Roll On: Decaying Seas, Lost Hills & Gun Madness

How do we end gun violence in America? What can we do to stop marine destruction? How do we untangle masculinity and meat-eating? Plus, we need to talk about that murder in Malibu Creek State Park, Rich’s backyard trail paradise. Welcome to another edition of ‘Roll On’, wherein myself and the always congenial and ponderous Adam Skolnick chew on matters of the day in a manner that is instructive and possibly even entertaining. As always, we share good news and bad. We do a bit of show and tell. And we answer your questions. Aside from serving as my bi-monthly sidecar hype-beast, Adam Skolnick is an activist and veteran journalist best known as David Goggins’ Can’t Hurt Me, co-author. Adam writes about adventure sports, environmental issues, and civil rights for outlets such as The New York Times, Outside, ESPN, BBC, and Men’s Health. He is the author of One Breath and is currently using the ‘new dad’ excuse to avoid working on his novel. Topics explored in today’s conversation include: the nuances of Zone 2 training & weightlifting; an update on the Iron Cowboy’s ‘Conquer 100’ challenge; the beginning of the Derek Chauvin trial & how to change public safety; mass shootings & the repercussions of America’s gun obsession; the new documentary ‘Seaspiracy’; the new podcast ‘Lost Hills’; and Robbie Balanger’s Central Park Loop FKT. In addition, we answer the following listener questions: How do you manage relationships when your values change? How do we break the stereotype that meat-eating is masculine? How can we deconstruct masculinity and see vulnerability as a strength? Thank you to Kumaran from South Africa, Casey from Austin, and Cindy from New Hampshire 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/richroll592 YouTube: bit.ly/rollon592 Peace + Plants, Rich Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:00Rich Roll?

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

• 0:44Rich Roll?

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

• 1:13Rich Roll?

  The Rich Roll Podcast. Hey, everybody. Welcome or welcome back to another hot-off-the-griddle edition of Roll On. But before we dive in...

• 1:31Rich Roll?

  What's up, people? Thank you for permitting us to once again infect you with a potent new strain of Roll On, wherein myself and my sidecar, hype beast, the always congenial and ponderous Sir Adam Skolnick, chew on matters of the day, withdrawal, repartee, in a manner that is, hopefully, somewhat instructive and, possibly at times, even entertaining. You're entertaining. You're getting fan mail now. I just, I try to develop a rapport with whoever I'm talking to. You're in communion with the audience, right? I try to build rapport.

• 2:11Rich Roll?

  Well, as always, you guys know, we talk about matters of the day. We do a little bit of show and tell. We answer listener questions on the backend of the program. If you would like your question considered, leave us a voicemail at 424-235-4626. Before we dive in, my kids, who are my YouTube mentors, tell me that I must demand you indulge us with a powerful smash to that subscribe button on YouTube. Okay, boomer. Apple Podcasts, Spotify, click that YouTube notification bell, hit the thumbs up, like button, leave your thoughts in the comments section below, and that's it. Let's get into it, Adam. How you doing? Happy Passover.

• 2:53Adam Skolnick?

  Thank you, sir. Happy half Passover to you.

• 2:56Rich Roll?

  Half Passover?

• 2:57Adam Skolnick?

  Aren't you half, don't you have some?

• 2:59Rich Roll?

  No, I'm an honorary.

• 3:00Adam Skolnick?

  Oh, you're honorary.

• 3:01Rich Roll?

  But I'm not half, yeah.

• 3:02Adam Skolnick?

  Honorary Passover.

• 3:03Rich Roll?

  Honorary.

• 3:03Adam Skolnick?

  You know what's funny about Passover is that, you know, back in the day, well, today, actually.

• 3:13Rich Roll?

  Back in the day, like way back in the day?

• 3:14Adam Skolnick?

  Well, like yesterday.

• 3:15Rich Roll?

  The day.

• 3:16Adam Skolnick?

  You could actually walk from Egypt to Jerusalem in under a week, or the Iron Cowboy could probably do it in five days.

• 3:22Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 3:22Adam Skolnick?

  And, but back in the day, when it was just a caravan of pinnated Jews with no ways, wrong turn, left turn, right turn, 40 years later, they wind up in Jerusalem.

• 3:35Rich Roll?

  Squabbling about which way to go.

• 3:37Adam Skolnick?

  It took a long time.

• 3:38Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Is there really, you could do it in seven days?

• 3:42Adam Skolnick?

  Now you can do it.

• 3:43Rich Roll?

  Seems like it would be further, but I guess not.

• 3:45Adam Skolnick?

  You must have to go around, like through Jordan or something, but.

• 3:48Rich Roll?

  Stephen Pressfield's new book, A Man at Arms, there's a similar journey that takes place in that novel.

• 3:54Adam Skolnick?

  Oh, yeah.

• 3:55Rich Roll?

  I seem to recall it takes these people a little bit longer than seven days.

• 3:59Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, they were, they were, they were loafing.

• 4:01Rich Roll?

  Well, you know, no ways. What are you gonna do?

• 4:04Adam Skolnick?

  Exactly, no ways.

• 4:05Rich Roll?

  iPhone deficient.

• 4:07Adam Skolnick?

  And like the monochrome of the desert. I mean, how do you know where you're going?

• 4:11Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 4:11Adam Skolnick?

  Polynesians, they were not. I mean, you could say a lot of good things about Jews. They were not, they were not guiding themselves by the stars.

• 4:19Rich Roll?

  Okay. How are you doing otherwise?

• 4:22Adam Skolnick?

  Good, man. Good. I was back out in the cold, murky Pacific Ocean.

• 4:27Rich Roll?

  What's the temp these days?

• 4:28Adam Skolnick?

  It was 53, 54. It's pretty cold and it was like, it was like, it was usually the water, the clarity is decent enough. I mean, often it can, it can get murky, but often it's also really blue. This time it was like we, we had, we're swimming through the remains of a million jellyfish. Like brown and green and stringy and, and cold. But you know, that's what is so fun about that swim around that reef and is that it's still always beautiful. It's always a good idea.

• 4:57Rich Roll?

  Did it give you a moment to ponder the themes of sea spiracy, which we're going to talk about a little bit later?

• 5:03Adam Skolnick?

  No, because I hadn't watched it yet.

• 5:05Rich Roll?

  Oh, you hadn't? Okay.

• 5:05Adam Skolnick?

  I crammed for my, my studies last night.

• 5:09Rich Roll?

  Last minute.

• 5:10Adam Skolnick?

  I was a last minute geek. But, but I was thinking about Alexei Molchunov and how cold it must, was for him and how cold I was.

• 5:19Rich Roll?

  Do we want to talk about that right now?

• 5:21Adam Skolnick?

  Isn't that a win of the week?

• 5:22Rich Roll?

  It is, but you can hat tip it.

• 5:24Adam Skolnick?

  I'll hat tip it to another world record for freedive champion extraordinaire Alexei Molchunov. He dove 80 meters in a lake in Siberia.

• 5:34Rich Roll?

  Underneath the ice.

• 5:35Adam Skolnick?

  Underneath the ice.

• 5:36Rich Roll?

  What was the water temp there?

• 5:37Adam Skolnick?

  It was one to two degrees Celsius. So, you know, 35.

• 5:42Rich Roll?

  That's nuts.

• 5:43Adam Skolnick?

  And I was in, and he was in a seven mil, but he actually did the test dive the day before in a five mil. And I was in, you know, triathlon wet suit, which has some close to five millimeter panels and others, you know, you know how they are. They're mixed panels. And I was in 53, 54 degree water and I was, and I wasn't diving 80 meters.

• 6:02Rich Roll?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, you wrote a great piece for the New York Times, once again, being the freediving correspondent at large for the Times.

• 6:10Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 6:11Rich Roll?

  But what's cool about, in addition to just being, you know, a very well-written piece, I guess, well, we're kind of talking about it. Well, we can shelve it and talk about it later, but is the, the, the presentation, like the multimedia aspects of storytelling that the Times seems to really be embracing, because it's on a, it's on another level.

• 6:31Adam Skolnick?

  And they like it and it helps actually get more eyeballs to it. It ends up, it happened with Maya's record wave as well. It sets the, when you can get video, it's setting it apart. So, and, and, and that is definitely a driver to the stories when I'm selling them, so.

• 6:47Rich Roll?

  On a fitness level, are you resting on your four by four by 48 laurels? Or have you been able to?

• 6:53Adam Skolnick?

  No.

• 6:54Rich Roll?

  Perpetuate the momentum?

• 6:55Adam Skolnick?

  Well, it's funny because I knew I was doing four by four by 48. I, I kind of joined one of these Garmin challenges for like a badge. And so through March 31st, I'm supposed to run 505 kilometers from January 1st to March 31st for the first quarter. And I'm close to that marker.

• 7:12Rich Roll?

  Yeah, good.

• 7:13Adam Skolnick?

  So I've got to knock that off by Wednesday. And I've been getting some zone two motivation. Couple of your listeners, one more recently, reached out and said that when he started zone twoing three years ago, he was running 12 minute mile zone twos.

• 7:27Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 7:28Adam Skolnick?

  And now he's doing extended periods in the low sevens.

• 7:32Rich Roll?

  Wow.

• 7:33Adam Skolnick?

  And it was just like.

• 7:34Rich Roll?

  That's huge progress.

• 7:34Adam Skolnick?

  It's really, you know what? Everybody who has reached out to me, I really appreciate it. And that kind of stuff is very motivating. And I have been continuing to do my zone two stuff and I'm not resting. I, I, I've been trying. It's hard because I, I want to keep running five, six days a week, but I'd like to get in the ocean too. And I just have a limited amount of time. So it's a matter of choosing, but.

• 7:53Rich Roll?

  I think if you intersperse, like, I don't know that you need to run six days a week. Like, I don't run that much. I mean, I think if you intersperse it with some swims, it'll actually benefit your running.

• 8:02Adam Skolnick?

  Okay.

• 8:03Rich Roll?

  But perpetuating that like dedication to zone two, it's, it's playing a long game. You know, it's most people, I get so much feedback from people saying, I tried the zone two thing, but I just got bored or I gave up or I wasn't seeing progress or it wasn't working. And I think people are just impatient. Like it works, but you have to really dedicate yourself to it. And it does require a different kind of discipline because you have to let go of everything you think you know about what it means to get fit.

• 8:30Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 8:31Rich Roll?

  And just understand that you're going to be on a journey for a long time and you're not going to see results for. Quite an extended period of time, but then when it starts to kick in, it really makes a huge difference as in the case of that example you just cited.

• 8:45Adam Skolnick?

  I feel like I've shaved in six months, a minute off my mile time, average mile time in zone two.

• 8:53Rich Roll?

  So it's not about getting faster, it's becoming more efficient so that the strain on your body

• 8:58Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 8:59Rich Roll?

  is reduced and what, you know, you used to be able to do at a 10 minute pace or whatever, if you're doing it at a nine minute pace with the same amount of output, just continuing that trend. Imagine running seven minute miles and having it feel like it feels like when you're running 10 minute miles.

• 9:15Adam Skolnick?

  That's my dream. So like that's, and that's why I feel like I'm, I do, I'm starting to see some small movement. And I also like mostly I'm feeling it in my, on my feet, which, cause I used to be such a pounder. And I'd be hammering, you could hear me coming from like a hundred miles away.

• 9:32Rich Roll?

  Shaking the buildings.

• 9:33Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah. And now I'm really just like, I'm very quiet now compared to what I used to be.

• 9:38Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 9:39Adam Skolnick?

  And not just the breath, but my footsteps.

• 9:42Rich Roll?

  Cool.

• 9:42Adam Skolnick?

  And so I do feel like that's helping, but at the same time, my form is not great. You know, I need, there's a lot of improvement that can, that can happen.

• 9:49Rich Roll?

  Hmm.

• 9:50Adam Skolnick?

  And then Nicholas just messaged me this morning, there's some swim run challenge happening in June, where he's trying to get like teams around the world to do, you know, to pile up the swim run miles and to have some sort of virtual competition.

• 10:03Rich Roll?

  Oh, wow.

• 10:04Adam Skolnick?

  I'll look at that and I'll bring it to you.

• 10:05Rich Roll?

  That's cool.

• 10:06Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 10:06Rich Roll?

  That's cool.

• 10:07Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 10:08Rich Roll?

  I had my coach, Chris Hou and Caroline Burkle in here the other day. And Chris is training for a trans Tahoe assault. Where he's gonna go end to end. I can't remember how many miles it is, like 28 or something like that. And he's trying to recruit Caroline and I to swim segments and crew him. And I just, I haven't been swimming at all. Like the pools are so difficult to get into.

• 10:33Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 10:34Rich Roll?

  And, you know, I'm not thrilled about getting into 53 degrees. I mean, it's fine for, you know, a plunge, but like for training, that's a different thing.

• 10:43Adam Skolnick?

  Right, right, right.

• 10:44Rich Roll?

  I don't know. I got a text this morning putting some pressure on me.

• 10:46Adam Skolnick?

  You gotta do it, man. Let's get up there.

• 10:48Rich Roll?

  We'll see what happens.

• 10:50Adam Skolnick?

  How are you? How's, what's going on in your space?

• 10:52Rich Roll?

  You know, I'm a little foggy and groggy today. So if I lapse into, you know, kind of a zoned out space, it's on you to carry this podcast. I just didn't sleep well last night. We're recording this on Monday. What's the date today? The 29th?

• 11:08Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 11:10Rich Roll?

  The full moon has been in full effect the last couple of days. Actually, it's been really dramatic in LA with it resting low on the horizon. It has looked huge. And I don't know what it is. I think we talked about this before, right? Like, I just don't sleep great on the full moon. So I'm feeling a little bit off today. Julie's out of town with one of our, our daughters, so I'm on kid duty, home duty. It's been a busy past week. Getting in some interesting training in the gym. It's weird. Like, I, I've really committed to this, um, this, this strength program that I'm on. And, you know, I feel like my body's changing. Like, I touch a weight and I like bulk up immediately.

• 11:53Rich Roll?

  So I feel like bulky and like, it feels good to be strong. Like, I haven't felt this way in a long time, but my body is changing and in a way that I'm not used to. Like, I'm used to being very lean and agile. And now I feel like this brick walking around.

• 12:07Adam Skolnick?

  Really?

• 12:08Rich Roll?

  Yeah. I'm going from, you know, hippie, trail guy with a long beard to like, basically, you know, playing volleyball in Top Gun. That's kind of like, you know, like, the trajectory that I'm on. I want to get back. Now it's like summer out. Like, I just want to be outdoors. Like, I'm not a gym rat, but I really do want to, you know, take this thing. To another level and get strong and see where that leads.

• 12:33Adam Skolnick?

  How's the back?

• 12:34Rich Roll?

  So it's, it's good. I've been doing the cold plunging and that's been great. I've got the temp down to like 46 now. I'm taking it down like two degrees every couple of days.

• 12:45Adam Skolnick?

  And how long?

• 12:46Rich Roll?

  I want to work down towards to 39, but I do three rounds of four minutes. Alternating, there's a hot, there's a, we have also have an outdoor bathtub. So I put hot water in that and I go back and forth. So I do four minutes in the tub, three rounds.

• 13:00Adam Skolnick?

  Wow.

• 13:01Rich Roll?

  And it's been good and I'm adjusting to it and I'm not like, when I first started at like 54 degrees, I'd be like shivering, you know? And now I just get in, I'm like, this feels awesome. Like you do acclimate to it. Not that it gets easier. It's still kind of a shock, but I look forward to it now and it really is quite refreshing, especially if you do it like in the late afternoon, when your energy is starting to lull.

• 13:25Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 13:25Rich Roll?

  It's like taking a two hour nap and it's really helping my back a lot, which has been great. So.

• 13:30Adam Skolnick?

  You get to 39, you say?

• 13:31Rich Roll?

  I'm enjoying that. We're hard at work on

• 13:36Rich Roll?

  Voicing Change, Volume Two, uh, which is cool. I keep trying to carve out time to work on that book, but this podcast takes up a lot of time, brother.

• 13:45Adam Skolnick?

  This particular one?

• 13:45Rich Roll?

  Tell you, but I have made time to get out on, on some gravel with, uh, with my e-bike, which has been really fun. It's just opened up like all these trails that I've never, that are kind of too far away for me to run. But now I'm exploring them on two wheels and that's been super fun. Like I can get from my house all the way over to the west side and tour all around and

• 14:08Rich Roll?

  it's just like a whole different part of LA has suddenly opened up to me and the weather's gotten nice. It was super warm. I rode both Saturday and Sunday and, and that was great. And then last night, just working on getting the Alex Honnold podcast up, which just went live, which is super fun. Early feedback on that is great. Got some good stuff coming up. Matthew Walker is doing the show on Saturday. Um, people know him as one of, if not the preeminent authorities on sleep. He wrote this amazing book, Why We Sleep. Um, so I'm really looking forward to, um, Podcasting with him, I read his book when it came out and now I'm listening to it on audiobook,

• 14:49Rich Roll?

  which has been great. And a really cool development is that it looks like in two weeks, we're going to travel to Minneapolis to do a series of interviews, including a sit down with the mayor there, Jacob Fry. As many people know, today, the trial just began, the Derek Chauvin trial. He's the officer who's being charged with second and third degree murder of George Floyd. So that's cities on pins and needles. And I think it would be a really interesting, boots on the ground experience to go there and kind of get a sense of what's happening there.

• 15:28Adam Skolnick?

  No doubt about it. That's going to be incredible for you to get in there and weigh in and feel it. Should be, should be heavy. And by then, who knows where the trial will be.

• 15:38Rich Roll?

  I know, I know. Or the ma- I mean, I can't imagine the stress that the mayor is shouldering at the moment. He could suddenly become unavailable. But I just think it's important. You know, I want to understand it better. And the opportunity presented itself and

• 15:53Adam Skolnick?

  How did that come?

• 15:54Rich Roll?

  Through my buddy Brogan Graham, who's been on the show, he's a buddy of mine. He's the founder of November Project. He used to live in San Diego, but he moved to Minneapolis a couple of years ago. And he's, he's running buddies with, with Jacob.

• 16:10Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, you said he's a really good runner.

• 16:12Rich Roll?

  Yeah. So yeah, yeah. Mayor Fry is a very good runner. So hopefully get out on a run with him as well, which should be interesting. In other news, I got into a bit of a Twitter spat.

• 16:23Adam Skolnick?

  I saw that.

• 16:24Rich Roll?

  The other day. Well, it's kind of a one sided Twitter. It's not like he responded, right?

• 16:28Adam Skolnick?

  No, he didn't.

• 16:28Rich Roll?

  But I, I don't know, I was feeling like a little bit spicy in response to this tweet that was posted by Senator Marshall, Dr. Roger Marshall from Kansas, who was railing, there was a video, he's railing against meatless Mondays, like it's some kind of crazy government overreach. And he was spouting, he's a, he's a, he's a physician, but he was spouting all this nutritional nonsense. And I just couldn't let it stand. So I popped in there and kind of shared my, I don't do that. Like, I'm not, I'm not like a

• 17:02Adam Skolnick?

  You were polite.

• 17:02Rich Roll?

  A shit stir.

• 17:03Adam Skolnick?

  No, but you were polite.

• 17:04Rich Roll?

  On Twitter. Was I polite?

• 17:05Adam Skolnick?

  You were. You said Senator. You said, excuse me, Senator.

• 17:08Rich Roll?

  I said, quote unquote, Senator. I mean, that was kind of snide, I think, actually. But the engagement on that tweet was so crazy that I was like, oh, this is how people build their following on Twitter. Like, they say outrageous stuff. Yeah, like, you know?

• 17:23Adam Skolnick?

  Well, he was doing it too, though. I mean, he was attacking Meatless. He opened the door.

• 17:28Rich Roll?

  Well, he was saying all kinds of stuff like, if you're... It was in reference to imposing Meatless Mondays in high schools.

• 17:36Adam Skolnick?

  Like schools, right.

• 17:37Rich Roll?

  Right? And he was saying that if you're a high school athlete, there's no way that you can make this work. It's just, it's gonna be impairing children. And I just think that that's untrue.

• 17:46Adam Skolnick?

  Why would you take good protein out of their mouth?

• 17:48Rich Roll?

  And this is a guy who's propped up by big ag and the meat and dairy industry. So he's, you know, probably on the receiving end of some lobbying dollars. And his constituency is making sure that those industries are chugging away, as always. So of course, he's gonna take the side of those industries. And the real, like, the government overreach isn't Meatless Mondays. The government overreach is propping up this industry that's, you know, going the way of the dodo.

• 18:19Adam Skolnick?

  No doubt. And he's also in the receiving end of Rich Roll's boot in his ass, I'll tell you that.

• 18:24Rich Roll?

  Not really. It wasn't that. It wasn't like that. Anyway, and also, we should talk about Kevin Roos.

• 18:34Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 18:35Rich Roll?

  Who was on the show.

• 18:36Adam Skolnick?

  Famous artist?

• 18:38Rich Roll?

  Yeah, now he's a, yeah, he basically is one of the most highly paid artists in the world. Right?

• 18:45Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 18:46Rich Roll?

  It kind of came up on our podcast. We were talking about NFTs. And he was considering the idea of doing a book and releasing it as an NFT. But what he did on the heels of the podcast was release an article. Which was about NFTs as an NFT and he auctioned off that article, the first in the 170 year history of the New York Times to be distributed as an NFT, a PNG file that ended up at auction raising over $500,000 for charity, which is bananas, right?

• 19:20Adam Skolnick?

  But who wants that?

• 19:22Rich Roll?

  Well, it's like, I have the first NFT from the New York Times ever, I guess. It's bragging rights. I mean, who, who wants the Mona Lisa? And we can go down this rabbit hole again, but you know, I think whether you can get on board with this idea or not, this is the world that we now live in.

• 19:40Adam Skolnick?

  It's a currency, right? Is what it is. It's just another currency.

• 19:44Rich Roll?

  In certain respects. I mean, it's a currency like, like a painting is a currency, I suppose. It's a non-fungible token, Adam, is what it is.

• 19:52Adam Skolnick?

  I know, I know. I know what it is, yet I have no idea what it is.

• 19:55Rich Roll?

  The kind of just meta nature of the whole thing. And, and, and also Kevin's like sheer confusion and delight on Twitter, how this thing unfolded was really kind of fun to watch and relish.

• 20:07Adam Skolnick?

  What's Kevin's take on this?

• 20:09Rich Roll?

  What do you think?

• 20:10Adam Skolnick?

  Zero. I mean, it's for charity, right?

• 20:13Rich Roll?

  Oh, yeah. It's for, yeah. His, his financial take was nothing.

• 20:16Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 20:16Rich Roll?

  Yeah. I thought you meant his like hot take.

• 20:18Adam Skolnick?

  I'm sure the part of him is like, damn.

• 20:20Rich Roll?

  Yeah. He's like, well, I'm sure he's thinking, maybe I really should do that book as an NFT, right?

• 20:26Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 20:26Rich Roll?

  And it's made me think, because we talked about this last time, about creating an NFT from the first episode of this podcast. And of course, there's the environmental concerns, which are the real impediment. I would have done it already if it wasn't for that.

• 20:43Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 20:44Rich Roll?

  But how does that balance out if we auction it off for charity?

• 20:52Adam Skolnick?

  Are you looking for me to enable this NFT adventure? Cause I am your hype man.

• 20:56Rich Roll?

  Are you gonna be, are you gonna call your Al-Anon sponsor?

• 20:58Adam Skolnick?

  Go for it. My job is to say, go for it.

• 21:02Rich Roll?

  That's not your job. Your job is to tell me what you think.

• 21:05Adam Skolnick?

  Um, I think that you should wait until it's on to that Ethereum. Yeah, and just wait.

• 21:12Rich Roll?

  But then the bubble will be burst.

• 21:14Adam Skolnick?

  It's true. What do you think the first episode would go for?

• 21:16Rich Roll?

  But what if, what if, what if we raised, we gave the money to like the Honold Foundation, which is all about solar energy? So how would that balance out? I guess it would depend on how much you raised as to whether it would cancel out the, the carbon footprint that was required to mint the NFT in the first place.

• 21:37Adam Skolnick?

  This particular riddle requires a smarter person than me. But I know the people to ask.

• 21:41Rich Roll?

  Some, yeah, some sort of blockchain person out there can run the numbers on that.

• 21:46Adam Skolnick?

  Exactly. Maybe we can get the blockchain to run the numbers if we should do the blockchain.

• 21:50Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Okay. Should we turn to the Iron Cowboy ticker?

• 21:56Adam Skolnick?

  How about this guy? He is picking it up.

• 21:58Rich Roll?

  This has become like a, just a, you know, basically a cornerstone of roll on, right? Like checking in on the Iron Cowboy?

• 22:04Adam Skolnick?

  How could it not be? This guy is like, gone from basically barely making through these marathons to actually picking up the pace and going hard.

• 22:12Rich Roll?

  He does seem to have had a bit of a renaissance in terms of his energy and enthusiasm and mood lately, hasn't he?

• 22:18Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 22:19Rich Roll?

  So we're on day 29 as of today, which is Monday. He is going strong. There is this turning of the tide. He looks strong. His mood seems elevated and all of this despite what appears to be some pretty insane weather that they've gone through. Like, if I was him, I would have started this thing in like May, you know? But he doesn't, he doesn't like the heat.

• 22:40Adam Skolnick?

  Ah, it's hot there.

• 22:42Rich Roll?

  He doesn't do well with the heat, but instead he's going through sleet and snowstorms and all kinds of stuff.

• 22:47Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 22:47Rich Roll?

  He does maintain a pretty high vibe. So I have kind of a positive, negative spin on all of this.

• 22:54Adam Skolnick?

  Give it to me.

• 22:54Rich Roll?

  But before we get into that, let's talk about the why, because that's something we talked about when you were heading into the Goggins Challenge and James posted about that the other day.

• 23:04Adam Skolnick?

  He posted about the why, right?

• 23:06Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 23:06Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah. Do you think that was a callback on your question about the why?

• 23:10Rich Roll?

  You think he'd listen to the podcast and he's like, I need to declare my why? No, I don't think so.

• 23:15Adam Skolnick?

  So this is something that you ultra athletes talk about, your whys a lot.

• 23:21Rich Roll?

  I feel like there's a snarkiness in how you just said that.

• 23:24Adam Skolnick?

  I didn't mean it that way.

• 23:24Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 23:25Adam Skolnick?

  No.

• 23:25Rich Roll?

  You ultra athletes like to talk about the why, like it's some kind of, you know,

• 23:29Adam Skolnick?

  No, I mean like-

• 23:30Rich Roll?

  like sort of mental exercise and nonsense.

• 23:33Adam Skolnick?

  Or a mental exercise, period. Just like in the fact that like it's something that you guys do consider and talk about and, and, and think about before taking on something that's seems kind of like a superhuman attempt. It's something that you-

• 23:48Rich Roll?

  But I think, I think that should be a question everybody should be asking themselves all the time about whatever it is that they're investing their time and energy in.

• 23:55Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 23:55Rich Roll?

  Right?

• 23:56Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 23:56Rich Roll?

  But he said specifically that his why was knowing there are millions of people in the world that need a little spark to light their sparkle and don't know where to find that spark. In his words, "If I can be the spark for just one person to believe in themself, that's enough." And I think that's great. I appreciate that. And I, I, you know what I, you know what I like about it is that it's honest. What you see a lot with endurance athletes, they'll declare their why as being a charity, or I'm doing this for the kids, or I'm doing this for spina bifida, or whatever it is. And those are all laudable things to raise money for charity, which is something that James is also doing in the, in the pursuit

• 24:40Rich Roll?

  of this goal. But I always find those to be somewhat disingenuous. It's like, you're not really, you're really doing it for you. Come on.

• 24:48Adam Skolnick?

  Right, right, right, right.

• 24:49Rich Roll?

  You know what I mean? Like, let's be honest.

• 24:50Adam Skolnick?

  No one spends a hundred days-

• 24:51Rich Roll?

  You're doing it to see if you can do it.

• 24:52Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 24:52Rich Roll?

  And there's nothing wrong with that. You don't have to say you're doing it because of this other thing.

• 24:57Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 24:58Rich Roll?

  But I think that, that I, I find, you know, James's declaration on this to be quite earnest and, and, and I think it's cool. And listen, you know, I'm a huge fan, as, as, you know, many of you guys know, I was early on board with James before he even attempted his 50 Ironmans in 50 States in 50 Days. I had him on the show when very few people were paying attention to what he was doing. I had him on after the show. I ran the final marathon with him in that attempt. And I've always elevated this guy's message. I just think he's a beautiful- Amazing soul, an incredible athlete, of course, an incredible family man. I've had the opportunity to see him deliver his keynote. He's a very gifted public speaker. His presentation is unbelievable.

• 25:44Rich Roll?

  And what I like about this Conquer 100 Challenge, the sort of, you know, feat itself aside, is how incredibly inclusive and participatory it is. He's developed this amazing community around this event. He's got crazy support, all these people that show up every single day. On Instagram, he's just crushing the Instagram game with like amazing stories constantly.

• 26:12Adam Skolnick?

  Who's doing that?

• 26:12Rich Roll?

  His daughter, well, I think his daughter and his wife Sunny are probably managing most of it. His daughter is crushing it. You know, she's checking in all the time. Sunny started sharing her perspective on stuff and answering questions that people have for her, like what's it like to be James's wife? And, you know, how are you taking care of yourself and all of that? And she's been very kind of engaged and forthright about where she's coming from on all of this, which I think is cool. He's got his wingmen, Aaron Hopkinson and Casey Robles, who are just hilarious. I mean, these guys, like, talk about good friends. Like, they just show up for James 110%. They did this on the 50/50/50, they're doing it again.

• 26:56Rich Roll?

  And they, they're like comedians, like they're participating alongside of him, but they keep the mood light. Like, they're, they're literally his court jesters and his, and his, you know, ultimate support team.

• 27:09Adam Skolnick?

  Well, you have to laugh at it, right? You have to laugh at it.

• 27:11Rich Roll?

  Well, the absurdity of the whole thing.

• 27:13Adam Skolnick?

  Because it's this huge dark tunnel he's in.

• 27:15Rich Roll?

  But the thing is, you would, you would think like that it would all be about the darkness and the heaviness. But when you watch the Instagram stories, it's like they're laughing, they're having fun, they're joking. And yeah, I guess that's a, that's a strategy, right?

• 27:31Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 27:31Rich Roll?

  I just know when I'm super tired, like, it's very hard to get into that headspace. Like, you become really grumpy and difficult to be around. And he seems to be pretty jovial and convivial, like, throughout the entire thing, which is unbelievable.

• 27:44Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 27:45Rich Roll?

  So, that's cool. I mean, these guys, Aaron and Casey, you know, truly BFF goals. Like, if you could be so lucky to have friends like these guys.

• 27:56Rich Roll?

  And the fact that they all seem to be having fun, I think that's great. I mean, on the negative, so that's the positive.

• 28:02Adam Skolnick?

  Okay.

• 28:03Rich Roll?

  But I think, you know, I would be remiss in not sort of sharing a different side of this.

• 28:13Rich Roll?

  You know, I think what's unique about James is that typically, the mind caves into the body. Right. And Goggins talks about this all the time, like the mind gives in, you know, when the body still has 40% left or whatever.

• 28:25Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 28:25Rich Roll?

  It's the mind that goes first when the body is capable of more. But I think with James, it's actually the opposite. I think this guy's mind is, is much stronger than his body. Maybe his mind is 40% stronger than his body. And that's very unique and something to be celebrated. But he's so mentally tough that I think if he had his leg amputated in the middle of this whole thing, that he'd still figure out a way to like, finish it, right? I have no doubt that he possesses the will to complete this insane challenge. And that he will very well compel his body to complete it.

• 29:06Rich Roll?

  But I would, I do think it would be irresponsible if I didn't at least voice some concern regarding the long-term health complications that he's risking by doing this. I really, I love James. I don't want him to break his body beyond repair and end up walking with a cane at, at 40. And I suspect that under the best circumstances, it's going, if he, if he completes this, even if he pulled the plug now, it's going to take his body a really long time to recover. Could be a year, it could be years. I mean, the adrenal fatigue alone. So if anybody can do it, this guy can certainly do it. I don't doubt him for a second. But I would just hate to see him push his body beyond irreparable limits.

• 29:51Adam Skolnick?

  So you, you, do you want him to tap out?

• 29:54Rich Roll?

  No, I don't want him to tap out. I just, I know that he has a lot of support and he goes home, you know, during the transitions and at night and he's got all kinds of people working on him. So I presume that he's having his blood drawn. He's got doctors who are monitoring him and all of that, who would tell him like, look, you're digging a hole. You're not going to be able to crawl out of. Would he, would he, if faced with that kind of medical diagnosis, would he pull the plug? Or would he keep going? I don't know the answer to that, but I just care for him. I just don't want to see him get harmed in the pursuit of this challenge. That's all.

• 30:32Adam Skolnick?

  I feel like the swim is kind of a break for him. Like the swim isn't the hard part, right?

• 30:37Rich Roll?

  The swim's like recovery.

• 30:38Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah. It's like a part of the recovery.

• 30:40Rich Roll?

  But you see him crawling out of the pool, like how ginger he is on his feet. You're like, this dude is worse.

• 30:47Rich Roll?

  So of course he is.

• 30:48Adam Skolnick?

  It doesn't look easy to get up that, get up that ladder. That's gotta be a very tall ladder. He's like, fuck, now it's the real shit.

• 30:54Rich Roll?

  And there's something soothing about like every day you see him crawl up the ladder and put his, his, his Crocs on and like saunter over into the locker room, you know?

• 31:04Adam Skolnick?

  And it's like, oh man, now the, now it gets real.

• 31:06Rich Roll?

  It's like a metronome.

• 31:06Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah. He's like, God, I like that pool. Maybe, I wish it was five miles in the pool.

• 31:10Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Anyway, send him your love. Follow him on Instagram at Iron Cowboy James and we love you, James.

• 31:17Adam Skolnick?

  It's very impressive, James. And I loved, I just love his little motivation tactics, like wearing 23 and having LeBron be the theme of 23. And then each day is a different theme. And, and just seeing.

• 31:31Rich Roll?

  You gotta mix it up though, right? You gotta keep every day fresh. Otherwise, I think they switched up the course a little bit recently.

• 31:36Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, right. Right. And he likes that better.

• 31:38Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 31:39Adam Skolnick?

  I, I, I am excited. I, we gotta get out, like as, towards the end, we should really road trip out there.

• 31:44Rich Roll?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. We'll, we'll figure that out. I mean, what happened with the 50 50 50? I went out there, did the, you know, I was there for the final day and was hoping to get a podcast with him. Obviously not right after, but the day, I hung around the day after and he was just too, it wasn't going to happen. So I went home and then flew back like a week or two later and, and did it. But you know, it's historic and something to be celebrated.

• 32:11Adam Skolnick?

  But if you go out there, don't bring the gravel bike because it would be rude to have a motor.

• 32:15Rich Roll?

  That would be rude, right? How dare you? No, I would never do that. Can you imagine? Seriously, bro? It has been funny, like I've posted my gravel rides on Strava.

• 32:26Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 32:27Rich Roll?

  There is an e-bike, you know, it'll upload and then I gotta quickly switch it to e-bike. So I'm not, you know, holding myself out as having, you know, rode a route, you know, because the stats, you know, whatever.

• 32:38Adam Skolnick?

  Right, right.

• 32:40Rich Roll?

  But there was a couple, like, sort of snarky, like, "Seriously, man, you're on an e..." And I was like, "Look, man, come at me, bro." But like, I'm having fun, like, I'm just enjoying myself.

• 32:49Adam Skolnick?

  I love that you're doing that. And I love the idea of, it's like, it's like, uh, "Under the Bridge downtown." Like, I think of, like, "Under the Bridge" from Red Hot Chili Peppers. Like, I walk through her hills, because she knows who I am, about LA.

• 33:03Rich Roll?

  Right, right.

• 33:04Adam Skolnick?

  And the fact that you're unlocking different canyons and fire roads. It's like, I think that's awesome.

• 33:09Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's been cool.

• 33:10Adam Skolnick?

  To see the city through her canyons is really the best way to see LA and to understand it. And, uh, and so to be able to do that and cross that much territory, it's not, it's not a small ride.

• 33:20Rich Roll?

  No, I mean, I went down Saturday, I rode all, I rode over all the, you know, I took trails all the way down into Brentwood, through Santa Monica, down through Venice, and then rode back up through PCH, took Los Flores up yesterday, um, dropped down, where did I drop down? Oh, down into the Palisades and through the Highlands. I'd never been there. I didn't, you know, that whole, like, development in the Palisades? It's way up on the hill? I'd never knew that existed.

• 33:45Adam Skolnick?

  Up through Santa?

• 33:46Rich Roll?

  Lived here for like, 20 years.

• 33:47Adam Skolnick?

  Really?

• 33:48Rich Roll?

  I mean, I knew there were houses up there, but I'd never driven up there. I didn't know anything about it.

• 33:51Adam Skolnick?

  Isn't that gated up there?

• 33:53Rich Roll?

  Um, yeah, yeah, but you drop down, a trail, it kind of drops you in at the top up there, and then it takes the roads back down. Anyway.

• 34:00Adam Skolnick?

  The e-bike, the e-bike house thieves, this is gonna be the next thing.

• 34:03Rich Roll?

  Yeah, right. Shout out to Specialized, uh, who's my partner in this. I've been really enjoying working with them, and the Creo is awesome. I do need to get a legit road bike and a non-e gravel bike at some point, so I'm working on that.

• 34:18Adam Skolnick?

  Shout out to Specialized, don't, it's okay, I don't want one, don't, don't even call me.

• 34:24Rich Roll?

  I've never seen you on a bike. I did see you on a Super 73, though.

• 34:27Adam Skolnick?

  I have a fixie.

• 34:28Rich Roll?

  Yeah. That's it.

• 34:30Adam Skolnick?

  I used to, no, I used to. I used to, I used to ride back in the day, um, but it's been a long time.

• 34:36Rich Roll?

  We'll rectify that.

• 34:37Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 34:38Rich Roll?

  All right, man, let's take a break, and we'll be back with, uh, the big story and more.

• 34:42Adam Skolnick?

  All right.

• 34:51Rich Roll?

  All right, we're back. Adam, we gotta talk about guns.

• 34:55Adam Skolnick?

  I know, man.

• 34:56Rich Roll?

  This uniquely American obsession that we have. Since we last convened, two mass shootings, 18 people dead. In Atlanta, a white dude motivated by anti-Asian misogyny hit three massage parlors and claimed eight lives in Boulder. A Muslim dude shot up a grocery store, King Supers, with an AR-556 pistol bought six days prior. I think he bought it like the day of the Atlanta shooting, or somewhere around that point.

• 35:27Adam Skolnick?

  The guy in Atlanta bought it the day of?

• 35:28Rich Roll?

  The day, yeah, but the Boulder guy bought it like the day the Atlanta shooting happened, or the day after, or something like that. The AR-556 being sort of a pistol version of the AR-15.

• 35:40Adam Skolnick?

  Okay.

• 35:40Rich Roll?

  And here we are again. You know, gun violence is up 25% from last year. Some of that is fueled in part by intimate partner violence. Gun purchases are up, in part motivated by people fearing becoming a victim of gun violence. And we're in this vicious cycle that, as a society, we just can't seem to find our way out of.

• 36:04Adam Skolnick?

  I agree. I personally am starting to feel complicit, to be quite honest with you. Because, you know, it happens over and over and over again. And what have I done about it? You know, like, I wrote a story about guns after the Pulse nightclub shooting, and the Dallas officers were killed by that other sniper. But, you know, and maybe I gave money to every town or something. But, like, that's not really doing much. You know, it's easy from the comfort of my desk.

• 36:40Rich Roll?

  I can't say that I've done anything or participated in the solution. I just, when this happens, I go numb, and then I feel powerless. And I don't want to be among the Thoughts and Prayers chorus. I want to participate in something meaningful. But it's unclear what exactly that is, other than, you know, basically voicing outrage on social media, which I don't really think is productive either.

• 37:03Adam Skolnick?

  It does nothing. Let's go through some of the stats, right? So, we're not going to talk about Thoughts and Prayers, because this is a systemic issue, and Thoughts and Prayers don't solve it. So... America has more guns than any other country, 300 million guns, one for every person in the country.

• 37:21Rich Roll?

  One for every person.

• 37:24Adam Skolnick?

  Japan has less than one gun per 100 people, so, and they have 10 deaths a year. We have, gun-related murders in our country are 25 times higher than any other country on earth.

• 37:37Adam Skolnick?

  We have 3.4 gun murders per 100,000 people, next highest is Canada at .6.

• 37:43Rich Roll?

  Right, when you see the graph, there's a, we're referencing a New York Times opinion piece.

• 37:47Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 37:48Rich Roll?

  And they show this graph country by country, and the US is like, you know, it just looks like it's 20-fold higher than the next closest country.

• 37:56Adam Skolnick?

  And I give Canada a little bit of a pass there, they, they're at .6, but you know, some of those people were Americans.

• 38:02Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 38:03Adam Skolnick?

  Model for regulating guns is the automobile, right, like, right now, we have, you, you sent me this interesting story about how the NRA has basically twisted up the Second Amendment, right? So, we have this, we're in this position where we have no way to control guns because of a few reasons. One is, we have this whole chunk of the country that has become connected to the Second Amendment. The Second Amendment is the right to bear arms. That was put in there as kind of a placeholder for states to have their own militias. So, there wasn't a centralized army that dominated different states, right?

• 38:43Rich Roll?

  Regulated militias.

• 38:44Adam Skolnick?

  Regulated militias.

• 38:45Rich Roll?

  Which is, it's regulated militias comma, which is the part of the Second Amendment that gets glossed over in this conversation that's been twisted to be all about individual gun ownership rights, which is not really the original intent of the Second Amendment.

• 39:02Adam Skolnick?

  Right, and so what happened was, the NRA went through a change, like, in the 50s. They were about marksmanship training, firearm safety education. And now, in the seventies, they turned into kind of a legal organization to expand the application of the Second Amendment to include private ownership and personal protection. Why? Because their members, meaning the arms manufacturers, not the people that pay for membership fees, the individual people, made money off it. And they made inroads in the Republican Party mostly, but throughout government, donating to different campaigns.

• 39:45Adam Skolnick?

  And next thing you know, you have, it makes it almost impossible to pass any legislation regulating guns. We call it gun control. That's really the wrong way to put it. It's like, we don't call driver's licenses-

• 39:56Rich Roll?

  Car control.

• 39:57Adam Skolnick?

  Automobile control, or person control. We're just saying, let's make sure people are safe when they're operating something dangerous. I'd like to, I think the NRA could be rebooted to be an organization that does all the things that could help us. That would be talking about background checks, talking about smart guns, taking a public health approach and saying, you know, if you're gonna own a firearm, these are the things you need to think about. You know, everything down the line, marksmanship, hunting classes, all these good things, licensing, certifications, all these things that could actually end up-

• 40:35Rich Roll?

  Storage.

• 40:36Adam Skolnick?

  Storage.

• 40:36Rich Roll?

  Use. Smart guns-

• 40:38Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 40:39Rich Roll?

  That if they fall into the hands of somebody who's not registered to use it, they don't work. It is interesting that we've been unable to make any inroads on that. And past attempts at gun control, which have focused on outlawing certain aspects of guns, just end up in end runs around those details to create something that's just outside of the regulation that still achieves the end, right?

• 41:05Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 41:06Rich Roll?

  Like, whether it's a particular scope, or whatever it is on the gun, I'm no gun expert, those have traditionally failed. And it is interesting, I mean, what was- The inflection point with the NRA where they tipped from being this kind of regulatory body that was heavily invested in education and the like to now being this absolutist organization that basically won't give an inch on any issue and couches the whole thing in the context of governments trying to take your guns away from you.

• 41:39Adam Skolnick?

  I think according to that story, what happened was there was a, and you'll link to it, it's called "How the NRA Rewrote the Second Amendment." And, you know, it used to be on their, I think I have it in here, on their door of their main office in DC were letters that kind of was like embossed on the door, "Firearm Safety Education Marksmanship Training Shooting for Recreation." And now there is an abridged version of the Second Amendment that it takes it completely out of context.

• 42:12Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 42:13Adam Skolnick?

  And I think what happened was there was a quote-unquote revolt against the leadership in the NRA, which at the time was for gun regulation and from the 50s all the way to the 70s. And the whole board got fired and someone else took over. And that sew-in began this kind of long game of rewriting laws and getting through the courts to expand civil liberties or, I call it civil liberties, but to expand the meaning of these amendments to include conservative principles like bearing arms.

• 42:47Rich Roll?

  Yeah, the Second Amendment literally says, "A well-regulated militia, a well-regulated militia, comma, being necessary for the security of a free state, comma, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, comma, shall not be infringed." So it's a sentence that's rife for all different kinds of interpretations, but nowhere in there does it reference directly the individual's right to bear arms. It is specifically in reference, and that comma after "regulated militia," to me hammers at home that this is all in the context of arming a regulated militia.

• 43:32Adam Skolnick?

  And it's the third clause.

• 43:33Rich Roll?

  Not the individual.

• 43:34Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, and it's that third clause, "The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." That's the only thing they have on their door now.

• 43:39Rich Roll?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. So the first part of it gets forgotten. And I think... You know, the founding fathers would would be turning in their in their graves at how this has been exploited.

• 43:54Rich Roll?

  So what's the way forward? I mean, one of the arguments that gets thrown around a lot is it's a mental health argument. This is about the mental health of these people. This idea that we have more mass shootings because we have more mental health problems. But the data doesn't really support that.

• 44:09Adam Skolnick?

  No.

• 44:09Rich Roll?

  Countries with high suicide rates tend to have low rates of mass shootings. They found that video games don't correlate. Racial diversity and immigration issues also don't correlate. And it really is, and this is, you know, borne out by the data, that it's about access to guns. The more access you have to guns, the more shootings and deaths you're going to have.

• 44:34Adam Skolnick?

  And if we look at a couple of different case studies, you know, Sandy Hook being obviously the one of the most horrific, every one of them's horrific. Sandy Hook is obviously on a scale because we're talking about kindergarten children and whatnot. There was, I think, an advertisement that was connected to that, where he bought a certain rifle, or he wanted that rifle, his mother bought it for him as a gift. Because it was a lot like, you know, some some ad he'd seen, where it's about about empowerment, about young men and empowerment. And he went out and created that horrible crime.

• 45:19Adam Skolnick?

  And right afterwards, the victims couldn't really sue the gun manufacturer, because the government had passed a law, basically a rider on some other law, making it impossible to sue companies for use of their products in a crime. Everyone thought that it'd been challenged a couple of times, it always had been upheld. A lawyer in Connecticut named Josh Koskoff took on that challenge of maybe challenging, he found another way of arguing against that. And the gun manufacturers in the NRA didn't take it seriously because they'd won so many times on it. And they showed up in court and the judge gave them the go ahead to sue.

• 46:01Adam Skolnick?

  And it became this new way of approaching this problem, basically. Because if the companies now-

• 46:07Rich Roll?

  Kind of like using Rico to go after the mob.

• 46:10Adam Skolnick?

  Exactly. And if the gun manufacturers suddenly had to pay the victims of these crimes-

• 46:16Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 46:17Adam Skolnick?

  Then they would do things like, they wouldn't fight things like smart guns where your fingerprint is the only way that you can fire it.

• 46:24Rich Roll?

  Right. It's an alignment of incentives, basically. So, when the gun manufacturer is not incentivized to make sure that these things are safe and from a product liability perspective can make the argument that the gun was used in the manner in which it was manufactured. There was nothing dysfunctional about the gun.

• 46:47Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 46:47Rich Roll?

  The gun was used and the gun worked properly. So, therefore, the gun manufacturer bears no culpability for this. But if you say, that's the argument, right?

• 46:58Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 46:58Rich Roll?

  But if you say, actually, they do, where are you hanging your hat on that argument, though? Like, how does that, I'm trying to wrap my head around how that works.

• 47:05Adam Skolnick?

  The argument is, if you are creating a product and advertising a product in a certain way and then it's used and you pretend it's not your fault, basically, you have some responsibility for your product and how it's used. Why are you selling it?

• 47:18Rich Roll?

  How can you draw, that's tricky, though. Like, where do you draw the line with that?

• 47:21Adam Skolnick?

  Well, that's the question, right? So, you know, the real question is, we should all be asking ourselves, is why can we go in and buy an AR-15 with high-capacity magazines and things like that? What's the use of that?

• 47:35Rich Roll?

  It's insane.

• 47:35Adam Skolnick?

  It doesn't make any sense.

• 47:36Rich Roll?

  It's absolutely insane.

• 47:37Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 47:38Rich Roll?

  It's totally outrageous. It makes me furious.

• 47:40Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 47:41Rich Roll?

  Why can't we get our shit together?

• 47:44Rich Roll?

  The citizenship is overwhelmingly in favor of universal background checks. There are so many things that we could do.

• 47:51Adam Skolnick?

  Gun owners are in favor.

• 47:52Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 47:52Adam Skolnick?

  Ninety percent or something.

• 47:54Rich Roll?

  There's so many things that we could do. And it's interesting when you look at how the NRA has handled this by not budging, like, not giving an inch. Like, that's the strategy, like, never give in on anything because it's slippery slope. And because of that tactic, then they've been able to create the situation that we're in right now. But the truth is, we need well-informed, logical, rational regulation of this landscape. It's insane-

• 48:23Adam Skolnick?

  It is insane.

• 48:24Rich Roll?

  That we're in this situation and it's going to continue to perpetuate unless we do something. So now we have- Joe Biden is president. We've got a, you know, Democrat-controlled House and Senate. Like, can we get something done here?

• 48:39Adam Skolnick?

  Well, the answer to that is, will, uh, the, will the Democrats wave the filibuster? Because the only way you're gonna get 60 senators to support any sort of law, um, in terms of regulation of firearms is going to be to get the Republicans to vote for it, A. And you need at least nine of them, which I think is a reach, because you need 60 votes to override a filibuster. Or, um, you kind of throw away the filibuster for this issue, and if you do that, what happens in the future?

• 49:16Adam Skolnick?

  But that's the question. You know, this, and it doesn't look like that's happening, right? He's moving on to infrastructure first, so we'll see how, uh, you know, what's, he's gonna do something. We'll see what he proposes.

• 49:30Adam Skolnick?

  We have this kind of brutal cocktail in this country of racism, misogyny, religion, and guns. And this growing absolutism on either side of any hot-button issue. So it makes it hard to communicate across party lines and to get anything real done. And then when you have, like, take the Atlanta shooting. He was the son of a pastor, an evangelical kind of minister.

• 50:02Adam Skolnick?

  He felt he was in violation of his whatever, full of lust or whatever. And his solution to that is to eliminate women who are struggling just to get by, working in these spas in the red light district of Atlanta. I mean, that's his solution to his own problems.

• 50:22Rich Roll?

  Yeah. It's a complicated one, because on the one hand, you know, it's basically an anti-Asian hate crime. But it was really motivated by this guy's internal conflict, as much as it was. I don't know that... That had those massage parlors been populated with masseuses that weren't Asian, that it would have been any different? I don't know enough about it to comment on that one way or the other, but I think it's complicated in that regard when you dive into motive. But part of that motive was his guilt, right? It was a religiously motivated crime in many ways.

• 51:03Adam Skolnick?

  It was. I think he might have felt the women were less disposable if they were Asian.

• 51:07Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that's a good point.

• 51:09Adam Skolnick?

  And then there's the whole history and the certain context now of all the anti-Asian hate crimes that are happening all over the country, in San Francisco and New York specifically the most, but happening elsewhere. And then this one pops up as kind of like highlight, like it's part of it. And he bought his gun the day of the shooting, a 9mm pistol.

• 51:35Rich Roll?

  That's crazy.

• 51:36Adam Skolnick?

  The day of.

• 51:36Rich Roll?

  It's crazy.

• 51:37Adam Skolnick?

  So you can't tell me that's not the... Of all these things I just mentioned, racism, misogyny, religion, and guns, which is the one you can control the easiest?

• 51:47Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 51:48Adam Skolnick?

  Because we're not looking to control the others. You can't control them. You can't control a person's...

• 51:54Rich Roll?

  Set against a backdrop where gun-related murders in the United States are 25% higher than in any other country. It's so glaringly obvious that we need to redress this in a meaningful way. And yet our ineptitude, because we're so caught up in these traditions and this ideology that surrounds guns, literally, people are just getting slaughtered.

• 52:17Adam Skolnick?

  You know, I was talking a lot about this with my wife. My wife's from Australia. She's from Sydney. In Australia, they had their own Columbine. And it didn't take long for them to pass legislation to have people turn in their own guns. And I'm not suggesting that we call for everyone turning in their guns, so don't at me about that. But I'm just saying, that happened in Australia. And now she sees this happen, and it's not the first one since she's been in the country. She's seen a number of them now. And then, what is the news the next day? It's in Georgia, after this Atlanta shooting, the thing that's making news, the laws that they passed in the state of Georgia, is to make it illegal to bring water to someone standing in line to vote.

• 53:02Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 53:04Adam Skolnick?

  Um, that's what they did. And she's like, where are the priorities of these leaders? Like, that's what they're doing with their time?

• 53:11Adam Skolnick?

  It's astonishing, the lack of leadership in this country. And it's, uh...

• 53:15Rich Roll?

  Well, meanwhile, wasn't it the, was it the Texas governor who was bummed that Texas was only second in terms of gun purchases?

• 53:23Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 53:23Rich Roll?

  And he's like, he publicly said something like, "We gotta, we gotta be number one."

• 53:27Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah. Who are these donkeys, dude? Like, how do you vote for these people?

• 53:31Rich Roll?

  I don't understand.

• 53:31Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 53:32Rich Roll?

  You don't understand.

• 53:33Adam Skolnick?

  And then, you know, then you have this, uh, black lawmaker, woman who is trying to, I forget her name, I don't have it, my fingertips forgive me, but she was trying to knock on the door of the governor while he was signing that anti, you know, the voting...

• 53:47Rich Roll?

  In Georgia.

• 53:48Adam Skolnick?

  They're into voting control, not, not gun control in Georgia. And she was arrested. And if you look at the, if you look at the video of her getting dragged away by those guys in crew cuts, it could have been like Bull Connor era. Like, these, these bullheaded guys are dragging this professional woman down the halls.

• 54:07Adam Skolnick?

  When she was just trying to knock on the door of the governor. Um, you know, where are we? What is happening, uh, in this country? It's appalling. And it does, it does scare me. And it makes me wonder, like, you know, where do I belong in this place? You know, like, if we can't figure out, like, we all, you have, we have kids, you know? Like, if you can't trust the leaders to remove real big obstacles for our children, because you can, right? We've had it with, you used to be able to nurse your baby in the backseat. Now they have to be in a car seat. Why is that?

• 54:41Rich Roll?

  Didn't, uh, Delta Airlines get dragged because they supported that voter suppression law?

• 54:47Adam Skolnick?

  Did they?

• 54:48Rich Roll?

  There was something about that. I just, I don't know enough about it. There was a headline.

• 54:51Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 54:52Rich Roll?

  About that. But, but Atlanta, is Atlanta the Delta Hub?

• 54:56Adam Skolnick?

  Atlanta is the Delta Hub.

• 54:57Rich Roll?

  Yeah, so I don't know. It must have something to do with that.

• 55:00Adam Skolnick?

  And then you have Boulder, like, that's Atlanta. And then in Boulder, you have, this is what? They had Columbine in 99, Aurora in the movie theater shooting. They had something in Colorado Springs at the abortion clinic. And now you have King Supers in Boulder.

• 55:14Rich Roll?

  That's right.

• 55:14Adam Skolnick?

  Um, and they've had, like, I think there's more, if you count any multiples of people getting shot and killed, it's, it's beyond those four. But those are like the four real big mass shootings. And it just keeps happening in Colorado.

• 55:30Adam Skolnick?

  So, before we die, there is one thing, right? So, that I've been thinking about. And that is, if you look at the Vietnam War protests and what happened then, right? The reason that that turned and we were, and we got out of Vietnam, was a couple, there were some major reasons. One of them, though, is that the draft had happened. And you couldn't get out of it anymore. And so now, all of a sudden, teenagers realized it was their own life and death at stake. It was no longer just about this dodgy war and this oppression of people far, far away, and this military industrial complex. It was about, I might get drafted and I might die, right?

• 56:13Adam Skolnick?

  And so, people went nuts and they hit the streets and it grew and it grew and it grew. And eventually, the government caved. Well, we have now have, we need an uprising like that because more Americans have died of gun violence in America than have been killed in every single war combined.

• 56:33Adam Skolnick?

  So, so it is a direct threat to us all. We, it's just a diffused threat. We don't feel it.

• 56:39Rich Roll?

  That diffusion is at odds with, with progress, though, because we don't feel it or process it in the same way.

• 56:46Adam Skolnick?

  But it is as big a threat or a bigger threat.

• 56:49Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 56:49Adam Skolnick?

  And, and I think that's what it's gonna take. It's gonna take a massive grassroots mobilization like what we saw this summer with BLM, but around gun regulation. That's what it's going to take.

• 57:02Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's hard not to be pessimistic, though, because we've just been around this carousel so many times. And the outrage cycle just continues, right? It dissipates and then here we go again.

• 57:13Adam Skolnick?

  And you're right, if we can't get it done now, if we can't wave the filibuster for this, like,

• 57:18Rich Roll?

  I know.

• 57:19Adam Skolnick?

  What can we do?

• 57:20Rich Roll?

  I know.

• 57:22Adam Skolnick?

  And then there's a Supreme Court just waiting there as well.

• 57:24Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 57:25Adam Skolnick?

  So.

• 57:26Rich Roll?

  All right, well, more will be revealed. Um, let's move on. We got a couple more things we gotta talk about.

• 57:32Adam Skolnick?

  All right.

• 57:33Rich Roll?

  Should we talk about, um, it feels really like.

• 57:38Adam Skolnick?

  This is a bad segue. This is what they call a bad segue?

• 57:41Rich Roll?

  This is the worst segue ever. But we have this, um, my friend Toby Morse, shout out to Toby, uh, punk rocker from H2O, my friend, he's been on the show. I did his podcast. When I did his podcast, he had, uh, he had cans of this stuff called Liquid Death, which is a really bad segue from what we were just talking about.

• 58:03Adam Skolnick?

  Not a good segue.

• 58:04Rich Roll?

  But it's basically these cans that it looks like malt liquor. They're like 16 ounce, black and gold.

• 58:10Adam Skolnick?

  I remember those.

• 58:10Rich Roll?

  With like Gothic writing on it. It's basically sparkling water, though. It's like La Croix for punk rockers. And Toby just had like a whole, like multiple cases of this stuff just sent to the studio. So I just wanted to thank Toby and Liquid Death. I actually like how it tastes.

• 58:26Adam Skolnick?

  It's good.

• 58:28Rich Roll?

  But it's kind of hilarious, right? It's sort of like, if you're really dark and edgy, you can feel good about your sparkling water. I guess? I don't know. It's all marketing.

• 58:38Adam Skolnick?

  It's punk rock Pellegrino.

• 58:39Rich Roll?

  Basically, that's what it is, right? Um, let's talk about Seaspiracy.

• 58:44Adam Skolnick?

  Let's talk about it.

• 58:45Rich Roll?

  You hadn't watched it when you went out into the frigid Pacific, but you've watched it since.

• 58:49Adam Skolnick?

  I have watched, I've since watched it.

• 58:51Rich Roll?

  Right. So Seaspiracy, many of you have probably seen it by now. It premiered on Netflix last week. Produced by friend of the pod, Kip Anderson, who's the co-director along with Keegan Coon on Cowspiracy and What the Health. This film, he did not direct or co-direct. It was directed by Ali Tabrizi. And it basically is this comprehensive 360 look at what we're doing to our oceans.

• 59:19Rich Roll?

  It's a deep dive into marine destruction, corruption, and it's similar to Cowspiracy in that it, it, it kind of adopts a similar storytelling.

• 59:32Rich Roll?

  Architecture. And.

• 59:36Rich Roll?

  Dives into the conflicts of interest that exist between environmental groups that we trust to protect ecosystems, being funded by organizations that profit from marine exploitation, fishing industry, the marine park industry, et cetera. And it's very well done. The cinematography, the editing is compelling. Ali is, much like Kip in Cowspiracy, Ali is the protagonist. He's the filmmaker and the protagonist in this story, who goes on this adventure to learn more about what exactly is going on in our oceans. And I think it's very effective at revealing some uncomfortable truths about the fishing industry,

• 1:00:21Rich Roll?

  about the environmental organizations that are charged with protecting these waterways, and getting into some details about things like bycatch and farm-raised fish, the human rights implications and abuses that you see throughout Southeast Asia. And I was very impacted by it. I've been trying to get Kip and Ali on the podcast. Kip, I don't know if he wants people to know where he is, but he's not in the United States right now. Ali lives in London. I'd really like to get both of them on the show to talk about the

• 1:01:02Rich Roll?

  movie. I'm hopeful that at some point I can make that happen. But until then, it's just you and I, brother, talking about this movie. You had an interesting take on it, though.

• 1:01:11Adam Skolnick?

  I do. Well, I don't know if it's interesting, but I have a take. I think I have a few takes. One is, it's great to see a young filmmaker dive into this world with such passion and energy and heart. You know, he clearly loves the ocean, cares about it just like we do. And he's gifted with a camera, so.

• 1:01:28Rich Roll?

  It's crazy, though, those sequences of him as a kid, and he's literally wearing the Jacques Cousteau red hat, and he's got the striped shirt, like, you know, he was channeling, you could see his future, you know, being forecasted.

• 1:01:40Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah. And he cares a lot. And that's really important. And so I'm all for it. Powerful footage, especially at the end, and good call to action. So at the end as well, I don't want to spoil it. We don't want to spoil it, right? So but I do have some issues with it. And the overall one is of sensationalism. So he covers a grab bag of issues we've seen before in various documentaries and reporting, and in my opinion, covered better. The Cove, Ghost Fleet, when he gets into the issue with slavery and untie fishing boats, that was covered in a great movie in 2019, it came out called Ghost Fleet,

• 1:02:21Adam Skolnick?

  which is a profile of a Thai labor activist and Nobel Peace Prize nominee named Patima Tung Pu Chaiakul. And she is based in Thailand, and she's been responsible for liberating 7,000 Thai, Burmese, Lao, and Indonesian fishermen from these kinds of-

• 1:02:40Rich Roll?

  Well, we could, we could take these points, Siri Adam. I mean, I think in fairness to, to Ally and Kip, that movie, which I haven't seen, was a single-issue focused film that dove deep into that one thing, whereas Ally and Kip are trying to cover many different things. So they touch on those human rights abuses, but the whole movie isn't about that one single thing. And that's something that I knew almost nothing about, other than just sort of hearing about it tangentially.

• 1:03:07Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah. Yeah, that's true. I mean, I just think overall, there was this sense of taking the worst of the worst cases, like the Maui case in Scotland, cherry pick stats on fishing, going after third-party certification systems, which I think, you know, we talk about fair trade certification and products, which is the same thing as what the Marine Stewardship Council does. And, and kind of casting them as, in a very negative light.

• 1:03:39Adam Skolnick?

  And when there's much more nuance involved, I know about cherry pick stats with fishing because I did a story on overfishing. And it's very easy to find a stat that sounds very alarmist when you look at all the reports. But if you do deep dives, you find that different parts of the world have very different regulation bodies and governing bodies. And it's not as simple as it makes it sound. So when you're using the most sensationalistic data, it's not necessarily the best data. So I would just question that. There's this kind of maximum journalism is the later you are to the story, the smarter you have to be.

• 1:04:20Adam Skolnick?

  And because he's taking on so many different aspects of what's going on with our oceans, I think it's hard to get to that level.

• 1:04:30Rich Roll?

  Right, but you can't also, and I'll be devil's advocate here on behalf of the film, you have to appreciate the spotlight that these filmmakers are placing on some pretty horrific ills.

• 1:04:48Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 1:04:49Rich Roll?

  The misalignment of incentives in the labeling industry. I mean, the fact that, you know, basically these, you know, quote unquote nonprofits make their money off of granting labels. So they're inherently incentivized to grant these labels. And then when you have the interview with the guy and he's like, basically, I can't guarantee.

• 1:05:08Adam Skolnick?

  Well, the dolphin safe tuna situation. I'm not defending the dolphin safe tuna situation, but the Marine Stewardship Council is a nonprofit because it is created by, it is funded. You don't pay for certain.

• 1:05:22Rich Roll?

  Well, here's the thing. Certainly, there are people doing good things in the world. And there are well-intentioned activists and nonprofits out there that I have no doubt are making a positive impact in this space. Clearly, the point of this movie. I think if I was to read their minds was to provide an introductory course on where we've lost our way across a variety of different issues with respect to our relationship with the oceans. So whether it's commercial fishing with the trawling and the bycatch, whether it's shark fins, whether it's whaling, whether it's what's going on in Japan with

• 1:06:05Rich Roll?

  the dolphin slaughtering, like all of these things are horrible, horrible ills that most people are completely unaware of. So it's very energizing and enervating to watch this movie and realize that this might not be what you think it is. And your pescatarian diet, which you thought was on the better end of perhaps a more ecologically sound nutrition approach, perhaps might be misguided. When you realize that it basically disabuses you of this idea of the fisherman casting his pole into the sea and pulling out fish

• 1:06:46Rich Roll?

  one by one. And you realize the damage that commercial fishing is reaping irreparably on the oceans. When George Monbiot, who I think is a highlight of the movie, that guy I've been following him forever, he writes for The Guardian on a variety of environmental issues. He was so solid in the movie. And when he's talking about, basically, he just puts matters to rights in terms of how blunt he is about how bad this problem is. And Oppenlander, who also was in Cowspiracy, talking about how little of the oceans are actually protected, like what is it, 5% is meant to be?

• 1:07:21Adam Skolnick?

  5%.

• 1:07:21Rich Roll?

  But then it's actually like less than 1% that's actively protected and preserved in a responsible manner.

• 1:07:30Adam Skolnick?

  He probably means 1% is no catch zones and you're allowed to have recreational fishing in some MPAs. And I would guess, I would think that that 5% would preclude commercial fishing. Maybe there are some MPAs that allow some regulated commercial fishing. We've talked about the 30 by 30. That's something I wish this movie got into more, is that there is a movement afoot internationally to try to protect 30% of the oceans by 2030. And that means make them Real marine protected areas.

• 1:08:02Rich Roll?

  And that would demand, basically, you know, the movie makes the point that that requires a policing effort, right? Like, the open seas, it's, anything goes. And you see that being played out off the coast of Somalia and what led to, you know, basically, the whole pirate thing.

• 1:08:20Adam Skolnick?

  Right. Well, so the idea, if you're, if you haven't paid attention, I mean, this is a pretty well-covered area, but like Somalia's fishing, fisheries were decimated by international fishing units. And whether that was illegal, or whether they paid government, you know, officials in Somalia for the rights to go in and just take out all the fish. Basically, all these villages along the coast in Somalia then had to turn to piracy because they lost their food source. I would never defend trawling. I think commercial fishing has a lot of issues. I've written about it in the past, and I'm not in favor of unregulated fishing, illegal fishing. I think it's horrible. But when you make a movie, it would be nice if the

• 1:09:03Adam Skolnick?

  stats weren't cherry picked and if the issues weren't sensationalized, because they are important issues. And you want to make sure people understand them in a more nuanced way. If you use the worst-case scenario as your case study, then you go and start to try to have a conversation with somebody else about it later and try to really gather the energy. You end up in a conversation with someone who may be skeptical of your one movie awakening. Do you know what I'm saying? And so I think as a piece of journalism, which a documentary should be, it would be nice if just, if the facts were the facts and not used in a sensationalized way. That's my only point. But I do agree that highlighting these horrible things that are happening in the ocean is important. You know, I think

• 1:09:48Rich Roll?

  I mean, listen, if you watch the movie and the only thing you take from it is what's going on with bycatch and trawling?

• 1:09:53Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 1:09:54Rich Roll?

  Like, that's enough. Like, enough already. Look what we're doing to these oceans. And because it's out of sight, out of mind, we're completely blithe and unaware to the incredibly deleterious environmental impact. Like, when, who's the woman who's his hero at the end? The legendary?

• 1:10:11Adam Skolnick?

  Sylvia Earle.

• 1:10:12Rich Roll?

  Sylvia, yeah. And, and she's talking about?

• 1:10:14Adam Skolnick?

  She's fabulous.

• 1:10:15Rich Roll?

  Yeah, she's incredible, right? Like, she really anchors it. Like, she gives?

• 1:10:18Adam Skolnick?

  The end is fabulous.

• 1:10:19Rich Roll?

  She gives it a gravitas, I think, and allows, you know, you to really kind of Embrace the message because she's so highly credible.

• 1:10:28Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:28Rich Roll?

  And such a legend. But basically, her saying there is no such thing as sustainable fishing.

• 1:10:34Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 1:10:34Rich Roll?

  I believe that. Like, Oppenlander said that in Cow Spirit. He's like, fishing, you know, fishing is by definition overfishing at this point.

• 1:10:43Adam Skolnick?

  See, but that's not exactly. That's so.

• 1:10:46Rich Roll?

  But it is. And the extent to which we rely on a robust marine ecosystem to sequester carbon, I think is another point that Earl makes that's so important to understand. And how that's so much more important than, you know, we put a lot of attention on the rainforest, but we completely overlook the importance of marine ecosystems in this equation.

• 1:11:10Adam Skolnick?

  I agree. It's out of sight, out of mind. People don't care about the marine ecosystem, even though it's responsible for every second breath. The, the, the plant life in the ocean is a, is a carbon sequester, carbon sequester, carbon sequestration system that is number one in the world. Eighty percent or something of our carbon is sequestered in the ocean.

• 1:11:31Adam Skolnick?

  The, and the marine ecosystem's in trouble. Reeves are dying. We're losing kelp forests here. Even just here in Malibu, there, I don't know if you see them, but in, in, right around, starting right before Christmas and for several months, you get trawlers that come in from Marina Del Rey and then from Oxnard and Ventura. And they come and they scoop up squid. And they bring out their Christmas lights on their ships and they attract all this squid to the surface. And then they, they put their nets out and they bring them in. And often they bring in sea lions. And there's guns on these boats and they shoot sea lions sometimes because sea lion will bite your ass. Do they bring in dolphins? They very well might. We don't know.

• 1:12:14Adam Skolnick?

  There's not someone out there really patrolling that.

• 1:12:17Rich Roll?

  Well, that's the point of the movie.

• 1:12:18Adam Skolnick?

  Right, no, I agree with you.

• 1:12:19Rich Roll?

  These things are completely unpatrolled.

• 1:12:21Adam Skolnick?

  Totally agree with you. And there's, and, but.

• 1:12:25Adam Skolnick?

  There are people that will, there's gonna be an officer on, at the harbor when they come back in. So there, there is some control of it in the United States. I mean, there is some. But, you know, and sometimes there's observers on the boats.

• 1:12:37Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:12:38Adam Skolnick?

  That does happen. But we have problems just here. But at the same time, there is, are things we can do. Marine protected areas are one way of, of creating nurseries so fish can replenish. Like George said in the movie, leave the ocean alone. If you leave the ocean alone, it will replenish itself.

• 1:12:56Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:12:56Adam Skolnick?

  And, but the one issue I will say to say-

• 1:12:59Rich Roll?

  Or it was Paul Watson.

• 1:13:00Adam Skolnick?

  Paul Watson.

• 1:13:01Rich Roll?

  Who was the Sea Shepherd guy.

• 1:13:02Adam Skolnick?

  They both did, I think.

• 1:13:03Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:03Adam Skolnick?

  And, but, you know, to say, any fishing now is overfishing, I think is oversimplification. It's not exactly true. Like a spear fisherman goes out and shoots one fish, that's not overfishing.

• 1:13:16Rich Roll?

  Right, but I think it disabuses you of the idea that that's how fishing is performed. Like-

• 1:13:20Adam Skolnick?

  It depends where you're eating your fish, right? If you're buying commercial fish and you don't know where it's coming from, that's your problem.

• 1:13:27Rich Roll?

  But also, the, the movie hammers home the point that you, it's very difficult to know where your fish is coming from.

• 1:13:34Adam Skolnick?

  It's difficult to know.

• 1:13:34Rich Roll?

  Even if you're a well-minded, intentional consumer trying to purchase fish that was-

• 1:13:40Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 1:13:40Rich Roll?

  Raised in the, in, in, in a, in a, in a more, I guess I'll say more, I don't think there's, you know, it's like, I don't eat fish. But in a more responsible way, I guess.

• 1:13:50Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah. But there are, you know, there, there are changes in, in, he, he goes after fish farming. Paul Hawken thinks, uh, open ocean aquaculture is one of the top 20 things you can do and draw down. And, and open ocean aquaculture would be taking a fish farm, putting it in ocean where there's current that blows through. There's low-density pens. They're being fed feed that comes from algae, not from wild fish. And there are fish farms doing that. And it's a very small percentage, admittedly. And there is this dream of maybe somehow stringing, you know, clams and oysters off these pens, which feed off of the fish effluent, the poop and all of that, and grow. And you have kelp kind of growing at the same time. And you have this ecosystem to regenerate.

• 1:14:34Adam Skolnick?

  There are different ways of maybe approaching the problem. But the way, in this film, kind of all fish farms go under-

• 1:14:41Rich Roll?

  Predominant fish farm, though, is of the model that you see in Scotland. And I think it's-

• 1:14:46Adam Skolnick?

  That's the worst case scenario in the world. So my point is, you can't, if you take the worst case scenario in the world and say, "This is how it is," I don't know that's responsible journalism. I guess that's my problem.

• 1:14:57Rich Roll?

  Right. I don't know that Ally or Kip would call themselves journalists, though.

• 1:15:01Adam Skolnick?

  Right, right, right.

• 1:15:02Rich Roll?

  That's the thing.

• 1:15:03Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:03Rich Roll?

  Right. So you have to, you're looking at this through the lens of, through the eye of an investigative journalist. Like, that's your approach to the subject matter. That's not necessarily their approach. Their approach is more, certainly, like, it's more activist oriented, right? Like, so, understanding that, I think you can appreciate it for what it is and the message that it's trying to put out there. And the kind of, you know, energy that it's trying to bring to this discussion. So you can hate it, you can love it, you can disagree with it. But it's provocative enough to provoke conversations about the subject matter.

• 1:15:47Adam Skolnick?

  It's a hit.

• 1:15:48Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's a hit. It was in the top 10 on Netflix.

• 1:15:50Adam Skolnick?

  It's a hit.

• 1:15:50Rich Roll?

  It's crushing it. It's beautiful to watch, it's amazing. And let's just shout out, just for a minute, sorry I interrupted you.

• 1:15:57Adam Skolnick?

  No.

• 1:15:58Rich Roll?

  But how badass is that fucking sea shepherd boat?

• 1:16:04Adam Skolnick?

  I love it.

• 1:16:04Rich Roll?

  The Sam-

• 1:16:07Rich Roll?

  What's his name? The guy who started the, the guy who created, is it Sam, Sam Cedar? No, not Sam Cedar.

• 1:16:14Adam Skolnick?

  Who started Sea Shepherd?

• 1:16:15Rich Roll?

  No, no, no. He was a huge donor.

• 1:16:17Adam Skolnick?

  Oh.

• 1:16:18Rich Roll?

  To Sea Shepherd before he died of cancer.

• 1:16:19Adam Skolnick?

  I don't know who he is.

• 1:16:20Rich Roll?

  I think he created the Simpsons.

• 1:16:22Adam Skolnick?

  Oh.

• 1:16:23Rich Roll?

  So he made a ton of money. Sam Simpson?

• 1:16:25Adam Skolnick?

  No.

• 1:16:26Rich Roll?

  No, no, no. What am I doing? I'm gonna have to Google it right now.

• 1:16:28Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, Google it.

• 1:16:30Adam Skolnick?

  Well, Sea Shepherd, I love Sea Shepherd. I mean, what Sea Shepherd, and he goes with them in Liberia.

• 1:16:35Rich Roll?

  I can't believe I can't remember this.

• 1:16:36Adam Skolnick?

  And Sea Shepherd.

• 1:16:38Rich Roll?

  Sam Simon.

• 1:16:39Adam Skolnick?

  Sam Simon?

• 1:16:40Rich Roll?

  Yeah, the boat is called the Sam Simon.

• 1:16:42Adam Skolnick?

  I mean, he, Paul Watson, what he has done and their work, and just recently in The Great Australian Bite, to raise awareness, how much, like the Galapagos of South Australia, basically, and how much life there is there, and they stopped a big oil development project in, in South Australia with their work. I mean, it's just, they're, they're on the shortlist of my favorite environmental organizations.

• 1:17:06Rich Roll?

  Incredible.

• 1:17:06Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:06Rich Roll?

  Incredible what they're doing.

• 1:17:08Adam Skolnick?

  Incredible people.

• 1:17:08Rich Roll?

  Also, shout out to friend of the pod, Paul DeGelder.

• 1:17:12Adam Skolnick?

  Oh, yeah, it was great to see him.

• 1:17:14Rich Roll?

  Dropping truth bombs on sharks.

• 1:17:15Adam Skolnick?

  He was fabulous.

• 1:17:15Rich Roll?

  He was amazing, yeah.

• 1:17:16Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah. I mean, you're right, it is a great primer. Like, if you're not familiar with these issues, I'm probably too familiar with these issues, so then I get grumpy.

• 1:17:24Rich Roll?

  Well, you're just, you're getting caught up in the details, Adam, come on. These, it's like, human rights, you know, trawling.

• 1:17:32Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:33Rich Roll?

  Buy catch, shark fin soup, like, all these things are, are new ideas to a lot of people.

• 1:17:38Adam Skolnick?

  That's right.

• 1:17:39Rich Roll?

  And we just think the ocean is, you know, a resource that will give and give and give forever, and to appreciate just how delicate it is, and how, and how misinformed so many of us are. I mean, one of the things that I liked a lot was the whole, you know, talking about microplastics, and how all that, all the energy goes into, you know, no straws and all of that, and how little of an impact that is in comparison to what's really going on, and where we should be placing our focus.

• 1:18:10Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah. But, I mean, overfishing isn't as under-reported as he thinks it is, so like, but...

• 1:18:16Rich Roll?

  To the, to the average person, it is.

• 1:18:19Adam Skolnick?

  You think it is?

• 1:18:19Rich Roll?

  Not to you.

• 1:18:20Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:18:21Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:21Adam Skolnick?

  I mean... That's a good question, though. The one question that comes up for me when I think of these alternate, because he talks about plant-based shrimp and plant-based fish and these plant-based solutions, and there's shots of him eating it. The problem when you have, when you take this diffused kind of economy like fishing was, and certainly subsistence fishing is, and ranching and that kind of thing. Now, there's a whole industrial component, and it's, there are certainly big conglomerates doing some damage out there. But if you replace it with, you know, a few winners in this kind of capitalistic game

• 1:19:00Adam Skolnick?

  of, you know, there's a few companies doing these plant-based meats, is that, is that a good replacement? You know what I mean? Like, like, to get a few people rich and everybody else is a consumer, is that sustainable for the country, for the world?

• 1:19:17Rich Roll?

  Well, I mean, that's a whole other podcast that we could do. I mean, I can go way down the line with you on that. But right now, it may just be a few companies. But there's actually, like, if you canvass the startup landscape, there are tons and tons of companies that are innovating in the plant-based protein sector, all the way from plant-based alternatives to the cultivated meat landscape and all the, you know, wild stuff and innovations that are going on there. Certainly, some people are going to get rich, but these are very early days, and there's plenty of room. You know, Julie's got a plant-based dairy company that's very small right now. Like, nobody's stopping anybody from

• 1:19:57Adam Skolnick?

  Joining.

• 1:19:58Rich Roll?

  Yeah, placing, you know, making a footprint right now. And there's a lot of money that's being invested, because this is what consumers want. People want to believe that the food choices that they're making are doing right by the environment. And to the extent that you can develop a plant-based alternative to your favorite fish that is just as nutritionally valuable, that

• 1:20:23Rich Roll?

  Isn't harming the oceans and plays out in a carbon footprint sense better than marine life. Like, why wouldn't you do that? Like, that's the world that we're moving towards. That's the world that I would like to live in. And to kind of, you know, coin, um, the Sea Shepherd guy, what's his name again?

• 1:20:43Adam Skolnick?

  Paul Watson.

• 1:20:44Rich Roll?

  Paul Watson. Why do I, I told you I didn't sleep very well last night. Commander, right?

• 1:20:50Adam Skolnick?

  Commander.

• 1:20:50Rich Roll?

  Is it Captain? Um, he's like, look, we're on this, you know, we're on this, this, this blue spaceship hurtling, you know, across the universe. And we've got a life support system and we've got a crew. And when the crew starts to die at some point, these life support systems are going to start breaking down. And that's what we're happening. So leave the ocean alone. And we're so far from that right now, that any inroads in that direction are things that I'm going to celebrate.

• 1:21:19Adam Skolnick?

  There you go. Well, I'd love to, I can't wait to see his next film. He's very talented.

• 1:21:23Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm. He is, right? Cool. So check it out. Sea Spiritcy, streaming on Netflix.

• 1:21:39Rich Roll?

  Really quick, because we're, I don't want this to be a four hour podcast. Um, there's a new podcast out called Lost Hills. That's produced by Pushkin, which is Malcolm Gladwell's company.

• 1:21:50Adam Skolnick?

  Yep.

• 1:21:50Rich Roll?

  It's hosted by Dana Goodyear, who is a New Yorker writer. And it's all about, it's a true crime podcast series that explores these, this, this murder that took place in Malibu Creek State Park, which is literally my backyard.

• 1:22:09Adam Skolnick?

  And several attempted murders.

• 1:22:11Rich Roll?

  And several attempted murders. And this all took place in June, it was all around June 2018, uh, where, um, a guy called Tristan Bodett was camping with his two daughters and I think his brother in law, right? It's his brother in law and was shot like basically point blank. Um, I remember when this went down and this podcast series tells the behind the scenes story of how this happened, who did it, and so many more things that I was unaware of, which are shocking, given that this is my neighborhood.

• 1:22:44Adam Skolnick?

  It was right down the street from you.

• 1:22:45Rich Roll?

  Including this guy. Trying to pick off cars on Lost Virginus, shooting at ongoing cars on Lost Virginus, which is a road I drive on every day. And I remember when this transpired, how shocking it was to hear about this murder. But what you find out in listening to this podcast is that the car shootings took place earlier than that. And there were a couple other people who were shot at in the park, like backpackers and stuff. And none of this was reported to the public.

• 1:23:12Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 1:23:13Rich Roll?

  The Lost Hills Sheriff Department kept a lid on it. And I just, had they, had they, had they allowed people to know what was going on, certainly Tristan Bodett would not have gone camping there and would probably be alive today.

• 1:23:27Adam Skolnick?

  Probably.

• 1:23:27Rich Roll?

  And I just remember how details and little anecdotes and stories amongst people who live in the community started to eke out. We're like, what is going on? I think at some point, my daughters were going to a school that was right off Lost Virginus. And there was, they got, school was called off because they found a dead body nearby. And I mean, we're only on episode three of this thing, like more is going to happen. But this is a very idyllic part of the world, right? And Malibu Creek State Park is where I go running all the time, all the time. And I can't help but think, like, I tweeted, like,

• 1:24:03Adam Skolnick?

  Were you in his sights?

• 1:24:04Rich Roll?

  I tweeted, like, don't listen to the Lost Hills podcast while you're, while you're trail running in Malibu Creek State Park, which is exactly what I was doing.

• 1:24:11Adam Skolnick?

  You're, you're like the guy at the beginning of the No R movie, running through the hills.

• 1:24:14Rich Roll?

  Right. Wow, this is an amazing true crime podcast, getting shot at, you know? It's unbelievable. But there's a lot of interesting Malibu characters that pop up in the storytelling, who are all people that I know. And, you know, because I

• 1:24:28Adam Skolnick?

  You know Cece?

• 1:24:29Rich Roll?

  I do know Cece. I mean, she's a

• 1:24:31Adam Skolnick?

  She comes off well, I think.

• 1:24:33Rich Roll?

  She's, she's a local muckracker, muckraker. I've met her a couple of times. I just know that, you know, she, I don't know her that well, but I would, you know, I see her on Facebook going off about this or that, the other thing. But she's the one who really got traction on this whole thing and got people to pay attention to it.

• 1:24:51Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, she, she, she rattled the cage of Lost Hills Station and, and, you know,

• 1:24:57Rich Roll?

  I mean, I drove by

• 1:24:58Adam Skolnick?

  Exposed them.

• 1:24:59Rich Roll?

  The Lost Hills Sheriff Department on my way here today. Like, it's literally our local police department.

• 1:25:04Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 1:25:05Rich Roll?

  So it's just surreal and bizarre to listen to this podcast.

• 1:25:08Adam Skolnick?

  You don't feel very protected, do you?

• 1:25:10Rich Roll?

  Well, it's all fine now. I won't give it away. But anyway, it's very well done. Dana and the Pushkin team and everybody who worked on the show. I've only listened to the first three episodes, but it's it's pretty fascinating.

• 1:25:22Adam Skolnick?

  If you like true crime.

• 1:25:23Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:23Adam Skolnick?

  And you like LA Noir.

• 1:25:25Rich Roll?

  Where it's at, right?

• 1:25:25Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, it's great. I could definitely, I can't wait for the for the series.

• 1:25:31Rich Roll?

  It will definitely end up as a series, right? Or a movie of the week or something like that.

• 1:25:34Adam Skolnick?

  It's like, what's the, what was the Dirty John?

• 1:25:37Rich Roll?

  Podcast model now, right? I mean, Wondery built its whole business on that. Dirty John is a Wondery show, like just taking the, you know, these true crime podcasts and adapting them for television and movies.

• 1:25:50Adam Skolnick?

  It's gonna be good.

• 1:25:50Rich Roll?

  So I want to do a giveaway.

• 1:25:53Adam Skolnick?

  Yep.

• 1:25:54Rich Roll?

  I got some hats here. If you're watching on YouTube, Rich Roll Podcast hats. We got a black one. We got a black and white one. We got a white and black one. And also, some of these t-shirts. I never wear like my own schwag, but this is the official.

• 1:26:08Adam Skolnick?

  Dude, I'd wear your schwag.

• 1:26:09Rich Roll?

  Rich Roll Podcast t-shirt. So I want to give away five hats and five t-shirts. There are three steps to pitch in for this. The first is subscribe to the YouTube channel. The second is share one of your favorite YouTube episodes on social media. Take a screen grab and email that grab and subscription confirmation to [email protected] and we will pick five people for a hat and five people for a t-shirt. How's that sound?

• 1:26:40Adam Skolnick?

  Sounds good.

• 1:26:41Rich Roll?

  I still also, I've been remiss, the book giveaway that we did the other day.

• 1:26:45Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, what about?

• 1:26:45Rich Roll?

  I gotta go through the comments and pick the pick the winners for that.

• 1:26:48Adam Skolnick?

  You haven't done it yet?

• 1:26:49Rich Roll?

  No, we haven't done that. That's not a good look, right? I gotta, I'll take care of that this week for sure. Also, getting a lot of comments about these coffee mugs, the Rich Roll Podcast coffee mugs. We didn't, we just have a couple here for the studio, but so many people seem excited about it.

• 1:27:05Adam Skolnick?

  That's not a mug, that's an NFT.

• 1:27:07Rich Roll?

  This is an, this doesn't actually exist. Well, if you're watching it on YouTube, it doesn't exist in a three dimensional space, right?

• 1:27:13Adam Skolnick?

  We need to start like taking the drinks out of our hands as we're sipping them so that people wonder if they're really NFTs.

• 1:27:20Rich Roll?

  You're going down the Matrix rabbit hole. Have you been red pilled, Adam?

• 1:27:24Adam Skolnick?

  I can't. I have a friend who right now is probably still typing, trying to red pill me.

• 1:27:29Rich Roll?

  Right. And by the way, this Liquid Death sparkling water, I'm enjoying it, but they didn't sponsor the show or anything like that. It was just a gift from the company and from Toby. So.

• 1:27:39Adam Skolnick?

  It's a comforting gift.

• 1:27:40Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Let's do win of the weeks.

• 1:27:42Adam Skolnick?

  You go.

• 1:27:42Rich Roll?

  Wins of the week, I should say. My, my big win of the week is my buddy Robbie Ballinger, another friend of the pod. He, many of you might recall, he came on after he ran across America in 2019. Well.

• 1:27:59Adam Skolnick?

  As you do.

• 1:27:59Rich Roll?

  Yeah, as, as you do, right? Last week, March 20th, he set the FKT, the fastest known time for most laps logged in Central Park. It's called the Central Park Loop Challenge. In one day, he did 16 laps for just over, almost 100 miles, 98.49 miles in 18 hours, 7 minutes and 43 seconds. He broke the record by five loops. It's a six mile loop. Have you ever run that loop in Central Park?

• 1:28:28Adam Skolnick?

  No.

• 1:28:29Rich Roll?

  Oh, gotta do it, man.

• 1:28:30Adam Skolnick?

  I know.

• 1:28:31Rich Roll?

  It's the great, it's my favorite, one of my favorite runs in the whole world.

• 1:28:33Adam Skolnick?

  I haven't done the whole loop. I've done a piece of it.

• 1:28:36Rich Roll?

  It's got a surprising amount of elevation. People think, oh, you just run around, it's flat, it's New York City. But on the north end, as you're kind of rounding the corner and starting to head, head sort of southwest, there's a huge hill there. So over the course of the day, Robbie ended up bagging, what was the elevation? It was something like 4,800, yeah, 4,800 feet of, of gain. And the way this whole work, this works, the rules are, you have from five minutes after the park opens at 6 a.m. to five minutes before it closes at 1 a.m. to run as many loops as possible. So he absolutely crushed

• 1:29:16Rich Roll?

  it. Super cool to see this thing happen. And I just so happened coincidentally to do. A photo shoot with the guys from 10,000 who were sponsoring Robbie in this endeavor. The guys who documented that came out and we did a shoot the other day. So they were telling me all about like what it was like, like they were behind him on skate. They're like two dudes from San Diego and they were on skateboards and like getting all this cool stuff with them. And they gave me all this behind the scenes on just how badass the whole thing was.

• 1:29:49Adam Skolnick?

  How about those last five loops? He'd already broken it and you know, there must've been a great temptation to just be like, okay, cool. I already got it. Like, how do you keep going for like another five?

• 1:29:58Rich Roll?

  Because he's got like, probably had like six hours left, you know? So he wasn't gonna quit.

• 1:30:03Adam Skolnick?

  Still, like that kind of stuff, like it's impressive. Like I could see the first victory lap, but after a while you're like, should I keep like that last lap? I don't need it. I'm already four laps ahead.

• 1:30:14Rich Roll?

  I think what was driving him was to get 100 miles. So I think after he got his 16 laps, which was just under 100 miles, I think he ran until he eclipsed 100. Even though it doesn't count because it wasn't a whole other full loop, right? Anyway, shout out to Robbie and classic. Instead of just going home and putting on the Normatec boots and chilling, he ends up joining this guy, Hella Sidiby.

• 1:30:40Adam Skolnick?

  What?

• 1:30:40Rich Roll?

  On in the Navajo Nation. Hella is in the middle of doing his own run across America. I did not, I was not familiar with Hella until Robbie put him on my radar. But Hella is in the midst of his transcontinental attempt and Robbie dropped in on him in the Navajo Nation and ran some segments with him, which I thought was pretty cool.

• 1:31:01Adam Skolnick?

  Right after this?

• 1:31:02Rich Roll?

  Yeah, right, like right after this, basically, which is crazy. So Hella is new on my radar, but I wanted to give him a shout out. He seems to be a guy who's just brimming with inspiration. He seems super cool. He's at HellaGood9, H E L L A H Good and then the number nine on Instagram. So give him a follow, give him a shout and put a little wind in his sails.

• 1:31:27Adam Skolnick?

  Love it.

• 1:31:27Rich Roll?

  What do you got? We're going to talk about free diving under the ice.

• 1:31:30Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, I'll just talk about Alexei Molchinnov again. He dove 80 meters under the ice in a Siberian lake called Lake Baikal. He's an ambassador for this lake now. It's one of the largest freshwater lakes in the world. It goes hundreds of meters deep in different areas. It's got, I think, it's like one of the biggest expanses of freshwater there is in the world, just in terms of volume, maybe the biggest. And it has freshwater seals and all sorts of stuff. And there's villages on the shores and there's been environmental issues with Lake Baikal. And so part of his, the reason he did the dive was to kind of raise awareness for this great lake.

• 1:32:14Adam Skolnick?

  But yeah, so he decided, you know, it was a couple of years ago, he's got the deepest dive in the history of the sport with a monofin, 130 meters. He's got the record for free immersion, which is pulling down the rope at 125 meters. You pull down a rope and then you pull back, no fringes at all. And, and so he's featured in my book, One Breath, and I've known him since I first started covering this sport in 2013. I've spent time in Russia with him and with his mother, who has since passed. His mother is Natalia Molchenova, and she was the greatest in the history of the sport. And she just appeared in 2015 freediving on a fun dive.

• 1:32:55Adam Skolnick?

  And, and overnight he had to kind of take control of the entire business that he had, his mother had built. And so this story is about this dive and it's also about that experience for him and recovering from that. And one thing I wanted to just kind of bring up was this, this idea of deconcentration. That's something that Natalia taught in freediving. And it's a tool that basically you don't, you try to deconcentrate, you don't focus on the discomforts of the freedive. You don't focus on the need to breathe, you don't focus on the busyness at the surface, you don't even focus on how beautiful things are down below. Everything is at a remove and that allows you to stay more present and, and more broad.

• 1:33:40Adam Skolnick?

  And, and it makes it. Puts you in more control. It's kind of like almost a Taoist way of looking at things.

• 1:33:46Rich Roll?

  Right. I'm thinking like this is an approach that I that I would like to apply to my life.

• 1:33:51Adam Skolnick?

  Exactly. So deconcentration as a tool for diving in life, right? And it's exactly, that's exactly it. And you know, if you ask Alexi, what, what is the sport of freediving to you? He says, it's about the mind. And this is a, he's a great athlete. He's got, you know, incredibly thick thighs and calves. He works out, he pumps iron, he does yoga, he does everything. And he's an incredibly fit athlete at 34. But for him to say that, that just shows you what you can do with your mind.

• 1:34:22Adam Skolnick?

  And so I just thought that was cool. So we'll link to that story.

• 1:34:26Rich Roll?

  How many meters did he go?

• 1:34:27Adam Skolnick?

  80 meters in, in, what did we say?

• 1:34:30Rich Roll?

  39 degrees.

• 1:34:31Adam Skolnick?

  39 degree, 36 degree water, 34 degree water. And you know, they, they cut the ice with chainsaws and these Siberians built an ice sauna right there next to the hole, which isn't in the story. But they actually literally built out of these bricks of ice, nine tons of ice. They built this sauna, they heated with hot stones and they cut another hole in the sauna. And so after he, he did the dive, he came back out and the whole crew came back out. And they like basically had a, had a celebration in the ice sauna. And they would like going in the sauna and then diving into the water and coming back out. And that's how they celebrated. So pretty cool adventure.

• 1:35:10Rich Roll?

  I mean, imagine being 80 meters under the water in 36 degree temp.

• 1:35:18Adam Skolnick?

  The day before he was trying to figure out what, what thickness of the wet suit was.

• 1:35:23Rich Roll?

  The, the, the composure that you would have to have to not lose it.

• 1:35:29Adam Skolnick?

  He talks about that, like when you get down that deep, what you want to do is kick hard to get back. Cause you know how far you have to go, but you can't. Because it's like an oxygen savings account in your body and all the oxygen's in your blood. And it's going to burn if you kick harder and harder. So you have to tell yourself, even though your body's like rebelling, you're getting these contractions where your body's trying to inflate your lungs, but you can't. The pressure is heavy and you can't open your mouth for obvious reasons. And so you have to kick and keep your composure, the deconcentration.

• 1:36:05Rich Roll?

  And knowing that your mother died doing this.

• 1:36:08Adam Skolnick?

  Knowing that too, but of course, his position is if he had been there, she would not have. Because there wasn't a, there was not a safety diver at her level that was there. At the time, so it was a mistake. But, um. You know, pretty amazing. He had just come from the Maldives, by the way, diving in tropical water.

• 1:36:25Rich Roll?

  That's a quite a contrast.

• 1:36:28Adam Skolnick?

  He had one day to practice in the lake.

• 1:36:30Rich Roll?

  I would, I would opt for the Maldives. I'd stick around there.

• 1:36:34Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, well, you know, he, and he's, what's cool about it is the winter is the off season for most of these professional freedivers. And a couple of years ago, he decided, you know, I'm going to add some winter diving, just something else fun to do. When he's not busy like teaching diving, he just had, his wife just had a baby too. So he's got, you know, a million things going on. But he also has the record for the longest dive, 180 something meters in a, in a quarry.

• 1:36:58Rich Roll?

  How dark is it when you're 80 meters down? Underneath Siberian ice.

• 1:37:03Adam Skolnick?

  I mean, it's dark 80 meters down, even in the ocean, in the tropical, in, in tropical water. But in Siberian ice, that's like black ice. It's basically midnight. However, um, he had a safety diver, a technical diver, excuse me, at the bottom. Taking footage, but also there in case something happened and another one at 45 meters. And those guys had cameras and lights. So there was periods of, of places where there was lights. And then the, the bottom plate itself was illuminated and he has a light, like a miner's light. That he also like a pen light that he uses, um, even in deep dives in the ocean. So, but it's still dark most of the time. And then he gets down to the bottom and it must've been like blinding for him. It was a three minute dive.

• 1:37:43Rich Roll?

  So a sequel to, to one breath, two breaths. One and a half breaths.

• 1:37:49Adam Skolnick?

  Can I use that?

• 1:37:50Rich Roll?

  Yeah, you can use that. That one's free, buddy.

• 1:37:53Adam Skolnick?

  What, the first one's free.

• 1:37:55Rich Roll?

  Hats off, Alexi Shepoe. That's incredible. Um, all right, let's do some listener questions.

• 1:38:01Adam Skolnick?

  All right. So the first one, I'm gonna read because it came in via email all the way from Durban, South Africa. "Good day, Mr. Roll. Thank you so much for an amazing, powerful podcast. You truly are an inspiration to me. I am a pediatrician working in Durban and have been running for the last three years now. As with any sport, I sought out books on running and came across Finding Ultra on audio. It was tremendous and I still listen to it on the odd day to gain inspiration. Following the audiobook, I naturally started listening to every podcast of yours. Slowly but surely, I started to adjust my diet and lifestyle with more veggie days than usual. On one bright morning on my way to work, I listened to an episode which featured Ingrid Newkirk, and that evening I told my wife I was stopping meat and dairy.

• 1:38:44Adam Skolnick?

  That was around the 8th of May 2020, and since then I've been gaining all the benefits from the change. I feel that there were many straws that were placed onto the camel's back to eventually get me to that point, but I can assure you that if it was not for your life story and podcast, I wouldn't be at the most fulfilling time of my life. I did want to ask a question on Roll On, but being in South Africa, I'm not able to leave a voice note. My question deals with how to properly address being with my friends nowadays, as I find it difficult to still hang out and spend time with them. I've actually become quite an introvert and spend more time with matters dealing with work and family, which I prefer and enjoy thoroughly. Is this something you initially experienced?"

• 1:39:26Rich Roll?

  This is a great question. Thank you, Kumaran. Kumaran Mudli.

• 1:39:33Adam Skolnick?

  Kumaran Mudli.

• 1:39:34Rich Roll?

  That's an incredible name. So a couple of observations before I answer the question. A, unbelievable name. Two, pediatrician spelled P-A-E. I appreciate that.

• 1:39:44Adam Skolnick?

  Are we sure that wasn't a...

• 1:39:47Rich Roll?

  Like the sort of the Commonwealth spelling?

• 1:39:50Adam Skolnick?

  Oh, yeah. I'm sorry. I thought that was a typo.

• 1:39:52Rich Roll?

  And then thirdly, I like how it was a bright morning on his way to work when he listened to that podcast.

• 1:39:58Adam Skolnick?

  He's got the writerly gift. I'm sorry, Kumaran, for not saying it was you who sent in the note.

• 1:40:03Rich Roll?

  Yes, Kumaran Mudli.

• 1:40:04Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 1:40:05Rich Roll?

  So if I'm understanding this correctly, my sense is that Kumaran's introversion...

• 1:40:14Rich Roll?

  Is motivated, at least in part, by a shift in his value system, which in turn is creating this growing distance or valley between what he cares about and that which his peers value. And it appears that he feels sheepish about just being who he is with his friends, which is not a good place to be. So I guess my first question is, is this this move towards becoming more withdrawn and introverted because you're afraid of being judged? Or because your values have shifted such that you now feel

• 1:40:56Rich Roll?

  you have less in common with those people that you had been spending time with? If it's the former, again, not a fun place to be. So I would encourage you to do a little internal inventory on what the downsides are of just being who you are in your fully expressed state. If your friends castigate you, then are they really your friends, right? If you feel like, if I tell them that I'm vegan or whatever else is going on with him, and they're gonna mock him or make fun of him, maybe some of that is just friendly repartee. But if there's something more judgmental, deeper beneath that, then it's a question of really, you know,

• 1:41:40Rich Roll?

  how valuable are these people to you? If you feel insecure just being you, then what does that say about you and the environment that you keep? Which is a way of saying, I'm not necessarily answering the question, but suggesting things for you to evaluate or think about. I think personally that, Kamaran, you should feel super proud of the changes that you've made for yourself. Like you're basically making an investment in yourself. It's agreeing with you. You feel good about these decisions that you've made. And you should feel comfortable expressing that without fear of reproach. So. I would do two things. I would look more deeply within yourself to examine that insecurity,

• 1:42:22Rich Roll?

  if that's the case, that's motivating the introversion and try to figure out what is that about. And if it's your environment, then the good news is you can change your environment and start surrounding yourself with more like-minded people. So it kind of leaves him with two options. First, the choice to maintain your friendships. And I think it's okay to care for people who see the world very differently. And hopefully your friends can do the same in your direction. And again, if they're true friends, they should respect your values as you do theirs. Meanwhile, it's not incumbent upon you to change them or for them to change you. So it's about finding a way to gracefully coexist

• 1:43:06Rich Roll?

  with these people that you care about. The second thing is that I would encourage you to consider that perhaps this trepidation around your friends, and it's difficult to answer this question because I just don't know enough about this dynamic, but it's possible that this dynamic of fear lives larger in your mind than in reality. And the only analogy that I can share is that when I quit drinking, I thought like, oh, my God, like, everyone's going to know I'm not drinking, or I'm not going to be able to hang out with my friends, because if I'm not drinking and they are, they're not going to like me, or I'm not going to be able to participate. And what I've discovered over time is that, like, people are self-absorbed,

• 1:43:51Rich Roll?

  like, they don't give a shit, right? Like, no one cared. And if somebody did care, then I knew, like, that person wasn't really my friend to begin with. At the same time, you can also seek out new friends who share your values with whom you feel comfortable being who you really are, because you can't be a healthy, actualized individual if you feel muted, whether that that sort of self-editing is emanating from within or from without. So what are you running from? What are you running towards? What are you hiding from your friends? And is that fear real? Or is that fear imagined?

• 1:44:32Rich Roll?

  I think, you know, the other thing that I'm getting, the sense I'm getting is that that there's a loneliness to all of this. You know, I tweeted one time, "You can't break paradigms and expect to be embraced by the mainstream." The idea being like, if you're gonna do something that's kind of outside of, you know, what your social environment approves of, or that is in alignment with what your peers are doing, that can be a difficult, lonely place. But it's also an opportunity for you to invest in your own values and to work on healthy boundaries around what's okay and what's not okay for yourself. And if you can do that, you will experience a boost in self-esteem. So I think

• 1:45:15Rich Roll?

  a lot of this does emanate from some esteem issues, so maybe look at that as well. But if you can say, "This is who I am, and I'm gonna stand on my own two feet and, you know, be that individual." It doesn't mean that you have a megaphone and you're trying to convince other people to share your values, but just to be comfortable in your own skin is a very self-affirming, self-actualized, self-esteem-building endeavor for yourself.

• 1:45:42Adam Skolnick?

  He does call it the most fulfilling time of his life, so maybe there's an aspect of it that is also very expansive. So it's like a contraction and an expansion at the same time. Like, he's feeling connected in ways that he hadn't before, maybe in the old life.

• 1:45:55Rich Roll?

  But in a way that makes him feel alienated from those friends. Like, my sense is just that he's changed, and his friends are in a different place, and he's trying to figure out how to connect with those people and is not able to do that right now.

• 1:46:09Adam Skolnick?

  Right. That's very good advice, sir. And so you're, he was asking if you experienced it, the only experience you can relate to?

• 1:46:15Rich Roll?

  I didn't really experience it with changing my diet so much, but I did experience it when I quit drinking, for sure. And what you realize is so much of it is in your head.

• 1:46:26Adam Skolnick?

  Do you think it helped that being an athlete in college and just knowing people in that space, like, having a fitness and a nutrition regimen is normal, right? So it's like, it wasn't like...

• 1:46:36Rich Roll?

  No, but I mean, I mean, certainly I had to deal with a lot of like, what? You're not eating this and why are you eating that? And, you know, I don't know. I guess I, I had done enough because I had been sober for a long time. I had some tools.

• 1:46:49Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:46:50Rich Roll?

  For how to deal with all of that. So it wasn't as challenging or difficult. But being newly sober was very confusing and, you know, and alienating and all of the stuff that he's sharing, I can relate to from that period of my life.

• 1:47:04Adam Skolnick?

  Nice one. Well, thanks, Kumaran. Congrats on all the progress in your own life.

• 1:47:08Rich Roll?

  Absolutely.

• 1:47:09Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:47:09Rich Roll?

  And congrats on the name.

• 1:47:12Adam Skolnick?

  All right. Let's see.

• 1:47:14Rich Roll?

  So we got Casey from Austin.

• 1:47:16Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:47:17Speaker 02

  Hey, Rich and Adam. This is Casey. I'm in Austin, Texas. So I have friends that are always really intrigued by the plant-based diet I eat and they always want to know more, but they never commit. And I, and I'm wondering, you know, what do you say to your friends that are interested in going plant-based? Really interested to hear your answer. And then a kind of a follow-up on that is meat eating tends to have like this masculine tendency, like people feel masculine and it's kind of like one of those things that you attach to whenever you're like a, like a man, right? That's what I find with my friends at least. I'm wondering, how do we, how do we make eating plant-based more masculine?

• 1:47:59Speaker 02

  I don't know if that makes sense, but it's just something that I've been trying, that I've been showing with my head. Not that I don't feel that way, but more just to make my friends see it as like less of a, less of a weakness, if that makes sense. So anyways, thanks for taking my call. Adam, great job on the four by four by 48. Actually, hearing you that you were going to do it, um, kind of inspired me to do it and had a great experience as well. Have a good one, guys.

• 1:48:27Rich Roll?

  Awesome.

• 1:48:27Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:48:28Rich Roll?

  Congrats, Casey, on the four by four by 48. That's cool.

• 1:48:32Adam Skolnick?

  Congrats, Casey.

• 1:48:34Rich Roll?

  This is a great question. It's a pretty common one. I mean, the first thing I would say, Casey, is just, just get out of the business of being attached to whether your friends do or do not adopt a plant-based diet. Like, it's just, it's, it's a, it's a recipe for, for frustration. So I try to, you know, kind of in a, if you look at it through the lens of like codependency, like I just try to be not invested in what my friends or other people do or, or don't do. And you can still be an advocate for the things that you believe in without getting caught up in the results of that activity. So I would just say that upfront. Second to that, the best way to kind of carry the message is to fan the flames

• 1:49:19Rich Roll?

  of positive change and be the example that you want these guys to see. So if you want to dispel the myth that eating a plant-based diet is somehow feminine, is feminine, if you want to be, you know, a masculine example, then, then be that person and stand in the light and live your life accordingly. And I think that's more resonant and more impactful than anything that's going to come out of your mouth. If your friends are, it sounds like some of them are interested, they kind of dance around this, just have them watch the Game Changers documentary. I mean, that, that documentary does a pretty good job of diving into that very issue.

• 1:49:57Speaker 02

  Agreed.

• 1:49:58Rich Roll?

  And most dudes find it to be pretty impactful. If they don't just, you know, unless they, you know, there's a, there's a sort of bro tendency to just switch, switch off, you know, and be like, I can't hear this. But if they are somewhat receptive, that would be the first resource that I would direct those guys to. Again, just detach from your expectations. If, if they don't commit, it's not your business. So the idea is that it's about attraction rather than promotion, which is kind of a sobriety thing. You want to be the lighthouse. I know I keep talking about this. I keep hammering on this point, but stand in the light and be a tractor beam. Attract those like-minded people into your life rather than trying to compel other people to see the world

• 1:50:40Rich Roll?

  the, the way that you see it. And I think you also have to respect the fact that this masculine meat eater stereotype is just so crazy embedded in society. It's very difficult to Untangle a knot that was wound decades ago in that person's life. Like our whole lives, we were told or hammered home the idea that eating meat is what it means to be a man. And you can't snap your fingers and have somebody suddenly, you know, not believe that anymore when they've been told that a bazillion times. Or just society reinforces that constantly everywhere that you you turn. So I get the dilemma.

• 1:51:26Rich Roll?

  And I think, you know, on a personal level, it's one of the reasons that I've been over indexing on the gym and on strength work lately. Like I do, like I have this idea, like, I'm not really racing right now. So why don't I get jacked? You know, why don't I get big and strong? I turned 55 in October and I can be a vehicle for dispelling that very myth. And that's kind of what I've been focused on lately.

• 1:51:52Adam Skolnick?

  That's one of your, one of your goals, right?

• 1:51:54Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I'm going to play volleyball in the next Top Gun movie. That's the goal.

• 1:52:00Adam Skolnick?

  Are you going to be the Tom Skerritt of the next Top Gun movie?

• 1:52:02Rich Roll?

  I might be that old by that time, you know, I don't know.

• 1:52:07Rich Roll?

  Anyway, yeah, like be, be, be the example that you would like to see. I guess it's the point that I'm trying to make and, and, and understand that change is difficult. And in the best case, best case is it's gradual and nonlinear. So if you have your friend, the good news is it seems like you have friends that are kind of interested in what you're doing. So that's cool. Like I said, fan the flames of positive change and, and, and put out the welcome mat, you know, and make them feel excited and energized by what this adventure might look like and couch it in the context of, of, you know, including new things into your diet rather than like what you're not eating, like focus on like, hey, this amazing recipe. You've never tasted anything so good and try to like blow their minds.

• 1:52:51Rich Roll?

  You have to make it appealing. If you want to appeal to the masculine mind, you've got to make this something that is compelling for that person to change their mind. And that's not an easy task. So in the meantime, live your life well. That's really the most powerful way to advocate.

• 1:53:09Adam Skolnick?

  I think it's great. The only thing I would add is, yeah, I could totally understand where you're coming from. I'm sure in Texas, not to stereotype Texas or anything, but I'm sure that's even doubly so. You know, like the call to the meat and like with that.

• 1:53:22Rich Roll?

  But also it's Austin.

• 1:53:24Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, right.

• 1:53:24Rich Roll?

  I mean, like Austin's a pretty vegan friendly place. But it's vegan in a hippie way, but it's also the home of Rip Esselstyn, the king himself, the founder of the whole. Like, he's the first plant-based athlete that I'd ever heard of. Like, he's the grandpappy.

• 1:53:40Adam Skolnick?

  And so you, you know, you have an opportunity, you could throw a party. There's ways of doing it where you could like just cater your own event.

• 1:53:47Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:53:47Adam Skolnick?

  Where people are like trying it for the first time. But I think what you're saying is perfect. Just be the lighthouse, be who you are. I also think it's idea of like the masculine stuff, that's not for you to worry about. Like, you know, like it's interesting. The next question kind of plays in this. We have friends and then we're going into talking about masculinity, which is something I never talk about really. I never even think about. But it is interesting, the concepts of masculinity, what that means to young guys.

• 1:54:17Adam Skolnick?

  I think it's okay to separate from that and not even deal with that. It's like not on your radar.

• 1:54:21Rich Roll?

  But the problem there and why this is so core to the whole thing is that it's what makes it, it's the difference between habit change, like I'm gonna break this habit or I'm gonna adopt a new habit and identity change. Like identity, like this speaks to the core of who I am. Like I'm a man and a man behaves in this manner. I do X, Y, and Z. And now you're telling me I can't do this thing. That's a threat to how I see myself. And so you've got to rewire that whole programming. So it's much more difficult than just saying, hey, maybe don't eat that thing because it's not good for you.

• 1:54:56Adam Skolnick?

  Right. Well, I think Game Changers is the perfect place to go. And if you think about it, if you're an NBA fan, Chris Paul. Low key went plant-based, didn't make a big deal about it and his whole career, like he became injury free and dominated all of last year and was one of the best players in the league again last year and this year again. So it works.

• 1:55:18Rich Roll?

  Yeah, and that's why the athletes are so important in this conversation because, you know, for a lot of people, particularly dudes, it's that's what they pay attention to. They just want to see those results. And so you need those guys out there crushing it. And there's lots of them.

• 1:55:32Adam Skolnick?

  Lots of them. And the funny thing about Chris Paul was he didn't want to talk about it, not because he was ashamed of it, because he didn't want other people to do it.

• 1:55:38Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:55:39Adam Skolnick?

  He was keeping his competitive edge.

• 1:55:41Rich Roll?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, we've got one more question.

• 1:55:43Adam Skolnick?

  One more.

• 1:55:44Speaker 03

  Hey, fellas. My name is Cindy from New Hampshire. You can play this on the show. I think you two make a great team and you're great models of male vulnerability and connection. And I think a lot of listeners would benefit from hearing you two riff on masculinity and particularly how you navigated your own boyhood and early manhood. And I know Richard shared a lot of that in his book and on his show. But the two of you could inspire guys to dig into like masculinity expectations, feeling man enough, the idea of suffer till worthy, and just the whole process of unhooking from all that throughout your life. Because even before COVID, many boys, young men, older men, they've been struggling emotionally

• 1:56:25Speaker 03

  and are not comfortable seeking the help they need before they before they crack. So I think men are desperate to know they're not alone. And I think you guys could inspire some serious healing. Thanks so much. Bye bye.

• 1:56:37Rich Roll?

  Cindy just going to the heart of the whole thing.

• 1:56:40Adam Skolnick?

  That men need help?

• 1:56:43Adam Skolnick?

  Men need a lot of help.

• 1:56:45Rich Roll?

  It's a masculinity twofer.

• 1:56:46Adam Skolnick?

  It's a masculinity crisis, folks.

• 1:56:48Rich Roll?

  Back to back masculinity questions.

• 1:56:50Adam Skolnick?

  Is the problem too much masculinity?

• 1:56:53Rich Roll?

  Well.

• 1:56:53Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 1:56:54Rich Roll?

  I mean, there's, there's, this is, this doesn't even have anything to do necessarily with, well, toxic masculinity being at the far end of that spectrum.

• 1:57:02Adam Skolnick?

  No, no, no, we're not talking about that.

• 1:57:03Rich Roll?

  Yeah, we're not talking about that. But what we are talking about. Is again, it goes back to identity and it seemed that Cindy was interested in kind of hearing a little bit about how I, you, we navigated our own boyhood and early manhood. I mean, I'm somebody who never thought of myself as particularly masculine, but I did spend most of my boyhood and early adult life trying to find my own way into masculinity by adhering to social norms like swimming, academia, law. And the more that I tried to do that or double down on that, it didn't work because it was at,

• 1:57:45Rich Roll?

  you know, it was turning a blind eye to a little self-exploration to figuring out, you know, my own identity rather than trying to make myself fit into some paradigm. You know, I was a quiet kid, introverted, outside of the norm. I went to a very masculine, hyper male high school. And I could never really identify with what a lot of the other boys cared about, like football. And, and I think at that time, looking back in retrospect, that led me to really question my own inherent manhood or relationship to masculinity. And I think that in turn led to insecurity and feelings of less than, that something was wrong with me.

• 1:58:27Rich Roll?

  And that in turn led me to withdraw even more and feel ashamed. And then of course, enter alcohol, right? Which almost killed me. So this is how serious these things can, can become. And it was only when I was so broken that I had no other choice but to embrace vulnerability, no other choice than to surrender to the truth of myself, that I was able to summon the courage to not only ask for help, but to receive help, which I think is harder than even, you know, for a lot of people, much harder than just asking for it. And in turn be, be able to heal and accept myself and mend my insecurities.

• 1:59:12Rich Roll?

  And then access and grow into a more authentic incarnation of myself. But I think for most men, this process is essentially anathema. It's counterintuitive path that is just off the table. Rather than remain stuck in pain.

• 1:59:33Rich Roll?

  I think many people are, what am I trying to say? I think there are a lot of people who would rather remain stuck in pain than appear weak. Because showing your truth is a very terrifying prospect. I think particularly for a lot of men. And so, you know, over the years, I've worked hard to dispel this myth that vulnerability is weakness, that showing emotion is weakness. And that by leading with vulnerability and emotion, it's like this disarming force that allows and permits others to kind of meet me in that space. And I think it's also correct that most men, young boys, adolescents suffer in silence.

• 2:00:17Rich Roll?

  Their emotions are on lockdown. They're afraid of being open and honest with anybody. And over time, if not unlocked, like this is gonna fester, it's gonna metastasize. And the result is never good. And that's when we get into toxic masculinity and violence. So it's about normalizing the process of asking and receiving help. It's about normalizing vulnerability and understanding that vulnerability and being kind of more on the surface with your emotions is not mutually exclusive from masculinity. You can love football, you can love MMA and cars and guns, or whatever we associate with conventional norms that surround our definition of what is and what isn't masculine,

• 2:01:02Rich Roll?

  and be open, honest, vulnerable, caring, all of those things.

• 2:01:09Adam Skolnick?

  And inquisitive and all, yeah, yeah. I think that, you know, you demonstrate that. I think that's part of the appeal to David Goggins, a major part of it, and Joe Rogan as well, kind of like this masculine version of being open, inquisitive, and vulnerable about. Life, basically.

• 2:01:28Rich Roll?

  I think the, I think the, the podcast host that exemplifies it perhaps better than anybody is, is Dax Shepard, because he's, he's very much like a dude's dude. He likes to race cars and like, you know, he wears like cutoff shirts and he's a blue collar guy from Michigan and like choose tobacco and like, you know, like he's a dude's dude. But he's also somebody who wears his emotions on his sleeve and he's very vulnerable and he tells his friends, he loves them and he does all this stuff that is sort of counter to what you think like a dude's dude would do. And I think it's part of why his message is so powerful and impactful and why I think he's such a good podcast host. But it's, it's that like combination, like, you know, I'm, I'm not a dude's dude in the way that,

• 2:02:13Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 2:02:13Rich Roll?

  that Dax is, but I still would characterize myself as having a certain kind of masculinity that through a lot of internal work is not under threat because I tell you, Adam, I love you. You know what I mean?

• 2:02:28Adam Skolnick?

  Thank you. I love you too.

• 2:02:29Rich Roll?

  Yes. We'll make out afterwards.

• 2:02:31Adam Skolnick?

  I agree. Um, I mean, my story, I'm going to drop a little bomb here, but we don't have to belabor it too much. But, um, I grew up, I was sexually abused at seven years old.

• 2:02:42Rich Roll?

  I didn't know that.

• 2:02:43Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah. And, uh, and then grew up and went through puberty late and was really small for my age most of my life. Even though I was interested in sports and was pretty good, um, I had to question myself along the way. And I kind of like stuffed down the abuse for a long time. I didn't tell anybody. Um, and then I didn't really come up and address it until, what was it, two, like 99, 2000? I think right around there. So I would be 28 around then is when I first started to deal with it. And, uh, at first it was hard. Guru Singh helped me through it at the beginning.

• 2:03:24Adam Skolnick?

  And, um, I went through a process of therapy through him, but not through traditional means like going to a psychotherapist. I went to a yoga teacher.

• 2:03:32Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 2:03:32Adam Skolnick?

  Who happens to be like a great therapist also, but he's not traditional. Um, and at the same time, kind of like what's helped me. Hasn't been attaching to, I've never felt like I needed to be some macho dude. That's never been my thing, because I never was, because I was always kind of smaller and felt smaller even when I grew. And so I just never felt the need to do it. I never, never wanted to be in that, in that mode. And was never attracted to it. But at the same time, like, you know, I'll bro out just like anybody else. So I understand that like, having a group of guy friends can be empowering to young guys. And having some people you're close to can be.

• 2:04:14Adam Skolnick?

  And so that was never a problem for me either. So I've kind of is riding this line of having this secret and, and bro-ing out and never really addressing it. And then in my later, like, what's helped me most of all has been kind of discovering things like yoga, which is kind of a more feminine practice. And, and Taoism, which is a book, I, I read the Tao Te Ching from cover to cover. Basically, I read a verse, you know, maybe multiple days in a row, then I'll start again at the beginning. And I'll, I'll switch translations. And that is again, kind of looking at the universe in a, in a, not in duality, but in oneness. And so I don't think of, I think my advice would be, or things I like to tell people is,

• 2:04:54Adam Skolnick?

  let's not try to look at things in duality. Let's look at things as, as unity, that we're a part of everything all the time.

• 2:05:03Adam Skolnick?

  And I'm not one of those people that's like against gender constructs in any way, shape or form. I just think it's beyond gender. It's a conversation beyond gender. It's a connection beyond the individual. It's, it's an expansion that we are everything all the time. And when you think of it that way, the deconcentration of the small thing and get bigger. You know, I feel like, sometimes I feel like the luckiest man in the world.

• 2:05:26Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that's a, I mean, wow, thank you for sharing that story. I didn't, I didn't know that about you.

• 2:05:32Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, thanks.

• 2:05:33Rich Roll?

  That's pretty heavy. We can talk more about that.

• 2:05:35Adam Skolnick?

  We can unpack that.

• 2:05:35Rich Roll?

  After, yeah, well, well, we will definitely unpack a little bit more of that. I think that I agree with you on all of that, but I also think that, that's some of what you're talking about is a bit esoteric. Like in the context of like a young male who's struggling with his relationship to masculinity and, and his peer group. The only way to.

• 2:06:01Rich Roll?

  To motivate that young individual to engage with his interior emotional life

• 2:06:09Rich Roll?

  in a healthy way, if he's one of these people that seems shut down in that regard, is to model healthy behavior in that guy's environment. So putting a strong male in proximity to that person, who is an example of how to do this in a healthy way, I think is really the lever that moves the needle. So whether it's somebody in the community, or a relative, or a coach, or a teacher, or somebody on YouTube, or a podcast host, or something like that, that that young person can connect with and start to think a little bit differently about

• 2:06:51Rich Roll?

  how he's relating to himself and his direct environment, I think is a really powerful thing.

• 2:06:56Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 2:06:57Rich Roll?

  And that would be the advice that I would give.

• 2:06:59Adam Skolnick?

  Having mentors is key, and then also holding yourself accountable and working on yourself. And if you say you're gonna do something, go do it. Like, these kinds of things can make you feel, it's probably just about growing up in general, but as a young man, it can make you feel more of a man. If you know you can rely on yourself to do what you say you're gonna do, you can feel more empowered as a man.

• 2:07:19Rich Roll?

  Right, but the trick is, you can do that and still be repressing all of your emotions.

• 2:07:24Adam Skolnick?

  That's true.

• 2:07:24Rich Roll?

  You know what I mean? So it's about having a healthy relationship with those emotions. Like, what is the outlet for that, so that later on in life, it doesn't manifest in a toxic manner?

• 2:07:35Adam Skolnick?

  What would you say a good outlet would be? Finding therapy, or doing?

• 2:07:38Rich Roll?

  Well, I mean, it depends on the individual, but that's why I think just having healthy males that model healthy behavior in the orbit of that young person will be the most powerful, because it'll demonstrate to that person, like, hey, it's okay for me to talk about my feelings, or it's safe. I'm not gonna get chastised or ridiculed because I have this weird emotion and I'm afraid to share it with anybody.

• 2:08:03Adam Skolnick?

  Good points. You model healthy behavior, Rich Roll.

• 2:08:07Rich Roll?

  Not all the time.

• 2:08:10Rich Roll?

  I lose my shit every once in a while.

• 2:08:12Adam Skolnick?

  You do?

• 2:08:12Rich Roll?

  Trust me, yeah. All right, well, we've been going for like two and a half hours. So we're gonna wrap this thing up. Thank you for sticking around if people are listening still.

• 2:08:21Adam Skolnick?

  Right, thanks for listening to us.

• 2:08:23Rich Roll?

  The whole journey today.

• 2:08:25Adam Skolnick?

  And if you didn't listen to the last bit, just forget I mentioned it.

• 2:08:28Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Do you feel like you just had a catharsis?

• 2:08:31Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, I feel like, I feel like you're my Oprah.

• 2:08:35Rich Roll?

  I don't know about that. That makes, that makes me nervous. You did disclose something pretty heavy there, though.

• 2:08:40Adam Skolnick?

  I did, but it's okay. I've just, I, I once wrote a novel where it was part of it. And so I was prepared to disclose it then. Of course, nobody bought it, so I could have taken it back.

• 2:08:49Rich Roll?

  Well, you did it in a way that felt very comfortable to you.

• 2:08:53Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 2:08:53Rich Roll?

  So clearly you've done enough work around it that it's not like causing you distress.

• 2:08:58Adam Skolnick?

  No, thank you.

• 2:08:59Rich Roll?

  So.

• 2:08:59Adam Skolnick?

  Appreciate it.

• 2:09:00Rich Roll?

  Good for you, man.

• 2:09:01Adam Skolnick?

  Thanks.

• 2:09:01Rich Roll?

  Cool. Well, until next time, we'll be back in two weeks. Follow Adam at Adam Skolnick. I'm of course at Rich Roll. If you want your question considered for the show, leave us a message at 424-235-4626. Check out the show notes on the episode page at richroll.com. We'll have links up to everything we talked about today. Again, hit that subscribe button on YouTube, Apple, Spotify. We recently created a clips channel on YouTube. We've got to start uploading more clips there. We're behind, but we've got big plans for that channel. You can find it by searching Rich Roll Podcast Clips on YouTube, or we'll link it up in the show notes as well.

• 2:09:40Adam Skolnick?

  Smash that button.

• 2:09:41Rich Roll?

  Smash it. I want to thank everybody who helped put on the show today. Jason Camiolo for production, audio engineering, show notes, interstitial music, all the good stuff. Blake Curtis for videoing today's show. Jessica Miranda for graphics. David Greenberg for taking portraits. Georgia Whaley for copywriting. DK for advertiser relationships and theme music dating back to episode one. My boys Tyler, Trapper, and Harry. Tyler and Trapper are in the studio recording their first album, fucking finally.

• 2:10:09Adam Skolnick?

  That's amazing.

• 2:10:10Rich Roll?

  Yeah. It's pretty exciting.

• 2:10:12Adam Skolnick?

  That is exciting.

• 2:10:13Rich Roll?

  It's really cool. Appreciate you guys. Love you. See you back here in a couple of days with another awesome episode. And Adam and I will be back, of course, in two weeks. So until then, peace. Plants. Namaste.