Brogan Graham Is A Friend Hunter

Meet Brogan Graham. Fitness fanatic. Extreme extrovert. Style icon. Force of Nature. Cool dad. Loyal friend and overall stellar human being. These are just a few of many labels I would pin to BG’s chest. An exceptional host during my April visit to Minneapolis (the whole thing was his idea), Brogan is the co-founder of November Project, a free and frenetic, open-to-anyone, grassroots sweat revival—a flashmob fitness revolution that counts over 250,000 lifetime members and dominates the pre-dawn urban landscape of 52 cities and nine countries spread across North America, Europe, the United Kingdom and even parts of Asia. Leveraging community, a simple sense of accountability, and open public spaces, the November Project motivates people of all ages, shapes, sizes and levels to move their bodies—welcoming everyone from Olympic medalists and professional athletes to complete fitness rookies and recent couch potatoes. Today’s conversation traverses many landscapes with a unique flair that can only be described as unapologetically Brogan-esque. Chronologically the first conversation recorded during my time in Minneapolis, we digest lessons delivered by a city and citizenship under duress—and why it’s necessary to never stop learning. We talk ‘dadding’, training, perfectionism, friendship, and the importance of getting outside your comfort zone—not just in the context of fitness but in all aspects of life. But the overall theme of this discussion is cultivating inclusivity. Why the path forward demands resisting the impulse to call people out. Instead, let’s call people in. As I’m fond of saying, prophets walk among us. Brogan isn’t just one such everyman prophet. He understands that to find these people, you need to always be on the hunt. You need to take swings at bat. You need to always be expanding your circle. And you need to develop the habit of reaching out to others, embracing your neighbors, and contributing to your community. This reflex begins with one simple word: hello. FULL BLOG & SHOW NOTES: bit.ly/richroll602 YouTube: bit.ly/brogangraham602 I urge all of you to absorb this conversation in its entirety. Whip out your pen and paper—this is essential, potentially life-altering listening for every human. And simply put, it’s everything I hoped it would be. Brogan is a beautiful dude. I wish he lived in Los Angeles. But I’ll take him however I can get him. May his words inspire you to reach out to someone new today. P. S. – This is Brogan’s second spin on the RRP flywheel. If you enjoy today’s episode then dig up his first appearance four years prior in RRP 277. P. P. S. – Special thanks to talented Minneapolis visual artists Bennie Wilson and Jordan Lundell for photographing today’s podcast. Peace + Plants, Rich Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:00Rich Roll?

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• 0:44Rich Roll?

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• 1:05Speaker 01

  Springtime here in the Midwest. Just because it feels like we should be back, that means nothing. And Midwestern folks are stoked. Just pasty, white legs, just like Minnesota. It's wild. Things that people... Ice fishing, which no, I haven't gotten into yet. I don't think I'm going to. But I had a knee surgery this past winter, and I spent a lot of time on snowshoes, walking around and talking to those people out there in their huts. And here's my approach. My approach is, I've done this, I've never admitted this, I've done this probably 30 times. 30 different ice huts. Hello? Hi! Yeah? Is this ice fishing? I just moved, yeah. Hi, I just moved here from Southern California.

• 1:49Speaker 01

  Kind of just like give them the whole story. And then they'll usually show me the whole thing. So there, anyway, I was actually looking for like somebody to be like, "Do you want a beer?" Because I just thought that'd be cool to have that experience. "Yes, I do." You know? Are we friends yet? One of my buddies in San Diego calls me a friend hunter. But it's the reason that I think I have these really weird, interesting kind of occurrences. I'm Brogan Graham and this is the Rich Roll.

• 2:17Rich Roll?

  Nah.

• 2:17Speaker 01

  I'll do it again. Brogan Graham and this.

• 2:20Rich Roll?

  I don't like that.

• 2:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, thank you. Hi, I'm Brogan Graham and this is the Rich Roll Podcast. Yee-haw. You won't use that one.

• 2:30Rich Roll?

  No.

• 2:40Rich Roll?

  The Rich Roll Podcast. Greetings dispersed beings of planet Earth. It is I, your host, Rich Roll, saying welcome to the podcast. Today, I rekindle, stoke my bromance with the very charming and charismatic Brogan Graham, who I would describe as an irreverent, not your run-of-the-mill, fitness fanatic, an extrovert maximalist, style icon, force of nature, just one of those rare people with their own gravitational force field and just overall stellar human being.

• 3:24Rich Roll?

  If you've been tuning in recently, you know Brogan's name has come up a few times on our roll-on episodes. He was our host and shepherd during our April visit to Minneapolis, which is when this podcast was recorded. In fact, the whole project was his idea. For those newer to the show, Brogan, along with his buddy Boyan Mandrich, founded this thing 10 years ago called November Project, which is a free, open, urban, outdoor space, open to the public, boisterous, gung-ho, group-led, script-flipping, fitness thing that has, over the years, blossomed into a true global movement, a collective of communities

• 4:08Rich Roll?

  that today counts over 250,000 lifetime members in 52 cities in nine countries all over the world. I love this dude, but first, we've got to take care of a little business.

• 4:26Rich Roll?

  Brogan, Brogan Graham. I don't want to say too much about this one, other than that we cover quite a bit of ground. We talk about dating, we talk about building community, we talk about getting outside your comfort zone, not just in the context of fitness, but in all aspects of life. If there is a general theme to this one, I would say it's about seeking friendship, cultivating inclusivity, and calling people in, rather than calling people out. As I'm fond of saying, prophets walk among us. And Brogan isn't just one of them. He's a guy who understands that to find these people, these prophets that walk among us, you need

• 5:11Rich Roll?

  to be somebody who's always taking swings, somebody who is always on the hunt, in the habit of expanding your circle, reaching out to others, embracing your neighbors, and contributing to your community. It's a practice, he will tell you, begins with a simple, "Hey, how you doing?" Brogan's a beautiful dude. I wish he lived in LA, but I'll take him however I can get him. So yeah, let's do the thing. This is me and Brogan Graham.

• 5:44Rich Roll?

  Brogan Graham.

• 5:46Speaker 01

  Rich Roll, the Rich Roll Podcast.

• 5:48Rich Roll?

  We are in Minneapolis. What are we doing here?

• 5:53Speaker 01

  I think I convinced you to come visit.

• 5:55Rich Roll?

  You did.

• 5:56Speaker 01

  And I just pulled out all the stops and I am shocked that you're here.

• 6:00Rich Roll?

  We're here solely by dint of your efforts, but I'm super excited to be here, man.

• 6:06Speaker 01

  I can't, I actually can't believe that you're here. I-

• 6:09Rich Roll?

  You didn't think it would happen?

• 6:11Speaker 01

  Well-

• 6:11Rich Roll?

  Well, I kept baiting you to make it sound like I was gonna pull the plug at the last minute.

• 6:16Speaker 01

  Other than the weather, it snowed this morning.

• 6:18Rich Roll?

  It's alright.

• 6:19Speaker 01

  I know, but after all those years in Southern California, like, weather is a thing.

• 6:23Rich Roll?

  Meaning like- It is the end of April. You would think the sun might peek out a little bit, but maybe not so much.

• 6:29Speaker 01

  And I went to a workout this morning and I was like, I was like, looking for other folks to like, talk. I was like, there's snow on the ground. I was like, are we not talking about this?

• 6:36Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 6:37Speaker 01

  And it was very uncool. Like, I was exposing myself as like a recent-

• 6:40Rich Roll?

  You've lived here long enough. I mean, a year and a half-

• 6:43Speaker 01

  That should be something that isn't worthy of being all that. Yeah, but I stopped asking. I was like, okay, this is very uncool.

• 6:48Rich Roll?

  Uh huh. It's gotta be sort of April-

• 6:53Rich Roll?

  Well, March has got to be terrible because that's when you think, oh, it's March, it's spring now.

• 6:57Speaker 01

  Right.

• 6:57Rich Roll?

  It's all gonna start shifting and then you get slammed.

• 6:59Speaker 01

  You get one weekend that's like 60 or 70 degrees and like Minnesotans are wearing shorts and like we're thrilled.

• 7:04Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 7:05Speaker 01

  And then it's like, oh, I think it's summer. I think we're just in.

• 7:07Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 7:08Speaker 01

  And then it's.

• 7:08Rich Roll?

  But you're like the guy who's wearing shorts year round anyway.

• 7:11Speaker 01

  Some of that.

• 7:11Rich Roll?

  Pull the mic up a little bit closer to you.

• 7:14Speaker 01

  Like that.

• 7:14Rich Roll?

  Not that your voice isn't booming.

• 7:16Speaker 01

  Well, with the microphone thing, I always, I also go like really go hard into it, you know?

• 7:20Rich Roll?

  That's the way you live your life.

• 7:22Speaker 01

  Um, I am, I'm pumped to be on.

• 7:24Rich Roll?

  It's been four years.

• 7:25Speaker 01

  Uh huh. It's been four years.

• 7:27Rich Roll?

  Yeah. And that's honestly, like, it's weird. That's the only time I've actually met you.

• 7:33Speaker 01

  No, that's not true.

• 7:35Rich Roll?

  Oh, because I went to that November project.

• 7:36Speaker 01

  I dragged you to West LA.

• 7:38Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I'm still recovering from that.

• 7:39Speaker 01

  Uh huh. West LA.

• 7:41Rich Roll?

  That was at least three years.

• 7:42Speaker 01

  I think that was, I think that was two years later.

• 7:45Rich Roll?

  Was it two years later? We are. And then we took a stab at doing a little remote recording that I was gonna append to the top of a podcast about being a dad. And that was, that was one year ago.

• 7:58Speaker 01

  Let's talk about that for a second.

• 8:00Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 8:00Speaker 01

  You called me, I think in Jill, June or July or something?

• 8:05Rich Roll?

  It must've been June.

• 8:07Speaker 01

  And you were like, yeah, I want to add, I'm gonna start doing these shorter clips to add to other podcasts that you've like, that were upcoming. And I was hesitant. I was like, Rich, man, like, it's a pretty intense time here. Are we doing this? And you're like, yeah, and we recorded it. And then it was just like.

• 8:23Rich Roll?

  And then Minneapolis exploded.

• 8:25Speaker 01

  Minneapolis exploded.

• 8:26Rich Roll?

  And there's no way.

• 8:27Speaker 01

  And then you called me back and you're like, sorry.

• 8:28Rich Roll?

  We can't, we can't use this.

• 8:30Speaker 01

  Sorry.

• 8:30Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 8:31Speaker 01

  So anyway.

• 8:31Rich Roll?

  So that's a good, that's a good lead in to addressing the elephant in the room. I definitely want to open this by saying out loud that I'm not sure anybody needs to hear from two. White, cisgender, upwardly mobile, suburban dwelling dads, you know,

• 8:53Speaker 01

  who are already taking up space.

• 8:55Rich Roll?

  Right, already taking up space, white space.

• 8:58Speaker 01

  Right.

• 8:58Rich Roll?

  To, you know, bro out on a curfew imposed Minneapolis in the middle of a COVID spike, the Dante Wright situation and the Chauvin trial. Does anybody need to hear, you know, our opinions on racial justice, Black Lives Matter, civil rights? I mean, it's ridiculous.

• 9:16Speaker 01

  It's ridic- but we're here and it's rolling.

• 9:18Rich Roll?

  We are.

• 9:18Speaker 01

  And, and I think that there's some value in conversation. You talk about it all the time. It's like, I have grown to really appreciate you as a host and as someone who brings not only people together, but like the best out of those people and, and, um, and to sit and have a conversation and like, you know, we talked about it on the way over here. It's like, or the last couple of days leading up to this, it's like, there's also a lot of life that's going on here in Minneapolis that applies elsewhere.

• 9:44Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 9:44Speaker 01

  Opinions and things that we're kind of trying to sort through as

• 9:48Speaker 01

  middle-aged white dudes, you know, there's, I think that there's a ton of value. So, so, so to you and your crew, thank you for coming here.

• 9:54Rich Roll?

  Yeah. I don't know that I would have come here just to interview you though. That was, that's not.

• 9:58Speaker 01

  No.

• 9:59Rich Roll?

  I mean, you, you put in motion, you put in motion this opportunity to sit down with, with Mayor Jacob Fry. That was kind of the instigating impulse. Of course, coming here then, you know, it became our responsibility to find community leaders of color to talk to.

• 10:17Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 10:18Rich Roll?

  It wouldn't have been great to just interview the mayor and not get, you know, a differing point of view.

• 10:23Speaker 01

  For sure.

• 10:24Rich Roll?

  Or a perspective of somebody who, you know, is really immersed in the movement and the community. So we're doing that as well. We're recording this one first though, so I don't have the experience.

• 10:32Speaker 01

  Right.

• 10:33Rich Roll?

  Of having sat down with those folks yet. We will release this afterwards.

• 10:37Speaker 01

  And I also have this feeling like the, the recording from a year ago that didn't ever see the light of day, that there's a chance that this might not see the light of day. So if this gets banged and we.

• 10:46Rich Roll?

  No, this, this is going to go up. But what's interesting about that experience, I think reflecting back on that, I, I recognize my level of disengagement and ignorance or naivete, I should, I guess I should say, around exactly what was happening here and the import of it nationally and internationally that it's become.

• 11:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, there's, I thought of that because I remember having that conversation with you where I was like, I. I was hesitant because I

• 11:16Rich Roll?

  Well, you were boots on the ground here. So you had a tactile connection.

• 11:20Speaker 01

  We were living in uptown and we were about a little less than half a mile away from George Floyd, from Cup Foods, from George, what is now George Floyd Square. And, you know, there's two things with that. When you talk about that, there's a piece that's about, you know, understanding how outraged this city was. Okay, there's that piece. But then there's also a piece about like,

• 11:46Speaker 01

  large scale crimes and terrorism that happened way down the road. Like, I remember, I remember hearing about certain things growing up and feeling like Oklahoma City is a million miles. That's hard to wrap my brain around, you know? And when the Twin Towers came down, like I was living in Boston, I felt a lot closer, but we weren't in New York City. And like, the whole world was shaken by that. But like, is it different to be closer? And so to have those conversations with you, like, it felt weird. It was like, I don't know that we're having, I don't know, I don't know that we were connecting on the same.

• 12:13Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 12:13Speaker 01

  We weren't.

• 12:14Rich Roll?

  We weren't because I didn't, I didn't understand what was actually happening.

• 12:18Speaker 01

  And then fast forward, I think not even a couple of weeks, in all cities.

• 12:22Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it became a very different picture quickly for everybody.

• 12:25Speaker 01

  For sure, for sure. And, you know, going back to how you kicked this show off, like, I was, one of my highest council members, my mother, Anne, I told her, she's a huge fan, and I told her that you were coming here. She's like, oh, great. Like, she thinks we're all just friends from like, her front driveway playing basketball growing up. Like, she pretends like we're up.

• 12:42Rich Roll?

  It all bleeds together.

• 12:43Speaker 01

  Oh, Rich is coming, you know? It's like, it wasn't that big of a deal. But she said, well, I hope you guys don't end up looking like idiots. She said that.

• 12:50Rich Roll?

  There's a very good chance that's exactly what's gonna happen.

• 12:52Speaker 01

  So she just said, she goes, well, I'm really proud of him. I'm glad, I'm glad he's engaged. And like, I don't know how much of this you've done where you go to, like, where it is. Like, this is like.

• 13:01Rich Roll?

  No, I've, I mean, I've gone to cities and done podcasts in cities, but they haven't been event driven.

• 13:06Speaker 01

  Right.

• 13:07Rich Roll?

  You know, so this is unique and different in that regard. And on some level, I think it's, it's a reaction to. The world having been shut down the past year and being unable to travel, which is something I love doing. And we had a tour set up. We were going to do live events in like six cities. So that didn't happen.

• 13:24Speaker 01

  Right.

• 13:25Rich Roll?

  But on top of that, and most importantly, just a recognition of the significance of what's going on here. The fact that the whole world is watching, you know, moment to moment what's transpiring here. It just felt prescient and important. And the opportunity arose because of you. And I couldn't say no to that.

• 13:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I was stoked.

• 13:46Rich Roll?

  But I do want to get it right, too. So I feel that I feel that responsibility.

• 13:50Speaker 01

  But that's a white guy thing.

• 13:51Rich Roll?

  Is it?

• 13:51Speaker 01

  And I'm not trying to teach anybody. I'm not trying to teach anybody.

• 13:54Rich Roll?

  Well, you've kind of done some training around this, right? Some formal training.

• 13:58Speaker 01

  We're not supposed to talk about the work.

• 13:59Rich Roll?

  Hmm, okay. That's part of the training, too.

• 14:01Speaker 01

  Do it and then like tell some piece, some.

• 14:06Speaker 01

  I think that the idea of perfectionism, the idea of getting it right, the idea of like having a messy conversation perfectly is like, well, that that's nearly impossible, especially for white folks that haven't handled race the same way and have lived a pretty easy life here in the United States. Like to think that like, we're going to step into an arena and like, get it all right. Like, there will be missteps on this trip and in these conversations and on my side. And like, you know, one of the things that one of the equity advisors for November Project told me today was like, acknowledge at the top, acknowledge at the top of the show. And you sort of did it, but I'll do it again for myself, for both of us.

• 14:49Speaker 01

  Like, what if you were launching into a conversation where you're going to make mistakes? Like, not like, oh, if we have a mistake on these topics, and I don't even know which ones we'll cover, but like, if we have one, then we'll? No, no, no. Let's just assume we're going to make mistakes because you and I are both new to this. Like, it's embarrassing, right? But it's probably better to proceed going towards some mistakes, but in the right direction than like, oh, let's freeze up until.

• 15:16Rich Roll?

  Yeah, well, you get all rigid because you want to say the right thing. And then the conversation really doesn't end up going anywhere. Because you're coming from a place of fear. And if there's one thing that I've kind of learned or gleaned from conversations that I've had over the last.

• 15:32Rich Roll?

  12 months on this subject, it's that it's exactly what you said, like you can't be afraid to have the conversations, acknowledging you're not going to get it perfectly. I think there's a, there is a trepidation with a lot of white people. They want to talk about it, but that fear prevents them from even having the conversation.

• 15:52Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 15:53Rich Roll?

  Because they don't want to get it wrong. They don't want to get castigated for saying the wrong thing. And so those conversations never transpire.

• 16:00Speaker 01

  Yep. And then, and then those out there that are like, yeah, I want to, yeah, okay. I'm going to do the reading and I'm going to, I'm going to get it right and I'm going to figure it out and then I'm going to engage and they engage and they engage and they get it wrong and they get called out or called a racist or critiqued or, and then.

• 16:19Rich Roll?

  And then the white fragility of.

• 16:21Speaker 01

  Flares up.

• 16:22Rich Roll?

  Like, I'm, you know, I'm trying, why are you taking me down? But it's not the responsibility of the black community to give you a pat on the back and say, good job.

• 16:31Speaker 01

  Right. And if we're living in this like insular, like existence of like, of, of white privilege that puts you in a place where like, you've, you know, you've practiced your whole life not taking criticism. And so it really like, it doubly hurts. It's 10 times, I'm not used to this. It's like, well, well, you should enter, enter these, enter the real world a little bit, you know? And, and look, it sounds as if I'm like coming from a place of experience. I am when it comes to messing up, you know, like when it comes to doing the wrong things and, and proceeding, you know, as if I, I, I know the whole picture. But it's, it's the way I've looked at, you know, building community and the way I looked at November Project has been through the lens of, of who I am and running, of who I

• 17:14Speaker 01

  am and was in Boston and kind of how I, I saw bringing a group together and how to supercharge a group. And so, you know, I don't take credit or responsibility for, for all of November Project, but I think it was, it was built by two white guys. And I, and I think there's another thing that, you know, Somi and I spoke about today is like, for my white friends out there that look at November Project and just say. That's fun. It's just fun. You know, it's not racist. It's a free community thing. Like, people should show up if they can, and if they can't, they can't. And it's for everyone. And it's just, it's good. I would say it was comfortable for us. We chose locations for us,

• 17:56Speaker 01

  and we chose to bring people together in the only way we knew how. And we did it with our language and our social media. And the group is formed by two cisgendered white guys, two Rovers in Boston.

• 18:08Rich Roll?

  That northeastern, kind of like fancy school pedigree.

• 18:12Speaker 01

  And when I'm having the beginning of this story, and I can tell it's not landing, I say, could two shirtless black men have gone into the Harvard Stadium and built a group of three, four, 500 people that were screaming and, you know, waking up the neighborhood with booming fuck yes and like hugging it out and just having the best time? And what would that look like? Like, how would that have looked? And I'm not talking about Harvard University. I'm not talking about Boston Police Department. I'm not talking about the neighbors in the residing areas. I'm talking about all of it. And I think that kind of helps frame it as far as like, from the beginning, we were operating with white privilege. Is the Harvard Stadium open to training? Well, it's open. So we go in,

• 18:56Speaker 01

  and we make it our home. And it's a very privileged way of operating.

• 19:00Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 19:01Speaker 01

  You know?

• 19:01Rich Roll?

  That's a super interesting perspective on it. I mean, that takes a lot of maturity to kind of own that aspect of it, because it is easy, and on some level, you could make the argument correct, to just say, look, we just, we put this thing together, and anybody can come. Like, there's no, there's no closed doors to anybody. But to step back and really objectively deconstruct that from a systemic perspective to kind of own that, I imagine that took some work to get to that place. And then, of course, the question becomes, where do you go from there? Right? Like, how do you, not to say that you did anything wrong, but acknowledging that you could do better, like, what are the steps

• 19:46Rich Roll?

  you put in place? Because it is all about community. Community is the bread and butter of the whole November Project. That's the ethos of it. So how do you like broaden that aperture to make it more welcoming to all comers?

• 19:59Speaker 01

  I think even just laying out that, that context of like, What it is, who it's for. And I think, um, community members and leaders, people who have been once, people who are diehards, like, if we can't see that access that we've had, if we can't see, you know, one of my favorite stories from the Boston days was like, this police officer came and told us never to come back to this hill again. And I, I assured him we would, seven, exactly seven days from then. And I, I'm like talking to this guy with no shirt on, like, just barely respectful, but like, kind of having fun with the conversation. And he said, you know, if, I'm gonna write you a warning today, and if you come back, it's gonna be two, couple hundred dollar ticket.

• 20:42Rich Roll?

  Because it's too loud?

• 20:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, it's

• 20:45Rich Roll?

  It's a public space, right?

• 20:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, so he said neighbors have complained, and I said, I don't think that they have. And he goes, well, you know, it's a sound ordinance violation. And I was like, well, I'm gonna, I'm gonna work on that. And he's like, well, just don't come back. And I said, I'll see you seven days from now. And this defiant nature of like, you know, the coolness of like, being kind of just rad and like, laughing in the face of authority, like, I, I, I need our community to see that that's how we built this. Like, I need, I need our community to like, look at that as white privilege. And if like, if you don't want to come along on that ride, like, that's going to be hard. But your question was like, how do you go about and change that?

• 21:21Rich Roll?

  I mean, you can't change the origin story, but acknowledging that had that been a black dude, you know, having that confrontation with a cop, it would have been a very different outcome.

• 21:31Speaker 01

  I agree. And I think the people that, um, can watch the news and see black and brown people being killed for traffic violations, and then play back that story I just told you, you, you gotta, we gotta see that difference. And so, um, I'm, I'm really lucky to be part of this Tuesday night group called White Men for Racial Justice. And it's like a hundred dudes that jump on.

• 21:56Rich Roll?

  I thought you weren't supposed to talk about that.

• 21:57Speaker 01

  I'm gonna mention it, but then move on. And the reason I brought it up is because every Wednesday morning, then I go to November Project. And so like, I'm kind of waking up fresh off of this, this last conversation before I went to bed, before I got back with the community at November Project. And one of the conversations about this, this groundwater theory, and like, how racism is in everything.

• 22:18Speaker 01

  And I think when people want to solve things quickly and figure out how to make things right overnight, you come to this like barrier of frustration. And I think, I think that's, that's like the, that's the first reaction of like, how are we going to fix this? How are we going to fix November project? You know, can November project dismantle white supremacy? And, and you laugh, but it's like, uh, I think that dismantling white supremacy happens in small spaces, times a million, right? So if we can make small changes with the location that we host a workout, what does it mean to choose something in Dallas or in Orlando or in London that's quote unquote centrally located? What does that mean?

• 23:01Rich Roll?

  Hmm. Centrally by whose definition?

• 23:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:05Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 23:06Speaker 01

  I mean, social media is such a toxic place right now, but I saw something that I thought was really great, which is like this idea of, um, there's a big difference. The line was, there's a big difference between, um, all are welcome and this was built with you in mind. And, um, I just thought it was super powerful. Like we were guilt tripping half the city of like, oh, you can get there, get there. But we were really just talking to white folks we were connected to.

• 23:33Rich Roll?

  Yeah. There seems to be this internal tension with white people. On the one hand, this desire to participate in the solution, but also a cautiousness, like, is this really my place? This, is this, you know, is it appropriate for me to participate in this? Or is that like, going to come across as, you know, come across in the wrong way, frankly? And I think that creates a lot of paralysis.

• 24:00Speaker 01

  Participate in this meaning?

• 24:02Rich Roll?

  In the progressive movement towards change.

• 24:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:08Speaker 01

  It's, it's funny, it's funny you say that. I, I, um, I always looked at, uh, friends of mine or co-leaders, uh, who I would consider activists, especially white folks that I saw wearing BLM clothing. And I always like, thought that they were, they'd done all the reading. And that they were like, they were in it and they were like, must have been experts. Or like, you know, they had, they had, they had voted the right way and given their money there.

• 24:34Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 24:35Speaker 01

  Were a mentor and, and also knew all the policies and they're, they're really fighting the fight every minute of every day and they've been at it for years. And, um, and this idea of starting somewhere. Like, um, one of our leaders in, um, in Kansas City, Nicole, I really admire her. She's like, just always boots in the ground, always having these conversations, always, uh, challenging white folks in her life and having conversations like, um, but she's always wearing PLM gear. And I always looked at her and like, I admired her and it was almost like she's on the varsity team. Like she's, she's an anti racist, but I gotta read a couple more books or like, I'm not there yet. And, um, I've had friends in my life recently just be like, no, you have to, you have to, you have to start.

• 25:19Speaker 01

  If it's signaling with a yard sign, if it's a hooded sweatshirt, if it's donating, if it's, um, the training that you're doing with November Project co-leaders, um, you know, just continuing education, but then you have to go out and have these conversations. You have to go out and participate and build meaningful relationships. And, um, so anyway, I, I just, I find, I find the, um, the bummer of a challenge is getting folks to take a step to start something, you know? And it was so easy for me to talk about that when I was talking about fitness, right? And it was so easy for us to figure out diversity and how to bring different kinds of athletes along, right? Like that was a really an easy one for us to talk about.

• 26:01Speaker 01

  But, um, a lot of people, especially white people, freeze up when it comes to like, I don't know where to begin.

• 26:08Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm. What about the person who doesn't want to begin? Like you must have people in your life who really don't want to engage with this, certainly not at the level that you've, that you've been engaging with it.

• 26:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:25Speaker 01

  So I'll give you my answer for me. I I've always said, and I said this to you back when we met years ago, which is like, I give people a lot of chances. And how that shows up in these conversations is that I'll meet someone where they are. You know, I'll have a whatever pace conversation you need to have. I'll politely try and debunk and explain and understand where your positioning is. And and and meet people wherever they are on the road. Right? If someone says there is no problem, if someone says race isn't a thing, I think that's really a hard place to start. Right?

• 27:10Speaker 01

  But, um, you know, one of the six community agreements for November Project is this idea of calling people in. And it sounds so like gentle and a little bit hippie of like, don't call people out, Rich. That's too messy. Call them in. But there really is some truth to it, which is like, if you call someone out and say, but that sounds racist, I think you're racist. Like, how much could you even repair that relationship, conversation?

• 27:34Rich Roll?

  Ended any opportunity for moving the needle. And you've destroyed your relationship with that person in the meantime.

• 27:40Speaker 01

  And so to to learn more, to learn more, to ask more questions and and and understand where they're coming from. I mean, that process takes a long time and it takes patience. And and if someone were to say, I'm not here for that. I'm cutting that person out of my life. I also understand that for them. But I recognize sometimes with with white people in my life, I can make change by saying, tell me more about that. Is that really how you feel? Have you thought that through? Or is that just kind of the people around you for much of your life? Like, where does this come from? Like, and I think tone is a tough thing, right? Because we can come off pretty judgmental. With just the wrong kind of angle.

• 28:22Rich Roll?

  Yeah, tone's hard enough in person. Forget about it on social media. It goes nowhere fast.

• 28:28Speaker 01

  So.

• 28:28Rich Roll?

  But it's so interesting that you, so you, you know, we went into the whole November Project origin story, the first time that we sat down and people should listen to that podcast. I love that conversation. So we don't need to retrace all of that, but it starts in Boston. You end up moving to San Diego and continue to build November Project. And then how many years ago did you move to Minneapolis? Three years ago?

• 28:52Speaker 01

  So we moved here July, July, August of 2019. So a year and a half.

• 28:57Rich Roll?

  Yeah. And now with everything that's transpiring in the city, making it literally ground zero for the civil rights movement.

• 29:04Speaker 01

  Right.

• 29:05Rich Roll?

  Right. Provides you with a lens into, you know, a level of truth that perhaps you wouldn't have been exposed to. And in turn, that gives you a depth of experience that you can inject into November Project to really make it a leader in this kind of new evolution of community fitness.

• 29:27Speaker 01

  I would like to think so. I'd like to think so. I like.

• 29:30Rich Roll?

  It's like almost divine. It was like, it was almost like meant to be, right? Like, it's weird.

• 29:34Speaker 01

  It is weird that, and to go back like, so, so very happy in San Diego. We were married in La Jolla. We moved there January 1st of 2015. Fell in love with the surf culture, fell in love with the people. Goldies, my wife's sister lives there, Pacific Beach. And, and we had a little baby. Everything was, we're kind of living that renter's life, like kind of pretending like we could live in nice neighborhoods, but he just didn't have like a long-term plan. And what if we're gonna have a second kid? I don't know how that's gonna go. What if we wanted to buy a house?

• 30:04Rich Roll?

  Meanwhile, like November Project's free. I'm always like, how's this dude like pays bills? Like, how does this work?

• 30:11Speaker 01

  Right.

• 30:13Speaker 01

  You want to get to that?

• 30:14Rich Roll?

  Sure, yeah.

• 30:15Speaker 01

  So we, I left my job, I was in marketing for a couple of years. I worked for the performance running team at New Balance in, I think, 13 and 14. Before that, I had some other like, active lifestyle, marketing jobs.

• 30:32Speaker 01

  And we signed a partnership with the North Face, which was strong for half a decade. And that partnership fuels our leadership gatherings and it put outdoor training gear on all of our leaders.

• 30:45Speaker 01

  And it gave us the ability to quit our jobs and not only work on November Project full time, but also build some of their community ideas around train.

• 30:54Speaker 01

  And then so, at the end of 18, we were in conversations with Brooks Running. Our contract was up with the North Face and a Seattle-based run company, you know, the name in running. And so, that quickly changed kind of the way we talked about playing outside with all this winter gear with the North Face to like, no, run happy, be in the run, enjoy your run.

• 31:21Speaker 01

  And that relationship now is two years strong. And so, so that, so the partnership piece keeps November Project as far as the, you know, the investment of keeping the organization going.

• 31:32Rich Roll?

  It's cool, it's cool that a brand can get on board with that and they understand the value proposition because the community is so strong. And not for nothing, shout out to Dez Linden, Brooks athlete, 50K world record, crushed it by like seven minutes yesterday.

• 31:47Speaker 01

  Dez went under three hours for 50K to do the new world record for 50K of running. And 50K of running for those is 31 miles. I've done 50K a couple of times, it took me like a million hours.

• 32:00Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 32:00Speaker 01

  And, and my fastest road marathon.

• 32:04Speaker 01

  Is three minutes slower than Dez.

• 32:08Rich Roll?

  She held 5:47.

• 32:09Speaker 01

  But Dez is, um, did you, did you see any clips? I mean, were you paying attention to Josh?

• 32:13Rich Roll?

  I was just, I was watching Josh's Twitter feed and we follow, I mean, we were on route to the airport and all of that, like trying to get here. So there was no livestream of it anyway. It was just a Twitter thing, but it was cool to see the level of Twitter involvement. Like the, the whole internet was like all about, the whole, running internet was like all about this.

• 32:32Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 32:32Rich Roll?

  And everybody jumped on board to like, celebrate this, which was really an event. It's a COVID event. Like she kind of, they, they mapped out this course.

• 32:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:41Rich Roll?

  And just kind of did it.

• 32:42Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 32:43Rich Roll?

  You know, it wasn't like a scheduled race or anything like that.

• 32:46Speaker 01

  It was so awesome.

• 32:47Rich Roll?

  But everybody was watching it.

• 32:48Speaker 01

  It was so awesome. We had our, our weekly Brooks call today and we were talking about it with Lauren and Brian and Boy and myself. The four of us are on a call every week and, and, um, we were just talking about kind of that, that like, the, the attitude of just kind of doing it. Like it was like, in some ways it was like real, real running. Like it's been a while since we've all like.

• 33:07Rich Roll?

  There, there, there's kind of a November project flair to that, right? Like we don't need all this other stuff. Like here's the road.

• 33:13Speaker 01

  So cool. And like the finish line was like held up by Josh and another person.

• 33:17Rich Roll?

  I know Josh. Shout out to Josh Cox.

• 33:19Speaker 01

  Josh Cox, San Diego Padres, team manager.

• 33:22Rich Roll?

  Big Padres fan.

• 33:23Speaker 01

  Yeah. So, um, yeah. And, and, um, let's see, we have another partnership with an eyewear company in San Diego. Oh, oh, but Dez, Dez has come through a handful of times. I've run into Dez in San Diego and, um, and Dez also led one of our leadership only runs in Seattle when we brought everyone together in 2019. At the, we call it the meeting of the minds. Um, and so I know that a lot of November project, especially the leaders were watching yesterday. So shout out Dez, you're amazing again.

• 34:02Rich Roll?

  It must be challenging for you. We're switching gears a little bit here.

• 34:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:07Rich Roll?

  I mean, there's, there's introverts, there's extroverts, and then there's extreme extroverts.

• 34:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:13Rich Roll?

  I would put you on the far end of that

• 34:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:15Rich Roll?

  spectrum of extreme extrovert gifted public speaker, somebody who, you know, wasn't afraid to get on a plane.

• 34:23Speaker 01

  Totally.

• 34:23Rich Roll?

  Get up on a stage.

• 34:24Speaker 01

  Totally.

• 34:24Rich Roll?

  And get a bunch of people excited.

• 34:26Speaker 01

  Totally.

• 34:26Rich Roll?

  And to show up at whatever hour of the day at a November Project thing to get everybody fired up.

• 34:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:32Rich Roll?

  And now, boom, pandemic.

• 34:33Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 34:35Rich Roll?

  All out the window.

• 34:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:37Rich Roll?

  You've had to like, sit with your, I mean, that's like, an extrovert's worst nightmare.

• 34:41Speaker 01

  It's the worst.

• 34:42Rich Roll?

  You might have to look in the mirror.

• 34:43Speaker 01

  You love it.

• 34:43Rich Roll?

  You might have to look in the mirror and like, do a little self-inventory.

• 34:47Speaker 01

  Yeah. I was laughing at you and Honnold talking about this, because you guys were like, yeah, it's great.

• 34:52Rich Roll?

  It's fine.

• 34:52Speaker 01

  We don't have to go anywhere. And I was like, these guys are idiots.

• 34:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know, I, um, I do not love the social distancing. I do not love the masks. I don't love it. I don't love any of this stuff. And, um, you know, I think early on in the pandemic, we all had to like, say, I don't know if you remember this, but like, back when we thought it was weeks, remember like, it was like seven weeks, or like, maybe, maybe 14 weeks or whatever. People would be like, oh, I'm getting tired of this. And but you always had to say like, but I don't have it that bad. It was always you had like precursor or like, kind of followed up with like, I'm doing fine. I don't really have anything to complain about, but here's how I'm actually feeling. And then the longer the pandemic went, people started, hopefully more often, but definitely in my community, just sharing, you know, the drain it, how draining it is.

• 35:40Speaker 01

  And, um, I mean, for, I have my November Project answer and I have my personal answer. My personal answer is like, I, I realized during COVID that those little conversations that I thought I was having, you know, kind of engaging with the, the, the postal worker or the barista, like, I thought I was like mid, Midwest nice, like polite, like, I thought I was doing it for them. And I, once you turned it off, I recognized like, that's also how I plug in.

• 36:07Rich Roll?

  That's your fuel.

• 36:07Speaker 01

  Right. And so, you know, you mentioned public speaking, like, I don't lead workouts anymore. I help the organization of November Project, which leads workouts all over the world. And so, that thrill of stepping up on a Wednesday morning. And then, or even interacting on the community level, like with the folks I, the people I see on my block, like it was all just brought to nothing. And so I was surprised at how tough it was. I thought I could like, um, like be just optimistic and just like stay positive.

• 36:38Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 36:38Speaker 01

  And then wait, it got tough. It got draining, you know? Um, you know, to go on-

• 36:42Rich Roll?

  I'm not surprised.

• 36:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:44Rich Roll?

  I mean, I, I'm, I'm, I would have, I would have duly expected that you would have a harder go than most people.

• 36:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:50Rich Roll?

  Cause you're not out-

• 36:50Speaker 01

  Everyone says that.

• 36:51Rich Roll?

  You know?

• 36:52Speaker 01

  Yeah. And like, you know, um, my, my sister in law Zoe said one time when I got back from a trip, she, she kind of called me out. It's like, she kind of pulled me aside. She lives in San Diego and she goes, man, I, I think you're having even more fun on the road than you let on. And not like shady, but just like I, she was basically referencing like, I would come back from these adventures and I would kind of like, play like dad role or husband role and be like, let's go out to dinner and let's just kind of be a little bit more domesticated and kind of indoor voice. And that's fine because I just had a screaming, wild, community driven, like togetherness, like recess gym class, the social structure all in one, like the fire hose for three days in two cities.

• 37:33Rich Roll?

  You got it. You, you, you had that outlet.

• 37:35Speaker 01

  Right.

• 37:35Rich Roll?

  And so you got fed so you could come home and be present.

• 37:39Speaker 01

  Right.

• 37:39Rich Roll?

  And not, you know?

• 37:40Speaker 01

  And so like, you know, even last year, like the meeting of the minds and November project summit were virtual events. You know, it's like, okay. And you and I have talked about this in the past, like,

• 37:51Speaker 01

  how much can you lean into that zoom? Like, how much can you, everyone's on mute? You know, like, how vibey can you get? Right? And I love the challenge, but it's like, what's an A plus, like togetherness vibe? What does that look and feel like on zoom?

• 38:06Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 38:07Speaker 01

  I mean, it doesn't compare to your worst lamest November project experience.

• 38:11Rich Roll?

  But just, just also for context, like you, you don't even, like, you don't even like to text or do phone calls. Like it's all visual. Like you're either, it's either FaceTime or, uh, leaving a video message by text.

• 38:25Speaker 01

  Rich, they're called short films. We've gone over this. They're called short films because they're thoughtful and maybe artistic.

• 38:31Rich Roll?

  Send me a short film.

• 38:32Speaker 01

  And you've bought in.

• 38:33Rich Roll?

  I have.

• 38:34Speaker 01

  Now, has that affected, have you sent, or am I your only short film guy?

• 38:38Rich Roll?

  No, I started doing it more, actually. So there's, there's, yeah, there's been, you've, you've impacted me in that regard. And it is, it is better.

• 38:45Speaker 01

  It's better.

• 38:45Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 38:46Speaker 01

  And then you can get to, like, the, the idea of, like, sneaking into, oh, by the way, I wrote you a letter.

• 38:51Rich Roll?

  You did?

• 38:51Speaker 01

  So I'm a letter writer.

• 38:53Rich Roll?

  I didn't know whether I was supposed to.

• 38:54Speaker 01

  You can open it. I don't even know. Oh, it's artwork. I made some artwork.

• 38:58Rich Roll?

  Right. It's a shark. Oh, my God, you use a typewriter.

• 39:01Speaker 01

  There you go. Hipster points. Hipster points. Now, and the reason, the reason I'm telling you that, similar to the short film, man, it's like this.

• 39:09Rich Roll?

  Rogan, quote, BG, unquote, Graham. Then you have your phone number and your address.

• 39:15Speaker 01

  You can file that away.

• 39:18Rich Roll?

  I love it, man.

• 39:19Speaker 01

  The reason that, the reason that fits with the short film is that during the pandemic, we spent so much time on screens. How can I sneak into Rich's day? How can I drop a video to Keith Kelly in Utah and, and when he needs the vibe, and it fits, right?

• 39:36Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 39:36Speaker 01

  Because we've all had that person calling you during the pandemic that you've, you've even caught up with him for a while.

• 39:44Rich Roll?

  Phone's heavy.

• 39:45Speaker 01

  I can't rev another rev, even for someone I love right now. I should probably give him an hour. It's been a while. And then you miss the call and it's kind of like, and that's for people, that's for people that you like, you know? So sneaking in. So if you're listening to this and you're a letter writer, or you used to be, get back into it, or send a video to your friend by way of text.

• 40:03Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Because that way they get to see you, they hear your vibe, but there's no implicit obligation that you have to get back to them right away.

• 40:09Speaker 01

  Right.

• 40:11Rich Roll?

  I like that.

• 40:12Speaker 01

  Yes, the short films. What else? Bybi. I think last year was, this is kind of more the November project answer, but, you know, when the NBA canceled, they put their statement out.

• 40:27Speaker 01

  We canceled like within 24 hours.

• 40:29Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that was the day.

• 40:30Speaker 01

  That was the day.

• 40:31Rich Roll?

  That was like the Rubicon, right?

• 40:33Speaker 01

  No one could wait around.

• 40:34Rich Roll?

  The day where everything shut down.

• 40:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:36Rich Roll?

  Like, oh, wow, this is like real.

• 40:38Speaker 01

  And growing up as a hoops fan, I liked that the world was waiting. What's the NBA gonna do? Okay, they're canceled? Okay, shut it all down. But we, in all 52 cities, shut down at the same time. And, um, and as a group that's never canceled for weather, ever, like, or, you know,

• 40:54Speaker 01

  the only other time we canceled a workout was for the manhunt, the Friday after the marathon bombing in Boston in 2013. And so it just felt really weird to be like, shut it down, you know? And we recognized that our leaders might need a little bit of a breather. I don't want to say break, because that doesn't really like jive. These, these folks are just as vibey.

• 41:15Speaker 01

  And we shouldn't have been surprised. But all these leaders stepped up and they got the Zoom going and they started hosting virtual stuff. And, um, it was, I think it even seemed a little fun early on, you know? But as those weeks turned into months and it was just like, oh, this is, oh, this is just how we do it now. The workout that you went to in West LA, um, years ago, you experienced, right? They kind of come together. A, a, a normal-ish in-person November Project experience is, is a crowd of people somewhere. You go in, oftentimes, the new people get introduced. The leaders say what the workout's gonna be, and within a few minutes, you're moving. And the block of time could be 20, 30 minutes, but it's usually your, the full experience. You're back in your car, back on your bike, within an hour.

• 42:01Speaker 01

  And then the reason I'm kind of framing that up is that now, in this Zoom era, these leaders, instead of just saying, oh, you're gonna run up the stairs, ready, go! And then just taking pictures and doing a couple of flights here and there. Like, they are truly fitness experience hosts, 45 minutes, nonsense. It's almost like stand-up comedy of like.

• 42:19Rich Roll?

  Yeah, you gotta be like a Peloton instructor.

• 42:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, you're trying to fill it. And so the vast majority of our November Project co-leaders are not fitness professionals. And so it, it was a lot of growth and it's pretty draining and so.

• 42:31Rich Roll?

  And how long did it go on in the virtual realm? Because you did one this morning, so you guys are back, at least in some cities.

• 42:37Speaker 01

  Certain cities are back.

• 42:41Speaker 01

  You know, it's gonna be a longer road for for some than others, you know. Toulouse, which is the one November project that we have in France and Southern France is, you know, they've got a pretty long road in front of them before coming back in person. Here in Minneapolis, they've been back for, I think, six weeks, maybe something like that. And but they're doing it differently. So it's not like what you experience where there's 100 people. It's small groups in three locations. So now they're covering more ground. They have three leaders, which is that's normal.

• 43:11Speaker 01

  It's capped. So it's a signup sheet, which is on their Instagram. And there's a spreadsheet. You have to sign the waiver.

• 43:16Rich Roll?

  Which that's really at odds with the whole spirit.

• 43:18Speaker 01

  Just show up. Right now, it's like just showed up, but like, kind of changing. Yeah, so 20 people per per location, these three leaders, Emily, E. Rolfe and Sarah, they split up. And going back to what we talked about, like centralized location, they're able to try things, like which spreadsheets fill up first. And the extra digital step for such an OG like is kind of killing me. Because it's like, that that that doesn't fit the just show up. But this is how you have to do it. Masks before, during and after.

• 43:46Speaker 01

  And like a ready, set, go plan for if someone gets COVID. What happens? What does contact tracing look like? What do group photos look like? I mean, you remember with Maggie and Tara in West LA.

• 43:58Rich Roll?

  It must have been 150 people there.

• 44:00Speaker 01

  For sure. And it was like, squeeze closer. Okay, now everyone lean on there. It was like very much like human contact.

• 44:06Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 44:07Speaker 01

  Times 100. And now it's like, so so it feels different. But man, if you've spent 10, 12 months not doing group things.

• 44:17Rich Roll?

  Have you had a situation where somebody tested positive and you had to do a contact tracing deal? And figure out how to respond?

• 44:25Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 44:26Rich Roll?

  Wow.

• 44:27Speaker 01

  Yes. And in those moments.

• 44:30Speaker 01

  I was very proud of the efficiency. I know that sounds like a managerial thing to say, but like, because I reacted like-

• 44:37Rich Roll?

  You're a human resources professional.

• 44:38Speaker 01

  No, I reacted. I was like, oh, man, we're in trouble. We are, oh, man, we're fucked. It's gonna, oh, this is gonna be a disaster. And then like, the leaders here in the Twin Cities were like, no, we reached out to the 10 people and we followed the list of names from the waivers and we reached out to them and let them know within a day, the state of Minnesota considered it, it didn't qualify as a close contact because it was outside, social distancing was massive. Like, they were just on it. And so, we let them know that they should go get tested if they're interested and if they don't, it was just like-

• 45:08Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 45:09Speaker 01

  They kinda did it, I don't wanna say perfectly, but nearly perfectly, right away. I mean, so, that's the model we're looking at, you know? And, and, look, I, I think with November Project, for those of us who remember those groups of a couple hundred people, Boston gets, you know, four, 500 people, same with Edmonton, it's like, I think rather than holding on and being like, I can't wait to get back there, just be like, no, no, no, because we continue to change, like, we're not going back.

• 45:34Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 45:35Speaker 01

  You're not going back to sweaty hugs.

• 45:37Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 45:37Speaker 01

  Maybe ever, right? And so-

• 45:38Rich Roll?

  Well, I think that's, that, that is, you know, an important idea, not just in the context of, of November Project, but broadly, whether it's what's going on, you know, in this city and how the world is paying attention to it, or how we're just interacting with each other and our professional lives, like-

• 45:56Speaker 01

  Right.

• 45:57Rich Roll?

  I think we need to, if we haven't already, disabuse ourselves of this idea of getting back to the way it was. We're not going back to the way it was. We're going back to, towards something different, hopefully something better.

• 46:08Speaker 01

  Right.

• 46:09Rich Roll?

  But, it feels like every facet of our lives is sort of being impacted by that idea.

• 46:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:17Rich Roll?

  And what that's gonna look like. And it's all up in the air.

• 46:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, the, the really positive, like, let's look at the brighter side, Rich, side of November Project during the pandemic, was that you could argue, it was the easiest time to join. You can do it from your living room, right? And so, if you here in the Twin Cities wanna wake up and do the Zoom with Emily and Rob in New York City, you just gotta get up a little bit earlier. You can play the time zone game and start with London at 2:00 in the morning on Tuesday night, you know? I've done workouts with November Project Miri, which is in Malaysia, it's a small fishing town in Malaysia.

• 46:57Speaker 01

  On Tuesday, like, I think it's at 2:00 PM on Tuesday. You know what I mean? So it's like, the idea of like, being able to easier, having an easier route to drop in other communities and get to know people, like, it's a stretch, especially for someone, I just finished saying how much I like, interact with people.

• 47:11Rich Roll?

  No, I get it. I mean, listen, it's cool and it's not the same. Like, I just know this in the context of, of like, 12-step meetings. You know, it's like, I, that's, you know, a different version of what you're talking about that gives me sustenance and fuel and, you know, a sense of purpose and direction and groundedness and all the like. And when it all goes to Zoom, yeah, I do it, but it's not the same. And I do feel myself wanting it to go back to the way it was.

• 47:40Speaker 01

  Right.

• 47:40Rich Roll?

  And, you know, look, at some point, we'll all gather, you know, together. The way that we do that is probably going to be different.

• 47:48Speaker 01

  Right.

• 47:49Rich Roll?

  But the challenge is getting over that refusal to engage now because you're waiting until that later moment, because you're missing the opportunity in the interim.

• 48:01Speaker 01

  Yeah. By the way, how often you go?

• 48:04Rich Roll?

  Depends. I, I mean, the truth is, yeah, no, it's, it's personal. I'm happy to answer it. I mean, the truth is that my meeting attendance dropped off dramatically, you know, because it's Zoom. And I was like, I just can't do another Zoom call, man.

• 48:18Speaker 01

  Right.

• 48:18Rich Roll?

  You know? And recently, I found my way back to it and falling in love with it in a different kind of way.

• 48:24Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 48:24Rich Roll?

  Because I was just waiting for it to go back to the way that it was. And it's, you know, it's the most important aspect of my life.

• 48:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:32Rich Roll?

  And yet, I couldn't get myself to log on because I was just, I just had Zoom fatigue and I just didn't want to do it.

• 48:39Speaker 01

  Yeah. The thing, add another, add another hour looking at screens, you know? We had a meeting with the Board of Directors for November Project and one of, one of the board members who was newer to the community said, you know, who are some of your competitors? And I, the joke and the reality is like, warm, warm beds in the morning. Because we're a morning-only group, right? And when people are getting up and putting their shoes on and going to have an outdoor experience as opposed to opening the lid of a laptop solo in a quiet apartment, like, it's just, it's such a wildly different thing. And, um,

• 49:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, look.

• 49:18Rich Roll?

  But I would suspect that you've you you are competing with the Pelotons of the world like because everyone's at home and trying to find a workout at home. You're free and you're an all comer deal. But without the the group congregation aspect of it, now you're relegated to competing with everybody else who's doing fitness online.

• 49:38Speaker 01

  I want I want to use this platform. And I'm glad you came here just to let Peloton know we're gonna bring them down. If you if you're listening, Peloton, you're going down. Robin NYC, you're going down. Robin, you're going down. No, I mean, you know, like, and that's the tough thing, like what you said about the meetings and waiting, waiting for them to go back, right? You know, running, running into into people or connecting with people over, you know, online, social, whatever, and be and have someone say, you know, I'm just waiting until they're back.

• 50:07Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 50:08Speaker 01

  I'm just not doing Zoom. Like, you almost understand it. Like, the way I would speak to someone on the street years ago, I'd be like, dude, you got this. And I would chop down all their excuses. And now I just we just have to be people have to be more gentle to each other. Our leaders in Atlanta are like, we're not going to be pushy recruiters. If we get five people who want to be there, that's great. If we get 15, great. But we're not going to guilt a 16th person into showing up to a Zoom experience in the morning, not knowing all that's pushing and pulling them in their day, you know? So that's something.

• 50:38Rich Roll?

  How many cities are you doing it in person now?

• 50:42Speaker 01

  I think 15 or 20.

• 50:45Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 50:45Speaker 01

  And and and the reason I give you that kind of hazy answer is in. So it's not even just a lever of Zoom or in person. There's there's different challenges. There's what's called flybys, where they'll kind of assign different locations and like a kind of a less centralized hosted thing. And so but full full swing back with a big group, like pretty much not.

• 51:07Rich Roll?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, we're in this weird in between zone right now, where we feel like we're emerging out of

• 51:13Speaker 01

  Right.

• 51:13Rich Roll?

  this situation, but we really haven't quite yet.

• 51:16Speaker 01

  Nope.

• 51:17Rich Roll?

  And we're all impulse to like, just say, come on, let's just get on with life.

• 51:21Speaker 01

  Right.

• 51:21Rich Roll?

  And now, like Minnesota is having a little bit of a spike as a result of that. I mean, California is doing really well right now. But

• 51:28Speaker 01

  Yeah. And then someone says something about variance. Let's also just use all the buzzwords. Booster shots. What else we say? Yeah, I mean, just this idea of like, Springtime here in the Midwest like it feel like I I have to check myself a little bit and be like just because it feels like we should be back. That means nothing, right?

• 51:49Rich Roll?

  So yeah, have you had any like days in the seventies yet? Like that first day where it's a blue sky? And it's like 74 degrees out.

• 51:57Speaker 01

  Mm hmm. And Midwestern folks are so just pasty, white legs, just like Minnesota. It's wild. And yeah, like when I left San Diego, like it was one thing like we didn't. No one ever talked about the weather in San Diego. Right. And there's nothing to talk about, right? And there is this gritty nature of of looking forward to and surviving a winter. The Nordic ski scene and and the fat tire scene, things that people ice fishing, which no, I haven't gotten into yet. I don't think I'm going to, but um, I had a knee surgery this past winter and I I've spent a lot of time on snowshoes, walking around and talking to those people out there in their huts. You know, there's something that comes to life.

• 52:35Rich Roll?

  I need to talk to people. I'm gonna put snowshoes on. I'm so desperate to talk to somebody. I'm gonna walk out on this frozen lake and knock on this hut.

• 52:45Speaker 01

  Well, and I use the same line. So these are, these are usually usually men. Uh, usually kind of standoffish at first. And here's my approach, because I've lived here for a year and a half. My approach is I've done this. I've never admitted this. I've done this probably 30 times. 30 different ice huts. Uh, Lake Minnetonka. I live kind of near there. Hello? Hi. Yeah. Is this ice fishing? I just moved. Yeah. Hi. I just moved here from Southern California. That's kind of just like give them the whole story. And then they'll usually show me the whole thing.

• 53:19Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 53:20Speaker 01

  This is how we drill the thing. I know how they drill. I met a guy last week. So but I keep that going. So I'm gonna play the new guy card for like, I'm gonna play the new guy. I might play it for 10 years.

• 53:29Rich Roll?

  You would have to pay me a lot of money to do that. I would just never, it would never occur to me to do that.

• 53:35Speaker 01

  And I thought it was a drinking thing. I always thought it was like some Homer Simpson, like Al Bundy, like.

• 53:39Rich Roll?

  I was gonna ask, like usually, like those guys are a couple pops in.

• 53:44Speaker 01

  I thought that. I thought it was like.

• 53:48Speaker 01

  Mostly about the cooler beers and maybe a radio. And I was so wrong. These are like sport fisher people, fisherman. So there, anyway, I was wrong about that. I was actually looking for like somebody to be like, you want a beer? Cause I just thought that'd be cool to have that experience. Yes, I do. You know, are we friends yet?

• 54:05Speaker 01

  One of my buddies in San Diego calls me a friend hunter. He's just, he says that I'm always, I'm always looking for like-

• 54:09Rich Roll?

  What does Goldie think about that?

• 54:11Speaker 01

  The friend hunter?

• 54:12Rich Roll?

  Just like the whole vibe. Like when you go out in public and she has to contend with the guy who's literally going to walk up to every stranger.

• 54:20Speaker 01

  I think she liked it when we were falling in love. I think it's a lot. It's a lot. It's a lot. I'm not, I don't do low key really well. So it's like-

• 54:27Rich Roll?

  Well, you're not like on a, on a, a trajectory towards a destination. There's a lot of stops along the way, right? Like so getting from A to B.

• 54:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's kind of, it's like a multi dimensional kind of experience of like, let's go over there for a while, no reason. I don't know, you know? But it's the reason that I think I have these really weird, interesting kind of occurrences. And, and, and I know that, I don't know, what's the Larry Bird thing? You miss all the shots, you don't taste something, you don't take. And so, so for me, when it comes to people, it's like, and I had this happen just this past summer and it was towards the end of last summer.

• 55:01Speaker 01

  I'm going to do this. I'm going to tell this story. I, my knee was still kind of something, my bike was in the shop. It wasn't happening. So I ended up rollerblading. Okay. Imagine me rollerblading. I can skate. Okay. A rollerblading through downtown Minneapolis. And now you see what it's like. And in my past rowing life, I got really good at checking out rowers on the Charles River. Cause I was a coach after I was an athlete and I would watch the way men and women would take strokes. Boom, boom, and their body positioning and the shape and their build and even sitting down. But that's a tall person that seems like, oh, they could probably relax their upper body. I was scouting athletes and bodies. And so it's never really left me. And then how we've fallen into running essentially, I'm still checking out runners, you know?

• 55:45Speaker 01

  So last, last summer I was in rollerblading through downtown Minneapolis, which was a ghost town as, as it is.

• 55:51Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 55:51Speaker 01

  And I saw this guy who was just such a smooth, smooth runner. So smooth, like you could put a glass of water on top of his head kind of thing. And I admire that because I'm a big heavy runner, right? And my first reaction, because it was like 9:00 AM or something, it's like just after or just before nine. And I'm thinking, I'm kind of like doing the math. I'm like, so this guy's running in downtown. That seems kind of like a touristy thing to do. He's a really good runner. Long dreadlocks, black man, looked like he was between 20 and 40. It's like, okay, friend Hunter. Okay, this is great. And I'm like, and I stopped myself. I'm like, okay, Goldie says I talk to people too much. Okay. And then I'm not just trying to talk to a black guy, okay, but I should, but you shouldn't.

• 56:35Speaker 01

  Don't go just trying to be friends. Hang on. And I'm like, I'm playing all this. I'm like, okay. And I kept skating. I just skated past him. And I was like, oh. I've, I've become someone else. Defied your nature. Yeah. Yeah. And I wasn't proud. And so like a block later, I was like, and this is all going on in my head. A block later, I was like, no, that's not who you are. This, that's, you don't have a ton of skills. Maybe one of them is approach. Maybe that is one. And this guy's gonna think you're an idiot and it's not, he's not gonna connect, but you don't know unless you try. So I pretended that my roller blade was like messed up. So I waited at a crosswalk. And this dude rolls up. You had to create all this artifice. Totally. Because you'd already passed him. Totally. You couldn't loop back around. That would be weird. Yeah.

• 57:19Speaker 01

  And he, and he's standing there and I go, hey, look, man, I noticed that you are an extremely smooth runner. And I, and I've got a running injury right now, but if I were running, all these buildings would be shaking and you would know it. He got a big laugh, right? Skated with the guy for a little bit from Kansas City, visiting. He's here to work, very kind of just general. And I said, Kansas City, we have a November project there. They meet at the War Memorial. On Wednesday mornings, you should go. You're a runner. You're up in the morning-ish. Started talking, talking, whatever. We started following each other on social. And it turns out he's a journalist for the New York Times and he covers race and culture. His name's John Elegan. Shout out, John. And I think he thinks I'm a maniac.

• 58:02Speaker 01

  He's the guy who's been covering everything that's been going on here for the New York Times. Yeah, he's the guy. Yeah.

• 58:12Speaker 01

  Trinidadian Trinidadian Trinidadian I've never tried to say that one, but we gotta try. We gotta practice stuff, Rich, out in the open, public record. He's Trinidadian. Uh, I probably butchered that one. Uh, super, super calm guy, uh, lifetime runner. Obviously, he's an incredible writer, uh, and he, someone from the New York Times recently said that he's so dedicated to his work, he pretty much moved to Minneapolis.

• 58:34Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 58:35Speaker 01

  Which, which is accurate to that story.

• 58:36Rich Roll?

  Well, if this is his beat, he's gotta be here, right?

• 58:39Speaker 01

  And so then the, the only other part of the story where John Elegan and I overlap, and now I think we are friends, and John, if we're not, just text me and you can just tell me I'll shut it down. But, um, he was in town to do an interview with the mayor. And, um, and Jacob Frye hit me up and he said, hey, look, I've got the New York Times in the morning. I hadn't talked to this John Elegan guy, I had completely out of my mind. I had the New York Times in the morning, so I should probably go with him solo. And I said, okay. You're the mayor, dude.

• 59:11Rich Roll?

  And you didn't tell.

• 59:12Speaker 01

  I had no idea.

• 59:13Rich Roll?

  You didn't tell Jacob this story. He didn't know the story.

• 59:15Speaker 01

  That's just a kind of a normal story. Anyway, he meets up with some New York Times guy, happened to be this guy, in the first 20 steps of the run, John Elegan says to Jacob, do you know, do you know Brogan Graham? And they both cracked up and it was like this great experience. And so the reason I'm telling that story is not to celebrity brag on John or Jacob or you on the Rich Roll Podcast. It is a story.

• 59:36Rich Roll?

  You forgot what Jacob said, which was, I blew off Brogan and got running with you.

• 59:40Speaker 01

  Totally. So, so the story is this, you gotta go in. You gotta go in.

• 59:45Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 59:45Speaker 01

  You gotta go in, especially now I live in the Midwest, being so close to Madison, where I'm from, my brother lives in Milwaukee, like, it's starting to be kinda like, it's starting to be kind of, where did you go to high school kind of vibe, right? And I've been living in different coasts for the last 20 years. And so it's a, it's a cool time. And I'm, I think the masks and the social distancing and the, the, uh, intensity that we're feeling right now, to me, it just feels like restrictions and challenges of like, okay.

• 1:00:08Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Well, how did you become friends and running buddies with the mayor?

• 1:00:12Speaker 01

  Yeah. Um.

• 1:00:15Speaker 01

  So when I lived in Boston and San Diego, a very dear friend of ours, a very dedicated November Project true runner, who actually got me connected to New Balance back in the day, Claire Wood, now lives in Portland, Oregon, went to high school with Jacob. And so when we moved here, she was like, you should connect with this guy. And I didn't really know, I mean, I didn't really know anybody. He's a former pro runner.

• 1:00:43Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I mean, he's a 216 marathoner.

• 1:00:46Speaker 01

  216.

• 1:00:47Rich Roll?

  He got like fourth at the Pan Am Games or something like that. Competed internationally for the US. He has to be the fastest, the most accomplished runner in elected office in the US.

• 1:01:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, and then, and then also just like another running fun fact, like a local, the mayor in St. Paul is also a former pro runner.

• 1:01:08Rich Roll?

  Really?

• 1:01:09Speaker 01

  Like a sprinter, yeah. And so, so anyway, these twin cities, Minneapolis and St. Paul, in my experience, and growing up in a big college town, the capital of Wisconsin in Madison, going to school in Boston, being around a lot of educated folks, living next to Harvard and MIT, that whole zone. And then San Diego's got a lot of, a lot of great things about it. But it's not exactly like a, you know.

• 1:01:28Rich Roll?

  Intellectual hop bed.

• 1:01:30Speaker 01

  It's not where Good Will Hunting was filmed in San Diego. But moving here, in my experience, it feels like the baseline level of local politics and activism and understanding of like those worlds, it's, in my opinion, it's fairly high. And so I think Jacob and I hit it off because we both like to run in the morning. I didn't know very many people. And then when he would talk about work, I would be like, I don't love you, man, but I don't really, I don't know what the heck you're talking, I don't care. I don't, like, I care a little bit, but like, not really. And I think he's, he's got a world full of people here that, he's got a lot of demands, you know?

• 1:02:08Rich Roll?

  But I would suspect that after living here for a while, you don't really have the latitude to not care. Like, you quickly become somebody who cares. And you seem like somebody who does care. I mean, not about the intricacies of, of, you know, wonky. Policy making, but just in terms of how local politics has a very real impact on the people that live here and what that means because of what's happening here to the rest of the world. Like, it's very significant what's going on right now.

• 1:02:40Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I would say that I, since the last year and a half of being here, I'm engaged. I think I understand what's going on on a local level, but the people within reach in my, in my life here in the Twin Cities are kind of more toward the activism level of what feels like unhappy, no matter what happens sometimes. And so that's hard.

• 1:03:02Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:03Speaker 01

  Like, I think we should all wake up and do our part. And there's just always, there's always going to be more work in any topic, in any, in any part of this, you know?

• 1:03:11Rich Roll?

  I can't imagine the, the pressure that, that Jacob Frye feels right now to try to keep things intact. It's gotta be unbelievable.

• 1:03:22Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, you'll talk to him.

• 1:03:24Rich Roll?

  And the extent to which running helps him, like, process all of it, I would imagine.

• 1:03:29Speaker 01

  I mean, he speaks on running the way a lot of folks in, in the November Project community speak on running, where it's like, if you miss your run and you get that extra 90 minutes of sleep or an hour of sleep, like, it doesn't do as much for your day as had you traded that sleep for the experience, right?

• 1:03:47Rich Roll?

  Got up early and did a run.

• 1:03:47Speaker 01

  And so, yeah, he's, he runs crazy hours. I should say, his, his day is a long day that starts early. And, um, yeah, I just admire, I admire people that are up out of bed doing something physical before they go into whatever their role is in any community, you know? And so, I don't know, takes a lot of criticism, a lot of shots from a lot of people.

• 1:04:07Rich Roll?

  Yeah. There's a lot of vitriol and a lot of, like, it's split, right? Like, a lot of people don't like the guy and a lot of people are on board with him and he's at the intersection and kind of the, you know, he's the, he's the sort of vehicle through which a lot of people can process whatever they're unhappy with about how things are going down right now.

• 1:04:26Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and, and.

• 1:04:30Speaker 01

  You know, he's a handsome, you know, really fast runner that like, kind of, you know, if people don't like him, they find a way of really not liking him, you know, and he's a white man and he's also, this is a key piece, not from here.

• 1:04:46Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:04:47Speaker 01

  Right. And I think in a lot of cities, especially for the position of mayor, that matters a lot.

• 1:04:51Rich Roll?

  From Texas? Where's he from?

• 1:04:52Speaker 01

  He's from Virginia.

• 1:04:53Rich Roll?

  Okay.

• 1:04:54Speaker 01

  Where Claire and he went to, yeah, so, so, yeah, and it's a reelection year, so.

• 1:04:59Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:04:59Speaker 01

  But I live in the burbs, so I can't really even vote. So, good luck, Jacob. Good luck, everybody.

• 1:05:04Rich Roll?

  Speaking of, you know, getting up and getting the run in so that the rest of your day goes well, that's something I did today. I can't say I got up all that early.

• 1:05:12Speaker 01

  Do you want a timestamp?

• 1:05:13Rich Roll?

  I was not gonna make the November project. It is two hours later here.

• 1:05:17Speaker 01

  So, what time, Pacific?

• 1:05:18Rich Roll?

  So.

• 1:05:19Speaker 01

  So, you ran at?

• 1:05:20Rich Roll?

  I woke up, no, I woke up at, at, uh, at like, 8:00, 8:00 AM here, I think.

• 1:05:27Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:05:28Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I woke up at 8:00, so I was like, getting up at 6:00.

• 1:05:29Speaker 01

  Totally.

• 1:05:30Rich Roll?

  So.

• 1:05:31Speaker 01

  And there was snow on the ground.

• 1:05:32Rich Roll?

  But it's also, uh, in the wake of having done a podcast with Matthew Walker the other day, who's the sleep expert guy, and he talks about how important 8 hours is, and you gotta get 8 hours no matter what. So, I've graduated out of that, like, I have to get up at the crack of fuck no matter what.

• 1:05:47Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:05:48Rich Roll?

  Vibe, which you're still on board with.

• 1:05:50Speaker 01

  I, I, I am.

• 1:05:51Rich Roll?

  And as you get, I will tell you this, as you're senior.

• 1:05:54Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:05:55Rich Roll?

  As you get older, that sleep becomes a little bit more elusive, especially when you travel across time zones and you're in hotels and stuff like that.

• 1:06:02Speaker 01

  I'm only taking advice from older dads.

• 1:06:04Rich Roll?

  Okay.

• 1:06:05Speaker 01

  That's like my new thing.

• 1:06:06Rich Roll?

  That's my, that's one piece of advice. And we played this out a little bit because in, in kind of trying to plan the itinerary for this trip, you were getting all hopped up, and I was like, I had to throw a little rain on that parade, because you're like, we're gonna do this, we're gonna do that. And I was like, whoa, dude, like, I have to make sure that I execute on these podcasts at the highest level that I'm capable of. And if I overbook myself, I'm not gonna be prepared, I'm gonna be tired, I can't just be running in a million different directions.

• 1:06:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, you did like a Papa Bear, like, reply all email. That was like, it was very unfun. You were like, not, you were a downer. And, but, but just, just so you know, for future, like, trash talk that will come your way from yours truly, like, that worked, it was a good method.

• 1:06:47Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:06:48Speaker 01

  And the email was, I think most of the captains room were on there, it was like, it was like. I need to focus on what I came there for. I was like, oh shit. Sorry dad. But yeah, you know, like in tribute to you coming and that smackdown of an email.

• 1:07:04Rich Roll?

  I was nice.

• 1:07:05Speaker 01

  He put me in my place. I also, uh, leading up to this, uh, have been getting more sleep and with the ride to downtown and back, I've started calling that like I've been like nicer to myself to be like.

• 1:07:16Rich Roll?

  So you ride your bike in the city every day, which is 20 miles. You go back and forth, right?

• 1:07:20Speaker 01

  And I'll count that as my workout, right? So like, instead of having to get up and do something and then the ride. I've just been like, okay, Rich is coming. I'm gonna cut back on the beers, get better sleep and just call my bike ride good enough.

• 1:07:33Rich Roll?

  It's still 40 miles of riding. If you hit that hard, that's pretty good.

• 1:07:37Speaker 01

  Yeah. Anyway, so if I seem like extra on it today, it's because I'm getting better.

• 1:07:43Rich Roll?

  Well, this is what I want. Yeah. Cause this is for the ages, my friend.

• 1:07:46Speaker 01

  Totally. This is locked in forever.

• 1:07:46Rich Roll?

  But speaking of the, the, the little jog that I did this morning, I mean, running around.

• 1:07:50Speaker 01

  Yeah. Where'd you go?

• 1:07:51Rich Roll?

  We're right in downtown. I mean, I don't really know where I am, so I just kind of ran around.

• 1:07:55Speaker 01

  The buildings.

• 1:07:55Rich Roll?

  Streets and the buildings and the bridges and stuff.

• 1:07:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, cool.

• 1:07:58Rich Roll?

  It was eerie, like everything is boarded up, everything is shut down, barely any people out. You see media, media trucks, you see a lot of, um, tripods and cameras and, you know, people getting ready to cover what's going on.

• 1:08:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:08:15Rich Roll?

  You had been sharing pictures of police presence and like Humvees and stuff like that. I didn't see that much of that this morning, but it was still pretty early. Perhaps that happens as we get towards evening, but it was strange, you know, it was strange to be in a city that I'm not familiar with, just kind of, it's my favorite thing to wake up in a new city and just, I don't even look at a map or any, I just go outside and run around and try to get a feel for the vibe.

• 1:08:38Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:08:39Rich Roll?

  But there's like no vibe.

• 1:08:40Speaker 01

  There's no vibe.

• 1:08:41Rich Roll?

  Because there's nothing, there's nothing going on. And getting in last night, we couldn't get any food because there's no delivery and like, it was, it was like a whole, I was like, oh my God, we might not be able to eat.

• 1:08:51Speaker 01

  I love that.

• 1:08:51Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:53Speaker 01

  Well, because that was a travel disaster story of like, no food. I didn't eat all day.

• 1:08:57Rich Roll?

  I just figured like, usually the worst case scenario is you get like room service spaghetti, which we did, but it was really expensive and not that much food. And I was like, this isn't gonna do it. Now we gotta find somebody who's gonna deliver to us. And I ordered through DoorDash. They charge your credit card and then they cancel on you. So like $250 later.

• 1:09:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:09:16Rich Roll?

  I'm thinking like, I thought I had food coming and then they tell me, no, it's not coming, but we're still gonna take your money. I went into a mild panic.

• 1:09:30Speaker 01

  Let's see. The, the part about the police presence here right now is frustrating because I was, and I know that this is a can of worms. So I'm not gonna, we don't have to get into this, but like every time I see a Humvee or a bunch of armed guards with machine guns here in downtown Minneapolis, I wonder, I just think about January 6th. I just think about what that staff looked like on the steps of the Capitol. So that, so there's that. And then I want to circle back on something you said, because I, I told you some jokes last year that landed pretty well, which was just about how thoughtful your podcast was. But I was for the first time so in my head, kind of about everything going on, that I kind of, I kind of fell off the Rich Roll Podcast.

• 1:10:12Speaker 01

  Like, yeah, I know, but it feels good to say it on the show, right? So, but then, um, but one of the conversations, so, but, but not completely. I was still probably doing an episode a week. Okay. Love John Sally. That just, I love that he always has to go pick up his daughter. It's like my favorite thing.

• 1:10:29Rich Roll?

  Yeah, he keeps having to bail.

• 1:10:30Speaker 01

  I love that. But in the conversation you had with Knox Robinson, shout out Knox, you, you examined something that you just said just now, which was this idea of like, when you get to a new city, you like to go run around. I am completely the same way.

• 1:10:46Speaker 01

  But to the run world, to the white folks in running, like if you feel that same way, explore a city on foot, like it's so.

• 1:10:52Rich Roll?

  And I never think twice about it. And I've done it all over the world.

• 1:10:55Speaker 01

  Totally.

• 1:10:56Rich Roll?

  I've done it in Muslim countries.

• 1:10:57Speaker 01

  Just whatever.

• 1:10:58Rich Roll?

  You know, all kinds of crazy places.

• 1:11:00Speaker 01

  Globally just. Yep.

• 1:11:03Rich Roll?

  About my safety once.

• 1:11:04Speaker 01

  Split shorts. Should I bring a phone?

• 1:11:08Speaker 01

  And so like, again, like I try and find points of entry to see the see white privilege. And like for the running world, like if, if you like to explore a city that you don't know on foot, like, let's look at that. Like, and so I'm not calling you out, I'm calling all of us. Because I completely agree. When I travel, I'm like, oh yeah, what is Baltimore like? I'll just go trot around. And so I think that that's like, that's another way of looking at it.

• 1:11:30Rich Roll?

  But when you had, so you were saying when Knox came out to visit, because I want to talk about that too. You got, you spent like a whole week with that guy, right?

• 1:11:37Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, I think so.

• 1:11:39Rich Roll?

  And he was definitely on the Brogan itinerary.

• 1:11:42Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:11:43Rich Roll?

  And that was all shared in technicolor on Instagram stories.

• 1:11:47Speaker 01

  We used the phones.

• 1:11:48Rich Roll?

  There's a lot of phone use.

• 1:11:49Speaker 01

  We used that pink app quite heavily. So I'd reached out to Knox last summer. Actually, I think I'd seen him in the sit down that you had for the Rich Roll Podcast, which I think you did in Los Angeles. It was like the black drape thing.

• 1:12:02Rich Roll?

  It was the second, yeah, yeah, yeah. When you started doing that. Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. It was like right after that, I think. Shortly after that.

• 1:12:09Speaker 01

  And I wanted, I wanted to amplify a voice of credibility in Run, but not just someone that, you know, and again, Knox doesn't speak for black people in running, but he has his own experience and he has his own set of identities. And I, I also know Knox and like,

• 1:12:29Speaker 01

  ran into him at a million events and like, you know, he's got a kid and got a couple of kids now. And so I've always liked him. And so I threw him the invite as we were getting ready to host the Meeting of the Minds, November Project Summit, virtually. And it was just going to be another piece of content. And yeah, he came out. Like, one thing I didn't understand, first of all, he said yes right away. Like, he said Knox Robinson said yes so fast, I was like, I was wondering if there was like a, like a.

• 1:12:54Rich Roll?

  Nobody traveled more during the pandemic than that guy.

• 1:12:57Speaker 01

  Totally. I would hit him up with a film.

• 1:12:59Rich Roll?

  He went to Africa.

• 1:13:00Speaker 01

  He would send one right back. He'd be like, yeah, I'm in Mexico City. I live here now.

• 1:13:03Rich Roll?

  Right. He was living down there.

• 1:13:05Speaker 01

  Yeah. So anyway, he said yes so quickly. And it was, it was a really beautiful conversation that, that we were able to share, kind of just catching up on our timeline of like, what the Black Roses was, what they were doing, when it was he and Jesse, and how he sees Run and, and taking over spaces. And it was.

• 1:13:27Speaker 01

  You know, we recorded that in my garage and it was great. I thought it was really great. Quality and beautiful. But it really was the time around, you know, riding bikes in the, with the leaves changing. It was fallen. But yeah, I think that, um, I think having Knox here, you know, going back to what my mom said, it's like, there's folks in New York and Los Angeles, and there's a lot of America in between, you know, and to have you here and to have Knox come to Minneapolis, Minnesota, or the burbs where I live now, it's like, it was cool. It felt good, you know, and with all that's going on here now, it's just a reminder that like, there's a, there's a lot of communities that are going through a lot of hurt,

• 1:14:08Speaker 01

  you know, and, and I have friends in San Diego that still don't really know where I live. They call it Mindyapolis. Mindyapolis.

• 1:14:16Rich Roll?

  Yeah, because if you're not on a coast, then you're just in some no man's land or it doesn't count.

• 1:14:23Speaker 01

  So yeah, so that was, those, those were important times and, um, and, but again, that was for, that was for a gathering that's usually a couple thousand people called the November Project Summit and just to have a virtual offering and a couple of live things. It was just like, you know.

• 1:14:38Rich Roll?

  So, uh, a lot has happened since the last time we sat down.

• 1:14:43Speaker 01

  A lot has happened.

• 1:14:44Rich Roll?

  You got a kid now.

• 1:14:45Speaker 01

  I got a kid now. I'm a dad.

• 1:14:48Rich Roll?

  You are a dad.

• 1:14:48Speaker 01

  I'm a dad.

• 1:14:49Rich Roll?

  We've had some good dad conversations.

• 1:14:51Speaker 01

  We have, we have, and I feel like, I feel like that's my connection to, to you and this show, which is like, I like people that are out there grinding. I like people out there that are athletes in, in whatever stage of life. But if you're a dad, I, I feel like, I feel a connection to that, you know, and so.

• 1:15:08Rich Roll?

  You're born to be a dad.

• 1:15:09Speaker 01

  Born to be a dad?

• 1:15:10Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Like you're, you are like, I mean, you're like a dad dad.

• 1:15:17Speaker 01

  I'm in it.

• 1:15:18Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:18Speaker 01

  I'm in it. I, yeah, I think, you know, I could have been a better dad to this baby. The baby thing is kind of like a lot of standing around, you know, and now that my kid is three, he turned three in February. So let's say, okay, so we did a podcast in February 2017. My son, Lumi, was born, Lumi was born. Lumi Graham.

• 1:15:37Rich Roll?

  Look at that.

• 1:15:38Speaker 01

  Was born.

• 1:15:39Rich Roll?

  When I say you were born to be a dad.

• 1:15:41Speaker 01

  This is who I am.

• 1:15:42Rich Roll?

  And so if you're just listening and you're not watching, you're wearing a tie dye shirt.

• 1:15:45Speaker 01

  And I tucked in my shirt.

• 1:15:46Rich Roll?

  It doesn't, it doesn't just say Lumi's dad on it. It's like sewn onto the front of it.

• 1:15:51Speaker 01

  And your shirt, when you're a dad, you should just start tucking in your shirt, too. That's another thing. Get into jogging, tuck in your shirt, read the paper. I got, I got the print on Sunday now. So I'm drinking coffee, reading the paper with a tucked in shirt.

• 1:16:02Rich Roll?

  Typing letters on like an ancient typewriter.

• 1:16:05Speaker 01

  Letters, I mean, it's.

• 1:16:06Rich Roll?

  And I, you know, I like on the here, when you, you can just give me your phone number. You did the plus one.

• 1:16:10Speaker 01

  And then in parentheses, the zip code, like it's the forties. Yeah. So my shirt's tucked in, I'm reading the Sunday Times and I'm ripping out typewriter stuff. Uh, yeah, so Lumi, yeah, so he was born a year after the thing when we sat down. Um, I, I, I've said this before to friends and I, I said it on a couple of other things, but, um, I was traveling so much during that time that I was, um, I was a little freaked out that I would not want to be home, if that makes sense. Like, cause you hear sometimes, uh, friends of mine that are men, that are dads, do that kind of old brother, oh, man, it's a lot, it's stressful, it sucks, or whatever.

• 1:16:47Rich Roll?

  Being at home or being on the road?

• 1:16:49Speaker 01

  Being at home.

• 1:16:50Rich Roll?

  Right. And you also hear lots of guys talk about how stressful it is to be traveling all the time. And I think one thing you and I share is like, I love.

• 1:16:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:16:59Rich Roll?

  I'm like, I'm not that guy.

• 1:17:00Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:17:01Rich Roll?

  I love airports, I love, like, totally, everything. It's like, I get to time travel.

• 1:17:06Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:17:06Rich Roll?

  How cool is that?

• 1:17:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, right. I'm in the Houston airport. I'm no, I'm, I don't exist. So, so I was traveling so much and so thrilled by that. And like my sister in law said, I was coming to life on the road. I was concerned that like, I'd be one of those dads that like. You know, like problematic, like, like I'd come home, be like, wah wah, this sucks.

• 1:17:25Rich Roll?

  You're like Jeremy Renner in the grocery store, looking at like detergent and breakfast cereal.

• 1:17:30Speaker 01

  Totally. And just being like, get me out of here. And I wasn't that way. I still came to life on the road. But like, I was, when I was home, and I think Goldie could say this for sure, when I was home, I was home, you know?

• 1:17:41Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:17:41Speaker 01

  And.

• 1:17:43Rich Roll?

  But the ability to be fully present and grounded at home is, you know, informed by getting fueled up by those experiences on the road.

• 1:17:54Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I think when people talk about exercise to make yourself the best self, so that you can be in relationships better. You can be at your best self at work. And so to keep up yourself, you know? And for me, that also applies to like, the social engagement, coming to life on the road. And not even really late nights, not even really like, nothing to like, you know, R rated, nothing that fun, like traditionally. But just still being myself and a dad at home, being individual, but also being married, you know? Like, I think you fall into those things of like, that's your role, that's all you are. And so I was really pumped to come home with that little baby.

• 1:18:35Speaker 01

  And now that he's a toddler, like, he actually is fun, instead of like, I think we love our baby, he's getting bigger, diapers. Like a year or two of that.

• 1:18:44Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:44Speaker 01

  You know?

• 1:18:46Rich Roll?

  Yeah, they start becoming real people.

• 1:18:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:18:49Rich Roll?

  And then it gets really fun.

• 1:18:50Speaker 01

  Yeah. And, you know, and so now, so almost every day, Monday through Friday, I have on my calendar, loomy, loomy time, which is like,

• 1:19:00Speaker 01

  around five o'clock until he goes to bed, which is like six, seven, eight, depending on whatever. And it's awesome. And we go stumble around the woods or like pretend to go fishing and like just kind of fumble through stuff, you know, climb trees. Like, it's like the stuff, and I hate to be this way, but it's like, you know, we got a big front yard, big backyard. It's like, it's kind of why we moved here, right?

• 1:19:18Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:19:18Speaker 01

  So, and those of you who are on the Instagram that follow Goldie, she announced yesterday that we're having a second kid.

• 1:19:24Rich Roll?

  I know. It's exciting, man.

• 1:19:26Speaker 01

  We're having a daughter. We're having a little girl.

• 1:19:28Rich Roll?

  You are.

• 1:19:30Speaker 01

  Which is great. We have enough white dudes.

• 1:19:33Rich Roll?

  There was a little bit of a, there was, you were like thinking though.

• 1:19:35Speaker 01

  Well, what I was thinking, you know what I was thinking. You know what I was thinking.

• 1:19:40Rich Roll?

  I don't know that I know.

• 1:19:41Speaker 01

  Well, I, I think that the understanding and the growth in our society, but definitely in my household and definitely for me personally around like gender and what matters and identity and, and then going to this baby gender reveal kind of vibe of like, we're having a, like I think, I, I thought if I was paying attention, we're supposed to not like even talk about it. Or like, it seems outdated to pop the balloon and the pink confetti comes out and we say, "Girl," and that means dresses.

• 1:20:16Rich Roll?

  You don't want fireworks.

• 1:20:17Speaker 01

  Right. So I remember seeing people on social media being like, "We're doing the reveal." And being like, "What?" I didn't know we're still doing that. So, so that's my pause.

• 1:20:26Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I don't think, well, I don't know what it's, I don't, you know, I don't know. I guess it, it might be a regional thing too. I don't know. It depends on where you live, I suppose. But the progressive notion is that we no longer do that.

• 1:20:42Speaker 01

  We're not doing that. And so, so then this is like, man, all right, tell them the story. I came home on my bike. My in-laws were visiting. Jen and Gary were visiting. And I was a little bit late and I could tell Goldie was agitated. She's like, "We're doing the thing. We're doing it." And I was like, "What are we talking about?" Her mother had, had talked to the doctor on the phone. So her only person who knew if you're having a boy or a girl was Jen. And she had gone to the store and got a big balloon and we were doing a gender reveal. And in that moment, I had to decide like be Scrooge and ruin Christmas and like take the energy out of it. And like, "We're not doing that." And her mom, it's like a nice thing for her mom, whatever. And I even said to Goldie, I was like, "Are we doing that?" And then I realized like,

• 1:21:21Speaker 01

  "Shut, shut up. Don't ruin the moment." And it just, but just, but maybe we can, it goes back to, it goes back to anti-racism. It's like, maybe I can have a conversation with Jen and I can ask Goldie, "We're not going to post the pink balloon popping. That's a bad, we're not doing that. But maybe we can engage and have these conversations." And then we all kind of win. I wish we didn't did it. Do it. We did it. And we popped it. Okay. So then I was kind of Scrooge on the inside and smiling on the outside. Okay, cool. I didn't stand up for much. Okay, great. And then we sent it to our really good friends in San Diego who have a boy and a girl. And they sent us back a video of them watching the reveal.

• 1:21:56Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 1:21:57Speaker 01

  And they were jumping up and down and screaming and crying and it was like so beautiful and I was like, oh, that's awesome. Okay. So I, that's just a lot of words. I, I don't gender reveal.

• 1:22:08Rich Roll?

  It's complicated these days.

• 1:22:09Speaker 01

  Right?

• 1:22:10Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:11Speaker 01

  So we're having, so, so go back to the top. We're having a girl.

• 1:22:13Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:22:20Rich Roll?

  Congratulations.

• 1:22:20Speaker 01

  Thank you. We're having a baby.

• 1:22:21Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's cool, man.

• 1:22:22Speaker 01

  No, we're stoked. We're stoked.

• 1:22:24Rich Roll?

  I love, I love the videos that you share online with you and, and Lumeen.

• 1:22:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, thank you. We're stoked. We're stoked. And with a mom named Goldie, and a dad named Brogan, and an older brother named Lumi, I think we should name this girl Sarah.

• 1:22:41Rich Roll?

  Or just go straight up the middle, you mean?

• 1:22:43Speaker 01

  Like Emily.

• 1:22:44Rich Roll?

  Yeah, just because you need a straight man. Like you can't, you can't have, everybody can't be completely wacky. I mean, let's be clear. It's not just Lumi. It's Lumi Cobra.

• 1:22:54Speaker 01

  Lumi Cobra Graham.

• 1:22:55Rich Roll?

  Where does that come from?

• 1:22:57Speaker 01

  Um, so when we found out, when we found out we were pregnant, when we found out Goldie was pregnant,

• 1:23:04Speaker 01

  new age stuff, and this is a dad thing I'll teach you because you're a little bit further down the road, apps, people have tracking apps. Okay. So you say like, oh, you know, there's the due date and then that kind of every week will be like, oh, now it's the size of grape and,

• 1:23:18Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I missed all that.

• 1:23:19Speaker 01

  It's cool. But, and it actually is cool. But you have to put in a placeholder name.

• 1:23:24Speaker 01

  So the app will spit out, it'll say like baby Graham or something. And so, um, and Goldie's a yoga instructor. And so, uh, one of the poses is called baby Cobra. It's like, uh, you're laying on your belly. You kind of lift up whatever. Um, and I don't know how we plugged that in, but it's kind of cute. She was still teaching. So I'd go to her classes and she'd say, let's all come into baby Cobra. And we all kind of, kind of wink at the wife. It was beautiful. It's great. Um, but the further we got like into her pregnancy, I, we're looking at each other like, we're referring to baby Cobra, like we're talking about. Oh, I can see a Cobra. You know, it's like, we started looking at each other. We're like, okay, she's Goldie and Brogan. We're like, are we really doing this?

• 1:23:58Rich Roll?

  This is actually gonna happen.

• 1:23:59Speaker 01

  Too far. And then she's looking at me like, and she's outrageous with the names. And so she was like, she's looking at me like for the voice of reason. She's looking at me as the voice of reason. And she's like, Um, I don't think we, I don't, what do you, and I'm like, yeah, I don't know.

• 1:24:16Rich Roll?

  I guess this is gonna be what it is.

• 1:24:18Speaker 01

  And then we're just like, what is that, what is that do to a person, send them into the world as Cobra?

• 1:24:24Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:24:26Speaker 01

  The pasty white San Diegan.

• 1:24:29Rich Roll?

  But you can get away with it as the middle name.

• 1:24:31Speaker 01

  Right. So we hit it.

• 1:24:31Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:32Speaker 01

  So it's kind of like.

• 1:24:33Rich Roll?

  If you're coming in hot with Cobra as the first name.

• 1:24:35Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:24:35Rich Roll?

  That's a, that's a heavy load.

• 1:24:36Speaker 01

  So now it's kind of a parlor check. Cause how often does your middle name come up? What's your middle name?

• 1:24:40Rich Roll?

  David.

• 1:24:40Speaker 01

  David. It's so boring. So is mine. Mine's, uh, mine's pretty much David. Mine's Christopher.

• 1:24:45Rich Roll?

  Uh huh. Same thing.

• 1:24:46Speaker 01

  It's the same thing. That's the same. They got, they got those names out of the same pot. Does yours have significance?

• 1:24:51Rich Roll?

  James, Steven.

• 1:24:52Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:24:52Rich Roll?

  Well, it was my grandfather's name.

• 1:24:54Speaker 01

  Yeah. My grandmother, so, uh, my kid's great grandmother's maiden name was Rocker. And I think that's a cool first name.

• 1:25:04Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:05Speaker 01

  Anyway.

• 1:25:05Rich Roll?

  What if I married a rocker?

• 1:25:08Speaker 01

  Right?

• 1:25:10Rich Roll?

  Then that woman's name would be Rocker Roll.

• 1:25:13Speaker 01

  Rocker Roll.

• 1:25:14Rich Roll?

  Rocker Roll.

• 1:25:16Speaker 01

  Rocker Roll?

• 1:25:17Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:18Speaker 01

  Taking a roll call?

• 1:25:19Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:19Speaker 01

  By the way, I want Adam's job.

• 1:25:22Rich Roll?

  Uh, you're gonna have to come and do some guest hosting spots.

• 1:25:26Speaker 01

  Like, and, and I, the reason I, the reason listening to his stuff.

• 1:25:29Rich Roll?

  You're a good hype man.

• 1:25:30Speaker 01

  I would be into it.

• 1:25:31Rich Roll?

  I'll give you that.

• 1:25:31Speaker 01

  Well, and the thing is, the reason I'm real, I really despise that guy is because he does a good job. And I like him.

• 1:25:36Rich Roll?

  Adam's very good.

• 1:25:37Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, with the four.

• 1:25:38Rich Roll?

  He's risen to the occasion for sure. And it's been great. But I also, uh, I reached, you know, one of the things that I had in mind when we were thinking about this tour and these live events was I wanted to have you involved. We talked about it because you're like the ultimate hype man.

• 1:25:52Speaker 01

  It would be great.

• 1:25:53Rich Roll?

  On stage and get everybody excited.

• 1:25:54Speaker 01

  It would be great. And I'm still down to do it. That was one of the many ideas we've canceled on.

• 1:25:58Rich Roll?

  Adam has job security though.

• 1:26:00Speaker 01

  Yeah. What does he do?

• 1:26:02Rich Roll?

  He's my hype man.

• 1:26:03Speaker 01

  Is that his full-time gig?

• 1:26:04Rich Roll?

  No.

• 1:26:05Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 1:26:05Rich Roll?

  He's a New York Times correspondent.

• 1:26:07Speaker 01

  Got it.

• 1:26:07Rich Roll?

  Contributor.

• 1:26:08Speaker 01

  Got it.

• 1:26:08Rich Roll?

  He's an author. He co-wrote Dave Goggins' book.

• 1:26:11Speaker 01

  Right, right, right.

• 1:26:13Rich Roll?

  And he's written his own books and he's working on a novel. He does lots of stuff.

• 1:26:16Speaker 01

  When I, when the, it's called Roll On, when you, the two of you are just chopping it up. When, when those episodes come up, because I want his role so bad, his job so bad, I press play on those podcasts like this, like angry.

• 1:26:28Rich Roll?

  You hate-listen?

• 1:26:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm like, this is stupid. And then I listen to it, I'm like laughing at the stuff. No.

• 1:26:34Rich Roll?

  Here's the thing though.

• 1:26:35Speaker 01

  I'm using the discount codes and shit, I'm like, okay.

• 1:26:36Rich Roll?

  There's a lot of work that goes in behind the scenes to show up. We have this robust outline. He's reading all kinds of stuff. We're talking throughout the week about what we want to talk about.

• 1:26:46Speaker 01

  So.

• 1:26:47Rich Roll?

  Homework, homework is involved.

• 1:26:48Speaker 01

  And then, but I'm like this kind of, like, I'm like a field reporter, kind of like, I volunteer my marketing ideas. And you said Goggins, so I've got to roll this out, this, um, I, I throw you ideas like nonsense like all the time. You mostly get back to me. And I remember talking to the phone.

• 1:27:02Rich Roll?

  I wouldn't say mostly.

• 1:27:03Speaker 01

  No, you do, you get back.

• 1:27:04Rich Roll?

  Do I?

• 1:27:04Speaker 01

  But you, um, you, one time I threw this idea, we're on the phone. I think we were actually faced, uh, I think we might've been on the telephone. You know, smartphones still have the feature where you can just call someone. We were on the telephone, good old fashioned telephone call with Rich Roll. And I was like, oh, man, I was on a bike ride. You don't remember this. I was like, I was on a bike ride and I thought of this funny shit because I was listening to you and a couple of key words came up. Do you know where this is going?

• 1:27:26Rich Roll?

  I think so.

• 1:27:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:27:27Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:27Speaker 01

  And I was like, you gotta do Rich Roll bingo. And, and just like have these bingo boards out there. And then when people hear like a key word, they can like, they can play along. I know so many endurance athletes are like doing like, you know, marathons and stuff, but it was the one time in our friendship where you were like, flatlined. You were just like, it was bait, you, by, with your silence, you said, I don't like that idea.

• 1:27:55Rich Roll?

  This drinking game, whenever I say some word that I always say all the time.

• 1:27:58Speaker 01

  Totally.

• 1:27:59Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:59Speaker 01

  And, and you, so, so often, when I'm, when I'm in a creative space, you know, you pay attention to those moments where someone's like, oh, that's a bad idea. And you're like, okay, we'll finesse it this way. But instead of doing that, I just went ahead and created it.

• 1:28:11Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I know.

• 1:28:11Speaker 01

  You know, did you see it?

• 1:28:13Rich Roll?

  Well, you started mocking me, you were, you were mimicking me on Instagram and you did like, so, well, let me preface this by saying, When I was getting ready to go on this trip, my boys, who are now 26 and 24, who have been living at home since the pandemic, I'm like, I'm going to, I'm going to Minneapolis. I'm going to see Brogan. And they're like, the Instagram takeover guy?

• 1:28:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:28:34Rich Roll?

  They were like, I love that guy. So you would go on Instagram and pretend that you're, oh my God.

• 1:28:39Speaker 01

  So this is

• 1:28:40Rich Roll?

  Taking over and then you would, you would act like

• 1:28:42Speaker 01

  I would pretend like Rich did a takeover of my handle and I would like speak like very thoughtfully and unpack a lot of things.

• 1:28:47Rich Roll?

  Talking about homework.

• 1:28:48Speaker 01

  So this is, and then you can do this. So this is, and this won't catch on. And I didn't talk to Adam about this.

• 1:28:53Rich Roll?

  If people are just listening, you literally handed me a bingo game chart.

• 1:28:57Speaker 01

  Read what it says from the top.

• 1:28:58Rich Roll?

  Podcast Bingo, how to play. Tune into any episode of the Rich Roll Podcast.

• 1:29:04Speaker 01

  Yep. Any episode. You can go back and there's like a thousand of them.

• 1:29:08Rich Roll?

  Link for keywords and mark each space with a cutout piece below. The first listener with five in a row will win. Many will play, many will win.

• 1:29:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:29:17Rich Roll?

  Peace, long pause, plants.

• 1:29:18Speaker 01

  Now read some of the keywords here.

• 1:29:20Rich Roll?

  Here, yeah, on the chart, keywords. I like how at the bottom too, you have a little scissor thing to cut out like your poker chip.

• 1:29:26Speaker 01

  This is, this is interactive.

• 1:29:28Rich Roll?

  This is like a lot of work.

• 1:29:29Speaker 01

  This took me 25 minutes of love for the organization.

• 1:29:33Rich Roll?

  So, so here's what, here's what you get on the pink, on the

• 1:29:36Speaker 01

  Rich Roll Bingo. Just, can you say it again? Rich Roll Bingo. Can you just say it?

• 1:29:39Rich Roll?

  Rich Roll Bingo.

• 1:29:40Speaker 01

  It flows. It's nice.

• 1:29:41Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:41Speaker 01

  All right, go ahead.

• 1:29:42Rich Roll?

  John Joseph

• 1:29:43Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 1:29:44Rich Roll?

  Is right there at the top.

• 1:29:45Speaker 01

  Top left, yeah.

• 1:29:46Rich Roll?

  So let's go back to the beginning.

• 1:29:48Speaker 01

  So let's go back to the beginning.

• 1:29:50Rich Roll?

  Refuel.

• 1:29:51Speaker 01

  Uh huh.

• 1:29:51Rich Roll?

  Gut health, endeavor, Goggins.

• 1:29:54Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:29:55Rich Roll?

  Mindset.

• 1:29:56Speaker 01

  There's gonna be a lot of winners.

• 1:29:57Rich Roll?

  Ultra health, decoding, dot com slash Rich Roll.

• 1:30:01Speaker 01

  A lot of that.

• 1:30:02Rich Roll?

  Yeah. There's a lot of that.

• 1:30:03Speaker 01

  Now you're doing those in the middle of the show.

• 1:30:04Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:30:05Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:30:05Rich Roll?

  Studio, right in the middle. You just have the symbol, like the prince symbol.

• 1:30:11Speaker 01

  Is that, is that upside down? I couldn't figure out how to put that right.

• 1:30:13Rich Roll?

  It goes, which I think you did it right.

• 1:30:14Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:30:15Rich Roll?

  Authentic, spirituality, recovery, Julie, precipice, new book.

• 1:30:20Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:30:21Rich Roll?

  Subscribe, hindsight, an even deeper look, swim run.

• 1:30:25Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:30:26Rich Roll?

  Paradigm busting and vegan.

• 1:30:28Speaker 01

  I was gonna do the cheese that your wife, what's Julie's cheese?

• 1:30:31Rich Roll?

  You're missing a few here though. Oh, Shremo. You're missing a few. Well, you can unpack. I thought that was your favorite.

• 1:30:38Speaker 01

  That is my favorite.

• 1:30:40Rich Roll?

  Let's land this plane.

• 1:30:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I can't wait. So what you could do is you could knock this all out. You could just really rich roll it up in the first 10 minutes.

• 1:30:48Rich Roll?

  I think everybody would win in short shrift.

• 1:30:51Speaker 01

  And then they get a discount code for 10,000 shorts.

• 1:30:53Rich Roll?

  All right. I appreciate the effort.

• 1:30:56Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 1:30:57Rich Roll?

  And I like how it's colorful and you used all the fonts and everything.

• 1:31:01Speaker 01

  I just, look, I'm gonna keep coming with ideas.

• 1:31:04Rich Roll?

  What do we do with this, though? Raise money for charity, maybe?

• 1:31:06Speaker 01

  They don't.

• 1:31:08Speaker 01

  Rich Roll Bingo is on. Rich Roll Bingo is on.

• 1:31:12Rich Roll?

  But I'm serious about, next time you blow through Southern California, you gotta drop in on a session with Adam and I and

• 1:31:19Speaker 01

  I would love to.

• 1:31:20Rich Roll?

  chime in and participate in the roll on endeavor.

• 1:31:23Speaker 01

  For his shout out, especially, especially with the Goggins thing that he did, the four by four by 48. I love, I was walking on Lake Minnetaka in the frozen whatever, and I was listening to him talk about running, and then you talk about training. And it was like this really beautiful thing where he, and I hope this isn't insulting, I mean it as a compliment, but he was talking about running in a way that more people can relate to. Like, I don't want to call him the couch to 5K, he's way more than that, but it was like, he was approaching run with like, I think he said like 25 miles a week, like trying to, trying to get into it. And you were like, phase two, hang on, well, how are you? And you were like, you were trying to help him, but it was almost like you guys were like, it was like too far a little bit. And I thought it was awesome. Because you have so many listeners

• 1:32:06Speaker 01

  who are super serious athletes, but also people who move a little, you know? I thought it was beautiful.

• 1:32:12Rich Roll?

  No, I think Adam, Adam is very relatable in that regard. Like, he's aspirational in the things that he's trying to do with his running and his swim run and fitness and all that kind of stuff. But I think he does sit in the position of, you know, more of the listeners in terms of like how they think about these things.

• 1:32:28Speaker 01

  Yeah. And then, how did it go? Did he crush it? Did he do the thing?

• 1:32:31Rich Roll?

  He did great, yeah. I rode my bike down and like Checked on him a couple of times.

• 1:32:36Speaker 01

  Was it, did it get, did it get ugly at the end?

• 1:32:39Rich Roll?

  He got, he did pretty good. Jason over here actually did it as well. So they were checking in with each other throughout the whole time.

• 1:32:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, I, I was coming off the knee thing. I was not gonna do that, but I was stoked for, I was stoked for him.

• 1:32:50Rich Roll?

  Were you uncomfortable that you couldn't rise to the occasion?

• 1:32:53Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 1:32:54Rich Roll?

  Instead, snowshoeing out on the Lake Minnetonka, like looking for fishermen?

• 1:32:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:32:58Rich Roll?

  To talk to you?

• 1:32:59Speaker 01

  And.

• 1:32:59Rich Roll?

  It's surprising you haven't started a podcast.

• 1:33:02Speaker 01

  Too much work, man.

• 1:33:04Rich Roll?

  That's it? Anybody who could put together this podcast bingo chart could probably.

• 1:33:08Speaker 01

  Rich Roll Podcast, you just gotta say the whole thing. Rich Roll Podcast Bingo.

• 1:33:12Rich Roll?

  Okay.

• 1:33:12Speaker 01

  The Goggins thing is crazy and I think I, I will, totally. I will do the, um, I will do the four by four, forty eight. Goggins has been on your show now, I'm not joking. But Goggins has been on your show like four times?

• 1:33:23Rich Roll?

  No, no, twice.

• 1:33:24Speaker 01

  Okay. He's in the twice club with, uh, yours truly. No, but, um, I am inspired by Goggins. I liked, um, Goggins called a friend of mine's dad, um, who was battling cancer. This was just a few months ago and left him a voicemail.

• 1:33:41Rich Roll?

  Wow.

• 1:33:42Speaker 01

  Um, and you know Steve Prognol?

• 1:33:43Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:43Speaker 01

  So it's his dad.

• 1:33:44Rich Roll?

  Yeah, wow.

• 1:33:45Speaker 01

  And the two, the Steve and his dad, um, you know, read the Goggins book and the whatever. And so, um, I'm not even a huge Goggins fan, but when I heard his voice, like in this really matter of fact way, talking to Steve's father about taking this thing head on and like, you got this? I was just like, okay. I called, I got Steve on the phone and I was like, um, well you, you definitely have to do the four by four before, you know, and it was like, he only had a few weeks and he's in great shape, but, um, I don't need to know much more about Goggins because that was like a really well placed, perfect.

• 1:34:17Rich Roll?

  That's beautiful.

• 1:34:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, and Steve's dad is doing much better.

• 1:34:21Rich Roll?

  That's cool. So Steve's the, he's the November project leader in Buffalo.

• 1:34:25Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. And he's like one of the earliest fans of this podcast and, um, and you know, frankly, he's, he's a friend of mine that I get to know through November Project.

• 1:34:35Rich Roll?

  It's cool. He visited us at our house.

• 1:34:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:34:38Rich Roll?

  Several years ago.

• 1:34:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. So anyway, he came on in 2017 and, um, they've been doing a great job in Buffalo ever since. He's also like Mr. Connector in that city. Like everyone knows him. But, yeah.

• 1:34:50Rich Roll?

  Back to Lumi.

• 1:34:51Speaker 01

  Back to Lumi.

• 1:34:52Rich Roll?

  Yeah, so, so in your dadding, um, I guess he's probably not old enough to really understand kind of what's going on in this city that he lives in, right? Do you feel like, uh, you, you, can you talk to him about all of this stuff yet or not?

• 1:35:07Speaker 01

  So, can you talk to him? So, I have friends that are, um, most excited about anti-racist work through the lens of being parents, right? And what history classes we took and what things we learned about the United States and like, how do, how will that look for this next generation? And so, uh, I'm very interested in that. And I, I'll be completely honest, I haven't had those, I haven't begun those conversations. He has a hard time sitting still and we, you know, he's

• 1:35:38Rich Roll?

  He's too young.

• 1:35:38Speaker 01

  He's into coral reefs and things like that, but I, but, but not too far off, to be honest. And, you know, I was speaking to some other dad friends, um, where, you know, especially last summer here, uh, living in Uptown and, and the, the very organized, uh, peaceful protests and some of the riots, like, I remember seeing it, um, whether it was on TV or just listening just out my front window and thinking like, I gotta be out there. That's, I wanna be in the mix with people.

• 1:36:08Speaker 01

  One of the leaders in San Francisco reminded me this week that like, there are, there are other ways that you can have as much or much more impact, but, but going back to what we said earlier about who I am and how I connect and how I participate.

• 1:36:18Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I would imagine you're like, I need to be right in the middle of where all this is happening.

• 1:36:22Speaker 01

  And she's like, you're not leaving us here, that vibe. And so that was a real like push-pull for like the fatherhood thing of like,

• 1:36:29Rich Roll?

  What is your responsibility?

• 1:36:30Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:36:31Rich Roll?

  And

• 1:36:31Speaker 01

  Right, and

• 1:36:32Rich Roll?

  Where is your time best spent?

• 1:36:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, and so, um, you know, but I, I did, and I still do, take him out on the bike seat, little bike seat on the back. Dad life, man, tuck in the shirt, kid goes in the back. And, um, and we, uh, we would go to some peaceful marches and protests and things, and I would talk about how these are mommy and daddy's friends and everyone's wearing black and, and, um, Black Lives Matter. And we've been to the George Floyd, uh, memorial, now it's called George Floyd Square. I went once by myself and then the next day I took just, just Lumi.

• 1:37:04Speaker 01

  I didn't let Goldie know, um, but then the three of us went the next day.

• 1:37:10Speaker 01

  Which has its own, which has its own kind of set of opinions, which is just kind of this tourist vibe of like,

• 1:37:19Speaker 01

  going to the place where this unarmed black man was killed.

• 1:37:22Rich Roll?

  Yeah, which is something we're gonna, I think we're gonna do after this podcast, right? And it is a loaded thing, like you don't want to be a looky-loo, like how do you approach that? With the correct level of like, respect and appreciation, it's not about your Instagram moment.

• 1:37:38Speaker 01

  Uh huh.

• 1:37:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, and this was a conversation that came up with Knox when he visited, you know, I said, I said to him and I said to you, which is like,

• 1:37:48Speaker 01

  if we don't go, I understand, um, from a personal,

• 1:37:54Speaker 01

  point of view, I think, I think it's, I think it's important, any steps closer you can take to the reality, I encourage, and I know I'll get blowback for just even saying that, and, and for me to take my kid there and my wife and, we have, we took pictures and, you know, um, again, supercharged with privilege, but like, George Floyd and our move to Minneapolis, and I don't know how much longer we'll be here, we could, he could, you know, go to college at the U, you know, this could be where we are forever, but if we aren't, or if we are, his first history lesson that he lived through that he knows is George Floyd and we, and we, we went to the place where he was murdered in broad daylight and, look, if, if that, if there's some judgment there and, um,

• 1:38:38Speaker 01

  not only do I understand it, but I, like, I see it.

• 1:38:42Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:38:43Speaker 01

  And at the same time, like, I think, I think keeping kids in cocoons and not, not telling these stories is absolutely wrong.

• 1:38:52Rich Roll?

  Yeah, a hundred percent.

• 1:38:53Speaker 01

  So then, so then it's, you know,

• 1:38:58Speaker 01

  you know, that corner on Chicago Ave is, you know, point four from where we lived, you know? I've ridden my bike on every corner of the city, so yeah, we're gonna go.

• 1:39:07Rich Roll?

  One of the things that we've talked about a couple of times on FaceTime with respect to being a dad is the challenge of trying to figure out like what that means in 2021, right? You're no longer Don Draper who's going out and doing whatever as long as you're paying for everything. You can't just be the super sensitive guy. You're expected to be strong, but also emotionally available and vulnerable at just the right time. You have to be the good listener, but you also have to be the person who knows how to erect the boundaries while making a living that's going to support the people that you share a home

• 1:39:48Rich Roll?

  with. And it can be overwhelming and confusing to know what that roadmap looks like for you.

• 1:39:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think it's a stress that it's also not cool to complain about. There's not much of a space for men to be like, wow, this is a lot. I think you're supposed to have, you're supposed to, I got this. You're supposed to be on. So yeah, it's complicated.

• 1:40:13Rich Roll?

  I mean, being, yeah, I got like, that's, part of that is yes, and part of that is part of the problem. You know what I mean? Like, just being like, I'm just going to buckle down and solve the problem, isn't necessarily how you solve the problem.

• 1:40:28Speaker 01

  Right. And then, and then, and then what stereotypes do we continue like supporting? And like, what do we still think is like the husband role thing? Like, for example, like around the house shit. Like, I didn't really want to necessarily move the birds. We did. And like, now we've got this house and the house has like a water heater. What the hell's a water furnace? I don't know. I'm just saying things now. A sink. I knew that one before. Carpet, wood floors, things. So, so, okay, lawn. Okay, now I've got it. My shirt's tucked in. It says Lumi's dad. I'm pushing a lawnmower. It's all coming, it's all coming to life. But I've gotten some shade. From like the moments where Goldie is like, hey, can you, can you fill in the blank? Build the dresser or like hang the lights or like the thing. And like,

• 1:41:08Rich Roll?

  I can't do any of that.

• 1:41:09Speaker 01

  I can't do that stuff. And then I grew up in a house where we were kind of always doing projects and things, but like, so it always, especially in my new like suburban house life, it feels like fail to like call like a real guy with a tool belt and he owns the saw to come saw my stuff.

• 1:41:28Rich Roll?

  If the washing machine breaks or whatever.

• 1:41:30Speaker 01

  Totally.

• 1:41:31Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:41:31Speaker 01

  And so like, as if, as if we buy a house and the dad then knows how to fix a dryer same day. It's like, what are we talking about? So, so I think pushing back on, so, so, so it would be like, you know, the stereotype. And I tell Goldie this and she's like, are you pissed? And I'm like, yeah. She's like, well, explain yourself. I'm like, I don't know. Like, you know, that's like a dad thing. I should be able to replace the ceiling fan or something, you know? And a lot of my homies listen to it.

• 1:41:54Rich Roll?

  Pissed, meaning disappointed in yourself because you feel like you don't, you can't live up to that.

• 1:41:59Speaker 01

  That's the role.

• 1:41:59Rich Roll?

  Stereotype.

• 1:42:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then, um, and I, and I threw it back in her. I was like, that would be like me saying your cooking sucks. Like you can't cook. And then she's like, well, I can. And I'm like, yeah, shit. Yeah, you, you're a pretty good cook. Okay, maybe I should learn how to fix the ceiling fan. You know, these stereotypes like what our roles are. And so, um, I've been going back to just the one-on-one time with your kid, putting your phone down. And like how you talk to kids, like the, the generations before us, and also some of us had parents that didn't have all those conversations, but didn't, didn't, weren't so open. And, you know, I really admire the parents who have a relationship with their kids where, you know, for most of their childhood, for sure, maybe up until their teenagers,

• 1:42:45Speaker 01

  are coming to their parents and asking questions, right?

• 1:42:47Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:48Speaker 01

  And if you don't have that communication open, who's that on? Right?

• 1:42:51Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:51Speaker 01

  Mother or father or whatever, like I think that's on the parent. So those are some good goals that fall outside of the roles and the stereotypes. It's just like, I think I can do that. I do that with a lot of my friends, a lot of my guy friends, you know, and so.

• 1:43:04Rich Roll?

  One of the things I've learned as I continue to try to figure out this parenting thing, I've said this before, but the older boys are my stepsons. I had a hand in helping, you know, navigate them into young men, but I wasn't their dad. But I was around all the time.

• 1:43:23Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:43:23Rich Roll?

  So I feel like on some level I participated in that.

• 1:43:26Speaker 01

  Right. Do they know their dad?

• 1:43:28Rich Roll?

  Yeah, and he's since passed away and their dad was great and he was a great dad.

• 1:43:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:43:32Rich Roll?

  So I was always very, you know, respectful and cautious not to overstep that boundary.

• 1:43:40Rich Roll?

  With these next two, who are my children, it's been a lot harder. And when I thought I had a grip on what parenting was, I'm continually challenged and brought to my knees in ways I would have never imagined. And one of the things that I've learned, to get back to my original point, is no matter what you do, like that pendulum swings back and hits you in the ass.

• 1:44:05Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 1:44:06Rich Roll?

  So when you're like, I'm gonna be the open dad who tells them all this stuff.

• 1:44:09Speaker 01

  No, I appreciate that.

• 1:44:10Rich Roll?

  They reach a certain age and they're like, why are you telling me all this? Like, they're angry that like.

• 1:44:14Speaker 01

  You're an idiot.

• 1:44:14Rich Roll?

  You should just be like, I just need to know that you've got it under control, you know? But if you were that guy, then they'd be like, why didn't you tell me?

• 1:44:22Speaker 01

  Totally.

• 1:44:23Rich Roll?

  It's rigged in a way that you're not gonna win.

• 1:44:26Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 1:44:27Rich Roll?

  You're in a, you're in this like weird mouse labyrinth.

• 1:44:30Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:44:30Rich Roll?

  That only leads to like, you know, damage control.

• 1:44:33Speaker 01

  Right, right, right.

• 1:44:35Rich Roll?

  And learning how to like, come to terms with that and be okay with that has led to, you know, a lot of pain, but also some hilarious conversations with my wife.

• 1:44:44Speaker 01

  And is that for, for the two younger kids, was that?

• 1:44:50Speaker 01

  Always that feeling or was that mostly teenage years?

• 1:44:55Rich Roll?

  No, this is, this is, this is all kind of coming out.

• 1:44:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, I got it.

• 1:44:58Rich Roll?

  As they reach teenage, you know, they, they reach a level of sentience and, and, and look, kids will try to identify by either becoming more like you, like they're gonna, they're gonna take your lead and look up to you and be like, I want to be like dad or I want to be like mom, or they try to craft their identity in opposition to who you are.

• 1:45:17Speaker 01

  Right, right, right.

• 1:45:18Rich Roll?

  So we're in that right now.

• 1:45:19Speaker 01

  Right, right, right.

• 1:45:19Rich Roll?

  Where it's like, whatever we're doing, that's, that's definitely the wrong way to do things.

• 1:45:23Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:45:23Rich Roll?

  And they have to figure it out for themselves. And as a parent, you're like, well, let's give them that opportunity.

• 1:45:29Speaker 01

  Totally.

• 1:45:30Rich Roll?

  Cause you want them to push, you know, their boundaries and figure out like what works for them and what doesn't, like that self exploration, that differentiation, that, you know, trying to figure out who they are in the world as they, as they get older.

• 1:45:43Speaker 01

  Totally.

• 1:45:44Rich Roll?

  But at some point, you gotta put the guardrails up, right? But where do those go?

• 1:45:47Speaker 01

  Totally.

• 1:45:48Rich Roll?

  Like it's just, it's so.

• 1:45:49Speaker 01

  You're stressing me out, Rich.

• 1:45:50Rich Roll?

  Confusing, man.

• 1:45:50Speaker 01

  You're stressing me out. Go back to fishing.

• 1:45:52Rich Roll?

  And I said to you, like, when you, when you said like, oh, we, you know, we're, we're gonna have another baby. I'm like, good, well, in 15 years, 15 years from now, you'll be going through.

• 1:46:01Speaker 01

  Totally, totally. No, there was definitely like, you controlled some of this story. You controlled the pacing on this, which was like, you, you've said some very sweet things over the years. We were like, oh, I remember washing my kids in the sink and time flies.

• 1:46:13Rich Roll?

  And when I see you with Lumi, I miss that.

• 1:46:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:46:15Rich Roll?

  You know, it's like, I'm, I'm not in that stage anymore.

• 1:46:17Speaker 01

  And I have to remind myself.

• 1:46:18Rich Roll?

  And it's so precious and just being 100% present for that.

• 1:46:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:46:22Rich Roll?

  Like it's, it's such a cool time.

• 1:46:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then like, I just like, it cracks me up. Like, I'm at like, for whoever's listening to this, imagine if Rich Roll was your dad. Like, how wild is that? Like, and then you talk about the pendulum swing and like, so like what? So like they're eating beef nachos, like, and they're like, just, they think you're, they think your shit is just terrible.

• 1:46:40Rich Roll?

  Basically, yeah.

• 1:46:41Speaker 01

  You don't know.

• 1:46:41Rich Roll?

  But one of the funny things that Julie, Julie and I will then go, like when we're talking about it, she'll be like.

• 1:46:48Rich Roll?

  We'll just joke, be like, there's all these people out in the world, they would love for us to be their parents.

• 1:46:54Speaker 01

  Totally, totally.

• 1:46:55Rich Roll?

  Cause you know this thing like younger people do, it's like internet speak in YouTube comments, they'll just say dad.

• 1:47:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:47:01Rich Roll?

  You know, like dad, like, oh, like you're the mentor that I need in my life or whatever. So I get those comments on you like dad, dad, dad, dad. And I was like, but my kids, they're like, no.

• 1:47:10Speaker 01

  Bonehead.

• 1:47:11Rich Roll?

  No bueno.

• 1:47:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, totally, totally, totally nothing. But I mean, were you, when you were a teenager, what kind of teenager were you?

• 1:47:19Rich Roll?

  I was, I was a super goody two shoes.

• 1:47:22Speaker 01

  Were you?

• 1:47:23Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I was a grinder. I mean, I was, I got into, I mean, when I was around 14 is when I started to get serious about swimming. So it was all about swimming and then it became all about school. And I was very judgmental of anybody who was like out having fun and messing around. Cause I was like very directed.

• 1:47:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:47:39Rich Roll?

  But I was also socially awkward.

• 1:47:41Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:47:42Rich Roll?

  I was, you know, not a good looking kid.

• 1:47:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, you were socially distancing back in then.

• 1:47:48Rich Roll?

  Way back. I was an OG.

• 1:47:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, you started this whole thing.

• 1:47:51Rich Roll?

  You know, I had weird looking glasses and bad haircut.

• 1:47:55Speaker 01

  And you still do.

• 1:47:56Rich Roll?

  So, I know, right?

• 1:47:58Speaker 01

  No, I mean, like that's, that's the thing that I, I'm fearful of is, you know, I mean, I was a really bad teenager. Like going back to the Harvard stadium, stadium comment and the commentary about race, it's like, we would bend and break every rule. Like the, the story and you know, I only have one other sibling and older brother is two years older. And he was a little closer to your end, just he, he didn't break as many rules, but like, you know, I was this big, I was this big when I was 15 and a half years old.

• 1:48:26Rich Roll?

  Wow, that's a lot of energy.

• 1:48:28Speaker 01

  And so my folks are divorced and so I spent time in both houses, but like my mother had her hands full with us. And so I just think about how I use my creativity and my energy back then, I had a lot of it. Social connections. I had a lot of like traditional popularity and I used all of that to like fuck around.

• 1:48:47Speaker 01

  And like.

• 1:48:48Rich Roll?

  And so how did you slowly emerge out of that?

• 1:48:53Speaker 01

  How did I slowly emerge out of that? It was a couple of decisions towards the end of high school in what felt like really last chance opportunities. And going back to the commentary on race, like this world wouldn't have been as patient or kind to some of the things I did and got away with if I weren't a loud, charismatic white kid, captain of the basketball team, kind of like that guy. I got into rowing at the end of high school. I barely graduated high school, but I got into rowing because people said like, you'd be pretty good at it and there's college opportunity, maybe, but whatever. And I got into acting in high school. Other than that.

• 1:49:37Rich Roll?

  Yeah, we talked about, we talked about that on the first podcast. That's the, that's the like, less known.

• 1:49:43Speaker 01

  That's the, yeah.

• 1:49:43Rich Roll?

  Like B plot.

• 1:49:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:49:46Rich Roll?

  You could have gone this whole acting trajectory.

• 1:49:48Speaker 01

  Maybe, I'm too big, I'm too big. But anyway, so, so, so I picked up, I got into acting in my senior year of high school. I got into rowing and these were two like cult worlds on their own and I, and they both grew very quickly and they both were taking me away from that, that idea of, I just didn't, you know, it was kind of overdriving. So then college became a thing and then Boston became a thing. And then I was surrounded with a bunch of, definitely not straight laced, but like goal driven, rower type, kind of preppy, kind of hardcore, like jock dudes. College, division one college athletes, you know, and from there you kind of like.

• 1:50:21Rich Roll?

  A bunch of Winkleville.

• 1:50:22Speaker 01

  100%. Those guys are out there. And so, so yeah, so that was, that was it. But you know, we still played in the margins and Saturday night still came and like, so when it comes to being a dad now, it's like, I don't, I wouldn't, I would be freaked out if I had, if he saw my playbook, you know what I mean? When it comes to like ruckus. So anyway, we'll see, to be continued.

• 1:50:44Rich Roll?

  Yeah, but you know, the universe, God, whatever you want to call it rigs it in a certain way that you'll get your, your buttons pushed and you'll get challenged in ways that you can't foresee.

• 1:50:55Speaker 01

  Totally.

• 1:50:55Rich Roll?

  You know what I mean? And it's like, it puts right in front of you, whatever it is that you need to look at within yourself.

• 1:51:01Speaker 01

  100%. And I love that. I mean, the challenge of being a dad, right? It's the hardest thing I've done and it's, I have a friend who's about to become a dad in like a couple of months. It is also, there's no second place. There's not even like, there's no podium. It's like the first, second and third best thing I've ever done, right? So it's so cool, right?

• 1:51:17Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:51:19Speaker 01

  And it's the hardest. It's so hard. You just give up everything. This should roll out on Father's Day, actually. You could bank it.

• 1:51:25Rich Roll?

  When is Father's Day?

• 1:51:26Speaker 01

  It's like June or something.

• 1:51:27Rich Roll?

  Maybe it will. We'll see.

• 1:51:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, you've got to give this one some air.

• 1:51:32Rich Roll?

  Well, if we're gonna do that, then you gotta take it out. You gotta take it out on a positive Father's Day note.

• 1:51:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, on a positive.

• 1:51:42Rich Roll?

  Letter, yeah, typewritten letter.

• 1:51:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:51:47Rich Roll?

  To the, to the, to the erstwhile fathers to be.

• 1:51:49Speaker 01

  Fathers to be, Francis St. John in North County.

• 1:51:56Speaker 01

  I tell new dads this all the time. It's not like anything. It's not like, you know, going to grad school and late nights. It's not like being tired or sleeplessness. You know, it's not like, it's not, there isn't, there isn't a comparison. And you also don't love anything like this. It's not like your favorite team's home game against the Yankees. It's not like the best experience, you know? And so, I don't speak this way that often, but I really believe in it. And so,

• 1:52:26Speaker 01

  you know, when that comes planned or otherwise, and you're going to be a dad, it's like, don't try and understand it. Just live it. Live it. Live right through it, you know? And, and keep your eyes wide open, you know? And keep your phone far away from you. And ironically, still take a lot of pictures somehow. And, um,

• 1:52:51Speaker 01

  and drink a lot of water.

• 1:52:53Rich Roll?

  Hydration.

• 1:52:54Speaker 01

  Say please and thank you.

• 1:52:55Rich Roll?

  Hydration.

• 1:52:55Speaker 01

  I actually don't care a lot about, about the rules in our house. Like, we're gonna raise Lumi this way, but I drill the please and thank you thing. My dad did. So if my kid is like this wacky loudmouth, but he says please and thank you a lot, I'm fine. That's good.

• 1:53:07Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:53:07Speaker 01

  So to pick your battles, I would say that's an important one. Like, how you think you're gonna shape your kid. Good luck. It probably won't go that way. But if there are things that are worth picking your battle for, stick by the please and thank you thing. That's, that's big. So, and then, um, and then don't, don't think you're gonna figure it out. I used to surf with a guy who told me with all confidence, he was three or four weeks away from becoming a dad. He said, "Yeah, we decided we're not really gonna do a stroller. We're just gonna like, I don't know, I'll probably just get like a backpack or something." And like, you know, Coachella's coming up, so like, we'll probably, I mean, definitely still going. And I was like.

• 1:53:41Speaker 01

  And you've done a good job of this, biting your tongue, but like, what are you talking about? Like, you know, like, like, keeping your own opinion on the side. There's times, there's times when you know it's not about you. Yeah.

• 1:53:51Rich Roll?

  Let me know how that goes.

• 1:53:52Speaker 01

  It's like, cool. Yeah, no stroller, dope. Like, meanwhile, I didn't ever think of it. I have three strollers. Like, you know what I mean? It's like this idea of like, controlling the future. Like, you know, so to my dads out there, you will never, you will never get the credit. And there's so much more to do. And, and, and being a positive male role model, I think is an important thing.

• 1:54:12Rich Roll?

  It's the best.

• 1:54:13Speaker 01

  And, um, and, and guide your kid to a, a life with, with anti racist work in it. Cause I think that that's the place where we can make the biggest change, the quickest change, even though it seems like years and years, decades and decades, like, I think those are the changes we'll see quickest. So.

• 1:54:31Rich Roll?

  Beautiful, man. Uh, there's only one thing that I would add to that, which is in those moments where you're being tested, which are going to be more frequent than you expect. And you feel like, I gotta get out of here because I gotta do that thing, or I gotta call that guy. It's just like, remember, like, this passes so quickly. You know, I've been doing this for a long time. And when I see the videos of you with Lumi, I'm like, man, it doesn't seem like it was that long ago.

• 1:54:57Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:54:58Rich Roll?

  And then I look at my kids and they're so much older and you forget how quickly it passes.

• 1:55:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:55:04Rich Roll?

  And just to be able to be present and appreciate what's actually transpiring. It's, it's great to say, put the phone away, but like, how present are you? Like, we're gonna climb a tree and just forget about what your agenda is and just be, because it's not about like, I'm gonna create the ultimate day and we're gonna go to the amusement park. It's not about that. It's just like, just be present with the kid.

• 1:55:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:55:28Rich Roll?

  And give that child your full attention. And that's the most powerful and greatest gift that you can, you can give.

• 1:55:37Speaker 01

  It's really well said. It's not the stuff. It's not the right hamper. It's not the right wall color. It's not the crib. It's just like, if you can do those things, you could be playing in a bucket of sand. You know, it doesn't matter. You know, so, so that's the, I really connect with that. So.

• 1:55:51Speaker 01

  Once again, Rich Roll. It's been an honor, my man.

• 1:55:54Rich Roll?

  I love you, brother.

• 1:55:55Speaker 01

  Love you too.

• 1:55:55Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:55:56Speaker 01

  I'm really proud of you for coming to the Twin Cities during this.

• 1:55:59Rich Roll?

  Why? You gave me a reason to go on an adventure, too.

• 1:56:05Speaker 01

  That's true.

• 1:56:05Rich Roll?

  You know, and I'm really, I'm really happy to be here. And I feel excited about what I'm gonna learn over the next couple of days.

• 1:56:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, it's an important, it's an important time. You know, before people start talking about what we're doing with our hours in this time, during this time, and the sensitivity around it, it just, let's agree that it's an important time. And if you're a storyteller, and if people listen to you and you have influence in a platform, which is undeniable, then you belong here. You need to be here, so.

• 1:56:36Rich Roll?

  Thanks, man. Thanks for bringing me out.

• 1:56:37Speaker 01

  Peace. Plants.

• 1:56:39Rich Roll?

  Namaste.

• 1:56:43Speaker 01

  That's awesome. We did it.

• 1:56:51Rich Roll?

  Thanks for listening, everybody. For links and resources related to everything discussed today, visit the show notes on the episode page at 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. Sharing the show or your favorite episode with friends or on social media is of course always appreciated. And finally, for podcast updates, special offers on books, the meal planner, and other subjects, subscribe to our newsletter, which you can find on the footer of any page on richroll.com. Today's show was produced and engineered by Jason Camiolo. The video edition of the podcast was created by Blake Curtis, portraits by Ally Rogers and Davy

• 1:57:36Rich Roll?

  Greenberg, graphic elements courtesy of Jessica Miranda, copywriting by Georgia Whaley, and our theme music was created by Tyler Pyatt, Trapper Pyatt, and Harry Mathis. You can find me at richroll.com or on Instagram and Twitter at Rich Roll. I appreciate the love. I love the support. I don't take your attention for granted. Thank you for listening. See you back here soon. Peace. Plants.

• 1:58:19Rich Roll?

  Yee-haw!