Roll On: Why Balance Is Overrated

Striving to achieve a ‘balanced life’ on a daily basis sets you up for failure. Approach it instead from a long-term perspective. Aim for self-awareness. Go all-in on what lights you up. Along the way, be gentle with yourself. We are here to follow our curiosity, not mercilessly judge ourselves. Awareness is key. Shame is counterproductive. Welcome to another edition of ‘Roll On’, wherein myself and Lord of the podcast manor Adam Skolnick wane and wax on philosophical, spiritual, and practical ideas both big and small. Beyond bantering sundry matters of varying interest, we play show and tell, share a few wins of the week, and round it out by answering listener questions deposited on our voicemail at (424) 235-4626. Beyond RRP hype-man duties, Adam Skolnick is an activist and journalist best known as David Goggins’ Can’t Hurt Me, co-author. He writes about adventure sports, environmental issues, and civil rights for The New York Times, Outside, ESPN, BBC, and Men’s Health. He is the author of One Breath and is currently awash in his umpteenth draft of an untitled novel—slowly losing his mind in the process. Topics explored in today’s conversation include: the ultramarathon tragedy in China and why there must be better protocols and oversight in this growing sport; thoughts on Adam Grant’s recent NYT article, There’s a Name for the Blah You’re Feeling: It’s Called Languishing; Rich’s current approach to writing, motivation, and why balance is overrated; SriMu’s Father’s Day Special, 10% off not-cheese boxes for all hard-working dads; Hellah Sidibe’s impressive, history making ultra-run across the United States; an update on the Iron Cowboy’s history-making Conquer 100; Van Neistat’s The Spirited Man series on YouTube; the Malcolm Gladwell vs. Chris Chavez journalist / influencer 1-mile challenge; and the legacy of Duke Kahanamoku In addition, we answer the following listener questions: How do you create time to care for yourself without disappointing others? How do you avoid late-night hunger pangs following a day of rigorous training? What is the best way to transition from road to trail running? Thank you to Sierra (or Ciara) from Kalamazoo, Michigan, Kevin from Northern California, and Ben from Columbus, Ohio for your questions. If you want your query discussed, drop it on our Facebook Page or better yet leave a voicemail at (424) 235-4626. FULL BLOG & SHOW NOTES: bit.ly/richroll604 YouTube: bit.ly/rollon604 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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• 1:13Rich Roll?

  The Rich Roll Podcast. What's up, everybody? It is I, Rich Roll, your host, here once again with Lord Adam Skolnick, soon-to-be property owner.

• 1:28Rich Roll?

  Rocking the Low Tide Boys baseball hat today.

• 1:31Adam Skolnick?

  I am, yes.

• 1:32Rich Roll?

  Shout out to the Low Tide Boys.

• 1:33Adam Skolnick?

  Shout out LTB.

• 1:36Rich Roll?

  How you doing today?

• 1:38Adam Skolnick?

  You know, I wore this jacket for a couple of reasons. Number one is, right now, I've transitioned into baby Secret Service agent.

• 1:49Rich Roll?

  What does that mean?

• 1:50Adam Skolnick?

  You know, like, when the babies start crawling, but not just crawling, but crawling really fast?

• 1:55Rich Roll?

  Yes.

• 1:56Adam Skolnick?

  So now, April and I have to triangulate to make sure we have Zuma covered. So it's like, he'll be cruising and I'm looking for her around the corner. I'll be like, "You got him? You got him?" Yeah, yeah, I got him. Yeah, you know, you got him. It's on you. Yeah, Renegade, you got Renegade? I got Renegade.

• 2:13Rich Roll?

  That's the code name for Zuma. I feel like Zuma is a code name.

• 2:16Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, Zuma is the code name. Renegade was Barack Obama's Secret Service code name. That's what they called him during the campaign and he kept it. So I'm, you know, borrowing that.

• 2:27Rich Roll?

  Well, good to see you. Good to be

• 2:29Adam Skolnick?

  Good to see you.

• 2:30Rich Roll?

  Back with you before we corrupt people with our respective biases.

• 2:36Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 2:38Rich Roll?

  I should mention that what we do here in this special version of the podcast that we call Roll On is we talk about a variety of matters that are just of interest to us over the past couple of weeks. We do a little bit of show and tell. We share some wins of the week. Good news. We're about good news, right?

• 2:58Adam Skolnick?

  Usually.

• 2:59Rich Roll?

  And, yes, once in a while. We're kind of back to good news today.

• 3:02Adam Skolnick?

  We're back to good news lately.

• 3:04Rich Roll?

  And we also rounded out with some listener questions. So if you guys want a question fielded for Adam and I to discuss, you can leave it on our voicemail at 424-235-4626. Also, before we dive in, if you're watching this on the Youtubes, please subscribe. Same goes for Apple and Spotify. On that note, quick shout out to our Clips channel. We have a little nascent seedling we're nurturing with this channel. But we did just hire a full-time editor, all praise to AJ.

• 3:34Adam Skolnick?

  AJ.

• 3:35Rich Roll?

  Who's piloting it. We're uploading two clips every single day and we'll probably increase that at some point. So if you like to take quick peeks into the plant-based meat and organic potatoes of what we do here for each episode, that is the place to do it. So subscribe to that channel as well. There's a link to it in the description below and in the show notes, or you can just search Rich Roll Clips on YouTube.

• 4:00Adam Skolnick?

  Love it.

• 4:01Rich Roll?

  What is up?

• 4:03Adam Skolnick?

  Well, the other reason I wore this coat is, wait, is it too soon to get the water?

• 4:07Rich Roll?

  You can get the water.

• 4:08Adam Skolnick?

  You can't, you shouldn't get in the water in the first, in the first segment.

• 4:11Rich Roll?

  That, that sort of signals that you're nervous or you have some kind of anxiety disorder.

• 4:15Adam Skolnick?

  Or just like dehydrated.

• 4:17Rich Roll?

  I don't know. If you're furiously sipping from the water in the first 10 seconds of the podcast, something might be awry.

• 4:23Adam Skolnick?

  Something's wrong in your life.

• 4:25Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Secret Service duties are dehydrating.

• 4:28Adam Skolnick?

  I wouldn't want me as my Secret Service agent.

• 4:33Adam Skolnick?

  No, went out of town this week for the first time, went up to the wine country behind Santa Barbara, where it's really lovely in the hills there. And it was one of those places where you have to wear like, nice clothes to get in for dinner.

• 4:47Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 4:48Adam Skolnick?

  And so I wore this also.

• 4:49Rich Roll?

  You wore that. That's seen a lot of mileage in the last 72 hours after being in your closet for 10 years.

• 4:56Adam Skolnick?

  Exactly. You know me so well. I feel so seen.

• 4:59Rich Roll?

  Right. I also feel like you showed up in a mashing shirt today, to me. We are kind of matching.

• 5:05Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, that's kind of odd.

• 5:06Rich Roll?

  A kind of floral patterned button down, so.

• 5:09Adam Skolnick?

  It's a good news day. Everything's good, though. The big battle's coming up. I'm excited about that.

• 5:15Rich Roll?

  Which big battle is that?

• 5:16Adam Skolnick?

  Remember, the swim run, big battle.

• 5:18Rich Roll?

  Hence the low tide boys hat.

• 5:20Adam Skolnick?

  Exactly. Nicolas Ramirez and Team Envol have launched this cool thing because there are frustrated swim runners all over the world. Really, most of them are in Europe, to be quite honest, if we're going to be fair.

• 5:32Rich Roll?

  They're less frustrated in Europe because they're actually good at it.

• 5:35Adam Skolnick?

  Right, but they can't do it in Europe. We're more vaccinated.

• 5:38Rich Roll?

  Although I did just get an email from Otillo saying they were opening back up. I didn't, I can't remember the details of that.

• 5:44Adam Skolnick?

  It's gone, it's gone up and down. Some races have been canceled, some have not. And so it's kind of this chance to get race organizers some spotlight, have swim runners kind of join in something and take all of June. So basically, it's everyone who wants to join, signs up at Envol's website, and basically you get points for every three kilometer or more swim run that you do. I believe it's three kilometers, three or five. And a couple, couple of euro of your 30, I think it's 30 euro, something like that, I'll tell you right now.

• 6:18Adam Skolnick?

  It is, no, 13, it's just 13 euro. And a couple of those bucks go to Sea Shepherd.

• 6:26Rich Roll?

  Oh, nice.

• 6:26Adam Skolnick?

  And so it's pretty, pretty cheap to sign up. And then you can every, like I said, every 3K swim run, which is not much.

• 6:34Adam Skolnick?

  As long as you do two swims and two runs that you log, you get a certain amount of points. And then you get a point per kilometer. And if you do more than 10 kilometers, you get even more points. You get a little bonus per kilometer.

• 6:44Rich Roll?

  And when does it kickoff?

• 6:45Adam Skolnick?

  It kicks off June 1st.

• 6:47Rich Roll?

  June 1, right.

• 6:47Adam Skolnick?

  It's all of June.

• 6:48Rich Roll?

  And Envol is spelled E-N-V-O-L.

• 6:50Adam Skolnick?

  That's right. Envolcoaching.net.

• 6:52Rich Roll?

  Okay, Envolcoaching.net.

• 6:54Adam Skolnick?

  And I am on Team Low Tide Boys.

• 6:57Rich Roll?

  You are?

• 6:57Adam Skolnick?

  I am.

• 6:58Rich Roll?

  You're really stepping it up.

• 7:00Adam Skolnick?

  Really?

• 7:00Rich Roll?

  In the swim run world.

• 7:01Adam Skolnick?

  You feel like I'm...

• 7:01Rich Roll?

  Making a name for yourself in swim run.

• 7:04Adam Skolnick?

  I think it's because I'm the only mainstream journalist that has written about it twice.

• 7:08Rich Roll?

  You have, you have. I know.

• 7:11Adam Skolnick?

  I don't even consider myself a mainstream journalist, but I am.

• 7:14Rich Roll?

  Two New York Times pieces on swim runs.

• 7:15Adam Skolnick?

  That's right.

• 7:15Rich Roll?

  Courtesy of yours truly, sitting right here.

• 7:17Adam Skolnick?

  You know, you launched me.

• 7:19Rich Roll?

  And now, we, we were joking before the podcast, we're, we're like, we've become like a swim run podcast? That's not a swim run podcast?

• 7:28Adam Skolnick?

  Yes. You don't really quite yet...

• 7:30Rich Roll?

  This is not a swim run podcast.

• 7:31Adam Skolnick?

  No, you don't want to market yourself.

• 7:32Rich Roll?

  We're talking to a very small subsection of the audience right now.

• 7:35Adam Skolnick?

  Although, I see, I feel like some of your audience, like, is starting to, it's permeating out there. They want to get into it.

• 7:41Rich Roll?

  It's just, it's this filtering into the unconscious, collective beehive mind out there.

• 7:46Adam Skolnick?

  And you know, the point is, the big battle is the perfect time to try it. You can do like really small amounts of kilometers or mileage. And you go out there, you swim for a quarter mile, run for a mile, swim for a quarter mile, run for a couple of miles. And you're, and you're home and you're good. And you've, you've got, and you can easily do that. I, I did, I, from my door, I, I used to love doing this 8K swim run, which I will do again during this June big battle. I stopped doing it during the winter because it just gets cold in that swim run suit. But I'm back in the swim run suit without the legs. And, and really excited to get after it again.

• 8:23Rich Roll?

  It's cool.

• 8:23Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 8:25Rich Roll?

  You do need access to water. We had a listener question about that a couple of weeks ago, right?

• 8:30Adam Skolnick?

  I don't think-

• 8:31Rich Roll?

  A lot of the pools, I think, are starting to open up right now.

• 8:33Adam Skolnick?

  I wonder if, I don't know the answer-

• 8:35Rich Roll?

  I don't know what the deal is in California.

• 8:36Adam Skolnick?

  What Nicholas says about pool swims. I would imagine pool swims are fine.

• 8:40Rich Roll?

  I'm sure they are.

• 8:40Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 8:41Rich Roll?

  How many people live on a coastline where they have access to getting out in the open water?

• 8:45Adam Skolnick?

  I don't know.

• 8:46Rich Roll?

  You're taking our, our small subset of the audience and dividing it into an infinitesim- infinitesimal-

• 8:52Adam Skolnick?

  No, but I think that's a good thing. I think-

• 8:54Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 8:54Adam Skolnick?

  We should, we could further polarize even more. Get the people by the water to resent the people without water, or vice versa.

• 9:09Rich Roll?

  On the subject of pools-

• 9:11Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 9:11Rich Roll?

  And water, I came across a story in the New York Times. I didn't put this in the outline or in the show notes, but maybe Blake can pull it up. Blake, search, uh, New York City Pool in the East River.

• 9:24Adam Skolnick?

  Oh, right.

• 9:25Rich Roll?

  Did you see this?

• 9:25Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, you just posted it. You just posted it, yes.

• 9:28Rich Roll?

  Right. This is very cool. So, apparently, the New York City has just approved this project-

• 9:33Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 9:33Rich Roll?

  To build a floating pool in Dumbo, right in the middle of the East River.

• 9:40Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 9:40Rich Roll?

  And it's got this bridge, so Blake-

• 9:42Adam Skolnick?

  It's like icebergs, but the East River.

• 9:43Rich Roll?

  Exactly. It's like icebergs sitting in the middle of the, yeah.

• 9:46Adam Skolnick?

  So, it's not icebergs.

• 9:47Rich Roll?

  I should also say, before we get a little deeper into this, we're trying something new today. We're upping our production technology game.

• 9:55Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 9:55Rich Roll?

  We've got this big monitor here, so we're gonna do the whole thing where we pull up clips and, and talk about them a little bit.

• 10:00Adam Skolnick?

  So, that's two, there's two Olympic, one Olympic size, or 125, 150, it looks like?

• 10:05Rich Roll?

  It looks like, well, definitely one 50-meter pool, but it, it appears that it only has four lanes. Like, Blake, if you scroll down, you could see, uh, a mock-up of the pool. That's a little bit-

• 10:15Adam Skolnick?

  Why does it look like a cross?

• 10:17Rich Roll?

  But what it also does, and, see, it's a cross, so one, one way is, I believe it's four lanes of 50-meter-

• 10:23Adam Skolnick?

  Okay.

• 10:24Rich Roll?

  50 meters in distance. I'm not sure what the, the other side of the cross, um, is in distance. But, uh, also, there's some kind of, uh, technologically advanced filtration system, so it's actually also cleaning the East River at the same time. So there's an environmental sustainability component to this thing.

• 10:47Adam Skolnick?

  Super cool.

• 10:49Rich Roll?

  So anyway.

• 10:49Adam Skolnick?

  I'm all for it. First of all, I love Dumbo.

• 10:51Rich Roll?

  Hopefully it'll take them less than 10 years to build it. It looks super futuristic and cool. And if that works, it seems like something you could replicate in all kinds of cities across the world.

• 11:03Adam Skolnick?

  It also looks with the sun rising and that.

• 11:07Rich Roll?

  It's well photographed.

• 11:08Adam Skolnick?

  Design.

• 11:08Rich Roll?

  Or mocked up.

• 11:09Adam Skolnick?

  It looks like.

• 11:10Rich Roll?

  Rendered.

• 11:11Adam Skolnick?

  Like the Catholic Church is behind it.

• 11:14Rich Roll?

  Because of the cross?

• 11:15Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 11:15Rich Roll?

  Or it looks like a pot dispensary. No, it's very cool.

• 11:21Adam Skolnick?

  It is cool.

• 11:22Rich Roll?

  Can you imagine if you lived in Brooklyn and you could just cruise out and swim there every day? That would be pretty cool.

• 11:29Adam Skolnick?

  It'd be amazing.

• 11:30Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 11:30Adam Skolnick?

  It is beautiful.

• 11:31Rich Roll?

  I wonder if it'll be open, if they'll heat it for the winter months. I think it said in the article it'll be open for 15 weeks out of the year.

• 11:36Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, I would imagine.

• 11:37Rich Roll?

  At least they gotta build it.

• 11:38Adam Skolnick?

  Is it a barge? Like, does it move?

• 11:40Rich Roll?

  I don't think it moves. See, there's that walkway, that kind of architectural path. That looks pretty long. That looks like quite a ways out in the river.

• 11:49Adam Skolnick?

  It does.

• 11:50Rich Roll?

  Anyway, super cool.

• 11:51Adam Skolnick?

  It's very exciting.

• 11:52Rich Roll?

  What else we want to talk about?

• 11:54Adam Skolnick?

  How are you?

• 11:55Rich Roll?

  You know what we need to do?

• 11:56Adam Skolnick?

  What?

• 11:56Rich Roll?

  Well, yeah, first of all, I'm good.

• 12:00Adam Skolnick?

  I'm glad to hear it.

• 12:01Rich Roll?

  I have two things that I want to talk about. The first is that today I feel really good. My energy is excellent. But I would say since the last time that I saw you, I've actually had a bit of a hard time. Like, I've been struggling, like with, I wouldn't call it depression, but just a lack of energy or enthusiasm for life. Like, just waking up, you know, are we still in the pandemic? Are we not in the pandemic? Like, I live out in a remote place, so I'm already kind of deprived from a normal or adequate amount of social interaction, with the exception of coming to the podcast studio and doing this thing.

• 12:39Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 12:39Rich Roll?

  And I just found myself confused and just being challenged to focus.

• 12:47Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 12:47Rich Roll?

  Or feel plugged into life. And it left me, like, it impacted my sleep. It impacted my ability to train. Like, I was really having a difficult time just getting out there and getting active. And I came across an article, this article is from a couple of weeks ago, it's by friend of the pod, Adam Grant, called Feeling Blah During the Pandemic. It's called languishing. And I think languishing is a word that perfectly captures how I've been feeling up until literally this morning. And I think, you know, we'll link this article up in the show notes, but Adam, I think, really perfectly captures this, I don't know if it's an epidemic, but a lot of people are having this experience right now. It's fairly common, even though

• 13:32Rich Roll?

  I felt like I was the only person who was experiencing it. And reflecting upon it, I think, if you really think about it, we've just gone through an unbelievable year of insane political turmoil, of stay-at-home orders, of being afraid initially to even, you know, touch our groceries, and we're sanitizing everything, and we're terrified of our interactions with other human beings. And now, as we start to emerge out of it, I think we're in a stage of dealing with, I mean, I wouldn't go so far as to call it post-traumatic stress, but there is a stress that we've all weathered. And I think, without

• 14:15Rich Roll?

  confronting it, and really, you know, in our own respective individual ways, finding a way to work through it, you can't just expect that it would disappear. It's like, oh, we're back in the world now, and like, everything's fine. Like, that was a crazy year, you know? Like, we've just gone through, even, you know, look, obviously, some have had it much worse than others, and I've had a pretty, you know, charmed version of this year. But at the same time, you know, I've still, I still think, you know, that everything that we've kind of gone through collectively has an impact on our psyche.

• 14:52Adam Skolnick?

  And the isolation. You know, like, we went through the isolation collectively. We're usually, being alienated is kind of... You feel like the only one. This time, everyone is kind of doing that at the same time, but that doesn't lessen the impacts of it.

• 15:05Rich Roll?

  Sure. But now we're in this stage of like, we're good, right? Are we good? Like, let's go. And then

• 15:10Adam Skolnick?

  We went to, we went

• 15:11Rich Roll?

  Can we go? Can we?

• 15:12Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 15:12Rich Roll?

  Like, you were in a hotel room, right?

• 15:13Adam Skolnick?

  For the first time.

• 15:14Rich Roll?

  First hotel room in a while.

• 15:15Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 15:15Rich Roll?

  I'm sure when you walked into that room, you're like, okay, like, are we okay? Is everything good?

• 15:21Adam Skolnick?

  You're talking to someone who was like a professional travel writer for a decade. Like, I was on the road nine months a year for, you know, for Lonely Planet alone in a lot of these places. And to be back in a hotel, like, we were thinking about going to Hawaii for 10 days or so. And then we just couldn't get our minds around bringing the baby on the airplane yet. We just weren't quite comfortable with that yet. So we decided, let's give this, let's do something really simple, the first step. And it was comfortable. And, you know, you got to eat in a restaurant for the first time. It's like, big advances. Got to see a bunch of animals and have a good time with them, like, you know, at like a petting zoo. It was hilarious. It was good. But it was the first time, and there was this reticence. There was this kind of hesitation.

• 16:04Adam Skolnick?

  I would suggest, potentially, another aspect of this for you, because I've felt it myself a bunch of times. The reentry process after doing a super highly concentrated, intense story in a different location than coming home, you don't really notice it. It takes like a week for you to settle in. And after that, you're like, whoa. Nothing really matters as much as what that experience was like. And so the adrenaline pumping, and the high, and being on location during a very intense period of time, you know, this is right when the verdict was happening. This is like, there was another shooting. And you're out there for that, talking to people deeply involved in it.

• 16:47Adam Skolnick?

  And then you come back, it's going to take a while for you to feel like the other podcasts matter as much as those podcasts matter. Not to say that it doesn't. It's just a feeling sometimes. I'm projecting. But I've had that with stories where I feel

• 17:01Rich Roll?

  Sure.

• 17:01Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 17:02Rich Roll?

  It's, you know, it's that scene of Jeremy Renner walking, wandering down the grocery aisles, like, you know, pining to be back in a combat situation.

• 17:13Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 17:13Rich Roll?

  You know what I mean? And you understand Why, you know, people of that ilk feel like they have to continue to redeploy?

• 17:21Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 17:21Rich Roll?

  Or work correspondents.

• 17:23Adam Skolnick?

  Exactly.

• 17:23Rich Roll?

  Dan Harris has spoken about this, like, he, he basically was like, I was addicted to being dispatched to all these crazy places and being right in the middle of some insanity. And then you come home and everything is just blah and muted in comparison to that.

• 17:38Adam Skolnick?

  And Sebastian Junger, I think, just did a documentary, now he's got his book out about the same thing, bringing this group of guys, some of them are military, some of them were correspondents, together, and they're like walking the rails together to try to kind of come to terms with what they went through.

• 17:52Rich Roll?

  Right. So I guess what you're saying is that what we're all collectively experiencing is a tiny version of that.

• 18:00Adam Skolnick?

  I think that's true. And then I think specifically you, given the timeframe that we're talking about, just still about a month since you got back, maybe a little bit more.

• 18:07Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I don't know. Maybe a little projection in that. I'm not so sure that, that it's rooted in the trip to Minneapolis as much as it is a reckoning with the last 14, 15 months.

• 18:18Adam Skolnick?

  Fair enough.

• 18:19Rich Roll?

  But I feel good today.

• 18:20Adam Skolnick?

  You feel good today?

• 18:21Rich Roll?

  I'm on the other side of it. That's the thing. That's the thing about emotions. Even when you think you're stuck in some cycle that you can't escape from, they tend to always change.

• 18:33Adam Skolnick?

  You just gotta wait for the...

• 18:34Rich Roll?

  Feelings are just feelings, man.

• 18:36Adam Skolnick?

  Feelings are feelings. Well, that's like, this weird moment that we're in is also this, you know, everyone's in their feelings so much, and it makes you want to, it makes me want to be in them less. Like, I want to be in mine less. I want to feel less.

• 18:50Rich Roll?

  Hmm.

• 18:50Adam Skolnick?

  Isn't that, is that weird? Is that bad?

• 18:53Rich Roll?

  I'm trying to wrap my head around what you mean. So basically, because of just the, the dissonance and the vitriol that's out there right now, like, just go out and have an analog experience and enjoy your life.

• 19:03Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, just go out and just like, you know, touch the ocean and be in awe, you know?

• 19:08Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I feel you.

• 19:09Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 19:09Rich Roll?

  Well, speaking of, of getting in touch with our feelings.

• 19:12Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 19:12Rich Roll?

  I think we do need to talk about the Brogan situation a little bit. I don't know that you and I need to process this very much. I think we're good.

• 19:21Adam Skolnick?

  Right, you and I?

• 19:22Rich Roll?

  We're good, yeah.

• 19:23Adam Skolnick?

  Now that my operatives have gotten to you.

• 19:24Rich Roll?

  Yes.

• 19:26Adam Skolnick?

  Well done.

• 19:26Rich Roll?

  Well done, team. Talk about impacting my psyche, but I feel like maybe we need to process this a little bit for the audience, so.

• 19:33Adam Skolnick?

  Yes, let's do it.

• 19:35Rich Roll?

  The Brogan thing continues to resurface its head. I've been on the receiving end of quite a few emails and comments posted on social media that I'm still being too mean to you and that I need to be nice to you. And, you know, Brogan will never take your job and how dare I, you know.

• 19:53Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 19:53Rich Roll?

  Court affections with an interloper.

• 19:56Adam Skolnick?

  How dare you?

• 19:57Rich Roll?

  Such as him, a giant man with a huge heart and a big personality.

• 20:01Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 20:01Rich Roll?

  So, just to be clear, I guess I can be nicer to you. It was all, it's all been in good fun.

• 20:09Adam Skolnick?

  I thought we talked about this last time.

• 20:10Rich Roll?

  Yeah, we did a little bit, but it continued to, it continued to crop up a little bit because then I put up Brogan's episode.

• 20:16Adam Skolnick?

  Oh, right.

• 20:17Rich Roll?

  Which was the other week, so.

• 20:19Adam Skolnick?

  Yes. And that was when he first kind of broached the subject.

• 20:22Rich Roll?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 20:23Adam Skolnick?

  Threw the gauntlet down.

• 20:24Rich Roll?

  But then that little video that, that he texted me today that I sent you, there's a clip in there where he's like, he's like, send me Skolnay's info. I'm gonna, that guy's, I'm gonna be friends with that guy.

• 20:35Adam Skolnick?

  He's just a big cuddly friend, Hunter.

• 20:37Rich Roll?

  Mad love for Brogan.

• 20:38Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 20:39Rich Roll?

  But for all of you out there in, in the podcast universe, Adam's job is secure here. My love for Adam runs deep.

• 20:47Adam Skolnick?

  Thank you, sir.

• 20:48Rich Roll?

  Nobody's taking that chair away from you. Although, we may have Brogan come out and in that case, perhaps we should do a plant-based leather couch intervention situation. We could get a therapist involved. We can talk it all through.

• 21:03Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, we'd love that.

• 21:04Rich Roll?

  Come to some.

• 21:05Adam Skolnick?

  I have a lot to say.

• 21:06Rich Roll?

  Place of love and consensus over the whole thing.

• 21:09Adam Skolnick?

  I'm just glad that my ground swell of supporters out there.

• 21:12Rich Roll?

  It's growing.

• 21:13Adam Skolnick?

  It's growing and they gathered their, with pitchforks and, and torches, just like I suggested.

• 21:18Rich Roll?

  Came to your defense.

• 21:19Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 21:19Rich Roll?

  Stridently.

• 21:20Adam Skolnick?

  I had nothing to do with that, Rich.

• 21:21Rich Roll?

  Yeah. You weren't using Fiverr to.

• 21:25Adam Skolnick?

  We were on, we have a group on Parler.

• 21:31Rich Roll?

  Okay, so we've cleared that up, right?

• 21:34Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 21:35Rich Roll?

  We're all good.

• 21:36Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 21:37Rich Roll?

  We should kind of shift gears a little bit.

• 21:38Adam Skolnick?

  You have to talk about what you've been doing because I know that you're in a different phase than you've been in for a while.

• 21:45Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I mean, we're gonna, we're gonna get into that, I think, in the bigger theme after the ad break.

• 21:51Adam Skolnick?

  Fair enough.

• 21:51Rich Roll?

  I've been, I've been writing. I've been kind of in the, down the rabbit hole with that. And it's been fairly all-consuming in a good way, but not without its drawbacks. So we'll talk about that after the break. I think, I think we should get into two noteworthy, newsworthy topics. The first is this ultra-race tragedy in China that happened, well, I found out about it on Sunday morning, it must have happened on Saturday, where extreme weather killed 21 ultra-marathoners in this race.

• 22:27Adam Skolnick?

  The Yellow River Stone Forest 100K, I believe what it's called.

• 22:31Rich Roll?

  100 kilometer.

• 22:32Adam Skolnick?

  In Gansu Province.

• 22:33Rich Roll?

  Race. Have you been to that part of the world? I'm not familiar with what the terrain is.

• 22:37Adam Skolnick?

  My only experience in mainland China is Beijing and just outside at the Great Wall.

• 22:43Rich Roll?

  Yeah. So I believe that in the early miles of this race, they were faced with 6,300 feet of elevation gain, or I don't know where, what elevation gain they started at. But essentially, these runners were all in shorts and Lycra and just the lightest gear. And in short shrift, the weather turned pretty dire, pretty quickly, such that a lot of these participants got caught in a rainstorm that turned into a hailstorm. Temperatures dropped precipitously.

• 23:17Adam Skolnick?

  And really bad winds.

• 23:18Rich Roll?

  And became incredibly dangerous. And these people were trapped. They couldn't get their footing. The terrain was super rugged.

• 23:26Adam Skolnick?

  Apparently, it was already scrambling kind of terrain, like people were on their hands and knees and still getting blown over.

• 23:31Rich Roll?

  Yeah, yeah. 21 people.

• 23:35Adam Skolnick?

  Out of 172.

• 23:37Rich Roll?

  I mean, that's gotta be the biggest. Death toll in the history of multisport. I don't know of any other event where that many people perished.

• 23:48Adam Skolnick?

  How could it be more than that? You know, like, like, because it takes a tragedy. Apparently several others could have died, but like they huddled in caves or that like one, one guy in the top six of the runners, the only one to survive, he thinks was carried by a shepherd. He blacked out on the mountain and was carried by a shepherd down to a cave. And a fire was started and then others joined him in there. Others went down the hill and into, into, you know, I guess, structures that rescuers sent them into. Apparently the winds were tearing through the space blankets. It was that bad.

• 24:22Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 24:22Adam Skolnick?

  And so people had space blankets. It's not like that these people were all kind of super green or underprepared. People had space blankets. They might not have had the technical gear you needed, but they had that and it didn't work.

• 24:34Rich Roll?

  Yeah. And that one particular athlete that was saved by the shepherd, I think, passed out and came to in a cave. Right? Didn't even know what had happened.

• 24:42Adam Skolnick?

  Didn't know he got carried down there.

• 24:43Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 24:44Adam Skolnick?

  Guy saved his life.

• 24:45Rich Roll?

  There was one guy who, who perished. I think his name is Liang, Liang Jing.

• 24:50Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 24:50Rich Roll?

  I'm sure I'm butchering that name, who was a champion ultra runner. Like there was a field of, you know, really fast people. I'm sure it was a wide spectrum of, of talent and ability. But the fact that that many people died, I know it was a huge story all across China. There's going to be, I'm sure, a massive investigation into this. And I think, you know, what's instructive about it is a conversation around the safety measures when you host an event like this. And I think in particular, ultra running or ultra trail running being this sport that is growing very rapidly. It's still an emergent sport, but it's gone from its kind of, you know, grassroots,

• 25:30Rich Roll?

  dirtbag hippie, you know, sleep in a tent at the starting line vibe to legitimate, you know, a legitimate sport that's attracting more and more people. And I think with that comes a responsibility to have your shit together for something like this.

• 25:45Adam Skolnick?

  It seems like the race should just have been called off because like with weather coming in, in altitude.

• 25:50Rich Roll?

  I can't imagine they didn't know that there was a solid chance that the weather would turn in such a way. Maybe they didn't. I don't know.

• 25:58Adam Skolnick?

  I don't know. It doesn't seem, it seems like that, that would be where you'd start the investigation. In terms of the rescue. 1,200 people turned out and combed those mountains in really bad conditions for searching for people and they rescued a lot of them. I mean, it could have been a lot worse. I mean, kudos to the rescue, search and rescue team, which I always admired, search and rescue people. But 1,200 people getting out there to help out is quite a number.

• 26:25Rich Roll?

  Right, but that's reactive safety as opposed to prophylactic safety.

• 26:29Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, that's government versus the organizers.

• 26:32Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I would imagine that all race organizers are going to think twice now and it's going to mean that race organizers are going to have to have those prophylactic safety measures in place if the terrain is such that it could lead to something like this, which means the races are going to be more costly.

• 26:51Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 26:52Rich Roll?

  And, you know, it's, I think it's a shifting of the tide as this sport grapples with how it's going to mature and grow. But it makes me think about the Odilla race in Sweden when we're doing the pig swim and the boats are getting thrashed around. I was like, this is crazy. Like, this would never have been allowed to continue in the United States.

• 27:12Adam Skolnick?

  Even Catalina, people come in, come in from the long distance. I think you just came out for the one day, but if you'd stayed the second day.

• 27:19Rich Roll?

  It was so calm that day.

• 27:21Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, but the second day wasn't. Winds were howling, water temp dropped a bit, and they're out there longer. And the last third of the race is mostly swim with just little runs connecting the swims. And so there's not enough of a run to get you warm. And I think it's similar to how the race ends. Oh, no, maybe, maybe not. I don't know, but that's how the race ended there. And people came in, I was, I was concerned about several people who came in completely shivering, blue lips, the whole thing. Luckily, there is warm showers right there and they could take care of it.

• 27:52Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 27:53Adam Skolnick?

  But.

• 27:54Rich Roll?

  It is a little bit different than extreme altitude and extreme weather.

• 27:57Adam Skolnick?

  The altitude is, I think the altitude with the ice weather. And then people were apparently, some of these runners were foaming at the mouth. Like, so how fast did, did, did you get to, you know, pulmonary edema? Like, how fast that happens?

• 28:12Rich Roll?

  So tragic. 21 people, it's crazy. So, heartbroken for.

• 28:20Rich Roll?

  All of these people and their families.

• 28:22Adam Skolnick?

  Of course.

• 28:22Rich Roll?

  Who are suffering as a result of this and for China's trail running community in general. It's just an awful tragedy.

• 28:28Adam Skolnick?

  Well, that's what they're saying about the Hong Kong Ultra Marathon community is like really staggered by this. They've lost lots of friends.

• 28:35Rich Roll?

  I'm sure.

• 28:36Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 28:36Rich Roll?

  It can't be that big of a community.

• 28:38Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 28:39Rich Roll?

  You know, so and there were people interviewed in the piece like, oh, this was my friend or I lost two friends. Like everybody who's part of that subculture, I'm sure is, you know, one or two people away from being connected to somebody who who passed.

• 28:55Adam Skolnick?

  When you did some ultras, were you always careful to check the weather yourself and and make sure that you were carrying like heavy gear for cold or?

• 29:05Rich Roll?

  Well, I'm not, you know, I'm not going to hold myself out as a super experienced ultra runner. Like I haven't done these kinds of races. Like I've done Ultraman where you have a crew following you the whole time. Like you're being monitored constantly is very different. Plus it was in Hawaii, you know, it's it's not the same thing.

• 29:21Adam Skolnick?

  No.

• 29:22Rich Roll?

  I mean, the biggest threat there is being hit by a car or getting attacked by jellyfish.

• 29:26Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 29:27Rich Roll?

  But you're not going to die of hypothermia.

• 29:29Adam Skolnick?

  No, no, no.

• 29:31Rich Roll?

  In in Hawaii. So, all right, well, let's, let's, uh, let's switch gears here a little bit.

• 29:37Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 29:38Rich Roll?

  I think it's time to check in on the Iron Cowboy with our Iron Cowboy moment, our ticker. He's on day 85 now.

• 29:45Adam Skolnick?

  Unbelievable.

• 29:45Rich Roll?

  It's so crazy. I can't even believe it. Day 85 and he actually looks great. I feel like he's in a new gear.

• 29:54Adam Skolnick?

  He's in better shape. He's in better shape now than with like day 20.

• 29:57Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 29:58Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 29:58Rich Roll?

  So today's Monday, he's on day 85. This will go up Thursday. So anything could happen between now and then. But yesterday, day 84, he said he felt better than he had in the last three weeks. He seems to be ending the marathon every day in daylight.

• 30:12Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 30:12Rich Roll?

  Which is unbelievable, which means he's getting more rest. He's allowing his body a little bit more time to recover, which is cool. His spirits are very high. Like he just seems super engaged with, with his community, all the people that are there to support. I just, I love seeing his little speeches at the end of the night after he finishes the marathon. He's so gracious with the people who've traveled all over, you know, to come and run or bike with him. It's very cool. Jesse Itzler dropped in on him the other day.

• 30:38Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 30:38Rich Roll?

  Jesse posted, I think it was yesterday or today, uh, that, but one of the biggest things that he took away from it was.

• 30:47Rich Roll?

  Just how, uh, how much his family is a part of this. Like the fact that his, his wife is basically running the whole thing, his kids, his daughter's running the social media, he's got his son out there with him, like the whole family is involved and then he's got his wingmen, he's got this other, you know, sort of outer, more outer, you know, in the concentric circle of support of people that are helping him. And he's, he's a leader, like he's able to like engender the level of like support and love from all of these people who are devoting their time. I mean, his whole family is basically all about it right now. It's crazy.

• 31:25Adam Skolnick?

  And he takes calls on the marathon.

• 31:26Rich Roll?

  I know.

• 31:27Adam Skolnick?

  But he, uh, his, his daughter is, is also not just social media, she's handling like the media relations as well.

• 31:36Rich Roll?

  She is, right. And sponsor relationships, like it's, it's like a full-time job that she's doing.

• 31:41Adam Skolnick?

  And she's 18, I'm pretty sure.

• 31:42Rich Roll?

  Right. I know. I know. It's pretty cool.

• 31:46Adam Skolnick?

  It's amazing.

• 31:47Rich Roll?

  So are you gonna go out there?

• 31:48Adam Skolnick?

  Yes, uh, I'll be there the last few days of the.

• 31:49Rich Roll?

  You are?

• 31:50Adam Skolnick?

  Yes. Um, my goal is to be there the last, part of the last, the third to last day and then the last full days, the last two days.

• 31:57Rich Roll?

  Pretty exciting.

• 31:58Adam Skolnick?

  Um, yeah.

• 31:59Rich Roll?

  So you can do multiple Ironmans, right?

• 32:01Adam Skolnick?

  I am, my goal is, you know, a part of my job is gonna be to like chronicle his experience and everything, but the other part of it is to, is to kind of take note of the community response and how people are just turning out and the, and kind of the, that herd of support, um, which is super inspiring to see, the Forrest Gump effect.

• 32:21Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 32:22Adam Skolnick?

  Is what we're trying, what we're calling it.

• 32:23Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 32:24Adam Skolnick?

  Um, and so I'll be taking that temperature as well. So that's going to include, uh, finishing at least one of the marathons with him, which I feel like, I've never even run more than 11 miles at once, but this is like a run walk and I've walked, you know, I've walked 26 miles in a day, a couple of different times.

• 32:40Rich Roll?

  Sure.

• 32:41Adam Skolnick?

  So, and I'm, I'm in good shape for it. So I, I think I'll be maybe the last one.

• 32:45Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 32:46Adam Skolnick?

  Uh, is what I'll shoot for, but we'll see.

• 32:49Rich Roll?

  So he's scheduled to finish on June 8th.

• 32:52Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 32:53Rich Roll?

  If all goes to plan, correct?

• 32:54Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 32:55Rich Roll?

  I gotta see what I can do.

• 32:56Adam Skolnick?

  Gotta get you out there.

• 32:58Rich Roll?

  Can't make any promises. I'm juggling a lot of responsibilities with a lot of different people right now in my household.

• 33:04Adam Skolnick?

  I know.

• 33:05Rich Roll?

  Um, I'm definitely gonna make a point of trying to get out there. I don't know that I can be out there on the final day, but I know if I don't find a way to do that, I'll be super bummed.

• 33:15Adam Skolnick?

  Bring the whole family. That's one way of doing it.

• 33:17Rich Roll?

  That's, I can tell you, I can promise you that's not gonna happen. That is not gonna happen.

• 33:22Adam Skolnick?

  Pile in, rent a minivan, Rich.

• 33:24Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I don't wanna publicly say, make any promises that I can't live up to, but I'm, I'm looking into it. So we'll see what happens. But much love to the Iron Cowboy and his whole family. It's just, it's so impressive what he's doing. It's unbelievable. And the fact that his body is acclimating to this and holding up and just remarkable.

• 33:45Adam Skolnick?

  And you talk to him on the phone and he's like, it's like he's sitting at a desk or like sitting on his couch.

• 33:50Rich Roll?

  Did you speak to him on the phone?

• 33:51Adam Skolnick?

  I've spoken to him twice now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And he's just like so inspired and inspiring. He posted the other day, maybe it was yesterday, I can't remember. It was like something like, someone asked him, "How do you know if you're gonna get through a given day?" He says, "I know it the minute I set my foot in the water," or something like that. Like, he already knows, like, he wakes up knowing.

• 34:11Rich Roll?

  It must have been day 80, maybe 82 or 83, right before he was about to get into the pool. Cause he never, he never posts any videos until the swim's over.

• 34:21Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 34:22Rich Roll?

  But he was struggling to get his head around beginning another day. And he teared up, like he got emotional and he's like, he started crying and he was like, "I'm gonna try. I'm just gonna, I'm gonna try." And that was it. Like, you could tell the exhaustion level was just beyond imaginable.

• 34:42Adam Skolnick?

  I did not know about that. Day 82, 83?

• 34:44Rich Roll?

  It was, it might have been day 83. Yeah, it's weird because if you're, the Instagram stories disappear, right? So if you're not on it, you miss it. But I would certainly ask him about that. It appeared to be,

• 34:58Rich Roll?

  you know, who knows what he's also not sharing, but it appeared to be quite a low moment for him. And then to see him rally back and then a day or two later, big smile, lots of energy. And I've never once seen him short or curt with anyone. He's nothing but like gracious. Every word that comes out of his mouth is positive. And, you know, there's a, there's a powerful lesson in that for all of us, I think.

• 35:24Adam Skolnick?

  No doubt, man, no doubt.

• 35:25Rich Roll?

  So, sending you love and strength. Let's take a quick break and we'll be right back with the big theme.

• 35:32Adam Skolnick?

  The big theme.

• 35:42Rich Roll?

  Adam took two drinks of his water during the break. He didn't want anyone to see or hear, but it happened, right? Are we, are you okay?

• 35:50Adam Skolnick?

  Don't make me sic my minions upon you.

• 35:55Rich Roll?

  That Fiverr account, you better, you better put a little more money in there.

• 35:59Adam Skolnick?

  You know, it is true. I am slightly dehydrated, Rich.

• 36:02Rich Roll?

  Well, all those Secret Service duties.

• 36:04Adam Skolnick?

  I might've been heavy on the salt in last night's dinner. That plus the Secret Service duties, plus the news cycle.

• 36:11Rich Roll?

  But not about the swim run training where you're swallowing salt water off Point Dime.

• 36:16Adam Skolnick?

  You know what? I've been training in, uh, in the bay.

• 36:19Rich Roll?

  We can't, we can't stop talking about swim run.

• 36:21Adam Skolnick?

  Well, swimming in general. So I've been, Nicholas has been trying to get, get me to do drills with swimming and I've always not done it. But the last two swims, I've actually been trying to, and he sends like these drills that are obviously shorthand and every swimmer who's been, ever swam, like in, from age 10 on knows what I'm talking about.

• 36:40Rich Roll?

  Decoder ring. You should just send them to me. I'll decode it for you.

• 36:43Adam Skolnick?

  So anyway, I'm kind of trying to figure it out, but I was out there swimming and was surrounded by dolphins and had such a great time and, uh,

• 36:51Rich Roll?

  And great whites, you just didn't see them.

• 36:53Adam Skolnick?

  I know, but that's okay.

• 36:55Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 36:55Adam Skolnick?

  I felt good, but there was one really murky area right after the dolphin area and I'm like, hmm. Not so good.

• 37:03Rich Roll?

  All right. Well, the big theme that we're going to talk about today has to do with balance, which is a subject that's come up many times in the history of this podcast. The idea of living a balanced life or living your life in pursuit of balance. And I want to talk about this in the context of what I'm grappling with right now. As we mentioned prior to the break, um, I've been writing, I've been on a writing jack lately. I'm, I'm working on putting together.

• 37:33Rich Roll?

  Volume two of Voicing Change. And what's interesting about this is that this book is very much a team effort. I've got designers, I've got people who know how to do book layouts. I've got graphics people, I've got Georgia who's helping me with some of the writing on it. And they've been doing this for months at this point. So every two weeks, we do a Zoom call. It's an update on where they're at and they're progressing like very methodically and gradually through the manuscript. And I have this guilt and shame every time I get on one of these Zoom calls because I've done nothing.

• 38:09Rich Roll?

  And they're like, Rich, you need, we need this, this and this from you. You gotta do it. And I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I just could not get off my ass and start working on this thing. And Greg would be like, just work on it like an hour or two a day. Just chip away at it. I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like intellectually, rationally, that makes sense, but I just couldn't make that happen. But now we have looming deadlines and deadlines are very effective in catalyzing you to get on it, mainly out of fear. But I've been paralyzed to just begin. But I finally cracked the seal a couple of weeks ago.

• 38:50Rich Roll?

  And what happens in my experience is that when I crack that seal and I just start, suddenly I become not just invested in it, but it becomes like all consuming, like it starts to monopolize my focus. And the only thing I want to do is work on it. So this obsession kicks in where I then crowd out everything else in my life and just go down the rabbit hole and I just work on it for like 12 hours a day and exhaust myself. And then I wake up at three in the morning and start working. You know, it's crazy. It's like, it's not balanced.

• 39:23Adam Skolnick?

  Right away, you get into that mode? Or does it take a few days?

• 39:27Rich Roll?

  Well, there's a little bit of a lead up, you know, and then it kicks in and it's like addiction. I've just become a full blown addict where it's like the relief, there's a relief in sitting back down and being engaged with it. And there's also this.

• 39:45Rich Roll?

  Sense of impending greater relief that you're nearing a certain finish line. And there's a discomfort with not working more quickly towards that. As a book writer, I'm sure you've experienced this, right?

• 39:56Adam Skolnick?

  Yes, I relate to this not with basically any assignment I'm working on. The hardest part is getting yourself to actually start. You know, I remember with One Breath, I was terrified because I'd spent the better part of a year researching. And I had all this research. Now it was time to act. I had an outline. Now it was time to actually do it. And I was terrified that I couldn't do it. You know, I had like two and a half months to write a book.

• 40:22Rich Roll?

  Did you have a like an extended period of paralysis, though, before you actually?

• 40:28Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, I think I think like I could have started writing it while I was still researching it. But I told myself, you know, no, you got to do the research first and then. And, you know, then I didn't, I couldn't. Luckily, in that situation, I couldn't afford to have the paralysis. So I've had extended periods of paralysis with the current book I'm writing with my.

• 40:50Rich Roll?

  Well, deadlines will cure you of supposed writer's block that we like to indulge in.

• 40:56Adam Skolnick?

  There was no, there was no chance of paralysis for that. So I just dove in. But, but what you're talking about is the pressure is on you and you feel the pressure. And then as soon as you start, especially in a writing process, I find you get some ease right away. You feel like, okay, I can now see myself if I just do that again. I can, I can get to the end. And then once you're.

• 41:18Rich Roll?

  Well, it's like a locomotive. You know, the first part is so slow. And then you hit a certain inflection point where you're like, okay, I feel like I know what I'm doing. I wouldn't say downhill, but you hit a stride.

• 41:29Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, and you get the momentum and that carries you and then.

• 41:31Rich Roll?

  Momentum is so powerful. It's such a self perpetuating energy source. It's so difficult to covet. But once you have it, I feel like it's so important to protect it against everything else because it's fleeting. Like if the, if that momentum gets drained somehow, I just know all too well how difficult it is to get back into that state where you can allow the momentum to propel you forward.

• 41:55Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, it takes, it takes consistency to get back to the momentum. Because if you, if you're, if you have it going, then you have to take a break. Then it's going to take a couple of days for you to get back into the groove.

• 42:08Rich Roll?

  This process for me always connects me with like guilt and shame. Cause I feel like, why can't I just work on it responsibly? An hour or two a day, then I would be in lockstep with my team who has been doing that all along, rather than trying to play catch up, which makes me feel even guiltier. But I've learned, Julie's always like, it's because you love it this way. You love it. Don't complain. You're not allowed to complain about this because you always do this.

• 42:35Adam Skolnick?

  Right, right, right.

• 42:36Rich Roll?

  There's some part of you that likes it or gets something out of it, right? Even if it's an unhealthy habit, it's still doing something for me, which is why I keep doing it.

• 42:48Adam Skolnick?

  The procrastination creates pressure and the pressure creates better work.

• 42:52Rich Roll?

  Yeah. So the way I rationalize it is this is how, this is what I need to do to do my best work. Like I can't just pop in and out because it's in hour six that things really start to come together. And it's that experience of immersion where you're just totally all in and the rest of the world disappears, that you put yourself in the position for that like extra piece to come out.

• 43:19Adam Skolnick?

  I think there's something to that. I don't think it's a hard and fast rule, but I think it's something to that. Like if you're really under the gun, that's when, and you're, you're living and breathing it, there's no separation. Certainly you can have some great moments of inspiration, but you can also have them on a walk in, in the middle of that kind of experience. I'm gonna take a walk, I'm gonna go outside and catch my breath and then it comes to you. So I don't, I've, a long while ago, I kind of stopped trying to figure out what the perfect conditions are for writing or what the, you know, the best place to do it, or how to do it, or this process or that process. You just have to do it in whatever way you can get to it. The fact that this is your process now is great.

• 43:59Adam Skolnick?

  And you know, Rob Bell says, uh, every project will demand maybe a slightly different process from him.

• 44:05Rich Roll?

  But I look at him, and this is total projection, but it just appears that it flows effortlessly like out of that guy, because he's such a constant font of creative output. And I have, you know, this unhealthy thing, which is if it doesn't hurt, then you didn't push yourself hard enough and it could have been better. Which is at odds with this idea that I've tried to embrace, but. Have been unable to master, which is, what if it were easy? Right? Like, what if it, what if it just flowed? Like, what if it were easy? What if you let go of that story that revolves around the grind? And what comes out of the grind? And you just allowed yourself to be in a space where it just comes? Because you're in the allowing rather than in the forcing.

• 44:49Adam Skolnick?

  Interesting.

• 44:50Rich Roll?

  And that's the mountain that I've tried to climb. And I'm, I'm still at the base of that mountain, I would say. But I have had, go ahead, sorry.

• 44:57Adam Skolnick?

  No, no, please.

• 44:58Rich Roll?

  I also get accused of interrupting you too much.

• 45:00Adam Skolnick?

  I, I think I interrupt you constantly. I'm, I, I've interrupted people my entire career. At the beginning, it was really bad. I'd listen to the interview tapes and I'd, and I'd cringe at myself. It's gotten a little better, but I do it to you as well. But all I was gonna suggest was that if you look at sports, or if you look at how you got better at a certain thing in athletics, has it ever been through just easing up?

• 45:27Rich Roll?

  No, and that's the lens that I use. Because, you know, my narrative is, everything that I've been able to accomplish is a result of me being willing to outgrind everybody else and work harder.

• 45:38Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 45:39Rich Roll?

  It's not a talent thing, it's a, it's a, it's a grit thing.

• 45:42Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 45:43Rich Roll?

  And so that's my default. But I'm not so sure that that is the healthiest. And it's certainly not the most sustainable, because it's exhausting.

• 45:51Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 45:52Rich Roll?

  So I go, I do these mad sprints and then I'm depleted. And then I need to recover. As opposed to what I would imagine, or what I project onto Rob Bell, which is that he's just consistently, you know, creating all the time. And I'm not saying it's effortless for him, but he would appear to have a healthier relationship with his, you know, inner muse such that he's not, like, he doesn't hold himself out as somebody who gets exhausted, because he's.

• 46:18Adam Skolnick?

  No, I think it's easier to be prolific if you're doing a little bit at a time every day. Like, like the Hemingway thing from 6:00 AM to noon, and then he's at the bar, you know, kind of thing.

• 46:29Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I think Ryan Holiday does a good job of that, too. Like, he talks a lot about that. Like, he's just constructed his life so that these are the hours that he does the thing. And, you know, he does it no matter what. It's a Steven Pressfield approach to the whole thing.

• 46:41Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 46:41Rich Roll?

  And I, I really aspire to master that. I have a lot of other moving pieces in my life at the same time. When I wrote Finding Ultra, it was different. That was the only thing that was happening. But now. There's a lot going on and so figuring out how to squeeze that in while these other things are still on track has been the challenge for me. But one thing that I have done is try to be a little bit more gentle on myself and rather than indulge in that guilt or that shame, like, why can't I do it that way? Why do I always set myself up for this and why am I putting myself in this position? But to just kind of let go of that and say, look, for whatever reason, this is my predisposition. This is how I'm wired.

• 47:21Rich Roll?

  And at least for right now, I'm going to embrace that aspect of me and let go of trying to judge myself against some imaginary standard of what a balanced person's life looks like. And I think the reason that I wanted to bring this up today isn't to like, talk about my personal experience, but as an instructive kind of launchpad to talk about something I think is very common with a lot of people, which is this idea of living a balanced life. What does it mean to pursue a life of balance and is that something that we should even aspire to do? Right. What do you think? I don't know. Well, I think that that sets people up for failure and I think most people have some

• 48:05Rich Roll?

  version of what I experienced, which is a sense that they can't live up to that. They have this idea, they look out into the world and they see person X who seems to be excelling in their life in all categories and they say, how can I be a great mom and be a professional at my job and make sure that there's food on the table and also go to the PTA meetings and all the stuff, right? And it sets up an unrealistic set of parameters or expectations for the average person. So my whole thing is letting go of that and focusing not on how you can be balanced.

• 48:45Rich Roll?

  On an everyday basis and all the things that you're trying to do better at, but rather focus on the thing that you are doing in the moment and be the best version of yourself that you can in that moment. And understand that nobody can do everything every single day well. So it's more like a toggle switch of being invested in what you're doing in the moment and then switching gears to the next thing. Like, I can't, you know, first of all, multitasking is a misnomer. There's no such thing as multitasking, but we still have this idea that we can like switch gears and go back and forth from other things. And some people are better at that than others. And I've learned that I'm not good at that. I'm good at doing one thing well and then slowly moving to the next thing and focusing on doing that thing well.

• 49:30Rich Roll?

  But I can't toggle switch back and forth within a single day. My wife is very good at that. Greg Anzalone is very good at that. It's a different set of skills. So it's about understanding what your strengths are and what your weaknesses are, and then trying to orient your life around addressing those rather than guilting yourself into why you can't do it like somebody else is doing it.

• 49:56Adam Skolnick?

  Maybe that's your balance. Your balance is I do one thing at a time really well. And that's how you feel the most balanced. Like, what does it even mean to be balanced? Does it mean that you can do X, Y, and Z at this incredibly high level? Because that doesn't seem balanced to me. That just seems like great aptitude for work.

• 50:16Rich Roll?

  Well, how are we measuring balance? And what is the timeframe? And one of the things I'm always talking about is expanding your, expanding the window upon which you're evaluating your ability to live a balanced life. If you're looking at it through the microscope of, you know, your daily routine, most people are going to fall short of that. I fail miserably at that. But if you look at it over a long continuum, then you're giving yourself larger bandwidth to say, okay, I'm doing this one thing now, but what are the other things in my life that are important that are not getting as much attention as they should? When I finish this, then I got to make sure that those things are in order. And in the background, hum, you know, the other things that are important need a little bit of...

• 51:01Rich Roll?

  Daily nourishment, but perhaps aren't going to be getting your full attention. But then, understanding like, okay, when that's done, then I need to reconfigure my life to focus on these other things. So, over the course of several months or a year, then it looks like it's in balance.

• 51:17Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 51:18Rich Roll?

  But when you look at it, like, if you look at my life on a day-to-day basis, it's completely out of balance. So, Brad Stilberg, the other week, we talked about Steve Magnus. We used his kind of quote and something that he had written as a topic for discussion. Steve's writing partner is Brad Stilberg, who's also been on the podcast, New York Times contributor, Outside Magazine contributor. Have you ever met Brad?

• 51:41Adam Skolnick?

  I have not.

• 51:41Rich Roll?

  You'd like him, he's great. But he's written extensively about this subject. And one of the things that he said is that a lot of people swallow this cultural message of balance, balance, balance. Then they struggle to find it, and they get down on themselves because they can't do everything every single day. They think, I'm gonna wake up, I'm gonna have some family time, I'm gonna work, I'm gonna go to work from nine to five, I'm gonna come home, more family time, cook dinner, watch a TV show, go to sleep. But that's only one way to think about balance. And this is where I really resonate with Brad. He says, "Try thinking about balance being over a long continuum. This gives you permission to go all-in for periods of time. That way, you can experience flow and still have a balanced life.

• 52:22Rich Roll?

  It's just that the balance might be over five or 10 years, not every single day." And a corollary to that is this idea that, rather than striving for balance, striving for self-awareness instead. The ability to know your core values and evaluate the trade-offs inherent in pursuing them. And I love that. It's also the subject of a New York Times piece that he wrote, called "Maybe We All Need A Little Less Balance."

• 52:47Adam Skolnick?

  Someone's quoted in that. Someone is quoted in there.

• 52:50Rich Roll?

  I know. I pulled that article up, I'd forgotten that he referenced me in it. It's not why I'm bringing it up, but I just think it's a great read for helping people recalibrate how you think about these things. And despite the fact that I've been droning on and on about this for a long time, I found myself in the process of working on this book project to go right back to that level of self-judgment that's counterproductive, rather than just saying, "This is what I'm doing now." For whatever reason, here I am back again doing this thing I said I wasn't gonna do again, which is, you know, going down the rabbit hole and blocking out everything else and not doing it in a, you know, a more managerial kind of way, but this is the way that I do it, and that's okay.

• 53:33Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, I'm totally with that. I think like this idea of balance, this idea of finding your passion and following your passion or finding the one, these are all somewhat cultural myths to some extent. And to me, we are here on earth to find ourselves first. And that requires some self-reliance and independence, but it also requires some mutual dependence and interconnection. And it's all, it's all this like equation that we're trying to find the answer to. I mean, equanimity is kind of like a corollary to enlightenment, right? When you find like, when the Bodhisattva is a meditation to achieve equanimity is to achieve enlightenment. Well, what does equanimity mean?

• 54:12Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 54:12Adam Skolnick?

  It means that no one achieves it in their day-to-day life.

• 54:15Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 54:15Adam Skolnick?

  You know, and so, yes, in terms of how do you get the best conditions for you to feel comfortable in your skin, comfortable in your life, having your family do well, having your career do well, all that, that balance sheet. It seems, to me, we're talking like life's balance sheet. And like, that's a moving, those graphs are like jumping up and down. And I think when it comes to writing, two things come to mind. Number one is, you just have to get the work done, and you have to live with those, you know, critics, like the hecklers from the Muppet Show in your head that are gonna constantly be jabbering, not to date myself, but constantly jabbering in your head about what you're doing and the way you're doing it.

• 54:56Rich Roll?

  The two old guys up there.

• 54:57Adam Skolnick?

  The two old guys up there. Tune out the boomers in your head. And you just have to, you just have to, you know, surrender to the process, and the process is going to be uncomfortable a lot of the time. The idea of flow state and athletics, I think you can find it, and you can find it in writing. I have found it in writing, where I'm like, wow, this is amazing. And I feel like all, I feel the flow. But- Just because the experience feels good, though, doesn't mean the work will turn out

• 55:25Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 55:25Adam Skolnick?

  like to be good.

• 55:26Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that's the illusion, right?

• 55:27Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 55:27Rich Roll?

  You think, oh, it's going good, it's going good.

• 55:29Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 55:30Rich Roll?

  But then, no, back to the drawing board.

• 55:32Adam Skolnick?

  And sometimes-

• 55:32Rich Roll?

  Pick it up another day and look at it.

• 55:34Adam Skolnick?

  Right, and sometimes you bleed the words. Every word costs like a pint of flesh or something. And then you go back to read it, and you're like, wow, that was really good. You hated the day. It felt miserable.

• 55:46Rich Roll?

  When that happens to me, though, that just affirms that story, that pain is the driver of quality.

• 55:53Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 55:54Rich Roll?

  You know, which is not a healthy-

• 55:55Adam Skolnick?

  No, so I think whether you're feeling doubt about a project or feeling good about the project, the key is to turn, tune both those things out to get the project done. That's my only experience of it, and it's something that I struggle with every day. Like, last week, I was the one complaining about my writing process. It's not comfortable. It's not necessarily always a fun job.

• 56:17Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 56:17Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 56:17Rich Roll?

  And you're doing it now with a newborn. Like, you have a new set of challenging, complicated variables that you didn't have to deal with before.

• 56:26Adam Skolnick?

  It's true, it's true. But at the same time, I have more time to actually, every day, go and do a thing, because I haven't been on the road.

• 56:33Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 56:33Adam Skolnick?

  And so, but that hasn't led to me being super prolific yet.

• 56:39Rich Roll?

  Well, I like that idea that Brad talks about with self-awareness, and I think it's related to the piece you were speaking about with respect to equanimity.

• 56:47Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 56:48Rich Roll?

  You know, like, be the most present and self-aware that you possibly can when you're in the midst of doing the one thing that you're doing.

• 56:55Adam Skolnick?

  That's beautiful.

• 56:56Rich Roll?

  And that idea of equanimity made me think of that, I don't know who said it, that quote, that "nature is never in a hurry, but everything always gets done." And I think about that, and I'm like, I'm always in a hurry.

• 57:08Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 57:08Rich Roll?

  And most of the stuff I'm trying to do doesn't get done.

• 57:12Adam Skolnick?

  But looking at your life-

• 57:13Rich Roll?

  Which is a joke.

• 57:14Adam Skolnick?

  I would find that to be completely untrue.

• 57:15Rich Roll?

  I know, but like, that's the story. I'm like, why didn't I do that? I didn't get anything done today. You know, it's, that's, that's the self-defeating, looping, you know, thought pattern that's going on in my mind, that if I don't make the time to meditate and, you know, practice those mindfulness things that are so annoying, like, that gets the best of me.

• 57:36Adam Skolnick?

  You definitely feel it like when I don't do that, those little pieces like the, you know, I'm not really having time to meditate too much, but I have like an affirmation with Zoom every morning after yoga, if I get to yoga, if I can do it. So it's like, you know, you're right. If you, if you can start off and hit the first things that you know are good for you, then maybe you have a chance.

• 57:58Rich Roll?

  Yeah, you're taking out an insurance policy on having a better day.

• 58:02Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 58:03Rich Roll?

  You know?

• 58:03Adam Skolnick?

  But this idea of balance though, like you're saying, I think the whole inspiration for you, right? I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, is it's okay to tackle this book that way. Cause you know, it might just be the way you are now, ritual, this version of yourself. That's your nature right now. Doesn't mean that will be your nature forever.

• 58:24Rich Roll?

  It's definitely my nature. And the idea is for me, I think, to be in self-acceptance of that, but also not do it in a self-destructive addictive way, like to get the best out of my ability to immerse myself in a project and be focused without the kind of downside aspects of it that I think are, you know, a relic of, you know, history of alcoholism that I think comes into play. I think about that when I'm out riding my bike up PCH and I see the surfers out there or somebody out swimming and I'm like, I should be swimming or I should be surfing. And I can guarantee you, if I was surfing, I'd see a cyclist and I'd be like, I really should be on my bike right now. You know what I mean? Like there's

• 59:07Rich Roll?

  all, it's not a grass is greener thing. It's more like wanting to do everything simultaneously all the time and, and just being present for what you're doing in the moment.

• 59:17Adam Skolnick?

  It's like living at the intersection of YOLO and FOMO.

• 59:21Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 59:25Adam Skolnick?

  You don't want to be there.

• 59:27Rich Roll?

  How do those two intersect in the Venn diagram?

• 59:30Adam Skolnick?

  That'll be next week's.

• 59:31Rich Roll?

  Well, the more YOLO, the less FOMO, right?

• 59:34Adam Skolnick?

  Right, but what you're saying is you have FOMO for the YOLO you're not doing.

• 59:38Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that's true. Because there's, yeah, there's always something else that you're missing out on.

• 59:42Adam Skolnick?

  There's multiple YOLOs.

• 59:44Rich Roll?

  Yeah, in the extended YOLO universe.

• 59:47Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 59:47Rich Roll?

  There's infinite FOMOs.

• 59:49Adam Skolnick?

  Right, yes, yes, exactly. But when you think of YOLO, you don't think of hunching over a computer and typing a book. Although, when you think of FOMO, you can definitely, God.

• 59:57Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 59:57Adam Skolnick?

  That book.

• 59:57Rich Roll?

  Well, I could be out training and saying, oh, my God, like, I really need to be getting on this, like, I have anxiety because the book is not going to write itself.

• 1:00:05Adam Skolnick?

  Right, right, right.

• 1:00:06Rich Roll?

  That kind of thing.

• 1:00:07Adam Skolnick?

  And these years don't come back to you.

• 1:00:09Rich Roll?

  They do not. They do not. Did we accomplish anything productive for the listeners in talking about that?

• 1:00:15Adam Skolnick?

  Well, you know what I think? I think the listener's gonna be like, wow, Rich is just as fucked up as we are.

• 1:00:22Rich Roll?

  There's hope.

• 1:00:22Adam Skolnick?

  There's hope for us all.

• 1:00:24Rich Roll?

  There's hope. Cool, so let's do a little bit of show and tell, shall we?

• 1:00:29Adam Skolnick?

  Let's do it.

• 1:00:30Rich Roll?

  We got a little Shremu out here on the desk today, and there's a reason for that. The reason that I'm doing a little show and tell around it today is because Shremu has ju- So for those who are listening who don't know what I'm talking about, Shremu is my wife's plant-based cheese company. It's really remarkable stuff that she's created. There was a recent review, somebody said, "This cheese is absolutely lusty. It's a whole new cheese planet." I thought that was a great review. But anyway, I'm bringing it up because it's a subscription model. You order these cheese wheels, they're artisanal, like, just next level, the next evolution of cheese, like, you know, like your favorite Camembert or Brie, like, insane.

• 1:01:14Rich Roll?

  But the subscription box has traditionally been like a large box that is a-

• 1:01:22Rich Roll?

  You know, can be pricey for certain people. So they just launched a two-wheel box, which is much more affordable. The two-wheel flavor options are, Julie always has these great names, Awakened Magic, which is Gold Alchemy and Elder, or Awakened Heart, which is Birdie and Elder. Gold Alchemy is sort of like a smoked Gouda infused with smoke and turmeric. The Elder is like a brie. The Birdie is like a camembert with truffle in it. They're insane. But this two-wheel box is $59 plus shipping for a subscription, or $69 plus shipping for a one-time purchase. And they're running a special Father's Day special, which is why I'm bringing it up right now, where you can get 10% off any Awakened two-wheel, or Devoted, which is their three-wheel box, or Ritual, their

• 1:02:07Rich Roll?

  four-wheel box, if you order before or by June 11th. So the orders will ship June 14th, and you use the coupon code FATHERSDAY10 at checkout. And that's what you do. So Blake, can you pull this up? The website is srimu, S-R-I-M-U dot com slash fathers-dash-day, and you can see the offering there. But it's really remarkable stuff. And I just wanted to shout out the Father's Day special, because, you know, hardworking, nurturing dads of the world could do with a little bit of a plant-based luxury.

• 1:02:46Adam Skolnick?

  You know, I purchased the Mother's Day special version of that. And it was a big hit. It is a big hit.

• 1:02:53Rich Roll?

  Yeah. So Blake, it's srimu dot com slash fathers-dash-day. Should pull up right there, and you can see it. It's that special URL. So Father's Day 10 at checkout for 10% off. There you go.

• 1:03:08Adam Skolnick?

  Boom.

• 1:03:08Rich Roll?

  Happy Father's Day. Look at that beautiful cheese, right?

• 1:03:11Adam Skolnick?

  This cheese is nuts.

• 1:03:13Rich Roll?

  This cheese is nuts. A couple other show and tell things that I wanted to do. My boy, Simon Hill, from the Plant Proof Podcast, his book, The Proof Is In The Plants, is out in Australia right now. So for anybody who's in Oz, who's listening, you should pick that up. I think it was a number one bestseller in the nonfiction category, or something like that. Like, he's killing it out there. Also, his podcast is fantastic. I talk about it all the time. If you're not listening to that, you should check it out. And the book is going to be dropping in the US, I think. A while ago, he said two months, so maybe in July. I'll keep you posted on that, but I'm excited for that book to be available here in the US. Simon really knows his stuff.

• 1:03:56Rich Roll?

  He also has a really great affect in terms of talking about nutrition and navigating the peccadilloes of the, you know, online nutrition wars in terms of his plant-based advocacy. He's just, he's a beautiful guy. He's ripped. He's fantastic. He's got a great restaurant in Bondi called Eden, Eden, Bondi. So if you haven't eaten there, next time you find yourself in Bondi.

• 1:04:20Adam Skolnick?

  I know. Dude, I might find myself there soon because someone's got a passport.

• 1:04:27Rich Roll?

  That's right.

• 1:04:27Adam Skolnick?

  The baby got a passport.

• 1:04:28Rich Roll?

  You got, you got an Australian passport.

• 1:04:30Adam Skolnick?

  No, we got a US passport for the baby.

• 1:04:33Rich Roll?

  For the baby. Oh, a US passport for the baby.

• 1:04:35Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:36Rich Roll?

  Who was I talking to though? Somebody was telling me they just got an Australian passport.

• 1:04:40Adam Skolnick?

  We're, we're heading in that direction. You gotta, you have to, you know, he had to get his passport first and then he'll be the first to get residency if he wanted, or get a passport if he wants.

• 1:04:50Rich Roll?

  And then can you get a passport?

• 1:04:51Adam Skolnick?

  Then I can go through the process too. But I think, I don't know if I'll get a passport. I can get residency. I don't think I can get a passport, no.

• 1:04:57Rich Roll?

  Interesting. Should we talk about The Spirited Man?

• 1:05:01Adam Skolnick?

  Let's talk about The Spirited Man.

• 1:05:02Rich Roll?

  Did you check this out?

• 1:05:03Adam Skolnick?

  I did. I watched all the way through.

• 1:05:06Rich Roll?

  How many of them did you watch? Blake pulled out a YouTube channel.

• 1:05:09Adam Skolnick?

  I watched all the way through The Fourth Turning.

• 1:05:14Rich Roll?

  You did?

• 1:05:14Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 1:05:14Rich Roll?

  The Fourth Turning was good.

• 1:05:15Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, The Fourth Turning has 800 something thousand views. That's the one.

• 1:05:19Rich Roll?

  So The Spirited Man is a relatively brand new YouTube channel and video series courtesy of Van Neistat, who is the older brother of Casey Neistat.

• 1:05:32Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 1:05:33Rich Roll?

  The OG in the YouTube space. Casey and Van started out together before YouTube even existed. These guys were making videos together. They both had a tenure with Tom Sacks, the fine artist. You can see both of the Neistat brothers aesthetic reflected in what Tom Sacks does. And it's interesting, you know, Van is, you know, I've known Casey for years. He's been on the podcast a bunch of times. Like he was on before he even became, like he was a YouTuber, but before he was a vlogger.

• 1:06:06Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 1:06:06Rich Roll?

  It's been a long time. We should have Casey back on. But I didn't know anything about Van and then out of the blue. Van launches this YouTube channel, I think like six or seven weeks ago. He's already got 380,000 subscribers. It's a series called The Spirited Man. Each video is its own short story, standalone, curio, like art pieces.

• 1:06:30Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:30Rich Roll?

  Beautifully rendered, well thought out, philosophical, you know, reflections on the human condition, essentially.

• 1:06:38Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 1:06:38Rich Roll?

  And I just love it.

• 1:06:40Adam Skolnick?

  And his particular Spirited Man.

• 1:06:41Rich Roll?

  His, yes, exactly.

• 1:06:42Adam Skolnick?

  And their Spirited Man.

• 1:06:43Rich Roll?

  His own Spirited Man journey.

• 1:06:45Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 1:06:45Rich Roll?

  They are so unique and original. And I think that is in part because this is a guy who's not on social media. I don't think he's a guy who watches YouTube.

• 1:06:56Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 1:06:57Rich Roll?

  Like, he's coming to the platform with his own sensibility that's uncorrupted by everything else that we kind of scroll and see every single day.

• 1:07:05Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:06Rich Roll?

  So there's a purity to it that's really beautiful and I think is lending itself to this skyrocketing popularity. I mean, in no time, this guy's like made an imprint on YouTube and I'm excited to see where this goes. Everybody should check it out, The Spirited Man on YouTube.

• 1:07:22Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, I got through Are You Spirited, actually, now that I'm looking at it.

• 1:07:25Rich Roll?

  Are You Spirited? Yeah, so, and he's coming on the podcast on Wednesday.

• 1:07:28Adam Skolnick?

  Fantastic. You get to even hear more about it.

• 1:07:30Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I'm gonna break it down with him.

• 1:07:31Adam Skolnick?

  A couple.

• 1:07:32Rich Roll?

  Did you watch the one on Does Running Suck?

• 1:07:35Adam Skolnick?

  I did not. I don't need to know, I know the answer to that. But actually, now that I'm doing Zone 2, I actually quite like it.

• 1:07:41Rich Roll?

  You do?

• 1:07:42Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:42Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:07:43Adam Skolnick?

  But one thing that I got out of it was the reward for good work is more work, which I love that.

• 1:07:48Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:48Adam Skolnick?

  That phrase. And the episode on the fourth turning is very interesting. It kind of speaks to the moment in time we're having right now. He's basically, it's a book report.

• 1:07:58Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:07:59Adam Skolnick?

  He simplifies an argument without you having to read the book.

• 1:08:02Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:08:03Adam Skolnick?

  But, but what I like about it is he goes for depth. He goes for...

• 1:08:08Rich Roll?

  It's all about that.

• 1:08:09Adam Skolnick?

  It's all about like what's bubbling beneath all of this madness that we have to contend with. And within himself, which you can tell there's kind of like that simmering of not discontent, but just like, like what does it all mean kind of thing?

• 1:08:24Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:25Adam Skolnick?

  With that sometimes comes like a discontent, you know, and trying to figure out... He talks a lot about repair. He's a fix-it guy.

• 1:08:31Rich Roll?

  Yeah, so there's a, there's a old soul kind of, you know, out of step with time aspect of him because he wants to fix everything and we live in a disposable culture.

• 1:08:40Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:41Rich Roll?

  So what does it mean to be a repairman in the vernacular of the fourth turning, right? As a Gen Z guy who's very good at repairing things when the, the kind of call to repair is, is an antiquated concept.

• 1:08:57Adam Skolnick?

  In a way, although I wouldn't say this because he's not like getting into mindfulness at all, specifically yet, but one thing that came to mind is it's almost like the, the new version of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, but as a YouTube series. Because he's getting into like the, the, the whole nature of repair and the fact that he's called to do that and, and, and why that's important to him. Nothing's on the nose, but in a way, like you, you, you get his worldview on it in a way that reminds me of that book, but I haven't read that book in a long time, but it comes to mind.

• 1:09:33Rich Roll?

  Well, he, he, uh, in, in the fourth turning video, uh, you see, when, when he's stacking the books and you see all those books, there was one book that's called The Soul of Repair or something like that. I forget what the name of it is, but it's kind of a Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance type of book.

• 1:09:50Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 1:09:50Rich Roll?

  I think it's more like a manual, but I saw an interview with Van and he said, in that book, there is a passage in which it talks about the spirited man. It uses that

• 1:09:59Adam Skolnick?

  Right, no, he says that in that video. Yes, yes, yes.

• 1:10:01Rich Roll?

  So that became, you know, the concept upon which he built this. He's like, the spirited man. What would the spirited man do? And it's all in the third person. He's like, this spirited man, you know, this spirited man or the spirited woman.

• 1:10:16Adam Skolnick?

  But, you know, when you talk about a spirited horse, it's usually someone that's like, hey, what, you know, the horse is like nudging the other horse or whatever.

• 1:10:22Rich Roll?

  But, yeah, the connotation that I read into that is, is somebody who, who is out of step with the typical. Culture, right? Like, he's seeing things other people aren't seeing, like, the whole thing with like fixing the dishwasher and fixing the, you know, the Toyota, you know, grill. It's like, the universe is not correct in this and I must correct it, or I can't rest easy. And this is the, this is the compulsion of the spirited man.

• 1:10:48Adam Skolnick?

  Which I love it. And so I'm all for it. I think it's an amazing, thank you for turning me on to it. I'll be watching them all.

• 1:10:53Rich Roll?

  It's cool. So we have that conversation coming up to look forward to. In the meantime, check it out and subscribe.

• 1:11:07Adam Skolnick?

  Oh, wait, I have a couple of show and tell.

• 1:11:10Rich Roll?

  Go for it. What do you got there?

• 1:11:12Adam Skolnick?

  I just wanted to show you this new contraption I got.

• 1:11:15Rich Roll?

  I knew it. I knew it. You, you came in and you said, I have a special show and tell. Should I surprise you or, or show you now? And I was like, surprising you, but I think I already know what it is.

• 1:11:26Adam Skolnick?

  This particular spirited man swims in a mask.

• 1:11:28Rich Roll?

  You do. For those on audio only, you just donned a diving mask that looks like it came from a different era.

• 1:11:38Adam Skolnick?

  I'm, I am a man out of step with my time.

• 1:11:41Rich Roll?

  You are. The spirited man is not a fan of swimming goggles.

• 1:11:46Adam Skolnick?

  The spirited man uses a mask because thereby he can decide at one moment to dive instead of swim.

• 1:11:53Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that's right. What is that particular model of spirited mask?

• 1:11:57Adam Skolnick?

  Would you like a warranty for this mask? Cause it comes with one.

• 1:12:01Rich Roll?

  Aqua lung.

• 1:12:02Adam Skolnick?

  Right. It's the Aqua Lung.

• 1:12:05Rich Roll?

  For your eyes.

• 1:12:05Adam Skolnick?

  Sphera. And oddly enough.

• 1:12:08Rich Roll?

  This is your replacement mask.

• 1:12:09Adam Skolnick?

  This is what I, this is the replacement mask for the one that was lost. But you see, I can breathe out, I can exhale out of my nose.

• 1:12:17Rich Roll?

  It is at least a little bit more streamlined and goggle-like.

• 1:12:20Adam Skolnick?

  It's my point.

• 1:12:20Rich Roll?

  So you're, you're finding some middle ground. I, I feel like this is diplomacy.

• 1:12:24Adam Skolnick?

  This particular spirited man's mask was created as an open water swim goggle replacement. No, I'm not kidding. And then, but swimmers scoff at masks, like yourself. And so freedivers had to embrace it for it to live. And here it is. And it's a new version. It's got racing stripes. Have you noticed that?

• 1:12:43Rich Roll?

  I haven't, no. I can't see that far.

• 1:12:46Adam Skolnick?

  Anyway.

• 1:12:46Rich Roll?

  But, all right. Well, good, man. So I will, I will relent. A détente has been achieved. Yes. And the Oslo talks.

• 1:12:57Adam Skolnick?

  The Oslo talks are being achieved now that the mask is on the podcast. I just thought the listeners would love to see that.

• 1:13:05Rich Roll?

  It's good.

• 1:13:06Adam Skolnick?

  The other thing that I found is, listen, not everyone likes biographies of long gone sports stars. I'm not going to belabor the point. I've been really enjoying this Duke Hanamoko biography. It's relatively recent. It's not, it didn't come out on a big publisher, it's University of Nebraska Press. And it's really painstakingly kind of creates his life. It's not like the most compelling read for people who aren't interested in sports like that or his. But I do think that if you love water sports, Duke Hanamoko was a three time Olympian over four separate Olympiads. His peak, he would have been, would have been right when World War I happened. So he didn't even get to go to his, when he was his peak condition.

• 1:13:47Rich Roll?

  I didn't know that.

• 1:13:48Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:48Rich Roll?

  I didn't know that it was four Olympiads.

• 1:13:50Adam Skolnick?

  So he was 21, 22 years old in 1912. And that was his first Olympiad. And they competed in Antwerp and it was like a canal, like a drainage ditch. It was freezing, like the water was like, they were shivering. That's what it was like in 1912. He set world records, he won the 100, he won the 200, I believe, and got a silver in the relay. That he went back eight years later and defended his titles, won a couple more golds. And then he won a silver in the, I think in the 100, in the third Olympiad. Getting beat by Johnny Weismiller.

• 1:14:25Rich Roll?

  Weismiller, right. Yeah, so he was, he was way past his prime at that point.

• 1:14:30Adam Skolnick?

  Right, he was in his 30s.

• 1:14:31Rich Roll?

  1916 would have been his peak.

• 1:14:33Adam Skolnick?

  1916 was going to be his peak and he didn't even get to compete because of, you know, World War I.

• 1:14:39Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:14:39Adam Skolnick?

  And then 1920 was in, that might have been Antwerp, yeah, 1912 was in.

• 1:14:46Adam Skolnick?

  Sweden, excuse me, in 1916 was in Antwerp and it was freezing and it was like in this, in Belgium and it had been decimated by World War I. And so like these, but this was the beginning, kind of really early days of Olympia. In 1912, he competed alongside Jim Thorpe, two guys. Jim Thorpe was the decathlete and the greatest athlete of the first 50 years of the 20th century. It's been declared that by basically everybody. Jim Thorpe and Duke both went to schools where they were not allowed to speak their native languages. Jim Thorpe is indigenous American and Duke is full-blooded Hawaiian. And so they had that connection and they were kind of really heroes to America at a time when-

• 1:15:27Rich Roll?

  Massive hero.

• 1:15:28Adam Skolnick?

  At a time when racism was like off the charts. It was like, you know, Jim Crow was just getting huge and it was the birth of the nation time and all of that. And so here these two guys come and capture the imagination of America at such a fraught time. But his, he wasn't just a great, the greatest swimmer of his era. He was also the greatest surfer of his era.

• 1:15:50Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I know. I mean, he transcended sport. He became a cultural icon.

• 1:15:54Adam Skolnick?

  He did.

• 1:15:55Rich Roll?

  To this day, you know, it resonates all across the world. It's unbelievable. It's amazing they haven't made a movie, like a movie of those two lives in tandem and parallel of Thorpe and-

• 1:16:05Adam Skolnick?

  That's what I'm saying.

• 1:16:06Rich Roll?

  And Duke together.

• 1:16:07Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, like, like these two guys, but then if you look at just at Duke, he got during the influenza epidemic, he got the influ, he got influenza.

• 1:16:15Rich Roll?

  He did.

• 1:16:16Adam Skolnick?

  One of the swimmers that he used to compete with early on died of it. He could have died, but an ex-girlfriend found him like at the YMCA in New York, like coughing up a lung, bleeding and got him treatment, or maybe it was in Germany, excuse me, and saved him. And so he got that. There was an incident that was recalled in this book and when he was surfing in Newport Beach, because he lived here in California. He was pursuing acting and he was in a bunch of films. And he was surfing, he camped on the beach at Coron del Mar and it was a 20-foot day or something crazy. And a boat, they saw a boat coming in that got capsized and he went out three different times on his surfboard and he saved- Seven people's lives, like maybe more, maybe it was like 10 people on like pulling them on

• 1:17:01Adam Skolnick?

  because his surfboards weren't like today's surfboards. They were 100 pound plus pieces of of wood that he carved himself and shaped himself. You can't imagine a more-

• 1:17:11Rich Roll?

  And he was a cultural icon at that time, right?

• 1:17:14Adam Skolnick?

  He already was, yes.

• 1:17:14Rich Roll?

  It would be as if Laird Hamilton was out there pulling people out of that, you know, sea.

• 1:17:18Adam Skolnick?

  It's exactly that.

• 1:17:19Rich Roll?

  And TMZ would be swarming and it would be like a huge media event.

• 1:17:22Adam Skolnick?

  If your life was saved by Laird Hamilton.

• 1:17:25Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:17:25Adam Skolnick?

  That's exactly what it was.

• 1:17:27Rich Roll?

  I want to check that out. Legend.

• 1:17:29Adam Skolnick?

  He also had all sorts of money problems and different issues. So it's not like everything was a home run for him.

• 1:17:34Rich Roll?

  And what was ultimately Hawaii's relationship to him once he became big and like moved to the States?

• 1:17:40Adam Skolnick?

  So that's a good question. So what happened was he did the Olympics, then he decided he'd go pro. After a while, he decided to go pro, but he couldn't really get a stage show off the ground swimming. And so he came back and retained his amateur status, but in the meantime, went to Hollywood to try to make movies. He was there for a period of time, came back to Hawaii. And for whatever reason, you know, he couldn't figure out a business that he could catch on to that would be successful. He ends up like they think they're doing him a solid, hey, come work at the city in City Hall in Honolulu. And basically they have him sweeping and mopping the floors. Like he was a like, like that's how he was treated.

• 1:18:20Adam Skolnick?

  So then his friends in LA said, come back here. And he came back and worked and coached at the LA Athletic Club. And was here and worked at the Beach Club by the beach here. But he does end up-

• 1:18:31Rich Roll?

  The Jonathan Club or one of those-

• 1:18:32Adam Skolnick?

  The Beach Club, I think.

• 1:18:34Rich Roll?

  Where's that?

• 1:18:34Adam Skolnick?

  It's right next to the Jonathan Club. Yeah, but one of those two. And then he ends up back in Hawaii after all, and runs for sheriff and becomes the sheriff of Oahu.

• 1:18:45Rich Roll?

  I didn't know that.

• 1:18:46Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, he became the sheriff of Oahu for years. But the reason I bring it up is because in this book, they reference that he's on this, This Is Your Life. And I went and the episode is on is on YouTube. So if you want to have 30 minute kind of primer and see Duke and see his whole family and everything, this is your life, that old TV show.

• 1:19:06Rich Roll?

  Right. From what year was this?

• 1:19:07Adam Skolnick?

  It's gotta be the 50s.

• 1:19:08Rich Roll?

  62 or oh, that's early.

• 1:19:10Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, maybe it's the 60s. I have to, I have to have to look again, but the ads are hilarious. It's really funny to see old television and it's fun.

• 1:19:17Rich Roll?

  All right. Well, we'll throw that link up in the show notes. The book Waterman is by, what's the other name?

• 1:19:22Adam Skolnick?

  David Davis.

• 1:19:23Rich Roll?

  David Davis.

• 1:19:23Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah. So I think, I mean, I'm thoroughly enjoying it, but obviously I'm mystified by this guy's story. It's just incredible.

• 1:19:30Rich Roll?

  It's pretty cool.

• 1:19:30Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:31Rich Roll?

  Why hasn't there been a movie about this guy? It seems like it's like a chariots of fire kind of thing.

• 1:19:36Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, could be, you know, I.

• 1:19:37Rich Roll?

  If you did it with Thorpe.

• 1:19:39Adam Skolnick?

  I think you'd want to do a Thorpe, you know, I would love to do that, you know, like a Duke and Thorpe kind of, you see them over time. Thorpe ends up an alcoholic and he died in a trailer. Like, you know, you really see, one thing I'm getting from reading this is you really do see how athletes that are at their peak and really the top of their sports as young men, how hard it is for them to kind of figure out the next act, which we know, we've talked about that.

• 1:20:07Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Your, your life peaks at such an early age and you have the adulation of the world. Like, how are you going to top that? How are you going to find meaning in something else?

• 1:20:15Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:16Rich Roll?

  You know, it's, it's like Raging Bull and Jake LaMotta when he's, you know, staring in the mirror at the end and he's all fat and he owns that bar and he's just, he's just dining out on, you know, past glory.

• 1:20:27Adam Skolnick?

  And it's also, it's a trip to see how Waikiki used to be and how like the estuaries were drained and all this be like, you know, it's, it's also makes you kind of feel for how did we develop this way and why? And, you know, we didn't know, we didn't care. Is it, is it a mixture of we didn't know, we didn't care? Probably. Yeah.

• 1:20:47Rich Roll?

  Well, the whole history of Hawaii is so fraught and.

• 1:20:50Adam Skolnick?

  But it's not just there. You could say the same thing, any colonized power, like in Bali right now, the main garbage dump is in the middle of the wetlands. Who put the first garbage dump in the middle of the wetlands in Bali? Most likely I would submit would be the Dutch did that when the Dutch were the colonists in Indonesia. So, you know, why? Because the people didn't know the West, that Western culture, developer culture, which was kind of part of the colonists game. They weren't thinking about the relationship of wetlands and estuaries to their

• 1:21:21Rich Roll?

  We're here, we're planting our flag and we're gonna conquer this land.

• 1:21:26Adam Skolnick?

  It's muddy, it's muddy, it's dead space, you can't build on it, you can't farm in it.

• 1:21:31Rich Roll?

  All right, well, let's pivot to wins of the week.

• 1:21:34Adam Skolnick?

  Let's do it.

• 1:21:35Rich Roll?

  We got a couple of good ones.

• 1:21:36Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 1:21:36Rich Roll?

  First up, we have Hella Sidibey, who just completed a run across the entire United States. This guy is so cool and inspirational, he just seems like he's overflowing with positivity and gratitude. He's a former MLS soccer player, who basically just was like, "I'm gonna run across the country." I think he's like a YouTuber too, just completed this

• 1:22:03Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, he is a YouTuber.

• 1:22:04Rich Roll?

  This run.

• 1:22:05Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:05Rich Roll?

  And there was footage, he was live streaming it yesterday. And my friend Robbie Ballinger, who also ran across America, who's how I found out about Hella, because Robbie's been really supporting him over the course of this endeavor. He flew out to the middle of the country, you know, I don't know, a couple of months ago, and ran with him for a couple of days. Showed up just outside New York City to run the final leg with him, and they're all sharing it on Instagram Live and stuff, and it was so cool because he had all, it was like a parade, processional, as they all advanced into the city. He was sponsored by Jim Shark, and Jim Shark had this giant, like, topless bus where they were like pumping hip-hop music, and it was like a party going on.

• 1:22:50Rich Roll?

  And he was just like this cheerleader, you know, with a big smile on his face, and just positive energy for miles as they made it into the city. It was really cool to watch. I called Robbie right after it, just to get his lowdown, and he's like, "You gotta meet this guy, he's so great, you know, super cool." And what was also cool, speaking of Van Nystat and the Spirited Man, Casey showed up to document that final leg too. He was shooting, you know, all kinds of footage, so we'll see what comes out of that.

• 1:23:19Adam Skolnick?

  That'll be a good episode.

• 1:23:20Rich Roll?

  It was cool to see, you know, those two guys, both friends of the podcast, both friends in general, there to help support, like, this amazing human do something cool and extraordinary. And then, at the finish line, it was being broadcast on Hella's Instagram Live, but the sound went out, so you couldn't hear.

• 1:23:40Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, I had that same problem.

• 1:23:41Rich Roll?

  But when I talked to Robbie, he said, I told him, I was like, we couldn't, nobody could hear what was happening. And he's like, well, he proposed to his girlfriend.

• 1:23:48Adam Skolnick?

  Oh, my God.

• 1:23:48Rich Roll?

  Right in Manhattan at the, at the conclusion of this 3,000 mile run, which I thought was pretty cool.

• 1:23:53Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, it'd be super harsh for her to have said no.

• 1:23:56Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:00Adam Skolnick?

  That was obviously not gonna happen.

• 1:24:01Rich Roll?

  I don't think that was gonna happen.

• 1:24:02Adam Skolnick?

  You know what I loved about the finish was he sprints to the finish, then he leaps in the air. I mean, he's been running.

• 1:24:08Rich Roll?

  Well, it was like a party going into the city. It wasn't like, they weren't like hammering, you know?

• 1:24:12Adam Skolnick?

  But he's been running every day for like, like 40 mile days.

• 1:24:16Rich Roll?

  Well, also on top of the cross-country run, he has some crazy run streak going on. I think for like the last four years, he hasn't missed a day of running. So for him, it ain't nothing but a thing.

• 1:24:26Adam Skolnick?

  Apparently, he's the first black man to do the cross-country run in America.

• 1:24:29Rich Roll?

  Is that right? I didn't know that.

• 1:24:30Adam Skolnick?

  That's what he, that's what he said, and it's been written up. It's that way. So, yeah.

• 1:24:34Rich Roll?

  Cool. I gotta, I gotta get this guy on the show.

• 1:24:37Adam Skolnick?

  You do.

• 1:24:37Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Got to make that happen. So, congrats, Hella.

• 1:24:41Adam Skolnick?

  Congrats, Hella.

• 1:24:41Rich Roll?

  Everybody should follow him on Instagram. He's HellaGood9, H-E-L-L-A-H, Good9. That's his website up there that Blake pulled up, hellagood.com.

• 1:24:52Adam Skolnick?

  What a stud.

• 1:24:53Rich Roll?

  Mad respect, and can't wait to find a way to sit down with you and hear all about this crazy adventure.

• 1:24:59Adam Skolnick?

  Awesome.

• 1:25:00Rich Roll?

  Should we talk about the greatest showdown in the history of track and field that happened last week?

• 1:25:06Adam Skolnick?

  Let's talk about it.

• 1:25:08Rich Roll?

  Malcolm Gladwell versus Chris Chavez. Did you watch it?

• 1:25:13Adam Skolnick?

  I did. It was pretty impressive. I mean, Gladwell is very, very impressive.

• 1:25:17Rich Roll?

  It's so funny. I love everything about this. I'm so here for it. Basically, for those that aren't familiar, Chris Chavez, who I've never met, but I feel like is an internet friend of mine. He writes for Sports Illustrated. He covers track and field and marathons and the Olympics for that publication. He's also part of Sidious Mag, where he, I don't know if he blogs there, but he does a podcast. He's a podcast host. He's an announcer. He was also at this track meet, like announcing other races. He's kind of just a man about town in terms of covering track and field and marathoning and the Olympics, running in the Olympics. Young guy, 27. At some point, I don't know how, the genesis of this whole thing, but... Chris challenged Malcolm, or Malcolm, I don't know who challenged.

• 1:26:02Adam Skolnick?

  I thought it was Chris challenged Malcolm, but.

• 1:26:04Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I think Chris challenged Malcolm to see who could run the fastest mile. Chris, 27, Malcolm Gladwell, 58, he calls himself the skinny Canadian.

• 1:26:14Adam Skolnick?

  He is skinny, like I was shocked how like his legs too.

• 1:26:18Rich Roll?

  But kind of underappreciated in terms of his running capability.

• 1:26:23Adam Skolnick?

  Oh my goodness.

• 1:26:24Rich Roll?

  He's a very good runner and he trains really hard. Like I know plenty of runners in New York City who will tell you like, oh, he's down at the track on the Lower East Side all the time, you know, you can find him out there. And, you know, he hits it really hard. So even though he's 58, he comes from a track field background. He was an excellent runner in high school and he ran in college too. And has stayed, you know, competitive. I don't think he's raced in a couple of years, so this was going to be the first race in a while. And the lead up to this was so delicious because there was a lot of smack talking back and forth. Chris was trying to pump people up, you know, and he said at one point, my mother is so confused why I'm racing an old man.

• 1:27:07Rich Roll?

  And then Malcolm said, I'm pretty sure I'm older than your mom. Which is probably true. And I could tell you from friends that I have that are excellent runners who know Malcolm, I've never met Malcolm, but the word on the street is that Malcolm Gladwell is a world class sandbagger. Like he's the guy, he'll always tell you, oh, you know, I didn't sleep or I'm like, you know, I don't have it today. Like he'll always downplay everything and then he'll just own you. Like that's his MO, right?

• 1:27:39Adam Skolnick?

  I love that.

• 1:27:39Rich Roll?

  So you come in, you set the expectation low and you create a situation in which you can over deliver.

• 1:27:46Adam Skolnick?

  It's funny because even the race started out that way. Like you saw him like, he saw him like drift to the back, maybe to get out of Chris's view or something like that. And then he just tracked him down.

• 1:27:56Rich Roll?

  Right. So the whole thing going into this was I'm old, you know, like just sandbagging all the way, right? And then when you watched the mile, which took place in New York City, it was, it was part of.

• 1:28:09Rich Roll?

  You know, a legitimate meet called the New York City Qualifier, where a bunch of track and field athletes were trying to make Olympic trials qualifying times. And it wasn't just Chris and Malcolm. It was a field of legitimate runners. They had a rabbit. They had, you know, a bunch of, you know, elite athletes running.

• 1:28:25Adam Skolnick?

  The one, the whoop, the person who works at whoop won the thing, the woman.

• 1:28:31Rich Roll?

  She work at whoop?

• 1:28:32Adam Skolnick?

  I think so.

• 1:28:32Rich Roll?

  I think she's with Tracksmith.

• 1:28:33Adam Skolnick?

  Oh, Tracksmith.

• 1:28:34Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I think she's with Tracksmith. Malcolm's also with Tracksmith, I believe.

• 1:28:40Adam Skolnick?

  She was great. She won the whole thing.

• 1:28:42Rich Roll?

  She won the whole thing. She crushed it. Who's all, what's her name? I'm blanking on her name right now, but her sister is also an exceptional track and field athlete. In any event, yeah, Malcolm goes out, Chris takes it out. I think they both had aspirations, or at least Chris publicly had aspirations of trying to break five minutes in this mile. So Chris takes it out. They have a rabbit out there who's holding five minute pace. Chris is kind of sitting right behind him. But Malcolm dropped way back. So for the first half of the race, he was, you know, kind of in no man's land, way behind. And then he just picked up the pace and very slowly but legitimately worked his way up the field and just passed Chris like he was standing still and crushed him.

• 1:29:23Adam Skolnick?

  Totally.

• 1:29:24Rich Roll?

  Just crushed him.

• 1:29:25Adam Skolnick?

  Unbelievable.

• 1:29:25Rich Roll?

  They were both quite shy of breaking five. Malcolm ran 515 and Chris ran 523. Chris was a good, good sport about the whole thing. But I just loved that Malcolm owned him in that way.

• 1:29:37Adam Skolnick?

  Me too.

• 1:29:38Rich Roll?

  At 58 years of age.

• 1:29:39Adam Skolnick?

  Izzy Seidel is her name.

• 1:29:41Rich Roll?

  Izzy Seidel. Yeah. So Molly Seidel is Izzy's sister.

• 1:29:44Adam Skolnick?

  And then Izzy, I think, works at Tracksmith. I don't know if she's trying to get to the Olympics or not, but she looked great and she was under five minutes.

• 1:29:51Rich Roll?

  Yeah, she ran like 454 or something.

• 1:29:52Adam Skolnick?

  She was like the smoothest. Like, it looked like it didn't even.

• 1:29:55Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:29:55Adam Skolnick?

  It didn't even faze her.

• 1:29:56Rich Roll?

  She's a powerhouse.

• 1:29:56Adam Skolnick?

  Oh, my goodness.

• 1:29:57Rich Roll?

  For sure.

• 1:29:58Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:59Rich Roll?

  Anyway, it was super fun to watch.

• 1:30:00Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:01Rich Roll?

  The YouTube of the whole thing, well, the whole track meet is on YouTube, but you can fast forward and watch the race of these guys. It was really fun to see that. And that was a true, much like the Des Linden 50K.

• 1:30:15Adam Skolnick?

  Yep.

• 1:30:15Rich Roll?

  World record. It was a kind of an internet experience where the whole internet kind of tuned in to see how this was gonna go down. It was great. And I think, you know, Malcolm talks about this himself quite a bit, like, how do you make people more interested in sport? Like, he's talked about how in triathlon, they should put the swimming last. Like, if they want to make it hard.

• 1:30:36Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, right.

• 1:30:36Rich Roll?

  Like, wear them out and then make them swim and see who survives that. Wouldn't that be more interesting? Like, you know, in his classic, like-

• 1:30:42Adam Skolnick?

  You'd have some dead people.

• 1:30:43Rich Roll?

  In his classic hot take, yeah, you know, we might have problems, right? But in his classic, like, you know, contrarian hot take, you know, perspective.

• 1:30:51Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:52Rich Roll?

  I think it is, this race was an example of how to get people who perhaps aren't super dialed in and interested in track and field. Like, I don't watch track and field meets.

• 1:31:02Adam Skolnick?

  No.

• 1:31:02Rich Roll?

  But I watch this, right? Like, more of this, please. And then perhaps we can, you know, all get a little bit more excited about this stuff. So Blake just pulled up the race. Is this it? No, I think it's at like 40-

• 1:31:15Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, it's 45 minutes.

• 1:31:16Rich Roll?

  45 minutes in, or some 48?

• 1:31:19Adam Skolnick?

  I understand what you're saying, but I think I'd rather watch Usain Bolt.

• 1:31:23Rich Roll?

  Listen, I'm not saying at the cost of-

• 1:31:26Adam Skolnick?

  You're saying, instead of Usain Bolt.

• 1:31:28Rich Roll?

  But I'm saying, in addition to that, I think it's cool to play with the format a little bit. Like, they're doing this with swimming. They have these pro-circuit meets now where they're trying different events and sprint events and things that like get the audience, a typical audience that isn't steeped in the swimming culture, to get interested about this stuff. And I feel like this accomplished that in a really kind of great format.

• 1:31:53Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, like, when would you ever watch this particular event? You know, like, there's at least, like, this is not like-

• 1:31:58Rich Roll?

  No, but I was like, I was like in my car, in my, I was in the passenger seat of my car when it was going, I was like, we have to pull over, or you have to, like, let me see what is happening right now. Like, look at him, he's got the compression socks on.

• 1:32:10Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, he's in spikes too. Not everybody was in spikes.

• 1:32:14Rich Roll?

  Everybody's in their twenties.

• 1:32:15Adam Skolnick?

  But not everyone was in spikes, isn't that interesting?

• 1:32:17Rich Roll?

  I think Chris is too.

• 1:32:18Adam Skolnick?

  Chris is in spikes.

• 1:32:19Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Spikes was an interesting choice.

• 1:32:22Adam Skolnick?

  So he doesn't do road, he mostly does track, right?

• 1:32:25Rich Roll?

  He's a track guy.

• 1:32:26Adam Skolnick?

  Okay.

• 1:32:26Rich Roll?

  And he's super into it, like he's on the, reading the forums and he knows everything that's going on in track and field. But I just thought it was great.

• 1:32:34Adam Skolnick?

  Pretty impressive.

• 1:32:35Rich Roll?

  At 58, 515 or 58, good for him, unbelievable. Steve Magnus tweeted, experience defeats youth in the running journalist slash influencer mile.

• 1:32:44Adam Skolnick?

  They both are kind of small, right? Like Chris is about the same size.

• 1:32:47Rich Roll?

  Chris is more built, like he's got, he's got a little more, um, kind of bulk on him. I mean, Malcolm has the classic runner, super skinny, you know, physique.

• 1:32:59Adam Skolnick?

  Look how easy they're going with like.

• 1:33:01Rich Roll?

  I know, it looks like, it looks like they're running slow.

• 1:33:03Adam Skolnick?

  I know, it's a five minute pace. Look how easy that is for them.

• 1:33:06Rich Roll?

  I know, it's crazy. Um, and lots of women in there mixing it up who.

• 1:33:11Adam Skolnick?

  Dominated by a woman.

• 1:33:12Rich Roll?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure.

• 1:33:13Adam Skolnick?

  She won by like 20 meters or something.

• 1:33:16Rich Roll?

  But look at Malcolm just sits behind Chavez. He's just gonna let, you know, he's biting his time. That's the experience.

• 1:33:24Adam Skolnick?

  Hmm.

• 1:33:24Rich Roll?

  That's the experience. He could create the perception that Chris was going to run away with it.

• 1:33:30Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 1:33:31Rich Roll?

  It does look like they're running slow, doesn't it? It's crazy.

• 1:33:33Adam Skolnick?

  It does, there's an optical illusion afoot.

• 1:33:36Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Anyway, um, good times. I loved it. In the wake of it, Chris being a good sport tweeted, got my ass kicked in the mile by Gladwell. And then Malcolm responds to that by saying, happy to try again when you're my age and I'm 87.

• 1:33:53Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, cause he wanted, cause Chris right away wanted a rematch.

• 1:33:55Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Yeah. We'll do it when you're, when you're my age. We'll try that.

• 1:33:59Adam Skolnick?

  That's hilarious.

• 1:34:00Rich Roll?

  Like I said, more of this, I think it's fun. I don't think that it, there's any negative impact to the greater track and field universe by doing stuff like this from time to time.

• 1:34:12Adam Skolnick?

  No. I don't see, no, I, not at all. Like, is that, is that what someone's worried about?

• 1:34:17Rich Roll?

  No, I just think like. You know, there is a, there is a vein of thought that is oriented around respect for traditional, the traditional way of doing it.

• 1:34:28Adam Skolnick?

  Okay.

• 1:34:29Rich Roll?

  This is track and field. Like, how dare you spoil or corrupt our little universe with some stunt.

• 1:34:36Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's interesting, you know, Phil Mickelson, who won a major in the PGA, he tried that when, when there was no golf going on, didn't he have like, put together, he and Tiger put together like, matches, he was, one was with Peyton Manning, the other was with Tom Brady or something?

• 1:34:53Rich Roll?

  There's Seidel, look at her, crush it.

• 1:34:55Adam Skolnick?

  Look at her.

• 1:34:56Rich Roll?

  Four fifty, yeah, four, four fifty-four.

• 1:34:58Adam Skolnick?

  Four fifty-five. Let's give her four fifty-four.

• 1:35:02Rich Roll?

  Four, let's give her four, four fifty-four, sixty-seven.

• 1:35:05Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, she wins by six seconds.

• 1:35:07Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:35:08Adam Skolnick?

  It's crazy.

• 1:35:08Rich Roll?

  I know. Anyway, all right, let's do some listener questions.

• 1:35:11Adam Skolnick?

  All right, let's do it. So, this is, I believe it's Sierra from Kalamazoo, Michigan.

• 1:35:17Speaker 02

  Hey, Richard, my name is Sierra, I'm twenty-three years old, and I'm currently living and going to school in Kalamazoo, Michigan. I struggled a lot with my mental health from a very young age. At about twelve, I was diagnosed with clinical depression and anxiety, and I struggled for a long time. When I got to undergrad, I was stable in my mental health, but I realized how bad my physical health was. I've since lost fifty pounds, got into my first marathon this summer, and just hit one year of being completely plant-based. Right now, I have a question regarding my life as it is now. I'm currently struggling with the complex of, quote, "doing it all." I work about thirty-five hours a week in retail to pay my bills, I'm a full-time student and a teaching assistant at the school.

• 1:36:00Speaker 02

  I dedicate at least two hours a day to practicing my craft of clarinet playing, and I exercise six days a week. I'm often looked up to as a leader in my role in retail and at the school. I'm often there to support other people, but I am living alone and halfway across the country from my family. I can't remember the last time I had a day to do nothing, and I'm loving what I'm doing, but at the same time, super exhausted. Any and all advice would be welcome, and thanks.

• 1:36:29Rich Roll?

  Shout out to Sierra in Michigan. I know. Go Blue. You're killing it. It's such a good question. I love this question. And I think it's really relevant to what we were talking about earlier about balance. I agree. It's, it's super related to that. That's why I put that in here. Mm hmm. Good for you. Curating. See what I'm doing? Experience. I'm linking. Based on a theme. I'm linking segments. You are. I already told you, your job is secure. Have you seen my swim mask? Yeah, I have. Okay. I have. And I didn't, did I make fun of you? No, I did not. I said we reached a detente in the Oslo talks. Sierra, great question. I think this is a common predicament for many.

• 1:37:12Rich Roll?

  The first thought that comes to mind is, is something I learned in sobriety, which is this idea of the road is always getting narrower. Right? So you start out, you have these mental health struggles, you seem to get on top of that. You then set your sights on your physical health, you lose all this weight, you run a marathon, it's like, I got it together. But the road continues to narrow and you're faced new challenges that force you to confront yourself in deeper ways. Like you've done this heavy lifting in these other areas and now this other stuff is showing up. And I think what you're experiencing is, is really common to a lot of people. Again, it's related to our conversation about balance, very much rooted in that.

• 1:37:54Rich Roll?

  And I think, you know, based upon what you're saying, the way you're living your life right now is not sustainable in the long term. I think you're doing what you need to survive at the moment and pursue your goals and, and really develop your, your, your craft and your talent and your passion. I think it's super laudable, like mad respect for everything that you've taken on, everything that you're shouldering right now to make all of this happen. And I think. You know, at 23, you're young, you can handle it for now, but you have taken on a lot. And I think, you know, you're gonna need to really, and it sounds like you're already doing this, like, figure out a way to pursue this path in a more sustainable way.

• 1:38:39Rich Roll?

  And I suspect, just based upon the way you've described yourself, that you're somebody who has a predisposition to over-deliver in everything that you do. Do you get that sense, Adam?

• 1:38:50Adam Skolnick?

  No doubt.

• 1:38:50Rich Roll?

  Yeah, she's crushing it, right? Like, she's showing up and killing it in all these different areas. But I think, over time, when you are that kind of person, and you shoulder that kind of responsibility, and you create those expectations with other people that you're engaged with, it's going to drain the joy out of everything that you're doing, and it will inevitably lead to burnout. So that's the first thing. I also, and tell me what you think, Adam, I also smell a little hint of codependence in this. This idea that Sierra's over-giving of herself to meet everyone else's needs. Like, she's, everybody in the retail job loves her, and she's a TA, so she's there for her students.

• 1:39:35Rich Roll?

  She's showing up for all these other people at the cost of her own well-being, which is secondary. So she goes home at night, completely depleted, and lonely, because she's living alone.

• 1:39:49Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:50Rich Roll?

  So I think the first thing is figuring out how to...

• 1:39:54Adam Skolnick?

  Maybe because she can't do that for her family, because they're far away, so it's a kind of a sub for that.

• 1:39:58Rich Roll?

  Right, well, I'd be interested in what the family dynamic is, right? Like, so is she somebody who, in her rearing, was somebody who showed up for other people in her family in the same way that she's doing this for her students and in her retail job? I would suspect that that's likely.

• 1:40:16Adam Skolnick?

  Highly likely.

• 1:40:17Rich Roll?

  Yeah, right? So here she is, alone, doesn't have the family's support, and doesn't have that outlet for, you know, showing up for other people, as she did, you know, in the house, growing up, and she's doing it in this other way. So I think, Sierra, you need to flip the script, and first, understand and accept that you can't be everything to everybody all the time. And as a people-pleaser myself, I get it. But the question really should be... How do you please yourself? And by please yourself, I don't mean that in an indulgent or selfish way. But really, what do you need to make sure that your needs are being taken care of?

• 1:40:58Rich Roll?

  So that you're fit, adequately fit to show up for these other people? And in all of these other areas of your life? There's a great Marcus Aurelius quote that I think is relevant to this. He said, "I have often wondered how it is that every man loves himself more than all the rest of men, but yet sets less value on his own opinion of himself than on the opinion of others." So again, this is a bit of a projection, Sierra, because I don't know you. But it sounds like you are somebody who does concern herself with the opinion of the people in your retail job and, you know, these students that you're TA, like all these different jobs that you have, and you're coming last in this.

• 1:41:43Rich Roll?

  And as a result, you're suffering. So I think you need to get really clear on what your main priorities are, first and foremost, figure out a way so that you can focus on that and learn to be okay with imperfection in your other areas, especially in regards to these less important facets of your life. Like I presume that you're not pursuing a career in retail. You're trying to become this unbelievable clarinet performer. Right. So how can you? And it's tough. Like, these are real life problems. You gotta pay your bills. You're working two jobs. You're a full-time student. Like, this is not an easy equation to solve. So the last thing I want to do is come across as like pithy with all of this because it's very difficult.

• 1:42:25Rich Roll?

  But I do think a process or a strategy for tackling this is to, A, do an honest inventory of everything that you do. Literally, get a notepad or a Moleskine and journal how you spend your time in 15-minute increments. Do that over a week, and I think you'll get an objective picture on how you're actually spending your time. There probably will be surprising areas where you're spending more time doing something than you originally thought that you were. That will give you a launchpad to then evaluate what it is that you could possibly let go

• 1:43:08Rich Roll?

  of or deescalate and other areas of your life that are not getting the adequate amount of attention and give you a roadmap for how you could perhaps simplify your life. Like if your life is so crowded and so complicated that you're going from one thing to the next thing to the next thing to the next thing, never really having the bandwidth to invest in any self-care whatsoever and then just coming home and crashing, you know, that's not a great life plan. And as somebody who's trying to cultivate a creative talent, you need that nurturing time in order to really connect with the best of what you have to offer with respect to this art form that you're pursuing.

• 1:43:52Rich Roll?

  You just can't succeed in life, you can't succeed in your goals unless you take care of yourself first. And you actually can't adequately take care of all these other people that you're trying to take care of right now unless you take care of yourself first. So approach it not from the perspective of that being indulgent or selfish, but actually necessary in terms of you optimizing the opportunity that you have right now to step into becoming this artist.

• 1:44:21Adam Skolnick?

  Hundred percent.

• 1:44:23Rich Roll?

  What do you think?

• 1:44:24Adam Skolnick?

  I think you nailed it. I think, you know, prioritizing where you can find time for yourself is going to be key to, because it's a long haul to become great and master of a craft like the clarinet and you need to, you can't afford to burn out.

• 1:44:41Rich Roll?

  No.

• 1:44:42Adam Skolnick?

  And a lot of musicians do because it's so competitive and it's sometimes... The satisfaction you get of doing a good job at a retail job is more readily, it comes to you easier.

• 1:44:51Rich Roll?

  Right, you'll get the validation immediately.

• 1:44:53Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Or as a leader in whatever. That's why a lot of people take certain jobs because they're elevated as leaders right away. And leadership can be fulfilling because you're helping people achieve something, so.

• 1:45:06Rich Roll?

  She's on the grind, though. This, it reminds me of law school. Like, when you're that age, you can, you can do it.

• 1:45:12Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:45:12Rich Roll?

  And you could do it for a while.

• 1:45:13Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:45:14Rich Roll?

  You know, you could do it. Like, I couldn't do that now. I would, you know, collapse. But when you're 23, you're robust, you can handle it. But I just think it's, it's a time in your life where you have an opportunity to develop healthier life skills around these things. And you really need to protect what's most important to you.

• 1:45:33Adam Skolnick?

  Hundred percent.

• 1:45:34Rich Roll?

  Cool.

• 1:45:35Adam Skolnick?

  Good luck, Sierra.

• 1:45:36Rich Roll?

  Good luck. Thank you for the question.

• 1:45:38Adam Skolnick?

  All right, let's go up towards the Bay Area. This person recorded their question on their own mic.

• 1:45:47Speaker 03

  Hey, Rich. This is Kevin from San Francisco Bay Area. I'm a fan of the gospel that you're spreading, and I really appreciate your recent episode with Matthew Walker on sleep. I have a question that I think you are uniquely positioned to help answer. See, sometimes I'll do an intense workout at around noonish. I'll run, bike, swim, or do some at-home P90X, which all burn a lot of calories. So immediately after my workout, I'll have a high-calorie, plant-based recovery smoothie, like one of the recipes in The Plant Power Way. And then a little later, I'll eat some other foods and meals, like a big bowl of oatmeal, and later another huge bowl of salad for dinner. And many times, I'll also sneak in a large veggie smoothie. I try to focus on consuming as much leafy greens and micronutrients as possible, while also trying to get in my needed macros.

• 1:46:31Speaker 03

  But also not trying to overdo my macros too much, as I tend to gain weight pretty easily. However, sometimes it seems like I'm not consuming enough calories, because once it gets time for bed, I'll feel pretty full, mostly because of all the greens that I've consumed. But then, over time, while I'm in bed, my body will feel light, jittery, and hungry, to the point that I'll need to get out of bed and go to the kitchen and eat something more. Only, now that I've eaten a plant-based, late-night snack, the fiber in that vegan snack starts to churn in my digestive system, including smoothies, which prevents me from further being able to fall asleep. It's kind of this catch-22 scenario. Anyway, thank you, Rich.

• 1:47:12Rich Roll?

  Awesome.

• 1:47:13Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:47:13Rich Roll?

  Story of my life, Kevin. Story of my life.

• 1:47:18Adam Skolnick?

  Really?

• 1:47:19Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:47:20Adam Skolnick?

  Cause I'm, cause I immediately thought he's just not eating enough calories.

• 1:47:25Rich Roll?

  Yeah, well, I think that's a huge part of it.

• 1:47:27Adam Skolnick?

  Like, he's just eating too much salad and oatmeal. You burn through that stuff.

• 1:47:30Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I think that, I think he's under, I think he's, because he was obese and he lost all this weight and he's trying to be, first of all, thank you for your question, Kevin. I love this question. Because he's, he's formerly obese and he's trying to be really diligent about his nutrition going forward and is so cautious and afraid of putting on weight because of that past experience.

• 1:47:51Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 1:47:52Rich Roll?

  That he's under fueling himself.

• 1:47:54Adam Skolnick?

  Yep.

• 1:47:55Rich Roll?

  Because he's terrified of putting on weight. But what he's doing is he is not getting enough calories and that's creating the agitation that's leading to a sleep problem. It's an interesting thing. I've experienced this myself. And, you know, all, all the, the thing is, all the science supports not eating right before bed. Right? You're not supposed to eat right before you go to bed.

• 1:48:18Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 1:48:18Rich Roll?

  You're supposed to eat hours before. If I eat like three hours before bedtime and then I go to bed, inevitably, I will either be unable to fall asleep or I'll, or I'll wake up like two or three hours later and have to go into the kitchen and eat more.

• 1:48:31Adam Skolnick?

  Really?

• 1:48:32Rich Roll?

  All the time. So, that has led to an unhealthy habit of eating close to my bedtime, which isn't great because then, as your body is digesting the food, when it's done with that digestive process, you end up waking up, like, I wake up at like three, right?

• 1:48:48Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 1:48:48Rich Roll?

  I've played with this so many different ways. So, I feel you, Kevin. I relate to this. You know, I'm also, you know, I wasn't formerly obese. I was heavier, but I'm conscious of my caloric intake. So, I tend to eat light during the day and then have a larger dinner, but I've had that same experience of, of lying in bed, awake, hungry, unable to sleep, all this stuff. I don't have a magic bullet for this. But two things. One is the thing we already mentioned, which is I think that you really are under fueled and that sense of fullness isn't due to you meeting your caloric needs. It's because you're eating this super fibrous.

• 1:49:26Adam Skolnick?

  Very bloated stuff, right?

• 1:49:28Rich Roll?

  Bloated stuff that gives you the sensation of being full and is great because it will prevent you from overeating and it, you know, basically turns off that appetite mechanism. But all those leafy greens, all of that fiber, very high in the micronutrients and the phytochemicals and all those things that you want. But at the same time, if you're working out as hard as you're working out, like you gotta put food in your system.

• 1:49:52Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:49:52Rich Roll?

  And when you're not eating.

• 1:49:53Adam Skolnick?

  Smoothies aren't good enough.

• 1:49:54Rich Roll?

  When you're not eating meat and dairy, which tend to be incredibly calorically dense foods, that's, this is a common thing with people who go plant-based. They're like, I'm always hungry. And it's like, well, you used to eat like burgers and, you know, milkshakes and now you're eating salads and quinoa. Like you're gonna, you're gonna have to eat a lot more than you're used to eating. And because if you're eating it in a whole food way, like there is all that extra fiber. So you'll feel full, but you're actually not, you know, not getting sufficient calories.

• 1:50:23Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 1:50:23Rich Roll?

  And your body is like, I'm trying to repair myself. Like I'm the agitation, like that, that kind of shakiness that you get is your body trying to tell you that you need to eat more. The other thing that I think it could be helpful for you is that I found, and this is purely anecdotal, but I found personally that when I eat more throughout the day, that's helpful. So with this, you know, penchant that I have for eating light throughout the day, sometimes that will lead to this problem at night, even if I eat a big dinner. But when I'm, when I'm eating, you know, when I'm not like doing an intermittent fast or whatever, and I'm, I'm eating throughout the day and I eat a decent lunch and all of that, and I can eat a decent dinner and I'll find myself less.

• 1:51:06Rich Roll?

  In less of a struggle to go to go to sleep. So larger portions eaten consistently and earlier throughout the day will, I think, help ameliorate that.

• 1:51:17Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, because what you're talking about here is working out really hard, then having a smoothie, then having a bowl of oatmeal and a salad. Like, to me, like, like, that's just not enough.

• 1:51:26Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:51:26Adam Skolnick?

  Food.

• 1:51:26Rich Roll?

  I think that's right.

• 1:51:27Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, because I'll have oatmeal in the morning before, even before a run, or like an hour or so before a swim.

• 1:51:34Rich Roll?

  Right, he didn't talk about anything that he eats before noon, so I don't know if he's not eating before noon, or he's eating a breakfast that he just didn't tell us about.

• 1:51:42Adam Skolnick?

  Who knows, but like, you know, I'm not telling anyone what to eat. I'm not in that business, but pasta is a very filling thing that could be good if you're, if you need carb. I know, I know it's, well, I don't know how controversial it is to eat pasta.

• 1:51:56Rich Roll?

  Pasta's not, pasta wouldn't be the first thing that I recommend. Pasta's very effective. If you eat that right before you go to bed, you'll pass out.

• 1:52:02Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 1:52:03Rich Roll?

  Because all the blood goes to your belly to digest this food. You'll wake up at 3 o'clock in the morning.

• 1:52:09Adam Skolnick?

  Don't eat pasta.

• 1:52:09Rich Roll?

  So I don't know if it's, you know, it will do the trick in terms of getting you to fall asleep. Not sure that's the best practice, but perhaps, you know, get over this fear of macros and start, you know, eating complex carbohydrates that are satiating. You can eat potatoes, you can eat sweet potatoes, you can eat long grain rice, like, there's plenty of things that you could be eating.

• 1:52:29Adam Skolnick?

  Curries, beans and rice.

• 1:52:30Rich Roll?

  Yeah, tons of beans.

• 1:52:31Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:52:31Rich Roll?

  I eat gigantic, gigantic bowls of beans and rice. My kids still, like, they'll get, you know, we go to the dinner table, they get their normal plates out, and I'll go and I'll get the giant, like, salad bowl, and I put my dinner in that, and they laugh every time, but I just feel like I got, I have to eat more, so.

• 1:52:51Adam Skolnick?

  You know, eat avocados, like, that's, Tom Brady eats, drinks avocados. You can eat avocados.

• 1:52:57Rich Roll?

  Right, and I think, you know, I think there is a little bit of a block here because of that fear of gaining weight, and maybe, you know, maybe you need to...

• 1:53:08Rich Roll?

  You know, in letting go of that, be okay with putting on a little bit of weight as you figure this out for yourself, because what you want to do is have the weight come off the right way, so it stays off. But if you're constantly starving and not sleeping well, because you're afraid of putting on weight, you're not going to sustain this anyway. You're going to end up lapsing back into some unhealthy habits.

• 1:53:29Adam Skolnick?

  Alexei Molchinnov, once so many years ago, the great freediver, world record holder, said, "It's not the number that's on the scale. It's okay to have a bigger number if you're fit."

• 1:53:42Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:53:43Adam Skolnick?

  Fitness and the number on the scale are two separate things. You don't have to, they don't mean the same thing.

• 1:53:50Rich Roll?

  Good point. Final thought for Kevin is to, and he didn't talk about this at all, which I think he, which is instructive that he didn't bring it up, but I'm curious about what his pre-sleep routine is. Like, perhaps there's some work that you could do around setting yourself up for a good night of sleep. Like, are you having a magnesium tea at night? Are you avoiding those screens? Do you take a bath? You know, maybe take a warm bath, like, an hour before you go to bed. Do an evening meditation. Listen to, you know, get the Calm app out and listen to a sleep story. Like, part of this might also be induced by anxiety. Like, what part of this is more of a mental, emotional thing, and what part of it is

• 1:54:35Rich Roll?

  actually a physiological response to his food intake?

• 1:54:38Adam Skolnick?

  And if all else fails, listen to Roll On. Go right out.

• 1:54:42Rich Roll?

  Right. Get a tent, cold air in the room, get a face mask, a gravity blanket. The world is your oyster, Kevin.

• 1:54:48Adam Skolnick?

  And David Attenborough, you know, he puts me right to sleep.

• 1:54:52Rich Roll?

  There you go. Yeah, there's certain people, right? Nature sounds, whatever does it for you.

• 1:54:57Adam Skolnick?

  But hey, thanks for the question.

• 1:54:59Rich Roll?

  Hope that was helpful. Thank you, Kevin.

• 1:55:01Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah. And thanks for the great recording.

• 1:55:04Rich Roll?

  That's right, his own mic. Should we require that everybody have their own mic now?

• 1:55:09Adam Skolnick?

  No, this makes my job a lot harder. Please don't. All right. The last one is a fun one, from a friend in Columbus, from the 614.

• 1:55:19Speaker 04

  Hey, Rich and Adam, this is Ben calling from Columbus, Ohio. I recently packed up my things, left my job, and decided to go on a road trip out west for four months. I got two questions for you guys. One... What book would you bring on a road trip for yourself? And secondly, Adam, I know you're looking for running questions. So I've been a road runner my whole life and I'm excited to hit the trail. What tips do you have for me to transition from pavement to trail running? Thanks.

• 1:55:49Rich Roll?

  Adam, what do you think the odds are that Ben's four month trip turns into a one year trip?

• 1:55:56Adam Skolnick?

  High.

• 1:55:57Rich Roll?

  I think it's high.

• 1:55:58Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:55:58Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:55:59Adam Skolnick?

  I hope so. I hope, I hope that for him.

• 1:56:02Rich Roll?

  Extend it, right?

• 1:56:03Adam Skolnick?

  Huh?

• 1:56:03Rich Roll?

  Extend it.

• 1:56:04Adam Skolnick?

  Has Ben seen you?

• 1:56:05Rich Roll?

  I'm jealous.

• 1:56:06Adam Skolnick?

  Or has Ben mid-career?

• 1:56:07Rich Roll?

  I don't know. I can't tell. I can't tell. He didn't, he didn't leave his age, right?

• 1:56:11Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:56:12Rich Roll?

  Well, he had a job, so he's not like just graduating from college or something like that.

• 1:56:16Adam Skolnick?

  I feel like it's the first job out of college, though.

• 1:56:17Rich Roll?

  I think so. First or second. I'd pin him at, you know, maybe 24.

• 1:56:20Adam Skolnick?

  Okay.

• 1:56:21Rich Roll?

  25.

• 1:56:22Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:56:23Rich Roll?

  I hope, I hope we're not way off on that.

• 1:56:24Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:56:26Rich Roll?

  I suspect mid twenties, but thanks for the question, Ben. I am jealous. That sounds like such a cool opportunity to just hit the road. Four months, the world is your oyster.

• 1:56:38Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 1:56:39Rich Roll?

  You know what I mean?

• 1:56:40Adam Skolnick?

  Good job, pack car.

• 1:56:41Rich Roll?

  When life was simple, Adam, when life was simple.

• 1:56:43Adam Skolnick?

  Hey.

• 1:56:44Rich Roll?

  You know?

• 1:56:45Adam Skolnick?

  We had our run.

• 1:56:46Rich Roll?

  I know, we did, right?

• 1:56:47Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 1:56:48Rich Roll?

  I'm happy where I'm at. I'm good. It's okay.

• 1:56:51Adam Skolnick?

  Sorry, Ben, we're back to ourselves.

• 1:56:52Rich Roll?

  Books. Books. You can't go on a four month road trip, this, you know?

• 1:57:02Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:57:02Rich Roll?

  This lighting out on the frontier.

• 1:57:04Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 1:57:05Rich Roll?

  In a journey of self-discovery.

• 1:57:07Adam Skolnick?

  Head west.

• 1:57:08Rich Roll?

  Without reading On the Road by Jack Kerouac. Are you even allowed to go on a four month road trip?

• 1:57:15Adam Skolnick?

  Without On the Road?

• 1:57:16Rich Roll?

  As a young man, without having read On the Road?

• 1:57:19Adam Skolnick?

  You know, I mean, On the Road is a seminal book for me. I've probably read it 10 times. I didn't include that on my list.

• 1:57:26Rich Roll?

  It's such a Gen X.

• 1:57:27Adam Skolnick?

  You had first, you had first dibs.

• 1:57:29Rich Roll?

  It's a Gen X boomer referral, though, is it not?

• 1:57:31Adam Skolnick?

  It is. It might be, it may.

• 1:57:34Rich Roll?

  Has that book been canceled? Can we check the cancellation file?

• 1:57:38Adam Skolnick?

  I think it's okay still.

• 1:57:40Rich Roll?

  Who's in charge of the cancellation vault?

• 1:57:42Adam Skolnick?

  I think that one's alright.

• 1:57:43Rich Roll?

  I think it is too.

• 1:57:44Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:57:45Rich Roll?

  So I would recommend that, but you, sorry, I was like, you were about to say something else.

• 1:57:49Adam Skolnick?

  No, I think it's a great question. I think, you know, it's a two parter. Go for it. You have, you have a few books down here.

• 1:57:55Rich Roll?

  Right. Well, I'm just thinking, okay, Ben, what's going on in Ben's life that he decided to quit his job, pack everything up and like head out on the road?

• 1:58:02Adam Skolnick?

  Well, obviously it feels like an inflection point where he wants to go inward a little bit and figure out what the next thing is.

• 1:58:11Rich Roll?

  Or, you know, maybe connect a little bit more deeply with, with who he is. And so what are the books that you would recommend? Somebody who's, you know, playing around with that on the road because you're on the road.

• 1:58:23Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 1:58:24Rich Roll?

  Why not Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl? Tops everybody's list, you know, who's, who's grappling with these ideas, I think. And one of my favorites also, Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda.

• 1:58:37Adam Skolnick?

  I wanted to like that one. I couldn't.

• 1:58:39Rich Roll?

  Couldn't get behind it?

• 1:58:40Adam Skolnick?

  I couldn't, couldn't get through it.

• 1:58:41Rich Roll?

  Too magical? Too crazy?

• 1:58:44Adam Skolnick?

  I think my problem with it was every chap, chapter ended well.

• 1:58:48Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:58:48Adam Skolnick?

  You know, because his life was, you know, he was magnificent human being. I'm very a big fan of Paramahansa Yogananda. I just didn't get through the entire autobiography.

• 1:58:56Rich Roll?

  I think it's just a cool book to expand your sense of possibility and develop some appreciation for the mystical.

• 1:59:08Adam Skolnick?

  So my, you want to hear a Paramahansa Yogananda story?

• 1:59:11Rich Roll?

  I do.

• 1:59:11Adam Skolnick?

  Before we get into, finish this question. So during, I think it was during the LA Yoga days, when we first started LA Yoga Magazine, I set up a meeting with the head of the Self-Realization Fellowship at the time. I think it was number, maybe it was number two. And their headquarters are in Mount Washington in Los Angeles, which was the original house, the original estate before any of the others. That's where he set, Paramahansa Yogananda set up shop. And we were supposed to have our meeting in the boardroom, which has like all these really cool artifacts and stuff. And I was really excited to sit there and have this conversation, but we got booted. And I was a little disappointed, but he goes, you know, let's sit by the fireplace. And the guy wasn't particularly warm or anything or like memorable.

• 1:59:55Adam Skolnick?

  But he said, you know, a lot of people say after, you know, he used to spend every evening down here having tea by the fireplace every, every evening and had whoever guests came through, that's where he'd spend his time. And they say, you know, you people can feel his presence sometimes. And at the time, I wasn't particularly a huge Paramahansa Yogananda guy because he was merging, you know, his worldview with Jesus and, you know, trying to make yoga more palatable by using Christianity as some sort of a Trojan horse, say, or not even a Trojan, that's a disrespectful way of putting it, but to show the, how they fit together. And so I was like, pretty new to, to that world. Had my interview with him. Like I said, he was not super impressed with me. I didn't really like him that much.

• 2:00:39Adam Skolnick?

  But then we finished the interview fine. And I get up and walking out the door and I'm like, like physically high, like I'm floating out of my body kind of high. Like I'm just like lightheaded, like my, all my energy, exact flow state kind of stuff. Like seriously, like time slowed down. I felt it a few times in my life, but this was very profound.

• 2:01:01Rich Roll?

  Wow.

• 2:01:02Adam Skolnick?

  And not, no drugs, no, nothing, you know, like it felt like the coming on of a psychedelic trip without taking any drugs. That's what it felt like.

• 2:01:10Rich Roll?

  So what do you make of that?

• 2:01:12Adam Skolnick?

  Yogananda.

• 2:01:13Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 2:01:13Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, no question.

• 2:01:14Rich Roll?

  That's a trip.

• 2:01:14Adam Skolnick?

  Isn't that cool?

• 2:01:15Rich Roll?

  That is a trip.

• 2:01:16Adam Skolnick?

  So.

• 2:01:17Rich Roll?

  For people that don't know, Paramahansa Yogananda was, was many things, but he was one of the initial people to come from India to the United States and was part of the movement of introducing yoga and meditation and all these things that have become so integrated into our culture and a time when these were crazy, brand new ideas.

• 2:01:35Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah. And then like the 1920s, he was coming here and, you know.

• 2:01:38Rich Roll?

  And he would sit in these salons in Manhattan and, you know, have these get togethers that are reminiscent of, you know, that movie, The Master.

• 2:01:46Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 2:01:47Rich Roll?

  That's what comes to mind, like what that vibe must've been like. But just a beautiful, you know, magnificent consciousness. There's that headquarters on Mount Washington, but there's also the self. Realization Retreat Center in in Pacific Palisades where you can the grounds are open and there's this pond and you can go meditate there and also the temple in Encinitas

• 2:02:09Adam Skolnick?

  Which is my favorite one.

• 2:02:10Rich Roll?

  Right on the beach, which is the surf spot right off of it is called Swamis. And I think a lot of people don't know that. That's why it's called Swamis.

• 2:02:17Adam Skolnick?

  No, I agree.

• 2:02:18Rich Roll?

  Because he is the Swami.

• 2:02:19Adam Skolnick?

  So if you don't read the book, Ben, make sure you stop by one of his sites.

• 2:02:24Rich Roll?

  He should go, yeah, he should read the book and then go visit one of those sites.

• 2:02:28Adam Skolnick?

  Exactly. Read the book. Don't take, don't worry about me. I'm the guy that the Self-Realization Fellowship didn't even like.

• 2:02:36Rich Roll?

  But you're an unlikely person to have that kind of, you know, experience and then admit to it. You know what I mean? Like you're, you have a practical, grounded, you know, perspective.

• 2:02:44Adam Skolnick?

  No, that happens.

• 2:02:45Rich Roll?

  So, yeah, that's very cool.

• 2:02:48Adam Skolnick?

  My carowak of choice is the Dharma Bums. I, On the Road was very important to me because it gives permission to be expansive. It gives permission to reach for some expansive sense of self and joy in the moment and and not be someone who's about collecting stuff and putting it in their stuff house. And that's what you need to do. Like I still am guided by that in some degree, to some degree. The Dharma Bums, though, it comes after On the Road has, is, On the Road's in the can. Everyone loves it as publishers. It's not out yet. And he goes on one last road trip before it becomes this massive hit.

• 2:03:30Adam Skolnick?

  He's written it. It's all done. And this is the next thing that he does. And he does another cross-country trip. And he meets up with his buddies in the Bay Area and Oregon and he ends up as a lookout in a fire tower in Washington State. And there's a lot more meditation and mindfulness. So this is where the Beats start to get credit for bringing in eastern practices and mindfulness into their and and meditation into their work, which became mainstreamed. And I love Dharma Bums. Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott Odell is a classic for around here. It's about, it's actually about a little Chumash girl who is kind of moored and left behind

• 2:04:10Adam Skolnick?

  with her little brother on one of the Channel Islands here. And it's what happens to her as she fends for herself for Over a decade, I believe it is, or maybe it's-

• 2:04:18Rich Roll?

  My daughter read that book in school.

• 2:04:20Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, it's now, it's taught in school, but I never read it until later. I read it in maybe one big gulp, like, sitting down in the sun. It's like an adventure book, so like, but it's so beautiful. And it talks about, you know, the Channel Islands here.

• 2:04:34Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 2:04:35Adam Skolnick?

  So I love that book.

• 2:04:35Rich Roll?

  How she survived.

• 2:04:37Adam Skolnick?

  Incredible. Like, I don't even want to spoil anything. It's sad at first, but it ends up being quite incredible. And then Evening in Paradise by Lucia Berlin, who's an overlooked short story author. I think I might have referenced her with the Rachel Kushner stuff, but she was like, she didn't have any hits. She was revered by her peers, considered in like the 60s, 70s, maybe 70s and 80s, considered one of these great, the female Raymond Carver, short story writer, but just couldn't get any traction commercially and had to do odd jobs basically her whole life, until she had a collection called The Confessions of a Cleaning Woman, came out very late career, when she was like suffering health problems from, I think alcoholism was involved in that.

• 2:05:18Adam Skolnick?

  And she ends up having a late career bestseller and is a faculty at the University of Colorado. But before that, she was a cleaning woman, she was X, she was Y, she was like, she lived this very outsized, huge life. And Evening in Paradise is a second collection, I think it came out posthumously. But to me, I enjoyed that one better than The Confessions of a Cleaning Woman.

• 2:05:38Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I haven't read that.

• 2:05:39Adam Skolnick?

  And that includes, like, she grew up a diplomat's daughter in Chile. She has this crazy life. But it's semi-autobiographical stuff, it is fiction. So you just don't really know where the line is, but it's a lot of fun.

• 2:05:50Rich Roll?

  You see what we did there?

• 2:05:52Adam Skolnick?

  No, what did I do?

• 2:05:53Rich Roll?

  Just when everybody thought that this was a swim around conversation, you reminded everybody that this is truly a literary podcast.

• 2:06:06Adam Skolnick?

  But now, back to running.

• 2:06:08Rich Roll?

  Back to running.

• 2:06:08Adam Skolnick?

  Rich.

• 2:06:09Rich Roll?

  Switching it up.

• 2:06:10Adam Skolnick?

  Tell them how to go from- Tell them how to go from road to trail.

• 2:06:12Rich Roll?

  What does your podcast do? What did, no, it's the question again. I know. What does your podcast do? I know. A little bit of everything, I suppose. Road to trail, don't overthink it. It doesn't have to be that different. I mean, I would say, as Ricky Gates says, fun over fast. When you're on the road, you have this tendency, because it's a straight line or what have you, to be really wedded to Garmin, all the metrics. What's your pace? What's your cadence? What's your heart rate? You can get really dialed in on that because it is, you know, you're limiting your variables. But once you get on a trail, all that goes out the window. So I would encourage you, I mean, I don't know what your relationship is to, to road running, so maybe you're already cool with letting go of all of that.

• 2:06:57Rich Roll?

  For some, it's a challenge to just, you know, be present for the experience. Let go of pace, let go of cadence, and just enjoy yourself and allow your mind to wander and your senses to experience the environment. It's not that different, but, you know, it does, it depends on the trail, of course. Like, is it technical? Is it flat? Is it super steep? You will, in general, have to be a little bit more hyper vigilant about your environments. Like, are there crazy wild animals around here? You have to be vigilant about your foot placement. Are there roots and rocks that you can trip on? One thing that was helpful to me when I was trying to get used to running on trails is, is this idea of letting the trail work for you.

• 2:07:39Rich Roll?

  Like, if you're running downhill on a road, it's one thing, but on a trail, you can kind of bound from rock to rock and kind of be more in, like, like surfing, like riding a wave as opposed to, you know, forcing yourself into a certain kind of pace, like gliding the descents, learning how to be light on your feet, and then delicate on the ascents until you develop some kind of confidence. And then I would just say, you know, it's more important that you take safety precautions because, especially if you're, you're going on a road trip, you're in the middle of nowhere, you want to go on this trail, nobody knows where you are. Who knows if any people are out there? You get bit by a rattlesnake, or you just fall down and twist your ankle and you can't run, you know, you gotta make sure that you have a phone with you, that there is cell

• 2:08:24Rich Roll?

  service. There are things like... On Strava, you can do like, you can broadcast live, or you can let certain people know where you are, so that there's some accountability if something happens to you.

• 2:08:35Adam Skolnick?

  Oh, nice. Yes.

• 2:08:36Rich Roll?

  Make sure that you have a hydration pack, and are taking care of all that kind of stuff. And then, one final little piece of practical advice is to get the AllTrails app, which is a great app, and it shows you where all the trails are, wherever you're traveling. So, you can, it makes that discovery process a little bit easier.

• 2:08:55Adam Skolnick?

  Beautiful.

• 2:08:55Rich Roll?

  Cool.

• 2:08:57Adam Skolnick?

  Ben, thanks for a fun question.

• 2:08:59Rich Roll?

  Are we done? Any more books you want to tell us about?

• 2:09:02Adam Skolnick?

  I think... No. I kept, I kept the books down to four this time. Is that okay?

• 2:09:09Rich Roll?

  It was good, though. No, you're, you're in, you know, speaking of Dharma bums, you are in your Dharma when you're discussing literature. It's beautiful to watch.

• 2:09:17Adam Skolnick?

  It's very kind of you to say that.

• 2:09:19Rich Roll?

  Yes.

• 2:09:20Adam Skolnick?

  But the reality, I'm not an in-crowd literary person by any means.

• 2:09:25Rich Roll?

  It's not about that.

• 2:09:26Adam Skolnick?

  No, but I do love it.

• 2:09:28Rich Roll?

  How's the novel coming?

• 2:09:29Adam Skolnick?

  It's coming, man. We're almost done with the third pass, and then there'll be a fourth pass, and we'll keep going. But the, one thing about books that I love is like, you can, I was reading this at the same time I was reading, what's the mini-series? It was, God, why am I spacing on it? The series with Ethan Hawke.

• 2:09:49Rich Roll?

  Oh, yeah, I know what you're talking about. It has a crazy name. I know exactly what you're saying.

• 2:09:54Adam Skolnick?

  Good Lord Bird.

• 2:09:55Rich Roll?

  Good Lord Bird.

• 2:09:56Adam Skolnick?

  Sorry about that. Good Lord Bird.

• 2:09:57Rich Roll?

  Based on an amazing book.

• 2:09:59Adam Skolnick?

  Yes, and I was reading that at the same time I was reading this, and then I also got this new translation of the Dada Qing, and I was thinking of like, what other mode do we have where you could be in, you know, pre-Civil War time, early 20th century Hawaii, and, you know, whatever, like, B.C., China? Only books. Nothing else can even come close to it.

• 2:10:22Rich Roll?

  Well, virtual reality's gonna catch up to that.

• 2:10:27Rich Roll?

  Don't worry about the books.

• 2:10:27Adam Skolnick?

  Yes, that's true.

• 2:10:28Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 2:10:28Adam Skolnick?

  VR, VR is next.

• 2:10:30Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Just some tweak on the simulation.

• 2:10:34Adam Skolnick?

  Time travel.

• 2:10:35Rich Roll?

  That's right.

• 2:10:37Adam Skolnick?

  Would you do it like if someone came in here right now with a time travel portal? And said, we don't know when we can, we can get you back. We don't know how long it will take.

• 2:10:48Rich Roll?

  And you don't know, do you know what, what era you're going into?

• 2:10:51Adam Skolnick?

  You get to choose the era.

• 2:10:53Rich Roll?

  I think we have a romantic attachment with certain periods of time, thinking that they were better than they were. That was never more evident than watching The Nick. And you just see like, I'm so glad that I didn't live in 1900.

• 2:11:09Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 2:11:09Rich Roll?

  It just looked awful.

• 2:11:10Adam Skolnick?

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:11:11Rich Roll?

  You know?

• 2:11:12Adam Skolnick?

  Well, there'd be plumbing issues.

• 2:11:14Rich Roll?

  Yeah, everybody stank. Everybody was dying of disease everywhere. It was, you know, like if you had a medical problem, good luck. Like it was, you know, but you think like, oh, how cool would it be to live in Manhattan in 1900 or 1920 or one of these times? You know, the roaring twenties and all of that. But I think if you spent a week there, when you've lived a life of iPads and Netflix.

• 2:11:35Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 2:11:35Rich Roll?

  You'd lose your mind.

• 2:11:36Adam Skolnick?

  So basically like if they said it could take a year to get you back.

• 2:11:39Rich Roll?

  Would I go back?

• 2:11:41Adam Skolnick?

  But you can choose where and when. Would you do it?

• 2:11:45Rich Roll?

  Probably.

• 2:11:46Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 2:11:46Rich Roll?

  Because, because why, because what an extraordinary experience.

• 2:11:49Adam Skolnick?

  Exactly. And where would you go?

• 2:11:52Rich Roll?

  Maybe Paris in the 1920s.

• 2:11:54Adam Skolnick?

  Nice.

• 2:11:56Rich Roll?

  I don't know. Maybe that's not thinking broadly or more creatively enough.

• 2:12:01Adam Skolnick?

  Sounds pretty cool to me.

• 2:12:02Rich Roll?

  Where would you go?

• 2:12:03Adam Skolnick?

  That's a good question. I'm asking the questions around here, Rich.

• 2:12:07Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's like on your literary podcast. All right, listen, we've been going for well over two hours. We're ending this thing. We could talk about time travel and the simulation next time.

• 2:12:16Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 2:12:16Rich Roll?

  VR.

• 2:12:17Adam Skolnick?

  Let's do it.

• 2:12:18Rich Roll?

  What's better, VR or books?

• 2:12:20Adam Skolnick?

  R. R is better.

• 2:12:21Rich Roll?

  Debate.

• 2:12:22Adam Skolnick?

  R is always better than VR.

• 2:12:24Rich Roll?

  All right, man. You feel good?

• 2:12:26Adam Skolnick?

  I do.

• 2:12:26Rich Roll?

  I feel good, man.

• 2:12:27Adam Skolnick?

  Sorry for.

• 2:12:27Rich Roll?

  I'm over my languishing, I think. Thank you for helping me get over that. I've been de-languished.

• 2:12:33Adam Skolnick?

  Fantastic.

• 2:12:34Rich Roll?

  Yes.

• 2:12:35Adam Skolnick?

  Wait till you try on this mask.

• 2:12:36Rich Roll?

  I can't, that's never gonna happen. Never. Cut, smash cut to me on Instagram, wearing that mask. Right?

• 2:12:45Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 2:12:46Rich Roll?

  All right. See you in two weeks. Maybe, we might have to postpone because of the...

• 2:12:52Adam Skolnick?

  Oh, right.

• 2:12:52Rich Roll?

  You're gonna go see the Iron Cowboy. So, well, yeah, we might have to rearrange that. Maybe not in two weeks, we'll figure it out. In the meantime, follow Adam on the internets, @adamskolnick. Leave us a message with your question, 424-235-4626. Check out the show notes on the episode page at richroll.com for links to everything we talked about today. We'll also put links up in the description below if you're watching this on YouTube. Speaking of YouTube, subscribe to our channel on YouTube, subscribe to our Clips channel, and you can find us on Apple, Spotify, all the places. If you want to be super generous, throw a few stars at us, say a few nice things. I say that to friends and enemies alike.

• 2:13:31Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 2:13:32Rich Roll?

  What else? I think that's it.

• 2:13:34Adam Skolnick?

  Shout out Brogan Graham.

• 2:13:35Rich Roll?

  Shout out to Brogan. We work through, we're in a good place, audience. All of us. Right? Good. How's your short film practice going?

• 2:13:46Adam Skolnick?

  I sent a couple, I sent a couple.

• 2:13:48Rich Roll?

  We're on a group chat.

• 2:13:49Adam Skolnick?

  I sent a couple from the mountains.

• 2:13:51Rich Roll?

  But are you doing it with other people?

• 2:13:53Adam Skolnick?

  No, I have not expanded it out.

• 2:13:55Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that's the thing.

• 2:13:56Adam Skolnick?

  It's amazing to me how many of these Brogan ass go.

• 2:14:00Rich Roll?

  He's a full-time production studio. I know. And then he edits them and creates movies out of, you know, like, his library of...

• 2:14:08Adam Skolnick?

  He's got like, you know what, Brogan, you have a very, a very handsome, creative group of people that you're doing these with.

• 2:14:16Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 2:14:16Adam Skolnick?

  Thank you for including us.

• 2:14:18Rich Roll?

  Yeah, thank you. We love you, Brogan.

• 2:14:20Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 2:14:21Rich Roll?

  Peace. Plants.

• 2:14:35Rich Roll?

  I'm not ready to end it yet.

• 2:14:36Adam Skolnick?

  Oh.

• 2:14:37Rich Roll?

  I gotta thank everybody who helped on the show today.

• 2:14:39Adam Skolnick?

  Do it.

• 2:14:40Rich Roll?

  Let's thank Jason Camiolo, sitting right behind me, audio engineer, production, show notes, interstitial music. Jason has a tendency to wake up at 3:00 in the morning and just to make sure that the podcast goes live.

• 2:14:53Adam Skolnick?

  Wow.

• 2:14:53Rich Roll?

  He goes overboard. Blake Curtis, who creates the video version of the podcast, has a penchant for coming in Sunday afternoons. To make sure that the video is dialed up. These guys work really hard. Thank you to both of them. I could not do what I do without their help. Jessica Miranda for graphics. We got, who do we have in today?

• 2:15:15Adam Skolnick?

  Grayson.

• 2:15:16Rich Roll?

  Who do we have? We have Grayson Wilder over here, shooting portraits. New on the team. Thank you, Grayson. Georgia Waite for copywriting. DK for advertiser relationships. Theme music by Tyler Trapper and Harry. We will see you back here when we see you. We will be back here with another cool episode in a couple of days. Until then, namaste, Paramahansa Yogannanda.

• 2:15:38Adam Skolnick?

  Namaste.

• 2:15:39Rich Roll?

  Peace. Plants. Coyote.