Roll On: Work Is a False Idol

We live in a culture where identity is inextricably linked to our careers—but who we are is not what we do. And work is not a substrate for identity. In addition to philosophizing on capitalism, hedonistic altruism, and rest as resistance, in today’s edition of ‘Roll On’ Adam Skolnick and I trade fitness updates, perform a virtual reality show & tell, answer listener questions, and more. Aside from being my bi-weekly sidekick hype beast, Adam is a waterman, writer, activist, and veteran journalist best known as David Goggins’ Can’t Hurt Me, co-author. He writes about adventure sports, environmental issues, and civil rights for outlets such as The New York Times, Outside, ESPN, BBC, and Men’s Health. He is the author of One Breath and is currently using the ‘new dad’ excuse to avoid working on his novel. Specific topics covered in this episode include: an update on endurance swimmer Lewis Pugh’s ‘Code Red’ arctic swim; a recap of the Leadville 100, the Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc, and Robbie Balenger’s Colorado Crush; Sania Sorokin record-breaking 24-hour race & Carl Meltzer’s completion of the ‘Most 100 milers in a calendar year’; the importance of Michael Muller’s virtual reality experience ‘Into the Now’; thoughts on life, careers, and the NYT piece, Work Is a False Idol; and Rich & Adam’s podcast, video, and other media streams of the week. In addition, we answer the following questions: How do you end self-sabotaging behaviors? What are the best ways to prepare for a 100K ultra race? When exercising, what is the most efficient way to breathe? Thank you to Annie from Colorado, Brian from London, and Scott from Vermont for your questions. If you want your query discussed, drop it on our Facebook Page or better yet leave a voicemail at (424) 235-4626. To read more and listen click here. You can also watch on YouTube. And as always, the podcast streams wild and free on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Peace + Plants, Rich Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:00Rich Roll?

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• 0:44Rich Roll?

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• 1:13Rich Roll?

  The Rich Roll Podcast. Hey, everybody. Welcome to another edition of Roll On. We've got a great show on tap. Adam is warming up right now in the green room. So while the diva prepares, I say in jest, of course, let's acknowledge the awesome organizations that make this show possible.

• 1:42Rich Roll?

  All right, let's do the show.

• 1:47Rich Roll?

  All right, greetings to the seekers among us. You, me, us, y'all, everyone. May this sonic, pixelated vibration find you well amidst the chaos and confusion that is life. My God-given name is Rich Roll, once again, in Vulcan mind meld, in conversational communion with the high-minded literary line himself, the child-rearing Dodger fan, global citizen of the oceans, conscious advocate for all things ecological preservation, my co-pilot on all things Roll On, Duke of Santa Monica Bay, Mr. Adam Skolnick. How you doing, man? Wow. How about that?

• 2:26Adam Skolnick?

  Your intros, you were already great.

• 2:28Rich Roll?

  I just outdid myself.

• 2:29Adam Skolnick?

  You were already great. You topped you.

• 2:31Rich Roll?

  I did. What am I gonna do next time?

• 2:36Adam Skolnick?

  You know, it could go, you could go full absurdist.

• 2:39Rich Roll?

  I think it's already, yeah, getting a little bit surreal. Before you answer my question now, I should mention, Roll On, for those who are a little bit newer to the show, is our bimonthly, that's correct, right? Bimonthly? Does bimonthly mean every other month, or twice a month?

• 2:58Adam Skolnick?

  Yes, I think it's twice a month. Bimonthly is twice a month.

• 3:02Rich Roll?

  It is bimonthly then.

• 3:04Adam Skolnick?

  I would say it's mostly bimonthly.

• 3:07Rich Roll?

  What is every other month then? I think that's bimonthly too. I think it can mean either one. I don't know, that's confusing. Anyway, either way, Roll On is our opportunity to kind of shift focus away from our traditional fare here on the RRP, which is Evergreen Deep Dives with some of the world's most interesting minds, and instead, hone in on matters of contemporaneous interest. We spin a little show and tell, got some interesting show and tell today. We share some wins of the week, and we land our little twin-prop seaplane with listener questions. Drop down our voicemail at 424-235-4626. Write that phone number down. Now you can answer my question.

• 3:51Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, well, I was just gonna say, after that first paragraph that you read, that was so glowing.

• 3:56Rich Roll?

  I did read it. For people that think that I just came up with that on the spot, I did write that down.

• 4:00Adam Skolnick?

  He writes these. And then the second paragraph saying, "My traditional fare, Evergreen Deep Dives with some of the world's most interesting minds", instead, Adam's here.

• 4:13Rich Roll?

  I like how you just pivot immediately to the self-deprecating interpretation of that.

• 4:19Rich Roll?

  Yeah, we're not gonna do that this week. We're gonna go towards the banal.

• 4:23Adam Skolnick?

  Yes, yes, yes, yes. This week, we'll just talk about Adam swimming in the Santa Monica Bay.

• 4:28Rich Roll?

  Yeah, we'll talk about masks. We'll make fun of that. We'll do what we always do. I don't know.

• 4:34Adam Skolnick?

  Well, okay, I'm doing pretty good, man. I have this month run over 80 miles, which is not, listen, for people who actually run, that's not that great.

• 4:42Rich Roll?

  That's actually, that's quite a bit of running.

• 4:45Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, I mean, you know, you have to run a lot to get to 80.

• 4:47Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 4:48Adam Skolnick?

  And then over swim over 10.

• 4:49Rich Roll?

  You have to run 80 to get to 80.

• 4:52Adam Skolnick?

  This is, this is starting off hot.

• 4:55Adam Skolnick?

  And over 10 miles of open water swimming in August.

• 4:57Rich Roll?

  That's amazing.

• 4:58Adam Skolnick?

  My goal was to kind of get to those benchmarks, whether that's a good goal or not. And then I have an Alcatraz swim coming up on September 11th.

• 5:07Rich Roll?

  Nice.

• 5:08Adam Skolnick?

  The South End Rowing Club, you know about these clubs.

• 5:10Rich Roll?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've done the Alcatraz swim.

• 5:12Adam Skolnick?

  Right. So the South End Rowing Club has like a, they do their own thing. And they have the guys in boats or women in boats kind of on either side and you swim in the lane. And it's, I did it before when, when World of Open Water Swimming was doing their summit up there. And Antonio Argüés is coming to the bay, which is kind of one of his home training grounds as well, home away from home. He's either in La Cestaca in Mexico City, the river there, or he's swimming in the San La Jolla or the San Francisco Bay. Those are his three main training grounds. And he is a member of the rowing club and he's the guest of honor at the Alcatraz swim. So he invited me up there and whenever.

• 5:50Rich Roll?

  Remind people who he is.

• 5:51Adam Skolnick?

  Antonio Argüés.

• 5:52Rich Roll?

  The other, the other time.

• 5:54Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, he is a two-time Guinness World Record holder of an open water swimmer. So he has the, he's the oldest ever and the seventh overall ever to complete the Ocean Seven, which is the seven major channels, part of an Ocean Seven's group. You've had Kim Chambers on the show. She was the sixth, fifth or sixth. And then Antonio was right after. He did it at 58 years of age, making him the oldest. He's also the oldest to ever swim the double Catalina. He did that in 2019 at, at 60.

• 6:23Rich Roll?

  Stanford alum.

• 6:24Adam Skolnick?

  Stanford alum, Mexican entrepreneur and government official.

• 6:28Rich Roll?

  So this Alcatraz swim, you're doing it without a wetsuit, right?

• 6:31Adam Skolnick?

  Right. So the first time I did it, I was in a wetsuit and to, much to Antonio's enduring shame.

• 6:37Rich Roll?

  You cannot save face and do Alcatraz in a wetsuit.

• 6:41Adam Skolnick?

  No, but speaking of face, I will be in swim mask.

• 6:44Rich Roll?

  You will, yeah, so. Everybody in the Bay Area turn up at, uh, at, what's it called? Ocean Park, right there?

• 6:51Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, right there.

• 6:51Rich Roll?

  Where it finishes.

• 6:53Adam Skolnick?

  I forget what it's called. Aquatic Park.

• 6:55Rich Roll?

  Aquatic Park, right. To get your pics with Skolnik in the mask. A rare opportunity of you in the wild with the mask, in the public, with your people.

• 7:03Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, if, listen, if you're there, I'm going to slow motion rise up. So there won't be, there won't be any footage of this, but I will slow motion rise up. Um, and so that's it. So I am going to shift. I'm still gonna keep running a little bit, but I'll do more swims. You know, the problem is, I've been swimming in, uh, you know, 66 degree water.

• 7:23Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's a little bit different. I, I think I've told this story before, but I did the Alcatraz swim many years ago when I was living in San Francisco. Um, my roommate at the time, Gavin Hollis, who swam at LSU, we did it with a bunch of friends. We did it without wetsuits. And I think it was, it might've been New Year's, like, I think it was winter when we did it.

• 7:42Adam Skolnick?

  54.

• 7:42Rich Roll?

  If memory recall, you know, if my memory serves me, my memory's not great. Um, and all I remember, well, I remember three things. First of all, it's really freaking cold. Like, my, my hands and my feet went completely numb. So you feel like you're swimming with your fists.

• 7:59Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 7:59Rich Roll?

  Like, you can't feel your hands at all. The second thing, and I say this as somebody who's done quite a bit of open water swimming in many different areas around the world. It's very, and you've done it before, right? Like, it's, it's kinda scary when you're in the, you kind of rear your head up when you're in the middle of it. It's not that far. It's only like a kilometer and a half or something like that.

• 8:20Adam Skolnick?

  It's a mile, 1.27 miles.

• 8:22Rich Roll?

  Right. So it's not a great distance. But you're in a shipping lane.

• 8:27Adam Skolnick?

  You are, but they have, you know.

• 8:28Rich Roll?

  And you have that set, you can kind of smell the fuel and you kind of lift your head when you're halfway into it and you're like, holy shit. Like, like, this does not feel safe.

• 8:37Adam Skolnick?

  Right. These guys, when you have the rowing club, though, you know, they bring out those old wooden boats and they are in kayaks and those boats and they are on either side of you. So

• 8:46Rich Roll?

  And they time it in between the tides, right? So right at the, right at the beginning of like the slack tide or whatever. So the faster you are, the less the tide affects you. The slower you are, the more it affects you because the tide starts to pick up and push you out towards the bridge.

• 9:02Adam Skolnick?

  Oh, is that right?

• 9:03Rich Roll?

  And so I just remember

• 9:04Adam Skolnick?

  Good to know.

• 9:05Rich Roll?

  People who were struggling ended up down by the Safeway, like it pushes you towards the marina, you know? And that becomes a problem. If you're fast, it doesn't really seem to affect you. The final thing that I recall is that, you know, I don't know who's organizing these races these days, but back in the day, whoever was in charge of this thing had a dog, I think a Labrador, I'm pretty sure it was a Lab, who loved doing the swim. And I just remember in aquatic park, like, or actually on the boat and the ferry on the way over, the dog being super excited. And then afterwards, like the dog just running around like this is the greatest thing in the world, swimming Alcatraz. And the dog beat like half the field.

• 9:48Adam Skolnick?

  The dog would definitely beat me.

• 9:50Rich Roll?

  Dog paddling from Alcatraz to aquatic park like did just fine. It was not a problem.

• 9:56Adam Skolnick?

  That's my big, you would have obviously easily beaten the dog. I'm not sure I'd beat the dog. I'm not that fast.

• 10:01Rich Roll?

  Maybe if you traded your mask for a proper pair of goggles, that would save you a little bit of time.

• 10:06Adam Skolnick?

  You know what?

• 10:06Rich Roll?

  But now at this point, you can never wear goggles.

• 10:09Adam Skolnick?

  No, I like it, especially in that industrial water.

• 10:12Rich Roll?

  I think we need merch, a t-shirt with you in the mask saying Skolnik.

• 10:16Adam Skolnick?

  We'll get to my take on merch. I will say, the last thing I'll say about it is that my time, so I've ditched the rash guard. I'm trying to get a little bit quicker. I am using the pool buoy a lot in the open water because I'm practicing mostly for Catalina. And that makes me a little quicker, but I'm not kicking at all. So I don't know how that'll affect. But I'm at like 205 per hundred. And that's if I take a break to pee or whatever. Like I'm not stopping my thing. It's not that great, but it's not terrible. Like I've been slower before. In a wet suit, I'd be under two minutes per hundred. I'm comfortable if I can get to two minutes per hundred. I don't know what you think of that time and what any of that.

• 10:53Rich Roll?

  I mean, you know, do you want me to sound like an asshole?

• 10:57Adam Skolnick?

  You're not impressed, are you?

• 11:01Rich Roll?

  I'm not gonna say anything. I'm happy for you. It's exciting. It's all good, man. No, but I mean, how do I get faster? I need a whole rework, don't I? Well, I can take you down to the pool and we can do some working out. I've been getting into the pool. I've swum now four or five days in a row. You told me, that's exciting. Yeah, so I just put in 3,700 before coming here in an hour. Because you only, well, here's the thing, like, I haven't swum, literally, in like a year, but my back has been acting up. I'm working with this great PT right now who's got me on a path towards, you know, resolving this, but one of the commitments that I've made is to really lay off the running, which I hate doing because I love running so much. So it takes everything in my power to not run.

• 11:47Rich Roll?

  And I'm now decided, you know, so I'm gonna put all that energy into the pool and it's required me to have to get organized because most of the pools are shut down or have limited hours. There is a great facility. It's like a half an hour drive from my house and you gotta book lanes like well in advance. So I've just been really organized and proactive about making sure that I reserve time. And you only get one, an hour, right? So you get an hour in one lane and you get a lane to yourself, though? That's nice. Yeah, you get the lane to yourself. Yeah. There's a couple days coming up where I booked double sessions. Oh, wow. I don't know if you're allowed to book two in a row, but I'm gonna see if I can get away with it. So I'm really gonna put my energy into getting my swim back in shape.

• 12:31Rich Roll?

  And I gotta say, it feels really good to be back in the water. I mean, I'm really out of swimming shape, but I'm excited to give it a try. And one of the kind of catalysts for this is, I don't know if I'm allowed to say this publicly, I don't know why I couldn't, but the Malibu Triathlon is coming up soon, which is an annual event, and they do this thing every year. They have a celebrity division. Yes. Which is traditionally like television stars and like Disney puts a team together. I remember like Matthew McConaughey did it several years ago. David Duchovny generally shows up. Anyway, Alexi Pappas, friend of the pod, put a team together, asked me to join in a relay.

• 13:15Rich Roll?

  So I'm going to do the swim. Alexi's going to do the run and Mary Kane, also friend of the pod, is going to do the cycling portion.

• 13:22Adam Skolnick?

  You might win it.

• 13:23Rich Roll?

  So we are the celebrities you've never heard of. They're like, what should be the name of the team? And I was like, three celebrities you've never heard of. That should be the name of our team. Like, nobody knows who we are, you know, but.

• 13:35Adam Skolnick?

  People do.

• 13:36Rich Roll?

  At least we're athletes, so we'll see what happens. So I thought, you know, I should probably get back in the pool if I'm going to do this.

• 13:41Adam Skolnick?

  It's funny that you say that. I got contacted by the celebrity division.

• 13:45Rich Roll?

  Did you?

• 13:46Adam Skolnick?

  Speaking of people who aren't famous in the non-celebrities and the celebrity, and they asked me if I'd do it. And at first I committed to doing the whole thing. I don't even have a bike. I mean, I have a, like, a single-speed fixie-type bike, but I don't have a bike that I train on or anything like that.

• 14:00Rich Roll?

  So are you going to do it?

• 14:02Adam Skolnick?

  Originally, I had said yes, but it's just going to be too tough going up to Alcatraz and then coming back. It's just going to, it's because we're doing a little road trip with the family on the way up. It's just going to be too tough to do. And so I said, no, I'm going to make a donation to Children's Hospital instead, instead of raising the money.

• 14:20Rich Roll?

  Yeah, there's a fundraising piece to this. I don't really know that much about it yet, but I'll let everyone know when we figure that out.

• 14:25Adam Skolnick?

  I was flattered.

• 14:26Rich Roll?

  But I love the fact that you got asked to be in the celebrity division of the Malibu Triathlon.

• 14:32Adam Skolnick?

  Has to be a fan of yours running the VIP.

• 14:35Rich Roll?

  I don't know. It's great, man. I'm bummed that you're not going to do it now.

• 14:38Adam Skolnick?

  Well, I wish, I didn't know you were going to do it.

• 14:41Rich Roll?

  Well, I just figured this out over the weekend.

• 14:42Adam Skolnick?

  Okay.

• 14:43Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Or over the last couple of days, but it should be fun.

• 14:47Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, I was going to do the whole thing.

• 14:48Rich Roll?

  Anyway, it's prompted me to get back in the pool, which feels good.

• 14:50Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, it's not a very long one. It's a half-mile swim, 17-mile ride, and four-mile run, I think.

• 14:56Rich Roll?

  It's ridiculously short.

• 14:58Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah. The next one is.

• 15:00Rich Roll?

  It's mask-appropriate.

• 15:01Adam Skolnick?

  The real one is like the Olympic distance, right? The international distance.

• 15:04Rich Roll?

  What do you mean by real?

• 15:05Adam Skolnick?

  The next day.

• 15:07Rich Roll?

  Yeah, they have, it's a couple of days. Like, I think, yeah, they have the sprint distance, they have the Olympic distance, which is kind of the traditional, you know, triathlon distance for, you know, the races that are out there, distinct from like the Ironman world and all of that. But also, Zuma turned one.

• 15:25Adam Skolnick?

  He did. We had a bit of a small gathering. It was weird because it's Delta time, so we had it, we had it in two waves. We had a few families come in the first wave and a few come in the second wave. And

• 15:39Rich Roll?

  Heats. You had two heats?

• 15:41Adam Skolnick?

  We had two heats.

• 15:43Rich Roll?

  Uh huh. For his birthday celebration.

• 15:45Adam Skolnick?

  And at one point, Zuma just went, made a, tried, made a break for it and just started to like walk out, out the gate. And I kind of followed him and I said, should we, should we, bro? Should we? He's like, should we? Should we go? Should we leave, leave this?

• 15:59Rich Roll?

  He's gonna ghost his own party?

• 16:00Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah. But in the end, he turned around. So I followed him. I follow him everywhere.

• 16:07Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that's the way it goes.

• 16:08Adam Skolnick?

  It's, um, it's fun, man. He's walking, he's talking a little bit, you know, it's a good time. It's, uh, you know, it gives you all the feels.

• 16:16Rich Roll?

  Cool, man.

• 16:17Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah. And you were in Chicago?

• 16:20Rich Roll?

  I was in Chicago, gave a couple of talks. It's been like over two years since I've given a keynote. It was with this company called Dealer Inspire that's in Naperville outside of Chicago. So it was an opportunity to travel and meet a bunch of cool people. The organization was, it was organized by this guy, Joe Chura, who's the CEO of Dealer Inspire. And was followed the following day by this kind of all-day outdoor event called GO, where there was a 5K run and there was like jujitsu instruction and all kinds of cool stuff. So it was fun. It was, it was good to get out of LA and be in the Midwest

• 17:01Rich Roll?

  and meet some new people and shake off the cobwebs and give a, give a keynote. But it also produced quite a bit of anxiety in me because it's been so long since I've kind of given a talk and my life is very different from the last time I was on that circuit. So I had to kind of rerun. And rethink what I wanted to talk about.

• 17:19Adam Skolnick?

  Was that because it been that long because of COVID or has it been because?

• 17:25Rich Roll?

  Yeah, COVID, COVID just eviscerated like, like the whole speaking thing.

• 17:29Adam Skolnick?

  Right, right.

• 17:30Rich Roll?

  So now it seems to, you know, be kicking up again, although I was supposed to go to Park City in a couple of weeks for this song summit thing where I was going to interview Jason Isbell. And Sean White and we just found out today that they're canceling that because of COVID. So everything is tentative at the moment. But that trip was bookended by multiple pods on each side. So I was on this jag of just crazy workaholism.

• 17:57Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 17:58Rich Roll?

  That left me very depleted and reflecting on the fact that I'm basically. An introvert by nature who can be temporarily extroverted like I am doing right now, or I have to do if I'm giving a talk with a bunch of people or just being around a lot of people like I can. I can like gear up and embody that energy and, you know, provide the experience that, that, you know, they're looking for, but then I have to kind of retreat back to my cave. And like lick my wounds and recover. And I didn't really get an opportunity to do that. So it left me like really tired and, and also.

• 18:36Rich Roll?

  Reflecting a little bit more on what we talked about in the last roll on about workflow efficiencies and how to. You know, hold on to this stuff a little bit loosely and, and empower my team better and be a better manager. So I can free up some of my time. So I took a couple of days off. This past week to, um, you know, kind of recharge the batteries. I'm feeling good. I'm back in the pool. I don't know what to tell you. Like, I think, I think all is good.

• 18:59Adam Skolnick?

  And you dodged the mountain lion?

• 19:01Rich Roll?

  I did.

• 19:01Adam Skolnick?

  In your neighborhood?

• 19:02Rich Roll?

  I did. Yeah, there was a mountain lion attack, uh, just the other day, literally in my neighborhood.

• 19:08Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 19:09Rich Roll?

  Like just down the street, a mountain lion attacked a small boy. The mom, uh, ended up fighting it off. It's this crazy story. She was like punching it with her bare fists, I guess. Uh, and they ended up. Destroying that animal.

• 19:22Adam Skolnick?

  It was a cub, right?

• 19:23Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I guess it was a smaller one.

• 19:26Adam Skolnick?

  Sixty-five pound.

• 19:27Rich Roll?

  And then they found a couple more that were tagged. This one wasn't tagged and they relocated them. It made me think like, couldn't they have relocated this one and tagged it?

• 19:37Adam Skolnick?

  So it's a P-54 was the mother, from what I read. And she was collared and so it's not even a tag. It's like a full collar. And she had just had cubs. And the thinking is both these were the cubs because that one kind of got into, got the boy. And the mother was able to fight him off. If it was a full grown mountain lion, the mother probably wouldn't have been able to do much. And then they found it, kind of crouched, like the game warden found it crouched down. And there was no collar and it was aggressive and he assumed. So I don't know.

• 20:17Adam Skolnick?

  So after they shot, after he shot that animal, they, the two others kind of came out. The collared one with another juvenile. And so that's why they think both of them, all three are together. And then they did some DNA testing and they found out that the animal they shot did have the boy's skin and blood on his claws and all that. Anyway, the thinking usually is with cats and animals like this, if they get a taste for it, especially young, that it could become the type of nuisance animal that's not just turning over garbage, but is actually hurting people. And so they err on the side of protecting people. That's what the game wardens always do. And they take their criticism for it.

• 20:59Adam Skolnick?

  I think in this sense, you can't, I mean, the game warden was worried about the five-year-old boy and all that.

• 21:04Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I understand that. It just feels like they could have relocated it somewhere where maybe, you know, to an area that doesn't encroach on exurbs or suburbs. I mean, one of the arguments here, one of the conversations around this is this is a result of encroaching, you know, habitats, but this area where this happened is not that. Like it's kind of been the way it's been for quite some time.

• 21:28Adam Skolnick?

  I wonder if these are the same animals that were up, remember in Malibu, there was that scene? Did you see like someone in their house, like up above Big Rock was inside? It was a father and his like teenage daughter and they were videoing. I don't know if you saw this, it was like a viral video around the pool.

• 21:44Rich Roll?

  I did see that. But Big Rock is quite far from where this happened.

• 21:49Adam Skolnick?

  They'll range that far.

• 21:50Rich Roll?

  Do they have that?

• 21:52Adam Skolnick?

  Oh, yeah.

• 21:53Rich Roll?

  It's interesting. I mean, I've run trails all around where this mountain lion was seen, and I've never once seen one. I know they're around.

• 22:00Adam Skolnick?

  Let me Google mountain lion range.

• 22:02Rich Roll?

  Yeah, how far do they wander?

• 22:05Adam Skolnick?

  This is live Googling, folks.

• 22:06Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 22:08Adam Skolnick?

  Mountain lion range.

• 22:10Rich Roll?

  The kid is gonna be fine, although he was wounded. I guess that it was a juvenile, about 65 pounds.

• 22:17Adam Skolnick?

  Yep.

• 22:18Rich Roll?

  He had wounds. The kid had wounds to his head, neck, and upper torso, but I think he's gonna be okay.

• 22:25Adam Skolnick?

  The kid's gonna be okay?

• 22:26Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 22:26Adam Skolnick?

  They're saying that it'll travel 8 kilometers a day, up in 8 kilometers a day.

• 22:32Rich Roll?

  Do they return to some kind of hub, or do they just meander?

• 22:37Adam Skolnick?

  This one is saying 20 miles. It might be there in total range. So that's 20 square miles. So that's like, yeah.

• 22:44Rich Roll?

  So Big Rock would be kind of going over this peak and down the other side to get there.

• 22:49Adam Skolnick?

  I think it would be in its range.

• 22:49Rich Roll?

  It's definitely in the range.

• 22:50Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah. I think you've probably e-biked up that exact territory.

• 22:57Rich Roll?

  Are you making fun of me?

• 22:58Adam Skolnick?

  No.

• 22:59Rich Roll?

  Is my e-bike your mask?

• 23:01Adam Skolnick?

  That e-bike out there? Is that yours?

• 23:03Rich Roll?

  Rich, Adam is to... No, that's not mine. That's Dan's, actually.

• 23:07Adam Skolnick?

  Oh.

• 23:10Rich Roll?

  Adam is to swim mask as Rich is to e-bike.

• 23:14Adam Skolnick?

  Hmm, another good slogan for our merch.

• 23:15Rich Roll?

  I've been getting on my road bike a little bit, but I've gotta back off the cycling also. I'm all about the swim.

• 23:20Adam Skolnick?

  The swim's gonna help your back, you know that.

• 23:22Rich Roll?

  I know, I'm hoping that's the case.

• 23:23Adam Skolnick?

  And I would love to get some pointers from a swim guru like yourself.

• 23:29Rich Roll?

  Maybe we can do a swim workout.

• 23:31Adam Skolnick?

  Let's do it.

• 23:32Rich Roll?

  Prior to the next roll-on.

• 23:34Adam Skolnick?

  Oh, let's do that.

• 23:35Rich Roll?

  Put you through the paces.

• 23:36Adam Skolnick?

  Let's do it. Shout out Al Roker. Did you see him out there?

• 23:39Rich Roll?

  I did not. I see this link in the outline. What is this about?

• 23:42Adam Skolnick?

  67 years old. He was out there in Hurricane Ida on a street, but when you're watching him at first, they have him really in tight, and you just see waves crashing him.

• 23:54Rich Roll?

  Oh, there's this video. Al Roker pummeled by waves as Hurricane Ida targets New Orleans.

• 24:00Adam Skolnick?

  He stays on his feet and then when they pan out, you see he's actually on a sidewalk. Like he's not, it looks like he's in the water at first, but he's actually on a sidewalk.

• 24:09Rich Roll?

  Cause he's a pro.

• 24:10Adam Skolnick?

  He's a stud. Shout out Al Roker.

• 24:13Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 24:13Adam Skolnick?

  How about an Al Roker shout out?

• 24:14Rich Roll?

  Who doesn't, who doesn't love Al?

• 24:16Adam Skolnick?

  I don't know. I don't know what he's like in his personal life.

• 24:19Rich Roll?

  Well, that's one form of endurance, but we got a bunch of other endurance to discuss today. Because Enduro Corner is back with more high altitude trails and glacier dodging.

• 24:29Adam Skolnick?

  The sports you didn't know about.

• 24:31Rich Roll?

  I know. Hot on the heels of the three celebrities you've never heard of that will be competing in Malibu.

• 24:38Adam Skolnick?

  Sports you don't need to know about.

• 24:40Rich Roll?

  We took your celebrity spot, Adam, when you bowed out of Malibu. They're like, Adam can't do it?

• 24:46Adam Skolnick?

  Okay, let's get rich.

• 24:49Rich Roll?

  We'll go to Alexi.

• 24:51Adam Skolnick?

  You guys are real celebrities. I mean, you belong in that division.

• 24:55Rich Roll?

  No. The Leadville 100 was this past week. Heard of that?

• 25:02Adam Skolnick?

  Heard of it.

• 25:02Rich Roll?

  It might've come up on the show before.

• 25:04Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 25:04Rich Roll?

  We've been talking about it because of Robbie Ballinger. This is an epic legendary ultra race. This past year, there were 678 runners and Leadville, for those who don't know, is at very high altitude in Colorado. I think around 10,000 feet. This run has 16,000 feet of gain. Its highest point is at Hope Pass, which is 12,600 feet.

• 25:29Adam Skolnick?

  And you hit that twice.

• 25:30Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's an out and back. And Robbie Ballinger used it to complete his Colorado crush. So shout out to Robbie.

• 25:38Adam Skolnick?

  Amazing Robbie.

• 25:39Rich Roll?

  Yeah. I mean, over the course of the summer, he just never stopped running. Did the Leadville Marathon, the Colorado Trail, which is 500 miles, the Silver Rush 50. Then he summited all 58 of the Colorado Peaks over 14,000 feet and culminated with the Leadville 100, which is quite something. I'm sure there's a documentary or at least some. Some kind of film that's being made. Reese Robinson was following him around, chronicling all of this. So shout out to my Team 10,000 brother from another mother.

• 26:13Adam Skolnick?

  His, his post was great. He said his first 13 miles, he was surprisingly in good shape and he was like flying. And then from then on, it was like

• 26:22Rich Roll?

  Just brutal.

• 26:23Adam Skolnick?

  Very hard to get to 87 miles, like hitting the wall at 13 is

• 26:28Rich Roll?

  I think he only had like a day or two

• 26:30Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 26:30Rich Roll?

  In between his final Colorado peak and that 100.

• 26:36Rich Roll?

  It's unbelievable.

• 26:37Adam Skolnick?

  Unbelievable.

• 26:37Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 26:38Adam Skolnick?

  How much, how much is his total elevation gain? Did he ever say?

• 26:41Rich Roll?

  I don't know.

• 26:42Adam Skolnick?

  That'll be fun to see.

• 26:43Rich Roll?

  Tabulated it. Yeah, it's gotta be just bananas.

• 26:45Adam Skolnick?

  Oh yeah. I mean, it's gotta be hundreds of thousands, right?

• 26:48Rich Roll?

  I know.

• 26:49Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 26:50Rich Roll?

  Um, first in the race was Adrian McDonald. He did this race in 16 hours and 18 minutes was just like insane. A hundred miles with that kind of elevation gain in, in just over 16 hours. It was a sub 10 minute per mile average pace for the entire thing. He won it by 40 minutes. So dominated. Ian Sharman came in second. He's a four time Leadville champ at 1659. And third, and this is really the interesting story from my perspective, is Anton Krupicka, who's 38 now, uh, came back after six years off competing, essentially in any ultra race. I think he might've done one thing here or there, but nothing of any significance since 2015.

• 27:35Rich Roll?

  He's a two-time champion of this race. He won it in 2006 and 2007 and then kind of disappeared. And he's somebody that was an initial inspiration for my journey. I mean, he's been around for a long time. I followed him forever. He used to do this blog where he would share his runs and he'd have these topo maps and show you where he, you know, was training and kind of like this. Soul surfer of ultra running, kinda like Ricky, has a Ricky Gates vibe to him a little bit. And just, you know, somebody who I just think is cool, like, super cool. And to see him come back and reestablish himself by getting third in this race, I think is extraordinary. And it's really-

• 28:17Adam Skolnick?

  And not that far behind-

• 28:18Rich Roll?

  No, not that far behind. I mean, he's been hampered by all kinds of injuries, he's had all kinds of problems, and he rock climbs and rides his bike, but I just thought he was done. I had no idea that he, you know, would make this kinda comeback. And I think what's cool and interesting about it, not just, you know, aside from the fact that he's just a cool dude and somebody that everybody wants to see do well, he's defied this sort of unwritten rule that ultra running champions have a pretty short shelf life when it comes to maintaining their peak performance. Like, there's a long history of ultra running champions who come on the scene, they're unbeatable, they win a ton of races in a compressed period of a couple of years, and then really struggle

• 29:03Rich Roll?

  to maintain that or to stay on top. They never are able to really return to form. And I don't know whether it's because it's just too brutal on the body, or they overtrain, I'm not sure. But the fact that he kind of took this break and came back and, and just, you know, put his stamp on this race, I think, is really cool. And it'll be interesting to see whether other ultra runners, you know, it's like, these ultra runners, they go, they can't, they can't compete at the high level in these races anymore, so then they go and they tackle these FKTs and do other types of adventures, like Timothy Olson, Scott Jurek, et cetera. And, you know, being 38 for Anton, I mean, I think it's pretty cool.

• 29:44Adam Skolnick?

  What's the, what's like, who's the all-time leader in victories in these major ultras?

• 29:50Rich Roll?

  I'm not steeped enough in the history to know that. There's, I'm gonna get shellacked for not knowing that offhand. I mean, there's plenty of people out, I mean, Scott Jurek, like, there's, there's lots of, you know, runners who go on these Jags and they win tons of races. I don't know who's the most- Victorious of all time. Killian, maybe? Scott Jurk, I'm not sure.

• 30:10Adam Skolnick?

  Okay.

• 30:11Rich Roll?

  But I should know that, but I don't.

• 30:14Adam Skolnick?

  And who won the women's side?

• 30:16Rich Roll?

  You could Google that in real time.

• 30:17Adam Skolnick?

  Let's do it.

• 30:17Rich Roll?

  Annie Hughes won on the women's side. She's only 23 and she's a Leadville resident. That's pretty cool.

• 30:23Adam Skolnick?

  Hmm.

• 30:23Rich Roll?

  And she won the race by over an hour, I think, in 21 hours and 6 minutes. So that's pretty cool. So that's the Leadville 100 recap, followed by UTMB, which just went down this past weekend. This is kind of like the ultra race of all ultra races. It's quite a big deal. It's 106 and a half miles, during which time you run around Mont Blanc and you go through France, Italy and Switzerland. There's 2,347 runners. Just a, you know, a race that gets a lot of attention. There's a huge crowd that shows up at the finish line. It's very celebrated

• 31:04Rich Roll?

  and quite, you know, something to behold, just like epic in its landscapes. But it started off with a dark note because this UTMB event is not just the one primary race. I guess over the course of several days, there's a bunch of other races that lead up to the big race. And there was a death. This runner died in a fall at a race called TDS earlier in the week and they had to partially halt the race and, you know, somebody basically slipped and fell off a cliff, as far as I can tell. And I think it's the second.

• 31:40Adam Skolnick?

  Whoever was ahead of that point got to finish and anyone who was behind it had to turn around and get a ride back.

• 31:47Rich Roll?

  Yeah. So such an awful thing. And the second in a year after that thing in China.

• 31:51Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 31:52Rich Roll?

  Remember?

• 31:53Adam Skolnick?

  I do remember. That was, I mean, that was a different level.

• 31:57Rich Roll?

  I know. So that was horrible, but UTMB still, you know, basically went off nonetheless.

• 32:08Rich Roll?

  And Courtney DeWalter, friend of the pod, established herself as the true GOAT. She set the women's record, breaking a record that was set on a course that I think was about three kilometers shorter than the one that she ran, which makes it all the more impressive. She was seventh overall, including the men, which is unbelievable, and did it in 22 hours and 30 minutes. So it's just like amazing. Like she just dominated. Dominated.

• 32:38Adam Skolnick?

  Congrats Courtney.

• 32:39Rich Roll?

  Yeah, and did it with a smile on her face. There was some concern because she had, she DNF'd at Hard Rock 100 due to some stomach issues.

• 32:51Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 32:52Rich Roll?

  So there was some concern that, you know, that might happen again. And I guess there was a point in the race when she did start throwing up and thought that perhaps she was having flashbacks of Hard Rock. But after she threw up and started running again, it all kind of settled out and she was fine.

• 33:12Adam Skolnick?

  Digestive issues are common on these, right? I mean, did you ever have nausea or vomiting on some of these?

• 33:17Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I mean, it's part of it. You barf and then you keep going or whatever, you know. Things are bad, then they're better.

• 33:23Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 33:24Rich Roll?

  But sometimes when the digestion stuff gets out of control, and you see this in Ironman a lot, it's really hard to get it settled again.

• 33:31Adam Skolnick?

  Crazy.

• 33:32Rich Roll?

  So.

• 33:32Adam Skolnick?

  Carl Meltzer is the winningest 100 miler of all time, according to a website called Ultra Spire. And I don't know how, you know, how old this post is.

• 33:45Rich Roll?

  How do they qualify that? Like, is it the most ultras that you've won? Because you could go and win tons of ultras that aren't the big ones.

• 33:51Adam Skolnick?

  This is, he's gotten, he's gotten 40 100 mile race victories at least.

• 33:56Rich Roll?

  Wow.

• 33:57Adam Skolnick?

  So when this was posted, he's garnered his 40th back in, it looks like 2008, let's see, 2018? No, it doesn't have a...

• 34:07Rich Roll?

  This could be 2016, could be 2018. Someone could have passed him, but he's over, he's got 40 at least, according to this. That's impressive. Mm-hmm. He is a beast. And the most 100 mile wins in a calendar year as well. Hmm. Shout out Carl Meltzer. Carl Meltzer. Meltzer. Um, the men's victory, uh, was, was nabbed by Francois De Haene. Hmm. Uh, French, also Solomon runner. It's his fourth UTMB victory, just weeks after winning the Hard Rock 100. So he did the double that Courtney was attempting. Right. He completed UTMB in 20 hours and 45 minutes. He's also got three kids and I guess he's like a, a, he, he has a vineyard or he's a wine grower. How cool.

• 34:49Rich Roll?

  Yeah. I don't know that much about this guy, but that's pretty cool. I mean, fourth UTMB victory. That's unbelievable. So huge weekend for Solomon. That's why I'm rocking the Solomon t-shirt today. Shout out to... My Solomon. My Solomon. It's embarrassing for me. Oh, my Solomon, my Solomon teammates. Like, are you kidding? Hey. And Camille Bruyas. Bruyas, I think Bruyas? Yeah. I think that's how you say her last name, was, was the second woman who's also a Solomon athlete. Is she American? Uh, I don't know. I don't think so. Let me, let me live Google that. She's not, I don't think she is, no. Um, but among the Americans... French. Yeah, French. Camille's French. Part, part of us. Among the Americans, Jim Walmsley and Tim Tolleson both dropped out. They're

• 35:34Rich Roll?

  both beasts in their own right. Unbelievable runners, both of them. Amazing. And Jim, I think, was on track to do, he was way up there. Was on, and seemed really relaxed and, and, you know, in contention, but didn't work out for him, which is the way it goes with these things. Uh, final thing to discuss in our Enduro Corner is this 24-hour world record that was set over the weekend. What? I missed that. So it was this 24-hour race in Poland called Ultra Park Weekend, and this guy, who I'd never heard of before, Sania Sorokin, who's Lithuanian, broke the 24-hour record that was set by this guy, this Greek dude, Iannis Kouros, that was considered untouchable. Um...

• 36:22Rich Roll?

  That guy, Khoros, had run 188.5 miles in 1997.

• 36:31Adam Skolnick?

  In 24 hours?

• 36:32Rich Roll?

  Yeah, and Sonya ran 192.25 miles on a, like a one mile loop.

• 36:40Adam Skolnick?

  Eesh.

• 36:41Rich Roll?

  So for context, that's averaging 729 per mile for 24 hours straight.

• 36:48Adam Skolnick?

  Good lord.

• 36:49Rich Roll?

  Which is unbelievable. So he improved on Khoros' record by 6 kilometers. When Khoros ran 188, that was on a track, actually, and he did 180 on road. So this, I think, was on a path. Sorokin's loop was like a one mile, like a paved path, so it was kind of not a road, but not a track either.

• 37:13Adam Skolnick?

  Yep.

• 37:14Rich Roll?

  But unbelievable.

• 37:16Adam Skolnick?

  Hmm.

• 37:17Rich Roll?

  Unbelievable.

• 37:17Adam Skolnick?

  Did he have pacers, like when Kipchoge got his record, I mean, I'm sure, right?

• 37:23Rich Roll?

  I don't know, but I will say, if you're interested in diving deep into this stuff, a great resource is iRunFar.com. I mean, basically, if you want to learn more about UTMB or Leadville, or this 24-hour world record, or all things ultra-running, iRunFar.com, you know, basically, is where you go to learn everything you want to know.

• 37:45Adam Skolnick?

  Nice. How's the live Googling going for you? Do you enjoy it?

• 37:48Rich Roll?

  I do. It's feeling very Rogan-esque. We don't have a Jamie. You're the Jamie, right?

• 37:56Adam Skolnick?

  I am.

• 37:56Rich Roll?

  So pull that up, Adam.

• 38:00Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, can you pull that up for me?

• 38:01Rich Roll?

  I think you're on it.

• 38:02Adam Skolnick?

  Huh?

• 38:03Rich Roll?

  Let's talk about Lewis Pugh. Do we have an update on him?

• 38:06Adam Skolnick?

  We do.

• 38:07Rich Roll?

  He's doing this Code Red Arctic Swim, his Speedo diplomacy.

• 38:10Adam Skolnick?

  Right. It started, I believe, on the 24th, or 20, yeah, 24th, 25th it started. So today's technically the sixth day, but as of yesterday, I think it was the fifth day. He's only been able to swim two of those days because of, I saw, I'll get into that. So the first day, he swam just under a kilometer. He did about 500 meters in the morning, another 490. In the afternoon, um, he in zero degree water, like literally.

• 38:39Rich Roll?

  Zero Celsius.

• 38:40Adam Skolnick?

  Zero degrees Celsius, so thirty two degrees Fahrenheit. So it's, it's just, it's like point one degrees.

• 38:46Rich Roll?

  And no wet suit.

• 38:47Adam Skolnick?

  No wet suit, no swim mask, goggles and Speedo and a swim cap, just the typical open water uniform. And so he can only be in there 10 minutes at a time. So they've decided to do this. So he goes in there, he gets out, it takes him two to two and a half hours to warm back up to his normal core temperature.

• 39:04Rich Roll?

  After, after 10 minutes.

• 39:05Adam Skolnick?

  After 10 minutes. He's, he's got, he's, he's got his lowest body temp so far at, at the, this, he sent me this two days ago, ninety five point seven degrees. And so he's got a rigid inflatable boat with like a reinforced hull that just sticks right by his side. And that's what he's swimming with. But, you know, three of the days, he's had problems with ice. One of the days was just really fast moving brash ice, brash ice and, and icebergs. Brash ice is like any piece of ice that's less than two meters across. It kind of looks from above like that crushed ice slush.

• 39:38Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 39:39Adam Skolnick?

  And if you touch that with your bare skin, it's going to have salt and all sorts, it's going to cut you up. And so, you know, you basically can't swim through that. So in the second swim on the first day, he's swimming around brash ice, he's swimming around icebergs. He said, there's an iceberg a thousand feet tall that like is like cruising in his path. So that's the kind of stuff he's dealing with.

• 39:59Rich Roll?

  It's weird. Like when he first was saying, oh, I can't swim, there's just, there's ice floating in here and it's too dangerous. I thought like, we'll just swim around it. But then he shared a video and you see this ice flow and you're like, oh, now I get it. Like it's just, it's just packed with like, you know, big pieces of ice that are floating that are just, you know, there's a current and they'll just go right into you and like hit you in the head and stuff.

• 40:20Adam Skolnick?

  He said, the second swim was like basically swimming across a highway.

• 40:25Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 40:25Adam Skolnick?

  And he was able to get through it.

• 40:26Rich Roll?

  It's like Frogger.

• 40:27Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, yeah. It's like Frogger, except it's Louis. And then today he posted that like literally they had, he has the boat in the water, but it's surrounded by ice. Like there's just no open water. It looks like the ice completely moved in. So, um, You know, some of that is it's coming off the main ice sheet and dumping into the water. So it's not necessarily good news just because it looks colder than, you know, it looks like it should look maybe. But, um, so we'll see, we'll stay tuned with him. I'm in touch with him. We've been messaging back and forth. The footage he has posted is just absolutely unreal.

• 41:03Rich Roll?

  Yeah. So you can find that on either his Twitter feed or his Instagram.

• 41:06Adam Skolnick?

  Instagram is where you want to.

• 41:07Rich Roll?

  And it's P U P U G H.

• 41:09Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah. He's posting the kind of like two-minute videos on there and then ultimately we'll see how it goes. But that's what's happening on the Louis Pugh front. So congrats to Louis. Thanks for doing it. He's, he's really raising the code red on climate crisis.

• 41:24Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Are you bummed that you're not there in Greenland doing this?

• 41:27Adam Skolnick?

  Big time.

• 41:27Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 41:28Adam Skolnick?

  But, you know, it was Zuma's birthday. So the, by the time he's, he was able to get his plane organized and the timing of it, like if Delta hadn't got into Greenland, if, if, uh, and he started on August 14th, it would have been time.

• 41:42Rich Roll?

  It would have happened weeks ago.

• 41:43Adam Skolnick?

  I would have been there.

• 41:44Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Right.

• 41:44Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 41:45Rich Roll?

  All right. Well, thus concludes Enduro Corner for this roll on. Do you think that we did it today?

• 41:50Adam Skolnick?

  I like Enduro Corner.

• 41:51Rich Roll?

  It is, right?

• 41:52Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 41:52Rich Roll?

  It's good.

• 41:52Adam Skolnick?

  It's very on-brand.

• 41:53Rich Roll?

  It is. Um, do you think anybody else cares? I think so.

• 41:59Adam Skolnick?

  I think so.

• 42:00Rich Roll?

  Maybe. Who knows? Anyway, let's take a quick break and we'll be back with show and tell, the big story, listener questions and more.

• 42:16Rich Roll?

  Adam, we need you back in, in actual reality, not virtual reality.

• 42:21Adam Skolnick?

  Rich, you've never looked better, my friend. And I mean that.

• 42:25Rich Roll?

  For those that are just listening, Adam is donning virtual reality goggles. He's got Oculus on top of his head right now.

• 42:34Adam Skolnick?

  I'm deep in the Oculus.

• 42:35Rich Roll?

  Are you going to just remain there or are you going to come back to us?

• 42:38Adam Skolnick?

  I'll come back to you, but, um, this is, uh, a friend of the pod's new project, which you've discussed with him. I think you've even tried it, right?

• 42:45Rich Roll?

  Yes. Our friend, Michael Muller, he's got this incredible new VR experience called Into the Now, which is available on Oculus, where you can experience what it's like to swim with sharks.

• 43:00Adam Skolnick?

  Sharks, whales.

• 43:01Rich Roll?

  Uncaged.

• 43:02Adam Skolnick?

  Uncaged eels. Um, I wish you could see what I'm seeing right now, Rich, because there's a beautiful view of a canyon.

• 43:10Rich Roll?

  So we, during the break, we tried to get this thing sorted out. We had to unbox it and do all the down, the sort of update, software updates.

• 43:18Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 43:18Rich Roll?

  We're trying to get the whole thing configured. It was taking longer than expected.

• 43:22Adam Skolnick?

  Sorry about that.

• 43:23Rich Roll?

  Which mimics the experience we had when Michael was here because we took a break during that podcast so that I could experience what you're trying to experience right now. And it took a while to get it up on its feet, but I was able to see it. So I already know what it's like and it's quite extraordinary. And this is available now.

• 43:44Adam Skolnick?

  Is it available now? I think it's still beta. They want to send us something. It's almost avail, it's about to come out and it's, but it will be out soon. I think it's, the idea is Michael Muller is this great commercial photographer renowned, but has always been also an underwater photographer, published an amazing book on sharks, which I bought the, the.

• 44:03Rich Roll?

  Sitting right over there.

• 44:03Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 44:04Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's incredible book.

• 44:05Adam Skolnick?

  And his Taschen exhibit was, you know, also equally great. And, and this is basically, he always thought that was two dimensional. He wants to make a three dimensional experience to get people to see some of these animals if they can't get in the water. Cause you know, he's going all over the world.

• 44:19Rich Roll?

  How many people are actually gonna go swim with sharks? Other than you, Adam, you've made this a habit, a practice. You don't need the virtual reality experience. You're doing this.

• 44:28Adam Skolnick?

  Well, Rich, thank you.

• 44:29Rich Roll?

  Yes.

• 44:31Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, no, no, I've, I've been very fortunate to have been in the water with sharks many times, but not great whites, other than being, I am with great whites kind of, but I haven't seen them in the.

• 44:43Rich Roll?

  You're among them.

• 44:44Adam Skolnick?

  I'm among them, but I haven't seen them. But the, but there's whale sharks in here. There's whales. I have been lucky enough to swim with whales too. So yes, I'm fortunate that I've had all that. But you know, once you've had it, you can't get enough of it. You just want more and more of it. So even me, I'm really excited about this. I mean, if I had this at home and I could plug in and just check out whales and sharks all the time, I, I don't think I'd be in R too much. I would just stay in VR.

• 45:11Rich Roll?

  That's concerning.

• 45:12Adam Skolnick?

  I know.

• 45:12Rich Roll?

  I'm with you. I think it's really cool. And I've actually never really spent, I'm not a gamer. I haven't spent time with these. Goggles on, but just in the few minutes that I was experiencing it during the break, it's pretty impressive. Yeah. It's kind of amazing. It's cool. My problem is that one eye sees better than the other. So even in this just now. Me too, but I think you can make those adjustments. I mean, we were trying to get this up on its feet quickly, but you can adjust the lenses on it. And just the setup process with the Minority Report dashboard and the whole thing, like, it's pretty crazy. I mean, I'm all about lucidity and tactile, real-world experience. Right. And I have a lot of, you know, fears about where we're headed with all of this

• 45:54Rich Roll?

  technology that I think are well reasoned. But for experiences like this, to tap into what it might be like to have an adventure that you're unlikely to have, I think there's a lot of benefit. And I can see this exploding into all areas of adventure. And I think one of the things that could be potentially most positively impactful is the ability for experiences like this to breed empathy, essentially by allowing people to travel to places they wouldn't ordinarily be able to go, to experience different cultures, and to have a much more, you know, kind of profound experience with, you know, worlds unknown

• 46:36Rich Roll?

  than they would otherwise be able to. So again, it's technology presented as an opportunity to bring us together. We've tried this experiment before. We'll see how this goes. But I'm optimistic Well, this has like- This piece of where we could take this type of technology. And that's, we talked about this with Mueller, like, if you can go to visit, you know, basically spend time with a village in Africa and see what that would be like, or be in, you know, Egypt, or any number of places all over the world, and get a sense of different cultures and different experiences. Or with Alex Honnold, we were talking about rock climbing, like, what does it feel to like, you know, basically ascend, you know, a face? Yeah.

• 47:20Rich Roll?

  And do what he does. Wouldn't it be great if- And feel what that must feel like. Yeah, free solo version where you're like hanging on. I know, right? Looking down. I'm sure there will be all kinds of experiences like that. But-

• 47:33Adam Skolnick?

  But when it comes down to it, R is much better than VR.

• 47:37Rich Roll?

  Yes, we all default to R.

• 47:39Adam Skolnick?

  But not everybody is going to be comfortable swimming underwater. Not everyone wants to be in a scuba rig. Not everyone wants to freedive or can.

• 47:45Rich Roll?

  Or is able to.

• 47:46Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, right. So, so all of that means there is, there is a place, there's a place for this. Is it the gamification of adventure? Is that problematic? Who knows? You know, there's always three moves down the way. But for now, let's celebrate this one.

• 47:59Rich Roll?

  Sure, and we love Michael and everything that he's about. And this is quite an accomplishment. And everything that this guy does, he does with such attention to quality and integrity. So, check it out. It's called Into the Now. But we, is it, it's in beta right now. Can you, so you can't actually purchase?

• 48:16Adam Skolnick?

  I had to email, I had to email someone and tell them, um, you know, that we need the, a certain, I guess, I think there's another app that we have to download. So I'll get it all sorted out.

• 48:27Rich Roll?

  Cool.

• 48:28Adam Skolnick?

  And be back with you.

• 48:29Rich Roll?

  Right on.

• 48:30Adam Skolnick?

  But, uh, but really excited about this. I mean, I do believe that like he's doing this out of the love of being underwater and wanting to share it with people. It's super cool that he's thinking that way.

• 48:40Rich Roll?

  Hundred percent.

• 48:41Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 48:42Rich Roll?

  Should we do the big story?

• 48:44Adam Skolnick?

  The big story. I was interested when I sent you this, uh, article. I didn't know how you'd take it, to be honest with you.

• 48:51Rich Roll?

  Hmm. So, the big story is based on an article that was in the New York Times, an opinion piece, um, by, uh, somebody called Cassidy Rosenblum. And it's called "Work is a False Idol." And I think this is interesting. It's basically...

• 49:08Adam Skolnick?

  It's lying flat, right?

• 49:10Rich Roll?

  I mean, you know, explain it.

• 49:11Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah. So, the idea is, uh, there's this movement that started in China where someone basically didn't want to go to his job anymore and decided to not show up and just lay flat. And he called it the lying flat movement. And he was referencing Diogenes. Is it Diogenes?

• 49:32Rich Roll?

  Diogenes.

• 49:32Adam Skolnick?

  Diogenes. In his, uh, who was the original cynic back when a cynic meant, uh, to live self-sufficiently and in tune with nature and not be interested in money, power and fame. So now we've twisted cynic as something who's always a naysayer or whatever, but in reality. In the same way that we twisted the stoic to mean somebody who is like rigid and unemotional. Right. So cynic and stoic, we've gotten wrong. And this makes me really happy because what it, what it means is, which I've always known is I am a cynic. Yes. Um, Luohua Zhang is the person who just decided to tweet from his bed, basically. And then he's not going back to work and he wants to spend his time. Can you tweet and be a cynic though?

• 50:16Adam Skolnick?

  He was, he was reading and he wanted to read. It's not very Walden Pond. No, but this is, he just wanted to read and exercise and enjoy his life and he didn't, he would, he would do a job when he needed to. He was opting out of like the, they called it like nine, nine, six lifestyle in China. Um, and which is, I think it's six days a week or nine, six, six. Nine AM to nine PM, six days a week. That's it. Nine, nine, six. And, um. Which was promulgated by, uh, the founder of Alibaba, Jack Ma. Right. So he's an anti, he's a cynic of Jack Ma. And, um, and then she was an NPR producer. So she was a successful producer. The writer of this piece. The writer of the piece, Cassidy. And she was like, you know what? I'm going home

• 50:57Adam Skolnick?

  to West Virginia. I'm going to sit on the porch and watch hummingbirds. I'm through this news cycle. And which is, you know, it's one thing for someone who's trying to break into media and is a young person to have that attitude, but to someone who has seen success, and I would say producing for NPR at, when you're young is a great success in this business. Um, and then to retreat from that is really interesting to me. And she writes really, uh, beautifully about why and, and, and, um, you know, she points to the fact that a Luohua is only one person who is talking about lying flat. Casey Gerald

• 51:37Adam Skolnick?

  is a writer for New York Magazine. He's written a book, a memoir. Um, he's a black author. Who talks about lying flat as rebellion, who basically he opted out of the protest to take care of himself and his soul and he and she links to an incredible essay of his that I just got into this morning and it's it's incredible. She talks about the nap ministry, which is led by a woman and other black activists who's taking naps as kind of rebellion, open rebellion, and she leads like clinics on naps.

• 52:13Rich Roll?

  And you should be able to take a nap without it being an act of rebellion.

• 52:17Adam Skolnick?

  But she is like, all of this is basically if you're if you're sleeping, you can't further like the capitalist enterprise, you know, like there's a political aspect to what Luau is doing. There's a political aspect to dropping out like Casey did in his in his essay. She's just pointing out that, and this is more widespread than we think. We have 10 million job opener openings in the United States right now, highest in two decades. People do not want to work. Is that because wages are low? If so, then how come people at Goldman Sachs are also whispering about not wanting to work?

• 52:47Rich Roll?

  It's very interesting because with the pandemic and the closing of so many businesses, the logical extrapolation of that would be people clamoring for jobs, right? Like the sort of employers being in high demand and being able to dictate terms because people would be so desperate to find a way to make ends meet. And yet what we're seeing is something very different altogether. And I think that's what interested me about all of this. Like, okay, here we are in the pandemic. There's, you know, with these predictions of massive unemployment, there's

• 53:27Rich Roll?

  unemployment, but it's unemployment by by choice on some level. And maybe that's because people are just, you know, banking unemployment checks and reluctant to let go of that to go take jobs that aren't going to pay much more. But I think also the impact of the pandemic on how people are thinking about their relationship to their professions more broadly.

• 53:55Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, I mean, she was pointing that out, too. Like, she's like, maybe some of it is the kind of turbo boosted employment benefits, but some of it is also definitely a deep dissatisfaction. What's that dissatisfaction? Is it that, um, that, you know, work, work has become too important to our lives? That like having a career define us has become too important? Um, you know, is there something, is there something wrong with the way we approach our work life and therefore our whole life? Um, and I don't think you could look at all this discussion of mental health. You can look at, um, you know, suicide rates and, you know, antidepressant rates and drug addiction and you know all of this.

• 54:38Adam Skolnick?

  There, there, you know, there is, there are a lot of dissatisfied people out there and maybe the work component is part of that. I think that's what this essay is getting into, don't you think?

• 54:47Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I think so. I think there's a generational piece to this as well. Like me being Gen X and the, you know, progeny of boomers. I was raised to think about career in a certain way and what I see amongst millennials and Gen Z'ers is a very different approach altogether, one that's founded on, um, you know, pursuing what it is that makes you feel excited and having a kind of independent contractor relationship with what you do, where you go from gig to gig and you're not overly tied down to any particular avenue. And that, of course, allows people to take long breaks and go on adventures and, you know, you see young people like live in the van life and, you know, having the four hour

• 55:32Rich Roll?

  work week experience or living in Bali and being digital, you know, kind of.

• 55:37Adam Skolnick?

  Digital nomad piece and part of this.

• 55:39Rich Roll?

  Yeah, digital nomads and all of that. And I think that's all super cool. This is one step further to say like, I don't want to do anything, essentially.

• 55:47Adam Skolnick?

  Right, so she also referenced a Twitter user who posted, "I don't want a career, I want to sit on the porch," and it got 400,000 likes.

• 55:54Rich Roll?

  I know. And this person has 3,000. This is a woman who had like, who has like 3,500 followers on Twitter. It's not like a Twitter celebrity. It's essentially like a fairly average person.

• 56:05Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 56:06Rich Roll?

  Who tweeted this thing and it went crazy. So certainly there's something afoot here. How much of that is a reaction to this current moment? Versus something that's a little bit more generational or permanent? I'm not sure we quite know right now, but.

• 56:20Adam Skolnick?

  But it's been going on for a while. There's a book by Tom Hodgkinson called How to be Idle that had great reviews. I found it through Dwight Garner, who's my favorite literary critic. I think I've mentioned him before on this podcast. He's at New York Times and it's, it's one of his all time faves. I think he wrote, um, this book came out in 2005. So this has been something some people have, now he was kind of alone. It kind of, the, the book is structured throughout a whole day, like 8:00 AM. The first chat, I'll just read the first paragraph. The first chapter is called 8:00 AM, Waking Up is Hard to Do. And this is how it starts. "I wonder if that hardworking, American rationalist and agent of industry Benjamin Franklin knew how much misery he would cause in the world.

• 57:01Adam Skolnick?

  When back in 1757, high on puritanical zeal, he popularized and promoted the trite and patently untrue aphorism, 'Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.'"

• 57:13Rich Roll?

  I've lived my whole life on that aphorism.

• 57:17Adam Skolnick?

  Is it aphorism?

• 57:18Rich Roll?

  But I, is that, am I using that word wrong?

• 57:20Adam Skolnick?

  No, I think I might've.

• 57:22Rich Roll?

  Yeah, like, okay, we're going to have a revisionist history on Benjamin Franklin and his approach to life and work. Like, how dare Benjamin Franklin, you know, basically Peru, pursue aspirational things.

• 57:34Adam Skolnick?

  Listen, now's not the time to defend the founding fathers, Rich.

• 57:36Rich Roll?

  The, the, the childhood book that I was given and, and, and read many times over as a young person was The Early Bird Gets the Worm. And my whole life is all about The Early Bird Gets the Worm.

• 57:48Adam Skolnick?

  I've got a new life for you.

• 57:50Rich Roll?

  And this is an antidote to that. How to be idle?

• 57:52Adam Skolnick?

  How to be idle.

• 57:53Rich Roll?

  The Loafers Manifesto. Like, every instinct in me is just balks at that.

• 58:01Adam Skolnick?

  You must read this then.

• 58:03Rich Roll?

  I know, so here's the thing. I think the healthy thing here is, is holding our relationship to our work a little bit more lightly and, and understanding that who we are is not what we do. And that's something that I struggle with in an unhealthy way. And I think probably most people of my generation, you know, contend with. I was recently, I'm not going to spoil it, but I had a guest on the show on, on, on an upcoming podcast that hasn't gone live yet, who challenged me to take, to take a year off. A year? Which I balked and they said, okay, how about six months? And it really made me anxious in the moment, just, just being asked that question or being

• 58:48Rich Roll?

  challenged to do that. Because so much of who I am is tied up, my identity is wrapped up in, in what I do. And if I stop doing that, what does that mean about who I am? Right? And that goes into workaholism and how I think about myself and my attachment to relevancy and, you know, all of it, right? And material things, right? Material things, all of it. Like, am I a provider? Am I a man? Like, who am I? Am I, you know, meaningful if I'm not constantly putting content out? And all of it, right? It challenges you to really deconstruct that and evaluate that for yourself, which is scary for me.

• 59:29Rich Roll?

  So I think within the context of the conversation of work as a false idol, there's important lessons to be mined about, about, again, our relationship to work in general and how we are all in a culture in which identity is so inextricably linked to what it is that we do. I mean, it's a trope, like you go to a party, what do you do? And it's your career, right? What does it mean if we reframe that and ask a different question? Or we let go altogether of attaching meaning to work as a substrate for identity itself? And I think as a thought experiment, if nothing else, that's something important and healthy to do.

• 1:00:12Rich Roll?

  I'm not ready to, you know, be a loafer and sit on the, you know, I want to do things in the world. I have ambition and I'm not going to... Feel guilty about that either, but I do think having a healthy relationship with that is important. And I question how healthy my relationship with that is right now. It's healthier than it's been in the past, but I think that there's, you know, more work that I personally could do around this. And I think that's why this piece like resonated with me because it made me angry, you know?

• 1:00:45Adam Skolnick?

  Oh, really?

• 1:00:45Rich Roll?

  Yeah, a little bit.

• 1:00:46Adam Skolnick?

  Nice.

• 1:00:47Rich Roll?

  Come on, like, really? Okay.

• 1:00:49Adam Skolnick?

  But she's such a great writer.

• 1:00:50Rich Roll?

  We're all gonna, we're all gonna pat each other on the back because we just wanna lie down and we don't wanna go to work?

• 1:00:55Adam Skolnick?

  Well, I find it like it's an act of rebellion. So it's like basically saying, here's this, you know, like do with what you want. She doesn't care. She's on the, on her parents porch, but she is on her parents.

• 1:01:05Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's her parents porch.

• 1:01:07Adam Skolnick?

  Right. Get your own damn porch.

• 1:01:08Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's fine. Her parents have to go to work and do that so that she can lie down. Like that's, I'm sure, you know, look.

• 1:01:15Adam Skolnick?

  Don't you think?

• 1:01:16Rich Roll?

  What would, what would Goggins say about all of this?

• 1:01:19Adam Skolnick?

  He would not be on team, uh, lie down. But I will say this. So if you look at the gradations of like, American life and work, right? From the farm to the factory, from the factory to growing, you know, like the thing was to get into college and to work your way to the point where you don't have to be doing, working with your hands. This was kind of like, this is the mainstream culture, right? I'm not saying I endorse any of this, but this is how it kinda went. And so then it became, go to college so you don't have to do what I did, son or daughter. And you can, you know, look after yourself and have, have more, right? It's all about have more, have more. Then our generation came along and we saw that our parents who did these jobs, if you're in kind of, if

• 1:02:00Adam Skolnick?

  your parents are in the professional world, doing like, you know, teachers might, might find meaning, but often lawyers don't. You've had that personal experience.

• 1:02:08Rich Roll?

  Right. Giant swaths of the population who, who did that responsible thing so that they could have the stuff, but ultimately are unfulfilled.

• 1:02:15Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 1:02:16Rich Roll?

  And the kids know that their parents are unfulfilled.

• 1:02:17Adam Skolnick?

  And so the kids are like.

• 1:02:18Rich Roll?

  So the next generation pursues meaning.

• 1:02:20Adam Skolnick?

  Pursue what you love. So we pursue what we love, but then that becomes our entire being, right? So like, yes, I gotta do this. This is who I am. Like it becomes, once you start your own business or get into media or do whatever, it becomes such an all encompassing, you've had to fight so hard to get whatever rung you're on, that, um, that you don't wanna give it up. And I understand that completely. And it does become a little bit of who you are. This is the next evolution of that. Asking, why is that? So it's really, it's really just the same thing as we were reflecting on our parents. It's the same, this is the exact, this is another level of that. This is saying, why are you like that?

• 1:03:02Rich Roll?

  Isn't it a function of a dearth of meaning in the workplace? Like if people found greater meaning and purpose in what they pursue career-wise, then work would not be the intolerable thing that is motivating this movement of rest as resistance.

• 1:03:18Adam Skolnick?

  I would, I would put it this way. Why does anything really? None, I hate to say this.

• 1:03:25Rich Roll?

  Are you gonna get, are you gonna get like nihilistic on the cynics?

• 1:03:29Adam Skolnick?

  Yes, I'm gonna go full cynic.

• 1:03:31Rich Roll?

  The anti cynic?

• 1:03:32Adam Skolnick?

  No, this is full cynic, I'm gonna go full cynic. What does it really matter if like even Elizabeth Gilbert talks about this in Big Magic, she's like, no one's asked you to write that book, basically. So Casey's saying, no one asked you to do that. Like you don't need it. The world doesn't necessarily need it.

• 1:03:47Rich Roll?

  Can you find meaning and purpose and fulfillment without attaching it to doing something?

• 1:03:53Adam Skolnick?

  Maybe the do nothing theory. So I, my, the book that I wrote before-

• 1:03:57Rich Roll?

  There's a Buddhist piece to this.

• 1:03:59Adam Skolnick?

  Yes. The book I wrote before One Breath was called Middle to Somewhere, it was a novel unpublished. It got me an agent, but it didn't, we didn't get, end up, it was like one of those almost not-quites. Didn't get a publisher, still like it. But the main character basically inherits some money and decides to do nothing. It's the do nothing theory. And he travels the world just to like, try to do as little as possible. And the idea is that you, by doing, the more you do, the more you're impacting, you know, the sub-question is, or the sub-theor- thesis is, beware of the unintended consequences of good intentions. The more you try to do to even fix something, the more problems.

• 1:04:43Adam Skolnick?

  There's this article in the New York Times about cotton totes and how an organic cotton tote needs to be used 20,000 times to offset its overall impact of production. This is based on a 2018 study by the Ministry of-

• 1:04:55Rich Roll?

  20,000 times. What defines a use? Just taking it to the store one time?

• 1:05:00Adam Skolnick?

  20,000 times, that means daily use for 54 years, and that's for one bag. And you think when you're wearing your cotton tote that says, you know, no more plastic bags, that you're helping. And yes, you're helping keep plastic out of the waste stream, but you're not, but there is this other use. And, and the point is like even-

• 1:05:18Rich Roll?

  It's so, the point is, it's so hard to be good.

• 1:05:21Adam Skolnick?

  It is. Like even being good has a ramification, right? It's the same thing we talked about with the sixth extinction. It's like, the fact that we're even talking about this is a-

• 1:05:30Rich Roll?

  So if we opt out of even trying to be good and just do nothing, we'd be better off.

• 1:05:35Adam Skolnick?

  There is that argument. That is the argument of Mr. Hodgkinson.

• 1:05:39Rich Roll?

  Okay. So with that, that person still needs to eat and they're either gonna get a plastic bag or they're gonna use their cotton tote. You still have to do things.

• 1:05:48Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 1:05:49Rich Roll?

  You can't opt out completely.

• 1:05:51Adam Skolnick?

  Listen, I'm not opting out. I'm sitting here with you, but I will-

• 1:05:53Rich Roll?

  You could sit under the Bodhi tree for only so long before you have to eat something or move your body or interact with other human beings.

• 1:06:01Adam Skolnick?

  And even Lao saying, "I want to lay flat," but he's also saying, "I want to exercise." Like to me, for us, like swims are the ultimate, even runs are the ultimate of do, it's part of the do nothing. It's not like you're doing nothing, but you, you aren't producing anything. You know, you really aren't. You're just swimming. And there's something about these-

• 1:06:22Rich Roll?

  But you aren't doing something.

• 1:06:23Adam Skolnick?

  You are, but you're not, the do nothing-

• 1:06:25Rich Roll?

  Everything is a choice. Whether you're choosing to sit on the porch, go for a swim, go to work, use a cotton tote or a plastic bag, you're making choices all the time. So the flaw in the premise is that you're opting out and not, not making choices.

• 1:06:41Adam Skolnick?

  Right. And, and you're saying that is your choice.

• 1:06:45Rich Roll?

  You are making, that's an active choice nonetheless.

• 1:06:48Adam Skolnick?

  And the cynic, I think self-sufficiency was a big part of that. And you can't be a self-sufficient if you're engaging in the food stream. Then you're not really the full cynic.

• 1:06:58Rich Roll?

  Well, nobody is completely self-sufficient. We're all part of a greater ecosystem and we make choices about how we interact with that. But I do think it's interesting that there's this now resurgence of interest in cynicism in the traditional philosophical sense.

• 1:07:15Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:15Rich Roll?

  And I wonder whether there's a movement afoot to modernize

• 1:07:23Rich Roll?

  the kind of philosophy of cynicism. To the mainstream in the way that Ryan Holiday and others have championed Stoicism into the mainstream by writing books about it. And there's a lot of overlap between cynicism and, you know, Henry David Thoreau and these great traditions of people opting out of the flow of society to do something different and find meaning outside of the constraints of the rules that govern polite society.

• 1:07:51Adam Skolnick?

  Exactly. I love it. I love this idea.

• 1:07:53Rich Roll?

  And there's something cool about that.

• 1:07:55Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 1:07:56Rich Roll?

  But, I don't know, man. I mean, you know, I'm too old to have valid commentary on this, but I think it is a thing when you see 10 million job openings and people just saying, "I'm not going to take that job."

• 1:08:10Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 1:08:11Rich Roll?

  In a moment when you would think, like, everybody would be clamoring for jobs.

• 1:08:16Adam Skolnick?

  And some of them are doing nothing. They're taking the unemployment and doing nothing, and that's fine. And some of them are trying to get their own thing going, which, whatever it is. It reminds me that, like, this idea of do nothing and the consequences of that and what you're talking about cynicism brings me to this article you sent me yesterday, an interview with Beyond Meat CEO Evan, what's his last name?

• 1:08:41Rich Roll?

  No, his name is Ethan Brown.

• 1:08:43Adam Skolnick?

  Ethan Brown. Hedonistic altruism is brought up in that. He brings it up.

• 1:08:48Rich Roll?

  Yeah, which is interesting. So this was an article on Ethan that was in the Sunday New York Times yesterday, right?

• 1:08:53Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:08:54Rich Roll?

  So Ethan, friend, friend of the pod, he was on an early episode of the show, CEO, founder of Beyond Meat. There was not much in this article that I didn't already know or that isn't kind of like widely known about him, but there is something interesting about the idea of hedonistic altruism, which is in the title of the piece, that relates to this idea of cynicism.

• 1:09:21Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 1:09:22Rich Roll?

  I guess tangentially.

• 1:09:23Adam Skolnick?

  So Ethan's premise is, you know, he grew up on a farm. He decided he didn't want to have to kill anything to eat. Why should I? I'm not an animal. You know, just because animals do it doesn't mean we need to do it. And he's an example of doing something that has actually had a net positive impact so far, and that's getting people off meat, getting them onto these meat alternatives. I personally like eating the meat alternatives once a week or twice a week at the most. And I like it. It tastes good. And I'm one of those people that does eat it. And but it's mostly for people who are meat eaters who are kind of gravitating towards. And it is making a big environmental impact according to some studies.

• 1:10:05Adam Skolnick?

  And but in this article, he's like, you know, it used to be to be ecologically conscious. You had to go without a car or you had to buy some crappy hybrid. And now you can buy a Tesla and isn't that great? That's hedonistic altruism. But there is the unintended consequences of of electric cars booming, which is is good. That's positive. I love electric cars. I don't own one yet, but I do want one. Is there's a battery thing and there's rare minerals that involve in those batteries. And now there's like, there's interests that want to go try to mine those minerals in the deep seabeds. And there's, you know, land mining that has all sorts of issues and complicated issues. So, you know, what is 10 moves down the road? What does that look like? And and that's what the do nothing people are kind of.

• 1:10:50Rich Roll?

  Sure, but my retort to that is that everything is iterative. Of course, when you pioneer a new technology, there are downstream implications of that, some of which are foreseeable and some of which are not. The tote bag is a perfect example of that. The lithium ion battery is another example of that, of course. But we have to move forward to solve these problems. And so these are all steps. And we have to address these things as they come. Like, it's better that that electric vehicles exist and that they've been created in a way that that that, you know, is is aspirational for the consumer, right? It's creating demand. They're going to get cheaper. There's going to be more and more of them until one day we're going to wake up and there

• 1:11:33Rich Roll?

  really are no traditional vehicles on the road anymore. Yes, we will have to deal with the mining application, you know, implications of that. But are we not better off for making these changes?

• 1:11:47Adam Skolnick?

  Don't ask me, ask Greta.

• 1:11:48Rich Roll?

  Yeah, so, well, I mean, Greta would like it all to be happening much more quickly. By the way, like, I got criticized in YouTube comments.

• 1:11:56Adam Skolnick?

  You did?

• 1:11:57Rich Roll?

  Well, people thought I was making fun of her. Like, I'm on her side. I was like, I was, I was sort of, you know, trying to channel her voice. Remember when I was, you know, like, talking? People thought I was mocking her. I'm not mocking her at all. Like, she's the one who's holding the hard line and is frustrated that we're not doing this quickly enough.

• 1:12:16Adam Skolnick?

  Greta would would would not enjoy the phrase hedonistic altruism.

• 1:12:21Rich Roll?

  Right, but, but you have to understand the psychology of the human animal.

• 1:12:27Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 1:12:27Rich Roll?

  Like, how are you gonna get people to make changes? Well, you have to make that change attractive.

• 1:12:32Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 1:12:33Rich Roll?

  Whether it's the food, whether it's the car that they're driving, whatever it is, like, because most people are not going to murder themselves, or make the kind of choices that, that Greta is making in her life, or that she would wish that more people would make.

• 1:12:50Adam Skolnick?

  I agree.

• 1:12:50Rich Roll?

  So how do you appeal to people's sensibility to do the right thing? You have to make the right thing, the cool thing, the affordable thing, the attractive thing, and these things unfortunately take time. And we're in a race, like, we're in a race to save the planet. My fear is that we can't iterate on these technologies fast enough to keep up with the rate at which we're denigrating the environment.

• 1:13:15Adam Skolnick?

  Hmm. And wouldn't, wouldn't we all be better off if we just all laid flat and then consumed less resources?

• 1:13:23Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:13:24Adam Skolnick?

  I'm not, I'm not a lay flatter, but that's the idea, that's the argument, right?

• 1:13:27Rich Roll?

  If we all just stopped.

• 1:13:28Adam Skolnick?

  If we all just stopped.

• 1:13:29Rich Roll?

  Right, like, when the, like, the early pandemic happened and everything stopped for a minute.

• 1:13:34Adam Skolnick?

  Great example.

• 1:13:34Rich Roll?

  And the skies cleared, and the pollution, you know, like, yes.

• 1:13:39Adam Skolnick?

  That's, I think, where the, the, you know...

• 1:13:41Rich Roll?

  If we, if we just...

• 1:13:43Adam Skolnick?

  Universal human wage kind of element.

• 1:13:45Rich Roll?

  There was just mass adoption of cynicism, the philosophy. And the lie-flat movement just intoxicated the global population to such an extent that we no longer just, we no longer found it, uh, uh, interesting or important to do anything.

• 1:14:03Adam Skolnick?

  If cynicism became the next political movement...

• 1:14:06Rich Roll?

  But then chaos would ensue.

• 1:14:07Adam Skolnick?

  No, but you, you, the cynics would not, would not vote for Trump as a voting bloc.

• 1:14:13Rich Roll?

  Yeah, but you wouldn't vote.

• 1:14:15Adam Skolnick?

  No, you might vote.

• 1:14:15Rich Roll?

  That would be an action. You would have to literally get up and do something.

• 1:14:20Adam Skolnick?

  No one's saying you lie flat.

• 1:14:21Rich Roll?

  That is anti cynic.

• 1:14:22Adam Skolnick?

  You don't lie flat all the time.

• 1:14:23Rich Roll?

  This is not a functional operating system for society, Adam.

• 1:14:27Adam Skolnick?

  Adam the cynic.

• 1:14:28Rich Roll?

  It's a good thought experiment. If you want to be, you know, Henry David Thoreau and go to Walden Pond and write about it.

• 1:14:35Rich Roll?

  Or sit on your parents' porch.

• 1:14:37Adam Skolnick?

  I think Henry David Thoreau was actually at Ralph Waldo Emerson's house when he was sitting in that guest house. That was Walden.

• 1:14:44Rich Roll?

  Weren't there like, somebody was bringing, who is it who told me this?

• 1:14:47Adam Skolnick?

  I think Walden Pond was literally Emerson's guest house.

• 1:14:50Rich Roll?

  I think it was Amanda Palmer when she was on the podcast and we were talking about this. And she, her point, we were, we were having a conversation about how nobody, I hope my memory is correct on this, maybe I have this wrong. But the conversation was around how nobody does anything alone. Like, everybody needs support. And any victory is a team victory. Even Thoreau, like, had somebody bring him muffins, like, when he was out in the pond. Like, he wasn't out there by himself. Like, he was.

• 1:15:19Adam Skolnick?

  Thoreau was, Thoreau was glamping, bro. He was glamping.

• 1:15:22Rich Roll?

  It was a serious glamping situation. Yeah.

• 1:15:24Adam Skolnick?

  He was on, I think he was on Emerson's property. I'm not kidding. Like, I think Ralph Waldo Emerson was supporting him.

• 1:15:30Rich Roll?

  Is that true?

• 1:15:30Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, I think so. I think Ralph Waldo Emerson was, was, was already wealthy and renowned. And I think Thoreau, he admired Thoreau, and I think he was like, one of his patrons.

• 1:15:39Rich Roll?

  Listen, it's, it's, it's easy to be a cynic on $450,000 a year.

• 1:15:47Adam Skolnick?

  Who, who's making, who's making that?

• 1:15:49Rich Roll?

  I'm just saying, like, it's, it can, it's sort of extravagant, it's sort of, uh... Is it not privileged to say, "I'm gonna lie down"?

• 1:16:01Adam Skolnick?

  I don't think these guys are making $450, but, uh...

• 1:16:04Rich Roll?

  I know. I'm, I'm being, I'm, I'm exaggerating, but I'm just saying, if you're on your parents' porch, or, or, like, how are you gonna, how are you gonna, how is this functional?

• 1:16:14Adam Skolnick?

  I think the point is, it's kind of a monkey wrench. So, it's not, it's not implied to be functional. It's implied as a mirror, saying, "Why are we all doing what we're doing"?

• 1:16:24Rich Roll?

  And for that, I, for that, I celebrate it.

• 1:16:26Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:16:26Rich Roll?

  Because I think we all need to have that conversation with ourselves.

• 1:16:29Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:31Adam Skolnick?

  And I think from, from, based on this, I mean, she's, to me, it's an incredible essay. I'd love to read more of her work. And maybe it took going home in West Virginia to have the space and time to write what she really wants, instead of churning out kind of stuff, news cycle stuff. It sounds like she was exhausted by the news cycle. Listen, man, this last week was a news cycle from hell.

• 1:16:53Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:54Adam Skolnick?

  It's, it's, it's not only hard to be in it, it's hard to be hearing it. And imagine producing that all the time, if that's what she was doing. I don't know exactly what show, and references in, in this, what show she was on, but I, off the top of my head, I don't remember. But just being a part of that, being in that building when all that's going on, it's tough.

• 1:17:13Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:17:14Adam Skolnick?

  And so she, now she gets to write something, kind of like trying to wake people up to the fact that you don't have to, it doesn't have, you know, work doesn't have to be a career. It reminds me of someone, you know, we're going to get into the streams of the week, but there's this YouTube, YouTuber that I'm just starting to listen to, watch, excuse me, and love. He's got a YouTube channel called Crime Pays But Botany Doesn't, and I'll, we'll get into it, but he's just like, he is a train engineer. He drives freight trains and then like cruises into the desert and checks out plants and just dives in. And it's an incredible deep dive into the flora of wherever you are and wherever he is.

• 1:17:53Rich Roll?

  Like an engineer in the truest sense, like an engineer of trains.

• 1:17:56Adam Skolnick?

  Engineer of trains. So like, the idea is, what if, what if work, what if work didn't have to be careerism? What if work just had to be, you make enough to get by and then you could do other things to really enrich your life? I think that's what she's saying.

• 1:18:08Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:09Adam Skolnick?

  She's not saying, don't get a job.

• 1:18:10Rich Roll?

  I'm down with that.

• 1:18:11Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:18:12Rich Roll?

  I'm down with that. You know, we, it's, you know, we, we should be working to live, not living to work.

• 1:18:17Adam Skolnick?

  Exactly. Anyway.

• 1:18:23Rich Roll?

  Deep thoughts.

• 1:18:24Adam Skolnick?

  Deep, deep thoughts. Transition into news cycle.

• 1:18:28Rich Roll?

  Yeah, should we tread into shallower waters to talk about the streams of the week?

• 1:18:33Adam Skolnick?

  Let's do it.

• 1:18:35Rich Roll?

  When we last spoke, I was sharing how much I was enjoying The White Lotus. You had a chance to watch this whole thing.

• 1:18:42Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:43Rich Roll?

  I gotta say, of everything that I've watched in the last year, this has stayed with me the most. I think I think about this show every single day. I think it's a masterwork.

• 1:18:54Adam Skolnick?

  I think it's the best TV writing I've seen since Mad Men, Breaking Bad, that whole era.

• 1:18:59Rich Roll?

  It's pretty amazing.

• 1:19:00Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:01Rich Roll?

  It's this incredible... Are we gonna spoil it?

• 1:19:05Adam Skolnick?

  Let's not, let's try not to spoil it.

• 1:19:06Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I don't want to spoil it.

• 1:19:07Adam Skolnick?

  No spoiler.

• 1:19:09Rich Roll?

  Limited series on HBO from the brain of Mike White, who is just an exceptional chronicler of the human psyche and all its strangeness.

• 1:19:22Adam Skolnick?

  Credit School of Rock, he was the writer of School of Rock.

• 1:19:24Rich Roll?

  Yeah, School of Rock doesn't really capture what he's about. I mean, his show Enlightenment is probably a better touchdown, flashpoint for kind of his sensibility.

• 1:19:38Rich Roll?

  And The White Lotus is just this impeccable, incisive dissection of race, class, privilege, colonialism.

• 1:19:50Rich Roll?

  And done in a really contemporary, modern, and comedic way that you just can't look away from. I mean, I don't know, what'd you think?

• 1:20:02Adam Skolnick?

  So, I agree with you. My favorite thing, I just wrote down, I was just kinda sketching notes just now, is what I love about it is that nobody is likable.

• 1:20:11Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:20:11Adam Skolnick?

  And that's not ruining anything, but there's no character that's 100% likable, let's put it that way. Maybe there's one.

• 1:20:17Rich Roll?

  Certainly not.

• 1:20:17Adam Skolnick?

  Maybe there's one, but I don't even think that the young guy is. Nobody is likable. And what I love about that is... Everyone has something that you're like a little cringey about, you know, and and that's great because I'm so sick of of work that makes that there's always some some person who's good and other people are bad. And that's just not the way the world works. You know, like, everyone has this in them. And to have these gradations of goodness and badness, or or kind of greed and and selfishness and and and enlightenment, and have them within individual characters. Some you're gonna like more than others, obviously.

• 1:21:00Adam Skolnick?

  But nobody is ultimately that likable. And that's what's so delicious about this.

• 1:21:05Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:21:05Adam Skolnick?

  And and and so I I applaud Mike White, because you don't see a lot of that these days.

• 1:21:10Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:10Adam Skolnick?

  It's much more black and white, usually.

• 1:21:13Rich Roll?

  It's interesting how this all came together during the pandemic, under a very compressed period of time, as a limited series. I wonder what would have happened had he had a runway in the traditional sense where this could go on for multiple seasons in the same location. Given that it was sort of set up to be a one time kind of mini series situation, he has to provide an arc and finality for each of the characters that ends up being making it like as great as it is. Like, everybody kind of comes to their ultimate conclusion in a way that really hammers home this idea of like, class and privilege.

• 1:21:55Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 1:21:55Rich Roll?

  You know, it's set at essentially the Four Seasons in Maui. That's called The White Lotus. I mean, the show is called The White Lotus. It's like Mike White, you know, the Lotus Eater.

• 1:22:04Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:22:05Rich Roll?

  It's unbelievable, right?

• 1:22:06Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:22:06Rich Roll?

  And it's so infected with his sensibility in the most beautiful way.

• 1:22:10Adam Skolnick?

  And the idea, I think, is that subsequent seasons are just gonna be different White Lotuses.

• 1:22:15Rich Roll?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:22:16Adam Skolnick?

  So it's gonna travel.

• 1:22:17Rich Roll?

  Yeah, in that idea of the Four Seasons being like a brand, it'll just be another location with a completely new cast. I think there's some, there was some news about how maybe one or two of the characters might carry over. I kind of hope not.

• 1:22:29Adam Skolnick?

  Armon, Armon's gonna get reassigned.

• 1:22:31Rich Roll?

  I mean, you know, listen. Every performance in this show is pitch perfect.

• 1:22:37Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 1:22:38Rich Roll?

  It's unbelievable, across the board. When I think of any of these characters, they just crush it completely.

• 1:22:43Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 1:22:44Rich Roll?

  Armand, you know, if there is kind of like a standout, breakaway, kind of career-defining performance, you gotta give it up for Murray Bartlett as Armand, because he just, I mean, chef's kiss, especially in the finale.

• 1:22:59Adam Skolnick?

  Unbelievable.

• 1:23:00Rich Roll?

  When he goes off the rails, it's the most delicious viewing experience you can imagine.

• 1:23:04Adam Skolnick?

  Unbelievable. And Steve Zahn, I think it's the best thing you'll ever see, Steve Zahn, at least to date. It's incredible work for him.

• 1:23:11Rich Roll?

  Unbelievable.

• 1:23:12Adam Skolnick?

  And then your friend, you said someone you knew, or that, who plays Steve Zahn's wife? I forget, Cassidy?

• 1:23:17Rich Roll?

  No, I mean, I don't know her. I mean, Connie Britton.

• 1:23:20Adam Skolnick?

  Connie Britton.

• 1:23:20Rich Roll?

  Who plays Nicole Mossbacher. Yeah, I mean, she, I knew her a little bit, like, when I lived in New York City right after college, she went to Dartmouth and was friends with a bunch of guys that I ran around with. So, I mean, I haven't talked to her, I wouldn't consider her a friend. She's somebody I've met, you know.

• 1:23:38Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:40Rich Roll?

  I actually met Steve Zahn when he was like a teenager.

• 1:23:43Adam Skolnick?

  Did you?

• 1:23:43Rich Roll?

  When I was living in New York, I was a P A on an independent feature that he was in, in the early phases of his career. But I think, like, across the board, everybody's doing their best work, from Mike White all the way down. And it's just kind of an amazing dissection in the most contemporary way of our blind spots as a culture, from the perspective of privilege. You know, just the idea of being at a high-end resort in Hawaii, where, you know, at night, there's the luos and the kind of, you know, bring the natives out and make them dance in this kind of Disney-esque.

• 1:24:28Rich Roll?

  You know, performance of indigenous tradition. And when you see it that way, you realize how kind of offensive it is. And the way that every character kind of pivots back to their privilege in the end. I mean, it's certainly about race as well. But even, you know, the most kind of performatively woke characters, the two teenage girls or young women pivot back to their privilege when pressed, you know, against the wall.

• 1:25:00Adam Skolnick?

  It's, you were saying that the portrayal of the teenagers was like so spot on.

• 1:25:08Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I mean, as a parent of teenagers, like it's just, the archetypes are just pitch perfect.

• 1:25:15Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, and those two actresses, really great chemistry.

• 1:25:18Rich Roll?

  Oh, my God.

• 1:25:19Adam Skolnick?

  And.

• 1:25:20Rich Roll?

  Yeah, have you ever seen a more, more like invective with the eye roll? Like, I mean, it's so unbelievable, right? Like, the terror of those young women, you know, and the ire that they carry is just, you know.

• 1:25:39Adam Skolnick?

  And there's like great intergenerational repartee. And there's other characters that we're not even getting into.

• 1:25:44Rich Roll?

  The way that the young women, you know, relate to the parents and all of that is all incredibly accurate.

• 1:25:50Adam Skolnick?

  The customer who's like from hell, there's the guest from hell that's in this, you know, that the staff has to contend with. There's the, you know, the woman who needs to have a million spa treatments to feel good about her life is there. But all these people, me saying that is not really, first of all, that's not a spoiler, but it's also, every character is a whole person.

• 1:26:11Rich Roll?

  Well, I think, I think what makes it great is, is despite the flaws that these characters all inhabit in their own way, Mike White writes them with such depth and such affection for them. Like, he still loves these people.

• 1:26:28Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 1:26:28Rich Roll?

  You know, in a certain way, despite their flaws. And it allows, like, you opened this by talking about how none of these, these are all terrible people.

• 1:26:35Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 1:26:36Rich Roll?

  But still, you kind of root for them.

• 1:26:38Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 1:26:39Rich Roll?

  Right? And Jennifer Coolidge's character ultimately in the end, like, you know, the whole narrative about how she might invest in this, you know, in this woman's.

• 1:26:49Adam Skolnick?

  Yep.

• 1:26:51Rich Roll?

  You know, future spa, like to get her out of the context of, of, of working at this resort, you know, it's not going to work out. Like, you know, that's never going to happen, right? But ultimately, the way that Jennifer Coolidge kind of delivers the verdict of like, I'm not going to do this, is in a way that we can celebrate for her because she's setting a healthy boundary for herself. So even though it's done in a way that's so uncomfortable-

• 1:27:15Adam Skolnick?

  But it's not, it's not good, though.

• 1:27:16Rich Roll?

  It's not good. No, it's not good at all. And yet, Jennifer Coolidge's character kind of needed to do that for herself.

• 1:27:24Adam Skolnick?

  And her, and her character is so, at first, you don't even want to look at her, and by the end, you, you love her. And it's-

• 1:27:29Rich Roll?

  Yeah. I mean, the scene on the boat with the ashes and all of that is like-

• 1:27:34Adam Skolnick?

  She's a genius.

• 1:27:35Rich Roll?

  It's, it's masterful.

• 1:27:36Adam Skolnick?

  She might be, like, in terms of just the, a comedy actress genius, like, she's been great for many, many years. I think Mike White has to get full credit for these performances, too, because he's able to, obviously, he's pushing some amazing buttons to get these incredible performances.

• 1:27:52Rich Roll?

  Right. And these are all actors who, who are now given the opportunity with great writing to show how good they actually are.

• 1:28:00Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, that too. The one thing I would say is, because there is that commentary, it's kind of, it's, it is explicit, the idea of indigenous people in a location as prop, even though that, there's something to that that kind of doesn't feel right. Like, you know, everyone has their, has their choice, but there's also some, some, there's also some legacy there, that legacy of colonialism that you have to reckon with. I will say, being, having said that, like, the local people, the local Hawaiian people on this show are still kind of props. Like, like, it's not-

• 1:28:33Rich Roll?

  But that's the point.

• 1:28:34Adam Skolnick?

  I don't know.

• 1:28:35Rich Roll?

  They're interchangeable and they're disposable. So, when, is it Kai, the character Kai, who, who pulls off this-

• 1:28:44Adam Skolnick?

  No spoilers, no spoilers.

• 1:28:46Rich Roll?

  All right. He gets into trouble, and when the shit hits the fan, like, that guy just disappears.

• 1:28:52Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 1:28:53Rich Roll?

  And that's the point.

• 1:28:54Adam Skolnick?

  So you say that's the point?

• 1:28:55Rich Roll?

  Yeah. It's, it's, it's purposeful. It's to say that this doesn't really matter. You know, and when the two young girls-

• 1:29:04Rich Roll?

  Are, you know, Paula and what's

• 1:29:06Adam Skolnick?

  Olivia.

• 1:29:07Rich Roll?

  Olivia are having a conversation about this and Olivia's like,

• 1:29:10Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 1:29:11Rich Roll?

  Well, at least nothing bad happened or something bad could have happened.

• 1:29:13Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 1:29:14Rich Roll?

  And Paula has to say something, has to remind her like something bad did happen.

• 1:29:18Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:19Rich Roll?

  You know, it's like, oh yeah, something bad did happen, but does that really,

• 1:29:23Adam Skolnick?

  That was very good.

• 1:29:23Rich Roll?

  Does that really matter?

• 1:29:24Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:24Rich Roll?

  And ultimately Paula pivoting back to, now Paula could have done something in that moment and Paula's like, I gotta go to college and I'm leaving and I'm not gonna, I'm just gonna, I'm gonna like pretend this never happened.

• 1:29:35Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 1:29:37Adam Skolnick?

  That's my point.

• 1:29:38Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:38Adam Skolnick?

  Like, like every character and even, yeah, so all the way down the line,

• 1:29:44Adam Skolnick?

  they all make choices that are, you know, regrettable and you're watching it in real time.

• 1:29:49Rich Roll?

  Yeah. The one character that has the amazing kind of celebratory arc is, is Quinn, the young, the young son who, you know, we're not gonna spoil it, but like, he's the only one who kind of breaks free from all of these constraints.

• 1:30:02Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 1:30:03Rich Roll?

  In a positive way.

• 1:30:04Adam Skolnick?

  He's the one, he's the one that, yeah, that Mike White takes care of the most, I think, in terms of his outcome, but, but like,

• 1:30:12Adam Skolnick?

  I mean, you could say his dad too, but, but, uh, and I, you know, we've, we don't want to spoil it anymore, but I thought like, it's so interesting to see, uh, that Mike White, there's, there's this whole reality TV aspect of it, like, you know, he's a reality TV obsessive. One of the Bellman is someone he met on Survivor.

• 1:30:33Rich Roll?

  Yeah. And he went, yeah, he will, he, I mean, he's a legendary contestant on The Amazing Race and he's obsessed with reality TV and when you see like Connie Britton's character, like you see a little bit of, uh, The Housewives of, you know, kind of in fact, you know, Vane like being expressed through that. And those, that's a medium in which you kind of hate these people, but you fall in love with them too.

• 1:30:57Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:57Rich Roll?

  And it's confusing.

• 1:30:58Adam Skolnick?

  And all of the reality TV medium, you know, it is kind of all like that, like, and I think that Mike White came in second on Survivor, on some celebrity Survivor or something.

• 1:31:07Rich Roll?

  Oh, he did?

• 1:31:07Adam Skolnick?

  I think so. And I think he met-

• 1:31:09Rich Roll?

  I saw Mike White in Hawaii once.

• 1:31:12Adam Skolnick?

  Did you?

• 1:31:12Rich Roll?

  Which is weird, makes it very meta. I would love to have him on. I'd also love, I'd love to have, um- Jake Lacy on too.

• 1:31:20Adam Skolnick?

  Jake Lacy, who is, I think, another breakout performance in this.

• 1:31:24Rich Roll?

  Holler at your boy.

• 1:31:25Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:31:26Rich Roll?

  Amazing performance by him.

• 1:31:28Adam Skolnick?

  Ritual follower.

• 1:31:28Rich Roll?

  Yeah, so, I mean, this show is incredible. If you haven't watched it, I guess all we're saying is make time, make time to watch it. My boys, like, loved it. They just want to talk about it, like, all the time.

• 1:31:40Adam Skolnick?

  We started rewatching it. My parents were in town for Asuma's birthday, and we watched the first couple of episodes again with them.

• 1:31:47Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 1:31:47Adam Skolnick?

  And who knows, maybe we'll keep going.

• 1:31:49Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:50Adam Skolnick?

  It's a rewatchable.

• 1:31:50Rich Roll?

  How about the score?

• 1:31:52Adam Skolnick?

  The music is spectacular.

• 1:31:53Rich Roll?

  The music is unbelievable.

• 1:31:54Adam Skolnick?

  It's so full of tension and, yeah, anxiety, all that.

• 1:31:57Rich Roll?

  Yeah, tropical anxiety.

• 1:31:59Adam Skolnick?

  And what's this Saturday Night Live alum who comes in as Shane's mother?

• 1:32:06Rich Roll?

  Molly Shannon.

• 1:32:06Adam Skolnick?

  Oh, my God.

• 1:32:07Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I know.

• 1:32:10Adam Skolnick?

  All time, all time fingernails on the chalkboard performance.

• 1:32:13Rich Roll?

  I know. But then you understand why Jake Lacy's character is the way that he is.

• 1:32:18Adam Skolnick?

  Yes, yes.

• 1:32:18Rich Roll?

  And it allows you to feel the slightest bit of compassion.

• 1:32:20Adam Skolnick?

  A little bit.

• 1:32:21Rich Roll?

  For this very, you know, like, sort of, you know, broken human being.

• 1:32:25Adam Skolnick?

  And Armand is the all time anti-hero, like, you know.

• 1:32:29Rich Roll?

  I mean, now, his, his performance is so legendary in this show that now you're seeing memes of him, like, everywhere, all over the internet, like, the whole world's fell in love with this guy. And I hope that his career just explodes as a result of this. Like, he should be in everything.

• 1:32:43Adam Skolnick?

  He, you know, he has that same kind of comic timing that, what is that, Jojo Rabbit, the writer, director?

• 1:32:50Rich Roll?

  Taika Waititi.

• 1:32:51Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, doesn't he kind of have that a little bit?

• 1:32:53Rich Roll?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:32:54Adam Skolnick?

  Funny and kind of offbeat and, and.

• 1:32:57Rich Roll?

  But how he has to switch gears and put on the happy face. And then just, he goes insane.

• 1:33:03Adam Skolnick?

  He loses it. As a sober person, did you, because the idea is he's sober and then.

• 1:33:09Rich Roll?

  Again, like, are we, are we spoiling it or are we not? Let's just say he goes on one of the most epic relapse.

• 1:33:14Adam Skolnick?

  Epic benders.

• 1:33:15Rich Roll?

  You know, benders of all time.

• 1:33:16Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Did that hurt you? Just watch it or were you enjoying it?

• 1:33:20Rich Roll?

  No, I'm like, I'm, I'm with you, brother. You know, he got pushed to the edge.

• 1:33:28Rich Roll?

  I was feeling it.

• 1:33:31Rich Roll?

  I mean, look, we could talk about this show for hours.

• 1:33:35Rich Roll?

  Just go see it, or see it in the comfort of your home.

• 1:33:39Adam Skolnick?

  Yes, or on your Oculus, actually.

• 1:33:43Rich Roll?

  For a 360 experience

• 1:33:44Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 1:33:45Rich Roll?

  of the White Lotus. Let's talk about the Val documentary.

• 1:33:49Adam Skolnick?

  Dude, go for it.

• 1:33:50Rich Roll?

  So you watched, you saw the first hour of it?

• 1:33:52Adam Skolnick?

  I did. We, I consume movies in chunks now. I hate to tell you movie makers, but that's, I am a product of our shortened attention span.

• 1:34:02Rich Roll?

  Yeah, this Val Kilmer documentary that's on Amazon Prime right now, it's called Val. It was so fascinating to watch this. I think most of us have a sense of who we think Val Kilmer is because he's such a, you know, icon of the screen. And you realize in watching this movie that, that despite the fact that we know he's playing characters in movies, it's almost impossible to disassociate that from who you think the person is. And my, you know, realization in watching this movie is just how different he is than what I thought he was. I mean, I'd heard stories about him being difficult and that's kind of the lore. It's like, oh, he's super talented, but he's impossible to work with.

• 1:34:45Rich Roll?

  And you kind of just leave it at that. And you think about Iceman and, you know, Top Gun, and you think about his Jim Morrison portrayal. And that's about all I knew about this guy.

• 1:34:54Adam Skolnick?

  Iceman, Batman and Jim Morrison.

• 1:34:56Rich Roll?

  Who's now an actor and has been in some cool movies like Palo Alto.

• 1:34:59Adam Skolnick?

  Okay.

• 1:35:01Rich Roll?

  But I really didn't know that much about him. And it's a really beautiful, I won't call, it's not really a documentary. It's more an autobiography. It's, it's a version of his life through his perspective. I don't know if he self-funded it or what the kind of

• 1:35:18Adam Skolnick?

  Kind of like a kid, the kid stays in the picture kind of. Remember that movie, Kid Stays in the Picture?

• 1:35:23Rich Roll?

  Yeah, but you had, you had really legendary documentarians who were making that.

• 1:35:27Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:35:27Rich Roll?

  And they had a take on, on, on their protagonist, whereas I think Val, although there are directors to this movie, it feels like Val's the one who's at the helm of this. And it's premised on all of this footage that he has, like this guy bought a video camera way before people were buying video cameras and literally rolled camera on his entire life and has, you know, insane amounts of footage. Throughout his entire career.

• 1:35:54Adam Skolnick?

  In storage, like they actually go to storage.

• 1:35:56Rich Roll?

  They go to storage and it's like he's in this giant warehouse and he's unearthing all of these tapes that date back to like the early eighties. And the documentary is an attempt to string that together and craft a narrative of this guy's life. And you realize like he has a very interesting childhood. His brother, who was like his filmmaking partner, drowns in a swimming pool, having an epileptic seizure and has a dramatic impact on, on, on young Val's life. And it's really the story of a very sensitive artist.

• 1:36:30Adam Skolnick?

  That, that happens right when Val gets into Juilliard.

• 1:36:33Rich Roll?

  Right, right. Yeah. He was the youngest person admitted to Juilliard at the time.

• 1:36:38Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:36:39Rich Roll?

  And really wanted to be a theater actor and wrote this play when he was at Juilliard that gets put up, you know, off Broadway and then they put it up at the public, I think, like, and he's got this crazy footage of him backstage.

• 1:36:52Adam Skolnick?

  Yep.

• 1:36:53Rich Roll?

  On Broadway with Kevin Bacon and Sean Penn when they're, they all have to be like 23 years old or something like that at the time.

• 1:37:00Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 1:37:01Rich Roll?

  Unreal.

• 1:37:02Adam Skolnick?

  They look great. It's, it's so fun to see and they, I, you know, we don't want to spoil it, but there's a great little back and forth and, and then you see him with, uh, he talks about how on, um, on Top Gun, it goes basically through his over, over?

• 1:37:19Rich Roll?

  Ovve.

• 1:37:20Adam Skolnick?

  His ovve. It goes through like film by film and then intersperses some present day with that. Cause the idea, you know, he's been, he's had throat cancer surgery and he can't speak without pressing his throat closed.

• 1:37:33Rich Roll?

  Yeah. So he got through the cancer, he's cancer free, but it took a toll on his voice box and now he has like a tracheotomy and he has to put his finger over the air hole in order to speak and it's barely understandable. So there's subtitles for every time that he talks. And then his son, Jack, whose voice is remarkably like Val's.

• 1:37:53Adam Skolnick?

  Narrates.

• 1:37:54Rich Roll?

  Reads, yeah, narrates voiceover that was written by Val.

• 1:37:57Adam Skolnick?

  And she's, and, and he's fantastic. And, and so I'm left with kind of three things. There's the, obviously the footage is, is number one and his life story is very interesting. But. I'm also interested in how beautiful his relationship seems to be with his children. And obviously, this is a documentary, but you wouldn't get that kind of collaboration unless there was. I mean, he even lives next door to his daughter.

• 1:38:20Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:38:20Adam Skolnick?

  Who's an adult.

• 1:38:21Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's very, it's very touching and heartwarming.

• 1:38:24Adam Skolnick?

  And then there's the idea of overcoming a horrible health crisis, that he's says he, you know, he sounds terrible, but he feels great. This is kind of paraphrasing.

• 1:38:32Rich Roll?

  And he seems to have made peace with it.

• 1:38:34Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah. And then there's this, some, but then within all that is the artist himself. And the, the footage where he's in an acting workshop with Peter Ma- Moss. And where basically he gives a, he gives, I think he does a Hamlet monologue. And the acting coach is pushing him, saying like, you know, what was that choice? Why was that, why'd you make that choice? He's like, well, he's basically saying, you know, I never had the urge to kill myself. So I don't know what that's like. So I did X, Y, and Z. And he's like, the, the teacher is basically saying, you have had it, you know, and there's this idea of creation that kind of hit home for me as a writer.

• 1:39:19Adam Skolnick?

  You don't have to have actually had it to explore the feeling. You don't actually have, there's no feeling, there's no, there's nothing that has happened on this earth that has not happened to you. That's what he's basically positing, right? Whether, how true that is, I'm not going to debate. I just think there's something beautiful in the creative zone of that. And giving permission to inhabit a space on, you know, personally, even something you haven't experienced. There's something there. That's what makes actors great, I think. And, and certainly there's something there for all creative people to think about.

• 1:39:53Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:54Adam Skolnick?

  I thought that was cool.

• 1:39:55Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that is cool.

• 1:39:56Adam Skolnick?

  And then the audition tapes for The Doors and all that.

• 1:39:58Rich Roll?

  Oh, I know. The way that he kind of went the extra mile to audition for all of these parts by creating his own, basically mini-movies.

• 1:40:06Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:40:06Rich Roll?

  Of him auditioning.

• 1:40:07Adam Skolnick?

  Failed.

• 1:40:08Rich Roll?

  The audition for Goodfellas.

• 1:40:09Adam Skolnick?

  Yep, fail.

• 1:40:10Rich Roll?

  And they're not just like him talking to camera, like he creates a little movie.

• 1:40:14Adam Skolnick?

  So he fails at getting the Henry Hill part in Goodfellas. He fails at getting the Matthew Modine part for Full Metal Jacket. So Ray Liotta gets him, Matthew Modine gets him, and then he sends it to become Jim Morrison, and it clicks. And they're like, but otherwise, he would not have gotten the part. This is after he's already been in some big movies. So it's so interesting, like, how you have to keep fighting. That's another thing to take away.

• 1:40:39Rich Roll?

  Yeah, and also, um, the challenges of, you know, being a movie star stuck in the body of a guy who's fundamentally, you know, a sensitive artist. Like, he talks about being, I don't know if you got to this part, but what it was like for him to be Batman, and how challenging it was, and the pressure to, you know, kind of be a big movie star when he was interested in parts that weren't coming his way. And I think, within that, there is this conversation about, you know, how difficult he was. And they address it, but they don't really give it. I would have, I would have felt better had there been a

• 1:41:19Rich Roll?

  real honest reckoning with that kind of narrative about his past, and had him, like, talk to camera, and, you know, acknowledge what's true about that, or rebut what's not true about that. Because I think that's, that's kind of what, you know, because we're all walking around, or anybody who knows anything about him is kind of walking around with a certain impression. They do deal with it. Robert Downey Jr. kind of dismisses it. They were in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang together.

• 1:41:44Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 1:41:45Rich Roll?

  But I felt like I wanted a little bit more, you know, kind of, like, real, like, I'm at the, you know, I'm, I'm done with my, that part of my career. Like, here's how I reflect back on that, and here's what I would have done differently, or here's where I was misunderstood. Because it isn't a documentary in which people are talking to camera and sharing their perspective of him. It's just archival footage, and then following him around as he's doing whatever he's doing. And I think, within that, there is a sadness. Because this guy, you know,

• 1:42:16Rich Roll?

  Lost his voice and could no longer do the thing that he loves to do. And now he's, you know, reduced to going to Comic Con and signing posters. And he talks about how he had to make peace with that and find like gratitude in, you know, spending time with people who, who, who, you know, are fans of his. And how there's beauty in that as opposed to looking at it like, oh, well, this is the bottom of the barrel now that I have to do this. And that's uplifting in and of itself. But you see a guy who had so much more inside of him yet to be expressed that will never be expressed in that medium, but it's compelled him to reinvent himself as a visual artist. And now he paints and he's got this studio space and he's opened it up to other artists.

• 1:42:59Rich Roll?

  And it's birthed this whole other kind of

• 1:43:02Adam Skolnick?

  I mean, he's also, he was an Adonis and now he's like wounded.

• 1:43:06Rich Roll?

  Right. And, and yeah, yeah. To like have to reckon with your ego in that regard as well, I think is interesting. So, I don't know. I thought it was beautiful. Like I, you know, I, you do, you know, it's not the definitive word on Val Kilmer because it is his perspective on his own life and it should be, it should be consumed and enjoyed with that in mind. Not as like, you know, cause you can be like, you know, is this the real Val Kilmer? I mean, this is the Val Kilmer that he wants us to see.

• 1:43:32Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 1:43:32Rich Roll?

  And I enjoyed it very much and I, I left that documentary deeply touched and kind of in love with the guy.

• 1:43:37Adam Skolnick?

  But you could say the same thing of the Michael Jordan documentary series, you know, it was, it was made by someone else with a point of view, but it was obviously with Michael Jordan's tacit approval. And there was nothing in there that Jordan, and Kobe Bryant had a documentary and I love Kobe, rest his soul, but like his book, I think, didn't reckon with everything. And, you know, there's, there's arguments for all of these kinds of, doesn't mean it's not worth watching because there is something there for you.

• 1:44:04Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:44:05Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:06Rich Roll?

  All right. Check it out.

• 1:44:07Adam Skolnick?

  Cool.

• 1:44:08Rich Roll?

  What else do we want to talk about?

• 1:44:09Adam Skolnick?

  The Alpinist is coming out September 7th, I believe is the, and then it's in theaters. That's a premiere and I think it's in theater shortly after that. It's the new Red Bull climbing documentary by one of the producers of The Don Wall, which is, was the Tommy Caldwell story of them climbing the Don Wall, he and his partner. And this one follows Marc Andre Leclerc. And basically the idea, he's a Canadian that no one really had heard of, 23 year old. And he is a free soloist, but also free solo, high alpine ice climbing. So I think the movie starts with, I mean, I watched it, it's a beautiful movie. The filmmaker is Peter Mortimer.

• 1:44:55Adam Skolnick?

  And basically it starts with Alex Honnold's voice saying, is there someone out there that you that you admire? This is during the press of All Around Free Solo, because you know, Alex has blown up so huge. And he cites Marc Andre Laclerc as someone to watch. And because he's this guy no one's heard of doing stuff that like even Alex is like, wow. And the footage is absolutely spectacular, seeing him, because he's using equipment, but with sometimes with no ropes, climbing waterfalls with no ropes, with like just a blade, like a centimeter blade into ice and hanging off with one arm. And just how slow, but also personal, you have to move to keep climbing up some of this.

• 1:45:40Adam Skolnick?

  The kind of third act revolves around his amazing Torrey Egger climb, which is the first person to solo up Torrey Egger in Patagonia during winter. And he uses ropes on that one. And so, you know, you kind of see that happen. There's a failed attempt and he has to come down in the middle of a blizzard during avalanche conditions. And then he, he, he tries to get up again. And then, you know, he, if you look up Marc Andre, you realize he's no longer with us and it gets into that as well. But his whole story of being from a young kid, wanting to become this climber and then doing it and living in a tent with, in the woods with his girlfriend Brett Harrington,

• 1:46:24Adam Skolnick?

  he's still the dirtbag climber. It's not like it's post dirtbag.

• 1:46:27Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:46:28Adam Skolnick?

  It's current.

• 1:46:28Rich Roll?

  There's a purist, I mean, I haven't seen the movie yet, but from what I know of this guy, I mean, he's the purist purist. Like you watch Free Solo and you think, could you be any more, more purist than, than, than Alex? And here's a guy who is living in even more

• 1:46:42Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:46:43Rich Roll?

  Kind of, you know, dirtbag purist experience because he's doing such death defying things and really doesn't care if anyone knows about it or sees it. Like it's purely for the act of doing it.

• 1:46:55Adam Skolnick?

  Some of the best climbing footage you'll ever want to see. If you loved Free Solo, if you loved Dawn Wall, you will love this. And it definitely belongs in conversation with those three. It's, you know, I think for most people, Free Solo obviously looms above all of them. There's a reason for that. You know, you have Jimmy Chin, an incredible cinematographer photographer, on the wall with them, you know, so this is a little bit different than that. There are great climbers following Marc Andre around, but sometimes they lose track of him because he doesn't want to be on camera until he's done the pure thing. So there's that element of it. And you have the filmmaker struggling with trying to locate him, which is interesting. But it's not the same kind of collaboration.

• 1:47:38Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:47:39Adam Skolnick?

  But they are-

• 1:47:40Rich Roll?

  You're super young, too, right?

• 1:47:41Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, 23.

• 1:47:41Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:47:42Adam Skolnick?

  23.

• 1:47:43Rich Roll?

  Wow. I look forward to checking that out.

• 1:47:44Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, yeah. Beautiful movie.

• 1:47:46Rich Roll?

  Cool.

• 1:47:46Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:47:47Rich Roll?

  All right, man. Let's pivot here. I think we did Streams of the Week.

• 1:47:52Adam Skolnick?

  Yep. We streamed it.

• 1:48:02Rich Roll?

  Oh, you know what we should talk about?

• 1:48:03Adam Skolnick?

  What's that?

• 1:48:04Rich Roll?

  We need to. I mean, this is related to Streams of the Week. We got to talk about the latest in Matt Fury and news from the world of Feels Good Man.

• 1:48:12Adam Skolnick?

  I feel like Matt Fury just-

• 1:48:15Rich Roll?

  Like, this is the craziest turn of events-

• 1:48:18Adam Skolnick?

  Let's go.

• 1:48:18Rich Roll?

  -ever for this guy. Well, you set it up.

• 1:48:21Adam Skolnick?

  Well, I, uh, he, there's an NFT. Someone tried to create a Pepe the Frog.

• 1:48:27Rich Roll?

  Well, first of all, let's say, we talked about Feels Good Man many times on the show. We had the filmmakers on the program. So if you're not familiar, you should check out that podcast. But essentially, it's a documentary about this guy, Matt Fury, who is the artist, comic book artist, behind this character, Pepe the Frog, that was then co-opted by the alt-right and became a symbol of hatred and, you know, all kinds of insanity that ensued. And the documentary chronicles Matt's attempt to-

• 1:48:56Rich Roll?

  resecure kind of sovereignty over this character, this frog, this green frog that ended up in all these Twitter bios and you know, symbolically means something that he never intended to try to, you know, regain that or to take it back and redefine it in through the lens of like his original intentions.

• 1:49:17Adam Skolnick?

  And so what happened with this NFT drop?

• 1:49:19Rich Roll?

  So, yeah, walk, sorry, I interrupted you. Go for it.

• 1:49:23Adam Skolnick?

  Well, my understanding was there was, he was, it wasn't his drop, right? It was like, so someone tried to put together a Pepe the Frog NFT and there was.

• 1:49:33Rich Roll?

  Well, there's more than that. There's like a whole, there's Sad Frog's District. Like there's this whole project in which it's a NFT, you know, marketplace that, that was listed as officially verified, meaning they had the rights to kind of offer up all of these NFTs that were kind of Pepe, you know, related or adjacent.

• 1:49:57Adam Skolnick?

  Kind of like Goblin versions of Pepe, right?

• 1:50:00Rich Roll?

  I guess.

• 1:50:00Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:50:01Rich Roll?

  You know, I'm not like an expert in all of this. I mean, this is all based on an article, a Vice article that we'll share on the show notes.

• 1:50:08Adam Skolnick?

  And there was, so basically the Sad Frog District netted $4 million in trading volume, a median price of $450 each, right?

• 1:50:16Rich Roll?

  In Ether per Sad Frog, yeah.

• 1:50:18Adam Skolnick?

  In Ether, whatever.

• 1:50:19Rich Roll?

  Yeah, Ethereum.

• 1:50:20Adam Skolnick?

  Ethereum.

• 1:50:21Rich Roll?

  Which is like the currency of choice in the NFT space.

• 1:50:24Adam Skolnick?

  There you go. And Fury, how did he, how did he?

• 1:50:27Rich Roll?

  Well, he's got these lawyers now because he's been on this campaign to, you know, resecure the rights to his original creation.

• 1:50:34Adam Skolnick?

  Yep.

• 1:50:35Rich Roll?

  So he issued, you know, basically a copyright takedown that, you know, OpenSea had to acknowledge and, and respect. So this was, you know, basically shut down that whole kind of trading, sad, you know, Sad Frog District, Sad Frog's District trading. I'm probably butchering this completely because I'm not steeped in this world, but essentially it shut all that down, right?

• 1:51:00Adam Skolnick?

  Where does that money go back? Does it have to flow back?

• 1:51:02Rich Roll?

  So, well, that's the thing. If you read this article, like it's controversial because a lot of the people. That were trading in these things had spent money for these things and they're out of now is their investment. Worth nothing. It's worthless now.

• 1:51:15Adam Skolnick?

  It seems like the marketplace should have to pay them.

• 1:51:16Rich Roll?

  There's all this carnage, right? And so there's blowback on Fury, like, how dare you do this? But ultimately, he, you know, I'm siding with Matt Fury. Like, this is his creation. These people were out creating artwork based on his IP.

• 1:51:31Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 1:51:31Rich Roll?

  And profiting off of it. And he should have say over whether, I mean, if you went out and made a bunch of NFTs with Mickey Mouse, you don't think Disney is gonna go after you?

• 1:51:42Adam Skolnick?

  Also, fuck your bullshit NFT environmental, like, draining bullshit, alright? Like, let Adam the Cynic rule on this. Who cares about your $500 NFT bullshit frog nobody wants?

• 1:51:54Rich Roll?

  Okay, boomer. The NFT thing, I don't even begin to understand what's going on here, but I can tell you that it's real. And a lot of people are like, making money and, you know, doing all kinds of stuff here.

• 1:52:05Adam Skolnick?

  There's a lot of doing.

• 1:52:06Rich Roll?

  Eludes my ability to understand, but is certainly a thing. But I celebrate Matt Fury taking a stand for his creation.

• 1:52:15Adam Skolnick?

  Me too.

• 1:52:15Rich Roll?

  You know, getting it back. And, not for nothing, profiting off of it. Now he's like, making millions of dollars after all of this.

• 1:52:25Adam Skolnick?

  Is he gonna make that money? Is he getting that money?

• 1:52:28Rich Roll?

  Well, he's offering up NFTs of Pepe and he's making money, as he should, off of this.

• 1:52:33Adam Skolnick?

  Okay, so he's doing his own NFTs?

• 1:52:35Rich Roll?

  Yeah. So, where is it in this article? This article's pretty long, but,

• 1:52:43Rich Roll?

  yeah, he's, uh, there was one that went for like, four million bucks or something like that. It's crazy.

• 1:52:49Adam Skolnick?

  Well, Matt Fury, well done, my friend.

• 1:52:52Rich Roll?

  Good for him.

• 1:52:53Adam Skolnick?

  You deserve it.

• 1:52:53Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:52:54Adam Skolnick?

  Although it's still an NFT. I'm not sure I'm in favor of it.

• 1:52:59Rich Roll?

  Yeah, the blowback here is interesting. But anyway, it's good to see Matt Fury doing well. I guess is the point of even bringing this up.

• 1:53:09Adam Skolnick?

  He took a lot of garbage.

• 1:53:10Rich Roll?

  I know. So that's cool. You know, we've been joking about how you come here right after you finish your shift at Ben and Jerry's. And there's a lot of speculation as to whether you actually work at Ben and Jerry's or not. We're gonna say with finality that you don't.

• 1:53:26Adam Skolnick?

  I do not.

• 1:53:27Rich Roll?

  There is a bit of, back to cynicism.

• 1:53:31Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 1:53:31Rich Roll?

  Cynicism in the, in the popular vernacular. Being cynical about somebody who would work at Ben and Jerry's.

• 1:53:37Adam Skolnick?

  Well, I was more being cynical about my choice in tie dye wear.

• 1:53:40Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:53:41Adam Skolnick?

  But the joke was that like, I'm wearing this tie dye shirt that looks like a Ben and Jerry's tie dye shirt, because it's really colorful, versus the kind that's like the cool kind that everyone's wearing now.

• 1:53:49Rich Roll?

  But is there not a thinly veiled layer of like, just snarkiness about like, working a job at an ice cream parlor?

• 1:53:59Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, there is.

• 1:54:01Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:54:01Adam Skolnick?

  There is. There's a little elite, cultural elitism, west coast elitism going on.

• 1:54:06Rich Roll?

  Enter stage left, ice cream TikTok. Are you familiar with ice cream TikTok?

• 1:54:12Adam Skolnick?

  I am now.

• 1:54:13Rich Roll?

  You are now.

• 1:54:14Adam Skolnick?

  I am now.

• 1:54:15Rich Roll?

  So I knew nothing about this until friend of the pod, friend in real life, Joanne Molinaro, the, the Korean vegan.

• 1:54:22Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 1:54:23Rich Roll?

  Responded to our snarky back and forth about you either working at Ben and Jerry's or not working at Ben and Jerry's by alerting us to the fact that there's a guy on TikTok who works at an ice cream parlor and mounts a camera, basically, you know, in front of his face, like his phone, so it's facing the ice cream and serves ice cream to people and has accumulated like 10 million followers and is making...

• 1:54:50Adam Skolnick?

  Dylan LeMay.

• 1:54:51Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Which is insane.

• 1:54:54Adam Skolnick?

  And he's now got 2 million subs, I think, on YouTube.

• 1:54:57Rich Roll?

  Does he?

• 1:54:57Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, I think, let me look it up right now.

• 1:54:59Rich Roll?

  So then, that turned me to, whoops, I gotta turn that off, I don't wanna get in trouble here.

• 1:55:06Adam Skolnick?

  Sorry about that.

• 1:55:07Rich Roll?

  My friends Colin and Samir, who are YouTubers, who do a really, you know, cool show, everybody should subscribe to them, they're great, they did a video about this called "The Wildly Lucrative World of Ice Cream TikTok." And it's about Dylan LeMay and just this trend.

• 1:55:23Adam Skolnick?

  1.85 million subs on YouTube and it's because YouTube has gotten into short form video because of TikTok. They're like getting pushed by TikTok to get shorts and so he's tapped into that. Colin and Samir are extremely intelligent, like they're great. They really know how to handicap the world of creators, explain the business behind it in a really transparent and thoughtful way. They like their subjects, it's clear, which is good. There's no cynicism involved there unless it's being watched by me. No, I really liked the video. The one thing I'd say is that even their merch, like they do an advertisement for their merch.

• 1:56:04Adam Skolnick?

  And they talk about how they sold like 3,000 or I forget what the number was, but they made 15 grand off their merch. And I would just say, I love Colin and Samir, but just say no to merch because we don't need more merch in the world. There's enough merch. Yeah.

• 1:56:22Rich Roll?

  The cynic rearing up again, even if we.

• 1:56:25Adam Skolnick?

  Adam the cynic says just say no to merch.

• 1:56:27Rich Roll?

  That friend of the pod, Brogan Graham, friend of Skolnik, Brogan Graham dropped by the studio the other week.

• 1:56:36Adam Skolnick?

  Brogan.

• 1:56:36Rich Roll?

  Semi unannounced, he was in town for a brief period of time and he sat in your seat and he said, is this Adam's seat?

• 1:56:45Adam Skolnick?

  He did.

• 1:56:45Rich Roll?

  Yes.

• 1:56:46Adam Skolnick?

  And he wore.

• 1:56:47Rich Roll?

  And I put on his shirt, like I took a piece of tape, black tape, and I wrote Skolnik on it and put it on. You said, this is going to be the new merch line.

• 1:56:55Adam Skolnick?

  That was going to be my new merch line.

• 1:56:56Rich Roll?

  We created merch with like a version of black tape that said Skolnik on it. You're not supportive of that?

• 1:57:02Adam Skolnick?

  Well, here's the thing, like if we're going to do merch, you could do like the hashtag swim, team swim mask thing, which would be cute for our, for your, our listeners and your fans.

• 1:57:12Rich Roll?

  The problem with merch is it does create a lot of waste, like you know, it's basically, you know, buying into this fast fashion kind of gestalt of how clothing is manufactured and then quickly. Kind of discarded.

• 1:57:27Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 1:57:27Rich Roll?

  That we're trying to opt out of. So I completely understand that. And my wife, having been a fashion designer in a past life, has explained to me at length like just how much waste being in fashion causes. So I think there is an environmental footprint to this whole merch thing, as lucrative as it is for these creators. And listen, I don't begrudge any creator who's trying to make a living. And I think Colin and Samir are fantastic at what they do. I think they should have millions and millions of subscribers, especially anybody who's interested in the creator, the creator economy. Like you said, they do a great job of kind of canvassing that and, and, and making understandable kind of what's happening online in terms of trends.

• 1:58:07Adam Skolnick?

  Yep.

• 1:58:07Rich Roll?

  And they do it in a very accessible way. And they're both great filmmakers and they're great human beings. I've gotten to know them a little bit and I think they're super cool guys. If they had millions and millions of subscribers, maybe they wouldn't have to do merch. Or maybe they would just sell more merch.

• 1:58:21Adam Skolnick?

  There's no have to do with merch.

• 1:58:23Rich Roll?

  But there is this thing where if you're a creator online, that merch is like, you know, what you do.

• 1:58:28Adam Skolnick?

  Well, there's, so there's an uniron, so, so.

• 1:58:31Rich Roll?

  And listen, we've sold merch. I have t-shirts and, you know, we sell certain.

• 1:58:35Adam Skolnick?

  These guys are creators. They're creator enthusiasts, right? So, so they're going to look at a creator even like Dylan or whoever it is with, from an enthusiast perspective, which is good. They're not looking at it from the Adam, the cynic perspective. That is vaguely sad that people are sitting around watching someone scoop ice cream. Even though I like the idea of educating people about this interesting kind of ice cream from the Philippines. I think it was Uba it was that they were talking about. And even though I like the color and all of that, I get it. But I also don't get it. Like, like, do we need to be like, why are people watching that?

• 1:59:13Rich Roll?

  Well, that's a bigger question, right?

• 1:59:14Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah. Why are we watching?

• 1:59:15Rich Roll?

  Clearly, he's doing something that people are responding to.

• 1:59:18Adam Skolnick?

  I know, but.

• 1:59:19Rich Roll?

  So the question is, why are they responding to that? Why, what is the need that's being met?

• 1:59:24Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 1:59:24Rich Roll?

  By this guy serving ice cream? And maybe it's just, we need a little bit of like good news. I don't know.

• 1:59:29Adam Skolnick?

  One thing that was interesting that Colin and Samir pointed out was that. He's so TikTok barely pays these guys like he has 10 million subscribers, but it was something like he alluded to low six figures.

• 1:59:41Rich Roll?

  If you have 10 million people following what you're doing, making a living shouldn't be a problem.

• 1:59:45Adam Skolnick?

  And he's making a living, he's making like 120 grand a year, according to like the estimates that like based on that, that video that you'll link to.

• 1:59:52Rich Roll?

  But commanding the attention of 10 million people is much more valuable than that.

• 1:59:55Adam Skolnick?

  So then he did one drop on Snapchat and he it sounds like he made close to that with just one video from Snapchat. So Snapchat's creative creator space offers more money and obviously YouTube is going to be more lucrative for him at 1.85 million subscribers and climbing. And he's, he's looking in New York for space. So he's, so the whole idea is he works at Cold Stone. So the joke, the me living, working at Ben and Jerry's and ha ha, how funny that is and Joanne saying, how about this guy who actually works at Cold Stone?

• 2:00:26Rich Roll?

  And has 10 million people who care about him scooping ice cream every day.

• 2:00:30Adam Skolnick?

  But pretty soon he will no longer work at Cold Stone.

• 2:00:32Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 2:00:33Adam Skolnick?

  Because at the time, I think he's only now working there two days a week. It's in LA and he's moved, I think he's moving to New York and opening his own space and going to create his own flavors and he's going to have like celebrity collabs.

• 2:00:44Rich Roll?

  He's gonna have a retail ice cream place?

• 2:00:46Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 2:00:47Rich Roll?

  So he's gonna continue to do the ice cream thing. He can't like let go of that, right?

• 2:00:50Adam Skolnick?

  You can't stop it. It's like, it's like JVN still has to do hair occasionally.

• 2:00:54Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 2:00:55Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah. But this guy was still has to make, I think he really wants to make ice cream. You know, he really wants to make ice cream. So he loves ice cream. What's cool about him, what I loved most about this, watching Dylan was that he's dreamt about owning an ice cream shop since he was a little kid. So this is like.

• 2:01:11Rich Roll?

  It's authentic.

• 2:01:12Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, it's real. So that's what I liked about him. I'm joking. And the, and the merch thing is just funny. Like it, I didn't realize how little you actually had to sell to make good money. Like they talked about, they, they tell you, they, they made 15 grand by selling, I forget what the number was. I think it was like 300 something items.

• 2:01:31Rich Roll?

  Hmm.

• 2:01:32Adam Skolnick?

  That's how, that's why people do merch. Cause it's, don't have to sell that many. And, um, but to me, I just was wondering, I'm like, well, do we need that? That's all.

• 2:01:42Rich Roll?

  I know. I feel you.

• 2:01:43Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 2:01:44Rich Roll?

  Let's do some listener questions.

• 2:01:46Adam Skolnick?

  Oh, we're rounding third base.

• 2:01:48Rich Roll?

  We are.

• 2:01:50Adam Skolnick?

  Listener questions.

• 2:01:51Rich Roll?

  We're gonna land this prop seaplane.

• 2:01:55Adam Skolnick?

  You know where we're going first?

• 2:01:57Rich Roll?

  Where is that?

• 2:01:59Adam Skolnick?

  Manitou Springs.

• 2:02:01Speaker 02

  Hey, Rich and Adam, this is Annie from Manitou Springs, Colorado. I love the pod and you can absolutely use us in the show. My question for you guys is about combating self sabotage. I found in my life that this has been a pattern for me. Whether it's sabotaging my vegan diet, relationships, exercise, or other efforts I make for self improvement. My question for you is, what advice do you guys have on this? Or do you currently, or have you ever dealt with this self sabotage beast? Thanks for all you guys do and Rich, I've been listening to you for years and you've gotten me through many long training runs. So thanks for the constant inspiration. Cheers, you guys. Take care. Bye bye.

• 2:02:44Rich Roll?

  Thank you for that question, Annie. That's a big one. Um, I have a history with self sabotage.

• 2:02:51Adam Skolnick?

  Hmm.

• 2:02:51Rich Roll?

  Do you? You just seem too grounded.

• 2:02:54Adam Skolnick?

  Does smoking too much pot count for that?

• 2:02:55Rich Roll?

  Well, only if you're doing it purposefully to ruin your life.

• 2:03:00Adam Skolnick?

  What about if it's unconscious?

• 2:03:01Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I guess you can unconsciously self sabotage yourself, of course.

• 2:03:05Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:03:06Rich Roll?

  Um, I think, you know, unpacking this is complicated, but ultimately

• 2:03:14Rich Roll?

  self sabotage has to do with a deep seated belief that you're undeserving of good things, right? Like if you think that you're not worthy, then when you approach something good in your life, you will create drama to destroy it, to adhere to this narrative or this story that you tell yourself about yourself and your lack of deservedness. Um, I think it's something that, uh, is rooted in, in, of course, fear of failure. Like if you sabotage yourself, then you have an excuse, right? Like if you self, if you, if you conduct some self sabotage, then you can say, well, you know.

• 2:03:56Rich Roll?

  I didn't really try, or you know, you're not really putting, you're opting out of putting yourself on the line. But it's also about fear of success, just the same. Like, what would it say about the story that you tell yourself about who you are if you actually succeeded? And that, for many people, is scarier than failure, the fear of success, I think. And so I think getting behind the urge, or the, you know, the compulsion to self-sabotage your life, requires unpacking the root of that belief and deconstructing what led you to believe that you're not deserving of good things, that you lack deservedness.

• 2:04:40Rich Roll?

  And I think to do that, you need to perform an inventory of your life and identify the stories that defy that narrative. Like, think of all the times where good things did happen, or you were deserving of love, or whatever it is that you feel like you're lacking. And then moving forward is all about performing esteemable acts, because self-esteem is a result of the performance of esteemable acts. It's a muscle, it's a habit, just like anything else. But it is a bit of a Titanic situation, and it's, you know, to turn it around, like, you're gonna have to, you know, practice this for long periods of time. I don't know. What do you think?

• 2:05:22Adam Skolnick?

  Unpacking, unpacking the stories that lead you into that pattern of behavior, then figuring out how to correct that action, or how to avoid those kinds of patterns.

• 2:05:32Rich Roll?

  Yeah, and it begins with awareness.

• 2:05:34Adam Skolnick?

  If you slip up not beating yourself up.

• 2:05:36Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 2:05:37Adam Skolnick?

  For having slipped up.

• 2:05:38Rich Roll?

  Right. So Annie has awareness that she's doing it. A lot of people don't. They're just doing it, and they're not even aware that they're sabotaging their life. So at least Annie has this awareness. So I think rooting yourself in that awareness around the behavior, so that when you're doing it, you can understand, okay, this is what I'm doing, than it is what you just said, which is not beating yourself up about it, trying to figure out why you were doing it in the moment, identifying that fear, and then figuring out what the contrary action is, and taking that action as uncomfortable as it is. Because I think it's about...

• 2:06:15Rich Roll?

  Breaking the pattern of this self fulfilling prophecy, because if you feel like you're undeserving, then you perform the self sabotage and then you create the reality that affirms the belief, right? So you have to break, there's a, there's a pattern that you have to break. And I think humans being creatures of habit and creatures of pattern, like forming new patterns is difficult and uncomfortable. But I think that's, you know, the process of, of trying to, you know, change that for yourself.

• 2:06:44Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, I think you're right. I think most people who self sabotage are totally unconscious that they're even doing it. So you're right about that.

• 2:06:51Rich Roll?

  So just do it and they'll be like, and then, and there's a weird kind of rush or release with affirming the narrative, like, see, see, it happened again.

• 2:07:00Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 2:07:01Rich Roll?

  I'm a victim or, you know, not, you know, I never get the promotion.

• 2:07:05Adam Skolnick?

  Can't be loved.

• 2:07:05Rich Roll?

  Or I can't, yeah, see, another person broke up with me.

• 2:07:08Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 2:07:08Rich Roll?

  Like you create that reality so that you can double down on that narrative. And there's a perverse kind of like, not euphoria, but maybe it's a, you know, I'm sure there's a neurochemical release involved in that, that, that, you know, anchors you in that. And I think really, you know, concretizes or makes it even more difficult to break out of it.

• 2:07:32Adam Skolnick?

  The fear of success thing is something I always have a heart, I've heard it before, but I'm like, no, I, I'm much more worried about failing than a, like fear of success. Like what story would you tell? I mean, I've heard that before. I don't quite.

• 2:07:44Rich Roll?

  What would it look like if you actually got what you wanted? And that's frightening. What if my life got bigger? Maybe I'm not ready to handle that. It's scary. It's intimidating.

• 2:07:53Adam Skolnick?

  You think that's mostly subconscious?

• 2:07:55Rich Roll?

  Or do you think? Yeah, I think it's totally, I think it's mostly subconscious.

• 2:07:58Adam Skolnick?

  Mostly subconscious. Interesting.

• 2:08:01Rich Roll?

  Anyway, that's a really good question.

• 2:08:03Adam Skolnick?

  It's a great question.

• 2:08:03Rich Roll?

  Let's go to Brian from London.

• 2:08:05Adam Skolnick?

  All right.

• 2:08:06Speaker 03

  Hi, Adam. Hi, Rich. My name's Brian Marshall and I'm calling from London in the United Kingdom. Okay to play this message. I have a question. I have a hundred kilometer ultra marathon coming up in three weeks' time. I have been training hard for this. Uh, I've been training probably now for eighteen months. Last year I completed a sixty kilometer self-supported run, which was a challenge, but I guess the biggest dilemma I have, and really looking for some tips, guidance, is just trying to figure out how my body is going to respond to the extra distance

• 2:08:48Speaker 03

  between the sixty that I've already done and the hundred. Um, trying to focus on nutrition and hydration throughout. I've had quite a journey to get this far. I had my own issues with alcohol over ten years ago. In fact, uh, I did contract septusena and was in intensive care for three and a half weeks and actually flatlined twice. So literally ten years ago, I was learning to walk again, and here I am embarking on a hundred kilometer run in memory of my late brother, who unfortunately passed away at the age of twenty-five from an inoperable brain tumor. So running for the brain tumor charity and looking to raise

• 2:09:31Speaker 03

  some good money, but would welcome any thoughts, advice, guidance, uh, to help me achieve this. Thanks, guys. Appreciate it.

• 2:09:39Rich Roll?

  Wow. That's quite a story. How great is that guy? Yeah. Unbelievable. I mean, first of all, you know, uh, congrats on, on making those changes. I mean, that's quite an arc, Brian, and something to be celebrated in its own right. And, and sorry about your brother. Um, I can't imagine what that experience must have been like for him to pass away at such a young age. Um, as to, you know, the ultra marathon question, look, you know, if you can do sixty kilometers, you can definitely do a hundred. I mean, that's kind of what I always say. Uh, you've already done sixty, you know what you're capable of, and you've been training for eighteen months for this

• 2:10:21Rich Roll?

  hundred. Like, I'm not worried about you. I feel like you're being perhaps a little bit neurotic about this, because if you've been properly training and working out your hydration and your nutrition and practicing that in your training and increasing, you know, the volume of your running. To prepare your ligaments and your joints, as well as your muscles and your heart and your lungs for enduring 100 kilometers, like I'm pretty confident that you're going to be just fine. In terms of the training, it sounds like you've got that sussed already. I mean, the training changes are pretty basic. It's just a slow expansion of volume. And then figuring out your hydration and nutrition strategy, which you should be practicing

• 2:11:03Rich Roll?

  in your training so that there's no, you know, unexpected things that are going to happen with respect to that during the race. Or if unexpected things happen, you'll at least have some options to pivot to because you've worked it out in your training. I don't have to tell you that doing a run like this is not about going fast. It's about keeping going. It's about persistent endurance. As I said in Finding Ultra, in the words of Chris Howth, "The prize does not go to the fastest person, it goes to the person who slows down the least." And you're training your body to slow down as little as possible over the duration of

• 2:11:47Rich Roll?

  this day. Charlie Engel, so the guy who just won Leadville, he averaged a 10-minute per mile pace, right? It's not that fast. Most people who are runners can run a 10-minute mile. But can you do it all day? That's really what you're training for. I mean, Charlie Engel talks about this all the time. If you could run 10-minute miles all day long, then you could not only win Badwater, you can like crush the record. So it's not about running fast. It's about training your body to be able to stay upright and moving forward as efficiently as possible. So I think the real leap here from 60 to 100 for Brian is a mental leap, as much as

• 2:12:30Rich Roll?

  it is, much more than it is a physical leap. And, you know, the subtext in, in my sense is, the subtext in Brian's question is him trying to talk himself into believing that he's capable of doing this. Did you get that?

• 2:12:46Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, I could see it. I mean, how much, what's kind of to train from 60 to 100, like, what's the biggest chunk of running you think he'd have to do at once?

• 2:12:55Rich Roll?

  I think that, you know, he's gonna have to do some race approximation weekends, or doing back-to-back big runs so that he learns how to run when he's tired, or maybe, you know, running in the middle of the night, so he's used to running when he's sleep deprived, acclimating the body and the mind to those sorts of things.

• 2:13:14Adam Skolnick?

  Like a marathon and then another marathon the next day?

• 2:13:16Rich Roll?

  Yeah, maybe something like that. I mean, there's only so much that you can run without getting injured.

• 2:13:21Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 2:13:22Rich Roll?

  So, there's a cap on the volume. And, once you've reached that cap, and I don't know where he's at, because he wasn't specific about his training, it's just mental, you know? It's understanding that your body is more capable than, you know, we allow ourselves to believe, and it's a thing, you know, goes back to the Goggins thing of the 40% rule.

• 2:13:40Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 2:13:41Rich Roll?

  Like, you're capable, you know, when you think you're done, you're, you've only tapped into 40% of what you're truly capable of, and that really is a mental game. So, it's about cultivating that belief that you can do it, and, and the process of cultivating that belief happens during training, like when you have a breakthrough run, or you do, like, a big block and you get through it, that starts to root you in this sense that it is possible, but you've done a 60, so you know you can do that. This isn't that much crazier than that. And then, it's about, when you're in the race, managing the pain, managing the lows that you're gonna face, managing the unforeseen variables that are gonna kick up and throw

• 2:14:22Rich Roll?

  you off your plan, and being emotionally resilient to, you know, weather that and manage that, because things change, you're gonna feel like shit, you're gonna wanna quit. You've gotta train your mind and your body to continue to move forward and push through, so that you have some tactile experience with the fact that these things change. Just because you feel lousy now, doesn't mean you're always gonna feel lousy. And, and you know, becoming persistent and resilient and flexible and all the things that you want in your toolbox going into this race. And I think your biggest asset, perhaps, when your back is up against it and you're, you reach that point where you

• 2:15:03Rich Roll?

  think you can't go any further, is that you have a really strong why. You have your brother and this charity and it's obviously very meaningful and authentic to you. So, you know, when all is lost, pivot to the why and remind yourself why it is that you're doing this. And I think your why is so strong that that's going to elevate you and carry you through whatever obstacles you face, you know, across this finish line.

• 2:15:28Adam Skolnick?

  Beautiful. Well said.

• 2:15:31Rich Roll?

  Anything to add to that?

• 2:15:32Adam Skolnick?

  Not really, no. I've never run a 30 nor a 60 unless you count the four by.

• 2:15:37Rich Roll?

  But you ran 80 miles this month and swam 10 kilometers?

• 2:15:41Adam Skolnick?

  10, no, 10 miles.

• 2:15:43Rich Roll?

  10 miles. Yeah. So.

• 2:15:44Adam Skolnick?

  Thanks. I'm no Brian Marshall from London, though.

• 2:15:48Rich Roll?

  No, you're not. Cause only Brian Marshall from London is Brian Marshall from London.

• 2:15:53Adam Skolnick?

  That could be a t-shirt.

• 2:15:54Rich Roll?

  Yeah. All right.

• 2:15:55Adam Skolnick?

  All right, ready?

• 2:15:56Rich Roll?

  Let's go to Scott from Vermont.

• 2:15:58Adam Skolnick?

  Only Scott from Vermont is Scott from Vermont.

• 2:16:01Speaker 04

  Hey, Adam and Rich. Really appreciate the podcast. Love listening to you both. It's my favorite podcast of the week I get to listen to. Real quick question is when you're exercising and breathing, what's the best way to breathe? I've read a lot of information on nasal breathing. I'm trying to get the hang of in through the nose, out through the nose, but I'm struggling with that. Is it in through the nose, out through the mouth? In through the nose, out through the mouth? What's the best way to breathe? Again, Scott from Vermont, really appreciate your podcast each week and keep up the great work. Yes, it's okay to play this on the air. Thank you.

• 2:16:40Rich Roll?

  Thank you, Scott. You know, if I'm being honest, I struggle with how to answer this question. Because on the one hand, like, I appreciate his desire to try to understand how to.

• 2:16:54Rich Roll?

  You kind of go the extra mile and take advantage of certain techniques that can be beneficial. And there's certainly a lot that has been studied and written about when it comes to the benefits of nasal breathing. Essentially, you know, it helps achieve what's called the BOR effect, which is about increasing your body's ability to tolerate carbon dioxide through slower, more steady breathing. And I think practicing nasal breathing when you're training is a good kind of like reflex to develop. And perhaps it will help you utilize oxygen more efficiently and make you a better athlete over time. But I also think that,

• 2:17:39Rich Roll?

  I mean, I don't know, you know, where Scott is at in terms of his success as an athlete or his accomplishments or his experience, et cetera. But I don't know any elite athletes who are like, I only breathe through my nose. Certainly when I'm swimming, I don't. And I don't. And when I'm running, I mean, I try to inhale through my nose and exhale through my mouth. But when I'm really up against it, I'm trying to get oxygen into my lungs however I can.

• 2:18:09Adam Skolnick?

  Mouth breather.

• 2:18:10Rich Roll?

  Yeah. And so, part of me, like my resistance to this is that it feels like the final 1% on the mountain, when we should really be focusing more on fundamental stuff like, you know, are we, are you, are you training as hard as you can otherwise? Or how's your nutrition? How's your rest? How's your sleep? Like, the big, you know, kind of foundational aspects of optimizing performance. Focus on honing those in first. Stuff like nasal breathing, I think is great, and it's a good kind of practice. But only if it's on top of an already strong foundation. If you're focusing on nasal breathing, when other stuff that is

• 2:18:50Rich Roll?

  more important to be paying attention to isn't exactly locked in, then I feel like it's sort of like taking vitamins when, you know, you're eating fast food every day.

• 2:19:01Adam Skolnick?

  So Nicholas Ramirez, Catalina Swim Run Champion, Attila World Champion, I think, one time, and is in the, next week, they're gonna line up again.

• 2:19:11Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 2:19:12Adam Skolnick?

  He had, when, he, he still sends me some training plans now, or we just restarted, but at times, what he likes us to do is during the warm-up, whether, if you're doing a run, he always has a 10 to 20 minute warm-up involved. So it's usually 15 or 20 minutes. So if it's gonna be an hour, 75 minute run, it's gonna be a 20 minute warm-up. So that's zone two.

• 2:19:30Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:19:30Adam Skolnick?

  And part of that is, uh, he likes you to nasal breathe.

• 2:19:34Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 2:19:35Adam Skolnick?

  So I think his argu-, this is not me talking, it's him. I mean, I understand this is coming from probably the James Nestor book, Breathe, where he gets into the power of it.

• 2:19:43Rich Roll?

  And I've tried this also, I should say, like, um, I've tried to do nasal breathing when I sleep, because I wake up in the middle of the night, my mouth is wide open, and I'm all dried up. So I've put tape on.

• 2:19:54Adam Skolnick?

  You did the James Nestor experiment.

• 2:19:55Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I've put tape on my mouth.

• 2:19:57Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 2:19:57Rich Roll?

  So that I can focus on nasal breathing when I sleep, because it, you know, there's like a sympathetic, parasympathetic nervous system kind of resetting that goes on. Um, then I wake up in the morning and the tape's off and my mouth is wide open, which shows me how much I need this. So I'm not dismissive of this in any way. Like, I understand that this is, you know, something that we should be, you know, practicing and paying attention to. Um, but I question, like, how, anyway, go ahead.

• 2:20:25Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, I was gonna finish, Nicholas says, basically, just do it then. So it's in through the nose, out through the nose, but just in the first warm-up period, 10 minute, maybe 15 minute. Obviously, if you miss a breath and you have to go to the mouth, then it's no big deal. And you'll find it's harder to keep that pace doing, uh, nasal breathing. But after that, when you're really running and trying to accomplish whatever your goal is for that day exercise or whatever, um, then just go to normal. That's what he would say.

• 2:20:50Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 2:20:51Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 2:20:51Rich Roll?

  Have you ever tried to just nasal breathe when you're swimming? It's not gonna work.

• 2:20:55Adam Skolnick?

  I can't, cuz I have a mask on, but, um...

• 2:21:00Adam Skolnick?

  I can, I can exhale.

• 2:21:01Rich Roll?

  That was not a setup, by the way.

• 2:21:03Adam Skolnick?

  I can exhale through my nose with my mask on. It's what, that's what's so great about my swim mask is you can still breathe through your nose in this particular swim mask. Thank you for bringing that up.

• 2:21:14Rich Roll?

  Only in the exhale version now.

• 2:21:15Adam Skolnick?

  But normally I inhale through the mouth and exhale.

• 2:21:18Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 2:21:18Adam Skolnick?

  But even if I was in a pool with goggles, I don't know that I would inhale through my nose. I've never really tried it, no.

• 2:21:26Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm. There is a, you know, there is a thing that happens with your nervous system, though.

• 2:21:31Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 2:21:31Rich Roll?

  Through, and I should know more about this than I do, so I feel like I'm not really satisfying Scott's inquiry.

• 2:21:39Adam Skolnick?

  Scott, I've got a book for you. It's called How to Be Idle, a Loafers Manifesto.

• 2:21:45Rich Roll?

  Don't worry about nasal breathing, just lie down and do nothing.

• 2:21:47Adam Skolnick?

  When you're lying down, you can nasal breathe.

• 2:21:49Rich Roll?

  Should you be nasal breathing when you're lying down on your parents' porch?

• 2:21:54Adam Skolnick?

  Let me check, let me check, uh, chapter 8:00 PM, Smoking.

• 2:22:02Rich Roll?

  Yeah, not helpful. All right. I think we're, you know, needing to land this prop plane.

• 2:22:10Adam Skolnick?

  All right.

• 2:22:10Rich Roll?

  This seaplane.

• 2:22:11Adam Skolnick?

  Let's do it.

• 2:22:12Rich Roll?

  All right.

• 2:22:15Rich Roll?

  I feel bad for Scott. I feel like I didn't answer this question very well.

• 2:22:18Adam Skolnick?

  No, I mean, we gave him some, you know, Nicholas Ramirez.

• 2:22:21Rich Roll?

  I mean, the truth is, like, you know, I could have done a bunch of research and said, here's what you should do and all this kind of stuff. The honest truth is, like, I don't really think about this that much.

• 2:22:29Adam Skolnick?

  Okay.

• 2:22:30Rich Roll?

  When I do, I'll like, okay, I'll do kind of like warm-up exercises and I'll, and I do try to do this at night and all the like, but I don't spend a lot of time thinking about this. And maybe if we get anything out of this, it's Scott reminding me that perhaps I should focus on this for myself a little bit more, so.

• 2:22:47Adam Skolnick?

  Or maybe your answer is just mouth breathe. Who cares? It's not really that important.

• 2:22:53Adam Skolnick?

  Nothing wrong with that.

• 2:22:55Rich Roll?

  Read James Nestor's book Breath.

• 2:22:57Adam Skolnick?

  I have not read it yet. Have you read it?

• 2:22:58Rich Roll?

  No, I haven't.

• 2:22:58Adam Skolnick?

  Have you had him on?

• 2:22:59Rich Roll?

  No, I haven't. I should have him on, though.

• 2:23:01Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 2:23:01Rich Roll?

  Maybe that's what this is about.

• 2:23:03Adam Skolnick?

  Maybe.

• 2:23:03Rich Roll?

  This will prompt me to reach out to him. I think that would be a great podcast, actually.

• 2:23:08Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 2:23:09Rich Roll?

  Cool. All right. We did it. We're done. How do you feel?

• 2:23:12Adam Skolnick?

  I feel good, man.

• 2:23:13Rich Roll?

  I feel, I feel good, too.

• 2:23:14Adam Skolnick?

  I feel good, man.

• 2:23:15Rich Roll?

  Feel good, man. You're not, but you're not banking those NFTs like Matt Fury.

• 2:23:19Adam Skolnick?

  I don't think I'm gonna get complaints when people ask me at the end, when you ask me how I'm doing, I always say I feel good. Like at first, now I've changed my intro. I gotta work on my outro.

• 2:23:30Rich Roll?

  Well, we'll see what you come up with next time.

• 2:23:32Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 2:23:33Rich Roll?

  All right, my friend.

• 2:23:46Rich Roll?

  Follow Adam at Adam Skolnick. Leave us a message if you want your question in effectively answered.

• 2:23:53Adam Skolnick?

  Please, please, we would love more questions, so.

• 2:23:56Rich Roll?

  Yeah, 424-235-4626. Check out the show notes on the episode page at richroll.com to dive into everything we talked about today. Please make sure that you subscribe to the show on YouTube, on Spotify, on Apple, on all the places. It really helps us out. Leave a comment, share it with your friends and on social media. And that's it. Let's thank everybody who helped put on today's show. We got Jason Camiolo for audio engineering, production, show notes, interstitial music, all the things. Blake Curtis for videoing the show. We got Dan Drake, our newest member of the team, who's helping us out on the video side, creating new content and all kinds of cool

• 2:24:35Rich Roll?

  stuff. We got Jessica Miranda for graphics. We have Georgia Whaley for copywriting. We have AJ also working with us on video stuff and graphics and all kinds of cool stuff. Grayson Wilder for portraits today. DK for advertiser relationships. Theme music is always by Tyler Trapper and Harry.

• 2:24:56Rich Roll?

  Adam, put the Oculus back on. He's left the building. Adam has, Adam has left the building. I'm in a new dimension. You are. We'll see you in Ready Player One. Thanks for the love, you guys. See you back here in a couple of days with another awesome episode. Peace. Plants. Coyote.