ROLL ON: Alt Media, Streaming Rec’s, AMA, & The Truth About Transformation

Adam and I are back on the mics for another rollicking “Roll On”—ready to dissect the kaleidoscope of experiences that have colored our recent existence! We free dive into Adam’s aquatic adventures with Zuma, the Shohei Ohtani mania, my transformative Olympic journey in Paris, my unexpected connections to Netflix’s “Monsters,” streaming gems that caught our eye, and the compelling story of “Maya and the Wave.” Plus, we wade into media controversies, ponder the enigma of personal change, and more. Time to catch up, folks! Tune in for this unvarnished exploration of life’s vicissitudes. Show notes + MORE Watch on YouTube Newsletter Sign-Up Today’s Sponsors: Seed: Use code RICHROLL25 for 25% OFF your first order 👉seed.com/RichRoll Whoop: Get a FREE one month trial 👉join.whoop.com/roll On: High-performance shoes & apparel crafted for comfort and style 👉on.com/richroll Roka: Unlock 20% OFF your order with code RICHROLL 👉ROKA.com/RICHROLL Go Brewing: use the code Rich Roll for 15% OFF 👉gobrewing.com Squarespace: Use the offer code RichRoll to save 10% off your first purchase 👉Squarespace.com/RichRoll Check out all of the amazing discounts from our Sponsors 👉 richroll.com/sponsors Find out more about Voicing Change Media at voicingchange.media and follow us @voicingchange 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.

• 0:01Rich Roll?

  All right, everybody, we're back. It's another Roll On on Tap today. But first.

• 0:10Rich 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 gonna 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.

• 0:54Rich 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.

• 1:16Rich Roll?

  Hey, everybody. Welcome back to Roll On. It is that format-breaking version of the show where Adam Skolnick and I basically just get loose and casual. We catch up with each other. We share sundry items from news and culture that have captured our fancy, our attention. And in the second half, we answer audience questions. And listen, Adam, it's been a minute, but you know what? I think less is more.

• 1:43Speaker 01

  What do you think? Yeah, I hear you loud and clear.

• 1:47Rich Roll?

  I'm not saying less Skolnick.

• 1:49Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 1:49Rich Roll?

  I just think whetting the appetite by taking extended breaks in between these types of shows is something to give the audience, something to look forward to.

• 2:01Speaker 01

  I agree. Meanwhile, the darkness brews inside me, and then I come, I have an outlet.

• 2:07Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 2:07Speaker 01

  To deliver it.

• 2:08Rich Roll?

  You gotta let it build up a little bit, right?

• 2:10Speaker 01

  It's brimming. It's brimming.

• 2:11Rich Roll?

  Okay, good. I can't wait to see what comes out.

• 2:15Rich Roll?

  We spoke earlier today and I thought, you know what, let's just riff this one. We don't really need an outline. It's been, it's been a while. We'll just shoot the shit, right? And then, of course, I then proceeded to build out like a gigantic outline. So hopefully this won't be a four hour podcast, but we'll see.

• 2:31Speaker 01

  Part one and part two roll on.

• 2:32Rich Roll?

  How are you doing?

• 2:33Speaker 01

  You know, I was thinking, well, I scalded my mouth on the way over here. Hydro Flask makes a really great product and it's so good that a cup of tea I made an hour and a half ago is still too hot to drink. So I have it here. I'm going to have it open. My hope is after this three hour podcast, I can have a sip of green tea without going, calling the doctor.

• 2:56Rich Roll?

  We'll test it. We'll do, we'll do, we'll take sips at 30 minute increments and see how palatable it is. But this is a very bougie problem.

• 3:03Speaker 01

  Why is tea so much hotter than coffee?

• 3:06Rich Roll?

  Uh, good question.

• 3:07Speaker 01

  It's so, right? It's so hot. It's so hot.

• 3:10Rich Roll?

  Coffee can get pretty hot, but anyway.

• 3:11Speaker 01

  Life's good, man. We're good. We're good. What have I been doing? I taught, we're teaching Zuma's swimming is starting to get, he's not water safe yet, but we're getting so much better. And I was in the, I taught him a little bit yesterday and he's, has a swim teacher. And so I'm kind of the coach in between lessons. And we found a pool on Swimply. We don't own the pool, of course.

• 3:33Rich Roll?

  Is that a website? I don't know what that is.

• 3:35Speaker 01

  You ever heard of Swimply?

• 3:36Rich Roll?

  No.

• 3:36Speaker 01

  It's like the Airbnb for backyard pools.

• 3:39Rich Roll?

  For backyard pools?

• 3:40Speaker 01

  Right.

• 3:40Rich Roll?

  People open up their backyard pools to strangers?

• 3:43Speaker 01

  Right.

• 3:43Rich Roll?

  I mean, you can like literally rent somebody's pool in their backyard?

• 3:47Speaker 01

  But we rent this guy's pool for 50 bucks an hour, basically. And he has it so booked out, like he, he deals with, he keeps it at 90 degrees because it's good for little kids, you know, like kids under five. Apparently if it's 88, 90 degrees in that window or above 85, they listen better. They, they're more comfortable. So they, they take on the lesson better. And so he has it in that sweet spot and they've, he sells it to these swim schools and they bring their instructors. So it's, it's basically the guy's, he's a lawyer. He's like a sole proprietor lawyer. He guarantee he's paying his mortgage with his pool.

• 4:21Rich Roll?

  Right. Who knew? I had no idea. I'd never heard of that before.

• 4:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, Swimply.

• 4:25Rich Roll?

  So it can just be this insane side hustle.

• 4:28Speaker 01

  Oh dude, totally. This guy's killing it.

• 4:30Rich Roll?

  Is it like, is it nationwide?

• 4:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's like, I'm sure it is. I mean, I, I've only tried it here, but I bet you it is. It's one of those, it's like Airbnb.

• 4:39Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Except that you're home while this is like if you're renting out your pool, you're kind of in your house. It's not like you vacate, right?

• 4:47Speaker 01

  We've been to three pools now.

• 4:48Rich Roll?

  How do they deal with the safety considerations and the lack of lifeguards and all that kind of stuff? I'm sure there's some waiver.

• 4:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, there must be some sort of some lawyer. They figured out a waiver and they figured out, probably Swimply is carrying some insurance or something, but the the owners have been there for the two, two, I think the owners are there for the renter. The third place we went is where Sebastian, the swim teacher, he's a lifeguard on the beach in Santa Monica and he's also a student at LA, Cal State LA. And he's got his own business. The guy is amazing. I love this kid. He's 22 years old. And he rents it, he rents the pool for, for the Friday sessions. And so I think when he goes there, he deals with the owners, but typically, yeah, we deal with our, with the owner of the house and we say hi and we say bye and that's it. You come in and come out and there's like pool toys usually.

• 5:39Rich Roll?

  Wow.

• 5:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:40Rich Roll?

  That's cool.

• 5:41Speaker 01

  It's cool. And Zoom is like getting increasingly water safe and he's very cautious. He's not one of those like hard charger, you know, those young boys that just will run through a wall? It's not him.

• 5:52Rich Roll?

  Right, right, right.

• 5:52Speaker 01

  And so it's cool to see him kind of ratcheting that up and his confidence and floating on his back and by himself. It's cool.

• 5:59Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 6:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:00Rich Roll?

  Well, you're here today in full Dodgers regalia. So I feel part of what's been pent up inside of you is talking about baseball, which is the one sport I know nothing about.

• 6:11Speaker 01

  Well, you heard of Shohei.

• 6:11Rich Roll?

  Pay zero attention to.

• 6:12Speaker 01

  You've heard of Shohei Ohtani?

• 6:14Rich Roll?

  Yeah, kinda.

• 6:15Speaker 01

  Just kind of?

• 6:16Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 6:16Speaker 01

  You have no idea why he's a thing?

• 6:18Rich Roll?

  Uh, I know he's a thing, but beyond that, I know nothing.

• 6:22Speaker 01

  But you don't know why?

• 6:22Rich Roll?

  This is my blind spot. I told you like professional mainstream sports are a huge blind spot.

• 6:27Speaker 01

  Right, right. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna give you just a two minute primer. We'll keep it very short. Let's try to put the clock on for 60 seconds. You heard of Babe Ruth?

• 6:35Rich Roll?

  Yes.

• 6:35Speaker 01

  He was famous because he was a great pitcher and he was also a great hitter. And then he gave up pitching just to hit. Ohtani is the first guy since Babe Ruth to be as good a pitcher and as good a hitter. So literally, he was predicted this guy could be the Japanese Babe Ruth. And when people say that, it's kind of like saying at 17 years old LeBron or 15 years old LeBron's going to be the greatest basketball player in the world and then achieving it. It's like so rare that actually happens. He is actually arguably a better pitcher and just as good a hitter as Babe Ruth. He's maybe the best baseball player of all time. And this year, he isn't pitching because he hurt his elbow. He'll pitch next year and he's just been hitting and he just hit his 50th homer and he's got 50 stolen bases. So that's never been done before.

• 7:19Speaker 01

  Like Barry Bonds did 40 homers and 40 stolen bases one year. He did 50 and 50 and he achieved both on a game where he went six for six, three homers, two doubles, two stolen bases, and the put the Dodgers in the playoffs. 10 RBIs.

• 7:34Rich Roll?

  Wow.

• 7:34Speaker 01

  So he's had this legendary thing.

• 7:37Rich Roll?

  Doesn't he also have something interesting about his salary? I remember reading something about-

• 7:40Speaker 01

  $700 million contract, but he only is taking like, I forget.

• 7:44Rich Roll?

  Yeah, he's deferring it or something?

• 7:45Speaker 01

  He's deferring like 70% or 80%, maybe 90% even.

• 7:48Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 7:49Speaker 01

  He also had a little bit of a gambling scandal early on in the season. He's had a very, very-

• 7:53Rich Roll?

  You know.

• 7:54Speaker 01

  But he wasn't him. He got ripped off by his translator or that's the story, right? The cops have confirmed it. They've arrested the translator. So the translator embezzled money from him, like $17 million. He didn't know it.

• 8:06Rich Roll?

  Wow.

• 8:07Speaker 01

  And so, but anyway, he's just this amazing baseball player. He's a Dodger. He put the Dodgers in the playoffs again and this is his first time going to be in the postseason. And he's just beloved, you know? There's nothing that, you know-

• 8:20Rich Roll?

  You go into a bunch of games?

• 8:21Speaker 01

  He's, yeah, he's hit, let's, can I, yeah.

• 8:24Rich Roll?

  All right, we're well over 60 seconds at this point.

• 8:26Speaker 01

  Fine.

• 8:28Rich Roll?

  There's lots of other podcasts out there.

• 8:30Speaker 01

  No one tunes into you for this.

• 8:31Rich Roll?

  Who would love to go deep into this, but we got a lot of stuff to cover, dude.

• 8:34Speaker 01

  Let's move on, let's move on, let's move on.

• 8:35Rich Roll?

  Uh, but you have been running again, yeah.

• 8:37Speaker 01

  I have been, I've been, uh- Finally got back to running and started on like one of those gravity treadmills, anti-gravity treadmills and then like walk and run on a treadmill and walk and run on the street and I just did 10K, which is the longest I've run since I've been back and I'm injury free and so that's in that part. It's like this, I still am in physical therapy because I have other things, but you know, thanks to the people, to Melody at Elite Ortho Support, she's got me back running. It's unbelievable. I thought maybe I could never run again.

• 9:09Rich Roll?

  Good.

• 9:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:10Rich Roll?

  Cool.

• 9:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's cool. So it's fun. So life's good. No complaints. I mean, I've got complaints, but this is not the setting for that.

• 9:18Rich Roll?

  Is it? Maybe it is.

• 9:19Speaker 01

  Maybe. We'll get to it. We'll get to it. How about you, man? You were in Paris.

• 9:24Rich Roll?

  I was. It's been a minute since I was there, but I thought I would dress the part today. I'm wearing my jumpsuit in ode to, you know, Parisian factory workers and my striped shirt and my red beanie. So it's a little Steve Zissou meets Parisian memories of Paris, right?

• 9:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:44Rich Roll?

  No, it was great. We were there for the entire month. We had all the kids and even my daughter Mathis's boyfriend. So there were seven of us in a Parisian flat for the month. And it's pretty great to go to a city like that, not strictly as a tourist, like, oh, because we were there for so long. It's like, all right, well, we kind of live here. Like, where's the grocery store? How do you get around? Where's the nearest subway station? And to just not be rushing around because you got to see X, Y, and Z to check it off some kind of list. And it was fantastic. Paris was phenomenal. It was extremely livable because a lot of Parisians left town.

• 10:28Speaker 01

  All those zombie Parisians were gone.

• 10:30Rich Roll?

  And the typical influx of August tourists went elsewhere. Of course, there were people there for the Olympics and there was a lot of, you know, energy, of course, around that. But it was way less crowded than I thought it would be, which made it extremely pleasant, except for like an extreme heat wave that kind of visited us a couple of times throughout because, you know, air conditioning isn't really a thing.

• 10:55Speaker 01

  No, right.

• 10:56Rich Roll?

  The dryers don't really work that well either. You know, I don't understand that. Like, you know, we have this technology, Adam. Right. For some reason, not a priority over there. But other than that, like, yeah, it was great. They did a great job with the Olympics. It's interesting when you're there because you're not sitting at home watching it on television. And I was pretty busy. So you don't exactly have your finger on the pulse of what's happening hour to hour like you would if you were kind of tuned in to NBC at home. But the energy was electric. The city did a great job managing everything. I mean, the subways are fantastic. They come, you never have to wait for a train. They're clean.

• 11:40Rich Roll?

  You can get around everywhere really easily. And the organization around the venues was fantastic, too. Like, the experience was top-notch all across the board. And it was just fun to be there. I'd never been to an Olympics before. And then to be so engaged with the brands that I was working with and to attend some of the events. So I did a bunch of stuff for ON. I helped them tell the story of Light Spray, the new shoe that they introduced that is that robotic, kind of 3D-printed, microfiber upper. Yeah. That's reinventing kind of shoe technology. And that was really exciting. They had, like, their house, On Labs, they were calling it, On Labs Paris, was literally less than a five-minute walk from our apartment. Amazing.

• 12:23Rich Roll?

  So I did some panels and interviewed some athletes and just, you know, created some content with them around that, which was super fun. Got to go to track and field one night with the ON team and was like in a box, like a suite, you know, one of the hospitality suites. With Olivier, the founder of ON, and a bunch of ON staffers and executives and designers, et cetera. And that was the night that Cole Hawker won the 1500 meters. Yes. And the ON athlete, Yurid Nogus, got bronze in that event. So that was really fun to watch that. Have you ever been to, like, a legit track and field meet? 1984 Olympics. Oh, wow. That's how old I am. How old were you? Because I was 16, I think.

• 13:07Speaker 01

  I was younger.

• 13:07Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 13:08Speaker 01

  But you know.

• 13:09Rich Roll?

  But you remember it.

• 13:10Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 13:10Rich Roll?

  What's wild, I'd never been to a big track and field meet.

• 13:13Speaker 01

  Carl Lewis, man, I'll never forget Carl Lewis.

• 13:15Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that was, that stands out. It's like, it's sort of like the songs that you fall in love with when you're a teenager. Like you just, they're always, and so I remember the LA Olympics in that way. Because that was the first Olympics where I was old enough to really tune into it. And it's like cemented in my memory.

• 13:31Speaker 01

  Same, same, same. Yeah.

• 13:33Rich Roll?

  But what's so fun about a big track and field meet is it kind of starts off with, it starts off slowly, like you're watching one event and it's heats and then, oh, here's a final. And like, that's exciting. And then suddenly they start layering in other events that are happening simultaneously, like the women's hammer throw is happening. And then way over there, the long jump is happening. And then they, they all start to build at the same time. And you get to this point where you're like, I don't know what I'm supposed to be looking at.

• 13:59Speaker 01

  Right.

• 13:59Rich Roll?

  Because it's all over the place.

• 14:00Speaker 01

  It's like a city.

• 14:01Rich Roll?

  You're looking up at these screens and you're like, what's happening right now that needs my undivided attention?

• 14:06Speaker 01

  It's like a teeming city below, right?

• 14:08Rich Roll?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 14:08Speaker 01

  And you're seeing something over here and then, yeah, yeah.

• 14:10Rich Roll?

  Like, I'm watching this, but suddenly I hear all of these, you know, I hear screams and cheers. And I'm like, wait, what just happened?

• 14:16Speaker 01

  Right. It's like, it's like, it's like social media, but in real time, right in front of your eyes. You don't know where to put your attention and you can scroll through as you go.

• 14:25Rich Roll?

  It was fun. So, yeah, ON was great. I love working with ON. And I think the level at which they're executing on product and design and community building is really something special. So I'm very proud and honored to be associated with them and to be working with them. I'm going to be going to New York soon to do some stuff with them around the New York City Marathon.

• 14:47Speaker 01

  And you were hosting panels at their house mainly, right? And doing.

• 14:50Rich Roll?

  Yeah, a couple of panels, a couple of conversations, you know, just a bunch of different kinds of things. And then I got to work with Speedo, which was really fun.

• 14:57Speaker 01

  Right.

• 14:59Rich Roll?

  And that is a cool story in and of itself because it was birthed out of me seeing their little video that they shared on Instagram and on YouTube, like this new campaign, the Go Full Speedo campaign. Did you see that original?

• 15:15Speaker 01

  You sent it.

• 15:16Rich Roll?

  Like commercial?

• 15:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 15:17Rich Roll?

  I was like, this is great.

• 15:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:19Rich Roll?

  Like, this is so fun. It's so cheeky. It's definitely. A representation of a new direction for this brand, trying to make like this idea of wearing Speedos like a sort of everyman kind of thing as opposed to, you know, elite competitor thing.

• 15:33Speaker 01

  Right.

• 15:34Rich Roll?

  And I just found it really refreshing that I DM'd the account, whoever runs that social media account, and I was like, this is fantastic, I don't know, you know, what you guys are doing, but I'd love to work with you on this and learn more about this new story that you're trying to tell. And that kind of led to my first opportunity to do something official with them, which is what I did in Paris. And I got to interview a bunch of the swimmers for the Speedo channels, some of them of which they've already released and some of which I'm sure they'll drip out, you know, for however long. But that was really great to meet a bunch of the medalists, international and national athletes. They had a hospitality house also in the Marais, which is sort of the neighborhood where we were staying.

• 16:17Rich Roll?

  And that was really fun to kind of pop in and I observed some panels there and got to meet the whole Speedo team and was also able to go to see finals on, swimming finals on three nights, which was super fantastic. Like, that was just insane. I was there the night Leon Marchand doubled in the 200 Fly and the 200 Breast, like 22 minutes apart from each other. And the French crowd for Marchand was just unreal. Like, it was so deafeningly loud in there. And so that was really special.

• 16:49Speaker 01

  It came across watching it. I mean, and I thought of you, remember, I think, I think there was his first one and I texted you to see if you were there and then you said you were gonna be there the next night or something like that. And I was like, man, the crowd seems so, I mean, you used the word electric, it was electric in those arenas.

• 17:05Rich Roll?

  For sure.

• 17:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, for sure. It was unbelievable to watch.

• 17:08Rich Roll?

  But it's also this thing, I mean, swimming is a sport I know the best, but I'm so old now, like, I only have a, like, a sort of very tertiary understanding of all of these different athletes' backgrounds, et cetera, because I don't pay super close attention like I used to. And you realize how valuable the commentary is and how much you kind of miss it when you're there.

• 17:30Speaker 01

  Oh, really?

• 17:31Rich Roll?

  Because there's no commentary.

• 17:32Speaker 01

  Right, right, right.

• 17:33Rich Roll?

  You're just watching, especially at track, too. Like, I'm like, wait, you know, I was with people who could explain all of this to me, but... You really learn how crucial and critical like great commentary is to helping you kind of emotionally connect and understand what's going on. And you don't get that when you're there live. I mean, actually, on one of the nights at swimming, I pulled up the Peacock app and I was kind of watching it, you know, so I could get a little Rowdy.

• 17:57Speaker 01

  You need Rowdy in your life when you're watching swimming.

• 17:59Rich Roll?

  So I could hear what Rowdy had to say and Phelps was there, you know, so that was really fun. And I actually did get to do a podcast with Rowdy Gaines, which was really fun.

• 18:07Speaker 01

  Right. That was great. I love Rowdy, man. It's, you know, obviously the greatest swim commentator. I don't think there's ever been anybody like him with that kind of enthusiasm and knowledge and, and just infectious. He makes you want to watch, he makes you want to watch anything he's announcing.

• 18:21Rich Roll?

  Because he's so genuinely and earnestly excited about, about what's happening.

• 18:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, but also knows like he's on it, like if you.

• 18:28Rich Roll?

  Well, speaking of 84, I mean, that was, you remember Rowdy from 84.

• 18:32Speaker 01

  I remember him waiting.

• 18:33Rich Roll?

  Basically, this was like, I think his ninth Olympiad, and he's going to do LA and then he's going to retire.

• 18:39Speaker 01

  That's it.

• 18:39Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 18:40Speaker 01

  But just to know the, the times, like, he gives you great context on, on how, not only how, how well they're swimming comparatively to themselves, but how fast that is in kind of the scope of time. And so, understanding how swimming changes. Swimming is, I think, different than a lot of sports in that the innovation is almost continuous. Like, there was that one period where people were wearing this fast suits and then that became, they said, no, that's, that's a little bit too techie.

• 19:08Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it got, it got a little crazy. All the world records were broken and just rewrote the record books. And there was a sense at that time that when they go back to regular non-tech suits, that none of those world records were going to be broken. And of course, they all were broken.

• 19:24Speaker 01

  Right.

• 19:25Rich Roll?

  But this Olympiad, I don't know, I mean, it wasn't that there were no world records.

• 19:30Speaker 01

  No, but the.

• 19:31Rich Roll?

  Off the top of my head, but like, but it was, it was, it was a conspicuously slow meet.

• 19:36Speaker 01

  Was it? Okay.

• 19:37Rich Roll?

  And a lot of that discourse was around the depth of the pool, which was not, not standard. Like, I think it was two, it was like.

• 19:44Speaker 01

  Too deep?

• 19:45Rich Roll?

  Two meters deep. No, it wasn't deep enough.

• 19:46Speaker 01

  Ah.

• 19:47Rich Roll?

  It was too shallow. They had built it inside of, I think, a rugby stadium.

• 19:51Speaker 01

  Right.

• 19:53Rich Roll?

  Which is curious because like if you're going to do it and it's the Olympics like make it deep enough and apparently that you know because when it's shallow then you know you get the the currents bounce off the bottom and things like that so they're attributing the slower times to that I mean who knows if that's true or not but yeah overall like in the context of past Olympics where you're just used to world records being broken all the time

• 20:16Speaker 01

  Right.

• 20:17Rich Roll?

  That wasn't the case but nonetheless your point remains which is that yeah swimming is constantly innovating and and world records continue to get broken like you know with regularity.

• 20:28Speaker 01

  Right and this meet was like it was all about being underwater longer that's what that's what Rowdy kept pointing out is like that that that swimmers are now underwater a bit longer than they ever were before.

• 20:38Rich Roll?

  Yeah well I I've shared this before I think most recently in my podcast with Ross Edgley but you know I came up in the late 80s when that was the very beginning of swimmers beginning to experiment with with the underwater dolphin kick and at that time there was no there was no rule or regulation about how long you could stay underwater and so in the 1988 Seoul Olympics in the 100 meter backstroke like these these guys were staying under like almost the entire 100 meters like they would they'd swim they'd pop up for the turn at the 50 and then they would pop up off that wall like 20 25 meters in and swim the rest of it and it got so crazy that they had to put the 15 meter roll up which

• 21:23Rich Roll?

  means you have to once you once you kick when you when you come off the wall you have to break the surface of the water at at 15 meters but yes like now it's all about explosiveness off the walls and the power that you can generate underwater because you can swim so much more efficiently and quickly underwater and the swimmers who are really good at that and can do it in the later stages of the race where they're extremely fatigued those are the ones that are you know seeing the kind of success and nobody does that better than Marshawn like he his walls are unbelievable.

• 21:58Speaker 01

  And you were there I mean that's like a most iconic moment in French Olympic history that I can think of.

• 22:05Rich Roll?

  It was cool.

• 22:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, and he's coached by Bowman, right?

• 22:08Rich Roll?

  Now, yeah, he was at Arizona State and now Bowman is now the new head coach at University of Texas.

• 22:14Speaker 01

  Right.

• 22:15Rich Roll?

  So this will be his first year at Marchand. I think Marchand is still training in France right now, but at some point, I think at the end of the year or in January, he's gonna, he's gonna move to Austin.

• 22:25Speaker 01

  You know, the Olympics, what they show you, though, is that all these athletes in all these countries, they're all in the NCAA system. You know, it really does show you the, the, the strength of the collegiate sports program that we have here. No other country has anything even similar to this.

• 22:40Rich Roll?

  Right. You mean the fact that all these foreign athletes come to the States to go to college and compete in the NCAA?

• 22:45Speaker 01

  But it's not just to compete. It's like that is the springboard to the Olympics.

• 22:50Rich Roll?

  Yeah, well, some of them go pro and they'll train with Bowman, but they're not. And maybe they're enrolled at the University of Texas, maybe they're not, but because they're professional, they can't compete in the NCAA.

• 23:00Speaker 01

  Yeah. So it's interesting, the American collegiate, not to be like waving the flag here, but yeah.

• 23:07Rich Roll?

  Two final thoughts on Paris before we move on. One is it definitely reinvigorated the world's enthusiasm around the Olympics.

• 23:17Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 23:17Rich Roll?

  Because clearly our, our kind of appetite for it was on the wane. And part of that's Tokyo and COVID and all of that. But I think there was this sense like, do we care about the Olympics anymore? You know, in our, in our kind of fractured attention economy and, and decaying monoculture, like, you know, we grew up at a time where like the whole world stopped when you watch the Olympics, right? Like this is like all anybody thought or talked about. Do you, I mean, do you remember like the miracle on ice? Were you too young for that?

• 23:46Speaker 01

  No, I remember, 1980.

• 23:48Rich Roll?

  That was the only, like, it was, you know, it's hard to communicate to a younger person, like, just how captured we all were by moments like that.

• 23:59Speaker 01

  That was, that was the first signature Olympic moment in my life, for sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 24:04Rich Roll?

  And those moments are hard to come by these days and fewer and further in between. But I feel like this Olympics kind of brought that back. Like, I feel like the world really did. And you don't know that when you're in Paris. Like, I didn't, you know, because you're there, you don't know. But when I came back, it just seemed like there was such an outpouring of love and enthusiasm for the Games. And also on top of that, another kind of insight that I had, and I'm curious what you think about this. It also seemed like, and I think this is a product of how far we have come in our in our discussion around mental health.

• 24:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:38Rich Roll?

  That that we were celebrating and the athletes were celebrating silvers and bronze accomplishments just as much as golds. Like you would, I wasn't, I wasn't used to seeing so many athletes who got a silver or a bronze, just ecstatic.

• 24:55Speaker 01

  Oh, okay.

• 24:56Rich Roll?

  And that felt different and new. I don't know if that's true or just through the lens of my own memory.

• 25:01Speaker 01

  I think, I think it depends on the athlete's expectation and also the expectations of the people around the athlete. I think there would have been some, like, the US basketball team would not have been thrilled to get a bronze, right? But like, and Simone Biles was thrilled to get anything. She was, you know, she's at the point where she's won so much that she's happy to take a, like, you saw her lose to the Brazilian and she was really happy to take whatever medal and she didn't care about getting cheated out of another medal, whatever. That didn't bother her. But I think there are some athletes that, like, the guy that, that came in third, or no, Cole Hocker won the whole thing, that was amazing. But there was another distance, mid-distance runner, was it the 1500? Was it, was it the same?

• 25:45Speaker 01

  I forget, there was one race where he came in third, like, he got bronze and he was so happy he was overcome with emotion.

• 25:51Rich Roll?

  Yard de Goose.

• 25:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:52Rich Roll?

  Is, he's the ON athlete. Like, yeah, I got to meet him.

• 25:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:56Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I, I thought that was great.

• 25:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 25:59Rich Roll?

  I thought that was great.

• 26:00Speaker 01

  That was amazing.

• 26:01Rich Roll?

  The second observation, and then we'll move on, or reflection, has to do with podcasting at the Olympics. Like, I went in, you know, sort of full of vim and vigor that I was gonna just be banging out podcasts like crazy, and that ended up proving difficult to impossible. Despite the fact that I had a studio at my behest, like, the Red Bull House and Red Bull Media. So imagine, like, all of these brands have these hospitality houses, right? Nike, like, took over the pompadour, like, they had an insane one. ON had their lab, Speedo had, like, a cafe, and Red Bull had this six-story

• 26:42Rich Roll?

  House, basically, that they converted into this sort of hospitality suite. Each floor offering something different. And so there were viewing rooms and there were experiences and there was, you know, food, like a cafeteria and coffee bars. And they had certain floors that were reserved only for the athletes. They had like a nap room and they had a recovery room for PTs and like, you know, all kinds of like rehab type stuff. And they had a, they had a floor for the media, like a whole room where all the press could sit and write their articles and big screens so they could watch what was going on. And on that media floor, they had a podcast studio. And Max Heidbauer from Red Bull, who's a, who's a friend and a colleague was like, hey, if you want to do podcasts,

• 27:26Rich Roll?

  like, you can just come and do it here. I was like, really? And it was fully kitted. It had all the cameras and an engineer and a soundboard and the whole thing. And you could just go in and do your thing and, and get your file and be done with it. And it turned out that the only people, I think there's exceptions, but predominantly, the only people that were using this podcast studio were me and Michael Gervais. So I saw Michael Gervais, like, almost every day, I would go over to the studio, right? Because he was doing a daily show.

• 27:55Speaker 01

  Right.

• 27:55Rich Roll?

  So he was recording every single day while also showing up on the coaching staff for the Canadian Women's Sand Volleyball Tournament.

• 28:03Speaker 01

  I remember that, right, yes.

• 28:04Rich Roll?

  Who ended up meddling. And that's a whole crazy story in and of itself, that I'm sure Michael played a large part in, right?

• 28:11Speaker 01

  Yes, right.

• 28:12Rich Roll?

  Because that's an underdog story.

• 28:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:13Rich Roll?

  And he's the X factor, right?

• 28:14Speaker 01

  He's the guy.

• 28:15Rich Roll?

  And I love that guy to death. Shout out, Michael. So I thought, well, this is great. You know, I'm going to be just getting people in here all the time. We're going to just create unreal content. And what I overlooked and should, should have known if I'd thought about it for two minutes, is that A, the athletes aren't going to do a podcast until they're done competing, right? Because they're focusing on competition, obviously.

• 28:37Speaker 01

  Right, right, right, right.

• 28:37Rich Roll?

  And the athlete village is pretty far away from like central Paris. Like, I don't know, 45 minutes or something like that. It's like, they're not leaving the village.

• 28:46Speaker 01

  And then the bedrooms were so nice that they wouldn't want to leave.

• 28:49Rich Roll?

  Right, of course.

• 28:50Speaker 01

  The bed is so comfortable.

• 28:50Rich Roll?

  I mean, who would want to leave the cardboard bed, right?

• 28:54Rich Roll?

  And then if they, okay, so then if they compete and they don't do well, like they're not going to want to go talk about probably, and if they do do well, they're suddenly on this press junket with publicists and agents and they're being kind of shepherded around, you know, across a multitude of media opportunities that are all these like kind of small hits. And it became very difficult to pin people down or carve out time. And then the interesting people who are in Paris who aren't competing that you would think like, oh, well, that would make for a cool person to have on the podcast. They're there, kind of like me, because they have all these other obligations. And so scheduling and all of that just became really difficult. And so I did a couple of podcasts. I did two swimming focused ones

• 29:36Rich Roll?

  and a one with Rowdy Gaines. And I was like, yeah, it's too, everything else is going to have to wait till later.

• 29:42Speaker 01

  Right, yeah. Where do you get them in? Well, I mean, these kind of like in-depth stuff you do, sometimes like an athlete in the heat of the moment doesn't really understand the context of everything, can't really put in, it's almost later through hindsight, through reflection, that they can have a long-form conversation about it anyway. So in the way that you like to do it.

• 30:01Rich Roll?

  Yeah, you don't want them to come in distracted because they got to rush off somewhere else and it just happened yesterday. And like, they haven't even allowed themselves, like, they haven't even processed what's happened.

• 30:10Speaker 01

  Exactly, exactly. Well, that's cool, man. I was so stoked to, I was secretly hoping, I'm like, I hope he wants to unpack this experience because I knew it would be like, just to talk to you about how it was there. Because it's like, you know, you still hold the Olympics in such a high regard.

• 30:25Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it was great. And on top of that, to just have the opportunity to be there with my entire family. And my kids are older, right? So when is that going to happen again? Where all of their schedules align so that they all, you know, would be able to and would want to go do something like that. So the family kind of aspect of it was really great, too. So it was like a 10 of 10.

• 30:45Speaker 01

  And you were running?

• 30:46Rich Roll?

  A little bit, yeah.

• 30:47Speaker 01

  You were?

• 30:48Rich Roll?

  Yeah. I mean, you know, I was, the lower back, not so hot.

• 30:51Speaker 01

  Right.

• 30:52Rich Roll?

  We don't need to get into all of that today. That's a whole other podcast. But I did my best and I tried to kind of share little snippets of observations from those daily runs, which was fun.

• 31:03Speaker 01

  That's cool. Yeah, right on.

• 31:04Rich Roll?

  All right. Well, let's take a quick break and we got a lot more coming your way. So stick around.

• 31:20Rich Roll?

  Although we haven't done a roll on in a while, this is not the first that I've seen you recently because you were here, what was that, like 10 days ago?

• 31:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, something like that.

• 31:29Rich Roll?

  Something like that. You dropped in for a very special occasion.

• 31:33Speaker 01

  I did.

• 31:34Rich Roll?

  Because our friend Alex Honnold was appearing yet again on the podcast and you wanted to say hi, right?

• 31:40Speaker 01

  Most frequent guest.

• 31:41Rich Roll?

  Yes.

• 31:42Speaker 01

  After me.

• 31:43Rich Roll?

  No, after Julie.

• 31:44Speaker 01

  After Julie.

• 31:45Rich Roll?

  Julie's been on a lot.

• 31:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:47Rich Roll?

  I think it was maybe his fourth time on or whatever, which was super fun to have him on. We do something a little bit different. I won't spoil it because that hasn't gone up yet, but it was a great time. He was in LA to promote this new documentary that is premiering on Nat Geo and I'll just like leave it there because you'll hear more about it in the podcast. And he had done Daniel Tosh's podcast earlier that day.

• 32:17Speaker 01

  Right.

• 32:18Rich Roll?

  Who lives in Malibu and has a very funny podcast where he like, you know, interviews his wife's gynecologist and he has a very cheeky kind of like approach to, you know, this format of engaging, interesting people. And he had come right from there to here and we had a great time doing the podcast. I think it's our most fun. I think we got the real Alex.

• 32:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:39Rich Roll?

  In this podcast and again, not going to spoil anything, but let's just say he has a hidden superpower and that superpower is his, his talent around deadpan comedy.

• 32:50Speaker 01

  Yes, he's very funny. He is very funny and his whole, like, the fact that he is, I mean, do we even, did you, yeah, you get into it in the podcast. I don't want to spoil everything, but, but it came out when you took him to eat after the podcast.

• 33:06Rich Roll?

  Right. So here's where, yeah, here's where, here's where it gets interesting and what we wanted to talk about.

• 33:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:11Rich Roll?

  So, so he had some time to kill before his flight. So I'm like, hey, let's go, let's go grab something to eat. So you, me and Davey took him to Erawan. So I was like, let's give him an LA experience, right?

• 33:23Speaker 01

  And not just any Erawan, the Calabasas Erawan.

• 33:26Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 33:27Speaker 01

  Which is the most Erawan of all Erawans.

• 33:29Rich Roll?

  Is it?

• 33:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:31Rich Roll?

  As somebody who's, who is a purveyor of all LA-based Erawans?

• 33:34Speaker 01

  I've been to... Have I been to four Erawan? Have they only four? I've been to four.

• 33:40Rich Roll?

  I don't even know. They're only in LA ironically. For people that don't know, Erawan is a very tony, high-end grocery store that has now become like a luxury brand, much like Louis Vuitton or something like that, except with food. And it's almost a destination for people who come to LA to like go visit Erawan and people create all kinds of, you know, social media content around their experiences there. It's incredibly expensive, it's healthy food, and these stores are like boutiques in the way that they arrange all of these food products. So it's like a whole experience.

• 34:18Rich Roll?

  Because Calabasas lacks a sort of main street or town center, Erawan kind of slides in to serve that purpose. So if you want to see people, if you want to like have a sense that you live in a town where, you know, people interact, you've got to go to Erawan, right? So I was like, we take Alex to Erawan.

• 34:38Speaker 01

  Which is hilarious because saying it's the center of Calabasas is like the soul of Calabasas because Erawan is an anagram for nowhere.

• 34:47Rich Roll?

  Yeah. So infer from that as you will, right? And it's, listen, it's in like a tiny little strip mall that is just in a, basically like a business park area of town. It's not like, you know, there's anything else going on. Anyway, we pull up to Erawan, we get out of our cars, and immediately I run into my friend, Andrew. I ask him how he's doing. Andrew's a very good old friend, and I know that his daughter has just started at a new school, happens to be kind of a fancy private school in the region. And it was a big deal for him, and I was like, how's it going? And he starts to tell this story about how she had just started, but they had already

• 35:30Rich Roll?

  gone on some exotic surfing trip or something.

• 35:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, they're not in school. They went on a surf trip.

• 35:37Rich Roll?

  And, and just to kind of register, like, you know, the expression on Alex's face, he's like, wow, we're really in LA right now, aren't we?

• 35:44Speaker 01

  We're in a school, that was a school trip, he was like.

• 35:47Rich Roll?

  And Alex had just, maybe you can share a little bit about how Alex had shared with us that he had just come from Tahoe, where he, he had been kind of invited by, I don't know if they were investment bankers.

• 36:00Speaker 01

  Aspen, Aspen.

• 36:01Rich Roll?

  Oh, it was in Aspen.

• 36:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, Aspen.

• 36:03Rich Roll?

  And, you know, people like Alex get paid a lot of money to go to these kind of events with a bunch of financial people who, who pay him well, and he's, you know, there to like take them climbing or teach them a thing or two. Do you want to tell us part of the story?

• 36:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, so I got to know, this is the, like, I, this is, this is probably the fourth time I've seen, or I talked to him on the phone, I've hung out with him now a couple of different times, and this time, I got to know him definitely better. And, uh, and so we were sitting there, first of all, in Aran, he could not believe the prices. I wish, I would, you know what, I'm, I'm very hyper aware that people like Alex, I know, I talked to the executive director, executive director of his, of the Honold Foundation, Emily, who told me that, like, I said, how often is he getting asked for, for photographs? And it was like a hundred times a day, and then he confirmed it. And so, I don't want to be a guy who's spending time with him, like, putting him on my social

• 36:59Speaker 01

  media feed or, or photographing him, but it would have been gold to see his face when he's checking out the prices, because if anyone who's seen Free Solo remembers him going shopping for a refrigerator, so, like, that's nothing, going to Home Depot for a refrigerator is nothing compared to what you pay for, like, roasted salmon at the deli in Aran. It's like, the expectation is through the roof, so, he was like tripping on all that, it would have been really funny. And so then, we're out, we're eating dinner, and it kind of struck me that Alex gets paid to go to these high businessman, CEO, financier type events, scold them for their environmental, for their environmental issues, right?

• 37:42Speaker 01

  And then, and implore them to do good and do better. And then he takes them out on the, on the rock, and he, you know, he treats them to an experience of how, how much they lack on the rock, and then they all love it, and, and then they pay him a big check and he leaves. And that's his, basically, that's his world tour. That's the Alex world tour.

• 38:03Rich Roll?

  He gets paid a lot of money to like show them up and like shame them and they love it and then they get to dine out on that story forever, right? So everybody wins.

• 38:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, he can be as salty as he wants and he's funny about it. So it's not like he's rude about it.

• 38:18Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's not, yeah, it's all like, but with his kind of very direct, you know, deadpan.

• 38:24Speaker 01

  And it's all for good. A third of his income still goes to the foundation.

• 38:28Rich Roll?

  So he had just come from one of those events and he was telling the story of like, of like taking these guys out. And another luminary who was participating in that very same event was Laird Hamilton, right? And so Alex was taking people out on the mountain and then Laird was taking them out on the water to paddleboard with them, right? And so he told us the story and then we go into Erawan and the first person we run into there is Gabby Reese, Laird's wife. I'm like Gabby, you know Alex?

• 39:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:02Rich Roll?

  And that was funny because he's like, and Gabby's like, oh Laird said, you know, it was great to see you. It's like, so he's like, like the LA experience is in technicolor at this point.

• 39:12Speaker 01

  It was great for you because it's not like we're running into them. They find Rich and come up to him. So that's what it is. And so I think after Gabby left, I'm like, Rich, are there any other fabulously good looking, fit people that are going to come say hello to you?

• 39:24Rich Roll?

  It's not like that. And the story only continues because we get our food, we're sitting outside, we're eating, we're having a nice time. And then I happened to ask you about whether or not David Goggins is going to write a third book and if you've had conversations with that, with him about that and whether you're going to be, you know, involved in that.

• 39:47Speaker 01

  Right. And so then I said, well, I know he is going to write a third book. He's working on it, but I'm not sure yet. He hasn't asked me to do it yet. And so my, you know, I don't, I don't typically go out and get my own work and David and I have a good relationship. So I just figure he, when he needs me, he'll let me know. And so that's what I said. And then Alex gave me career advice.

• 40:11Speaker 01

  Yes, and he said, dude, if that's what you want to do, you gotta ask for it.

• 40:17Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 40:17Speaker 01

  I'm like.

• 40:17Rich Roll?

  He's like, never presume that the other person knows your intention.

• 40:22Speaker 01

  Right.

• 40:22Rich Roll?

  It's always better to be direct.

• 40:24Speaker 01

  Direct, right.

• 40:25Rich Roll?

  And you were like, huh.

• 40:28Speaker 01

  I said, are you giving me career advice right now?

• 40:30Rich Roll?

  Like, he just laid it out for you. And you're like, wow, I think Alex is my new self-help guru, my business advisor, you know? Which is great, because I have a sense that, you know, he's keenly attuned to that. And I think he's probably very, very good in that context of like, seeing things clearly and just delivering the message that someone needs to hear.

• 40:52Speaker 01

  Totally. And also, you know what? He's a well-known person, a one-of-one himself, and it's like, it's like, he would know, like, people who are, who have a lot of demands, maybe they do need to be told directly that so it sticks in their brain. So, yeah, maybe he's speaking from experience.

• 41:10Rich Roll?

  Anyway, that was, that was, that was fun.

• 41:12Speaker 01

  It was a good time. It was fun. And I drove him, and then we, we met up with his Uber to the airport in Santa Monica. I just pulled it like.

• 41:19Rich Roll?

  Oh, that's right. You drove him back to town, right?

• 41:21Speaker 01

  We did, and he timed it, like, we passed Topanga, and he calls his Uber, and we're on PCH, and like, we end up pulling into the lot right behind his Uber. And so he went from your Tesla to my Tesla to a Polestar.

• 41:36Speaker 01

  Which is another LA thing.

• 41:37Rich Roll?

  Well, he's, he's walking his talk.

• 41:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, yes.

• 41:40Rich Roll?

  You know what I mean? He timed it exactly to minimize all carbon emissions.

• 41:43Speaker 01

  He did, he did.

• 41:45Rich Roll?

  Good for him, man. No, that was great.

• 41:47Speaker 01

  That was a good time.

• 41:49Rich Roll?

  Have you heard, Adam, I don't know if you've heard.

• 41:51Speaker 01

  What?

• 41:51Rich Roll?

  That the Department of Justice issued an indictment in which it was revealed that certain podcasters on the right of the matter, specifically Dave Rubin and Tim Poole, were paid very large sums via a Russian operative-funded media corporation called Tenant Media to make pro-Russia content, and in turn sow division here in the United States.

• 42:21Rich Roll?

  Did you hear about this?

• 42:23Speaker 01

  No, but I'm glad that they've done, they've made a good contract for themselves. If you can't get on with Spotify, you try to find a Russian.

• 42:30Rich Roll?

  Yeah, is that, is that, that's what we should take from this?

• 42:32Speaker 01

  That's what we take from it. They didn't get the deal at Spotify, and so they found a deal.

• 42:37Rich Roll?

  There was something like $10 million doled out, as far as I'm aware.

• 42:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:41Rich Roll?

  And, and some of these sums were like $400,000 for four videos a week, or something like that.

• 42:49Rich Roll?

  The podcasters themselves, the content creators are claiming that they've been duped. And my understanding is that the indictment is pursuing criminal charges against the Russians that are involved in this, and not the content creators themselves.

• 43:07Speaker 01

  Right.

• 43:08Rich Roll?

  And I bring this up, first of all, to say, I don't want to dwell on this.

• 43:12Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 43:13Rich Roll?

  But first of all, to say, just so we're clear, I have not done this.

• 43:21Rich Roll?

  I am not part of this.

• 43:25Rich Roll?

  Although, Adam.

• 43:26Speaker 01

  Why would you, why would anyone presume that you were a part of it?

• 43:30Rich Roll?

  Well, you might be surprised at how often I actually am offered money to host a guest on the show. And apparently, this is, this is a somewhat common practice in podcast landia.

• 43:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:42Rich Roll?

  That's something I've never done and never will do either, for the record. And I think that, well, first of all, there's a, there's a built-in irony here, which is that there are a lot of alternate media outlets out there that have kind of been built on this premise, or this message, that the mainstream media is corrupt and has been captured and is biased. And that these alternative outlets are the ones who are giving you the unvarnished truth, right?

• 44:12Speaker 01

  Right.

• 44:12Rich Roll?

  So, let's first just abuse ourselves of this notion, because...

• 44:18Rich Roll?

  Irrespective of the extent to which you believe the mainstream media has or has not been corrupted, you shouldn't presume that your favorite alternative media source hasn't been.

• 44:29Speaker 01

  Right, exactly.

• 44:30Rich Roll?

  And so, the point is to just choose your media diet wisely, wherever you find yourself on the cultural or political spectrum.

• 44:38Speaker 01

  And be skeptical, and maintain healthy skepticism of everything, basically. Not to be cynical, but to healthy skepticism. So, don't necessarily buy it just because someone said it, you know?

• 44:49Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 44:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 44:51Rich Roll?

  And, you know, on some level, we're all more easily manipulated than we like to believe, and we all like to hear people tell us things that we, to affirm what we already, what we already believe, and so I think it's always important to challenge those beliefs, to expose yourself to a variety of different types of outlets, and to exercise your powers of discernment, you know, to work that like a muscle, just like you would in the gym.

• 45:16Speaker 01

  Agreed. Confirmation bias is real. I remember, I didn't know about this until we were talking today, and then, and then it reminded me of something, there was a Q and A with Gladwell in the New York Times, and it was the reporter was asking about the fact that we're in this moment of anti-expertise, this idea where people are gravitating from the expert journalists and the expert scientists, and moving into this podcast's kind of murkier realm, where people claim to know more. And Gladwell's reaction was interesting, and the interviewer invoked Huberman and Joe Rogan, or just invoked Joe Rogan, not Huberman, as an example of the anti-expertise realm of things.

• 45:57Speaker 01

  And I thought Gladwell's response was just spot on, and he was like, you know, this, we're not in an anti-expertise area, it's the opposite, it's Rogan lets someone come on, and you do too, come on, who's an expert in a specific area, and has earned that, earned the, to be called that, and gets to talk for two hours about everything that they know, and some of it is going to be newer research which isn't confirmed, and some of it's going to be like, stuff that is, is fact, and it's, you're just getting a different, you're encountering expertise in a different model, essentially.

• 46:31Rich Roll?

  Right. I would agree with that, but again, it goes back to making sure that you are honing your powers of discernment.

• 46:39Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 46:40Rich Roll?

  You know, because, you know, there's all, there's also, the counterpoint that I would offer to that is that... The incentives of the creator economy are to platform and produce content that is heterodox in nature, because that's what draws attention and creates controversy in news cycles. And when those incentives are driving you in that direction, you're more likely to entertain the prospect of a two-hour conversation with somebody who perhaps hasn't earned it, but whom you know, if you host this conversation, will get a bunch of views and listens and the like.

• 47:20Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 47:21Rich Roll?

  That's all.

• 47:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, you're right. But those incentives are kind of that same kind of clickbait. It used to be a way for the news, when the news went, instead of nonprofit, went profit. The crazy headlines, which is interesting, because here we're going to talk about, coming up, what you're watching. That's kind of when the news, not long after Vietnam War, probably in the 80s, is when the news went, kind of veered in that direction, where they're trying to become entertainment.

• 47:48Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 47:49Speaker 01

  With the Night Stalker, here in LA, Night Stalker and the Menendez Brothers, and all these kinds of, where we want people to see this splashy news story, we're going to entertain you with the news. That's kind of when it changed. And so there's always been, within the news media model, this need for an audience, right? So those splashy headlines.

• 48:11Rich Roll?

  The pivotal moment was when we matured into cable news and 24/7 news cycle with CNN, right? And then suddenly, we have to occupy all of that geography with constant content. And that was the very first sort of instance in which entertainment started to merge with hard news, and those lines started to get blurry.

• 48:35Speaker 01

  Right. And so then what happens, even, what happens is then all these people who remember Watergate, who remember...

• 48:43Speaker 01

  Being told lies by the media before that, now you see this and you're like huh. Entertainment news, that doesn't sit right. And so now flash forward, you know, decades later, and we've become these kind of, you know, media cynics in a way. And so when we hear, oh, this sounds fresh, this is different, they're not bought and sold, we go over here because it's different, it's fresh, it's indie, and we're like, ah, that's interesting, I never heard that before. But that doesn't mean that's any less corrupt than this, is your point.

• 49:12Rich Roll?

  Exactly. And perhaps you should be even more skeptical because there, that isn't coming at you with any kind of journalistic standards.

• 49:22Speaker 01

  Right.

• 49:22Rich Roll?

  You know, and it's not presuming to either, but it is often packaged in this, you know, shiny, you know, kind of idea that it is, it is more true, right?

• 49:35Speaker 01

  Right.

• 49:35Rich Roll?

  Because, because it's not laden down by those principles and, and the incentives that, you know, are, do drive mainstream media in the wrong direction, you know, often.

• 49:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:48Rich Roll?

  Anyway.

• 49:49Speaker 01

  I like it.

• 49:49Rich Roll?

  Yeah. But speaking of media diets and maybe not choosing wisely.

• 49:55Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 49:55Rich Roll?

  We have to talk about this show Monsters.

• 49:59Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 49:59Rich Roll?

  You mentioned the Menendez Brothers.

• 50:01Speaker 01

  I had to.

• 50:01Rich Roll?

  Monsters is the new behemoth, number one Netflix limited series, courtesy of Ryan Murphy, that tells the story of Eric and Lyle Menendez and the murder of their parents, Jose and Kitty. And I'm old enough to remember when this happened. I mean, this truly was OJ before OJ. And in furtherance of your point around the shifting of, of media, this happened to coincide, it was like 1989, I believe, with the, with the premiere of Court TV.

• 50:37Speaker 01

  Right.

• 50:38Rich Roll?

  Which was this 24/7. Cable channel that would just show true crime trials. Like, we think of our obsession with true crime. Well, like, this is kind of like ground zero for that.

• 50:49Speaker 01

  Right.

• 50:49Rich Roll?

  Court TV became a thing, right?

• 50:51Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 50:51Rich Roll?

  And so the Menendez trial was the first big trial.

• 50:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was prior to OJ.

• 50:57Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 50:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was prior to OJ. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 50:59Rich Roll?

  And in fact, one of the Menendez brothers, and you see this in the series, like, ends up ends up on the same wing in prison with OJ after the Bronco chase.

• 51:09Speaker 01

  I didn't get that far.

• 51:10Rich Roll?

  Yeah. I mean, let's just say, oh, my fucking god, this show, right?

• 51:15Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 51:15Rich Roll?

  It is it is wild, this ride.

• 51:19Speaker 01

  Well.

• 51:20Rich Roll?

  It is. It's it's classic Ryan Murphy. It's soapy. It's salacious pulp insanity. Everything is turned up to 11. And this story of the murder and the trial and the aftermath is told through a variety, because you've only gone three episodes, right?

• 51:36Speaker 01

  Three episodes.

• 51:36Rich Roll?

  I've watched the whole thing. So this story gets told and told again through a variety of perspectives.

• 51:42Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 51:43Rich Roll?

  Unreliable narrators.

• 51:45Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 51:45Rich Roll?

  Kind of, not strictly, but sort of Rashomon style. So you see what happened through Jose's perspective. And, you know, so you're getting you're getting you're getting conflicting views on who did what and why this happened in the wake of this, right?

• 52:02Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 52:02Rich Roll?

  So you're kind of left like, well, what did really happen? And like, who do I trust? And you see this as the trial unfolds, of course, also, because you're getting different perspectives on on everything.

• 52:13Rich Roll?

  As soapy and salacious as this is, it's also highly addictive. I like, I had to watch the whole, I like binge this whole thing. I'm embarrassed to, I'm embarrassed to say.

• 52:22Speaker 01

  April was April was shocked that this is what I was watching for the podcast.

• 52:25Rich Roll?

  I know. This is like a guilty pleasure, right?

• 52:28Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 52:29Rich Roll?

  And this show is not without its critics. And in fact.

• 52:33Speaker 01

  Eric Menendez.

• 52:34Rich Roll?

  Eric made very clear in a statement how upset he is about this, although I'm not sure he actually saw it. But anyway.

• 52:40Speaker 01

  It seemed like a team up lawsuit.

• 52:41Rich Roll?

  He takes issue with how the story is portrayed, and in particular, how how his brother Lyle is portrayed in the show. But fundamentally, it is really a story about generational abuse.

• 52:52Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 52:53Rich Roll?

  Much like The Bear.

• 52:54Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 52:54Rich Roll?

  And it kind of is, it reminds me of the podcast I did recently with Kimberly Shannon Murphy. Like, when you've suffered.

• 53:05Rich Roll?

  A significant abuse in your childhood, like what happens later in life if that's not healed? And, and this is kind of a story of that to the nth degree on some level.

• 53:17Rich Roll?

  But I kind of wanted to talk about it because there's some super weird details here where my life intersects with this story in strange ways that I didn't know until I watched this. Because I thought I knew the story. The first of which is, before the Menendez family moved to Elm Street on Beverly Hills, they actually lived in Calabasas, which is where I live. Okay. Yeah, so in the, in the show, you kind of see some scenes where they're on this beautiful property. And ultimately, they end up moving from Calabasas to, to Beverly Hills because the boys went on like a robbery spree where they were like robbing their friends' houses when they were gone on spring break and stealing jewelry. Right. And, and Jose in the show is like, well, our name's Mudd here, like, we need to leave, like,

• 54:02Rich Roll?

  pack your bags, let's head to Beverly Hills and they split Calabasas. But I'm watching this thinking, wait, they lived in, they lived in Calabasas? Like, I need to find out where this house is. Oh no, you did that? So I go on Google and I'm like, I need to find, you know, where this, where this actually happened. And it turns out, I'm not going to give my address out on the podcast, but let's just say, I could walk to this house in less than five minutes.

• 54:29Rich Roll?

  So you got the beef house, you got the beef house too? That blew my mind. I was like, oh my God, these people like literally lived like just down the street from me. So that was wild. The second- They robbed your neighbors? The second, yeah, maybe. The second wild fact is, in the show, the first lawyer that they hired, and I think maybe they might've even hired him to help them get out of the, these robberies, or maybe it was their first criminal defense lawyer in the aftermath of, of the murder, is this guy Jerry Chalif. Okay. And Jerry is legendary criminal defense lawyer in Los Angeles, had an office in Santa Monica. And, um, and he ends up, uh, he ends up turning the case over to Robert Shapiro.

• 55:15Rich Roll?

  And then ultimately to Leslie Abrams. Right, right, right. Because Robert wasn't equipped to go to, he wanted to like get a plea or whatever. And they fired him and hired Leslie. And this intersects with my life because Jerry Chalif was my lawyer for my DUIs. Oh, really? Yeah. So when I got into trouble, I was working at this law firm in Century City. At the time, it was called Christianson Miller. Christianson Miller, Fink, Jacobs, Glazier, Weil, and Shapiro. Okay. Shapiro, standing for Robert Shapiro. Right. So I worked with a lot of the kind of high profile. These were civil litigators, but you know, often the clients would get into trouble with the law.

• 55:57Rich Roll?

  And that's where Robert and Leslie and Jerry would come in. And when I got in trouble, my boss, Skip Miller, was like, I need you to call this guy. I've already spoken to him. He's waiting for your call. His name is Jerry Chalif and here's his number. And so I felt like I had, I was, I was like, I have to do this, right? My job is on the line. I could be going to jail. But I was in no position to handle like paying a top defense, you know, like I was, I was like squandering my money. I didn't really have any money. But I called up Jerry and went to his office in Santa Monica. And he became my lawyer and he was, he was great. He was really helpful to me.

• 56:41Rich Roll?

  But one thing that he said to me, and this might've been in our first meeting, I was like so scared, like I was facing jail time. Right. Two DUIs in a row. Two, two? Yeah. Yeah. Um, within two months of each other. Right. Like this was not, and I talk about this in Finding Ultra. Yes. You've read my book. I've read the book. I tell the story. So, yeah. Anyway, I'm like, I'm, I'm in the throes of alcoholism, right? And I, and I'm, and I'm like, I can't go to jail. Like, don't you know who I think I am? Like, I'm this lawyer and I'm the, I'm, you know, like, I'm spinning this yarn about like, you gotta get me out of this, man. Like, I can't, this is, I, I'm not somebody who can go to jail. Do you understand, right? Yeah. And he looks at me and he goes, why not?

• 57:26Rich Roll?

  He goes, you're an alcoholic. You got two DUIs. You're a criminal. He goes, I'm not a, I'm not a miracle worker.

• 57:34Rich Roll?

  He just laid me out, right? Like with the hard truth.

• 57:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:39Rich Roll?

  And that really snapped me out of my denial and made me realize like the reality of my predicament, which of course was terrifying at the time. But there's a scene in Monsters where Jerry Chalif does the exact same thing to the, he basically gives that same speech to these brothers. And when I saw that, I was like, oh my God. I remember that, you know? It's wild.

• 58:01Speaker 01

  And when he comes to visit them in jail? Or before that?

• 58:05Rich Roll?

  I don't remember because I watched this like

• 58:07Speaker 01

  Right.

• 58:07Rich Roll?

  10 days ago or whatever. But I remember there, it might've been in his office or when he comes to visit. Yeah, he kind of, he gives some version of that. You saw that, right?

• 58:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 58:15Rich Roll?

  So anyway, my point being like, I got the same speech from that guy.

• 58:21Rich Roll?

  And then I end up working for Robert Shapiro, who's also appears in the show. It's wild. And I never had any interactions with Leslie Abramson. But I remember when I was working at that, like she was the thing. Like she was a big deal, you know?

• 58:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, of course.

• 58:37Rich Roll?

  Anyway.

• 58:37Speaker 01

  That's crazy.

• 58:38Rich Roll?

  So that was wild.

• 58:39Speaker 01

  That's wild.

• 58:40Rich Roll?

  To kind of remember that. And you know, LA law, man, it was a, it was a wild time. Like Christensen, the named partner in this law firm that I worked in, ended up going to prison

• 58:53Rich Roll?

  because of his hiring of Anthony Pellicano. Do you remember Anthony Pellicano? The, the, the private eye guy? Who he had hired to basically snoop info on Kirk Kirkorian's wife, you know, for their divorce trial or whatever, like illegally. Because his big client was Kirk Kirkorian, who owned MGM.

• 59:14Speaker 01

  Right.

• 59:15Rich Roll?

  Anyway, he went to jail and that was something that was covered in Vanity Fair by Dominic Dunn, who was also like played by Nathan Lane in the show. Like this is like, anyway.

• 59:25Speaker 01

  Amazing. You know what? If you listen to this episode, you're, you're now having a whole perception of LA. You were confirming all of Los Angeles stereotypes.

• 59:32Rich Roll?

  Right. Airwan.

• 59:34Speaker 01

  Calabasas.

• 59:36Rich Roll?

  Like it's all true.

• 59:37Speaker 01

  It's all true. It's all true of Calabasas. You know what? I, first of all, Javier Bardem and Chloe Sevigny. I mean, how amazing is that cast? And I thought, I think there's some really excellent performances. Woman who plays Leslie Abramson is great. Um, the kids are good. Yeah.

• 59:54Rich Roll?

  Well, speaking of, speaking of, uh, generational trauma, uh, you have some thoughts on the bear.

• 59:59Speaker 01

  Season three of the bear.

• 1:00:00Rich Roll?

  This is now officially a TV, movies and streaming podcast.

• 1:00:03Speaker 01

  Well, before we get into that, I have a new.

• 1:00:04Rich Roll?

  Should we launch a, uh, a kind of, uh, streaming movie review podcast as part of voicing change? Like, this is what I actually really like to do.

• 1:00:13Speaker 01

  I like this idea. Well, you know, I thought, you know, I was thinking about this in this morning when I was, or actually on my way here. I was like, the roly's, the roly's as I conceive them didn't work, but the roly's idea works. And if you did something like, I mean, this isn't your show, you do that show, but then it builds up to the roly's. And the roly's are best endurance performance of the year, best, best, so, single sport endurance performance of the year, best multi-sport endurance performance of the year, best adventure of the year. Uh, and then do a TV and movie and a book, six things.

• 1:00:45Rich Roll?

  Like a wild card.

• 1:00:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, six things.

• 1:00:47Rich Roll?

  Of like content. That sounds good. We can do that.

• 1:00:49Speaker 01

  That's a good idea, right?

• 1:00:50Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:51Rich Roll?

  We can do that. When should we do that?

• 1:00:53Speaker 01

  I think you gotta wait till the year's out and then we plan it for the spring, right? After you get back from Australia or something?

• 1:00:58Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that sounds good.

• 1:00:59Speaker 01

  Oscar season?

• 1:01:00Rich Roll?

  You have some choice thoughts about the bear in the meantime though, don't you?

• 1:01:02Speaker 01

  The bear, the bear season three is not going to make my nomination list. Uh, I, first of all, let me just say, bear season one is, I think, one of the greatest seasons in television history. I love it so much. Season two, I liked. I didn't love it. I love, and I love the Christmas episode. I love the certain episodes. We had this discussion when season two was going on. And I thought, I don't love it as much as season one, but obviously I respect it. Season three to me is not good. It's not only like not as good as one and two, it's not good. It's like nothing happens. Like there's no, not only is there no resolution, like the whole, like there's four episode, five episode lead up to the, they're gonna have, be a, there's gonna be a critic that comes.

• 1:01:43Speaker 01

  And you don't even find out like what the critic thinks. Like there's so, so little happens. And there's that. The second thing I didn't like about it was, um, Carmy and, correct me if I'm wrong, Carmy's cousin Richie. Carmy and Richie, the whole show have an antagonistic relationship. They say horrible things to you, each other, the entire show and get over it like that to get stuff done. And now suddenly. Richie can't get over it and Karmie can't get over it suddenly like they can't even talk about there's not and there's no even resolution about that like there's all it is is this weird subconscious ploy like it's all subconscious to the point where no one knows what's happening nothing happens so

• 1:02:25Speaker 01

  it's this it's a show about it's a good looking show where nothing really happens and no one and everyone becomes less likeable that's my that's my feeling of season

• 1:02:35Rich Roll?

  That's very harsh are you done?

• 1:02:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm done.

• 1:02:37Rich Roll?

  All right, I will grant you that there are challenges with the way that this season unfolded. But I will choose to interpret it charitably because I believe and I think this is true that that that one season got divided into two and I think that season three ended up getting kind of extended or or kind of you know strung out because they know the story they're gonna tell and that story which was originally meant to be season three got turned into two seasons and so I think it created a stall in the progression of like the character

• 1:03:21Rich Roll?

  development and the plot which may account for that and I understand what you're saying that's a lot of people are saying that I still love the show and I would say in in counterpoint that there were two episodes that stood out for me I mean I I agree like there's there's like these bottle episodes where nothing happens and you're just with one character and you know then you go back and you're like well nothing's changed etc. But the first episode tomorrow which is basically an entire kind of flashback episode with almost no dialogue I thought was so cool and different and fresh like without anybody saying anything you learn so much about the back like Karmie's backstory and you get to see him and I have

• 1:04:06Rich Roll?

  a soft spot for it because you see him at Noma and you see him like with Renee Redzepi and there's no words exchanged but you get the energy of like what he's learning and what he's kind of like what's happening to his brain as he's having these experiences and all of that informs you know his approach to food and why he's so maniacal about it and also all of the traumatic experiences that that you know create this drive that is not only

• 1:04:38Rich Roll?

  Making him insane, but also threatening to capsize the entire ship. Because it's like, why is getting a Michelin star so important? That they're all like, you know, basically gonna, you know, push themselves to this, you know, over, over this cliff to like, make something happen that ultimately, you know, is that of any meaning? When meanwhile, the only thing that's making money at this restaurant is the sandwich shop to the, to the side, which is like what they used to, you know what I mean? So it's like, it's in conversation with that. Like, is this, you know, what is really important here? And then the other episode that I love was the last one Funeral, where they're at Ever, that restaurant that Olivia Colman is the chef at. And I, and I just love seeing all the chefs talking.

• 1:05:21Rich Roll?

  And one of those chefs is Rosie O. Sanchez, who has a taqueria in Copenhagen that I actually went to. Like, she's part of that like Noma diaspora. And then, and when I went to, when I went to Noma and when I went to Sanchez, I was with Jeff Gordon, air, friend of the podcast, like food writer for, you know,

• 1:05:43Speaker 01

  Esquire.

• 1:05:43Rich Roll?

  Esquire and formerly New York Times. But also with Adam Platt, who is a food critic for, for New York Magazine.

• 1:05:52Speaker 01

  Oh, right, yes.

• 1:05:52Rich Roll?

  And he's Oliver Platt's brother.

• 1:05:54Speaker 01

  Yes, yes.

• 1:05:55Rich Roll?

  Right?

• 1:05:55Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:05:56Rich Roll?

  Who plays Uncle Jimmy. Thomas Keller is in that episode. Will, Will Guidera, who was partners with Daniel Hume in 11 Madison Park and wrote that book Unreasonable Hospitality.

• 1:06:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:06:07Rich Roll?

  Which is all about kind of what, what Richie learns, like,

• 1:06:11Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:06:12Rich Roll?

  how you serve people by surprising them and kind of going the extra mile. That was, that was built into the DNA of 11 Madison Park and kind of resonates, you know, in, in, in the bear and kind of the way that they approach service, which I thought was really cool. And I think, I think Will is a, if not a co-writer, like a consulting producer on the show.

• 1:06:30Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:06:31Rich Roll?

  So anyway.

• 1:06:32Speaker 01

  They all hate me now.

• 1:06:33Rich Roll?

  And you know what? Shout out Evan Ross, Evan Moss Bakarok. Like, he, he's just crushing.

• 1:06:37Speaker 01

  He's amazing. So let me, I want to just, I think it came out a little, I should have been more, more thoughtful in my approach because there's obviously great actors involved and I appreciate all the performances. I think the weakness here. Is in the writing because I think that it was the structure just stopped working for me as much as it worked in the first, the kind of the different structure worked and it just kind of stopped. I agree, the last episode was, the first and last were the two best episodes. I agree. I think that like, what annoys me is when the world you've created is now, like, when it doesn't make sense. When I'm questioning this choi- like, this, this, these characters who I love are doing things, you're like, that doesn't

• 1:07:19Speaker 01

  make sense. That doesn't, that actually doesn't track with Karmie season one. It doesn't track, Richie and Karmie's relationship is always been combustible. They've always kind of love-hated each other. And so I kind of like, maybe I just missed that there kind of being in the same scene.

• 1:07:34Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I know, I feel that, I feel that. I also feel like they, they sort of trumped up his relationship with his girlfriend, like, through flashbacks that were not earned. Like, it's like, was this that big of a deal, this relationship? Now we're supposed to think that it is when, I'm not sure they really established that.

• 1:07:51Speaker 01

  I never really liked that character anyway. Like, I didn't think that, like, I like, you know, that's not the character that I'm interested in. You know, that's, she's not, she would never really, she wasn't really of the show, of the essence of the show for me. So it's like, um, but, you know, it's, but, you know, maybe I'll tune in for season four, episode one.

• 1:08:11Rich Roll?

  Oh, come on. You know you will.

• 1:08:13Speaker 01

  I will, I will.

• 1:08:14Rich Roll?

  All right, let's move on. What else have you been enjoying?

• 1:08:16Speaker 01

  Okay, so I've watched, in terms of television, I'll keep it really quick, Colin from Accounts. It's on, I think it's on Paramount. It's on Paramount, yeah. Paramount Plus, we, oh no, it's, yeah, it is on Paramount. We actually had to re-sign up for Paramount to watch Colin from Accounts. It's an Australian comedy. Came out in 2022 on Australian TV and just came over to Paramount, I guess, last year. Maybe it came out earlier. But we just found out about it. And it's a rom-com about a late twenties med student and the guy she meets who's a forty-something owner of a brewery. And in the first two minutes of the, of the show, they meet because she's having a bad mo- rough morning and he's, he, she walks

• 1:09:00Speaker 01

  in the crosswalk and surprises him and he stops short. And then she, you know, is having boy problems and she flashes him just to kind of like- Whatever, and he can't believe it. And he's so like flabbergasted. He stares at her and then he starts going without seeing where he's going and he hits a dog. But the dog survives. And then those three, the dog and those two people, they actually then go and like they create a relationship. And so the dog is, they end up, she ends up having to move in with him. And it's, that all sounds very kind of, I guess, TV convenient, but it's hilariously funny.

• 1:09:41Speaker 01

  It's Australian sense of humor. It's completely irreverent. And I highly recommend it. And the couple are actually together in real life. They're actually married in real life. And the woman who plays the main character, it's, she's the writer creator.

• 1:09:57Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I've never even heard of this show.

• 1:09:58Speaker 01

  Colin from Accounts.

• 1:10:00Rich Roll?

  Amazing.

• 1:10:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, you must, you must watch it. And then I saw, I was lucky to go to see a screening of Maya and the Wave.

• 1:10:07Rich Roll?

  Hmm.

• 1:10:08Speaker 01

  And Maya and the Wave.

• 1:10:09Rich Roll?

  Hold on, while we're on Australia though.

• 1:10:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:10:11Rich Roll?

  Um, I would, I would supplement that with checking out the show by the Inspired Unemployed.

• 1:10:19Speaker 01

  Oh, yes.

• 1:10:19Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Do you know these guys? You hadn't heard of these guys?

• 1:10:22Speaker 01

  You turned me on to these guys. They're amazing.

• 1:10:24Rich Roll?

  I love these guys.

• 1:10:24Speaker 01

  They're amazing.

• 1:10:25Rich Roll?

  Australian blokes.

• 1:10:27Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:10:28Rich Roll?

  Who have been creating outrageous comedy on social media for a while with these like skits.

• 1:10:33Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:10:33Rich Roll?

  They're fantastic. They've exploded in Australia. And now, because of their popularity, get sent to like Formula One, and they were in Paris for the Olympics, and they've made hilarious videos with Ned Brockman and Cody Simpson. Like they just, like they have one with Jason Momoa. Like they get to put themselves in all these crazy situations. And they're, they're just really clever and hilarious. And they created a TV show that you could only see in Australia, but actually just today, and we're recording this a week before. It goes up. That show is now available on Max in the United States.

• 1:11:13Speaker 01

  And who's the main guy, like the skinny guy?

• 1:11:15Rich Roll?

  I don't know the real names.

• 1:11:16Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:11:16Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:16Speaker 01

  He is, I think he's like, an incredible performer. Like, he can dance, he can, he's hilariously funny. He kinda reminds me, I was telling you, I thought, like, there's something about them that is part, kinda part Key and Peele, part punked, part, you know,

• 1:11:34Rich Roll?

  Yeah, there's definitely some, there's definitely some punked in there.

• 1:11:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And they, and he, like, in a way-

• 1:11:40Rich Roll?

  And a little jackass, nothing too crazy, but that, that kind of like, attitude.

• 1:11:45Speaker 01

  And a little bit like, broad Jim Carrey, like, really early Jim Carrey. Not to, obviously, Jim Carrey's a once in a generation guy, but like, he's good. That guy's very good. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:11:55Rich Roll?

  They're funny.

• 1:11:56Speaker 01

  And that's just the Australian sense of humor and that kind of, it's just different. And it made me think, the reason I brought it up before, when we were talking about this, is, I can't remember an American comedy that I laughed as much as Colin from Accounts in a long time. The last comedy I remember laughing out loud that much was Moms, the first season. I don't know if you ever saw Moms. And that is a Canadian show. And so it's like, where's the American comedies that like, are make, you know, aside from South Park, you know, when it comes on or something, where are those?

• 1:12:25Rich Roll?

  Good question.

• 1:12:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:12:26Rich Roll?

  Anyway. All right, Maya Gabbera?

• 1:12:29Speaker 01

  Maya Gabbera.

• 1:12:30Rich Roll?

  Gabbera.

• 1:12:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:12:31Rich Roll?

  Why did I miss, miss, miss, I don't know, misremember her last name?

• 1:12:35Speaker 01

  Is it, yeah, Maya Gabbera. She's a, you might know her. She's the Brazilian big wave surfer. I did a story about her for the New York Times in 2020. There's a documentary about her that just came out. Stephanie Johns is the filmmaker. And Stephanie was with her for a 10-year period. So you're seeing 10 years of Maya's life story. And what's interesting about this doc is, there's stuff that I didn't know, you know, I, I never, I didn't quite understand when the New York Times story hit, what that meant in the context of her life, but basically, I knew that she had been,

• 1:13:13Speaker 01

  when she started to take on the big waves in Chopo, in Tahiti, that first time she had an, she, she got, she wiped out in a huge wave, and she got a lot of shit for it afterwards. Like, you know, you're endangering X, Y, and Z. Some very big-name surfers were openly critical of her.

• 1:13:35Speaker 01

  But she kept after it and Red Bull hooked her up with another surfer, a mentor. He's in this. Name is Carlos Berlay, I think. He's a Brazilian surfer. And he was 40 at the time and he took her on and they started to tow in at Nazaré. And then she's kind of building up, building up, building up to it, but she has injuries and she's kind of finally gets into one and then she wipes out and basically almost dies. She passes out, she gets dragged to the shore, she gets brought back to life. And then she goes through a period where she's so injured, she can't do anything. She can't move. She's got herniated discs. She's had, she has three back surgeries.

• 1:14:18Speaker 01

  She loses all her sponsors and then she comes back and she breaks the world record for women's big wave surfing. And then she becomes the person that surfs the biggest wave that year, breaking even Garrett's original world record at Nazaré. Right. He had 70 feet, she gets to 73 feet. So it's that story and that's kind of the broad strokes of it, but it's everything she had to fight for because when she first broke the record for women's, the biggest wave a woman's ever surfed, I didn't realize how much that was denied. I didn't realize that the WSL pretended it didn't happen. She had to mount a months-long campaign through social media, getting petitions signed to get that acknowledged by the Guinness Book of World Records and by the WSL.

• 1:15:03Speaker 01

  It wasn't acknowledged for months and months. And then when this wave happened that I wrote about, even then, it's not in the movie, but I found out after the fact that even that, the same thing happened again. And what's interesting about this, this is a great film. If you like A Hundred Foot Wave, if you love great stories about women overcoming odds or people overcoming odds, it doesn't have to be a woman or women athletes. This movie hits on so many levels and it's beautifully shot with a skeleton crew. 10 years, over 10 years, you're in the apartment with Maya. You meet her family. You see the struggle she goes through. You're in the pre-op and post-op. I mean, you see it all.

• 1:15:44Speaker 01

  And what's strange about this movie is that it doesn't have a streaming partner. It's winning, it wins festivals.

• 1:15:52Rich Roll?

  And no one's picking it up.

• 1:15:54Speaker 01

  And no one picked it up.

• 1:15:55Rich Roll?

  It's in parallel, it's in conversation with her own personal story with surfing, right? Her challenges trying to establish herself in that world are now echoing in the challenges presented by trying to get a distributor for this film. I know they've been having screenings all over Santa Monica and a bunch of people have reached out to me, "You gotta go see it, and Maya's in LA, you gotta get her on." I DM'd her, she doesn't follow me, so I didn't hear back from her, but, you know, it's an incredible story.

• 1:16:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I think there's gonna be a time for you to, we'll get her on here, because she is, it's an incredible story, and then the film itself, Stephanie is doing this campaign that's happening now where she's taking the film around, it was in New York, then it's here, now it's going to the Bay Area, and she's gonna continue that. That's to make sure it qualifies for the Oscars, and so if it gets a nomination, maybe that restarts some sort of conversation about getting a streaming partner.

• 1:16:52Rich Roll?

  So they're just, they're four-walling these screenings for Oscar consideration. Basically, like, they're paying out of their own pockets to put it in a theater so that you get the, you qualify.

• 1:17:01Speaker 01

  And they're going up against a system where, like, Apple, Netflix, they pay these theaters to, like, sometimes Netflix owns the theater, and then sometimes...

• 1:17:10Rich Roll?

  Which used to be an antitrust violation. There's a famous Supreme Court case that you learn in law school about the vertical integration of the studios, being where, you know, it used to be, like, the studios did own all the theaters, and they had to disconnect all of that. So it's confusing to me that Netflix could own theaters.

• 1:17:29Speaker 01

  But you kinda need to now, in order to keep going to the movie theaters, a thing, because the economy has changed, and people aren't gonna go to the movie theaters. So I don't mind that, but there has to be systems and guardrails in place where indie movies can find a foothold, but like, in this case, like, she's going to, for her to get a screening at 7:30 at night for a week in a film in New York, that's not easy. That's a lot of, and it's just her doing it. So Stephanie Johns is the filmmaker, I'll make sure all the socials are all linked for you. Maya Gaber is the athlete, it's a phenomenal, phenomenal film. I highly recommend it, and, yeah.

• 1:18:06Rich Roll?

  Cool.

• 1:18:07Speaker 01

  Hopefully we get her on streaming somewhere.

• 1:18:09Rich Roll?

  Yeah. What's the name of the movie called?

• 1:18:12Speaker 01

  Maya and the Wave.

• 1:18:13Rich Roll?

  Maya and the Wave. Is there a website for that?

• 1:18:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, let me find it here. Maya, let's see. It is Maya and the Wave.

• 1:18:21Rich Roll?

  I think that's a good place to kind of end this streaming conversation, although I did have... I would just say my favorite show of the year is Ripley. I think it's the best show. Just a beautiful work of art by Steve Zelen. Yeah, it's really exquisite. So if you haven't seen that, check that out. And I did happen to go see a movie called The Substance, which is just absolutely insane. Another thing turned up to 11, this David Cronenberg-esque sort of body horror commentary on beauty standards and aging with like a very stylized like Nicholas Refn kind of vibe to it. Did you see Drive?

• 1:18:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, I love Drive.

• 1:18:58Rich Roll?

  It has a little bit of that sensibility to it. It stars Margaret Qualley and Demi Moore. And Demi Moore, who I think she's 60, 61 now? I don't know if I've seen her in a movie in 20 years.

• 1:19:09Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:19:10Rich Roll?

  Shows up and just lays out like a really brave performance. Like she's a badass in this film, like totally committed. This is not for everybody. I won't spoil it. It's utterly unique, though. It's jarring. It's original. And it's a satire also fundamentally, but I've never seen anything like it. It's just like insane.

• 1:19:31Speaker 01

  Well, I saw what you told me about it and I kind of did a little Googling. It seems like definitely something I'm interested in. It's weird and tortured.

• 1:19:38Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:39Speaker 01

  Yeah. I just want to say the creator of Calling from Accounts is Harriet Dyer. Because I said the woman. I just want to make sure. Harriet Dyer gets her due credit and Patrick Bramall plays the love interest.

• 1:19:55Rich Roll?

  Got it. I'm going to check it out.

• 1:19:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:19:57Rich Roll?

  All right, let's take a break and we'll do some listener questions.

• 1:20:11Rich Roll?

  Before we get into listener questions, I think you have a question you want to ask me.

• 1:20:15Speaker 01

  Yes, on the back of The Substance, I sent you this link to a New York Times article about these anti-aging enthusiasts. Anti-aging enthusiasts are taking a pill to extend their lives. It's called rapamycin. The question is, and you brought up The Substance, would you take a pill like rapamycin, recommended by the Peter Attias and the other enthusiasts of the world, doctors, even off-label, even though it's not for that purpose, just because it gives you more energy, it makes you feel more youthful, makes you more youthful maybe, without knowing the long-term consequences? What's the red line? Would you take anything like that?

• 1:20:54Rich Roll?

  Well, with rapamycin specifically, that's a little bit different because there is a fair amount of science and, you know, I think Peter is no longer taking it.

• 1:21:04Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:21:04Rich Roll?

  If I'm not mistaken, I don't know, I didn't read that article that you sent me.

• 1:21:08Speaker 01

  Brian Johnson is...

• 1:21:08Rich Roll?

  Is Brian Johnson taking it?

• 1:21:10Speaker 01

  That's what it says in this.

• 1:21:11Rich Roll?

  Well, Adam, because I just watched The Substance, I have learned something. And what I have learned is that there is no free lunch, and the universe has to find a way to bring itself into balance. And so, for every, you know, for every take, there's going to be a give.

• 1:21:32Speaker 01

  Yes. That's true.

• 1:21:34Rich Roll?

  Because that's just the law of physics, right?

• 1:21:37Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:21:37Rich Roll?

  So, I'm very leery of anything that makes big promises about stuff like that.

• 1:21:45Speaker 01

  Okay, I won't take it.

• 1:21:46Rich Roll?

  And they're all like, listen, I'm 58, like, I've been around, right? Like, you don't get anything for free. There's always a cost. And so, what is that cost?

• 1:21:55Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:21:56Rich Roll?

  And when you don't know what the cost is, I think prudence is in check. And this is really kind of like what The Substance is about.

• 1:22:03Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:22:04Rich Roll?

  Like, how far are you willing to go to recapture youth? And what happens when you make that Faustian bargain, basically?

• 1:22:12Speaker 01

  Right. And Peter Attia is not taking it anymore?

• 1:22:14Rich Roll?

  Uh, I don't know. I don't want to misspeak.

• 1:22:17Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 1:22:17Rich Roll?

  I thought I read something about that or heard something about that. But he's the one who is super into the science of this...

• 1:22:26Rich Roll?

  This compound and the potential that it holds for unlocking something about rejuvenation or health span.

• 1:22:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:22:36Rich Roll?

  But I'm no scientist and I don't play one on the internet.

• 1:22:38Speaker 01

  And you don't take Robamycin?

• 1:22:40Rich Roll?

  I do not.

• 1:22:41Speaker 01

  All right. I won't take it either, even though it just came in from Budapest.

• 1:22:44Rich Roll?

  It's sitting in your, it's sitting on, it's sitting on your bedstand and you're just staring at it, wondering whether you should take it?

• 1:22:51Speaker 01

  Well, I was gonna call Alex Honnold and see if I should take it.

• 1:22:53Rich Roll?

  I mean, it's not like Ozempic or something like that. You know, I think it's, anyway, let's move on.

• 1:22:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, we're not taking Ozempic either.

• 1:23:00Rich Roll?

  Are you gonna read this one? Most of these questions that we're gonna answer now, actually all of them, were taken from an Instagram post where I let people type in their questions. Usually we take voicemails, but that's what we're gonna do today.

• 1:23:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm the, I'm, this mailbag, I'm the reader.

• 1:23:16Rich Roll?

  Go for it.

• 1:23:17Speaker 01

  "I saw that you will soon have another recording with Adam, and we're asking the people for some questions. I know the hot topic is now Camille Harris, but I wanted to go a bit deeper in the issue. I would like to know how do you think we, as consumers, and people that get inspired by many of the teachings that are shared on your show, should cope with the disappointment of seeing someone you see as a guiding light make things that are against the basic love of your fellow human attitude?"

• 1:23:42Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Camille Heron, not Camille Harris.

• 1:23:46Speaker 01

  Oh, it says Harris, sorry.

• 1:23:48Rich Roll?

  But, yeah, it's an interesting thing that has happened. For people that don't know, Camille Heron is a very successful and accomplished world record-holding ultra runner who has performed insane feats of ultra endurance, predominantly on pavement. She's not a trail athlete, she's a, she's a road athlete, and a former podcast guest. She came on the show, she told her story, and a controversy has emerged that pivots around Wikipedia. Apparently, Camille and her husband have been caught up in a scandal concerning the

• 1:24:28Rich Roll?

  doctoring of Wikipedia pages of other athletes like Courtney Dewalter and Killian Journe as well as some other athletes, and the ultra marathon Wikipedia page, removing accolades or like sort of downgrading, you know, some of these accomplishments or the adjectives that are used to describe these people.

• 1:24:48Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:24:49Rich Roll?

  While also like padding Camille's page with unwarranted superlatives, which are kind of verboten on Wikipedia, right? And doing this via like these sock puppet accounts. And there's been a lot of press. There's articles on Outside and Running Magazine, Canada, et cetera. If you Google it, you can, you can read all about it. Sponsors are now dropping her. Camille made a statement the other day, which is, which was a little weird. It was sort of like, we're good people. You know, I've been bullied a lot. I've got this mental health stuff. We don't deserve what's happening. She didn't deny what had happened. And her husband, Connor Holt, actually issued a statement where he admitted

• 1:25:33Rich Roll?

  that he was the one who was managing these sock puppet accounts and like, you know, basically perpetrating these, these misdeeds. And so this has caused quite the earthquake in the ultra-running community. There's lots of Reddit threads about it and lots of message board threads on Let's Run and places like that.

• 1:25:54Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:25:55Rich Roll?

  Where people are sort of decrying this behavior, which is certainly like bad behavior. You know, it's like, it's disappointing, you know, like really? Like, like who, why do you feel the need that you have to like, like, cast aspersions on other amazing athletes and, and great people? And then try to buttress your own? Like, it's just, it's weird, you know? And I don't care if there's an excuse or a reason. Like, this is just terrible, terrible behavior. So it's just concerning, it's disappointing. And, and it's especially so since she's somebody that I, you know, brought on the show and celebrated. And, and it calls into question like my own, like I reflect back, like, do I have bad judgment? Do I have bad character judgment? Are my instincts wrong?

• 1:26:39Rich Roll?

  Or, you know, is this, you know, like, I wasn't there. I don't know what happened. Everybody's got their side of the story. And I'm certainly not excusing anybody's behavior here.

• 1:26:52Rich Roll?

  But as somebody who's hosted a podcast for like a long time, right? Eight hundred and fifty or whatever conversations like people are people. We're all flawed and, and you know, something like this is bound to happen where somebody you celebrated like a couple of years later does something and you're like, well, I mean, I can't be held responsible for that or whatever. Like it's, it's, it's a bummer, but these kinds of things happen. I mean, look at Eric Adams. He's being indicted. Like I had him on the podcast.

• 1:27:21Speaker 01

  I know.

• 1:27:22Rich Roll?

  I mean, we just talked about his health stuff. Like we didn't talk about politics or policy, but it's like.

• 1:27:26Speaker 01

  We didn't ask him his feelings on Turkey.

• 1:27:28Rich Roll?

  I did not. I did not dive deep into his, you know, travel.

• 1:27:32Speaker 01

  His love of Turkey.

• 1:27:33Rich Roll?

  The former Ottoman Empire.

• 1:27:35Speaker 01

  Love of Turkey. Hey, listen, I mean, Eric Adams, that's a great podcast, by the way.

• 1:27:40Rich Roll?

  But the point is the same, like, like, hold your heroes lightly, I guess, is the answer to the question because, you know, we're all, we're all flawed, you know, as I said a moment ago, and, and, and can we celebrate the best parts of people while also acknowledging, you know, their weaknesses and misdeeds?

• 1:28:01Speaker 01

  I think so.

• 1:28:02Rich Roll?

  This is something you, you have to contend with in art, you know, when your favorite artist does something horrible, are you allowed to still enjoy their art or do you have to put it aside and say, I can't indulge in that anymore?

• 1:28:14Speaker 01

  That's a personal question, right? Every time with every artist and everything that comes out. I mean, look, to me, it seems like, A, this couple loves Wikipedia. I mean, what I unpack from this.

• 1:28:26Rich Roll?

  First of all, like, what do they, what is anybody achieving? Like, is everybody, like, is anybody's mind being changed because of a sentence here or there on Wikipedia? Like, why are we so deep into Wikipedia on this?

• 1:28:37Speaker 01

  Because they love Wikipedia. They have an unhealthy relationship with Wikipedia. That's one. And the second thing I think is they have an unhealthy relationship with their competitive side. And so what happens, I think, it's a mistake, right? They made a mistake. They didn't harm anybody physically. It's like, to me, it's like.

• 1:28:53Rich Roll?

  It's deeply uncool.

• 1:28:54Speaker 01

  It's deeply uncool and they, they have a deeply uncool competitive streak where they're just like, their competitive streak is making them do things that are ridiculous. And that's what's happening here. That's my, that's my, I don't know them, but that's what I'm guessing. And I'm guessing a guy like Killian, who we've talked to a couple of times.

• 1:29:12Speaker 01

  Is laughing about it. Like, I'm sure he bothers him.

• 1:29:14Rich Roll?

  Right, these people, like, do you think Courtney and Killian are like all worked up about this? No, they're just off, like, living their best life and being awesome.

• 1:29:21Speaker 01

  They're too busy training, to be quite honest with you.

• 1:29:23Rich Roll?

  Right, so it's sort of that meme of Chad Lacroix looking at Michael Phelps as they're nearing the, you know, the end of the 100 butterfly, and the idea that winners are looking forward and the losers are looking at what the competition is doing. Like, this is sort of a version of that meme, I guess, on some level.

• 1:29:43Speaker 01

  It is.

• 1:29:44Rich Roll?

  Which is just, it's just unfortunate, it just makes me sad. Especially in a sport that has sort of celebrated for having some relationship with purity, you know, like, being unvarnished by the kind of behavior that you're more likely to see where a lot of money is involved.

• 1:30:03Speaker 01

  That's true.

• 1:30:03Rich Roll?

  So, anyway.

• 1:30:04Speaker 01

  But that competitive streak, that doesn't go, that doesn't just follow money, you know, that's the thing.

• 1:30:08Rich Roll?

  Well, you don't break world records unless you got, you know, some kind of engine in you.

• 1:30:14Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 1:30:14Rich Roll?

  And so sometimes that ekes out into bad behavior.

• 1:30:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, it'd be interesting to see if there's an injury involved, can't channel it right, you know, it'd be interesting to see. Or maybe it really is her husband doing it without her knowing. Okay, what is your favorite part of the interview process? And what is your least favorite part?

• 1:30:32Rich Roll?

  Hmm. I mean, my favorite part is getting to know cool people and then having the opportunity to develop a relationship with them, and then getting to enjoy when the conversation that I host and the message that they convey gets shared with the world, and then the world receives that and is appreciative of that, like, it's meaningful to them. Like, it's just the coolest thing. Like, I love my job, it's the greatest job in the world, and there's so many parts of it that are favorites, I would say.

• 1:31:07Rich Roll?

  It's just such a privilege to be able to find somebody in the world who you think is amazing and then convince them to come to you, like, sit here for a couple hours and like, talk to you, and you get to ask them whatever you want, and you get to repay that by, you know, giving value to them, by honoring them, but also, you know, sharing broadly, like, what they have to say. Like, it's just a cool, everything about it is really meaningful to me and beautiful. And so I just, I love, I love all of it. I think something that's particularly meaningful or a favorite is when, when I can help to create

• 1:31:51Rich Roll?

  an environment that is comfortable enough that the guest really opens up in a vulnerable way, and maybe in a way that they haven't before, like, that always feels special. And when those moments occur, which, you know, aren't that, aren't that often or frequent, like, that's, that's always really special. And then, just being surprised by something that they say, because I do a lot of prep,

• 1:32:14Rich Roll?

  and I'm experimenting with less prep now, especially since I'm working on this book, to see what happens, because if you do too much prep, then the chances or the likelihood that they're going to surprise you, you know, gets reduced, because you've, like, listened to all the podcasts and read all the, but you kind of like, know what they're going to say, which drains the experience of the possibility of surprise. And so I'm playing now with, like, really holding back from preparing as much as I typically do. I used to think that all, I would pride myself on how much prep that I did. And I know it shows, and it's a way of honoring the guest when they know that you've really shown up, and you've done your homework and everything like that. But there's also a piece of it that is about insecurity, like, you know,

• 1:32:59Rich Roll?

  "Oh, I can't just, you know, handle this conversation unless I have this, like, safety net, because I've done so much work, and what would it, what would it be like if I do enough prep, so that I am respecting the guest?" But I leave enough of it aside, so that I can have those surprises, and also to, to challenge myself and...

• 1:33:19Rich Roll?

  And put myself in a position where I'm forced to be more present because I don't have it all mapped out, like where I want to lead and I have to be really listening in order to know like, okay, what, where is the next place to take this? So anyway.

• 1:33:34Speaker 01

  And the vice versa, the reverse could also be true. You could be so caught up in your notes and your plan that you actually miss this left turn.

• 1:33:41Rich Roll?

  Yeah, because you're not paying attention or whatever. Or you're so, you're so insecure that you're just thinking about like, oh my God, when this person is done saying this, what am I going to say next? You're thinking about that, which, you know, I'm pretty good at not doing.

• 1:33:52Speaker 01

  That's not you. That is not you.

• 1:33:53Rich Roll?

  I'm pretty good at not doing, but like that, that, you know, that can happen. Like I'll have like a moment and I'll be like, oh my God, I lost my train of thought.

• 1:33:58Speaker 01

  Right. Yeah. Yeah.

• 1:33:59Rich Roll?

  And then I forget like, well, this isn't live anyway. Like, you know.

• 1:34:02Speaker 01

  That's true.

• 1:34:02Rich Roll?

  Not that we, you know, do that much editing, but you know, that's easily rectified. Anyway. But my least favorite part is publicist interference. This is, this is really the nadir of this podcasting experience. And again, this is a very like privileged complaint because I'm in a position to host guests that actually have publicists. And a lot of publicists are great and they help do all the background stuff and the scheduling and the outreach. Like a lot of the guests that I have are because a publicist emailed me and said, Hey, you know, would you like to have this person on? So I'm not disparaging the, the, the, you know, corporate

• 1:34:46Rich Roll?

  infrastructure of publicity at large. But I think, um, I think what can happen and what I've seen happen is publicists with good intentions feel the need to assert themselves because they feel like they're not doing their job if they don't. And sometimes those insertions, while perhaps well intended, end up like derailing. Like they work at cross purposes with the goal, which is to like, how can we create a piece of content that's going to celebrate this person and put them in the best light possible and create a really meaningful experience for the audience? And

• 1:35:26Rich Roll?

  You know, it's not unusual for a publicist to come in and put guardrails up or say, "We have to be done by this time," or "This person can't do this or that." And that all happens kind of like behind the scenes. And that's like really not fun. And is kind of a drag.

• 1:35:46Speaker 01

  Does that happen more with like really well-known guests versus?

• 1:35:49Rich Roll?

  Yeah, but I've had great experiences with publicists with really well-known guests and bad experiences with publicists of lesser-known guests. It's not like a universal thing. It's not like, oh, the bigger they are, the more... I mean, the bigger somebody is, the more cooks there are in the kitchen. And there's a lot of kind of people in their wheelhouse. And you know, part of engaging with those people is you kind of have to like, you have to work with those people, right? And that's fine. That's part of like this whole thing, and that's great. But it's only when it starts to interfere with the content itself. Like, I'll tell a story, and I won't name the guest, but I had a guest on. And we were, I don't know, 45 minutes into this podcast that was meant to be two hours.

• 1:36:33Rich Roll?

  And I got a note handed to me by a team member that said, "The guest has a hard out and has to like leave like in five minutes," or whatever. And I don't want to make the guest late for anything or cause the guest problems. I'm always trying to work with them and honor their constraints and like meet their needs, etc. So I ended up ending this podcast quite early, only to discover that there was no hard out, like they just didn't want to be in traffic or something like that. And this was at the behest of the publicist. And the guest is never the problem. The guest is always fine. Like, they don't even know what's going on. Like, they're cool. So, anyway, I'm not saying it happens a lot, but it does happen from time to time.

• 1:37:18Rich Roll?

  And it's led me to have to create kind of rules around, like beforehand, like making clear, like, "This is what we're doing, and this is the, you know, it has to be this amount of time. And you're welcome to sit and, you know, be in the studio while it's happening, but no interference," and all that kind of stuff. And it still happens from time to time. So I would say that's my least favorite.

• 1:37:39Speaker 01

  Publicists that don't like traffic. Well, then, no come to the West Valley, publicists. We eat, we eat traffic for breakfast.

• 1:37:46Rich Roll?

  And I'm all like, being a people pleaser, like I'm sensitive to the fact that like my studio is not close, you know, it's like somebody like a bigger person who's like doing a lot of media like it's a great imposition for them to come all the way out here.

• 1:37:57Speaker 01

  It's really not that big a deal. And you know what? You're going against traffic on the way home. So they're traffic, their traffic radar was off.

• 1:38:04Rich Roll?

  Is there such a thing as going against traffic in Los Angeles?

• 1:38:06Speaker 01

  They should have dialed an Angelino. Dial an Angelino, Born in Bro.

• 1:38:09Rich Roll?

  All right, next question.

• 1:38:10Speaker 01

  All right. When is Julie coming back on the pod?

• 1:38:14Rich Roll?

  Uh, next week.

• 1:38:15Speaker 01

  All right.

• 1:38:16Rich Roll?

  So, asked and answered.

• 1:38:18Speaker 01

  Okay, good.

• 1:38:19Rich Roll?

  Next one.

• 1:38:20Speaker 01

  I'd love to interview Julie, by the way.

• 1:38:21Rich Roll?

  Oh, really?

• 1:38:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:38:23Rich Roll?

  You should.

• 1:38:23Speaker 01

  I talk all about Alaska.

• 1:38:24Rich Roll?

  She'd probably love to be interviewed by you.

• 1:38:26Speaker 01

  All right, there you go. We're gonna make it happen.

• 1:38:30Speaker 01

  Uh, you talk a lot about growth and how far you've come. What are your current flaws? Wait, wait. Which current flaws are you working on now? Which of your many?

• 1:38:40Rich Roll?

  There's so many. I mean, like, how many hours are we gonna?

• 1:38:44Speaker 01

  Did someone ask you on Instagram?

• 1:38:46Rich Roll?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. What are your current, what are the current flaws?

• 1:38:48Speaker 01

  What are your current flaws that you're working on? Let's go.

• 1:38:50Rich Roll?

  I feel like I'm pretty open book on my flaws.

• 1:38:52Speaker 01

  You are, you are, you are.

• 1:38:53Rich Roll?

  I have, I have tons of flaws. I think it's, it's more a question of like which flaws are like coming up and interfering with my well-being the most at the current, at the current moment. You know, as I, as I said to you on the phone this morning, like I'm, I'm a little worn out. I've been grinding. Workaholism is a, is a real thing. And so that's a flaw that I'm working on, like not falling into the trap of allowing myself to be defined by work. And I think with that, like doing a better job of liberating myself from the many opinions of the many others that can, that can imprison you and to which I admit to feeling captured from time to time.

• 1:39:37Rich Roll?

  Um, I've got a lot on my plate and, and I kind of shoulder that responsibility heavily. So it's wearing me out. I've been a little more fatigued than normal, uh, as I'm trying to figure out like to, a way of, of like holding on to all of this stuff a little, a little bit more lightly.

• 1:39:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:39:55Rich Roll?

  You know, with a little more levity and finding a way to turn. Work into more of a playful thing.

• 1:40:03Speaker 01

  You know what?

• 1:40:03Rich Roll?

  And I just, you know, when I hear people start talking about play, I start to get like, you know, that's a real struggle for me.

• 1:40:11Speaker 01

  Play?

• 1:40:12Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:40:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:40:12Rich Roll?

  Make it play.

• 1:40:14Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:40:14Rich Roll?

  And I'm like, really? I don't know, man. That's a leap. That's a leap that I have not, that I have not taken. I mean, I think

• 1:40:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:40:22Rich Roll?

  There's a lot of wisdom in that because I think, you know, I'm somebody who, who's made their way in the world through like this grinding mentality. And like, if you're not suffering, you're not working hard enough. And if you haven't like bled out and left it all on the field, then you're holding back. And I'm always trying to figure out like, have I pushed myself hard enough? And, and with that, there's a lot of self judgment, I think. When in truth, especially with creative things, like if you can, if you can release those reins and, and inhabit more of a kind of a playful state about what you're doing, you're making space for more creative inspiration. But those two approaches are like in, in, in conflict with each other, sort of, right?

• 1:41:05Rich Roll?

  So that's always like a tension that I'm trying to

• 1:41:08Speaker 01

  It's a balancing thing.

• 1:41:08Rich Roll?

  Figure out. Yeah.

• 1:41:10Speaker 01

  That's it. You know, I relate to that because I had this experience sending a manuscript out to publishers and I held, I was like, we talked about, I was gripping so hard the first few weeks. It was like, the first week was fine, but then I was gripping so hard after that. And I don't want to get too into detail about it, but like, I just,

• 1:41:30Speaker 01

  I wished at that moment, I was a different human being, like that someone who could not care or not, not care, because you're going to care, but like, hold it lighter. Like, why does it have to be this huge burden? It doesn't actually matter. The outcome of it is going to change my life really in any

• 1:41:46Rich Roll?

  And holding, holding on tightly to it. Not only is it going to help the situation, usually like you're, you're constricting the energy.

• 1:41:55Speaker 01

  Right, well, it feels that way.

• 1:41:56Rich Roll?

  Because you have an outcome that you're attached to, right?

• 1:41:58Speaker 01

  It feels that way.

• 1:41:59Rich Roll?

  And if you can like let go of that, you're actually in a better kind of energetic position

• 1:42:02Speaker 01

  You just feel better.

• 1:42:03Rich Roll?

  To, to, to have that outcome occur.

• 1:42:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, you just feel better. You're not grinding yourself down. So it's interesting. I thought you were going to get into this whole thing with the flaws when you have work a lot. How does, remember those when people would say, like on, on, on dates? What are your flaws? Well, I'm just driven to be successful. I care too much about my business. I'm so successful that I, I can't relax and I probably worked too hard in the gym.

• 1:42:28Rich Roll?

  I just care too much.

• 1:42:30Speaker 01

  This six pack, I gotta keep it shiny.

• 1:42:34Rich Roll?

  Is this your flaw, Adam? What is your, what are your flaws? Let's get into it.

• 1:42:38Speaker 01

  Oh my God. We, how long do we have?

• 1:42:43Speaker 01

  My current flaws that I'm working on, I think are just that, like my current, my major flaw is insomnia. That's my major flaw.

• 1:42:49Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Yeah, well, if that's your flaw, like then, then, uh, nothing else works in your life.

• 1:42:55Speaker 01

  Right, that is my flaw. Things are working, but like, it's just my, how I feel about, like, and I, I will say this. I came through this period where I was feeling like, so, like, I came, I, I hit this few, two week, three week period where I was like, God, I feel so optimistic about the world. And then I stopped sleeping.

• 1:43:17Speaker 01

  And it crashed, crashed and burned, but I still feel pretty good.

• 1:43:21Rich Roll?

  Yeah, your worldview will shift quickly.

• 1:43:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:43:23Rich Roll?

  When, uh, sleep disappears.

• 1:43:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know. I, my, my, I, I think my flaws are, some of my flaws are here to stay. Unfortunately.

• 1:43:34Rich Roll?

  Don't be so defeatist. I think that brings us to our next question.

• 1:43:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, let's see.

• 1:43:37Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that's very relevant to our final question of the day.

• 1:43:41Speaker 01

  Why are you obsessed with the nature of change and transformation?

• 1:43:44Rich Roll?

  I'm just, I'm too attached to solving Adam's dilemma of thinking that he's gonna have to live with these flaws his whole life. And I would like to empower him to, to feel like he could, he could overcome them, that he could transcend these flaws. Do you think that's possible?

• 1:43:59Speaker 01

  I have a thought. Well, I have a, so, over the last seven years, I had, I broke a foot. Then I tore a tendon in that foot. Then I had a herniated disc in my low back. Then I had an impingement in my shoulder and then a herniation in my neck. And that's happened over like the course and the, since like I hurt my foot, it's kinda come up over the last year where it just keeps coming up higher in the body. And there was a period of time where I thought, man. I like just can't catch a break physically like what is happening all I used to be so healthy all the time and what is going on and then what I realized is going through this PT and it's really kind of crystallized when I got finally got back to running is

• 1:44:40Speaker 01

  that all of this stuff is I've been slouching my whole life and everyone has been told told me I'm sorry it's not like my posture is all of a sudden great but it's much better and my running posture is much better everything is better for this injury thing that I thought was dragging me down everything is I'm getting better through this process and I know that that's something we hear a million times um so that change where I've been slouching since my whole life I'm actually probably my posture has never been better even though it's not good but it's never been better than it is now um since I'm like a toddler probably and so I think that there is there is always a chance for change I shouldn't have said some of my flaws are here to stay

• 1:45:19Rich Roll?

  Yeah, yeah, uh, that's a good story.

• 1:45:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:45:22Rich Roll?

  You sticking with that story?

• 1:45:24Speaker 01

  Well, it's it's you know how about this? I've been running a while nobody has ever told complimented me on how I look during a run like if they see me coming and I'm breathing hard they'll be like you're you're like okay bro you're going hard like no one's ever said hey you're looking good no one's ever said looking good to me when I run past them until this last run.

• 1:45:43Rich Roll?

  Oh, that happened.

• 1:45:44Speaker 01

  Two times.

• 1:45:45Rich Roll?

  That happened.

• 1:45:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, cuz my running posture I'm much I'm more like Robbie Ballinger now.

• 1:45:49Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 1:45:50Speaker 01

  You know Robbie's kind of way upright.

• 1:45:51Rich Roll?

  Yeah, he's very, very upright.

• 1:45:52Speaker 01

  I've gone upright.

• 1:45:53Rich Roll?

  Wow.

• 1:45:54Speaker 01

  And that allows me to gauge my core which allows me to engage my glutes and it's not just my I'm just running with my full body now.

• 1:46:00Rich Roll?

  Interesting.

• 1:46:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:46:02Rich Roll?

  That's great. You are a change agent.

• 1:46:04Speaker 01

  Robbie Ballinger.

• 1:46:05Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:46:06Speaker 01

  Thank you Robbie.

• 1:46:07Rich Roll?

  The story that I wanted to focus on though in that and then I'll get to my answer to this question is how you recounted like this happened and then this happened and this injury and that injury and that and like you're telling me this and I'm like okay those things are all true but you've now created this story like all every all my physical stuff is bad like these are all the things that have that have happened that that are bad and like there's a sort of self-defeating aspect of that story right?

• 1:46:36Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:46:37Rich Roll?

  Like but I think it's helpful to take a step back and realize like oh

• 1:46:45Rich Roll?

  That is just a story. Like, you could easily form a new story where you decided to not really value all those things and instead they, oh, and like, pick like five positive things that you did physically, right?

• 1:46:58Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:46:59Rich Roll?

  And just tell that story. Like, both of those stories are true.

• 1:47:02Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:47:03Rich Roll?

  To some degree or another. Both of them are false to some degree or another.

• 1:47:06Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 1:47:07Rich Roll?

  And I think our, our, our relationship to change and our ability to navigate change has a lot to do with how we think about ourselves and the stories that we tell about who we are and what we're capable of, right? And most of those stories, we do, we form them unconsciously, like, oh, I'm this person, you know, and it's like, you don't even really think like, well, why am I telling myself that I'm, I'm unreliable, or I'm always late, or I'm undeserving of this? Like, something happened in your past, or your unconscious mind has selected certain events that have occurred in your life, and your unconscious mind has decided that these are important, these are significant, these are like mile markers that are, you know, bricks on the wall of like, your identity.

• 1:47:52Rich Roll?

  And the more we, we sort of affirm those stories, the more we, you know, drive outcomes in our, in our real life. And so I think, you know, change is about challenging those stories and then holding on a little bit more loosely to our identity of who we are. Like, I'm always a person who does this, I'm always a person who's slouched. Yeah, maybe that's true, but also, you know, maybe you're something else as well.

• 1:48:20Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:48:20Rich Roll?

  You know what I mean?

• 1:48:21Speaker 01

  Right, yeah.

• 1:48:21Rich Roll?

  And I think to, to kind of answer the question, which I think is a great question, like, well, first of all, like, why am I obsessed with this? I mean, I'm obsessed with it because, in part, I've been able to make significant changes in my life, but also, like, I'm completely hamstrung by other, by trying to make other change.

• 1:48:37Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 1:48:37Rich Roll?

  Like, I still struggle, just like anyone else. Like, I, I really don't stand on a pedestal with this, but I am curious about, about, like, why I was able to do that and I'm unable to do this, and why other people seem to, as soon as they get information about how to be better, they just grab it and they make the change and they move forward, and other people, like, really struggle. And for this, it's like, an impossible mountain to climb. And I think- I think trying to understand the nature of this dynamic is something that will help me, but also, you know, I'm in a position to kind of share it to help other people.

• 1:49:13Rich Roll?

  Because I do believe that, like, all of us have a latent better version of ourselves inside of us, right? Like, whether we're aware of it or not, or put energy into trying to, like, bring that to life. I think it's true, right?

• 1:49:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:49:25Rich Roll?

  Every single person could be a little bit better than they are today.

• 1:49:28Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:49:29Rich Roll?

  And I think this-

• 1:49:30Speaker 01

  In a number of ways.

• 1:49:30Rich Roll?

  Yeah, of course, right?

• 1:49:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:49:32Rich Roll?

  And what's so interesting, and I think at the root of this kind of like curiosity that I have, I don't know if it's an obsession, but certainly an interest, is because it's so mysterious, right? Like, why is this? It's so hard for others, easier for other people still. And this is something that can't be distilled down to like a math equation. You know, it can't be turned into some reductive list of like principles or pillars, no matter how many like self-help books are out there on this subject matter. Because it's messy. It involves the psychology of human behavior. It's about like deconstructing those stories that I just told you about.

• 1:50:16Rich Roll?

  It's about identity and how we hold on to it. It's about where those stories come from, how to write new stories. And there's also like kind of a mystical, ethereal element to this. That's about like faith and, you know, surrender and all of these concepts that, you know, I was first, you know, introduced to in recovery that have been transformative in my life, but are very difficult to wrap your arms around. And also to kind of translate to somebody who just wants to see it as carpentry and bricks and mortar. Like, do this, do that, like, do this and your life will change, right? Yes, that's true. So why do we get in our own way? And why do we find it so difficult to do those things?

• 1:51:00Rich Roll?

  Because of all the messiness that is the human psyche.

• 1:51:04Speaker 01

  Hmm. Can I add two things to that?

• 1:51:07Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:51:08Speaker 01

  Because I love that. And I love talking about why you like change. Could it be, what is life, really? What does life do? What does life do?

• 1:51:15Rich Roll?

  That's a good question.

• 1:51:16Speaker 01

  Life evolves, right?

• 1:51:17Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:51:18Speaker 01

  Life is about evolution. That's what it is, a continued evolution. And the stories, you know, if you go back and look at all the stories we've told through mythology, through philosophy, but like specifically the hero's journey that, you know, was identified by, why am I spacing on the hero with a thousand faces?

• 1:51:38Rich Roll?

  We're old men. We can't remember names like we used to.

• 1:51:42Speaker 01

  Campbell.

• 1:51:43Rich Roll?

  How dare you?

• 1:51:45Speaker 01

  He, um, so hero is a, yeah, cause I'm not sleeping well. I can't remember anybody's name. But, um, he, he kind of cracked this code, this storytelling that we've had in all of human history. And what, what he found is every culture has these stories that, that are about a person in trouble, confronting the obstacles that are their life, overcoming them and getting to, to, uh, this, this place of this new, new, new self, getting to the new self. Those are the stories we've been telling ourselves since, since humans kind of formed societies. And so could it be that idea that this nature of change, transformation is so interesting to you?

• 1:52:30Speaker 01

  Because you are interested in, it's, it's almost like life speaking through you. And like the, these heroes journeys that we hear about, we read stories that are the classics, whether it's Star Wars in our time of, in our present day, or, or, you know, biblical stories of the past. Now we're with the internet and technology, we're getting to hear everyone's hero's journey. Cause we all have them, right? We all, and if we don't, we're, we're capable of them. So like you are this agent that is getting these new heroes journeys out, out into the airwaves. And then people are listening and they're like, wait, I have, I want to be a hero. I want to be my own hero. And it's like this kind of domino effect you're having. And it's because life evolves and it's evolving now and we're evolved. And it's kind of like the story is coming through you in a way.

• 1:53:16Speaker 01

  Could it be a subconscious element, something that is not even about what's going on in your brain, but some organic element?

• 1:53:24Rich Roll?

  That's a cool idea. I'm gonna noodle on that.

• 1:53:26Speaker 01

  All right.

• 1:53:26Rich Roll?

  Maybe. Maybe there's some truth to that. I don't know. But like, that was a really kind of beautiful monologue to end today's episode.

• 1:53:33Speaker 01

  Well, thanks, man.

• 1:53:34Rich Roll?

  We went all over the place. That was a roller coaster ride.

• 1:53:36Speaker 01

  We did.

• 1:53:37Rich Roll?

  We went high, we went low.

• 1:53:39Speaker 01

  I failed out of practice at the beginning, to be honest with you.

• 1:53:41Rich Roll?

  No, it was good.

• 1:53:42Speaker 01

  By the way, this is excruciating.

• 1:53:44Rich Roll?

  Is it still hot?

• 1:53:45Speaker 01

  Excruciating to drink the tea.

• 1:53:46Rich Roll?

  We forgot to do the 30 minute intervals. It's like, still hot.

• 1:53:49Speaker 01

  Sharp needles.

• 1:53:50Rich Roll?

  Do you think it would be that hot if you had like, the Stanley cup? Like, you know, the Stanley, the ones that...

• 1:53:56Speaker 01

  I mean, we're hours into this.

• 1:53:58Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:53:59Speaker 01

  Good job. Good job.

• 1:54:00Rich Roll?

  All right, well, maybe, maybe just seal it up and we'll keep it here. And the next time we do roll on, we'll unpack it and see if it's still hot.

• 1:54:07Speaker 01

  It'll be drinkable.

• 1:54:08Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:54:08Speaker 01

  All right, yeah.

• 1:54:09Rich Roll?

  All right, love you, buddy.

• 1:54:10Speaker 01

  I love you too, brother.

• 1:54:10Rich Roll?

  Cheers, peace.

• 1:54:14Rich Roll?

  All right. Boom.

• 1:54:16Speaker 01

  Done.

• 1:54:22Rich Roll?

  That's it for today. Thank you for listening. I truly hope you enjoyed the conversation. To learn more about today's guests, including links and resources related to everything discussed today, visit the episode page at richroll.com where you can find the entire podcast archive, my books, Finding Ultra, Voicing Change, and The Plant Power Way, as well as the Plant Power Meal Planner at meals.richroll.com. If you'd like to support the podcast, the easiest and most impactful thing you can do is to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify, and on YouTube, and leave a review and/or comment. This show just wouldn't be possible without the help of our amazing sponsors

• 1:55:06Rich Roll?

  who keep this podcast running wild and free. To check out all their amazing offers, head to richroll.com/sponsors.

• 1:55:15Rich Roll?

  And sharing the show or your favorite episode with friends or on social media is, of course, awesome and very helpful. And finally, for podcast updates, special offers on books, the meal planner, and other subjects, please subscribe to our newsletter, which you can find on the footer of any page at richroll.com. Today's show was produced and engineered by Jason Camiolo. The video edition of the podcast was created by Blake Curtis with assistance by our creative director, Dan Drake. Portraits by Davy Greenberg. Graphic and social media assets courtesy of Daniel Solis. And thank you Georgia Whaley for copywriting and website management. And of course, our theme music was created by Tyler Pyatt, Trapper Pyatt, and Harry Mathis. Appreciate the love, love the support.

• 1:56:00Rich Roll?

  See you back here soon. Peace. Plants. Namaste.