Roll On: Life Lessons Learned From 10 Years of Podcasting

Welcome to ‘Roll On’, the semi-bi-weekly version of the podcast where Rich Roll & Adam Skolnick indulge in some good-natured banter and ramble on matters of interest across culture, sports, art, literature, politics, self-betterment, and more. Today Rich reflects on what he has learned from his almost 10 years hosting this podcast, plus endurance news, recent episode recaps, streaming selects, listener questions and more. Watch on YouTube Show notes + MORE: bit.ly/richroll704 Newsletter Sign-Up: https://www.richroll.com/subscribe Peace + Plants, Rich Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:00Rich Roll?

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

• 0:44Rich Roll?

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

• 1:13Rich Roll?

  The Rich Roll Podcast.

• 1:17Rich Roll?

  Hey, everybody. Welcome to Roll On, where the Twitter to my Instagram, the LinkedIn to my YouTube, the Microsoft Word to my Google Docs, Mr. Adam Skolnick and I Wait, wait. Why am I Twitter, LinkedIn, and Microsoft? Because I'm the one who wrote that. That's why. I'll take it. Are you more LinkedIn or YouTube?

• 1:41Rich Roll?

  Do I watch more YouTube or check LinkedIn? No. What do you self-identify with? Self-identify? Which platform? Friendster. If a platform was a person, who are you? If a platform were a person...

• 1:53Adam Skolnick?

  I am not an Excel spreadsheet, I can tell you that.

• 1:56Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Is that a platform? That's an app. I don't know. All right, let's not get bogged down.

• 2:02Adam Skolnick?

  Spotify.

• 2:03Rich Roll?

  Spotify, okay. We are here, back in the lime green chairs, to banter across an admittedly absurd long table, to dissect matters niche, trivial, and vital, across the spectrum of our whimsical curiosities. Today, I've got a couple of cool announcements. We're going to recap some behind the scenes on recent episodes, which is a new little feature we're going to test out. We're going to share, as always, a few highlights from the subculture of endurance. We're going to impart some truths and lessons learned from 10 years of hosting this podcast. We're going to recommend some high-quality content we've been enjoying. We're going to answer a few listener questions and probably go off on a few random tangents

• 2:47Rich Roll?

  along the way. But first...

• 2:56Rich Roll?

  How goes it? Fine, sir.

• 2:58Adam Skolnick?

  Oh, am I on?

• 2:59Rich Roll?

  Yeah, you're typing. Are you typing? We're recording right now.

• 3:03Adam Skolnick?

  Are we live?

• 3:03Rich Roll?

  The typing was supposed to happen before...

• 3:06Adam Skolnick?

  Is this thing on?

• 3:07Rich Roll?

  We started recording.

• 3:08Adam Skolnick?

  Sorry, guys.

• 3:09Rich Roll?

  We're off to an incredible start.

• 3:11Adam Skolnick?

  I'm still hot.

• 3:12Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 3:13Adam Skolnick?

  I'm still sweltering, hot. You know how you go for a run and you come back and you sweat for another, like, for almost as long as the run? Now I'm sweating for like, three hours after every...

• 3:26Rich Roll?

  It's downright tropical out there. There's a wave of humidity that is unprecedented in my, I don't know how many years I've lived here, since 1996. I don't ever remember. I mean, we just endured like, a heatwave that was pretty epic.

• 3:41Adam Skolnick?

  This is the last day of it, I think.

• 3:42Rich Roll?

  You know, 110+ every single day. And what was unique about that was, it didn't cool down at night. Like, usually the desert here, even when it's super hot during the day, it'll still go down at night. Didn't do that at all. It was like, 90 degrees at like, 1:00 in the morning. And then we had a little bit of rain, and that brought upon us like, this... This humidity, which feels like we're in Hawaii or the East Coast.

• 4:08Adam Skolnick?

  Even further south. It's like full tropical. I was running at night. I was running.

• 4:14Rich Roll?

  Doesn't matter.

• 4:15Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, it didn't matter. I was trying, trying different things, but I'm not really one of those people that complains about weather. I don't like people who complain about weather.

• 4:22Rich Roll?

  Are you sure about that?

• 4:23Adam Skolnick?

  But here I am.

• 4:23Rich Roll?

  Here you go.

• 4:24Adam Skolnick?

  Here I am complaining about the weather.

• 4:25Rich Roll?

  When you have an opportunity to do it on a large platform, you're going to take advantage of that and complain about the heat. Aren't you? Because that's what everyone wants to hear.

• 4:35Adam Skolnick?

  It is. It has been warm.

• 4:37Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it has.

• 4:39Adam Skolnick?

  Sorry, guys. I didn't have a-

• 4:39Rich Roll?

  Is that all that's going on with you?

• 4:41Adam Skolnick?

  A funny intro. What's going on with me? No, things have been good, busy, working hard on some projects I can't tell you about right now.

• 4:50Rich Roll?

  Right. When is that going to change? That's generally the case. Like, I'm doing all this cool stuff and we can't talk about it.

• 4:56Adam Skolnick?

  Pretty soon.

• 4:56Rich Roll?

  Good.

• 4:57Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, maybe like five, six weeks, we can talk about some of it. But that's been good. The family's well, no real complaints. Looking, all I can, my one, my one complaint is that I've been trying to look.

• 5:12Rich Roll?

  Beyond the weather.

• 5:13Adam Skolnick?

  Beyond the weather. My second, second complaint, we're trying to figure out travel stuff and I'm stunned at how expensive like renting crappy condos can be in Hawaii these days. Have you, have you seen that?

• 5:26Rich Roll?

  Well, everybody's back to traveling.

• 5:28Adam Skolnick?

  Is that what it is?

• 5:28Rich Roll?

  So everything is at a premium now.

• 5:30Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, so, you know, so now that I'm, now that we're coming out of this tunnel of work, we're trying to figure out a way to, to fly around again. So hopefully next year, there's more travel content in my life. But otherwise, good. Been watching a lot of tennis. Can we talk about the tennis?

• 5:47Rich Roll?

  We can. I didn't watch any of it, although I know it was fire, the US Open, but I was too busy to tap into it too deeply.

• 5:55Adam Skolnick?

  Carlos Alcaraz, Carlitos, the youngest number one player.

• 6:01Adam Skolnick?

  In the history of men's tennis, he won the US Open, he's been kind of this guy that we that people who watch tennis have have said this could be finally the young guy that's as good or is on his the same trajectory as the the big three, right? We we know Novak and Rafa and Roger Federer. And all the young guys that have come up have always hit against that glass ceiling of those three guys. They couldn't get through them. This guy, Alcaraz, earlier to the in the years, his third tournament he won, he had to go through Novak and Rafa two days in a like, two days in a row. And then he won a tournament against Zverev, another highly ranked player. And this time, though, there were Rafa got beat by Francis

• 6:44Adam Skolnick?

  Tiafoe, who's was the best American in this tournament and is one of the best Americans around, a little bit older than Alcaraz. Alcaraz is 19, Tiafoe, I think, is 24. And they had an epic, epic five-set match. And I found it interesting because they have kind of like, parallel stories in a way. Alcaraz, Carlos Alcaraz was was raised around a tennis center his grandfather helped found and build. Francis Tiafoe was raised at a tennis center, the tennis center at College Park. Right. In Maryland. In Maryland, yeah. His father, his parents immigrated in the 90s from Sierra Leone, when it was like,

• 7:22Adam Skolnick?

  civil war. And they came to the DC area. And Tiafoe's dad, Constant, I believe is his name, was one of the was one of the construction workers building that tennis center. And he worked so hard and was the best worker that they asked him to stay on as maintenance for the whole facility. And so he lived there five days a week. They lived in a back office. And he lived with his two sons. And Francis would was was seen hitting balls against the wall one day. Right. And these coaches found him. And they basically, within a few years, by the time he was 14 years old, he was the number one junior in the history, number one junior in America. Yeah, it's such a cool story. Yeah. And so I just was thinking about how it's very Gladwellian, you know, like, like. The polarities.

• 8:07Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, but they both basically had the same access, you know, one required, you know. One was like a little more traditional. If your grandfather runs a tennis center, it makes sense that you'd. The other one is kind of seems more good fortune, but in the end, that doesn't matter to the kid. The kid's still there with all that access.

• 8:25Rich Roll?

  Yeah, access. It's sort of like the, yeah, like this, like the Gladwellian story about, was he the one who told the story about Bill Gates having access to the mainframe?

• 8:35Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 8:35Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 8:36Adam Skolnick?

  It's exactly that. I mean, obviously you have to have the hunger and they both did. It was an amazing match. It's worth seeing. If you haven't seen it, it's a long one. It's five setter, but Carlos went through three matches kind of like that and then got to the final and is just a magnificent athlete.

• 8:50Rich Roll?

  It does feel like the ushering in of a new era though.

• 8:53Adam Skolnick?

  You hope so. But at the same time, Novak couldn't come.

• 8:56Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 8:56Adam Skolnick?

  Because he didn't get vaccinated, so he wasn't allowed in the country and Rafa lost. So if Novak's there, does he defend the, the glass ceiling?

• 9:06Rich Roll?

  Right. Well, that will, you know, when that tet-a-tet happens, it'll make for must-watch tennis.

• 9:12Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah. But anyway, enough about my, my television watching of tennis. How are you? What's going on?

• 9:18Rich Roll?

  Oh, the humidity. Adam, I'm going to complain about the heat.

• 9:21Adam Skolnick?

  That's on here.

• 9:22Rich Roll?

  No. Sorry. I was just distracted by all the sea monsters on your shirt.

• 9:26Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, this is not a good shirt for the video, right? Video they want just plain.

• 9:31Rich Roll?

  What, what kind of?

• 9:32Adam Skolnick?

  Paisley?

• 9:33Rich Roll?

  Crustaceans?

• 9:35Adam Skolnick?

  Oh, these?

• 9:36Rich Roll?

  Sea life is that?

• 9:37Adam Skolnick?

  Well, this is something I discovered in the waters at Point Doom. And because I discovered it, I got to name it. And this is the Riccius Rolius jellyfish.

• 9:47Rich Roll?

  It's going to be some sort of Skolnikian. All right. Okay. I'm good. You know, I don't know what to tell you.

• 9:55Adam Skolnick?

  How's your, how's your back? You've been exercising more?

• 9:57Rich Roll?

  It's not amazing, but it's tolerable enough that I can get out there and do some zone one and some zone two stuff as long as I don't push it too much. So I've been out on the bike with some regularity, which has felt really nice.

• 10:11Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah. You were running too, right? Doing some trails?

• 10:14Rich Roll?

  Uh, like more like hiking with a little bit of jogging to test things out. And that definitely ended up with some tightness back there. So I'm trying to be really cautious about that. But at least I'm getting out there and feeling good.

• 10:29Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I don't know. Everything's good. Man, my boys, my older boys, and their band Blood Ocean is out on tour right now. They're going up and down the West Coast.

• 10:38Adam Skolnick?

  Nice.

• 10:39Rich Roll?

  Which is really fun to see them finally take their music on the road and play these little venues and

• 10:44Adam Skolnick?

  That's cool.

• 10:45Rich Roll?

  You know, visit these cities and do the whole, you know, jam into a van thing.

• 10:49Adam Skolnick?

  Phenomenal.

• 10:49Rich Roll?

  Which is pretty cool, so.

• 10:50Adam Skolnick?

  Groupies, bro.

• 10:51Rich Roll?

  I'm getting some cool reports from the road. Shout out to a friend of the pod and friend in real life, Jesse Thomas and Lauren Fleishman, who opened up their guest house to my boys and their bandmates when they played in Bend the other night, which was really cool. So they've been, you know, they played in Portland last night. I think they're going up to Seattle. They're gonna be in San Luis Obispo. I've shared their tour schedule. Maybe I'll share it again.

• 11:14Adam Skolnick?

  I love what you posted and they sound fabulous.

• 11:17Rich Roll?

  Yeah, they're doing good. So that's been cool.

• 11:19Adam Skolnick?

  Have there been a groupie yet? Is there one groupie?

• 11:22Rich Roll?

  I don't know.

• 11:23Adam Skolnick?

  They don't tell you?

• 11:24Rich Roll?

  No. I've been getting reports on the road, you know, like the slow disasters and the highlights and the low light. Like, you know, they play a show, nobody shows up, or, you know, there was the venue in San Francisco that, you know, basically wasn't gonna pay them and like all that kinda stuff.

• 11:41Adam Skolnick?

  Awesome.

• 11:41Rich Roll?

  I was like, good, that's the way it's supposed to be. Like, you're having that real life experience.

• 11:44Adam Skolnick?

  You gotta go through it. Are they, did they destroy Jesse and Lauren's home? Like, you know, like real rock stars?

• 11:50Rich Roll?

  Hopefully not. Hopefully not.

• 11:51Adam Skolnick?

  Like, real rock stars throw like a rager party back there and just like paint the walls?

• 11:55Rich Roll?

  Hopefully not.

• 11:56Adam Skolnick?

  Okay, good.

• 11:57Rich Roll?

  I cautioned them and explained to them that they had to acquit themselves as gentlemen, so hopefully they did.

• 12:03Adam Skolnick?

  Gentlemen rockers. They seem like gentlemen rockers.

• 12:06Rich Roll?

  They are. They're very solid young men. Super proud of them. Couple announcements before we get into it. The first thing is, well, I should say that, you know, this podcast is slowly moving away from being a free diving podcast to an Anvil free promotional fan.

• 12:26Adam Skolnick?

  Speaking of less gentle rockers.

• 12:29Rich Roll?

  So for all of you that caught the last roll on, you'll remember the story that I shared about my friend Sasha Jervasi and the improbable story behind his documentary, Anvil, The Story of Anvil, one of the greatest rock docs of all time, which is being re-released next week in 200 theaters across the United States, 13 years after its initial run. So it's a really cool thing. We're recording this on Monday, but two days from now, and before this podcast will actually air, September 13, the movie is premiering in New York City, which will be last night, if you're listening to this podcast, right after it

• 13:09Rich Roll?

  posts, at the Angelica. And it's an event that was hosted by Sasha and Peter Dinklage, who starred in Sasha's HBO movie, My Dinner with Ervey. That's cool. So you guys missed that, but I wanted to let you know. He also starred in something called Game of Thrones. He did, yeah. You might want to mention that. Yeah, but I'm trying to connect why Peter would be, you know, co-hosting Sasha's premiere in New York? Yes. Because they work together. Yes. In any event, I get you. But for all of you Los Angelenos, Los Angelenos, or for anybody contemplating a trek to the City of Angels, allow me to entice you, because Anvil will be premiering, the newly restored and mastered print, in Los Angeles on September

• 13:53Rich Roll?

  23rd at the Saban Theater. And I wanted to offer up to you guys, the audience, two free pairs of tickets for the screening, which will include a, not to be forgotten, I promise you, live Anvil rock show, like you've never seen anything like these guys rocking out. After the screening, that's going to happen. And that's going to be hosted by friend of the pod and real-life friend Steve-O, who I believe is going to be doing a Q and A with Sasha and the band. And there's going to be some other, yet to be disclosed, super-special guests that I'm forbidden from mentioning at this moment. So that's pretty, pretty cool. I mean Sasha wanted, you know, wanted me to help, you know, kind of open it up to you guys. So to enter, you can, to enter to win these tickets, you can send an e-

• 14:38Rich Roll?

  Email to [email protected]. Please send that in before September 18th and put the word Anvil in the subject line. And we'll select the winners at random on September 19th. In the meantime, if you want to just buy tickets to that event, you can do that as well. It's just Anvil, I think it's Anvil the Band, oh, Anvil the Film.com. Blake, if you could just pull up that screen for everybody to see.

• 15:09Adam Skolnick?

  These special guests are these potential musicians, like other musicians that might share the stage?

• 15:14Rich Roll?

  Yeah, maybe.

• 15:15Adam Skolnick?

  All right.

• 15:16Rich Roll?

  Maybe. Yeah, Anvil the Film.com. So you could just buy tickets and go to this premiere screening. I'm gonna be there. We're probably gonna do a meet and greet. It's gonna be super fun.

• 15:27Adam Skolnick?

  Saban Theater. I never knew it was Saban. I always thought it was Steve Saban.

• 15:30Rich Roll?

  Saban? No, I think it's Saban.

• 15:32Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, I think you're right.

• 15:33Rich Roll?

  Pretty sure. How are you and Angelino? And you don't know that.

• 15:36Adam Skolnick?

  I didn't, I missed that.

• 15:39Rich Roll?

  Anyway, you missed the memo on that. The second, the second announcement I want to make is that some of you may remember, longtime listeners will remember that towards the end of last year, we released a special episode called Profits Walk Among Us, Stories From Our Listeners, which was an entire episode that was devoted to sharing voice messages sent in by all of you guys. It was one of our most unique and impactful episodes to date. Really proud of that. It was just a beautiful thing, putting that together and sharing it with everyone, just a total joy to produce. If you haven't heard it, I recommend adding it to your queue immediately. And it was so meaningful to us and everyone who listened and reached out that we're gonna do it again.

• 16:23Rich Roll?

  So if you're willing to participate, please consider sharing with me your

• 16:30Rich Roll?

  Personal journey of transformation, how the podcast and its many guests have inspired you, and maybe some things about what you've learned, you've practiced, you've implemented or shared with others along the way. And in other words, like, how has the show served you in your life? How has it benefited you? How has it orientated you, inspired you to reframe your vision of family, of work, your sense of self? And we're going to take those messages and compile a portion of the submissions into the next edition of this listener-focused format. So if you're keen to participate, you can leave your story on a special voicemail

• 17:10Rich Roll?

  that we've set up. So call 805-421-0057, and we look forward to hearing from you.

• 17:18Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, and if I've helped you in any way, don't hold back. Put it all out there.

• 17:22Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 17:23Adam Skolnick?

  We need to hear about it.

• 17:25Rich Roll?

  I want, I want, I want messages all about Adam. I think that would be great.

• 17:29Adam Skolnick?

  If I've done anything for you at all, even if it's negative, I want to hear about it. Put it on the voicemail.

• 17:34Rich Roll?

  Are you sure about that? All right. Cool. Yeah, again, 805-421-0057, and we'll put that voicemail number in the show notes as well.

• 17:43Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, that sounds cool. Can't wait for that one.

• 17:45Rich Roll?

  Let's do this thing where we kind of recap some of the most recent episodes.

• 17:51Adam Skolnick?

  What should we call it?

• 17:52Rich Roll?

  I know, I don't know. Well, maybe they can leave that on the voicemail, too.

• 17:55Adam Skolnick?

  The recapper?

• 17:56Rich Roll?

  That's already Bill Simmons' thing.

• 17:58Adam Skolnick?

  He has a recapper?

• 17:58Rich Roll?

  Well, he has the rewatchables.

• 17:59Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 18:00Rich Roll?

  This wouldn't be the rewatchables.

• 18:02Adam Skolnick?

  No.

• 18:02Rich Roll?

  The re-listen? I don't know.

• 18:04Adam Skolnick?

  No, the...

• 18:04Rich Roll?

  Behind the scenes? I don't know. Well, let's not debate that now.

• 18:07Adam Skolnick?

  Okay.

• 18:08Rich Roll?

  In other words...

• 18:08Adam Skolnick?

  This is not the time to workshop that.

• 18:09Rich Roll?

  What I want to do is, you know, there are podcasts out there that kind of recap the episode that you've just heard by sharing a little behind-the-scenes thoughts, and they generally do that in the intros or the outros of the respective episodes. We don't do that or have not done that historically, but my sense, my spidey sense, is that maybe some of you out there might enjoy a little bit of storytelling around some of the guests. So we thought that we would do that here and see how it goes. So since we last sat down, Adam, there's been three episodes.

• 18:42Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 18:42Rich Roll?

  The Ken Write Out episode, Gabor Maté, and the one that just went up today, Max Fisher. I don't know, we can start with Ken Write Out, although you didn't, you haven't listened to that one. You don't actually listen to the show, do you?

• 18:56Adam Skolnick?

  This is Shane.

• 18:58Rich Roll?

  So.

• 18:58Adam Skolnick?

  This, this is not in here.

• 18:59Rich Roll?

  I don't know how this is gonna go.

• 19:01Adam Skolnick?

  I do listen to the show.

• 19:02Rich Roll?

  I know you do.

• 19:03Adam Skolnick?

  But.

• 19:04Rich Roll?

  Not every, you're busy.

• 19:05Adam Skolnick?

  The problem with me is I don't commute. And so my podcast listening has to be very strategic.

• 19:12Rich Roll?

  Elitist.

• 19:13Adam Skolnick?

  I don't commute and, and they say you're not supposed to listen to podcasts in front of young children, infants and toddlers.

• 19:19Rich Roll?

  They say that? No, I didn't know that. Why is that? Because you're, you're distracted from giving your full attention?

• 19:24Adam Skolnick?

  It's just, it's just, that's not a great way for language, for them to pick up language and it's like disassociated talking and it's not like.

• 19:30Rich Roll?

  Oh, that's interesting. I didn't know that.

• 19:31Adam Skolnick?

  Well, that's the stuff, when you read the, these child, early childhood development kind of materials, that's one thing that has come out. But that's.

• 19:40Rich Roll?

  Convenient excuse.

• 19:41Adam Skolnick?

  That's not a great excuse. But Ken Wright, I'm very familiar with because I think we talked about him before when Futterman's story came up and you were talking about that you wanted to get him on. So I am familiar with his story. You know, like that he, he was a corrections officer that, and hit Wall Street and then, and went nuts and, and then after that had kind of a, an addiction issue, right? That kind of almost submarined his entire life and now is the fastest marathoner over 50.

• 20:10Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's a crazy story.

• 20:11Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 20:11Rich Roll?

  I mean, everything that he overcame to be the person that he is is super inspiring. And I think his story kind of hits on the real sweet spot of this podcast, which are these personal stories of, of transformation, overcoming obstacles and odds to, you know, accomplish something laudatory. And his is very powerful as his, his, you know, sort of command of telling the story too. And, you know, he's got this totally nuts backstory, you know, what he overcame is immense. And it was funny, like I was sort of intimidated to meet him because he's a super like, at least, at least how I, you know, what I was sort of projecting onto him was that he would be super alpha and like.

• 20:56Adam Skolnick?

  Macho, macho.

• 20:57Rich Roll?

  Yeah, and he wasn't like that at all. He was a really sweet guy and that episode really connected and his stuff blew up as a result and he was on the receiving end of like a lot of, you know, attention as a result.

• 21:09Adam Skolnick?

  That's awesome.

• 21:10Rich Roll?

  And he was so grateful and he was so. Like almost, you know, emotional in his kind of overwhelm with, you know, the, the response to that, which was really sweet. And it just made me realize like, there's lots of guys out there with tough guy exteriors. And a lot of them don't have what Ken has, which is this, this huge heart. Like, to me, that's the differentiator. Like, he really is a sensitive soul who cares deeply about other people. And in a way that, um, you know, not that, not that other people don't do that, but there's a way that he wears it on his sleeve.

• 21:48Adam Skolnick?

  Right, it's accessible.

• 21:49Rich Roll?

  Yeah, he's like very vulnerable with his emotions around that, um, which you don't often find with guys that are, you know, kind of tough guys or grew up in tough circumstances.

• 21:59Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 22:00Rich Roll?

  There was one cool story that we didn't get to in the podcast, uh, that maybe I can share now, which was that when Ken was a corrections officer, I guess I'm not supposed to call, call it a prison guard, although I think that's a term he used, but I got in trouble because I used prison guard and corrections officer is the correct.

• 22:19Adam Skolnick?

  I did a story on prison reform once.

• 22:21Rich Roll?

  Oh, you did?

• 22:22Adam Skolnick?

  And I had a copy editor look at it. And the copy editor inserted typos, but tried to tell me not to use the term prisoner. And so basically he wanted to call prisoners incarcerated persons. And so the copy editor changed all prisoner references to incarcerated persons. And that made like, that created typos and like really bad sentences. And so I'd have a negotiation to call them an inmate.

• 22:51Rich Roll?

  How long ago was that?

• 22:53Adam Skolnick?

  It would be 2017, when I, I think 2018 in the story.

• 22:59Rich Roll?

  We can't, we can't use the word prisoner anymore.

• 23:01Adam Skolnick?

  Prisoner you can't use, even though they're residents of a prison. You can't use prisoner, even though I wasn't suggesting they belonged in prison.

• 23:09Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 23:09Adam Skolnick?

  I was saying they are prisoners.

• 23:10Rich Roll?

  But you can call it a prison. That's okay?

• 23:14Adam Skolnick?

  That's my point.

• 23:14Rich Roll?

  Incarcerated person facility?

• 23:16Adam Skolnick?

  I don't know, I didn't get the memo this week. There should be like a white paper that comes out every Monday. Like, these are the words that are allowed. Oh, these words are back? Okay, I can use these words again. But these words are out.

• 23:26Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's a

• 23:27Adam Skolnick?

  Corrections officer.

• 23:29Rich Roll?

  Corrections officer.

• 23:30Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 23:31Rich Roll?

  Um, but when he was a corrections officer, he actually worked with Mickey Ward, who

• 23:37Adam Skolnick?

  Who was also a corrections officer?

• 23:39Rich Roll?

  I guess so, yeah. And, you know, people, if that name sounds familiar, it might be because he was the boxer who was played by Mark Wahlberg in the movie The Fighter with Christian Bale, who played, um, who played Mickey's half-brother, Dicky Eklund.

• 23:55Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 23:56Rich Roll?

  That movie being directed by David O. Russell, which was an incredible film.

• 24:00Adam Skolnick?

  Great movie.

• 24:01Rich Roll?

  And I think that, I think it's probably fair to say that that movie was an accurate depiction of the type of environment in which, you know, Ken grew up in.

• 24:12Adam Skolnick?

  You grew up in South Boston?

• 24:14Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I think, yeah, yeah. I don't know exactly the neighborhood in Boston, um, but, you know, basically, you know, pretty, pretty chaotic and rough and tumble.

• 24:22Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 24:22Rich Roll?

  Um, and I just think, you know, I'm so glad that people, uh, enjoyed listening to him and hearing his story. To me, he's an example of like a healthy alpha male, you know, a solid role model for young men and older men, too.

• 24:38Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 24:38Rich Roll?

  Or maybe all people. Whether we're in corrections or not.

• 24:42Adam Skolnick?

  All people.

• 24:43Rich Roll?

  Incorrect, incorrect. That's true.

• 24:48Adam Skolnick?

  It's cool, man.

• 24:48Rich Roll?

  And I love stories like that.

• 24:49Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, yeah, any story.

• 24:51Rich Roll?

  And I love, like, my, when people ask me all the time, who's your favorite guest, da, da, da, da? And, you know, I can't say there is a favorite guest, but I think I do have a sweet spot for, you're not a guest. You're a co-host.

• 25:02Adam Skolnick?

  Okay, right.

• 25:03Rich Roll?

  Right? You being all indignant over there. Um, it's these stories of personal transformation. I think that are, are, are kind of the

• 25:14Adam Skolnick?

  Bread and butter.

• 25:14Rich Roll?

  Bread and vegan butter.

• 25:15Adam Skolnick?

  Well, it's funny, these three that we're going to talk about are all three of the kind of pillars that you bring, that you've always brought out, which are these kind of under-reported, amazing stories of transformation that are instantly inspiring and can inspire transformation in others. Doctors that kind of look at the medical world with a more critical eye and have a different take necessarily than the mainstream medical mind. And then the book that we're going to talk about at the end and, you know, like you're sitting down with an author and going full Terry Gross. I mean, I think that that's what makes the show so special is that you go into these different worlds. It's the curiosity model.

• 25:51Rich Roll?

  Well, this is why you're my co-host, because you butter my bread.

• 25:55Adam Skolnick?

  I encapsulate and then serve that softball right back.

• 25:57Rich Roll?

  Make me look better than I am, but I appreciate that.

• 26:01Adam Skolnick?

  I mean it.

• 26:01Rich Roll?

  Dr. Gabor Maté, another episode you haven't listened to?

• 26:05Adam Skolnick?

  Didn't get to that one.

• 26:09Rich Roll?

  In fairness, we only came up with this segment like yesterday. So I didn't give you a lot of heads up or time.

• 26:15Adam Skolnick?

  No.

• 26:16Rich Roll?

  But maybe going forward, we'll figure that out.

• 26:18Adam Skolnick?

  I did, I did watch some of Gabor Maté's rich roll content on the

• 26:23Rich Roll?

  The reels?

• 26:24Adam Skolnick?

  On the slot machine, slot machine in my home.

• 26:27Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 26:28Adam Skolnick?

  I did, I did watch that and very interesting. You know, I always find, especially now, because it's like, I, for years, I didn't have health insurance. I don't know if you can believe that, but I didn't, I couldn't afford health insurance.

• 26:41Rich Roll?

  Nor could I.

• 26:41Adam Skolnick?

  For years. And I would pay out of pocket for things like acupuncture and alternative health stuff, because I actually didn't really want to go to the medical doctor. And I think in the last years, for, for many reasons, you know, I think, starting with April being pregnant and finally having health insurance, that's one part of it. You know, after Obamacare passed, I was able to get health insurance. And, and moving forward, I kind of still, I tapped into it, but I still kind of stayed a little bit halfway. And I think there had been a time in my life where I would fully resonate with everything he said. And this time I would watch the content and there, you know, he referenced drugs used for MS and rheumatoid arthritis. And it's very interesting, because I, I actually have a story about

• 27:26Adam Skolnick?

  rheumatoid arthritis. A friend of mine had rheumatoid arthritis and turned down all the drugs. And he decided he didn't believe in that because the doctors were basically saying, "You're incurable. You're gonna take these drugs the rest of your life. It won't help you that much." So in that sense, you know, that's what, that's where I believe Dr. Mate is coming from, is that that's, that's the only ref, that's the only thing people can recommend for you and it doesn't necessarily help you. In fact, maybe it does hurt you or shorten your lifespan. He decided to look for a nutritional change, got rid of all grains and still kind of went through the process, but in the meantime, lost all the connective tissue cartilage in his hands. He, he went through incredible pain, like

• 28:08Adam Skolnick?

  it's a miracle he survived. Two years later, he's come out of it. He's growing that cartilage back. He's not eating grains. That's what really did it. He figured his own way out, but it was hell. And so like, that's the one thing, his recommendations, I, I'm not saying they're false. I'm saying there's, there is a price to be paid.

• 28:24Rich Roll?

  Yeah. I mean, I think that clip really triggered certain people and part of that is my fault. It is taken a bit out of context, but he is pushing the boundaries of, you know, what we're kind of accustomed to hearing when it comes to how we treat medical conditions. And that specific reel, he basically is saying like, listen, as you said, like there are, you know, in certain cases with certain conditions, the medical prognosis and the, you know, prescriptions that are part and parcel of that are not necessarily the solution. And there is an opportunity to go beyond that and to look deeper, to probe into somebody's

• 29:06Rich Roll?

  emotional psyche. Like in the case of your friend, he discovered a nutritional solution that ultimately put him on a better path. Dr. Mate is suggesting an emotional exploration.

• 29:18Adam Skolnick?

  Which is even another level.

• 29:20Rich Roll?

  And that's hard, you know, especially like if you're somebody who suffers or you have a loved one who suffers, who's going through hell and has tried all sorts of things or, you know, really has, you know, found a way to, to, to live well on these medications. That's a difficult thing to hear and I'm compassionate towards that. I don't think what he's saying is that in all cases, this is the solution, but perhaps instead, there is something to be learned, gleaned, or experienced by opening your aperture and trying to, you know, delve into what's going on with you emotionally. As a path towards some version of healing,

• 29:57Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 29:58Rich Roll?

  Whether in partnership or not with traditional Western medical approaches to whatever ails you. And it's, you know, it's a, it's something that's worth exploring and considering.

• 30:09Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 30:09Rich Roll?

  Given, you know, he's not some wackadoodle guy who's coming out of nowhere. This guy's been treating people forever.

• 30:15Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 30:16Rich Roll?

  His thesis emerged out of his work with thousands of, you know, basically low bottom addicts in Vancouver and realizing the relationship between unhealed childhood trauma and drug addiction later in life. And this later book, this, this recent book that he just came out with, The Myth of Normal, is really about extrapolating upon that thesis to say, at the root of many diseases lies things like unhealed trauma or emotional distress that is compartmentalized and not actually healed, right? And if we can go in and heal that, what are the downstream ramifications of that on health? And his, you know, he would say that they're profound.

• 31:00Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 31:00Rich Roll?

  And that we need to start paying attention to that. And I think there's, you know, it's like, it's a challenging thesis.

• 31:05Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 31:05Rich Roll?

  And at times like, I feel like I challenged him, he challenged me.

• 31:10Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 31:10Rich Roll?

  You know, this is, this is something that happened in our first podcast conversation as well, because I'm so indoctrinated into 12-step. You know, I tend to view addiction and recovery through that lens and that lens specifically. And he's challenging me to broaden that aperture.

• 31:27Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 31:27Rich Roll?

  And, you know, see a path to healing that's a little bit more expansive and that, you know, I can bristle at that or I can, you know, take that and say, well, maybe there's something for me to learn here.

• 31:37Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 31:40Rich Roll?

  Anyway, you know, I, I think that that's another episode that, that is doing really well. And I think he's, you know, helped a lot of people and is a really important voice.

• 31:51Adam Skolnick?

  He's got a great face, wouldn't you say?

• 31:52Rich Roll?

  Incredible face.

• 31:53Adam Skolnick?

  Incredible face.

• 31:54Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 31:55Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah. Best face. I think he wins best face of all these three guys.

• 31:58Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 32:00Rich Roll?

  He has an unbelievable, unmistakable face.

• 32:04Adam Skolnick?

  Before we get to these, well, I'll ask you this at the end. I wanted to ask you kind of like a nuts and bolts question about the podcast, but I'll ask you at the end. But, um, but yeah, great face, a great voice. Um, and yeah, I'm not suggesting that any of his conclusions are wrong. I'm just suggesting that when you, when you venture off the path to try some other methodology, whether it's emotional or nutritional or whatever, there often is a price to be paid in pain. And that's okay if you can handle that. But I just think that that's important to also say. It's not like an easy, like it sounds like a better fix. It's not an instant fix or an easy fix either. None of these things are instant or easy.

• 32:44Rich Roll?

  Of course not, but in the.

• 32:46Adam Skolnick?

  I'm not saying he's saying that, I'm just trying to clarify.

• 32:48Rich Roll?

  Yeah, yeah, I understand what you're saying. I, I also think that there's some additional connective tissue between Gabor's message and Ken Riteout's message and what we're about to talk about Max Fisher's message in that many of our larger social problems are being driven by men, a lot of young men who are disenfranchised, lacking means, lacking opportunity, you know, who, many of which I suspect are managing wounds and trauma without any help, without any direction, without any resources, without any strong, healthy male role models,

• 33:27Rich Roll?

  all of which make them vulnerable to less than stellar online influence, which, you know, manifests, metastasizes into untoward behavior in the real world. Right? This is a big part of what Max Fisher talks about.

• 33:43Adam Skolnick?

  Max Fisher?

• 33:44Rich Roll?

  I know, we're going to talk about that. And, and, and why I think people like Ken Riteout are important because they're, you know, an opposite to that in a healthy way. So.

• 33:55Rich Roll?

  In the context of what Max is talking about, I mean, first of all, to segue into him inelegantly, I know one thing you wanted to talk about.

• 34:03Adam Skolnick?

  The name Max Fisher?

• 34:05Rich Roll?

  His name is Max Fisher.

• 34:06Adam Skolnick?

  His name is Max Fisher, which is, you know, one of the great characters in in recent film history.

• 34:11Rich Roll?

  Yes.

• 34:12Adam Skolnick?

  Wouldn't you say?

• 34:13Rich Roll?

  I mean, indelible, right?

• 34:15Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 34:16Rich Roll?

  Timeless. Explain for people that might not know.

• 34:19Adam Skolnick?

  Max Fisher was the character played in Rushmore by Jason Schwartzman. It's Wes Anderson's second film. It's arguably, you could argue it's his best film. I don't know if you would. I think it's one of the top five. It's in my top.

• 34:31Rich Roll?

  It's definitely in the top five. I don't know that it's his best.

• 34:33Adam Skolnick?

  But it was the one that really like Bottle Rocket was good, but this was like another level.

• 34:37Rich Roll?

  Sure.

• 34:37Adam Skolnick?

  And Bill Murray kind of, I don't know if you'd accurately say rebooted Bill Murray, but maybe it did.

• 34:43Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I think it did.

• 34:44Adam Skolnick?

  And so that, you know, it's, it's an incredible movie about a high school senior.

• 34:50Rich Roll?

  Traumatage.

• 34:51Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah. It was like, like this, this wacky high school. It's, it's, it's amazing. If you haven't seen Rushmore, please stream Rushmore. It's unbelievable.

• 35:00Rich Roll?

  Do it for Max Fisher.

• 35:01Adam Skolnick?

  Do it for Max. Max Fisher!

• 35:03Rich Roll?

  Yeah. So this one just dropped today. You listened to a little bit of it. The early response, like right out of the gate, has been pretty voluminous.

• 35:12Adam Skolnick?

  Fantastic.

• 35:12Rich Roll?

  I think this episode is going to do really well. I think it's a really important conversation.

• 35:17Rich Roll?

  And it's something that we can all relate to as, you know, creatures who live to some extent by and through the internet and the vicissitudes of the social media platforms and the algorithms that make choices about what we see and what we don't.

• 35:32Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, it's, it's, it hooked me right off the bat. I have not read the book. What's the title?

• 35:38Rich Roll?

  The Chaos Machine.

• 35:39Adam Skolnick?

  Chaos Machine. You know, it's another, yet another kind of take on how social media is, is twisting society, basically. And this one has a much more global overview. And you can encapsulate it better than than I can, but like, he, he's a foreign relation, a foreign. What was it? What was it? It's a, he's a foreign correspondent.

• 36:02Rich Roll?

  Foreign affairs.

• 36:02Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, foreign affairs correspondent.

• 36:03Rich Roll?

  Like investigative reporter, Pulitzer Prize finalist.

• 36:06Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, and he, he, he's not the tech reporter that you'd think would normally cover this. You say that right off the bat.

• 36:11Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I mean, that's not his beat. He came into it through the work that he was doing overseas when he was seeing the, the kind of ramifications of what social media was doing in the developing world.

• 36:23Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, and how it was fueling, you know, the Rohingya genocide in Myanmar and how it was, which he covered for the New York Times and then fueling some rampages of Hindus destroying Muslims' homes in India and those riots in 2012, which he didn't recognize the social media component there and he, he kind of feels ashamed of that now, which he talks about with you. So that is really interesting. I've covered Myanmar a lot, so that, that, that really piqued my interest as well. And then, you know, talking about Zuckerberg's quote, did you have that quote or was it he that had the quote of?

• 37:03Rich Roll?

  What's the quote?

• 37:04Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, about rewiring society, like society is a, is a math or is a problem?

• 37:10Rich Roll?

  Oh, I think, well, it was Zuckerberg who, who said that, yeah, like, that, that, that, you know, basically, I can't remember the exact quote, but it's something along the lines of like humanity is an engineering problem.

• 37:21Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, humanity is an engineering problem. And so, the arrogance and kind of, I guess, glee, that kind of is both arrogance, glee and excellence that kind of came together to create what we are now kind of all armed with, which is a slot machine, basically, he says so eloquently, in our pockets. All that was, was, it's all intentional. It's basically, we're all dopamine addicts. He's, he wants you to-

• 37:54Rich Roll?

  It's intentional on the front end, but it- Is unpredictable on the back end.

• 37:59Adam Skolnick?

  Right, right.

• 38:00Rich Roll?

  Because I don't think anybody could have foreseen.

• 38:02Adam Skolnick?

  No.

• 38:02Rich Roll?

  What would transpire as a result of their creation. And now everyone's in, I don't know if it's damage control, but they are trying to figure out like how to rectify this thing that clearly is driving us apart from each other, creating social division and ultimately, you know, wreaking untold havoc.

• 38:23Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, I mean, and the arrogance, I think, is part of that. And I don't know, I mean, I find it really compelling. I know you're really into the book. What else, what else should we?

• 38:34Rich Roll?

  I mean, the way that I think of the book is, if you watch that documentary, The Social Dilemma.

• 38:39Adam Skolnick?

  Yep.

• 38:40Rich Roll?

  This is the equivalent of a semester-long college course on that subject matter, where each thing that comes up in The Social Dilemma is just probed a little bit more deeply. And it does have a global focus.

• 38:56Adam Skolnick?

  Which I love.

• 38:57Rich Roll?

  Beyond the, you know, parameters of the United States. And I think, you know, another important takeaway is that it's less about vilifying the Zuckerbergs of the world and more about understanding the inherent incentives of the systems and the platforms themselves that are built to take maximum advantage of the systems. I mean, basically, most of them are there to sell ads and they're there to command your attention so they can serve up as many ads as possible. And with those built-in incentives, you're creating, you're creating platforms that ultimately, you know, are, are so addictive that it's almost impossible for the well-intentioned

• 39:41Rich Roll?

  human being to have a healthy relationship with them.

• 39:44Adam Skolnick?

  Hmm. It's, it's interesting, right off the bat, you guys start talking about the Rohingya Myanmar issue, which was a Facebook issue and how the UN has actually said that Facebook exacerbated what ended up being kind of a series of pogroms that destroyed settlements and basically killed and murdered and maimed and raped the Rohingya people from the majority Burman population was involved in that. Some of them was the military. The military has been doing that to ethnic groups around Myanmar. I've covered that several times. But in this case, it wasn't just the military. It was also regular people kind of going in, similar to like what happened in India. And

• 40:27Adam Skolnick?

  The, I'm not, I'm not suggesting that, that, that obviously happens. The thing is, he also talks about how much of this is human nature? Is this human nature mixed with kind of this new tech problem? And I think that's interesting because-

• 40:39Rich Roll?

  He acknowledges the human nature component of it as being, you know, a huge aspect of it. These problems, as you know and have pointed out, existed prior to social media.

• 40:48Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, yeah. India, like, there's been mobs destroying Muslim settle, you know, homes and settlements and slums in India for, you know, generations. There's been, in Indonesia, there was Muslim mobs that went and killed and destroyed a whole Chinese, ethnic Chinese neighborhoods in Jakarta and other parts of Java, I mean, and across Indonesia. This is, this stuff has happened. Koreatown was destroyed during the riots, and that was intentional, that it was Koreatown. And so these, these things have happened before social media, but now social media is kind of like exacerbating it. And it's funny, because you point out quite rightly that like this, what we're talking about in Myanmar and India and other places

• 41:33Adam Skolnick?

  is like the polar opposite of the Arab Spring, where everyone, all these same platforms were exuberant about their possibilities to really change the world for the better. And then this is like the, the dark aftermath, which is a real dragon that they built. So that, that was interesting.

• 41:51Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's a, listen, it's a, it's a fascinating and far-reaching problem. I do believe, like, I'm not a fan of villainizing like the, the execs and making them like the ultimate bad guys here. Like, I do feel like, I don't know, maybe there's exceptions-

• 42:12Adam Skolnick?

  Are you defending the man right now?

• 42:14Rich Roll?

  No, I, I feel like, like, as individuals, there is a, an understanding that there's a problem that needs to be dealt with. And I think that they're probably grappling with how to solve a problem that structurally just feels impossible to solve, right? Like, when you have a structure, a business plan, that is a for-profit enterprise, short of turning off the platform, like, how do you fix this? Like- Content moderation with human beings or through some kind of artificial intelligence is never going to hit the mark. It's always going to be too much or too little. It's going to be pissing people off.

• 42:51Adam Skolnick?

  He called it like air freshener outside a toxic waste dump.

• 42:54Rich Roll?

  And whoever's trying to propagate, who's not, you know, on a bender to propagate some kind of campaign, whether well-intentioned or not, is always going to have the advantage in terms of figuring out an end run around whatever moderation is going on. So it's almost like a, you know, a Sisyphean task of trying to solve it. Like, I don't know how it can be solved. But ultimately, in the meantime, you know, it's massively problematic.

• 43:22Adam Skolnick?

  A hundred percent. Do you feel conflicted in the fact that like you're on Instagram today with these tiles basically talking about these same problems, but by doing that, it's kind of, it's like the, we had, we talked about last time, which is the medium is the message. It's almost like, and I think I referenced last time, this book, Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television. It's about like, no matter what you put on the television, this is the argument, like the way the television works is that we're not seeing the picture, we're seeing pixels and the picture is actually being put together in our brain, different than film, which is light, was supposed, back in the day, was light through a film. And so it was an image on film, it wasn't being built in our brains.

• 44:06Adam Skolnick?

  But because the way television works, it's being built in your brain. That was one of the arguments for the elimination of television, this old book that is a great book, but I'm sure out of print now. This reminds me of that kind of book. It's like, these are the arguments for why the internet and social media should not exist, probably.

• 44:21Rich Roll?

  Right, but, you know, I'm a product of the internet. Like, I make a living as a, if, if the internet didn't exist, if social media didn't exist, I would not be able to do this thing right now, right? And I try to leverage the pipes for good, but the truth of the matter is, is that I'm completely dependent upon these platforms in order to like do this thing that we're doing right now.

• 44:45Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 44:46Rich Roll?

  So it's complicated, right? Like, yes, I'm on Instagram, I'm on Twitter, I share clips from the podcast, like I try Try not to allow it to consume me and, and, and really use it as a creator. Like I'm using it as a place to broadcast the work that I'm doing as opposed to a place for consumption. And I plead guilty to being a consumer of it as well.

• 45:12Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 45:13Rich Roll?

  To me, like, that's where my work needs to focus. My work, my personal work, I mean, like, in terms of, like, what are my habits around my social media usage? Not as a broadcaster, but as a consumer. But I think if you can reframe the relationship into one of productivity and creativity, to use it to create rather than to consume, then it can be unbelievably powerful. Like, I owe my entire career to the internet.

• 45:41Adam Skolnick?

  It's powerful.

• 45:42Rich Roll?

  So it's like, you know, far be it from, so what am I gonna do? Like, cast stones and shoot arrows at this thing that has given me an unbelievable living? And, you know, if I could be so bold to try to put like a positive message out in the world and impact people in a meaningful way. So, you know, how do you reckon with those polarities?

• 46:02Adam Skolnick?

  I don't think you do.

• 46:03Rich Roll?

  You know, I mean, you're someone as well.

• 46:05Adam Skolnick?

  Same, same. Like, like, I, I was a guidebook author and like freelance journalist primarily. And those were great days. And, but I'll, but also, like, all my content always went on the internet from way back when. And now I'm on this show and I've had the good fortune to work with David, whose book became a hit on Amazon as purely, like, without Amazon, there'd be, there'd be no Can't Hurt Me in this, this particular incarnation. It would be a different type of a thing through more of a publisher. But even publishers, like, it's not just you. It's like, these days, major publishers, they wanna know how many followers you have. Like, everything, they have rewired. The point is, they have rewired society. Certainly have rewired media. And now it matters, like, what, how many followers a journalist has.

• 46:50Adam Skolnick?

  It matters. And I don't know how many Max has, but like, a lot, there's a lot of people that do very well in journalism because they have a lot of followers.

• 46:58Rich Roll?

  Yeah, and we can, we can argue about whether that's a good or a bad thing, but it is true.

• 47:02Adam Skolnick?

  It's true.

• 47:03Rich Roll?

  That is the reality in which we live. And, like, when it comes to YouTube, like, I love YouTube. I love that YouTube exists and we get to make these videos and put them out there and share them with people and people enjoy them. Like, that is a net positive in my life.

• 47:19Rich Roll?

  You know, we have to, we have to recognize that there are problems with it as well that need to be solved and hopefully they can be solved. I don't know how to solve them.

• 47:27Adam Skolnick?

  We're feeding the chaos machine either way.

• 47:28Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 47:29Adam Skolnick?

  The medium is the message kind of argument would be. I'm not saying, I'm not making the argument or judging anything because I'm doing the same stuff. But the argument would be the meat, anytime you feed the chaos machine, you're helping the chaos machine, even if it's good stuff.

• 47:42Rich Roll?

  Because you are the product. And one of the most powerful things that has stuck with me in that conversation with Max was this idea that we all think on some level that we're exempt from that manipulation. Like, oh, all these people are being manipulated and they're going down rabbit holes. But like, I'm, not me.

• 47:58Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 47:59Rich Roll?

  You know, like, I'm witnessing all of this.

• 48:01Adam Skolnick?

  Right. Look at those idiots.

• 48:02Rich Roll?

  Yeah. And he's saying, nobody is immune from this. And that is a very common, you know, reaction. Like, we all think that we're too smart for that. And yet subtly, incrementally, we're all being lured in one direction or another as a result of these like tectonic tech plates.

• 48:20Adam Skolnick?

  He's clearly extremely smart, but also humble, which I liked. I mean, I just think it's a great podcast. I can't wait to finish the rest of it. I think it's interesting, though, when it comes down to it, maybe we should all unplug and just go do things that have no productivity involved at all. Like, just go, maybe I should just spend most of my day underwater. Can I get paid to just stay underwater?

• 48:42Rich Roll?

  Follow your bliss. Follow your passion.

• 48:44Adam Skolnick?

  Like, maybe, maybe that's why Killian is the greatest.

• 48:47Rich Roll?

  The universe will conspire to support you.

• 48:49Adam Skolnick?

  Maybe that's why Killian's the greatest endurance or like ultra runner of all time.

• 48:53Rich Roll?

  He does what he wants to do.

• 48:54Adam Skolnick?

  All he wants to do is just run on a trail. He doesn't want to, doesn't want to look at all that shit.

• 48:58Rich Roll?

  No. And look what it did for him.

• 49:00Adam Skolnick?

  Hundreds of thousands of followers on social media.

• 49:02Rich Roll?

  Yeah. That's his accomplishment. To you? Come on. All right, let's take a quick break and we'll be back with an endurance sports check in.

• 49:18Rich Roll?

  All right. So during the break, Adam had to check to see how many Instagram followers Killian Journe has. 1.3 million. Good for him. I undersold him. Yeah. Yeah. Just running on mountains. Yeah. Doing his thing. Exactly. Well, that brings us to... Even he's feeding the machine. He is, right? It's not his fault. We all are. We all are. We're all complicit. At this point, it's not new news, but Killian firmly established himself as the all-time GOAT by winning UTMB. Jim Walmsley gave him a run for his money, really went after it, but ended up third. Killian took home gold in that race, and we don't need to recap the whole race because

• 50:02Rich Roll?

  it was a couple of weeks ago at this point. Right. But I thought what was interesting was... Hundred-mile race, right? Yes. Yeah. UTMB, the most prestigious mountain race. Yeah. Was this article about his UTMB training and race data. A lot of this data was made public, and there was an article in Trail Running Magazine, Trail Runner Magazine, kind of analyzing it and briefly synopsizing some interesting takeaways. So from that, which I think is instructive, they saw, and this is just what he kind of shared publicly, maybe he's doing more training beyond what was in his Strava and kind of

• 50:46Rich Roll?

  his Coros data from his GPS watch, but... Yeah. He logged 1,200 hours of training annual over the year, right? 1,200 hours. 88% of that training was at lower intensity and included a ton of cross-training. And most instructive was just the incredible amount of Zone 1 and Zone 2 training. So 56.9% of his training was in Zone 1, 20.2% in Zone 2. Crazy. At the highest end, Zone 5, only 3.8% of his training, which I thought was super interesting. Yeah. We'll link up this article in the show notes, but it kind of goes through zone by zone, his approach.

• 51:30Rich Roll?

  And I think if you're somebody who thinks that marathon runners and ultra runners log a bunch of junk miles and like, let's just get rid of the junk miles, I think Killian is powerful proof that... Those are not junk miles. Like, he's building this just implacable foundation, this base that makes him bulletproof and very resilient as a runner. So, anyway, I thought that was really cool. Super interesting. Zone one, I can't pack a bag in zone one, so. You can't. But you don't have, see, for Killian to run in his zone one, which is like walking for a normal human being, he's probably running like, he could probably run like seven-minute miles in his zone one. You think in zone one? Because he's so efficient. On flat ground, seven-minute mile.

• 52:13Rich Roll?

  And he's been building this base for so long. Like, his zone one pace is, I would, I'd be very interested to know what his zone one pace is. Yeah, I'd be interested too.

• 52:23Rich Roll?

  Anyway, uh, speaking of long-distance running, the 3100 self-transcendence run is underway. I think they're on day nine at this point. Okay. Longtime listeners will remember, uh, Sanjay Rawal, who was on the podcast back in 2018, that was episode 389. He is a runner and a filmmaker. He made a documentary called 3100 Run and Become, which is all about this race, following some of the participants. Essentially, this, you know what this race is, don't you? No. Oh, so this is, I talked about it, um, with Camille Heron, because she's interested in doing it.

• 53:01Rich Roll?

  But it's a 3,100-mile running race where you basically run around this city block in Queens. It's like, I don't know, a half-mile. Really? Uh, for, for, they, they open up the course in the morning and they close it at night. So it's not like, you know, no sleep, like you sleep at night and you show up in the morning and you run as much as you can until they close the course. And you have to complete the 3,100 miles in 52 days or less. So basically, you have to run an average of 59.6 miles a day. The 2019 winner did it in 47 days, and, uh, this is just like one of the most insane races. Yeah. In existence. A crazy maker.

• 53:43Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Um, and the people that compete in it, interestingly, I mean, you should watch Sanjay's documentary. We'll link it up in the show notes. You can get it on Amazon Prime.

• 53:56Rich Roll?

  This guy who won, I think he, this same guy who won in 2019, his name is Ashpra Hanal Alto, he's 48, he was 48 years old in 2019 and he's 51 now. I think he's a, like a postal worker in Finland or Denmark. Okay.

• 54:16Adam Skolnick?

  I thought you were gonna say that's his route.

• 54:18Rich Roll?

  No, no, no.

• 54:19Adam Skolnick?

  And so he was delivering the mail.

• 54:20Rich Roll?

  But like, a lot of these competitors, they're not professional athletes and they look sort of like laypeople. They don't look like racehorses. Interesting. And it's just, you know, the, the prize goes to the tortoise in this thing. It's like the guy who can, or woman who can like keep moving the longest. It's this war of attrition. It's kind of an unbelievable thing. So.

• 54:38Adam Skolnick?

  Crazy. The, the goal is to transcend the self.

• 54:41Rich Roll?

  Well, yeah, that's, it's, it was, it was created by Sri Shenoy, who's sort of this, you know, guru figure. Okay. From that part of New York City, who created, who, you know, part of the, part of the, the kind of spiritual philosophy is that you achieve self, you can achieve self-transcendence through endurance. Right, right, right. Sort of like the Marathon Monks. Like the Marathon Monks. It's a similar kind of thing. And so this race was kind of born out of that. Anyway, you can also follow Sanjay on Instagram. He's been updating people through his stories. He's at MrSanjayR, MrSanjayR on Instagram.

• 55:20Adam Skolnick?

  Amazing. Before we get into the water stuff, can we talk about Tony Riddles upcoming run?

• 55:27Rich Roll?

  Yeah, please.

• 55:28Adam Skolnick?

  September 15th, he is gonna be running Britain's longest trail, the southwest coastal path. It's a thousand kilometers. He's gonna be doing it in 10 days to beat the current record. So he's going for an FKT. So that's 100 kilometers a day for 10 consecutive days. And the elevation is equivalent to scaling Mount Everest four times. So what is that? 100,000 plus feet of elevation gain. And so he's doing that, starts September 15th. He's gonna be posting about it on the Natural Lifestyle. So that's a place to see it on Instagram. And he's raising money. He's raising money to, for the southwest coast paths. I guess they have a restoration fund.

• 56:07Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 56:08Adam Skolnick?

  And also a documentary highlighting Brazil's next indigenous congresswoman. So he's like, his, his, his main.

• 56:20Adam Skolnick?

  His pet causes are the environment and indigenous rights, indigenous people. So he's got three causes that he's raising money for. So if you are feeling it, go over to his Instagram and you can read a little bit more about it and then, you know, kick in some money or just watch the show.

• 56:34Rich Roll?

  Do we have links for those nonprofits that we can put in the show notes?

• 56:40Adam Skolnick?

  Where's our link guy?

• 56:41Rich Roll?

  I don't know. You're our link guy.

• 56:43Adam Skolnick?

  Okay, I'll find him. I'll give you your links.

• 56:46Rich Roll?

  When I was in London, I did a podcast with Tony. So we talked all about his preparation for this challenge. Just with the, you know, post-production schedule and all the guests that we've had. Unfortunately, that episode's not going up in advance of this challenge. So when it does go up, bear in mind that it was recorded prior to that. In the meantime, if you want to get down with Tony, you can listen to the first podcast that we did. I don't know what number it is.

• 57:13Adam Skolnick?

  I love that one.

• 57:14Rich Roll?

  Search Google for that.

• 57:15Adam Skolnick?

  Where he got you barefoot running.

• 57:17Rich Roll?

  He did, and we made a little video.

• 57:18Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 57:19Rich Roll?

  Where he took me through some drills and things like that, which is fun to watch. And he has a documentary out about his three peaks challenge, which is called One Man, Two Feet, Three Peaks. I think it's like, I don't know, it's like an hour long or something like that. It's a pretty good watch and it gives you some good context for who this guy is and how remarkable he is.

• 57:42Adam Skolnick?

  He is a remarkable human being.

• 57:43Rich Roll?

  Running, you know, in his vivo barefoot and climbing these peaks barefoot.

• 57:48Adam Skolnick?

  Family man.

• 57:49Rich Roll?

  It's wild. No furniture in his house.

• 57:51Adam Skolnick?

  No, family man.

• 57:52Rich Roll?

  A lot of squatting, a lot of natural movement.

• 57:54Adam Skolnick?

  They sit on the floor, they sleep on these pads, right?

• 57:56Rich Roll?

  Yeah, but they don't have chairs, you know? And he's a beautiful, wonderful guy. I just love that guy to death. So, cool.

• 58:03Adam Skolnick?

  A transcendent self.

• 58:04Rich Roll?

  Should we talk about this 100-mile offshore challenge?

• 58:10Adam Skolnick?

  Is it even a challenge?

• 58:11Rich Roll?

  I don't know. I mean.

• 58:14Adam Skolnick?

  I remember when this came up.

• 58:15Rich Roll?

  It's not.

• 58:15Adam Skolnick?

  You, did you post it? I wonder if I saw it on your Twitter or on one of my other many daily forays into social media.

• 58:22Rich Roll?

  This came up and was suddenly everywhere. So this, this rapper.

• 58:28Adam Skolnick?

  Young Thug?

• 58:29Rich Roll?

  Young Thug posted from jail, I guess.

• 58:33Adam Skolnick?

  So his roommate is a fellow, a fellow, was incarcerated person, his roommate?

• 58:39Rich Roll?

  What do you mean, his roommate?

• 58:40Adam Skolnick?

  I'm talking with my roommate and we're wondering if.

• 58:42Rich Roll?

  Oh, yeah, I think so.

• 58:43Adam Skolnick?

  When I read that tweet, I didn't realize it was Young Thug. I, I thought it was just some dude talking to his roommate.

• 58:49Rich Roll?

  I did too, because we're old men and we don't know what's going on. But Young Thug said, I'm talking with my roommate. We tweeted this. I'm talking with my roommate and we're wondering if you could swim 100 miles from the middle of the ocean back to shore, Michael Phelps. And Michael Phelps retweeted it and said, yeah, I think I could make it. And this kind of like exploded the internet for a minute.

• 59:10Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, especially in the open water circles. Like they're, please can Michael Phelps bring some star power to our, to our sport?

• 59:17Rich Roll?

  So like CBS Sports ends up writing an article about this, taking it seriously. Like, could he actually do this? Like, what would it take? And talks about like who Young Thug is and all the like.

• 59:30Adam Skolnick?

  And he was in jail at the time?

• 59:33Rich Roll?

  Reportedly been charged with a wide ranging Rico case.

• 59:37Adam Skolnick?

  What's Rico?

• 59:38Rich Roll?

  And is awaiting trial, racketeering.

• 59:40Adam Skolnick?

  Okay.

• 59:42Rich Roll?

  So I don't know anything about that part of the whole deal.

• 59:45Adam Skolnick?

  Okay. You're not endorsing, you're not endorsing his Rico case.

• 59:48Rich Roll?

  What do you think? Could Michael Phelps do this?

• 59:51Adam Skolnick?

  Well, I think he could, you know, I think, I think it's, it's do, people have done longer swims, right?

• 59:59Adam Skolnick?

  I think Cameron Bellamy was preparing a swim that's about that long at one point.

• 1:00:03Rich Roll?

  Pablo Fernandez broke the record for longest distance ocean swim.

• 1:00:08Rich Roll?

  In 2021, traveling 155.3 miles in 26 hours.

• 1:00:14Adam Skolnick?

  Incredible.

• 1:00:15Rich Roll?

  And then we know Neil Ageas, the guy who swam from Italy to Malta in 52 hours. That was 178.48.

• 1:00:26Adam Skolnick?

  That must be, because he's an Olympic swimmer. So that must be the guy that like that felt because later Phelps talked to his coach, I guess, and they figured it would be 50 hours. So they must have been talking about Neil's swim. That must have been part of the calculus there.

• 1:00:39Rich Roll?

  Maybe, maybe not.

• 1:00:40Adam Skolnick?

  I think he could do it. I think that it would, what would be cooler would be to have him try to go for a record in like the English Channel or try to find like one of these crossings to do first. He'd have to do some training anyway. So you'd have to do long swims to prepare. You couldn't just do the 100.

• 1:00:57Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:00:58Adam Skolnick?

  So, you know, wouldn't it be cool if he decided to like go for the triple crown, the record of the FKT and some of these channel swims? I'm, I'm telling you, people who cover channel swimming.

• 1:01:08Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I'm sure that's going to be big motivation for him. I mean, let's be honest here. Could he do it? Of course he could do it. Like if Michael Phelps set his sights on a goal like this, he's going to accomplish it.

• 1:01:20Adam Skolnick?

  If he says he could do it.

• 1:01:21Rich Roll?

  Yeah. But here's the thing, this is never going to happen. Like this is not a real thing.

• 1:01:26Adam Skolnick?

  No.

• 1:01:26Rich Roll?

  You know, I love that there's newspaper, news articles about this as if he's actually contemplating it. He is living his best life right now. He has accomplished everything there is to accomplish. Like, could he? Yeah. If he wanted to put his time into this, but why would he, why would he do that? He looks fit. He's enjoying his kids. He's going to golf tournaments.

• 1:01:45Adam Skolnick?

  Because the inner, the inside milk, man, he needs, he needs something else.

• 1:01:49Rich Roll?

  I don't know.

• 1:01:50Adam Skolnick?

  He needs the primal nature.

• 1:01:52Rich Roll?

  But how long, what, you know, like, listen, like, first of all, what ocean and, you know, where in, you know, what is his longitude and latitude here? Is it cold water? Is it tropical water? Is there chop? What are we talking about?

• 1:02:08Adam Skolnick?

  Well, I mean, if he's planning on doing, um, he's not planning on it.

• 1:02:11Rich Roll?

  He's not. Yeah, it's like, I love the whole conversation, like imagining that he's actually planning for this.

• 1:02:16Adam Skolnick?

  If he decided to.

• 1:02:17Rich Roll?

  He tweeted that and then he never thought about it again.

• 1:02:20Adam Skolnick?

  Most likely.

• 1:02:20Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:21Adam Skolnick?

  But if he decided to take it on, I think you, you know, you end up having to pick a window and within that window, you deal with the conditions as they are.

• 1:02:28Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:02:29Adam Skolnick?

  Like, that's how it usually goes.

• 1:02:30Rich Roll?

  But what is, you know, where in the world would you set your sights on doing this?

• 1:02:34Adam Skolnick?

  Like, where would his first window be?

• 1:02:36Rich Roll?

  Well, first of all, geographically, where?

• 1:02:38Adam Skolnick?

  I should ask you that because you're, you've done ultra events. I, I usually interview people after they've done them, but I know.

• 1:02:43Rich Roll?

  Well, what do you want? You want, you want relatively warm water and you want calm water?

• 1:02:47Adam Skolnick?

  Not necessarily. Like, if you're gonna try to do, like, the, the challenges that I know of, the best, the best, biggest swims, I mean, you could do, he could, he could go to Hawaii to start there, but the, the currents can be really rough there. Um, wherever you go, there's going to be current, there's going to be tides. So, you know, at some

• 1:03:05Rich Roll?

  What you want to do is swim in the, within the Gulf Stream current and have it just carry you.

• 1:03:11Adam Skolnick?

  Right. You want the, the, yeah, right.

• 1:03:13Rich Roll?

  With maximum speed.

• 1:03:14Adam Skolnick?

  But that, but those conditions can be rough, too. I mean, that doesn't always work. Um, I think.

• 1:03:20Rich Roll?

  And he would have to put on quite a bit of weight for buoyancy and for warmth. Cause even if you're in warm water, let's say the water's 76 degrees, that's still considerably colder than your, your body temperature and a lot of your energy goes towards maintaining core body temperature, right? So you don't want to be expending a ton of energy to stay warm. So that's why a lot of these open water marathon swimmers look, they, they look like they're out of shape because they have so much body fat on them.

• 1:03:48Adam Skolnick?

  Right. There's a movement now, though, within a water swim, that's not necessarily, that was thought to be true, but it's not as, it's not as necessary as you think. You don't have to carry as much weight as, as it was thought.

• 1:03:59Rich Roll?

  Really?

• 1:03:59Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So there's some people who don't think, I mean, Antonio likes his bioprene, but there's others that are preparing swims that they don't necessarily look like Michael Phelps looks in a Speedo, but they're not necessarily, uh, looking, uh, too overweight.

• 1:04:13Rich Roll?

  Well, the best line in this CBS article is how it ends at the very end. It says, uh, it's a...

• 1:04:22Rich Roll?

  As of now, there doesn't seem to be actual plans for Phelps to attempt Young Thug's challenge. Yes. Way to bury the lead there.

• 1:04:31Adam Skolnick?

  I think Young Thug's on to something. I don't know if he tweeted this from jail.

• 1:04:36Rich Roll?

  Do you think Young Thug was actually challenging him? He was asking a question.

• 1:04:40Adam Skolnick?

  What I think we should start doing is have Young Thug go around challenging athletes to ultra events. Like whoever he's rooming with.

• 1:04:48Rich Roll?

  He's in charge.

• 1:04:49Adam Skolnick?

  He and his roommate.

• 1:04:50Rich Roll?

  Dispensing with challenges, dispensing challenges to the world.

• 1:04:54Adam Skolnick?

  He should be the commissioner of ultra.

• 1:04:55Rich Roll?

  While he's awaiting trial.

• 1:04:56Adam Skolnick?

  Yes. Young Thug, you could be the commissioner of ultra and you can create events and go around and you just tap people with Twitter, tap them and said, "You Rich Roll, I've read about you, great book by the way, now you are going to swim Catalina."

• 1:05:13Rich Roll?

  Okay. Right? See, this is why we need social media.

• 1:05:18Adam Skolnick?

  Yes, this is the good side of social media.

• 1:05:20Rich Roll?

  Okay. Should we talk about this 70-year-old lifeguard?

• 1:05:24Adam Skolnick?

  Which one?

• 1:05:25Rich Roll?

  The guy at the Jersey Shore.

• 1:05:27Adam Skolnick?

  Ah, the Jersey Shore lifeguard.

• 1:05:28Rich Roll?

  You know what I'm talking about, so...

• 1:05:30Adam Skolnick?

  Yes, you're talking about Eric Greensmith?

• 1:05:32Rich Roll?

  I am talking about that very man himself. This popped up on Instagram under the Wall Street Journal page, @WSJ. This guy, Eric Greensmith, who...

• 1:05:44Adam Skolnick?

  Looks great.

• 1:05:45Rich Roll?

  He looks amazing. He's a retired anesthesiologist, I think.

• 1:05:50Adam Skolnick?

  Okay.

• 1:05:51Rich Roll?

  Was worried about getting bored in retirement, so as his career started to wind down last year, he started getting into shape and started dreaming about recapturing some of his teenage years by returning to becoming a lifeguard on the Jersey Shore. He trains for it, there's all these tests that you have to pass, like you gotta run in the sand and do some kind of routine, and he passed all of those and there he is, like sitting in the lifeguard chair, saving lives.

• 1:06:21Adam Skolnick?

  There he is, man. It's shades of Jim McConica, and the other old heads that I see in Malibu. You know who Jim McConica is, right? Jim McConica was a collegiate swimmer at USC.

• 1:06:33Adam Skolnick?

  And um, he, his claim to fame is he beat Mark Spitz in some collegiate race. And then fast forward, he was 50 and working like, I think he, he owned some like car dealerships or something in Ventura.

• 1:06:47Rich Roll?

  Hmm.

• 1:06:47Adam Skolnick?

  And uh, he was all out of shape and he, he, he was kind of disgusted with himself and he decided to swim, break the record from Catalina. And now he's something like 70. I covered him when he and the Deep Enders did some channel swims uh, in, in the Channel Islands. And he at one point held every record of all the Channel Islands.

• 1:07:08Rich Roll?

  Wow.

• 1:07:09Adam Skolnick?

  And he's like, I think he's 70 plus now. Um, and when he decided to become a lifeguard again, like, I forget how old, I think he was a little bit after 50, he won that race. He still can compete with the top guys in speed, in swimming and running.

• 1:07:25Rich Roll?

  That's pretty cool.

• 1:07:25Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:26Rich Roll?

  How do you think he would measure up against uh, Dr. Greensmith?

• 1:07:29Adam Skolnick?

  I think he'd, he would defeat.

• 1:07:31Rich Roll?

  You think so?

• 1:07:32Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, Dr. Greensmith, sorry.

• 1:07:33Rich Roll?

  I got a soft spot, spot in my heart for this guy.

• 1:07:35Adam Skolnick?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:07:36Rich Roll?

  Check him out.

• 1:07:36Adam Skolnick?

  But I mean, Mekonica is like.

• 1:07:38Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I get it.

• 1:07:39Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:39Rich Roll?

  I get it. It's cool though.

• 1:07:41Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 1:07:41Rich Roll?

  Like, I applaud this.

• 1:07:43Adam Skolnick?

  Do you think?

• 1:07:44Rich Roll?

  And I think it's cool, I think it's cool that the Wall Street Journal decided to write this really cool article about this guy too.

• 1:07:49Adam Skolnick?

  You know, it's, it's interesting because I've been, you know, as we get on in age, you kind of want to create new skills, get new skills, get back to, you know, you do feel the pull to do something of use um, that's different than feeding the chaos machine.

• 1:08:04Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:08:04Adam Skolnick?

  I, I think about, I think about those different things.

• 1:08:07Rich Roll?

  And age is just a number.

• 1:08:10Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 1:08:10Rich Roll?

  Your greatest challenges await you, Mr. Skolnik.

• 1:08:13Adam Skolnick?

  They do?

• 1:08:13Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:14Adam Skolnick?

  Hmm, okay.

• 1:08:15Rich Roll?

  Voluntary, voluntary challenges.

• 1:08:18Adam Skolnick?

  Okay, because I've been through some challenges. Some of them, some of them I'm not eager to go through again.

• 1:08:23Rich Roll?

  Life has a tendency to dole things out. Like, we, we don't get out of this thing alive, so.

• 1:08:28Adam Skolnick?

  No, no, no, nobody does.

• 1:08:30Rich Roll?

  Expect more challenges.

• 1:08:31Adam Skolnick?

  This morning, I stared death right in the bloody mouth.

• 1:08:35Rich Roll?

  What happened?

• 1:08:36Adam Skolnick?

  Someone texted me a picture of a, of a beached dolphin.

• 1:08:39Rich Roll?

  Hmm.

• 1:08:42Rich Roll?

  This is the chaos machine.

• 1:08:43Adam Skolnick?

  I stared at it.

• 1:08:44Rich Roll?

  At work.

• 1:08:44Adam Skolnick?

  And I meditated on it.

• 1:08:46Rich Roll?

  Did you?

• 1:08:46Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:47Rich Roll?

  Wow.

• 1:08:48Adam Skolnick?

  That's how I confront death on a near daily basis.

• 1:08:51Rich Roll?

  That's your, your, your amar fati?

• 1:08:54Adam Skolnick?

  That's my amar fati. What's that?

• 1:08:57Rich Roll?

  The stoic phrase for death is, what is it?

• 1:09:01Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:01Rich Roll?

  What does it translate to?

• 1:09:02Adam Skolnick?

  I feel like Ryan Holiday.

• 1:09:03Rich Roll?

  You will die.

• 1:09:03Adam Skolnick?

  I think I feel like Ryan Holiday stares at like dead animals on his Instagram every morning before he does a stoic.

• 1:09:09Rich Roll?

  I don't think so.

• 1:09:10Adam Skolnick?

  No? I love it.

• 1:09:11Rich Roll?

  He has some practice around that, but I don't think that's what it looks like.

• 1:09:22Rich Roll?

  Anyway, let's switch gears.

• 1:09:23Adam Skolnick?

  Okay.

• 1:09:24Rich Roll?

  We're going into the gutter here.

• 1:09:25Adam Skolnick?

  Um, can I, can I talk about a TV show I watched?

• 1:09:29Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:09:30Adam Skolnick?

  Is this the time or are we doing that later?

• 1:09:31Rich Roll?

  Let's do the main, let's do the main topics.

• 1:09:33Adam Skolnick?

  Oh, let's do the main topics.

• 1:09:34Rich Roll?

  The main topic first.

• 1:09:35Adam Skolnick?

  Main topic.

• 1:09:36Rich Roll?

  Yeah. So, so that, yeah, we're like an hour and a half into this thing when we're hitting our main subject here, but hey, this is roll on, right?

• 1:09:43Adam Skolnick?

  This is what happens in roll on.

• 1:09:45Rich Roll?

  So I thought, as we slowly inch towards the 10 year anniversary of this podcast.

• 1:09:52Adam Skolnick?

  When is that?

• 1:09:53Rich Roll?

  It would be in November at some point, late November, I think. It would be good to kind of reflect on some things that I've learned as a result of this journey that I've been on. So I just jotted down some thoughts, a few pillars of things that I've learned from, from podcasting and from, and life and.

• 1:10:12Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:12Rich Roll?

  Athletics, business, sobriety.

• 1:10:14Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:14Rich Roll?

  Lessons not just applicable to podcasting or being a podcaster or to being a content creator, but honestly, you know, to and for anyone for any purpose. And I think, how many did I come up with? We were like cramming to get this podcast together and maybe I'll come up with like five things and I came up with one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine. I came up with 12, so it's like the 12 steps, perfect.

• 1:10:40Adam Skolnick?

  Rich Roll's 12 steps.

• 1:10:41Rich Roll?

  I know.

• 1:10:42Adam Skolnick?

  Roll on 12 steps.

• 1:10:44Rich Roll?

  I don't know how much time we want to spend on this. We can go through them quickly, but the main thing is.

• 1:10:48Adam Skolnick?

  Would you like me to try to poke holes in them?

• 1:10:49Rich Roll?

  To just.

• 1:10:50Adam Skolnick?

  Or just?

• 1:10:51Rich Roll?

  You, you can. I want this to be conversational, Adam. I told you that.

• 1:10:56Rich Roll?

  The first thing is to invest in your curiosity. And I think that's not to be confused with follow your passion. It's to pay attention to yourself. Like, what are you naturally curious about?

• 1:11:06Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:08Rich Roll?

  And to learn to honor that and to pull on those threads and be open to where they might lead you. And, you know, often they're not dramatic lightning bolt types of things. But I think being in a mindset and cultivating a practice of honoring your curiosity has been a huge piece in how this show went from idea to what it is today. And I think it's applicable to anything that you choose to invest your time in. Because if you're not naturally curious about where that time investment is going, then it's probably not going to work, right? Like, you have to be curious about the work you're pursuing, the endeavors that you're investing in.

• 1:11:48Adam Skolnick?

  Stay curious.

• 1:11:48Rich Roll?

  Yeah, like, could you write a great book or a great article if you're not curious about the material that you're investigating?

• 1:11:58Adam Skolnick?

  No.

• 1:11:58Rich Roll?

  Of course not, right? Can you achieve an athletic goal if you aren't curious about what that journey is going to reveal about who you are and where it might lead?

• 1:12:09Adam Skolnick?

  Maybe not one that...

• 1:12:09Rich Roll?

  You could, you could force yourself to, but it's not going to be a sustainable thing.

• 1:12:13Adam Skolnick?

  Right, right. It might be a one-off.

• 1:12:14Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:12:15Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:15Rich Roll?

  And this podcast is really built on curiosity. I mean, you wanted to talk earlier about like how I choose the guests.

• 1:12:23Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 1:12:24Rich Roll?

  And it's really all about curiosity. It's a gut instinct thing. It's not like, oh, here are the people with the big books that are coming out, or here's the people who've expressed interest in coming on. At this point, it's not about like, who can I get? It's about like, who's right? And who's right often doesn't match up with like, who's most popular or who's got the biggest thing going on. It's about who I'm naturally curious to learn from, who I feel a gravitational pull towards. And that's really been like the guiding principle or light. And it's all about curiosity.

• 1:13:00Adam Skolnick?

  Love it.

• 1:13:01Rich Roll?

  Second thing, listen, Adam, you need to hear this. Preparation. Oh. Preparation. There are no shortcuts to anything. You can't cram for a competition. You can't fake readiness. In order to be present, in order to be able to execute to the best of your ability, I cannot overemphasize the importance of preparation. And in the context of this podcast, I would say on average, maybe between six to eight hours goes into each guest. Okay. Reading their books, listening to other podcasts they've been on, reading all

• 1:13:45Rich Roll?

  the material that I can find, background material, news articles, blog posts, et cetera. And then synthesizing all of that material, coming up with an outline. Like, I probably go way too far on the preparation thing, but it's that thing, like, if you're an actor, you can't just memorize the lines. They have to become so rote that you forget them and you can show up and be present for the performance. Similarly, like, I have to digest all of this and allow it to kind of percolate in my unconscious mind so that when I show up to do the podcast, I'm not reliant upon looking on notes, even though I have the iPad open in case, like, I have a brain fart or something like that. And I just trust in the preparation and try to be as present as possible and allow it

• 1:14:30Rich Roll?

  to be what it wants to be. But I think what you see are a lot of people, like, faking the preparation part and trying to kind of, you know, get through certain experiences and play it off as if they have been, as if they had prepared. But, you know, you can always tell.

• 1:14:52Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, 100%. I mean, I'm all about-

• 1:14:53Rich Roll?

  It's like a short-term versus long-term thing. Sorry, go ahead.

• 1:14:56Adam Skolnick?

  No, yeah, I'm all about the over-researching. When I'm writing something, I always over-research. Talk to too many people. I have too many people's quotes that I want to get in there that I can't always do. You feel bad about it sometimes because you can't get to everything, but so it creates this other problem. But in the end, it always delivers better material. So I think in media, preparation is key. Six to eight hours sounds like, like it seems like you put in, like I wouldn't be surprised. I wouldn't have been surprised if it was 30 hours, based on some of the interviews you get into.

• 1:15:28Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I mean, and it depends. You know, it depends on, you know, authors, it's generally more.

• 1:15:33Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:34Rich Roll?

  Because you have to consume their books and all of that. But, you know, and this is, this is applicable to everything. Like, if you're going to be an athlete, you want to show up for your competition prepared.

• 1:15:46Adam Skolnick?

  Of course.

• 1:15:47Rich Roll?

  You know, like, you don't want to be trying to get away with something that you're, that you actually didn't earn. And all the things that you seek through participating in a competition, like the sense of, the enhanced sense of self and pride and all of that are really a function of preparedness. Like, if you didn't really put the preparation in, and you kind of get away with it, even if you get the good result, you're not getting that feeling. You're not getting that enriched experience that you would have had you put yourself on the line and tried your hardest, which means investing in that preparation piece.

• 1:16:25Adam Skolnick?

  Love it.

• 1:16:27Rich Roll?

  Next thing, listening. Most people are terrible listeners. If you can master listening, the art of listening, you're already going to be way ahead in just about everything important in life. I think that's true.

• 1:16:44Adam Skolnick?

  I'm sorry, what'd you say?

• 1:16:45Rich Roll?

  See? I know. This is why roll-on never works. Right?

• 1:16:52Adam Skolnick?

  I agree.

• 1:16:53Rich Roll?

  When you can match the preparation with listening, I think, you know, people ask me like, oh, what are, you know, give me some advice about how to, how to conduct an interview or how to do a podcast. It's like, follow your curiosity. There's only one you. Be super prepared for what you're gonna do and then show up and listen. And I feel like so many people are in their own heads or thinking like in the content, in the very narrow context of podcasting, so many hosts, they're not listening to their guests. They're just waiting to ask the next question or, or they're just biding their time until they can tell their story about their take on something.

• 1:17:29Adam Skolnick?

  And not just in podcasts, you see that on television interviews, you see it all over.

• 1:17:33Rich Roll?

  And it's terrible, right?

• 1:17:34Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, it's not, it's not the best interviewing. And the best interviewing is when you can find a spot that you can dive deeper. You can find the little rabbit holes and burrow into them. But also like if you're taking that to daily life, how would you, how would you, if taking the listening piece, most people are terrible listeners. How does that, how would you transfer that?

• 1:17:54Rich Roll?

  I'm less skilled in the real world than I am.

• 1:17:56Adam Skolnick?

  I don't believe that.

• 1:17:57Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Yeah, it's, it's about being present, right? Are you actually listening to the people that you're engaging with during the day? And that's like, you know, that's definitely something that I still need a lot of work on. You know, I'm busy and I'm trying to get from one place to the next. And I don't really wanna sit and listen to what somebody's trying to tell me when I'm, when I'm perceiving them to be like an obstacle to where I'm actually going.

• 1:18:22Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 1:18:23Rich Roll?

  So I think it's inextricably linked with trying to be in the moment.

• 1:18:29Adam Skolnick?

  And also that's one, another thing that the phones get in the way of, right?

• 1:18:32Rich Roll?

  Sure.

• 1:18:33Adam Skolnick?

  Good listening skills.

• 1:18:34Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:18:34Adam Skolnick?

  Cause we're constantly.

• 1:18:35Rich Roll?

  I listen to my phone really well.

• 1:18:37Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, everyone listens to their phone to the top, tip top.

• 1:18:39Rich Roll?

  Yes.

• 1:18:41Adam Skolnick?

  But yeah, that, that, that, that idea of over distraction gets in the way of it. So that's something we now have to be especially conscious of, right? And I think we always had to, but good listeners, the less you talk, the more you hear.

• 1:18:53Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:18:53Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:54Rich Roll?

  The next thing is consistency. And this is just applicable to everything in life as well. Whether you're an athlete, a professional, whatever it is that you're trying to improve at, consistency is the most underrated and important piece in the whole equation. In the context of this podcast, consistency has been everything. Like, just keep moving forward. Every week you put up an episode, some, you know, like, they're not all gonna be home runs. Like, just keep moving, let go of perfection, and create a sustainable model that factors in self-care so that you're in the best position to continue doing the thing for as long as you remain curious and passionate about it.

• 1:19:37Rich Roll?

  And, you know, on the subject of preparing for guests, like, I listen to a lot of podcasts, right? If a guest is coming on, I'll check out some other podcast appearances they've done to get a sense of, you know, who they are, or some backstory. And what I've found, not all the time, but, you know, there's a large percentage of hosts who are either ill-prepared, like we talked about earlier, or who are not listening, you know, just waiting to ask the next question, or to tell their story. Or, in certain cases, it's great. But then I realize that host is no longer podcasting. Like, this was from a couple of years ago, and they quit, or they stopped, because they couldn't maintain consistency,

• 1:20:21Rich Roll?

  because they couldn't find a way to make it sustainable. Like, that's my only inference. So, consistency is super important, and that means creating a system that is sustainable. So, paying attention to how you've set everything up. And this is, I've had to learn from my own mistakes, like, starting off trying to do everything, being super perfectionist about everything, and then learning how to let go, and empower team members, and, you know, create a schedule that, that has allowed us to, like, batch work, and schedule a way in advance so that everybody has an enhanced quality of life, and then taking time off at the end of the year, so I can reboot. All of that has been huge, so that I can remain as curious

• 1:21:05Rich Roll?

  and as excited about doing this thing 10 years after it's begun.

• 1:21:10Adam Skolnick?

  I love it. That's for sure hallmark of anyone in the creative arts consistency is paramount because you won't even, most of the time, you won't even get anywhere for the first five years. So if you give up in that period of time, then

• 1:21:25Rich Roll?

  Yeah. And on that note, like patience, right? Yeah. You don't get anywhere in five years. Like, you know, we hear all this stuff about like, oh, to change a habit, you need 28 days. Like, first of all, I think it's probably more like 100 days. But that aside, if you want to be good at anything, it's going to take 10 years. Like, I think a decade is really the best metric that I've seen in order to go from, not necessarily beginner, but from competency to, you know, maybe not mastery, but like true competency.

• 1:21:56Adam Skolnick?

  Like 10,000 hours becomes 10 years for you?

• 1:21:58Rich Roll?

  Whatever it is. Like, I don't know if you can be that reductive about it, but things take time and you can only rush things so much. So instead of trying to rush it, just understand this is what you're in for. Relax into it, you know, build over time. Whether you're trying to build a business, develop a client base, like whatever you're trying to get good at, like, it's important to think in decades, not in days or months.

• 1:22:24Adam Skolnick?

  It's very tough when you're, when you're, when you have this dream and you're young and you don't really see like, God, that seems so far away. Yeah, I remember I

• 1:22:34Rich Roll?

  I mean, if you're a new lawyer, it's going to be 10 years before you have a book of business and you're kind of well regarded as being somewhat expert in your specific field. I'm sure the same is true if you're a doctor, if you're an engineer, and certainly, you know, as a podcast, like, we're at 10 years now. Like, when we started, we were small, now we're larger. I still have tons to learn. I would not consider myself to have mastered this at all. Like, I try to approach it with a beginner's mind. But yeah, it took 10 years to go from where we were to where we are today. And that's just the deal. When I was a swimmer, it took me from age, you know, 10 to 20.

• 1:23:13Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 1:23:13Rich Roll?

  Good. Obviously, there's some physical development in there, but, you know, that was a 10-year period. And with podcasting, it's been from 2012 to 2022.

• 1:23:23Adam Skolnick?

  You know, it's funny, I, uh, in the end of 2004, beginning 2005, I, I went to Indonesia for the second time and I, I met up with Elizabeth Gilbert, who I had met my previous trip a few months earlier, six months earlier, we were all there. And my sister was with me and we all went to go see Katut, I forget his last name, but like one of the holy men that she consulted that's in Eat, Pray, Love.

• 1:23:51Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:23:52Adam Skolnick?

  And so she went to see him and then she took me to see him. And he did his whole thing where he's kind of, kind of tells your fortune. You know, he predicted the success of Eat, Pray, Love, by the way.

• 1:24:02Rich Roll?

  Hmm.

• 1:24:03Adam Skolnick?

  And he, uh, he, he looks at me and, you know, he, and he says, I forget exactly what went down, but he said, you're trying to build something. He goes, he goes, it's going to happen. He's going to happen. You're going to achieve great success at 47 years old. And this was, I was, this was 2004, so I was 33. I think I'd just turned 33. And I was bummed, man. I was so bummed, you know, I was like, God, that's a long time. Like, I could barely make rent at 33. Like, I'm thinking, how am I going to make rent for 16 years? That's, that's where my head went. This is how kind of fucked up I was thinking, but it's true. I mean, it was scary to hear that.

• 1:24:44Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:24:45Adam Skolnick?

  You know, I didn't hear that just keep going for 17 years. I heard, I haven't even been doing it.

• 1:24:49Rich Roll?

  Right. You could have interpreted that as relax a little bit.

• 1:24:52Adam Skolnick?

  Right. But I'd only been trying for like five years, you know, and it had been hard, you know? And so now I'm, I'm looking all the way to, to that period of time. But when I was 47, right before I turned 47, I think it was right, yeah, right before I turned 47, Can't Hurt Me came out.

• 1:25:08Rich Roll?

  Wow. Wow. I wonder if this guy's that right all the time?

• 1:25:14Adam Skolnick?

  I don't know. Sorry. I have it on airplane mode.

• 1:25:16Rich Roll?

  But the thing is, if he's wrong, like, no one remembers. It's when he's right that you remember.

• 1:25:22Adam Skolnick?

  That's the thing.

• 1:25:23Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:24Adam Skolnick?

  How right are you all the time? But that's pretty right. I mean, 47?

• 1:25:26Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:27Adam Skolnick?

  Isn't that wild?

• 1:25:28Rich Roll?

  It's pretty cool.

• 1:25:29Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:30Rich Roll?

  So they have it.

• 1:25:32Adam Skolnick?

  Patience is the point.

• 1:25:34Rich Roll?

  Next thing, process over results.

• 1:25:37Adam Skolnick?

  Okay.

• 1:25:38Rich Roll?

  You gotta fall in love with the process, Adam.

• 1:25:41Adam Skolnick?

  That's what he should have.

• 1:25:42Rich Roll?

  That's what he was telling me. Yeah, that's what I was gonna say, that's what he should have told you. Right?

• 1:25:46Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, but when you're talking about writing, the process can be torturous sometimes. But you do have to stay true to it because like when you're talking about writing, the more you can get into the process and be there, it gives time for the, for the beauty to come through.

• 1:26:02Rich Roll?

  And it's true of everything.

• 1:26:03Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 1:26:04Rich Roll?

  You know, the more you're in it for the process, for the right reasons, then the results, which you care about, become less mission critical. Cause you're not, you're, you're not necessarily doing it for the results. You're doing it to become better at the thing that you care about.

• 1:26:20Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 1:26:21Rich Roll?

  And I think that's super important, you know, for the mastery of craft.

• 1:26:24Adam Skolnick?

  It's hard though, man.

• 1:26:25Rich Roll?

  And it's not about what, it's not, it's not about what happens because of the thing. It's, it's the thing itself that matters. So can you find that thing in your life that matters so much that it's more important than where it takes you?

• 1:26:38Adam Skolnick?

  Or it's actually what matters most is you and it's your own self-development. And the process is really just an arena for your self-development.

• 1:26:48Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it is the, the engine.

• 1:26:49Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 1:26:50Rich Roll?

  Of that journey.

• 1:26:50Adam Skolnick?

  All the rest of it is, is pretty much completely not, it doesn't matter at all.

• 1:26:54Rich Roll?

  Like whether you're doing it through athletics or through something creative or through business or through family, they're all just vehicles for that growth journey.

• 1:27:05Adam Skolnick?

  That's right.

• 1:27:06Rich Roll?

  There you go.

• 1:27:06Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, and the growth journey isn't always pleasant.

• 1:27:10Rich Roll?

  Generally not.

• 1:27:13Rich Roll?

  Generally not.

• 1:27:14Adam Skolnick?

  When you're coasting, you're not growing.

• 1:27:16Rich Roll?

  As you could have, you can attest from the story that you just shared.

• 1:27:20Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 1:27:21Rich Roll?

  The next thing is, is to choose your mentors wisely. I've been pretty lucky with mentors. When I was early in my career, I didn't have great mentors.

• 1:27:32Rich Roll?

  I could have really used them, but I found an amazing collection of mentors later in life. And that's been crucial in all the decisions that I've made around personal and professional life. And they don't have to be fancy people, but you do need people in your life who will give you honest. Clear feedback on your decisions and those should be people that are trusted. They should be few and they should always have experience in the field of advice. They have to have skin in the game. Like you're not going to go to your super successful businessman friend who's, who's never been in a healthy relationship to ask him advice about your marriage.

• 1:28:17Rich Roll?

  Right. You're going to find somebody with a really stable, healthy relationship for that purpose. Right. You can have different mentors for different purposes. And I've, you know, compiled a really robust, stable, like a board of advisors for all the different kinds of problems that I run into personally that I can run things by. And it's been huge, you know, and I think, you know, ancillary to that is the importance of, of holding yourself accountable to what you say you're going to do, like being true to your word, to yourself and, and to the other people in your life. Like I heard, um, this guy's a legend in, in 12 step.

• 1:28:58Rich Roll?

  My boy Scotty G, when I was, when I was very newly sober, he said to me, like I, I screwed something up and I had to make an amends and I felt terrible about it. And he said, if you're going to eat crow, eat it hot. Right. Like take care of your shit. Don't wait around and think it's going to go away. Like deal with it directly and swiftly and honestly. And then you become like those sorts of actions, like we're all fallible. We're all going to make mistakes and we're all going to fall short of holding ourselves accountable at times. But when you do misstep, to just rectify it as quickly and as swiftly and as honestly as you, you possibly can.

• 1:29:40Adam Skolnick?

  Love it. I don't have a stable of mentors, Rich. You could tell?

• 1:29:45Rich Roll?

  You should.

• 1:29:46Adam Skolnick?

  You could tell? You said, you said yes.

• 1:29:48Rich Roll?

  You should.

• 1:29:49Adam Skolnick?

  I know. It's obvious. I know. I should, but I never thought of it that way. I think I'm going to build a stable of mentors. Would you like to be in my stable?

• 1:29:59Rich Roll?

  I would happily fill that role.

• 1:30:01Adam Skolnick?

  Okay.

• 1:30:02Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:02Adam Skolnick?

  I got a stable of one now.

• 1:30:04Rich Roll?

  There you go.

• 1:30:04Adam Skolnick?

  Add some more.

• 1:30:05Rich Roll?

  Call me anytime, Adam.

• 1:30:09Rich Roll?

  The next one is, is around exploring less traveled waters.

• 1:30:13Adam Skolnick?

  Okay.

• 1:30:14Rich Roll?

  And I think this is sort of interesting, like.

• 1:30:17Rich Roll?

  When I was developing as a swimmer, I very consciously remember choosing to train for the 200 butterfly because that was a race that none of the other kids wanted to do. And in my mind, I thought, well, that gives me a better chance of distinguishing myself because there's less competition there. And that was correct. And I think that would hold true for like, oh, here's Ultraman over here, this crazy long race that not that many people want to sign up for. Or like, maybe I could distinguish myself there in a way that would be more difficult if I was just to sign up for an Iron Man where it's already very crowded. And I think in the podcasting sphere, it's been a similar journey.

• 1:31:00Rich Roll?

  Like when we started this show, podcasting was unripened fruit at the time. Like, it wasn't that competitive. But I did have a sense like, oh, this is a medium with potential. And I have an opportunity to get in early when it's not that competitive and distinguish myself. So I think extracting from those experiences and applying them to your own life, like where is that unripened fruit that matches up with your curiosity that together provides for, you know, maybe an unassuming opportunity or an opportunity that is, you know, not getting the attention that it could. And, you know, in my experience, like moving

• 1:31:43Rich Roll?

  in those directions has proven to be beneficial.

• 1:31:46Adam Skolnick?

  If you look at all of this stuff, it's like you could see how your background in athletics completely fed your success because you're looking at a very strategic...

• 1:31:59Rich Roll?

  The principles are the same.

• 1:32:00Adam Skolnick?

  The principles are the same.

• 1:32:01Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Consistency, perseverance, hard work ethic, showing up, accountability, identifying the opportunity. And then it starts to dovetail into principles of sobriety. Like, the next thing on my list is... Gratitude and impermanence, like, understanding that nothing lasts. Like, I'm very conscious that right now is an incredible time for the show, for my life. But I'm also aware that, like, it's not gonna always be this way. Like, this is a very impermanent thing. Like, it will not always... Like, we have this sense like, oh, this is the way that it is right now. It's always gonna be like this. Like, I know that it's not. You know, this has an expiration date on it, like everything else.

• 1:32:43Rich Roll?

  So, in the meantime, make sure to express gratitude for what you have.

• 1:32:50Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 1:32:51Rich Roll?

  To appreciate the moment while you're in it, rather than to only see that in retrospect later on, after that moment's passed. Like, and that's not a... That's not a default mentality for me. Like, that's something I have to practice to be aware of.

• 1:33:07Adam Skolnick?

  Like, celebrate the small victories along the way.

• 1:33:10Rich Roll?

  And the big ones. And understand that the big ones, like, you know, as human beings, that we have this weird wiring, where we think like, oh, like, that was great, so it's always gonna be great. Or that was bad, so it's always gonna be bad.

• 1:33:22Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 1:33:22Rich Roll?

  Like, everything is in flux all the time.

• 1:33:24Adam Skolnick?

  Recency bias.

• 1:33:24Rich Roll?

  Yeah, recency bias, not taking anything for granted.

• 1:33:28Adam Skolnick?

  Yep.

• 1:33:29Rich Roll?

  Not creating expectations, one way or the other, around what it's gonna be like tomorrow.

• 1:33:35Adam Skolnick?

  Love it.

• 1:33:38Rich Roll?

  You know, which kind of segues into the next thing, which is loved ones first. Like, and this is a recurring kind of theme on the podcast. I've had many guests recount a version of this notion that, you know, every deathbed regret orients around a lament of time not spent with the people that you love. Like, how many times have you heard that?

• 1:33:57Adam Skolnick?

  A lot.

• 1:33:58Rich Roll?

  Right?

• 1:33:58Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 1:33:59Rich Roll?

  And how... And how well do we practice that?

• 1:34:02Adam Skolnick?

  You're asking me how well I practice.

• 1:34:03Rich Roll?

  When we get caught up in the chaos machine.

• 1:34:05Adam Skolnick?

  I'm always in my head, man.

• 1:34:06Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's hard, right?

• 1:34:08Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:08Rich Roll?

  Kids, partners, friends.

• 1:34:11Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:11Rich Roll?

  Are they getting the best of your time and attention? Or are they getting the scraps at the end of the day because you're tired and you've already expended that energy?

• 1:34:20Adam Skolnick?

  I could be a better listener.

• 1:34:20Rich Roll?

  Yeah, me too.

• 1:34:21Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:34:21Rich Roll?

  Me too, right?

• 1:34:22Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:22Rich Roll?

  I mean, this list isn't a list of things that I'm... That I mastered and I'm now telling you, these are things that I'm working on myself that I'm very fallible at.

• 1:34:34Rich Roll?

  And then, you know, continuing in the kind of sober trajectory here, it's all about like contribution, like what are you giving back in service? How are you empowering other people? And this is a drum that I've banged many times here on the podcast.

• 1:34:49Adam Skolnick?

  I think you do this.

• 1:34:50Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:51Adam Skolnick?

  I think the

• 1:34:52Rich Roll?

  Yes and no.

• 1:34:53Adam Skolnick?

  Audience here would tell you that you do.

• 1:34:55Rich Roll?

  Right, but this is also a for-profit venture at the same time. Yes, and it's like finding those things of like, how can you, how can you merge those things? Like, there's pure service and then there's, you know, this is, you can make an argument that this is in service to other people. It's in service to myself too, if I'm being honest.

• 1:35:14Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 1:35:15Rich Roll?

  But I think, you know, understanding that whatever you invest your time in, you must also find a way to make sure that it's also about something bigger than yourself, something that allows you to give back in return for the gift given, you know? And I think ancillary to that is this idea of practicing, entering all scenarios from a perspective of what you can give, like what can you positively contribute rather than what you can extract? What you can get? How you can get one over on other people or get a leg up? Which goes to this idea of long-term strategy versus a short-term approach. Like, yes, if you go into a meeting and you're trying to one-up somebody,

• 1:35:58Rich Roll?

  maybe you win that battle, but ultimately you're going to lose the war. And the war always goes to the person who leads with gratitude, who is giving back, who is contributing more than they're extracting. And I think that that is, again, this is something that, this is not about podcasting. This is about like, how do you conduct yourself in the world? When you enter into a conversation with somebody or a social setting or a meeting or an exchange with your kids or your partner, like, what is your mindset? Are you trying to contribute? Are you trying to improve the environment that you're in? Or are you looking to get what's yours and win?

• 1:36:37Rich Roll?

  You looking to win, Adam?

• 1:36:39Adam Skolnick?

  Not that often, no.

• 1:36:42Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I don't see you like that.

• 1:36:43Adam Skolnick?

  I'm not like that person, but I think that I like to build rapport. For me, a win is when rapport is built. Like, that's why you have me here. I'm the rapport guy.

• 1:36:53Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:36:53Adam Skolnick?

  You feel the rapport?

• 1:36:54Rich Roll?

  A little bit. I'm trying.

• 1:36:55Adam Skolnick?

  You feel it?

• 1:36:56Rich Roll?

  It comes and goes.

• 1:36:59Adam Skolnick?

  I feel like we have rapport.

• 1:37:00Rich Roll?

  It ebbs and flows. No, we do. Of course we do.

• 1:37:03Adam Skolnick?

  No, I mean, I'm definitely not one of those. I've always thought that, like, obviously, it's a foundation of the economy is the market economy. But the idea of having to profit the most off every deal, I think, is, which is a product of the stock market, right? I mean, it's a product of all of that. And then it, then there's a cascading down. Even small businesses end up in that same trap, even though they don't have investors to please. But they're always trying to get, you know, until, even, even if they're not trying to make a profit, like Amazon didn't for years, they were trying to maximize the market. So there's still, there's a greed element there to get the most. I've never been the guy that looks to get the most.

• 1:37:42Rich Roll?

  No, you're not a zero-sum guy.

• 1:37:44Adam Skolnick?

  That's not, that's not me.

• 1:37:45Rich Roll?

  The universe is infinitely abundant.

• 1:37:47Adam Skolnick?

  I, I think that we can all, we can all, you know, group up and have more together. But that doesn't mean that I don't fall into those traps, though.

• 1:37:58Rich Roll?

  Yeah. I mean, one of the, the greatest gifts of this podcast is it has provided this opportunity for me to pursue a living that, that feeds my family.

• 1:38:09Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 1:38:09Rich Roll?

  But there is this other aspect of it. It's like, I feel like I, you know, it, it feels good to know that I'm trying to contribute something positive.

• 1:38:16Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:38:17Rich Roll?

  And the marriage of those two things has created this vocation that I just feel like so lucky, like, I can't believe I get to do this. And there's a feeling that you get when you know, like, I'm trying to do good, even if I'm not succeeding necessarily, like, the intention is there. And hopefully, once in a while, like, the product is there as well.

• 1:38:37Adam Skolnick?

  Well, that's what's cool about kind of creative endeavors and media in particular is like, is when... When your goal is a win-win, you can feel that. You know, and like, that's the goal here usually when you're sitting down with somebody. You're not, you're not trying to take them apart. You're trying to share what, what they have that's of value to people and to explore it for yourself. And that's always going to be benefit to the show and a benefit to the, the subject and a benefit to the audience. So it's like a win-win-win. And so if you're trying to go into things with win-win versus win, right? Which is definitely your vibe here. Definitely why we connect, I think that's the key. Right?

• 1:39:15Rich Roll?

  Yeah, a hundred percent. I mean, I, I, I'm imagining a listener saying, well, you found this podcasting thing. You're lucky, like, I don't have that thing. Like, how do you find, how do you find that thing for yourself? Like, I'm not saying people should become podcasters, but there has to be something that you gravitate towards when you cultivate that curiosity that over time can develop into something that is both a pursuit that nourishes you, but also nourishes others. And, you know, kind of bring it back into the context of the many guests that we've had here. You know, David Goggins would tell you that, that motivation and inspiration are fleeting. They're not sustainable sources of, of energy.

• 1:39:59Rich Roll?

  And Tom Bilyeu would say, instead of trying to rely on motivation and inspiration, you need to find a quest and how you define that is up to you. But to me, a quest means attaching to something bigger than yourself. Like whether that's a problem that needs solving or a need that needs being met. Like Scott Harrison says, "Don't fear work with no end." And like Mike Fremont, the centenarian says, "Make your life about service." And that's going to look different for every single people, person. But, you know, there's something really beautiful and, and indelibly true about that.

• 1:40:38Adam Skolnick?

  A hundred percent.

• 1:40:39Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Final thing, number 12.

• 1:40:43Adam Skolnick?

  12, the 12th step.

• 1:40:46Rich Roll?

  I wouldn't call them steps.

• 1:40:47Adam Skolnick?

  Okay.

• 1:40:48Rich Roll?

  These are ideas I jotted down this morning. Let's not get crazy, Adam. I didn't put that much thought into this. On the preparation thing, less preparation for today.

• 1:40:57Adam Skolnick?

  12 points of light.

• 1:40:58Rich Roll?

  Six to eight hours did not go into this.

• 1:41:00Adam Skolnick?

  This particular show?

• 1:41:02Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:41:03Adam Skolnick?

  But they don't need to know.

• 1:41:03Rich Roll?

  It was a mad scramble. I wake up Monday morning and then we frantically get on FaceTime and on the phone and try to figure out what we're gonna talk about.

• 1:41:09Adam Skolnick?

  I called you yesterday. I called you at the normal time.

• 1:41:12Rich Roll?

  Yeah, you did. We had a call. I think that's, I think people would like to know how we put this thing together. We do not sit down and just decide in the moment what we're gonna talk about. Like, we throw in an outline back and forth over the course of 10 or 12 days that, you know, ends up in some form of completion or non-completion. And then, over the weekend, we chat on the phone, we try to mature those ideas, and then Monday morning, we get back on the phone, we finalize the outline, we make some last-minute hectic notes, and then we roll the dice. But I'd say we put, I mean, basically, over the course of two weeks, like, I make notes every time I come across something interesting. Like, I throw it in

• 1:41:56Rich Roll?

  the outline or in my Notes app on my phone. So I'm constantly always, like, thinking about, like, what we're gonna be talking about.

• 1:42:02Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, I have a Notes app always going. This time, I was, it's just been a scramble for me in the last four weeks. I've been less available than my typically always-available self.

• 1:42:12Rich Roll?

  It's okay. Because you have private, secret projects that you're working on that you're not allowed to talk about.

• 1:42:17Adam Skolnick?

  I've got top-secret, double-secret projects that no one will know about.

• 1:42:20Rich Roll?

  Ever. How convenient.

• 1:42:22Adam Skolnick?

  Katoot layer. Katoot layer.

• 1:42:24Rich Roll?

  Adam is unavailable. He's working on a top-secret project that you would never...

• 1:42:28Adam Skolnick?

  You'll read his next work when he's 67, and it'll be a smash hit.

• 1:42:30Rich Roll?

  All right. Final point. This is another drum that I've beaten many times, and that is, conversation matters. Because if we can't talk about it, we can't solve it. And I really believe that. Like, when we think about The Chaos Machine, and the episode with Max, and the existential problems that we face individually, culturally, socially, politically, economically, the solutions to these problems begin and end with conversation. If we can't talk about it, we can't solve it. We're in a situation right now where there has been a denigration, a dissolution in healthy discourse.

• 1:43:14Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 1:43:14Rich Roll?

  And if there's one thing that I'm devoted to in this podcast, it's... Endeavoring to have healthy conversations about things that matter because we do need to talk about these things and the solution does lie in conversation. It's not the whole thing, but if we can't have a conversation about these important subjects, we're in no position to rectify the problems that we face.

• 1:43:37Adam Skolnick?

  Too many people out there are trying to win.

• 1:43:39Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:43:40Adam Skolnick?

  Aren't they?

• 1:43:41Rich Roll?

  It's not about winning. It's about listening. It's about compassion. It's about understanding.

• 1:43:48Adam Skolnick?

  Love it.

• 1:43:48Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:43:49Adam Skolnick?

  12 points.

• 1:43:50Rich Roll?

  So there it is. 12 points. These principles apply to whatever you're thinking about, or striving towards fitness, athleticism, whatever career path you've chosen, writing books, being a creative individual, being a parent, being a partner.

• 1:44:08Adam Skolnick?

  Being a chef.

• 1:44:09Rich Roll?

  Yeah, like they come, like it is interesting. Like I was writing these down and I was like, well, these things, these are things that I've kind of learned from podcasting, but I kind of learned them from being an athlete. I've learned them, being a sober person for an extended period of time. I've learned about them being a parent and a partner and they all kind of congeal. So I can't separate one from the other.

• 1:44:30Adam Skolnick?

  Right. But I like that you're analyzing yourself and what your experience and what you've been through, like that kind of stepping back and taking the time to do that is cool. Like I just never do that. Like, and it is healthy to do that, you know? And if you don't separate yourself from your life to take the time, then you, you forget too much. You know, like you don't see as clearly the principles that have guided your own life, even if you are guided with some principles that matter that are, that are true and pure. If you don't see them, it's like you can't leverage them quite as much.

• 1:45:03Rich Roll?

  And the way to see them is through meditation and mindfulness practices and journaling. Like if you journal enough, themes emerge, my friend, and you start to see your behavior patterns recurring and you get clarity on like what's driving them and why do I keep doing that? And when I do this, I get better results and why is it hard for me to do this thing? Or here's a habit that I've changed or that I need to change. Like I can't recommend or encourage enough, you know, people to engage in, you know, their version of that process.

• 1:45:34Adam Skolnick?

  Love it.

• 1:45:36Rich Roll?

  All right, we're gonna answer some listener questions, but before we do that, we wanna, before we do that, do you wanna share a couple things that we've enjoyed?

• 1:45:43Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 1:45:43Rich Roll?

  We have some content.

• 1:45:44Adam Skolnick?

  Should I, should I?

• 1:45:45Rich Roll?

  Recommendations.

• 1:45:46Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, go for it. I just wrote about this new series from Jimmy Chin and his wife Chai. What's her last?

• 1:45:53Rich Roll?

  Fazarelli.

• 1:45:54Adam Skolnick?

  Fazarelli. I know that, how to spell it, I don't know how to say it.

• 1:45:58Rich Roll?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Once you say it, though, you can get it down pretty quick.

• 1:46:01Adam Skolnick?

  It's easy. Anyway, they start, they have this new series on Nat, through the Nat Geo Disney Plus app for streaming. It's called Edge of the Unknown with Jimmy Chin. And it is an encapsulation of, each, each episode is its own story. And basically, it came out of, yeah, this, this story that I wrote should be up on outs, for outside before this episode drops, but I had a chance to, to have a Zoom call with Jimmy and he talked about how after Free Solo came out, he kept getting approached by people who wanted to know, how come these athletes don't feel fear, basically? Some, some version of that. Like, what is it about these

• 1:46:43Adam Skolnick?

  guys that they don't feel the fear? How could Alex be on that wall and not feel fear? And so this was kind of his way of showing 12, all of who are the best at what they do, whether it's a big drop kayaker, or a big wave surfer, I guess, Justin Dupont on there, or Travis Rice, the snowboarder. You see them all in the moment where they failed, or almost died. And, and through that lens, you also see how much preparation goes into the sport they do, why they're doing it. You actually see them as these unvarnished human beings going through this crazy experience and then coming out the other side. These stories aren't necessarily new, they're kind of like, some, some amazing stories from

• 1:47:24Adam Skolnick?

  the last 15 years or so of, of adventure sports. Conrad Anker's heart attack when he's climbing a mountain is, is in there. Jimmy's-

• 1:47:32Rich Roll?

  Do they have film documentation of that?

• 1:47:34Adam Skolnick?

  It's amazing footage. I mean, it looks phenomenal. Jimmy's avalanche story that's in Mayru with Jeremy Jones, that's in there, in a much deeper way. So it's like, it, it just, in the footage, I can't express enough how great the footage is. Some, some of it's like the Red Bull cameraman hanging out of choppers, but some of it is- People with GoPros in the river, you know, like, and that kind of is even more moving sometimes. So it's really incredible. They're only like 22 minute episodes, I think, so real easy to digest. And it's made for the core audience all the way through the kind of casual adventure, armchair adventures.

• 1:48:11Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I would imagine for the hardcore adventure person, they're already familiar with Jimmy's work. And they know that he's chronicled these various people and these various challenges. But the average viewer doesn't know. Like, maybe they saw Free Solo, but how many people saw Meiru? Or some of the other stuff that they've done. I think it's really cool. I'm looking forward to watching that. I was meant to be in Anaheim last Friday to do a fireside with Jimmy and Alex about the show for some kind of Disney Plus upfront event or something like that, but I had to, I couldn't do it. I was too busy. I'm kind of bummed that I couldn't make it around like, you know, this new series. So I'm really looking forward to checking it out.

• 1:48:55Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, yeah. It's their first foray into television. They've had, you know, Oscar wins for Free Solo. They made The Rescue and they have obviously Meiru.

• 1:49:04Rich Roll?

  The first of many Thai cave productions.

• 1:49:09Adam Skolnick?

  That's my next, I'm working on something like that right now.

• 1:49:12Rich Roll?

  A lot in the pipeline there, but they were the first. I love that documentary. I feel like it should have gotten more attention than it did. I thought it was unbelievably rendered. And it is that combination of, yes, the guy hanging out of the helicopter with boots on the ground, GoPro, like cinema verite.

• 1:49:30Adam Skolnick?

  Yes, yes.

• 1:49:31Rich Roll?

  That, you know, he's exceptional and him and Charles together.

• 1:49:34Adam Skolnick?

  There's nobody like him who has a boot at the top of both fields, you know, there's just nobody like that.

• 1:49:39Rich Roll?

  Yeah, cool. Well, similarly, this is not new, but I finally got around to watching 100 Foot Wave on HBO.

• 1:49:46Adam Skolnick?

  Oh, yeah, man.

• 1:49:47Rich Roll?

  And we've talked about it. I know you watched it a long time ago and you've interviewed Maya and, you know, you've covered like Nazaray and everything that's gone on there. And so I had kind of an arms length understanding of all of that. But Garrett McNamara was coming on the podcast, who's the guy who basically pioneered big wave surfing in Nazaray. And I needed to really, you know, as part of my six to eight hours, like, I'm gonna watch this.

• 1:50:14Adam Skolnick?

  That's a pleasure cruise.

• 1:50:15Rich Roll?

  That's an easy six or seven hours right there. And this show is unbelievable. Oh my god. I learned, like, I told Garrett, and this episode's not going up for a while, but I told Garrett that the experience of watching that was very similar to me interviewing Alex Honnold after he had free solowed El Cap, but like a year before the movie came out, and thinking that I understood what he had done, only to watch the movie a year later and realize like, oh, I don't really understand that at all. Like, this is like way crazier than I ever imagined. Right. Similarly, with The Hundred Foot Wave, thinking like, oh, Garrett, you know, found

• 1:50:59Rich Roll?

  this wave and just went over there and, you know, figured out how to surf it. No. To discover that he was there like two years before they finally figured out how to safely surf it and to do it strategically and like, all the team building. Safely. Yeah, he, well, he said, he says in the podcast, he's like, big wave surfing is this, he's like, surfing Nazaré is the safest thing in the world, or something like that. I was like, that's the craziest thing you've ever said. That's not true. That's not true. It's not the safest thing in the world. Well, you know, he's just like, he's describing these waves. He gets so animated. But how much went into team building and research and strategy and consensus building and getting the government on board and getting the lighthouse open and getting the resources,

• 1:51:43Rich Roll?

  like, putting those pieces into motion took a long time. But he understood that. Like, he understood the only successful way for him to do this thing was to do all of this foundation building first, which is really smart, right? And obviously ended up being successful in contrast to when the Brazilians show up and, you know, think that they're going to be able to just go out there and do it and realize very quickly, like, oh, that's not going to work. Like, I just learned a lot and developed a greater appreciation for Garrett's level of mastery and his, you know, unique sort of genius. And I thought the storytelling and the cinematography, I mean, they just won an Emmy for best cinematography.

• 1:52:27Rich Roll?

  And, you know, it's like, it's extraordinary. And they're doing a season two, which I think they've already, like, they've already shot it. It's already wrapped.

• 1:52:34Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, right.

• 1:52:34Rich Roll?

  It just hasn't. I think it's coming out in January or something like that.

• 1:52:37Adam Skolnick?

  Um, I think Garrett McNamara is, is one of the greatest leaders and visionaries in the history of adventure sports. And I think that that it's, it's really laid bare in a hundred foot wave of why I feel that way. So I don't even want to say anything more about that. Just watch that if you haven't seen it because, um.

• 1:52:52Rich Roll?

  And watch it be in advance of the podcast.

• 1:52:55Adam Skolnick?

  Cause his leadership is.

• 1:52:56Rich Roll?

  Will be better if you've watched it.

• 1:52:57Adam Skolnick?

  It's incredible. It's challenging, but also very nurturing and he gets people to do things that, that they never would have thought themselves they could do.

• 1:53:05Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:53:05Adam Skolnick?

  Like he's, he's training local crew.

• 1:53:07Rich Roll?

  He knows how to find the right people. Yeah.

• 1:53:09Adam Skolnick?

  But he's training local crew to run basically safety on jet skis who've never done anything remotely like this.

• 1:53:16Rich Roll?

  Wave runners.

• 1:53:17Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, wave runners. Yeah. And he, um, anyway, he's a, a very special individual and his whole upbringing is special. I mean, just his backstory is incredible.

• 1:53:26Rich Roll?

  And his wife Nicole, amazing.

• 1:53:27Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:53:28Rich Roll?

  She pops in on the podcast as well.

• 1:53:30Adam Skolnick?

  But, but, and Maya now lives there too. So it's like, you know, she had a, a, she, she nearly died there. And I think that's safe to, to say.

• 1:53:40Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:53:40Adam Skolnick?

  It's been out there. I think I wrote about it and she nearly died there and she's been, and she was actually, Garrett was one of the few big wave surfers or met like surf stars that did not ever say anything negative about Maya.

• 1:53:56Rich Roll?

  No.

• 1:53:57Adam Skolnick?

  Like a lot of these, the, the big surf stars that were out there saying she's dangerous, whatever. And we were kind of treating her negatively. Garrett never did that. He always saw her greatness too. So that's what I'm talking about with, with the leadership.

• 1:54:10Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:54:10Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:54:11Rich Roll?

  Check that out. Very cool.

• 1:54:12Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:54:13Rich Roll?

  My big recommendation for the week though, is Shia LaBeouf's appearance on Jon Bernthal's podcast, Real Ones.

• 1:54:20Adam Skolnick?

  Okay.

• 1:54:20Rich Roll?

  Did you listen to this?

• 1:54:22Adam Skolnick?

  No, no, I.

• 1:54:24Rich Roll?

  Here's another one you didn't listen to.

• 1:54:27Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah. I'm not, I don't really go around looking at Shia LaBeouf.

• 1:54:31Rich Roll?

  I would strongly suggest dialing that one up for the drive home after the podcast today. I was very moved by it. Shia is incredible. For people that don't know, he's an actor. He's, you know, suffered problems with, with addiction and had a very kind of public meltdown with some terrible, inexcusable behavior. And he's now in a place where he's really reckoned with his past and is endeavoring to the best of his abilities to make amends for his mistakes and kind of repair his life.

• 1:55:05Adam Skolnick?

  Okay.

• 1:55:05Rich Roll?

  And it's very emotional and powerful. Like, there's something very pure and honest about it and captivating. And perhaps that's, you know, in part due to the fact that like Shia himself is a very charismatic individual. But I found it to be, especially for anybody who knows somebody who's struggling with addiction, or, you know, has some connection to that disease and the wreckage that it causes, I think it would be healing and instructive to listen to it. And that's all I want to say. I don't want to, I don't want to spoil it.

• 1:55:42Adam Skolnick?

  And Bernthal was on The Bear.

• 1:55:44Rich Roll?

  It's special. I would say it's, it's special. Yeah.

• 1:55:45Adam Skolnick?

  And Bernthal.

• 1:55:46Rich Roll?

  I mean, Bernthal's the king. Like, that guy's, makes everything that he's in better.

• 1:55:50Adam Skolnick?

  He was in The Bear, right?

• 1:55:52Rich Roll?

  He was in The Bear.

• 1:55:53Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:55:53Rich Roll?

  Briefly.

• 1:55:54Adam Skolnick?

  Briefly.

• 1:55:54Rich Roll?

  That's kind of a, that's a bit of a spoiler, but I don't know at this point. Yeah. Wolf of Wall Street.

• 1:56:00Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:56:00Rich Roll?

  He's like leaps off the screen.

• 1:56:02Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:56:03Rich Roll?

  And now, of course, in American Gigolo.

• 1:56:06Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, right.

• 1:56:06Rich Roll?

  Did you watch the pilot of this?

• 1:56:08Adam Skolnick?

  I have not seen it yet, no. But, you know, the classic movie that, this is, this takes place like after the movie, like six years after the movie ends, right?

• 1:56:14Rich Roll?

  Well, it's basically a reimagining of the movie, like as if the movie was going to be like a mini-series.

• 1:56:20Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 1:56:21Rich Roll?

  All the way down to, you know, the Blondie, you know, Call Me song that was part and parcel of the Richard Gere. Yes. Movie. And I think in watching that pilot, I was very worried because like that, I mean, that movie launched Richard Gere's career. It's, is it Paul Schrader? Yes. Who directed that? Yeah. Like, how are they gonna do this as a TV show set in modern times? Because that movie is like wed to the eighties. Right. Like, the eighties is just like the pastiche of that whole thing. It's launched the eighties. And I, I was, I mean, I've only watched the pilot, but they take it in a pretty interesting direction. And Bernthal is always just a pleasure to watch. He's a very gifted actor with an amazing story in his own right. I really want to get this guy on the podcast.

• 1:57:05Rich Roll?

  Not only is he from DC, like, we grew up near each other. His backstory is wild. Like, his dad was a big DC lawyer who then became, I don't know what the title is, chairman or director of the Humane Society. Okay. He's a big animal rights guy. And he's got these brothers who are all super accomplished in their own right. Like, his brother Tom just married Sheryl Sandberg. Okay. And he's got another brother who's a huge oncologist at UCLA. And John was kind of the kid who would get in trouble all the time and somehow fell into drama and it spoke

• 1:57:44Rich Roll?

  to him. And he had some teacher or mentor who knew, like, John needed some help or he was gonna, he might fall into the wrong crowd and go down a bad direction and got him hooked up with this incredible drama school in Moscow. And so he moved to Russia and lived there and studied acting in the traditional Russian tradition. I don't know the name of the school, for like, I don't know, two years or something like that. And that's where he learned, like, you know, like, the hardcore Russian school of dramaturgy, drama. Yeah. Of drama, of acting. And Interesting. And there's something, like, really pure about that guy that I think is really special and cool.

• 1:58:26Rich Roll?

  That's a journey. That's, that's called endeavoring into the process. Anyway. Deep in the process. Shia LaBeouf on Real Ones. Okay. Check it out. Bjork has a podcast. Is this a podcast you've listened to, Adam? I've listened to every episode.

• 1:58:42Rich Roll?

  I haven't checked this one out yet. This is, we're on the same page here because I haven't listened to this one yet.

• 1:58:46Adam Skolnick?

  Alright.

• 1:58:46Rich Roll?

  I mean, come on. Like, this is, this has to be on your must-listen to list.

• 1:58:51Adam Skolnick?

  I need to listen to more podcasts is what I'm getting at.

• 1:58:53Rich Roll?

  If anybody's gonna revolutionize like what we imagine a podcast could be, I would put Bjork at the top of that list. So, out of pure curiosity, I'm gonna be putting this on my

• 1:59:06Adam Skolnick?

  Definitely.

• 1:59:06Rich Roll?

  To-list.

• 1:59:07Adam Skolnick?

  You ever listen to Conan O'Brien's podcast? I listen to that sometimes.

• 1:59:11Rich Roll?

  Once in a while. What was the mental like segue between Bjork and Conan?

• 1:59:16Adam Skolnick?

  Celebrity podcasters?

• 1:59:17Rich Roll?

  Yeah, but Bjork, you can't put Bjork and Conan? That's a weird...

• 1:59:22Adam Skolnick?

  No, but they're both quirky, offbeat celebrities.

• 1:59:25Rich Roll?

  Yeah, but Bjork is like an artist beyond.

• 1:59:27Adam Skolnick?

  She's legendary. I get it.

• 1:59:30Rich Roll?

  So, there we go. Alright.

• 1:59:31Adam Skolnick?

  Sorry.

• 1:59:32Rich Roll?

  That's all I got. Let's do some listener questions.

• 1:59:36Adam Skolnick?

  Let's do it.

• 1:59:36Rich Roll?

  I don't know, man.

• 1:59:38Adam Skolnick?

  Bjork's podcast.

• 1:59:40Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:59:41Adam Skolnick?

  What I'm learning is I need to listen to more podcasts. Let's see. There we go. Nicole from Dallas.

• 1:59:48Speaker 02

  Hey, it's Nicole from Dallas. It's frequently discussed on the show the importance of sleep and implications that poor sleep has on oneself. My question is, and I'm going to intentionally generalize, but what can women do who go years without sleeping through the night because of small children? For those nursing, or with a teething baby, or maybe have multiple children who wake up mom because they had a bad dream, they wet the bed, or they just needed a drink of water, or even families that have children with type 1 diabetes and have to wake up every night to monitor that child. Do you have any words of advice for individuals that go years in a constant state of sleep deprivation? Love the show. Thank you for all your hard

• 2:00:32Speaker 02

  work. And yeah, you can play this online. Thanks.

• 2:00:36Rich Roll?

  How's your sleep deprivation, Adam?

• 2:00:38Adam Skolnick?

  It's still there. It's been there for a long time. I, at one point during my guidebook phase, I had been crossing so many different time zones that my circadian rhythms got completely screwy. And I started waking up in the middle of the night, couldn't get back to sleep. And that's something that's still with me. And sometimes it flares up worse than others. And then obviously, having Zuma, whatever progress I'd made is kind of shambles. You know, I had gotten to a point where I was just decided I'm gonna stay in bed until I get my seven hours, no matter what. And that helped me a little bit. But of course, sometimes life won't let you do that.

• 2:01:15Rich Roll?

  Sure.

• 2:01:15Adam Skolnick?

  Now, that's not an option. So, you know, so it's still there. I've had to deal with it. I know exactly what she's talking about. I even know what she's talking about specifically here, because I live, you know, we have, Zuma's still not sleeping through the night. He's still breastfed. So, he still sometimes needs mom. And it doesn't help for me to go. I go in there sometimes, doesn't always help. So.

• 2:01:35Rich Roll?

  And, and your experience is just nothing like what it's like to be the mom.

• 2:01:39Adam Skolnick?

  No, right.

• 2:01:39Rich Roll?

  Let's be clear about that. I mean, I, let me, you know, begin by saying, I got dragged a bit, probably rightfully so, for not delving more deeply into this specific terrain when I had Matthew Walker on the podcast. I apologize for that. We do have plans to have him back on for a very directed listener Q and A session. And this question, because, you know, it's come up in comments to the reels that I've posted with him, like, why didn't you ask him about this? So I do have plans to make sure that he answers this very specific question, which is a very, you know, circuitous way of saying, like, I'm ill-equipped to answer this question. Like, I'm not a sleep expert, and thus, you know,

• 2:02:23Rich Roll?

  not one to reliably opine on this specific question. And let's face it, I'm not a mom with young kids. So there's that too, as well, right?

• 2:02:31Adam Skolnick?

  Also, there's only so much you can do.

• 2:02:33Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that's the thing. Like, what can be done, right? What I will say, in the context of doing the best you can, is, is at first, like, you can't change the past. Like, what has happened in the past, like, okay, you have years of this sleep deprivation. You can let that haunt you, and you can allow that to exacerbate your anxiety levels. But let's just put that aside, because that has happened, and that cannot be changed, right?

• 2:03:00Rich Roll?

  The important thing is to do your best within the complicated context of your life to not allow the anxiety of that lost sleep in the past impair your sleep going forward. And I think, you know, to begin, it's important to try to maximize the quality, like, what can you control? You have quality and you have quantity. Right now, the quantity is being impaired by circumstances beyond your control, by this young person who has needs and needs that you need to meet. But what you can control, to some extent, is the quality of the limited sleep that you can or you are getting. So, you know, no devices in bed, no TV in the bedroom. Try to keep the bedroom a bit chilled, like, don't

• 2:03:44Rich Roll?

  too, don't eat too late at night, like, all things that Matthew Walker shared on the podcast. If you can, try to exercise during the day, even if it's just a little bit, or going for a walk. Try to expose your eyes to 10 to 15 minutes of sunlight upon waking, the Huberman thing, to help set your circadian rhythm. Try to slowly wind down in the later hours of the day, so that you're gently cajoling yourself into a state optimal for sleep. Maybe get an eye mask if you don't have one. If you have a little bit of a budget, invest in some blackout curtains, because to the extent that you're able to grab a nap here and there, to have a dark room in order to do that will be helpful. So it's not about

• 2:04:28Rich Roll?

  trying to find a way to increase the hours, but again, increase the quality and help you drift back to sleep more quickly after being woken up, right? If you're gonna get woken up and then you go back to bed, are you lying there awake, or are you able to go back to sleep more quickly? If that's a struggle for you, maybe check out some of these meditation or mindfulness apps, like, check out the Calm app, they have these sleep stories. There are podcasts devoted to helping you fall asleep. Like, there's one, I forget what it's called, this guy just drones on, like, he does one every day. On Calm. And he literally just tells stories, and he goes off on all these crazy tangents, but he has a very soothing voice. And I think he's just riffing on whatever comes to mind, but it actually puts you to sleep, because it's purposefully super boring. Like, he's

• 2:05:12Rich Roll?

  like, "Well, and then I went to the grocery stores." It's just like nonsense, right?

• 2:05:19Rich Roll?

  So, yeah, again, like, are you meditating? Do you have a mindfulness practice to reduce your anxiety? Like, according to Matthew Walker, anxiety is such a huge piece here, a huge impediment to restful sleep. So, if you can reduce that anxiety, perhaps you can enhance the depth of your sleep, even if it's limited. Of course, like, none of these things are things that I'm sure you haven't thought of. Like, if you can afford it, could you possibly get the occasional night nurse? Could you splurge on that? Like, I realize that isn't within reach for many, but if it is, that's probably a worthy investment in indulging once in a while so that you can get an uninterrupted night of sleep. Can you get any naps in?

• 2:06:03Rich Roll?

  Can you try to get a nap in? Again, like, if you have the eye mask or the blackout curtains, that's helpful. Can you trade duties with your spouse or your partner? Or can you set up a schedule so that every once in a while, you get the occasional full night of sleep? Like, I don't have a magic bullet here. I mean, Adam, it's been many years since I...

• 2:06:22Adam Skolnick?

  It doesn't fully work that way.

• 2:06:25Rich Roll?

  I know, I know it doesn't.

• 2:06:26Adam Skolnick?

  Because if you have a night nurse in the house and they're screaming because they want mom, that's not going to keep you asleep.

• 2:06:32Rich Roll?

  I understand, right? For everything I said, there's a yeah, but.

• 2:06:35Adam Skolnick?

  Right. So, I would say what I'm hearing from this question is, and this is something I'm sure you've dealt with before, but like, there's such information overload out there. And sometimes when you hear from these experts that their heart's in the right place...

• 2:06:51Rich Roll?

  It's all about optimizing. And some people are like, "I can't optimize right now." And I feel guilty or bad or like I should be. Like, let go of it. You're a mom with a baby. Like, it's okay. You'll live. This too shall pass.

• 2:07:03Adam Skolnick?

  Right. It lands as like a task they can't check off.

• 2:07:08Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 2:07:09Adam Skolnick?

  So then it feels like...

• 2:07:10Rich Roll?

  You're less than or something.

• 2:07:12Adam Skolnick?

  Or, yeah, they're not... Right. So, what can I do? And the real answer, unfortunately, is we don't know, but like...

• 2:07:20Rich Roll?

  And it's fucking hard.

• 2:07:21Adam Skolnick?

  There's periods of time in life. That these are the conditions of your life and you you have to accept them, obviously. Because if you don't, they're still going to be your conditions of your life.

• 2:07:33Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 2:07:33Adam Skolnick?

  And so there are, these are the conditions of life.

• 2:07:35Rich Roll?

  And you'll just suffer more.

• 2:07:36Adam Skolnick?

  We try to, I take, you know, I handle mornings. That's, that's one way I do it is that I'm the breakfast guy, always. I take him out of there when he wakes up. I do, you know, two, two and a half hours with him. She gets a snooze and that's how we do it. You know, like that, that's the best thing I can do for her, for April, is to make sure that she gets at least an attempt at a snooze. Sometimes things pop up and she can't take that morning snooze. And so then that, that, there's that. But, but that's what I've been able to do. And that's the best I can do. Sometimes I go in there at night and it's worked and sometimes not. Cause you know, that's not what he wants. So I feel for you.

• 2:08:15Rich Roll?

  Yeah. I think, I think like maybe just a, like a, an inhale and an exhale and just like,

• 2:08:23Rich Roll?

  an acknowledgement that it's hard and you have to be kind of a superhero to wake up every day and, and navigate all of it.

• 2:08:30Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 2:08:30Rich Roll?

  And it's okay. You know, like it's okay. You don't, like you, you're not going to be able to get these things that Matthew Walker is talking about. But be gentle on yourself.

• 2:08:40Adam Skolnick?

  And that's still, that doesn't mean you're behind. It doesn't mean that you're behind the eight ball or behind other people. Or not able to live a great life or a long life. Cause remember all this stuff is based on percentages anyway and probabilities. And so there are people who will function just fine. And, you know, and your body has a way to get you through these periods of time. So when you're looking at probabilities and this is what works the best for general population and most medical analysis is based in probabilities. It doesn't mean it's going to be that way for you.

• 2:09:15Rich Roll?

  All right. Next question.

• 2:09:17Adam Skolnick?

  You don't want me to venture into the probabilities?

• 2:09:19Rich Roll?

  No. Professor scientist, Dr. Adam Skolnick. Sleep science expert.

• 2:09:25Adam Skolnick?

  This has been Adam Skolnick. I'm a professor of sleep science.

• 2:09:28Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 2:09:28Adam Skolnick?

  Near.

• 2:09:29Rich Roll?

  You're venturing into galaxy brain territory and I'm trying to save you.

• 2:09:34Adam Skolnick?

  I'm frequently called a near scientist, which isn't the same thing.

• 2:09:39Rich Roll?

  Is that like near beer?

• 2:09:40Adam Skolnick?

  Near scientist.

• 2:09:42Rich Roll?

  All right, let's go to Georgina from Kentucky.

• 2:09:45Adam Skolnick?

  Let's do that.

• 2:09:46Speaker 03

  Hi, Rich and Adam. This is Georgina calling from Kentucky. I'm calling after a long weekend of listening about Eliza Fletcher, who was killed over the weekend after running. And I wanted to ask you some questions that my 14-year-old daughter is asking me right now. My daughter recently started running about two years ago for soccer and was thrilled this summer to start running by herself on our walking trail. She runs about anywhere from one to three miles and carries mace with her. But after the information from this weekend, she came into my room last night and said that she's scared.

• 2:10:30Speaker 03

  She doesn't want to run anymore and running on a treadmill doesn't seem like the answer for her. I know you're probably getting lots of questions about this, but I'm seeking your advice. Running seems to be what my daughter called her safe place. And now it feels like it's anything but that. I guess what I'm asking for is advice for young girls who want to go running by themselves without a chaperone. It's awful that the world has come to this. Thanks for everything that you do. I love your show. I've been following you for a long time. And thanks for attending to this voicemail.

• 2:11:14Rich Roll?

  Hmm. This makes me so angry.

• 2:11:18Adam Skolnick?

  You know this case.

• 2:11:18Rich Roll?

  It sucks so bad. Yeah. It's just terrible that anyone would have to think about this at all.

• 2:11:28Rich Roll?

  I mean, everybody deserves to be able to be outdoors, enjoy the outdoors, nature, go running, anywhere, anytime, without fear.

• 2:11:35Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 2:11:35Rich Roll?

  Alas, that is not the world that we live in. And it's such a bummer. You know, here's this 14 year old girl who was falling in love with running and now feels unsafe doing it for valid reasons. I mean, what happened to Eliza Fletcher is just horrific. And I just hate the fact that we have to keep having conversations around this. And we talked about it with Ahmet Aubrey, of course.

• 2:12:01Rich Roll?

  It's just a bummer, man. You know, what do you say to this? What do you say to this? You know, can I say anything to Georgina and her daughter that would be helpful that they haven't already thought about? I mean, what can you say? You know, choose your route carefully. You know, maybe don't run at night. Tell others where you will be and when, like, wear bright colors, reflective gear, keep that, you know, mace. All of these things are just like fear impulse, though. Like, the world is a very scary place, it's a very violent place, and you should be afraid all the time. And I just, I fucking hate that, you know? And I say that as somebody of extreme privilege who goes out running whenever I want, wherever I want.

• 2:12:44Rich Roll?

  I've gone running in places all over the world. I've run through Skid Row in downtown LA, and I've run through all kinds of crazy neighborhoods and urban environments, you know, that I, that I'm familiar with and unfamiliar with, and cities all over the world, and I've never thought about this. And maybe I'm naive, but I think I'm also, you know, incredibly privileged. I don't have to worry about this in the way that, you know, she has to worry about it.

• 2:13:08Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 2:13:08Rich Roll?

  It just makes me, it's very upsetting and it makes me angry.

• 2:13:13Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 2:13:13Rich Roll?

  You know? Like, what do you say? Like, you have to go running with your friends, you know? Don't go alone.

• 2:13:19Adam Skolnick?

  I think, I think-

• 2:13:20Rich Roll?

  Choose your hours and your routes carefully.

• 2:13:21Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, I mean, I think, I think Eliza Fletcher was, she was running at four in the morning, so it was dark.

• 2:13:28Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 2:13:30Adam Skolnick?

  This is not about blaming anything. Obviously, it's a horrific thing that happened, and she should be allowed to run at four in the morning anytime she wants. But I think when you're talking about a 14 year old girl, I mean, I wouldn't let, I wouldn't want my, even my son at 14 to be running at night, so.

• 2:13:49Adam Skolnick?

  I think that the real world is you probably shouldn't run at night. Not maybe, but definitely not.

• 2:13:56Adam Skolnick?

  So that's one thing you can do. That doesn't mean the world is a dangerous place. It is a dangerous place. Doesn't mean that that should be the first thought that runs through your mind, but there's things you can do. And running with friends is a cool thing. Doesn't have to be a bad thing. Could be a cool thing.

• 2:14:10Rich Roll?

  It just is not, you know,

• 2:14:11Adam Skolnick?

  It's not the same as running.

• 2:14:12Rich Roll?

  It makes it more challenging to be spontaneous. It's like, oh, I have an hour. I'm gonna go out like, okay.

• 2:14:17Adam Skolnick?

  It does, it does.

• 2:14:17Rich Roll?

  But there are things that you can, you can, you can use technology to be helpful here. Like Strava has a live tracking, you know, sort of option on there. So, you know, you can be broadcasting where you are to your loved ones. So they can see where you are. You can share your location with someone using Find My iPhone, if you have an iPhone, so anyone can find you and see where you are in real time. You know, those are things that you can do. I mean, you, we were talking about this earlier. You had mentioned like taking a self-defense class, which could be a cool, fun thing to do.

• 2:14:49Adam Skolnick?

  That would help soccer with balance. It would also help. It would help. And running is usually a part of martial arts classes.

• 2:14:56Rich Roll?

  But the bigger question is, especially from a parent-child perspective, is what are we cultivating in this young person? Like, are we telling them that the world is a very scary place and they should be afraid all of the time? Or are we trying to instill in them, you know, a sense of self-sufficiency? Like, yes, be wary, but you know, don't live your life out in fear of bad things happening at all times. Like, I don't think that's a healthy message to, you know, to be kind of pounding into your kid. And to that point, like, we both kind of, you know, came across this Arthur Brooks, Arthur Brooks article in The Atlantic,

• 2:15:36Adam Skolnick?

  Friend of the Pod.

• 2:15:37Rich Roll?

  Yeah, Friend of the Pod. Don't teach your kids to fear the world. So you want to talk about this article a little bit?

• 2:15:43Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, I thought it really applied well to this question.

• 2:15:45Rich Roll?

  It's very applicable to this question.

• 2:15:47Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, especially because Georgina seemed like she was kind of at her wits' end with this whole thing too. She seemed very sad in that space. And so it's really important, how do you process this kind of information? And how do you then teach it going forward? Especially if your daughter's coming to you. And the premise here is not, it's not, it's not about any specific case. It's a, it's a parsing of the science around happiness, which is what he does. And, and so what?

• 2:16:15Adam Skolnick?

  One thing that he says here is teaching the world is dangerous encourages encourages a negative primal belief. A primal belief is a fundamental belief that can then color opinions, attitudes, and behaviors going forward. So if you're teaching your kids that the world is dangerous, that can also make them less tolerant of others in particular, or it can make them actually less safe. Because if you think the world's always dangerous, then often your perception of what truly is dangerous is off. And so that's another thing that they found. You know, it's the same problem that that I think Jonathan Haidt wrote about in teaching young people that ordinary interactions are dangerous. For example, people who try to say speech is a form of violence, for instance, or speech

• 2:16:56Adam Skolnick?

  is inherently dangerous. That hinders intellectual and emotional growth. That can lead to black and white views of how the world works, good versus evil. And that makes people more anxious. So we want to stay away from that. I thought that was an interesting takeaway here. But the bottom line is, being a kid in America has never been safer. If you look at the stats, since 1935, number of childhood deaths between ages of one and four fell from 450 to 30 per 100,000. Now, that's mostly because of medical science, but it just shows that the fatalities for young people have gone way, way, way, way down. And it's fallen half just since 1990. It's been cut in half again. So that's important to know. It's not like what happened to Eliza Fletcher is a common thing. It's very uncommon.

• 2:17:41Rich Roll?

  Yeah, and I think that plays back into the discussion around the chaos machine. Because as horrible as these events are, and in no way do I want to minimize them whatsoever, when we see them go viral on social media, and there's a discourse that begins to swirl around them, it like impulses our lizard brain to believe that this is something more like profligate than it actually is in terms of like frequency. And we're lured into this sense that this is happening everywhere all the time. And that leads us down the path to being very afraid of everything all the time, which is not healthy. Like, having some objective context around

• 2:18:27Rich Roll?

  How often this is happening and how safe or unsafe our streets actually are is a really good tool to help understand that things may not be quite as bad or as unsafe as they seem. And again, you know, back to like, I say that as this privileged white guy.

• 2:18:45Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 2:18:45Rich Roll?

  Like, I don't, you know.

• 2:18:46Adam Skolnick?

  But, but, you know, the, Arthur Brooks is not saying, "Don't bring up threats," right? So when you're talking about a 14-year-old girl going out on the streets and running at night.

• 2:18:56Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:18:57Adam Skolnick?

  That needs to be dealt with. Like, that's not necessarily the safest activity in the history of the world these days, unfortunately. So it is important to address that, but also to keep it in the proportion of this isn't, this isn't necessarily the most dangerous thing in the world either.

• 2:19:12Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 2:19:13Adam Skolnick?

  It's not a foregone conclusion that anything is going to happen to you negatively. More likely, the worst thing that can happen to you if you're out at night by yourself is you could turn an ankle and have to figure out your way home if you don't have your phone. So it's like, that's probably the more likely thing that could happen to anybody at night.

• 2:19:27Rich Roll?

  Right. The impulsive is what, Brooks calls it, uh, negative primals.

• 2:19:32Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:19:33Rich Roll?

  And instead, he's, he's offering that we should instead teach, uh, love primals.

• 2:19:38Adam Skolnick?

  Exactly.

• 2:19:39Rich Roll?

  What he's calling love.

• 2:19:40Adam Skolnick?

  Exactly, but when there is a threat that there can be, you always talk about control the controllables, right?

• 2:19:45Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:19:46Adam Skolnick?

  To me, it's like, controlling controllables to make running, keep running a part of your life, it goes to, sometimes maybe it does have to be a treadmill, because that's your, that's what you have to do that day. Maybe you can run on track at school, after school. Maybe you can run around the track. Maybe there's other ways to do it. Maybe you can get on the trail and, and keep doing it. Maybe it is you bring friends into it, or, or have a self-defense class. These aren't necessarily, it's not how you fell in love with running, but it can help you stay in contact with running. And then when it's night, in summertime, and, and the light stays out later, you know, then you have a much bigger time to where you can engage in it. So, um, I think also making sure that, that the kids understand that these limitations don't have to be entirely limiting.

• 2:20:30Adam Skolnick?

  They could just require you to think and adapt.

• 2:20:32Rich Roll?

  Right, or chronically anxiety-producing.

• 2:20:35Adam Skolnick?

  Right, right, right.

• 2:20:36Rich Roll?

  Well said.

• 2:20:37Adam Skolnick?

  Thank you.

• 2:20:38Rich Roll?

  All right, are we gonna do this third question?

• 2:20:40Adam Skolnick?

  We don't have to.

• 2:20:41Rich Roll?

  We could, well, let's see what comes out.

• 2:20:43Adam Skolnick?

  I didn't write ideas down.

• 2:20:47Rich Roll?

  I'm interested in how you're gonna answer this.

• 2:20:49Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, see, that's, that's not fair. I don't even know how I'm gonna answer it.

• 2:20:55Speaker 04

  Hi, everyone at the RRP. This is Jonathan from Vancouver, answering your clarion call for listener questions.

• 2:21:03Adam Skolnick?

  This got great.

• 2:21:03Speaker 04

  Huge shout out to the whole team for such a great podcast. A few props. Adam, I always liked your use of Waterman and how you talk about your relationship to the ocean. Rich, like all listeners, endless gratitude for such a great show. And as a teacher, I like how you use the words rubric and parse. Keeping it a little bit light in the spirit of a roll on, my question for you both is, in the time that you have known each other, what's the most important thing that you have learned from each other? Thank you for such a great show and have a great day.

• 2:21:38Rich Roll?

  Rubric and parse. Jonathan, I feel seen.

• 2:21:42Adam Skolnick?

  Yes, I think that that's the one thing I've learned from you is how to use $20 words in a complete sentence.

• 2:21:49Rich Roll?

  Probably, it's just a mask, Adam. I want people to think I'm smarter than I am. What have we learned from each other, Adam? I don't know. Do I need a new co-host? Like, what are we doing here? Like, how are we, like, what have I learned from you?

• 2:22:01Adam Skolnick?

  Is that where you're going here?

• 2:22:02Rich Roll?

  I don't know. No.

• 2:22:03Adam Skolnick?

  This is my, this is my, uh, yes, my intervention.

• 2:22:06Rich Roll?

  By what rubric are we going to deconstruct this question?

• 2:22:10Adam Skolnick?

  Well, with you, it's easy, though, for me to have learned from you because, uh, you know, I didn't realize how possible some of these endurance feats were. And so I put you in that same category. You know, you also brought amazing stories. Like today, we talked about Ken Rideout, but like the David Goggins interview, I first heard it here. And even before that, having met you, just understanding like that these things are possible, that it's possible to swim and run and ride your bike this, these lengths. I didn't even really know that was super possible before. So for me, that that's expands what I, what I, what is possible in all realms.

• 2:22:52Adam Skolnick?

  Because once you start to be more open and flexible in your, in your, um, open minded, I guess, to what's possible in any one track, it really.

• 2:23:04Adam Skolnick?

  It allows you to see how limiting your thinking can be elsewhere. So I think that you're one of those people that that shows me that.

• 2:23:11Rich Roll?

  Yeah, thank you for that. I appreciate that.

• 2:23:14Adam Skolnick?

  I hope that continues your code.

• 2:23:15Rich Roll?

  As you're answering that, I was reflecting on when we first met. So we share a literary agent and your book, One Breath, was coming out. And I read it and I loved it and I invited you on. And and what I remember, I don't even remember what we talked about. All I remember is like, it was a vibe check. Like, I just remember that I vibed with you and it was really easy to talk to you. And and it's not like we became like immediate best bros and hung out all the time. But I made a mental note. I was like, I really like talking to that guy. It was really easy to talk to him. He's really smart. Like, we had a rapport that was very natural. And I think, like, I've learned to appreciate

• 2:23:58Rich Roll?

  how rare that is, as somebody who sits across and talks to a lot of people. Like, sometimes you sit in and it just it just flows and it's easy. But more often than not, like, you gotta insert yourself and figure out, like, how do I, you know, connect with this person? How do I make this work? And, you know, sometimes you can get there and sometimes you can't. But with you, it's always, it's always easy to talk to you. And I think that that is underappreciated and an undervalued, magical, mystical thing that you can't create. Like, it either exists or it doesn't. So when the prospect of like, trying this new format came out, like, immediately, I was like, we gotta get at him. Like, I just knew, I remembered that experience. And I was like, you can't put, like, you can't put like, a

• 2:24:39Rich Roll?

  dollar figure on that kind of thing. And I think what I value most about you is, like, you're, you have such a breadth of of wisdom and experience and and intellectual capacity and curiosity. Like, you read tons of stuff and you're interested in things that matter and you care about people. And we have shared interests that don't align perfectly, but that's what makes for like, a cool thing here. And and this friendship has developed as a result of doing the show.

• 2:25:10Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 2:25:11Rich Roll?

  And as I, as I get older, like, I've learned to, like, you know, how important friendships are. And, you know, I've reflected on on friendships that I haven't invested in as much as I Could have or should be, and I just wanted to let you know that I appreciate our friendship. It's fun to do this thing, but it's our friendship that exists outside of this.

• 2:25:32Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 2:25:33Rich Roll?

  And doing this has been an absolute joy and pleasure. And although we like give each other shit and I'm like, whatever, like I have nothing but like love and respect for you. And I hope that we can continue to do this for however long you want to do it. Cause it's just been, it's been a beautiful, nourishing experience for me.

• 2:25:49Adam Skolnick?

  Oh, thanks, man. I would love to. I appreciate it, man. I appreciate those kind words and I feel the same way.

• 2:25:56Rich Roll?

  Yeah. And maybe, maybe I've learned that Adam needs his own show too. We'll see.

• 2:26:01Adam Skolnick?

  Oh, but do this, this, this rapport that you think happened naturally? You really think it happened naturally, do you?

• 2:26:07Rich Roll?

  Yes, this is some Machiavellian.

• 2:26:10Adam Skolnick?

  Ah.

• 2:26:10Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 2:26:10Adam Skolnick?

  I am a builder. I'm a builder of rapport.

• 2:26:12Rich Roll?

  You were at home in the mirror like practicing.

• 2:26:16Adam Skolnick?

  You ever seen Taxi Driver?

• 2:26:17Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 2:26:17Adam Skolnick?

  That's me.

• 2:26:18Rich Roll?

  Okay. I knew it all along.

• 2:26:21Adam Skolnick?

  You think that rapport was natural to you?

• 2:26:23Rich Roll?

  If that was true, I'd have to go home and really rethink my life.

• 2:26:25Adam Skolnick?

  I've built rapport on this.

• 2:26:27Rich Roll?

  As somebody who considers myself a relatively okay judge of character, that would really rock me.

• 2:26:31Adam Skolnick?

  I've built rapport on the streets of Lagos, Lagos, Nigeria. I've built it, you know?

• 2:26:36Rich Roll?

  I've seen you do your thing too. Like when we were, like when we were in Catalina and you were writing about Otillo for the New York Times. And I've seen the ease with which you just roll up on people to try to get the story. And for some reason, like everybody just wants to talk to you. Like that's, you have a, you have a demeanor about you, like an affect that like people are like, oh, cool. I want to talk to this guy.

• 2:27:00Adam Skolnick?

  Non-threatening.

• 2:27:01Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 2:27:02Adam Skolnick?

  Non-threatening rapport builder.

• 2:27:03Rich Roll?

  Non-threatening, yes. Another undervalued skill.

• 2:27:06Adam Skolnick?

  No, I appreciate it, man. I think, but I also think that like, as you've learned, since we talked about the podcast and you're coming up on 10 years, another thing that you learn is as a journalist, and I'm sure you've learned this in the seat you're sitting in right now, people want to tell their stories. And so if you just open the channel, they're just gonna, they're gonna deliver it to you. And what I think that you're an early adopter of the long form interview too, which I think when you started, even in the podcast realm. They don't always go uncapped for hours. I mean, you and Joe Rogan, and I can think of a couple of others, but other people had more formatted shows, even the early adopters of podcasting. And so I think that the fact that you go deep, you're willing to listen

• 2:27:51Adam Skolnick?

  that long and give people the space to say whatever they have to say. I mean, that's amazing. So to be a part of this, I'm very grateful for it. Grateful for your friendship, first and foremost.

• 2:28:01Rich Roll?

  I appreciate that.

• 2:28:02Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, man. Thanks for that question.

• 2:28:05Rich Roll?

  And you're like, long reads, long breath holds, and going deep. Back to freediving. It all goes back to freediving.

• 2:28:13Adam Skolnick?

  Thanks, Jonathan.

• 2:28:14Rich Roll?

  And, you know, your literary affectation for freediving.

• 2:28:19Adam Skolnick?

  Yes, I do have a, you know, who knows? I mean, I try not to think about like, the kind of weird winding course of my career, but who knows where it'll lead. But it's been a fun ride.

• 2:28:30Rich Roll?

  All right, man. Well, I think that concludes today's roll on. How do you feel?

• 2:28:35Adam Skolnick?

  I feel good. I didn't even get to the hand drawn map of the moon.

• 2:28:38Rich Roll?

  That's right. You have this book sitting here.

• 2:28:40Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, it's this map. I went to the Hammer Museum, which they have the best gift shop ever. And I found this 1940s, someone who was an astronomer, looking at the moon through a telescope in the 40s, drew these hand drawn topographic maps of the moon, all their craters. And I'm sure this was, this was used, you know, in planning for the lunar exploration and all that.

• 2:29:07Rich Roll?

  Right. That's pretty cool.

• 2:29:08Adam Skolnick?

  Super cool.

• 2:29:09Rich Roll?

  I like how you're sharing a book that no one else can get, too.

• 2:29:11Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, it's a book. It's called Map of the Moon by H. Percy Wilkins.

• 2:29:16Rich Roll?

  All right. And we probably won't link that in the show notes because it's probably not in print, yeah?

• 2:29:23Adam Skolnick?

  No, but I think I'm supposed to give an approval to this Edge of the Unknown story, like, right after we sign off. So that should be up.

• 2:29:32Rich Roll?

  Cool. Well, until we meet again, my friend, in two weeks, always, as always, super fun to chat with you. Yeah. And for anybody who's still listening, a reminder, if you want to share your listener story with us, leave us a voicemail at 805-421-0057. If you want to enter to win tickets to the Anvil premiere in Los Angeles, send us an email at [email protected]. And we'll see you back here in two weeks. Beautiful. Peace. Lights. Namaste.