Roll On: Everything Roll On

After a brief hiatus, the boys are back with a classic "old school" edition of 'Roll On', the version of the podcast where we ramble on matters of interest across culture, sports, art, politics, self-betterment, and more. This might be the most Roll On Roll On of all Roll Ons. As always, my co-host is Mr. Adam Skolnick, an activist, veteran journalist, and David Goggins’ Can’t Hurt Me co-author. Specific topics discussed in today’s episode include: Rich’s recent adventures in Colorado (and getting COVID—again); how Jim Thorpe was finally restored as sole winner of 1912 Olympics; Kaitlin Armstrong’s capture in Costa Rica; Francois D’Haene, Kilian Jornet & Courtney Dauwalter’s impressive Hardrock 100 results; Yoshihiko Ishikawa stunning performance at the Badwater 135; the importance of the Webb Telescope images; and women’s healthcare rights and the future of abortion in America. In addition, we answer the following listener questions: Is an unbalanced life centered on work a rite of passage when it comes to success? How do you embody gratitude? What books changed your life? If you want your query discussed, drop it on our Facebook Page, or better yet leave a voicemail at (424) 235-4626. Today’s episode is also viewable on YouTube. Show notes:+ MORE: https://bit.ly/richroll693 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?

  Eating well rarely falls apart because of one big failure. It's the daily question that wears you down. Like, what am I actually going to make tonight? What's in the fridge? And it's exactly why we built the Plant Power Meal Planner. It's a personalized, plant-based meal planning program that matches you with recipes based on your taste, your allergies, your cooking skills, and how much time you actually have. You build, through this program, a balanced, nutrient-dense plan for your entire household in a few minutes. Then it generates a grocery list for you with one click that plugs right into our delivery partners. All the recipes in the program are built by dietitians with culinary training. Plus, you get your own food coach to help you problem-solve along the way.

• 0:44Rich Roll?

  It's kind of an amazing thing. For listeners of the show, all you special people, we're offering an exclusive $20 off an annual subscription right now. To get it, go to meals.richroll.com, take your quick personalization quiz, and enter promo code RICHROLL20 at checkout.

• 1:13Rich Roll?

  The Rich Roll Podcast. Hey, everybody. Welcome to Roll On, where after a few minutes off, a non-voluntary, COVID-induced, free-speech, impinging mini-sabbatical, the boys are finally back. And once again, in the seat across from me, we find the hooch to my Turner, the aisles to my risole, the murtog to my rigs, the chef to my chef. Inside joke for all you fans of the bear. We're going to get into that later. The literary lion himself, Mr. Adam Skolnick. And today, as is our want, we bring a fresh perspective on sports, art, culture, world

• 1:54Rich Roll?

  events, try to make a little more sense of this insane world we all inhabit, and have a few laughs along the way. So today, we got a bit of catching up to do because how many weeks has it been since we've done this? I feel rusty.

• 2:08Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, you feel rusty?

• 2:09Rich Roll?

  I do.

• 2:10Adam Skolnick?

  When's the last time you were in that captain's seat?

• 2:13Rich Roll?

  You mean, doing a podcast? Last week. Just not with you. I'm rusty with you. We have to, we have to.

• 2:19Adam Skolnick?

  I feel like you're right.

• 2:20Rich Roll?

  Our relationship has to get in sync.

• 2:22Adam Skolnick?

  It's gonna be like a couple that has like.

• 2:25Rich Roll?

  We haven't talked in a bit.

• 2:26Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, hasn't, you know, and then the first time back, it's like, you know, but I think we're doing okay.

• 2:31Rich Roll?

  I think we'll hit our stride. So yeah, today we got some interesting stories from the world of athletics and ultra running. As usual, we share a few things we've been enjoying respectively.

• 2:43Rich Roll?

  Based on the outline in front of me, which I'm willing to toss out the window and just freewheel if you want. But I'd characterize what we've kind of thought about talking about today as a pretty classic version of roll on, an old school roll on, if it can be old school.

• 2:59Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, a retro roll on.

• 3:01Rich Roll?

  Have we been doing it long enough that we can do vintage?

• 3:05Adam Skolnick?

  It's a vintage roll on. It's, let's see, let's see what the listening public has to say.

• 3:09Rich Roll?

  I don't know. Anyway.

• 3:10Adam Skolnick?

  They were concerned. I was getting messages saying, where's roll on? Are you, did something happen? Did you got, are you guys in a fight?

• 3:17Rich Roll?

  Did you stoke that conspiracy theory?

• 3:21Adam Skolnick?

  I sprinkled it. I have a Reddit thread that you're not aware of.

• 3:24Rich Roll?

  I did tweet out that I had COVID and we were gonna have to take a break. But, you know, not everyone's on Twitter, so.

• 3:30Adam Skolnick?

  Well, I mean, I think we should, one thing we should dispense with before we get into the Adam check in. Tell us how you're feeling. COVID for the second time in what, six weeks?

• 3:42Rich Roll?

  Why don't you check in first and we'll get into it.

• 3:44Adam Skolnick?

  Okay.

• 3:45Rich Roll?

  I'm happy to share about it.

• 3:46Adam Skolnick?

  All right. Well, I'm excited to announce my new career. I've tendered my resignation at Ben and Jerry's.

• 3:53Rich Roll?

  Is that shirt part of the uniform for whatever this new career is?

• 3:58Adam Skolnick?

  No, it's just a shirt.

• 4:01Rich Roll?

  But that might be the most Skolnikian shirt I've ever seen you wear.

• 4:04Adam Skolnick?

  There you go. It's a Skolnikian by way of Patagonia. But I've been spending the last several weeks while, when you haven't been answering my calls, just really connected to the LA Sheriff's Department where I've been training as a driver's license revocator. And so what that means is I've been deputized with the power that if you flout the rules of the road in front of me, I can and will revoke your license on the spot. So that means if you cut me off by changing lanes or turning late onto the road right in front of me and then immediately hit your brakes, by the time you get home, you will no longer be a licensed driver.

• 4:41Rich Roll?

  Are you feeling disempowered in your life?

• 4:43Adam Skolnick?

  No, I'm just saying.

• 4:43Rich Roll?

  Where is this impulse coming from?

• 4:45Adam Skolnick?

  If you run a four-way stop while I'm running while pushing a stroller, no more license for you. That's where this comes from.

• 4:51Rich Roll?

  Right, so I'm just trying to play this out, like the practicalities of it. So you're gonna chase this guy down and potentially get into a physical altercation?

• 4:59Adam Skolnick?

  No, no, no. I just get the license plate. And then we do, we work all the little Ring cameras. There's an algorithm that I work. All the Ring cameras, I can find all the public cameras. We get the driver's face recognition. And immediately, I can do it virtually. That's how good I am. That's what this training's all about.

• 5:19Rich Roll?

  How much time have you invested in this fantasy?

• 5:22Adam Skolnick?

  Fantasy? This is a real thing.

• 5:24Rich Roll?

  Okay.

• 5:25Adam Skolnick?

  If I see you creeping along the road at rush hour traffic with a long line of cars behind you, and you're looking for a parking space for you, I will issue a warning. And if it doesn't happen again, that's fine.

• 5:36Rich Roll?

  What are you supposed to do if you're looking for a parking spot?

• 5:38Adam Skolnick?

  Listen, I'm tough but fair, is my point.

• 5:40Rich Roll?

  You need to slow down to find that spot.

• 5:42Adam Skolnick?

  I know, but there's ways of doing it, Rich. You know, we're in this together. This is a team game.

• 5:47Rich Roll?

  Well, I might need to deploy your services because my eldest daughter, Mathis, she just got her driver's license. And she's been driving around for all of 10 days at this point as a newly minted licensed driver.

• 6:01Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 6:01Rich Roll?

  And she already got her first moving violation.

• 6:03Adam Skolnick?

  Really?

• 6:04Rich Roll?

  So in that case, assuming your, you know, temperance for fairness.

• 6:08Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 6:09Rich Roll?

  Would you revoke her license?

• 6:11Adam Skolnick?

  Absolutely not. First of all, I'm not against speeding. Speeding has its time and place. I'm not gonna revoke a license over mere speeding.

• 6:19Rich Roll?

  Okay.

• 6:20Adam Skolnick?

  It's really more about the driver that doesn't, that's not aware of the rules. Not the one that flouts the rules for a specific purpose.

• 6:28Rich Roll?

  I'm still trying to get at what's behind this. This irritation with people that don't follow the rules.

• 6:34Adam Skolnick?

  It's not really that.

• 6:35Rich Roll?

  What is the temperament?

• 6:36Adam Skolnick?

  My irritation with people who can't drive. That's what my irritation is.

• 6:40Rich Roll?

  You live in the wrong state. You should move to, you know.

• 6:43Adam Skolnick?

  See, you're...

• 6:43Rich Roll?

  Move to Germany or something.

• 6:45Adam Skolnick?

  You're at that zone two heartbeat. Like, if you see an idiot driver out there, that doesn't bother you?

• 6:51Rich Roll?

  I get ruffled from time to time.

• 6:53Adam Skolnick?

  That's all I'm saying.

• 6:53Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I know what that's like.

• 6:55Adam Skolnick?

  But I heard that when you were at the DMV getting Mathis her license, or she got it herself, she passed the test.

• 7:01Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 7:01Adam Skolnick?

  You ran into a friend of mine.

• 7:02Rich Roll?

  I had a celebrity encounter at the DMV.

• 7:05Adam Skolnick?

  Who was it?

• 7:05Rich Roll?

  In Thousand Oaks. Your buddy, the Malibu artist.

• 7:08Adam Skolnick?

  Carlos.

• 7:09Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 7:10Adam Skolnick?

  Malibu artist, how was that? Was it a funny?

• 7:12Rich Roll?

  His name comes up with more regularity on this podcast than most people.

• 7:17Adam Skolnick?

  I know. Well, he's doing great work. You know, he was just in Florida, or maybe he's still there. But he was working in Jupiter, out of Jupiter, Florida. He was reporting on a shark fishing tournament. Where there's this sanctioned tournament. NOAA has given permits to these boats. There were 57 boats in the competition, apparently. Only 12 came to weigh in. 11 bull sharks were taken. And it's a tournament that claims to support conservation science. And they claim that hundreds of sharks were tagged on a catch and release basis. But undercover footage has since emerged with tournament organizers saying, suggesting to the fishermen to kill as many sharks as possible and don't dispose the bodies. Don't just take the jaws and toss them over. Because divers will go looking for them

• 8:02Adam Skolnick?

  and they're afraid of the environmentalists to, you know, sensationalize things. But the fact of the matter is, no evidence of tag data registration has emerged from this competition. There's no videos of tag and release that have been put forward by the organizers. Fishermen often do participate in science, but there's no evidence that that happened here. And so, you know, personally, I have no vendetta against fishermen. I respect anybody who dedicates their life to being on the water. I don't respect the, you know, sport hunting of, you know, sharks at all.

• 8:35Rich Roll?

  Just out of curiosity, how would you steel man the support conservation science argument behind this? Like, what is that argument?

• 8:44Adam Skolnick?

  Their argument was that they were tagging sharks. And then they were releasing them. So then the tags, you know, shark scientists can then theoretically track migration patterns and you can learn about shark behavior.

• 8:56Rich Roll?

  But in fact, there was no tagging.

• 8:58Adam Skolnick?

  In fact, we don't have any evidence that there was tagging. I can't say there wasn't. I just don't, we haven't seen any evidence emerge yet.

• 9:05Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 9:06Adam Skolnick?

  And the same organizers have planned to hold a statewide tournament soon. And that's what's really, kind of like, you see certain countries, like, French Polynesia has banned shark fishing entirely. Sharks are a huge part of the, of the culture. It's completely banned there. Hawaii, shark fishing is banned. You can't do it. There's no reason to have sport shark fishing. Sharks are needed to control certain populations that might eat seagrass or kelp beds, which are important for reabsorption of carbon. They are the apex predator, therefore, they manage the whole ecosystem. So when you remove sharks from the water, you, you are damaging the ecosystem. I've written about this. We've talked about it before.

• 9:49Adam Skolnick?

  So this is kind of an example of it. It's a great, like, 11-minute video in Malibu artist's style, so I definitely urge you guys to check it out.

• 9:57Rich Roll?

  Yeah, if you're watching on YouTube, you're seeing clips from it. And we'll link the video up in the show notes, of course. But it is amazing to me that this is not outlawed.

• 10:07Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 10:08Rich Roll?

  And what is the sort of legislative resistance to making that happen?

• 10:12Adam Skolnick?

  Well, it's Florida.

• 10:14Rich Roll?

  It's a state-by-state thing?

• 10:16Adam Skolnick?

  In terms of hunting and fishing laws, I believe it is. And now that the EPA, you know, that, that, there's that Supreme Court decision that was handed down that makes it harder for the EPA to, I guess, manage greenhouse gases. I don't know where that comes along in terms of this. You know, bull sharks are not endangered, so that's probably part of it. You know, you can hunt them. I just think that we need to think differently about hunting and fishing laws. Like I said, I'm not against fishermen doing their business and making a living, as long as it's an environmentally sustainable way. I respect them. This is not that.

• 10:50Rich Roll?

  Aren't we on the cusp of Shark Week?

• 10:52Adam Skolnick?

  I think it's happening, yeah.

• 10:53Rich Roll?

  Is it started yet?

• 10:54Adam Skolnick?

  And Denis Gromare, the great freediver that was swimming with the tiger sharks, he's in Shark Week this time.

• 10:59Rich Roll?

  Oh, he is?

• 10:59Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, he's in it.

• 11:00Rich Roll?

  With friend of the pod, Paul DeGelder, your friendly Shark Week host.

• 11:03Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, but I don't know if he's in that one. He's with, I forget who he's with, someone else we haven't talked about, but she's a reporter.

• 11:09Rich Roll?

  Right. It's interesting that despite mass enthusiasm for Shark Week, that the laws aren't changing more rapidly. I mean, I would have to assume that Shark Week helps enhance, you know, sort of, public awareness around these issues in a positive way. Or does it make people just scared of sharks? I mean, Paul's whole thing is helping people to understand, much like the Malibu artist, that these are important animals that we need to be protecting.

• 11:40Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, I mean, you know.

• 11:41Rich Roll?

  Not hunting and fishing.

• 11:42Adam Skolnick?

  I've been diving and around, professional divers for a long time, and I think that the awareness around sharks' contributions to the ecosystem and its importance, and the fact that they're not choosing to eat humans, and that they're not this predator to be feared as much, is growing, definitely. So that's happening. It's just, you know, the leap from that to legislation is a different thing. You know, I can't answer that. I will say that I think social media has made activism actually more impotent, to be honest with you, because like, you think that you're doing something by tweeting or posting something on Instagram, and you're not doing shit, because that doesn't do anything.

• 12:18Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 12:19Adam Skolnick?

  So, you know, how you can do something is, is talking to people who make those decisions. So that, if anything, we can learn from another thing we're going to talk about soon. I don't want to, you know, but obviously the abortion issue and Roe v. Wade getting overturned, is that those were activists that were definitely boots on the ground for years and years and years and never stopped. And so, like, that's how change happens, not by posting about it.

• 12:43Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it is a weird thing, because you have that pressure valve release if you talk about it on social media. But it's rather ineffectual. I mean, it's...

• 12:52Adam Skolnick?

  It affects culture.

• 12:52Rich Roll?

  I suppose good if you have a large platform and a large audience. It's important to say something and, you know, share your perspective, and perhaps that can move the needle in terms of public opinion. But ultimately, change happens through relentless pressure, boots-on-the-ground-type activism, old-school style.

• 13:09Adam Skolnick?

  But you know, let's get to that later. Most important, how the hell are you?

• 13:14Rich Roll?

  I uh, I feel good.

• 13:15Adam Skolnick?

  Okay.

• 13:16Rich Roll?

  Right now.

• 13:16Adam Skolnick?

  Good.

• 13:17Rich Roll?

  It's been an interesting couple of weeks. Um, I'll start with uh, my visit to Boulder, which I guess was two and a half weeks ago at this point. Um, I traveled to Boulder uh, to do some work with Solomon, who's my partner, longtime partner, friend of the podcast, podcast supporter. They were doing an event in Boulder to celebrate Solomon's 75th birthday, which was super cool. And also to celebrate their best male ultra runner on their team, Francois Dene, who is a wonderful human being and incredible ultra running champion, who lives in France, but had traveled to the United States to get ready for the Hard Rock

• 13:57Rich Roll?

  100, which just transpired last weekend. And so I was to do a Q and A with Francois, and there was like an event at this running store, and there was a fun run and all that kind of stuff. So I went, it was great. The Q and A was amazing. I was able to do also, in addition to that, a podcast with Francois, which went really well, which I'll be releasing at some point. And also-

• 14:18Adam Skolnick?

  A classic on the road podcast from back in the day.

• 14:20Rich Roll?

  And a real old school one with Gordo Byrne, who is a former Ultraman world champion, uh, who I'd never met in person. He's a coach and just a wise human being and somebody I'd wanted to meet for a very long time, who's inspired me and kind of mentored me from afar. And we had an amazing podcast, so-

• 14:36Adam Skolnick?

  Why is that a real old school one?

• 14:38Rich Roll?

  Just because he was a very early and profound influence on me when I was training for Ultraman, as somebody who had had his own life transformation from being kind of a heavyset investment banker, hedge fund type guy, living in Hong Kong, to transforming his life and performing at the highest level as an elite in Iron Man and Ultraman. So he won Ultraman, he also got second at Iron Man Canada. Like, he was training with Scott Molina and living it like full time, like, and he would share in the early days of the internet, on his blogger, WordPress, whatever, like, stuff that he learned. And he had a little podcast at the time called Endurance Corner, where he would share training techniques,

• 15:20Rich Roll?

  et cetera. And I just learned a lot from him, and he was very helpful to me, and it was cool to be able to finally meet him. So that'll be coming out at some point as well. But the point being that- I had a great experience in Boulder and then on the flight home, I started to feel not so great.

• 15:35Adam Skolnick?

  What happened? What was the first symptom?

• 15:37Rich Roll?

  Just, you know, a little congestion, a little heat in the forehead, you know, a little scratchy, like little.

• 15:43Adam Skolnick?

  Were you the guy everyone was looking at with like hate in their eyes?

• 15:46Rich Roll?

  I was trying, I had a little tickle, a tickle in the back of the throat and it reminded me very vividly of my experience flying home from Miami, less than three months prior, where I had hosted a conference and interacted with a lot of people and felt my first COVID symptoms on that flight. And here I was again, having an analogous, very similar experience. Sure enough, COVID round two, I think 11 weeks after I had had it the first time.

• 16:16Adam Skolnick?

  Bummer.

• 16:17Rich Roll?

  So that was not fun. I was down for the count for six or seven days, which is why we didn't have a roll on the other week.

• 16:25Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 16:25Rich Roll?

  I'm feeling good now, but it was interesting. It was different from the first go around. I'd be interested to hear from other people who have had it multiple times. First time I got it, I had two consecutive nights of pretty high fever and chills. This time I only had one, so I thought, oh, well, maybe I'm going to get over this more quickly. But then I had a couple of days of real depression and darkness, and this is something Julie experienced when she had it, like it got really dark for her in a not great way, mental health wise. And I got a taste of that, like not suicidal per se, I don't think it was that severe, but, but definitely this sensation of like nothing matters and like, what's the point?

• 17:09Adam Skolnick?

  I live there.

• 17:13Adam Skolnick?

  That's where I live.

• 17:14Rich Roll?

  Yeah, well, I, maybe I, you know, I was able to crawl up into your skull for a couple of days.

• 17:19Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 17:20Rich Roll?

  The pessimism was looming, the dark cloud.

• 17:22Adam Skolnick?

  I take nothing matters as a, a point of optimism, as nothing matters. No, but seriously, I did see you like had a cryptic tweet in there where you were like talking about, I forget what it was, it was like, I needed that today or something like that. I wonder if it was aligned with that moment.

• 17:37Rich Roll?

  I don't think so. I think at some point I was like, here I go around two or something like that. But I don't think I shared anything truly cryptic about that.

• 17:45Adam Skolnick?

  Okay.

• 17:46Rich Roll?

  Maybe I'm wrong. I don't know. But yeah, so that was different and new the second time. And then just, you know, weakness and it lingered for a while. And then when I thought I was basically on the cusp of crawling out of it and starting to feel better, suddenly I had a fever again on like day eight.

• 18:03Adam Skolnick?

  Did you have to retest?

• 18:05Rich Roll?

  Um, yeah, I was testing like every couple of days. So yeah, I was still positive at that point. So this one lasted a little bit longer.

• 18:13Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 18:13Rich Roll?

  I feel fine now. Um, but yeah, not.

• 18:16Adam Skolnick?

  That's why I sent you that.

• 18:18Rich Roll?

  COVID twice.

• 18:19Adam Skolnick?

  That story from the Tye.

• 18:21Rich Roll?

  I don't even, I'm like reluctant to even share this story, but this post on this site called the Tye, T Y E E, get ready for the forever plague is the most depressing COVID story I've ever read.

• 18:34Adam Skolnick?

  I don't know what's depressing about that graphic.

• 18:36Rich Roll?

  Fear, fear mongering, you know, image to correspond to it. But essentially the thesis of this article, and I would basically tell people not to read this, but basically what it says is it's not going away. These variants are going to continue. The vaccinations and the boosters can't keep pace with the complexity of the, you know, always, you know, new and different variants. And this is just something we're going to have to live with. And not for nothing, once you've had it, like we're seeing the efficacy of like your own immune system response dwindling. And we're seeing more and more people with longer negative health predicaments as a result of repeated exposure.

• 19:16Adam Skolnick?

  Right. And I think what it's an appeal to is basically, you know, be smart, continue to mask up in certain environments. It's not advocating shutdowns at all. It's saying like, if you're indoors in a tight space, you probably should still mask up. Um, outdoors, you're probably fine. But, you know, this idea that six feet is enough is not really there either. And there is long-term health that we're not hearing about, like long-term impacts on immune system and immune response and even vital organs. So they're finding this stuff. It's real science. We're not hearing about it as much. I think people are also just don't want to bother with it anymore because you know, it's not really so much.

• 19:53Rich Roll?

  That's the case. We're seeing a huge spike in Los Angeles right now. Nobody's messed up. People are just not willing to do it anymore.

• 20:01Adam Skolnick?

  Well, I think we, you know, we've been abandoned in some ways in getting information from the leaders. I think it's not we've been abandoned. We don't really want it. You know, I, I think we also just aren't mature enough to handle the truth.

• 20:14Rich Roll?

  Well, we've also, we've also been misled so many times without pointing fingers. Like the public policy response has been so bungled in so many ways that there is a level of distrust and people at this point want to just get on with their lives, you know, and it is what it is. I mean, I don't want to turn this into a, you know, COVID podcast.

• 20:33Adam Skolnick?

  I will say that it seems like COVID might be the price of international travel these days. I've heard it from multiple people who've come back from awesome getaways that got COVID.

• 20:43Rich Roll?

  Just a lot of people are getting it right now.

• 20:45Adam Skolnick?

  You've had our swim teacher for, for Zuma and a couple of his, and like three of his friends went to Barcelona for a couple of weeks. By the way, swim teachers, they get paid so well now. Are you aware of this? I taught swimming in college. Did you teach swimming growing up at all?

• 21:03Rich Roll?

  I was a lifeguard and a coach, but I never taught swim lessons. Maybe I did briefly.

• 21:08Adam Skolnick?

  I taught swim lessons.

• 21:09Rich Roll?

  You can definitely charge a premium, especially in Los Angeles.

• 21:11Adam Skolnick?

  I think I made 25 an hour at the most, like on a private lesson. These swim teachers today, and I'm not going to pinpoint her because it's everyone, I got quotes from multiple. It's like 30 bucks a head for like a 30 minute lesson with toddlers. So they'll get.

• 21:25Rich Roll?

  Not for a private, for a group?

• 21:27Adam Skolnick?

  For a semi-private. It's like 120, it's like lawyer money, like 120 bucks for 30 minutes. It's amazing. And of course she goes to Barcelona, but then she got COVID and we didn't get her to, we missed another week, but. I hope she gets well.

• 21:42Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Well, one final thing on this before we move off of it. The other weird thing that happened when I had COVID was, you know, as I've shared many times, I've had this lower back pain. But during COVID, that seemed to exacerbate. And in addition to that, I had insane, insane nerve pain down my right quadriceps.

• 22:03Adam Skolnick?

  That's crazy.

• 22:03Rich Roll?

  So much so that I couldn't move my leg, let alone put any weight on it. So I was like hobbling around, like I needed like crutches. And I believe it was a pinched nerve at L2, L3, the pinched lateral femoral cutaneous nerve. But it was unbelievably painful. Very acute experience that I've never, I've never had that before. So I thought, well, maybe all the lying down in bed.

• 22:27Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 22:28Rich Roll?

  Created this. But I did come across some information because of course you Google it and then you go down these crazy rabbit holes. I don't know if this is the case, but there does seem to be some evidence that as a complication of COVID-19, there's this thing called acute transverse myelitis, which is inflammation on both sides of one section of spinal cord that damages the insulating material covering nerve cell fibers. So essentially.

• 22:54Adam Skolnick?

  That sounds good.

• 22:55Rich Roll?

  Essentially like inflammation of the, what covers the nerves. And, and that inflammation caused an impingement at L2 or L3.

• 23:05Adam Skolnick?

  Does that regenerate?

• 23:06Rich Roll?

  And so I don't, you know, I don't know. I mean, I, there's, you know, here's a research study that people can read that I can link up. All I know is that, you know, I was praying that it would just go away and it did eventually. And I don't know where it went away. Yeah, prayer. I don't know if it went away naturally as a result of me getting over COVID, but I was also doing electric stimulation therapy in these little devices. And you attach these electrodes to kind of loosen up the muscles. And that seemed to, that seemed to help. But, you know, I'd be curious if anyone else out there had, has experienced anything similar to that.

• 23:39Adam Skolnick?

  Interesting.

• 23:39Rich Roll?

  Because I haven't, I haven't heard of anybody, but it was very strange and extremely painful.

• 23:45Adam Skolnick?

  Dude.

• 23:45Rich Roll?

  Like I said. I feel good. I'm back.

• 23:48Adam Skolnick?

  How's the back generally?

• 23:50Rich Roll?

  It's getting better.

• 23:51Adam Skolnick?

  Good.

• 23:51Rich Roll?

  Yeah, slowly, slowly getting better, building back a little bit, trying to get reconnected with fitness and doing all these little exercises to improve glute strength and pelvic mobility and all that kind of stuff.

• 24:03Adam Skolnick?

  How is, how are your glutes and your pelvic mobility?

• 24:06Rich Roll?

  They are so awesome right now.

• 24:08Adam Skolnick?

  It's good.

• 24:08Rich Roll?

  I was doing good and then COVID hit and I wasn't doing anything during that. And I gotta be really, you know, one thing everybody has told me is just be really conservative and cautious about getting back into fitness too quickly. So you don't have some kind of relapse. So that's it. Julie turns 60 this week.

• 24:25Adam Skolnick?

  Happy birthday, Julie.

• 24:27Rich Roll?

  Yes, on Thursday, as a matter of fact, the day this podcast comes out. So that's exciting. Throw a big party for Julie.

• 24:33Adam Skolnick?

  Are you throwing a big party?

• 24:35Rich Roll?

  Throwing a little party at the house for her friends.

• 24:37Adam Skolnick?

  Nice.

• 24:37Rich Roll?

  Which is fun. And, and yeah, man.

• 24:39Adam Skolnick?

  And he carry a car I O K?

• 24:42Rich Roll?

  She's gonna perform with the boys.

• 24:43Adam Skolnick?

  Really?

• 24:44Rich Roll?

  Some music.

• 24:44Adam Skolnick?

  Fantastic.

• 24:45Rich Roll?

  It'll be good. So let's move off of this. What else do we want to talk about? Well, first of all, let's take a minute to just recap the fact that Cory Booker was on Roll On.

• 24:55Adam Skolnick?

  You mean Cory Booker, my favorite wellness influencer?

• 24:58Rich Roll?

  He is. He has become, he is your new self-help guru.

• 25:02Adam Skolnick?

  I get his every, every day.

• 25:03Rich Roll?

  He posts videos every day of empowering advice.

• 25:07Adam Skolnick?

  It's very inspirational.

• 25:08Rich Roll?

  It really is.

• 25:09Adam Skolnick?

  It is.

• 25:10Rich Roll?

  You know, so.

• 25:11Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 25:11Rich Roll?

  It was pretty cool. I, I think what was funny about that is we were so stoked that we actually got his office to agree to a 15 minute interview.

• 25:19Adam Skolnick?

  Amazing.

• 25:20Rich Roll?

  And I was like being very cautious of not trying to run over our time allotment and be respectful of him. And if you listen to it, I keep kind of interjecting, trying to end it. And he was like, no, I want to keep going. And he kept talking and I think we went for like 45 minutes, which was unbelievable.

• 25:37Adam Skolnick?

  He was fabulous, you know, inspiring and really the, the voice we needed at that moment. It was really cool of him to take the time and to talk to us and the fact that he's a listener and that he's on a run streak, inspired by Hella is the same thing that Jason's on, basically.

• 25:53Rich Roll?

  Yeah, the run streak.

• 25:54Adam Skolnick?

  Right, right, right.

• 25:55Rich Roll?

  Hella's reach.

• 25:56Adam Skolnick?

  Hella is.

• 25:57Rich Roll?

  Knows no boundaries.

• 25:58Adam Skolnick?

  Right. He's just, he's amazing. And he's so inspiring. And he's inspiring senators. And it just shows you what you can do, you know, what social media is good for, which is this, like this kind of, some ideas do get into the culture and he has influenced, changed people's lives.

• 26:13Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's pretty cool.

• 26:15Adam Skolnick?

  But anyway, yeah, Senator Booker, that was a great experience.

• 26:18Rich Roll?

  Yeah, so yeah, it's we're, I think we're on a bit of a jag here because now we got Malcolm Gladwell on the podcast this week.

• 26:24Adam Skolnick?

  Amazing.

• 26:25Rich Roll?

  That was definitely like a huge get from day one. He was somebody I wanted to have on. Took a long time to make it happen, but we made it happen. He couldn't have been cooler or more delightful. I'm really proud of that conversation. We had a lot of fun. I think you had a chance to listen to a little bit.

• 26:38Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. I loved it. It was, it was, it's like the perfect geek out where you guys can just like, you drop into a topic and then you just immediately go deep and then you go to another one because you have a great overlap.

• 26:49Rich Roll?

  Right, but it all comes back to running.

• 26:51Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, well, running and then also, but also media.

• 26:54Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 26:54Adam Skolnick?

  You also have the media. Yeah, podcasting too. So, you know, all of that. And his new show, Legacy of Speed, which is kind of, it's built around, I caught an episode of that, which is, you know, with Coach Bud Winter and that whole thing. And it's like a perfect Gladwell deep dive into something that we thought we understood or we've all heard about. And he shows it in such new light.

• 27:15Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 27:15Adam Skolnick?

  Which is really cool.

• 27:16Rich Roll?

  And I think I said it in the podcast, it might be the most Gladwellian of all Gladwell projects ever because it has aspects of all the things that he loves and is interested in, starting with track and field, but also when a certain group of people end up at the same place at the same time and some kind of magic ensues, like that's a big kind of recurring Gladwell trope. And the intersection of like sport, culture, politics, and also of course, the sort of misunderstood aspect of all of it. Because there was a lot that was misunderstood about those protests. What they meant, how they were interpreted at the time, and what happened to those athletes as a result of taking that, you know, really courageous stand.

• 27:57Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, I mean, I think what happened to them isn't misunderstood. I mean, they were basically treated as pariah and it wasn't respected. It was like they were widely thought that they tarnished the Olympics. And so, I mean, that, I think was very clear. And then I forget which one of them ends up in the desert as a professor or something or as a coach. One, is it John Carlos?

• 28:20Rich Roll?

  I think it's John Carlos. I could be wrong, but I think it, yeah, I think it is John Carlos.

• 28:23Adam Skolnick?

  But, you know, you, reading about them later, you obviously, you know, by the time I came, became aware of what happened at. You know, always respected those guys. I mean, imagine the courage that took in 1968 to do that and how selfless that act was. Now, we see kind of people speaking out on issues and they make it kind of almost performative, but that was like, really, they took a huge risk and suffered for it. It's remarkable.

• 28:52Rich Roll?

  And a lot has changed and a lot hasn't. When you look at Colin Kaepernick, realize what he has suffered as a result of the courageous stand that he took. And also, you know, contextualizing the impact of like Bud Winter and Professor Harry Edwards. Like without those two guys at that place at that time, you don't get Colin Kaepernick and you don't get Usain Bolt.

• 29:15Adam Skolnick?

  Right. Usain Bolt coming from the Bud Winter strategy of relaxing, relaxed sprinting, relaxed effort. Yeah, so it's all, it's an amazing deep dive. Thank you for turning me on to that. I love that you brought up the LeBron, like Malcolm challenging LeBron to a mile in your podcast with him. That was amazing.

• 29:35Rich Roll?

  I know. I'd like to see that happen. I don't think LeBron ever got back to him.

• 29:38Adam Skolnick?

  The risk is too high on his end.

• 29:41Rich Roll?

  Have you seen that video, though, of LeBron?

• 29:43Adam Skolnick?

  No, I want to see that.

• 29:44Rich Roll?

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 29:45Adam Skolnick?

  Do you have that? Are you putting that in the show notes?

• 29:46Rich Roll?

  Well, why don't, let's, let's take a break, quick break, and we'll be back with that and also some other kind of related stuff to Legacy of Speed.

• 30:03Rich Roll?

  All right, we're back. Before we, I did find the LeBron video. I'm going to show that to you guys for a second, those of you who are watching on YouTube, but I forgot to tell this really embarrassing Malcolm story. Hey, do I have your attention?

• 30:15Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, I'm just watching LeBron.

• 30:17Rich Roll?

  I know. Come on. All eyes over here, buddy.

• 30:19Adam Skolnick?

  I thought I was supposed to be watching this.

• 30:21Rich Roll?

  No, we're getting to that in a minute.

• 30:22Adam Skolnick?

  Oh, okay.

• 30:23Rich Roll?

  So, this is probably... Can't believe I'm going to tell this story. Six years ago, seven years ago, I can't remember. I was in New York City and I was going to be speaking at this event that was upstate. It was for Engine 2, Rip Esselstyn's company. They do this annual thing at the Esselstyn farm called Plant Stock. And all these plant-based people come and speak. And it's, it's really fun, actually. I've been a couple of times. So anyway, I was taking the train north out of Manhattan, up into the Hudson Valley. And I got off at this small town and somebody from the event met me at the train station, picked me up and we're driving down like the main street of whatever this little town was on our way to travel out to this farm.

• 31:07Adam Skolnick?

  Yep.

• 31:07Rich Roll?

  And I'm just looking out the window and we pass a cafe and sitting out in front of the cafe, like eating a muffin, is Malcolm Gladwell.

• 31:15Adam Skolnick?

  Oh, you've told me this story.

• 31:16Rich Roll?

  Did I tell this story?

• 31:17Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is a great story.

• 31:18Rich Roll?

  And it was so like the juxtaposition of like, if I'd seen him like walking down the street in Manhattan or running in the park or something like that, like that would be sort of to be expected.

• 31:29Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 31:30Rich Roll?

  He's in his natural environment. I didn't realize that he had a place upstate.

• 31:33Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 31:33Rich Roll?

  I now know that he, you know.

• 31:34Adam Skolnick?

  That's where he lives, right?

• 31:35Rich Roll?

  That's where he lives, I think, probably all the time now. But six years ago, I just thought he was somebody who lived in Manhattan. And so when I'm in this small town in the middle of nowhere and I see Malcolm Gladwell sitting by himself, you know, in his running gear, like eating his breakfast, something came over me like, and we live in LA, you see celebrities all the time, right? Like, I don't get like, I don't get like off kilter.

• 31:57Adam Skolnick?

  Perklempt?

• 31:58Rich Roll?

  Perklempt. But I lost all motor function and I like rolled down the window and I just blurted out like, "I love revisionist history."

• 32:05Adam Skolnick?

  Really?

• 32:06Rich Roll?

  Like I just completely lost control of myself. And he kind of like looked over like, like side-eyed me and was kind of like, eh.

• 32:16Adam Skolnick?

  Did you tell him this story?

• 32:18Rich Roll?

  And no, I was too embarrassed to. And then I like kind of rolled out the window and like, then I just slunk down into my seat. Like, oh my God, I can't believe I did that. Like I literally, it wasn't a conscious decision. It just like something came over me because like I have so much respect for that guy and I'm such a fan of everything that he does, truly, you know, that I just, I was like completely starstruck.

• 32:39Adam Skolnick?

  See, this is six to seven years ago before being a podcast super fan was cool. Now, like, everyone is listening to podcasts, and so it's like, that was just starting. Like, it was just starting, like, you guys were-

• 32:52Rich Roll?

  And it dated before that, too, through his books and-

• 32:54Adam Skolnick?

  Well, of course, but you know what I mean? It's like, it's like podcast super fandom, which is now a normal thing.

• 33:00Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's weird.

• 33:01Adam Skolnick?

  Listeners, that's what I want you to take from this story. Not only does he podcast, he is a huge podcast fan. Are you not? You're a huge fan of the form.

• 33:08Rich Roll?

  I am. I love it. So, if you see me sitting outside eating a muffin somewhere, roll your window down and blur something out-

• 33:15Adam Skolnick?

  And scream.

• 33:15Rich Roll?

  And I'll know that you listened to this episode of the podcast.

• 33:18Adam Skolnick?

  And scream. Scream, illegibly.

• 33:20Rich Roll?

  Anyway, I did find the video of LeBron. Blake's gonna pull it up right there. So, basically, he's doing laps around the perimeter of a basketball court, and he's got a guy posting up around the free throw line on each side, feeding him basketballs, and he's just doing layups and dunking and stuff like that. And he's running pretty fast. And I think this video, which has something like, this one has 4.6 million views, it looks like, is what led Malcolm to think this guy is an unbelievable endurance athlete. And if we were to do a mile challenge, I think he would beat me.

• 33:55Adam Skolnick?

  He is such a beast, man. I mean, like, his, his physical conditioning is second to none. Yeah, I mean, it's interesting to hear him talk about also the elite athletes and longevity versus peak performance. It's almost as if, like, because LeBron is in his 20th year.

• 34:11Rich Roll?

  I know.

• 34:11Adam Skolnick?

  20th year. And he did, you see him? He was at the, you know, they have the, this kind of pickup type of game. I think it's called Drew. I forget, I forget what it's called, but they used, they used to do it in, in New York in a park. And they, they did it in a gym.

• 34:29Rich Roll?

  Oh, that park down by Fourth Street?

• 34:31Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 34:32Rich Roll?

  Off Sixth Avenue. Yeah, I know what you mean.

• 34:34Adam Skolnick?

  And so now they're doing at Rucker Park or something. They'd have it there sometimes. This was at a, in a gym. I don't know where it was.

• 34:41Rich Roll?

  I saw him in New York City in a gym, like working out.

• 34:43Adam Skolnick?

  Was that in New York City? Yeah. And he, uh, no, this is a basketball scenario. So he went with, um, DeMar DeRozan, another NBA player, and they went and played against some of these guys that are really good, but not obviously at the NBA level. And, you know, it's, it's, it's famous for people coming in and trying and just putting on shows. And he hadn't been there since 2011. And he just, you know, took over the gym and owned it. It was pretty fun.

• 35:05Rich Roll?

  Was Kevin Love part of that too?

• 35:07Adam Skolnick?

  He wasn't on the, um, on the floor this time. Yeah. He wasn't on the floor this time. It was him and DeMar DeRozan were the two NBA guys. Um, yeah.

• 35:16Rich Roll?

  Well, on the subject of legacy of speed and all things Gladwellian, I think it dovetails pretty nicely into this next story that we want to talk about, which is super interesting.

• 35:25Adam Skolnick?

  So, yeah. And even, even the LeBron mentioned dovetails into it because we're talking about the greatest athlete in the first half of the 20th century. So if you, you know, of his era, um, Jim Thorpe, who is the winner of, uh, the 1912 Olympic gold medal for the decathlon and the pentathlon, uh, also a professional baseball player, uh, renowned and like beloved college football player before the Olympics, uh, pro football player after the Olympics. He was just restored as the sole winner of his 1912 Olympic medals. And when he won them, he destroyed the field. It wasn't even close. Um, and he was the

• 36:05Adam Skolnick?

  star of the ticker tape parade down Broadway after that. Um, Jim Thorpe is of, uh, indigenous heritage. He's a Native American of the Sauk and Fox, I don't know how to pronounce it, Sauk and Fox Nation in Oklahoma. Um, and he grew up in those tribal schools where the, uh, kids had to cut their hair and they couldn't speak their native tongue and, uh, similar kind of order. I don't exactly know where, you know, how his school compares the ones in Canada, but, you know, people were, a lot of children were mistreated and even died under the care of these tribal schools. There was a big controversy of these mass graves that were found in Canada. Certainly some abuse happened in America too. So he's

• 36:48Adam Skolnick?

  a product of those schools, but becomes this amazing athlete. You know, takes over the Olympics along with Duke Kanamoko, who was the other star, happened to be native Hawaiian, and they became friends on the steamship over to the 1912 Olympics.

• 37:01Rich Roll?

  Which is like a scene out of Chariots of Fire.

• 37:04Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, just unbelievable, these two native guys representing America, having been victims of America, yet also representing and showing with pride and dominating. And anyway, a year, not even, maybe less than a year after winning those Olympic medals and being celebrated, he had his medal stripped because he had earned $25 a game playing minor league baseball when he needed money years before the Olympics.

• 37:29Rich Roll?

  Which is where it intersects with legacy of speed.

• 37:32Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 37:33Rich Roll?

  And the kind of legacy of Avery Brundage, the IOC president, who had this fanatical concept of what it meant to be an amateur athlete, and his staunch position that politics and sport should never intersect. But that allegiance to this idealized notion of amateurism, you know, played into decisions that Brundage made over the many decades that he lorded over the IOC. Obviously, this is many years prior to that, but that concept comes into play. Like, I'd never heard this story, but the fact that, like, okay, you know, he had to pay some bills, he had to, like, make a little money, so he picked up 25 bucks to play...

• 38:15Adam Skolnick?

  A different sport.

• 38:17Rich Roll?

  Like semi-pro baseball or whatever, which was, like, it's not baseball as we think of it now.

• 38:22Adam Skolnick?

  He wasn't a major ligger, no.

• 38:23Rich Roll?

  Yeah, and they used that to strip him of his gold medals. Like, I didn't even know that that had happened.

• 38:28Adam Skolnick?

  And not only strip him, but that made him ineligible to, again, compete in 1916 and 1920, and, you know, because at that time, the decathlon champion was the best athlete in the world, that was the revered, and it has remained that way all the way through, probably through 76 with Bruce Jenner was kind of the peak of that. But in 1913, he gets stripped, and so he, what does he do? He goes and plays pro baseball.

• 38:51Rich Roll?

  Right. What's interesting is he went to this small school called Carlisle, right? And then in 1911, they beat Harvard in football.

• 38:58Adam Skolnick?

  Right, and Harvard was the best team because of him, because he was so... Dominant and he was like a running back and a kicker. And so he played pro baseball for whatever six, 70 seasons and then in 1920 decides to play pro football and he plays till he's 41. And he's like one of the best football players, maybe the best. So I mean, this is one of the great athletes ever. And he's now been restored as the sole winner. I think it's some years after he was again restored as like co winners. Like they elevated the guys they elevated.

• 39:28Rich Roll?

  Eighties, they, they made him co winner. Like, so he had to share his gold with the people that he actually beat.

• 39:34Adam Skolnick?

  And he was, I mean, I don't know. I think he was dead then already. And you know, when the other guys to their credit, when they were told they won, they were like, no, they weren't really stoked on the idea of being told they won. Cause it's weird. Cause they know they were there.

• 39:48Rich Roll?

  It wasn't their decision. They knew they got their asses handed down. Like now I'm supposed to like wear this gold medal.

• 39:53Adam Skolnick?

  Right. And so now he's restored as, you know, what is it? A hundred 10 years later and he's.

• 39:59Rich Roll?

  Took a hundred and 10 years to set matters to rights on this, which is crazy. And my sense from that article was that the reinstatement of his titles happened kind of quietly.

• 40:11Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 40:12Rich Roll?

  It was a Native American publication that somehow picked up on the story and ultimately how it ended up in the New York Times. But it wasn't like there was a press release or any kind of big announcement around.

• 40:23Adam Skolnick?

  No. And you know, Jim Thorpe, AKA Bright Path Strong, which is, I mean, what a name.

• 40:28Rich Roll?

  That's ballsy.

• 40:29Adam Skolnick?

  Is golden again.

• 40:30Rich Roll?

  Why has there never been a biopic about this guy? Can you imagine today? A guy who wins, let's say he didn't get his amateur status revoked. So he wins gold in decathlon and pentathlon. Pentathlon doesn't exist anymore. There is pentathlon. It's different in the Winter Olympics.

• 40:46Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 40:47Rich Roll?

  He returns in 1916 and, and wins again. Then he goes, like, that could have happened, right?

• 40:52Adam Skolnick?

  Well, that's what Duke, that's what happened with Duke. He kept, he kept going back. He didn't take money.

• 40:56Rich Roll?

  The biopic is the relationship between those two guys and telling those two stories, I think. But then for Thorpe to go on, play pro baseball for six years and then play pro football for, until he was 41, but he started in 1920. So how many? Years was that 15 years or something like that?

• 41:14Adam Skolnick?

  I mean, he's out of college in 1911, so it's nine years after college.

• 41:17Rich Roll?

  No other athlete in modern history in the second half of the century has been able to do that.

• 41:22Adam Skolnick?

  The only thing you can think of is David Robinson, who was an elite college basketball player. And then he had to take a year off before going to college to be able to play pro. He had to stay in the Navy for like a year. It was supposed to be five years, but they let him out. I think it was a year they gave him a special dispensation.

• 41:37Rich Roll?

  Was he on the Olympic basketball team also?

• 41:39Adam Skolnick?

  I believe he was, but I think he was on the Olympic basketball team as a pro later when it was okay for pros to play.

• 41:46Rich Roll?

  Yeah, this is different. This is different.

• 41:48Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 41:49Rich Roll?

  But yeah, super interesting to read that after listening to Legacy of Speed.

• 41:53Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, he was on, I think David Robinson might have been on the 88 Olympic team and the 92. He was on the Dream Team for sure, I would think. I mean, he was that year or maybe the next one.

• 42:02Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I don't know. Too old to remember. Anyway, that's an amazing story. Somebody should definitely make that movie, though.

• 42:09Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah. I mean, probably could find it. I wonder if there's ever been one, but there should be one, you know.

• 42:14Rich Roll?

  There must be some kind of documentary.

• 42:16Adam Skolnick?

  Anymore. Now it's gotta be a limited series.

• 42:18Rich Roll?

  Netflix limited series.

• 42:19Adam Skolnick?

  A limited series.

• 42:20Rich Roll?

  Or a Pushkin limited series podcast.

• 42:23Adam Skolnick?

  Or a Rich Roll limited series podcast.

• 42:25Rich Roll?

  Should we move into that? We'll see. The next story is also quite amazing and this, you know, created kind of a tidal wave of news across the world. It's a story about Mo Farah, the legendary track and field athlete. He disclosed in a documentary that I believe is coming out this week by the BBC that he had been trafficked to the United Kingdom from Somalia three decades earlier under a false name and had been essentially a house servant for many years until he finally told his gym teacher at school what actually was happening.

• 42:59Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 42:59Rich Roll?

  And apparently the authorities were apprised of this. He was able to get out of that and the like, but he's kind of quietly held this secret for a very long time.

• 43:09Adam Skolnick?

  Crazy.

• 43:09Rich Roll?

  Can you imagine? Can you imagine being so gifted and celebrated as an athlete, but also, you know, carrying that secret for so long, you know, all the way through being knighted? It's unbelievable. I mean, this guy, yeah, in 2000 he was granted UK citizenship. 2012, he won two golds in the Olympics, the 5K and the 10K. 2016, he repeated with golds in both of those events despite accidentally getting tripped in the 10K and still winning. 2017, he gets knighted and then he kind of hangs up the spikes in track and field, gets into the marathon and runs 205.

• 43:47Adam Skolnick?

  Unbelievable.

• 43:48Rich Roll?

  2018.

• 43:49Adam Skolnick?

  Unbelievable.

• 43:50Rich Roll?

  And I think he's gonna run the London Marathon this year.

• 43:53Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 43:54Rich Roll?

  So on the theme of Avery Brundage, slavery Avery, what would Avery Brundage, you know, have made of Mo Farah's amateur status and his, his relationship with amateurism?

• 44:07Adam Skolnick?

  Because he wasn't really a citizen of England or something like that?

• 44:10Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I mean, he would, yeah, basically, like, he's not really a citi-, it would have given his racism an excuse to strip him of his medals.

• 44:18Adam Skolnick?

  He would have found, he would have found a way, but.

• 44:20Rich Roll?

  Anyway, the New York Times wrote a, there's a couple, there's two stories in the New York Times about this.

• 44:25Adam Skolnick?

  Talia Minsberg, my editor, wrote the first one, which kind of came on the heels of the, you know, right before the BBC documentary, so she was the one to kind of break this for them. And then this other one, I think it's Jarrett Longman, Jerry Longman, I don't know how to pronounce the first name.

• 44:40Rich Roll?

  That's the second one here, how Mo Farah outran.

• 44:42Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, that's someone who has covered him many times and kind of knows his story back and forth. So, you know, that's a good one, too. It's crazy to think of that, but it's not uncommon. You know, East Africa has had that, Sudan, there's been people who've been smuggled out of Sudan, or they're told they're coming over and they're gonna earn money as a domestic worker in, say, Saudi Arabia or in the Arabian Peninsula, and then are not given any money and are basically like the fishermen that you've heard about on, you know, the Burmese fishermen on Thai fishing boats. You know, there is slavery to this day happening. I mean, there is, and this is an example of it.

• 45:24Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I can't recall another instance in which. A super high-profile person has disclosed that this happened to them.

• 45:31Adam Skolnick?

  No, this is, this is, this is a whole nother level and he even had not a biography that this wasn't in.

• 45:37Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 45:37Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 45:38Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that's the thing.

• 45:39Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 45:39Rich Roll?

  So imagine the courage of coming out and disclosing this. I guess there were some rumblings about how that would affect his UK citizenship and, you know, downstream of that, like, would he be able to retain his Olympic titles, right? But they've kind of put that to rest. That's not gonna happen.

• 45:55Adam Skolnick?

  Right. He was a victim and he was underage, sure, as it should be.

• 45:58Rich Roll?

  Yeah. I love this quote in this article, "Ferra's racing style was not dissimilar to the way he faced the vicissitudes of his life. Starting from behind, persevering lap after lap, patient and resilient, and finishing with an illuminating sprint to the tape."

• 46:16Adam Skolnick?

  Amazing.

• 46:16Rich Roll?

  Beautiful guy.

• 46:17Adam Skolnick?

  I'm gonna re-watch that 2012 10,000 meter.

• 46:21Rich Roll?

  Is that stuff on YouTube?

• 46:22Adam Skolnick?

  Oh, yeah.

• 46:22Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 46:23Adam Skolnick?

  Any race you want, any concert you want, it's all on YouTube.

• 46:25Rich Roll?

  Right, right, right. Did you watch the old Bud Greenspan Olympic movies, like 16 Days to Glory?

• 46:31Adam Skolnick?

  No.

• 46:31Rich Roll?

  Oh, they're fantastic.

• 46:33Adam Skolnick?

  Really?

• 46:34Rich Roll?

  He made one about the 1984 Olympics called 16 Days of Glory, if you would like. But he was sort of the official documentarian of the Olympic movement in the modern era, and there's tons of his stuff on YouTube.

• 46:46Adam Skolnick?

  See, but, you know, we're talking about Jim Thorpe and, you know, Mo Farah and Juan Carlos and Tommy Smith. It's like, the idea of stripping people, banning people, boycotting, the more I think about it, the more ridiculous it is. And it's like Wimbledon just happened, the Russian athletes couldn't play there. I mean, these are not Russian athletes that are involved in any way in the Ukraine invasion. They just can't play because they're in Russia. Or 1984, I think it was a mistake for-

• 47:14Rich Roll?

  1980.

• 47:15Adam Skolnick?

  1980, it was a mistake for us to boycott the Soviet.

• 47:18Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 47:18Adam Skolnick?

  And then 1984 is a mistake for them to boycott in response, the United States, LA Olympics. So it's like- All of that, I think it's very clear those are mistakes. And it's always better to get all the best athletes out there together. It's the only way to, if sports is going to help in any way, deal with world issues, all the athletes have to be present. That's my opinion on it.

• 47:40Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I mean, this came up in the conversation with Malcolm. He does a whole episode in Legacy of Speed on this subject of exit, voice, or loyalty, right? To boycott is to exit. You can use your voice, as these athlete activists did, or you can be loyal and fall into line with the Avery Brundages of the world. And I think if history tells us anything, it's that voice is the most powerful. And over time, history, you know, always favors the bold when it comes to that. I mean, has anybody performed a high-level, high-visibility protest at something like the Olympics or the Olympics itself? That decades later, you think, yeah, that was a misstep?

• 48:24Rich Roll?

  Like, usually, it ends up being a really powerful symbol for some kind of necessary positive cultural shift or change.

• 48:31Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, I mean, in this case, obviously, they suffered in the immediate term, but now...

• 48:36Rich Roll?

  Yeah, they pay the price short-term.

• 48:38Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 48:38Rich Roll?

  But long-term, you know, it's a lever for progress, I think.

• 48:42Adam Skolnick?

  I mean, I think Muhammad Ali is the best example of someone who refused to go to, to join the army, refused all the entreaties to, "Oh, it'll be easy, you don't have to go to war, blah, blah, blah." And he just said, "No, I'm not a part of your machine." And became even more of a hero.

• 48:57Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 48:57Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 48:59Rich Roll?

  Shifting gears.

• 49:00Adam Skolnick?

  Yep.

• 49:01Rich Roll?

  We need to report on an update in the case that we discussed at length. Was it the last time we did?

• 49:08Adam Skolnick?

  Dong, dong.

• 49:09Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I know.

• 49:10Adam Skolnick?

  True crime.

• 49:10Rich Roll?

  If you listened to the last roll-on that we did, I think it was the last one.

• 49:13Adam Skolnick?

  I think it was.

• 49:14Rich Roll?

  Um, we discussed the murder of this professional gravel cyclist, Mo Wilson.

• 49:20Adam Skolnick?

  Yep.

• 49:20Rich Roll?

  And the leading suspect in that case being Kaitlin Armstrong, the girlfriend of another professional cyclist, Colin Strickland.

• 49:30Rich Roll?

  Sort of this weird love triangle thing. I don't want to rehash all the details of the relationship that led to this. But when we last left off over six weeks ago, Caitlin Armstrong had sort of disappeared.

• 49:42Adam Skolnick?

  She was in the wind.

• 49:43Rich Roll?

  She was in the wind. She was on the lam. A photograph of her at LaGuardia Airport in classic kind of security footage, blurry, you know.

• 49:52Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 49:53Rich Roll?

  Take, you know, was seen.

• 49:55Adam Skolnick?

  Why is security footage always blurry?

• 49:58Rich Roll?

  Well, that was the meme with the web telescope. Did you see this gun around? Like, we're going to talk about the web, the images from web being like, yeah, it's like, on the one hand, the web image of like, we can see billions of years into the past. And then on the other hand, security footage from 10 feet away. And you can't make out the person's face.

• 50:18Adam Skolnick?

  Yes, yes.

• 50:19Rich Roll?

  Yeah. In the era of like, you know, incredible photography on cell phones, you'd think like, we can upgrade our security cameras. Anyway, you could see it in lots of the press. Like, it's a very blurry image. It's surprising that you could even tell it was her.

• 50:32Adam Skolnick?

  Right. Well, Tommy Lee Jones knew it was her.

• 50:34Rich Roll?

  Yeah, exactly. So fugitive on the lam, the US Marshals are on the hunt.

• 50:39Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 50:39Rich Roll?

  And it literally took six weeks to run her down, but she was captured in Costa Rica, in this town called Santa Teresa, which is kind of a surf spot in this place called Don John's Lodge.

• 50:52Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 50:53Rich Roll?

  Where she was using an alias, Ari Martin, and kind of teaching yoga and staying in hostels, but not necessarily hiding, kind of like, living her life. And we're, you know, we're kind of joking around about it. I mean, it's quite tragic. Mo Wilson was beloved. She, by all accounts, I mean, I had never met her, but she was a wonderful human being. And she was literally slain in cold blood by this woman, Caitlin Armstrong, who split. I think the, the, the leading kind of idea is that she would, she was, she was, I think she was seen at Newark Airport. Like, she flew to LaGuardia, and then there were four days where she was unaccounted for. But apparently, her sister lives in upstate New York.

• 51:39Rich Roll?

  And then she shows up at Newark Airport and that's where she catches the flight to Costa Rica. She had a valid passport, just not her own. And I think the idea is that she borrowed her or stole her sister's. I don't know if that's verified.

• 51:52Adam Skolnick?

  Okay.

• 51:52Rich Roll?

  And, you know, goes down there and bops around, taking buses and spending time in hostels and little surf villages throughout Costa Rica.

• 52:01Adam Skolnick?

  Crazy.

• 52:01Rich Roll?

  Until finally, these marshals, I'm still not clear entirely how they tracked her down. Maybe it was following this, this passport. I'm not sure.

• 52:11Adam Skolnick?

  Maybe the Costa Rican Bureau.

• 52:13Rich Roll?

  As a yoga instructor, she dyed her hair, she changed her name. They did find a receipt for $6,300 for plastic surgery that had a different name on it. The implication being that she had undergone plastic surgery. I guess she was seen with a Band-Aid on her nose.

• 52:29Adam Skolnick?

  Why would you keep that receipt? Like, can you return the plastic surgery?

• 52:33Rich Roll?

  I don't, I don't know, for tax purposes.

• 52:35Adam Skolnick?

  Why would you keep that receipt?

• 52:37Rich Roll?

  Yeah. So, I mean, this story is bananas.

• 52:40Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 52:40Rich Roll?

  Is it not? And, and this, you know, I just pulled up an article from the Boston Globe. I mean, there is a, you know, two photos of her before and after, and she does look.

• 52:50Adam Skolnick?

  She doesn't look any different. She's got different color hair.

• 52:52Rich Roll?

  Maybe, it depends. I mean, you would have to know her, I suppose.

• 52:55Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 52:56Rich Roll?

  But, I mean, that looks like two different people to me, doesn't it?

• 52:59Adam Skolnick?

  I mean, the one thing I'll say, which I said at the time, which was right before the shooting in Uvalde, was that like, if she didn't have access to a gun, her mental health breakdown would not have led to the shattering of three plus lives.

• 53:15Rich Roll?

  I think the gun.

• 53:16Adam Skolnick?

  And the ending.

• 53:16Rich Roll?

  I could be wrong about this, but I think the gun was owned by Colin Strickland.

• 53:20Adam Skolnick?

  No, I think they bought them, like he.

• 53:22Rich Roll?

  Oh, they bought it together?

• 53:22Adam Skolnick?

  They both had, I think they both had them, if I remember correctly, but it's been a while since I read it. But, yeah, I mean, she shouldn't have been empowered to be able to take the life of Mo Wilson.

• 53:32Rich Roll?

  The other interesting thing is that at the onset of the case, she was obviously a suspect and they brought her in for questioning based on an outstanding warrant that was already out there because she had skipped out on paying for Botox, like 600 bucks or something like that.

• 53:49Adam Skolnick?

  Okay.

• 53:50Rich Roll?

  And so they used that warrant to bring her in, but apparently there was an error on the warrant, like they had her date of birth wrong or something like that, so they had to release her. So that. Basically, she then knew like, oh, man, I need to get out of Dodge quickly here. And she immediately went and sold her Jeep for like $12,000. And that's when she split. But did she like, what did she think? Like she, did she delude herself into thinking she was just gonna build this whole new life down in Costa Rica and no one would be the wiser? Anyway, my heart goes out to Mo Wilson's family and her friends.

• 54:24Adam Skolnick?

  Sorry, I joked about it.

• 54:25Rich Roll?

  I'm glad that, that this person is in custody now and she's being charged with first degree murder as well as, you know, battery of other charges. Switching gears.

• 54:38Adam Skolnick?

  Segue. We need some sound effects.

• 54:41Rich Roll?

  I know. Jason, can you work on that?

• 54:45Adam Skolnick?

  Switching gears.

• 54:46Rich Roll?

  In news from the headlines of people running across the United States. Another recurring old school theme of the Roll On Podcast, right?

• 54:55Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 54:56Rich Roll?

  People tend to do this frequently, it appears.

• 54:58Adam Skolnick?

  People you know tend to run across little countries.

• 55:02Rich Roll?

  I would say this person is an internet friend. We haven't met in person yet, but I'm gonna get him on the podcast soon. We're trying to schedule it. His name is Mike Wardian and he recently ran from San Francisco to Rehoboth Beach on the East Coast in Delaware. Michael is a very accomplished, elite ultra runner. He's 48 now and he's got this, you know, giant beard and he does kind of evoke this Forrest Gump, you know, vibe.

• 55:26Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, he does look like a stunt double.

• 55:28Rich Roll?

  And what I like about him is that he, you know, he has a normal life too. Like he's this incredible runner, but you know, he also works as a partner in an international ship brokerage firm. I don't know what that means, but it sounds like a real job.

• 55:44Adam Skolnick?

  Does that mean he's like?

• 55:45Rich Roll?

  He's brokering and like cargo ships.

• 55:49Adam Skolnick?

  Cargo?

• 55:50Rich Roll?

  I think like shipping, like shipping boat, like, you know, cargo boats? Who knows?

• 55:54Adam Skolnick?

  Like he's selling?

• 55:55Rich Roll?

  We need to get to the, this will be the focus of the podcast with him.

• 55:58Adam Skolnick?

  So what do you do?

• 55:59Rich Roll?

  I need to know more about international ship brokerage.

• 56:02Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 56:03Rich Roll?

  He's got two kids.

• 56:04Adam Skolnick?

  Seems like he has a great vibe.

• 56:05Rich Roll?

  He's got a wife, two dogs. He seems like a super cool guy.

• 56:08Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 56:09Rich Roll?

  And, and here's the thing, he ran across the United States. And he did it in 61 days.

• 56:16Adam Skolnick?

  Amazing.

• 56:17Rich Roll?

  So just for context, Robbie Ballinger, who's an absolute beast, did it in 75 days. So this guy did it literally two weeks faster. 3,234 miles, 132,000 feet in elevation change, running more than 50 miles a day, basically along for, I think for the majority of this run along Route 50.

• 56:37Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 56:37Rich Roll?

  And raising money for world vision, trying to provide clean drinking water to the developed world. So that's pretty cool.

• 56:45Adam Skolnick?

  My favorite anecdote was the stray dog that came upon them in Missouri.

• 56:49Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 56:49Adam Skolnick?

  And they named him Yellow. I guess it must have been a yellow lab and ran alongside them for 40 miles.

• 56:55Rich Roll?

  That's a pretty cool story.

• 56:56Adam Skolnick?

  It's a cool story.

• 56:56Rich Roll?

  40 miles.

• 56:57Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 56:58Rich Roll?

  And I like how this story was picked up by People Magazine.

• 57:01Adam Skolnick?

  Oh, really?

• 57:02Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 57:03Adam Skolnick?

  Look at that. He's got such a happy vibe. Like, I loved reading about him today. It's actually the perfect thing to wash down the world with. So I would definitely click on this, you guys, in the show notes.

• 57:14Rich Roll?

  Yeah. I like how in the People Magazine article at the bottom, it says, "Related Video: 12-Year-Old Golden Retriever Returns to Boston Marathon After Miraculously Surviving Tumor." We need more good news like that.

• 57:28Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, we do. You're saying there needs to be more cat videos, is what you're saying. We need more cat videos.

• 57:33Rich Roll?

  I'm down with that.

• 57:34Adam Skolnick?

  More cat.

• 57:35Rich Roll?

  Here's the Washington Post did an article on him, too. He lives in Arlington, my old stomping grounds, the metropolitan Washington DC area.

• 57:43Adam Skolnick?

  That's right.

• 57:43Rich Roll?

  Anyway, good on you, buddy.

• 57:44Adam Skolnick?

  Did you grow up in, where did you grow, you were Silver Spring, right?

• 57:46Rich Roll?

  Bethesda.

• 57:47Adam Skolnick?

  Bethesda.

• 57:49Rich Roll?

  Yeah, man.

• 57:49Adam Skolnick?

  Been there.

• 57:51Rich Roll?

  I think Mike also ran the perimeter of Beltway, which is like 90 miles. Like, he's done some other cool stuff.

• 57:56Adam Skolnick?

  I've been there, too. Name another place. Name another place. Just name a place.

• 58:00Rich Roll?

  We're not playing where.

• 58:01Adam Skolnick?

  Just name one place.

• 58:02Rich Roll?

  We all know you're the Lonely Planet guy.

• 58:04Adam Skolnick?

  One place.

• 58:05Rich Roll?

  What's the loneliest place on the planet that you've been?

• 58:08Adam Skolnick?

  Oh. The loneliest place on the planet.

• 58:12Rich Roll?

  Here's Mike with his wife and kids and dog. See? Like, what's not to love about this dude?

• 58:17Adam Skolnick?

  I know. The only place on planet I've ever been, Rich, is in my own head.

• 58:24Rich Roll?

  There you go. That's the best answer. All right. Moving on. So much news from the world of ultra endurance.

• 58:33Adam Skolnick?

  Oh, yeah. We got, we got like a stacked agenda.

• 58:37Rich Roll?

  So much more to get through. So let's take a quick break and we'll be back with news from the Hard Rock 100, from Badwater, and then we got some heavier stuff to cover, some listener questions and more.

• 58:50Adam Skolnick?

  Cool. Let's sell some products.

• 58:58Rich Roll?

  All right, and we're back. We got news from the Hard Rock 100.

• 59:02Adam Skolnick?

  Lay it on me.

• 59:03Rich Roll?

  So the Hard Rock 100 is one of the most prestigious and difficult ultra races in the world. It is this loop that kind of traverses Southern Colorado, San Juan Range. It has 66,000 feet of elevation gain.

• 59:19Adam Skolnick?

  I've been there.

• 59:20Rich Roll?

  And this is like a showdown race every year.

• 59:23Adam Skolnick?

  Like Durango, out of Durango?

• 59:25Rich Roll?

  Telluride, Durango, Silverton. I think it starts and ends in Silverton. One year they go clockwise, one year they go counterclockwise. Francois Dene, who I referenced earlier this year, he won it last year and broke Killian Journe's course record. And he was returning this year to defend his title. Super cool guy, originally hailing from the Beaujolais region of France. He was a vintner, like making his own wine. He gave me, he gave me a bottle of his wine. I didn't have the heart to tell him that I don't drink.

• 59:57Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 59:58Rich Roll?

  But super cool.

• 59:59Adam Skolnick?

  If only your co-host drank.

• 1:00:00Rich Roll?

  He's since moved more to the mountains, but just a really sweet guy, family guy with kids, who's this unbelievable ultra athlete, also super tall for an ultra runner.

• 1:00:10Adam Skolnick?

  How cool is that?

• 1:00:11Rich Roll?

  Yeah, very cool dude who's just crushing it right now. He's also, I think he's won UTMB five times. Like, everyone knows Killian Journe, but not as many people, particularly in North America, are familiar with Francois, but he's just an unreal talent.

• 1:00:27Adam Skolnick?

  What's how he's pronounced his last name?

• 1:00:28Rich Roll?

  Dene.

• 1:00:29Adam Skolnick?

  Dene, okay.

• 1:00:30Rich Roll?

  Dehaene would be the butchering of it, but I think Francois Dene. Francois Dene?

• 1:00:35Adam Skolnick?

  Francois, that's good. That's very good.

• 1:00:38Rich Roll?

  And so it's gonna be a showdown between Francois and Killian. And they, right out of the gate, pretty much ran together throughout the majority of the race, along with this other amazing athlete, Dakota Jones. They ran as a threesome. Kind of trading lead, I think Dakota was out in front for quite some time. But ultimately, Killian prevailed. Francois was second. Killian broke Francois's record and was crowned the victor for the fifth time at this race. Unbelievable. 21 hours, 36 minutes. Francois's record was 21:45, set last year. And Francois ran 21:51. So it's crazy that in a race this long,

• 1:01:22Rich Roll?

  with this much elevation gain, that literally, you know, only a couple of minutes separated them. And Dakota ended up third in 23:06. In addition, Courtney Dauwalter finally conquered this race. Was the first to cross the finish line in the women's category. And it's also the first time that she's actually finished the race. Last year, she ran into digestive problems that sidelined her. And of course, as is Courtney's want, broke the women's course record, running 26 hours, 44 minutes. I think she was sixth overall. I could be wrong about that. But just kind of unbelievable performances. Unbelievable. Around, you know, all the way across the board.

• 1:02:05Rich Roll?

  In second place was Stephanie Case, who ran 33:52. So that gives you a sense of just how much faster Courtney is than everyone else. Because whereas the men's race was fairly tight. Right. Courtney won by a significant margin. And Hannah Green came in third at 34 hours, 26 minutes. But epic race and very cool to see that. I think ultra running needs like a rivalry like this. I think these guys are friends and they get along really well. But cool to see, you know, two athletes really at the top of their game, like going tete-a-tete for, you know, almost 21 hours. Unbelievable. Which is cool. Yes. And then the same weekend, the Badwater 135 went down. Is it always like that? Is Hard Rock and Badwater always on the same weekend?

• 1:02:50Rich Roll?

  I don't know. That's a good question. I should know the answer to that. I don't. I don't think they're generally on the same weekend. I was surprised to see them on the same weekend. So this is 135 miles through Death Valley and up the Mount Whitney portals. Everyone knows about it being like, you know, the race that's in the hottest place on earth. Temperatures can reach around 120 degrees. There are stories of shoe soles melting on the pavement, et cetera. But there's also an unbelievable amount of elevation gain.

• 1:03:20Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:20Rich Roll?

  And that last 13 miles, when you're going up the portals, you've probably been up there, right?

• 1:03:25Adam Skolnick?

  I've been there.

• 1:03:25Rich Roll?

  It's steep, like you're literally going straight uphill.

• 1:03:29Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 1:03:29Rich Roll?

  For the last half marathon.

• 1:03:30Adam Skolnick?

  I can't imagine, I can't imagine running that.

• 1:03:32Rich Roll?

  Of this insane race.

• 1:03:33Adam Skolnick?

  Or even walking it.

• 1:03:34Rich Roll?

  Harvey Lewis, friend of the pod, won it last year. He came in fourth this year, I think, right? I don't want to get that wrong. Yeah, he finished his 11th Badwater in fourth place. He ran 27 hours, 16 minutes.

• 1:03:51Adam Skolnick?

  Unbelievable.

• 1:03:52Rich Roll?

  But really cool. His partner, Kelly Odell, completed her first Badwater in 46 hours and 57 minutes. There's a 48 hour cutoff.

• 1:04:00Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 1:04:01Rich Roll?

  So she made it, you know, within an hour of that 48 hour cutoff, which is really cool. But the winner was the course record holder, Yoshihiko Ishikawa, who won for the second time. He negative split the course, which is unbelievable, running 23 hours and eight minutes. He set the course record in 2019 with 21 hours, 33 minutes. And the legend there is that when he crossed the finish line, he proposed to his girlfriend. So that's pretty cool.

• 1:04:28Adam Skolnick?

  Oh, that's how you do it.

• 1:04:30Rich Roll?

  Where it gets interesting here.

• 1:04:32Adam Skolnick?

  Win Badwater and then say.

• 1:04:34Rich Roll?

  And then propose.

• 1:04:35Adam Skolnick?

  Marry me, my darling.

• 1:04:36Rich Roll?

  You better hope she says yes.

• 1:04:37Adam Skolnick?

  If you win Badwater.

• 1:04:39Rich Roll?

  I guess.

• 1:04:39Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, they're gonna say yes.

• 1:04:41Rich Roll?

  Where this whole story gets interesting is in the women's race. So Ashley Paulson, who's a professional triathlete and a pretty well-known IFIT instructor, set the new female course record with a bit of a question mark. Let's just say there's a little controversy swirling around.

• 1:04:58Adam Skolnick?

  I read about this, yes.

• 1:04:59Rich Roll?

  So she ran 24 hours and nine minutes. She's coached by Ryan Hall. She got third overall, so one place ahead of Harvey, and she beat the course record by a little bit under four minutes. But the controversy is sort of multifold, and it begins with a six-month USADA ban that she received when she was a triathlete testing positive for something called Ostorine, which is a selective androgen receptor modulator, an SARM. She's held firm on her innocence. So that was, you know, look, that was seven years ago, six years ago. But there's also been past allegations of course cutting. There was a half marathon

• 1:05:41Rich Roll?

  where there's a lot of kind of controversy around her finishing time. In this particular bad water, she had an unbelievable finishing split that sort of defies logic.

• 1:05:52Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, I think, I think only one of the fastest in the last, you know, several years, only one of

• 1:05:59Rich Roll?

  Among the men.

• 1:06:00Adam Skolnick?

  One man.

• 1:06:01Rich Roll?

  If you look at that, which is the hardest part, like we said, 13 miles

• 1:06:04Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 1:06:05Rich Roll?

  Up the portals.

• 1:06:06Adam Skolnick?

  Like Ishikawa was slower than her, and Harvey Lewis, everyone except for one guy has beaten that time over the past, I think, last 20 male fastest times or something like that. There was, there's a graph on that.

• 1:06:18Rich Roll?

  And apparently, there were some observations on the course, and now there's an investigation underway. There's a website called Marathon Investigation where there's a post all about this, which I'll link up into the show. So this is, you know, look, more will be revealed here. It's unclear exactly what transpired. All I'm saying is that there are some questions being asked about her performance, and there are people who are trying to get to the bottom of it. On her Instagram, she posted something about like, I'm posting my Garmin data, like she's aware that there's controversy and obviously, and she's, you know, defending herself. So. At this point, I don't, I don't know. I wasn't there. All I know is that here is this

• 1:07:01Rich Roll?

  article and take it for what you wish. Here's the, if you're watching on YouTube, here's the list of splits for that last section of the race.

• 1:07:09Adam Skolnick?

  Faster than Scott Jurek.

• 1:07:10Rich Roll?

  Yeah, exactly. So it's just, you know, it's reasonable to be asking questions right now. And, you know, in the event that something untoward happened, it's just disappointing. Like this is, you know, one thing that's so beautiful about the ultra running world and community is there is a certain kind of, you know, purity to it and not to be in, you know, a sort of a Aubrey Brundage, you know, purist on amateurism.

• 1:07:35Adam Skolnick?

  Right. You're very Aubrey Brundage right now.

• 1:07:38Rich Roll?

  It's a, you know, there is something kind of, you know, there's no, it's not like prize money or anything like that. Like, you know, people are doing this for the love. And so.

• 1:07:46Adam Skolnick?

  You're revoking her bad water license.

• 1:07:48Rich Roll?

  I'm doing nothing of the sort. Camille Heron, another friend of the pod, has weighed in on this as well. You can see her comments in this blog post on marathoninvestigation.com as well. Yeah. So kind of, you know, podcast roundup with Francois, Killian, Courtney, Harvey Lewis, Camille Heron, all of these names coming up, all past guests on the podcast, popular podcast guests in the past.

• 1:08:13Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 1:08:14Rich Roll?

  Which is cool, right?

• 1:08:15Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah. I mean, that's, this is the bread and butter, baby.

• 1:08:19Rich Roll?

  We were going to talk about the Tour de France, but I got to tell you, I'm not enough up to speed.

• 1:08:24Adam Skolnick?

  Right. I'm not either. I'm not either.

• 1:08:27Rich Roll?

  My attention was devoted elsewhere. So maybe next time we can chime in with some thoughts there. The only thing I'll say is that my new favorite rider is Magnus Court, the Dane with the mustache, who was just crushing it early into the polka dot jersey and just continued to be in breakaways and winning stages with flair on the EF team. I love that guy. But just the other day, he got COVID, had to drop out of the Tour de France.

• 1:08:51Adam Skolnick?

  Damn.

• 1:08:52Rich Roll?

  That's kind of the end of my Tour de France commentary for now.

• 1:08:55Adam Skolnick?

  COVID.

• 1:08:56Rich Roll?

  COVID on the tour.

• 1:08:57Adam Skolnick?

  COVID's never, it just keeps going.

• 1:08:59Rich Roll?

  I know. Should we weigh into the sticky waters of our main topic today? Which we've promised not to spend more than five or six minutes on.

• 1:09:09Adam Skolnick?

  Six minutes, three minutes each. Actually, four minutes for you.

• 1:09:12Rich Roll?

  You just randomly decided six minutes was the limit for this?

• 1:09:16Adam Skolnick?

  I randomly decided because when we were talking about it, you were like, it's been a while, but we should say something. We have discussed this in the past when the leak happened that this was going to go down. We had a longer discussion about it.

• 1:09:28Rich Roll?

  And of course, talking about the Dobbs case and the overturning of Roe.

• 1:09:32Adam Skolnick?

  Roe versus Wade.

• 1:09:33Rich Roll?

  And the clock is ticking, so go, Adam.

• 1:09:35Adam Skolnick?

  Okay. Clarence Thomas seems cool. Right? Am I right?

• 1:09:43Rich Roll?

  Do you think he's a good hang?

• 1:09:45Adam Skolnick?

  He's a cool hang. So, on the one hand, when I heard about this, all I want to do is listen to Lily Allen sing, "Fuck You." You know, "Your point of view is medieval, fuck you very, very much. We hate you and we hate your whole crew." That kind of song. You know that song? It's a great song. But hate will not win this fight. And what we're dealing with are people, boots on the ground, people who really do think they are saving babies' lives. They do. I don't agree with that perspective. I think it's a skewed perspective. Everyone loves babies on both sides of this fight. There's something grotesque about trying to suggest that one group of people likes babies more. It's ridiculous.

• 1:10:29Adam Skolnick?

  But, that said, that is their point of view. So, like, we need to be able to meet that with love as well, and we have to understand that. So, you know, they're unified in their purpose. They are outnumbered and yet still manage to get this through. And we can't even say out loud that this is a women's rights issue because there was someone who was testifying in front of Josh Hawley and made Josh Hawley seem reasonable, saying that it's not a woman's issue. Of course, it's a woman's issue because of certain words that are supposed to be said. We can't even say that. So, that's why we're getting beat, and it's upsetting. I was listening to Digable Planets lately. 1993 album.

• 1:11:08Rich Roll?

  Throwback.

• 1:11:09Adam Skolnick?

  Throwback album. "La Femme Fatale" is a song on that record. And here's a lyric. "If Roe v. Wade was overturned, would not the desire remain intact? Leaving young girls to risk their healths, doctors to botch and watch as they kill themselves." That's what we're dealing with. That was a 1993 album. Clarence Thomas's name checked in that as an enemy of Roe. And it's come to fruition. That shows you how long people who've wanted to overturn Roe v. Wade have been working and they've been working even longer than that. I think you're going to get into it. The one thing of the links that you shared with me is that I didn't realize kind of Clarence Thomas's motivation and going back. I think that's a really interesting story about how he was actually a black radical.

• 1:11:52Rich Roll?

  Very influenced by Malcolm X, which is, you know, not what you would suspect.

• 1:11:56Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, and he ended up in the conservative wing of things because of his distaste for white liberals like ourselves, but mostly white liberals who weren't really out to change anything, but were more out to make it less bad. At least that's what this article kind of is written by, I think, Columbia Law professors. It's a very interesting opinion piece. I highly recommend it. It was very eye opening. It's important to know where people are coming from, but in the end, when this comes down to a human rights issue and, you know, on the one hand, you can't tell people not to carry a gun. You can't tell people to wear a mask, but you can tell women what to do if they get pregnant by rape. I mean, it's grotesque.

• 1:12:38Rich Roll?

  Yeah, another interesting kind of nuance to this article is the extent to which the left has attacked Thomas in, you know, a pretty bald-faced racist way, right?

• 1:12:51Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:51Rich Roll?

  The party who's meant to be for the expansion of human rights, like sort of defaulting to some, you know, not so great behaviors.

• 1:13:01Adam Skolnick?

  Phrasings, yes.

• 1:13:02Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:04Rich Roll?

  But yeah, listen, you know, I'm pro-choice. I believe in a woman's right to choose. I think this decision is wrong-headed for a multitude of reasons. And it's dispiriting and disappointing and frightening. But I think it's important to understand. The context in which this exists, it is in many ways, the culmination of, you know, a 50-year campaign to undo Roe versus Wade, and they have succeeded in that by having a very long-term strategy that dates all the way back to the 1970s. And I think what is truly fascinating about all of this is the history behind the anti-abortion movement.

• 1:13:46Rich Roll?

  I sort of always assumed that the Christian right or the kind of evangelical population of this country has historically and always been anti-abortion, but that's actually not the case. There's a really amazing article on Politico about this history. It's called "The Religious Right and the Abortion Myth," and it really unearths the beginning of conservative activism in this terrain. And basically, what happened was that in the 1970s, these evangelical churches were attempting to double down on segregation.

• 1:14:27Rich Roll?

  And in response, the IRS was going after them with the one tool that they have, which is to revoke their tax-exempt status, to sort of strong-arm churches to abandon their segregationist policies. And in response, evangelicals realized that doubling down on segregation probably wasn't going to win hearts and minds.

• 1:14:49Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 1:14:50Rich Roll?

  And allow them to avoid the IRS's strategy of revoking their tax-exempt status. So what did they do? They end up changing the narrative. They flipped the script, and they make it all about government intrusion. And the kind of tip of the spear for that government intrusion narrative was adopting anti-abortion as the cause to rally their base and garner support. And they were very successful in doing that. Because where it gets fascinating is that prior to the 1970s, the church, and we're setting Catholics aside, actually cared very little about abortion. And as the history kind of bears out, they supported it in many, if not most, cases.

• 1:15:34Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 1:15:35Rich Roll?

  This was not a thing.

• 1:15:36Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 1:15:37Rich Roll?

  Until this IRS, you know, kind of...

• 1:15:39Adam Skolnick?

  That's the whole point.

• 1:15:40Rich Roll?

  Situation.

• 1:15:41Adam Skolnick?

  It's like the reason people think they're saving lives of babies is because they've been convinced of that. And that starts here. That's where this comes from. This idea that like that, that's how they whipped people up into a frenzy. And it's funny that they did this to avoid government intrusion into their affairs. That's nice.

• 1:15:55Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's super interesting.

• 1:15:56Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:15:57Rich Roll?

  Yeah, the irony there is pretty palpable. So here we are. You know, it's retrograde in so many ways. And, you know, I don't even know where to begin. We've already, you know, sort of eclipsed our six minutes, but there's plenty more to say about this before we move on. I think it's going to be really interesting, like how this gets played out and how it will ultimately end up getting enforced state by state. Right? I think, you know, obviously, if you're well healed, you're going to be able to get access to an abortion.

• 1:16:31Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:31Rich Roll?

  If you're in a red state or a state where it's outlawed and it's difficult. We're already seeing situations in which women are being persecuted, medical practitioners are being persecuted. And the kind of next culture war is how are we going to regulate and police the abortion pill? Because a huge percentage of abortions carried out in the U.S. and internationally is via this abortion pill, which is a two-pill regimen. The first is a hormone blocker to kind of arrest the conception. And the second is what causes the discharge or the hemorrhage. And that pill is by prescription.

• 1:17:08Rich Roll?

  And right now, there are kind of online telehealth sources for that that are overseas, that are in states where it's legal. So what's going to happen when all of this goes into effect and in many places it already has? How are, you know, what is, what is access to those pills going to look like? And how are states going to enforce or regulate that access? Are they going to go after the women? Like, it's not possible, right? So we're going to enter this weird prohibition era type situation where. Either people are gonna be, you know, kind of under the table trafficking in this stuff, or there really will be a true black market. But networks are gonna get set up

• 1:17:51Rich Roll?

  to provide people with access to this. And I think a very likely scenario is that a lot of women will end up, and I'm not recommending this, but they'll be able to get access to that second pill because it's prescribed for ulcers. And if you go to your doctor and say you have an ulcer, you can get the second one. And there seems to be some efficacy in using just the second pill without the first, if you do it within the first 10 weeks, I think is the window.

• 1:18:17Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:18Rich Roll?

  But not recommended, right? So we're gonna enter that era of, you know, kind of backroom dubious practices that are driven out of desperation.

• 1:18:28Adam Skolnick?

  Re-enter that realm.

• 1:18:29Rich Roll?

  Yeah, re-enter, of course, yeah.

• 1:18:31Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, I mean, it's, uh...

• 1:18:34Rich Roll?

  People are not gonna stop having sex.

• 1:18:36Adam Skolnick?

  No.

• 1:18:37Rich Roll?

  And there's, you know, they're not gonna stop...

• 1:18:39Adam Skolnick?

  Not that we know of.

• 1:18:40Rich Roll?

  There's not, you know, there's not gonna be a halt to unwanted pregnancies.

• 1:18:43Adam Skolnick?

  No, they happen.

• 1:18:44Rich Roll?

  And, and we don't, it's not like this is being met with an increase in funding and intentionality going into federal and state programs to, you know, support children who are born in such circumstances, or mothers who are in a predicament of having to suddenly raise a child that they didn't really wanna raise.

• 1:19:06Adam Skolnick?

  No, because the people that are in favor of these kinds of anti-choice measures also are anti-welfare state stuff. So you're never gonna see that. You're never gonna see...

• 1:19:14Rich Roll?

  The concern ends with birth.

• 1:19:16Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah. It's interesting. There could be some weird cases that come up. Did you see that woman who was in a carpool lane, pregnant, and got pulled over by a Texas...

• 1:19:24Rich Roll?

  Oh, yeah, you shared that with me, explain that.

• 1:19:26Adam Skolnick?

  ...Texas state trooper or something. And she said, he's like, "Where's the second person?" She pointed at her belly. And basically, she now has a line because she was using that same legal argument.

• 1:19:37Rich Roll?

  Which is personhood.

• 1:19:38Adam Skolnick?

  Personhood of, of the fetus. And so she technically could get out of it on personhood of the fetus.

• 1:19:43Rich Roll?

  She was in the HOV lane, right? The carpool lane.

• 1:19:45Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, so, you know, pregnant women...

• 1:19:46Rich Roll?

  And the cop was not having it.

• 1:19:47Adam Skolnick?

  Pregnant mothers.

• 1:19:48Rich Roll?

  But she's like, "Either this is a person in my belly, or it's not."

• 1:19:51Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 1:19:52Rich Roll?

  If it's not, then that offends the entire argument around.

• 1:19:56Adam Skolnick?

  Right, right, right. So that kind of stuff could happen. I like Malcolm, bringing back to Malcolm, his take on this is basically that we have, the Supreme Court is unchecked. They have too long a life. You need term limits. Ezra Klein had an 18-year term limit suggestion in his article, which is what gave rise to Malcolm writing about this in his newsletter, OMG, which is, I recommend it. It's a fun read.

• 1:20:20Rich Roll?

  OH, comma, MG.

• 1:20:21Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, and it's always a quick and fun read and educational. This one is, he thinks that every year, the longest-tenured judge should have to retire, or I guess it wouldn't be called retire, it'd be stand down. And then whoever's, whatever president is in power can appoint the next in the Senate. Same kind of structure to appoint. But then that gives a nine-year term limit, basically, by definition, which in his mind is, you know, it offers that kind of depolitization. They're not necessarily a creature of the political cycle. Because this idea that they are removed from the political cycle now is obviously bullshit. We've seen it now.

• 1:21:00Rich Roll?

  Right, so Malcolm goes through, like, the multiple times throughout the majority opinion that they make clear that they're not, you know, beholden to political interests. It's sort of a, "He doth protest too much" type of thing, like.

• 1:21:13Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 1:21:14Rich Roll?

  So, it's hard to imagine

• 1:21:19Rich Roll?

  a counterargument to that. Like, the wisdom of term limits seems to make sense.

• 1:21:23Adam Skolnick?

  Well, the counterargument is, it was in the Constitution. I mean, that's all anyone ever wants to say.

• 1:21:27Rich Roll?

  But let's, come on. I mean, the idea, I just, I can't stand this idea that we're, we're trying to read the minds of people who live in a world that looks nothing like ours. And people who couldn't conceive of what, you know, type of problems we would face and the complexity of the culture as it exists today. And I think, certainly, we can extract principles and tenets that hold true, that provide, you know, kind of the architecture of the Constitution. But when we get into strict constructionist mind-reading, I think we're really having to do some crazy gymnastics in order for, you know, our agenda to kind of fit.

• 1:22:11Rich Roll?

  What these people might or might not have imagined. And that applies to Second Amendment issues, et cetera, and all the way down the line.

• 1:22:19Adam Skolnick?

  You know what, Rich? Those are fighting words and I'm gonna go get my musket. I'll be right back.

• 1:22:23Rich Roll?

  Right. I mean, when the Fourteenth Amendment was passed, are you supposed to think about what they were thinking in 1780, whatever? Or at the time that the Fourteenth Amendment was passed?

• 1:22:34Adam Skolnick?

  There were more liberal people in 1480. I'm sure we can find more liberal people than Alito.

• 1:22:41Rich Roll?

  Listen, the people who were setting up House in Jamestown were some serious wackos.

• 1:22:47Adam Skolnick?

  That's the whole point. Like this country, like this idea that we have regress, but it's like, it's not like this stuff wasn't handwriting on the wall. Like the Puritans who came to Massachusetts were kicked out of England because they were making everyone stop drinking and having fun and like burning down the Globe Theater. It's like, nobody wanted them there anymore. And so then they came to Boston.

• 1:23:07Adam Skolnick?

  It's the truth.

• 1:23:08Rich Roll?

  I know, it's pretty funny when you think of it that way.

• 1:23:10Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's the truth.

• 1:23:13Rich Roll?

  Well, you mentioned diggable planets.

• 1:23:15Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 1:23:16Rich Roll?

  That's a good, you know, natural segue, as was my other segue into the Webb Telescope images.

• 1:23:23Adam Skolnick?

  I love it.

• 1:23:24Rich Roll?

  What did you make of all this?

• 1:23:26Adam Skolnick?

  Man, I loved it. I loved seeing those photos. I'm a big Carina Nebula guy now.

• 1:23:31Rich Roll?

  By the way, I think we went for like 18 minutes on the abortion thing. Go ahead.

• 1:23:38Adam Skolnick?

  It's because, it's probably my fault. Everyone's gonna blame me anyway. All your political opinions get blamed on me.

• 1:23:45Rich Roll?

  There might be a little bit of that.

• 1:23:48Rich Roll?

  I get a fair amount of blame. Listen, you can't talk about that subject matter without people getting upset.

• 1:23:53Adam Skolnick?

  Right. And we're supposed to be able to be grownups. And this was great. You know, I loved the, I think, is it Shannon Stearon, the, the opinion piece about the extraordinary images? I love that piece.

• 1:24:04Rich Roll?

  Oh, yeah, it's right here. Cocking in awe at the universe together.

• 1:24:07Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, she wrote that, you know, this was like one of those things where we can, yeah, it's like a public, we're all together watching this thing and it's a good thing and it's a positive thing and how rare are those? I mean, that's why I love writing stories about people pushing human limits and successful ones at that, because they are good, inspiring stories and we need those. So this is another one of those and the images are just tremendous and spectacular. And like, it just shows you how glorious the world is and the universe is.

• 1:24:38Rich Roll?

  Is this the one thing we can all agree on? Are there debates going on right now? Divisive debates about this?

• 1:24:45Adam Skolnick?

  I don't know, man.

• 1:24:45Rich Roll?

  It does feel pretty unifying. Like, if this can't unify us, I really, I don't know.

• 1:24:50Adam Skolnick?

  Think about it. It's like a collaboration among NASA, European Space Agency, Canadian Space Agency. I mean, like, the International Space Station is often, you know, held down by Russia. We were sending people for, like, American astronauts from Russia. Like, the space area is the one place we can all agree on. And Elon will find life in outer space. He will.

• 1:25:11Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:11Adam Skolnick?

  If he can get out of this Twitter contract.

• 1:25:14Rich Roll?

  We'll see about whether he can. He's trying hard. But lawsuits are afoot. They might hold his hand to the flame this time. I think that'll end up settling.

• 1:25:23Adam Skolnick?

  How did this land for you? You were deep in second COVID when this was going on, right?

• 1:25:27Rich Roll?

  I was.

• 1:25:27Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:27Rich Roll?

  I mean, listen, it's hard to, you know, look at those images and not just be inspired with awe and wonder and humility. The thing that really got me was the paragraph, I think it's on the NASA site, where they say, "For a sense of scale..." Like, if you take that main image, like, you can see it on the screen right there, the one that got shared first.

• 1:25:48Adam Skolnick?

  Shannon wrote this one you're talking about, yeah.

• 1:25:50Rich Roll?

  Oh, yeah. "For a sense of..." "If you could hold a grain of sand at arm's length up to the sky, that speck is the size of the view." In other words, everything that you see in that image, which is so much, can be held in that grain of sand. And then there's everything else. So it is one miniscule sliver of our universe filled with thousands of galaxies, each with billions or trillions of star systems, and each of those with its own planets. I mean, it's so hard to... You can read that and you can try to intellectualize it, but the numbers are so big.

• 1:26:21Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:22Rich Roll?

  That you can't grasp it. And it's only in seeing an image like that, that's so crisp and detailed, that you can begin to kind of grapple with the vastness of scale. And I don't know. You know, I look at that and I just think, there's no way we're alone. Like, how could it be possible that we're alone?

• 1:26:38Adam Skolnick?

  Where's Dune? Which one's Dune?

• 1:26:39Rich Roll?

  Which one's Dune? You mean the sand dune in Malibu? Which one's dude? Where's the spice?

• 1:26:48Rich Roll?

  And the worms?

• 1:26:49Adam Skolnick?

  Where's the worm planet?

• 1:26:51Rich Roll?

  And then that's not even getting into the fact that like you're looking back in time.

• 1:26:55Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 1:26:56Rich Roll?

  Like, so our brains aren't, we can't understand that, what that means.

• 1:26:59Adam Skolnick?

  We can't.

• 1:27:00Rich Roll?

  Oh, what you're seeing is that's billions of years ago.

• 1:27:02Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:03Rich Roll?

  And it's far away.

• 1:27:04Adam Skolnick?

  That's why you said, you said that when you were feeling depressed, like,

• 1:27:09Adam Skolnick?

  feeling insignificant or whatever. That's where feeling insignificant is a positive thing, right? Like, the humility aspect of it, but also just the fact that you are just this one note in a concerto. And it's like, it's a beautiful thing to think of yourself that way.

• 1:27:25Rich Roll?

  It's freeing.

• 1:27:26Adam Skolnick?

  It's liberating.

• 1:27:27Rich Roll?

  I don't find that depressing at all.

• 1:27:28Adam Skolnick?

  No.

• 1:27:28Rich Roll?

  I find that to be, you know, calming.

• 1:27:30Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah. And like, your problems are smaller than that grain of sand because you're a grain of sand. So, nobody really cares, so why are you caring so much? You know, like, and that's not to say to not take your life seriously, or not take yourself seriously, or contend with your, with your own issues. I think you should, but the stakes we often put upon ourselves and the pressure is so high. And it doesn't have to always be that way.

• 1:27:55Rich Roll?

  You know what I say, Adam?

• 1:27:56Adam Skolnick?

  What?

• 1:27:56Rich Roll?

  I say Cory Booker, look out, because Adam Skolnick is coming for your crown. Your inspirational self-help guru crown.

• 1:28:05Adam Skolnick?

  No.

• 1:28:06Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:06Adam Skolnick?

  No!

• 1:28:07Rich Roll?

  You just delivered an awesome monologue.

• 1:28:09Adam Skolnick?

  I delivered a rich roll.

• 1:28:13Adam Skolnick?

  I opened a can of rich roll.

• 1:28:14Rich Roll?

  Clip that!

• 1:28:14Adam Skolnick?

  I opened a can of rich roll.

• 1:28:15Rich Roll?

  There's your reel for Instagram.

• 1:28:18Adam Skolnick?

  See if I can get Cameo to cut it.

• 1:28:20Rich Roll?

  I love these web images. I mean, it's, it's really just absolutely stunning.

• 1:28:25Adam Skolnick?

  Cool.

• 1:28:26Rich Roll?

  And, uh, yeah, man. It's cool. It's cool that we live in a time where stuff like this is coming out.

• 1:28:32Adam Skolnick?

  You know what I stumbled upon? I was at the, um, what's the, uh... Museum down in, in Westwood. You know what I mean?

• 1:28:41Rich Roll?

  Oh, yeah, yeah.

• 1:28:42Adam Skolnick?

  Westwood.

• 1:28:43Rich Roll?

  Mathis was just there.

• 1:28:44Adam Skolnick?

  Hammer, the hammer.

• 1:28:44Rich Roll?

  The hammer, yeah. Is there a Barbara Kruger exhibit there right now?

• 1:28:47Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, there's something going on and there's like a moon thing. I, I, we were at this, I just went, stopped into the gift shop. I love a museum gift shop. Who doesn't love a museum gift shop?

• 1:28:56Rich Roll?

  The best gift shops.

• 1:28:57Adam Skolnick?

  The best gift shops.

• 1:28:58Rich Roll?

  There's always some kind of weird clock. You know, they're always trying to reinvent the clock.

• 1:29:03Adam Skolnick?

  The clocks are completely useless now.

• 1:29:07Adam Skolnick?

  But I picked up this cool book. I'll, I'll show it to you, but it's basically from all the Apollo expeditions, all the Apollo missions. The photographs taken by the astronauts themselves and, and then edited in a certain way. And with like kind of excerpts and writings from E.B. White, who was covering the Apollo missions for the New Yorker at the time. He's got one essay in there and then there's other writings. But it's just so cool to see these images of the moon, like a moon rock in the moon desert. You know, the earth rising above the moon. And it just makes me feel so good. And watching when Zuma looks up at the moon, it's like the greatest thing in the world. Right? You know, it's that simple stuff. So like something about space just still hits us.

• 1:29:48Rich Roll?

  I love it.

• 1:29:48Adam Skolnick?

  Hard. Yeah.

• 1:29:49Rich Roll?

  I mean, you know, as, as we talked about earlier, I grew up in the Washington DC area in Bethesda, which is a suburb of Washington. And I still remember when the, the Air and Space Museum opened and what a big deal that was and how cool it was to go there. And at that time, there was no, the subway didn't reach all the way out to Bethesda. But when it finally did, then I could take the subway as like a young person and go to the Air and Space Museum with my friend, like as young people, like without parents. And I used to go there like all the time. Like I have that museum like imprinted in my long-term memory. I just loved it so much.

• 1:30:30Adam Skolnick?

  A little Rich Roll, rocking around the museum.

• 1:30:33Rich Roll?

  They had a Star Trek exhibit and then like, you know, the, the Lunar Lander and the Spirit of St. Louis, the original Eames film, Powers of Ten.

• 1:30:43Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:43Rich Roll?

  You know that movie where?

• 1:30:44Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:44Rich Roll?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like I just, oh, man. It was very influential on me as a young person. Still my favorite museum.

• 1:30:51Adam Skolnick?

  Let's just go be astronauts, huh? Let's just leave this behind.

• 1:30:54Rich Roll?

  Are you into For All Mankind on Apple Plus TV?

• 1:30:59Adam Skolnick?

  Which one is that? Is that the one with Jared Harris?

• 1:31:01Rich Roll?

  It's the alternate universe where the Russians win the space race and then kind of what happens as a result of that. So it's by Ronald Moore, the guy who created Battlestar Galactica.

• 1:31:10Adam Skolnick?

  No.

• 1:31:11Rich Roll?

  And I think they're in season three now. It's a pretty cool show. If you're into space.

• 1:31:14Adam Skolnick?

  I've not, I've not seen that. I did just re-watch Point Break. Have you heard of that film?

• 1:31:19Rich Roll?

  I have.

• 1:31:20Adam Skolnick?

  It's a great film. Bodhi, short for Bodhi Zadfa.

• 1:31:25Adam Skolnick?

  And I watched that.

• 1:31:27Rich Roll?

  Does it hold up?

• 1:31:28Adam Skolnick?

  It's so good, dude. It's so good, yet not good, but that's what makes it good. Yeah. All I can say is I'm gonna watch everything Anthony Kiedis is in from now on. I forgot how great he is in that movie. I love him.

• 1:31:42Rich Roll?

  He's probably in a bunch of movies and cameos.

• 1:31:45Adam Skolnick?

  I'm gonna start watching them.

• 1:31:46Rich Roll?

  That's funny.

• 1:31:47Adam Skolnick?

  He gets shot in it. He's so good. He's perfect.

• 1:31:50Rich Roll?

  How's Keanu?

• 1:31:52Adam Skolnick?

  Listen, man. I love Keanu Reeves.

• 1:31:55Rich Roll?

  Don't come at my guy.

• 1:31:56Adam Skolnick?

  Don't come at Keanu Reeves.

• 1:31:57Rich Roll?

  Unless you have positive things to say.

• 1:31:58Adam Skolnick?

  I love Keanu Reeves. I also think Patrick Swayze put on an epic performance. He's amazing.

• 1:32:03Rich Roll?

  Underrated master.

• 1:32:04Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 1:32:05Rich Roll?

  Of the cinematic arts.

• 1:32:07Adam Skolnick?

  Yes. I heard a rumor that he got so into skydiving that that exit is actually his exit. He got super into it during the filming and did a lot of it. And like, he's literally skydiving himself, doing stunts. So that's pretty cool.

• 1:32:20Rich Roll?

  Maybe we should do a whole episode breakdown of Point Break.

• 1:32:23Adam Skolnick?

  I was wondering, did re-watchables do Point Break? They had to have. They had to have.

• 1:32:27Rich Roll?

  That's a good question. If they haven't, it would be shocking if they haven't. Not recently, maybe way back in the archive. I can't imagine they have it. I mean, that's right up Bill Simmons' alley.

• 1:32:38Adam Skolnick?

  But that end, when, when Keanu is satisfied that he's gonna get Bodhi, or Bodhi will get got by the huge swell at Bell's Beach, and he just tosses his FBI badge aside into the shallows. He's like, I'm done with this bullshit. I was just thinking, in real life, you keep that badge until you get to US Customs, you get through Customs. Only then do you toss, because there's no, remember, keep in mind, this is a long time ago. There's no.

• 1:33:04Rich Roll?

  Pre-9/11.

• 1:33:05Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, it's pre-9/11, so there, and, and there's no global entry. So you have to wait in that line. Trust me, you hold on to that badge.

• 1:33:11Rich Roll?

  Yeah, but it's Keanu, one phone call. Don't overthink it.

• 1:33:15Adam Skolnick?

  It's not Keanu, it's an FBI agent.

• 1:33:17Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:33:17Adam Skolnick?

  It's, what's his name?

• 1:33:21Rich Roll?

  All right, we're done talking about that.

• 1:33:23Adam Skolnick?

  Okay, sorry.

• 1:33:24Rich Roll?

  But I do want to share one thing that I really enjoyed. I binged this entire series while I was laying in bed with COVID, which is The Bear on FX.

• 1:33:32Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 1:33:33Rich Roll?

  Have you watched the whole, all of it?

• 1:33:34Adam Skolnick?

  I'm seven out of eight, done seven out of eight. We're saving the finales tonight.

• 1:33:38Rich Roll?

  This show is so fucking good. It's my favorite new thing.

• 1:33:40Adam Skolnick?

  It's good.

• 1:33:41Rich Roll?

  And each episode is only, is under 30 minutes.

• 1:33:43Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 1:33:44Rich Roll?

  You can, there's, I think there's eight episodes.

• 1:33:46Adam Skolnick?

  I don't get commercials anymore.

• 1:33:48Rich Roll?

  Yeah, you, we were talking about this the other night. You're like, I hate the commercials on Hulu.

• 1:33:51Adam Skolnick?

  I thought.

• 1:33:52Rich Roll?

  What are you doing, dude?

• 1:33:53Adam Skolnick?

  I thought everyone got commercials.

• 1:33:54Rich Roll?

  No.

• 1:33:57Rich Roll?

  You got that Goggins cash. You can pay six bucks a month or whatever it is, 10 bucks a month. At least for a limited time, you can cancel it later.

• 1:34:06Adam Skolnick?

  Yes, yes, yes, yes. I won't cancel it.

• 1:34:08Rich Roll?

  Anyway, I love The Bear. Bear is the story of this young chef who goes to New York, chefs at, you know, under the greatest chef at the best restaurant in the world.

• 1:34:19Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:20Rich Roll?

  It would appear that he was a sous chef at Noma. They talk about Noma a bunch of times.

• 1:34:23Adam Skolnick?

  Chef de cuisine, I think. Chef de cuisine, just below executive chef.

• 1:34:26Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:34:26Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:26Rich Roll?

  There's cameos by the Noma cookbook and the Noma fermentation book, which was written by David Zilber, who's somebody that I had the opportunity to meet and I've been to Noma. I love how they kind of make fun of 11 Madison Park, too.

• 1:34:40Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 1:34:40Rich Roll?

  But basically, it's the story of this guy who was really on this trajectory towards chef superstardom.

• 1:34:47Adam Skolnick?

  He was best, best young.

• 1:34:48Rich Roll?

  He wanted James Beard Award.

• 1:34:49Adam Skolnick?

  And Food and Wine's Best Young New Chef or something.

• 1:34:52Rich Roll?

  And his older brother dies. His brother had a history with addiction. And he moves home to Chicago and takes over the family-owned sandwich shop.

• 1:35:02Adam Skolnick?

  Kills himself, the older brother, I think.

• 1:35:03Rich Roll?

  Right, yeah. Commit suicide.

• 1:35:05Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:35:05Rich Roll?

  And he takes it upon himself to try to get this capsized enterprise back on its feet and perhaps even do something interesting there. And it's sort of a comedy, it's sort of a drama. The performances are just off the charts. Jeremy Allen White as the chef, Evan Moss Bakarok as like, they call him the cousin. I think he's just like a friend who works there. He's kind of a hothead.

• 1:35:27Adam Skolnick?

  He was like the best friend, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Of the of the older brother.

• 1:35:31Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:35:31Adam Skolnick?

  And then he had been running things in the absence when like after it happened. So he stayed in charge of basically and the chef came in and started ruffling his feathers. Basically.

• 1:35:41Rich Roll?

  Right. And just crushes the Chicago accent. And he's you had said he's like shades of a young Gary Oldman from State of Grace.

• 1:35:47Adam Skolnick?

  I think so. Yeah, not as maniacal as that because he's not a killer, but certainly.

• 1:35:52Rich Roll?

  Flying off the handle.

• 1:35:53Adam Skolnick?

  The operatic.

• 1:35:54Rich Roll?

  He has the juicy part.

• 1:35:55Adam Skolnick?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:35:56Rich Roll?

  You know, and he just absolutely crushes it.

• 1:35:58Adam Skolnick?

  Amazing.

• 1:35:58Rich Roll?

  People would know him from Girls, if you watch that show, he had a he had a part in Girls.

• 1:36:02Adam Skolnick?

  He's a phenomenal actor.

• 1:36:03Rich Roll?

  Oliver Platt has a great part in this as well. What's interesting is that Oliver Platt's brother, Adam Platt, he just retired, but he was a food critic for many, many years. He was the chief food critic for New York Magazine. And when I went to Noma with Jeff Gordon here, I was also with Adam Platt.

• 1:36:20Adam Skolnick?

  Okay.

• 1:36:21Rich Roll?

  It's cool that like Adam's brother Oliver is in this show, which is about food.

• 1:36:25Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, Oliver Platt's never been better, in my opinion.

• 1:36:28Rich Roll?

  He's fantastic in this.

• 1:36:29Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:36:29Rich Roll?

  So I love everything about this show, particularly episode seven. We don't need to get it. I want people to experience this show without spoiling anything. But episode seven, just bear in mind, the entire episode is one shot. It's a tracking shot for all of 28 minutes or something like that.

• 1:36:47Adam Skolnick?

  Something like that.

• 1:36:48Rich Roll?

  Unbelievable cinematic achievement. And the tension, the humor, the pathos, like everything about this is just wonderful. And exactly what you would want from the best of what television has to offer.

• 1:37:02Adam Skolnick?

  What about the fact that it's like, I mean, for your not for your listeners or whatever, but it's all about. It's basically a French dip restaurant, right? Like it's like a it's like a roast beef sandwich and hot dog joint.

• 1:37:13Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I mean, it's a classic hole in the wall, family owned, you know, sandwich shop.

• 1:37:17Adam Skolnick?

  So do those.

• 1:37:18Rich Roll?

  Neighborhood sandwich shop in Chicago.

• 1:37:20Adam Skolnick?

  Right. Do those seared beef images actually make you kind of like, you know how they're shot in a way to make you?

• 1:37:26Rich Roll?

  I'm past it. I'm over it.

• 1:37:27Adam Skolnick?

  You're past that?

• 1:37:28Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:37:28Adam Skolnick?

  Not even a little bit?

• 1:37:29Rich Roll?

  But I've had, listen, I've spent my fair share of time in spots like that, particularly like you like you go out drinking. You're in Buffalo or you're in Philly.

• 1:37:37Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:37:38Rich Roll?

  And you want that cheesesteak late night.

• 1:37:39Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:37:39Rich Roll?

  Like, this is where you go.

• 1:37:41Adam Skolnick?

  So here's my one critique of the show.

• 1:37:44Rich Roll?

  Uh oh.

• 1:37:45Adam Skolnick?

  Why is it only open from three to 10?

• 1:37:47Rich Roll?

  There is a weird thing about that.

• 1:37:49Adam Skolnick?

  It's a sandwich shop. Like Philippe's downtown is open at like 9 a.m. or 7 a.m. or something like that.

• 1:37:54Rich Roll?

  It does seem that they don't open until like 3 o'clock or something.

• 1:37:57Adam Skolnick?

  They open at 3. They go 3 to 10.

• 1:38:00Rich Roll?

  But is it possible that they have an earlier shift and then they close and then they reopen?

• 1:38:05Adam Skolnick?

  In episode 7, there's a shot of the hours and it says 3 to 10. This whole time for the first several episodes.

• 1:38:11Rich Roll?

  I understand the late night, but they're not open until like 2 in the morning either.

• 1:38:14Adam Skolnick?

  So that's my whole thing. I was.

• 1:38:15Rich Roll?

  They miss lunch and who wants a sandwich for dinner?

• 1:38:19Adam Skolnick?

  That's my point.

• 1:38:21Rich Roll?

  And then they're not open when the bar's closed.

• 1:38:22Adam Skolnick?

  No wonder they're struggling. That's what I was, this whole time I was, I was saying to April, I'm like, but when, when do they open? I couldn't figure it out. And she was like, and she couldn't figure it out. We couldn't. And so, and now it's, they're open 3 to 10. Sorry, spoiler alert. They're open 3 to 10.

• 1:38:37Rich Roll?

  There it is.

• 1:38:38Adam Skolnick?

  You know, it's been a good time for me to watch it.

• 1:38:40Rich Roll?

  Pull up that page I just put up so people can see who are, who have not heard of this show.

• 1:38:44Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 1:38:45Rich Roll?

  Anyway, I love it. We can overlook that.

• 1:38:48Adam Skolnick?

  I do overlook it. I'm just joking, but I love the fact that I've also been on a Anthony Bourdain deep dive. And so I just read Kitchen Confidential, which so interesting because it, there's the parallels with the chef and the whole, with the chefing and even the suicide angle and all that and the misanthropic kind of undertones of it.

• 1:39:08Rich Roll?

  And the intensity.

• 1:39:09Adam Skolnick?

  And the intensity.

• 1:39:10Rich Roll?

  And the collegiality, like the family aspect.

• 1:39:13Adam Skolnick?

  And the machismo of a kitchen and all that, like, because that's deep into Kitchen Confidential and which is a, if you have only watched the television shows and you like Anthony Bourdain, I highly recommend.

• 1:39:24Rich Roll?

  You'll love The Bear.

• 1:39:25Adam Skolnick?

  And you'll love The Bear.

• 1:39:26Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:27Adam Skolnick?

  And anyway, so just having watched that at the time that I'm reading that book has been kind of fun.

• 1:39:33Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:39:34Adam Skolnick?

  You know, feedback.

• 1:39:35Rich Roll?

  And they just got renewed for a second season.

• 1:39:37Adam Skolnick?

  Of course.

• 1:39:38Rich Roll?

  The performances in this show are fantastic.

• 1:39:40Adam Skolnick?

  I think especially the first episode and episode seven, both of those, where there's so much of the entire cast in it all at once in a tight confined space and talking over each other. It's almost like a play.

• 1:39:53Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's very theatrical.

• 1:39:54Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:39:55Rich Roll?

  And I think a lot of these actors come from the theater.

• 1:39:59Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 1:39:59Rich Roll?

  Uh, anyway, I love it. I high recommend. Do you?

• 1:40:04Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, I just was at a theater down the street.

• 1:40:06Rich Roll?

  The theater of the demented mind.

• 1:40:08Adam Skolnick?

  Thank you.

• 1:40:09Rich Roll?

  All right. Let's do some listener questions. We haven't done these in a long time.

• 1:40:13Adam Skolnick?

  What? Listeners?

• 1:40:15Rich Roll?

  They got interrupted by Cory Booker.

• 1:40:18Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, sorry, guys. This is Anna Grace from Charlottesville, Virginia.

• 1:40:25Speaker 02

  Hi, Rich and Adam. I'm Anna Grace. I'm from Charlottesville, Virginia, and I'm going into my fourth year of college here. I know that I want to do public service work in the international affairs area. A lot of your interview guests talk about the importance of prioritizing your own well-being and living a holistic life that isn't overly focused on gaining accolades or a narrow definition of success. However, it seems like a lot of them did have a very work and accolade centric beginning of their career, and this is definitely something I feel a lot of pressure to do because the jobs where I feel that I can ultimately have the most impact kind of require it. Do you think that having a sort of very unbalanced and maybe unhealthy

• 1:41:08Speaker 02

  focus on work is a rite of passage to launch yourself into a position of impact? Or is there a better way to think about this for young people specifically? I'm curious to hear your thoughts. I really admire you both and thank you for all of the work that you do. Thank you.

• 1:41:24Rich Roll?

  First of all, Anna Grace, great name. Very good name, right?

• 1:41:29Adam Skolnick?

  Great question and great name, Anna Grace. And I love the delivery. The delivery was fabulous.

• 1:41:35Rich Roll?

  All I'm thinking, like I barely heard what she said, other than this thought that kept recurring in my mind, which is, Adam, can you imagine being in your fourth year of college and thinking about things in the way that Anna is thinking about them in such a mature way?

• 1:41:52Adam Skolnick?

  No, because I would be like dropping acid or smoking a bong rip.

• 1:41:58Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I mean, first of all, like, whatever I say, almost doesn't matter, Anna, because like, you're gonna be fine. If this is where your head's at, and you're kind of weighing these things in this way, you're already like, miles down the road. Like, you'll be fine, right?

• 1:42:14Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, I mean, I'm-

• 1:42:15Rich Roll?

  You'll figure it out.

• 1:42:16Adam Skolnick?

  I think it's an incredible question. Because I don't even, you're right, I don't think people 10 years, 15 years older than her think things, things through so-

• 1:42:24Rich Roll?

  Just the fact that you're asking yourself this question and trying to figure it out, puts you in rare company. So, let me just say that to begin with. And then, second to that, I think it's worth noting that you should be congratulated on having some conviction about what you want to do and, and how you want to do it, and a sense of how to go about it in a healthy way. Like, again, speaks to your maturity and intelligence. And, you know, I think, the way that I would launch in answering this is to first, sort of acknowledge your youth. I mean, I assume, as somebody who's in their fourth year of college, you're in your early twenties. And, and I think of that time as a time for exploration, for gathering experiences,

• 1:43:07Rich Roll?

  all kinds of different experiences, and a time where it makes sense to incur some risk, right? Like, you don't have a mortgage, you don't have a family, you don't have dependents. It's a time in your life where you will be as free as you ever will be to try lots of things, without, you know, without having to really, you know, suffer any amazing consequences. Like, this is the time for that. And I think in the context of what you want to pursue, which is public service and international affairs, what's interesting about that is that it is, it is both specific and broad. Like, it's specific in that, like, it's a kind of a thing in a certain type of area that you seem to-

• 1:43:48Rich Roll?

  Be attracted to wherein there is probably a very specific path for moving upward. But it's also pretty broad. And I think when you say international affairs, like that could be anything. And as somebody in your twenties, I immediately leap to like, we'll travel, like immerse yourself in foreign cultures, be an international citizen. And I think long term, even though that doesn't seem specifically wed to a particular career track, it will be extremely valuable as you progress in that world in terms of what you have to have to offer. So again, think about how you can accumulate experience in that field from that broad

• 1:44:30Rich Roll?

  perspective, because within it, I suspect, I suspect that there are many jobs in past, probably most of which you may not even be aware of at this juncture.

• 1:44:39Adam Skolnick?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:44:40Rich Roll?

  On the work hard thing, that's a really interesting wrinkle to all of this because it is important to work hard, right? Like you cannot excel or, you know, kind of accelerate yourself into a lofty position without working hard. I think the key is being aware of your attachment to specific jobs and to specific outcomes and to learn how to hold those loosely, to work hard and focus on the things that you can control, but to not get irrationally attached to any specific job or track or externalities like accolades, et cetera. And again, you know, back to this idea of international affairs.

• 1:45:24Rich Roll?

  I mean, that seems to me to be something that could be anything. It could be self dictated. And right now, my advice would be that your job should really be a bit, be about becoming internationally educated. Again, back to travel and experience and not getting caught up in externalities and and to focus on like what excites you, what lights you up in the field of international affairs and to try lots of things and develop expertise in a variety of areas, ala David Epstein and his book Range, which if you, if you have not read that book, you should certainly read it. And I think over time, all of those experiences will like sort of congeal and come into play.

• 1:46:05Rich Roll?

  To uniquely situate you for the role that you ultimately want to play and might position you to be the only person in the world suitable for that specific thing because of the unique set of experiences that you've had. And I think within that, it's important, you know, as a young person coming out of college, there's a sense of expediency, like, I gotta, I gotta move forward, I gotta climb the ladder, I'm missing out, people are getting ahead of me. And I think you should really just embrace the idea that you're at the beginning of a very long journey. And within that, you can kind of relax and prioritize self-care is important and valuable, but not to confuse that with laziness, because you will have to work hard.

• 1:46:49Rich Roll?

  But I think that hard work should come within the context of a strategy that relates to playing the long game. Like, you can work hard and you can take care of yourself. They're not necessarily mutually exclusive or orthogonal ideas. And I think that's a mistake I see a lot of young people make, like, they rationalize laziness as self-care or as an excuse to not work hard.

• 1:47:14Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 1:47:15Rich Roll?

  Because to be successful, you're gonna have to work hard.

• 1:47:17Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 1:47:18Rich Roll?

  But ultimate success means avoiding burnout and designing a life that aligns with your values over an extended period of time, so that you can continue to get better at what it is that you do without burning out or without suffering the negative ramifications of like, an unhealthy work schedule. And I think now is the best time to get clear on what that might look like and lay the foundation for that.

• 1:47:42Adam Skolnick?

  A hundred percent. That's so well done. You do these so well, these listener questions.

• 1:47:49Rich Roll?

  I did make notes.

• 1:47:50Adam Skolnick?

  Can I say that? You do these well. I'm getting shades of Samantha Power in Anna Grace. You know what I'm saying? Samantha Power, the Obama ambassador to the UN, I believe. And she wrote a book called The Education of an Idealist. And I heard her on, I think it was on Terry Gross or something, and she's phenomenal. I wonder if Anna has read that.

• 1:48:12Adam Skolnick?

  Listen, I am someone who decided I wanted to write my way around the world and I did that. And I was able to do that because I really was single-minded in that pursuit. That doesn't mean I was the most, always the most work-obsessed, but by the time I started doing it for a living, it did demand months at a time with no days off. So that kind of stuff does happen and you have short deadlines and you have to meet them. And so there's time and place for that kind of single-minded pursuit. And I think the idea of doing that young, when you don't have the baggage that comes with, you know, just being older and being more established, you know, you're sleek, you can move around. So I think-

• 1:48:55Rich Roll?

  And you can make it fun.

• 1:48:56Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, you can make it-

• 1:48:57Rich Roll?

  You can bust your ass. And if it is really what you love doing, it should be a significant aspect of that.

• 1:49:02Adam Skolnick?

  It's going to be exhilarating.

• 1:49:03Rich Roll?

  It's going to bring you joy. But also, you're going to have to, you've got to learn that when that's the case, you're even more in a danger zone because then you'll never take a break.

• 1:49:10Adam Skolnick?

  Well, so, right. And you don't want to get to that point, but I think the great part about international life is that you're always, it's always, something's always happening.

• 1:49:20Rich Roll?

  It's pretty sick. It's like Jason Bourne.

• 1:49:22Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, it's pretty awesome. And you're going to work hard and then there's going to be opportunities to hang out and have fun and explore different places because it's all, you're international. I think the best piece of advice you gave is be international. And that means learning languages that, you know, you want to be bilingual, maybe trilingual.

• 1:49:40Rich Roll?

  Learning culture, learning language.

• 1:49:41Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:49:41Rich Roll?

  Experiencing those cultures.

• 1:49:42Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:49:43Rich Roll?

  Boots on the ground.

• 1:49:43Adam Skolnick?

  And if-

• 1:49:44Rich Roll?

  Understanding their politics and their history.

• 1:49:46Adam Skolnick?

  Hundred percent. And that's the greatest piece of advice you gave. And I think that I would, I would say that like, just go, get lost, go to wherever you want to go and explore it and be part of it. And you will not go wrong, whatever comes out of that. The other thing is, you know, it's funny how when you have this idea that you want to do or be something, then you kind of get there. And then you realize how limiting that was. And something else comes up. So like for me wanting to write my way around the world. And after doing Lonely Planet book, after like basically doing that for seven, eight years, that's all I did. Um, I realized, well, that wasn't really the pinnacle of the craft of writing. And so I, I had other ambitions that kind of came up.

• 1:50:31Rich Roll?

  That's part of growth.

• 1:50:32Adam Skolnick?

  Right. So that's going to happen. So that idea of holding things lightly. It's not just because, hey, it may not work out. It's actually because, hey, you might evolve and your ambitions will evolve with you. And therefore, you know, it's okay to hold certain, uh, destinations lightly in terms of, you know, career destinations, because things could change for you too. So that the idea that this is just an experience to, to, to, to get the most out of and to dedicate yourself to it, whether it's, uh, you know, working 60 hours a week or not.

• 1:51:06Adam Skolnick?

  I like that attitude. I see, I see success in Anna Grace's future.

• 1:51:10Rich Roll?

  Like I said, I'm not worried about, I'm not worried about Anna.

• 1:51:15Adam Skolnick?

  No.

• 1:51:15Rich Roll?

  She's gonna be fine. I'm jealous. Sounds like she's getting ready for an awesome life.

• 1:51:21Adam Skolnick?

  It's true. You want to go back in time.

• 1:51:24Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:51:24Adam Skolnick?

  You want to be Rich Roll at 21.

• 1:51:27Rich Roll?

  Growing up in the greater Washington DC area, I was, I was in a perfect position to become a spy, an international spy. I had a friend, I had a friend, I had a friend whose dad was a CIA.

• 1:51:38Adam Skolnick?

  That's exactly what an international spy would say. What you just said. Yes. I would be so good as a spy.

• 1:51:45Rich Roll?

  All along. That's what really has been happening. All right, let's move on. Let's move to Dan from Silver Spring.

• 1:51:53Adam Skolnick?

  Dan from Silver Spring. 301 Silver Spring, get it?

• 1:51:58Rich Roll?

  Back to DC.

• 1:52:00Adam Skolnick?

  Listener, you think, you think this is Dan from Silver Spring with a question, but really it's a message for his operative.

• 1:52:07Rich Roll?

  This is my handler, my handler at Langley. He lives in Silver Spring. He works in Langley.

• 1:52:14Adam Skolnick?

  He commutes. He commutes.

• 1:52:15Rich Roll?

  Okay.

• 1:52:17Speaker 03

  Hey Rich and Adam. This is Dan from Silver Spring, just outside DC. Rich, thanks for your passion. I'll be six years sober September and your show helps me stay on the path. But I wanted to call today to ask both of you about gratitude. You both talk about how important it is in your lives and many of your guests have as well, most notably Tommy Rives, who's a personal hero of mine as well. I have a lot to be grateful for. Sobriety, a loving wife who is my best friend, two kids who are hilarious and awesome, my health. I had a brain tumor removed a few years ago and I'm back at running and hiking just like before. So there's a lot there. I'm having trouble grasping this idea though. Every time I think about all of the things I have to be grateful for, it's kind

• 1:52:58Speaker 03

  of like, yeah, okay, things are good. Cool. How do you guys embody gratitude? What am I missing here? And how do people like you and Adam and Tommy Rives live that gratitude? Thanks so much, guys. Peace.

• 1:53:13Rich Roll?

  I feel like that last sentence there is the cipher.

• 1:53:16Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, the radio.

• 1:53:16Rich Roll?

  That will unlock

• 1:53:18Adam Skolnick?

  The radio.

• 1:53:18Rich Roll?

  how we decode the rest of this message.

• 1:53:20Adam Skolnick?

  The radio. That shows. That shows who he really is.

• 1:53:25Rich Roll?

  And dropping all these keywords, right?

• 1:53:27Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:53:28Rich Roll?

  Tommy Rives, gratitude.

• 1:53:31Adam Skolnick?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:53:31Rich Roll?

  Hmm.

• 1:53:33Adam Skolnick?

  What's gratitude really mean?

• 1:53:34Rich Roll?

  I've been found out. Yeah, I've been discovered. Anyway, uh, this is a really good question, Dan. Thank you for that. And I appreciate you sharing that story. Obviously, you've gone through some really hard stuff and must have been really challenging to endure all of that. And you're on the other side of it and you're asking yourself the right question, right? Like, how can I connect more deeply with gratitude? My sense, just from your tone of voice and the way that you kind of laid this question out, is that, and I could be totally wrong, but it sounds like you're kind of living in your head and trying to intellectualize this idea of gratitude. And perhaps that's serving to block you from just emotionally connecting with it. Because it's like this equation you're trying to

• 1:54:15Rich Roll?

  solve with your mind as opposed to an allowing or a letting go that will open you up emotionally to this type of experience, which is hard to do. And I'm very sympathetic and empathetic to that. Like gratitude is tricky. I've talked about this a lot on the podcast, as I've said many times, I don't naturally exude it. I'm petty, I'm competitive, I'm super jealous of Adam, I'm even more envious of Adam.

• 1:54:42Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:54:43Rich Roll?

  Grouchy.

• 1:54:43Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:54:44Rich Roll?

  I can be entitled.

• 1:54:45Adam Skolnick?

  All true.

• 1:54:45Rich Roll?

  All of it, right?

• 1:54:46Adam Skolnick?

  All true.

• 1:54:48Rich Roll?

  And gratitude is just one modality, a powerful modality, a practice that can be deployed to keep those baser emotions at bay and help you connect with the things that are most important. And the tasks for cultivating it, again, as I've discussed many times, are multivariate. You could do a gratitude list, writing down every single day before you go to bed, or the minute you wake up in the morning, a list of 10 things that you're grateful for. Although, that can be an intellectual exercise, and it sounds like maybe you've even tried that and it's not working. And I get that, too. You can be of service to those in need. You can call up an old friend that you haven't spoken to before and tell

• 1:55:31Rich Roll?

  them that you miss him or her. You can write a letter to somebody you care about. In other words, practicing the expression of gratitude aids in cultivating that sense within yourself. But I really hear what you have to say, Dan, because often in doing this myself, I find that connecting with gratitude is difficult, that it can be this intellectual pursuit that doesn't really pay off emotionally. And it's really a struggle to figure out how to feel it, like feel it with your body. The way that I've been able to kind of turn the page and pull the covers on that is through mindfulness and meditation. Because I think

• 1:56:15Rich Roll?

  the more that you can be present with yourself and opt out of the looping patterns of your brain, and just be at one with others, the environment, then the more attuned you can become to the emotional states that you're experiencing, and in particular, in this case, gratitude. And if you look at Tommy Rivas... I think it's pretty clear that he's somebody who is very heart centered. Like, he lives in his heart, not in his head. And as such, is very adept at being able to connect with gratitude. Like, myself, on the other hand, I have to really practice just to experience glimpses of it. But I do think it's possible, and it does come more easily with a consistent practice.

• 1:56:58Rich Roll?

  It is a practice of trying to strip away the non-essentials from your awareness. And in your case, I would say, you know, the intellectualization of not just this experience, but of probably a lot of things in your life, and trying to move that awareness down into your heart. And then giving of yourself freely to other people with your attention, your time, your empathy. I think that breaks the chain of self-obsession that can come with intellectualizing or over-intellectualizing things. And beyond that, you know, I don't know what else to tell him or tell you, Dan, other than that, and to continue to pursue it, because it is a worthwhile investment of your time and energy.

• 1:57:41Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:57:41Rich Roll?

  What do you think?

• 1:57:42Adam Skolnick?

  I agree with you. I think what's worked for me is just this awareness of that, the interconnectedness of all things. So, you know, that's why I love getting in the ocean so often. Because to me, that's like the physical expression of you're now in this other world, and you're kind of taken out of your own head. You have to be. And you're now just experiencing life as opposed to analyzing it at the same time. So much of us, all we're doing is analyzing all the time. You know, we're not really experiencing.

• 1:58:21Rich Roll?

  You have to interrupt that default mode state. And I think, you know, for you, it's jumping in the ocean. I mean, that works for me as well. You can look at those images from the Webb Telescope. And for a lot of people, that inspires that sense of awe and wonder.

• 1:58:34Adam Skolnick?

  Hundred percent.

• 1:58:35Rich Roll?

  But for other people, they could look at that and say, "That's cool, but I don't, you know, whatever." So, it's an individual thing. And so I guess what you're saying and what I would suggest.

• 1:58:47Rich Roll?

  Is that Dan figure out the thing that does, you know, provide him with a sense of awe and wonder. When was the last time that he felt like a heart centered, profound sense of awe and wonder and try to figure out ways of recapturing or recapitulating that experience in his life?

• 1:59:07Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah. And the thing is you can't force it, right? It's like, it's like one of those things where, you know, if you're on the hiking trails, sitting down and breathing to give yourself a chance to get there is a good way of saying like, like mindfulness meditation.

• 1:59:20Rich Roll?

  The breath work can be really powerful modality as well.

• 1:59:23Adam Skolnick?

  And meditation and just like looking at cloud formations and just kind of keeping it super simple is one way of doing it. But at the same time, I also empathize because, you know, when you hear it all the time when you're a father and your wife's about to give birth and you hear like, wait till you see the baby, there's going to be this like emotional shock to pod payoff kind of thing, like where you realize, ah, and you have this thing and I didn't expect that to happen to me. It did not happen to me. But some of that comes from expectation. And so this idea that there is a place to get to, to experience it can get in your way. So I wouldn't worry about that.

• 1:59:58Rich Roll?

  And being self critical when you're not experiencing it.

• 2:00:01Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah. Because listen, we're guys and we're not always that in tune with our emotions. That's just the way it is.

• 2:00:06Rich Roll?

  Speak for yourself.

• 2:00:07Adam Skolnick?

  I mean, you are very in tune with your emotions. And I think I am too, to a point, but like, but, and so I'm with you, Dan. I think it's not always going to be right there for us. But I also understand what Rich is saying. It's a practice. And if it means, you know, every day trying to connect with really basic things, not necessarily, I'm grateful for my wife, I'm grateful for my kids, I'm grateful for where I live, blah, blah, blah, that helps. That's nice. But even just as simple as I'm grateful for that sunset or whatever, eventually you might get that, that hit might come. And, and then, then once it comes, it just grows. Once you, once that practice will just grow. And anyway, that's all I can say. Does that make sense?

• 2:00:49Rich Roll?

  That makes sense.

• 2:00:50Adam Skolnick?

  All right. I'll stop talking now.

• 2:00:51Rich Roll?

  Let's go to Kyle from Massachusetts.

• 2:00:54Speaker 04

  Hey, Richard and Adam. My name's Kyle Stanley. I'm from Massachusetts and I'm a longtime listener of Richard's podcast. And my question revolves around the fact that I'm doing Ryan Holiday's Read to Lead Challenge currently, which is a paid course by Ryan Holiday where he teaches you how to read more efficiently and how reading can help improve your life, which I believe myself. The challenge for this week is to ask five people who you respect for a book recommendation that changed their lives. So you two are people that have already changed my life. So my question for you two is, what is a book in your life that has transformed or changed the way that you view the world or the way you act?

• 2:01:38Rich Roll?

  Thank you, Kyle. Message received.

• 2:01:40Adam Skolnick?

  Get it.

• 2:01:41Rich Roll?

  I'm currently sending it to my cipher colleague.

• 2:01:45Adam Skolnick?

  He's sending the books. He's sending the books.

• 2:01:49Rich Roll?

  My answer to this is not that sexy, but it's true for me. The book that has changed my life the most, hands down, is the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous. I don't know if Kyle needs to read that book. Probably not.

• 2:02:03Adam Skolnick?

  No.

• 2:02:03Rich Roll?

  Maybe he does. If I'm being completely honest, like I could come with some sexy book, obscure title, that would make me sound cool. But honestly, it's the big book. Changed my life more than any other book. And then second to that-

• 2:02:17Adam Skolnick?

  Can you describe the big book?

• 2:02:19Rich Roll?

  Because I've not heard of the big book. You've never heard of it?

• 2:02:22Adam Skolnick?

  No.

• 2:02:22Rich Roll?

  I'm sure you've seen it in various Starbucks with people sitting huddled over it. It's the Bible of Alcoholics Anonymous, essentially, which lays out the 12-step program and has stories of people who have battled with and overcome alcoholism. And it's sort of the, you know, the guidebook and the centerpiece to the whole kind of 12-step architecture of-

• 2:02:46Rich Roll?

  Of Alcoholics Anonymous.

• 2:02:47Adam Skolnick?

  Fair.

• 2:02:48Rich Roll?

  Yeah. So, obviously, that book changed my life, continues to change my life. It's a book that I'm, it's not like a book I read and put down. It's like an operating manual for life.

• 2:02:58Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 2:02:59Rich Roll?

  The other operating manuals for life that have been incredibly transformative for me are also no surprise to anybody who listens to this podcast. The War of Art by Steven Pressfield absolutely has been essential in helping me craft this, my professional life and how I think about and pursue creativity. Second to that, The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron, which is sort of a workbook way of unleashing creativity and kind of finding your voice. And a fourth, if none of those satisfy you, would be Autobiography of a Yogi by Pema Nhat Hanh Yogananda, which will blow your mind with tales of spiritual prowess and magical, mystical possibilities.

• 2:03:43Adam Skolnick?

  Love it.

• 2:03:44Rich Roll?

  You've read that book, haven't you?

• 2:03:45Adam Skolnick?

  I have, I have. In fact, I, when I was doing, early on in the LA yoga world, I was doing-

• 2:03:51Rich Roll?

  That's right. I always forget about the LA yoga chapter of your life.

• 2:03:54Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah. And one of the first, like, the first features we did were kind of the history of yoga in LA and so we focused on the 1920s era, which was Pema Nhat Hanh Yogananda. And I went to the Self-Realization Fellowship in Mount Washington, which was his real house.

• 2:04:09Rich Roll?

  The original.

• 2:04:10Adam Skolnick?

  The OG. And we were supposed to, I was supposed to meet and talk to this particular monk in the conference room, but I guess that had been booked out. And so he sat me down in, like, by the fireplace and he goes, and when we sit down, he said, you know, Pema Nhat Hanh Yogananda used to spend every evening here, or Yogi G, or whatever you call them, he used to spend every evening here talking to whoever guests came by. And it said that sometimes when you sit here and talk for a while, you can actually feel his presence when you leave. And I'm like, yeah, sure. And so then I sat and had my interview with him and the guy was fine. Like, I didn't feel, like, you know, when you're speaking to some people who have, like, the spiritual connection, you can feel it. I didn't feel anything special.

• 2:04:52Adam Skolnick?

  But then when I left, it was like I was walking, like, I walked out of the house, all of a sudden I was like walking on air. Like, I felt so alive and like, you know, alive and high. And, and so I did have that feeling there. So that is interesting. And that-

• 2:05:07Rich Roll?

  That's saying a lot coming from you, being a natural born skeptic.

• 2:05:12Adam Skolnick?

  Well, you know, it's

• 2:05:14Rich Roll?

  A recalcitrance.

• 2:05:15Adam Skolnick?

  I'm a many-layered lotus, many-pedaled lotus.

• 2:05:19Rich Roll?

  That's true. But that lotus is just opening up.

• 2:05:22Adam Skolnick?

  It's just opening up.

• 2:05:22Rich Roll?

  With every roll-on episode. This is my mission, Adam.

• 2:05:26Adam Skolnick?

  Well, it's funny that you-

• 2:05:27Rich Roll?

  You're blossoming and flowering.

• 2:05:28Adam Skolnick?

  It's funny you should say that because my book, the book I'm thinking of, is called Hua Hu Qing. It's the Unknown Teachings of Lao Tzu. It's a follow-up, kind of like the Lost Scrolls of the Tao Te Ching. And I'm thinking of a moment, it was in, I think, 1995, I was sitting on a bluff in Isla Vista, overlooking the beach with my good friend and podcaster, Kelton Reed of The Writer's Files, a guy who I was a screenwriting partner with when we were both trying to become writers, him right out of Boulder University of Colorado and myself, kind of trying to figure out what I wanted to do. And we were working for this, like, grind 'em to the bone environmental group that we were out there,

• 2:06:11Adam Skolnick?

  kind of getting members for the Sierra Club or whatever, summer canvassing, like, boots-on-the-ground campaign work. And it was like the summer, getting ready for the big summer canvas season. And I came up late. I was kind of bummed out. I'd been burned out. I'd been working for this organization for like almost two years and I was like ground to the bone of a lot of work, hard work, and not feeling the reward. And he sits me there and I'm feeling like, I became friends with him up in Portland a few months before, and he hands me this book. I didn't know him well at the time. He hands me this book and I read it and I just get overwhelmed with that same feeling I got at Parma Nihantaya Yogananda from some reason. This lightness in my body was almost like,

• 2:06:53Adam Skolnick?

  the only thing I can compare it to is like a psychedelic feeling, like when it's coming on, but I hadn't taken anything. I hadn't drank anything. And it was available to me. And then for the next week, we just spent the week kind of reading this book and on that beach, sleeping on that beach illegally and just hanging out with a group of friends for that week. And that book taught me to, for the rest of that week, I was focused on positives. Everything that came at me was, I was misinterpre- I was taking it apart and just bringing the positives to my life and that's all I thought about. And that really was the beginning of me seeing life as a quest, as a quest for myself versus as a life to just- You do one thing, then you do the other thing. All of a sudden, life became a quest.

• 2:07:37Adam Skolnick?

  I started getting into like the esoteric Carlo Castaneda teachings of Don Juan books, you know, and, and getting out into nature as, as much as possible and feeling the power of nature. And, and that kind of set me up for everything. I think I could give you a million books I like better that, you know, amazing works of literature. But that book, more than anything, kind of that moment changed everything for me.

• 2:07:59Rich Roll?

  That's pretty powerful testimony. I feel inspired to read this book now.

• 2:08:04Adam Skolnick?

  Look at that. Who's making speeches on Rich Roll's podcast?

• 2:08:07Rich Roll?

  I'm so inspired by you, Adam. See this lotus flower? Those petals are opening up and the power that is emanating forth, the vibration, the audio vibration going out into the universe. Look at you.

• 2:08:19Adam Skolnick?

  See?

• 2:08:20Rich Roll?

  Stepping into your own power.

• 2:08:21Adam Skolnick?

  You see me as a skeptic?

• 2:08:23Rich Roll?

  Yes.

• 2:08:23Adam Skolnick?

  I am a little bit of a skeptic.

• 2:08:24Rich Roll?

  The quest manifest.

• 2:08:26Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah. Quest, baby. Life is a quest.

• 2:08:28Rich Roll?

  I like it, man. And you got through that whole thing without dropping a Kerouac reference. But you kind of, there was an intuitive kind of like reference to like an on the road kind of vibe.

• 2:08:38Adam Skolnick?

  Those guys were the first.

• 2:08:39Rich Roll?

  Speaking of questing.

• 2:08:40Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 2:08:40Rich Roll?

  The beat poets.

• 2:08:42Adam Skolnick?

  They were the ones that really saw it. Yeah, they saw it as life as a quest in modern life.

• 2:08:46Rich Roll?

  But it comes from the origin of that is, you know.

• 2:08:48Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, the deeper stuff.

• 2:08:49Rich Roll?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 2:08:50Adam Skolnick?

  And then, you know, since then, the Dada Ching is kind of a daily companion or almost daily, so.

• 2:08:55Rich Roll?

  Hmm. I think that was a solid roll on.

• 2:08:58Adam Skolnick?

  Hey, thanks, man. I think that was too. Yeah.

• 2:09:00Rich Roll?

  How do you feel? What's the title of this episode?

• 2:09:04Adam Skolnick?

  Digable Planets.

• 2:09:07Rich Roll?

  That's good. That kind of brings it all into one, doesn't it?

• 2:09:10Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah. Um, let me just say, you look great.

• 2:09:15Rich Roll?

  Thank you.

• 2:09:16Adam Skolnick?

  You, I mean, you look great.

• 2:09:17Rich Roll?

  Post-COVID.

• 2:09:18Adam Skolnick?

  Even better than before COVID.

• 2:09:19Rich Roll?

  Look at you.

• 2:09:19Adam Skolnick?

  COVID agrees with you.

• 2:09:20Rich Roll?

  Exuding gratitude, empathy, thinking about others.

• 2:09:25Adam Skolnick?

  I know.

• 2:09:26Rich Roll?

  Look at you.

• 2:09:26Adam Skolnick?

  What did you think I was? But if you cut me off, I will revoke your motherfucking driver's license.

• 2:09:31Rich Roll?

  All right. Starting with Mathis. All right, let's end it. We'll see you back here in a couple of weeks. Thanks for taking this crazy roller coaster ride with us. I hope you guys had fun and we'll see you back here soon. Peace. Plants. All your day.