Roll On: Why You Should Periodize Your Life

We live in a culture that glorifies the hustle. But the 24/7 grind mentality is actually anathema to long-term success. How do we break this paradigm and avoid the inevitability of burnout? You periodize your life as you would your training. Ditch the guilt and take time to rest. Choose your fallow chapters. And embrace your life in seasons. In the race of life, the tortoise always beats the hare. Welcome to another edition of ‘Roll On’, wherein myself and Sir Adam Skolnick corrupt your neurochemistry with ideas big and small. Beyond sundry matters of varying interest, we play show and tell, share a few wins of the week, round it out by answering listener questions deposited on our voicemail at (424) 235-4626. Beyond RRP hypeman duties, Adam Skolnick is an activist and journalist best known as David Goggins’ Can’t Hurt Me, co-author. He writes about adventure sports, environmental issues, and civil rights for The New York Times, Outside, ESPN, BBC, and Men’s Health. He is the author of One Breath and is currently awash in his umpteenth draft of an untitled novel—slowly losing his mind in the process. Topics explored in today’s conversation include: the benefits of periodizing both your fitness and all aspects of your life; why fallow periods are essential to optimal creativity; an Iron Cowboy’s ‘Conquer 100‘ challenge update (and WTC’s tone-deaf response); the recent Laird Superfoods and Picky Bar acquisition; the HBO docuseries ‘Q: Into The Storm’; Rachel Kushner’s collection of essays, The Hard Crowd; Michelin star restaurant Eleven Madison Park‘s shift to a plant-based menu; and plant-based bodega start-up Plantega’s plan to eradicate food deserts In addition, we answer the following listener questions: How do you manage the financial risks that come with following your passion? How do you properly train for a Swimrun event without access to safe open water? How do you maintain relationships with people who have unhealthy drinking habits? Thank you to Greg from Virginia, John from Northern England, and Nancy from Santa Clarita, California for your questions. If you want your query discussed, drop it on our Facebook Page or better yet leave a voicemail at (424) 235-4626. FULL BLOG & SHOW NOTES: bit.ly/richroll601 YouTube: bit.ly/rollon601 Peace + Plants, Rich Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:00Rich Roll?

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• 0:44Rich Roll?

  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. What's up, humanoids? It is I, Rich Roll, in cahoots with one Mr. Skolnick, content creator, Sir Adam Skolnick, here to corrupt your neurochemistry with ideas big and small. Good to be here with all of you. In addition to breaking down sundry matters of interest and perhaps disinterest.

• 1:38Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 1:38Rich Roll?

  We also do a wee bit of show and tell here, a couple wins of the week, and we round it all out by answering some of the questions dropped on our voicemail, which you can ring up at 424-235-4626. Before we dive in, if you're watching, at www.youtube.com, have you heard of this thing, YouTube, Adam?

• 1:58Adam Skolnick?

  I've heard it's the new thing.

• 2:01Rich Roll?

  It's a thing, right? If you add the backslash Rich Roll, you will arrive at a channel wherein we upload videos directly from this podcast. Take a second to hit subscribe, that would mean a lot. Click that notification bell. It will alert you when a new podcast goes live. Click the like button, and of course, leave a comment with your thoughts, because that's what we do here.

• 2:25Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 2:26Rich Roll?

  How are you doing, man?

• 2:28Adam Skolnick?

  Careful, careful how you answer this question. A lot of consternation in the comments. Well, yes, the comments have said, I always respond the same way with, I'm good, man. You do, right? I'm good, man, I'm good. Which makes people think that I'm either doing well, or like- Disingenuous. Or just hanging on, barely hanging on, man. Yeah, I don't know, that, I'm good, man, it just feels, it's a, it's a false flag. First of all, it's grammatically incorrect. I mean, if I can just- I'm well, man. Yeah, I'm very well, man. Mm-hmm. That doesn't sound as- Who's the man in this sentence? Well, you're the man, Rich. Okay. It's the Rich Roll Podcast. So how are you actually doing? I'm actually been living with doubt. How have you been?

• 3:12Adam Skolnick?

  Don't throw it right back at me without elaborating on that. I've been living with doubt. So I'm in the third draft of this novel that I've been wanting to write for a long time. Mm-hmm. And the entire time of writing it has felt like I'm out of my depth, which is normal, right? Because I'm not, I wrote a novel once previously. I attempted, this is the third crack. I attempted to write a novel way, way back in the 90s and convinced myself I sucked and shouldn't be writing a novel, and so I stopped. When in reality, I went back later, several years later, and read the pages, and it was pretty good, and I should have kept going. But by then, I wanted to do this other book, finish that. That book is actually how I got Bird to represent- Right. -our agent, and then-

• 3:57Adam Skolnick?

  For One Breath. For One Breath, Bird level, shout out. And then, and so then, One Breath ended up happening, but the novel itself never found a home. It was like one of those almost but not quiets. And so then, this other novel, I've been thinking about since then, and just never made the time to do it. And so the quarantine happened, and I started to do it. And now I'm in the third pass. I think it's gonna be like 10 passes before I give it to anyone to look at. And it just feels like, you know, we've talked about this stuff. It just feels like the imposter syndrome is strong, because I'm wading into territory that hasn't been my territory. And even though I've, you know- Comfortable writing books now and I'm comfortable with my work.

• 4:41Adam Skolnick?

  There's things about this that make it a little bit harder for me to to really see it. And so I'm just sticking with the process, trusting the process, but I can't say that I'm not living with doubt. Like every day I sit down to do it. It's like I'm wondering if it's any good, which is not abnormal. When I write a story for the New York Times, I feel the same way the first draft.

• 4:59Rich Roll?

  Yeah, and doubt is a kindred cousin of humility on some level. Like if you weren't experiencing doubt, then I would I would be, you know, prone to believe that that, you know, you were in your ego. Like, how could you not have doubt? Of course you have doubt. It's not a function of doubt, it's allowing the doubt to stop the progress.

• 5:20Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 5:21Rich Roll?

  It's like persevering in the face of doubt, having the courage to continue to show up for the page.

• 5:26Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, I think I read Stephen King interview in the New York Times Magazine some time ago, and he said, that's part of what we get paid to do, is to not give in to that. And so.

• 5:37Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I think that's that's really helpful.

• 5:39Adam Skolnick?

  So in that same interview, he's like, he's only had one book where he didn't feel that way about the book the entire time.

• 5:44Rich Roll?

  Right, because you just assume he sits down and bangs it out. And it's like a work of art, you know, in draft one.

• 5:49Adam Skolnick?

  Most successful novelist in the history of, I think, in the history of American letters. I think so, in terms of books sold and everything and movies made. So, anyway, so there's that, but at the same time, I do enjoy the process at times, but it's still a process of getting comfortable with the doubt and living in this fantasy land in my head. So that's how I've been.

• 6:11Rich Roll?

  Good.

• 6:12Adam Skolnick?

  And at the same time, raising a child, which is also, the doubt is strong.

• 6:16Rich Roll?

  There's that.

• 6:17Adam Skolnick?

  Doubt is strong.

• 6:18Rich Roll?

  Yeah. And in between all of that, trying to find some time to slowly saunter down into the sea, adorn your face mask.

• 6:27Adam Skolnick?

  My full mask.

• 6:28Rich Roll?

  Submerge yourself.

• 6:29Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 6:30Rich Roll?

  And do a zone zero workout.

• 6:31Adam Skolnick?

  I'm doing either zone two runs or zone zero swims. That's where I live. Did find out, have you heard of the Malibu artist on Instagram?

• 6:40Rich Roll?

  No.

• 6:41Adam Skolnick?

  So he's been getting some mainstream media play. He was on the cover of the LA Times, then he was on the Today Show. He's a drone. Photographer and he is I've talked to him this week because I basically he's been posting great drone footage of great white sharks in Malibu everywhere from Sunset Point up. He hasn't specified where these places are, but many like in one video, there are 22 juvenile white sharks within 50 feet of surfers, swimmers.

• 7:10Rich Roll?

  Wow.

• 7:11Adam Skolnick?

  And that they have no idea that they're there. And so obviously being someone who swims, I mean, I knew Sunset Point was was I've seen a white shark breach there as I was just driving down the highway and I've seen one breach by Little Doom as well. So I knew that they're there and we've talked about it. I know they're there, but it actually makes me feel a little more comfortable because the sharks are not at all interested in these swimmers whatsoever.

• 7:34Rich Roll?

  But That's one way to look at it.

• 7:36Adam Skolnick?

  That's how I look at it. So, and I talked to him, he basically he has deals with certain landowners who allow him to come on and he's able to fly the drone. He is not at Point Doom too much, although he said the biggest shark he's ever seen was at Point Doom.

• 7:51Rich Roll?

  Right, probably right at that point on route to Little Doom that you took me on that everybody said stay away from there.

• 7:57Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, that's the one, like a 14 footer or something.

• 8:00Rich Roll?

  Oh, my God. Great white?

• 8:03Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, there are always white sharks that he's finding that he's at least putting up. I think he has some orca footage he's going to put up. It's at at the Malibu Artist on Instagram. It's cool footage. I mean, he's really, he does a good job.

• 8:14Rich Roll?

  So he got on the Today Show because people are freaking out that there are so many sharks right off the right off the shoreline?

• 8:20Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, he's and because, you know, this is a big year for sharks. So I've talked to one of my contact Laura Bodmer, who brought me the story about Travis Rice's snowboarding competition. She's lives down in San Diego area, North County, and she said that right now Solana Beach, it's like, it's like they know about the juvenile white sharks. They're actually seeing them a lot. No, no one's getting hurt.

• 8:46Rich Roll?

  Is it is it unusually like an unusually large spawn that like what's happening?

• 8:52Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, it's just that the populations are healthy, you know, like that the like the marine protected areas are working and the populations are healthy. I think that's part of it. I mean, they're studying it, so I'm not exactly sure. If there's anything to why, but it's, this is just what's happening. And so, but so far, like, we haven't had an uptick in attack, like, it, it isn't leading anywhere bad. So I don't think there's anything to be worried about. For me, it makes me feel actually more comfortable, to be honest, in some weird, counterintuitive way.

• 9:19Rich Roll?

  I don't know if I am processing it in the same way.

• 9:25Adam Skolnick?

  Well, the Smithsonian just did a story, which we can link to, how great white sharks and all sharks might use magnetics to navigate.

• 9:34Rich Roll?

  Whoa.

• 9:35Adam Skolnick?

  There was this cool story about some scientists that put a certain breed of shark, bonnet head sharks, I think, in a tank that they wired with copper wires. And they basically took the magnetic coordinates, or whatever it's called. Basically, the earth is, is got, you know, iron ore and, and all sorts of metals and heavy metals. And that's what the core of the, those metals, they think sharks are using to get from point A to point B.

• 10:01Rich Roll?

  As a navigation anchor or something.

• 10:03Adam Skolnick?

  And they proved it with this tank by wiring wires and, you know, putting readouts, like, that, that would be the, the magnetic draw from their, their home versus the magnetic draw from away. And, and they, and they managed to swim in the direction of the, of the proper magnetic draw. And, yes, because great white sharks go out into the middle of the ocean for something, it's a place called the Great White Cafe, or something like that, that scientists call it. And they have this huge congregation. It's like Burning Man for white sharks in the middle of the ocean. And everyone tried to figure out, how do they get there, know to go there, and then know where they're going to go home, when they think it's magnetic readouts?

• 10:40Rich Roll?

  Right. There's some kind of beacon

• 10:41Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 10:41Rich Roll?

  in the core of the earth.

• 10:43Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 10:44Rich Roll?

  That's luring them to this one place. That's wild.

• 10:47Adam Skolnick?

  Isn't that cool?

• 10:48Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 10:48Adam Skolnick?

  So maybe there's, right now, it's being...

• 10:50Rich Roll?

  Only white sharks?

• 10:52Adam Skolnick?

  Uh, no, they think all sharks. They think hammerheads, they think, they're thinking all sharks. But this particular experiment only proves it with this one small subset near Key West.

• 11:01Rich Roll?

  It makes you wonder whether that's applicable for other species as well, like bird migration patterns. Like, how, how do these animals that travel vast distances and always find their way home

• 11:11Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 11:12Rich Roll?

  figure that out?

• 11:12Adam Skolnick?

  Even cats, like...

• 11:13Rich Roll?

  Church sea turtles.

• 11:14Adam Skolnick?

  A buddy of mine took his cat camping in Mammoth. And he lives in, he was living in Santa Monica at the time, took his cat to Mammoth. The cat ran off in the middle of the night camping. They had to leave. They couldn't find the cat. They figured the cat was dead, like got eaten by a coyote or something. Two weeks later, the cat walks in his front door.

• 11:36Rich Roll?

  No way.

• 11:37Adam Skolnick?

  I swear to God.

• 11:38Rich Roll?

  For people that don't know, Mammoth is a couple hundred miles away. How is that possible? It didn't have a tag with an address on it or anything?

• 11:45Adam Skolnick?

  No, the cat was all fucked up. It was like it'd gone on a weird odyssey.

• 11:49Rich Roll?

  It's found its way home.

• 11:49Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, Pippin, Pippin the Cat, shout out. Pippin's.

• 11:52Rich Roll?

  I feel like that should be a Pixar movie. That's unbelievable.

• 11:58Adam Skolnick?

  The Odyssey starring Pippin the Cat.

• 12:00Rich Roll?

  All right, well, we're off to a banger of a start here with the podcast.

• 12:03Adam Skolnick?

  I like it so far.

• 12:04Rich Roll?

  Yeah. All right, let's take a quick break and we'll be back with more from Mr. Adams, Koenig and myself.

• 12:21Adam Skolnick?

  How are you, Rich?

• 12:22Rich Roll?

  Uh, I'm good. I'm rocking my Taco Vega t-shirt, so.

• 12:26Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, talk to me about Taco Vega. I've never even heard about it.

• 12:29Rich Roll?

  You gotta go to Taco Vega, man. It's the new spot in Los Angeles. Taco Vega is a plant-based, Mexican-themed restaurant in Los Angeles. It's right on Fairfax, like a block or two south of Melrose. So kind of right in the heart of this. For people that don't know, that strip of Fairfax is like where Cantor's Deli is. And there's all these like hypey stores like Supreme and Rip and Dip. So a lot of kids in that neighborhood. And it's really high-end, but affordable, like really creative Mexican food. By my friend, chef-owner Jared Simons, who's a super cool guy. He's also coached by Chris Howth.

• 13:12Adam Skolnick?

  Oh, really?

• 13:12Rich Roll?

  Yeah, he's an Ironman athlete. Now he's focusing on ultra-running. Really colorful, interesting, sweet guy that I've known over the years. So I've been a frequent visitor of Taco Vega over the last, I think I've been like five times in the last month. I love it.

• 13:30Adam Skolnick?

  Fantastic.

• 13:30Rich Roll?

  So if you're in Los Angeles, drop in, say hello to Jared, tell him that we sent you. He's really a great chef. Interesting story about that, that he reminded me of that I forgot about when I saw him the other day. He actually, Jared, actually catered a wedding at our house a couple of years ago. We sometimes rent our house out for weddings for friends and this wedding was our friend, Matty Serpico, shout out to Matty, who is a former, she's a Canadian, former triathlete, vegan, and she got married to Griff Whalen, who's been on the podcast back in the early days, a former Stanford NFL Indianapolis Colts kind of journeyman wide receiver who's

• 14:13Rich Roll?

  also vegan, friend of the podcast, they got married at our house, and Griff's groomsmen were all like gigantic humans who have played in the NFL or at Stanford, including Andrew Luck, who was like his best man, like so Andrew, Andrew Luck is like, Andrew Luck is like Griff's best friend from college and they, then they played together in the pros for a while.

• 14:35Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 14:36Rich Roll?

  So Andrew Luck was like at my house, you know, playing with my boys and throwing a football around and like, you know, and I wasn't there, I was out of town.

• 14:45Adam Skolnick?

  Shout out Andrew Luck.

• 14:46Rich Roll?

  I did not, I was unable to seize the opportunity to meet Andrew Luck, although he did visit my home.

• 14:53Adam Skolnick?

  One day he's going to be telling the time that he threw the football around with the rock stars.

• 14:58Rich Roll?

  I don't think so. I don't think that's ever occurred to him, but he's welcome, he's welcome back at my home anytime. He's also welcome to drop in on the podcast if he ever wants to share his story.

• 15:07Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 15:08Rich Roll?

  It would be cool.

• 15:08Adam Skolnick?

  What a great athlete.

• 15:10Rich Roll?

  Switching gears a little bit, I've been told, I've been chastised in the comments section to stop being mean to you.

• 15:17Adam Skolnick?

  Really?

• 15:18Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 15:18Adam Skolnick?

  To me?

• 15:19Rich Roll?

  I think because I was beating up on you a little bit about the, the face mask, the snorkel mask.

• 15:24Adam Skolnick?

  That was tongue in cheek, that was tongue in cheek.

• 15:26Rich Roll?

  That's what I thought.

• 15:27Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 15:27Rich Roll?

  Am I being mean? You can tell me.

• 15:29Adam Skolnick?

  Right now?

• 15:30Rich Roll?

  It's all in love.

• 15:30Adam Skolnick?

  Wait, wait a second.

• 15:33Adam Skolnick?

  Wait, am I having an intervention?

• 15:35Rich Roll?

  No, if I'm being too mean to you, I want you to tell me.

• 15:38Adam Skolnick?

  You know what? I think everyone needs to stop being offended by almost everything.

• 15:42Rich Roll?

  Thank you.

• 15:43Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, so no, I have not at all thought you've been mean to me. It's all, we're trying to entertain people.

• 15:48Rich Roll?

  We're trying. I don't know if we're succeeding.

• 15:50Adam Skolnick?

  We're trying. The fact is, I wear a mask when I'm swimming. It is off-putting. When I showed up at Catalina to do the swim run, there was one guy wearing a mask. Most people had goggles.

• 16:00Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 16:01Adam Skolnick?

  I had the mask.

• 16:01Rich Roll?

  And that was your moment to kind of learn a little bit about how the ecosystem works. Apparently, that didn't, it was not effective, though, in getting you to change your habit.

• 16:11Adam Skolnick?

  No, but, well.

• 16:13Rich Roll?

  This affinity for, for the, it defies logic. I don't understand your illogical irrational attachment to your snorkel mask.

• 16:22Adam Skolnick?

  It's not called a snorkel mask.

• 16:23Rich Roll?

  I don't know what it's called, but it has no place.

• 16:26Adam Skolnick?

  It has no place in the swim run lineup.

• 16:28Rich Roll?

  Correct.

• 16:29Adam Skolnick?

  So the reason is, because the etymology of the mask is that I was wearing those bigger kind of open water goggles for a while, and then we started to do more diving on our swims westward to Point Doom. And then I took a free, I took, I got into this freediving, kind of looking into freediving as a journalist, and started doing that story in the book. And pretty quickly, I was told that, no, you can't freedive with goggles because you can't equalize goggles. You can't fill the space. So if you go too deep, your eyeballs are gonna bulge, and it's gonna be, you could break a blood vessel, and you could have problems. And so you have to have something that you can let a little air out through your nose

• 17:09Adam Skolnick?

  to equalize that small space. And the lower profile you have, the better you can equalize that. Because if you have too much space, like a scuba diving mask, you can't fill that space. So, you know, with limited, unless you have a big tank on your back. And so... They all used for training this particular kind of freedive mask.

• 17:28Rich Roll?

  I get it. I get it. Sure. But here's the thing. Are you a freediver? Or are you a swim run person? Pick your lane.

• 17:36Adam Skolnick?

  It's a very good question.

• 17:37Rich Roll?

  At least if you're going out for a swim run workout, wear goggles.

• 17:40Adam Skolnick?

  Well, the real question is, are you an open water swimmer? Or are you a freediver? And I submit that neither tribe will embrace me.

• 17:49Rich Roll?

  Right, because you're waffling between these two worlds. You gotta plant your foot firmly in one, at least like, okay, I'm going out for a freedive. Then you can wear that and say I'm freediving. But if you're just going out for a swim, leave the mask at home.

• 18:03Adam Skolnick?

  Get goggles. I might do it because Julie Shakia, who swims with us, who you've swam with, she's one of the actual swimmers that swims with us. And she actually goes for her swims in the morning, then comes meets us for our swims and dives. She does think that it slows you, like when she's doing a swim only, she wears goggles and she does think the mask slows you down.

• 18:25Rich Roll?

  Right. Well, I love how she's your reference point after I've been beating you up over this forever. It's like, oh, but she said, okay. Do I have to start a change.org petition to get you to abandon this practice?

• 18:38Adam Skolnick?

  Do you think it's slowing me down?

• 18:40Rich Roll?

  Of course.

• 18:40Adam Skolnick?

  Oh, you do?

• 18:41Rich Roll?

  But mainly it's making you look silly when you need not.

• 18:45Adam Skolnick?

  I like looking silly.

• 18:46Rich Roll?

  Yes. I know. Am I being too mean?

• 18:51Adam Skolnick?

  No.

• 18:51Rich Roll?

  I'm not being too mean.

• 18:52Adam Skolnick?

  This is entertaining.

• 18:53Rich Roll?

  Well, we'll check in on this week to week. This is gonna be a new segment.

• 18:57Adam Skolnick?

  Can I confront you with something? Congratulations on 600 episodes.

• 19:01Rich Roll?

  Thank you.

• 19:02Adam Skolnick?

  That's a big accomplishment.

• 19:03Rich Roll?

  It's crazy. I don't know how we got here. You know, it's just a one day at a time thing, you know? And then you look up and you're like, whoa, 600 episodes. That's crazy.

• 19:12Adam Skolnick?

  Unbelievable.

• 19:13Rich Roll?

  I know. It seems like a past life when we started and it seems like yesterday.

• 19:19Adam Skolnick?

  Did you, did you do any reflecting? Like, is that like when you have these numbers come around, do you like, is it every hundred that you kind of think about? Wait a second. Like, did you think about it at 100 or 200 or?

• 19:29Rich Roll?

  I thought about it more at 100 and at 200 than I did with 600. I'm like, oh, that's cool. Moving on. What's next? Always look forward.

• 19:38Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 19:39Rich Roll?

  It's great. I think it's important to pause and celebrate that a little bit, but I don't dwell on these things. I remember early on in the show when we would hit certain benchmarks, like when we hit our first 1 million downloads or whatever it was, I would make a big deal out of it. And now it's just like, yeah, it's cool. Let's keep going.

• 19:57Adam Skolnick?

  Nice.

• 19:58Rich Roll?

  So I don't spend a lot of time reflecting on that because it's not really about that.

• 20:02Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 20:03Rich Roll?

  It's just about being in the process of doing it.

• 20:08Adam Skolnick?

  Just creating content.

• 20:09Rich Roll?

  So that's right. You know, you know this now as a content creator.

• 20:12Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 20:13Rich Roll?

  Sir Adam Skolnick.

• 20:14Adam Skolnick?

  That's what I've become now?

• 20:15Rich Roll?

  You are. You are a content creator.

• 20:17Adam Skolnick?

  That's good. Because then-

• 20:19Rich Roll?

  It's a weird thing though, because especially as an author and a writer and a journalist, it's like content seems like a step down.

• 20:27Adam Skolnick?

  It's not-

• 20:28Rich Roll?

  But we are in a content creator economy now.

• 20:32Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah. I mean, I think that less and less people are reading books, which is a true thing. But then again, the like, and that was reflected in the fact that like, what? 92% of all books released in the last year and a half or something sold less than 10,000 copies and most of the and but, but books actually sold very well.

• 20:50Rich Roll?

  Yeah, books are selling great.

• 20:51Adam Skolnick?

  But it's, it's known quantity books. It's like three year old, five year old books or, you know, big name authors.

• 20:58Rich Roll?

  But I think Amazon and the Kindle hearkened this idea that it was sounding the death knell for books and it's been quite the opposite.

• 21:08Adam Skolnick?

  Opposite.

• 21:08Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 21:09Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 21:09Rich Roll?

  Books are exploding.

• 21:10Adam Skolnick?

  I'm a print guy.

• 21:11Rich Roll?

  Audio books are off the chain.

• 21:12Adam Skolnick?

  And audiobooks are great. I do listen to audiobooks and I, and I read print books. I, I had a Kindle that I used a lot when I was traveling so many months out of the year. It just became easier, but it's collected a lot of dust.

• 21:27Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 21:27Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 21:27Rich Roll?

  I like the hard copy and I like the audiobooks.

• 21:30Adam Skolnick?

  Same.

• 21:31Rich Roll?

  Yeah, but 600, it's great. We celebrated that by putting up the episode with Matthew Walker, which people are enjoying.

• 21:38Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 21:39Rich Roll?

  Last night, we're recording this on Monday.

• 21:40Adam Skolnick?

  Three hours.

• 21:41Rich Roll?

  Three hours on sleep. He's the dude.

• 21:45Adam Skolnick?

  I gotta, I gotta dive into that, although I'll feel like shamed because right now, sleep is not coming in.

• 21:50Rich Roll?

  Right. I mean, if you're a new parent and you're, you've lost your grip on healthy sleep hygiene, it, it might just make you feel bad.

• 21:59Adam Skolnick?

  It'll make you feel alarmed, I think.

• 22:01Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I think so. I think so. But he's such a beautiful, gentle, wise person. And the way that he communicates, it's, it's, it's a cool thing. He's very talented at explaining the science behind all of this stuff in a manner in which you can not only understand it, but actually become encouraged and enthusiastic about taking sleep a little bit more seriously. So that's really cool.

• 22:26Adam Skolnick?

  Very cool.

• 22:27Rich Roll?

  That's a conversation I wanted to have for a very long time. So excited that we finally made that happen. And just been banking some other cool episodes. I had Mary Kane here last week, who many might recall from In New York Times op doc. She was the, the title of that piece was something like, I was the fastest girl in America. And then I joined Nike and it's her story of training under Alberto Salazar and everything that happened. And she was a wonderful guest. I'm excited about that. Trying to book Maggie Baird right now, who's Billie Eilish's mom. We've been going back and forth. Hopefully we can lock in on a date. I think she would be epic. Did you watch the Billie Eilish documentary?

• 23:07Adam Skolnick?

  I did not watch it yet. No.

• 23:08Rich Roll?

  It's fantastic.

• 23:09Adam Skolnick?

  I mean, I'm, I am actually, I, I really enjoy Billie Eilish's point of view and her music. So.

• 23:14Rich Roll?

  She is a force.

• 23:16Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 23:17Rich Roll?

  It's a really instructive documentary that's incredibly well done. That gives you a glimpse into, you know, the birth of this amazing talent. But it's also in tandem, a parenting documentary.

• 23:30Adam Skolnick?

  Really?

• 23:31Rich Roll?

  Because it's, it documents the period of time leading up to the release of her first album. And her brother Phineas and her literally record the album in his bedroom while they're living in their parents' house as homeschooled young people. And you see the interaction of the parents and how the parents are trying to support, responsibly support their children through this incredibly unique period of time in which they're introduced to the world in the largest way imaginable. And like, everything just explodes. And it's a very well-done documentary.

• 24:06Adam Skolnick?

  Was she seventeen?

• 24:07Rich Roll?

  And she's cool. Maggie's really cool. I don't know how old she is now. No, she's-

• 24:10Adam Skolnick?

  When she broke out, was she seventeen?

• 24:12Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I think she was about seventeen. Well, Ocean Eyes came out when she was like thirteen or fourteen or something like that, and blew up, and that's what led to everything.

• 24:21Adam Skolnick?

  It's like Lord times ten.

• 24:22Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's amazing. And, you know, just a truly uniquely gifted person. And Phineas is the engine behind it. Like, he writes, at a minimum, co-writes, but I think he wrote a lot of the songs, and he really engineers and produces the music. It's very collaborative, but you realize how instrumental he is to the whole thing as well. And their relationship as brother and sister, and also, you know, partners in creativity is super interesting.

• 24:50Adam Skolnick?

  Older brother?

• 24:51Rich Roll?

  Older brother, yeah. Who also has all kinds of solo work that he does as well. And Maggie, you know, they're big plant-based vegan advocates and activists as well, so I'm excited to sit down with her, hopefully.

• 25:04Adam Skolnick?

  That's awesome.

• 25:05Rich Roll?

  Soon, to check that out.

• 25:07Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 25:08Rich Roll?

  Let's check in on the Iron Cowboy.

• 25:10Adam Skolnick?

  Don't you wish we could just call him? Like, at some point, we should just, next time, let's call him while he's out riding the bike, and like, really check in on the Iron Cowboy.

• 25:19Rich Roll?

  We could do that. I think maybe we could schedule that, which would be cool.

• 25:23Adam Skolnick?

  We should.

• 25:24Rich Roll?

  Call him and then drop it in as a segment.

• 25:25Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 25:26Rich Roll?

  I think he'd be down for that. One of the things that I did do the other day, and this is a credit, shout out to Barogin Graham, our third, our third co-host here in absentia.

• 25:36Adam Skolnick?

  He's the Elijah of this podcast.

• 25:38Rich Roll?

  He is. But one of the things, I can't remember whether I talked about this on the podcast before or not, or I might have talked about it on a podcast that hasn't gone up yet, but one of the amazing things about Barogin-

• 25:51Rich Roll?

  That's kind of an outgrowth of his predisposition towards extrovertism is in addition to being like just the most outgoing person you're ever going to meet. He has a practice of connecting with friends by sending texting them what he calls short films. So video messages essentially, but he would berate me for that title. They're rich. They're short films.

• 26:15Adam Skolnick?

  They are short films.

• 26:16Rich Roll?

  And he will every single day, send me a little short film of him checking in. And they're usually well staged with props and all kinds of stuff that have a story arc to them and kind of end with, you know, something prolific or poignant. And I've adopted this practice and started doing it. Like I started sending short films to other friends of mine. And it's kind of a cool way in an age in which we don't write letters anymore, which is another thing Brogan does. He sends letters out on an old typewriter, which is another cool practice.

• 26:49Adam Skolnick?

  That is cool.

• 26:49Rich Roll?

  But to connect with friends, like, you know, it's that thing where you haven't talked to somebody for a long time. You're like, ah, do I have 40 minutes to call them? And then you don't. And then the phone gets really heavy. This way you can send a short film, check in with them. There's no expectation that they need to get back to you, but you're demonstrating that you're thinking about them or, you know, you have something you want to impart. And it's kind of a cool, unique thing that I think more people should do. So I started doing it more. You and I are on a group text with Brogan. So you've been doing that with him. So I sent one of these to the Iron Cowboy last week, just wishing him well, which, you know, he got back to me. It's cool. So I think, I think he would be down for a call. I think that would be great.

• 27:31Adam Skolnick?

  He's got to be on his bike right now, right?

• 27:33Rich Roll?

  Probably, let's see, it's, it's almost one o'clock here in LA. He's probably finishing his ride. Today is

• 27:39Adam Skolnick?

  In about 30 minutes.

• 27:40Rich Roll?

  Day 71 today. We're recording on Monday. This goes up on Thursday. So we're on day 71. He seems to be in very good spirits.

• 27:48Adam Skolnick?

  He's doing great. It's like

• 27:50Rich Roll?

  I feel like he rounded a corner and he's smiling and laughing and joking with people and in a really good spot. It's unbelievable.

• 27:59Adam Skolnick?

  Physiologically, I wonder what's happening to him.

• 28:00Rich Roll?

  Unbelievable. 70 Iron Mans into this thing.

• 28:05Adam Skolnick?

  70 in a row, one after another.

• 28:08Rich Roll?

  No break.

• 28:09Adam Skolnick?

  No break, no day off.

• 28:11Rich Roll?

  No break for Mother's Day.

• 28:12Adam Skolnick?

  No.

• 28:12Rich Roll?

  There was one day last, I think it was last week, his daughters were going to prom. So he stopped for a photo and like wished them well, like saw his daughters off to prom. During T2 in between his, his bike and his marathon.

• 28:25Adam Skolnick?

  That's hilarious.

• 28:25Rich Roll?

  And it seems like more and more people are congregating to join him. And I love, in the video that I sent him, I said, there's two things that I really love and appreciate about how he's conducting himself through this whole thing. The first is just the participatory nature of this, and we've talked about this before. It's a very inclusive thing, like he's really engendered a lot of community around what he's doing. All comers are welcome. He makes them feel welcome. It's not like, hey, I'm over here, stay away from me. It's like it's, we're all in this together kind of vibe. And then at the conclusion of every marathon, every evening, everybody kind of surrounds him in a circle and he gives a little impromptu speech and he recognizes certain people who came out to join him.

• 29:10Rich Roll?

  I think his son did the marathon, Marathon 70 with him, he recognized him, or people that fly in from out of town. My friend Chris Gilleybo flew in from Portland to do a day with him. Like people are coming from all over to get a taste of this. And the fact that he, in his exhaustion, still, you know, takes that moment to recognize them, I think is really special. And it speaks to, you know, fundamentally his good character.

• 29:37Adam Skolnick?

  Unbelievable. Do you think, do you feel like, um, because he's doing like 15 to 16 minute mile marathons? Like, do you feel like he's doing like walk five minutes, run five minutes?

• 29:47Rich Roll?

  I think he's pretty much walking the whole way.

• 29:49Adam Skolnick?

  Just walking fast.

• 29:50Rich Roll?

  I believe he said, you know, look, I wish I could run. I don't think that, I think that his ankles or whatever's going on with his hips or whatever, he's unable to run. So he's literally just walking. So that, you know, people should know, it's like, yeah. Ideally, he would be running all these marathons, but he's like, you know, I think he's a very good walker in that when you develop that skill, you can walk quite a bit faster than people realize.

• 30:15Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 30:15Rich Roll?

  And probably faster than an easy jog and certainly faster than the Ironman shuffle. But, uh, but I think it's pretty much a brisk walk at this point every day.

• 30:25Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 30:25Rich Roll?

  Which takes him like over six hours, I think.

• 30:27Adam Skolnick?

  It's crazy. I mean, it's amazing. And, uh, you know, speaking of his.

• 30:34Adam Skolnick?

  Just his, his ethics and his charisma. You wanted to talk about this, the fact that the Iron Man was a triathlon governing body.

• 30:45Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 30:45Adam Skolnick?

  Uh, was coming at him and, and how he responds to that. I mean, it's, it's, he's to be in the midst of this and have to deal with that and then to deal with it in a way that still is. He could have been so much more bent out of shape.

• 31:00Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 31:00Adam Skolnick?

  And he, he really wasn't. He was just like.

• 31:02Rich Roll?

  He put his foot down.

• 31:03Adam Skolnick?

  He did.

• 31:04Rich Roll?

  He made no bones about where he stands on this whole thing. So we should explain.

• 31:07Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 31:08Rich Roll?

  Uh, he got into a beef with Iron Man. Iron Man sent him essentially a cease and desist letter.

• 31:13Adam Skolnick?

  Hmm.

• 31:14Rich Roll?

  Uh, indicating that, because there's a lot of press now that's occurring around what he's doing. CNN and all these newspapers are covering what he's doing. And apparently in some of these pieces, they're saying that he's doing a hundred, a hundred Iron Mans.

• 31:28Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 31:28Rich Roll?

  Iron Man is a trademarked, is a trademark of the WTC. They're very protective and they police that trademark pretty rigorously. So he gets this email, basically says, look, all this press is covering you. They're calling what you're doing a hundred Iron Mans. Just so we're clear, uh, Iron Man is a protected mark that we own and control. Please refrain from using that and please let them know that they can't use that.

• 31:53Adam Skolnick?

  Right, right, right.

• 31:54Rich Roll?

  And he's like, he, he just, his, his, and he, and he screen grabbed it. He shared it on Instagram and he, his caption was essentially like, I don't have time for this. Like, what do you talk, like, you got a problem with these, the press outlets? Go contact them. I'm out here breaking world records every single day. And by the way, like, I'm doing more for your brand than anybody.

• 32:12Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 32:12Rich Roll?

  Raising awareness around this thing.

• 32:13Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 32:14Rich Roll?

  And you're coming at me like I'm done with you.

• 32:16Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 32:17Rich Roll?

  And by the way, you owe me like $4,000 for, for, you know, unrefunded, uh, race entry fees and things like that. Like, he basically just, he just basically, you know, slapped him across the face.

• 32:29Adam Skolnick?

  He did, but in a way that was like, kind of, I think, positive for what he's doing. He's like, you know, he's like, he doesn't, he's not gonna take shit, but he's, he could have, he, he wasn't, it wasn't whiny. It was just straight up.

• 32:42Rich Roll?

  Hmm.

• 32:43Adam Skolnick?

  You know, like, sometimes that could be, you could come off worse. And I thought that he did, I thought that his, his statement was, was fantastic.

• 32:51Rich Roll?

  Yeah. And I think in a broader way, it speaks to. The ills of the corporatization of multisport. You know, come on, Iron Man, like a bunch of lawyers had to like write this letter.

• 33:06Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 33:06Rich Roll?

  It's causing a backlash in reverse of what they're trying to do, which is to engender support for their brand, right? And that was James's point is that, look, you know, you say you're all about inclusion and you're about inspiration and I'm out here trying to do both of those things and you're telling me to stop or to do it differently? Like, how dare you? Like, I'm done with you.

• 33:30Adam Skolnick?

  Right. It's, um, you have to wonder who is like in charge of writing that letter? Like, who is?

• 33:40Rich Roll?

  Well, there was some C-suite person who just called up the general counsel's department at the organization and said, look, you know, we gotta, we gotta clear this up.

• 33:51Rich Roll?

  You know, and then that's how it lands? Come on.

• 33:54Adam Skolnick?

  It landed poorly. Very tone deaf from the Iron Man, the WTC.

• 33:59Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 34:00Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 34:00Rich Roll?

  And imagine if you flipped the switch or flipped the lens on it and Iron Man came to his support and said, we love what you're doing. It's fantastic. Keep going. Do you need any support? How can we help you?

• 34:12Adam Skolnick?

  Exactly.

• 34:12Rich Roll?

  And the goodwill that that would engender for the larger organization as a whole.

• 34:17Adam Skolnick?

  And if you have an issue with the fact like that what he's doing isn't exactly how it would go in an Iron Man race, you can use that platform to say so.

• 34:25Rich Roll?

  Sure.

• 34:25Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 34:26Rich Roll?

  But to say, hey, we don't like what you're doing. Stop talking about it in the way that you're talking about it.

• 34:31Adam Skolnick?

  And contact the media companies?

• 34:34Rich Roll?

  Behind that is this idea that, oh no, if people start doing their own adventures, they're not going to sign up for our races. All those races sell out anyway.

• 34:42Adam Skolnick?

  Right. They can't, they can't.

• 34:44Rich Roll?

  So what are you really talking about?

• 34:46Adam Skolnick?

  I mean, right now, the fact is that like, we're just coming out of it. It was hard to stage these races. You couldn't stage the races, and people had to do virtual races. But as someone who has done a few of these virtual events.

• 34:57Rich Roll?

  And they canceled all their races and didn't refund anybody their entry fees.

• 35:01Adam Skolnick?

  Is that right?

• 35:02Rich Roll?

  Yeah, so that's what he's talking about.

• 35:04Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 35:04Rich Roll?

  That's a, you know, a big thing that a lot of people are grousing about. And the issue of corporatization of multisport was also, you know, switching gears a little bit in the news this past week because Ironman partnered or took a minority stake in UTMB, the ultra trail du Mont Blanc, which is really the sport's trail running's most prestigious week-long series of ultra marathons. And this has ruffled quite a few feathers. The UTMB is like this epic race, and it's a big race. A lot of, you know, a lot of trail runs, there's not very many people in them. They're very kind of grassroots, but UTMB is, you know, a huge event.

• 35:45Rich Roll?

  So a lot of people are kind of decrying the commodification of the trail ultra world. They're going to create this UTMB World Series, you're going to have to qualify. The big fear, of course, being that all these big corporate sponsors are going to roll in. Entry fees are going to go through the roof. Not everybody, though. There's, there's certain, you know, well-known athletes who are supportive of this move. But I think there's a guy called John Kelly, who's done a lot of Ironman, so has also done a lot of trail races. And he said, "Monopolization of events through exclusive qualifiers to the premier, quote-unquote, premier race, leading to sky-high entry fees and closure of independent races. Complete disregard for host sites, athlete experience, and safety, or anything in the way of money."

• 36:29Rich Roll?

  You know, there's different cultures and goals. So it really is, basically what he's saying is, there's a clash of cultures here, and I think that's, that's right. You know, when you think of Ironman, you think of people who show up, they look the part, they're wearing a certain kind of costume, you know, they got the right tattoo.

• 36:46Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 36:46Rich Roll?

  It's a culture that's very different and at odds with the trail running culture, which is much more of a, of a down-to-earth.

• 36:55Adam Skolnick?

  It's a dirtbag, much more dirtbag.

• 36:56Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I mean, those are the roots of it.

• 36:58Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 36:59Rich Roll?

  At the same time... I suppose partnerships like this are inevitable as the exposure and the growth of sports like trail running continue to grow.

• 37:09Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 37:10Rich Roll?

  This is gonna happen, right? So how, if it is gonna happen, how do you do it correctly and properly and preserve what's great about the trail running culture and not let it become corrupted by the influx of cash? I don't know. We'll find out, I guess, right?

• 37:27Adam Skolnick?

  I mean, that's one of the draws of Utzala, right? Is that those guys are so not corporate.

• 37:31Rich Roll?

  Right. So imagine, you know, so imagine the response of, if suddenly you woke up and you got an email from Utzala saying they partnered with Ironman. Like, it wouldn't make sense to me.

• 37:42Adam Skolnick?

  No, because they seem like completely different. That's what you're saying the Mountain Block thing is. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, no, it wouldn't make sense. I don't foresee that happening, but...

• 37:51Rich Roll?

  I don't either, but I think a lot of people would have said, there's no way that UTMB would partner with Ironman.

• 37:56Adam Skolnick?

  Well, they must, what's in it for them, do you think? Just some steak money?

• 37:59Rich Roll?

  I think stability, cash.

• 38:02Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 38:03Rich Roll?

  You know, the ability to plug into a really well-funded machine that knows how to like blow these things up and create structure for them.

• 38:11Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, and a big brand, right? The big brand is, it's easy to raise money off a brand, right?

• 38:15Rich Roll?

  Sure, but from what I understand, UT, there will be no Ironman branding at UTMB.

• 38:20Adam Skolnick?

  Okay.

• 38:21Rich Roll?

  So it appears that UTMB wants to leverage like the, the back office capabilities of an organization like Ironman to scale what they've created into this series, which allows them to expand the scope. And the good news is, you know, the silver lining in it is that with that, perhaps you expand the exposure of the sport and bring more people into it. Because it's all about growth, right? So, Ironman will allow them to grow in a way that they couldn't otherwise. But if you're a traditionalist, you're thinking, we don't need to grow. We've grown enough. Like, let's keep it, let's keep what's great about it and not allow it to be corrupted.

• 39:00Adam Skolnick?

  It's the old story, man. We all liked, we all liked the bands before they started playing the arenas, back in the club days.

• 39:07Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 39:08Adam Skolnick?

  You know what I mean?

• 39:09Rich Roll?

  I'm still like an R and M murmur guy.

• 39:12Rich Roll?

  Back to murmur.

• 39:13Adam Skolnick?

  Dude, I saw-

• 39:14Rich Roll?

  Athens, Georgia days.

• 39:15Adam Skolnick?

  Bro, I saw fish in a gymnasium in Vermont. Right.

• 39:19Rich Roll?

  I know, right?

• 39:21Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah. Bro, you should have seen that show in the gymnasium. It wasn't as good, but I like to think it was better.

• 39:26Rich Roll?

  Of course. All right, let's take a quick break first to kind of round out the Iron Cowboy thing. Please make a point of following him at IronCowboyJames on Instagram, Instagram stories, specifically to kind of follow the moment to moment unfolding of his epic journey. And we'll be right back.

• 39:47Adam Skolnick?

  What can I, before we go away?

• 39:49Rich Roll?

  What?

• 39:50Adam Skolnick?

  I have an idea for, to brand, since we're talking about branding, to brand-

• 39:54Rich Roll?

  Should we partner with Iron Man? I've never done a WTC race, ever. I don't plan to either.

• 39:58Adam Skolnick?

  We might get calls from Iron Man just for saying "Iron Man." I'm afraid Mount Blanc, you won't be able to say Mount Blanc. Does France know that Mount Blanc is owned by Iron Man now?

• 40:09Rich Roll?

  I don't know. Alert, alert the lawyers, right? An interesting side note with that.

• 40:13Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 40:14Rich Roll?

  You know how people do Iron Mans and then they get the Iron Man tattoo, like the M-dot tattoo?

• 40:17Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 40:18Rich Roll?

  That's technically a copyright violation.

• 40:21Adam Skolnick?

  On their skin.

• 40:22Rich Roll?

  Exactly.

• 40:23Adam Skolnick?

  It's like a double violation.

• 40:24Rich Roll?

  Right. But of course, it's the ultimate branding for them as well. So can you pick and choose which parts or which occasions of that, that intellectual property transgression, you're gonna, you're going to police?

• 40:39Adam Skolnick?

  I think you should allow it. If I was Iron Man lawyers, I would allow the tattooing, but I would also demand to be able to literally brand them with an iron eye. As they cross the finish line.

• 40:50Rich Roll?

  That's a solution.

• 40:52Adam Skolnick?

  Wait, so the Brogan Graham Film Festival, I'm gonna call it the hashtag FF, or the 3Fs, Friendship Film Festival.

• 41:02Rich Roll?

  Not the Fire Film Festival with a Y?

• 41:04Adam Skolnick?

  No, not Fire.

• 41:05Rich Roll?

  Friendship Film-

• 41:06Adam Skolnick?

  Friendship Film Festival. Every time you do it-

• 41:08Rich Roll?

  It's not a pressure.

• 41:09Adam Skolnick?

  Every time you send a film, a 3F film, brought to you by 3Fs.

• 41:15Rich Roll?

  Right, okay.

• 41:16Adam Skolnick?

  Trip, Trip's F.

• 41:17Rich Roll?

  I don't follow.

• 41:19Adam Skolnick?

  I don't know, I'm just trying to brand it.

• 41:20Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 41:20Adam Skolnick?

  Just trying to brand things.

• 41:21Rich Roll?

  But the whole thing is it's not, it's not, it's not for social media. It's just, it's an intimate exchange between two people.

• 41:28Adam Skolnick?

  That's true. We shouldn't try to brand these things.

• 41:30Rich Roll?

  Yeah, no.

• 41:31Adam Skolnick?

  Who would brand?

• 41:31Rich Roll?

  See, this is a, this is a microcosm example of the Ironman UTMB thing.

• 41:36Adam Skolnick?

  I'm part of the problem.

• 41:37Rich Roll?

  I wanna, I wanna, I'm coming from the dirtbag perspective.

• 41:40Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 41:40Rich Roll?

  Let's protect the purity of this art form.

• 41:44Adam Skolnick?

  Nothing is pure, Rich.

• 41:46Rich Roll?

  All right, we'll be back in a few.

• 41:56Rich Roll?

  Before we get into the main thing I want to talk about today, that previous segment that we just recorded, either that's art, or we just lost the whole audience.

• 42:04Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 42:04Rich Roll?

  Where do you fall on that?

• 42:05Adam Skolnick?

  Well, if it is art, we definitely lost the whole audience.

• 42:09Rich Roll?

  Yeah, either way, it's not good.

• 42:10Adam Skolnick?

  It's just two guys talking to each other.

• 42:11Rich Roll?

  Yeah, for the two people that have stuck with us.

• 42:14Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 42:14Rich Roll?

  Now.

• 42:15Adam Skolnick?

  Welcome.

• 42:15Rich Roll?

  Yes, thank you for taking, taking a risk, taking a chance on us.

• 42:20Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 42:21Rich Roll?

  So for the big story this week, rather than dive into the news headlines, I wanted to seize an opportunity to do something a little bit different, which is riff off a tweet that I saw the other day from my friend Steve Magnus. Steve's a former friend of the pod, on the podcast twice, co-author with Brad Stolberg of a couple of great books. He's an elite track and field coach, former Oregon Project coach, a guy who's been outspoken against doping and Alberto Celizar specifically. And he's just a source of wisdom on Twitter. And he tweeted something that, that stuck with me because it resonates with something I think about a lot.

• 43:05Rich Roll?

  And his tweet goes like this. "There's a reason athletes have off-seasons. After intense stress, you need time to mentally and physically recover. Periodize your life. Know when it's time to grind and when you need to back off and recover." I think it's a simple statement, but I think it's also profound. This idea of periodizing not just your training, but also your life. Like, everything has a season.

• 43:32Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 43:33Rich Roll?

  And when I look at you, Adam, I see somebody who's trained for hard things, who's done hard things, but I'm not sure you've ever engaged in a proper training protocol that involved periodization. Maybe periodization has come up from time to time in former roll-ons, but are you familiar with the concept of periodized training?

• 43:53Adam Skolnick?

  No.

• 43:54Rich Roll?

  You're not at all?

• 43:57Adam Skolnick?

  No.

• 43:58Rich Roll?

  No?

• 43:58Adam Skolnick?

  No, but I haven't, I haven't, you say I've done hard things. I mean, I haven't trained for like ultra-distance events or even, you know, like, I mean...

• 44:07Rich Roll?

  But periodization is a tried and true approach to training for any, it doesn't have to be an ultra-distance thing. If you're doing Olympic triathlons, if you're training for a marathon, if you're training for any kind of physical feat or endurance challenge, periodization is a way of structuring how you, you create your schedule going forward. So, let's say you have a year to prepare for a race.

• 44:33Adam Skolnick?

  Yep.

• 44:34Rich Roll?

  A really big race, it's on the calendar, you look at the end date and you're like, okay, that day's coming, here I am 365 days beforehand, how am I going to best prepare so that on that race day, I'm at my absolute peak to perform to my capabilities? And the way you do that is you break down your training into certain blocks. You have this build phase, and then you back off, and then you go a little bit harder, and then you back off again, and then you increase again, and then maybe you take two weeks of really easy training. Like, you build in periods of time, mindfully, that allow your body to recover.

• 45:17Rich Roll?

  And this can happen quarterly, it can happen monthly, it happens weekly, it happens daily. So, there's the macro and the micro that gets built into all of this. So that you are breaking your body down, but not blind to the fact that you've got to allow your body to build itself back up so that you can then approach your training as a stronger fitter athlete to take it... You know, to the next level, to break through certain plateaus. And knowing when to back off and how to back off and for how long to back off is both an art and a science.

• 45:49Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 45:49Rich Roll?

  And I've had my best years as an athlete, my best performances, when I've really taken periodization to heart and followed the direction of my coach, Chris South. When I was a swimmer, there was no periodization. We just went in and we hammered every single day. And then we hung, you know, all our hopes on a two-week taper at the end of the season and just prayed that it all worked out. Sometimes it did, sometimes it didn't.

• 46:14Adam Skolnick?

  But you were, that was early, earlier days.

• 46:16Rich Roll?

  This is like 80s.

• 46:17Adam Skolnick?

  Right, that's what they did then.

• 46:19Rich Roll?

  Right, exactly.

• 46:19Adam Skolnick?

  It was all about yardage.

• 46:20Rich Roll?

  But now, it's like, understanding how, how hard you can push before you tip into overtraining and knowing when to back off the gas and allowing your body to recover, knowing how long you need for your body to bounce back and what kind of training you're doing during those, those sort of easier intervals of time, really becomes this incredible lever for growth and, and performance breakthroughs.

• 46:47Adam Skolnick?

  So how would you, like, if, if you're training for Catalina, I'm not, I'm most likely not doing the full-distance Catalina because I just don't, I can't commit to the time it's going to take to train for it with a young, young one. But I'm going to do the sprint, which is 15K. So how would you periodize that? Like, when would you start and how would you periodize that?

• 47:08Rich Roll?

  Well, first, I would break up the period of time into like three phases. The first phase would be a endurance building, like base building period, where you're just working on your foundation and you're getting a lot of zone two work in and getting acclimated to spending a lot of time swimming and running so that your body kind of knows what that feels like. You're giving your tendons and your ligaments the opportunity to adapt, not just your lungs and your heart, but all of your muscles in your body, to figure out like how to sustain itself over long periods of time. So that phase would be a slow, progressive build of going longer and longer and longer, mostly in the zone two phase.

• 47:51Rich Roll?

  But within that block, you're going to do a little, maybe like a two-week build, and then you're going to have four days that are going to be pretty easy, or maybe a week that's pretty easy, where you're still training, but... The gas isn't all the way pressed down, right? You're backing off so that during that week of training, your body's getting, you're allowing your body to recover and get stronger. And then that would be followed by another sub-block within the base-building block of going a little bit longer than you did in that initial block to push through to the next barrier. And you just repeat, rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat, and pay attention to how your body is recovering during those off periods so that you can better calibrate what those rest weeks look like.

• 48:34Rich Roll?

  And then within each week, you have a rest day, right? So, and then within each day, you know, you have, when are you training? And what are you doing in between your training sessions? So, periodization works at every level, from yearly to monthly to, you know, weekly to daily. Then, your second phase would be more of a strength and speed-building phase, where you're going to be doing more tempo work interspersed with continuing to increase your volume over zone two. But you're going to choose moments where you're going to do, you're going to have really hard kind of zone three, zone four, zone five efforts in there to get used to the idea that you experience when you're doing a swim run, which is that you're always changing gears.

• 49:17Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 49:17Rich Roll?

  You're ramping up your heart rate, it's coming back down, it's going back. You're like, it's not like an Ironman or a marathon where you get into, you rev up to a certain speed and you hold it as long as you can. A swim run, you're constantly switching back and forth. So, it would be more focused on getting your heart and your lungs and your muscles acclimated to heart rate spikes and getting fit enough so that your heart rate comes back down pretty expeditiously.

• 49:42Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 49:42Rich Roll?

  The third phase would be race-specific. Then you're going to start sort of training in the spirit of what the race is and trying to mimic what that experience is like.

• 49:54Adam Skolnick?

  And you'll have six-week blocks usually?

• 49:56Rich Roll?

  Well, it depends on how much time you have. You know what I mean? Like, you can, I mean, we could spend four hours trying to figure out exactly what to do. And this is an ideal situation. This isn't necessarily... You know, the, the protocol for the time crunched dad of a baby who only has, you know, who's not going to be able to train every single day. But basically, I just wanted to lay that out in the most general terms to help people understand what periodization looks like.

• 50:20Adam Skolnick?

  Can we build in a period for me to hunch over my computer and type with two fingers?

• 50:24Rich Roll?

  Yes, you can. There's room for all of it.

• 50:26Adam Skolnick?

  That's what I do between training sessions.

• 50:28Rich Roll?

  But I think the broader point here and, and why I wanted to talk about this, you know, given that I've learned a lot about the wisdom of periodizing endurance training is that it's so applicable in every other area of life. And it goes back to ancient wisdom. It's like eat with the seasons, live by the seasons. Why do I feel so sluggish and tired in, in the colder, darker months? Because you're hardwired for that, right?

• 50:55Adam Skolnick?

  Well, it brings back to like Matt Walker, like how we are wired for when the sun went down, we all slept for like that whole period of time or like close to it. And, and, and, and we've come so far from that. And so that, that there's so many kind of overlays.

• 51:08Rich Roll?

  Right. And now we're in this hustle porn culture where if you're not, if your output isn't like insane and you're not grinding 24/7 and staying up all night and pulling all nighters and on your hustle, there's something wrong with you.

• 51:22Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 51:22Rich Roll?

  Such that when you have a fallow moment and you want to rest or you're like, I just don't have it today, you feel guilty or you beat yourself up or you have this sense that you're falling behind. And I think that sensibility, that mentality, that mindset is anathema to long-term success. I think we need to understand that we're all built for periods of, of great productivity. But if you want to sustain that over the long period of time, you have to periodize that. You have to periodize your career. You have to periodize your creative output. You have to periodize essentially everything that you do. And the more mindful you can be to make sure that you're, that you're incorporating

• 52:06Rich Roll?

  fallow periods, to coin Bonnie Choi's article, which we're going to talk about. I think, you know, and it, it's for a lot of type A personalities, it doesn't feel, it feels indulgent, right? Or selfish or unproductive to do that. There's a guilt and there's a shame that gets built into that. That's driven by cultural pressures that we need to overcome. And as a 54 year old who's been doing stuff for a long time, I can tell you, you can't just be cranking all the time. Now, you as a content creator, you see burnout amidst content creators because they can't sustain the level of output that they're doing and they either flame out or disappear,

• 52:47Rich Roll?

  or they have to reinvent themselves and create a way of contributing their creativity in a manner that's more sustainable with lifestyle.

• 52:56Adam Skolnick?

  It's interesting because like, two things came to my mind when you told me you wanted to talk about this. The first is when Lonely Planet travel guides were my primary job. When I was doing that, it was a period from 2007 to 2013, where I was gone eight, nine months a year and I would do like three of these guides. And that entailed long periods of travel, usually in remote areas. Not always, but usually. And then come back either home or I'd rent a place in the country and long periods of just 12 hour days, 10 hour days in the computer. And then, and living in situ so I could make calls if I didn't have all my research done.

• 53:41Adam Skolnick?

  I knew where I was. And so that has a built in kind of, not fallow because you're still hustling, but there is periodization in the research gathering and the writing. And it was, it felt natural. And there is that still anytime you're on a story. Like when writing, when you're trying to come up with something written at the end of it versus what you're doing with the mics, it's kind of, it's all one thing. But you're reporting, but that's different than the writing where you can analyze and be kind of, create the distance in between and organize it and you know what you want to say versus the absorption, which, and the second thing that came to mind was, Bonnie's story, which she published in 2019, which I sent to you this morning.

• 54:25Adam Skolnick?

  And because that's what she's talking about is creating that space for absorption as a creative person. So that's interesting. That's what that's immediately where my mind went. Didn't go to athletics at all for me. Because like athletics are just kind of like something just to keep my mind right more than anything, my body right. But like, I don't think of it in terms of any sort of outcomes or optimization. But I immediately went to that point of like, wow, I don't really have what I used to have. There's no like, there's no longer that period of like, three months where I'm just traveling and absorbing and three months of writing. Like, I don't have that anymore. Two months of writing is what it used to be, or a month. So it's interesting. And I do, I did like that rhythm.

• 55:09Adam Skolnick?

  There's something real natural about it.

• 55:11Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it comes in phases.

• 55:13Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 55:13Rich Roll?

  Right? Just like if you're making a movie, you write the script by yourself or with a friend or whatever.

• 55:19Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 55:19Rich Roll?

  Partner. Then you shoot the movie. Then you edit the movie. Then you market the movie.

• 55:25Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 55:25Rich Roll?

  All of those are part and parcel of being a filmmaker, but they're all very different disciplines that I suspect for, and, and, you know, any, every filmmaker is going to excel in different areas of those and maybe doesn't like certain aspects of it. But the switching gears aspect of it probably keeps them fresh.

• 55:43Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 55:43Rich Roll?

  Right? In the same way that if you're a triathlete, you get to switch up the different disciplines of sport that you're pursuing. For me, people are always like, which one do you like the best? And it's like, I like that I get to change all the time and it's not the same thing every single day. But I think on top of that is this idea of, you know, to kind of hearken to this idea of absorbing. Like, that's where it gets tricky for people. Like, look, a lot of people, they can't, they don't have the luxury of like, I'm going to kick back and absorb my life. But if you're trying to express something, if you're a creative person, you have to live your life in order to have something to say. You can't just be writing all the time because you're going to run out of things to write

• 56:28Rich Roll?

  about if you're not living.

• 56:29Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 56:29Rich Roll?

  Right? So you have to live your life. You have to have moments of absorption, no matter what your career path or how busy your circumstances may be. What that looks like to you is gonna depend on your circumstances and your, you know, particularities of your life, of course. But I think just being mindful of that and trying to find ways even within your day, in a given day, to ruminate or do nothing and not feel guilty about it, right?

• 57:01Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 57:02Rich Roll?

  There's that thing like, stand-up comics are people that just don't like, you know, like, the people that don't like to wake up in the morning, you know, like are lazy, like, become stand-up comics, and it's like, what does that guy do all? He just does nothing. He wakes up at noon and he like, goes and gets a sandwich and like wanders around and then does, it's like, what is that person's, you know?

• 57:22Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 57:23Rich Roll?

  What's driving that person? But they're overlooking the fact that the brain is working all the time. So there's observation, there's

• 57:29Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 57:30Rich Roll?

  Synthesis, there's absorption, all of those things are occurring. And we shouldn't be so quick to judge how a certain human operates.

• 57:39Adam Skolnick?

  Also, it's funny, we say, he's doing nothing, or she's doing nothing, but they're being, you know, it's almost like-

• 57:46Rich Roll?

  Right, but we're not allowed to just be.

• 57:48Adam Skolnick?

  No.

• 57:48Rich Roll?

  That's the, that's the broader point, right?

• 57:50Adam Skolnick?

  I mean, there is a certain element of like, I think you get to a certain point where you have to be able to afford to be, but everyone has that. Like, I don't care what your job is, there's going to be pressures to, and we often fill that space of doing nothing with absorbing other people's content. Like, most people, I think, absorb it through television, or Netflix, or YouTube, or whatever. You know, myself included. But, you know, what Bonnie is talking about here is kind of an active not doing. It's, it's, it's, it's going to the park and people watching, it's reading, it's, she's not really advocating vegging on the couch and watching television.

• 58:28Rich Roll?

  No, no, no. What she, what she's saying is-

• 58:30Adam Skolnick?

  She's separating out the fellow, yeah.

• 58:32Rich Roll?

  Yeah, and acknowledging that in this age of distraction, that it's transgressive to do this, right? There's one quote that, that I noted that I wanted to read from the piece, which is called, "You're doing something important when you aren't doing anything." We'll link it up in the show notes. But she says, "Protecting and practicing fallow time is an act of resistance. It can make us feel out of step with what the prevailing culture tells us, the 24/7 hamster wheel of work, the constant accessibility and the impatient press of social media." All hasten the anxiety over someone else's judgment. If you aren't visibly producing, you aren't worthy. In this context, taking time to lie dormant feels greedy, even wasteful. And of course, there are often financial concerns.

• 59:15Rich Roll?

  So yeah, this, this notion that it's transgressive, that it is an act of resistance, that you have to push back against culture and your addictive instinct to grab the phone and ameliorate your, you know, your, your boredom.

• 59:28Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 59:28Rich Roll?

  By filling it with scrolling or whatever it is that you look at on your phone. It's very difficult. It's never been more difficult to carve out that time, that fallow time, that time for rumination and quietude.

• 59:40Adam Skolnick?

  And feeling wasteful, I mean, that's exactly it. Like, am I wasting time by doing X or Y or whatever? And, and you know, that's one thing that I think adventuring, which I, is what I consider swimming and running these days for me is like, it's like these mini adventures. That allows me to clear my head in a way that's a fallow time within a day for me. But it's not though, because I'm still trying to get something done. So it really doesn't really qualify as fallow time.

• 1:00:06Rich Roll?

  It's hard.

• 1:00:06Adam Skolnick?

  I know.

• 1:00:07Rich Roll?

  You know?

• 1:00:08Adam Skolnick?

  And just pushing my son and his like new tricycle is kind of.

• 1:00:11Rich Roll?

  But I also think it's the mindset that you bring to whatever it is that you're doing.

• 1:00:15Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:15Rich Roll?

  Right? Like you could go out and, and go for a walk with your son and, and bring your phone and stare at your phone the whole time, or you leave your phone at home and.

• 1:00:26Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 1:00:26Rich Roll?

  You comport yourself like Brogan and go up and talk to people and live in your brain and, you know, kind of allow yourself to mentally meander.

• 1:00:37Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah. Which, you know, we've been watching Mad Men because April had never seen Mad Men. So I'm rewatching the whole series. We're in season six now. And that's something, for all of Don Draper's many faults, although he is gifted too. One thing that we love about Don is his willingness to nap at any time of day or night.

• 1:00:57Rich Roll?

  He is a world-class napper. But when you're, when you're, when you're boozing that hard, I don't see any other way around it. Like when you're hammering like four Manhattans at lunch.

• 1:01:07Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 1:01:08Rich Roll?

  A nap is in your immediate future.

• 1:01:10Adam Skolnick?

  And nobody loves a matinee more than Don Draper on a workday.

• 1:01:13Rich Roll?

  That's true.

• 1:01:14Adam Skolnick?

  And so those are, but that's exactly what he's doing though. He calls that absorption. He would be fully in on this.

• 1:01:19Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:01:19Adam Skolnick?

  Like the absorption state. He, he didn't care when people worked.

• 1:01:22Rich Roll?

  Well, he doesn't, he never, you never see him in front of a whiteboard.

• 1:01:26Adam Skolnick?

  No.

• 1:01:26Rich Roll?

  Mapping out his strategy for, you know, brand X.

• 1:01:30Adam Skolnick?

  No.

• 1:01:30Rich Roll?

  He kind of comes up with his ideas, sui sponte, like very extemporaneously in the meeting.

• 1:01:36Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah. I am more like the Peggy Olson sweating it out. Like, like trying to hammer at it, figure it out. I'm not the Don Draper nap, matinee, genius.

• 1:01:48Rich Roll?

  That's funny. Does it hold up? I bet it holds up pretty good, right?

• 1:01:51Adam Skolnick?

  There was one episode where they had to do a trigger warning though, because.

• 1:01:55Rich Roll?

  Really?

• 1:01:55Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah. Even though it takes place in the sixties. It was when Roger sang in blackface.

• 1:02:02Rich Roll?

  Oh.

• 1:02:03Adam Skolnick?

  And they did a trigger warning.

• 1:02:04Rich Roll?

  Roger, Roger, not, not that politically correct, that guy.

• 1:02:07Adam Skolnick?

  Politically incorrect. Well, you know, where they were early in like the first season was 1960 and they were all on Nixon's side.

• 1:02:14Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm. I remember that. Yeah.

• 1:02:15Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:02:16Rich Roll?

  I remember that because they were, they were considering getting into.

• 1:02:19Adam Skolnick?

  They repped.

• 1:02:19Rich Roll?

  Campaign marketing.

• 1:02:20Adam Skolnick?

  They repped Nixon, but Nixon wouldn't like the campaign wasn't listening to him.

• 1:02:26Rich Roll?

  All right. I think we got off track here.

• 1:02:27Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 1:02:28Rich Roll?

  Did we cover the periodization of your life?

• 1:02:30Adam Skolnick?

  Tell me about your life, like periodizing, like where are you in your periodization journey and when's the, what's the most successful? What's the most successful you've ever been at it?

• 1:02:39Rich Roll?

  Well, one thing I've done is to build in this month every year where I take off, which is new. I've done it twice. But I intend to do that every year. I think travel for me is a, is a, is a big aspect of that in terms of rejuvenating me and, and exposing me to new people and new places. I find that to be very nourishing.

• 1:03:01Adam Skolnick?

  Like your, like your, like your big island.

• 1:03:04Rich Roll?

  Yeah, yeah. And when I went to Australia, but even when pre-COVID, there'd be speaking things and I would get to go to all these cool places. For me, that's that like really reboots my system. So COVID's been challenging just to be at home and sit with my thoughts. And I struggle with adopting the appropriate, healthy mindset around leveraging that appropriately. But I think at the same time, we have to be gentle on ourselves, like, you know, not to not to kind of beat a dead horse, but it's been a really hard year for everybody. And I think a fallow year for everybody in a way that we wouldn't have chosen or didn't expect.

• 1:03:43Adam Skolnick?

  That's true.

• 1:03:44Rich Roll?

  So being gentle on ourselves, I think, is part of that idea of periodizing your life. Like, this was a fallow year. Rather than live in regret or frustration or resentment over it, while we're still kind of in it, like, how can we develop a better, healthier mindset around this experience? How can we learn from it? How can we use it for that kind of internal journey that will help improve our lives as we move forward in other areas?

• 1:04:22Adam Skolnick?

  I miss the travel a lot, you know, especially lately. And we were even thinking about jumping on a plane here in May and trying to get like to Hawaii for 10 days or something. But are opting against it just to let this second wave, wherever it is, kind of chill out and then our third wave and then see where we're at. But we're definitely feeling that it's, I mean, travel is how we all reset in certain ways. Adventure, that kind of thing. You kind of pull yourself out of who you are and you can be in a totally different state of being and then come back. And it's the best way to go fallow, I think. It's the best way to observe. But you can do that in our daily life here and we should.

• 1:05:06Adam Skolnick?

  We should all do more of that. I think from the athletics perspective, one thing that I think about when you're talking about off seasons is a great example of that is the current NBA season in that they had the shortest off season in the history of the league because they had to, if you remember, they had to move everything because and put it in a bubble in Orlando,

• 1:05:26Adam Skolnick?

  you know, to do the playoffs and everything else after they'd shut down in March. I think they moved, I forget when it was, it was in the late summer. I don't think it wrapped until like September or October. I can't remember offhand. I think October. And then the thought was usually the season starts again, like the end of October. And so the thought was they were probably not going to start again until after the new year. But they actually launched with something like less than three months off. And I remember LeBron James being very outspoken about it because he spends a million dollars a year on his body. He's like, so he knows all about this. Like he periodizes to get peak for the playoffs. And, and, and this NBA season has been one of the worst in terms of major athletes coming down with injuries.

• 1:06:11Rich Roll?

  Yeah, injuries.

• 1:06:12Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah. And so it's interesting that, you know, that's what I think about. Like it does, it does make a big difference when you're, when you're in the elite level too, especially, right?

• 1:06:23Rich Roll?

  Yeah, 100%. But I think in terms of the everyday individual, thinking about the pandemic and thinking about how to move forward, so much of it is about acceptance too. It's like when an athlete's injured and they're frustrated that they can't train or they're falling behind or what is this going to mean in terms of the big race that I'm training for? There's nothing you can do about it, right? So in this moment of repose, what can be learned? How can you mine it to be better in other areas of your life and use the various periods for what they're intended to sort of avail you of?

• 1:06:59Adam Skolnick?

  Hmm. Love it.

• 1:07:01Rich Roll?

  I don't know.

• 1:07:03Adam Skolnick?

  Some good, that's a good classic ritual brain food.

• 1:07:07Rich Roll?

  All right, let's, let's shift gears. Spoken like a true hype man. Your job's secure.

• 1:07:13Adam Skolnick?

  Are you uncomfortable with my hype?

• 1:07:14Rich Roll?

  Brogan is not moving to Los Angeles. You're okay.

• 1:07:19Rich Roll?

  Your job is very secure.

• 1:07:20Adam Skolnick?

  My greatest ability is availability.

• 1:07:22Rich Roll?

  That's true. Not to be underestimated, you know? You have yet to say, I can't, there was one time where you couldn't because you were having a baby.

• 1:07:32Adam Skolnick?

  Am I overly available?

• 1:07:33Rich Roll?

  No, you're appropriately available.

• 1:07:35Adam Skolnick?

  Appropriately available. You don't want to be inappropriately available.

• 1:07:38Rich Roll?

  No.

• 1:07:40Rich Roll?

  No, because then you're reeking of need.

• 1:07:43Adam Skolnick?

  Like, don't you have anything else going on?

• 1:07:47Rich Roll?

  All right, let's move on.

• 1:07:48Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 1:07:49Rich Roll?

  We're going to do a little, it's not really show and tell, just going to note a few things. I did want to say.

• 1:07:55Adam Skolnick?

  It's tell.

• 1:07:56Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's tell. No show. To everybody who left a comment on the YouTube channel and subscribed in response to the 10,000 Distance Kit giveaway, thank you. We reached out to five people, got addresses, and we'll be shipping those out shortly. So you have that to look forward to. We'll be doing more giveaways. Again, I'm developing some new stuff with 10,000 that I'm pretty excited about. So I'll be sharing more about that as the weeks and months unfold. I wanted to give a shout out to friends of the pod, Jesse Thomas, Lauren Fleishman, Gabby Reese, and Laird Hamilton. They formed this Super Twins Activate Alliance between Picky Bars

• 1:08:40Rich Roll?

  and Laird Superfood, which I think is, is superfood cool?

• 1:08:45Rich Roll?

  It's the first time two husband and wife teams, all four of them have been on the podcast and went off and merged their companies. So I feel emotionally attached to this in an illogical way.

• 1:08:56Adam Skolnick?

  So the companies are merged?

• 1:08:57Rich Roll?

  I don't know if it's a part or if it was in, I don't know if Laird Superfood acquired Picky Bars. It's some kind of alliance, some, some, some form of merger. I don't know the specifics of. The business points on how it all worked out.

• 1:09:10Adam Skolnick?

  You know.

• 1:09:10Rich Roll?

  But happy for all involved.

• 1:09:11Adam Skolnick?

  I'm a believer in the Laird, that coconut creamer for the powdered coffee. We used, I used to bring that on the road on, on work trips.

• 1:09:19Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I got and got, got some of that in the mail the other day. So thanks to all of them for saying, I'll bring it into the studio.

• 1:09:26Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:27Rich Roll?

  Products by Picky Bars and Laird Superfood.

• 1:09:30Adam Skolnick?

  Beautiful.

• 1:09:30Rich Roll?

  Um, should we talk about this QAnon Into the Storm documentary that we both watched?

• 1:09:34Adam Skolnick?

  You know, we should talk about it just because you and I love to talk about it.

• 1:09:38Rich Roll?

  We've been, we love talking about QAnon and we've been talking about it forever.

• 1:09:42Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 1:09:42Rich Roll?

  And this, this documentary kind of came and went. We both watched it. It never felt like the appropriate time to discuss it. I don't want to belabor it too long, but I thought it was worth noting if people haven't seen it. It's on HBO Max right now. How many episodes is it? Four or five, something like that?

• 1:09:58Adam Skolnick?

  No, six.

• 1:09:58Rich Roll?

  Six?

• 1:09:59Adam Skolnick?

  I think it's six.

• 1:10:00Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:01Adam Skolnick?

  Let me check.

• 1:10:02Rich Roll?

  It's a pretty interesting docu-series written and directed by this guy, Colin Hoback.

• 1:10:06Adam Skolnick?

  Yep.

• 1:10:07Rich Roll?

  That, that goes into not so much the implications of the QAnon movement, but really the people behind it. For those that have been living under a rock and don't know what QAnon is, QAnon is the far-right conspiracy theory alleging that a secret cabal of Satan-worshipping cannibalistic pedophiles is running a global child sex trafficking ring.

• 1:10:30Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 1:10:30Rich Roll?

  And plotted against former US President Donald Trump while he was in office. Q drops cryptic, uh, what would you call them? Missives?

• 1:10:39Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 1:10:40Rich Roll?

  On 8chan, which is this horrible website.

• 1:10:43Adam Skolnick?

  Started on 4chan, moved to 8chan.

• 1:10:45Rich Roll?

  Moved to 8chan.

• 1:10:46Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:46Rich Roll?

  8chan notable for not just QAnon, but kind of being the message board for Gamergate and Pizza Gate.

• 1:10:53Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:53Rich Roll?

  And this docu-series, Colin goes to visit the people behind 8chan, which was this website started by this guy Fred Brennan, created 8chan, who, um, what is the nature of his disorder? He's in a wheelchair.

• 1:11:08Adam Skolnick?

  He was born with like some sort of brittle bone syndrome.

• 1:11:12Rich Roll?

  Right, it's a congenital.

• 1:11:13Adam Skolnick?

  A congenital, so he couldn't develop a, uh, right. And he couldn't like go out and play. And he was confined to, kind of like a Mr. Glass, like in that, um, in that movie. But it also involved some sort of malformations of his limbs. And so he basically, the way for him to become a full-blooded person, which he talked about on Rabbit Hole and he talks about even more so in this, is to have this online presence. He was able to be like a top dog online.

• 1:11:42Rich Roll?

  Right, right, right. It became his real life essentially was being lived online. And he really understands the internet in a very profound way. He creates 8chan, grows 8chan to a certain point and then basically is, I guess, verging on bankruptcy or just figuring out how to keep it going.

• 1:12:03Adam Skolnick?

  There was a moment where the traffic was too much and he didn't have the resources to be able to like to keep it up.

• 1:12:11Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:12:12Adam Skolnick?

  And that's how he, I think, partnered with these guys.

• 1:12:14Rich Roll?

  Yeah, so he ends up hooking up with this guy Ron Watkins and his son Jim Watkins, who are...

• 1:12:19Adam Skolnick?

  No, Jim's the father.

• 1:12:20Rich Roll?

  Or Jim's the father, yeah, Jim Watkins. Who, Jim ends up actually acquiring 8chan from Fred. Fred relocates to Manila where Ron and Jim are operating.

• 1:12:31Adam Skolnick?

  Yep.

• 1:12:32Rich Roll?

  And through the docu-series, you get a glimpse into kind of the back office of 8chan.

• 1:12:37Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 1:12:38Rich Roll?

  And it's rather illuminating and disturbing to actually see.

• 1:12:43Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 1:12:43Rich Roll?

  You know, how the sausage is made with this whole thing.

• 1:12:47Adam Skolnick?

  Which you kind of hit, like, going into the series, I didn't know if I had to watch it because I'd listened to Rabbit Hole. And Rabbit Hole was so good at kind of like implying that the Watkins most likely had something to be, like, if they weren't Q, they knew who it was, but you kind of thought it was one of them. Not originally, but they co-opted, like, we'll get into that, but I always kind of was suspicious of those two people, the father and son in Manila. They're American, by the way. You know, but going into seeing the way Cullen put it together and how he won the trust of these people who probably didn't want to be on camera, like, going into this. He wins their trust, he's there

• 1:13:28Adam Skolnick?

  for all these seminal moments and he pieces it together. It's really brilliant and I think completely revealing about this father and son megalomania, kind of like internet company, that just, I mean, I still can't wrap my head around the motive.

• 1:13:46Rich Roll?

  Well, Hobak is a fly on the wall. Like, he never... passes judgment on these subjects throughout the movie. So on some level, he's engendered their trust. And who knows what he told them about the purpose of this film that he was making? We don't know. But on some level, they're all very comfortable having him around to document this. And essentially, it's like a true crime story. Like, he's trying to solve the riddle of who is QAnon. And along the way, he interviews a lot of these QAnon YouTube people and pundits, pundits, etc. And ultimately, you know, lands on, it culminates with what I guess you could

• 1:14:29Rich Roll?

  characterize as almost an admission by Ron Watkins that he is perhaps Q?

• 1:14:37Adam Skolnick?

  Yes. But we should set this up because Jim Watkins, who runs the internet business out of Manila, his son Ron, who lives-

• 1:14:44Rich Roll?

  This is shitty office, and it's just gross. All of this is coming from here?

• 1:14:50Adam Skolnick?

  Right. And he owns a pig, he's a yogi, a self-proclaimed yogi-

• 1:14:54Rich Roll?

  He has a pig farm.

• 1:14:55Adam Skolnick?

  That owns a pig farm and a health food store with their own bacon line. This is legit.

• 1:15:01Rich Roll?

  And he's a big fan of fancy washes and fancy pens and changing his facial hair.

• 1:15:06Adam Skolnick?

  Yes. And, and then, obviously, it's implied, but you don't get into it, but father and son do like to, like frequent, well, the son frequents like some sort of massage parlor in Sapporo, Japan.

• 1:15:24Rich Roll?

  Well, it's unclear why Ron, the son, finds himself in all different parts of the world throughout this. They never really explain that. Like, is he fleeing from the law? Like, what's exactly going on? And Jim, meanwhile, the dad, is constantly saying that he doesn't care about politics, that he's not interested in politics, that he doesn't really follow QAnon.

• 1:15:44Adam Skolnick?

  But fully right wing.

• 1:15:45Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Because his actions belie his words.

• 1:15:49Adam Skolnick?

  And at some point, Jim comes back to the United States, which, why? And he has to sell the pig farm. They don't really explain why. And Ron- Like, was he working in intelligence? There's, there's, they hint that maybe he had, he worked in intelligence. He was Code Monkey on Twitter, Ron Watkins. And at one point, he became like, I think Donald Trump shared a couple of his tweets.

• 1:16:13Rich Roll?

  Right, so there's, at one point, Ron talks about how there's a, there's a Republican operative who's, who's really figured out how to accelerate growth on Twitter, like some kind of algorithmic solution that allows extreme stickiness and virality on that platform. And at some point, Ron hires this guy, or enlists him, to get his Code Monkey account on Twitter to blow up, which it does, and he ends up with like, I don't know, 700,000 or 500,000 followers, something like that. And then Trump is retweeting him, and this is in the latter stages of QAnon and 8chan.

• 1:16:56Adam Skolnick?

  I think it was the vice versa, the Republican operative wanted to hype up Code Monkey because he was pro-Q. He wanted the Q stuff out there, right? Because it was beneficial to the Republican candidates or something like that? Or, I don't know.

• 1:17:09Rich Roll?

  But there was Code Monkey's personal account that came a little bit later, when he became outspoken, and the way that he used language on Twitter as Code Monkey, they track that against the vernacular used by QAnon, and they kind of graph it to demonstrate that, that there's a good chance that these are the same people.

• 1:17:28Adam Skolnick?

  And I think that the short version is, someone else was originally QAnon. We don't really know who that was. They were on 4chan. It got moved to 8chan, and at some point, QAnon started to write differently, and that's when they think he had just disappeared, and Ron and Jim, or maybe just Ron, took it over to keep it going, because it was the primary driver of traffic to their web business. But there was no real, they never really implied, like, what the motive was, because they claim 8chan is a money loser. And then, like, what would be, was it a game? Was he like, was it like? Just like this real life role playing game for Ron?

• 1:18:09Rich Roll?

  I think there is revelry and chaos with these guys, like they're getting off on just wreaking havoc. And whatever, you know, Jim would say about his, his disinterest in politics, he keeps popping up. He at some point has to go hire this first amendment lawyer in Washington and he's elated to be able to, to be, you know, a rabble rouser in a congressional hearing at one point. And then Hobak is present with Jim at the Capitol insurrection.

• 1:18:43Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 1:18:44Rich Roll?

  And there's all this crazy footage. There's also footage of, of the QAnon Shaman.

• 1:18:49Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, early footage of the Q Shaman.

• 1:18:51Rich Roll?

  Yeah, like early footage of him at these other get togethers, these like conferences where you see this guy.

• 1:18:57Adam Skolnick?

  I think it was in Arizona like council meeting or something and he comes in with his horns.

• 1:19:01Rich Roll?

  So it's fascinating for that alone.

• 1:19:03Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:04Rich Roll?

  And meanwhile Fred Brennan, who created Achan, starts to distance himself from the whole thing and becomes kind of a voice, a contrarian voice, calling Ron and Jim to the mat on their behavior and sets about trying to get Achan, which later becomes Ait Coon dismantled.

• 1:19:23Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah. And we don't want to get into all the spoilers, but because it's, watching Fred's journey is, is actually riveting and

• 1:19:32Adam Skolnick?

  to me, like there was so much great footage that kind of like he, he connects this up to like all the way back, early internet kind of stories, like every episode, I'd say critically, the first episode. If you watch the first episode and feel disjointed and kind of your head spinning, I felt like the first episode was weak in that it tried to cover too much and it was like way disjointed, but the subsequent episodes I think are really well crafted. He has this, he's, when it talks about free speech, he, he pulls up the KKK march in Illinois in the seventies that the ACLU sued to allow to happen because it was, you know, the idea was get speech out there in public. I thought that was an interesting story.

• 1:20:14Rich Roll?

  The Skokie Nazis.

• 1:20:16Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, Skokie Nazis. And then the heaviest footage to me was not, you know, they use the New Yorker footage with the Capitol riot, but to me the heaviest footage was. The Christchurch Killer. The guy that went and shot people in a mosque, I think thirty or something. I forget how many died completely, it was like thirty or forty. And you see him, remember he livestreamed this. This was something that was livestreamed and it was on 8chan. People were watching Facebook. Yeah, no, the Christchurch Killer.

• 1:20:48Rich Roll?

  Oh, the killer was livestreamed, but then it was hosted on 8chan.

• 1:20:52Adam Skolnick?

  It was on Facebook where he was livestreaming and 8chan was, the comments were on 8chan. Where people were watching it and commenting. And you don't see, there's now, there's a little bit of blood. You see all the way up and he's driving, as if he's just whistling, driving to work. It's the sketchiest, cra- it's the scariest moment, I think. And I've seen some crazy stuff that is out there, like of these crimes that we've all heard of. I've never seen anything that was as chilling as that to me.

• 1:21:21Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's horrific. It's horrific. And then to hear Ron and Jim, you know, refuse to accept any responsibility.

• 1:21:30Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 1:21:31Rich Roll?

  For proliferating this kind of content.

• 1:21:33Adam Skolnick?

  But that's what happened, that was the nadir of 8chan. That's why it has to be called 8kun now.

• 1:21:38Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:21:38Adam Skolnick?

  Because at that point, that was it, like, once that happened. And then, right after that was the synagogue shooting in San Diego. And that was the end of 8chan.

• 1:21:46Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:21:46Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:47Rich Roll?

  So, it would have been nice if the series delved a little bit more deeply into the implications of all of this. It really is just a story of following these guys around and trying to understand why they were doing what they were doing.

• 1:21:58Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 1:21:59Rich Roll?

  Being these, you know, chaos agents. And we don't really get answers to that.

• 1:22:03Adam Skolnick?

  No. It's just an offbeat tech story, but with real world implications. And unfortunately, I think why, what you're getting at, the unsatisfying conclusion is really just that they wanted to fuck with everybody.

• 1:22:18Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:22:18Adam Skolnick?

  And like, we all had to live through it.

• 1:22:21Rich Roll?

  And that's really, you know, a difficult nihilistic pill to swallow.

• 1:22:26Adam Skolnick?

  It's a tough one.

• 1:22:26Rich Roll?

  At the end of the day, after everything that's happened. It was like, there's no, you know, it's not, it wasn't motivated by ideology.

• 1:22:34Adam Skolnick?

  Or money. They didn't get paid out of this.

• 1:22:36Rich Roll?

  Yeah, none of them are making any, they're losing money on this whole thing.

• 1:22:39Adam Skolnick?

  Right. So what was the purpose? Like, it was purposeless entertainment for a few people and torture for everybody else.

• 1:22:46Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:49Rich Roll?

  All right, enough said on that.

• 1:22:50Adam Skolnick?

  But you should watch it.

• 1:22:51Rich Roll?

  Yeah, you should check it out. It's on HBO Max, QAnon Into the Storm.

• 1:22:54Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:55Rich Roll?

  What else you got for me?

• 1:22:56Adam Skolnick?

  I have something to show. This is the new Rachel Kushner collection, The Hard Crowd. It's essays from 2000 to 2020. Rachel Kushner is one of my three favorite writers currently working along with Michael Chabon and Colson Whitehead, who are obviously both Pulitzer Prize winners. Kushner has previous novels, Flamethrowers, which is a spectacular book about 1970s motorcycles and the art scene in New York and the socialist uprising in Italy in the 70s. Telex from Cuba is about kind of this mining town, company town in Cuba, American owned

• 1:23:37Adam Skolnick?

  right before the Cuban Revolution, which is a spectacular read. And Mars Room is about a women's prison. But this book kind of includes essays that inform all those novels. So if you'd seen, well, not Telex from Cuba so much, but Flamethrowers and Mars Room. And it includes like a look back at like what San Francisco used to be, pre-tech, and some really great stories about the old haunts where the bands played and where she used to bartend. And she herself is great with cars and is a great, is a motorcycle rider. And at the time, she actually ran, participated in an illegal race down Baja from Tijuana all the way to Cabo, illegal on Highway One.

• 1:24:22Adam Skolnick?

  And she wiped out going over 100 miles an hour at one point, which is a scene that is kind of used in Flamethrowers also in a different way. But like, she's an incredible motorcycle rider, too, or she was in her early days. And just a remarkable read. There's, you know, given the news of today, which is, you know, Israel police, Israeli police invading East Jerusalem and fighting with Palestinians there. There's a story in here about Palestinians living in East Jerusalem and that's riveting and very sad. And there's essays on Marguerite de Ross and motorcycles in San Francisco.

• 1:25:04Adam Skolnick?

  And so I just thought, if you haven't heard of her and you are interested in the nonfiction stuff, this is the one. Otherwise, pick up Flamethrowers or Talex from Cuba. You should get to know Rachel Kushner.

• 1:25:14Rich Roll?

  That's cool. The hard crowd. Did that just come out?

• 1:25:16Adam Skolnick?

  Just came out. Got a great review in the New York Times from Dwight Garner. But to me, when she's at her best, she's electric. Like, just electric.

• 1:25:25Rich Roll?

  It's very highbrow.

• 1:25:27Adam Skolnick?

  It is a little highbrow. She writes about art, she writes about literature, and she writes about hardcore motorcycles.

• 1:25:33Rich Roll?

  Yeah. All right, man. I'll check it out. I've never read her work, so I'm in for an adventure with that.

• 1:25:38Adam Skolnick?

  Let's introduce her to the RRP crowd.

• 1:25:41Rich Roll?

  I think we just did.

• 1:25:43Adam Skolnick?

  Which is a different kind of hard crowd. We're more of a soft crowd. We're in a soft crowd.

• 1:25:47Rich Roll?

  For the three people that are still with us.

• 1:25:58Rich Roll?

  My little share of the week of finds that I've been enjoying is perhaps a little bit more lowbrow, but also kind of highbrow. I've been enjoying this television series called Le Bureau.

• 1:26:15Rich Roll?

  It's quite possibly one of the best things I've ever seen on television. It's extraordinary.

• 1:26:19Adam Skolnick?

  It's the third version of The Office, right?

• 1:26:21Rich Roll?

  Well, Le Bureau means The Office.

• 1:26:23Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 1:26:24Rich Roll?

  I think the full title is like Le Bureau de Legends, of Legends, the Bureau of Legends. But it's essentially, it's five seasons long. It's a French series that chronicles life in the Déjàissé, which is basically their CIA.

• 1:26:42Adam Skolnick?

  Oh.

• 1:26:43Rich Roll?

  But it's as if... You were watching, it's like if you were watching a Bourne movie, but everything transpires in The Office and you never like, there's no action, there's no fights, there's no, almost all of it is about tradecraft. But tradecraft in terms of how people kind of navigate and communicate in the bartering world of intelligence. So the legends are the agents who adopt these alternative identities and then go out into the world sourcing information, like infiltrating primarily Middle Eastern countries and the experiences that they have. And it all centers around a love story. Because in season one, the main character, who's played by Matthew Kasavitz, who you might know from Amelie,

• 1:27:28Rich Roll?

  he plays this undercover agent who's dispatched to Syria for six years. He falls in love with a Syrian professor and he has to return to France, like his tenure is up. And in the first scene, he basically lies to her and he loses her. And for the next five seasons, it's this journey of trying to get back to her and all this crazy stuff happens. But what's beautiful about it, it's very French. There's a lot of sort of existential voiceover.

• 1:27:57Adam Skolnick?

  Is it drama or comedy?

• 1:27:59Rich Roll?

  It's drama. No, it's not comedy at all. It's very serious.

• 1:28:01Adam Skolnick?

  All right.

• 1:28:02Rich Roll?

  But it's also, it has lighthearted moments. And I think what's really unique about it is the manner in which, it's something you don't see in American television where it really takes its time. It's on a very slow boil. And it's really not about the action. It's about the relationship between all of these people that work together in the Deja essay. And these characters that you really just fall in love with. So it's a beautifully wrought story. It's extraordinarily rendered with extreme precision. And I can't recommend it enough. Like, I did not want it to end. And it's one of those experiences where I'm a season and a half in and I'm just delighted that there's five seasons

• 1:28:47Rich Roll?

  and I get to just immerse myself in the world of these characters. It's subtitled, so it's a little bit of work to have to deal with that.

• 1:28:54Adam Skolnick?

  Sounds highbrow.

• 1:28:55Rich Roll?

  But honestly, like, it was absolutely delightful and wonderful. So I can't recommend it enough. I think it's on AMC, which you can access through Amazon or Apple TV.

• 1:29:08Adam Skolnick?

  Can I ask you something about TV series?

• 1:29:11Rich Roll?

  Sure.

• 1:29:12Adam Skolnick?

  Do you feel like when a series is starting to lose itself, like after like the first, I'm not talking about this one, but like, you know how series like they get a little long and then you they're not as good as they used to be? Do you stick with it till the end or do you get out early?

• 1:29:26Rich Roll?

  It depends. I've gotten better at getting out early because there's so much.

• 1:29:31Adam Skolnick?

  You gotta get out, right?

• 1:29:32Rich Roll?

  There's so much good stuff. I don't have time for something that isn't really completely engrossing.

• 1:29:38Adam Skolnick?

  I'm not going down with your shit.

• 1:29:39Rich Roll?

  So I don't have tolerance. Like if I start to lose it, like I'll give it a chance because sometimes it takes a while, right? So I'm not going to bail prematurely. I'll give it enough time so that I can make an informed decision.

• 1:29:50Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:51Rich Roll?

  About how much investment I'm going to make in this. But if it's not doing it for me, I'm out. And the other thing I have no tolerance for anymore is the idea that you're going to drip episodes out of a show week by week. Like, come on, guys.

• 1:30:05Adam Skolnick?

  Pop them out.

• 1:30:05Rich Roll?

  We're past that. Drop the whole season.

• 1:30:08Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:08Rich Roll?

  Or get out of town. Like, I don't understand this hanging on to this model of we're going to hold back.

• 1:30:15Adam Skolnick?

  Drop the whole season or get out of the business.

• 1:30:18Rich Roll?

  If it's something that I think is going to be great, I will, I will wait until the whole season is out before I even begin because I don't want to get a couple of episodes in and then have to wait.

• 1:30:28Adam Skolnick?

  HBO is one of the worst offenders.

• 1:30:30Rich Roll?

  They're terrible.

• 1:30:30Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:31Rich Roll?

  Netflix understands this.

• 1:30:33Adam Skolnick?

  Netflix does understand it, but interesting, I always, if you've entertained me, I'll give you some rope, but I will get out early. I am not afraid to cut ties on a, and you know what? With books too. I'm not afraid to cut the ties if I have to.

• 1:30:45Rich Roll?

  Yeah. I think it's, it's harder with books because you're like, I bought this book and it's here and I have to finish it, you know? And it's like, no, you don't.

• 1:30:52Adam Skolnick?

  No, you don't. But this book I've read cover to cover.

• 1:30:54Rich Roll?

  Good.

• 1:30:55Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 1:30:55Rich Roll?

  You're a strong man.

• 1:30:56Adam Skolnick?

  No.

• 1:30:57Rich Roll?

  Sir Adam Skolnick, content creator. All right.

• 1:31:00Adam Skolnick?

  Rachel Kushner, content creator.

• 1:31:02Rich Roll?

  What are we doing with this podcast episode? We're all over the place, talking about all kinds of, I don't know. Is this working for you guys? For the people out there in the world, let us know.

• 1:31:11Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:12Rich Roll?

  All right. We got a couple of cool wins of the week, though.

• 1:31:14Adam Skolnick?

  Let's go.

• 1:31:15Rich Roll?

  Let's bring it back.

• 1:31:16Adam Skolnick?

  All right. This win of the week, I'm gonna set up for you. This is right in your wheelhouse.

• 1:31:20Rich Roll?

  This is.

• 1:31:21Adam Skolnick?

  Shockwaves in the food world, great. This is Jeff Gordner, and you had to talk about it.

• 1:31:27Rich Roll?

  Gordineer.

• 1:31:28Adam Skolnick?

  Gordineer.

• 1:31:29Rich Roll?

  Well, this is a massive story in the food world. Basically, Daniel Humm, who's the proprietor chef of Eleven Madison Park, which is arguably the premier restaurant in New York City. I think it has four Michelin stars, which is extraordinary. Had to close down during the pandemic, like all restaurants, and just announced the other week that it was going to reopen as a 100% plant-based restaurant, which is truly a landmark, extraordinary decision. Of the 132 restaurants worldwide with three Michelin stars, not one is vegan, so he's making a very bold statement.

• 1:32:12Rich Roll?

  I mean, this is the culinary world at its most elite. Like, to eat at this restaurant is unbelievably expensive.

• 1:32:20Adam Skolnick?

  $335 tasting menu.

• 1:32:22Rich Roll?

  Exactly.

• 1:32:22Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:22Rich Roll?

  And I think if you're going as a couple, you're not getting out of there for like, less than $1,000.

• 1:32:26Adam Skolnick?

  No.

• 1:32:27Rich Roll?

  It's like, crazy expensive.

• 1:32:28Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 1:32:29Rich Roll?

  But this is the very apex pinnacle of fine dining. And for him to say, "We're gonna toss out that menu, and we're gonna do it 100% plant-based." I mean, it was trending on Twitter. There was a million articles, New York Times, Eater. Everybody was covering this. Lots of opinions. Plenty of poo-pooers and naysayers, you know, saying it's not gonna work. But I couldn't be more excited about this. I think it's really cool. Jeff Gordineer immediately texted me and says, he's like, he's covered Daniel for Esquire, so he knows him, and he-

• 1:33:05Adam Skolnick?

  You're linking to that story, right? It's an incredible profile, the Esquire profile that he wrote.

• 1:33:10Rich Roll?

  Yeah. So Jeff's profile is called, "Daniel Humm is the Greatest Chef in America and Possibly the World."

• 1:33:15Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:15Rich Roll?

  Like, that's what we're talking about here. Yeah, an amazing profile by Jeff, who's obviously a wonderful, beautiful writer. But Jeff gave me his email address, and he's like, "You gotta get in touch with him right away. Like, this is hot." So I emailed, I cold emailed Daniel Humm. Expecting like there's a 10% chance this guy's going to get back to me in the middle of this media firestorm, but he got right back to me and he's like, yeah, I want you to, I want to do the podcast, but I want you to eat at the restaurant first. So I'm like adventure, here we come.

• 1:33:45Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, that's right.

• 1:33:45Rich Roll?

  Go to New York, I want to eat at this restaurant. I want to get him on the podcast. I want to hear the whole story. So we're looking at when we can schedule that, but hopefully that will happen in the not too distant future. Probably I probably won't be able to go there until, until like, uh, July, but

• 1:34:02Adam Skolnick?

  I'm available.

• 1:34:03Rich Roll?

  You want to come?

• 1:34:03Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, I'm available.

• 1:34:05Rich Roll?

  All right. I'll let you know. I thought you said you shouldn't be overly available. What's the appropriate amount of availability? You can't, you can't complain about not getting sleep and having a baby and can't train and then suddenly be available to go to New York City at the drop of a hat. But we'll talk about it. We'll see. We'll see how this episode goes.

• 1:34:23Adam Skolnick?

  I'm not sure I'm invited.

• 1:34:26Rich Roll?

  I'll just dangle it. We'll see. Um, what's also cool about Daniel is that this guy was almost a pro cyclist, like a very accomplished cyclist.

• 1:34:35Adam Skolnick?

  He was sub-pro.

• 1:34:35Rich Roll?

  He was looking at a pro career. He could have gone pro. That was available to him, I believe.

• 1:34:41Adam Skolnick?

  Okay.

• 1:34:41Rich Roll?

  But he made a decision. He recognized like, listen, I'm never going to be at the highest level of this and he started pursuing an alternative career path.

• 1:34:49Adam Skolnick?

  He's like one of those people graded a lot of things. Isn't he a three hour marathoner?

• 1:34:52Rich Roll?

  He's a very good marathon runner in, I believe in 2008, he ran 251 in the New York marathon. I don't know if he runs it every year. He's run it a bunch of times. 312, 3, I think he ran 310 in 2018. So marathon runner, almost pro cyclist, obviously very fit, athletic guy who has been eating, is predominantly vegetarian for many years, I believe, at this point, and has been thinking about making this transition in the food world with his restaurant, um, in cognizance of not just the way the world is moving, but his responsibility as somebody who is, you know, very prominent in this world. And I think it's ballsy to do that.

• 1:35:34Adam Skolnick?

  Very exciting.

• 1:35:34Rich Roll?

  And I wish him only the best and I can't wait to enjoy his food and meet him and get him on the podcast.

• 1:35:40Adam Skolnick?

  In researching this little story, I came across this gem like that in, I think, New York Times, one of their stories talked about Ann Kim, the chef in Minneapolis, has Suki and Mimi of like a highly rated vegan menu or vegan restaurant. Did you hear about that?

• 1:35:55Rich Roll?

  I didn't. And since I was just in Minneapolis, now I'm bummed.

• 1:35:59Adam Skolnick?

  Brogan?

• 1:35:59Rich Roll?

  I didn't know about that.

• 1:36:00Adam Skolnick?

  Get over there, bro.

• 1:36:00Rich Roll?

  Yeah, Brogan. Maybe he can go do a little recon.

• 1:36:03Adam Skolnick?

  Brogan, if you-

• 1:36:04Rich Roll?

  Jeff is probably, Jeff Gordonier might have covered this restaurant and the chef.

• 1:36:08Adam Skolnick?

  Maybe, maybe it was in that, in that story.

• 1:36:10Rich Roll?

  I could ask him as well, maybe.

• 1:36:10Adam Skolnick?

  I pulled that from somewhere.

• 1:36:11Rich Roll?

  But, you know, what Humm is doing isn't totally unprecedented.

• 1:36:14Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 1:36:14Rich Roll?

  A couple of restaurants have, have tried this, perhaps most notably, Larpege in Paris, which I had the great opportunity of experiencing. Julie took me there for my birthday

• 1:36:27Adam Skolnick?

  Oh.

• 1:36:27Rich Roll?

  several years ago. The chef there, Alain Passard, he's called the Vegetable Whisperer. He stopped serving meat in his restaurant in 2001. And from what I understand, Larpege has only become more prominent. It's, it's quite the place. And it's one of those places where it's just like, serving after, you know, it's like a million dishes and you're there for like five hours.

• 1:36:48Adam Skolnick?

  Love it.

• 1:36:48Rich Roll?

  And every plate is like a little thing, but, you know, extraordinary.

• 1:36:52Adam Skolnick?

  This is like, I think the context of this, Epicurious is not having any more meat, or like, there's no beef anymore on any of their recipes. They're not putting it, publishing any more beef recipes because of climate change. Like, there is a, this does seem to be a movement that's kind of creeping towards something significant. I mean, already it's significant when you have Daniel's Restaurant going, you know, Levin Madison going, going completely vegan or vegetable, not completely vegan, they're doing honey and milk for coffee, but other than that, completely plant-based.

• 1:37:25Rich Roll?

  I think that's the only non-plant-based-

• 1:37:27Adam Skolnick?

  Only ones.

• 1:37:28Rich Roll?

  -menu item.

• 1:37:29Adam Skolnick?

  And-

• 1:37:29Rich Roll?

  But he hasn't revealed the actual menu yet.

• 1:37:31Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah. But like, it is a major thing when you're talking about-

• 1:37:34Rich Roll?

  Huge.

• 1:37:34Adam Skolnick?

  It's a, there's a context here.

• 1:37:36Rich Roll?

  Symbolically, it's massive.

• 1:37:37Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Very exciting.

• 1:37:39Rich Roll?

  So that's the kind of highbrow, like food at the highest level

• 1:37:43Adam Skolnick?

  Yep.

• 1:37:43Rich Roll?

  of the culinary universe. But I want to take it back down to boots on the ground and remind people that this quest that we're on to introduce the plant-based lifestyle to as many people as possible is only going to get so far unless we redress the problem of food deserts and access in urban communities to healthy, plant-based foods, right? Like, it's one thing, you know, I'm going to go to 11 Madison Park and drop major coin on this crazy meal. But what about the average, everyday person who's living in?

• 1:38:21Adam Skolnick?

  East New York.

• 1:38:21Rich Roll?

  Yeah, exactly. And there aren't even grocery stores,

• 1:38:24Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 1:38:24Rich Roll?

  let alone, you know, any kind of healthy, plant-based options. Which brings me to the next thing I wanted to share, which is my friend, Neil Zacharias, has founded this new company. He's the CEO of a new venture called Plantega. You can check it out online at EatPlantega. And essentially, the idea, I love this, it's brilliant, is creating these, basically, kiosks, like refrigerated kiosks, that are stocked with healthy, plant-based foods, that they're placing in bodegas. They've started in New York. I don't know how many locations they have right now. But in bodegas across New York City, they're adding these refrigerated kiosks that are just stocked with all kinds of healthy stuff.

• 1:39:08Rich Roll?

  So that they're expanding the availability of healthy, affordable options into these food desert neighborhoods.

• 1:39:16Adam Skolnick?

  And some bodegas have like a grill oriented? And they also have like a grill option or something like that? For some takeaway, cheap takeaway stuff?

• 1:39:23Rich Roll?

  Oh, is there a grill?

• 1:39:25Adam Skolnick?

  There was on their website.

• 1:39:26Rich Roll?

  Maybe it's kind of like Starbucks, where you pull it out of the fridge and they'll grill it up there in the bodega. But my understanding is that it's pre-prepared, like sandwiches and salads and things like that.

• 1:39:35Adam Skolnick?

  Fantastic.

• 1:39:35Rich Roll?

  And this is just out of the gate. It's brand new. But certainly, an idea we're celebrating. And I think it could go a long way towards really addressing this problem of healthy food access in underprivileged communities. So, good on you, Neil. And let me know how I can support this mission and what you guys are trying to achieve.

• 1:39:57Adam Skolnick?

  And, you know, I just made a brunch, a Mother's Day brunch, with Beyond Meat breakfast sausage, Miyoko's butter, and just eggs.

• 1:40:04Rich Roll?

  What do you want, a medal?

• 1:40:05Adam Skolnick?

  No, I'm just saying.

• 1:40:06Rich Roll?

  You're like asking.

• 1:40:07Adam Skolnick?

  Those are the three on here that I'm reading.

• 1:40:08Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I know, right? Yeah, they partnered with Miyoko's Beyond and Just.

• 1:40:12Adam Skolnick?

  Miyoko's is fabulous, yeah.

• 1:40:13Rich Roll?

  So, cool.

• 1:40:14Adam Skolnick?

  Cool.

• 1:40:15Rich Roll?

  Awesome. Should we go to some listener questions?

• 1:40:18Adam Skolnick?

  I would love that.

• 1:40:19Rich Roll?

  Do it.

• 1:40:19Adam Skolnick?

  Is it time? Is it time to do it?

• 1:40:21Rich Roll?

  It is time.

• 1:40:21Adam Skolnick?

  Okay.

• 1:40:22Rich Roll?

  What do you think would happen if we went to a daily show?

• 1:40:25Adam Skolnick?

  You and me daily?

• 1:40:26Rich Roll?

  Daily.

• 1:40:26Adam Skolnick?

  I'm available.

• 1:40:31Adam Skolnick?

  All right, are we ready? Okay, here we go. Greg from Virginia.

• 1:40:35Speaker 02

  Hey, Rich. It's Greg from Virginia. My question is about the topic of money. As a child, I was taught that money is a variable that has a significant influence on our choices. How are you going to pay for it? Was my parents' first question when I would talk about my dreams. In Finding Ultra Rich, you share a moment when you had left your law practice, was waiting to get traction as an author, and was on the brink of financial ruin. How were you able to maintain the pursuit of your dream and resist the urge to return to your law practice exclusively just to provide for your family? How would you advise others to think about money, especially if it creates obstacles to making change? I want to thank you guys very much for your valuable insight and your podcast,

• 1:41:19Speaker 02

  and especially this particular format. This interactive format makes it much easier and much better to be able to interact. Hope you guys have a great day. Bye.

• 1:41:28Rich Roll?

  Thanks, Greg. That's a great question. I think it's an important question.

• 1:41:32Adam Skolnick?

  No doubt.

• 1:41:34Rich Roll?

  I want to preface what I'm going to say by saying that I am not telling anyone what to do or not to do, nor am I giving any financial advice. But I will share a little bit of my experience. And I think, first of all, I'm with you. I grew up in the same way. Being told, you know, when I would give voice to anything aspirational or inspira-, you know, sort of aspirational for my life, being brought back down to earth with a heavy dose of kind of prudent reality. So I'm on, I'm on your wavelength, Greg. But the way I've come to think about this, when I think about money, as this balance

• 1:42:19Rich Roll?

  or this dance between responsibility or prudence on the one hand, and on the other hand, understanding that, that money is just energy. You know, money is, of course, a variable that is going to influence choice. But the key, I think, first and foremost, is understanding that we don't live in a zero-sum game, and that by adopting a mindset of universal abundance will help you really get that money, just like everything else, is this waveform, this energy, something that, in my experience, tends to be less important and, and flow a little bit more freely when your life is oriented not around

• 1:43:00Rich Roll?

  the pursuit of it, but rather the pursuit of purpose. It is true that, you know, I grew up with parents who were hammering a similar message into me, and I oriented my life around that perspective. And I found that in so doing, it didn't matter how much money I made, I never had any of it, because I was so out of alignment with a greater sense of purpose, that I would compensate for that lack of fulfillment by spending whatever I had to kind of fill that hole. So I was chasing the dragon in a way that I was never going to get on top of it. And it was only by kind of crashing into a wall

• 1:43:43Rich Roll?

  with all of that and flaming out, that I was able to reconfigure my relationship to money. And I had to do it through an extended period of hardship where we didn't have any. And that forced me to get really clear on what my needs were and what was most important to me and what my values were. And I made a commitment to pursue those values irrespective of any kind of financial reward. And I will say, there were plenty of moments where my faith was tested. And if Julie had not had my back, I very well would have, you know, scampered back and tried to get a job that would pay the bills, because it was very difficult. It was emasculating, at times very humiliating.

• 1:44:21Adam Skolnick?

  Didn't you even have to take some, like, small kind of law? Gigs at one point when you were, when things weren't going well.

• 1:44:29Rich Roll?

  Well, I did, I did, I was sort of practicing laws. I was writing Finding Ultra. But when that book came out, I was like, I'm not do, I drew a line in the sand. I was like, I'm not doing it anymore. I'm trusting that this is going to open up the door to a new path. And it took a long time, you know, the phone just didn't ring for a long time. And there were, there were, there were months where we were scrambling like nobody's business and having cars repossessed and having our trash bins taken away.

• 1:44:55Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, right.

• 1:44:55Rich Roll?

  And being unable to, you know, figure out how we were going to feed the kids that night. It was really, really difficult.

• 1:45:04Rich Roll?

  My faith was tremendously tested. Julie, you know, I look back on it and I don't know how she had the fortitude to like have my back in that period of time. But she did, and she would constantly hammer home this idea of like, the only way out is forward. Like you can't go backwards. Like you've come too far. The answers you seek are ahead of you and I'm with you and we're together and we'll figure it out. And money comes and money goes. But what's important here is you finding your voice and figuring out, you know, how you're going to move forward in the world. And that's like a precious gift. And, you know, I'm here to help you honor that. And that takes an extraordinary human being to do that. It really does.

• 1:45:44Adam Skolnick?

  It's not the average person.

• 1:45:45Rich Roll?

  It's not like, oh, behind every great man, there's a great woman. Like, no, she was like the Jedi. While I was like panicking in the corner, you know? And so without her, none of this happens. But I think because we went without for such a long period of time and we were compelled to like live in the moment. And it really did reframe my relationship with money. And these decisions that I made about how I wanted to live my life were decoupled from any pursuit of financial gain. Like I made that barter. I was like, I don't care. This is the way I want to go. This is what makes me happy. This is what's fulfilling. This is where I see promise and opportunity, even if I don't see it right now.

• 1:46:29Rich Roll?

  And it didn't have anything to do with financial remuneration.

• 1:46:34Adam Skolnick?

  So you removed that completely from the mind, the equation?

• 1:46:36Rich Roll?

  By like removing that, in some weird spiritual equation, I created space for it to come in in a different way. And by continuing to trust my instincts and follow my curiosity and double down on these values.

• 1:46:55Rich Roll?

  As kind of the foundation or the architecture for what I do professionally, I'm suddenly, you know, it's ridiculous, but like I make way more money now than I ever, I never thought I would ever have money. Like I just made peace with that. I will never have money. It's fine. And now I've got all this money. Like I'm like technically, I'm like rich, which is fucking crazy.

• 1:47:15Adam Skolnick?

  You're rich times two.

• 1:47:16Rich Roll?

  Like I, you know, it's like, but it doesn't, I don't think about it. I don't think about how much money is coming in. My spending habits haven't really changed. I don't really do anything differently. Like my whole relationship with money is different. Like I just hold it loosely. And so I don't know how that's instructive to somebody else, other than to say, that if I've discovered anything through this journey, it's that the key is figuring out what gets you excited in the morning.

• 1:47:48Rich Roll?

  And with that, you have this opportunity and this responsibility to get clear on how to orient like purpose premised on those values. And whatever it is that is lighting you up, the more that you continue to do it, the universe starts to orient around you, like it congeals around you to provide opportunities. And I think over time, those opportunities lead to some kind of vocational situation that will allow you to meet your needs.

• 1:48:20Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:48:21Rich Roll?

  I'm not saying you're going to get rich or anything like that, but you will find yourself in a situation where work doesn't feel like work because it's something that you would be doing anyway.

• 1:48:32Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:48:33Rich Roll?

  Does that make sense?

• 1:48:34Adam Skolnick?

  It does. I think it's great. And I think Jedi Julie deserves to be an action figure.

• 1:48:40Rich Roll?

  She does.

• 1:48:41Adam Skolnick?

  We know people who make action figures.

• 1:48:43Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:48:43Adam Skolnick?

  She'd be good.

• 1:48:44Rich Roll?

  Yeah. I think the other thing too is, is, you know, on that note of, Here's my dream. Well, how are you gonna pay for it? All I can tell you is that every dream that I've realized, I couldn't pay for.

• 1:48:55Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 1:48:55Rich Roll?

  If I'd set out at the beginning to say, "Well, I have this thing. How am I gonna pay for it?" I never would have gotten out of the gate. The thing is, you have to just start pursuing it. And like I said, the universe arranges itself around you to provide the support that you need. It might not look like what you would like it to look like, and it might not be as much as you would like it to be, but generally, it allows you to take one more forward step. Like, that's it. You don't get the blueprint. You don't get to see where this is leading, or how it's all gonna play out. You just don't get to see the whole picture. All you get on the daily is a test. Can you take that next step? Your faith is tested. And I think every time you show up to pass that test,

• 1:49:38Rich Roll?

  there's something that happens in the universe where it says, "Okay, he passed that test. We'll give him a little... We'll throw him a little loose change. See if he can pass the next test."

• 1:49:49Adam Skolnick?

  And also, the conversations around you, including if your parents are around and still, not just in your head, but in your life. Those conversations start to change too. But it could take many years. It could take five years, it could take 10 years. But the conversations, all of a sudden, you'll notice one day, and it won't be about, you know, "Can he do it?" Or, "You should get a job," or blah, blah, blah. It'll be, you know, conversations about pride, like, you know.

• 1:50:14Rich Roll?

  Right, because when you're in it, you cannot, you cannot expect the support of people like that. They're just not going to. Like, everybody thought I was insane. And people were telling Julie, like, "What's the matter with you? You gotta divorce this guy. Like, he's lost his... He's completely lost it."

• 1:50:30Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:50:31Rich Roll?

  So, that's the way that it is, when you're in the midst of it. And that makes it even harder to find your footing, because you start to question yourself, like, "Maybe I am insane." Everybody else thinks I'm insane. Of course, when it all works out, then it's like, "Oh, we're so proud of you, and we saw it all the time, and we supported you." They forget that they were the ones saying, "How are you gonna pay for that thing in the beginning?" And that's just the way that it's wired.

• 1:50:51Adam Skolnick?

  That's the way it goes.

• 1:50:52Rich Roll?

  And it's not for everybody. Like, it was really hard. Like, I'm not wishing this journey on people. Not everybody is cut out for it. If you're happy in your job, and you have a profession, and your goal is to provide for your family and have barbecues on the weekends, that's great. I'm not telling people to quit their job. I'm speaking to the person who's got that yearning in their soul where they feel like they just can't do it one more day and they have this sense or this calling that there's something out there. And all I'm saying is, listen to that, pay attention to it, try to put a little wind in that sail, you know, put a little fertilizer in that soil and be open to where it might lead you and pay attention.

• 1:51:34Adam Skolnick?

  You're talking to Greg from Virginia.

• 1:51:36Rich Roll?

  That's right.

• 1:51:37Adam Skolnick?

  Thanks for the question, Greg.

• 1:51:38Rich Roll?

  Thanks, Greg.

• 1:51:39Adam Skolnick?

  Now, we're gonna go to the Great North.

• 1:51:41Speaker 03

  Hi, Adam and Rich, this is John calling from the north of England. So just first off, I just wanna say thank you for all of the work on the podcast. I went vegan a good few years ago after my dad died and I had a general reorientation in my life and I did it out of kind of ethical reasons. And then I remember kind of suddenly freaking out a little bit like, oh, my God, am I gonna wither away? Like, how do I do this as someone who's quite athletic and, you know, likes to lift weights and run and ride my bike and stuff? And it was finding the Rich Roll podcast and the information on that that really kind of settled me into a plan-based lifestyle. So, yeah, thanks for that.

• 1:52:22Speaker 03

  But my question is really, so I learned to swim three years ago and this summer I'm doing a swim run that has lakes and trail running and it has a lake crossing in it. I don't have any access to lakes to train in because they've become too polluted in my neck of the woods, but I do have access to the sea and obviously it can be really rough or it can be cold, so it's kind of warmed up to about 44, 45 Fahrenheit now. But I can't do huge distances because I just get really, really cold. And if it's too rough, then I just get beaten up and I, again, can't do huge distances. So I also have access to a swimming pool and I'm just wondering, how would you kind

• 1:53:05Speaker 03

  of navigate those two options? Because neither of them is specific to the swim run I'm doing, but, you know, would you emphasize the pool? Would you emphasize the sea? And which would you use for what? Thanks very much. Bye.

• 1:53:20Rich Roll?

  John coming in hot with the vegan swim run question. My favorite kind of question.

• 1:53:25Adam Skolnick?

  Yes, and with the great accent right out of the north, the north in Game of Thrones.

• 1:53:30Rich Roll?

  How far north in England is John? The north.

• 1:53:34Adam Skolnick?

  Wait, is John from the north?

• 1:53:36Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Like Jon Snow?

• 1:53:38Adam Skolnick?

  Is this Jon Snow?

• 1:53:41Rich Roll?

  Jon Snow is not in England.

• 1:53:42Adam Skolnick?

  First of all, Jon Snow just learned to swim? That's, to me, the best part of this question is he just learned to swim three years ago.

• 1:53:50Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:53:50Adam Skolnick?

  And he's in a swim run.

• 1:53:51Rich Roll?

  I love it.

• 1:53:51Adam Skolnick?

  That's amazing. I love that.

• 1:53:53Rich Roll?

  Do you want to take a stab at this answer first?

• 1:53:56Adam Skolnick?

  Well, I'll let you talk about the best way to train, since I just kind of wing it. But, I mean, with apologies to Nicholas, who I don't wing it. I do as I'm told, but I do also wing it to some degree. The one thing I would recommend because of your ocean, like for me personally, I like to swim in the ocean. I don't swim in pools. But since you're new to swimming, I would guess like a lot of even triathletes that are very good in pools, they'd often, the transition to getting into open water is a little bit rougher. They're not that great or comfortable. Let's just say they're not as comfortable in open water. And there is a comfort level of swimming in open water that, that you won't have in the, although there will be wind in a lake and there might be waves, it won't be the same thing as a rough sea.

• 1:54:37Adam Skolnick?

  And so if you're going to go into the sea and there's not a lifeguard on duty and you're swimming alone, I'd be very cautious at first if you're not comfortable with it. I would try to swim in tandem at least in the open water, especially at those temperatures that's dangerous. And it can be dangerous if you're not in the right wet suit. And so I think that those things, you know, in Hawaii, there's a phrase they have on almost every beach. When in doubt, don't go out. And I think it's okay to feel some butterflies, but I don't think it's okay to put yourself in a dangerous situation. So I do think you need to be mindful of conditions and temperature if you're going to be alone. And so that's the only thing I would say about the ocean.

• 1:55:17Rich Roll?

  Adam, dropping open water safety knowledge.

• 1:55:19Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 1:55:19Rich Roll?

  Like a true lifeguard.

• 1:55:21Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 1:55:21Rich Roll?

  A true waterman.

• 1:55:23Adam Skolnick?

  No.

• 1:55:24Rich Roll?

  Yeah. So here's, here's what I think. I think you're going to be fine. Jon, kudos for tackling a swim run. Three years into learning how to swim, I think that's ballsy and amazing.

• 1:55:37Rich Roll?

  If it makes you feel any better, I trained almost entirely for the Otilo Swim Run World Championships in a swimming pool. I almost never went in open water. Now, that being said, I have a lot of open water experience, so I didn't feel like the need to get comfortable in open water. So what I would say to you is double down on the swimming pool. Use that as much as possible to develop your fitness and your endurance and your strength. And you can also use the pool for in and out, you know, swim run transitions, right? So in and out swim, swim run, swim run, swim run. Get used to swimming and running. And if you can, if they'll let you at your pool, swim in the pool with your wet suit on and your shoes on, because swimming with tennis shoes is

• 1:56:20Rich Roll?

  a very strange sensation that you're going to have to acclimate to. And if you can, if the, if the pool will allow you to do it, I would suggest doing that as much as possible. And of course, using the hand paddles and getting used to all the gear and all of that is really important. But I would say that the pool is suboptimal. You always want to be kind of out in the natural environment, in terrain that's going to mimic the actual race course, and that isn't quite available to you. So what I would suggest is you avail yourself of the sea, but just pick your moments, like once a week, or when the, the, the conditions are, are, you know, fine,

• 1:57:02Rich Roll?

  like it's not, I wouldn't go out when it's crazy choppy or anything like that. And also 44, 45 degrees is no joke. So make sure you're wearing an appropriate wet suit for that kind of weather. Five nil at least. Yeah, get out, get out in the, in the, in the sea. And you could do short swim run workouts, where you're just, you swim 200 meters and then run up the shore and, you know, run for a half mile and then, and then run back into the sea. So you're not really in the ocean that long, but you're getting used to, you're acclimating not only to what it feels like to be in open water, but also the weirdness and discomfort of, of running up the shore and running back in, like developing a comfort level with all of that, from a mental and emotional perspective,

• 1:57:47Rich Roll?

  I think is huge. Because if you can handle that, these lakes are going to be So easy, right? There'll be no intimidation because you've been out battling freezing water in the sea. The lakes, of course, are not going to have salt water, so there's a different kind of buoyancy thing.

• 1:58:04Adam Skolnick?

  Not as buoyant.

• 1:58:05Rich Roll?

  Yeah, you're not going to be as buoyant. Like, there's something that when you swim in the ocean, you ride very high in the water and it actually makes it easier to swim.

• 1:58:12Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:58:12Rich Roll?

  If it's calm. So the lake, you're going to ride a little bit lower and you'll feel a little bit more like you're fighting the water than you would in the ocean. But I think you're actually in a great situation to be mentally prepared because of the conditions in which you live. So pick your moments. The lakes will be easy after those North Sea excursions. And I don't know what the land terrain is around you, and I don't know what the terrain of this specific swim run course looks like. But I would, if I made one mistake, and I've said this before on the podcast in Training for Sweden, you know, I was just running trails and kind of gradual climbs and things like that. And the

• 1:58:55Rich Roll?

  course in Sweden was very technical, it was very rocky. There was a lot of climb, it was, actually wasn't that much running. It was a lot of trudging and climbing up rocks and things like that. So get really familiar with the terrain of the race and try to find terrain in your natural environment near your home where you can mimic what it's going to be like during the race.

• 1:59:20Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, I mean, for me saying, don't go out alone. I mean, I do go out and swimming alone, but the temperatures are different. But I will say, I was going to ask you, Rich, what do you think about, like, since it's a lake that he hasn't been in, like how you went to the Sierras to train at altitude and swam in Tahoe? Would you recommend, maybe if you have time and you have the time inclination, maybe a week excursion or even just a weekend to a lake that you do feel comfortable swimming in?

• 1:59:50Rich Roll?

  Yeah, if he has the ability and the time.

• 1:59:51Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:59:52Rich Roll?

  You could drive to some lake that maybe is not that far away.

• 1:59:55Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:59:56Rich Roll?

  Just for the day or for the weekend or something like that and get used to, you know, experiencing what it's like to swim in a lake.

• 2:00:02Adam Skolnick?

  I think that'd be-

• 2:00:02Rich Roll?

  If he hasn't done that before.

• 2:00:03Adam Skolnick?

  That'd be good, don't you think?

• 2:00:04Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 2:00:04Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 2:00:05Rich Roll?

  But I promise you, if you get comfortable swimming

• 2:00:09Adam Skolnick?

  In the North Sea.

• 2:00:10Rich Roll?

  In the North Sea, you're gonna be fine in the lake.

• 2:00:12Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, you might want to get a seven mil wet suit for swimming and it'd be, you know, unless you're, unless you're doing swim run, and in that case, just get a thick, the thickest swim run wet suit you can get for that.

• 2:00:24Rich Roll?

  Yeah. All right.

• 2:00:26Adam Skolnick?

  Cool. All right, let's go to our man in Vegas, our German in Vegas.

• 2:00:31Speaker 04

  Hey, guys, this is Philip. I'm originally from Germany. I live in Las Vegas now for a year.

• 2:00:40Speaker 04

  I was in a relationship when the pandemic started and broke things up a couple of weeks ago. And one of the things that bothered me in the relationship really was alcohol involved. And for you, Rich, with the experiences you have made, I, I have a question. How are you actually dealing with people in your surroundings and people in your environment that have not a real addiction, where they get hooked up on alcohol or things like every single day, but more even, you know, oh, let's have a glass of wine, and then one glass turns into two or three, and it happens like once a week? How do you handle people like that?

• 2:01:23Speaker 04

  Because I always had issues with that. So, yeah, thanks for everything you guys do. You're very inspirational and you helped me through the hard times and, uh, yeah, keep up the good work and talk to you soon.

• 2:01:36Rich Roll?

  Thanks for your question, Philip. I suspect that this is probably a more prevalent issue living in a place like Las Vegas than it would be maybe in other locations. I'm empathetic to the predicament, but I would say for me, it's kind of a double edged situation because on the one hand,

• 2:01:56Rich Roll?

  you know, I've been sober for a long time and I'm really just never around people like that anymore. It's just not part of my inner social circle like it once was. But if and when I am around that kind of scenario, it doesn't really bother me that much because my sobriety is strong. It's not like I'm triggered by it. I can be around people that are drinking a couple of glasses of wine and it, it doesn't really. Affect me in any meaningful way like if it starts getting crazy and people are getting hammered and stuff like that, I'll just leave because it's boring for me.

• 2:02:33Adam Skolnick?

  Right, right.

• 2:02:33Rich Roll?

  But it's not like I feel threatened or anything like that.

• 2:02:38Rich Roll?

  And the reason I'm not around people like that very much is that I just don't, I don't seek out those people or those experiences anymore like I used to.

• 2:02:48Rich Roll?

  But when I, when I, when I do encounter them, I'm, I'm pretty capable of managing it without incidents.

• 2:02:55Adam Skolnick?

  It doesn't affect your energy.

• 2:02:56Rich Roll?

  No, it doesn't affect my energy. So, so one question I guess I would have upfront that I'm curious about is, is why Philip, it's so bothersome for you because you're talking about people who have maybe two or three glasses of wine once a week, which is a pretty, for a lot of people, like that's a pretty normal thing. It's not that out of control.

• 2:03:15Adam Skolnick?

  No.

• 2:03:16Rich Roll?

  So what is it inside of you that's getting activated by that? And if it's just that you don't want to have that in your environment, then that's cool.

• 2:03:24Adam Skolnick?

  Nothing wrong with that.

• 2:03:25Rich Roll?

  That just means, that just means you're going to have to expand your social circle and find other types of people to hang out with or, you know, involve yourself in, in, like get out to the red rocks or just get, you know, go to places where it's a different type of cultural cohesion, where drinking really isn't so front and center in terms of how you're interacting socially. Personally, I'm just not in the business of, of taking anyone else's inventory. So I don't sit in judgment of somebody who wants to have two or three glasses of wine. But, and I would say this to you, like we do have choices as to who we spend our time with. And I think in my experience, the best way of managing this kind of situation, if

• 2:04:08Rich Roll?

  you're just not enthusiastic about being with people who are into that right now, you don't have to make a big statement about it or a manifesto about how you're not going to stand for this anymore. You could just back away slowly from. That environment.

• 2:04:24Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 2:04:25Rich Roll?

  And I think of it in terms of concentric rings of intimacy. So if you think of yourself in the middle, and then there's a bunch of circles outside of you that expand, who is in that inner ring? And those would be the people that you trust the most, you trust implicitly. Then the next ring of people would be people who maybe are just more casual friends. And it kind of goes out from there. So I'm constantly thinking about the people that I keep in that inner circle. And then the people who get moved to outer rings because something else happens. And you have the ability to slowly transition your social time to more like minded people who are aligned with your social habits.

• 2:05:09Rich Roll?

  And you can move those, you know, you can move away from those people. Or those people just get kind of slowly pushed out to a different ring. It doesn't mean that you can't be friends with them anymore. It's just that the dynamic of your friendship might get tweaked a little bit. And it doesn't have to be that big a deal. And I would also say that it's important, you know, on the subject of not taking anyone's inventory or making a big deal in terms of how you proclaim, you don't have to proclaim this to anybody. I think it's important to have compassion for the fact that it's been a fucking hard year for a lot of people. And certain people are going to be like, I want to have two or three glasses of wine. And if they can do that and they're happy with their life, that's their business. It's not mine to judge.

• 2:05:51Rich Roll?

  So I tend to err on giving people a break and giving people some latitude and understanding that we all have different ways of coping with the various anxieties and stressors that we face. But ultimately, this is about your relationship with you. And I think it's incumbent upon you to stop focusing on what others are doing or being upset because people aren't behaving in a manner that you would prefer them to behave. What, you know, stop grinding on why they aren't doing, doing things your way. And just focus more on, on your path and your choices and the people that you choose to spend time with.

• 2:06:26Adam Skolnick?

  Well said.

• 2:06:28Rich Roll?

  Is there anything else to say on that?

• 2:06:29Adam Skolnick?

  I don't think so. I think you've covered it.

• 2:06:31Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 2:06:32Adam Skolnick?

  You know, there you go.

• 2:06:33Rich Roll?

  Are we done? Do you think anyone's still listening?

• 2:06:36Adam Skolnick?

  I, I, I think there's a couple of guys behind that curtain.

• 2:06:39Rich Roll?

  Yeah, those guys.

• 2:06:40Adam Skolnick?

  They're being paid to listen.

• 2:06:40Rich Roll?

  They're being paid to listen. They have to. They can't leave you.

• 2:06:45Adam Skolnick?

  You know what? Thank you for having me.

• 2:06:48Rich Roll?

  Thank you for coming here. Thank you for being appropriately available.

• 2:06:53Adam Skolnick?

  Well, I might have, was, is it appropriate to camp out here the night before?

• 2:06:57Rich Roll?

  Probably not.

• 2:06:58Adam Skolnick?

  Okay, well, I'm glad I chose not to this time.

• 2:07:00Rich Roll?

  You can't. Did you bring your mask?

• 2:07:03Adam Skolnick?

  You know what? Here's the thing.

• 2:07:03Rich Roll?

  I'm gonna be nice to you. I'm supposed to be nice to you. I'm not gonna be mean to you.

• 2:07:07Adam Skolnick?

  Here's the thing. This area, I'm sure, has a lot of this going on. I should have led with this. The coyotes have been making love outside my apartment area

• 2:07:18Adam Skolnick?

  on a regular basis, and it's on the Nextdoor app and everything, and they're all talking about it, and it's a very strange howling. I would imagine there's some coyote lovemaking happening around here at night.

• 2:07:27Rich Roll?

  Quite a bit, yeah, quite a bit. Quite a bit at night. You hear it at night.

• 2:07:32Adam Skolnick?

  Did you know they were in heat right now? Is that a thing?

• 2:07:33Rich Roll?

  No, I didn't know that.

• 2:07:34Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, that's what's happening.

• 2:07:35Rich Roll?

  That's what's happening.

• 2:07:35Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 2:07:36Rich Roll?

  They tend to run down the middle of the road in front of our house in packs, and they, if people who have an experience this, it's like a loud screeching noise.

• 2:07:45Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 2:07:46Rich Roll?

  It's rather alarming.

• 2:07:47Adam Skolnick?

  It's different than the normal yipping.

• 2:07:49Rich Roll?

  No, it's not like, it doesn't sound like a wolf or a dog or something like that.

• 2:07:52Adam Skolnick?

  It sounds like there's some periodization happening in the coyote community, and right now is the period to have fun.

• 2:07:58Rich Roll?

  They are living in alignment with their circadian rhythms

• 2:08:03Rich Roll?

  in close proximity to nature.

• 2:08:05Adam Skolnick?

  The rites of spring, my friends.

• 2:08:07Rich Roll?

  Although I did wake up in the tent the other morning, and there was a bird on top of the tent that was pecking at the roof and tearing a hole in the roof of my tent.

• 2:08:19Adam Skolnick?

  Oh, my goodness.

• 2:08:21Adam Skolnick?

  Maybe it was trying to collect some hair for its nest.

• 2:08:23Rich Roll?

  I don't know what kind of bird it was, but I darted up and it scurried away, and there's like a hole in my tent.

• 2:08:28Adam Skolnick?

  But you're not in the roof still, right? You've moved.

• 2:08:29Rich Roll?

  I'm on the ground, yeah. So I have to be a little bit more cautious about making sure it's zipped up and there's no snakes or anything like that.

• 2:08:37Adam Skolnick?

  Interesting.

• 2:08:38Rich Roll?

  No snacks in the tent.

• 2:08:40Adam Skolnick?

  The tent.

• 2:08:41Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 2:08:42Adam Skolnick?

  Did you, did you fix the tent yet? Is it, is it a double wide?

• 2:08:46Rich Roll?

  Here's my thing, I want to get like a glamping tent, like a cool.

• 2:08:49Adam Skolnick?

  Right, a cabana.

• 2:08:50Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I haven't, I haven't, I need, I need to explore that.

• 2:08:52Adam Skolnick?

  I want a tent that rivals the house.

• 2:08:55Rich Roll?

  I do want that.

• 2:08:55Adam Skolnick?

  Flowing white number.

• 2:08:57Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that's what I want.

• 2:08:58Adam Skolnick?

  Multi chambers.

• 2:08:58Rich Roll?

  You're gonna come out and build the deck for me.

• 2:09:00Adam Skolnick?

  A Mongolian.

• 2:09:01Rich Roll?

  Cause you're so available.

• 2:09:02Adam Skolnick?

  A Mongolian yurt worthy of Genghis Khan, that's what I want.

• 2:09:05Rich Roll?

  I don't want a yurt, but they do have these really cool glamping tents. There's a, there's a company in Topanga, actually, that makes some pretty cool ones. I'm gonna go check out. Yeah, so more will be revealed.

• 2:09:15Adam Skolnick?

  Well, thank you for having me.

• 2:09:16Rich Roll?

  All right, thank you for being here, my friend. Hope you guys enjoyed. I don't know what this was about. I guess we, what are we calling this? We're calling this Periodize Your Life. I think that's the title of this podcast.

• 2:09:26Adam Skolnick?

  Be the Coyote.

• 2:09:27Rich Roll?

  Be the Coyote. You feel good, I feel good.

• 2:09:30Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, man.

• 2:09:31Rich Roll?

  Cool, man. All right, well, we'll be back in two weeks. In the meantime, follow Adam at Adam Skolnick. You can follow me at Rich Roll. Leave us a message with your question and we just might answer it at 424-235-4626. You can check out the show notes and links to everything we discussed today on the episode page at richroll.com. Don't forget to subscribe to the show on YouTube, Apple, Spotify, all the places. Also, we, uh, recently, uh, not that recently, we created a Clips channel on YouTube. It kind of went fallow.

• 2:10:06Adam Skolnick?

  Hmm.

• 2:10:06Rich Roll?

  Bringing that fallow word back.

• 2:10:08Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 2:10:08Rich Roll?

  That's sort of the recurring word of the day, I think, fallow. It went fallow for a period of time because we just didn't have the manpower, the editing manpower to service it. But I'm happy to announce that we've got AJ on board.

• 2:10:22Adam Skolnick?

  All right.

• 2:10:23Rich Roll?

  Shout out to AJ, who's come on board to focus on creating clips for the Clips channel. We're gonna be uploading. Two videos a day.

• 2:10:33Adam Skolnick?

  All right.

• 2:10:33Rich Roll?

  Clips channel going forward, including clips from the roll on, of course, the questions, all that kind of stuff. So it would mean a lot, especially if you dig short chunks from the show or just want to sample a guest before committing. If you would check out our clips channel and subscribe to it, you can find it on YouTube. If you just search Rich Roll Podcast Clips, of course, we'll have a link in the show notes to that as well. But I really want to build out this clips channel.

• 2:10:58Adam Skolnick?

  Love it.

• 2:10:59Rich Roll?

  I'm excited about AJ Manning that dashboard and getting some activity there and bringing it out of its fallow state into full bloom.

• 2:11:08Adam Skolnick?

  Welcome AJ.

• 2:11:09Rich Roll?

  Cool. Thanks, everybody who helped put on the show today. Jason Camiolo for audio engineering, production, show notes and interstitial music. Blake Curtis and Margot Lubin, who handle video and editing for the show. And of course, AJ now on the clips channel. Jessica Miranda for graphics. We don't have anybody shooting portraits today. We're going photo free today. I feel naked. Georgia Whaley for copywriting. DK for advertiser relationships and theme music, as always, by my boys Tyler Trapper and Harry. Appreciate all you guys. See you back here in a couple of days with another awesome episode. Episode 602 coming in.

• 2:11:46Adam Skolnick?

  602. Unbelievable.

• 2:11:48Rich Roll?

  All right, man. Thanks, brother.

• 2:11:50Adam Skolnick?

  Thank you.

• 2:11:51Rich Roll?

  Peace.

• 2:11:53Rich Roll?

  Namaste. Plantega.

• 2:11:55Adam Skolnick?

  Plantega. Namaste.