Roll On: War In Ukraine, Floods In Oz, & Sober Wisdom

In today's episode, Rich Roll & Adam Skolnick discuss the global effects of the war in Ukraine & the devastating floods in Australia—plus endurance headlines, listener Q's & more. Topics discussed in today’s episode include: The launch of Voicing Change II and the Golden Ticket Sweepstakes—where 6 lucky winners will take home a score of prizes valued over $1,100; Heidi Zuckerman's newest art book Conversations With Artists Volume III; Jesse Itzler's shotgun attempt at Ultraman Arizona on no formal training; The Russian invasion of Ukraine, the towering bravery of the Ukrainian people, and the war's global impact; and The apocalyptic floods devastating Queensland and New South Wales, Australia's relationship with coal & climate change, and how you can help. As always, we close things out by taking a few listener questions. Today we answer: How do you talk about addiction and sobriety with your kids? What advice do you have for someone navigating recovery and treatment? How do you maintain a relationship when one partner drinks and the other doesn’t? To read more and to peruse the show notes, click here. You can also watch it all go down on YouTube. And as always, the podcast streams wild and free on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. To grab your copy of Voicing Change Vol. II, visit: https://www.richroll.com/voicing-change-ii/ Peace + Plants, Rich Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:00Rich Roll?

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• 0:44Rich Roll?

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• 1:13Rich Roll?

  The Rich Roll Podcast.

• 1:17Rich Roll?

  Hey, everybody. Welcome to Roll On, where today, we're gonna peer into the abyss in all its beauty and pain and try to make some sense out of this extraordinary planet and its curious and oftentimes confusing humans. You guys know the deal. We rip from the headlines of our Mad Mad World. We address some human stories from the front lines of endurance, a few items that have captured our fancy over the last couple of weeks. We answer listener questions, and we do it all with a light dusting of frivolity and randomness. But first, of course, we have to welcome the misplaced beat poet of the newest millennium, Mr. Adam Skolnick. How you going? As the Aussies would say.

• 2:01Adam Skolnick?

  Well, I don't know, actually. To be honest.

• 2:06Rich Roll?

  Oh, come on. Let's get the energy up.

• 2:08Adam Skolnick?

  Well.

• 2:09Rich Roll?

  Right? It's been a couple of weeks.

• 2:11Adam Skolnick?

  I know, but it's been brought to my attention recently that I've been saying things, without my own knowledge, saying things like, "What's up, gang?", and "Let's rock and roll, crew!" And I don't know, Rich.

• 2:23Rich Roll?

  Where is that coming from?

• 2:24Adam Skolnick?

  I don't know. It's hard for me to deal with. I didn't even know I was saying it.

• 2:27Rich Roll?

  It's an age thing?

• 2:29Adam Skolnick?

  I think it's a dad thing.

• 2:30Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 2:31Adam Skolnick?

  I've been so far been able to stave off the dad bod, but the dad brain is taking over.

• 2:38Rich Roll?

  Yeah, you can't stop that. It's a force of nature.

• 2:43Adam Skolnick?

  Never in my wildest nightmares that I ever think I'd ever say something like, "Let's rock and roll, crew."

• 2:48Rich Roll?

  Well, the dad brain, wait till, you know, the kid gets a little bit older, you know, because you're persistently reminded about, you know, your dad energy and how uncool it is. That becomes a theme. That's what being a dad is about. You just embrace it.

• 3:09Adam Skolnick?

  I will embrace it. Can I shrivel back into my dry, sardonic self at some point, like after age 14?

• 3:15Rich Roll?

  Just don't expect that it's gonna go over well with the kid.

• 3:18Adam Skolnick?

  Nothing goes over well.

• 3:21Adam Skolnick?

  Do you say things like, "What's up, gang?"

• 3:23Rich Roll?

  Oh, I do it on purpose now. You know, I play it up. Just ratchet, like just lean into it, you know? It's more fun that way, anyway.

• 3:31Adam Skolnick?

  I'm running.

• 3:32Rich Roll?

  How big of an eye roll can I get for this one?

• 3:35Adam Skolnick?

  Exactly. That's what I'm gonna have to do. Right now, he's just, you know, happy-go-lucky 18-month-old. I was running this morning, just this morning, and passed another dad who was walking with his two stroller dads. You know, the sun's not quite up yet, and I said, "Hey, dad, how's it going?" Like, what's going on? What is happening?

• 3:55Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 3:56Adam Skolnick?

  What is going on?

• 3:57Rich Roll?

  That globe-trotting, you know, serious journalist energy is being displaced with, you know, a suburban mindset.

• 4:05Adam Skolnick?

  I used to be uncivilized. Now I'm more civilized, but it feels less civilized. I don't know how to say it.

• 4:11Rich Roll?

  Like I said, just lean into it.

• 4:13Adam Skolnick?

  I'm leaning in.

• 4:14Rich Roll?

  But on the dad bod issue, we have news from the front lines.

• 4:18Adam Skolnick?

  Right. So, 4x4x48 happened.

• 4:22Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 4:22Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 4:23Rich Roll?

  The Goggins, the annual Goggins Challenge, in the books.

• 4:26Adam Skolnick?

  The annual Goggins Ultra Festival for the uninitiated.

• 4:30Rich Roll?

  Yeah, how'd it go for you?

• 4:32Adam Skolnick?

  You know, I had injuries going in, so... I wasn't really prepared this time and Jason came up to me, I think last time I was here and said, so are you going to do the Goggins challenge? I hadn't even thought about doing it because I'd hurt my back at the beginning of January.

• 4:46Rich Roll?

  But as his co-author, you have to. You have no choice.

• 4:49Adam Skolnick?

  Right. So what happened was like my back injury ended. So I ran probably 12 miles in January and then in February, like I could start running again, maybe the second week in February. I probably ran less than 60 miles in the two months, definitely less than 60 miles in the two months coming into March. And so I was thinking, all right, let me just see how the body is. So on the Sunday and Tuesday, I did some repetitions. I did three three mile runs on Sunday. I did four twos on Tuesday. And if my body held up, I was going to give it a shot. But I hadn't felt good running, even after even coming back. I had not had a good run since the, before I got hurt. I hadn't felt good. My, everything was off. And for some reason, I was ended up faster by almost an hour in cumulative

• 5:34Adam Skolnick?

  time. I felt good. My body felt good. And it's a grind. It's a grind doing it. April did it with me as well. She took 72 hours because she couldn't do the middle of the night stuff because we, you know, no one's there to watch Zuma and he wakes up. So she had to carry it a third day. She didn't have to do the middle of the night. She had to carry it a third day. And Saturday, the winds were how, I mean, the winds were bad here, but the winds were like 40, like over 30 miles an hour in the desert.

• 6:00Rich Roll?

  You were out in the desert.

• 6:01Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah. And it was like crazy winds all of Saturday. You know, mild hallucinations in the middle of the night. You see like a street sign. You think it's a coyote coming to get you. Like just crazy stuff on the second night. And, but you know, it's, it's running at night. It's, it's the most nightlife I've had since Zuma's been, actually since last year, since this time last year. It was the most nightlife I've had in, in a year.

• 6:22Rich Roll?

  Well, congrats.

• 6:23Adam Skolnick?

  Thank you.

• 6:24Rich Roll?

  Congrats to Jason as well.

• 6:26Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 6:26Rich Roll?

  Two, two team members banked it this year. And it's interesting that you had a, you know, what sounds like a more pleasant experience doing it this year. And I think that has to have something to do with the fact that you've done it before. So you have that history. You know, you can do it. So it's not as anxiety provoking, even if you hadn't trained adequately for it. Like you can kind of wrap your head around like, okay, I know how this is going to go.

• 6:50Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, the wildcard was, will I, will my glutes get chingy with a lower back lockup? And so, you know, that, that was the only, like, the four mile runs are one thing. But that was the, the wildcard that you couldn't really plan for. But in the end, like I said, I've, and then since then, it's almost like this jump started training camp, because since then, my running has been better, I've felt better, I feel stronger. So I don't know. Last time, it was like, I did it, and then I took a long, a little bit of a break and got back in the ocean. And this time, I'm kind of riding the momentum a little bit and trying to get that zone two back to where I want it to be.

• 7:25Rich Roll?

  Meanwhile, the mythos of David Goggins continues to grow. I mean, it was amazing, those videos that he shared, like, so many people, he was going up and down the coast and popping up here and there.

• 7:37Adam Skolnick?

  Started in Sacramento area.

• 7:39Rich Roll?

  Yeah, and like helicopters following him and thousands of people and him leaning out of SUVs screaming and people going nuts. Like, it was really something.

• 7:48Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, he, you know, he's a full blown star, you know, and, and he's got like the sheriff helicopters shouting out tributes to him. He, he flew to Ventura. He did the middle of the night ones, he kept with just he and Jennifer. And then, you know, he had those meetups. Hermosa, I think, was the largest, from what they told me. Hermosa, the, you know, over a thousand people down the strand there. I mean, just what an experience to be there. And he signed every single book. He took a picture with every single person that turned up. You know, he did it all, all the way through, and then they had to immediately race down to Costa Mesa. So like, and get there just in time and, and do it all again. And apparently, the final run, he finished in sub sevens.

• 8:32Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 8:32Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 8:33Rich Roll?

  Of course. Good for him, man. Unbelievable. You been getting out with the whales?

• 8:40Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, so it's whale migration season here in Malibu, which I'm sure everyone, uh, you, well, you know about, and, and people here local in Malibu know about. So the gray whales are migrating back up. Passed Monterey first and then Alaska and on to points north, Bering Sea, I believe.

• 8:59Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 8:59Adam Skolnick?

  And so, yeah, you get lucky. Sometimes you get lucky. So the Malibu Artist kinda came. Usually I meet him in Santa Monica, in the Santa Monica Bay. But he, uh, this time we met up at Doom. And, uh, he flew and was able to get me. I got, I was swimming and barely saw, I turned and took a breath and all of a sudden I see a whale fluke, you know, about 50 feet outside me. And he happened to get it from the whale's perspective.

• 9:22Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I saw that.

• 9:23Adam Skolnick?

  So that was pretty cool. So I'm hoping that we have more meetups because when you have a spotter, it's easier. I actually didn't see him in the air and hopefully we can start to coordinate because then you can actually, uh, maybe look under and see something, but.

• 9:36Rich Roll?

  You need some kind of waterproof earpiece where he can direct you where to swim. Get right on top of the whale.

• 9:42Adam Skolnick?

  Well, you're not supposed to do that, right? So you're not supposed to, if you see a whale out there or even dolphins, you're not supposed to get in their way. You're not supposed to intentionally swim there. So what we do is we swim there anyway. As anyone can tell, we swim all year round there. And so when they come around, they, they have to come to you or you have to just get lucky and stumble upon them and then it's fine. And, uh, we're not doing anything. We never touch them. We never do anything. We don't even get that close. Why would you?

• 10:05Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 10:05Adam Skolnick?

  And so I feel like it's pretty good and we're not, we're never in their way. Um, so it's nice when it's more accidental, but at the same time, you, when you're a floating head, you can't even see where you are. So it could be 20 feet away from you and you miss it. Especially if there's some motion in the, on the surface. So, um, it's nice to be able to have a friend like the Malibu Artist who does some epic videos.

• 10:27Rich Roll?

  That's pretty cool.

• 10:27Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 10:28Rich Roll?

  Um, let's do a quick obit for your man, Jack Kerouac, who probably never lapsed into any kind of dadism at any point in his life.

• 10:36Adam Skolnick?

  His niece is a listener of yours.

• 10:39Rich Roll?

  Oh, really?

• 10:39Adam Skolnick?

  His great niece is a listener of yours and she, uh, followed me and then we had a little back and forth. She's a photographer and, uh, we had a back and forth. I said, Kerouac, interesting. And it's her great uncle.

• 10:51Rich Roll?

  Amazing.

• 10:51Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah. I was so touched. Uh, yeah. And so she's a listener and he just turned 100. You know, he died at 47, but to me, you know, he's obviously, that's where we got the holy inside milk from. That's kinda where I cribbed it from, one of his, um, I believe that came from Mexico City Blues, one of his, one of his poems and, and that's probably his best poetry compilation. I'm still on the roads, the seminal work. I love that one. I also love Dharma Bums. I love that entire four-part book series.

• 11:23Adam Skolnick?

  On the Road, Subterraneans, Dharma Bums, and Big Sur.

• 11:26Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 11:27Adam Skolnick?

  Which is the saddest one, but it's still great. And, uh, you know, I'm a, I'm a writer because of Jack Kerouac. I think I might've said that before on here. Because he opened up a whole world in an ecstatic way. It's literary, but in an ecstatic, open, exploratory way. And so I just always really fell right into, to the rhythm of his, his work. And that's why I wanted to wander and travel. So it's his fault.

• 11:50Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 11:51Adam Skolnick?

  Mom and dad, it's Jack Kerouac's fault.

• 11:54Rich Roll?

  Well, happy birthday, Jack. Yeah, I remember reading, uh, On the Road when I was driving cross-country one year when I was probably 20.

• 12:02Adam Skolnick?

  That's the time.

• 12:03Rich Roll?

  And yeah, where anything is possible and the world is a, a vast and glorious canvas for self-exploration.

• 12:12Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, and I mean, the, the book is about hitchhiking across America. It takes place and right after World War II is when he actually did it. Didn't come out, he wrote it in three weeks on benzodiazepine. Like a speed haze.

• 12:25Rich Roll?

  He was a good alcoholic.

• 12:26Adam Skolnick?

  He was. And then he, uh, it took seven years for it to come out and it was an overnight smash hit. And he was dismissed, this, people in the literary world were dismissive of him, I guess sometime later. I don't know, but you know, I don't really have much. I mean, the literary world is its own little insular place and to me it doesn't mean much. A guy like Jack Kerouac kind of transcends all of that. And so if you haven't read any of his stuff, uh, if you're a 20-year-old that wants to get out and look around.

• 12:53Rich Roll?

  That's the time.

• 12:53Adam Skolnick?

  I highly recommend checking it out. Um, means a lot to people of a certain generation.

• 13:00Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 13:01Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 13:01Rich Roll?

  Yeah, cool, man.

• 13:03Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 13:04Rich Roll?

  So what's next?

• 13:06Adam Skolnick?

  What's going on with you?

• 13:07Rich Roll?

  Um, I feel grateful today. I'm happy to be here with you. It's been a couple of weeks, Adam, so that's all good. I'm a little fatigued. It's been an intense last week. Last week I did three podcast, or in the last seven days, three podcasts, two back-to-back speaking gigs. So I'm a little ragged, um, but feeling good.

• 13:27Adam Skolnick?

  In town or were you?

• 13:27Rich Roll?

  Well, one was down in Palos Verdes, so I was overnight in one place and did a, did a speaking thing that was late at night. And then had one on Zoom the following morning at like seven o'clock in the morning. You know, so, uh, it's all good, but you know, it takes a little bit of a toll.

• 13:44Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 13:44Rich Roll?

  Um, I did want to thank you for introducing us to your friend, Oz Pearlman, because he came in and did a podcast the other day. Oz for people who don't know is a mentalist. He was a finalist on America's Got Talent back in 2015, and he just absolutely blew people's minds. It was really fun. I can't wait to share that episode, and I'm not going to spoil it, other than to say, we're still talking about it. Like, everyone here at the show is like, and he did this, and then this happened, and it was unbelievable. I mean, the guy is a straight-up wizard.

• 14:14Adam Skolnick?

  Yes. He turns serious grown-ups into, like, shrieking schoolchildren.

• 14:18Rich Roll?

  I know. It's just like, like, I think John Cena threw a book at him, you know, or something like that on the Today Show. He was so outraged that... He seems to have that kind of effect on people. I mean, it really is remarkable. And on top of it, he's this incredible ultra-runner who's done all the big races from Badwater to Western States. He's a 223 marathoner, so a super interesting guy.

• 14:40Adam Skolnick?

  He cracks open minds and, like...

• 14:42Rich Roll?

  How did you meet him? Or what was the point of introduction?

• 14:46Adam Skolnick?

  So, he was, you know, he had a regular live show happening, I think, in New York City, and he couldn't do in-person stuff at the beginning of the pandemic.

• 14:52Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 14:53Adam Skolnick?

  And he's friends with David. And so then David...

• 14:56Rich Roll?

  He knows David from way back, early endurance, like, for running.

• 14:59Adam Skolnick?

  Right, right, right. So, they're tight. And so David and Jennifer organized a crew of their people to do a Zoom. And basically, David hired him to do this Zoom.

• 15:09Rich Roll?

  Oh, yeah, yeah.

• 15:10Adam Skolnick?

  And so, he, and then he invited people. So then he invited us to be a part of that. And so, we went on this Zoom and saw... But I'd heard of him before. So, I knew, I knew of him because I'd seen him on ESPN. He did, he did, like, there was a period of time where ESPN had him on for, like, a couple of days, and he visited all the shows and did some fun stuff. And so, I'd heard of him, I'd seen him before, and he was pretty fun. But seeing it in person and getting really personal with people, you just, like, that brought it to a different level. And then, and then following him and seeing how great he was as an athlete, I realized, now, this is a, this is a different, I didn't really understand who he was. And so, ever since then, I've been kind of, you know, chatting with him here and there. I want to cover him.

• 15:49Rich Roll?

  Yeah, you should.

• 15:49Adam Skolnick?

  I've been trying to get, you know, to figure out the right thing for the times. And so, it'll happen. But in the meantime, you know, he loves your show and wanted to be here so bad, so it was cool.

• 15:59Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it was, we had a great time. It was super fun. Speaking of being an athlete, technically I'm meant to be training right now.

• 16:07Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 16:07Rich Roll?

  But the training has been very erratic and disrupted due to my work schedule and kind of family schedule. I signed up for this open water marathon swim in June.

• 16:17Adam Skolnick?

  So you did sign up for it?

• 16:19Rich Roll?

  20 kilometer, 20 kilometer. Yeah, we'll just leave it at that. Yeah, 20 kilometer open water swim race.

• 16:24Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 16:24Rich Roll?

  Which is like 12 miles.

• 16:26Adam Skolnick?

  That's no joke.

• 16:27Rich Roll?

  It's not a joke. I haven't swum more than 3,500 yard. I mean, today I did 4,000, but that's probably the longest swim I've put in in a couple of years. So I have my work cut out for me.

• 16:38Adam Skolnick?

  So was that a 4,000 straight? You did a 4,000?

• 16:41Rich Roll?

  No, in the pool, it's always intervals and sets and things like that. And I'm working with Chris House again. And it's a challenge because I don't like to be unprepared at all for any kind of race. But my life is very complicated right now. So it's about like making peace with the fact that I'm not going to be able to adhere to the training schedule like I used to when my life was a little less crowded.

• 17:05Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 17:06Rich Roll?

  So we'll see how that goes. But Chris had a great idea, which was for us to do a zoo, like a little segment on upcoming roll-ons where Chris and I do a Zoom and we check in on the training. So it's sort of a peek behind the curtain on like how we communicate, how all of this works. And, you know, maybe hopefully that's instructive or helpful for the other athletes out there who are trying to figure out how to train for races amidst the distractions and other obligations of, you know, our busy lives.

• 17:37Adam Skolnick?

  I love that.

• 17:37Rich Roll?

  So we'll figure that out. So perhaps next roll-on, Chris will pop in.

• 17:43Adam Skolnick?

  I need Chris's tough love in my life.

• 17:45Rich Roll?

  I know. But he, Chris is, he softened up a little bit. We're going to talk a little bit about that with respect to Jesse Itzler, because I want to talk about his Ultraman Arizona performance this past weekend. But before we do that, in terms of like how I'm doing and what's going on right now. Despite everything being great and me being grateful and happy to be sitting with you here today, I'm a little bit distracted and fatigued. I haven't been sleeping great because on a family level, we're dealing with a little bit of psychic pain that has been challenging and leaving me hard pressed to think about anything else because our youngest kid had his heart broken over the weekend.

• 18:27Rich Roll?

  He was very intent upon getting into this cinema arts program at LA's Performing Arts High School. And it's a big public high school. He's going into ninth grade and part of that application process was writing and directing and editing a short film, which he did. And he made a remarkable film. By all accounts, everybody who saw it said, "This is unbelievable."

• 18:51Rich Roll?

  And his older sister goes to this school currently as a senior. And so we thought we were in pretty good shape for him to be accepted into this program. And we found out that he was not accepted, that it didn't work out the way that we all had hoped for him. And it's been more than disappointing, like he's devastated. And so the reason I bring it up, you know, I try, I keep my kids out of the podcast and I don't want to get too detailed about that situation, other than to say it's been a challenge as a parent trying to figure out how to show up as a compassionate dad. And I can't think of anything more difficult than

• 19:30Rich Roll?

  kind of holding that level of psychic and emotional pain that your child is going through. It's a sense of powerlessness, like in been a parent for a minute, and this has definitely been one of the hardest chapters in this journey that I've been on as a dad. It's like you can feel all that pain and you can empathize with it and you try to hold space for them, but you can't alleviate it for them. And it's hard, man. And I think for me,

• 20:01Rich Roll?

  I have a pattern, like an unhealthy pattern of projecting onto my kid. And that's a pattern that I learned as a child because that's what my mother would do.

• 20:10Adam Skolnick?

  Projecting how?

• 20:11Rich Roll?

  Like, you know, oh, how are you? And like, you know, sort of in a weird kind of enmeshing way. Like, I've grown a lot. Like, I don't, I'm very conscious of not doing that and like making the problem worse by, you know, saying, oh, we're all so, you know, we're all so disappointed for you. Like, it doesn't help. Like, how can you be solid and strong and compassionate and available? And a dad that is signaling to their kid like, I got your back. Like, we're gonna figure this out and this is a setback. But we have a plan for you and we're gonna see this through and we're gonna get through it together without becoming too, like, reducing your emotional state to that of the child as a way of connecting.

• 20:54Adam Skolnick?

  Thinking that you're, thinking that you're validating their emotion.

• 20:57Rich Roll?

  Yeah, cuz it comes from, it comes from a good place.

• 21:00Adam Skolnick?

  Into the emotion.

• 21:00Rich Roll?

  Right, but that, that's not a healthy strategy for that. So it's like learning how to check myself and it's been really hard. And I have to say that it has led me to turn back to the wisdom of past podcast guests like Susan David, who writes and talks about emotional agility and Jessica Leahy in her book, The Gift of Failure, like this idea that, you know, these experiences cultivate emotional agility, but this is a kid who really needed a win. The pandemic has been very rough on him and this was a North Star and it got like pulled out from underneath him, you know? And at that age, it's traumatic, right? And to see your kid in the midst of a trauma is, is just, you know, it's, it's very difficult.

• 21:44Rich Roll?

  So that's kind of going on in the background. So if I start to space out in this podcast, it's probably cuz I'm

• 21:50Adam Skolnick?

  I'll take care of it, I'll handle it.

• 21:51Rich Roll?

  Dwelling on that in an unhealthy way. You know, and it's like allowing your kid to experience their painful emotions is necessary. But as a parent, it's also like a form of psychic torture. Because no parent wants to see their child in pain.

• 22:04Adam Skolnick?

  No, isn't that, isn't that the word, isn't that the, the hardest thing?

• 22:08Rich Roll?

  It is, really hard, really hard.

• 22:11Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 22:13Rich Roll?

  So that's what you have to look forward to.

• 22:16Adam Skolnick?

  So it gets more complicated is what you're saying?

• 22:18Rich Roll?

  Yes.

• 22:21Rich Roll?

  Yes, it definitely does.

• 22:23Adam Skolnick?

  So, but even like in this situation, when you first learn about it, you can't even get to the point, "We have a plan for you. We're gonna see this through. It's a setback." You can't even really say anything, right?

• 22:33Rich Roll?

  No, you have to allow them to experience their emotions and not be the person who's like trying to get them over it too quickly. Or, yeah. But also make sure that they're not shutting down too much. You know, it's this weird balance. And, you know, as a dad, like, what is the healthy, you know, kind of masculinity that you can model and, you know, be of maximum support without being like a hard ass or too much of a softie?

• 23:04Adam Skolnick?

  Right. What's the right amount of Stoicism?

• 23:07Rich Roll?

  Right, and also knowing that they don't want to hear it from you right now.

• 23:11Adam Skolnick?

  No, your opinion does not matter.

• 23:13Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's like, "We're gonna get over this. You're gonna look back on this and realize like, you know, that you found yourself in a better city." None of that works right now. It's like, so, just having their back, I think, is the key thing.

• 23:25Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 23:25Rich Roll?

  So, anyway, that's going on, but let's switch gears.

• 23:30Adam Skolnick?

  Let's do it.

• 23:31Rich Roll?

  To a very exciting, positive note. It's a big day here at Roll On. We have a big announcement, which is that Voicing Change 2 is now out.

• 23:41Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 23:42Rich Roll?

  Available.

• 23:43Adam Skolnick?

  Been looking forward to this thing.

• 23:44Rich Roll?

  Comes in this like really cool pizza box, basically. And when you open it up, let me see if I can open this. Has a beautiful like ribbon here that pulls it out. And here we go. So for people that are kind of newer to this show and don't know what we're talking about, there it is, Adam. Yeah. A little over a year ago, we released Volume 1 of Voicing Change, which is this black book that you see here. And it's essentially this compendium of the best wisdom and guests of the podcast over the course of several years in coffee table book form. And we self-published it. It was a success.

• 24:28Rich Roll?

  It's filled with like gorgeous photography. And we go through the transcripts of all of these guests' podcasts and we excerpted out the best parts and I write an introduction and we have essays littered throughout it. And we're really proud of it. And it works as a great introduction to the podcast for people who are unfamiliar with the work that we do here. It's kind of a keepsake for the fans. It's an awesome gift. But when we created the first Voicing Change, it was always intended as, you know, part one in what would be a series. And so today, a little over a year later, we are announcing volume two, which picks up where volume one left off, of course. And it's even better than the first one. It's 288 pages of episode excerpts. We have essays.

• 25:10Rich Roll?

  We have stunning photos. 64 guests are featured. And what can I tell you? Who are some of the people in here? We have Matthew McConaughey, Tony Hawk, Dr. Huberman, Maggie Q., Steven Pressfield, Alexi Pappas, the Korean Vegan, tons of cool people. And of course, Adam, you are featured in this book.

• 25:31Adam Skolnick?

  I made the cut?

• 25:32Rich Roll?

  There's a whole roll-on thing in here.

• 25:33Adam Skolnick?

  There's a whole roll-on.

• 25:34Rich Roll?

  And Adam, you wrote it, you contributed an essay to the book as well.

• 25:38Adam Skolnick?

  I think, I think there's a roll-on centerfold in that thing.

• 25:40Rich Roll?

  There is. Let me find it. I don't know.

• 25:42Adam Skolnick?

  You know what? It was when you guys approached me and asked me to be a part of this thing, I was so touched. And, uh,

• 25:48Rich Roll?

  Here it is.

• 25:49Adam Skolnick?

  You know, I love these books because the way into the show, like, it's, it's a great.

• 25:54Rich Roll?

  We have, we have like several pages on roll-on in this book.

• 25:58Adam Skolnick?

  We do.

• 25:59Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 26:00Adam Skolnick?

  You wrote something about it, too.

• 26:01Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 26:02Adam Skolnick?

  But it took me writing that to realize that your podcast is why I'm married to April. I'd forgotten.

• 26:10Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 26:11Adam Skolnick?

  I'd forgotten.

• 26:12Rich Roll?

  Explain that.

• 26:13Adam Skolnick?

  Well, I mean, I wrote in the essay, you know, what I loved about the essay is because it allowed me to reflect back on, on being a part of this team and being a part of the, of your show. And, you know, for a long time, I was just an independent reporter out there, kind of hacking my way through the wilderness. And I liked those years, too, but it's not easy. And you always kind of wish, what would it be like if you were part of a team? If you were a part of a newsroom? You always wonder. Even the days when I was doing the Lonely Planet travel guides, they were fellow authors I sometimes ran into on the road, but it's pretty much an independent job. You know, you're out there by yourself. You know, it's designed so that you work independently together. So you're not really crossing paths unless you go out of your way.

• 26:55Adam Skolnick?

  And even though you can email and there's some camaraderie, it's not quite the same as coming into an environment like this where you have a real collaboration and real teamwork. And so on a regular basis, consistent basis. So it's been such a welcome thing for me and also to get into the audio side on a different way from just audiobooks to the podcast space. It was always great, but I never had a chance to really sit back and analyze it or consider what made it special for me. So this essay was an opportunity to do that, to consider the show, what the show is, why it's unique, why the audience is unique, to be part of this, which includes, when I say collaboration, I include the audience as part of that because, you know, what's special about a lot of podcasts, but particularly your podcast, is that people

• 27:40Adam Skolnick?

  are very personally connected to it because there's an individual aspect, there's a social good aspect. It's inwardly focused with an outward viewpoint, an expansive viewpoint, and it's a, you know, a seed bank and toolbox to be able to kind of tinker with your world and, and the greater, larger world and try to make it better. So it's kind of like this real time dreaming of a different way of going and at the same time, taking gratitude in what's happening. So that I always knew, but to be part of it and to experience it from the inside has been really enlightening for me because like, I'm typically kind of happy being a little gloom and doom, to be quite honest with you. Like the light of this show. Very uncomfortable for you.

• 28:24Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, it's, no, it's, I'm, the light of your show is now changing me. Now I'm saying things like, rock and roll, crew. Right. And that's not your fault. Um, so anyway, I was fun to write the essay and, you know, really an honor to explain. And part of that is, yes, after being on your podcast when I was promoting One Breath, April listened to it. Uh, we had known each other a little bit before that and reached out. We got reconnected and then voila. And that was it. So it's, it's, uh, that's all part of that story that I kind of tell in this. And in general, I love the, I love the book because it is a way in. So if you're a fan and, you know, you want to introduce people to the podcast, but you know, it's a heavy lift. To get them to listen to two and a half hours of me bothering Rich.

• 29:08Adam Skolnick?

  Then you can give them this voicing change and you can, you know, check out some of these cool guests and you can read a couple of the, of the features. And they'll understand why you like it so much. And it's a kind of a way into the, to the show in a different way.

• 29:22Rich Roll?

  It's a 288 page visual blinkist.

• 29:26Adam Skolnick?

  That's it.

• 29:27Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 29:28Adam Skolnick?

  You said it.

• 29:28Rich Roll?

  A synopsis.

• 29:29Adam Skolnick?

  I love it.

• 29:30Rich Roll?

  With cool photographs and yeah, well, well said. I appreciate that. It's been such a fun journey and honor to do this thing with you. And it's cool that people are digging it and it's grown. And now you're part of the firmament.

• 29:45Adam Skolnick?

  I'm here.

• 29:46Rich Roll?

  You're in the wallpaper now.

• 29:47Adam Skolnick?

  You can't get rid of me now.

• 29:49Rich Roll?

  I don't know. Yeah. Now it's like, what would happen if we didn't want to do this anymore? I don't know.

• 29:55Adam Skolnick?

  I would show up at your doorstep. I would be sleeping where Jason's working right now.

• 29:59Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 30:02Rich Roll?

  Anyway, yeah, thank you for generously providing that essay. And there's a bunch more essays in it.

• 30:07Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 30:07Rich Roll?

  The book is beautiful. I think, you know, it's even better than the last one. It's really been a team effort. Like I probably worked the least on this book. We have this amazing group of people, of craftsmen, very talented people who we collaborated with to create this wonderful work of art. And it's just a, an exciting moment to be able to now share it with everybody. So to sweeten it, we came up with this really cool idea to do what we're calling a golden ticket sweepstakes. So basically to celebrate this launch and do something cool and unique and meaningful. We came up with essentially a contest, which will entitle six lucky winners. We'll get like a golden ticket in the book and.

• 30:52Adam Skolnick?

  It's like a Willy Wonka thing.

• 30:53Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's a Willy Wonka thing. And basically the winners will get this treasure chest of prizes that have been gifted from our amazing sponsors that include like a pair of Solomon Ultra Glide shoes and Athletic Green Starter Kit, a pair of Roka glasses, a pair of Jaybird Vista 2 earbuds, a Theragun, a one-year membership to the Plant Power Meal Planner. All told, it's basically an $1,100 value.

• 31:19Rich Roll?

  And so to win, there's a couple of ways to win. Obviously, buying a copy of Voicing Change 2 automatically enters you to win. But also importantly, I need to point out that there is also a no purchase necessary option. Terms and conditions apply, so if you want to learn more about the rules behind the golden ticket offering, go to richroll.com/official-rules for more details.

• 31:46Adam Skolnick?

  Can I interject one thing? I think you only have five Theragun elites left.

• 31:51Rich Roll?

  What do you mean? Did you steal one?

• 31:53Adam Skolnick?

  I don't know.

• 31:54Rich Roll?

  Did you take one from our stash?

• 31:56Adam Skolnick?

  I saw a box.

• 31:57Rich Roll?

  Do we need to lock this stuff up?

• 31:59Adam Skolnick?

  I didn't think you'd miss them.

• 32:01Rich Roll?

  Come on, man.

• 32:02Adam Skolnick?

  All right, I'll return it.

• 32:03Rich Roll?

  We need that one back.

• 32:04Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, it's coming back.

• 32:05Rich Roll?

  All right. Like I said, the book is self-published. We do everything in-house. It was this amazing team effort. And for that reason, we are offering the book only and exclusively on our website at richroll.com. It's not available on Amazon. So to learn more about it and pick up your copy, go to richroll.com/books. We only did a limited print, so it's not going to be available forever. So you're going to have to act now if you want to get it. And final note.

• 32:35Adam Skolnick?

  I think Voicing Change 1 sold out, so.

• 32:37Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I think we have a few left, but Voicing Change 2 is what we're focusing on right now. And we have plenty of copies, but I think they're going to go fast. How Voicing Change 2 went, they're going to go quick. One thing I wanted to point out, with Voicing Change 1, there was some complaints and grumpiness around shipping. Because we're self-publishing and self-fulfilling and all of that, and not on Amazon, shipping becomes very tricky. Anybody who sells product can understand that. And I want to just tell everyone that we heard you with respect to those complaints. So for this book, Voicing Change 2, we have flat-rate $10 shipping domestically.

• 33:18Rich Roll?

  It probably costs us more in most cases, so we're just going to eat that extra surcharge because we wanted to make it available across the board at one rate for everybody. And we have discounted shipping internationally. So we have heard that feedback, and we're doing the best that we can to address that.

• 33:35Adam Skolnick?

  Right. I mean, not everybody has a rocket ship and Pete Davidson to deliver their boxes to their front door.

• 33:40Rich Roll?

  That's true. What happened to the Amazon drones? That program never took off. That's in beta, bro. We were gonna be able to order pizzas and have them dropped off on our doorstep. Yes, dropped off by Roombas. Cool. So, yes, voicing change too. One more thing before we take a quick break. I wanted to direct everyone's attention to my friend Heidi Zuckerman's new book. It's called Conversations with Artists 3. Heidi is an old friend of mine from the New York City days. I used to date her sister when I lived there. And she is an amazing- Which is just kids' chapter. Yeah, that's right, kind of. Not quite, but a little bit, maybe. But I've known Heidi for a very long time, and she's sort of a big deal in the art world.

• 34:25Rich Roll?

  When I knew her, she was a young gallerist. But she has gone on to have posts at the UC Berkeley Museum of Art, the Jewish Museum in New York City. More recently, she was the director of the Aspen Art Museum, where she did all this really cool innovative stuff. She oversaw the construction of the new building there by this famed architect, Shigeru Ban. And she did this thing where she had top artists create artwork printed on the lift tickets, which I thought was very innovative and cool. Yeah. And so, basically, she's become one of the leading museum directors in the United States and left Aspen in 2019 and is now in California, where she is the new director of the Orange County Museum of Art, where they're building this massive new building

• 35:09Rich Roll?

  that I think is pretty close to being completed at this point. Where is that? Is that in Santa Ana or something? I think it's in San Clemente or something like that. I don't know exactly. I'll find out. Yeah, the building is designed by Tom Main, who's a legendary kind of modern architect. He was the mentor to the architect that built our house. So, in any event- Santa Ana. In Santa Ana, cool. So Heidi, when she left Aspen, she started this kind of digital platform that included a podcast, Conversations About Art, which I was a guest on, along with people like Ricky Gates and Eve Bahar. She had Rufus Wainwright on, Tom Sacks, Lance Armstrong. And then she published the series of books, which are kind of an analog to voicing change

• 35:54Rich Roll?

  in that they're excerpts from her conversations with these many artists over the years. And this is her volume three, so she's one volume ahead of us- Oh, God. -on this same kind of plane of, you know, turning the best of what a podcast offers into a book form. She shares insights and access to some of the world's most engaging artists. And in this book, who does she, I mean, Tom Sacks is in here. He's one of my favorites, Doug Aiken, Daniel Arsham, Sam Falls, Jennifer Guidi, Glenn Cano. Anyway, it's a cool book. I love Heidi. She's a really interesting person. Perhaps she'd make a great guest on this podcast. So if you want to check out that book, it is only available on the Orange County Museum of Art website.

• 36:36Rich Roll?

  So go to ocma, O-C-M-A dot art slash pop dash up. And I'll link that up in the show notes.

• 36:43Adam Skolnick?

  Beautiful.

• 36:44Rich Roll?

  Cool. So let's take a quick break and we'll be back. We're going to talk about Jesse Itzler's Ultraman and we're going to, we're going to solve Ukraine, basically, right?

• 36:51Adam Skolnick?

  We're solving Ukraine.

• 36:52Rich Roll?

  We're going to solve it.

• 36:53Adam Skolnick?

  You and me.

• 36:54Rich Roll?

  Yeah. We solved it already.

• 36:56Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, well, we can solve it.

• 36:57Rich Roll?

  All right. All right, and we're back. We're going to talk about Jesse Itzler's Ultraman Arizona. This is my favorite story from the weekend, perhaps the best Instagram stories on the entire platform the past couple of days. For those that are unfamiliar, Jesse's a friend, two-time podcast guest, one of the founders of 29029, that Eversting Challenge. He's an amazing entrepreneur and a very kind of inspiring individual. And his whole thing is about like building your life resume and like making the most out of your day. And he's got this big calendar and he calendars out all his goals and his dreams and he shares

• 37:42Rich Roll?

  everything on Instagram. And he just has a very beautiful infectious energy. And he signed up for Ultraman Arizona. He'd never done Ultraman before, but he's done, he's done some hundred milers and you know, he's an experienced ultra runner. But what made this great, in addition to the fact that he's 54 years old, is that he showed up to compete in this race with ostensibly doing no training.

• 38:07Adam Skolnick?

  None at all. Just, just his normal stuff.

• 38:09Rich Roll?

  I mean, he gets out there and he's very active and you know, he's running and riding his bike or whatever, but there was no structure at all to his training. And like Ultraman is a double Ironman distance triathlon. It's 320 miles. Day one is a 6.2 mile swim and a 90 mile bike. The second day is 171 miles on the bike. The third day is a double marathon. People who know my story know that I've done this race in Hawaii a couple of times. And so I was very invested in seeing how this was going to play out, given that he hadn't really trained, but he is somebody who never gives up also. So that tension between being physically unprepared for this with the strong mental game of like, I don't quit, makes for a very interesting tableau for storytelling. And

• 38:54Rich Roll?

  it didn't disappoint. So Blake, can you pull up Chris's, this tab that I have for Chris House, who was helping Jesse as well, and of course is my coach, posted this on Instagram, I think the day before, the morning of the race, where it's just a handwritten note, if you're watching on video, you can see it, but I'll read it. Like Jesse says to Chris, "Chris, you think I should do Ultraman Arizona? I haven't trained." Chris, "I think taking the unconventional path has served you well so far in life. Why have your athletic self be different?" And then Chris says, "Where is the greater adventure? Being prepared, familiar in doing it, or being unprepared in uncharted territory and being on the edge?"

• 39:38Rich Roll?

  So that's the kind of context in which Jesse toed the start line at this crazy race. Not a conventional quest from an athlete perspective, but I think there's something cool about him, as Chris notes, choosing to step into the arena only with past endurance experience, a strong mind, a willingness to endure, and a strong support team.

• 40:01Adam Skolnick?

  You know, it's interesting about this whole thing. I mean, obviously, the double marathon is super intense and long days on the bike. I mean, 171 miles, no joke. But a 6.2 mile swim, if you don't swim...

• 40:11Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 40:11Adam Skolnick?

  Like, that might be the hardest one.

• 40:13Rich Roll?

  Well, here's what happens. So basically, they show up, it starts on Friday morning, and there was so much wind, you know, because you were out in the desert, it was super windy in LA. I guess it was windy in Arizona as well, so there was tons of swell and chop. They started the swim, I think the water was like 57 degrees, so, you know, not warm.

• 40:33Adam Skolnick?

  No.

• 40:33Rich Roll?

  Jesse's got like-

• 40:34Adam Skolnick?

  Did he have a suit?

• 40:34Rich Roll?

  He's got like a full suit with, he's got the mitts and the booties and the whole thing and like, and they start the swim, but they soon realize like this is not a safe situation, and they call off the swim when I think they're maybe a kilometer, a kilometer or a half into it. But they had to change it from, I think what was a point-to-point to a loop, so that they could monitor everything, and then after the first loop, they're like, we're done. But Jesse had already started his second loop and wasn't aware that they called it, and so there was all this chaos trying to find him and get him out. And then they got everybody out, and then they just said, alright, you have one hour, and we're gonna start the bike portion. So, they didn't end up swimming 6.2 miles, so I suppose there's a bit of an asterisk on all of this.

• 41:17Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 41:18Rich Roll?

  Because, yeah, 6.2 mile swim, if you're not a, you don't have a competitive swimming background, is like, not a joke, and I think that's what distinguishes Ultraman from typical triathlons that cater to the non-swimmer. Like, this one, you actually really have to have an ability there, and it can be meaningful in terms of, you know, whether you're gonna finish the race or not, or how well you're gonna do.

• 41:40Adam Skolnick?

  Because you also, you would get seasick. Like, I've talked to many open water swimmers. I mean, it's almost like a guarantee, if you're not used to it, you will throw up at some point, which impacts the beginning of your bike ride.

• 41:50Rich Roll?

  Right. So Jesse, who doesn't have a background in swimming, was spared a little bit of that, I suppose, but, you know, the drama continued.

• 41:58Adam Skolnick?

  It's a long enough race where everyone gets it.

• 42:00Rich Roll?

  He made it through the 90-mile bike on day one. He looked a little, a little bit beat up, but in okay shape after that. But the day two 171-mile bike almost buried him, and he had to make it, you know, there's, they have time cutoffs, right? So he basically just wanted to like finish before the time cutoff, and he was successful in that. With 15 minutes to spare. So it was touch and go.

• 42:24Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 42:25Rich Roll?

  And there were tons of headwinds. And I think on the second day, there's something like 8,000 feet of climbing. So, you know, a challenging ride and he gets it done and he just looked like hell. I was like, oh, that poor guy, man. He couldn't walk. I mean, he was pretty banged up. And then on day three, his ankle looked like the size of a grapefruit.

• 42:45Adam Skolnick?

  Before starting?

• 42:46Rich Roll?

  Before starting the run.

• 42:47Adam Skolnick?

  Geez.

• 42:48Rich Roll?

  And he suffered through it and finished that run, which had a 12 hour cutoff with 23 minutes to spare. So 11:37. So he completed it. I wonder if some of these Instagram stories are still up here. I guess some of them are here. You can see him. He's in pretty bad shape.

• 43:10Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 43:11Rich Roll?

  His ankle beforehand. That was at the end. So anyway, yeah, these will be gone off of Instagram stories by the time this podcast goes up. But for anybody who went along for the journey, like I was riveted.

• 43:23Adam Skolnick?

  Maybe he'll save it. Maybe he'll save it.

• 43:25Rich Roll?

  I was riveted. I'm sure they'll make some videos out of this. So I'm scrolling back. I'm trying to find, there he is. Here he is, crossing the finish line.

• 43:33Adam Skolnick?

  He's trying to run to it. He can't even run to it.

• 43:36Rich Roll?

  I know. But he did it, man.

• 43:38Adam Skolnick?

  He did it, man. He made it. He made it.

• 43:41Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Anyway.

• 43:43Adam Skolnick?

  There must be so much pain there.

• 43:46Rich Roll?

  Yeah. The race is so much harder than the numbers on a piece of paper. It really is a brutal race. And I'd love to have him back on the podcast and share what this journey was all about.

• 43:55Adam Skolnick?

  You got to. That'll be fun.

• 43:56Rich Roll?

  It's cool. So, congrats to Jesse. We love you. And I love how it was all shared so transparently on social media. I think that's very inspiring for a lot of people, which is really Jesse's greatest gift. Like, he has this ability to get people enthusiastic about doing hard things. And he does that by modeling it in his own life. So are we gonna get to the hard stuff now?

• 44:20Adam Skolnick?

  You mean the dueling existential crises of our time?

• 44:23Rich Roll?

  Explain.

• 44:25Adam Skolnick?

  You know, the light news of the world, Ukraine and apocalyptic flooding in Australia.

• 44:30Rich Roll?

  Right. Climate change versus

• 44:32Adam Skolnick?

  Nuclear.

• 44:33Rich Roll?

  Nuclear annihilation.

• 44:35Adam Skolnick?

  A wink, a wink at nuclear annihilation. Just a wink.

• 44:37Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 44:38Adam Skolnick?

  A throwaway smile at nuclear annihilation.

• 44:41Rich Roll?

  What are your thoughts, Adam?

• 44:43Adam Skolnick?

  My thoughts? I mean, I think people are more interested in what you were thinking as this was unfolding, but my thoughts were, you know, kind of in disbelief. I think as it unfolded, you know, when it first started happening, I thought, okay, just like everybody else, this will be quick. It'll be over quickly and it's sad and but it won't take long because I thought Russia's military might and all that like everybody else. And then I started to see these pictures of these old grizzled vets kind of lining up to sign up for the army. And I started seeing signs of like the gritty Ukrainian people and how they were feeling about it and what they were gonna do. And I thought, wait a second, this might not be so easy.

• 45:23Adam Skolnick?

  But at the same time, when I was worried that if it was easy, it wouldn't just be Ukraine because he was starting to talk about Scandinavia. And he was starting to talk about other places and kind of daring us to get involved and then bringing up the nuclear weapons. And so like everyone else, I thought this could be World War III. You know, I really did think that it could like what happens if China decides to move on Taiwan and all this, like where does this all go? And so I was, I was very highly, highly concerned about the potential for World War III. And so that's how it started for me.

• 45:56Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 45:57Adam Skolnick?

  How about you?

• 45:57Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I would share that. I mean, I'm certainly no geopolitical expert and I don't know that I have a take that's gonna be any different from, you know, anybody who's paying attention to what's going on. But I can share my devastation at this unprovoked aggression that's sacrificing lives. You know, it's surreal that in 2022, one human being like this dictator who's clearly not operating on a completely rational plane can wreak so much havoc and devastation.

• 46:30Rich Roll?

  On the world by dint of like an ego that's out of control. And we're in a very precarious place that, you know, reminds me of what it was like back in the early eighties when I was a kid. I mean, I'm old enough to have lived through a significant portion of the Cold War as a kid growing up in Washington DC where basically politics is all anybody talks about. And it feels similar to that, like this inching towards, you know, an increasingly more alerted DEFCON status and a guy who, you know, has his finger on a, on a button that could cause unimaginable damage. It's frightening. It's scary. And I think, so I think the fear is real.

• 47:15Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, I mean, for Gen Xers, it brings us back to War Games and like Red Dawn and all these kinds of seminal, kind of like, you know, Rocky IV and like, you know, Soviet Union and, and all of that. And for people older than us, it goes back to the Cuban Missile Crisis and all of that. And so it, right away, you know, that's what you're thinking. And then out of that comes this other story that's more like 300, like the Ukrainian people rising up and proving that actually Russia has, doesn't have the best military that you might think. They have a lot of firepower and it's proving out now as they're hammering Kiev today. But they aren't necessarily the, the machine that we feared.

• 47:59Rich Roll?

  Sure. Sure. To your first point, in the list of movies that, that you just spoke about, the one for me is The Day After.

• 48:07Adam Skolnick?

  Right, that one.

• 48:07Rich Roll?

  So this is a Gen X staple, right? If you're my age, like, I remember seeing The Day After. I was probably in ninth or 10th grade. I think it was 1983 when that movie came out, um, which is a chronicle of the weeks leading up to and following a nuclear strike in Kansas. Um, it had like John Lithgow in it and Jason Robards. And this movie was seen by a hundred million people during its initial broadcast. And it was traumatic for me because you essentially see nuclear devastation. And like how this plays out. And I was shook by that. And I still think about that movie because I was at that age where I was very impressionable. And this was kind of going on in current events. So it felt very like real and visceral.

• 48:52Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 48:53Rich Roll?

  And so, yeah, what's going on now kind of evokes that memory on some level. But it is true, like this idea that Russia was going to go in and in two or three days, take Kiev. That Zelensky would flee and they'd install their, you know, puppet government. And of course, that's not what has happened. And we've seen, you know, the world has borne witness to, you know, this guy. I mean, the story of Zelensky is unbelievable, but him kind of shouldering the mantle of leadership in a way that perhaps nobody predicted. And the resilience and determination of the Ukrainian people to fight for their country has been remarkable to witness.

• 49:36Rich Roll?

  And in juxtaposition to a Russian armed force that, that, you know, is kind of unprepared. Like I think

• 49:46Adam Skolnick?

  Unprepared.

• 49:47Rich Roll?

  Huge squads of them weren't even told what they were doing. Like this was some kind of military exercise. And even in Russia now, you can't talk about it being a war. Like that's not how it's characterized. And we can talk about the information war that's going on and the propaganda within, within the boundaries of Russia. But I think the Russian forces were quite surprised to meet the resistance that they've met. And I don't know what the will of the Russian armed forces is to withstand that kind of defense.

• 50:18Adam Skolnick?

  Well, unprepared and underfunded, undersupplied.

• 50:21Rich Roll?

  I mean, they're 18 year old kids who have three days of training and, and, you know, Kalashnikov.

• 50:26Adam Skolnick?

  And eating 10 year old MREs.

• 50:28Rich Roll?

  Yeah, the video of the MREs that expired in 2015 is a window into what's actually going on in Russia versus what Putin would like us to believe.

• 50:37Adam Skolnick?

  The truth is Russia's GDP is the size of Spain. That's not a criticism of Spain or anything like that, but it's not like they are this great power economically, which is why this is happening, right? Because Ukraine has, is a great power. So Russia has, is very rich in natural resources, but Ukraine has figured out a way to serve the technological space, the tech space. They've got minerals that are poised to help in this new energy economy that's emerging, whereas Russia has the stuff of the old energy economy. Ukraine is, has, combined with Russia, a third of the wheat is supplied, globally is supplied from Ukraine. I think a third of EU's wheat just comes from Ukraine alone. And Russia

• 51:22Adam Skolnick?

  and Ukraine combines a third of the entire global wheat supply. So Ukraine is very strategic. There's a reason he's going after Ukraine. There is not an easy way out of Ukraine. So that's to your point of saying like, how gritty, how incredible these people are in Zelensky as a leader who is Churchillian. You know, I remember during, you know, the summer of 2020 and 2021, you couldn't even, Churchill was on the verge of getting canceled. And now we're using Churchillian to describe Zelensky, and rightfully so.

• 51:54Rich Roll?

  And Biden is being criticized as being more Chamberlainian.

• 51:58Adam Skolnick?

  But he's not really, though. I mean, Chamberlain was like, meeting and hanging out with Hitler. And that's not what Biden is doing.

• 52:06Rich Roll?

  No. But of course, I mean, I think also to the point of being Gen X, you know, I'm used to and grew up in an era where whenever the United States found itself in some kind of conflict, it would be the Republicans in their hawkish disposition saying that the Democrats aren't acting swiftly enough, we need to be more aggressive, we need to, you know, basically ramp up the military. And what we're seeing now is a mirror image of that, this weird inversion of that, where the administration is trying to figure out the appropriate response that's not going to overly, you know, incite Russia to do something rash. Where is that balance?

• 52:49Rich Roll?

  And we can have a conversation around that and what that might look like and whether or not they're succeeding at that. But it is bizarre to see certain facets of the Republican Party or the alt-right kind of detouring into ostensibly like Putin apology.

• 53:07Adam Skolnick?

  It's absolutely nuts. Like the most anti-Soviet people were always the Republicans. Reagan made a living off of it. Bush too. And the Bush one.

• 53:19Rich Roll?

  The military industrial complex was built off the back of being against Russia.

• 53:25Adam Skolnick?

  Right. And so, 100%. And then you look at it and at first, I think the Republicans have switched their tune now. I think they're going.

• 53:36Rich Roll?

  Those people have kind of gone silent.

• 53:38Adam Skolnick?

  They've gone silent. But at first, you had Tucker Carlson like basically saying, what has Putin done that's so bad?

• 53:44Rich Roll?

  He's never done anything to me.

• 53:46Adam Skolnick?

  He's never called me a racist.

• 53:47Rich Roll?

  And this idea, like the fandom of him because of anti-woke-ism or whatever is just is a very strange thing. Like this model of toxic masculinity that is so attractive for a certain archetype of person is bizarre. And yeah, that's, that whole sentiment has kind of gone dark because the world is united in support of Ukraine right now. And, you know, it's pretty obvious that Putin's out of control. And when was the last time that the entire EU like agreed on any one singular thing? Like sanctions being essentially a unanimous, you know, a unanimous strategic weapon at the moment?

• 54:32Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, that's interesting. Two things I wanted to bring up. You said toxic masculinity. I'd like to point out that Vladimir Putin rides a tricycle, a motorized tricycle. This has been my mission. As soon as the invasion started, I've been telling everyone, I want to make it very clear, Google it, Vladimir Putin.

• 54:49Rich Roll?

  I haven't seen that.

• 54:50Adam Skolnick?

  Rides a tricycle. He's a grown-up man who rides a tricycle. There you go. And maybe that's why he's invading Ukraine. The second thing is that I noticed at the beginning. Was like how fragile it all is. That's what I also thought of because.

• 55:06Rich Roll?

  Well, that's what makes it so terrifying.

• 55:07Adam Skolnick?

  Right. Cause I have a, I have a, a friend, a negro mayor. He's a great freedivory based out of Tahiti, but he was training in Egypt, then he stopped and saw friends in Kyiv about three weeks before all this happened. And he was literally going out bowling. I was talking to him on the phone. He was bowling with his friends, having drinks in Kyiv and saying what a wonderful city it is. And they were all like carefree, like, I mean, they were, they were chilling. And, uh, and then three weeks later, everyone's terrified. The whole place is falling apart. It just shows you how fragile, like what would happen to us? How fragile is, is our situation? You know, like it's all so fragile.

• 55:42Rich Roll?

  Much more fragile than we think.

• 55:44Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 55:45Rich Roll?

  Of course.

• 55:45Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 55:45Rich Roll?

  Right?

• 55:46Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 55:48Rich Roll?

  This is the first legitimate war armed conflict that is playing out on social media. So I want to talk about the information aspects of that because I find that fascinating. But before we do that, can we just talk a minute about like the kind of meta simulation theory quality to all of this as well? Starting with Zelensky.

• 56:06Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 56:07Rich Roll?

  I mean, it's unbelievable.

• 56:08Adam Skolnick?

  Volodymyr Zelensky.

• 56:10Rich Roll?

  Comedian, actor. He was on Dancing with the Stars. I mean, he's certainly a showman. But the meta nature of his career trajectory is fascinating in that, you know, he's this guy who created the sitcom that he starred in, where he's a high school teacher who goes on a political rant that's filmed by one of the students. That goes viral and he ends up president. Like that's the narrative. It's like the West Wing meets Veep or something like that. This is the show, which was really popular. Interestingly, uh, he, you know, he, his first language is Russian, right? And I, I think there's something about the, the kind of integration between Ukraine and Russia

• 56:52Rich Roll?

  that makes this even more complicated because every, millions of people in Ukraine have relatives and friends and et cetera that live in Russia and vice versa.

• 57:02Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 57:03Rich Roll?

  That makes this tricky. But then, you know, for him to become the president and for Vitaly Klitschko, the multiple world heavyweight champion boxer, to be mayor of Kyiv, the fact that Louis CK was meant to be playing a show in Kyiv, like, the second night of the, you know, of the invasion. It turns out he was never in Kyiv, I guess.

• 57:25Adam Skolnick?

  No, he didn't make it.

• 57:26Rich Roll?

  But all of this makes it very strange, right?

• 57:28Adam Skolnick?

  He's not, he shouldn't be on that list. He's not one of those guys.

• 57:31Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I know.

• 57:32Adam Skolnick?

  Klitschko is, Klitschko is gonna put on a gun at some point. He's gonna go full, go full Rambo, I think, at some point.

• 57:38Rich Roll?

  And the juxtaposition of seeing those images of Putin where he's sitting at the end of a super-long table, or at the end of one big, kind of, atrium, and his advisers are literally 50 feet away from him, versus Zelensky, who's in a t-shirt and he's literally doing selfie videos, speaking directly to not just his people, but to the world, in this un, you know, unedited, you know, kind of, unfiltered way, and standing his ground and saying, "This is what we're doing," I mean, is, is, is so fascinating and, and potent.

• 58:15Adam Skolnick?

  He is, and, and, he's saying it, he's dropping one-liners like, "I don't need a ride, I need weapons," or, or, you know, "To be or not to be, that is the question, and for us, let me answer it to parliament in England," you know, it is to be a great line, and, and it, you know, I'd like to say also, he is Jewish, and that matters, because the lie that Putin was telling everybody was that Ukraine had been taken over by Nazis. I mean, this is all stuff I'm sure a lot of your listeners already know, but if you, if you, if you don't, if you're not following it, not everyone's following it as closely. So, that's a lie that they used, an excuse they used to, to sell this invasion. Like, we sold the Iraq invasion with the new, you know, weapons of mass destruction.

• 58:59Adam Skolnick?

  There Nazis have taken over Ukraine, when in reality, you know, Zelensky is the offspring of the, of a sole survivor from a family that was murdered in the Holocaust from Ukraine. The sole, he's the descendant of a sole survivor. And he, he's now president and he's, he's wearing this mantle. And, and also it matters because the, that's why I was, we were joking last week that I was gonna, you know, share this business idea called Dial a Jew. If you, if you or your, if you or your friends come across somebody who is trying to use, you know, the Nazi argument or say something about Nazis in the service of some-

• 59:43Rich Roll?

  Call a Jew first.

• 59:44Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, call a Jew.

• 59:45Rich Roll?

  Have them walk you through it.

• 59:46Adam Skolnick?

  Dial us, we'll walk you through the, what your talking points, making sure you got it. And so the reason that I was gonna make that joke, although maybe some people think it's in poor taste, I was gonna make the joke in relation to some of these vaccine requirement people that are using the Nazi comparison or the Holocaust comparison. But it matters because when you use it in, in a, even in a comparison like, like the vaccine thing, which is absurd, it then makes it easier to use it in another way that's absurd. And to use it in this way is the most absurd we've seen yet, but it didn't start there.

• 1:00:19Rich Roll?

  Definitely the most preposterous.

• 1:00:20Adam Skolnick?

  It's the most preposterous, but it didn't start there. The reason he's able to do that is because it's been used too many times before. It's been used in situations even on the left, using it to, to paint Trump as a Hitler character when he's not. So it's like, it, it's used on both sides too often, and then you create this situation where the, the Jewish president of Ukraine, the sole survivor, is called the, the lead Nazi.

• 1:00:43Rich Roll?

  Right. The idea that we must unseat this Nazi regime in Ukraine, and this is a just, you know, infiltration of this country begs the larger, you know, conversation around, is it even possible to have an iron curtain of information in 2022, which is what he's trying to achieve.

• 1:01:02Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:02Rich Roll?

  There was a great episode of The Daily today. Did you listen to-

• 1:01:06Adam Skolnick?

  I did not.

• 1:01:07Rich Roll?

  The one today?

• 1:01:07Adam Skolnick?

  No.

• 1:01:08Rich Roll?

  So it's all about the disinformation propaganda war. And it's told through the story of, of a guy in Ukraine.

• 1:01:18Rich Roll?

  Who hadn't heard from his dad, who lives in Russia. Like, they're like, you know, I don't know, seven, 10 days into the conflict. His dad hasn't called. He's like, "Why, why wouldn't my dad call me to see if I'm okay?" So he calls up his dad. And he's like, "Dad, you know, like, just so you know, here's what's going on. We're getting bombed and all this stuff." And his dad just says, "No, no, no, no. Let me tell you what's going on." And he just parroted the propaganda lie about unseating the Nazis, right? Right, right. And, you know, his dad being an older guy. Right. Has bought into... Yeah, he did his own research, right? Yes, yes. So he bought into the propaganda lie. And it's fascinating, the extent to which you can win hearts and minds with state-controlled media.

• 1:02:02Rich Roll?

  But how does that play out in a social media-infused global community? So we've seen Russia shut down Facebook, shut down Twitter. I believe I read the other day that today, Monday, they're going to shut down Instagram as well, which 80 million people, young people in Russia, use for communicating. I'd read a story that I can't verify, and I don't have the article in front of me right now, but that FSB agents were going to the homes of tech executives from Google and places like that to either intimidate them or imprison them. So the war against an open journalistic ecosystem is very much for real. But if you're in your 20s and you're getting your hands on VPNs,

• 1:02:46Rich Roll?

  or you know people that live in the West like this, you can't keep it out on some level. But you can for a period of time. You can, but it's gonna, it's gonna be, there's gonna be a demographic split. It's gonna be the older people, like this guy's dad, who's getting his information from RT and VK, and the young people who rely on Snapchat and Instagram and all these other platforms, where they're getting a more unmoderated, unfiltered version that the rest of the world is exposed to. And, and the fact that we've seen these protests of people pouring out into the streets in Moscow and the like, knowing that they will be arrested for that and doing it anyway,

• 1:03:28Rich Roll?

  shows, you know, the extent to which this is an unpopular war, or even within Russia. And then the question becomes, does that matter to Putin? Or at what point does Russian unrest with this decision that Putin has made become...

• 1:03:45Rich Roll?

  A substantive factor in how he's making decisions, or does he not care? At some point, that balance tips and he has to take that into consideration.

• 1:03:57Adam Skolnick?

  It could take years, though, for like the drumbeat on the streets, right? It's gonna take a mass casualties like it took a decade in Afghanistan, I think, for them. And it took them taking on mass, mass casualties. It could, it could take that. To your point about Instagram, I was messaging with Alexei Molchanov, the great freediver, champion, world champion. And we were talking and he, you know, he was basically sad about everything and I was just checking in on him and of course, expected that. I feel bad for these great Russian friends of mine and athletes and that want no part of any, anything political. And, you know, Alexei's a businessman, he wants his business going.

• 1:04:40Adam Skolnick?

  And I said, you know, I said, I said, do you have an international home for your business? He does, so, you know, he's probably taking care of.

• 1:04:48Rich Roll?

  Is it on his $600 million yacht parked in the Maldives right now?

• 1:04:51Adam Skolnick?

  He's not one of those guys.

• 1:04:53Rich Roll?

  You know that guy on Twitter who tracks all the super yachts and where they are at all times? Super interesting.

• 1:04:58Adam Skolnick?

  There's one guy, the one I think they found in the.

• 1:05:00Rich Roll?

  They found Putin's.

• 1:05:01Adam Skolnick?

  They found Putin's, right, yeah.

• 1:05:03Rich Roll?

  Yeah, and it's interesting to pay attention to the oligarchs and whether like their perspective on this becomes meaningful for Putin. You know, I mean, he basically created all of these people and empowered them.

• 1:05:17Adam Skolnick?

  So, word about that, so I've, I've looked into some of this. So the oligarchs, the ones that we talk about when we say the oligarchs, like Roman Abramovich, I think, is the guy that owns the Chelsea Football Club.

• 1:05:28Rich Roll?

  Not anymore.

• 1:05:28Adam Skolnick?

  Not anymore.

• 1:05:30Rich Roll?

  Was it Chelsea or Manchester?

• 1:05:32Adam Skolnick?

  Chelsea.

• 1:05:32Rich Roll?

  Chelsea.

• 1:05:33Adam Skolnick?

  So, basically what, what happened was Yeltsin sold off the goods, right? Yeltsin sold off the goods to people he was connected to. Those people bought, and by the goods means, natural resources. They bid on natural resources, bid on real estate, whatever it is that the state owned. They paid peanuts for it, they got it. They end up becoming wealth, like oligarchs overnight. Putin. Uh, when he came in, he didn't do, he didn't oversee that, but he basically made it, made it legal. He basically came in and prop, and tidied up that whole thing and said, okay, you guys have it now. And I, I'm gonna make, cause Yeltsin was a bit of a mess, right? And so I'm gonna make this look tidier.

• 1:06:17Adam Skolnick?

  Um, and so he enabled them in certain ways, but he didn't sell them the goods. Uh, I think that's important, just in, in a point of information.

• 1:06:25Rich Roll?

  Right, but that, that engendered a loyalism.

• 1:06:28Adam Skolnick?

  For sure.

• 1:06:28Rich Roll?

  You know, so they, they know that their largesse is a result of, of Putin, right? So there's an allegiance there, but how tenuous is that allegiance? And how important is the tenuous nature of that allegiance, should that come to pass? Um, Scott Galloway on the Pivot Podcast that he does with Kara Swisher, Scott being a professor of business at NYU and like a, you know, he's a very interesting thinker, basically just said if, he doesn't think that the oligarchs will be problematic because of that loyalism, but at some point, if it becomes a challenge for Putin, he can just take it all back and nationalize everything and then dole it back out to the loyalists at some point. So he always holds that trump card.

• 1:07:11Adam Skolnick?

  That's probably what, more than loyalty, that's probably what keeps them, uh, from speaking out too vociferously. And, and you know, thinking about the World War III thing, it's funny that, you know, we all know the reason World War II was won by the Allies, um, isn't just because the US, uh, stepped in, it was also because Russia helped defeat the Nazis, right? They burned down their own towns to starve out the, the German army. Um, and when this was all happening, I always thought in the back of my mind, if this really did get to a place where World War III is possible, I bet China becomes the unlikely ally. Cause Russia was not an ally of the United States going into World War II, you know, right?

• 1:07:54Adam Skolnick?

  Nobody, nobody, you know, no, the United States government was really stoked with the new socialist empire that was growing on, in, in close, so close to Europe. Uh, so, you know, would China play a role of, cause China wants things stable?

• 1:08:09Rich Roll?

  Sure, but their allegiance right now to Russia is deeply concerning. And I think the question is, and the uncertainty revolves around how substantive that allegiance is.

• 1:08:22Adam Skolnick?

  I don't think-

• 1:08:23Rich Roll?

  And I think the fact that Russia is, you know, you could make the argument that Russia is losing this war right now.

• 1:08:28Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, right.

• 1:08:29Rich Roll?

  And that's gotta make China think like, are we backing the right horse? Or maybe we kind of slowly step back from this.

• 1:08:36Adam Skolnick?

  I think that's what's gonna happen. And I think that, but I do think China is in a good position to actually help end it. You know, if there is an off-ramp for Russia, for Putin, it's via China.

• 1:08:49Rich Roll?

  Yeah, the off-ramp conversation is interesting.

• 1:08:53Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:54Rich Roll?

  Because there's certainly the argument that, you know, in order to resolve this as quickly and as, you know, safely as possible, we have to provide Putin with a way to save face and to get out of this without, you know, looking like he was the colossal failure that he is in this instance, right?

• 1:09:16Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 1:09:16Rich Roll?

  So how do you do that?

• 1:09:17Adam Skolnick?

  I don't think you can.

• 1:09:18Rich Roll?

  You can't. And, you know, I listened to another podcast between Sam Harrison and Garry Kasparov, the world chess champion-

• 1:09:27Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 1:09:28Rich Roll?

  Who's become this advocate for democracy and is on Twitter, you know, basically tweeting all day about this situation.

• 1:09:35Adam Skolnick?

  Where's he live?

• 1:09:35Rich Roll?

  He's been taught, I don't know where he lives, but, I mean, he's been, you know, decrying the ills of Putin forever.

• 1:09:40Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 1:09:40Rich Roll?

  Right? And so he has a very interesting lens on this. As somebody who was successful in Russia, saw the rise of Putin and has been, you know, decrying, sort of calling out like, hey, this is where we're headed, like in a, in a, in a sort of Cassandra way for a very long time. And his whole thing is that like sanctions are too little, too late. Like sanctions could have been more effective prior to the invasion, but now that the invasion is underway, if there's tanks rolling and planes flying, like sanctions doesn't, you know, arrest that. And he's calling for, he's one of the few people who's calling for a no-fly zone. And he was kind of articulating that argument. Now, I don't know that I think that's, that's the right idea here, but he's basically saying

• 1:10:24Rich Roll?

  like, this is like a cancer and, you know, you gotta just, you gotta, you gotta like, take it out. You gotta like-

• 1:10:32Adam Skolnick?

  So

• 1:10:33Rich Roll?

  The scalpel in there and cut the whole thing out in order to address it.

• 1:10:37Adam Skolnick?

  Two things, sanctions, sanctions, there's an argument that sanctions never work. They never did work, they never will work. They make the masses suffer, the people in power don't suffer. They don't, they're not suffering, they might suffer on the balance sheet, but they're not suffering.

• 1:10:49Rich Roll?

  But once the masses suffer enough, that becomes untenable for a government.

• 1:10:53Adam Skolnick?

  Well, the argument is to make the masses suffer to the point where they rebel, right? And that's, it is a brutal, it is a brutal game to play the sanctions game. You make the masses suffer, but what ends up happening is instead of the people rising up too often, it increases domestic authoritarianism. And Iran is the greatest example of that. Iran, sanctions has not worked toppling this Iranian regime that is not democratic in any way. And there's plenty of people that would like that, that to not be a theocratic dictatorship that live in Iran, the Green Party, just like there's plenty of people in Russia, the opposition party that, that majority wants Putin out, doesn't work.

• 1:11:33Adam Skolnick?

  So I'm not saying to, to not do it because it is kind of, it has been instructive to see how quickly, like the global community has siphoned up and, and crunched Russia economically. I never saw that coming. I didn't think it would have that impact. I don't think we've ever seen an economic sanctions, I guess, cascade of sanctions quite like this in our lives.

• 1:11:56Rich Roll?

  Well, yeah, because the world is so much more interconnected now. So when payment systems go offline in Russia and Samsung is no longer sending, you know, it's like, everything that they manufacture in Russia is built on parts that come externally. And when you, when you shut down the import, export with Russia, they can't, they can't do anything. So I think that the effect will be more dramatic in the short term than it has perhaps historically in, in other sanctions scenarios in the past.

• 1:12:29Adam Skolnick?

  Yes. And then as to whether we should impose a no-fly zone, basically that would be the beginning of World War III, right? That would be, because if you, if you shoot down a Russian plane and you're Ukrainian, that's one thing. If you shoot down a Russian plane and you're a United States Navy or Air Force pilot, that's a whole different thing.

• 1:12:48Rich Roll?

  It's weird how diplomacy works that way, because these are subtle differences. Like if we, if, if.

• 1:12:56Rich Roll?

  You know, if we get aircraft from Poland and then provide it to the Ukrainians, ostensibly, the result is similar, but if we have a no-fly zone, then we're just one step closer to being a direct participant in this.

• 1:13:12Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 1:13:12Rich Roll?

  But it's somewhat semantics.

• 1:13:14Adam Skolnick?

  But we already are, right? Right, right. We already are to some degree.

• 1:13:17Rich Roll?

  And that goes to the point you were making earlier about the fragile, delicate nature of all of this.

• 1:13:22Adam Skolnick?

  Right, because this is a crazy person. Would he push a button even though it would be annihilation on his part? Would he? Like, would he? I mean, would he? So, you know, you wonder. But you have to wonder, and you have to be very careful there. So, I don't say it's chivaline. I understand why Ukrainians want the no-fly zone. I get it.

• 1:13:41Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:13:42Adam Skolnick?

  We should, I think, at least give them what they need to impose their own, at the very least. It's interesting, there's some stories coming out of here that show you the beauty of humanity. We talked about Zelensky, we talked about the grit of, you know, people like Klitschko, but just in generally, the Ukrainian people.

• 1:14:01Rich Roll?

  And like farmers, you know, getting tanks and driving them away, like, all these crazy stories that, you know, we're seeing play out on social media.

• 1:14:09Adam Skolnick?

  Roman Matyuta, the Ukrainian actor, who's like, literally just filmed a movie about being an actor, you know, being an actor, and then Russia invading, and then having to join the army, and this is him. It actually happened. He just filmed the movie. The movie's out on Amazon Prime, I guess.

• 1:14:31Rich Roll?

  Again, this meta weird nature of this whole thing.

• 1:14:34Adam Skolnick?

  I actually reached out to his PR guy, his PR woman. I did, I tried to get him, I tried to get some quotes from him. Couldn't be reached because he's in the army now, is what she said.

• 1:14:43Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:14:44Adam Skolnick?

  But she has a heavy metal band she wants to hook me up with. A Ukrainian heavy metal band.

• 1:14:48Rich Roll?

  Yeah, so here's a, if you're watching on YouTube, we pulled up a post of him. So is that him in his garb?

• 1:14:54Adam Skolnick?

  That's Holly McKay's, that's, we talked about her before when she was reporting in Afghanistan. She's in Ukraine now. That's where I got it, yeah.

• 1:15:02Rich Roll?

  But in the garb that he's, that Roman's wearing here, is that his costume from the movie? Or is that him armed and ready to?

• 1:15:10Adam Skolnick?

  My understanding, I haven't communicated with her about this post, but my understanding is she took that picture when she was reporting in Kiev.

• 1:15:17Rich Roll?

  And here's his actual Instagram account. He only has 715 followers.

• 1:15:22Adam Skolnick?

  Bro, don't, don't.

• 1:15:23Rich Roll?

  Come on.

• 1:15:24Adam Skolnick?

  Come on, don't. Social media shame. It's off, it's off.

• 1:15:26Rich Roll?

  No, what I'm saying is that like, what, this story is unbelievable.

• 1:15:30Adam Skolnick?

  I understand.

• 1:15:30Rich Roll?

  So, anyway.

• 1:15:31Adam Skolnick?

  But look at, look at his, look.

• 1:15:35Adam Skolnick?

  Wouldn't you want to read one of those?

• 1:15:36Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:37Adam Skolnick?

  Look at it. He's on vacation. How many, how many weeks ago was he on vacation?

• 1:15:40Rich Roll?

  It's so weird how things can change so quick. Oh, right here?

• 1:15:43Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:44Rich Roll?

  Yeah, here he is at the beach.

• 1:15:47Adam Skolnick?

  December?

• 1:15:48Rich Roll?

  I don't know, man.

• 1:15:49Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, December 2021. Um, so I love that story. I hope he's okay, you know, like, really, uh, love to all the Ukrainians, um, enduring this, this debacle and this tragedy. Refugee situation.

• 1:16:05Rich Roll?

  There's like TikToks of like teenage girls in the subway, you know, like where, you know how they're all like down in there for bomb shelter reasons and, and they're like, here's what it's like in the, you know, like TikTok, like here's, here's a day in the life in the, you know, in, in Ukraine right now, in Kiev, in the subway tunnels.

• 1:16:21Adam Skolnick?

  There, there's babies being delivered in subway tunnels. There's, there's, um, there are, uh, what's it called when, when you pay someone to carry your baby for you? I forget.

• 1:16:31Rich Roll?

  Midwife?

• 1:16:32Adam Skolnick?

  No, no, no. Surrogate.

• 1:16:34Rich Roll?

  Yes.

• 1:16:35Adam Skolnick?

  There's apparently a surrogate business and there's 18 newborns that can't be picked up by their parents.

• 1:16:40Rich Roll?

  Oh, my God.

• 1:16:41Adam Skolnick?

  In like a basement in Kiev. Um, you know, there, there, the, uh, there was a great daily, uh, episode on refugees, a couple of, uh, New York Times reporters embedded with refugees leaving the country on their way towards Poland, I believe it was. And, uh, that's really good. I recommend that.

• 1:16:58Rich Roll?

  I listened to that. It was, it was heartbreaking.

• 1:17:00Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, it's unbelievable. Like, these kids carrying their pets.

• 1:17:03Rich Roll?

  Reporter's name, the woman reporter?

• 1:17:05Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, we've, we've read her stuff before.

• 1:17:06Rich Roll?

  She's great. You know, she, she has command of the language and she's talking to everybody and they're, you know, this caravan of people who's trying to get to Poland and all the people that she meets along the way, spending the night in that kindergarten.

• 1:17:19Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, it's, uh, Sabrina Tavarnisi. Yeah, she's fabulous.

• 1:17:23Rich Roll?

  She's doing some amazing reporting.

• 1:17:25Adam Skolnick?

  Fabulous.

• 1:17:25Rich Roll?

  Right now.

• 1:17:26Adam Skolnick?

  Uh, and, and, uh,

• 1:17:29Adam Skolnick?

  You know, even on the other side of it, the stories of all these Ukrainians showing up, two and a half million, I think, have left Ukraine now, people showing up in the train station in Berlin, and thousands of Berliners turning up with, you know, would you like, you know, organized chaos of trying to find people and feed them and house them.

• 1:17:46Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I just read two young kids developed an app to try to help pair refugees with places to stay and homes. So it's those little beautiful silver linings in all of this that give you hope for humanity.

• 1:18:01Adam Skolnick?

  No doubt.

• 1:18:09Rich Roll?

  Do we want to talk about Brittany Griner?

• 1:18:12Adam Skolnick?

  Brittany Griner, WNBA player. She was a great college player, WNBA champion, seven time All-Star, was traveling to Russia for the Russian basketball season. The other women basketball players, as many of you may know, go to Russia to compete because they get paid, you know, five times as much, maybe more, in Russia than they do in the United States. So they go there in the offseason, which is really their primary season, and she went and she got arrested at the airport, picked up, and was charged with a crime of having, I think, like hashish oil cartridges, just like vape pen cartridges.

• 1:18:57Rich Roll?

  Right, vape pen stuff.

• 1:18:58Adam Skolnick?

  But now, there's a lot of people think that you can't really take that seriously, that charge, because it hasn't been proven. And plenty of people are picked up for political reasons in Russia. There's, she's one of 50, I think, that's imprisoned right now, and you can't necessarily believe the charges. And so she's just like in the system over there.

• 1:19:19Rich Roll?

  And there's no update?

• 1:19:20Adam Skolnick?

  No update.

• 1:19:21Rich Roll?

  Since she's been incarcerated. I mean, you just have to imagine.

• 1:19:25Adam Skolnick?

  She's won gold medals for the US.

• 1:19:26Rich Roll?

  It's crazy.

• 1:19:26Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:27Rich Roll?

  I feel like we should be talking about this a little bit more. I mean, obviously, it's one story in the midst of a, you know, tragic. Situation where lots of lives are being sacrificed, but I can't help but think that if, you know, it was Tom Brady or somebody like that, the whole world would be erupting over this.

• 1:19:45Adam Skolnick?

  In this story, um, this is a CNN story by Don Riddle and he interviews, uh, let me see, what's the Iranian journalist, Jason Rezian, um, who was the guy that was in Tehran and was picked up, he'd been there several times before and he was picked up on his last trip and he was held for 544 days. And so, um, Jason doesn't believe these charges at all, doesn't believe they should be repeated. So I probably already committed a faux pas, but, um, just to be very clear on, on the veracity of what's being, the accusation here.

• 1:20:24Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:20:25Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:26Rich Roll?

  Meanwhile, the first American journalist was killed in Ukraine.

• 1:20:29Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:30Rich Roll?

  This guy, Brent Renaud.

• 1:20:31Adam Skolnick?

  Yep.

• 1:20:32Rich Roll?

  Um, so not to be overly American centric about this whole thing, but.

• 1:20:37Adam Skolnick?

  Filmmaker, I think he was working for Time, for Time, doing a documentary on migration, I think it was, if I remember correctly.

• 1:20:48Rich Roll?

  Time Studios, yeah, on the global refugee crisis.

• 1:20:52Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, yeah. And I think the word to be said about the refugees as we get into Brent's work, uh, you know, his work has been lauded, he's won awards, um, and, uh, and people were raving about him and it is, it is very sad and it is part of the, the business, you know, it happens almost every conflict, great journalists are hurt, they put themselves in harm's way, they're called to do it, um, and they do it and, and, and, you know, I've been in a couple of different situations where it could have gone bad for me. I've always adopted the, uh, Idea is only, it's only a good idea if you, if you can get home.

• 1:21:35Adam Skolnick?

  It's only, it's only a good idea if you get home safely, you know?

• 1:21:38Rich Roll?

  But there is, it takes a certain type of individual and a certain type of disposition to be attracted to this kind of work. I mean, this is something that has come up on the podcast when I had Dan Harris on, like being a war correspondent, like there's a rush to that. There's a dopamine charge. And I know, I, you know, I, I'm somebody who would be very attracted to that. Because it's so exciting and you know, you're, you're right in the middle of what the world is talking about.

• 1:22:03Adam Skolnick?

  Yep.

• 1:22:05Rich Roll?

  And that has to be intoxicating and the danger is an aspect of that heightened, you know, allure.

• 1:22:12Adam Skolnick?

  Hundred percent, hundred percent.

• 1:22:13Rich Roll?

  But this is the flip side of that.

• 1:22:15Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 1:22:15Rich Roll?

  Because that danger is real.

• 1:22:17Adam Skolnick?

  It's real and you have no control over it and you put yourself into the situation and, and sometimes you, you want that rush so badly, you make poor choices. I'm not saying that happened here. He was killed, I think at a checkpoint and he didn't do anything wrong or any, it wasn't his fault, so, but.

• 1:22:32Rich Roll?

  But it is being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

• 1:22:34Adam Skolnick?

  Other than just deciding to do the job, which is the job that he wanted and, and that he loved doing. And the thing about it though, that I would say is that, that like, thing I've learned about my, my job is that we always, we do get wrapped up in these stories and we get wrapped up in telling them and we think they're really important and they are, but they also aren't, you know? And, and, and that's what I've learned over the years is like that, there's not one story I've done that is, that you can point to about, that's about a humanitarian crisis that has made any difference in that crisis. And, and I'm not.

• 1:23:12Rich Roll?

  That's a pretty pessimistic perspective.

• 1:23:14Adam Skolnick?

  It's not necessarily being pessimistic, I'm just saying I don't, it doesn't, nothing I've personally done, I'm not criticizing Brent's work or anybody's work. It's just something I've noticed is like, as a journalist looking at this stuff and, um, does it, does the coverage help or not? And it does if you can. Have breaking news that really shows corruption or you can. There's Pulitzer Prize winning reporting on humanitarian crises that do change the world. But most of it is just more noise about war. Most of it.

• 1:23:45Rich Roll?

  Yeah, and I think it's also important to understand that this conflict in Ukraine is not unique. I mean, this, this, there's, there's similar situations going on in Africa and South America.

• 1:23:57Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 1:23:57Rich Roll?

  That don't get the level of attention that this is getting. And obviously, this is an extreme horrible situation. But it's, it, you know, it's important to not just see it in isolation.

• 1:24:09Adam Skolnick?

  Well, right, the refugee crisis is a good example, right? We had, there were an Indian family of four just froze to death in Canada. That was trying to get into the United States, but got dropped, that got screwed by their smuggler. There's, uh, there's, you know, people trying, there's people moving all over the place. The Syrians that are still in camps. Not everybody gets a, a welcome in Berlin. That's not to criticize anybody involved in any of that. I understand why Ukraine has captured the attention of the world. It's not just because of, of a connection to European roots, although that's part of it. But it's also that this is an inspiring kind of group. The Ukrainians have inspired the world in a way that's unique.

• 1:24:53Adam Skolnick?

  And so I think there's, it's hard to decouple those two things, but they, they both are a part of it, I think.

• 1:24:59Rich Roll?

  Quick final thought before we turn our attention to the floods in Australia.

• 1:25:04Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:05Rich Roll?

  Ryan Holiday made this post the other day that I thought was fantastic. He is donating all book sales earnings that he's received over the years from his many books that have come from Russia and Ukraine and donating those proceeds to Ukrainian causes. And this has kind of caused a, um, Other authors to jump in and do the same. Tim Ferriss, Robert Greene, Neil Strauss have followed suit. I don't know that I've ever, I don't think that I have any book sale earnings from Russia and Ukraine because I don't have books that have been published there.

• 1:25:37Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 1:25:38Rich Roll?

  But I wanted to just alert people to that fact and to the extent that there are, you know, I'm gonna email and find out though, because if I do, and figure out a way to contribute, even if I don't, like some other way. But I thought that was really cool. And they've all been posting about it. And I think it's set in motion, you know, this thing where all these other authors are doing the same. People have sold lots of books.

• 1:26:01Adam Skolnick?

  That's cool.

• 1:26:02Rich Roll?

  So that's another kind of cool, hopeful thing.

• 1:26:04Adam Skolnick?

  Of course, now the middle-class Russians can't buy a single book anymore, so.

• 1:26:08Rich Roll?

  No, they're not saying, right, yeah, they can't. The library's open?

• 1:26:13Adam Skolnick?

  [laughing]

• 1:26:14Rich Roll?

  Only for state-approved literature.

• 1:26:17Adam Skolnick?

  Right. You can burn my books for fire.

• 1:26:19Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:26:20Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 1:26:21Rich Roll?

  Let's talk about the floods in Australia.

• 1:26:23Adam Skolnick?

  Second spell of 100-year floods in two years in Queensland. I think the worst of it was, the devastation was on the borderlands between Queensland and New South Wales, correct?

• 1:26:35Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:36Adam Skolnick?

  Thousands homeless, injured, homeless, injured and dead.

• 1:26:38Rich Roll?

  So little coverage of this in the US.

• 1:26:41Adam Skolnick?

  Incredible.

• 1:26:42Rich Roll?

  Unbelievable.

• 1:26:43Adam Skolnick?

  Like, I don't understand it. Well, because the last spate of floods were covered well.

• 1:26:47Rich Roll?

  I mean, these floods, I mean, they're like, you'd see these storefronts that are completely underwater. I mean, 10 feet high, 12 feet high.

• 1:26:54Adam Skolnick?

  Higher. I think there was a McDonald's pole where it was like...

• 1:26:58Rich Roll?

  Only the top was peeking out above it.

• 1:27:00Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:27:01Rich Roll?

  Unbelievable that...

• 1:27:04Adam Skolnick?

  Even Sydney was flooded. Manly was flooded.

• 1:27:06Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:07Adam Skolnick?

  The rains are still going. It is, I think, people were saved. People broke out boats, à la Katrina.

• 1:27:18Rich Roll?

  McFanning was going around on a jet ski.

• 1:27:20Adam Skolnick?

  McFanning and Joel Parkinson, the Russians, they live up there at Tweethead. I think McFanning lives up there. And, yeah, they rescued pets and a pharmacist. There was a story in The Guardian where McFanning, someone, a pharmacist wanted to open her pharmacy, and she lived in Tweethead, she needed a ride in a boat, and McFanning turned up on a jet ski and said... Come on, let's go do it. And then along the way, they had to tow some other boat and they barely made it under an overpass. And, you know, incredible.

• 1:27:51Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I mean, I, you know, feel personally connected to this on some level, just because I've spent time in Byron and my friends and podcast guests, Simon Hill, Ross Edgely, are both in Byron Bay right now. And Ross has sent me some videos from what it, what it actually, because I keep for, because we're, because it gets so little coverage, like it's, you know, we're not being inundated with news about it. We're underestimating just how devastating it is there. And like, what a rough go Australia has had with the fires that were occurring when I was visiting there before the pandemic to these floods. I mean, it's, it's just, it's just devastating.

• 1:28:32Adam Skolnick?

  Two 100 year floods in two years.

• 1:28:34Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:28:35Adam Skolnick?

  That's crazy.

• 1:28:35Rich Roll?

  And, and, you know, we have to talk about the impact of manmade climate change on all of this and the role, like this tool, Scott Morrison.

• 1:28:45Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 1:28:46Rich Roll?

  The PM is, is playing in all of this as this flak for the coal industry.

• 1:28:52Adam Skolnick?

  He is, they call him Scott from marketing over there, because he is like really adept at setting up these really transparent photo shoots, you know, here I am cleaning up graffiti. Here's me with a shovel on that I've never used before.

• 1:29:05Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:29:05Adam Skolnick?

  Here's me with a koala bear.

• 1:29:07Rich Roll?

  But meanwhile, everything he does behind closed doors is to undermine, you know, all the, you know, all the, all the things that are contributing to all of this, like his advancement of coal and fossil fuels and all of that, and essentially being like a bit of a climate denier, right?

• 1:29:23Adam Skolnick?

  Well, he was trying to also open up the Great Australian Bite to oil drilling. Did we talk about that?

• 1:29:28Rich Roll?

  I think maybe we did.

• 1:29:29Adam Skolnick?

  I think I did a story, I did a piece on that for WSL Pure ages ago. And that's how I got connected to Sean Doherty, the longtime surf journalist turned climate environmental preservation champion. And he was heavy involved in saving the Great Australian Bite. There were a bunch of paddle outs to save the bite. The bite is similar to the Gulf of California in that it's this confluence of, of currents that create an incredible ecosystem, you know, several species of whale. Sea lion colonies, tuna, tuna fishery, a lot going on there and incredible fragile and important ecosystem and they wanted to basically drill for oil, explore, explore

• 1:30:11Adam Skolnick?

  for oil in the middle of all this at this time. I mean, like knowing what we know now, it doesn't make any sense. And so he has this great parody account. Basically, he just gives.

• 1:30:22Rich Roll?

  ShaunO888.

• 1:30:24Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, he just gives Scomo.

• 1:30:25Rich Roll?

  I mean, it's just a constant tirade of anti Scomo. We should play this one video that he posted because this is classic. Like, you know, this one, this TikTok.

• 1:30:36Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:30:36Rich Roll?

  Let me start it over.

• 1:30:38Speaker 02

  This is coal. Don't be afraid. Don't be scared. It's coal. It was dug up for over 100 years that Australia has enjoyed an energy competitive advantage.

• 1:30:52Rich Roll?

  For those that are listening, there's just images of floods everywhere.

• 1:30:55Speaker 02

  And it's ensured that Australian industry has been able to remain competitive on a global market. Mr. Speaker, those officers have an ideological, pathological fear of coal. There's no word for coalophobia officially, Mr. Speaker, but that's the malady that afflicts those officers. But it's that malady, Mr. Speaker, that is afflicting the jobs in the towns and the industries and indeed in this country because of their pathological ideological opposition to coal being an important part of our sustainable and more certain energy future. So on this side of the House, Mr. Speaker, you will not find a fear of coal. This is coal.

• 1:31:40Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah. And he went, I think it was during the fires.

• 1:31:44Rich Roll?

  He loves coal.

• 1:31:45Adam Skolnick?

  Two years ago today, during the middle of the bushfire crisis, he went on a family vacation to Hawaii.

• 1:31:49Rich Roll?

  Right, I remember that. I remember that because I was in Australia when that was going on.

• 1:31:52Adam Skolnick?

  He's basically Ted Cruz. He's Ted Cruz without the personality.

• 1:32:00Rich Roll?

  Did you see this article about the snakes and the spiders?

• 1:32:06Adam Skolnick?

  I did.

• 1:32:08Rich Roll?

  Some of these articles are behind paywalls and stuff like that, but basically, you know, as the floodwaters start to recede, Australia is known for its predatory reptiles.

• 1:32:17Adam Skolnick?

  Yes, yes.

• 1:32:18Rich Roll?

  And of course.

• 1:32:18Adam Skolnick?

  They're going everywhere.

• 1:32:19Rich Roll?

  They're coming out, you know?

• 1:32:21Adam Skolnick?

  They're here to party.

• 1:32:22Rich Roll?

  Exactly. So what did it say? Like?

• 1:32:26Adam Skolnick?

  I think you had pythons, venomous red bellied snakes and eastern browns. The second most lethal on the planet after the inland taipan, also an Australian species, are on the move after floods across the populous east forced them from their lowland hideouts.

• 1:32:41Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's awful. There was also this, it's another article that's behind a paywall, but on Instagram you can kind of see the Saturday paper, front page image of, you know, this guy.

• 1:32:52Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:53Rich Roll?

  And he's talking about a baby and his parents buried almost neck deep in mud.

• 1:33:00Adam Skolnick?

  But they got, the baby survived, right?

• 1:33:02Rich Roll?

  It's crazy.

• 1:33:03Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:04Rich Roll?

  Nick Fanning also posted some good places to contribute and get involved for those that are interested, this one being, the main one being Give It, G I V I T.

• 1:33:15Adam Skolnick?

  Okay.

• 1:33:17Rich Roll?

  Which he shared about on his Instagram. I reposted this the other day.

• 1:33:22Adam Skolnick?

  And I think people were giving in Ukraine, weren't they giving Airbnbs? People were like, hiring Airbnbs, like random Airbnbs in Kyiv and just booking it for like a year out or something like that.

• 1:33:34Rich Roll?

  And then just donating it.

• 1:33:36Adam Skolnick?

  Giving the money, like making sure you can pay right away. So they had money. That's another thing people are doing for families.

• 1:33:42Rich Roll?

  Wow, that's cool. All right. Well, why don't we turn to some listener questions?

• 1:33:51Adam Skolnick?

  Well, I just want to say another word about fellow journalists out there. I mean, it's not just the rush from. Being in it, although that's part of it.

• 1:34:00Rich Roll?

  First of all, who's the guy, the travel vlogger guy?

• 1:34:03Adam Skolnick?

  Oh, right.

• 1:34:04Rich Roll?

  Yeah, we forgot to talk about him. What's his name again?

• 1:34:07Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:07Rich Roll?

  I started following him. He is not technically a journalist, right?

• 1:34:11Adam Skolnick?

  Well, he wasn't, he wasn't before all this.

• 1:34:13Rich Roll?

  Right, but he just happened to be there. He happened to be there when this all happened and just sort of stepped up to being somebody who's gonna cover it boots on the ground.

• 1:34:22Adam Skolnick?

  Let me find it. Tyrell, Tyrell J. Starr. Cultural ambassador and travel expert for Ukraine. That's what he was. Uzbekistan and Georgia. I think he's been over there for years. Yoga lover, runner, and he follows, he followed Rich.

• 1:34:38Rich Roll?

  Yeah, so shout out to Tyrell if you're listening to this.

• 1:34:41Adam Skolnick?

  Great work, Tyrell.

• 1:34:41Rich Roll?

  This is like, you know, here he is.

• 1:34:43Adam Skolnick?

  So there's, there's a part of like, what drives us, like, I think it's not just to be the one that gets the story. It's not just to be in the mix and, and it's... When you're a journalist, you see the world, it's like the ultimate way to see the world. You see it at close range, in an intimate way, being accepted and getting the stories from the real local people, and you see it in a way that's different than any other way you can travel. And there's an empathy there that we share, that we, we do care about the people generally that we're reporting on. We do care about the cultures that we're injecting ourselves into.

• 1:35:19Adam Skolnick?

  How could you not? Cause it's not well-paid. It's not, uh, it's not particularly thought of, especially now, in a positive way by the people, by the majority of the public. It's, it's hazardous. And so, I just wanted to say that because I respect all these war correspondents doing, I devour the work. I love it. I think what I was trying to get across was that we should also, when we're putting ourselves into those, I was speaking more for my fellow journalists, when we put ourselves into situations, to make sure we know why we're doing it and to make sure that we're not, we're not trying to make ourselves bigger than, you know, it's not like we go into it thinking it's going to be this big thing that's going to save people. Like, don't do it with some sort of Messiah complex. I don't think he did.

• 1:36:04Adam Skolnick?

  I'm just saying, in my own mind, sometimes that comes up because you're thinking, I'm, I'm doing this for, for you. You know, source or country, but really we do it for ourselves, but we also do it because it's a great way to see the world, a great way to share time with people, really is. And an opportunity for us to express ourselves and to scream and yell and rage and holler and sing, you know, all of that. So I respect everyone out there doing it. And I think this is a great story. Here's a guy that was more of a travel expert, a social media travel guy, who is now like really bringing out some of the more interesting stories that are coming out of Ukraine and he's doing it through Instagram as far as I know.

• 1:36:46Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:36:47Adam Skolnick?

  And so, you know, it's big ups to Terrell J. Starr.

• 1:36:51Rich Roll?

  It is an interesting adventuresome life, though.

• 1:36:56Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, it is.

• 1:36:57Rich Roll?

  You know?

• 1:36:58Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah. It's great.

• 1:37:00Rich Roll?

  And to be able to be boots on the ground, tell stories from a firsthand experience and kind of pursue your curiosity.

• 1:37:07Adam Skolnick?

  Absolutely.

• 1:37:08Rich Roll?

  It's a pretty interesting way to live.

• 1:37:10Adam Skolnick?

  I've had a gun pointed at me in a rough part of Honduras. First story, I've almost been attacked by a mob in Lombok in Indonesia. You know, I've had those moments that have happened. I've been, you know, and I actually remember them fondly. You know, but they're not necessarily easy moments or they're scary and your pulse rate goes down and you just like you're, it's very moment to moment. It's a, it's unlike anything else I've ever felt, really.

• 1:37:44Rich Roll?

  So if you were dispatched to Ukraine right now, what would this story be that you would be pursuing? Like what would, what would, you know, provoke your curiosity? What's the story that you're not hearing about?

• 1:37:57Adam Skolnick?

  Rich, I'm no longer a global traveler that...

• 1:37:59Rich Roll?

  You're pushing a stroller and saying, what's up daddy?

• 1:38:02Adam Skolnick?

  I'm saying, I'm saying, I'm saying, let's rock and roll, gang. That's what I do. You know, you know what? Of all the stories that I've seen come out, I think the refugee story probably is the most interesting that Sabrina did and like hanging out in that, in that aspect of it. I think were I single and not a father right now, would I be, since I actually do have the cash to go over there, there's been the whole periods of time where I couldn't have funded myself. Would I do it? It's an interesting question.

• 1:38:31Rich Roll?

  Yeah, plenty of like, doctors are going to Poland and trying to help refugees on that side of the border.

• 1:38:36Adam Skolnick?

  I I I've tended to be the under-reported story guy. And so when the whole world goes to Ukraine, I probably wouldn't do that because I'm not working. I don't have a connection to daily news editors on on that level. So I typically try to find the under-reported story. But I will say this, like, seeing what's happening in Ukraine, you know, and Russia, we are focused on that. You know, for many years, I covered Burma and Myanmar, and they've had a military dictatorship. They just retook the country, this military did. They've crunched down social media, you can't get on social media. They've kept their foot on the neck of the people for generations.

• 1:39:18Adam Skolnick?

  And and, you know, we've we've done business with them, you used to have business with them. Japan's done business with them this whole time. So it is interesting when you when you've covered other places that have had similar situations and the Burmese have fought back, there's been fighting, I mean, not just the Burmese, but the the different ethnic armies on the in the provinces have fought back against this domination for generations as well. And nobody's given them a bunch of weapons. So when you see that, you do wonder, but at the same time, like, you understand because Ukraine is has has actually managed to cut through all the divisive, polarized bullshit.

• 1:40:00Adam Skolnick?

  And the United States, aside from people that work at Fox News, typically agree that Putin is a bad person and that we should be rooting at least for Ukraine. That's an accomplishment.

• 1:40:11Rich Roll?

  Yeah, yeah. Well, more will be revealed.

• 1:40:17Adam Skolnick?

  More will be revealed.

• 1:40:18Rich Roll?

  And we'll do our best to bring you our perspective, if that's what you want to hear, who knows?

• 1:40:24Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:40:25Rich Roll?

  Do people want to hear us talk about Ukraine? I don't know.

• 1:40:28Adam Skolnick?

  I think we just did Ukraine.

• 1:40:29Rich Roll?

  We just do.

• 1:40:30Adam Skolnick?

  Wait, you want to do Ukraine again and see if we can do it better?

• 1:40:35Rich Roll?

  I'm sure we could.

• 1:40:36Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 1:40:38Rich Roll?

  All right, let's get to the listener questions. We have three listener questions and they all pivot around one theme, for the most part.

• 1:40:45Adam Skolnick?

  They're all sobriety, it's a sobriety theme. Before we get into it, let me ask you a quick question.

• 1:40:52Adam Skolnick?

  What do you think of the psychedelic day spas that are proliferating?

• 1:40:56Rich Roll?

  I didn't know that there were such a thing.

• 1:40:58Adam Skolnick?

  Let's do that story next.

• 1:40:59Rich Roll?

  All right, we can do that next. I have lots of thoughts on this.

• 1:41:01Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, that's important, I think.

• 1:41:04Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I can't answer that in one or two sentences.

• 1:41:06Adam Skolnick?

  No, plus that way I can share about my early experience in the legalized medical marijuana reporting that I was doing years ago.

• 1:41:14Rich Roll?

  I look forward to hearing that. Spas, where are these spas?

• 1:41:18Adam Skolnick?

  Wouldn't you like to know?

• 1:41:20Rich Roll?

  Maybe I shouldn't know.

• 1:41:22Adam Skolnick?

  All right, Julie from Kansas City.

• 1:41:25Speaker 03

  Hi, Richard and Adam. This is Julie from Kansas City. Just wanted to say "tusen tak", which is Norwegian for "a thousand thanks" because that really just expresses the amount of gratitude I have for the podcast. Wanted to take a brief second just to tell my husband, Drew, of how proud I am of him these past handful of years, and it's been the greatest joy of my life to watch his road to recovery. My question is, as our kids are getting older and are starting to enter the tween years, what are some pointers or advice that you

• 1:42:04Speaker 03

  could give us for talking about alcoholism, addiction, sobriety, and recovery with our children? Appreciate you both and hope you have a great day.

• 1:42:16Rich Roll?

  Thank you, Julie. It's a great question. It's a really important question, perhaps one of, if not the, most important thing to be thinking about as a parent as your kids enter these tween and ultimately teenage years. I've been through this myself, and I have lots of opinions about this and thoughts on it. I think it's really important to be honest with your kids and not communicate to them in the way perhaps our parents did, where like it's just drugs are bad. I don't think that really works, this idea of making

• 1:42:56Rich Roll?

  them scared or labeling with judgment what drugs are and what drugs aren't. I think it's much more effective, especially since, so Drew, her husband, is in recovery, right?

• 1:43:07Adam Skolnick?

  Sounds like it, yeah.

• 1:43:08Rich Roll?

  To be transparent about that, to talk openly with your kids about your own history and Drew's history with drugs and alcohol, I think is key.

• 1:43:21Rich Roll?

  And in that, what I mean by that is, you can just talk to them like, on some level, not that they're adults, but you can say, "Look, I understand that you're gonna be faced with temptations. Other kids are gonna be doing this. There is an allure to it. It will, you know, you'll be in a situation where you feel like if you wanna fit in, you're gonna have to do it." And you could talk about like, "When I was doing it, here's what happened to me, and it was great, and I had fun." And this is, you could talk about the positives and the negatives. I think the more open and honest you are, the more trust you engender with your kids.

• 1:43:56Adam Skolnick?

  So you tell, you tell good stories, too?

• 1:43:58Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I mean, Julie has told crazy stories to our kids, about like, stuff that she did when she was really young, like, growing up in Alaska, where she got accidentally dosed with acid and what happened to her. And, and you can kind of talk about it with, you can, you could do it with levity, is what I'm saying. And I think, you know, my perspective has always been, "Look, here's, here's how it started for me, and here's what it did for me, and here's how I think in many ways it like, kind of soothed me, or was, you know, a Band-Aid to this emotional wound that I had, but ultimately, I couldn't control it, and here's what happened as a result." And I've taken my kids to AA meetings, and, you know, they know my whole history, and all my AA, you know, I have lots of AA friends, they come over to the house, they share.

• 1:44:41Rich Roll?

  You know, like, we're all very open about it. And I think it creates a, an environment of permissibility to talk about it, as opposed to it being this voodoo subject that everyone tiptoes around and is scared to talk about, or does it in a very kind of binary, reductive way.

• 1:44:58Adam Skolnick?

  Right. Do you think that's because it's a, it's a foregone conclusion? Kids will experiment, it's the rare kid that doesn't try something?

• 1:45:05Rich Roll?

  Yeah, they're gonna be exposed to it. And if you think otherwise, you're delusional, right? So this is going on all around you. And if you think, you know, "My kid's a good kid, he would never do that," or, you know, "This is not happening with my kid," like, you're not living in reality. Like, this is going on all over the place, all the time. And, and, and to the extent that you have a really good grip on like, what your kid is doing at school all day long. Like I've learned and I've seen in other people like they have their own lives outside of that. And they choose what to share with you and what not to share with you. Which gets to my point about like keeping that channel of communication as open and as honest as possible. In my experience, that's absolutely key.

• 1:45:48Rich Roll?

  And if you just villainize drugs, or you talk down to your kids, or you speak about this subject matter in a very judgmental tone, then they're not going to feel safe or comfortable coming to you to ask you questions about it, or to confess to something that has happened, or to ask for advice about what they should do because this kid did that, and they were in this situation, and they didn't know how to behave.

• 1:46:14Adam Skolnick?

  Plus, if he's only been in recovery for a few years, and they're going to be tweens, they've already seen stuff.

• 1:46:22Rich Roll?

  Certainly, right?

• 1:46:23Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:46:23Rich Roll?

  And it's sort of like, okay, tweens, like, so how old exactly? Like, you do have to, like, they need to be mature enough to be able to... So I'm talking more about, you know, 15, around 14, 15.

• 1:46:36Adam Skolnick?

  You wouldn't start at 11 or 12?

• 1:46:38Rich Roll?

  Well, no, I think it's a different conversation at 11 and 12. You can share your experience, and I would encourage taking the kids to these AA meetings. Like, that's, you know, they get exposed to, they get to absorb kind of the environment. And I think when they're, you know, at open meetings, and they see people get up and share with a level of vulnerability and honesty about their past, and their mishaps, and their foibles, and how they got into trouble, and how they built their lives back up, like, that's impactful on a young mind. And they can see, you know, that roller coaster ride that drugs and alcohol takes people on. And I think also, you need to have a healthy appreciation for the lack of control you're going to be able to exert on these kids as they get older.

• 1:47:22Rich Roll?

  Like, you have to surrender and accept that, you know, you're not going to be able to dictate their decisions when they're at school. Like, you can't be with them 24/7. And these opportunities to drink or use are going to present themselves. Your kid is gonna make a choice. Quite often, you know, kids... Kids make the wrong choice and your job is to provide this safe place for them to process this. You know, I think the kid has to feel like it's their idea, like I want to talk to my parent about this, or I'm going to choose not to use, but it's almost like performing an inception. Like you have to create an environment where it's conducive to them developing like the level of self-efficacy

• 1:48:07Rich Roll?

  and agency in their life where they're going to make that better decision to, you know, to have the gumption and, um, and the sense of self to be able to say no under social pressure.

• 1:48:22Adam Skolnick?

  Right? Yeah.

• 1:48:23Rich Roll?

  It's tough though, man, you know, self-sufficiency, self-efficacy, self-esteem. The more kids feel good about themselves and feel like they have a direction in their life, they're secure in their social environment, they have a belief in their competence and hope for their future, the less likely they're going to be to sacrifice those values or desires for, for that social approval in those tricky situations, but it's tough, man. This is a tough road a hoe. All kids go through this deep desire to fit in. And this is something that, you know, every parent is going to have to confront and navigate with their kids. And I think, but the parents that have the hardest time with it are the ones who think they're not going to have to deal with this.

• 1:49:06Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 1:49:06Rich Roll?

  Because they've parented in a certain way where they're certain that their kid is going to be able to transcend this. And those are the ones who have the biggest comeuppance and it comes as such a surprise to them because they feel like they did everything to prevent it from happening. And, you know, it happens, even when you do that, this stuff comes up.

• 1:49:24Adam Skolnick?

  Well, I think it's, uh, it's very clear in life that the more certain you are about a certain outcome, the more fucked up you're going to be pretty soon, pretty soon after.

• 1:49:32Rich Roll?

  I know. Well, as somebody who's been a parent for a minute and, and has, you know, weathered teen years and, you know, has young adults now and all that kind of stuff. I always sort of chuckle when I meet young parents or parents that are kind of in the situation that you're in. And they're like, here's what we're doing. And they have this whole plan, like here's the school and then we're going to expose the kid to this and he's going to love this. And this is what we're going to plug him into and this is how it's going to play out. And I'm just like, all right, well, we'll see how that goes.

• 1:50:02Rich Roll?

  You know what I mean?

• 1:50:03Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:50:03Rich Roll?

  The more you try to exert that control, and it comes from a place of love.

• 1:50:07Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 1:50:07Rich Roll?

  Every parent wants to see their kid flourish and they want to put them in those environments. And you should be doing all of that, but you have to hold these things lightly and kind of detach from your expectations. And the more you hold on to it, the more of a lesson you're in for, I think.

• 1:50:23Adam Skolnick?

  I think you're right. And to your point about self-esteem being so key, doesn't it help a kid's self-esteem when their parents are being kind of honest and raw with them?

• 1:50:32Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:50:32Adam Skolnick?

  Because it makes them feel like a grown up, right?

• 1:50:34Rich Roll?

  I made these mistakes. Like, you know, I think when parents try to say, I'm the ultimate authority and this is right and this is wrong and you have to do this, kids are very astute because they see the dissonance between what comes out of a parent's mouth and how they actually behave. And that means that you need to align your behavior with your words, but you also have to be honest and transparent about your mistakes and, you know, things that you had to learn the hard way. And I think that creates a relatability and a level of trust that is super important here. And, look, when that situation arises and, you know, you find out that your kid got drunk at a party or, you know, whatever it is, you want them to feel like they can come

• 1:51:17Rich Roll?

  and tell you about that and be honest about it. And you're not going to have to catch them in a lie or discover it some other way because they wouldn't tell you about it.

• 1:51:25Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 1:51:26Rich Roll?

  That's because the communication is shut down and they don't trust you or they don't feel comfortable talking to you about this because they're afraid they're going to be judged.

• 1:51:35Adam Skolnick?

  They could still be sentenced to child labor for a day if you want. I mean, after they got drunk at the party.

• 1:51:39Rich Roll?

  There can be ramifications for this, of course.

• 1:51:42Adam Skolnick?

  Is child labor okay? I mean, I'm new to this, so I just want to know.

• 1:51:45Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I don't know. Child labor in what form?

• 1:51:48Adam Skolnick?

  A sweatshop?

• 1:51:49Rich Roll?

  Moda la, or we're putting you on a plane to...

• 1:51:53Adam Skolnick?

  A Bangladeshi sweatshop?

• 1:51:55Rich Roll?

  Yeah. I would also highly suggest, Julie, that you check out, if you haven't, if you missed it the first time around, the podcast that I did with Jessica Leahy on her book, The Addiction Inoculation. That's episode 593 because we talk about all of this stuff. And if you haven't read that book yet, I would definitely pick that up. She's the boss.

• 1:52:16Adam Skolnick?

  That was a great question. I have to, props to Julie from KC. I love Kansas City, by the way.

• 1:52:22Rich Roll?

  Cool.

• 1:52:23Adam Skolnick?

  Big fan.

• 1:52:25Rich Roll?

  Back to Kansas where the scene of the day after. Did that happen? I think it was Lawrence, Kansas in the movie.

• 1:52:31Adam Skolnick?

  Which is not far from Kansas City. Believe me, if it happened again.

• 1:52:35Rich Roll?

  I just remember there was a swing set, like in, like there's an empty swing set and then the mushroom cloud.

• 1:52:40Adam Skolnick?

  I remember that.

• 1:52:41Rich Roll?

  Do you remember that?

• 1:52:41Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah. It was very haunting.

• 1:52:44Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:52:45Adam Skolnick?

  I have another, well, it's too late. We've already talked about that. We're moving on. We're getting into some really uplifting stuff like sobriety. All right. Nathan from Boston.

• 1:52:56Speaker 04

  Hi, Rich and Adam. This is Nathan from Boston area. So I have four months before I'm going to be admitted to a 30 day program. That's a joint program for alcoholism and anxiety and depression. So my question is this, what advice would you give somebody that knows they need recovery? My friend and my wife have posed this to me and I'm accepting it. But I have four months before I go in and during that four months, I'm starting to wax and wane between completely sobering up and going in as a sober person or giving up and just, and I almost said enjoying the next four months.

• 1:53:40Speaker 04

  But you know what I mean? Spiritually, pragmatically, cognitively, like I'm struggling on so many levels of how to deal with the next four months and I want to make the best of the situation, but it's getting difficult. And so any advice you have is greatly appreciated. Thank you.

• 1:54:02Rich Roll?

  So Nathan, I would say that you are, are suffering from the alcoholic's paradox, right? Like it's the, it's the, it's the, um, it's the two wolves, right? Like which wolf do you feed? So on the one hand, Listen, you know you need to get sober. You've been intervened on. Your friends are telling you, you have, you've got to go. You've relented to this intervention and agreed to go to this treatment center for 30 days. It's not coming up for four months. So, the good devil's like, "Well, you should get sober now, and then when you go, get into treatment, you can really, you know, hit the accelerator and create this amazing foundation of sobriety." But the alcoholic is like, "I got four months."

• 1:54:47Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, four good months.

• 1:54:48Rich Roll?

  It's party time. Like, it's time to really accelerate this thing, right? And I get that. I understand that. Like, "Look, I'm going to treatment in four months. I might as well go out with a bang."

• 1:54:58Adam Skolnick?

  Right. Well, don't a lot of people get high the night before they check in?

• 1:55:01Rich Roll?

  Dude, I did. I showed up on the doorstep of my treatment center completely loaded. Like, I tried to make the most out of that last day. I'm not recommending that. I think that Nathan has an amazing opportunity here, because he's got four months to get sober, so that when he goes to treatment, he can really unpack his shit and create this amazing, you know, foundation for himself. You don't have to wait until treatment to focus on your sobriety. It's been impressed upon you that you are an alcoholic. I gather that you agree with this sentiment. And that elevator's going down. And there's no guarantee that if you decide to drink or use tonight, that you're gonna wake up the next day.

• 1:55:46Rich Roll?

  You could get into a car wreck. You could kill somebody. You could harm yourself. Like, all bets are off. Every time you decide to take that substance into your body, there is a good chance that something terrible is gonna happen in your life. And that's something that you can't control. And as an alcoholic, that's part of the allure. We can romanticize that. But the harsh truth is that you don't have the luxury of, of doing that anymore. And I think this intervention probably has put a damper on how fun that high is gonna be anyway, because every time you drink or use now, in the back of your mind, you're like, "I'm going to treatment. Everybody knows I'm an alcoholic." And the kind of beating up that you do, like, "I'm a piece of shit," and all of that, like,

• 1:56:30Rich Roll?

  "Why can't I stop this?" So...

• 1:56:34Rich Roll?

  Congrats on agreeing to go to treatment. That's huge. But I really, and you know this, like, I'm just reminding you of what you already know. That, that you can lean into your addiction and just say, fuck it, and party down until you have to go. Or you have this amazing opportunity to start taking care of yourself right now. So why would you wait until treatment when you know you need to get sober right now? You do seem to have some level of willingness that you're, you're trying to like, on some level, you're looking for an excuse, right? Like, you know you need to get sober. You know what to do in order to get sober. You go to an AA meeting.

• 1:57:10Adam Skolnick?

  It sounds like he negotiated himself four months.

• 1:57:13Rich Roll?

  Yeah, he's trying to, I think what he wants is for me to say, it's cool. Rock it out for the next four months because you're going to treatment. Or he wants to feel better about that decision that he's already made for himself. And that's not the right decision. Pick up the phone. Find an AA meeting near you. Show up. Raise your hand. Listen. Find somebody you can talk to. Go out for coffee with them. Be honest with them. Find a sponsor. Start getting into the steps now. You don't have to think about this in, in the context of four months. Break it down into what you're doing today. Is your pillow, is your head gonna hit the pillow tonight sober? Or isn't it? What can you control in your exact present moment that is gonna set you up for being

• 1:57:57Rich Roll?

  the, the most sober person you can be when you go to the treatment center? I don't know what else to tell you. I mean, the answer's pretty simple. I think that he already knows the answer to this. So it's a matter of cultivating the willingness to take that action. When the alcoholic is gnawing on the back of your brain, saying, it's okay. You can go out.

• 1:58:17Adam Skolnick?

  One thing he kept-

• 1:58:17Rich Roll?

  You've got four months.

• 1:58:18Adam Skolnick?

  One thing he kept bringing up is how it's enmeshed with anxiety and depression. Does that impact you in any way? Do you have anything to speak to about that?

• 1:58:26Rich Roll?

  Well, it's impossible to, to, you know, first of all, I'm not a psychologist or a psychiatrist, but like, it's very difficult to adequately diagnose somebody's mental well-being if they're drinking and using all the time. The first thing you have to do is dry them out, right? And then see what you're dealing with. But oftentimes, the depression or the anxiety creates a vicious cycle where it's like, the only way out is to use or to escape those, those painful emotions is to use and you get some relief from that. But obviously, ultimately, that is contributing to those conditions. And so, you get yourself caught in this like hamster wheel situation with that. So, yeah, maybe if you get rid of it,

• 1:59:10Rich Roll?

  you stop using, some of those emotions are going to come to the surface and they might be more severe in the short run, which is all the more reason why you need to seek out help for this. Like, don't do this alone. You don't have to do this alone. There are communities of people, ready, willing, and able to help you, who can help instill in you these tools and help you learn how to practice these tools that will alleviate some of that discomfort over time and provide you with the ability to kind of manage your emotional state, free of drugs and alcohol, that is going to be super important in not only getting sober, but ultimately staying sober.

• 1:59:48Adam Skolnick?

  Perfect. Love it. Good luck, Nathan.

• 1:59:51Rich Roll?

  So Nathan, get over yourself this four months. No, no, you know what he knows what he needs to do.

• 1:59:58Adam Skolnick?

  You've been intervened on, Nathan.

• 1:59:59Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Consider this an additional digital intervention.

• 2:00:02Adam Skolnick?

  You've been intervened on twice now, bro. You asked for this. All right. I like this last one. Sounds like Reno meets Tahoe.

• 2:00:14Speaker 05

  Hi, Rick. Hi, Adam. My name is Kate. I live in Reno, Nevada. I am a divorced mom of three boys in my early 30s, and I have a new partner that I am super happy with. I have struggled with drinking for a lot of years. I do lots of like, quote unquote, sober stints. Ninety days, a hundred days, thirty days. But I always seem to come back to this area of trying to moderate. In the last year, I have really put my foot down, trying very hard not to drink. Anyways, I have this awesome new partner. We've been together for about six months now and there are a lot of really great things. He's also divorced, so we came into this looking for very similar things.

• 2:00:59Speaker 05

  Knowing what we didn't do great in past relationships, we have very open communication. We do all the same things. We run and ski and hot spring, a lot of great things. However, he likes to drink a lot, especially on weekends. Uh, we'll be nice and healthy all week and then on the weekends, it's definitely kind of a binge drinking thing. And it's become an issue between us. I can't do that. I don't have the ability to moderate. I know that I either don't drink or I blackout, basically. So it's kind of become this thing between us and I'm wondering if you have any words of wisdom or advice? If a, someone who is really trying to get sober and be sober forever can be with someone who doesn't want to do that.

• 2:01:44Speaker 05

  We have talked about this and he doesn't drink for emotional reasons. He just drinks because he likes to drink or it's not covering up anything. And he doesn't consider his drinking a problem, so he does not want to stop. And it's hard for me to be with someone who wants to do that, even though there's all these other amazing traits about our relationship. Any tidbits would help. Thank you, guys. Love you both. Talk to you later. Bye.

• 2:02:11Rich Roll?

  Oh, Kate, I'm so sympathetic to this predicament. It's a tough one, right?

• 2:02:16Adam Skolnick?

  Hmm. Yeah, definitely. I mean, you, uh, you have, uh, a lot. It's, it's tough, I think, to find, especially when you're a divorced parent. It's tough to find someone that is going to jive with all that and to be connected to them. And then find someone that you really like on top of that. And it's all seems to be working on the surface and then find this

• 2:02:34Rich Roll?

  One thing.

• 2:02:35Adam Skolnick?

  Kind of one thing, right? The six month mark, though, is when these one things start to really shine, don't they?

• 2:02:41Rich Roll?

  Right, right. Yeah, you can kind of present yourself in a certain way for only so long. Until the true self is revealed. So a couple of things here. I mean, first of all, the notion, this idea of, of being able to drink like a gentleman or a gentlewoman.

• 2:02:58Rich Roll?

  In moderation is of course, the great obsession of every alcoholic. Many take that to their grave, like, oh, if I just do it like this, then I'll be able to figure it out. And what's cool is that like Kate has kind of come to this place where she realizes moderation is out. Either you don't drink, or she blacks out. So it's not for me to diagnose whether she's an alcoholic or not. That's for her to diagnose, but I think if she's honest with herself, that she is in a place where she realizes that it's that her relationship with alcohol is problematic, right? So she's endeavoring to be sober and find a way forward with that.

• 2:03:35Adam Skolnick?

  If it wasn't so, this wouldn't bother her.

• 2:03:38Rich Roll?

  Correct, right? If you're not an alcoholic, then you're not, it's

• 2:03:42Adam Skolnick?

  Doesn't bother you if your boyfriend's drinking?

• 2:03:43Rich Roll?

  Yeah, exactly. I do think it wasn't clear whether Kate is getting any kind of outside help for this. So I would encourage Kate that you check out AA, get a program going. And then you have a community of people with whom you can communicate about this problem. At the same time, I think with respect to the challenges you're having with your partner, Al-Anon is where you should be. I think you'll find a lot of help in those rooms in terms of helping you guide yourself through these relationship issues, because it's basically people talking about how they deal with the alcoholics in their lives. And I'm not saying that your boyfriend is an alcoholic or not, but I do think,

• 2:04:28Rich Roll?

  well, first of all, he's an unreliable narrator. For him to say like, I don't drink for emotional reasons, and it's just like I like to do or whatever, like you can't trust that. That's something that every alcoholic would say anyway. But either way, alcoholic or not, you know, what I see or what I hear in what you shared is someone who is resistant to supporting you in this way. Like his refusal to see or to acknowledge that his habits around alcohol are negatively impacting you. And his reluctance to modify his behavior in any way leads me to question just how supportive he is in this relationship. Like he, yeah, you're like, he's awesome, and we like doing all of these things together.

• 2:05:13Rich Roll?

  And it must feel good coming out of a divorce too, as Adam said. Find some, somebody who shares like the kind of activities that you like to do. And it sounds like you guys are on the same page on a lot of stuff. So it's tough, but.

• 2:05:26Rich Roll?

  I think, you know, the thing for you to do is to do a real, honest inventory on what kind of relationship you really want to have. Like, is this person helping you become the person that you aspire to be? And it, you know, it kind of doesn't seem that way, so...

• 2:05:45Adam Skolnick?

  Not based on this message?

• 2:05:46Rich Roll?

  No.

• 2:05:46Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 2:05:47Rich Roll?

  And why would you want to be with somebody who, who isn't willing to be supportive of you in this regard? And why is it so hard for you to have a healthy boundary around this issue? Like, is this a pattern? Have you been in relationships with guys like this in the past? Men who don't adequately support or respect you? And I think, you know, the hard fact, hard truth is, if you really want to be emotionally sober and pursue this sober life, having a partner who likes to go balls out on the weekend really is not a great dynamic. And generally, in my experience, doesn't end up boding well. So either you're going to end up starting to drink again, or this is going to come to a head and you guys are going to have a big fight about this.

• 2:06:31Rich Roll?

  So, that's my big speech. I mean, I think getting sober and staying sober, you know, isn't just about drinking. It's about, it's about, like I said a minute ago, emotional sobriety. And emotional sobriety means developing these tools and practicing these tools to help you develop self-respect, to create healthy boundaries. And ultimately, you know, it means surrounding yourself with like-minded people and having the self-esteem to remove yourself from situations and people who are not in alignment with the kind of emotional stability and support that you frankly deserve in your life. So again, it's hard, it's complicated.

• 2:07:12Rich Roll?

  It doesn't mean that he's a bad person, but you do deserve somebody who really sees you, who understands you, who supports you, and is living a lifestyle that's congruent with the kind of lifestyle you aspire to have for yourself. So, the question really is, is this guy serving that? Or is he, is his presence in your life working at odds with that? And then the final note, I would say, is, is it's not about getting him to change. You know, you, you need to kind of leave that aside and focus on yourself and what do you want and what do you want to change? It's about your own change and it's about valuing that and protecting that.

• 2:07:53Adam Skolnick?

  I think well said, my friend.

• 2:07:57Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, I uh, I don't have much to add, Kate, but I do, I do think, you know, I understand why you're, the good aspects of this relationship too. So I just want to say that I see that and understand why this is a dilemma for you. Because of the good stuff, this thing is a dilemma. If the good stuff wasn't there, it wouldn't be a dilemma at all. So, um, but at the same time, I agree with Rich that, um, that you need to prioritize yourself and your well-being within the relationship. And I think that's hard to do, especially like, she, it sounds like she spends her time in Tahoe and Reno. And it's like, I know, I know that, I know that crowd. And it's like, the, the women want to be chill. They don't want to be, they

• 2:08:42Adam Skolnick?

  don't want to be like controlling women and like hanging out with this, in this, you know, people are skiing and snowboarding. They want to be the chill one. They want to party. And, and I get it. And there's an urge, there's a call to the party around the mountain. I've seen it. I've been there. Um, so I get it. Uh, and I understand that. But you, you know, I, I think Rich has some really good and powerful advice for you. Um, and the other thing I'd say is being Tahoe, being Tahoe, you know, there's a lot of guys. The ratio is in your favor. You know, the ratios in your favor. You don't need me to tell you that. You know very well, the ratio is in your favor.

• 2:09:16Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 2:09:17Adam Skolnick?

  So, uh, no fear.

• 2:09:18Rich Roll?

  Right. Well, best of luck to you, Kate, and, uh, give us an update.

• 2:09:24Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 2:09:25Rich Roll?

  Um, cool. I think we did it.

• 2:09:28Adam Skolnick?

  Should we, uh, have Uncle Jack teach us to meditate on the way out? You know, April, this is how my wife understands me. She was at a bookstore and she just picked up this selected poems.

• 2:09:38Rich Roll?

  Oh, wow.

• 2:09:39Adam Skolnick?

  Not even on the week of his 100th birthday.

• 2:09:41Rich Roll?

  Adam would like this.

• 2:09:43Adam Skolnick?

  That's what she thought.

• 2:09:43Rich Roll?

  I like that. I think you married the right one.

• 2:09:46Adam Skolnick?

  Yes. How to meditate. Lights out. Fall. Hands are collapsed into instantaneous ecstasy, like a shot of heroin or morphine.

• 2:09:58Adam Skolnick?

  Should we stop this?

• 2:09:59Rich Roll?

  I wish that my experience of meditation was that palpable.

• 2:10:03Adam Skolnick?

  The gland inside of my brain discharging the good glad fluid, holy fluid, as I hap down and hold all my body parts down to a dead stop trance, healing all my sicknesses, erasing all, not even the shred of, "I hope you," or a loony balloon left in it, but the mind blank, serene, thoughtless. When a thought comes a springing from afar with its held forth figure of image, you spoof it out, you spuff it out, you fake it, and it fades. And thought never comes. And with joy, you realize for the first time, thinking is just like not thinking. So I don't have to think anymore.

• 2:10:43Rich Roll?

  Beautiful. Spuff it out.

• 2:10:45Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah. I'm sorry for the heroin and morphine reference that seems like a little bit off, but...

• 2:10:51Rich Roll?

  Basically, he's saying like, this is the same thing.

• 2:10:54Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 2:10:54Rich Roll?

  So here's your healthy alternative.

• 2:10:57Adam Skolnick?

  That's it.

• 2:10:57Rich Roll?

  And meditation is right out of the steps, baby.

• 2:11:00Adam Skolnick?

  There you go, baby.

• 2:11:01Rich Roll?

  Way to land the plane, my brother.

• 2:11:03Adam Skolnick?

  It's good to be here. You seem in a better mood. Was this good for you?

• 2:11:06Rich Roll?

  It was good, therapeutic.

• 2:11:08Adam Skolnick?

  Was it good for you?

• 2:11:08Rich Roll?

  It got my mind off of my dadding.

• 2:11:11Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 2:11:12Rich Roll?

  Dilemmas.

• 2:11:13Adam Skolnick?

  You know, you're my dad idol.

• 2:11:15Rich Roll?

  Please. If you saw what goes on in our house, you might think twice about that.

• 2:11:23Rich Roll?

  Set your sights higher, my friend.

• 2:11:25Adam Skolnick?

  Noted, noted.

• 2:11:26Rich Roll?

  No, parenting is, you know, for me, has been this accumulation of experiences where there are these notches in my belt and each little experience that you have, you think you become this better parent and you have a stronger grip on like what to do and what not to do and what to say. And those kind of patterns that you've learned from your parents that you know are not right are less and less frequent. Because if I'm not taking care of myself, I'll react in a way that is the way that one of my parents did that I didn't like. You know, I have to be very conscious. But every time I think, like, I got a handle on this, life throws some crazy curveball situation at me that I've never experienced before.

• 2:12:08Rich Roll?

  And this sort of degree of difficulty continues to like ratchet, unrelenting. And that's the gift, the joy, the challenge of all of it. But it's painful when you, when you have these people in your life that are living in your house and you care for them so much when things don't, you know, like when things don't work out, you're just like, oh, it's so painful to feel, to feel their pain. Anyway, it all goes together.

• 2:12:38Adam Skolnick?

  That's landing the plane right there.

• 2:12:40Rich Roll?

  So we'll be back in a couple of weeks. Until then, you know where to find this guy, at Adam Skolnick on the socials. I'm at Rich Roll, easy to find. Subscribe to the YouTube channel if you haven't already, all the platforms. Skolnick. How do people misspell your last name?

• 2:12:57Adam Skolnick?

  Can I pitch you something for next time before you get into the credits? The Rollies.

• 2:13:02Rich Roll?

  The Rollies.

• 2:13:03Adam Skolnick?

  It's the Oscars. It's Oscar season. We gotta watch the movies.

• 2:13:09Rich Roll?

  I've, I've seen most of them.

• 2:13:10Adam Skolnick?

  All right, The Rollies. Have you seen Drive My Car?

• 2:13:13Rich Roll?

  No.

• 2:13:13Adam Skolnick?

  I have to see that.

• 2:13:14Rich Roll?

  I haven't seen that or Coda.

• 2:13:15Adam Skolnick?

  It's three hours long and it's about someone driving around in a car. It scares me.

• 2:13:20Rich Roll?

  Good, that will be fun. Let's do that.

• 2:13:22Adam Skolnick?

  The Rollies.

• 2:13:23Rich Roll?

  All right, cool. Awesome. If you would like your message considered for us to discuss on the show, leave us a voicemail at 424-235-4626. You can find the show notes and links to everything that we discussed on the episode page at richroll.com. Again, please subscribe to the show if you haven't already on whatever platform you're enjoying this content. And I want to thank the team for all the hard work that they put into creating this show week in, week out. Jason, Blake, Dan, Daniel, AJ, Davey, Georgia, DK, Tyler Trapper, Hari for some music, the theme music. Thanks for the love, you guys. See you back here in a couple of days with another amazing announcement. Until then, peace.

• 2:14:05Adam Skolnick?

  Plans.