Roll On: Body Brokers

This is a story of spiritual swindlers. Sober living scammers. Underground insurance fraud. And widespread institutional neglect. In today’s edition of ‘Roll On’, Adam Skolnick and I discuss the rampant corruption incident to unregulated addiction treatment centers—brutal truths brought to light by the new independent film Body Brokers. We share good news and bad. We perform a bit of show and tell. And as always, we answer listener questions. For those new to the podcast, Adam Skolnick is an activist and veteran journalist best known as David Goggins’ Can’t Hurt Me, co-author. Adam has written 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 hard at work on a novel. Some of the many other topics explored in today’s conversation include: an update on Adam’s preparation for the Goggins’ 4 x 4 x 48 challenge; the Iron Cowboy’s ‘Conquer 100’ challenge; gravel cycling & Rich’s Specialized ambassadorship; the new documentary ‘Diving Deep’ and the life of activist Mike deGruy; Barack Obama’s new podcast and the future of the podcasting; the recent rise in Asian hate crime; and Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s impact on free speech—and what it means today. In addition, we answer the following listener questions: If you could have a conversation with three luminaries living or dead, who would you choose? How do you make time to pursue ultra-running without disrupting work and family balance? What books, podcasts, and other types of media do you consume? Thank you to Josh from North Carolina, Tara from Long Beach, and Emily from Minneapolis 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/richroll585 YouTube: bit.ly/rollon585 Peace + Plants, Rich Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:00Rich Roll?

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• 0:44Rich Roll?

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• 1:13Rich Roll?

  The Rich Roll Podcast. Hey, everybody. Welcome to another edition of Roll On. Goodness is on the way, but first...

• 1:28Rich Roll?

  Hey, everybody. Welcome or welcome back to another raucous rendition of Roll On, wherein, to wit, the duly-anointed, pod-nited Sir Adam Skolnick and I dissect matters top-of-mind, matters seminal and of great consequence, and matters, perhaps, specious, whimsical, and/or vapid, depending upon your vantage point. We also do a wee bit of show and tell, and of course, answer your questions from our voicemail.

• 1:58Adam Skolnick?

  Did a Scottish man write this copy for you? I didn't realize I was...

• 2:02Rich Roll?

  I was feeling, you know, free with the pen when I came up with this.

• 2:06Adam Skolnick?

  I like it.

• 2:06Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 2:07Adam Skolnick?

  I didn't realize I was a pod knight, but I appreciate it.

• 2:10Rich Roll?

  You could do the whole podcast in that accent. How about that?

• 2:12Adam Skolnick?

  I think you'd lose lots of listeners.

• 2:14Rich Roll?

  It's not be good, right?

• 2:16Adam Skolnick?

  I did, you know, I speak to dogs that way now. So as I'm running by, if there's a dog, hello, mate, how are you? And the, the, the, the dog owners love it.

• 2:24Rich Roll?

  This would fall under the specious aspect of things to be discussed today. TMI, my friend. Listener questions, if you want your question answered, leave us a voicemail at 424-235-4626. So lean back, lean in, smash that subscribe button as the YouTube kids say. That is what they say, right?

• 2:47Adam Skolnick?

  Is it? The only YouTube kids I listen, I, I watch are 30 years old, Chad and JT.

• 2:53Rich Roll?

  Yeah, well, they're like 14, though.

• 2:56Adam Skolnick?

  Yes, I love them.

• 2:57Rich Roll?

  All right, well, let's get into it. I, I want to kick things off with just a quick announcement. Voicing Change is back in stock. So for those of you who are new here, Voicing Change is my latest book. It's a coffee table rendition of the podcast, featuring wizened excerpts and poignant essays and glorious photography from some 50 of my favorite guests over the last eight and a half years of doing this thing. We are ready to ship globally, direct to your coffee table or your commode, depending upon how you enjoy literature.

• 3:28Adam Skolnick?

  I enjoy literature on my commode.

• 3:30Rich Roll?

  Plenty do, I'm not afraid to say.

• 3:33Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 3:34Rich Roll?

  We have signed copies available, so to learn more and snag your tome, visit richroll.com/vc, which is the only place you can get this book. We're not making it available on Amazon or Barnes and Noble. This is a self-published thing. So again, richroll.com/vc. Adam, what's up?

• 3:51Adam Skolnick?

  I like that you made that choice.

• 3:53Rich Roll?

  Hmm. Well, you know, I get a lot of messages like, how come I can't find it on Amazon? So this is why we have circumvented.

• 4:01Adam Skolnick?

  I can't believe Jeff Bezos is texting you like that.

• 4:05Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's because of a personal vendetta that I have with Jeff Bezos.

• 4:09Adam Skolnick?

  Oh, yeah, it's Bezos. I'm good, man. Life is, it hasn't changed. Still, you know, still mostly at home.

• 4:19Rich Roll?

  It has changed, though.

• 4:21Adam Skolnick?

  What?

• 4:21Rich Roll?

  It has changed.

• 4:22Adam Skolnick?

  Well, everything has changed, and yet nothing has changed.

• 4:25Rich Roll?

  The universe is expanding, Adam.

• 4:27Adam Skolnick?

  It's expanding in front of my eyes.

• 4:28Rich Roll?

  As is your consciousness.

• 4:30Adam Skolnick?

  I'm not so sure about that.

• 4:32Rich Roll?

  Really?

• 4:32Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, I don't want to be.

• 4:33Rich Roll?

  Is your consciousness contracting?

• 4:35Adam Skolnick?

  It just depends on the night's sleep. Like, today, I feel like my consciousness has expanded. Yes.

• 4:41Rich Roll?

  I didn't sleep so well last night.

• 4:42Adam Skolnick?

  So it's a narrowed.

• 4:44Rich Roll?

  Yeah, the wind, it's been so crazy windy here, and for some reason, the wind keeps me awake at night.

• 4:50Adam Skolnick?

  It does to me, too.

• 4:51Rich Roll?

  And the full moon. I never sleep well, so we're just past a full moon. I never, like, the day before a full moon, the full moon evening, and then the following night, every month, I have, it's a weird, like, lunar gravitational pull. I don't know what it is, but I have restless nights every time. If anybody out there knows anything about why that might be, I actually am getting Matthew Walker on the podcast. We have him scheduled sometime in the next couple of weeks. He's the guy who wrote Why We Sleep. He's like the leading sleep expert. That's, that's gonna be my first question for him.

• 5:24Adam Skolnick?

  Well, Chinese medicine has, like, considers wind in, in like, well-being, considers elements like that. And I think Ayurvedic medicine does as well, if I'm not mistaken, so experts chime in.

• 5:36Rich Roll?

  Right. I think your consciousness is expanded, based upon that response.

• 5:41Adam Skolnick?

  Thank you, just based on my, but how does my consciousness look? Because that's what's really important.

• 5:45Rich Roll?

  I think you're looking fabulous today.

• 5:47Adam Skolnick?

  Good.

• 5:50Rich Roll?

  Yeah, the weather's been, I mean, other than the wind, the weather's been great. I'm enjoying the new studio. I'm excited about all the pods that we've been producing.

• 5:56Adam Skolnick?

  Dude, you got your hero going, right?

• 5:58Rich Roll?

  We had Raghunath, which was great. It was so fun talking to him. Steven Pressfield, personal hero. Jedidiah Jenkins, all stellar.

• 6:07Adam Skolnick?

  What a, what a great lineup so far, just this year.

• 6:10Rich Roll?

  Cool. Yeah, and we've got exciting new people on the horizon. Also, been working on some compelling new top-secret projects that I'm not ready to discuss quite yet, but that has me getting out of bed pretty pumped up for the day lately.

• 6:24Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 6:24Rich Roll?

  Feeling fit, feeling grateful, so.

• 6:28Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, how's your, how's your body feeling?

• 6:29Rich Roll?

  Something must be wrong.

• 6:30Adam Skolnick?

  What's going on with the back?

• 6:32Rich Roll?

  Back is feeling okay. I've been getting some good work on it from my man Lawrence Van Lingen, who's really been helping me out with my posture and my pelvic placement, all these like things that he's been doing subtle changes in how I move and run. That seems to be helping. So yeah, man, I feel good.

• 6:52Adam Skolnick?

  Nice.

• 6:53Rich Roll?

  Speaking of feeling good, we're one week out from the Goggins four by four by 48 challenge. So we gotta check in on

• 6:59Adam Skolnick?

  Less than a week.

• 7:00Rich Roll?

  On where you're at with that physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, consciously.

• 7:05Adam Skolnick?

  Okay. Where should we start?

• 7:06Rich Roll?

  I don't know. You tell me.

• 7:08Adam Skolnick?

  Well, I'm spiritually dead, so let's not go there. No, I'm just kidding. Getting folks. I feel good.

• 7:14Rich Roll?

  Maybe that'll, maybe that'll be, you know, good for getting you through the challenge.

• 7:18Adam Skolnick?

  Okay. So first of all, Nicholas Ramirez has, has come in hot with some great coaching in the last couple of weeks.

• 7:27Rich Roll?

  He snapped to it after the last podcast.

• 7:30Adam Skolnick?

  You know, here's the thing about podcasting, as you may be well aware, you don't always say what you, what you want. It doesn't come out right all the time. And then it's like out there and people listen to it.

• 7:41Rich Roll?

  I have a little experience with this.

• 7:42Adam Skolnick?

  Yes, that's what I'm saying. Do you experience podcast regret the next day?

• 7:47Rich Roll?

  Not often, but it certainly has happened. And now we're in such a, you know, hair trigger world that, you know, I feel more cautious than I ever felt before.

• 7:57Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 7:57Rich Roll?

  Not that like, I don't know what I would say that would be that controversial.

• 8:00Adam Skolnick?

  Well, all I said in relation, relationship to Nicholas was that he wasn't really doing a lot of personalized coaching and mostly I was just getting stuff through the app. But that was okay. Cause like, I actually liked that. And so that's what I didn't say. Cause I actually, personal coaching feels, feels kind of intense for me. And I actually like kind of just doing my own thing. Give me a workout to do and then I can make it work and do it. And so I've actually really enjoyed it and it has helped my fitness overall. But then, once he heard that, yes, he kind of is like

• 8:31Rich Roll?

  Thursday morning, he, the phone's ringing. What do you mean?

• 8:35Adam Skolnick?

  He wanted to talk and he, no, not so much that. He was like, he felt bad, which I didn't want him to feel bad. I mean, he's got a million things and, and it's, it's great just to have the team envol workouts, but he has been, he's been tailored some stuff. So it's kind of been a combination of stuff you've suggested, he suggested, and, and David suggested to me. So on, I guess it was a week ago, Sunday or Saturday or Sunday, I did my first simulation, which was Um, three times every four hours.

• 9:04Rich Roll?

  Hmm.

• 9:05Adam Skolnick?

  Um, he suggested instead of doing a two and two and two or whatever.

• 9:09Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 9:09Adam Skolnick?

  To do three, four, five. So I did that. And that included the five mile at night, which was my first night run because I never really run at night. Um, I, I don't know the last time I had run at night, uh, where I started out at night. Uh, and, and so that was great. That was a good little beginning. And then just Friday I did four, four, three, three. Um, he wanted me to do four, four, four, four, but then, uh, David thought it'd be better because he knows my foot situation just to do three, threes.

• 9:38Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 9:39Adam Skolnick?

  You know, four threes, but I decided to do a little bit of, of, of kind of a mix. I did four, four, three, three, starting at, um, noon. No, starting at, uh, eight in the morning or eight or nine. And then every roughly three to four hours.

• 9:52Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 9:52Adam Skolnick?

  So I did the last one at night.

• 9:53Rich Roll?

  That's great, man.

• 9:54Adam Skolnick?

  And I felt strong.

• 9:55Rich Roll?

  How that feel?

• 9:56Adam Skolnick?

  I felt really strong. Like I felt like my fastest miles were the last run. And I wasn't going fast because I'm doing zone two, but like I felt strong, like I could have done another run. So I feel like the first day, I feel very prepared for the first day. Like I, other than, I'll have to grab sleep, but other than that, I feel like six fours is, is not going to be extremely difficult for me barring any sort of weird mishap where I step off a curb and hurt myself.

• 10:22Rich Roll?

  So this kicks off Friday.

• 10:24Adam Skolnick?

  Friday at eight P M.

• 10:25Rich Roll?

  Friday at eight P M. So this podcast goes up Thursday, so it'll literally go up. People will be consuming this.

• 10:31Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 10:32Rich Roll?

  On the eve of the launch.

• 10:33Adam Skolnick?

  And I will do some Instagram stories. So David's going to do every, every run. He'll be doing something. I'll be watching his. And then I'll do something either before or after a run.

• 10:43Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 10:44Adam Skolnick?

  Probably after is probably when I'll check in mostly because I want to be connected to him. There are five hundred, David just posted about this. There are 500 people who've already signed up through his website from 45 countries. I, I heard from someone from Iceland, uh, through Instagram messaging just now. Who, um, who there, there's two people in Iceland that are going to do it, but 45 countries literally.

• 11:05Rich Roll?

  How many people total?

• 11:06Adam Skolnick?

  Just the 500 that we know of because they've messaged through the app, through the website. But really, you're not supposed to post about that you're gonna do it. You're supposed to post about that you've done it. So he wanted people to do it that way, but people have been doing it pretty, you know, ahead of time, which he's embraced. So it's a whole worldwide movement, really, of people doing this. I think it's really cool.

• 11:26Rich Roll?

  It is very cool. It's so wild how David has been able to just marshal, you know, this massive following of people to get on board with something challenging and hard like this. It's amazing.

• 11:41Adam Skolnick?

  And yeah, and, you know, he was talking about it, the unifying aspect. How if people just wanna focus on getting better and doing something hard for themselves, and that it becomes a unifying thing that people from all over the world, different vantage points, viewpoints, backgrounds, whatever, political leanings can come together. It just shows that we are capable of coming together.

• 12:06Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 12:06Adam Skolnick?

  Which is cool. And this is in the name of really a very challenging thing. So the second day, I have no doubt will be extremely difficult. I'm not like going in overconfident at all. But I've got, I've got some electrolytes now.

• 12:22Rich Roll?

  I know, I was gonna ask you if you've been practicing your nutrition and hydration.

• 12:27Adam Skolnick?

  I have. Your sponsor sent me about 150 packages of electrolytes.

• 12:32Rich Roll?

  Oh, Element?

• 12:32Adam Skolnick?

  Element. So they're either terrified that I'm going to fall on my face at some point, or just want me to try it. So I use that during the second. So the first, the first simulation, I didn't hydrate very well. I didn't have it planned out very well. The second one, I had the Element stuff, which really helped. I hydrated and ate much more mindfully, and it was working. And I have a dozen sweet, Japanese sweet potatoes, those small ones.

• 12:57Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 12:57Adam Skolnick?

  That I'm gonna cook ahead of time.

• 12:59Rich Roll?

  That's good.

• 13:00Adam Skolnick?

  I'm gonna have a lot of avocados in the house.

• 13:02Rich Roll?

  Soak some dates, too.

• 13:03Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, dates. I'm gonna get dates. I'm gonna get dates.

• 13:06Rich Roll?

  That's great, man.

• 13:06Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 13:07Rich Roll?

  No stomach problems.

• 13:09Adam Skolnick?

  You know, it's funny, what's good about the Friday simulation, it just so happened, I woke up with like a little bit of a weird digestive thing, and one of those headaches, it's kind of like those gnawing, kind of almost food poisoning headaches. And I woke up with it. And I went running, and the first two miles of the first run. I felt it and then I finally ran through it. And then the second run, same thing because I hadn't hydrated enough. And after the second run, I really made sure I did two electrolyte, 16 ounces. And then that kind of washed it out and I felt great by the end.

• 13:43Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I mean, that's why the, one of many reasons why doing the simulations are so important. Because you're putting yourself in the position that simulates what you're going to feel like in that moment. And you're able to test things like hydration, et cetera. The other thing that I thought that you said that was great is that you began a run and you didn't feel good. And you kept going and that shifted. And I think that's a really important lesson for anybody who's listening, who, you know, is dipping their toe into the endurance world. There's going to be days and moments and times, whether it's in training or in a race, where you're not going to feel good. Or you're going to start running and you're going to feel terrible and think, well, I don't have it. I need to quit.

• 14:25Rich Roll?

  But if you just stay in it, you realize and you learn that things change and shift. Just because you feel lousy in one particular instance, doesn't mean that that's going to persist. Like you can kind of work through that and you have these breakthroughs. When you do these simulation weekends and you realize, oh yeah, I got, I got through that. I ended up finishing that run feeling better than when I started. And that's very empowering in terms of providing you with the confidence and the experience to, you know, weather something like this.

• 14:54Adam Skolnick?

  Well, thank you. That's, that's what I felt. I felt like, okay, the headache's not great, but it's not the worst headache you've ever had. So I'm going to do it and I'm going to look at it. And we slept horribly the night before the baby was, was really restless. And so I felt like good, you know, like, you know, I, I felt confident. I'm like, this is a good thing. This will, let's see if I can do it now. So that's how the simulation started and it ended like a lot better, so.

• 15:18Rich Roll?

  The rough part's going to be those like ones in the middle of the night or in the early morning.

• 15:22Adam Skolnick?

  It's going to be tough.

• 15:24Rich Roll?

  You just got to get through those.

• 15:25Adam Skolnick?

  The first night, I'm going to stay up to the midnight run. I'm not going to try to get any sleep until after midnight. And then, um, then do the midnight run, then get, get a little bit of sleep, get up for the four, get a little more sleep. And then try to stay awake all day.

• 15:38Rich Roll?

  Cool.

• 15:38Adam Skolnick?

  That's the plan.

• 15:39Rich Roll?

  Well, I've got a, a ride planned for Saturday. So maybe on Saturday I'll, I'll ride down to your neck of the woods and try to track you down.

• 15:47Adam Skolnick?

  Hell yeah.

• 15:48Rich Roll?

  And I'll do a little.

• 15:49Adam Skolnick?

  That'd be amazing.

• 15:49Rich Roll?

  Grab your phone and do the Instagram thing.

• 15:51Adam Skolnick?

  That'd be amazing.

• 15:52Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Well, speaking of riding, that's really been something that I've been focusing on lately. I've just formed this new ambassador relationship with Specialized, Specialized Bicycles.

• 16:04Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 16:05Rich Roll?

  Which has been really great and they've got me kitted out on this new Turbo Creo SL.

• 16:13Adam Skolnick?

  Okay.

• 16:14Rich Roll?

  And I put gravel tires on that and I've been getting out on and riding on gravel for the first time. I've never, I've never been a mountain biker. I've always been a roadie.

• 16:21Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 16:22Rich Roll?

  But there's so much gravel and fire roads around where we live.

• 16:27Adam Skolnick?

  So gravel bikes are good for fire roads and grab, like those gravel roads?

• 16:30Rich Roll?

  They're not meant for like super technical, you know, sort of mountain biking where you're like jumping over rocks and things like that. You know, those, the gravel bikes don't have like the shock absorption and that kind of like geometry, but they're great for just riding on dirt and loose gravel and the fire roads, basically, like the wide fire roads around.

• 16:50Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 16:52Rich Roll?

  And that's been super fun and kind of a learning curve for me, but it's opened up like a whole new world. So I rode from my house, like I took Dirt Mall Holland all the way to, and down Mandeville and like into Brentwood and around San Monica.

• 17:05Adam Skolnick?

  From your house?

• 17:06Rich Roll?

  Yeah, like it was super fun.

• 17:07Adam Skolnick?

  How long is that?

• 17:09Rich Roll?

  It was, it was like a 50 mile ride. I did like a big loop.

• 17:12Adam Skolnick?

  That's fantastic.

• 17:13Rich Roll?

  But here's the thing, here's the thing. So the Turbo Creo SL is an e-bike, right? It's got a motor in it.

• 17:22Adam Skolnick?

  Is that the one you took? Is that the one you took?

• 17:24Rich Roll?

  So, um, yeah, so I took that and what's been cool and interesting and new is the experience of riding an e-bike, which is something I have no experience with and never thought in a million years that I would ever have an e-bike. Like I'm a, you know, I'm a fitness junkie. Like I don't want a motor on my bike. I want to test myself, right?

• 17:44Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 17:44Rich Roll?

  You gotta be some kind of lame-o to like put a motor on your bike.

• 17:47Adam Skolnick?

  Don't say lame-o, you'll get canceled.

• 17:48Rich Roll?

  I would have never, I don't, I don't know what the appropriate vernacular is anymore.

• 17:52Adam Skolnick?

  Just kidding.

• 17:53Rich Roll?

  But, um, But I had two experiences. One, I went up to Santa Barbara a couple of months ago to hang out with Dan Buettner. Yes. And he's got a bunch of e-bikes. Yes. And he's like, you gotta ride these, they're super fun. I was like, an e-bike, really? And we took him out and we had a blast. Went all over Santa Barbara, up all these climbs, super fun. And then I had Brian Fogel on the podcast, who people know as the filmmaker behind Icarus. Yep. So he's a sick cyclist, like incredibly fit. He also made The Dissident, the Khashoggi doc that's out right now. And he was the one who got me excited about this Turbo Creo. He's like, you gotta get this bike, it's the greatest thing. I'm like, I don't get

• 18:37Rich Roll?

  an e-bike. He's like, no, no, no, it's so fun. You end up riding longer, you're riding, you ride more because it's more fun, and it allows you to go places you wouldn't ordinarily go. Right. Like going up these fire roads that are crazy steep, that even if you just had a regular gravel bike, you might not ride up. And, and he's, he said that he's like, increased his riding, like, I don't know, 30% from what he used to do because of this bike. And he's able to go out longer. So do you use it? So basically. Selectively? Basically, I keep the motor on like the low, it has like different rungs of power. So I keep it, I either turn it off, or I keep it on the lowest rung, and it just gives you a little bit of kick. So you're still getting a workout. It's not like you're

• 19:20Rich Roll?

  not riding. But then when you hit some like 20% grade on a fire road, you can just cruise up it without wrecking yourself. And so I've been out riding quite a bit, and I'm able to get a good workout, but not destroy myself, so I'm exhausted all day. Right. And then wake up the next day and do it again. It's been like really fun. And again, it's something I never would have, I never would have thought that this would be something that I would be into. Yeah. But I'm really enjoying it. The only thing that I had to do is I had to decouple my bike computer from Strava, because I don't want any of these rides. It's like, I've got a motor assist, like I can't have these, this stuff up on like, you know, Strava where they have segments and all of that. You know, people do that though.

• 20:02Rich Roll?

  It's like totally cheating. So I'm not riding, and I'm like feeling guilty, like when I'm riding by somebody or some, you know, riding next to somebody, I'm like, that guy's got a motor. Like, how lame is that? Right. But I'm actually having so much fun with the whole thing. And I want to just thank, I want to thank Specialized. Like, I'm excited about this relationship and appreciate the gear.

• 20:21Adam Skolnick?

  It's a heavy bike, though. You couldn't go up a hill without it.

• 20:24Rich Roll?

  I don't know what the weight specifically is of it, but yeah, it's like 26 pounds. I mean, it's heavy to lift. Yeah, it's definitely like a very heavy bike.

• 20:32Adam Skolnick?

  What's the charge on it?

• 20:34Rich Roll?

  Um, I think you can charge it up in like six hours, something like that. And also in one of the water, water bottle cages, you can put a secondary battery. So you have, actually I have two batteries, like a backup battery.

• 20:47Adam Skolnick?

  Does the crank generate any sort of charge?

• 20:50Rich Roll?

  No, but the range is pretty good. I mean, you can, it obviously depends on, on the power mode that you're on and how much pedaling you're doing versus how much the motor is doing the work. But it's got something like an 80 mile range. So, you know, I've gone out, like I did a six hour ride the other day, maybe two weeks ago, and still had plenty of power to go when I, when I was done.

• 21:12Adam Skolnick?

  Cool. Sounds fun.

• 21:14Rich Roll?

  Super fun. So I've been doing that and also amping up the strength training, which has been fun, too.

• 21:20Adam Skolnick?

  Oh, good.

• 21:21Rich Roll?

  There's a, there's a gym near my house, one of those chain gyms, and they moved all their equipment into a parking garage. And they have like, you know, they take your temperature when you go in, but it's essentially all outdoors and with, with masks and all the equipment is like spaced out over like a very large lot. Um, and I've been hitting that like a couple of times a week. So that's been my thing. A little bit less running. I haven't been swimming very much. I mean, the pools are tricky to get into right now.

• 21:49Adam Skolnick?

  The ocean is cold. Trust me.

• 21:51Rich Roll?

  Ocean is cold, yeah. I was with a friend, my friend Drew the other day, and he's been out swimming and he just, you know, with a wet suit, a sleeveless wet suit. It's like, he said something like 55 or 54.

• 22:01Adam Skolnick?

  It was 55, it was 55 on Saturday, but then it got really windy again. Um, it was, one of our friend's watches had 51 earlier in the week. I wasn't out that day, but uh, it's been, it's been cold.

• 22:14Rich Roll?

  I'm gonna wait until it's about maybe 59.

• 22:18Adam Skolnick?

  Kona.

• 22:18Rich Roll?

  He's like, I don't need that right now.

• 22:19Adam Skolnick?

  You went to Kona.

• 22:20Rich Roll?

  My blood is thin these days, my friend.

• 22:24Rich Roll?

  Speaking of cold weather and fitness challenges, I do want to shout out my boy, James Lawrence, the Iron Cowboy. For those that don't know, James has been on the podcast a couple of times in the past, most notably for performing one of the greatest feats in endurance history, in my opinion, which is this crazy accomplishment where he did 50 Ironmans in 50 states in 50 days, which I just, to this day, I just still have a hard time wrapping my head around.

• 22:54Adam Skolnick?

  How do you even think about it?

• 22:55Rich Roll?

  Literally traveling from state to state and making sure that he completed an Ironman in each of the 50 states, never missed a day, got the whole thing done.

• 23:03Adam Skolnick?

  Did he like cross state boundaries on the like the run leg so that he could start again?

• 23:07Rich Roll?

  No, I think each, each Ironman was completed within the boundaries of a particular state. They had an RV and a couple of vehicles. There were, you know, they, I think he started in, he started in Hawaii, then he went to Alaska. So obviously planes were involved. And then I think he went to Washington and then Oregon and worked his way down the West Coast and then across the states.

• 23:27Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 23:27Rich Roll?

  Doing it, doing it by, by RV. And then I went to, he, he's from Utah. His 50th was in his home state, obviously near his hometown. I traveled and ran the final marathon with him. I made a little video about it that's up on YouTube that I can link up to the show notes.

• 23:44Adam Skolnick?

  Awesome.

• 23:45Rich Roll?

  He came on the podcast before attacking this challenge. And then I did a second podcast with him at his house after he completed it. And so the reason I'm shouting him out right now is he's, he's doubling down. And today, we're recording this on Monday, today is the first day of his 100 challenge where he's gonna attempt to do 100 consecutive Ironmans in 100 days. He's not traveling state to state. He's doing it all, you know, around his home.

• 24:19Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 24:20Rich Roll?

  But that's just.

• 24:21Adam Skolnick?

  So that means a lot more hills.

• 24:22Rich Roll?

  He's got a pool. I mean, it's snowing. It was like. Like 27 degrees in Utah yesterday, but there's an outdoor pool that's heated to 82 degrees.

• 24:29Adam Skolnick?

  Okay.

• 24:30Rich Roll?

  He's sharing everything on Instagram stories. He's got a bunch of kids and a huge crew and lots of support. And they're all kind of chiming in on his Instagram, you know, so you can follow along on his Instagram stories. It's pretty cool.

• 24:42Adam Skolnick?

  That's awesome.

• 24:42Rich Roll?

  He's at Iron Cowboy James, I think is his account on Instagram. So if you're not already following this guy, you should be. And this is gonna be a very interesting drama that's gonna unfold over 100 days. I mean, it's basically a third of a year. It's gonna take him to do this crazy thing.

• 25:01Adam Skolnick?

  I feel shamed right now.

• 25:05Rich Roll?

  I know, but, uh, you know, this guy's, this guy's bred for this thing. This is a guy who, I might butcher the story, but as a demonstration of his, his sort of perseverance and ability to suffer. When he was a kid, there was some contest in his town. I think he's from Canada originally. There was like, the carnival came to town and there was some contest, uh, who could ride the Ferris wheel the longest without getting off? And he, I don't know how, I can't remember how long he stayed on it, but he just refused to get off it. Like he just wants, so this is a guy who does not quit and.

• 25:39Adam Skolnick?

  We gotta get him to the Huberman lab and find out like how.

• 25:42Rich Roll?

  He should.

• 25:42Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, like what's going on in there?

• 25:44Rich Roll?

  He should. So anyway, um, I've had some texts back and forth with him. He's in good spirits and I'm excited to watch this whole thing unfold. And I was the first person, um, prior to him beginning the 50 50 50 to say, I don't think this is possible. Like I told it to him, I was like, I don't, just not because I didn't believe that he wasn't mentally capable or physically capable. But there's so many variables with the travel in between states and logistics and just innumerable things that could go wrong.

• 26:13Adam Skolnick?

  And having.

• 26:14Rich Roll?

  That he couldn't control.

• 26:15Adam Skolnick?

  And having done.

• 26:16Rich Roll?

  I mean, I tried to do five and we ran into all kinds of stuff that made it impossible to get it done in five. And he did 50 and met tons of obstacles, but was over, able to overcome all of them and, and complete it. And I just think that that's, you know, an unbelievable feat. And here he is now trying to do 100. So.

• 26:33Adam Skolnick?

  Crazy.

• 26:33Rich Roll?

  So kudos, uh, cowboy hat off to the Iron Cowboy and we'll be, um, paying attention and following along.

• 26:42Adam Skolnick?

  And speaking of like persevering, even when you don't think you can, like you don't feel good. I remember from your book, I believe it was the fourth Iron Man where you thought. You were toast after the swim.

• 26:52Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 26:52Adam Skolnick?

  You spent all that time in the shower. Or was it the?

• 26:55Rich Roll?

  That was.

• 26:56Adam Skolnick?

  After the bike?

• 26:56Rich Roll?

  That was the, yeah, like after the bike on the fourth one.

• 27:00Adam Skolnick?

  Fourth one, yeah.

• 27:00Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I really met my maker.

• 27:02Adam Skolnick?

  And you just decided, okay, I'll just walk for a little bit. But you for sure were done. And yet you weren't. And then your fifth one, you did, you actually hammered it.

• 27:10Rich Roll?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's, that's, that goes to the point I was making earlier. Like, you just have to keep moving, you know? And these things shift and change. And that fourth one, I mean, a lot of that had to do with sleep deprivation.

• 27:22Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, right.

• 27:23Rich Roll?

  And also heat. And this is an interesting thing about, about James. It's like, why is he doing this March for, like, it's 27 degrees? He could, why doesn't he start this thing in like May?

• 27:33Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 27:34Rich Roll?

  Or later in the year where he doesn't have to deal with snow and sub freezing temperatures. But he answered this question the other day on Instagram. He's like, I do better in the cold. And I don't, I don't do, I don't do well in heat, so.

• 27:47Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah. Running in the cold, running in cool air is much easier for me.

• 27:51Rich Roll?

  Yeah. But would you rather, there's, there's cool and then there's cold.

• 27:55Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 27:55Rich Roll?

  You know, like 27 degrees? Doing Ironman is not, you know? I, that's, in my book, I, you know, get me to Hawaii.

• 28:04Adam Skolnick?

  Exactly.

• 28:04Rich Roll?

  Right?

• 28:05Adam Skolnick?

  Yes, yes.

• 28:05Rich Roll?

  Anyway, we love you, James. Good luck with this.

• 28:08Adam Skolnick?

  Good luck, James.

• 28:08Rich Roll?

  And we'll be checking in. So let's take a quick break and we'll be back. We got a couple of big stories, important stuff to talk about. And we'll see you in a few.

• 28:26Rich Roll?

  All right, and we're back. We got two stories for the big story. The first one, Adam, why don't you kick it off?

• 28:34Adam Skolnick?

  All right. Well, I just wanted to just talk a little bit about this hate crime spree that's happening to the Asian American community or Asian community across the United States. And what started, I believe it started first in Oakland, where there was a bunch of older elders just walking the streets and getting pushed over from behind or beat up. Or just slurs hurled at them, but a lot of it was violent. Like, people were getting pushed over, people were getting in the hospital with getting stitches, breaking bones. This was in Oakland. They caught somebody there. But then in New York City, a lot of stuff was happening as well, Queens and in Manhattan.

• 29:18Adam Skolnick?

  It was just became this replication. And then it happened in San Diego. And then, you know, I was saying, it's nice around LA, at least, you know, we've been spared it. And then cue, I believe it was yesterday, I'm looking at the LA Times story from the 26th, and the Buddhist temple in Little Tokyo, which anybody in the LA area knows immediately where that is, was vandalized and they tried to burn it down. Two wooden lantern stands were burned, metallic lanterns were vandalized. It's at the Hagashi Hong Anji Buddhist Temple. And I've seen it many, many times. It's a beautiful landmark building. And, uh, listen, you know, I just find it appalling, first of all, that, um, old people

• 30:03Adam Skolnick?

  can't walk the streets without fear for their lives. And, and it's, it's reprehensible, but it's not something that hasn't happened before. We saw it after 9/11 with Indian American community and people of Arab descent. We, you know, we, after Trump was elected, hate crime sprees spiked in those communities as well. And now it's happened, it's landing on the Asian American community, so much that Jeremy Lin, the basketball player, was called the coronavirus on court during a G League game.

• 30:31Rich Roll?

  So crazy. So does this track to the coronavirus? Or what is the genesis of this?

• 30:36Adam Skolnick?

  It started, actually, if you look back in, you know, if you really, you could connect this more recent kind of rash of cases to right after lockdown. It was, it started to happen right after lockdown as well. So there was like, I think, a viral video of a woman getting called racial slurs on the subway in New York, right when it was really hitting New York City. So it started then, and now it's just kind of, uh... This new rash of cases has happened. There are leaders in the community, Lisa Ling, CNN. She has, she's doing a lot of, of kind of highlighting these cases on her Instagram. Andrew Yang spoke about it. I mean, it's, it's a major, major epidemic.

• 31:20Adam Skolnick?

  It's appalling and just wanted to urge people.

• 31:24Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I mean, there's not, what, what is there to say about it? Like, don't be an asshole. Like, what is wrong with people? You know, I don't understand it. And I would suspect that if you drew the Venn diagram between the people who deny the existence of coronavirus and the perpetrators of this type of crime, there's going to be some overlap. So does the coronavirus not exist? Or is it, you know, is it, is it the fault of, of Asian Americans who are citizens of this country? I mean, it's, it's appalling. It's disgusting. It's disappointing and disheartening that in 2021, we're having to contend with this kind of, you know, racial strife. It's, it's unbelievable.

• 32:04Adam Skolnick?

  It's, it's hard, it's hard to fathom. You know, it's like, look, you know, every day you wake up, you have a choice to make in your life. And the choice, you're taught from the time you're a little kid. I mean, sure, some children don't get taught not to push people over when they're little. But like, even if you had the worst upbringing ever, if you get to the point where you're 15, 16, 17, and you think it's a good idea to push over an old person, kind of trying to make it down the street, I just don't know what to do with you. And it's like, so there's the hate crime aspect, and there's this elder abuse aspect, and it's all rolled up into one. And that's why it's so horrifying, I think.

• 32:47Adam Skolnick?

  You know, that's why it's even more horrifying from behind, too. And so like the cowardliness that's involved here and this, you know, we're better than this, but we're not. So it's like, it's like, the human being should be better than this, but we're not always. And this is our, all of our responsibility to fix this problem. And that, that is calling it out. If you see it, defend people who are getting abused. And there was one video in Queens where this guy like shouldered through an older woman, pushed her down, and nobody did anything. Like, he just kept walking down the street. You know, it's like.

• 33:24Rich Roll?

  It's, it's.

• 33:27Rich Roll?

  Honestly, like, I don't know what to say because I can't wrap my head around like, what would motivate somebody to do that?

• 33:32Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 33:32Rich Roll?

  You know, it's people that are, you know, angry and disenfranchised and looking for somebody to blame and they see a helpless person who's an easy target and that becomes the locus of their rage.

• 33:43Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 33:43Rich Roll?

  And it's inexcusable. And we're seeing this, um, in addition to this Asian hate crime spree, we saw it with the black surfers in Southern California recently as well.

• 33:54Adam Skolnick?

  At El Porto.

• 33:55Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 33:56Adam Skolnick?

  And the same, same thing, a black surfer was hassled and splashed and called racial epithets and nobody in the lineup came to his defense. And so then there was this paddle out and, uh,

• 34:08Rich Roll?

  Right, I saw that.

• 34:09Adam Skolnick?

  And, and that was good, that was well attended. It was hundreds of people, I think, came down to support the black community there. And, you know, look, we are a melting pot, we are fed from all sorts of different cultures. Surfing is a perfect example. Surfing is not a sport that originated in the white community.

• 34:26Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 34:26Adam Skolnick?

  It only exists because, uh, you know, there was a friendship tour from Hawaii that came and demonstrated it up and down the coast of California. And then it became endemic here.

• 34:38Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 34:38Adam Skolnick?

  But it's, um, look, we, we rely on each other, we need to keep our radar up. And so obviously your listeners aren't, aren't this problem, but I think it's coming upon all of us to be ready to respond.

• 34:51Rich Roll?

  Yeah, well said. I want to, um, move on to other issues that we got to talk about. Um, the next thing is something that caught my eye and I thought was worth spending a few minutes on. I was listening to Marc Maron's podcast and last week he had two actors from this new independent film called Body Brokers. He had Melissa Leo and Michael K. Williams. I listened to both of those and then was so intrigued that I went and watched this movie, Body Brokers, and it really struck a nerve with me. Less for the cinematic aspect of, of the film itself and more for the issue that it's addressing. Essentially, it's a movie about a recovering junkie who

• 35:36Rich Roll?

  Was recruited to a rehab only to discover that said rehab really isn't about helping people. But it's actually a cover for a multi-billion dollar fraud operation that enlists addicts to recruit other addicts. And this is something that is going on in the treatment industry at large. And is an issue that I think is under discussed, under addressed, and in need of being dealt with in a large way. And as somebody who's very interested in addiction, somebody who's been in recovery for many, many years, and a product of treatment and a treatment center, a very good one.

• 36:16Rich Roll?

  I'm well aware, and I'm steeped in kind of the recovery community here in Los Angeles, and in particular, living, you know, sort of near Malibu. I'm also aware that Malibu has become this kind of rehab Riviera, where there's just tons of mansions that are now sober living facilities. And they're usually Nick mansions. Yeah, exactly. And I knew that on some level, this is like a money-making real estate play, because you can lease these houses that have like 10 bedrooms. Yeah. And rather than, you know, rent them to, you know, a family at X dollars, you can rent out each bedroom for, you know, a crazy multiple on that. Right.

• 37:01Rich Roll?

  So instead of, you know, maybe $2,000 a bedroom, it goes for like $20,000 a bedroom. And so these things become money-making machines, and that's why you're seeing a proliferation of them. So I knew that that was going on, and I knew that there's a lot of sort of shady sober living houses and treatment centers. But what I didn't fully understand or appreciate is the extent to which this has escalated into a full-blown insurance scam that is generating billions of dollars. So essentially what happened is that when the Affordable Healthcare Act was signed in 2008, it required every healthcare provider to cover substance abuse treatment, which is, on its face, a good thing, right?

• 37:43Rich Roll?

  It's like we're trying to provide access to treatment for people that otherwise wouldn't be able to afford it. But since that bill was passed, nearly 2,000 sober livings, 100 inpatient treatment centers, and 200 detox facilities opened up in Southern California alone. So like 35,000 beds that need to be filled every month, and almost 500,000 that need to be filled every year, which brings a profit of something like $12 billion annually just to Southern California. I think the market cap, all told, is something like $42 billion in the United States, which is crazy.

• 38:24Rich Roll?

  And so basically, what happens is, and what the film illustrates, is how these sober living facilities and treatment centers are basically...

• 38:35Adam Skolnick?

  They rely on brokers, right?

• 38:37Rich Roll?

  They rely on these brokers who go out into the world and find junkies, and then they're able to, even if these people don't have insurance, they have like these umbrella policies that they can get their name under so that they can get the insurance money. And then they get them in the centers, and then every single aspect of that experience is monetized, from the pillows, to the sheets, to the urine tests, like everything that goes into that gets billed to the insurance company. And a lot of these not-so-above-the-board institutions like crazy overbill, like $600 for a pillow or something like that. And then the insurance company will say, "Well, we're not going to pay 600, but we'll pay 200," or whatever, for like a $20 pillow.

• 39:21Rich Roll?

  And these things just start, they're like money laundering operations. And then it becomes about making sure that those beds are always filled. So it's not about getting these people well, it's about keeping them sick. And, you know, if they relapse, bringing them back in, and then cutting the addicts in on the vig.

• 39:42Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 39:43Rich Roll?

  So that the people that are in attendance in treatment are actually getting paid to go to rehab.

• 39:49Adam Skolnick?

  They get a kickback. And then there's something about like, the first urine test has to be negative in order for them to bill properly, so they want you to get high one last time before you get in. And I saw that in a couple of stories, that was in the movie, but also in Florida, that was documented in California, it's been documented. Florida and California, like South Florida and California are the two.

• 40:09Rich Roll?

  Yeah, South Florida, right. The sort of most high-profile transgression.

• 40:15Rich Roll?

  Took place a couple of years ago with this guy called Christopher Batham.

• 40:19Adam Skolnick?

  That story is.

• 40:20Rich Roll?

  It's a crazy, crazy story for people that are not familiar with it. It ended up being adapted into a series on Amazon called Bad Therapist. Basically, this guy, Batham, became director of a treatment center in Malibu called Seasons. In 2010, he was pushed out after a bunch of heinous sexual abuse charges and he would do drugs with the impatience and I think he OD'd at one point. He then opens up this other treatment facility called Walking Miracles in Koreatown in 2011. I actually have a friend, Cliff Brodsky, who was an investor in that.

• 40:56Adam Skolnick?

  In Walking Miracles?

• 40:58Rich Roll?

  Yeah, and ultimately Cliff, who I've known for many, many years, ends up being one of the whistleblowers on this whole thing, which is interesting. And in any event, Walking Miracles goes bankrupt. That's why Cliff started to come out and kind of tell the world what this guy, how this guy was really operating.

• 41:14Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 41:14Rich Roll?

  But then Batham opens up Community Recovery in 2012 as this luxury rehab chain. I think it grew to something like 20 clinics across LA, all the way out to Joshua Tree. He had something like $30 million in revenue in 2015 at a 30% profit margin. And when Cliff and others started talking about what this guy was actually doing, the FBI got involved, the LAPD got involved, started investigating him for his sexual relations and his drug use and.

• 41:47Adam Skolnick?

  Well, he assaulted him, right?

• 41:49Rich Roll?

  Yeah, there's, yeah, I mean, this guy was a bad actor across the board. And then in 2015, Hillel Aaron, who's also a guy that I've been acquainted with over the years, a journalist here in LA, wrote a cover story for LA Weekly that kind of went into the details of what this guy was actually doing. He wasn't, he was never a therapist. He was like a pool cleaner, all the stuff that he was up to.

• 42:14Adam Skolnick?

  But he did have certification in hypnotherapy.

• 42:17Rich Roll?

  He did, yeah, he was a hypnotherapist, right?

• 42:18Adam Skolnick?

  And like, I think.

• 42:19Rich Roll?

  He had, he wasn't in recovery himself.

• 42:21Adam Skolnick?

  He's never been through recovery.

• 42:23Rich Roll?

  He didn't know anything about addiction, treatment, or anything.

• 42:26Adam Skolnick?

  And that highlights, one of the problems is that. A sober living house is different than an inpatient drug treatment facility in that you don't need to have certification or something.

• 42:36Rich Roll?

  Right, and the kind of, if there's a genius to all of this, what he figured out was that if you combine a detox facility with a sober living facility, you're essentially running a treatment center without calling it a treatment center, because treatment centers have to be registered and licensed and all this sort of stuff. So he was able to operate, you know, sort of quote unquote "lawfully," and then run all this money through this operation to the tune of $176 million before the House of Cards just, you know, completely caved in on him.

• 43:09Adam Skolnick?

  And then the victims of this insurance fraud are the insurance companies. That's why, that's why these things persist, because there's no, even though addicts are getting, some are actually coming through these things and somehow getting sober, but a lot of people are suffering and there's, I think there were seven, or I saw two different stats, seven and then 17 people who ended up ODing and dying after going through his programs.

• 43:33Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 43:34Adam Skolnick?

  And so, yes, addicts will suffer through this, but no one believes the suffering of an addict, really, when they're especially at the height of their addiction. It's like, they're like not a sympathetic, like you don't believe.

• 43:44Rich Roll?

  Right, yeah, because their trust has been so eroded. So a couple things, yes, the financial victims in all of this are the insurance companies, but the addicts themselves are treated like chattel.

• 43:53Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 43:54Rich Roll?

  And there's no regard for their well-being or their recovery. Yes, some of them do end up recovering, but the vast majority of them just get cycled through this system and are used like cash registers to do like a churn and burn, right?

• 44:10Adam Skolnick?

  And six months sober, people are hired to them.

• 44:12Rich Roll?

  Yeah, and that was one of the things the movie did a good job at, which was Melissa Leo plays like the therapist at the, you know, she seems well-intentioned in that regard, but when the protagonist of the movie... Who's played by Jack Kilmer, who does a really fine job with this.

• 44:30Adam Skolnick?

  He did a great job.

• 44:31Rich Roll?

  He's acquainted with my boys Trapper and Tyler.

• 44:33Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, Jack.

• 44:34Rich Roll?

  Jack, when he's basically saying, "I'm gonna leave," like he's gonna leave against medical advice, Melissa Leo's character just says, "Well, you know, I don't think that's a good idea, but okay." And there's no plan for any kind of long-term treatment protocol to get him sober. Like, he doesn't end up getting a sponsor or going to meetings. Like, there's nothing in place

• 44:57Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 44:57Rich Roll?

  to make sure that he stays sober, because that's not really part of what this is all about.

• 45:01Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 45:02Rich Roll?

  Right? So ultimately, you know, I won't spoil the movie, you can watch it, it doesn't end well. But...

• 45:07Adam Skolnick?

  You just spoiled it.

• 45:10Rich Roll?

  But, well, I can say it's a dark movie in that regard.

• 45:14Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, it ends in the darkness.

• 45:15Rich Roll?

  And I forget the actress's name who plays his girlfriend, but she was unbelievable at embodying, like, you know, what a young addict is like in that place, as somebody who's known many of those types of people.

• 45:29Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, she was good.

• 45:31Rich Roll?

  The other crazy thing is that a lot of these treatment centers end up hiring the addicts and alcoholics that, you know, quote-unquote "graduate" from these facilities. So, you're literally letting addicts run the insane asylum, and if addicts are anything, they're incredibly crafty and diligent and persistent at getting what they want. And so, if you have any of them that are at all criminally inclined, like, this is gonna go off the rails, which is exactly what happens in the movie.

• 46:00Adam Skolnick?

  Well, that's what's so interesting about, not interesting, but what makes this whole story so crazy, is that, basically, the mentality of the scheme that perpetuates this fraud is the same mentality, it's a drug dealer mentality.

• 46:16Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 46:17Adam Skolnick?

  And anybody who's ever... Required the services of a drug dealer, knows that drug dealers cannot be trusted. And yet, some of these people who are building it literally have a dealer mentality when it comes to getting people in treatment, getting them out, not giving a shit what happens, just selling and making the money. And then these addicts are kind of acolytes of the drug dealer. And don't you think there's like a parallel there?

• 46:40Rich Roll?

  Yeah, they they become indoctrinated into this system. And essentially, many of them are, you know, relatively unemployable, or they're felons, or they've never had a real job. And they get a taste of like, hey, we'll just do this. And it's like low hanging fruit. And suddenly, they're in this system, which is, you know, another aspect of the film's narrative that I think is really potent. And I think on top of that, it's a well, first of all, to kind of wrap the the story about Batham, I mean, he ultimately, you know, gets indicted on 50 counts of fraud, grand theft, money laundering, sexual assault, rape, he's sentenced to, I think he was 20 years.

• 47:23Adam Skolnick?

  No, it was 52 years, 20 years just for the fraud.

• 47:26Rich Roll?

  Oh, okay.

• 47:27Adam Skolnick?

  And then 30 years for the serial sexual assault.

• 47:29Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 47:30Adam Skolnick?

  Because he was convicted of that, seven women, so 52 years.

• 47:33Rich Roll?

  So he's in prison now.

• 47:34Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 47:35Rich Roll?

  But this is sort of the tip of the iceberg. Like, this is still going on. And that's what's disheartening. And to your point earlier, there are addicts that are coming out of these experiences in these recovery houses and telling people like, look, this is what's going on. But nobody's believing that.

• 47:54Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 47:55Rich Roll?

  Right? They're like, yeah, whatever. Like, you're not a trustworthy source.

• 47:58Adam Skolnick?

  No one believed those women.

• 47:59Rich Roll?

  And I think that allows this kind of thing to to continue to perpetuate. So I'm really glad that this movie exists because it's shining a spotlight on this. And, you know, like I said at the outset of this, like, I care deeply about recovery. And it's so disheartening that it's been hijacked and abused to such an extent. You know, I had a life changing treatment experience. There are good treatment centers out there. There are good people. Well-intentioned people who are providing really good care to people out there.

• 48:31Adam Skolnick?

  But that was before. You paid for that, right?

• 48:33Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I did. I did. And, and, but I'm saying that still exists now.

• 48:38Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 48:38Rich Roll?

  But I think anybody who's kind of looking at this needs to be more cautious than you used to have to be about what you're getting involved in.

• 48:49Adam Skolnick?

  So maybe you can explain, because one of the closing kind of thoughts in this movie is, it's not about like basically going to the bells and whistles, kind of real world house version of, of a rehab center. And it's more about 12-step is free and 12-step has this incredible track record. So maybe you can explain the difference between those two and why 12-step for you, do you, you think is still kind of the undisputed champ in terms of its effectiveness and, and what it does?

• 49:17Rich Roll?

  Well, 12-step is very effective, like it works if you work it. Not everybody works it and not everybody gets sober. And when you've been in recovery for any extended period of time, you end up going to a lot of funerals and you see a lot of people go out and not come back. So it's heartbreaking as much as it is life-affirming. You know, it's, it's, it's real life and sobriety is hard and it's slow and it's not linear. And, you know, 12-step is not perfect in that regard. You know, if you look at the statistics, the truth of the matter is, most people who try to get sober don't achieve long-term sobriety. They just don't, you know, and, and, and that's just a fact. But 12-step is free.

• 50:02Rich Roll?

  It's open to all comers. It's decentralized. There's no money laundering going on. There's no boss. Nobody's in control. And that sets it apart from the treatment, the, the sort of corporate conglomerate treatment, you know, infrastructure, which is about making money. And when there's so much profit to be had, you're sowing the seeds for ultimately corruption to exist. I think, you know, my experience was about indoctrination into the 12-steps. And that was a part and parcel of my treatment experience was, you know, learning what that was all about and then creating a long-term care plan for when I got out so that I could maintain what I had. You know, the process that I had begun during that hundred day stay.

• 50:47Rich Roll?

  It's not about, you know, massage and Reiki and, you know, going four wheeling and, you know, like, like, some of these are like luxury spa experiences. And like, I'm not against self-care, but don't be confused. That's not treatment. Treatment is rolling up your sleeves. And look, there's a there in the movie, you see, there's a therapist and like, that's great. But also, that should also be understood to sit outside of and be considered distinct from actually the process of like, working the 12 steps and working with a sponsor and helping newcomers and the like.

• 51:22Adam Skolnick?

  One of the horrible outtakes of the bathroom story was he would rape or sexually, otherwise sexually assault women, and then they'd end up in a survivor's kind of support group within the sober living house, and he was running it.

• 51:37Rich Roll?

  Like, unbelievable, man.

• 51:38Adam Skolnick?

  So that's how bad it was. But so what you're saying is going to a safe space helped, kind of removing yourself from the real world as it existed, because it was so twisted for you and you were kind of twisted up in it, helped to to put you in a place where you could receive some of this information. And then linking it to a 12-step program was like the bridge you needed to be able to work it in your daily life.

• 52:03Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I mean, there was something very valuable for me to be able to opt out of my life and go someplace and focus entirely on getting well, you know? But it was not a luxury experience. Like, in the movie, he just kind of waltzes in and they give him a bed. Like, when I, when I walked in, they strip search you, they go through your luggage to make sure, because, you know, people are trying to sneak stuff in. They're not that kind. Like, they threw me in a room and they basically wouldn't talk to me for two days until I, like, dried out. And it was pretty intense and hardcore. There was not a lot of coddling. We weren't going out on, you know, field trips or anything like that. Like, it was really structured and it was more like a mental institution.

• 52:47Rich Roll?

  And, you know, it was, it was a great facility, but, but it was kind of like being in a hospital ward or a dorm. It wasn't like being in a, in a mansion with an ocean view. I mean, I can tell you that.

• 52:59Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah. And then. The idea that like, that's what's so heartbreaking about the story is that they are advertising safe spaces to try to get well. And then it's anything but a safe, actually, you're the prey. You know, it's like, it's like, it's twisted. I didn't even know anything about this.

• 53:17Rich Roll?

  So I hope that there, I hope that this movie will prompt more conversations like this and greater oversight, because a lot of this stems from the fact that there is very little oversight when it comes to sober living houses and detox facilities. And there's just too much money to be made. So we need regulatory oversight over how these insurance funds are dispensed to make sure that people who are in need of treatment and detox can still access that. I mean, I think sober living facilities, when done right, are incredibly beneficial. Like, the idea is you detox, then you have inpatient, and then you have outpatient. And for a lot of people, they need a transition to real life. And the sober

• 53:58Rich Roll?

  living house provides that soft landing. So they can live with other recovering addicts and alcoholics while they go out into the world and try to get jobs. But they're still accountable. And there are still certain rules. So to the extent that we can craft and create some regulatory, you know, oversight over how these things are conducted to make sure that people are safe and that they're fulfilling their intention is what I think we all want.

• 54:26Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, I mean, I think from what I read, that was the reason that there's so little regulation around sober living houses, at least at the time, was because they didn't want to be a lot of red tape, because the more red tape, the less, the more likely that someone in the neighborhood would find out there was a sober living house now in their neighborhood.

• 54:44Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's like a knot in my backyard.

• 54:46Adam Skolnick?

  It would be a NIMBY thing. And so it was, there was, there are good intentions. That created this situation like Obamacare trying to get mental health and drug addiction recovery.

• 54:57Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 54:58Adam Skolnick?

  Mandatory for these insurers. That's a great intention.

• 55:01Rich Roll?

  Right. And it can't be considered a pre-existing condition.

• 55:04Adam Skolnick?

  Right. And then sober living houses, the intention was to make it discreet so that they could, there could exist.

• 55:11Rich Roll?

  Right. But the tragic thing is that you have addicts who cycle through this and become, not only did they not get well, they become calcified around recovery because their experience was so bad. And they realize like what's really going on there. And they become hardened to the process of recovery at all. And then lives are lost.

• 55:35Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 55:36Rich Roll?

  Lots of lives are lost.

• 55:37Adam Skolnick?

  Well, thanks for bringing it to my attention. I can't believe I missed this entire story over the last, those several years.

• 55:43Rich Roll?

  It's crazy, right?

• 55:44Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 55:45Rich Roll?

  All right, let's move on. What do we got? We're gonna do a little show and tell now?

• 55:48Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, show and tell. All right, show and tell. Well, do you want to start with the new pod, the newest podcaster on the block?

• 55:57Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 55:58Adam Skolnick?

  He's like, he's kind of a, you know, he's a small timer in the game.

• 56:02Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 56:03Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah. You might've heard of him, though.

• 56:04Rich Roll?

  The Boss and Obama getting together on Spotify.

• 56:09Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 56:10Rich Roll?

  So, listen, Barack, I know you were president for two terms and you're dashing and handsome and the like, but I don't know what makes you think you can host a podcast. This is a skill, my friend. It takes years.

• 56:22Adam Skolnick?

  Listen, you might have a degree in hypnotherapy, but you're not a podcast host.

• 56:27Rich Roll?

  So.

• 56:28Adam Skolnick?

  I had to go to DeVry to get this job.

• 56:31Rich Roll?

  I haven't listened to this podcast yet, but this was big news. Spotify made a big splash with this Bruce Springsteen, Barack Obama podcast episode. Is it intended as just one episode?

• 56:42Adam Skolnick?

  No.

• 56:43Rich Roll?

  Or is Obama gonna now like interview people? Like, what's going on?

• 56:46Adam Skolnick?

  I don't know if Renegades is this shingle where they're gonna just pair two people together and it'll become something.

• 56:51Rich Roll?

  Like an Iconoclast. Remember that show, Iconoclast in IFC where they get into, like they had Eddie Vedder and Laird Hamilton spend the day together.

• 56:59Adam Skolnick?

  Right, right, right. Or is this, Renegades, does it belong, is Barack Obama gonna just interview other people? It's hard to know. I listened to the first episode on the way here. And, I mean, Barack Obama's very good.

• 57:13Adam Skolnick?

  I'm sorry to tell you. He's such a good interviewer, but you know, I'm struck by two things. One is Barack Obama is a great podcast host and he is the host. He's interviewing Bruce and it unfolds over the course of like, I don't know how many episodes, maybe a half a dozen. And the first one is about being outsiders, growing up as an outsider. And you know, it's not like Bruce Springsteen hasn't told his life story before. He's told it over the course of many record albums. I did, I went to the River Tour where he just talked about like, he just performed that album and talked about his life. He did a Broadway show and now he's in this. But every time he talks about his life story, it does feel fresh. I mean, he is very gifted in that category. And the two, it's, it's, it is great to hear them together.

• 57:56Adam Skolnick?

  And, and, and I found myself suspending all those kinds of thoughts about what this means for podcasting and just kind of enjoying these two people. But so it's good, it's good content, you know? Spotify is like, if you couple this with what Joe Rogan's deal was, with the Bill Simmons ringer deal. Yeah, it's incredible what they're doing.

• 58:17Rich Roll?

  They've really stepped up. Yeah, I mean, they have made big plays to try to own this corner of the internet and, and they're putting great stuff out there. So hands off to them. It's an interesting move on behalf of Spotify. They're recognizing that owning a significant part of podcasting market share is in their interest for a number of reasons. Not the least of which is when you look at how these tech platforms grow and become de rigueur, it's about, it's about monopolizing your time. Right? Like the idea, the sort of parameter is how long can we keep you on our platform?

• 59:00Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 59:00Rich Roll?

  And when Spotify has listeners listening to music, they have to pay royalties out to the record labels. But when they have a podcast on, if that podcast is too, if they're listening to Joe Rogan for three hours, they're on Spotify for three hours, listening to ads, but they don't have to pay, I mean, they paid Joe upfront, but they don't have to pay royalties out. So it's in their interest to move towards podcasting and away from music as a way of capturing people's attention. And they got this. Crazy war chest that they can marshal to get people like Bruce Springsteen and Barack Obama on their platform.

• 59:40Adam Skolnick?

  Are they profitable yet?

• 59:43Rich Roll?

  I don't know what the numbers are, but you know, they're running it like a Hollywood studio. I mean, Don Ostroff is running, you know, podcasting for Spotify and she's been magnificent at recruiting top talent and developing, you know, what they're, you know, it's basically like Netflix for podcasting.

• 1:00:02Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 1:00:02Rich Roll?

  So.

• 1:00:03Adam Skolnick?

  Crazy.

• 1:00:04Rich Roll?

  Good on them.

• 1:00:04Adam Skolnick?

  And did you, you had some other insights into this, you know, you, you're reading something right before we went on. How does this help or hurt kind of podcasting going forward? What was your takeaway on that?

• 1:00:15Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's interesting. There's a, there's a New York Times article today by a guy called Ben Cesario. The title of the piece is called, "Podcasting is booming? Will Hollywood Help or Hurt Its Future?" I have, you know, a variety of thoughts on this. I mean, first of all, there's a conversation to be had that I'm not that interested in, which is if, if, if a podcast is on Spotify, is it even a podcast? Because it's four-walled there. It's not an RSS feed. And podcasting technically is when you can disperse an audio file and make it publicly available across the internet. I, I don't think that that's an important distinction. I think we're moving towards this subscription future where everybody's going to be putting

• 1:00:56Rich Roll?

  their stuff, you know, like whether it's Substack and newsletters, like everybody is segmenting content behind a variety of subscription paywalls right now. So it seems like this is just the natural evolution of things.

• 1:01:10Rich Roll?

  You know, podcasting, you know, I, I wasn't the first to start a podcast, but I've been in it longer than most, now eight and a half years almost. And it's changed dramatically. It used to be a hobbyist sort of pursuit, you know, and, and something that a lot of comedians were doing.

• 1:01:29Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:30Rich Roll?

  But now it's being monetized significantly across the board with the bigger shows. And with that influx of money, you're going to see the corporatization of it and the growth of things like Spotify. So it's not surprising. You know, I still believe, I wouldn't say it's a meritocracy. I think if you're starting a podcast right now. It's very difficult to get audience share because there's so much content out there, not just in podcasting, but across the board. So if you're just looking at trying to grab attention share in the attention economy, when there's Netflix and Hulu and HBO, you know, all the streaming platforms, and then, you know, everything that's going on

• 1:02:11Rich Roll?

  with audio right now, including all the apps that are available, what are you creating that's going to be compelling enough to draw people away from whatever it is that they're paying attention to and pay attention to your thing? I think it's incredibly difficult right now, and we've benefited from being early on and getting a little bit of, you know, a land grab that we've been able to hang on to.

• 1:02:31Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:31Rich Roll?

  God forbid, we tried to start this thing now. I think it would have been incredibly difficult. But I do believe, that being said, that, you know, quality rises to the top over the long haul, right?

• 1:02:42Adam Skolnick?

  So. It can.

• 1:02:44Rich Roll?

  It can.

• 1:02:45Adam Skolnick?

  It doesn't always work that way.

• 1:02:46Rich Roll?

  Right. But if you're good, and it's not about getting millions of people to listen to, it's like, who are your hundred true fans, or the thousand people that are interested in what you're doing? And podcasting is still, there's no barrier to entry, anybody can do it. And if you pick a particular niche that you find compelling, there are other people out in the world that probably will agree with that.

• 1:03:08Adam Skolnick?

  Well, you, one thing that would help you is you had three, kind of three-pronged niche. You were kind of like, you have the sobriety, you have the plant base, and you have the endurance power. And putting those three things together was kind of a calling card for you early on, right?

• 1:03:21Rich Roll?

  I guess, I mean, I never really thought of it that way. I mean, that's probably true, but I just followed my curiosity, you know? And now, if you were just going to start a podcast and just say, I'm going to talk to interesting people, like, good luck. You know, even movie stars have tried to do that and failed, people who already have big following. So it's not easy. And just because you have name recognition, doesn't mean you're actually good at this thing. It's a skill, even though Obama, you know, is knocking out of the park with his first go.

• 1:03:49Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah. Great first guest.

• 1:03:51Rich Roll?

  I think, you know, like, if I go back and listen to my early podcasts, I'm sure I'd cringe. I would never do that, but you know, it's like you, you grow and change with it. But I think with this influx of money, you're going to see higher production quality, higher production value, and you're getting these scripted series. We see a lot of the true crime stuff.

• 1:04:11Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 1:04:12Rich Roll?

  And, um, and now these new narrative, uh, storytelling, which is old radio. It's old timey radio coming back, packaged with movie stars and big budgets.

• 1:04:23Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:23Rich Roll?

  And the idea is that this becomes IP that you can develop into mini-series, TV shows, movies and the like. Like We Crash, the Wondery series is being developed as a movie right now. Like there's, a lot of that is going on right now. So there is a, there, there is a, um, a lot of attention being paid to this.

• 1:04:41Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:42Rich Roll?

  But at the same time, like the way that I look at it is I'm just going to keep doing my thing. I'll try to get better at it. And I believe that long-form, interesting conversations with compelling people is never going to go out of style.

• 1:04:53Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah. I think it's interesting, the, um, kind of family rivalry that's budding between Michelle and Barack. Michelle's book kills it. Then Barack comes out, his book kills it. She has a great Spotify podcast that's doing great. He comes out with Bruce Springsteen, like six-part series.

• 1:05:13Adam Skolnick?

  They're fueling each other.

• 1:05:14Rich Roll?

  It's funny, isn't it?

• 1:05:15Adam Skolnick?

  It's great.

• 1:05:17Rich Roll?

  I wonder what those conversations are like at home. I'm sure they're very supportive of each other.

• 1:05:21Adam Skolnick?

  There's definitely some like poking though.

• 1:05:24Rich Roll?

  Like, oh yeah, how many books did you sell today?

• 1:05:28Adam Skolnick?

  We're gonna have to get the real story from, uh, from Sasha and, uh, Malia at some stage.

• 1:05:35Rich Roll?

  But I, I will say like, as part of this New York Times article, this idea that, you know, as podcasting becomes big business, there's unease that the diversity of voices in our earbuds, never a strong suit of the industry, could be put at risk too. That may be true, but like, what are we supposed to do about it? Like, are we supposed to put protective measures?

• 1:05:54Adam Skolnick?

  To what?

• 1:05:55Rich Roll?

  I don't know. That's what I'm asking.

• 1:05:56Adam Skolnick?

  To make sure you have the right amount of percentage of people that have the microphone?

• 1:06:00Rich Roll?

  Right, which brings up the broader discussion about, you know, content moderation in podcasting, which I don't know how you could possibly do that.

• 1:06:08Adam Skolnick?

  I think you have to just let, like you said, I think, you know, anybody can get into it. Anybody can buy a couple of Shure microphones and get into it.

• 1:06:17Rich Roll?

  You could do it on your iPhone and upload with Anchor. You don't even need Shure microphones. Shure microphones are nice, though.

• 1:06:23Adam Skolnick?

  Doesn't it sound good?

• 1:06:23Rich Roll?

  They're not cheap.

• 1:06:24Adam Skolnick?

  No, but they're, what are they, 500 bucks?

• 1:06:27Rich Roll?

  Something like that.

• 1:06:27Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah. I mean, just go on TikTok and start dancing. You'll build a huge following and you can just create a podcast out of that.

• 1:06:33Rich Roll?

  There you go. All right, man. What do we got next?

• 1:06:37Adam Skolnick?

  Okay, I saw a movie this week called Diving Deep: The Life and Times of Mike DeGruy. Mike DeGruy, I mean, it was made by his wife, Mimi. Mike died tragically. I don't want to spoil it, but he was an incredible underwater cinematographer and nature host. And you may never have heard of him, but he is, he was also a submarine pilot, a technical diver. He, you have seen his footage. If you've seen Blue Planet, you've seen Mike's work. If you saw the Titanic documentary that James Cameron produced about finding the real Titanic, he was the DP on that. If you've seen the footage of the orcas playing with the sea lions on the beach,

• 1:07:21Adam Skolnick?

  hunting them, he was the first guy to shoot that. So he is, he is a giant in that space. He's on the level of kind of in the Jacques Cousteau, Sylvia Earle category in terms of incredible all-around scientific mind and cinematographer and kind of blurring those lines. I mean, he is one of the truly great people in that space. And I didn't even know his story until I watched this movie. And it became, I think Mimi started to look at footage from his years in the editing room nine months after he passed away.

• 1:07:58Adam Skolnick?

  And started to put together this movie. This is a great snapshot of who Mike was, where he grew up, how he got into it. A shark attack that he survived, his becoming a submarine pilot, his going to the Gulf of Mexico after Deepwater Horizon, that disaster happened, and how he got so angry when the dispersants were dropped to sink all that oil and what dispersants do post oil spill to the ecosystem and to, in general, and how that kind of angered him and mobilized him. And she interviews a lot of luminaries from that space, including James Cameron several times, and I've never seen James Cameron, who you all know, Avatar Titanic director, I've never seen him so disarmed in an interview.

• 1:08:43Adam Skolnick?

  Usually he's pretty kind of uptight and reserved, and he is just like really wide open in this interview. And there are reasons for that, and you'll see why, but, but you know, you credit Mimi for that. And just to, just, just to respect these watermen that people don't hear about and, and how much he cared about sharks and how much he cared about the marine ecosystem and how curious he was and how excellent he was at all these, you know, to become a great underwater cinematographer is one thing, to become a great technical diver is another thing, to become a submarine pilot is another thing. To do all of that while raising a family and do it all in one lifetime is absolutely, it's unfathomable to me. It's incredible.

• 1:09:23Rich Roll?

  Right, well, I'll have to check it out. I haven't watched it yet, but I'm super interested in that.

• 1:09:27Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:09:28Rich Roll?

  Diving, diving deep, we'll put a link in the show notes about the life and times of Mike Degroy.

• 1:09:34Adam Skolnick?

  Degree.

• 1:09:35Rich Roll?

  Degree.

• 1:09:36Adam Skolnick?

  Like, he's from Mobile, Alabama.

• 1:09:37Rich Roll?

  His wife, Mimi, is the one who directed the movie.

• 1:09:39Adam Skolnick?

  Yep, she made it.

• 1:09:40Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm, cool.

• 1:09:41Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:42Rich Roll?

  So technically, this is show and tell.

• 1:09:45Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:45Rich Roll?

  So I thought, I don't have any big, specific show and tell thing, but I will, I did want to say that I get like so many books in the mail.

• 1:09:53Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 1:09:53Rich Roll?

  And often I get multiple copies of the same book.

• 1:09:56Adam Skolnick?

  Really?

• 1:09:57Rich Roll?

  Because they don't know that they sent it to me, or maybe the author sends it to me, and then the publisher sends it to me. And generally, these are, you know, books from, for podcast guests or potential podcast guests. And I've had a habit of either donating them to libraries or to Goodwill. But I thought I would do a giveaway, so I just grabbed a couple that were in my office right now. I've got, I have multiple copies of Adam Grant's Think Again. I've got a second copy of Jed Jenkins's Like Streams of the Ocean. I got two copies of this amazing book that I'm just starting called Exercise by Daniel Lieberman, who's a Harvard professor. He was one of the pioneers of the barefoot running movement.

• 1:10:37Adam Skolnick?

  Oh, really?

• 1:10:37Rich Roll?

  He's part of Born to Run, and I'm trying to get him on the podcast. This guy's got amazing stories and he's super cool.

• 1:10:44Adam Skolnick?

  There's a petroglyph on the cover.

• 1:10:45Rich Roll?

  There is, yeah. It's all about like human ancestry and movement and...

• 1:10:50Adam Skolnick?

  Is that a petroglyph treadmill?

• 1:10:52Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it is, I think.

• 1:10:54Adam Skolnick?

  Wow, we were so...

• 1:10:55Rich Roll?

  It's a peloton on the cover.

• 1:10:56Adam Skolnick?

  Is that an ancient Greek peloton?

• 1:10:59Rich Roll?

  The point is, Adam, stay on track here.

• 1:11:01Adam Skolnick?

  Oh, sorry.

• 1:11:02Rich Roll?

  I got a bunch of books that I want to give away. So, and plus, I brought out a sketch that Brian O'Hara did for me on YouTube. You can see this. So Brian, my artist friend Brian, who I've spoken about on the podcast before, he's the one who created our logo and he's got a bunch of artwork here in the new studio. He has a very interesting lens on the world. He sees words backwards. He's not dyslexic, but he has a different relationship to...

• 1:11:35Adam Skolnick?

  The written word.

• 1:11:36Rich Roll?

  His like visual cortex than most people. So he, his art is in this kind of reverse hieroglyph style.

• 1:11:45Adam Skolnick?

  Interesting.

• 1:11:45Rich Roll?

  That makes it almost look like Arabic or something like that. And he, he kind of encrypts his artwork with positive messaging. And this is just a piece that he like did really quick and ripped it out of his sketchbook and gave it to me. I've got a bunch of these, so I thought it would be cool to give this away on the podcast. I'm not even sure what this says.

• 1:12:09Adam Skolnick?

  How are you gonna give it away?

• 1:12:09Rich Roll?

  I think this says peace and plants.

• 1:12:11Adam Skolnick?

  Oh, does it?

• 1:12:12Rich Roll?

  Can you read this?

• 1:12:12Adam Skolnick?

  Let's see. Well, there's definitely peace.

• 1:12:16Rich Roll?

  Yeah, you see peace.

• 1:12:17Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:17Rich Roll?

  I think it says peace and plants.

• 1:12:18Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:20Rich Roll?

  And as you can see, for people who are just listening, it's just torn out of a spiral notebook.

• 1:12:25Adam Skolnick?

  It's amazing.

• 1:12:25Rich Roll?

  It's not framed or anything like that. But I believe in Brian's talent, and I think one day he's gonna be a massive success as an artist. So this could be a valuable thing to hang on to. So how do I do this? I don't know. I mean, maybe just subscribe to the YouTube channel and leave a comment below the video with why you think that you should get this book or this piece of art, and we'll pick somebody.

• 1:12:53Adam Skolnick?

  Perfect.

• 1:12:53Rich Roll?

  How about that?

• 1:12:54Adam Skolnick?

  I love it.

• 1:12:54Rich Roll?

  Cool. So that's my big show and tell for today.

• 1:12:58Adam Skolnick?

  Good show and tell.

• 1:12:58Rich Roll?

  All right.

• 1:13:01Rich Roll?

  You want to talk about Lawrence Ferlinghetti, right?

• 1:13:03Adam Skolnick?

  I do want to talk about Lawrence Ferlinghetti. And this is kind of a teachable moment and maybe a hat tip to a legendary man in publishing and in poetry. He died, you may have heard or read, at 101 years old recently. I guess it was February 23, the obituary. So either that day or the night before. Lawrence Ferlinghetti started a bookstore in 1953 called City Lights in San Francisco. It's in North Beach, kind of in the transition zone between Chinatown and North Beach. Dwight Garner, the literary critic at the New York Times, called it almost certainly the best bookstore in the United States. For me, it is. You know, like, it was, it's kind of been...

• 1:13:48Rich Roll?

  It's a historic landmark.

• 1:13:50Adam Skolnick?

  A landmark, a holy temple.

• 1:13:51Rich Roll?

  It's an icon of a time.

• 1:13:53Adam Skolnick?

  Yes, a holy temple of madmen and people who are looking for truth in this world. And basically, he started the bookstore within a couple of years, and it was just all paperbacks at a time when paperbacks weren't really being sold too much. So he started this paperback bookstore. And because of that, it was like he... Things were cheap, and he acquired a bunch of people who were coming to San Francisco, and they showed up at his doorstep, and a lot of them were poets. And then, within a couple of years, he launched a press to start publishing these people. One of them was Allen Ginsberg. And his story turns, and the story of the Beat literary movement turns when he publishes Howl. Which I'm holding it up here. It's a fifty-

• 1:14:35Rich Roll?

  Furlingetti publishes Howl.

• 1:14:36Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, he, Furlingetti-

• 1:14:37Rich Roll?

  Under City Lights has a, has like a banner.

• 1:14:40Adam Skolnick?

  That's right. And, and he published it in, I think it was fifty nine, fifty seven, fifty six. Published it in nineteen fifty six. It's the first thing he published. It's Allen Ginsberg's Howl. Cause he performed it in City Lights. And fifty six page book that became a sensation. And partly because everyone heard about it. They came in to buy it. And the police, San Francisco police, had an undercover cop come in. And I guess he was under eighteen or had another, someone, they were following someone and he, they sold, the bookseller sold it to someone under eighteen and it's sexually explicit. And it talks about homosexuality and all sorts of things in this fifty six pages, especially the poem Howl. Which is, as you know, one of the great poems.

• 1:15:24Adam Skolnick?

  Because what it did was it broke verse from something stodgy, like poems of the, of the old age and, and became much more, you know, stream of consciousness style. And anyway, the bookseller was arrested. Furlingetti, the publisher of the book, was arrested and the owner of the store was arrested. And it became a landmark First Amendment case. Where basically it was tried. Can you, you know, is this obscene literature? Can, you know, is, or, or is it not? And is it protected by the First Amendment? And it turned out it was, they, they had a good lawyer.

• 1:15:55Rich Roll?

  Was Cunsler the lawyer on that?

• 1:15:57Adam Skolnick?

  Forget, you know, there's a James Franco movie that, that-

• 1:15:59Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:00Adam Skolnick?

  Talks about this. I didn't watch it.

• 1:16:01Rich Roll?

  Yeah, something tells me William Cunsler was the, was the lawyer. I couldn't-

• 1:16:05Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, they got, they got like a heavyweight lawyer that came in and argued it, even though-

• 1:16:08Rich Roll?

  Cunsler's the guy with the law. He did Chicago Seven, you know.

• 1:16:11Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's a municipal case, but it had national implications. And luckily there was a federal court case that they use as a precedent. And this kind of reinforced that precedent that if there is social value, it can't be considered obscene. And so that's what the argument was that, and everyone was innocent of charges. And this poem became a sensation and, and, and basically fueled this beat movement, which included Jack Kerouac.

• 1:16:37Adam Skolnick?

  Gary Snyder, you know, Jack Kerouac on the road and all of those Gary Snyder, Neil Cassidy and Ferlinghetti himself, who published Coney Island of the Mind, which is one of the most successful poetry books in history, one million copies in print. And so, you know, the legend was built right around that era. And what I think is one of the things he used to say is when life gets too awful, look for the lyric escape. That's something Ferlinghetti says. And that can be writing, it can be painting, it can be sex, you know, making love, it could be running, swimming, diving. Reach for a peace of mind. That's the lyric escape. And to me, City Lights was a lyric escape every time I entered that building. And so, you know, they gave us great literature, but they also kind of

• 1:17:20Adam Skolnick?

  bridged, they were open to Zen Buddhism, they were open to kind of an expansion of the mind. It wasn't just about reading a great book. It was a reading a great book that that allowed you to look for that expansion of your own self. It kind of was a precursor to a lot of the yoga stuff that kind of came right in the 60s and the yoga movement and the personal development movement. So it's one of those really pivotal literary movements in our culture. And Ferlinghetti was a foundation.

• 1:17:54Rich Roll?

  Right. And we're, I don't know that we mentioned this, but we're bringing it up because he just passed away.

• 1:17:58Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah. No, I did mention it.

• 1:17:59Rich Roll?

  Oh, you did. Okay.

• 1:18:00Adam Skolnick?

  He passed away at 101 years old.

• 1:18:01Rich Roll?

  Right. I mean, City Lights, the vortex of the counterculture movement of the 60s. It birthed the Beat poet generation, Neil Cassidy, all of that. And, you know, if you haven't visited City, I mean, still there, like if you haven't.

• 1:18:19Adam Skolnick?

  It closed down during the pandemic.

• 1:18:20Rich Roll?

  Oh, it did.

• 1:18:21Adam Skolnick?

  It just closed down and then, and then it raised a bunch of money through one of those, you know, GoFundMe. And so now it has $400,000 to hopefully reopen, but they have not committed to reopening.

• 1:18:31Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Yeah, they can't let that fail.

• 1:18:33Adam Skolnick?

  You can't let it fail, no.

• 1:18:34Rich Roll?

  Just like you can't let the strand fail in New York.

• 1:18:37Adam Skolnick?

  No. When, as a Stanford student, did you go into the city, did you, was that on your radar, city lights?

• 1:18:42Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I mean, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I remember the first time that I went in there, knowing full well the legacy and the history that's baked into that. And, you know, I was, as a young person, fascinated with that period of time. I remember reading Tom Wolfe's The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test and it just blew my mind and reading On the Road and all of that. So I love all that stuff. And, and it is interesting how, you know, what is the long-term legacy of that and how it's getting played out right now, like, everything from Lululemon to this now swap in how we're thinking about free speech, right?

• 1:19:17Adam Skolnick?

  Well, yeah.

• 1:19:17Rich Roll?

  Like, free speech being the vanguard of the progressive liberals during this period of time, when people are getting arrested for selling copies of Howl to underage people, to now that being a mirror image of what it once was.

• 1:19:30Adam Skolnick?

  Right. Well, so like, exactly to your point, it was the kind of, the, the main, the, the overlords of the old culture of the, like, the 1950s, the stodgy kind of, you know, religious institutional culture that was saying, no, you can't say this, this is the wrong thing to say, and, and basically arresting people for publishing a book because it had the wrong words in it. And now we're making punk rock, nonconformist stars out of mediocre minds when progressives are doing that by saying you can't say this.

• 1:20:02Rich Roll?

  Now progressives are the ones who are policing speech.

• 1:20:04Adam Skolnick?

  Exactly.

• 1:20:05Rich Roll?

  It's strange and disorienting to see that happening. And, you know, part of that is rooted in, in progressive progress and part of it is, you know, perhaps a bridge too far in terms of...

• 1:20:18Adam Skolnick?

  I think it starts with, again, good intentions.

• 1:20:20Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:20Adam Skolnick?

  You know, we're not condoning hate speech here, and people, if you allow free speech to the maximum level... Hate speech has to be protected too. Like, like, there's a reason the ACLU have have filed cases to support, you know, KKK marches. You know, the idea is that you keep it open so that the marginalized have a space to speak. But that is by nature going to allow everyone to have a space to speak. But, you know, we're not condoning hate speech at all. But we need to have the big picture in mind always when we're talking about freedom of speech, you know. A good beat poet title for the current age, Jason was saying this before we went on, please stick to the approved words. That's, that would be the great, the

• 1:21:05Adam Skolnick?

  great poet title.

• 1:21:06Rich Roll?

  Right, yeah.

• 1:21:06Adam Skolnick?

  Of the current age.

• 1:21:07Rich Roll?

  Right, because that's, that's like a very provocative punk rockish title to have in this moment, right?

• 1:21:13Adam Skolnick?

  Right, right, right. And that doesn't mean that we don't understand where it's coming from, or don't have empathy to people who felt marginalized and want to make things better. But you can't control making things better by saying what you can say and when you can say it and how you can say it. Because if that was true, we wouldn't have old people getting pushed over on the streets. Everything would be cool. But it's not cool.

• 1:21:37Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:46Rich Roll?

  All right, let's do some listener questions.

• 1:21:48Adam Skolnick?

  Okay, listener questions. Let's hear from Josh from Raleigh, North Carolina.

• 1:21:53Speaker 02

  Hey, Adam. Hey, Rich. This is Josh from Raleigh, North Carolina, calling. My question is an aspirational riff off of the conversation that Rich recently had with Lexi Pappas about the importance of surrounding oneself with high vibration people. So my question for both of you is if you could have a road trip, a pilgrimage, some type of adventure with three people, living or dead, who would they be? For me, it would be Rich Roll, Ram Das, and Father Richard Rohr. Sorry, Adam. Please play this on air, and thanks so much, guys. Much love. Namaste.

• 1:22:28Rich Roll?

  Oh, my God.

• 1:22:28Adam Skolnick?

  Namaste, Josh. I can't come. What if, what, can I be the driver?

• 1:22:34Rich Roll?

  That's very generous. I'm, I'm, I'm flattered.

• 1:22:37Adam Skolnick?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:22:38Rich Roll?

  I wouldn't pick me.

• 1:22:39Adam Skolnick?

  You're bemused. You wouldn't pick yourself?

• 1:22:41Rich Roll?

  No.

• 1:22:43Adam Skolnick?

  You have to go, it's your road trip.

• 1:22:45Rich Roll?

  Who would you, who do you got?

• 1:22:47Adam Skolnick?

  Me?

• 1:22:47Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:49Adam Skolnick?

  I divided up into the living and the undead. In the living, I'm pricking Barack Obama because he's my favorite podcaster.

• 1:22:58Rich Roll?

  You're fired.

• 1:23:00Adam Skolnick?

  Teak Not Han. And Elizabeth Gilbert, because she's pretty chatty and she'd be fun.

• 1:23:05Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:23:05Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:06Rich Roll?

  Because when you're going on a road trip, there's lots of things to consider. Like, how often is this person going to need to pull over and go to the bathroom? What are their dietary restrictions? Like, is this, like, are you going to be able to do the long hang? As you go all the way across the...

• 1:23:20Adam Skolnick?

  So you have Teak Not Han, old timer, who's seen it all, and Barack Obama. They could talk, there's, I think you'd have a lot of, like, great insights in Elizabeth Gilbert. All very well-read people. I'd learn a lot.

• 1:23:31Rich Roll?

  I'd just like to sit in the backseat and listen to Barack and Liz Gilbert get chatty.

• 1:23:37Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:38Rich Roll?

  Which would be good.

• 1:23:39Adam Skolnick?

  And Teak Not Han would just like...

• 1:23:40Rich Roll?

  Chime in with, he'd just drop a little pearl every once in a while?

• 1:23:45Adam Skolnick?

  You know, Teak Not Han was, as you may or may not know, a giant, uh, in, in, he was a Vietnamese ref, uh, not refugee, he's Vietnamese, uh, monk.

• 1:23:55Rich Roll?

  Monk.

• 1:23:56Adam Skolnick?

  Who ended up having, like, early mindfulness meditation, um, uh, influence. And he was, uh, he, he, he and Martin Luther King Jr. were very tight. So my undead is Bruce Lee, because he's a cool movie star, John Coltrane, because, you know, he's him, and Anne Frank in the Liz Gilbert role.

• 1:24:17Rich Roll?

  Did you intentionally make these sort of appropriately diverse also? You have, for each, the living and the undead, you have, you have an African American, an Asian, and a woman?

• 1:24:29Adam Skolnick?

  Well, I'm trying to be, I want to make it, I want, you know what? I, yes, I thought about it, but, um...

• 1:24:37Rich Roll?

  So woke.

• 1:24:38Adam Skolnick?

  I probably would have, I probably would have, you know, it probably would be John Coltrane, Bob Marley, and somebody else if I had to pick. But, um, in this sense, since we're on, live on the air here, not live, but on the air, I figured, um, I have so many things I'm interested in. You know, I'm not even into martial arts, but I saw the Bruce Lee documentary recently, and it was either him or Napoleon, and I went with him.

• 1:24:58Rich Roll?

  Hmm.

• 1:24:59Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah. Napoleon would be cool.

• 1:25:02Rich Roll?

  He might be, he might be a pain in the ass, though, too.

• 1:25:05Adam Skolnick?

  He'd want to drive.

• 1:25:08Adam Skolnick?

  He'd want to drive.

• 1:25:08Rich Roll?

  Be in control?

• 1:25:09Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:10Rich Roll?

  The whole time?

• 1:25:11Adam Skolnick?

  But we'd have to like strap blocks on his feet so he could reach the pedals.

• 1:25:14Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:16Rich Roll?

  This is tough. I get asked this question a lot, like,

• 1:25:19Adam Skolnick?

  Do you really?

• 1:25:19Rich Roll?

  Would you have dinner with? I always stumble. I can never come up with anything that interesting. I mean, I just, I just riffed off this off the top of my head, but for the living, I had Michael Stipe, David Attenborough, and Richard Branson.

• 1:25:36Adam Skolnick?

  Okay.

• 1:25:36Rich Roll?

  Or possibly Haruki Murakami.

• 1:25:39Adam Skolnick?

  Okay.

• 1:25:39Rich Roll?

  That would be cool.

• 1:25:40Adam Skolnick?

  Okay.

• 1:25:41Rich Roll?

  But, you know, I don't know.

• 1:25:42Adam Skolnick?

  Michael Stipe because he's the lead singer of your favorite all time band?

• 1:25:45Rich Roll?

  All time?

• 1:25:46Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:46Rich Roll?

  Yeah, he's, he's, he's, he's a must.

• 1:25:49Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:49Rich Roll?

  But I could go with Barack, Liz Gilbert, you know? These are all cool people. Like, it's also about the curation, right?

• 1:25:57Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, that's the point.

• 1:25:58Rich Roll?

  Because you're not going to be talking the whole time or listening the whole time. Like, are these people going to get along with each other?

• 1:26:03Adam Skolnick?

  You need to have, first of all, you need to have men and women because you have to have a nice balance. You can't, yes. And will they get along was a big thing. That's why I'm, I'm, I think my living

• 1:26:14Adam Skolnick?

  car is, is, is pretty rock solid. I don't think that goes anywhere. But the, the dad, you just don't know how John Coltrane and Anne Frank are going to get along. I think they'll be fine.

• 1:26:23Rich Roll?

  But if you have Liz Gilbert or you have like Brene Brown, like they'll, they get to the heart of things quickly.

• 1:26:29Adam Skolnick?

  Yes, but maybe, maybe almost too quickly.

• 1:26:32Rich Roll?

  Maybe. When you're, when you're dealing with 3,000 miles ahead of you.

• 1:26:37Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 1:26:38Rich Roll?

  I don't feel like they would run out of things to talk about, though.

• 1:26:41Adam Skolnick?

  No, definitely not.

• 1:26:42Rich Roll?

  You know?

• 1:26:43Adam Skolnick?

  Who's your, who's your?

• 1:26:44Rich Roll?

  The undead, I got Marcus Aurelius because, you know, what is it like to be the most powerful man in the world and be a philosopher king?

• 1:26:53Adam Skolnick?

  And be played by Russell Crowe.

• 1:26:56Rich Roll?

  Uh, no, he played, Russell Crowe didn't play Marcus Aurelius.

• 1:27:01Adam Skolnick?

  Oh, no, he played.

• 1:27:02Rich Roll?

  Marcus Aurelius was played by Rich, I'm blanking.

• 1:27:08Adam Skolnick?

  Oh, that's right.

• 1:27:09Rich Roll?

  He just passed away.

• 1:27:10Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Richard Harris.

• 1:27:12Rich Roll?

  Richard Harris, exactly. You know, JC, Jesus Christ, I mean, why not? Let's get to the bottom of this, right?

• 1:27:18Adam Skolnick?

  I had Jesus on my list. I crossed him out for Anne Frank.

• 1:27:22Rich Roll?

  It's a cop out, though. It's like, oh, Abraham Lincoln and Jesus Christ and, you know.

• 1:27:26Adam Skolnick?

  I know, I didn't want to.

• 1:27:27Rich Roll?

  But like, are you gonna not pick him if you can pick anybody? And let's get to the root of things.

• 1:27:33Adam Skolnick?

  He's pretty famous.

• 1:27:33Rich Roll?

  Right? And while we're at it, Bill W., why not?

• 1:27:38Adam Skolnick?

  Bill Withers?

• 1:27:39Rich Roll?

  Bill W. from The Secret Society, the founder, the co-founder of The Rooms.

• 1:27:45Adam Skolnick?

  I don't know.

• 1:27:46Rich Roll?

  You don't?

• 1:27:47Adam Skolnick?

  No.

• 1:27:47Rich Roll?

  Wow. It really has, it has been kept anonymous at the level of press, radio and film. He's one of the co-founders of AA.

• 1:27:56Adam Skolnick?

  Oh, okay.

• 1:27:57Rich Roll?

  Bill Wilson.

• 1:27:58Adam Skolnick?

  Bill Wilson.

• 1:27:59Rich Roll?

  But, you know, I don't know, like, that's not the most diverse list either.

• 1:28:05Adam Skolnick?

  No. I don't think there's a right answer.

• 1:28:07Rich Roll?

  I feel like, I feel, maybe one of the reasons why I struggle with this a little bit is that I get to do this every week on the podcast.

• 1:28:13Adam Skolnick?

  I figured.

• 1:28:13Rich Roll?

  The podcast is my version of going on a road trip with somebody I want to talk to.

• 1:28:17Adam Skolnick?

  Right. And if you listen to your podcast, you're getting that. And you're also getting the, it's almost like the Barack Obama, Bruce Springsteen is half of the car.

• 1:28:27Rich Roll?

  Come at me, Barack.

• 1:28:28Adam Skolnick?

  Exactly.

• 1:28:29Rich Roll?

  Come at me. There's an open seat. I'll kick Adam out of here right away. If Barack wants to come and step in and roll on, you're fired.

• 1:28:36Adam Skolnick?

  I'm out of here?

• 1:28:37Rich Roll?

  Yeah. He's shown his chops. He can handle himself behind a microphone.

• 1:28:41Adam Skolnick?

  That's true.

• 1:28:41Rich Roll?

  Who knew? There's a job opening.

• 1:28:45Adam Skolnick?

  What about the boss?

• 1:28:48Rich Roll?

  That might be tricky.

• 1:28:49Adam Skolnick?

  Oh.

• 1:28:51Rich Roll?

  Could be good. I don't know. I don't see Bruce coming over here every week.

• 1:28:55Adam Skolnick?

  If Barack wants to come here every other week, I will.

• 1:28:59Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:59Adam Skolnick?

  I mean.

• 1:29:00Rich Roll?

  You know, he's gonna get a pad down in Point Dume. He's gonna ride his Ducati over here.

• 1:29:05Adam Skolnick?

  Podcasting is a meritocracy. I will have to give way. I will give way.

• 1:29:09Rich Roll?

  All right, let's move on.

• 1:29:10Adam Skolnick?

  All right, cool.

• 1:29:13Adam Skolnick?

  This is another interesting question we don't get every day from Tara in Long Beach, California.

• 1:29:17Speaker 03

  Hi, this is Tara. I'm from Long Beach, California.

• 1:29:21Adam Skolnick?

  Tara.

• 1:29:22Speaker 03

  Absolutely fine to play this clip on the air. I wanted to call and clarify my prior question. So my question is, I'm a family physician who works full time. I have twin three-year-olds and I am trying to dabble in ultra-running. My wife is supportive of my running, but in a way that can be frustrating and difficult for our relationship. So my question is, how do I best balance these three things that I have going on without disrupting the balance of my relationships as well, specifically with longer runs on the weekends and time away from family? What is a good way to address these issues and

• 1:30:05Speaker 03

  have everyone's needs met? Thanks, guys. Bye.

• 1:30:08Rich Roll?

  This is a great question. I think this is relatable for anybody who gets involved in endurance sports.

• 1:30:16Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:17Rich Roll?

  You know, the term Ironman widow exists for a reason.

• 1:30:22Adam Skolnick?

  Oh, really?

• 1:30:23Rich Roll?

  Because these pursuits can often end in cataclysmic relationship results if not handled appropriately. So-

• 1:30:30Adam Skolnick?

  I figured you are the perfect person to ask this question.

• 1:30:32Rich Roll?

  Well, it's not easy. I mean, this is the first thing I would say is, is you're set up for failure right out of the gate because this is a very difficult hat trick to accomplish. And I think to launch into this, the first thing to bear in mind is, you can't excel at all of these things every single day. Like, there's this idea of how am I going to balance all of these things so that I'm giving them an appropriate amount of attention every single day? And I think that's the wrong way to think about it because you can't do that. You can't be at your best as a physician, as a partner, as a parent, and as an athlete all the time. Like, it's just not rigged that way. So let go of that

• 1:31:14Rich Roll?

  fantasy out of the gate and try to configure a schedule and a structure that allows you to kind of- Toggle between these pursuits, understanding that on certain days, your priority is going to be in one of these buckets, or two of these buckets, but not all of these buckets. So that over the course of a month or a week, they're all getting an adequate amount of attention, but not all on the same day or at the same time. So, structure and scheduling, super important. I think that you should craft that schedule in cooperation and partnership with your

• 1:31:53Rich Roll?

  wife, so that your wife is part of organizing what these days are going to look like, that your wife is participating in the allocation of your time and energy. And to come to that conversation, trying or endeavoring to the best of your ability to structure your training at periods of time that don't compromise the goals that your wife has, or the parenting needs that you both mutually share. So, that might mean that your runs have to be super early in the morning before anybody's awake, or late at night when everybody's asleep. And I understand that you have a full-time job. You're not a professional ultra-runner, though, right? Nobody's paying you to do that.

• 1:32:38Rich Roll?

  This is something you choose to do, but you've got to make the choice of how you ply that in a way that's not disruptive to your family. You already know that. And that means, you know, finding those windows of opportunity that don't put your wife's schedule at peril and create this tension in the relationship. The other thing is, you don't want to ever set yourself up to be overtrained or overly fatigued. You've got to be able to show up 100% for your kids and for your wife when you're not training and you're not working, so that that doesn't become an additional drag on top of the hours spent when you're not at home. And I think what's been helpful to me...

• 1:33:23Rich Roll?

  In doing this is twofold. First, anticipate your wife's needs and your kids' needs in advance so that you're planning for that. And you're not like showing up, you know, oh, you didn't get the groceries because you had to go running or something like that. These are the things that like are small things in isolation, but they add up and they can really derail a relationship.

• 1:33:44Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 1:33:45Rich Roll?

  So being ahead of the curve in terms of understanding and anticipating what your wife is going to need and fulfilling those needs before perhaps she's even aware that she needs them filled. So that way, you're demonstrating through your behavior, repetitive behavior, that you're conscious of the fact that your ultra running is perhaps taking you away from the relationship more than she would like, but you're showing up in ways that are telling her like you're here, right? Even when you're not there, you're actually there. And then when you are there, to be 100%. Like when I was training for Ultraman at my peak, I've told this story before, but you know, I'd come back from like a 30 mile

• 1:34:26Rich Roll?

  run or a six hour bike ride and I'd walk in the house like just wasted and Julie would like hand me a baby and be like, your turn bye, you know, I'm gonna go do my thing.

• 1:34:35Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 1:34:36Rich Roll?

  And I couldn't be like, I need a nap or I gotta like shower. It's like, no, you gotta be on point, right?

• 1:34:41Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 1:34:41Rich Roll?

  It's your turn. And by respecting that and making sure that I was present when those moments arose, that's how we were able to kind of keep everything moving and on track. If I was just like, no, I can't or, or sorry, I gotta train right now, like that's not gonna work. So.

• 1:35:00Adam Skolnick?

  Were there times where she pushed back against like?

• 1:35:03Rich Roll?

  Well, she was very supportive. I mean, I was lucky because I had a very supportive partner.

• 1:35:07Adam Skolnick?

  She's all about you finding like, like.

• 1:35:09Rich Roll?

  Right. And that doesn't mean that it wasn't hard because we're talking about a ton of time. And also, you know, we were going through some financial stuff. It was like a very difficult period. And, and you know, I credit Julie tremendously for, for really, you know, being an incredible support in a way that I think most partners wouldn't and can't be expected to, honestly. So it's understandable. Like, what, you're gonna go run for five, like we have, we have twin baby. Like, what are you doing? You know, like, you gotta be here. So. That's why I think anticipating your partner's needs and the needs of your children is so important. I also think that you have to choose your moments. Like I said at the outset, it's impossible to excel at all of these things every single day. And if you attempt this, you're going to fail in all the categories.

• 1:35:55Rich Roll?

  You're not going to be able to train like a pro, so don't try to. And there's going to be days where maybe you have some big run on your calendar and this is really important to you. But something went haywire at home and the kids need you and you gotta be like, I gotta show, what are my priorities? Like, I gotta show up for my kids, I gotta show up for my wife. Like, what is most important in the grand scheme of things? Is it really worth derailing your relationship for ultra running? Like, ultra running is something you can do your whole life if you do it responsibly. And so that doesn't mean that, that your needs shouldn't be met either. It's important, if this is bringing you happiness and fulfillment, that you should have the freedom and the license

• 1:36:36Rich Roll?

  to like, do the things that you enjoy doing, which is why communication is so important, right? And if this is important to you, it's incumbent upon you to communicate the importance of it to your wife so that she really understands. Like, does she really understand? Why is this important to you? Why are you doing this? And the more that you can have that channel of communication open with your wife, I think you'll be in a better place to engender the empathy and support that, that you're looking for. But that's a two-way street. You gotta give it in return as well. You can't expect her to support you unless you're supporting her in kind. So what is it, what is her, what is your wife's ultra running? Like, what is it that she would like to be doing?

• 1:37:21Rich Roll?

  And how can you go out of your way to make sure that you're supportive to her in that regard in the way that you would like to be supported?

• 1:37:29Adam Skolnick?

  That's great advice. I can't offer anything to, really to this discussion other than, because I'm not doing 30 mile runs.

• 1:37:36Rich Roll?

  But you have a baby and you're trying to do this Goggins thing and you've got April at home, so how's that going?

• 1:37:40Adam Skolnick?

  I had to talk, I had to talk her into the Goggins thing. She was not really feeling the Goggins thing.

• 1:37:48Adam Skolnick?

  Well, because for her, she's like with the baby almost all the time. And I have my work, which at least allows me, even if I'm in the same apartment, I'm in a psychic space that is my own. And she's not really permitted a psychic psychic psychic space that is her own too often. And so when I run training, often I'll take the baby out with me as a stroller run.

• 1:38:12Rich Roll?

  Right. That was the other thing I had on my list of things to respond to, like, get the get the twin, you know, baby carriage thing. What is those called? I haven't had babies in a while. What do you call them? Yeah, stroller.

• 1:38:25Adam Skolnick?

  It's been a while, but they're still called strollers.

• 1:38:27Rich Roll?

  And, you know, she lives in Long Beach. There's like those paths along the ocean, you know, where you can like push a stroller and.

• 1:38:34Adam Skolnick?

  Pretty soon they can ride bikes alongside you or whatever. But so I did have to talk her into that and it just and it just took that. I explained to her why it was important to me and best I could, even though I couldn't really explain to you why it was important to me. But but she understood that she never didn't want me to do it. And it doesn't really show up as much in the running because for me, most of my runs are a little over an hour, sometimes less, sometimes a little over an hour. And if I want to do a long one for me, it's like a 10 mile run usually. So that's like, it's not, it's not like a 30 mile run. But swimming, at least doing the dives in Malibu, that has become a lot less frequent than it used to be for me. I try to get us out there once a week, but that includes taking everybody out, getting a beach tent set up, doing the whole thing.

• 1:39:17Rich Roll?

  As somebody who who participated in that with you, I can, I can affirm that that is a languishing affair that goes on for hours unnecessarily. I'm like, are we going to swim and get this done? What are we doing?

• 1:39:30Adam Skolnick?

  We're looking for our octopus teacher.

• 1:39:32Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I'm like, I'm out for a workout and you're looking for octopus.

• 1:39:36Adam Skolnick?

  Yes, that's right. We're getting in touch with our lyric escape.

• 1:39:40Rich Roll?

  Yeah. I'm like, no wonder. She's like, what are you doing?

• 1:39:43Adam Skolnick?

  Well, no, but she comes out with us. So she's only been able to, she went one time. It's, she doesn't like 55 degree water. So for her, it's like, if the viz is good and it's warmish, she's down. And so I have, we have made it possible for her to go with the group. And then I, I did my own thing after. We've done that once, but it does take like, I can't expect her to go sit on the beach when the wind is howling and it's getting sand blasted with the baby while I go on a little swim. So that is not happening as often as it used to, uh, but she loves the beach also. So she likes being out there. So it's really about the communication aspect is important and you do have to kind of sublimate, especially knowing that I have four by four coming up. Basically after four by four, she prefers

• 1:40:24Adam Skolnick?

  kind of workout, mat workouts with this trainer from our gym that we don't longer go to because of the pandemic. Um, and so we've been having him help us sometimes. And, and after the four by four 48, we're going to prioritize more of those workouts that she can do. Um, and, and then I'll, I'll do, you know? And so we're just doing that. So that's kind of the thing she wants to do to the, you know, how am I supporting her in kind? That's the next step. So my running, I probably do a little less mileage every month and build in this other, uh, strength aspect. And that's just how it's going to have to be because you can't do it all.

• 1:40:56Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:40:56Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:40:58Rich Roll?

  Next question.

• 1:40:59Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah. Sorry. I made that about me.

• 1:41:01Rich Roll?

  No, it's good. You're in it right now. You got a baby.

• 1:41:04Adam Skolnick?

  I'm in it.

• 1:41:05Rich Roll?

  You're trying to do something hard.

• 1:41:06Adam Skolnick?

  I feel you, Tara. All right. Emily from Minneapolis.

• 1:41:11Speaker 04

  Hi, Rich and Adam. This is Emily calling from Minneapolis, Minnesota. And this is A-OK to play on the air. I was just calling today because I've been listening for years and am almost two years over and about 98% vegan. So you could say I am drinking the Kool-Aid. But the reason for my call is where are you both consuming information at this point? I'm curious what kind of podcasts you might be listening to and also media and books and things like that's where you're getting that inspiration from. So I look forward to hearing this on air. Thanks so much.

• 1:41:55Rich Roll?

  Adam?

• 1:41:56Adam Skolnick?

  Yes?

• 1:41:57Rich Roll?

  You want to take a crack? She wanted to hear from both of us.

• 1:42:00Adam Skolnick?

  Oh, you want me to go first again?

• 1:42:01Rich Roll?

  Go ahead.

• 1:42:03Adam Skolnick?

  Okay.

• 1:42:04Rich Roll?

  Probably because my answer is going to be so disappointing, so go ahead.

• 1:42:07Adam Skolnick?

  No, you're, come on. Right now, I'm reading James McBride's Good Lord Bird, which is about, basically, it's historical fiction. It's all about the John Brown abolitionist, who was this, kind of had an army of abolitionists, and they went and they wreaked havoc on all sorts of slave owners in Missouri. So he was in Kansas, and they would run across the border and just kill slavers and, you know, deliver God's justice. And it's really hilarious. It's actually kind of an offbeat hilarious take on this real thing that happened. James McBride, author of Color of Water, which won, I think it won National Book Award as well, or Pulitzer

• 1:42:52Adam Skolnick?

  or something. And then, I didn't read that, but that was an incredible memoir about his mother. Kill 'Em and Leave was the first McBride book that I read, and that's about James Brown. It's remarkable. I found it in some bookstore. Not many people have read it. It's like a 200-page book, and it's sensational. And this book is magnificent. So I'm reading that, and I'm listening to Save the Cat Writes a Novel. That's part of my, it's my audiobook right now, part of my deep dive into the craft.

• 1:43:23Rich Roll?

  Save the Cat is the screenwriting thing, right?

• 1:43:25Adam Skolnick?

  Right. And so this novelist kind of took it and spun it. It's under that banner, but it's for novelists.

• 1:43:32Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:43:33Adam Skolnick?

  And she takes the same lessons and spins it and kind of uses fiction. And it's helped me just kind of like think, because I'm between drafts on a novel I've been writing, and I'm just kind of listening to it and see if I can, you know, this is, I mean, after two drafts, I'm looking at like a 10 draft kind of plan. And so I'm listening to it now. And then the podcast I listen to, aside from the Rich Roll Podcast, which I do listen to.

• 1:43:59Rich Roll?

  Hmm, okay.

• 1:44:01Adam Skolnick?

  I listen to.

• 1:44:02Rich Roll?

  Barack. Might have to wait.

• 1:44:03Adam Skolnick?

  Well, yeah, it's true. I am listening to.

• 1:44:05Rich Roll?

  Trying to hold on to that seat.

• 1:44:07Adam Skolnick?

  I listen to, I love listening to the Rich Roll Podcast. I also listen to, every morning, Pardon the Interruption, this shouty sports podcast, and occasionally The Daily, and Revisionist History is a regular for me as well.

• 1:44:23Rich Roll?

  You know, Good Lord Bird is a, is a show starring Ethan Hawke.

• 1:44:27Adam Skolnick?

  I knew that. It became a show. I've been wanting to read the book for ages, then it became a show. And I thought, no, I'm reading the book first.

• 1:44:33Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:33Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:34Rich Roll?

  I love Ethan Hawke.

• 1:44:34Adam Skolnick?

  He's fabulous.

• 1:44:35Rich Roll?

  We talked about his TED Talk, didn't we?

• 1:44:38Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, we did.

• 1:44:39Rich Roll?

  Yeah, we did. I still want to get him on the podcast. I just listened to, and speaking of podcasts, I listened to an interview that Ethan did with, uh, I think it was on, it was either on The Watch or The Big Picture, like those, those Ringer TV movie podcasts. It was great. Like, I love listening to that guy talk. And he was talking about Good Lord Bird and how much he loved the book and, and how his passion of his to play this character, even though he thought he was too young to do it, like he thought

• 1:45:07Adam Skolnick?

  A little bit young.

• 1:45:07Rich Roll?

  This should be, uh, like Jeff Bridges or somebody like that who was older. But apparently, I haven't watched the show yet, but it's been very well received.

• 1:45:16Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, I mean, and well, the, the story is told through the, the eyes of an eight-year-old or 12-year-old boy, something like a young boy slave who John Brown liberates kind of against his will and mistakes him for a girl. And so then he goes around dressed as a girl, which saves his life. Um, but he, he's like liberated against his will, goes with John Brown. And John Brown is, is prone to all sorts of like crazy sermons, like you can't eat unless he's done two-hour prayer or something.

• 1:45:47Rich Roll?

  Right. Well, he's all crazy fire and brimstone. Like he's over the top, like all the time.

• 1:45:51Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:45:52Rich Roll?

  Right? I said at the outset that my answer might be a little disappointing. I mean, here's the thing. So much of my information diet is dictated by the podcast, like who's the guest who's coming up? Typically, there's a book or a bunch of podcast interviews with that person, a deep dive into their life that involves, you know, 30 tabs open on my browser. So I immerse myself in the world of the upcoming guest and try to inhabit that in the most method way that I possibly can. And that consumes most of my time. In terms of news,

• 1:46:30Rich Roll?

  My kind of go to for news is generally Twitter. Like, I follow tons of journalists and I follow journalists of different mindsets and worldviews. So I keep things mixed up by, in my feed in that way. And so rather than, you know, I'll open up the New York Times or the LA Times, but I tend to consume my news through Twitter. I don't know how many people still do that.

• 1:46:56Adam Skolnick?

  No, I do a lot of that, too. I get to a lot of links, but it ends up being...

• 1:46:59Rich Roll?

  And then I can read different takes on the same story or different perspectives on what's going on.

• 1:47:05Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:47:06Rich Roll?

  In general, you know, curiosity leads the way for me and that's really what the podcast is about. In terms of podcasts that I consume and listen to, I don't, and people are always surprised to hear this, but I don't listen to a lot of podcasts that are in the vein of what I do. Like, there's a handful of other people that are kind of, would be considered, you know, kind of similar to this show.

• 1:47:29Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:47:29Rich Roll?

  And unless I have a guest that I'm researching, who's on one of those shows, I typically don't do that because it sort of feels like this is what I do and that feels like homework.

• 1:47:41Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:47:41Rich Roll?

  As opposed to enjoyment for me.

• 1:47:44Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:47:44Rich Roll?

  So I end up listening to podcasts that pique my interest in other areas. Like, I also, I love everything Malcolm does, so I listen to Revisionist History and his other various shows, Broken Record. I like, I love conversations about movies and television, so I listen to The Big Picture and The Watch. I do subscribe to The Daily. I don't listen to all of them. I kind of pick and choose with that.

• 1:48:07Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:48:07Rich Roll?

  I still, you know, old school, I still love Marc Maron, the WTF podcast. I've been enjoying Mike Birbiglia's podcast, Working It Out, which is fun. Have you ever listened to his?

• 1:48:17Adam Skolnick?

  No.

• 1:48:18Rich Roll?

  It's pretty cool. Like, he'll bring on, most of his guests are comics, but he brings them on and he has kind of a series of questions that he asks all of them. But the premise is really, I'm working on this material and let me like try it out on you and give me feedback. And then they're like, I'm working on this. And then they're like, so it's like a note session.

• 1:48:37Adam Skolnick?

  That's great.

• 1:48:37Rich Roll?

  Which gives you a glimmer, like a glimpse into the creative process. And how to, and also, this is a very important thing for anybody who's trying to do anything creative, like...

• 1:48:49Rich Roll?

  How you give and receive feedback and notes is really important. Like can you, like who you choose to bring into that circle is important. How you ask the question and how you receive the response and how the person provides the response. Like there are people who are really good at giving feedback and doing it in a conscious way. That's constructive versus destructive or just negative. And I think there's an art to that. And when you can be in a receiving mode and set your ego aside and actually hear what the person is saying and not be reactive and kind of embrace it, even if they're like, I don't like this. I think you completely lost the thread with this. And you're like, oh, that's, can you be curious and interested in why that person feels that way? I think is fun and helpful.

• 1:49:33Rich Roll?

  And I think Mike is really good at that himself. And he's so fun and engaging to listen to. So I like that. I listened to Pivot with Scott Galloway and Kara Swisher for business. I love Brian Koppelman's The Moments, which is all about conversations with people like, what is your inflection moment in your career? That's kind of the focus of that. Just for fun, I love the rewatchables when Bill Simmons like, you know, talks about old movies. Like, you know, that you love to go back to. I love Rob Bell's podcast. I like Pete Holmes, You Made It Weird. Like I'm always mixing up my, my podcasting kind of lineup. But those are just some that I've been listening to lately.

• 1:50:15Adam Skolnick?

  Love it.

• 1:50:16Rich Roll?

  And I watch a lot of docs. I watched the, I watched the.

• 1:50:21Adam Skolnick?

  You see everything.

• 1:50:22Rich Roll?

  No, I don't see everything, but I, I try to see as much as possible. I watched the first half of the Billie Eilish documentary last night.

• 1:50:30Adam Skolnick?

  Okay.

• 1:50:30Rich Roll?

  Which is fantastic.

• 1:50:31Adam Skolnick?

  Really?

• 1:50:32Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:50:32Adam Skolnick?

  Is that Netflix?

• 1:50:33Rich Roll?

  On Apple, Apple plus, yeah.

• 1:50:37Adam Skolnick?

  What else is on your radar for movies right now?

• 1:50:40Rich Roll?

  I don't know. It's weird, like the Golden Globes were last night and I didn't watch it, but I was kind of scrolling through Twitter and looking at all the people that won. And I was amazed at how few of the movies or shows that I've actually seen.

• 1:50:52Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah. It's one of those, well, it's one of those years you're not going to the movies, you know?

• 1:50:56Rich Roll?

  I know.

• 1:50:56Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:50:56Rich Roll?

  I know. Lots of good movies to be streamed at home in the coming weeks, though.

• 1:51:00Adam Skolnick?

  All right. Stay tuned, roll on, listeners.

• 1:51:03Rich Roll?

  Yeah. I think we did it. Are we done?

• 1:51:05Adam Skolnick?

  We rocked it.

• 1:51:06Rich Roll?

  I think we're done. We're going to land this plane.

• 1:51:10Rich Roll?

  Awesome, man. Thank you. How do you feel?

• 1:51:15Adam Skolnick?

  I feel good. I like this one.

• 1:51:17Rich Roll?

  I think it's good. Are you gonna, do you, do you go back and listen to roll-ons?

• 1:51:21Adam Skolnick?

  No, I don't.

• 1:51:24Adam Skolnick?

  No, hell, you say.

• 1:51:25Rich Roll?

  No.

• 1:51:26Adam Skolnick?

  Maybe once or twice. I try to, I'm trying to get better. You've been doing this eight and a half years.

• 1:51:31Rich Roll?

  Yeah, but I can't go back and listen to old shows. I never do that. I never do that.

• 1:51:35Adam Skolnick?

  No.

• 1:51:36Rich Roll?

  I can't, just because I can't, I can't, I can't listen in my own voice.

• 1:51:39Adam Skolnick?

  Can't bear it, you know, if you hear yourself. I'm with you.

• 1:51:41Rich Roll?

  But what you can do is you can follow Adam on the socials, at Adam Skolnick, on at Rich Roll, on all the places. I might do a clubhouse.

• 1:51:51Adam Skolnick?

  Are you gonna do a clubhouse?

• 1:51:52Rich Roll?

  Well, I listened to, my friend Neil Strauss did a conversation with Jared Leto on Clubhouse the other night, and I thought it was great. It was super fun, and people got to ask Jared questions. And I was like, this is cool.

• 1:52:05Adam Skolnick?

  Okay.

• 1:52:05Rich Roll?

  We'll do something there. I don't know. Anyway.

• 1:52:08Adam Skolnick?

  Let me know.

• 1:52:08Rich Roll?

  Clubhouse. At Rich Roll.

• 1:52:11Adam Skolnick?

  Do you need a hype man for that, or no?

• 1:52:12Rich Roll?

  I don't know. Well, I don't know what I would do there. I'm just, you know, I just thought, I had a good experience listening and, you know.

• 1:52:19Adam Skolnick?

  How many people were in the clubhouse?

• 1:52:20Rich Roll?

  I mean, it maxed out. I think they maxed out at 5,000, and then there's like spillover rooms. So it was, you know, look, he's like a huge movie star, right? So it was like, everybody wanted to hear what he had to say.

• 1:52:30Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:52:31Rich Roll?

  But it was fun. All right, if you want to have your question considered for a future roll-on episode, again, leave us a message on our voicemail, 424-235-4626. Pick up a copy of Voicing Change at richroll.com/vc. Check out the show notes to see links to everything we talked about today on the episode page at richroll.com. Don't forget to subscribe to the show on YouTube, Apple, Spotify, all the places. We've got a clips channel on YouTube. If you dig the short stuff, including the answers to all the questions we ask, we're uploading those there, too. So you can find that at Rich Roll Podcast Clips. You just search it on YouTube, and it's linked up in the show notes and all that stuff.

• 1:53:16Rich Roll?

  That's it. Done. I want to thank everybody who helped put on today's show. Jason Camiolo for audio engineering, production, show notes, interstitial music. And Matters, sundry and unlisted. Jack of all trades, behind the scenes. Blake Curtis for his video wizardry. Filming and editing all of these. It's no small task. Jessica Miranda for whipping up the graphics. We've got Ally Rogers on deck today for portraits. What's up, Ally? Georgia Whaley for copywriting. DK, our man, for advertiser relationships and theme music, as always, by Tyler Trapper. And Harry, appreciate you guys. Thanks for the love. I don't take your attention for granted. And see you back here in a couple of days with another episode.

• 1:53:59Rich Roll?

  And back with Adam in two weeks, yeah? I'll be here. To tell us about the four by four by 48. You might have to wheel me in, but I'll be here. You might. And just, just remember, when you're out there and you're hurting. Yes. That the Iron Cowboy is doing an Iron Man a day. Okay? Damn you, Iron Cowboy. All right. Peace. Platts. How?