  Well, I mean, we're just kids. You know, I basically, I just ended up kind of withdrawing, you know, socially from the school and just got into swimming. And then that was like my thing.

• 16:35Speaker 01

  Well, so, um, that was a tough place, you know, it was a very male dominated, athlete dominated place that, um, but that nonetheless, I still, you know, I have a lot of friends from there. I've had an interesting relationship with it, with it over the years. But, um, but I didn't know, you know, I, what I did, to be clear, I didn't know how I might have played a role in the way you felt. I never knew. And because some of the names, you mentioned at least one name in the book that, um, is, you know, a guy who was a friend of mine. I haven't seen him in years.

• 17:15Rich Roll?

  Yeah. And, and I've since, I actually regret calling him out and I've had communication with him. And I have another version of the book coming out in a couple of weeks and I changed all of that.

• 17:25Speaker 01

  You did?

• 17:26Rich Roll?

  Yeah. I think that was, that mention came out of resentment, you know, and I don't think it was fair to him to, to, I thought that was inappropriate. I mean, it was a pain point for me for sure.

• 17:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:38Rich Roll?

  And I'm sure he's a, you know, perfectly nice human being now.

• 17:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, I, I think he is. I mean, I, you know, I think with those kinds of things, did you see Wonder?

• 17:49Rich Roll?

  I haven't seen that yet. My, my daughters have seen it, but I haven't seen it.

• 17:53Speaker 01

  So I watched it with my kids and, and it effectively, it tells the stories from the different sides where there's these conflicts and there's, you know, there's a kid in particular who has a tough time. And, um, I don't know, I think of a lot of those things. I mean, you and I have, you know, addiction in our past and I sort of think of some of the challenges that I've been through in my life and the way I interpreted certain things. And, um, you know, generally speaking, it's funny, I had a guy the other day friend me on Facebook or, you know, asked me to be his friend on Facebook. And it's a tough one for me. I haven't said yes.

• 18:34Speaker 01

  And, and, and it's because my interpretation of our relationship is really negative, like really, really negative. And I don't know in the end, sort of how I feel about that. But, um, but going back to, going back to school, I mean, I guess that,

• 18:55Speaker 01

  it's amazing how much the world has changed. And, and having been there a couple of weeks ago, so I was back at Landon, where Rich and I went to high school and where you and I went to high school. And Neil Phillips spoke. And as I was saying to you earlier, you know, Neil runs a school for boys of color. It's a, it's a charter school in Florida. And Neil's on the front lines every day. Neil sees it all, like all the stuff that I can sort of theorize and sort of look at from afar and read about and try to understand. He deals with on a daily basis and as a result, and he, and he's running his own school, which just imagine that, right? A startup school, which you're always-

• 19:33Rich Roll?

  African-American guy, running a school for underprivileged kids of color. Is it all boys?

• 19:39Speaker 01

  All boys.

• 19:39Rich Roll?

  All boys of color in Florida.

• 19:42Speaker 01

  In Florida, in a very, you know, low income, like suburban blight-ish kind of neighborhood.

• 19:50Speaker 01

  And they don't love them, you know? Public schools don't love charter schools and some of the community does not like what they're doing. There's a big portion of the community who does love what he's doing and he's amazing. I mean, he is just like, this is a guy who, whose intentions were always in a good place, but now he practices on a day-to-day basis. Anyway, he gave one of the remembrances of Nancy Davis. Nancy, yeah, Nancy Davis. And it was just beautiful. It was beautiful. I mean, I think if you were there, you would have appreciated just, you know, here it is. How long has it been? 30 years, more? 32 years? 32 years?

• 20:31Speaker 01

  And there's something about a funeral.

• 20:36Speaker 01

  The thoughts that go into a funeral and just the time and the relationships and the people and the fact that, you know, we're all in our 50s now, we're not kids anymore. And I just, when Neil was done, I thought like, what a special moment, like what a special guy, what a special moment.

• 20:52Rich Roll?

  Yeah, he's very, he's a very gifted orator. And like I said to you before the podcast, like I watched his presentation at the Nantucket Project, was that last fall or last?

• 21:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, that was last fall.

• 21:04Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I mean, it was very moving and I thought this guy, you know, should be speaking all the time in front of audiences constantly. Like, he's, he's very impactful in his message and his delivery. And, and I wish that, I wish that I had been there. I think that would have been a healing moment for me because I was sort of famously at war with Lowell Davis the whole time that I was there because I just wanted to get an exemption to go swim and he wouldn't let me. And I was like, what is wrong with it? You know, like, he didn't like me, I didn't like him. And, you know, here we are 32 years later, like, you know, let it go already, man, you know?

• 21:40Speaker 01

  I never knew that. So he didn't want you going swimming?

• 21:42Rich Roll?

  Well, what happened was I started to, you know, get good at swimming and I wanted to take it to the next level. And that involved, you know, joining a club team that would require me to work out basically every day from like, you know, three to five or whatever it was during the sports period at Landon. And for those that are listening, Landon is just, you know, it's traditional prep school in suburban Maryland. And like you said, like, sports is a big deal there. And they prided themselves on their mandatory sports program. Every boy that goes through Landon goes through our sports program. And there was no swim team. And I was like, getting really good at swimming and I wanted to be able to take the sport as far as I could. And that required me going to Lowell Davis

• 22:26Rich Roll?

  and saying, can you let me out of your mandatory sports program so I can go swim for this club? And I'm going to train. Like, that's what I want to do. And he was like, absolutely not. You have to go. And I was like, come on. So I had to write this petition and I had, you know, I had to jump through a million hoops. And ultimately, he kept shutting me down. And Malcolm Coats, who was the headmaster at the time, kind of came to my aid and said, come on, man, let this guy do, you know, this is what he wants to do, let him do it. And even Malcolm was like, well, you know, don't you think, you know, you need to learn how to play tennis? And, you know, what if you're going to need that? And I was like, come on, man, let me do it. And so he did. And I think Lowell was not happy about that. So we were kind of like chilly around each

• 23:06Rich Roll?

  other for the rest of the time. But what happened was, senior year, I wanted to compete in the high school championships, the local high school championships. And in order to do that, you need to be a member of a high school swimming program. Landon didn't have a swim team. So I figured out a way to start one with Malcolm Coats's help and kind of piggybacked into a few dual meets to jump through the hoops that I needed to to like qualify for this meet. And that was like the little seed, you know, that, okay, well, there technically, there's a swim team at Landon now, even though I was the only one who was part of that. But now there's a team, you know, so it's cool that now there's a swim team there that I feel like on some level I helped initiate. But, but, you know,

• 23:50Rich Roll?

  I sort of been walking around for 30 years, like, you know, gnawing my teeth about Lowell Davis. And so had I been present to see Neil, you know, speak in that regard, I think would have been good for me.

• 24:03Speaker 01

  Yeah. You know, I'm gonna give you my side of your story, which is limited, of course. But I know what my side of your story is, which is, by the way, didn't, didn't our team actually do well, our team of one?

• 24:19Rich Roll?

  We did pretty well. Yeah.

• 24:21Speaker 01

  I mean, you were the only guy on the team. And I remember, like, I remember an announcement that said something like, the such and such competition happened and Landon came in, whatever.

• 24:30Rich Roll?

  I think I remember that, too. I think Malcolm Coats, like, he really, like, championed me. He like, took care of me. Like, he was fond of me. And, and, and, and that's a, that was a precious relationship for me. So he made a point of, like, announcing that. I remember at school.

• 24:42Speaker 01

  Is he gone?

• 24:43Rich Roll?

  I think he passed away.

• 24:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:45Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I think he passed away. So I got, yeah, I got second at Metros. The guy who beat me ended up making the Olympics. So I don't feel so bad about that. But anyway.

• 24:55Speaker 01

  Well, so, I remember you as very sweet kid, very nice kid, really fit kid, you know, and, and like a star. Like, I was cognizant enough at that time. And I would say we, because I know, I remember talking to Neil about it, that the fact that you went to swim at Stanford from Landon was like a miracle, you know, that was a big deal. Imagine, you think today, I doubt many kids make it to Stanford as swimmers. Where they don't even have a high school team, although now it's probably an AAU thing.

• 25:31Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I mean, it's mostly, most of those kids come through club, not high school anyway. And it's much harder now than it was then, but you know, thank you for saying that.

• 25:40Speaker 01

  Well, but I, but I do also, I just remember you as like a, I would have said, happy, sweet, a little awkward.

• 25:50Rich Roll?

  Definitely, definitely awkward. Basically sleeping through study hall, you know, drooling on my books in the library and, but I felt, I felt apart from like, I think it's that, I think it's, it's alcoholism, like always feeling like you don't fit in or you can't relate to people. And I kind of took that and isolated myself. So, you know, I played a huge part in separating myself from everybody else, I think at that time as well.

• 26:17Speaker 01

  Have you been back?

• 26:19Rich Roll?

  Uh, I think I've driven by it. I haven't been on the campus, so maybe I need to do that for my own sake.

• 26:27Speaker 01

  You know, the new headmaster, I think you'd really like, guy named Jim Neal.

• 26:35Speaker 01

  I don't want to go into it really, but I had some issues with Landon for a while and my father, you know, my father works there.

• 26:42Rich Roll?

  Oh, he does. I didn't know that.

• 26:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:44Rich Roll?

  And your brother went to Landon.

• 26:45Speaker 01

  My brother went to Landon and he was on the board for a while. Yeah. But my father teaches the history of war and he, you know, he's been there for, I don't know, 10 years.

• 26:55Rich Roll?

  Wow.

• 26:55Speaker 01

  He retired and he's now a teacher at Landon.

• 26:58Rich Roll?

  That's crazy.

• 26:59Speaker 01

  It's amazing.

• 27:00Rich Roll?

  That is crazy.

• 27:00Speaker 01

  He, you know, he's, I think he's 80, I should know this, he's 80, he's about to turn 81 and he can barely hear. And I don't know how he does it, but the kids love him. The kids love him. So.

• 27:13Rich Roll?

  That's cool. So let's talk about you. I think of you as a storyteller. It seems to be the thing that is the anchor or the consistent kind of theme that runs through everything that you've done since Nantucket Nectars, whether it was Plum TV, you know, the movie projects and television projects that you've been associated with, and we can get into that. And now what you're doing with Nantucket Project and then this new podcast that you just launched as well. But ultimately it boils down to. Telling stories and helping other people tell stories that matter.

• 27:54Speaker 01

  Yeah. You know, it's funny, I was, I, I've been reading, have you read much Joseph Campbell?

• 28:01Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 28:01Speaker 01

  Yeah. So I've had like a reunification with Joseph Campbell in the last, I don't know, few months. And then yesterday I watched, I watched Finding Joe. Have you seen that documentary?

• 28:13Rich Roll?

  No, I haven't seen that.

• 28:14Speaker 01

  It's pretty good. You know, it's like a nice Joseph Campbell survey course. And, you know, this notion of finding your bliss, which, you know, I think so much of like, the struggles I've had in my life are built around fear. And I always felt like a fraud academically, you know? I can't read very well. I know that sounds crazy, but my SATs were really good, except reading comprehension. Like you put me on reading comprehension, I read the paragraph or whatever, and then I go to the questions. I'm like, I've never heard of these people, you know, I don't know anything they're asking.

• 28:55Speaker 01

  And, you know, to this day, it's really hard for me to read. Now, I just crank through books, audiobooks, you know, I just, I got really into audiobooks as they kind of flourished over the last little bit. But I think my bliss might be curiosity, you know, I really like to learn. I just love to consume information in whatever form. I do a lot of it by listening now.

• 29:26Speaker 01

  And in the end, I get a great, it's very satisfying when I can learn something and then share it. Right? So, so yeah, I do think in a way storytelling is a big part of what I do, but it's all driven by curiosity.

• 29:43Rich Roll?

  So what was, what was the driving curiosity that led you to create Nantucket Project?

• 29:50Speaker 01

  You know, frustration was a lot of it. I'll say that.

• 29:56Speaker 01

  Our world is shallow. I mean, we live in a shallow world. You know, it's just incredible sort of where we've come. There's a lot. I mean, just look, there's a lot to be happy about. There's a lot, in many ways, the world has progressed in some really powerful ways. But I would argue that the world has regressed in a lot of ways as well. And I reached a time, I was always fascinated with the 24-hour news cycle. And when MSNBC and CNN and Fox grew, I just, I always found it really fascinating. You know, and I appreciated very much the, and I'm all for the free market, you know, news game, media game. But I have to say that, you know, sometime around 10 years ago, I just thought,

• 30:39Speaker 01

  this is getting just crazy, really disappointing. And it's amazing the things I hear people say to each other, the things people write about each other. And there came a day where I thought, you know what? You gotta go looking for yourself. You gotta go out there and look for these stories on your own and work with other people to do that. When I started Plum TV, the idea was for-profit PBS. You know, it was this idea that I bought the television station on Nantucket kind of on a whim, you know, kind of for fun. I'd been, I'd been buying media for Nantucket Nectars all those years. We made our own radio ads. I did a ton of radio in those 10 years. And, um, and we started doing these mini documentaries sort of right from the get-go. And I just loved it. I loved it.

• 31:24Speaker 01

  And it was amazing how, you know, any story I've done that I love, it's all about cooperation. It's all about some other person's willingness and desire to sort of make something with you. You just can't do it on your own. And, um, and so ultimately it was out of frustration where I thought, you know what, I want to bring people together and ask them to share in a, in a vulnerable way, things that are meaningful. And, you know, every word I just said is a little bit corny. Vulnerable, meaningful, et cetera. But behind the corniness, it's a real thing. You know, it's, it's just a... When you discover those moments, when you really get the sense that this person is on

• 32:07Speaker 01

  an edge and they're kind of bringing you the goods that are, that just could mean so much to your life and so much to the lives of the people around you, I find it, you know, it's like a form of high. I just think it's incredible.

• 32:18Rich Roll?

  Yeah, as an antidote to the negativity and the onslaught of just information overload that has become the defining aspect of, of how we kind of sort of normally navigate our day. Like, we're just inundated with information. Now, we call it content, you know, but what, what percentage of that information is actually bringing us value or making us more content or more fulfilled in our lives? And, and I think there's a, I think there's a need and a desperation, I would go so far as to say, that maybe most people aren't even consciously aware that they're, that they're starving for.

• 33:00Rich Roll?

  And I think that's one reason why podcasting has now become a bigger thing. It's like, oh my God, they're actually like, they're not rushing through this thing. They're gonna, they're gonna talk like real people? Like, I'm not used to that, you know? It's not 10 people shouting over each other on a, on a 30 second, you know, news piece on cable news that leaves people frazzled and agitated and, and yet always impulsively coming back for more.

• 33:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know, it's, it's, so yours, I'm not just saying this, like, yours is one of the podcasts I have the closest relationship with. And, you know, I think generally, it's changing rapidly, as, as you just pointed out. But like, I think when podcasts first started to happen, people thought of them as like, you can download This American Life. Now, I appreciate This American Life. I think it's great. But I think of it as a radio show. I mean, it's, it's a show that has beats and timing and all these other things.

• 34:00Rich Roll?

  Incredibly well-produced and researched.

• 34:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, beautiful. I, I can't say enough good things about it. But the relationship you develop through a podcast.

• 34:11Speaker 01

  Like yours is, I don't even know what it is. You know, what do you call that? You know, it's.

• 34:16Rich Roll?

  Well, there's an intimacy to it.

• 34:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:18Rich Roll?

  I think because it's rough around the edges and, you know, I'm not editing these things. Or, you know, it's like you, you get what you get. Like this is, you know, we're going to sit down, we're going to talk. And at the end of this, people are going to feel like they know who you are. You know, they're getting a very real sense of who you are as a human being. That's very different from a radio interview or a television interview, where it's just, let's hit these beats and get the information, extract the wisdom, or whatever news item somebody's looking to get. And I think that they're, you know, baked into that is this starvation for something that's real and authentic. And, and, you know, it's like, I hate using that word authentic.

• 34:58Rich Roll?

  It's just, it gets, it's been devalued because it's been commodified so much. But there's truth in that.

• 35:06Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, you know, it's, it's so I mentioned, you know, we, we started these journeys. Go find these stories. Go, go find these people.

• 35:16Speaker 01

  Like Neil, like Neil Phillips, you know, who are.

• 35:18Rich Roll?

  Who, it's like, that guy needs to have a spotlight shined on him.

• 35:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. And, and like the thing he, the thing he brings to your spirit, the thing he brings to my spirit is so powerful. Now, I also have the advantage, which, you know, this is the thing we just discovered. We discovered in the last couple of years is that when we were making, you know, we started making these stories. We do, you know, a TED like kind of gathering, but then we started making films off and out of the talks. We do these strange sort of artistic collaborations that are, I would argue, beautiful, of different kinds. And it's always sort of stories of meaning. Again, a term that's not the greatest term in the world, but I don't know a better one. If you got one, I'd love to hear it. But one of the things that happened is we started sharing our stuff in homes. People would invite me to their house and say, hey, would you come over and play some

• 36:07Speaker 01

  stuff for us? So we started to do it.

• 36:11Speaker 01

  And then one day, I go over to someone's house, I packaged like 45 minutes of our stuff, and we just to watch, because she said, will you please do this? I said, sure, I'll do it. I didn't really want to do it, quite frankly.

• 36:21Rich Roll?

  For like, a group of people, or just like, this person who lives in this home?

• 36:24Speaker 01

  She said, I want to bring 20 people to my house, and show them what you do. And so, our thing is, it's a combination of talks, and films, and art, and music. So you kind of sit there, and you have this experience. And it's a little weird, in a sense, but it's kind of like, sitting in a room, doing a two-minute meditation before a podcast. It feels a little awkward. But it's powerful. It's like, a really cool and interesting thing, that, again, I thought she just wanted me to show it to these people, and maybe they'd come next fall, to our gathering on Nantucket. And the thing ended, the 45-minute film, essentially, which was a mix of stuff that I shared with them. And the first woman who spoke was crying, and she said, "I don't have meaningful conversations in my life anymore."

• 37:08Speaker 01

  And we talked for three and a half hours. So then, we did it again. We remixed it, went to the same house, with 20 different people, same result.

• 37:19Speaker 01

  And, you know, apropos of the podcast conversation, it was conversation. It's like, this magical thing, that animates stories. Animates them, in the sense that you can do things with them. You know, like, what is forgiveness? I could read it in a book, but if you and I had a conversation about forgiveness, I can use it. I can take it somewhere else. I can experience it. It's like recovery, you know?

• 37:50Rich Roll?

  That's beautiful. And I think it, you know, it does speak to that thirst, that hunger, for something real, and something authentic. And I think that we have, you know, like, the podcasting, and the work that you're doing, is a reaffirmation, and a reemergence of this lost art of conversation, that's so...

• 38:13Rich Roll?

  Baked into our DNA is something that we need and desire in order to be fulfilled. And as we navigate the torrential waters of social media, we feel like we're more connected than ever. But everything is at an arm's length and everything is digitized and everything is immediate and temporal and sort of short lasting.

• 38:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:40Rich Roll?

  You know, it's like this fuse that ignites and then it's gone. How often, like this, you know, it's like, this is like the 350th conversation that I've had on this podcast. It's like, I get to have these amazing experiences. Like if we just went out to lunch, like, hey, I'm in town, come and meet me. We'd have lunch, it would be cool. Maybe we talk for an hour, it'd be awesome. But the formality of this structure allows us to go deeper in a way that we wouldn't ordinarily. And I guarantee you, when this is concluded, like, we're gonna feel connected.

• 39:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:10Rich Roll?

  In a way that you cannot fabricate any other way.

• 39:14Speaker 01

  No.

• 39:15Rich Roll?

  And I think that that is why people are responding to the work that you're doing, because we have that deep need for that connection.

• 39:21Speaker 01

  Well, and you know, the other part of it too. So yesterday, I went to a gathering for the camp my kids go to. And I sat next to a teacher at their school who coincidentally was just made the something, a senior guy at their camp. I don't know what the position is called. Guy named Matt Dandola. And turns out, we're both vegans. So he says, you know, do you have any gurus? Says it to me. And I said, um, yeah, do you? And he said, yeah. And I said, who? And he said, Rich Roll.

• 39:58Rich Roll?

  Oh, God.

• 40:00Speaker 01

  And I said, I said, this is yesterday. And I said, really? And I said, you know, I'm gonna see him tomorrow. And he said, yeah, me and five other teachers at the school listen every week and then we talk about it. Now, he and I talked about it for about 45 minutes. It was a real conversation. We're at like a social event, middle of the day on a Sunday. And the thing I was gonna say is, because there's, I think there's another really important piece of this, is that you change. So yeah, we will feel connected, but I will change. I will become a different person. And my, you know, my ability to ignite.

• 40:34Speaker 01

  A couple of weeks ago, my family, my brother, my two sisters, my mom and my dad, we met in DC, right after the funeral. What I will tell you is that we have never met as a group, probably in our lives.

• 40:52Rich Roll?

  All together.

• 40:53Speaker 01

  All together, with no spouses, just us, because there were some issues, there were some family issues we wanted to work out. And hour and 15 minutes, 20 years of some anxieties, a little bit of tensions, unknowns. Boom, like boom, just cleared up. Totally different scenario. You know, my sister in particular, one of my sisters in particular, who's very anxious about a bunch of stuff going on in the family. Such a sense of relief. So, yeah, I mean, I think that the connection is a real thing, but change, I mean, it's just incredible.

• 41:38Rich Roll?

  So what do you attribute that transformation to? Like, is it because you have a toolbox with what you've learned, that you're able to communicate in a different way, where you can transcend some of these issues that historically have created issues?

• 41:53Speaker 01

  You know, I don't know to what degree I take any credit for it. I was just witness to it in this case. But what I will say is, I mean, I kind of helped champion it, but it was really my brother, my older brother, and he really led it. I was just there to kind of listen and then throw in where I want to throw in. I would say, there was a moment early on in the conversation where I was feeling the tension. I said, "Look, I just want you guys to know where I'm coming from in this, and that is that I love you guys, and I want to find an answer here. I don't have one that I know to be the right one. I probably have my own sort of beliefs, but in the end, I just want everyone to be happier and closer."

• 42:31Speaker 01

  I wouldn't have said that. The old me would have had an agenda and I would have told everyone how brilliantly this thing could be solved. So there are those kinds of things that I feel like I'm a different person.

• 42:44Speaker 01

  But that's recovery, right? I mean, that's like.

• 42:47Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's recovery and I think it's just the messages of all these people that you've had the privilege of encountering over the years as a result of Nantucket Project and the stuff that you do, that's all kind of just percolating in your unconscious mind, you know? People ask me all the time, like, well, you have all these people and they come and they tell you all these ways of living and all of that, like, how do you how do you codify that? Like, do you make lists and then make decisions about it? I'm like, no, it's just, it's just, it's just there. It's like this, you know, floating thing in my that I'm not even consciously aware of, that I know profoundly impacts how I behave and

• 43:27Rich Roll?

  has improved how I, how I, how I live, but I couldn't tell you, oh, it was because of this person or that thing.

• 43:34Speaker 01

  Yeah. So, so this, this, these gatherings that we do, we call it the Neighborhood Project, and we do it in rooms all over the country. And I was in Oakland a couple of weeks ago. And it's called the Dunmeier Project. They're all called a different project.

• 43:49Rich Roll?

  So everyone is named after the town or whatever?

• 43:52Speaker 01

  Or the street, or the, or whatever they want. And I sat down

• 43:59Speaker 01

  and it was one of the participants, it was one of the women who is a member of that group. And she started talking. And, you know, and it was, it was meant to be kind of an informational conversation. I wanted to kind of learn how their room was functioning and trying to get educated on what's working and what isn't. And she went into a story about

• 44:24Speaker 01

  sexual abuse.

• 44:26Speaker 01

  And suffice it to say, I, I was hanging on every word she said. And it was about sort of abuse and forgiveness, in this case, her grandfather.

• 44:38Speaker 01

  You know, that one of our lines is you never know who you're sitting next to. And, and she talked about how being part of her group has opened her up. You know, authenticity, vulnerability, again, some of the terms, but.

• 44:54Speaker 01

  And, and when I saw what was happening, sort of being with this woman, I thought.

• 45:00Speaker 01

  Cause you, you mentioned, I'm bringing this up because you mentioned some of the interesting people that I've met. I've, like you, I've met a lot of really interesting people. This woman wasn't meant to be one of those people, you know, this, this was just meant to be like a civilian or whatever term you want to use. And it turns out they're like, there are no civilians, you know, it's, it's like you, you put someone in the right frame.

• 45:23Speaker 01

  Or they put you in the right frame. It's incredible, sort of what comes out. You know, and I think in the end, the good news is, you know, like acceptance. How, how do you find acceptance? How do you practice acceptance? Well, one of the gifts is just fatigue. You've had enough, you know, you've had a frick enough.

• 45:42Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 45:43Speaker 01

  And in this case, I think we've had enough. I think social media is just.

• 45:47Rich Roll?

  How much do you want to suffer?

• 45:47Speaker 01

  Yeah. At some point, you're like, I gotta, I gotta let this go.

• 45:50Rich Roll?

  Yeah. So what is your, what is your relationship with social media then?

• 45:56Speaker 01

  Well.

• 45:58Speaker 01

  I have one. I'm a, I'm a voyeur, you know, I watch, I, I can't believe it. Like I, I cannot believe how much people will write political stuff, for example. And I, I think like, you know, who's the, who's the, who's the God who pushes the stone up the hill?

• 46:15Rich Roll?

  I'm gonna get crucified for not having that on the tip of my tongue right now.

• 46:18Speaker 01

  Whoever that is.

• 46:20Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I feel like an idiot because I can't think of who that is right now.

• 46:24Speaker 01

  But it's, isn't it like that? I mean, have you ever seen a, a political battle?

• 46:30Rich Roll?

  With a victorious outcome on social media. And yet, people do it all day long. And I watch and I think like, wow, this is so interesting. It's so interesting. You know, one of the things I think about is I go back to us as kids. And I think, you know, Neil got to make all the calls. Because Neil was like the leader. I mean, I'm making this up. But generally speaking, you know, to have that kind of a voice, it didn't exist. And I wonder, like, is this pent up frustration from? I think a lot of it is. I think, you know, look, it's a very different time. We grew up in Washington DC. Every like, we're surrounded by politicians. But there was a civility.

• 47:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:09Rich Roll?

  There was an ability to reach across the aisle and have, you know, grown up conversations with people to reach consensus. There was not the divisiveness that we're seeing now. And I think it speaks to, you know, this undercurrent of frustration and resentment and anger as, you know, the haves and the have nots start to split and become, you know, further separated. And that's a huge problem that I see only becoming more exacerbated. And so what happens? We end up in our silos. And I think when you go online, like, I always have this internal debate. I have strong opinions on certain political issues. And as somebody who has a platform, like, what is my responsibility to talk about this? And I see other people doing it.

• 47:53Rich Roll?

  And I have this sort of twofold reaction to that. Like, one is, well, if they're doing it, then I should too. And then the second thought is, well, I don't have to because they're doing it. And what do I gain? Or what is gained in the macro for me chiming in on a conversation? That could potentially, you know, make my thoughts known in a public forum, but also create divisiveness? Because I'm well aware that it's, it doesn't, it doesn't, like stating your opinion on a hot button issue doesn't necessarily change hearts and minds.

• 48:26Speaker 01

  Yeah. You know, we've done a lot of research into the impact of time spent in the digital world. And um,

• 48:36Speaker 01

  And compared it to time spent in conversation, right? And I won't bore you with it, but the bottom line is more time spent in the digital world, the more irritable you are, the more depressed you are, the more divided you are. People who spend more time in conversation, they're happier, they're closer, they're just all these different things. You know, appreciation, love, you can only experience those things in, in real life. You know, real life conversations, smell matters, look matters, tone matters, everything matters. And like the, the opportunity for nuance in the digital world is just so de minimis. Now, I respect the fact that, you know, people who feel things strongly and they want to share a voice that they should, I mean, you know, they should.

• 49:21Speaker 01

  Or they certainly should be able to, I mean, who am I to sort of make a call on that? But what I will say, I remember when you and I connected around Christmas this year, I was doing one of my, I do these crazy train trips.

• 49:33Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I want to, I want to hear about this. Like, this is like a tradition with you every year.

• 49:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:38Rich Roll?

  Take a train cross-country by yourself.

• 49:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's, um, you know, I've gone across the north, I've gone across the middle of the country, I've gone across the south. I was about to go from LA to New Orleans when you and I were connecting. And, um, and then I got in a car and I drove up and I was in Selma and Montgomery and, you know, different places in Louisiana, and I went to Nashville and Virginia. And I talk to people, you know, I just like to talk to people. And it's just, it's staggering the degree to which you find, it's not, I don't even like the word common ground, it's just, we're humans and, and we connect. And in groups too, like we'll bring groups together, we, we brought together a group in Nashville and, you know, we'll do these impromptu things on the street, we did it in New Orleans.

• 50:24Speaker 01

  And, you know, humans, it's like that, have you seen that, um, that, uh, Heineken commercial? Where they bring these oddball couples together and let them talk? And it's like that time after time after time. So what I would say is, there's a, there's a huge lie in the world right now, and that is that we all hate each other. Because it's true that in social media, we hate each other. If you put those exact same people together in real life, they don't hate each other.

• 50:56Rich Roll?

  Very different thing.

• 50:57Speaker 01

  Which, which to me is... That's called reality, right? Like, you're talking about people together connecting. What's the outcome? I can promise you that you'll get a huge hit rate of success. Success being defined by some kind of a emotional connection to each other and a respect for each other. And I don't care sort of what their different politics might be, et cetera. I've seen it too many times. I just know what I'm saying is true. So that leaves, does that leave you optimistic for the future? I mean, somewhat. I do believe that, I mean, if you watch What the Health, like I did last night, it's hard to be optimistic.

• 51:41Speaker 01

  But it is also the case that pendulums are real. You know, and that if you, you know, I've heard a lot of different things. I've traveled the country where some of the people who are, you know, they're not on the, they're not on the good side of the political world at the moment. But nonetheless, you know, they're, the donations they're getting and the support they're getting and the rally that's happening, you know. I'm not taking a side, and it sounds like I'm taking a side because I'm really not. But I do think in struggle, it's often where you find solutions, right? How do you speak to your kids about the use of the mobile device? It's a battle I just lose, you know? My wife's really good at it.

• 52:26Speaker 01

  I mean, she's really good at sort of just turning them off. But I'm a wimp and I'm, I'm as addicted as anybody else. I'm no, I'm no like super good guy on this. Having said that, I do, I don't get, I don't let myself get upset. And as I mentioned to you, I've stopped watching TV. But like you, I watch Netflix and things like that. I just, I stopped watching the news. Right. You know, I used to be a big news person. And I'll never forget, like, on the cover of the New York Times, Trump was about to give the State of the Union, and it said, Trump to give State of the Union amidst turmoil and chaos. And I'd just gotten back from my trip on the train. And the drive, and I thought, wow, I just went across the whole country. I don't, I don't recall seeing either turmoil or chaos the whole way. And I was in like El Paso and

• 53:11Speaker 01

  San Antonio and all these different cities. I'm being tongue in cheek. I get it. I know what they were saying, but in the real world, on the day to day in the street, like supermarkets were filled with food and the traffic seemed to be flowing. And I thought chaos, it's, it's kind of in the media world where everyone's yelling and screaming at each other.

• 53:28Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I think that's, I think that's very true. So when you show up in a place like Selma, do you have, like, there's like a neighborhood project sort of situation there? Or do you just walk the streets and engage people?

• 53:40Speaker 01

  A little bit of both. I mean, there's a lot of the latter, a lot of the latter, where you just start talking to people. You know, in some ways, it's,

• 53:51Speaker 01

  it's like finding a center. It's like a truth finding thing. And it just makes me feel like a different person. You know, it's, I was down at the Island School, which is a school in the Bahamas. Beautiful place, beautiful place. And I mean, the spirit of it is just astounding and what these guys have built down there. And I was there for like 20 minutes. And I felt

• 54:17Speaker 01

  so alive and so optimistic, you know? And I'm telling you this story because that'll carry me for weeks. So these trips carry me for, for, you know, they really motivate me and they, they make me really optimistic and they, they connect me to,

• 54:36Speaker 01

  I don't know, who we are and who we can be and more stories to tell.

• 54:40Rich Roll?

  When you reached out to me at Christmas time, or when we were going back and forth, you said, yeah, I'm gonna do this train thing. I do it every year and it's my way of really just taking a beat to get really clear and go deep on what it is that I want to express in my life. Like, it's a, it's a major time out that you have to create boundaries around. So I think that's really cool. It's something that You know, most people don't think about, I certainly haven't done anything like that. I've done different versions of that, but I think that there's, you know, to actually get on a train, you know, in a very tactile and symbolic way, like you're saying, like, okay, this is, I'm gonna go,

• 55:23Rich Roll?

  literally going on this journey to, you know, connect with myself in a new and different way. So how many years have you been doing that?

• 55:31Speaker 01

  Well, so I, I don't know if you know this, but I drove across country my, between junior and senior year. Do you remember this? In high school, and I've driven back and forth nine times. I've done it on the motorcycle as well. I'm a motorcycle person. And then I started doing the train. I used to take my motorcycle to Florida. I would take the auto train down, and that's when I kind of got the bug. So it's probably been like six years that I've done that now. And I still, I'll do it randomly. I mean, I've done it the West Coast. Like, I was here a couple of months ago and I took it. I had to go to Santa Fe, New Mexico. I took it to Santa Fe. So I'll take it on these random legs as well.

• 56:15Speaker 01

  Like, a few weeks ago, I had to go to New Orleans. I was in Miami, so I flew to Atlanta. I got on the train. And then, you know, it's about a 12-hour train ride from there, and I took the train to New Orleans. So I'm kind of doing it all the time.

• 56:28Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 56:29Speaker 01

  And, you know, look, you're gonna meet, people on the train are nice, period. Like, it's just a different flow, like, no security, you know? No one's in a hurry.

• 56:39Rich Roll?

  Taking Southwest from LA to Vegas or something. And are you, do you have like a, are you like journaling? Or like, is there like a methodology to how you kind of approach these excursions?

• 56:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, to a certain extent. So I do, this is my daily. So I do this, this is my notebook, and I'll do like, you know, this is today.

• 57:01Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 57:02Speaker 01

  Gratitude, thoughts. You know, I'll do that every day. And the nice thing about this, you know, there's one page for every day.

• 57:08Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 57:08Speaker 01

  So I gotta fill up every page or something's wrong. And if I miss a day, I'll do two. But I do a variety of things, and I don't stick to it. I mean, other than things like this, and I have some books I read every day. No, it's random. You know, look out the window, shoot. I like to shoot, you know, film and...

• 57:30Speaker 01

  And I'll get on the computer and work too. Yeah.

• 57:33Rich Roll?

  So I've never attended a Nantucket Project event, but I've seen plenty of the videos. And the obvious comparison is always going to be TED, because TED is sort of the standard bearer for these sorts of events. But I feel like there's a conscious intention in what you do with Nantucket Project to make it more intimate. All the speakers are in the center. It's sort of a theater in the round kind of setup. There's only like, what, like 600 people that attend. It's not this massive thing. And so there's a, and it seems like there's a very collegial kind of community oriented sensibility about the whole thing that is fostering people to connect in a way that

• 58:16Rich Roll?

  maybe can't occur at an event as large as something like TED.

• 58:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:22Rich Roll?

  Is that accurate?

• 58:23Speaker 01

  You know, I, yeah, I would say so. I mean, so I went to the first Aspen Ideas Festival, which was, I think, '03. I had a designer at Nantucket Nectars when I was doing Nantucket Nectars, and a designer told me about TED, and I just became like a TED junkie. Early 90s. I said, "Go sign us up, let's go." And then he brought me the bill, and I was like, "We are not going." I had no idea it cost that much money. But it's always something that's, you know, it's always fascinated me. I love to sit and have people kind of deliver, I don't know, curiosity and meaning. And there's pressure, you know, there's pressure, there's a little bit of energy to a live thing.

• 59:07Speaker 01

  But like anything else, you know, it's, I wanted something a little bit different. You know, I was very hungry for something that was a little bit, come at it from a different angle than the other guys do. And I'm trying to be respectful of these other organizations, because I am respectful. I think what they do is great. I love, and my team, we all love, you know, like that live wire that is breathing in real time, like right in front of you. And...

• 59:46Speaker 01

  And in that regard, the one thing I say about us, here's what I say. The other guys know and we don't. Like, we don't know. You know, we want to really come at it from a point of view of not knowing. And, um, and, and let people share and then give them time to talk, too. We do, we do it, as you said, we do it in the round for a reason. If you sit there and you know, you're sitting there and you're watching this person deliver, or it's a film, or it's art, or it's music. And then across from you, you can see all these faces. And, you know, it's cool. It's cool the way that.

• 1:00:17Rich Roll?

  It's, it feels interactive. I mean, who was it? Was it Lawrence Lessig, where you had an artist on stage? He was like drawing, you know, sort of creating a visual, like, representation of this amazing talk that he was giving. So it sort of invites the attendees into it in a different way.

• 1:00:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:37Rich Roll?

  I feel like. How did you, like, from sort of inception of this idea to like what it is today? I mean, you have like these incredible people that come and speak, like, how did you like manifest that? It's crazy.

• 1:00:51Speaker 01

  Here's the thing. And, and you know this. It's all just hard work. We will make the 36th phone call. You know, well, then if we have to make the 37th, we'll make the 37th. It's been hard, hard work, just work, work, work. And, um, and that's really the answer. I mean, there have been times, you know, people still ask me. I'll be at the Nantucket Project and people will say, what else are you doing these days, Tom? And I'm just like, why are you asking?

• 1:01:25Rich Roll?

  Only like one, one week of the year. I mean, come on, right?

• 1:01:28Speaker 01

  Right. But, but I, you know, there came a time a few years ago where I was, I said to myself, this is all I'm gonna do. I am just gonna do this. I'm gonna work every day, all day to get there. And that's what our team does. You know, they just work really hard. And, and, you know, look, words, we've been talking about words.

• 1:01:50Speaker 01

  I say the words to people, you know, we say, we want you to give the talk of your life. We want you to tell, to tell the story that only you know. We want you to be right there and to give this vulnerable, authentic talk. And most people roll their eyes, which I would too. I'd be, I'd think, who is this idiot? Like, what are you talking about? I've heard all this stuff before. But the good news is, you know, it's eight years. People can see it now and they can react to it. And it's starting to gather a life, you know, it's starting to gather life. And, and I think people are starting to see how and why what we do is its own thing. You know, like a podcast, you know, or a book. I mean, think

• 1:02:34Speaker 01

  about a book is. A book could be just about anything, right? Just imagine all the different kinds of books you could read. Well, so can a gathering. Gathering can be anything. It could be any kind of thing. It's interesting. I remember when we were in the juice business, everyone knows how to make radio ads. Everyone will tell you how to make your radio ads. You should do this. You should do that. Why didn't you do this? Do more of that. And in my business, it's like they, everyone knows who to book. And I always think, would you ever, you know, I don't care who the writer is, would you go up and say, write this now? Like, you wouldn't do that. But I understand it. I'm not complaining.

• 1:03:06Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's sort of like, understanding the rules and then knowing where to diverge from them. If you follow the booker's advice, then your event's going to be like every other event, right? And if you follow the radio ad guy, your ad's going to be like every other ad. And then that may work on a certain level, but it's never going to allow you to kind of transcend and break the mold to do something new and interesting.

• 1:03:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:03:34Rich Roll?

  You had said something, I listened to your, the first episode of your podcast, and you were talking about, look, when you make juice, this is a consumer product. They take it and they consume it. And that's the end of that. And now your product is an idea, right? And so, somebody consumes it, but then they share it. And there's a transformative aspect of that, that lives and breathes, you know, potentially forever as a result of that. And how you think about how you produce and share those two very different types of products.

• 1:04:08Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that, that story I was telling you about the, the woman I met in Oakland.

• 1:04:18Speaker 01

  Every person takes stories to different places. And when you see it in groups, because now we have all these groups that are, you know, they're growing all over the country now. They make their own thing out of it. It has nothing to do with us afterward. I mean, literally, you go and you watch and you hear and you see and you say, my God, they're making it into anything they want to make it into, which is great, you know? And in that regard, I was always someone who believed like there's a mountaintop over there and I got to get to it. And as I'm getting older, I'm realizing, no, there's not one. You just keep going.

• 1:04:53Rich Roll?

  Right. Yeah, because, I mean, when it, I want to get into the divinity school stuff in a minute, but just on that thought, I think a lot of people would think, in the wake of selling Nantucket Nectars, like, hey, man, like, I'm good now. Like, you don't, you don't really have to do anything. You know, I would imagine there had to have been at least some period of time in which you're like, okay, I'm going to chill, right? But at some point, you realize like, well, you know, I got to do something with my life, right? And you make this decision to kind of invest yourself in media. At that time, I mean, what was that, what was that period like for you? I would imagine it would probably be relatively disorienting.

• 1:05:37Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, I mean, you know, when I go back to Plum and the transition I made coming out of Juice, that was, you know, you know, it's kind of like when the, this is ridiculous what I'm about to say, but for me personally, what I'm about to say is true. When the wall went, came down and the Soviet Union disappeared, like, the power dynamics changed so drastically that the world's never been the same since, you know, and it's, and in my own little self. When, when we sold Nantucket Nectars, the power dynamic just totally changed.

• 1:06:18Speaker 01

  I mean, my job every day was to survive and thrive, survive and thrive, survive and thrive. And if you remember, like, right towards the end of Nantucket Nectars, Adwala had those deaths. And you remember that?

• 1:06:28Rich Roll?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:06:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:06:29Rich Roll?

  I almost took that whole company down.

• 1:06:31Speaker 01

  I know, and I see those guys to this day. But I tell the story because I would, people would say, like, when was the time where you realized you made it? Never, not one time, like, never, ever did I feel like we were in a position where everything's okay. So you just fight like-

• 1:06:48Rich Roll?

  Even after the sale?

• 1:06:49Speaker 01

  Well, after, well, so you fight like a dog. And then even after the sale, it took like, I don't know, six months or a year, you think, oh, my God, it's not in my hands anymore, like, somebody else is taking care of this. But, but there was a massive vacuum that was left in me, and it was the hardest time of my life.

• 1:07:07Rich Roll?

  Because suddenly you were confronted with yourself, or what about that?

• 1:07:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, I mean, I think I, you know, I was always willing to work hard. Tom First, my co-founder at Nantucket Nectars, and the team, they were just an incredible team. We worked really hard. And I don't know, I worked and, and I, let me just say, I worked 95% of the time, and then I partied the other 5% of the time. So there was never, I had no balance. I didn't know who I was. I was just a guy on a mission all day, every single day. And in a way, I probably had some kind of arrested development in a variety of ways. And the other thing that happened is, you know, this was around 2000 when, you know, everyone wanted to give you money for something. And they started to worship entrepreneurs.

• 1:07:56Speaker 01

  That was, that's the other thing, like, that was not-

• 1:07:57Rich Roll?

  That was the very beginning of that.

• 1:07:58Speaker 01

  Yeah. And, and people would invite us to everything and praise us and write about us. We were on Oprah and the Today Show and all these things. And-

• 1:08:10Speaker 01

  You know, a lot of that is just false. I mean, there's, there's really kind of nothing to that.

• 1:08:16Rich Roll?

  But there's so many people who think if I could just do that, like that would be it.

• 1:08:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:08:21Rich Roll?

  So what is the, what is the message that you would impart to that person?

• 1:08:26Speaker 01

  You know what the bummer is? I think you got to, they're going to crash into their wall too. I, I, you know, I wish I could say that wasn't true.

• 1:08:31Rich Roll?

  No one gets out of, out of life alive.

• 1:08:34Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I, you know, if the, the imbalances are coming back, they're coming, you know, you're gonna, you're gonna face up to them at some point. And I faced up to them. I started to believe, I'll never forget, when I was raising money, I'd go to meetings, I'd say, you know, I'm trying to raise four million. I'd say, what would you do with eight? Could you do something with 20? I mean, like that kind of thing. When you hear that, you just, I know in my case-

• 1:08:54Rich Roll?

  Much more interested in 20 than two.

• 1:08:56Speaker 01

  Well, and, and that can screw with your ego. And, and I got to tell you, like, the innocence with which we went about Nan Target Nectars, it was real. Like, it was real, real. And I don't think, to this day, I'm a business person. It's not what I am at my heart. I'm, I'm like a product person or an idea person. I just love that. And if I haven't, if I'm not matching those two things, forget it. Don't, don't put me in charge, you know?

• 1:09:23Speaker 01

  And I didn't know that then. You know, I, I think you, you, you look at other business people and you say, oh, I could be one of those. I could do that. And you, you don't even realize what it is you did. Like, I, being a business person wasn't my thing. Being a juice guy, whatever that meant, but it meant something. That's what I was.

• 1:09:42Rich Roll?

  It's like Doug Evans.

• 1:09:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:09:44Rich Roll?

  You know, our mutual friend Doug Evans, you know, he's a juice guy, you know? And he's an idea guy. And he's a product guy. And, and maybe, and, and a business guy, I guess, but like, probably that, that isn't at the top of that list, you know?

• 1:09:59Speaker 01

  Well, and I think in the end, I am a person, there's a lot of people like me, there's nothing unique about me, who can get really excited about making something that doesn't exist for me and the people I'm with, and can organize something around it that is valuable.

• 1:10:19Speaker 01

  But you know, money, for example, like I, I never thought I'd get wealthy in, in the juice business. I just never, honestly, I mean, later I did. I'll never forget, I was driving down the road. I had one of those old flip phones, phone rings, guys on the phone, "Hey, Tom, I want to talk to you about buying your company." And I said, "Ah, we're, we're not for sale. We don't want to sell the company." He goes, "You don't want to even hear the number?" And I said, "Okay. You want to say a number, say a number." And he said a number. And it floored me. I mean, it was 30 times more than I thought, literally. Like, I had no idea. I had no idea. And I just thought, "Oh, my God."

• 1:10:56Rich Roll?

  Everything's for sale for the right number.

• 1:10:57Speaker 01

  Well, I, it did change my view of sort of what these things were. I just didn't know. I, I, I thought the way to make money in life is to have a big salary.

• 1:11:06Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:11:07Speaker 01

  And we were making like $35,000 a year each. So I don't know. I just thought this-

• 1:11:11Rich Roll?

  That's so funny.

• 1:11:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:11:13Rich Roll?

  So now, when you go to the store, or you go to Chipotle, or whatever, and you see the Nantucket nectars in the, in the refrigerated case, like, what is your emotional response to that?

• 1:11:24Speaker 01

  It's pretty zero.

• 1:11:26Rich Roll?

  Is it?

• 1:11:26Speaker 01

  I'm very-

• 1:11:27Rich Roll?

  It still says Tom and Tom on the back, doesn't it? It still has a little story about you guys and all that.

• 1:11:31Speaker 01

  I feel very disconnected from it. You know, it's, we had a thing, and, and, you know, it's all fine. I don't get emotional about it. But we had a thing called the Quality Juice Evolution Solution, which meant we would make any flavor better when we could. I could bore you with examples, but 100% lemon juice, not from concentrate, you know, on and on, different apples. And they don't do that. And I just, it's okay. You don't have to do that. But it's just so different that I don't even connect with it.

• 1:12:03Rich Roll?

  Right. Once you sell, it becomes an entirely different thing.

• 1:12:06Speaker 01

  Every now and again, my kids will bring it up. Like, "Hey, Dad, isn't that your juice?" And I'm like, "Oh, yeah."

• 1:12:11Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Do you know, uh, do you know, um, Jimmy from Evolution? Evolution Juice?

• 1:12:17Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:12:18Rich Roll?

  Oh, he's a great guy.

• 1:12:19Speaker 01

  That's the one that's Starbucks, right?

• 1:12:20Rich Roll?

  Starbucks bought it. And he's actually having a romance with them. Like, because they, they built a huge facility for him, and they've maintained, you know, he's like Doug, he's insane about quality. And they, they've been able to kind of live up to that promise. So he's super happy, but- His first juice company, I think, I hope I'm not getting this wrong, but I think it was Naked. And then they sold that and it was not like it just the quality, everything changed and you know, he had, you know, he kind of had like an existential crisis and the like of that.

• 1:12:49Speaker 01

  You know, in that regard, Doug Evans,

• 1:12:54Speaker 01

  like crushed it from a quality perspective. I mean, what he was doing, putting those vegetables, fruits and vegetables together in those packs, that's hard. Like this is hard, hard, hard stuff.

• 1:13:07Rich Roll?

  I mean, talk about pushing a rock up a hill. Like what he, you know, look, he's our friend. I love Doug. We were talking about this before the podcast and it's, it was painful to see what happened to him because his heart is so huge and his vision was so gigantic. And he got crushed by virtue of never being able to control the narrative around you, Sarah, being a victim of whatever this journalist or that journalist decided to say. And from, from the get go, from the very first New York Times article, there was a decision that was made in the kind of general consciousness

• 1:13:49Rich Roll?

  that this was going to be emblematic of Silicon Valley excess. And from day one, they never were able to recover from that because they couldn't figure out how to tell the story that you and I both know, which is that it was about the infrastructure and the logistical systems that they were setting up that was going to revolutionize how we were going, how we were getting food farm to table.

• 1:14:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:14:12Rich Roll?

  It wasn't just an expensive machine. It was so much more than that. But they couldn't really translate that story in a meaningful way. And the whole thing just cratered and it breaks my heart. And I talk to Doug all the time. I know you talk to him and you know, he's a survivor and he'll, he's going to end up doing something amazing in the future. But, but to see him crushed by that system was, was difficult.

• 1:14:33Speaker 01

  It was hard. You know, I always say the, the, the greatest juice company ever will be the people who invent the teleporter. Because if you really want good juice, You are in the field where the stuff is picked and you squeeze it right in front of yourself and you consume it. And, you know, with no pasteurization and no other sort of forms of preservatives. And if you wind your way back from that, this is a major, major challenge. And I got nothing against it, but all the people who use HPP, I, you know, I don't, I don't drink it. I got nothing against it, you know, Nantucket Nectars uses like a regular, you know, UHT or

• 1:15:15Speaker 01

  different kinds of pasteurization. But fresh is fresh and fresh is the best and fresh is so hard. And what Doug was doing, closest thing in the world to it. And it wasn't about that juicer, that machine. It was about those packs. Those packs were really hard to make and they were doing it. And

• 1:15:34Rich Roll?

  And they had, they had prototypes for a totally compostable, compostable pack. And they had a prototype for a new machine that would press twice as much juice, twice as fast at half the cost of the original machine. So it was just a, they had, it was a, it was a time, it was like they were, they ran out of time because scale can deliver the price point that the market would have celebrated rather than

• 1:16:00Speaker 01

  Yeah. It's, it's kind of the only thing. I mean, like any other innovation, or almost any other innovation, it's really expensive in the beginning. It's hard to make it at the right margin, but they were on their way. And, you know, so now you're left with your juicer at home and

• 1:16:14Rich Roll?

  But when you raise $250 million or whatever they rate, you know, it's a different, they're playing in a different

• 1:16:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, completely. Yeah. And there's a lot of good reasons for it, but it is sort of a shame. And I really admire Doug's willingness to do this and all these guys, all these people who are trying to make these fresh, you know, again, the Godwala thing, when people die, because that's what happens when you're playing with fresh, it's hard.

• 1:16:43Speaker 01

  You know, you gotta work like hell to figure out the way to do the teleporter, to make, to get the fruit or the vegetable fresh squeezed right to you. And you know, my wife, bless her, she, she does it in the machine. And she cleans up and she does all the stuff. I don't have the patience for it.

• 1:16:58Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's tough, man, I know. But it is interesting that, that like Nantucket Nectars was the first wave, like the first introduction of like, hey, you know, you can have something a little bit different than you're used to. That's a little bit healthier and has these different flavors. And now to see what has transpired in the 20 years since then, with all these new iterations on healthy juice. It's like the market, like, you know, at the time, even in the success of Nantucket Nectars, I remember thinking like, well, how many juice companies can there be, right? Like, where is this gonna end? Like this, there's gotta be market saturation. And clearly not, because look what has happened.

• 1:17:34Speaker 01

  It's gone way past us, way past us. And it's not even close. It's amazing. It really is amazing. I mean, even, you know, again, back to the film I saw last night, or all the stuff, you know, Kip Esselstyn and all these people, I've been studying a lot through, you know, through you. You know, in the early days of Nantucket Nectars, where do you sell it? You sell it to health food stores, which means they don't pay their bills very well. The store is gonna be a little messy and poorly managed. Like, that was, that's the nature of it. These are like hippies in a dream. And now hippies in a dream, like, Amazon just bought it from Whole Foods. And it's just a whole different world. And it's come a long, long way. And, you know, people like you who are doing, I don't think there was such a thing as, when did ultra marathons start? Or ultra triathlons?

• 1:18:19Speaker 01

  When did that start?

• 1:18:20Rich Roll?

  They've been around, but it's sort of been a fringe marginal thing. And now you see like, oh, all these people are running 50 Ks and 50 milers and 100 miles, like in a way that, you know, like, when I first heard of it, I was like, what? Like, you didn't, nobody talked about this. But there's always been that subculture, but analogous to kind of the, you know, marginalized hippie lifestyle, I suppose. Well, let's get back to storytelling a little bit. I, I remember that you We had a little communication. It must have been 2008, maybe? And you reached out to me and we were connecting on a number of things and you're like, oh, hey, like, I'm working on this TV show thing and it's with these brothers. And I think you might, I think you might like these guys. They're pretty cool.

• 1:19:04Rich Roll?

  Like, here, watch this little video that this guy Casey made. And you sent me one of his early videos, which was about running. I forget what it was called, like, you know, it goes out and runs. And that was my very first introduction to Casey Neistat. And you end up becoming, you produced not only their TV show, The Neistat Brothers for HBO, but also you produced Daddy Long Legs also, which was with Casey and the Safdie Brothers, right? Who have recently blown up.

• 1:19:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:19:32Rich Roll?

  What's that movie with the vampire guy that just came out this year? I haven't seen it.

• 1:19:37Speaker 01

  Big Time?

• 1:19:38Rich Roll?

  Big Time, I think that's right. I haven't seen it yet, but a lot of people are talking about that movie.

• 1:19:42Speaker 01

  It's a really good movie.

• 1:19:43Rich Roll?

  Like, these guys are the next thing, like, the next Tarantino or whatever. So that's an interesting move in and of itself to go from juice to like, okay, I'm getting into movies and TV. So how did you connect with, like, the Safdie Brothers and Casey?

• 1:19:57Speaker 01

  You know, it goes back to a lot of the stuff we've been talking about here. I have a, I love spirited people. Like spirited people on missions is exciting to me. It's just an exciting thing to me. And I always, when I'm around them, I feel it. Doug Evans, you know, you, Casey and Van Neistat, the Safdie Brothers you mentioned, a bunch of others over the years. You run into these people who are on these missions. And when they're on those missions, you can tell they're on these missions. You know, they're just like these, Casey, you know, Casey and Van made ads for us way back when.

• 1:20:41Rich Roll?

  For Nantucket Nectars?

• 1:20:42Speaker 01

  No, no, for Plum TV.

• 1:20:44Rich Roll?

  Oh, okay.

• 1:20:45Speaker 01

  And, and I just thought, wow, look at these two guys. And so I brought them in my office and I said, I want to make a movie with you. And they, you know, they said, like, about what? And I said, I don't know. I just, you guys have spirit. Like, I want to do something here. And they said, all right, well, let us get something together. I said, okay. So they left and then they came back. I don't know, a week later, and they said, how do you feel about a TV series? And we shook hands, like, within 20 minutes, they had to give, they had to turn in a new episode every six weeks for a year. And I said, all the only thing I ask is this is the only thing you do for the next year, and that we don't try to sell it until we're done. Like, make eight, because I know you guys are, you know, crazy, crazy in all the

• 1:21:30Speaker 01

  best ways. And we did. And we, and it was, um, all I can think is that when I met those two guys, I mean, artistically, they're really great, but their spirit is out of this world. And I thought, that spirit is going somewhere, and I want to work with them to figure out what it is. And so we did. And it was a great journey. We, we, um, we took the, I had a friend at HBO, and I said, I gotta show you something. I know you're gonna like this. And she watched it, and she said, you're right. Come in. I said, okay. So we went in, and we walked out, and within an hour, they said, we want the whole thing. And it was that fast. Yeah.

• 1:22:12Rich Roll?

  It's crazy. And what's interesting about it, if you go back and watch it, um, it's the fidelity, like, you could, it's, you know, what Casey does now is certainly refined in terms of technique, but it's the same thing. It's like, he was vlogging, basically, you know, in that show, and doing it, you know, years before anybody else was. It's like, you know, and now to see his trajectory, I mean, it's insane. Just past like nine million subscribers on YouTube. I mean, he's arguably one of the most influential people of our, of our generation, certainly in terms of youth culture.

• 1:22:50Speaker 01

  I know.

• 1:22:51Rich Roll?

  It's, it's, it's quite something. And it's that spirit, you know, it's like, he's a very focused, um, driven and intentional about what he does in a way that I think you only know when you're around and when the camera's off. And you could see, like, there's no mistakes. Like, he knows exactly what he's doing.

• 1:23:10Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, and he, he's, um, He's gonna die for his country. I mean, he's, he's going for it. And that, then there's just no doubt about it. And his courage, his creative courage is outrageous.

• 1:23:22Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:22Speaker 01

  It's outrageous. I mean, have you seen the Laird Hamilton documentary?

• 1:23:26Rich Roll?

  No, I haven't seen it yet. A bunch of people have told me it's good.

• 1:23:29Speaker 01

  You gotta watch that because it doesn't make sense, the choices. Like, the choices don't make sense. There is no box you put this stuff in. And, um, and that's what Casey-

• 1:23:40Rich Roll?

  There's no model. There's no like, if you want to do this, this is the road that you follow. They're creating their own road.

• 1:23:46Speaker 01

  There's no road.

• 1:23:46Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:47Speaker 01

  It makes no business sense. It just doesn't make sense. I mean, you've really got to, um-

• 1:23:53Rich Roll?

  Conviction and vision and courage.

• 1:23:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:23:56Rich Roll?

  Really?

• 1:23:56Speaker 01

  Yeah. And, and that's, you know, one of my sons just loves Casey's stuff. And he, and he's, you know, he has some element of that in him. He just thinks about it all day. And he just so believes in it. And I have to say, I, uh, got great influence as far as I'm concerned. Like, what a, that, like, keep at it. Like, do, do your thing.

• 1:24:19Speaker 01

  It's, uh, I think about Casey all the time in my own career. I mean, there's a lot of times, I'm sure you've experienced this, you don't know where this is going, you know? And, and those things where you just do it, and you hope, and you correct, and you do it again, and you do it because you feel it. You know, you feel that thing where you know, like, oh, there's something special going on here. That's the thing about Laird Hamilton. I mean, you, you, some of the choices that he was making, as an example, he just didn't like competitions. Because they are boring, right?

• 1:24:48Rich Roll?

  Yeah. No, his, his competition is with himself. It doesn't have anything to do with anybody else.

• 1:24:55Speaker 01

  And here it turns into like this, I don't know, is it a movement? I don't know what it is. I'm talking about Laird. I mean, it's like its own sport.

• 1:25:02Rich Roll?

  It's its own thing. Is it sport? Is it art? Is it, is it just a manifestation of one person's, you know, life and passion? You know, but there is, there's, it takes, it takes an incredible amount of courage to step outside that box when there's money to be made and fame to be had by doing it the way your predecessors have done it.

• 1:25:24Speaker 01

  So that, so that bliss thing, the Joseph Campbell thing, were we talking about since we sat down?

• 1:25:31Speaker 01

  You know, one of the, like, slow-mo. You turned me on to slow-mo.

• 1:25:34Rich Roll?

  Right, slow-mo's the best.

• 1:25:36Speaker 01

  And the beauty of that whole thing is, when he says, the guy in the hospital says, "Do what you want." And the critical thing in that whole equation is you gotta know what that is. You know, the, the, the, when I'm, when it's 2001 and I've sold Nantucket Nectars, I had no idea what that was. So you, you tell me to do what I want, it's gonna be destructive. It was destructive.

• 1:25:59Rich Roll?

  I know what that's like. I know what that's like.

• 1:26:01Speaker 01

  But then you have this place where, you know, you go into, they take, you know, in the hero's journey, you go into the woods. And when you go into the woods, you're going into a woods where there's no path. No path. No path.

• 1:26:15Speaker 01

  And can you be guided by your bliss? So you gotta know what it is, and you gotta have the courage to go.

• 1:26:19Rich Roll?

  And in order to know what it is, you have to be a fully-integrated human being. Otherwise, you're gonna be victim to your baser desires.

• 1:26:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:26:28Rich Roll?

  Or you're gonna be, you know, chasing the wrong thing, thinking it's the goal that you aspire to, when in fact, it isn't.

• 1:26:34Speaker 01

  That's what Casey does.

• 1:26:35Rich Roll?

  Yeah. But he, but he knows who he is. Like, he's very connected to what that is. And he's fearless in his pursuit of that. And I think that that's, that's extremely rare. But when you are exposed to it, it's infectious. You know, and so as somebody who's around a lot of amazing people, you can't help by nothing other than osmosis to absorb some of that and allow it to, you know, fuel your own courage, I think.

• 1:27:01Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, and I think those, um, you know, there's a couple of times over the last, say, 10 years, where, two times in particular, people offered me jobs. And I've never really had a job where I worked for someone else. Well, I did when I was a kid, but, you know, in each case, I said, "Well, how much will I get paid?" And, and in both cases, I thought, "Whoa." I just, you know, I, I've, I've never made that kind of salary in my life. And especially when it wasn't me coming up with the money. You know, like, you're gonna pay me, and I don't have to worry about where you're gonna get that money from. And, uh, and in both cases, I had like a 24-hour period where I thought, "I'm gonna do this. This is great.

• 1:27:46Speaker 01

  Like, this is perfect. I don't have to worry about this. I don't have to worry about that. I'll have some money." And thank God. I mean, I think about people like Casey, and I think, "I can't do that. I cannot do that."

• 1:27:57Speaker 01

  But I'm, you know, I go on that roller coaster and I get afraid and tempted and all these different things. That's why Slomo, when he does what he wants, he actually knows. And it's a little, it's out there.

• 1:28:12Rich Roll?

  Well, and the amazing thing about that is that it's so simple. Like when he really thought about like what he wanted to do, the dude just wanted to rollerblade and that's it. And I think as human beings, we want to complicate it. Like, well, I want this, but I kind of want that too. And maybe if I do that, I can do that. And, you know, one of the reasons I love Slomo and I feel so connected to him is because I had a very similar impulse. When I was having this like existential crisis, I was like, what, what makes me happy? Like, what do I want to do? And, you know, I was thinking like career, like, how am I going to get out of being a lawyer? Like, I just felt like I was in prison. And I was like, I just like, you know, I like what it feels like when

• 1:28:54Rich Roll?

  I jump in a swimming pool. You know, I like how I feel when I'm on that trail at dawn and it's kind of chilly and the sun pops up over the ridge and I can feel it on my back and I can, and all I can hear is my breath. Like, that's, that's what I love.

• 1:29:11Speaker 01

  What was the?

• 1:29:12Rich Roll?

  And so I just started doing that because I wanted to connect with that part of myself that I felt I had ignored and had lost. It's not a business plan. It's not a, it's not a life plan, but it is part and parcel of that movement towards becoming more fully integrated.

• 1:29:33Speaker 01

  How conscious was that kind of moment or choice? And did it involve something like, I'm going to do this race or this competition?

• 1:29:44Rich Roll?

  No, no, it was nothing like that. I mean, it event, it evolved into that. But initially it was like, I'm so disillusioned and I'm so despondent over these choices that I've made about my life and how I invest my time. And I can't do it anymore. And I don't know what the exit strategy is, but I know that my only path forward is to start engaging with these impulses that I have about how I want to spend my time.

• 1:30:20Speaker 01

  Your commitment, or decision, or whatever you want to call it, to

• 1:30:26Speaker 01

  let that lead you. One, was it, was it, um, was that conscious? Like, I'm going to let this lead me somewhere?

• 1:30:35Rich Roll?

  I think initially, it wasn't. It was just, I don't care. It was more about like, I don't care what the ramifications are, or if this is going to cost me, or cause problems in my life. Like, I just feel like I need to do this. So it began with that. And then it became, once I, once it sort of kicked in, I was like, I'm gonna, I'm gonna continue to pursue this thread, wherever it may lead me. And that may mean I always continue to be a lawyer. You know, I just, I didn't know. There was no clarity at all. It was just, what am I doing today? And then waking up the next day, and like, how am I going to spend my time?

• 1:31:13Speaker 01

  So has that changed everything?

• 1:31:17Rich Roll?

  Absolutely.

• 1:31:19Speaker 01

  And has it changed for the good?

• 1:31:24Rich Roll?

  Without, without a doubt.

• 1:31:25Speaker 01

  And is there something mystical in that? Or whatever the word is?

• 1:31:34Speaker 01

  In other words, is it?

• 1:31:38Speaker 01

  Part of what I'm asking is like, do you believe this?

• 1:31:42Speaker 01

  Do you believe every part of what you just said?

• 1:31:46Rich Roll?

  I believe it, but I also have, um, because it's a story that I've told so often,

• 1:31:55Rich Roll?

  I worry that I lose my connection with the truth of it.

• 1:32:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:32:00Rich Roll?

  You know, and so for me, I have to make a conscious effort, effort to really like revisit it as honestly as I possibly can. Because I want to answer you as honestly as I can. It's that thing where when you look back in retrospect, it seems like it all lined up perfectly. But in the midst of it, it was extremely confusing. I didn't have clarity about it. And I would like to say, oh, I was on this spiritual mission. Certainly, it was mystical because it doesn't make sense in a rational way. And there was plenty of doubt along the road where I thought I was losing the plot and that I was being foolish.

• 1:32:42Rich Roll?

  And I was certainly reminded by many people that I was.

• 1:32:46Speaker 01

  Reminded what? I'm sorry.

• 1:32:48Rich Roll?

  Like, what, you know, why? What are you doing? You know, like, why are you doing this? You should be doing this. You know, I heard a lot of that. And I have to credit my wife, who always was like, you know, who's, who's always been my teacher in this regard. Who's like, listen, you know, the, the resolution to the pain that you're suffering, the growth that you seek, the path forward, you can't shortcut it. And the only way to gain the clarity and to actualize in the way that you're seeking is to follow this thread and see it through. And whatever happens, like, I have your back. So there was a lot of financial turmoil. There was a lot of, you know, it was fucking hard, man, you know, for a long time.

• 1:33:32Rich Roll?

  But it was that conviction that I couldn't, I couldn't have had that on my own. Like, it was her support that allowed me to kind of maintain the course. So when I look back now, it's like, it's insane. It's insane that I'm sitting here having a conversation with you today. Like, my life has changed in every conceivable fashion. And I can't attribute that to anything other than the mystical aspect of what it means to connect with yourself as a spiritual being, having a physical experience.

• 1:34:06Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, you know, the,

• 1:34:12Speaker 01

  I don't even know what this means, and I mean that. But I have, I have like, I pray, right? If you ask me to who, or I could bore you with an answer, but, but I pray. And, um, and one of the things I've discovered through that is that I, I pay a lot of attention to what I ask for, you know? Because.

• 1:34:38Speaker 01

  I feel the way you feel. I mean, I look back and I think, and I've been in bankruptcy court. Like, I've been through some stuff, you know, I've had a crazy road. I'll take my road all day long. A lot of people deal with things much worse. But my road is not some straight, happy-go-lucky road. Lot of pain, lot of pain. But the most clear thing I can hope for is that I can continue to be useful, right? And I have to be open to the fact that I don't know exactly what that means. Right? So I can buy my story. You were talking about your story. I can buy my story. And if I'm praying for my story, I'm off. Something's wrong. I'm too invested in this story and not enough into sort of like, what is the spark of the thing that's motivating you in the first place?

• 1:35:23Speaker 01

  And be open to the fact that it can change. It's not going to always be the same. So every now and again, I find myself saying, I just sort of speaking to the world and saying, how can I be the most useful to the world? And I feel better when I'm doing that because it's a little scary to say that because I want to deliver. I want to deliver for my business. I want to deliver for the people I work with. I want to uncover some things and grow some things and discover some things that I just feel crazy about. But I got to be open to the fact that I don't know where the path is. And I think you can get to places where you think like, ah, okay, now I got the path. You're like, uh-oh.

• 1:35:59Rich Roll?

  And release your pressure on the gas. But I think in my experience, when you are in that mentality and practice of service, how can I be useful to others? How can I give of myself freely? That that is the way to get clarity and resolution on all the other things that you're confused about, you know? And that is mystical in its own right because it doesn't make sense.

• 1:36:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:36:27Rich Roll?

  But that has proven true in my life many times over.

• 1:36:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, me too.

• 1:36:33Rich Roll?

  So what, sorry, go ahead.

• 1:36:35Speaker 01

  Well, I was just gonna say, I learned that when I'm on as much as I'm off. Because I've been off plenty of times.

• 1:36:43Rich Roll?

  Right. Well, yeah, when you're off and then, you know, you get the universe, you know, like slaps you across the face and you get the reminder.

• 1:36:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:36:53Rich Roll?

  What was the impetus to go to divinity school?

• 1:36:58Speaker 01

  You know,

• 1:37:02Speaker 01

  So I'm at least 50% believing that there's more to this story. You know, I was reading, I was rereading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. I read it in 1988 and I read it again in like 2011 or something like that, maybe 12. And I was reading A Brief History of Time at the same time, same time reading those two books. And, you know, to read Zen and the Art, however many years later, I don't want to do the math, 20 something years later, which, but totally different book. I couldn't believe what I was reading. I thought, I've already read this? How is that possible?

• 1:37:41Speaker 01

  As I was reading it, I thought, and by the way, Stephen Hawking opens the book by saying, "I'm going to tell you everything that's happened since the Big Bang and I don't know what happened before." And so I'm like, "Ah, you just left the door open." But as the stories were weaving together and you're learning about the nature of time and gravity and all these different things, and then you're, you know, you're, you're reading about, you know, what is it? Quality. They talk a lot about quality in Zen and the Art. It was amazing the way the two stories wove together. And I just, again, I think there's a better than 50% chance that there's more to this story.

• 1:38:25Speaker 01

  Like, there are, there are things out there that we just have no idea about. And I thought, here I am, however old I was, 45, 48 years old, and I don't know much about it. I don't know anything about it. So I thought, gosh, to have the opportunity, you know, Yale's not that far down the road from me, and I had the time then, I had the time then. Go learn, like, go dive in, go see. And, you know, I always find this interesting dividing point, I say to somebody, or they find out I'm in divinity school. A lot of people, they don't want to talk to me, you know, they want to leave at that moment. Yeah. And then other people are super curious about it. And, and, you know...

• 1:39:08Speaker 01

  I don't know what I am. I don't know what I believe, but I believe, you know? So if you ask me, like, for example, I'm a Joseph Campbell person generally. I mean, it's sort of like, he's sort of the guy who has probably opened my eyes more than anybody else. And it's a lot about sort of pointing, like, you know, stories point you to places. But in and of themselves, they're not answers per se. They just sort of enlighten you to possibilities of getting answers. But if you think about, okay, for example, the story of Jesus. By the way, very controversial dude. There's, there are, there are certain words you can't say. For example, at the Nantucket Project, not because we have a list of rules, but because this is how humans are today. Jesus used to be on the list, and then people started to talk about it. Very taboo word, very interesting word.

• 1:39:51Speaker 01

  Anyway, I don't know if I think that that story is true and that he is the son of God and that Mary is his mother and Mary, you know, was a virgin and gave birth to this guy. But if you read the story and you can be in the story and you can learn from the story, I believe in that. And I don't know if that makes sense, but so when people ask me like, "Do you believe that Jesus is the son of God?" I say, "At a minimum, I kind of believe in the story of it. I can, I can take a lot from that story." But, you know, I've studied Buddhism and I've studied lots of things. So I can take that in a lot of different stories. But I won't jump up and down and say this or that, or the other thing is not true. Because I don't know.

• 1:40:36Rich Roll?

  Well, this is the stuff of life. This is perhaps the most fascinating subject matter that grapples with what it means to be alive and be human.

• 1:40:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:40:49Rich Roll?

  And it's weird that we're in a time where the pursuit of trying to better understand these myths and these traditions and these religions that have defined us as a species is somehow sort of stigmatized or, you know, makes people think that you're weird for wanting to do that. Because is there anything more magical and fascinating and, and, and truly important? Because it's asking the question like...

• 1:41:21Rich Roll?

  What is the best way to be a human? And how can you be happy? And how can you give of yourself and be fulfilled? And, and find meaning in this short time that we share on earth? And I think when you look at the story of Jesus, it's like, you know, set aside, son of God, you know, all of that. It's like, this guy was a radical revolutionary who spoke truth to power in a time where it was very dangerous to do that amidst a culture of very oppressed people in a specific part of the world. And that was revolution. I mean, this guy was like hardcore.

• 1:41:55Speaker 01

  Big time.

• 1:41:56Rich Roll?

  And the more you learn, if you just look at it and evaluate it from a pure historical perspective, um, you know, in juxtaposition to, you know, the controlling forces in that area of the planet at that time, it's fucking fascinating.

• 1:42:09Speaker 01

  Amazing.

• 1:42:10Rich Roll?

  You know?

• 1:42:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:42:11Rich Roll?

  Are you, are you, uh, familiar with Rob Bell?

• 1:42:15Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:42:16Rich Roll?

  Pastor Rob Bell, former, um, mega church pastor who broke ranks. And, and really has reinvented himself as, as, as a deep thinker and an interesting thinker about Christian traditions. He's a remarkable, amazing human being.

• 1:42:37Rich Roll?

  And he's become a friend, spent on the podcast, is coming back on Friday. There's a brand new documentary about him that is going to be premiering on Amazon and iTunes on Thursday. It's called The Heretic. You should definitely check it out. By the time this airs for the audience listening, um, it will be available. And Julie and I were able to go to the premiere the other day. And it's, it's, it's a very interesting look at a man who, who took a different position on how he looks at the story of Jesus and how it's been co-opted by our culture and has spoken openly and publicly about this at great personal peril. Like it just basically, you know, it destroyed his life and he's been, he's had to rebuild it in a new and interesting way.

• 1:43:21Rich Roll?

  And when he talks, he's got a podcast called The Robcast. You should check that out as well. But I think you would find it super interesting.

• 1:43:28Speaker 01

  My, my, when I got to Yale, so the one, the thing I didn't mention was, um, Recovery, right? You know, there's a big chunk of people in this world who are healthy and in recovery by virtue of programs that have God at the center of them, right? And a lot of them are people who didn't have God in the center of anything, right? A lot of them. And, um, you know, we were talking, believe, like, do you believe the story of your commitment to running and the choices that you made and where it brought you? And in a similar vein, I would ask the same thing about spirituality and like the, you know, its relationships, the 12 steps. And, you know, you go in these rooms and

• 1:44:11Speaker 01

  you get these people who, a lot of them, you know, they were like the opposite of any part of that world, right? We know these people. And then they get this spiritual

• 1:44:22Speaker 01

  connection, and they might turn into like incredibly beautiful, happy, giving, positive members of our culture, you know, like incredible. And then you ask the question like, well, they say that God is part of what got them there. Do they believe that? Like, do they really embrace that? And what are they talking about when they talk about God? Like, what do they mean? What does spiritual mean? You know, people say, I'm spiritual, not religious. What does that actually mean? Um, so that was a lot of what took me there, you know, that was a lot of what guided me there.

• 1:44:57Rich Roll?

  And how do you answer that question?

• 1:44:59Speaker 01

  Well, I just, you know, to me, it is a, it's kind of what I said to you before, like, I believe there's way more to this story, and I'll never know what it is, but I am perfectly content seeking and contemplating it throughout, and then practicing certain things in my life and see what it does for me and for my family and to the people around me. I mean, my family is as big a benefactor of my attempt to be healthy than anyone.

• 1:45:23Rich Roll?

  Of course.

• 1:45:24Speaker 01

  Yeah. It's like, so I can say it's about me, and on a certain level, it is about me, but they, they live much better lives when I'm, you know, seeking some of these different kinds of things. So that's kind of my answer. And, and it's part of what drew me to school. But the thing I was going to say is when I got there, you know, my first class was, well, no, my first class was, does God exist? And fascinating, you know, 14 proofs for God, not God, three prove not God, 11 prove God. And it's just really interesting to walk through them. I couldn't recite them back to you, but I was, my mind was blown. But then I took, um, Old Testament. And my Old Testament professor was a guy named Joel Baden, who's a friend now.

• 1:46:04Speaker 01

  Best teacher I've ever had of any kind, just brilliant, brilliant guy. Well, he's a Jewish non-believer. And, you know, it's really interesting. And I don't know what I was when I walked in there. And I don't know what I am now. And I mean that sincerely. I'm open to sort of lots of different things. But really interesting to walk into what I expected to be like a believing Christian who was sort of touting certain things to sort of lay that out. And I walk away from that more than anything else, not knowing. But, but I do sort of, you know, so when people say, I don't like religion and dogma. Well, that's dogma.

• 1:46:39Rich Roll?

  It's its own version of dogma.

• 1:46:40Speaker 01

  It's its own version of dogma. So I don't know where I am on the spiritual, not religious thing. I just don't know. I don't even know what people say when they mean when they say that. And I'm okay, you know, done yoga for years. And I'm not doing it now, but I did it for many years. And I'd go along with the namasstays and all the stuff and get into the God. And was I believing? Was I religious? Was I spiritual? I don't know. I was just enjoying it.

• 1:47:06Rich Roll?

  What is the composition of the student body in that program? Like, are there, I would assume there's people there who want to be priests. And then there's sort of average people like, you know, sort of, just academic minded people like yourself?

• 1:47:20Speaker 01

  There's all of the above. I mean, it's very, I'm kind of fascinated by the people who've been believers their whole lives. You know, it's, and there's lots of them, you know, or to a certain extent. I mean, that's one of the things like this woman, Nadia Bolz Weber, who like, broke the Jesus barrier at the Nantucket Project. Really fascinating woman.

• 1:47:39Rich Roll?

  What do you mean she broke? What does that mean?

• 1:47:40Speaker 01

  Well, she, so she stood, she gave a benediction at the Nantucket Project. And I'm not going to remember.

• 1:47:44Rich Roll?

  She was the first person to use, okay.

• 1:47:46Speaker 01

  She used Jesus. Yeah. And she said, she said something like, so her benediction was like, blessed are the crack whores. Blessed are the strung out. I mean, this woman is a woman who's been in recovery. And she's a, she's a Lutheran, I think a Lutheran. And I don't remember where I was going with the story. But, but

• 1:48:09Rich Roll?

  She broke the, she broke the Jesus barrier. This powerful, yeah.

• 1:48:13Speaker 01

  But, you know, I like,

• 1:48:18Speaker 01

  The idea that this guy who hung around prostitutes and did all these different things, and then when you read the Old Testament from the perspective of someone who's a non-believer, but a brilliant guy who knows a cult, it's like a free-for-all. You know, they're sleeping with your brother and your sister and this guy's wife. And the violence, I mean, it's a crazy book. These books are intense.

• 1:48:41Rich Roll?

  Did you study the Bhagavad Gita also? Is this a Christian tradition program?

• 1:48:47Speaker 01

  It's all there. It's all there. And I have, but not in depth.

• 1:48:51Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:48:53Speaker 01

  You know, I did a, my first semester, I did a course, Meditation East and West, and it was taught by a woman who's a nun, Catholic nun. And awesome, awesome. I mean, we're going, you know, we're doing Buddhist and I don't even remember, like, all these different forms of meditation and going pretty deep on that, while we're simultaneously doing like different Catholic traditions, like the lectio divina and all these things that I'd never even heard of. And the long story short is like there are these Christian mystics throughout history who just were these fascinating people. And my whole point being that I didn't know the first thing about Christianity when I got there. And I didn't know much about the other things, but their links and their,

• 1:49:38Speaker 01

  again, it goes back to Joseph Campbell, like, he's the guy who actually figured, or one of the people who figured all this out.

• 1:49:43Rich Roll?

  So how does this, that experience kind of frame your perspective on your life and, you know, what you're trying to express? Like, has it changed how you approach that?

• 1:49:53Speaker 01

  To a certain extent, because I think, you know, like most people, I'm not comfortable being like thought of as the weirdo.

• 1:50:03Speaker 01

  But I know that sort of the meaning I've taken out of those, I mean, I got to also take constitutional law through one of the best Yale Law School professors, and I took political science courses and things.

• 1:50:17Speaker 01

  But, you know, it's what we were talking about Facebook earlier. There's way more to this story. I mean, whatever conventional wisdom is at any given moment is such a small part of the story. And the idea that we're the first, you know, era in history to have it all figured out? Like, forget it. That's just crazy. And we really, we get into these moments where we think we just have everything all figured out. And I appreciate Silicon Valley technology and all these other things as much as anybody else does. But, you know, at the same time, you got, you could talk about Plato and Aristotle for weeks. And it's a good reminder that all these things are there.

• 1:51:00Speaker 01

  Like, it's a good reminder to hear your story. And that, you know, that truth, I say truth, and you kind of said truth. I don't know what, I'm gonna say truth, which was the thing that attracted you to sort of change your life. Which, by the way, some of it was an attraction and some of it was a, I gotta get out of here. You know, the ability to connect with that story is really complicated. And really important, like, really, really, really important and really, really, really a gift.

• 1:51:37Speaker 01

  And it helped me make sense of, you know, judgment. And I don't mean in a Jesus sense, I just mean, you know, I live in a place like where you live, where these people are judged big time, you know? Talking about religious people are judged where I come from. And I just think, once you get into the practice of doing that kind of thing, you're going down a path that you're gonna be the person who pays the price. We all pay a price for that. But it did a lot to sort of open me up to that and like, work hard to always be open to the fact that you may not know what the heck you're talking about.

• 1:52:16Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:52:18Rich Roll?

  Humility.

• 1:52:19Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 1:52:21Rich Roll?

  Which is hard to learn.

• 1:52:22Speaker 01

  Hard.

• 1:52:23Rich Roll?

  You know.

• 1:52:24Speaker 01

  Only it's only a practice.

• 1:52:27Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I mean, it's certainly not my default.

• 1:52:30Speaker 01

  No, not me either.

• 1:52:31Rich Roll?

  It requires work and awareness to get there. But when you can touch that space, your ability to connect with yourself and other people is profoundly enhanced.

• 1:52:42Speaker 01

  Yeah. You know, I think about

• 1:52:46Speaker 01

  depression, like I suffered from depression, two, two periods in my life where it was most intense. And, um, you know, I was prescribed

• 1:52:56Speaker 01

  Zoloft, Wellbutrin, Propanolol and Valium, all at the same time. Right?

• 1:53:05Speaker 01

  I was crazy, crazy as a result of taking those pills. I was probably crazy anyway. I'm not saying I wasn't, but I was crazy when I took those pills. And I, you know, I haven't taken anything in more than a decade. I try to eat well and I don't do any of that stuff. And I'm very happy generally. I have a peace in my life generally. It can come and go, but

• 1:53:30Speaker 01

  one of the things that I've woken up to is now that there's a lot of stories here. So this is just my story. I'm not going to, people can use any pills they prefer. I think, I don't know. I'm not taking a position on that. But what I am saying is

• 1:53:47Speaker 01

  lack of humility manifests itself in a negative focus on yourself in a really powerful way. And I think somehow, if I know I used to interpret a kind of humility is like, don't get too full of yourself. And it turns out, no, it's don't think about yourself all the time. And I think my depression was a lot about that. It was a lot about like focus on myself all day long. And negative, but okay.

• 1:54:15Rich Roll?

  Yeah. And I think that self centeredness can take many forms. It can, it can take the form of being too focused on your own self improvement.

• 1:54:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:54:23Rich Roll?

  You know, I mean, that's a laudable, you know, sort of perspective, and yet it can still lead you astray because it's all about you.

• 1:54:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:54:31Rich Roll?

  You know, and I think broadening that aperture is an antidote for a lot of what ails us, but it's in counterpoint to, you know, the marshalling of all of the influences and stimuli that we're exposed to every day that's telling us to, you know, get your own and, you know, where's mine and how can I get this quicker and arrive at the destination sooner? And I think it's making us profoundly unhappy. There was an, have you read Johann Hari's new book about depression?

• 1:55:03Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:55:04Rich Roll?

  Should check it out. He's did this massive study, interviewed a million people. He was recently on Joe Robins podcast and talked about it for like three hours. It was fascinating, getting at the root of what is actually making us depressed. And it's, like you said, you sort of alluded to earlier, like it's a much more complicated nuanced thing than, oh, you have some brain chemistry that's a little bit off. And if I give you this cocktail, it's going to fix it. And again, I'm not saying, I have no opinion on the appropriateness of those medications. I think a lot of people have benefited from them, but I think we're too quick to prescribe at, at the, you know, while forsaking all of these other things that are contributing to this malaise that we're experiencing as a culture in a profound and unprecedented way.

• 1:55:49Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yep. Yeah, no, I, I agree with all of what you said.

• 1:55:56Rich Roll?

  All right. We got to land this plane.

• 1:55:57Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:55:58Rich Roll?

  But let's, let's leave some, kind of like a downer here at the end.

• 1:56:03Rich Roll?

  To leave people with a little bit of a, an uplifting thing. I mean, look, you've lived an incredible life, man. I mean, amazing what you've been able to express and experience and all these amazing people as a result of the work that you do in the Nantucket Project. If you could take some kernel of wisdom out of that and impart it to somebody who is listening to this, who maybe is inspired but is stuck, like, I just can't, you know, I can't break free of this self-created prison that I'm in, or I'm in a job that is not suited to me, or I can't, you know, whatever it is, some mental or very real-world barrier.

• 1:56:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know, I'm gonna read something I wrote earlier.

• 1:56:48Speaker 01

  Belief is my general answer, like,

• 1:56:55Speaker 01

  I ask you, you know, I ask,

• 1:56:58Speaker 01

  I feel very strongly that you

• 1:57:05Speaker 01

  found a path through that sun on your back on that run, right? Like, I just really, really, in every part of my heart, believe that. And not one person in the history of time,

• 1:57:21Speaker 01

  well, maybe they exist, because I can't, that's a broad statement, but knows, knows, knows where it's going. No one knows, you know? And especially in the 90s, we'd go to all these, like, entrepreneur, this, that, and the other thing, and you meet all these people.

• 1:57:39Speaker 01

  The paths are a mess. They're all a mess. Like, there's no perfect path. Oh, that, you know, they were great managers, they had a perfect call. No one does. No one did. It's never happened. And so how do people find their way through? They find that little place, that little spark. And in the end, you gotta have faith in that. You gotta believe in that. You gotta choose that over all the other choices and keep going, because all the other choices stink. You know, and I learned all that the hard way. I learned all of that the hard way. I remember when I was in bankruptcy, you know, that you go and they lay out your case, and it's pretty harsh, you know? And you're sitting there, and you can just tell the judge is like, who is this idiot that we're reading about right now? Like, what an idiot.

• 1:58:23Speaker 01

  And then finally, he says, and I'm sitting there hearing all this read out, and the judge says, who is Thomas W. Scott?

• 1:58:34Speaker 01

  And I'm like, that is a great fricking question. And I mean, I had a moment of clarity. I had a moment of clarity where I was just like, thank you. That's a good question. And I, but the point is, I thought, I only have one choice right here. And I am going to walk forward and do the very best I can as I'm going out of this darkness. Cause there's no other choice. There is no other choice that works. Now, they are, they are there, but it's just illogical. Like you've learned all this stuff, so just have a moment of faith. So in episode one of the Ni-Stad brothers, Van quotes Jean-Luc Godard. And I wrote it down today for some reason.

• 1:59:14Speaker 01

  I looked it up, but it says, "All the dragons in our lives are perhaps princesses, expecting us to be handsome and brave. All the terrifying things are perhaps nothing but helpless things waiting for us to help them." And it just, you know, everything I've experienced in my life and all those dragons that kind of sit there that you think of as these just horrible things are like the guide. It's that thing kind of waiting for you to just kind of take that step and to keep going. And in the end, like, that's the beauty of the story. That's the beauty of the path, you know?

• 1:59:57Speaker 01

  And it's never, you know, when we would go to business schools, like I still do that, but they lionize you. And I sometimes think like, these people are going to go out and they're going to start into the mud and they're going to be like, what the fuck happened? And then truth is, because everyone walks in the mud.

• 2:00:16Rich Roll?

  Like Harvard Business School did like a case study on you guys, right? Like, right.

• 2:00:21Speaker 01

  That was, I mean, it was like, yeah. And that would happen. They would lionize us. I mean, I did try as often as I could to sort of say, this is not as.

• 2:00:31Rich Roll?

  Right, but beneath that, like basically, it's a beautiful passage. Thank you for reading that. I mean, what I gather from that, what I get out of that is, is first of all, understanding that, that the way we view the world is a perspective. And that perspective is malleable, it's shiftable. And if you can step outside your frame and see it from a different direction, it could completely realign how you navigate your path. And then sort of second to that is this idea of, of not trying to avoid obstacles in your life, or, or, or this idea that if

• 2:01:11Rich Roll?

  you face them, that somehow you failed, but to understand that not only is this part of it, it's inescapable, and it should be welcome, because every obstacle that you face is your opportunity to grow. And that growth is, you know, more than your business is what you're really here to do.

• 2:01:31Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. And, and I would just so emphasize that I believe in what you just said. Like, I really believe it. I think the, and I say that because I think often, and I do it, it sounds poetic. And we take it as poetry and not like faith.

• 2:01:47Rich Roll?

  Truth.

• 2:01:48Speaker 01

  Yeah. And, and just to, you know, you go, you go, you just keep going.

• 2:01:56Rich Roll?

  It's good talking to you, man.

• 2:01:57Speaker 01

  You too.

• 2:01:57Rich Roll?

  That was awesome.

• 2:01:58Speaker 01

  That was great.

• 2:01:59Rich Roll?

  Yeah, thank you so much. Beautiful. If people want to connect with you and your mission, what's the best place?

• 2:02:06Speaker 01

  Nantucketproject.com. And if anyone wants to, they can write me at [email protected].

• 2:02:13Rich Roll?

  You get a lot of emails. And if you want to check out some of the speakers that you had, you guys have a YouTube channel, right? And you can see all that.

• 2:02:21Speaker 01

  We do, we do. And, and the Neighborhood Project, if you want to start a Neighborhood Project, they're in, I don't know. Like 25 states now.

• 2:02:29Rich Roll?

  Oh, that's cool.

• 2:02:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's growing.

• 2:02:31Rich Roll?

  So is there a website for that? Or is that part of?

• 2:02:33Speaker 01

  Nantucketproject.com. There's a Neighborhood Project part on there. We launch it formally on first day of spring, but it's it's out there and it's kind of growing organically.

• 2:02:42Rich Roll?

  Awesome. And the Neighborhood Project podcast.

• 2:02:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, I gotta talk to you about that.

• 2:02:46Rich Roll?

  You're like one of the three people who knows that. Well, it's on the web. Like you texted me, hey, like, here's a little thing we're we're I'm really into right now. But I had already found it on the web. I was like, oh, what is this? Like, he's doing a podcast like, you know? So I had already checked it out. So it's it's out in the world, right?

• 2:03:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:03:04Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 2:03:05Speaker 01

  I mean, we are serious rookies at this, but yes, it is.

• 2:03:08Rich Roll?

  No, man, I loved it. People should check it out.

• 2:03:11Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 2:03:11Rich Roll?

  Cool, man.

• 2:03:12Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 2:03:12Rich Roll?

  Thanks, dude. All right. Peace.

• 2:03:17Rich Roll?

  All right, we did it and it was good. Hope you guys enjoyed that. As always, please check out the show notes for links and resources related to today's conversation on the episode page at richroll.com. Plant Power Way Italia, our new cookbook. It's coming out soon, April 24. It would mean a ton to us if you pre-ordered your copy today. What are you waiting for? Come on, you guys. I'm telling you, this book is awesome. It's 10 times better than The Plant Power Way, our first cookbook that seemed to really resonate with people. So just trust us, pick it up, you're gonna love it. And if you're a woman, make sure to check out the second most recent blog post on my site. There's a post there all about how you have a chance to win a free spot on our upcoming retreat in Tuscany, May 19 through 26 of this year, 2018.

• 2:04:02Rich Roll?

  It's a $5,000 value. Contest is only open for a couple more days through April 24. So you guys got to jump on it now. Really excited about this new book and can't wait for it to be out in the world to share with you guys. If you would like to support my work, please subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts or on whatever platform you enjoy this content. And you can also support the show on Patreon at richroll.com/donate. I want to thank everybody who helped put on the show today. Jason Camiello for audio engineering, production, show notes, interstitial music, blog post help, whatever. The guy is like doing a lot of work. So thank you, Jason. Blake Curtis for video and graphics and theme music, as always, by Analema. Thanks for the love, you guys. I'll be back here in a couple of days, headed to New York tomorrow. Pretty excited about that.

• 2:04:47Rich Roll?

  And more on the way. Tons of great episodes and great conversations headed in your direction in coming weeks. Appreciate you guys. Much love. Talk to you soon. Peace plants. Namaste.