Roll On Redux

Roll On is Back! After a 6-month break, my trusty co-pilot Adam Skolnick and I reunite to talk shop and answer your questions. Specific topics include burnout, sabbaticals, the latest in AI, current fitness regimens & favorite movies of 2023 before announcing the release of Voicing Change III and answering listener questions. It’s been too long. We missed you and are delighted to return to your earholes! Show notes + MORE Watch on YouTube Newsletter Sign-Up Today’s Sponsors: Bon Charge: 15% OFF the Sauna Blanket with code RICHROLL 👉boncharge.com Faherty: 20% OFF my favorite styles w/ code RR20 👉fahertybrand.com/richroll AG1: Get a FREE 1-year supply of Vitamin D3+K2 & 5 FREE AG1 Travel Packs 👉 drinkAG1.com/richroll Peak Design: Get 20% OFF backpacks & more 👉peakdesign.com/richroll Eight Sleep: $200 off the Pod 3 Cover 👉Eightsleep.com/richroll On: Get 10% off shoes & more 👉on.com/richroll 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?

  Hey everybody, Roll On is back and it's coming right up, but first.

• 0:07Rich Roll?

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• 0:51Rich Roll?

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• 1:14Rich Roll?

  Hey, everybody. Back to Roll On.

• 1:17Adam Skolnick?

  I can't believe I'm here. It's good to be here.

• 1:19Rich Roll?

  Many tears out in the world from the passionate Roll Oners out there.

• 1:22Adam Skolnick?

  Yes. They're checking on me. They're like, are you okay? What's going on?

• 1:26Rich Roll?

  Is there a rift? See, that's fresh as like a Reddit thread about like, have Rich and Adam had a falling out? Well, all of you people, we heard you. We're here.

• 1:40Rich Roll?

  I do have a little gift for you.

• 1:41Adam Skolnick?

  You do?

• 1:42Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I want to kick this off with a little special something, something.

• 1:45Adam Skolnick?

  How about that?

• 1:45Rich Roll?

  I asked ChatGPT to write a little poem to welcome you back to the show. And I'm gonna read this poem right now. This is what ChatGPT came up with. To Adam, my friend, across waves and words we blend. A bond like ours, no distance can ever end. Six moons have passed, the air without your verse. Today we reunite, our spirits to immerse. Your heart a compass to the ocean's vast embrace. With a scuba mask, not goggles, you trace. The depths where silent stories awake. In the blue expanse, your soul finds its take.

• 2:29Rich Roll?

  A scribe of life's rugged untold tales. With goggins, you've journeyed through storms and gales. Can't hurt me, never finished, your penned might. In each word, your essence, your fight.

• 2:45Rich Roll?

  Adam, my friend, through words and tides we roam. In the vast podcast sea, we found a home. Welcome back to the mic where your stories unfold. Together again, our tales to be told. Let this poem be a gift, a token of my esteem. For the adventures shared and those yet to gleam. With every word, every dive, may you find the joy, the peace, the wonder entwined. That's pretty good.

• 3:16Adam Skolnick?

  That's a good close.

• 3:17Rich Roll?

  What do you think about that?

• 3:17Adam Skolnick?

  I like that.

• 3:18Rich Roll?

  It took a couple iterations and versions. Chat GPT can come to my paddle. I know. That's not bad. I could have passed that off as my own. I should give a quick nod to the guys at Hard Fork because they did a version of this on their show recently, which gave me the idea. So shout out to those guys. I love that show and I love those guys. I also asked Chat GPT to come up with some titles for this poem. The first tranche of these weren't that great. Sort of beneath the surface to Adam, the ocean scribe. Things like that. Echoes of the deep, celebrating Adam's return. And then I said, more Victorian, please.

• 4:00Rich Roll?

  To which it responded, an ode to a seafaring companion in honor of Master Adam's return. And then this one I liked. Ballad of the deep, an homage to Adam, gentleman explorer.

• 4:12Adam Skolnick?

  Oh, how about that?

• 4:14Rich Roll?

  And then I said, more ornate, 16th century.

• 4:16Adam Skolnick?

  More desk bound.

• 4:17Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 4:19Rich Roll?

  Here's one eloquent sonnets dedicated to the illustrious Adam, scribe of the ocean's mysteries and guardian of its lore. I think it's getting a little too nautical.

• 4:30Adam Skolnick?

  Yes, it's getting very drunk.

• 4:31Rich Roll?

  It's confusing freediving and your sort of, you know, joy of watching whales into being some kind of seafaring captain.

• 4:41Rich Roll?

  Long way of welcoming you back.

• 4:42Adam Skolnick?

  Thank you.

• 4:43Rich Roll?

  Good to see you.

• 4:43Adam Skolnick?

  It's good to be here, man.

• 4:45Rich Roll?

  Great to be here. As always, our voicemail number is 805-421-0057. If you want to leave a question on that answering service, that's how you might get it answered here. We're going to answer some questions today. We thought about what our big issues are we're going to talk about today, but we dispensed with that. It's been six months. I think we're just gonna shoot the shit and see how it goes.

• 5:08Adam Skolnick?

  Two guys coming off sabbatical. Don't need to talk about the world's issues. What you learn on sabbatical is to be apathetic. A pathetic.

• 5:21Rich Roll?

  Apathetic.

• 5:22Adam Skolnick?

  May apathy one day.

• 5:23Rich Roll?

  Seafaring Voyager.

• 5:24Adam Skolnick?

  May apathy reign.

• 5:25Rich Roll?

  We both had the luxury of taking some time off. You want to go first? Why don't you check in? What's been going on?

• 5:32Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, you know what? It's been a great, it's been a great year so far, I have to say. Last year, I felt like I was gripping too tight on a number of levels. And it just kind of like, it started off kind of in a groove and then I was gripping a little bit too tight. And it like all sorts of, I don't even want to get into the details, but work stuff, physical stuff, it just kind of backed up on me. And I was really burnt out and we decided April hadn't been home to Australia since before the pandemic.

• 6:01Rich Roll?

  She is Australian.

• 6:03Adam Skolnick?

  She's Australian. She grew up in Sydney. And Zoom had never met April's mother. And so we, you know, we basically just said, let's go. So we took, we were supposed to be like eight or nine weeks turned into almost 10 weeks.

• 6:16Rich Roll?

  Ten weeks.

• 6:17Adam Skolnick?

  We just, we just went, we took the long way. We went through Polynesia. So we went, it was kind of like taking a local train to Australia. We got off in French Polynesia and the Cook Islands. And then it landed in Sydney and spent six weeks in Sydney. And maybe one of those weeks, we were kind of road tripping around New South Wales, but.

• 6:34Rich Roll?

  You saw a lot of different places.

• 6:36Adam Skolnick?

  We did, we did. It was, it was great. It was, it was, it was much needed. But like the Polynesia part, it was the, the winds, the Pacifics were having this crazy winds. And so the winds were howling. And work was kind of chasing me down a little bit in that first, that lot in that first month. And we had to like, we, three flights were canceled. Um, you couldn't go out. We, the whole point was to gotten boats. We went over to see Denis Gromare and, uh, and Tika How. He's the shark, the shark diver that I've spent, that I wrote about and I spent time with. And could barely, you couldn't get Zoom out because it was like 20 knot winds to cross to the dive site. So it was like, we could barely get off the island in some of these places. And we, and it was going to chase us everywhere we

• 7:19Adam Skolnick?

  were going. So we had to revamp everything on the fly. And what we learned in that process, and it kind of continued through to Australia was this idea of pivoting and flowing and, and the winds, although they were kind of, it seemed like first week, it seemed like this trip is fraught, like it's fucked. Like Zuma wasn't enjoying it. It was like this great idea that we'd had and it was like.

• 7:39Rich Roll?

  All going haywire.

• 7:42Adam Skolnick?

  But it turned out the winds were the best thing that could have possibly happened, which is like life, right? Like that year was, was kind of unraveling in a little bit in some ways. Um, not, not bad health problems or anything, but just like annoying shit. And the winds, kind of listening to the winds and letting go was like the greatest gift. And so the beginning of this year, I kind of, when we got back, I clued into more revitalizing my meditation practice, getting more mindfulness, mindfulness, uh, masterclass. Yeah. Tamped into that a little bit. And, um, and have been doing that more, you're sitting every morning. And that has really kind of lit up my life in a positive way and kind of let go. And I feel like, like so much lighter, you know, I really do. Yeah.

• 8:25Rich Roll?

  What was, what is the modality? Like what is the actual practice? What's the, what's the mindfulness stack?

• 8:32Adam Skolnick?

  So

• 8:32Rich Roll?

  That's a

• 8:33Adam Skolnick?

  It's, you know.

• 8:34Rich Roll?

  I say that because, um, you know how like, like Silicon Valley software people always talk about their like stacks, like I guess like if you're coding software, like there's something about you're stacking it or it's like a verbiage that lends itself to that type of work.

• 8:51Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 8:52Rich Roll?

  But what's interesting is that word has now found its way into kind of all aspects of living in Silicon Valley speak. So it's like, what's your fitness stack? What is your supplement stack? Like, what is your, and it?

• 9:04Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 9:04Rich Roll?

  I don't know. It's that annoys, it's kind of annoying.

• 9:06Adam Skolnick?

  It's annoying a little bit, but, but, um, but I know what you mean. It's a good word for this. You know, it's like, sometimes these words work because it's like, there's no other, it's like, they're like efficiency over there. It's a very efficient way of kind of putting it together. And so what I do, it's pretty, you know, I don't have a very dense stack. I still have a three, three and a half year old. He's three and a half today, actually.

• 9:28Rich Roll?

  Oh.

• 9:28Adam Skolnick?

  And, um, he only gets a half birthday every four years. He's August 29th. So it's, yeah.

• 9:34Rich Roll?

  Interesting.

• 9:34Adam Skolnick?

  We're recording this on February 29th, but, um, so it's, I still have, my margins are still small enough to where I have to pick and choose, but for me, it's, it's,

• 9:47Adam Skolnick?

  making sure I get as much yoga in the morning as I can get on preschool days. That, that means no, because I'm, I'm busy in the, in the morning and I don't stretch that morning. But I do get in my yoga on the other days and then I sit once kind of he's fed and we're kind of moving into the later part of the morning, which would be in my, my part, my parlance, 8:30 in the morning.

• 10:09Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 10:10Adam Skolnick?

  I'll, um, I'll go upstairs and kind of sit for 11 minutes and I'll just do silent meditation. And after that, I will, uh, read at least one verse of the, either the Tao Te Ching or the Hua Hu Ching.

• 10:23Rich Roll?

  What is that? I confess, I don't know what that is.

• 10:26Adam Skolnick?

  The Hua Hu Ching. It is like the second Lao Tzu book. So the Tao Te Ching is the original book by the, um, Taoist philosopher Lao Tzu. And that's the most known one. Hua Hu Ching is like the next, the next iteration of that. It's his follow-up, so to speak.

• 10:43Rich Roll?

  Sequel?

• 10:43Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah. And so people ask, I, I, I tend to the Brian Walker.

• 10:47Rich Roll?

  Tao Te Ching 2?

• 10:48Adam Skolnick?

  It's Tao Te Ching 2. I like it, but it's like Terminator 2. It's a little better.

• 10:52Rich Roll?

  Da da ching to Dead Reckoning.

• 10:54Adam Skolnick?

  Exactly. And Brian Walker is the guy I like, the translator I particularly, I like this version, it's just very accessible, it's not so academic. And, um, and so I do that, and then afterwards, I kind of get into work, and then sometimes I'll clue, I'll dial up the Jack Kornfield podcast. So I'm doing that since I've started this, so that's part of the process. Because I love the way he speaks, he's got such an, such an interesting voice, and he's amazing. He's a Buddhist scholar, and he's got a Buddhist retreat center, and he does these Dharma talks. And he still to this day does them. It's a free podcast, you can get on there, and some of the Dharma talks date back to like the, you

• 11:35Adam Skolnick?

  know, the 80s or whatever, when he's starting out. And some of them are more recent Dharma talks. And so, I listened to him. I first got turned on to him through Joe Frank, the great radio guy, who on KCRW used to kind of take clips of Jack Kornfield talks. So, that's it. It's a pretty small stack, but that's all I've been doing. And it's, but the, the key is the meditation has kind of like been a very consistent thing.

• 12:00Rich Roll?

  And when you were away in Australia and traveling, were you attempting to not work? Or were you trying to blend work into the experience of this extended family adventure?

• 12:11Adam Skolnick?

  No, I didn't. I had to work the first month. It was just stuff was coming up, but it was mostly me putting out fires that were raging. So it wasn't like fun work. I did do, I did another pass on a manuscript that I'm, I'm hopefully wrapping up here very soon. And so I did, I did do that. But that was kind of try to get that done, so I could finally get and clue in 100% with the family. So I would say, for the first like three or four weeks, there was a little work in the evenings. And then the last five weeks was nothing. Just kind of let it go. Once I put all the fires out.

• 12:48Rich Roll?

  And what's it like now? What are you working on?

• 12:51Adam Skolnick?

  So right now, I've just been wrapping up this manuscript, a new manuscript that I've been working on since the pandemic started, like before, never finished, I was working on it, and then never finished kind of took over and I set it aside. And then, you know, once that wrapped up, I dove right back into it. And this is like, you know, I love it. I mean, I feel like it's some of the best writing I've ever done.

• 13:14Rich Roll?

  Nice.

• 13:15Adam Skolnick?

  And I'm excited about it. But, you know, we'll be going, going out looking for a publisher soon. And this is kind of the last lap before that.

• 13:22Rich Roll?

  It's exciting.

• 13:23Adam Skolnick?

  It's exciting. But like, it's, I don't know about you, but it's like, all encompassing. And I, when I get to the end of, it's happened before, I can't sleep well. I'm like, I'm, you know, it's all I think about. It's, it wakes me up at night. It's the first thing I think about in the morning. And it, it's not a great place to be. That's why going to Baja for a week just now was amazing. I didn't think about it once. I thought I would, I would, I wouldn't be able to relax, but I, I could. I detached completely. But coming back, it's like been on overdrive because we're right about to cross the finish line.

• 13:55Rich Roll?

  When you're writing a book, it never leaves you.

• 13:57Adam Skolnick?

  No.

• 13:58Rich Roll?

  It's just always hanging over you all the time. And no matter what you're doing, you're thinking about like, the fact that you have to still do this thing.

• 14:05Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 14:06Rich Roll?

  You know?

• 14:06Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 14:07Rich Roll?

  It's a very uncomfortable feeling.

• 14:08Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 14:08Rich Roll?

  Like, it's a good feeling because you feel called to it. But it's not without its kind of anxiety-producing challenges.

• 14:16Adam Skolnick?

  No, you're, you're, you're doing it now, right? So it's like, it's, the first section, you're always thinking about it from the beginning. But at first, it's kind of, it's kind of fun thinking about it. Yeah, you might wake up and you just make a note, you can go back to sleep. At the end, it's like, haywire brain for me. Like, at the very end, it's like, life, it just takes over my life. And it's such a, it's like an alien invasion of my mind.

• 14:42Rich Roll?

  Yeah, you can't just, you know, this idea that you're gonna work on it in two-hour increments every day or something like that is, that's, I mean, maybe some people can do that. Some people are wired that way. For me, you have to really become totally immersed in it. And the world has to kind of go away in order to really sink into the kind of deep. Thinking and imagination and creativity that it demands. I just don't know any other way to do it.

• 15:11Adam Skolnick?

  No, and you have to, it's not just the deep thinking, but you have to make sure that wiring from brain to your fingertips to what's appearing on the page, that doesn't, that you have to do that. It's like you've talked about it before, you have to be there for when that happens.

• 15:26Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 15:27Adam Skolnick?

  And it doesn't necessarily, you could be six months into it and the first couple of hours might be nothing, like, and then it happens. So you have to be there when that breakthrough happens. And when you first start writing a book, maybe you have the energy of that and then it kind of fades, or maybe it's really hard at the beginning and you just have to put something down just to get it done. Because in the end, rewriting is really everything. And I should say that because I'm on my 17th draft.

• 15:52Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I was going to share about this a little bit later on in this conversation, but maybe it's just appropriate to do it now. Like, I did sign up to write a book this year. I haven't written a book in 12 years. I mean, I guess I was writing Finding Ultra in 2010, really. So it's been, you know, 13, 14 years. We've done cookbooks and other things, but like, real writing, like a real book, it's been a long time. And, you know, over the years, I have thought many times about what the next book might be, but nothing ever really stuck. And I want to be careful because I don't want to share too much.

• 16:37Rich Roll?

  I made this promise to myself that I was going to keep this, you know, close to the vest. But I finally, you know, stumbled upon something that stayed with me, that I couldn't shake. And that translated into, you know, rough journaling and morning pages type of stuff that slowly over, I mean, really, I didn't even start iterating on it until a little over a year ago at this point. And then it wasn't until this fall that that congealed into a proposal that then became a book. And now, it's like, oh, I have to write a book now.

• 17:15Adam Skolnick?

  Yes, yes, yes.

• 17:17Rich Roll?

  And you walk around every day just thinking about that while you're doing other things.

• 17:22Adam Skolnick?

  While you're not writing the book?

• 17:23Rich Roll?

  And the difference between when I wrote Finding Ultra and now is of course that my life is much more full with a lot going on. Like when I wrote Finding Ultra, I didn't have much going on. Like I could go and work on it for the better part of the day, every single day. That's not the case now.

• 17:37Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 17:38Rich Roll?

  So figuring out how to rewire my brain and also reconfigure the schedule that goes down here at the studio around how we do the podcast is a real challenge to free up time to do that kind of deep work. And it also involves saying no to a lot of things that I ordinarily say yes to, even things that are like super tempting, that you know, you gotta get ruthless with your nose. But I'm up for it. And I think the approach that you have to have when you feel daunted in that way is to get into that, that free-flowing state, that sort of journaling state to kind of overcome first draft anxiety.

• 18:22Adam Skolnick?

  So do you outline or do you just go right in free?

• 18:26Rich Roll?

  I mean, I do very loose outlining and then I separate the creative brain from the editing brain. And so when I was in Australia on my sabbatical, I tried to just really engage that part without, you're not allowed to edit. And the best way to do that for me is to write it out in longhand. Because otherwise, you know, you're hitting backspace on the cursor and then you're edit, you know, I can't help myself. Like I have to edit as I go.

• 18:55Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 18:56Rich Roll?

  But this way, it allows me to just be like, this is like a journal. No one's gonna see this. And then you can just get into that space and generate pages and pages and pages. And it's just like, then you have this big piece of clay that you can contend with and grapple with later. So I spent the month when I was in Australia trying to inhabit that mind space so that I could come back. Because then when you get into the editing thing, that's when you get like laser focused and like hours and hours and hours go by. But it's a lot more fun to be in the editing space because you don't have the anxiety of like, what is the idea or the kind of blinking cursor on the blank page?

• 19:35Adam Skolnick?

  Right, right, right. That's the internet. That's cool. I love that process. I mean, I've thought about that recently, like, maybe one of these books, I'm gonna, I'm gonna start that way, just like, just hand on page again, just to have that experience, because that's how I started when I was writing, just like, free of stream of consciousness. So it's cool that you're doing that.

• 19:51Rich Roll?

  I mean, I didn't do Finding Ultra that way, but this seems to be working for this project that I'm working on now.

• 19:57Adam Skolnick?

  That's awesome. Well, cool. I don't want to pry too deep into this. It sounds very cool. I mean, like, when you found that idea, like, I know you worked on it, was it just like in the course of the day, it just came to you, like, in the course of the day? Or was it, were you, when do you remember first kind of hatching it?

• 20:15Rich Roll?

  It wasn't like a lightning bolt moment, but it did kind of come to me slowly, or it emerged, actually, like, it kind of came into focus. It all emerged from like, a process of getting really clear on what I didn't want to write. It was just as much about like, I don't want to write a book like that, or like this, or like this genre. And there were a couple kind of moments that if I shared might reveal too much, that opened up my perspective on, on, you know, what a book in the space where I feel comfortable

• 20:58Rich Roll?

  kind of writing about, like, reimagining what a book like that could be. Like, it was a structural shift in terms of like, my perspective about how to organize ideas in a book that contravenes the standard kind of book that you see in the self-help literature genre in general, to which I have a certain amount of resistance.

• 21:20Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 21:25Rich Roll?

  That just gave me a new lens on what might be possible. And then from there, it was like a waterfall of ideas that all kind of came into focus. And then, but that didn't mean anything happened right away. You know, it's like, these things move slowly, you know? So it was still a long time before that concretized into something that I felt like had the potential to be a book. And with the gentle cajoling of our good friend, Bird, the agent which we share, I finally whipped it up into something that seemed to make sense. So yeah, I'm excited about it. Excited. I'm excited. If you need an early reader. I'll think about it. I don't know. Can you be trusted? Of course. What do you mean? I will take you up on that at the appropriate time when I feel like I have something that's

• 22:10Rich Roll?

  worthy of your time. I will definitely enlist you for sure. Whenever. So how was Australia, man? You were gone for how long? I was gone for a little over four weeks. This was version five of my annual sabbatical and my third time to Australia for that purpose. It was great, man. At the risk of sounding like I'm auditioning for a sponsorship with Tourism Australia, you and I together, which actually I think we reached out to them. I'm like, Did you? I would like to, yeah, be an ambassador for Tourism of Australia because I am such a fan of this place and I love it so much. I had a great time. Unlike you, I didn't

• 22:53Rich Roll?

  travel all over the place. I just went directly to Byron Bay and tried to kind of disappear. But I've been there. This was my third visit there. And now I have some friends and I feel like it's very easy to go there and kind of slide right in. I know the landscape. I know, you know, where I like to hang out and what I like to do when I'm there. But I really detached. I wouldn't say it was a 100% full digital detox. It's not like I threw my phone in the ocean, but I only checked my email twice the entire time that I was there. And shout out and credit to like my incredible team who kept everything on the rails while I was gone. Obviously, it would have been impossible without them. And we're in such

• 23:36Rich Roll?

  a great place where there's trust and the quality of work and all of that, that I felt comfortable like really letting go more deeply than I ever have in the past, which just gave me Such a sense of calm and, uh, and the ability to really, um, let go and, and relax. So it was great, man. And I love that place. It just, the beaches are incredible. The food is great. The people are great. The cycling is amazing. Uh, Simon Hill, uh, my friend and, um, host of the Proof Podcast was there, uh, for most of the time that I was there. I got to spend a lot of time with him, which was really fun. And it was great, man. I went riding with some really cool people. Um, I met this guy,

• 24:20Rich Roll?

  Eden Saul, who is an Ironman athlete and also a surfer. He's the guy behind a surf board brand called Dead Kooks. He's this incredible shaper. He makes these unbelievably beautiful boards and I was able to go riding with him pretty much like, almost like every other day that I was there.

• 24:36Adam Skolnick?

  So those awesome rides, you weren't alone. I was wondering like the rides you're hosting.

• 24:40Rich Roll?

  I rode alone sometimes, but then I rode with Eden quite a bit. And then he brought in some of the other local guys. Um, Tim Reed, who's a former 70.3 world champion. He's like the local ringer, you know, like he's, he's the ringleader who takes people out. Yeah. And, and you know, and, and beats them up.

• 24:57Adam Skolnick?

  He's the Dave Scott of Ironman.

• 24:58Rich Roll?

  We went out, we went out for, I was like, I'll go out with him if it's like a coffee ride. Like I'm not going out for like intervals or anything like that. Like I'm on vacation. Uh, also Clint Kimmons, who is an incredibly talented triathlete and also big wave surfer. Interesting guy. Um, and you know, there's a great gym there, Social Remedy. Shout out to Benny Owen, who owns that, uh, where, uh, you know, I'd work out every day. Um, Drew Harrisburg, who's a friend of the pod, been on the podcast when I was in Bondi in May. He came down from Sydney, got to work out with him and hang out with him and Simon. Uh, there's a guy called Adam Guthrie there, who's this amazing plant-based advocate. Uh, he was a big real estate agent, person who had a heart attack. He was very overweight

• 25:42Rich Roll?

  and unhealthy, had a heart attack, completely changed his life. He's super fit and trim and healthy. I think he's like 52, 53 now. And he coaches people on lifestyle and diet and nutrition and all of that. So got to spend some time with him. Ben Gordon, who's the drummer for a heavy metal band called Parkway Drive. He's a, he's an incredible dude. This guy, he owns a place called the Byron General Store, which is kind of like the cool place to have breakfast and have your smoothie and your avocado toast or whatever. But he's in this, he's in this really successful heavy metal band where he has the huge drum kit, like, you know, basically like Neil Peart style.

• 26:23Rich Roll?

  And, and when they, when they do shows, they play, you know, massive venues all over the world. They have this huge following. The, the stage on which his kit rests elevates and there's this like scaffolding around him. And it rotates him 360 degrees upside down. So he's doing drum solos upside down.

• 26:44Adam Skolnick?

  That's wild.

• 26:45Rich Roll?

  I know. He's cool. Shout out to Luke Zaki, Zaco, who is Chris Hemsworth's trainer. He's part of the extended Hemsworth universe. I got to go to his house and work out. He was great.

• 27:00Adam Skolnick?

  You connected me with, I emailed with, with Zaki.

• 27:02Rich Roll?

  Oh, did you?

• 27:03Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, I think you connected me with him at some point.

• 27:04Rich Roll?

  Did I?

• 27:05Adam Skolnick?

  Or somehow I did for some story.

• 27:06Rich Roll?

  I don't think that was through me.

• 27:07Adam Skolnick?

  No, no, okay.

• 27:08Rich Roll?

  Maybe. Yeah, he was great. Julie came for the last 10 days and we stayed at this place called Sun Ranch. That's owned by this woman, Julia Ashwood.

• 27:19Rich Roll?

  It was this really kind of beautiful hotel that's up in the hinterlands that have these like cabins that you can stay on. It's just, you know, the place is magnificent.

• 27:29Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 27:30Rich Roll?

  We went to Soma, this meditation retreat center owned by Peter Ostick and Gary Goro. And did a day up there where they had a community event and, and some breath work. And I don't know, it was great, man. I just had a great time and I was able to like ride my bike, meditate, you know, hang out at the beach, do a little bit of surfing. I had this goal that I was gonna like sort of go surfing every day and come home like half decent on a surfboard. That didn't really, really happen. So that, that, uh, that goal still hangs out there, but I really love that place. I love the people. I want to thank, um, everyone, if any of you guys are listening for making me feel so, so at home. Yeah.

• 28:14Rich Roll?

  And yeah, uh, audition for Tourism Australia complete. But I think the subject of, of sabbaticals in general, I mean, look, first of all, this is an incredibly, you know, luxurious thing to be able to indulge, you know, and I, I recognize that and it's, it's, it's something I never thought that I would be able to, to, to do and have, and it's just not something that most people can afford to do. And I'm very cognizant of that. And so I try to be really mindful of how I'm using my time and my attention while I'm there. Like I'm there for a purpose. It's not really a vacation. Like five years ago, I was on the precipice of burnout and I begrudgingly took this time off at the suggestion of my business partner.

• 28:57Rich Roll?

  And it was challenging to detach from work, but it made me realize how much I was burning it at both ends and the extent to which I was kind of operating from a place of PTSD because we had been so financially pressured for so many years and I was so intent on building something that could be, um, you know, financially stable for, for my family. And I'd achieved that, but I was still operating from that place of like panic and fear. And I really had to rewire myself and reprogram myself to reframe my relationship with work so it could be healthier and more sustainable for the long run.

• 29:40Rich Roll?

  Because I love what I do and I want to stay in love with it and I want to be able to keep doing it. But I think most people are aware right now, like being in the content space where you're always putting stuff out, you can be on this sort of hamster wheel and a lot of people burn out. And we've been doing this now for 11 years. Yeah. But I still feel super excited every time I sit down to talk to somebody, which is the energy I want to have. Like if I'm drained and kind of dreading having to do another podcast or preparing to speak to somebody, that's not the energy that I want to bring to that experience. And it's not going to translate. Into a good experience for the audience.

• 30:22Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 30:22Rich Roll?

  So to protect it, you have to take breaks. There has to be seasonality built into what I'm doing for myself. I'm just speaking for myself. And it's a gift that I've been able to, you know, do this. So now, um, when I have this opportunity every year, like, I'm just so grateful that I can do it. And I do it now, like prophylactically, like I go. You know, I work hard and I'm ready to take a break when I go, but I'm not like burned out or like completely fried, you know, when I get on that plane to take a break.

• 30:54Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah. Uh, oh, well said, man. That's, that's, um, I didn't realize that you were so burned out that that five years ago thing is, is how this whole thing started. Yeah. Um, it's interesting, you know, I felt like I was fried for this one. Cause I haven't done anything like this in so long and international travel used to be how I defined myself, you know, I was on the road like eight months a year, nine months a year. And then how now with the pandemic and family and everything changing work wise, it's just not the case. So, um, you know, for us, it was that take this big time off, but at the same time, I'm thinking of it, you know, Zoom was three. You know, I'm of a certain age. I've got some years left where, where, where I need to earn.

• 31:39Adam Skolnick?

  So the idea of me taking nine, 10 weeks off, I already told April, I'm like, we're not doing that again. Like I'm, I'm open to like detaching and go, going somewhere else to be and live and work.

• 31:50Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 31:50Adam Skolnick?

  But like, I'm not taking nine weeks off, 10 weeks off work again.

• 31:54Rich Roll?

  Do nothing.

• 31:54Adam Skolnick?

  Until like I'm 60 at least. So, you know, that's not happening again. So, but at the same time, even to be able to do it once, I've had that exact same feeling. It's like exactly what you're saying, the gratitude to be able to do it. Um, the, the realization that we're very fortunate to be able to do it is something that I've really been connecting to. I don't know if it's related to the mindfulness, if it's just me like realizing I'm kind of drifting a little out of touch of what it's like to actually have to live in this economy and this, in, in a way that I used to be kind of terrified of because I was broke all the time. Um, the fact that that's not the case. Um, now, uh, you do have to remember what real world's like, you know, you have to consciously remember.

• 32:37Adam Skolnick?

  So, um, so it's, it's, uh, it's, it's that, that's another thing that it reveals itself when you, when you kind of detach. Anytime you detach from the norm. And you deta- it usually takes for me one or two weeks to even come close to relax. And it's not until like three or four weeks that you're actually relaxed.

• 32:56Rich Roll?

  Right, right, right, right. I mean, that's, that's the truth. The idea that you can take a week off and that's going to reset you. Uh, the human isn't really wired for that.

• 33:05Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 33:05Rich Roll?

  Um, the period of time that I took, like by the time it was time to come home, I was ready to come home.

• 33:10Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 33:10Rich Roll?

  I was like, I got out of this, everything I needed to get out of it. But had it been a week earlier, I still would have been like, ah, can't I just stay a little bit longer?

• 33:17Adam Skolnick?

  Yep.

• 33:18Rich Roll?

  You know?

• 33:18Adam Skolnick?

  Yep.

• 33:18Rich Roll?

  Kind of thing.

• 33:19Adam Skolnick?

  That's it.

• 33:19Rich Roll?

  Anyway, let's take a quick break. We got lots more to come. Yeah.

• 33:33Rich Roll?

  Are we back?

• 33:34Adam Skolnick?

  We're back.

• 33:35Rich Roll?

  We gotta talk about, this is a very exciting announcement, uh, Voicing Change 3.

• 33:39Adam Skolnick?

  Beautiful.

• 33:40Rich Roll?

  We have a new addition of Voicing Change that is going to be released the week of March 11, which is very exciting. Um, this is the third addition or the third, uh, would you say addition? Yeah, the third addition of this book. No, addition means like you're updating a previous book. Third volume, that's, thank you.

• 34:03Adam Skolnick?

  Yes. I just read the word there. It says volume three.

• 34:06Rich Roll?

  It's the third and final volume, uh, of Voicing Change. It's a, it's a book that we started a handful of years ago, um, where we took some of our favorite guests over the years on the podcast and created a book with beautiful photographs of that guest and excerpted the wisdom nuggets from that conversation with a little introductory, um, a little introductory statement about each guest, uh, written by me with thoughts by you, Adam, and thoughts and essays contributed from some of the guests over the years. That book was a, a, a big success with the fan base, also makes for a great gift. So we did volume two. Now we have volume three coming out.

• 34:50Adam Skolnick?

  Yep.

• 34:50Rich Roll?

  What do you do when you have three volumes of a book?

• 34:55Adam Skolnick?

  Is that a box set?

• 34:56Rich Roll?

  You create a box set. So this is what we have. Look at this beautiful box that we've created. Um, it has-

• 35:04Adam Skolnick?

  Has a logo on it.

• 35:04Rich Roll?

  Has a nice texture on it and, uh-

• 35:07Adam Skolnick?

  Beautiful.

• 35:07Rich Roll?

  And the Rich Roll Podcast logo embossed on it and-

• 35:13Rich Roll?

  Inside, you have all three volumes, which is really beautiful.

• 35:19Rich Roll?

  We self-published this book. We created all of these books in-house with our own team, which I'm really proud of. It was definitely a group effort. And each one of these books has about 200 pages each. I think about 50 guests are excerpted in each of the books.

• 35:43Adam Skolnick?

  O's Per O's, The Mentalist, isn't that one? The Iron Cowboy?

• 35:48Rich Roll?

  Harvey Lewis, The Iron Cowboy. We got Zach Braff here.

• 35:52Adam Skolnick?

  Oh, cool.

• 35:53Rich Roll?

  So I'm really excited about this.

• 35:56Rich Roll?

  This, again, is the final installment in this series. Every copy, hand-signed by yours truly, every single copy. 60 prior guests are featured in the latest edition. Ken Riteout, Mike Posner, Zach Braff, The Iron Cowboy, Terry Crews, Tommy Rives, Courtney Dewalter, Chef Babette, Malcolm Gladwell, Simon Hill, Hella Sidibe, tons more.

• 36:21Rich Roll?

  In the box set, the box set is a limited edition thing. It's very exclusive. It's a compilation of all three of these books packaged together, like I said, beautifully packaged. I think it makes for a really amazing gift. Just a beautiful, personal collection of the wisdom of the podcast over the years. We've only, we're doing just a limited run of this. We've done a new, sort of new run of the earlier volumes, so they're back in stock. I know Volume 1 was out of stock for quite some time. And this book is only available on our website at richroll.com. You can't find it on Amazon. You're not going to find it in bookstores. It's exclusively and only through our website.

• 37:06Rich Roll?

  Again, it's a limited run, so there aren't that many of them. It's not intended to be some huge bestseller. It's really for the fans of the show. And as a gift for friends and family and the like, we're really proud of it. It came out fantastic and it's just, it's top notch all the way. So again, the week of March 11, it's coming out. There will be an email blast. If you're a subscriber to our newsletter, that will make the announcement and provide you with the link. So if you want to be informed of that date, so you can pounce on it, go to ritual.com and subscribe for our newsletter if you aren't already subscribed.

• 37:48Adam Skolnick?

  Beautiful. Congratulations, man.

• 37:50Rich Roll?

  There's some good pictures of you in there and you did some writing in volume two.

• 37:53Adam Skolnick?

  Volume two. And then Greg's essay for volume three is fabulous.

• 37:57Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it is. Really beautiful.

• 37:58Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, it's a beautiful one. And that kind of explains the backstory a little bit that he hadn't really talked about publicly. I didn't realize, because I know he told me the story about like, kind of you guys getting together and how that happened.

• 38:08Rich Roll?

  How we met and everything.

• 38:09Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah. He was there to do a profile on you.

• 38:11Rich Roll?

  Yeah, he was gonna do, he was gonna write an article and then we got to talking and then, and then it became clear like, we should work together. Let's do that instead. And we're here many, many, many years later and, and you know, Greg likes to be in the background and he doesn't like recognition, but it needs to be said that everything that we do here is in large part due to the incredible support that Greg has given to the podcast and his vision and the structure and the systems and all of his business acumen that he's so graciously lent to this whole adventure that's allowed us to grow and scale.

• 38:56Rich Roll?

  Like, I'm not sure where I would be without his partnership and his support. So just to thank him publicly.

• 39:02Adam Skolnick?

  That's awesome, man.

• 39:03Rich Roll?

  Which he'll say, cut this out of the podcast.

• 39:04Adam Skolnick?

  No.

• 39:05Rich Roll?

  You know, he's the kind of guy who's like, don't, you know, he doesn't want to be, right? He doesn't want to be acknowledged in that way, but I think it's important to acknowledge him.

• 39:13Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, yeah. And we will leave it there. I don't want to get into more detail about it because it's, the essay kind of explains Greg's side of it and, and why. And so his why's in there and I think it's worthy, especially if you love this podcast.

• 39:24Rich Roll?

  Absolutely. How's your fitness these days?

• 39:28Adam Skolnick?

  Um, my fitness?

• 39:30Rich Roll?

  What's your fitness stack?

• 39:31Adam Skolnick?

  Oh, you know what? You know what? I'll tell you the truth. I'll tell you the truth about my fitness. Um, the truth is I have a herniated disc in my.

• 39:40Rich Roll?

  Oh, no.

• 39:41Adam Skolnick?

  No.

• 39:41Rich Roll?

  Be more old man, old man talk.

• 39:44Adam Skolnick?

  Let me back up a little bit. So, um, a week before we went on our trip, I picked up an angry three-year-old. Wrong. And I felt the stabbing pain of, of, of regret in my L4, L5 area.

• 40:03Rich Roll?

  It's always L4, L5.

• 40:05Adam Skolnick?

  Is that, is that what it was for you?

• 40:07Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that's, that's, I didn't, I didn't have, I don't have a herniated disc. I have a spondylolethesis.

• 40:13Adam Skolnick?

  Okay.

• 40:13Rich Roll?

  Is the diagnosis of what I have, but go ahead.

• 40:16Adam Skolnick?

  Anyway, I've had back problems before. This one was really stubborn and we had to go and I'm, you know, lifting bags and everything. It's not like we pack light when you're going on a trip like that. And so, anyway, I, I sought, uh, help with an osteopath clinic in Australia. They're really good at that. Australia, by the way, just to.

• 40:37Rich Roll?

  The audition continues for tourism Australia.

• 40:40Adam Skolnick?

  Put a cap on it. When I was at, one of the, one of the highlights for me being in Australia was occasion. I was texting you like quite frequently. I think we hadn't texted in a while and we were like going back and forth. And what we decided, what I've decided, and you agreed, we agreed, just in terms of city, not place, Sydney is the greatest city in the world.

• 40:57Rich Roll?

  I love Sydney.

• 40:58Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, it is the great, I, I, I visited there before with April, but I think it really hit me this time that it is the greatest city in the world. Like, I, I mean, for what we like to do, we talked about that, the, the ocean culture, the, um, the sophistication.

• 41:12Rich Roll?

  Like it's a real ocean beach culture, but you also have this unbelievably dynamic, you know, urban, uh, experience that you can have.

• 41:21Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 41:21Rich Roll?

  Right, right, your fingertips. Like you could, you could live in Bondi and have this whole, it's not like Venice Beach. Like it is a real beach place.

• 41:29Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 41:29Rich Roll?

  But the city's right there, too.

• 41:31Adam Skolnick?

  It's right there.

• 41:32Rich Roll?

  And you can take advantage of all of that. It's just, it's really an amazing place.

• 41:35Adam Skolnick?

  We were in the northern beaches in Manly and we took a fare, we take a fare.

• 41:39Rich Roll?

  Home of the budgie smuggler.

• 41:40Adam Skolnick?

  Right, I got budgie smugglers. I, I swam with the Bondi Salties.

• 41:45Rich Roll?

  Oh, you did?

• 41:45Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, they reached out. One of the-

• 41:47Rich Roll?

  It's a big crew. Did you do the, uh, did you do the sauna afterwards?

• 41:51Adam Skolnick?

  No, I did the run beforehand. I didn't tell them my back was all fucked up. So I did the, I did the run on the beach and then we did the swim.

• 41:58Rich Roll?

  Do you, the run to Coogee along the path?

• 42:00Adam Skolnick?

  No, on the beach, they do a soft sand run-

• 42:02Rich Roll?

  Oh, soft sand, right.

• 42:03Adam Skolnick?

  Just to the end and back. And it's like, I think, what is it? It's like two miles or something.

• 42:07Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 42:07Adam Skolnick?

  And then you do the swim, which is like a mile.

• 42:10Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 42:10Adam Skolnick?

  And then in the swim, they all swim to the end and then they wait.

• 42:15Rich Roll?

  You end at, you end at Icebergs. You start and end at Icebergs, right?

• 42:18Adam Skolnick?

  Swim just, you know, you start and then the other side. Swim, swim just to the, just, just near Icebergs. They don't, they don't go all the way to the, the bluffs.

• 42:26Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 42:27Adam Skolnick?

  But real close. And then we turn around and on that, on that swim, you know, they all went and then they wait for the slow ones. And then they turn around and if you're so slow, you can't meet the meetup, then, uh, you just don't, you don't swim as far, you turn around. And so my whole goal was, get to the meetup.

• 42:47Rich Roll?

  Okay.

• 42:49Adam Skolnick?

  And I got to the meetup. I got to the meetup. I got to the meetup and then we immediately turned, turned around. I barely got there. I got to the meetup. Um, but no, it was, it's great. We would take the ferry to downtown. Downtown's amazing. It's a young city. It's a, um, it's, it's a diverse city. It's really fabulous. So I, I loved that whole aspect of it. I don't want to drone on and on, but it was fun to text with you about your favorite spots. Cause we were in a different part of town and we would come, go look at your spots too.

• 43:18Rich Roll?

  I mean, I've been to Manly, but I didn't stay there.

• 43:20Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 43:21Rich Roll?

  Like Bondi is what I know best. Uh, and just the experience of swimming at Icebergs, which is the world's greatest outdoor pool, this incredible pool. Like, most people have seen images of it. It's got the white, you know, kind of concrete and it's right, it's, it's nestled into the cove, like into the rocks and then buttressing out over the ocean. But there's a really robust, open, open water swimming crew there, mostly like older people. I thought they started from Icebergs.

• 43:48Adam Skolnick?

  I think there's two groups.

• 43:49Rich Roll?

  Did you swim at Icebergs?

• 43:50Adam Skolnick?

  Not this time, I've done it before.

• 43:52Rich Roll?

  Because they also have, they have this sauna, so you can go, because the water's pretty cold. And then you go into this sauna and you have this view over the bay, you know, looking, looking towards north, Bondi and like out to the sea. And to be in that, that kind of somewhat chilly water and then go up into the sauna afterwards, I was like, this is the greatest thing ever.

• 44:10Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 44:11Rich Roll?

  You know? This is the best.

• 44:12Adam Skolnick?

  I didn't, I didn't do that one. I swam at Icebergs last time I was there. This time, most of the swimming I was doing was in Manly. We were swimming like in a marine protected area. There's, there's sharks and like, you know, Port Jackson sharks, like kind of goofy Dr. Seuss sharks. And occasionally gray sharks would drift in and they'd close all the beaches. But mostly it was, it was just kind of a beautiful place to, you could free dive, you could swim. And, you know, the people on kayaks, people on paddle boards, kite boards, everything you want, they have it there. And there's a regular crew in Manly too, that would swim every morning to, from Manly Beach to Shelley Beach and back. And that's like a little over a mile. And so I did that as well.

• 44:53Adam Skolnick?

  But it was, you know, the point was that there, there's a great health kind of infrastructure there. And there's a big thing in osteopathy, even though osteopathy was, it started in the United States, it's been embraced much more in Australia. And the, the goal is to get you skeletonly unlined, kind of like, different than chiropractic. It's just slightly different. And so going and seeing someone there really helped me a lot. But then it kind of, as soon as I got back, it regressed. Actually, right before I got back, it regressed a little bit. And so I've been dealing. Finally got an MRI and it turns out I have this herniated dish, but, but that doesn't mean I haven't been doing anything. I've, I've been swimming, I've been in the gym a little bit. I have not been able to run. That's the main thing. And then at the end of December, like the holidays got the better of me, I think I put

• 45:38Adam Skolnick?

  on like five pounds in a week. And when I started this year, I was the, the heaviest I've been since I don't know when. I was 198 pounds. And for me, that's very, that's heavy.

• 45:49Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 45:50Adam Skolnick?

  And so I actually got on Noom. You ever done, you ever heard of Noom?

• 45:54Rich Roll?

  I mean, I've heard like podcast ads for it, but I've never done it.

• 45:57Adam Skolnick?

  April did it when she was losing the baby weight and um I did, I, I didn't do it then and I did it this time and I dropped, I got down to 185 and, and uh had a, you know, it was really helpful. The first time in my life I counted calories and I, I, the whole thing is like blown my mind like to, to know how difficult it is and how much you have to think about and all that. Noom makes it easy, but um you know, you do go to bed hungry early on especially. But I did that and got down and that my goal was take some more weight off the back and maybe I'll be able to run, but I'm, I'm not there yet. So I'm still, the, the rehab continues. I'm seeing an osteopath here. Hopefully, um, hopefully get on the other side of this thing soon.

• 46:40Rich Roll?

  Sorry you're going through that.

• 46:41Adam Skolnick?

  Hey, man.

• 46:42Rich Roll?

  But here's the real low hanging fruit question that has not been asked yet, that I know the audience is waiting for. When you were doing those open water swims in Australia, you know it's coming, right?

• 46:54Adam Skolnick?

  Yes, yes.

• 46:55Rich Roll?

  Were you where, I mean, this is a beach culture. This is a swimming culture.

• 46:59Adam Skolnick?

  Oh, I know.

• 46:59Rich Roll?

  These people understand what swimming is.

• 47:03Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 47:03Rich Roll?

  They're not fucking around.

• 47:04Adam Skolnick?

  No.

• 47:05Rich Roll?

  It's for real, right?

• 47:06Adam Skolnick?

  For them.

• 47:07Rich Roll?

  So I'm just envisioning Adam Skolnick rolling up on this situation with his swim mask. So is this true, is it, did you wear goggles?

• 47:16Adam Skolnick?

  No, let me tell you something. I wore a swim mask unapologetically and the thing about, the thing about Australia though, that's a little bit misunderstood is even though there are people who are super intense about, they're, they're actually so welcoming that so there's some, they don't do.

• 47:33Rich Roll?

  It's not like surfing where they're gonna shame you and like.

• 47:36Adam Skolnick?

  Or even open water swim.

• 47:37Rich Roll?

  Bully you out.

• 47:38Adam Skolnick?

  Right. Or even open water swimmers here where like you have to wear the speedo and that's it. There's a uniform. Like there, come as you are. Come in your comfort zone because we want you to come. We want you to experience this and do it. And so, no, I mean, you know, was, there was no, no shaming in the lineup.

• 47:57Rich Roll?

  Did anyone, did anyone kind of raise an eyebrow or they just, it was all good?

• 48:02Adam Skolnick?

  You know, I don't think people were really looking at me. There's better physiques in the lineup. They're always looking at the guy with the mask. You, you, when you see a guy with a mask in a swim group.

• 48:12Rich Roll?

  Were you wearing a budget?

• 48:13Adam Skolnick?

  Stay away from that guy.

• 48:15Rich Roll?

  You're like, that guy doesn't know what he's doing.

• 48:17Adam Skolnick?

  No, yeah, don't stay with him.

• 48:19Rich Roll?

  Were you, were you in a budgie smuggler?

• 48:22Adam Skolnick?

  I think I was in jammers. I hadn't bought the budgies. I bought them right before we left. I got, I got matching ones, matching ones with Zuma and, um, and I got them right before we left. So I wasn't in budgies. I was in jammers and, um, and my swim mask, which is, it is admittedly a little bit ridiculous, but at the end I bought a pair of goggles. Remember I, I sent you a picture. I actually bought some goggles and the reason I bought them was I was like, my times were getting better. My, my per 100 meter time was getting better.

• 48:50Rich Roll?

  Oh, so it's for purely for hydrodynamic reasons? Like it's gonna make me faster?

• 48:56Adam Skolnick?

  But it didn't really work that well. And so then I got back here and I used them here and the water's just so much grosser. Will Rogers State Beach, it's like grittier and grosser. And now I don't even know where they are. I've already lost them.

• 49:10Rich Roll?

  Back to the mask.

• 49:10Adam Skolnick?

  I'm back to the mask.

• 49:11Rich Roll?

  Well, you know, creature comforts.

• 49:14Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 49:14Rich Roll?

  Right?

• 49:15Adam Skolnick?

  And it never really got me faster.

• 49:16Rich Roll?

  Please tell me at least one like roll on fan actually saw you in Australia with your mask on.

• 49:23Adam Skolnick?

  So it's a great question. The reason I was at the Bondi Salties is a guy named Cam Mostyn, uh, an Australian guy lives in Bondi. He reached out to me. He saw that I was there because I was posting and he wasn't the only one. There are a couple of other fans as well, but he invited me to swim at the Bondi and he's like, come on out. And he kept kind of inviting me and it's, it's, it's a bit of a haul from, from Manly to get there.

• 49:45Rich Roll?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Did you take the ferry?

• 49:47Adam Skolnick?

  We took the ferry to downtown and then took the, but I think I, on that morning, no, that morning, because it was like, the call time's crazy. And so what I did was I took, uh, an Uber to get there. And then April and Zuma met, met us, met me there at the end and we had got a bite to eat and we just took public transport back. And so we took the, you know, the tram to the, or the bus to the, to the ferry.

• 50:10Rich Roll?

  Um, right where, not far from where the ferry drops you off in downtown is another amazing pool that I told you to go to called Andrew Boy Charlton.

• 50:21Adam Skolnick?

  Yep.

• 50:22Rich Roll?

  Did you end up going there or no?

• 50:23Adam Skolnick?

  It was closed for renovations.

• 50:25Rich Roll?

  Was it or because you sent me a photo and I was like, no, that's the Olympic, that's the Olympic pool. The one that's like right under the bridge.

• 50:31Adam Skolnick?

  I missed and I missed the other one.

• 50:32Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Andrew Boy Charlton is very close to the Opera House.

• 50:35Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 50:35Rich Roll?

  And it's on this little peninsula where, you know, kind of that looks out over the bay where it's, it's where the, the kind of naval ships are around there. Um, that pool is epic. I mean, just the number of like incredible outdoor swimming facilities that Australia has is just unparalleled.

• 50:55Adam Skolnick?

  I agree. Tourism Australia, this is not us asking for your support. We are supporting you. We love you.

• 51:02Rich Roll?

  Free of charge.

• 51:03Adam Skolnick?

  Free of charge.

• 51:03Rich Roll?

  Happily.

• 51:04Adam Skolnick?

  Ah.

• 51:04Rich Roll?

  The other thing I texted you about was, was Ned Brockman doing a group run.

• 51:09Adam Skolnick?

  With milk.

• 51:10Rich Roll?

  He was posting, yeah, because his Choco or whatever, like the chocolate milk thing that he's doing.

• 51:14Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 51:14Rich Roll?

  That guy's unbelievable. Did he go all the way across Australia in that truck? Like doing group runs in every city to promote his chocolate milk?

• 51:22Adam Skolnick?

  When I was there, he was in Sydney doing stuff, but I, I think it was like at the end, it's, it's hard, you know?

• 51:27Rich Roll?

  He was announcing, yeah, well, the time change and all of that, but I, I pinged you and I was like, dude, you gotta go run with Ned.

• 51:33Adam Skolnick?

  I know, I couldn't run.

• 51:34Rich Roll?

  And then you didn't get it until like a day later or something like that.

• 51:36Adam Skolnick?

  I couldn't run anyway. Yeah, yeah. I did run a couple of times in Australia. Um, trying to do it. And that's what set me back here on January 1st. I said, fuck it. I'm going to Goggins it. I'm just going to run. And like I'm running and like all of a sudden my feet feel like they're falling asleep. Like it's bad. Like it feels like, I felt like it wasn't even my body.

• 51:54Rich Roll?

  This is a little, yeah, there needs to be a corollary to the fuck it Goggins rule, you know, like how many people are out getting injured, you know?

• 52:02Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, it wasn't good. So, um, so yeah, so I had to kind of back off it. Um, but no, you know, it's good. It's good to back off. It's good to be in the gym. I'm like you, I'm, I'm in the gym more lifting weights.

• 52:12Rich Roll?

  Yeah, cool. Yeah, cool. Nice, man. Well.

• 52:15Adam Skolnick?

  What about you?

• 52:16Rich Roll?

  Um, I feel great. I feel really good. Uh, right before I took the time off, I recorded this, uh, episode with Simon Hill. His, his, uh, living proof challenge. Um, part of which is entails like getting your blood work done and then going on this 12 week experience to move the levers on the most important kind of, uh, factors that contribute to health span extension. Um, he put together this really amazing program and like a lot of people signed up. I mean, even, I think even just a week or two after. The podcast went live. There was something like 50,000 people. I'm sure there's a lot more now. That's crazy.

• 52:56Rich Roll?

  Anyway, it's great. And it officially started on February 1st, but anybody can start anytime. You can just go to theproof.com/livingproof. Yep. But anyway, part of it was getting your blood work done. So I got my blood work done through InsideTracker. Shout out InsideTracker. And that blood work came back and I was, I was a little concerned because I got it done like right after the holidays. And you know, I wasn't exactly eating perfectly great or you know, exercising as much as I generally enjoy to. But my blood work actually, like almost all the markers were better than the last time I had had my blood worked on, which was two years prior.

• 53:35Rich Roll?

  My HDL is great, you know, LDL is great, APOB, all good. Testosterone, good. Total cholesterol, good. Like all, all the HbA1C, all of that, like everything is in optimal range. So I was like really happy with that.

• 53:50Rich Roll?

  So that was, that gave me like, uh, you know, cause it's like, the older you get, like you're like, if you haven't done blood work in a while, you're like, what's this gonna be? You don't do an annual? You don't know. I should, I'm going to now, but it had been two years, which is way too long. Right, right, right. Especially when you're in your 50s to, you know, not be on top of that. And because I too have been contending with this chronic back issue and haven't been running. I made this commitment that I was gonna go back into the gym and get strong for like the first time in a really long time. Like I flirted with being in the gym on and off over the last handful of years, but hadn't really followed through with a real commitment.

• 54:32Rich Roll?

  And I'm not really a gym rap person in general.

• 54:38Rich Roll?

  We did weights when I was a swimmer. I went through a phase when I was in law school where me and my buddies would go to the gym to blow off steam. But other than that, like I'm not the guy who's always going to the gym. And I was like, as an endurance athlete, like it's all about power to weight. You're trying to get really lean. I was never concerned about putting muscle on. But as you get older, you begin to understand like, oh, you really need to make sure that you're strong functionally in all the important ways. Just so that you can age well and be, you know, able to do things for as long as possible. So anyway, in, like I know the date, it was November 14th. That was like, I'm starting. And I went into the gym with.

• 55:21Rich Roll?

  Real intentionality and having not lifted in such a long time, I started so slow. Like I didn't put any weight on any of the bars, like the lightest possible lifts I could possibly do. Just to, I don't want to get injured. I just want to introduce my body to this. And I was so gradual in terms of, in terms of intensity and volume. But here we are now at the end of February and I feel really good. I'm lifting more, I've never been, even when I was swimming at Stanford and we would do, we would do strength training as part of our routine. I was never really great. Like I'm not a super strong person in the weight room, but I can say that now at 57,

• 56:04Rich Roll?

  I'm actually lifting more than I was when I was in college, which is a cool thing. And I feel more in my body, like you, when you, when you do that, then you're like, oh, I have more control over how my body moves. And when your core is strong, it helps with your running and your posture and your cycling and all of those things. So I'm actually feeling really great and it has actually also helped me a lot with my back. Because I think I've strengthened a lot of the supportive muscles around the spine and the core, of course, that have stabilized the region a little bit better. And I'm flirting with the idea of very slowly getting back into some jogging.

• 56:46Rich Roll?

  I really want to rectify this whole thing. And I see the light at the end of the tunnel. I'm doing a lot of other things with respect to the back, but I'm feeling optimistic about it in a way that I wasn't back in November when I began this. So that's great. And then on top of that, I've been doing a lot of cycling. So in Byron, I rode a ton, but at home I have a Wahoo Kicker, which is an indoor bike trainer. Okay. That is connected to Zwift, which is the software platform for. Indoor cycling, sort of like a video game for cyclists.

• 57:21Adam Skolnick?

  But it's not like a Peloton bike, it's your own bike.

• 57:24Rich Roll?

  No, it's well.

• 57:25Adam Skolnick?

  Traditional trainer.

• 57:26Rich Roll?

  You can, I mean, Wahoo has different versions of this. You can connect your bike to like this sort of setup that allows you to, you know, rig it up indoors. The kicker is actually like its own unit, but it is very much like a, you know, a cycling road bike. And it's all configured to my measurements and all that kind of stuff. So it feels exactly like what it would feel like to ride your bike on the road. And I've been super diligent about doing that every day. And that was also something that started with really light, low lifts. Like if I woke up, and I do it right when I wake up in the morning. So even if I'm fatigued and I don't feel like working out, it's like, well, I can sit on a bike and pedal a little bit, like I'll just read my email on my phone or whatever.

• 58:11Rich Roll?

  Like that just gets me going. And then of course, after a little bit of warm up, you feel better. And then before you know it, you've done an hour. So that's like my, been my zone two throughout the winter, which is great. So I feel, I feel, yeah, I feel, I feel really good. I'm excited about seeing what my body can do in 2024. I like the idea of maybe getting a little ripped as a 57 year old.

• 58:34Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 58:34Rich Roll?

  So as a long time plant-based person, so we'll see. But mostly really relieved and happy about like my blood work all being kind of on point.

• 58:43Adam Skolnick?

  You look very strong. And I will say that I'm getting, I like the ritual policy, which is start, even with your book stuff, start slow, take a little bite.

• 58:52Rich Roll?

  Make it an easy lift. Don't put your, like, yeah, like just scribble some notes on a page. You know, I'm just going to write one sentence. I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna get on this bike for five minutes and look at my phone or whatever it is, just get moving. And then that creates a little momentum that then can carry you through. And I think that's how you build, by making those, those tasks or those things that, that we can tell ourselves are daunting, if you just make them super bite sized, that's really the way to build the foundation for the house.

• 59:23Adam Skolnick?

  Love it.

• 59:23Rich Roll?

  So let's take a quick break. More on the way.

• 59:38Rich Roll?

  Adam.

• 59:38Adam Skolnick?

  Yes, sir.

• 59:39Rich Roll?

  Have you been thinking about AI lately?

• 59:42Adam Skolnick?

  You know, you can't not think about it. It's like, even when you want to not think about it, something pops up. And more recently, a buddy of mine who's a gaffer in the business was like saying, he came up to me, he goes, "Have you seen the new text-to-video stuff?" And I'm like, "Well, I saw some stuff early on when we were doing our episode, but like, the new stuff is..."

• 1:00:03Rich Roll?

  The Sora announcement is pretty groundbreaking.

• 1:00:06Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 1:00:06Rich Roll?

  It really does augur a whole new world. It is a Rubicon moment. Those videos are pretty astonishingly good. And to consider that it's only been a year since the Will Smith eating spaghetti video, which was like so bizarre and, you know, like strange, that in that short a period of time, it could go from what it was to what it is now. Marcus Brownlee, MKBHD, did a great video on this where he kind of breaks it all down, the progress that's been made. And the point that he makes that's worthy of kind of double-clicking on is the fact that this is the worst it's ever gonna be.

• 1:00:51Rich Roll?

  And you see these videos and they're like really good, and they're not perfect, you have the hands and there's some weird stuff or whatever, but like, the progress in a year and understanding that like this is, it's only gonna get crisper, better, the fidelity is gonna increase. It's pretty scary.

• 1:01:06Adam Skolnick?

  It's scary, it's scary. Well, first of all, it's a scary time now for media in general, because like the breakdown of the advertiser model is impacting networks as much as it's impacting cable channels, as impacting the magazine world, as we know it's been blowing up print media for a long time. And now it's kind of blowing up everything. And now you throw this into the mix. And, you know, writers have been thinking about AI. When we started doing our thing, writers have been worried about it being replaced. We saw that in the WGA strike. We saw actors, when the Screen Actors Guild strike, talking about...

• 1:01:44Rich Roll?

  Now you understand why they were digging in so deep with their heels on this issue. Because it's happening so much faster than one would imagine.

• 1:01:53Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, and then now you have my friend, a gaffer, who they're not like... They were siding with the actors and the writers out of principle because they're union guys, but they weren't necessarily thinking about the AI replacement because it's not forefront of your mind. But look at this, you see that and you're like, you know, lighting is especially something in those guys, you know, electricians, the infrastructure on a movie set is, is deep. And so like, when you start talking about destabilizing that, there's so many dominoes that fall that like they terrifies me to think of that. Like unfortunately, in the United States, there's innovation, there's efficiency, and there's people who have to find new jobs. That has happened over the course of history

• 1:02:37Adam Skolnick?

  for a hundred something years, all since industrial evolution. And I've always thought like when you travel overseas, you go to places like Indonesia, you realize they don't have to hire as many people as they do, some of these business owners, but they do it because it's part of the social contract. And so we don't have a social contract here, really. We don't, you know, we don't. That's the freedom that we get includes not really much of a social contract. You travel to a place like Australia, there's a social contract. That's why people were upset when Novak was let in the country. I personally didn't have an issue. If he got in, he got in. But like, that was why people got upset there is because there's a social contract, you're supposed to follow the rules. People don't speed. They don't speed. They go the speed limit there. We don't really have that here. So when you

• 1:03:21Adam Skolnick?

  see this wrecking ball coming down the pike, and you don't really have a social contract, it's scary.

• 1:03:26Rich Roll?

  Well, certainly in the short term, the stock footage industry, I would not be, you know, buying stock in stock footage companies right now. Like that seems to be imperiled. When you watch that video, the Sora video of the woman walking down the Tokyo street at night, have you seen that video?

• 1:03:46Adam Skolnick?

  I have not seen it.

• 1:03:47Rich Roll?

  And the lighting, there's like puddles in the, in the, in the street, and the way the light is reflecting off of that, like to your point about gaffers, like. It's pretty good.

• 1:03:58Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, it's very good.

• 1:03:59Rich Roll?

  The video of the golden retrievers shaking their head with snow.

• 1:04:02Adam Skolnick?

  I saw a woolly mammoth one, did you see that?

• 1:04:04Rich Roll?

  There's, there's a new one that just came out the other day of an F1 race through San Francisco. Did you see that? Yeah. Uh, or like a drone shot of a vintage like uh, Land Rover like driving, you know, through a mountainous landscape and things like that.

• 1:04:22Adam Skolnick?

  Classic car commercial stuff.

• 1:04:23Rich Roll?

  Yeah, like, yeah, really unbelievable. And on the one hand, I'm like, oh, we could use this stuff right away. Like, like it scares me and like, oh, this is good for us right now.

• 1:04:32Adam Skolnick?

  Well, yeah, but because what you're doing, you have a, you're like independent media doing your own thing. So it's great for creators in some ways. You can see why creators are salivating at it. Like it opens up a whole new worlds and there's certainly plenty of writers and even filmmakers. Um, the, the DP of, uh, of My Octopus Teacher is now he's on Instagram doing his thing. Like talking about like using AI. So he's an evangelist on AI. He's like an early adopter, uh, tech guy from before he was underwater photographer or cinematographer. And now he's doing that, he's, he's promoting it. So not everybody agrees with my take on it. You know, there's people out there that are willing to embrace it. And maybe it does lead us into a, you know, place I can't see because I'm not a futurist.

• 1:05:17Adam Skolnick?

  But like, um, I can see why content creators who have small shops or no shop, just themselves. Malibu artist, he's doing it all himself. You know, like, maybe there's something there for them.

• 1:05:30Rich Roll?

  There's trade offs with everything. Obviously, when you look at this, the, the clear, there's clear implications for the movie industry, for independent, uh, video creators and photographers. But what are the longer term implications of this technology as it continues to be refined and, and, and matured? And it's existential. I mean, the, the sort of misinformation landscape that we contend with now, uh, is going to be child's play compared to what is going to be possible in the, in the not too distant future. When you can make anybody say anything and make them look exactly like they look. We've already gotten a taste of a few of these things like.

• 1:06:16Rich Roll?

  Over the last couple of weeks, there was the Joe Biden robocall deep fake. Did you read about that?

• 1:06:22Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 1:06:22Rich Roll?

  Like, you know, mocking his voice and then having him call. There was the Taylor Swift thing where her voice was used in Facebook ads. Something about La Crusée cookware that made the internet go insane. Kara Swisher just published her memoir called Burn Book the other week.

• 1:06:40Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 1:06:40Rich Roll?

  And did you see all this stuff about AI creating like their own Kara Swisher Burn Book? And then getting them uploaded to Amazon?

• 1:06:48Adam Skolnick?

  No.

• 1:06:49Rich Roll?

  I think it's to confuse consumers. So they go to Amazon to buy Kara's book. And then there's 20 other, like what pops up? People are just going to click on what they see, not realizing, not, not having to think like, is this actually the real book? Or is this some fake AI thing?

• 1:07:06Adam Skolnick?

  We've had that issue with, with Amazon, like, because Amazon gets their money either way. So they don't care.

• 1:07:10Rich Roll?

  Like, they don't care.

• 1:07:11Adam Skolnick?

  They're not incentivized to really protect your copyright as much. And even if they say they are, they're really not. And so it doesn't surprise me. We've had that with, with David's books.

• 1:07:21Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:22Adam Skolnick?

  Crazy.

• 1:07:22Rich Roll?

  We keep saying like, it's going to get crazy and it's going to get weird.

• 1:07:26Adam Skolnick?

  It is already.

• 1:07:27Rich Roll?

  It is already, but I think it's going to get crazier and weirder than we can possibly imagine. And what are the measures that can be put in place to protect against nefarious uses of this? I don't know. It's sort of like, it's sort of like performance enhancing drugs and drug testing, like, or any innovation, like innovation always outpaces our ability to control or police it.

• 1:07:54Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 1:07:54Rich Roll?

  You can always out innovate whatever's trying to curtail the progress of that. And I feel like this is a cat out of bag situation. So we can talk about watermarks or metadata, but there's pretty easy workarounds for all of those sorts of things. So who knows what's going to happen? But a world in which you can make anybody say anything and throw it up on social media and influence people is a frightening prospect because it untethers us from any shared sense of what is real and what isn't.

• 1:08:28Adam Skolnick?

  That's the main thing.

• 1:08:29Rich Roll?

  And with that, no culture can cohere.

• 1:08:32Adam Skolnick?

  No, you can't have culture. We're already having trouble deciding what, what's real already without that. Like, we already have it with. Which news is real, which news isn't with, I don't want to get into politics, but we already have a very polarized society. And so this only is going to fuel those, it never, it never brings us together. What I've noticed is technology, which was, social media was supposed to bring us together. It makes connections, but it doesn't bring us together. It makes connections in this kind of space, social space.

• 1:09:05Adam Skolnick?

  You know, we're not being brought together in general, I don't think, you know. I think it can be overstated how bad things are because there are things that are good. But like lately, the, the news is not good. And so, and social media is a big part of kind of exacerbating polarization, exacerbating political conflict and conflict in general. You don't know what's real anymore. And so now you add, you can add, can imagine with all this political misinformation that's out there, actual video evidence, video evidence.

• 1:09:36Rich Roll?

  Right, of anything you want it to be.

• 1:09:38Adam Skolnick?

  Anything you want it to be. That's crazy.

• 1:09:41Rich Roll?

  It is crazy.

• 1:09:41Adam Skolnick?

  Remember we thought when we did the AI episode that we were late? We're like, fuck, I wish, I wish it came out a week ago, a month ago.

• 1:09:48Rich Roll?

  It's such a fast moving target.

• 1:09:50Adam Skolnick?

  We're, we're early.

• 1:09:51Rich Roll?

  Every week there's something, well.

• 1:09:52Adam Skolnick?

  We're early, we were early.

• 1:09:54Rich Roll?

  Well, early in the, we weren't, we weren't early in reporting on that specific aspect of it. But it just keeps progressing and getting more and more interesting. And who knows, man? I mean, I think the other thing here that I want to do address or, or touch on quickly is, is, is, I can't help because I'm a lawyer, but like the intellectual property, right? So when you look at these generative AI, large language learning models, whatever you call LLMs,

• 1:10:24Rich Roll?

  the question becomes, like, right now, they sort of operate as something that gets deployed against the entire internet. Like, we're gonna cast this powerful AI tool on everything that exists on the internet, and we're gonna, this huge net, and we're gonna just pull it all in and train our model on what is publicly available.

• 1:10:48Rich Roll?

  We're seeing pushback now from copyright holders. The New York Times has filed suit saying, hey, listen, you know, this is our, this is our intellectual property. We don't want what we create to be available for those models to train on. If that's going to happen, we should be contracted with, like, we should be compensated for that, right? Similarly, on a very small level, we produce this podcast, we've been doing it for a long time, we have 800, however, many episodes that are freely available to the public in many, and accessible and on many different places across the internet. Just because that exists and is publicly available on the internet, does that mean

• 1:11:31Rich Roll?

  that it's free game, it's a, it's game, it's, it's wide open, free rein for a generative AI bot or tool to go out, access it and train itself on it, on that? Should they have the right to do that?

• 1:11:46Adam Skolnick?

  Ask Sam Altman.

• 1:11:47Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I, I mean, I don't think that they do. Like, I would, right now, it seems like an opt-out situation, like, hey, it's all good, and if you want out of that, then you're gonna make a big fuss and file a lawsuit.

• 1:11:59Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 1:11:59Rich Roll?

  But it should be opt-in.

• 1:12:01Adam Skolnick?

  Right. That's right.

• 1:12:03Rich Roll?

  You should have to give them permission to do that, so.

• 1:12:05Adam Skolnick?

  And we should have known it was happening all along.

• 1:12:06Rich Roll?

  For example, Andrew Huberman just did a deal with Dexa AI. So now there's this bot that I believe is accessible on his site where you can ask a question, what is the protocol for this? And then it answers based upon Andrew's catalog of material that he has labored to create.

• 1:12:27Adam Skolnick?

  Wow.

• 1:12:27Rich Roll?

  But they did a deal, he gave permission, there's a fair exchange that's happening there. But what's stopping somebody from going and creating that based on my podcast without my permission?

• 1:12:39Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 1:12:39Rich Roll?

  I then have to sue that person? That seems, that seems upside down to me.

• 1:12:44Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:45Rich Roll?

  But right now, that seems to be kind of the current, maybe I'm wrong, I'm not, I'm not like an AI scientist, but it seems like that's what's happening right now. But it is interesting to see copyright holders or, you know, intellectual property holders like pushing back on this and saying, hold on a second here.

• 1:13:03Adam Skolnick?

  Right. Authors have done it. So there's a group of authors that are suing OpenAI because a reporter found out all the books they fed, they fed ChatGPT in the first couple of iterations. One breath. ChatGPT read one breath. Thanks, ChatGPT.

• 1:13:20Rich Roll?

  It did?

• 1:13:20Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:21Rich Roll?

  It's interesting now that ChatGPT now allows you to create your own GPT. Like you can customize it. So I was like, okay, I'm going to play with this. I'm going to customize it as a podcast research tool. You know, so that like when I'm preparing for a podcast guest. And I had like a PDF of a book of a guest that was coming up. And I like fed it to the thing and I was like summarize this book. Give me like one paragraph on each chapter and it just utterly failed. Like it couldn't do it.

• 1:13:50Adam Skolnick?

  Good.

• 1:13:50Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it wasn't, it didn't, it didn't. And I, I, I went at it in a couple of different ways. And then I was like, do this, do that. Or like a book that's existed for a long time, like summarize this or tell me the most important. It's not, I mean, I'm sure it'll get there at some point, but right now I found it to be very unuseful.

• 1:14:07Adam Skolnick?

  Right. So the, the, the, the reason writers are afraid is that you're going to be replaced, but you're not going to be replaced because it can't even give you a good book report. And so it's like

• 1:14:14Rich Roll?

  Now.

• 1:14:15Adam Skolnick?

  Right now. And so I think what they were using these books for and using New York Times stories for was to just be better writers in conversation with whatever human is kind of trying to talk to it. I don't think it's because they're trying to replace. But then you say Sam Altman is trying to raise trillions of dollars, five to seven.

• 1:14:33Rich Roll?

  Well, hold on, I have one more point. I want to get to that. But like I have one more point. It gets murky and gray pretty quick too, because what happens when you tell one of these tools, write a paragraph in the style of, you know, on a certain subject matter, in the style of David Goggins.

• 1:14:55Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 1:14:56Rich Roll?

  So David Goggins should have the right to say, who gets to use his name, likeness and image for a commercial purpose?

• 1:15:04Adam Skolnick?

  A hundred percent.

• 1:15:05Rich Roll?

  But right now I would suspect that you probably could give that prompt and get a pretty decent response. So the question becomes, how far do those?

• 1:15:15Rich Roll?

  Intellectual property rights extend.

• 1:15:17Adam Skolnick?

  Right. And who's and like, cause there's gonna be chat GPT is just like, that's where that's the source, but there's all these other companies that have that are using some of that technology.

• 1:15:27Rich Roll?

  Oh, so many, so many.

• 1:15:28Adam Skolnick?

  Right. So how many of them have any money? Like you could sue a company with no money and get nothing.

• 1:15:32Rich Roll?

  Meanwhile, Sam Altman, to your point, announced the other day that he is attempting to raise five to seven trillion dollars for OpenAI. Have you ever seen a T in somebody trying to?

• 1:15:45Adam Skolnick?

  No, but I knew it was coming.

• 1:15:46Rich Roll?

  Is that like, what is the GDP of Luxembourg? Like, this is like nation state stuff.

• 1:15:51Adam Skolnick?

  Oh, yeah. This is bigger than that. I'm starting to think the people who wanted Sam Altman fired were right. That's what I'm starting to think.

• 1:16:01Rich Roll?

  Well, they should certainly rename the company. It's not OpenAI. It's, it's, it's something very different from the sentiment that, you know, led to its genesis. But anyway, I mean, just the audacity of putting a T on a number like, like this is, this is, this has never happened before, but I think it speaks to like whether or not he raises that much money. He will raise a lot of money. Like the fact that that is even part of the discourse at all speaks to just how transformative this technology is and will be and how much he believes in this marketplace, like our culture believes that like this is the thing.

• 1:16:42Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:42Rich Roll?

  And what does that world look like?

• 1:16:45Adam Skolnick?

  Well, it looks like.

• 1:16:45Rich Roll?

  Is it, is it, you know, is it the world of the Terminator? Like, what are we doing?

• 1:16:49Adam Skolnick?

  Well, can we, cause I think I told you before we went on, I've been really enjoying the Brian Johnson pod that you did.

• 1:16:56Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:16:57Adam Skolnick?

  Um, I just found it fascinating and I'm not even the guy that, that like I've, I've, I've been aware of him and I'm not the guy that like is Mr. Optimization or Longevity guy. That's never been, I mean, I want to live as long as anybody wants to live. I don't want to die either. We're all afraid of death in some way.

• 1:17:15Rich Roll?

  You haven't dialed in your stack.

• 1:17:17Adam Skolnick?

  Right. It's not, but he, you know, what I love about that podcast and what I love about what he's doing is he's so committed. He's a, he is a philosopher. I know he's identifies with explorers and these great guys in history, you know, Magellan he mentioned in the podcast. Um, but really, if anything, he is a, he is the modernist philosopher and he's using his body as kind of a research tool. I mean, he's brilliant, right? As a philosopher, he's brilliant. And he is like all about using it. He's empower the algorithm. But what I love about what he said, one of the things I took away, one of the main, I mean, there's a lot of takeaways, but one of the things I took away was using don't die as a foundation for AI.

• 1:17:59Adam Skolnick?

  If you're going to build AI, don't die, don't, no humans can die, right? And if you use that as your baseline, as what he'd call your zero, that's interesting. At least that's a, at least that's like as a, as a, obviously, I understand the machine could take it over and flip it.

• 1:18:19Rich Roll?

  Right, it's the paperclip, you know.

• 1:18:20Adam Skolnick?

  But at least, at least you don't hear Sam Altman saying that. You don't hear any of these AI people saying that. They assume it's going to be good, but he's at least acknowledging you have to make that the baseline. You see what I mean? And so adding that kind of, at least it's, when he talks about it, you know, he's coming from a place where he, I'm not saying everything he's saying is right. I'm just saying, I like his philosophy on, you need to have something governing this, this wildfire that is AI. Something has to govern it. We should be able to come together and agree what's, what we want to use it for. But if you can't agree on that, then at least agree, this thing ain't going to kill us, right? We're, we're, we're, don't die.

• 1:19:05Adam Skolnick?

  Don't die is the goal.

• 1:19:06Rich Roll?

  You would hope that the people that are the adults in the room, if there are any on this, have, have considered that.

• 1:19:13Adam Skolnick?

  Of course.

• 1:19:13Rich Roll?

  In the building of this. I think the other thing that Brian is pretty good on is recognizing the limitations of, you know, human sense-making around what's in our best interest and what isn't. If you look at the planet, if you look at human health, like, we're actually not very good at decision-making.

• 1:19:34Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 1:19:35Rich Roll?

  At least with respect to our long-term well-being. And his point about turning over autonomy to the AI to make better decisions on behalf of human beings is very confronting.

• 1:19:49Adam Skolnick?

  Right, but also-

• 1:19:49Rich Roll?

  We don't want to acknowledge that we would need that help, or that or that that non-sentient entity would have our best interests at heart more than our own instincts.

• 1:20:02Adam Skolnick?

  Right, but because we, you know, but it's not that different from like the old matchmaking, matchmaker culture that was existed before.

• 1:20:09Rich Roll?

  And now it's all online dating.

• 1:20:11Adam Skolnick?

  Right, but and you think the algorithm's not involved in that? You have a matchmaker already.

• 1:20:15Rich Roll?

  Of course it is.

• 1:20:16Adam Skolnick?

  And so-

• 1:20:16Rich Roll?

  Well, that was his whole thing, like the algorithm's already operating in your life in so many ways that you're not even consciously aware of the extent to which it's already dictating how you're making decisions every single day.

• 1:20:26Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, and, and you know, you were very, you know, you, you, you've said it many times, but on the, on that particular podcast, you were, you were, uh, the way you said it was, was really easy to understand. I don't trust my mind, my mind's a drunken sailor, I can't trust my mind. And so, when you think of it that way, then yes, you're turning it over. And then you look at Dan Buettner, another friend of the pod, a friend of ours. You know, he, when he was doing Blue Zones of Happiness, he went to visit Singapore. And Singapore is not a democracy.

• 1:20:57Rich Roll?

  No.

• 1:20:57Adam Skolnick?

  No, Singapore is not. People don't realize that, but it's not. And it's the hap, one of the happiest places on earth. And so, this paradox of choice thing that comes up is real, right? Like, having more choice doesn't make you happier. And as you say, happiness can be over-indexed. But like, in terms of the best situation for you, it's an interesting indicator. Like happiness, peacefulness, it's, it's a good indicator. And so, uh, if you're trying to be the best version of yourself, maybe taking the mind out of it isn't so bad, right? And like, that's what I, it's certainly a good, as he says, thought exercise. And it's worth considering as the silver lining to whatever's coming, because it's coming. Or it's here already, really.

• 1:21:40Rich Roll?

  I didn't see Skolnik being on board with the Brian Johnson, uh, subsume yourself to the AI.

• 1:21:46Adam Skolnick?

  I'm not, I'm not, I'm not on board with it. I wouldn't want it myself because I'm a rebel at heart, but I like the intentionality of the philosophy. I like that he's, he's such a Western civil, all his, his reference points in philosophy are all the kind of bait, the kind of building blocks of Western civilization. And so from that perspective, I totally respect it. I see where he's going and what he's trying to do. Um, I'm not necessarily on board with it all. Um, but I find it really interesting because usually I'm resistant and maybe it's my new, maybe it's this year, my mindfulness. I'm open, I'm open to hearing it. You know what I mean? I'm like, part of me wanted to shut down, never tune into it, just like you say, in on that podcast, but you gotta be open to it because he's more clued in

• 1:22:29Adam Skolnick?

  to whatever this is than we are. And it's better to understand the world you're in.

• 1:22:35Rich Roll?

  He's also really good on the internet. He knows how to create stuff that produces conversation.

• 1:22:41Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:42Rich Roll?

  And, and, and travels. The whole thing about Generation Zero that he talked about on the podcast, did you notice that that got picked up by right wing media?

• 1:22:52Adam Skolnick?

  Did it.

• 1:22:52Rich Roll?

  They were all too unhappy about his comments about starting fresh and not relying upon, uh, historical, uh, pretense for any of our ideas to kind of have this tabula rasa approach to what the world could be. For some reason, that struck a nerve and there were all these videos that were made, um, lambasting him for that. I think, who's the guy on the Daily Wire? Yeah, Matt Walsh made a video about it, ranting about it. Steven Crowder made a video about it.

• 1:23:23Adam Skolnick?

  But the thing is that people don't get is like philosophers, they're not trying to create policy. He's beyond the policy.

• 1:23:31Rich Roll?

  And what he's saying is, is provocative.

• 1:23:34Adam Skolnick?

  Right. Well, it is, but that's what philosophers supposed to be provocative. They're supposed to be thinking in ways you don't ever think. That's why I think that's what it is.

• 1:23:41Rich Roll?

  Well, and his whole thing of like, I don't care what anybody who's alive now care, you know, thinks about what I think. Like, that doesn't interest me.

• 1:23:47Adam Skolnick?

  No. Some of the shit he says is hilarious. I mean, my big concern for him is, has he not seen Green Mile?

• 1:23:53Rich Roll?

  I don't remember what happens in Green Mile.

• 1:23:55Adam Skolnick?

  The guy doesn't die. He stays alive in a nursing home. Tom Hanks never dies.

• 1:24:00Rich Roll?

  He really, well, yeah, because everybody you know will be gone and all of that. But you know, maybe he'll just, but he's reversing his age. So he's gonna be, he's Gen Zero, dude. He's rewriting the rules. There's no green, green mile happening with this guy.

• 1:24:13Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 1:24:13Rich Roll?

  We'll see.

• 1:24:14Adam Skolnick?

  We'll see. My money's on you, Rich.

• 1:24:17Rich Roll?

  It's very interesting to see what he's doing and to watch the reaction to it as well.

• 1:24:22Adam Skolnick?

  That's interesting.

• 1:24:22Rich Roll?

  But I really enjoyed having him on the podcast. I'm really proud of that conversation and happy with it. And I thought he brought a laudable degree of openness and vulnerability to that. And I think the experience of listening to him in real time, like, explain the why behind the why, makes that like a, makes that like a pretty special one.

• 1:24:48Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, unique. I think you opened him up, like, like I said, I was not interested in his whole trip until listening. And I just tuned in. I'm like, because the way you posted, it was like, you know, if you have preconceived notions, listen to this anyway, because there's something for you. And the way you presented that, and it's exactly what that conversation is. It's like, it's like, there's something for you in that conversation, because anytime someone's trying to push the edge, which we love to, we loved, I write about those people. I love that. Like, people who are pushing the edge. He's pushing an edge that's in, that's lighting everybody up.

• 1:25:20Rich Roll?

  For sure.

• 1:25:20Adam Skolnick?

  And maybe he's afraid of death like everybody else, you know, that may be the fear of death.

• 1:25:25Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I think the interesting thing with him is, and I'm not sure he would disagree, this is a guy who, who, I think it's fair to say, suffered some degree of, of trauma as a young person in the Mormon church and the indoctrination of this, you know, specific religion and a fraught relationship with his father and then coming to terms with the religion, leaving the church, which suddenly creates this God-sized hole in your soul, right? Like, it's all about the afterlife. Suddenly, you're like, I'm not doing that anymore. I don't believe in that. What are you gonna, what are you gonna replace that with? He's replaced it with this quest that he's on.

• 1:26:08Rich Roll?

  But the question you have to ask is, how much of that is being motivated by this tremendous fear of death because there's no spirituality that's supplanting what used to be the Mormon religion? Technology and AI is his solution and perhaps that is his, you know, godhead. But I think it's an interesting way to think about his motivations.

• 1:26:40Adam Skolnick?

  It's interesting to ever compare yourself to Magellan and say, I want to be Magellan. You know, like, like.

• 1:26:46Rich Roll?

  That's pretty audacious.

• 1:26:47Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, I mean, you know, listen, like, you could have a lot of idols. Magellan, like, when you're putting yourself up on a historical figure like that, at least it wasn't Christopher Columbus, because we know.

• 1:26:57Rich Roll?

  Canceled.

• 1:26:58Adam Skolnick?

  He was lost. He didn't mean to go there.

• 1:27:00Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:27:02Adam Skolnick?

  But yeah, to think of it that way. And you know what I thought when I was listening to the podcast a little bit? You remember the end of Sideways? Do you remember that film Sideways? Where Giamatti's character is meeting his buddy's future father-in-law?

• 1:27:17Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's been, it's been many years.

• 1:27:19Adam Skolnick?

  Beginning of Sideways.

• 1:27:19Rich Roll?

  It's been many years, but.

• 1:27:20Adam Skolnick?

  And he said, I heard you're a writer. What do you write? I write novels. He goes, I don't, I don't, I only read nonfiction. That's what the guy says. I feel like this guy only reads nonfiction.

• 1:27:31Rich Roll?

  Who knows?

• 1:27:31Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:27:32Rich Roll?

  But let's talk about movies.

• 1:27:33Adam Skolnick?

  Let's do it. Fiction.

• 1:27:35Rich Roll?

  So, speaking of Sideways, Alexander Payne.

• 1:27:38Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 1:27:39Rich Roll?

  Was Holdovers your favorite movie of the year? What's your favorite movie of the year?

• 1:27:44Adam Skolnick?

  Favorite movie of the year? Well, I really liked Holdovers a lot. I haven't watched enough of the movies to really give people a good sense of what, what, what being my favorite movie of the year might mean. But The Holdovers is, is, it really did touch me. I watched it because, this week, because I thought we were going to get into this. And you sent a list of these Oscar nominated films and films you liked and mentioned that, that high school was like your high school. I didn't realize that you went to a boarding school.

• 1:28:13Rich Roll?

  No, I didn't. It, it wasn't a boarding school.

• 1:28:15Adam Skolnick?

  Okay.

• 1:28:15Rich Roll?

  So, everything about it, except the boarding part.

• 1:28:18Adam Skolnick?

  Okay.

• 1:28:19Rich Roll?

  Was the most. Authentic rendition of what my high school experience was like.

• 1:28:27Adam Skolnick?

  Years would have been.

• 1:28:28Rich Roll?

  An astonishing degree.

• 1:28:29Adam Skolnick?

  Years would have been 10 years later.

• 1:28:30Rich Roll?

  So Alexander Payne is just a couple of years older than me, but that movie is set, I think in the late 70s.

• 1:28:36Adam Skolnick?

  No, no, 1970, I think.

• 1:28:37Rich Roll?

  1970, so the time period is off. So I was in high school 80 to 85.

• 1:28:44Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 1:28:44Rich Roll?

  But nonetheless, I mean, those schools are stuck in time anyway.

• 1:28:47Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 1:28:47Rich Roll?

  Um, there were a lot of similarities, like just the way people were dressed and the archetypes of the teachers and the staff at the school was exactly the way that it was at the school that I went to. And just Paul Giamatti's character, I was like, I know that guy. I know, I had teachers that are exactly like that.

• 1:29:07Adam Skolnick?

  Paul Giamatti's character is like.

• 1:29:08Rich Roll?

  And I knew those kids, like those kids, they were all archetypes of kids that I knew in high school. And it was just a very similar environment. It was, it was eerie, like, you know how you have a sense memory?

• 1:29:18Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:19Rich Roll?

  Something like that, like it just brought me right back to that period of my life.

• 1:29:23Adam Skolnick?

  I thought it was amazing. I thought, uh, first of all, Paul Giamatti is the best disgruntled teacher ever. He's been there a couple of times.

• 1:29:29Rich Roll?

  Being, him being disgruntled in general and like, it's just, he, there's nobody better.

• 1:29:33Adam Skolnick?

  No.

• 1:29:33Rich Roll?

  Like he is the world champion.

• 1:29:35Adam Skolnick?

  And, uh, Divine, I thought was amazing. I thought like just a natural performance that was like really captivating and her whole arc. And it was one of those movies that like, and I love it. You know what? Alexander Payne is one of the greats, you know, he's really, truly is, he has been already, but like this confirms it for me. Like I, I, I think this is up there with, with election for me. That's how much I liked it. And it's funny.

• 1:29:59Rich Roll?

  Very different movies, very different tone.

• 1:30:02Adam Skolnick?

  I think I liked it better than, I loved Sideways, but I think I maybe even liked it better than Sideways. I think there's something about it that is, it sneaks up on you. Cause when you, when you see the trailer, it almost feels like a little bit old, like it feels like a little old style.

• 1:30:16Rich Roll?

  I was not sold on the trailer. I saw the trailer. I was like, really? This looks like a TV movie.

• 1:30:20Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 1:30:21Rich Roll?

  I, I was like, what is Alexander Payne doing? I'm not sure about this. And then it came out. I didn't rush to see it for that reason. And then everyone started talking about it and I was like, maybe. Misreading this and then I went in and it clobbered me.

• 1:30:34Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, but it is a slow clobber like the first part, you're still kind of like, okay, and you're kind of along for the ride right away. But it's not like you're immediately loving it like I remember Dead Poets Society immediately loving it or something. I think this is a better movie, actually, but like, but there is, um, it's a slow burn for me. And it really is at the end, it really gets you and it's, um, yeah, I thought it was beautiful.

• 1:30:58Rich Roll?

  So good at, at the intersection of comedy and like bittersweet sadness. And longing and you know, the dream that didn't happen and what that does to people.

• 1:31:13Rich Roll?

  What was, do you, you said like to define like what your favorite movie is. It seems like you have a different definition of what that might mean.

• 1:31:20Adam Skolnick?

  I'm looking at the list. I have seen Barbie. I've seen Holdovers. I've seen Oppenheimer. I read.

• 1:31:25Rich Roll?

  Maybe your, your favorite movie of the year is not on this list.

• 1:31:28Adam Skolnick?

  I read.

• 1:31:29Rich Roll?

  I mean, the, the Academy Awards list of 10 best movies doesn't mean that they are indeed the 10 best movies.

• 1:31:34Adam Skolnick?

  No, you're right. You're right. Um, I would say the, the, the most enjoyable movie experience I had this year was Barbie. That's what I would say.

• 1:31:42Rich Roll?

  All right.

• 1:31:43Adam Skolnick?

  And I, but I would put Holdovers up there. I thought, I haven't seen Poor Things. I'm excited to see Poor Things. It's not streaming like, like on these, on these. You can't rent it yet, but, um.

• 1:31:54Rich Roll?

  Poor Things is my favorite movie of the year. I mean, Oppenheimer is extraordinary.

• 1:31:58Adam Skolnick?

  I thought that was your favorite movie.

• 1:31:59Rich Roll?

  There's a recency bias, you know, because I saw Poor Things more recently. I mean, Oppenheimer is unbelievable. I'm a huge Nolan fan anyway. Uh, and I think that will win best picture and I think it.

• 1:32:10Adam Skolnick?

  It's got it.

• 1:32:10Rich Roll?

  Probably is technically like the movie, the best movie of the year that will stand the test of time. But I was just delighted by Poor Things and enamored with the artistry and the creativity. It's unlike anything you've ever seen before and the performances are just magical and wonderful. Mark Ruffalo has never been better. Willem Dafoe is best. Um, and, and Emma Stone is just a revelation in this movie. And the colors and the story and the themes that it's exploring and the way that it's doing it. In this just really interesting and specific way, it's, it's, it's just a marvel.

• 1:32:50Adam Skolnick?

  Maybe it'll, maybe, maybe it'll, uh, underdog and kind of steal, steal the show. We saw Nyad. I saw Nyad.

• 1:32:57Rich Roll?

  Shout out to Jimmy and Chi. We gotta shout out like friends of the pod.

• 1:33:01Adam Skolnick?

  Yes, let's do it.

• 1:33:02Rich Roll?

  Who are being noticed for their work in cinema. So the creators, the directors of Niyad. I still haven't seen this movie.

• 1:33:11Adam Skolnick?

  You haven't seen Niyad?

• 1:33:12Rich Roll?

  No.

• 1:33:12Adam Skolnick?

  Oh, it's really fun. It's a really good, I mean like, you know, Benning is amazing.

• 1:33:16Rich Roll?

  I'm embarrassed to admit that I haven't seen this movie yet.

• 1:33:18Adam Skolnick?

  And Jodie Foster.

• 1:33:19Rich Roll?

  I really need to watch it.

• 1:33:20Adam Skolnick?

  It's really, if you like Matt Benning and Jodie Foster, you don't even have to like swimming. If you like them, you don't even have to like Diana Nyad because the thing is, all the criticism they got about Niyad being X, Y, and Z, that's in the movie.

• 1:33:32Rich Roll?

  Oh, they address it in the movie?

• 1:33:34Adam Skolnick?

  She's not likable. You're not supposed to, you do like her, but you're not supposed to. You're like, she's like, she's ostensibly not a likable person. That's her character. But like, you were, but you still root for and respect her. So I'm not saying she's not a likable character, but she's not a, like, the person she's portraying, they don't try to make her seem like this awesome, like, angelic person. She's just a bad motherfucker. And it, and getting in her head and doing that, I mean, I just thought it's great. Some great photography, some really fun, kind of, it's, you know, the, the, the, talking about hallucination, hallucination when you're, you know, 24 hours doing something.

• 1:34:11Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:34:11Adam Skolnick?

  She, I forget what it was, like 90 hours or something? And how many times she failed. Say what you want about Diana Nyad, it's a fun film. And if you like open water swimming, I think it's a positive film for open water swimming. Yeah.

• 1:34:23Rich Roll?

  What the hell is going on with American Symphony not getting a best documentary nomination?

• 1:34:29Adam Skolnick?

  That's shocking, dude.

• 1:34:30Rich Roll?

  It is.

• 1:34:30Adam Skolnick?

  It's shocking.

• 1:34:31Rich Roll?

  I was really surprised by that.

• 1:34:34Adam Skolnick?

  It's a beautiful movie. It's like.

• 1:34:36Rich Roll?

  It got a, it got a best song nomination, uh, but it, it, for some reason, it didn't get a best doc.

• 1:34:41Adam Skolnick?

  I, I thought the documentary nominations were just weird.

• 1:34:44Rich Roll?

  I hadn't seen most of those documentaries.

• 1:34:47Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 1:34:47Rich Roll?

  So I don't know.

• 1:34:48Adam Skolnick?

  Like, why is? Why wouldn't you want it like, I don't know, I just, I just didn't recognize any of those documentaries. I don't know what, what they were going for, but that's who got nominated. I think it was a shock that wasn't, I thought that was a shoo in.

• 1:35:00Rich Roll?

  I say this every time, like, who cares what we like to watch, what movies we like and, and what we found interesting in the sort of streaming content space, but people keep saying that they're interested in it. So my favorite movies of the year beyond the Academy Award list or things that I've streamed that I've enjoyed.

• 1:35:19Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 1:35:19Rich Roll?

  Poor things, like I said, I really like The Iron Claw. I think that movie is incredible. Uh, I think Zac Efron's performance in that movie demonstrates what an incredible actor he is. Setting, setting aside like just this ridiculous physique that he has.

• 1:35:33Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 1:35:34Rich Roll?

  It's a really great movie. I loved it.

• 1:35:37Adam Skolnick?

  And his co-stars are.

• 1:35:38Rich Roll?

  Jeremy Allen White is in it. He's great. And, uh, Harris Dickinson, who I think is a, is going to be a really big star. Um, he also co-stars in what might be one of my favorite series of the year, Murder at the End of the World.

• 1:35:54Adam Skolnick?

  Okay.

• 1:35:55Rich Roll?

  Uh, which was created by Brett Marling and Zal Batman, Bat Monge, Bat Mondlich? I don't know how you say his last name. Bat, Bat Monge, I think is how you say it. They are the creators, the brilliant mind trust behind, uh, the OA. Did you ever watch the OA?

• 1:36:11Adam Skolnick?

  No.

• 1:36:12Rich Roll?

  So Murder at the End of the World, it's, it's, it's pretty great.

• 1:36:15Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, I really enjoyed it. I've heard of it. It got a lot of attention.

• 1:36:19Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's pretty cool. It's, that's worth a watch. Uh, shout out to Zac Braff for A Good Person. I really love that movie. Um, and that's definitely one of my favorites. American Symphony. Uh, did you see Godzilla Minus One?

• 1:36:31Adam Skolnick?

  No.

• 1:36:32Rich Roll?

  That movie is incredible.

• 1:36:33Adam Skolnick?

  If it's a movie I probably haven't seen.

• 1:36:35Rich Roll?

  Well, it's a Godzilla movie, but they made it on an, on like a micro budget, something like $7 million or something like that. But it, it looks like a $200 million movie and they did a fantastic job.

• 1:36:47Adam Skolnick?

  So AI is involved.

• 1:36:47Rich Roll?

  I love that. I loved Dream Scenario with Nicolas Cage, our greatest living movie star.

• 1:36:53Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 1:36:53Rich Roll?

  That movie is, if you like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, if you like, uh, kind of. Weird Charlie Kaufman-esque narratives, like, "This is your jam. Check that out."

• 1:37:04Adam Skolnick?

  I'll check it out.

• 1:37:05Rich Roll?

  I love BlackBerry. Did you see BlackBerry? That movie's fantastic. It's the story of BlackBerry. It's hilarious.

• 1:37:12Adam Skolnick?

  I heard of it.

• 1:37:12Rich Roll?

  This movie is, yeah, it's great. I really enjoyed it. On the streaming front, or limited series front, Murder at the End of the World, like I said.

• 1:37:21Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:37:21Rich Roll?

  I also love The Gold, which is about the Brinksmatt robbery. It's a limited series that's really about class in UK at a very specific time.

• 1:37:34Adam Skolnick?

  Oh, I like that.

• 1:37:34Rich Roll?

  The Brinksmatt robbery is the largest gold heist in Britain's history. And it was a heist that was spearheaded by Mickey McAvoy, who is the uncle of John McAvoy.

• 1:37:48Adam Skolnick?

  Really?

• 1:37:48Rich Roll?

  On the podcast, yeah. And it tells the story of this group of people who tried to pull this heist off. And it's not so much about the heist, but the aftermath of the heist, and how they tried to continue to elude the law, who was trying to figure out who did this, through all these arcane, kind of, money laundering tactics. And it's super fascinating. And it pits class against class in a really interesting way, in the context of this sort of heist slash detective story, with brilliant performances. I just love that show. I think it's definitely one of the best things I've seen.

• 1:38:25Adam Skolnick?

  I love a heist. I love a heist thriller.

• 1:38:30Rich Roll?

  I liked Beef. True Detective I liked. Liked. I wasn't crazy about the finale. I don't know.

• 1:38:36Adam Skolnick?

  Beef is great.

• 1:38:36Rich Roll?

  Beef was great.

• 1:38:37Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, Beef was great. I liked, I'm into Slow Horses. I'm dipping into Slow Horses.

• 1:38:41Rich Roll?

  I love Slow Horses.

• 1:38:42Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah. I'm only in season one.

• 1:38:44Rich Roll?

  Oh, you have so much goodness waiting for you. I mean, Gary Oldman's never been better. He's just the best.

• 1:38:51Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:38:52Rich Roll?

  That show is just delicious from beginning to end. I just, I love it.

• 1:38:55Adam Skolnick?

  It's definitely, that's an Apple show, right? Yeah, that's what I've been watching. Apple, that's the best Apple show I've seen.

• 1:39:00Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I think you're right about that.

• 1:39:02Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:02Rich Roll?

  I love it. Should we answer some listener questions?

• 1:39:05Adam Skolnick?

  Let's do it.

• 1:39:06Speaker 02

  Hey, guys. It's Jason Hackett calling. Glad to see we've got a roll on back on the books. My question's around what I've seen you both doing on Instagram lately. You know, I've got a lot of ideas myself around taking personal travel without my partner, without my kids, and I see you guys both out there in the world doing your thing, whether you're going down to Australia. Or somewhere out in the deep blue. I'm curious, knowing that both of you have partners and families that you love madly. How do you think about solo travel? And, you know, how would you frame it in your life?

• 1:39:40Adam Skolnick?

  Jason, thank you for the message. Um, I'm, I've, I've heard, I'm not, I've, I've, I've never met a dad who didn't, who didn't want, have that dream.

• 1:39:49Rich Roll?

  The dream, the dream of the solo.

• 1:39:53Adam Skolnick?

  Some time away. Time away.

• 1:39:55Rich Roll?

  For a minute.

• 1:39:55Adam Skolnick?

  Um, I think that you, in my, my respect, um, you've misperceived something. The only time I've been away from my family on a trip was to Utah to do the Iron Cowboy story and to do air in Arizona. To do that swim story I did for New York Times. You were with me.

• 1:40:13Rich Roll?

  Two days, two days each or something like that, right?

• 1:40:15Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, Rich, you saw.

• 1:40:16Rich Roll?

  Well, I was with you in Utah.

• 1:40:17Adam Skolnick?

  You saw my palatial hotel room in Utah by the freeway. Did you like it?

• 1:40:21Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it was right around the corner from the gun shop, as I recall.

• 1:40:26Adam Skolnick?

  To a defunct gun shop. Um, no, but I mean, I understand that, that desire. Uh, I've actually, the point of our trip more recently was to be, be the people we used to be kind of thing. So which is, which kind of speaks to this, right? Like I, um, had traveled, I was a traveler, April was a traveler. We are travelers. We just haven't been traveling. And so we want Zuma, Zuma's a great traveler. And so we know it's time is coming where he's, you know, preschool goes to kindergarten. And then it's, it's hard to, you have to, to make the decision then go away for big chunks of time. It's harder. Now's the time. And so we wanted to seize it. We wanted to kind of be international again and shake off kind of, uh, all, all the noise around here. And so, uh, we packed everybody up and did it.

• 1:41:09Adam Skolnick?

  So everything that I'm posting about that's related to like, if you see me with whales or whatever, almost every time.

• 1:41:16Rich Roll?

  You're with your family.

• 1:41:17Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, I'm with the family.

• 1:41:18Rich Roll?

  You're not in some solo expedition.

• 1:41:20Adam Skolnick?

  Never, no, no, no.

• 1:41:21Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Um, thank you, Jason, for your question. I want to quickly acknowledge you. Jason and I know each other. Um, Jason was very kind to, uh, when he saw that I was visiting New York City.

• 1:41:37Rich Roll?

  Where Jason lives, he invited me to get an early sneak peek at a project that he was involved with at Summit at One Vanderbilt, which is the new, brand-new like, observation experience at the top of that building that gives you this incredible view of New York City. Yes. You know, like, there's the glass floor and you can see all the way down to the street and there's one room that has like, these floating balloon balls and it's multi-tiered. It's one of the most beautiful, extraordinary experiences that you can have in New York City. And Jason, Jason was working on that and he gave me kind of a behind-the-scenes tour before it was even open, which was super cool.

• 1:42:21Rich Roll?

  So, thank you, Jason, for that unique, once-in-a-lifetime experience. And I appreciate the question. Like, like, like Adam said, it's, the reading between the lines is sort of like, how can I figure out how to have a little bit of solo time for myself in an adventure context? And I get that. I mean, I think, for myself, like, I like solo travel. I am an introverted person and I know that I need some isolation in order to be my best self. I have to kind of detach and disconnect from my life a little bit so that I can come back to it and be the best version of, of a dad and a professional person and a partner and the like.

• 1:43:03Rich Roll?

  And I have an incredibly supportive partner who understands that about me as well. But, these experiences don't just crop out, crop up, you know, out of nowhere, like, they're the result of a lot of conversations over a long period of time. Like, I start, you know, plan, I plant the seed and plan the thing like, a year in advance. Start now, Jason. It's not like, there's no, like... Yeah. And again, like, listen, it's an incredible luxury to be able to do this. And for what it's worth, like Julie joined me for the last 10 days of my trip in Australia. So I wasn't, you know, like, I wasn't there by myself the entire time. I was last year.

• 1:43:43Adam Skolnick?

  And your kids are older as well.

• 1:43:45Rich Roll?

  And my kids are older. I don't have young kids.

• 1:43:47Adam Skolnick?

  That's significant.

• 1:43:47Rich Roll?

  So my youngest is now in boarding school and I've got a 20 year old who's in college. And then the two boys are older and in the world. So it's like, I don't have, there's nobody at home to worry about, except, you know, my, my partner, my relationship with my partner.

• 1:44:05Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 1:44:06Rich Roll?

  And, and she's supportive of this. So.

• 1:44:10Adam Skolnick?

  And you found your solo time.

• 1:44:12Rich Roll?

  I'm not like, I'm not trying to escape my family or get away. I'm trying to, you know, kind of detach from everything and go inward a little bit.

• 1:44:20Adam Skolnick?

  Right, right. And you, when your kids were young, you did that through these kind of endurance efforts, right? That was your way to grab some of that solo time, right?

• 1:44:27Rich Roll?

  Yeah. I think it's really an ongoing exchange with your partner and your family about like what everyone's needs are.

• 1:44:34Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:35Rich Roll?

  And finding a way to make sure that everyone's needs are being met. And different needs are getting met at different periods of time. First, everybody has to understand what those needs are. And there has to be an agreement that everybody's going to strive to help, help everybody's needs get met to the best of their ability.

• 1:44:54Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:54Rich Roll?

  So, and not everybody's needs are the same and your needs, Jason, are not going to be the same as mine, et cetera. And your partner's needs, you know, I think it's like figuring out where you can match up and where those needs intersect. So for a lot of people like you, it's like you, you, like your, your travel experience, there was a different intentionality behind that from what I was doing.

• 1:45:15Adam Skolnick?

  Right, right, right, right. Different. Yeah.

• 1:45:17Rich Roll?

  But my sense being that Jason would like to have some version of this experience for himself. I mean, the only advice that I could give is that you open up the topic for conversation.

• 1:45:29Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah. Yeah, I mean, listen, I'd love to do a live aboard to an archipelago off the coast of La Paz for a week and just dive my brains out, but I'm aware that that won't happen.

• 1:45:40Rich Roll?

  Yeah, nor would it have for me like when I was in your, my version of your situation. Like, it's not appropriate.

• 1:45:48Adam Skolnick?

  It's not appropriate. So that will come when it comes. That's why you're able to do what you're doing. The kids are older and that's that. But it's, it's good to talk about, like, you can do things, you know, like backpacking trips are one way of doing it. You can, you can frame these kind of escapes. And I don't mean escape from the family. I mean, escape from, into another state of being. You can do that.

• 1:46:10Rich Roll?

  They don't have to be massive, like, month-long things.

• 1:46:14Adam Skolnick?

  No, they could be a couple of days here or there. Like, you can get out in the Sierra Nevadas. You can probably sell that. You can, you might be able to sell that, you know, as long as, as long as your partner gets that, too.

• 1:46:23Rich Roll?

  Next question.

• 1:46:24Adam Skolnick?

  Kirsten Moore, please.

• 1:46:26Speaker 03

  Hi, this is Kirsten Moore. My question is regards to aging and competing. I am 42 and was competitive runner in college. I've always maintained a relatively active lifestyle throughout the years, but hadn't really run much. I recently started back up again, joined a few run clubs and signed up for my first marathon, which is in two weeks, and I'm so excited. The college kid in me wants to go all out, but I'm finding pesky injuries and pains holding me back. My question is, what advice do you have on how to approach competing at this stage in life, in particular, how to manage injuries, mindset, and expectations? I know Rich didn't start his competitive ultra endurance career until later in life and seemed to thrive. Secondly, where, where does Rich stand with competing now? He's talked about struggling with an injury himself, but does he have any intentions on competing

• 1:47:11Speaker 03

  in the future or is he leaving those days behind to shift his focus towards work? Thanks to both of you guys. I really appreciate you.

• 1:47:17Rich Roll?

  Thanks for the question, Kirsten. Forty-two, it's a great year. When I was forty, forty-two, forty-three, those are my favorite years as an athlete.

• 1:47:28Adam Skolnick?

  Really?

• 1:47:28Rich Roll?

  Yeah, forty-three was like my best year, I think, as an athlete. So it's a great time, I think, to test your competitiveness or to rekindle that passion with being competitive in, in, in sport, particularly because that's your, that's your background and it seems like you're Missing that or kind of aching for some version of that experience, which I think is really cool. But I think there are a couple of things that are important to bear in mind as an older athlete going back into the arena, so to speak. The first being that, and I'm not telling you anything you probably don't already know, but it's important to train where you're at now, rather than where you think you should be, or where you're used to be. Like, I was a competitive

• 1:48:13Rich Roll?

  runner in college. So when I'm, you know, my splits should be like this, or, oh my goodness, they used to be like this, and now they're so much slower. Because I think that, that creates a mindset of negativity around what you're doing. Just like, accept where you are, and embrace it, and not judge yourself against past standards. Because that just sets you up for disappointment, or some unhealthy, you know, relationship with what you're trying to do now. There's a funny joke. I'm in a group text with a bunch of guys that I swam with in college, and we all now jump in

• 1:48:54Rich Roll?

  the pool from time to time, or swim masters. And it's that thing where you're doing a set in the pool, and you think in your mind, like, it feels like I'm going as fast as I used to. Like, it doesn't, my stroke doesn't necessarily feel any different. And I hit the wall, and I'm like, I think that's a, I think that 100 was maybe like 58, or like, somewhere between 58 and a minute. And then you look at the pace clock, and it's like, 112, or something like that. And you're like, what is happening? And you just think, well, the pace clock's wrong. All the pace clocks at all the pools are wrong. Or, this pool isn't actually 25 yards. It must be like 33 yards. And it's a joke that we all have, because we're all having that experience. So it's like,

• 1:49:36Rich Roll?

  I don't really look at the pace clock anymore. I go on feel. I don't try to judge myself against what I used to be able to do.

• 1:49:45Rich Roll?

  And the truth is, nobody cares, except for you. Like, it doesn't really matter. So you should be doing it for the joy and for the experience of it, but not as some kind of metric to compare yourself against a past version of yourself as an athlete. And I think also, it's important to recognize that you have to take,

• 1:50:09Rich Roll?

  you know, injuries, big and small, a little bit more seriously than you used to. Things that maybe you would train through in your twenties, like, "Oh, it'll go away, it'll be fine." Like, those things don't tend to go away.

• 1:50:19Adam Skolnick?

  No.

• 1:50:20Rich Roll?

  And so, you really need to have the discipline to ease off and to not train, or to, you know, cross-train if you're contending with something that's bothering you. Do not try to train through injuries. Trust me, take it from me, you know, as somebody who's been now contending with a lower back issue for much longer than I probably would have, had I nipped this in the bud when it first cropped up. And I think the other thing is to approach it as a lifestyle with a longer-term view, as opposed to, "I'm doing this race and I'm gonna set aside my whole life and go all-in on this race." Like, how can you create a sustainable lifestyle around these activities that you enjoy, so that you can enjoy them over a longer period of time?

• 1:51:03Rich Roll?

  That way, when you do have an injury, or a setback, or something like that, it doesn't feel as heightened, or as big of a deal, because you're training for a race. Because this is just part of who you are. And as somebody who has experienced being a competitive athlete, like, injury is just part of the deal from time to time. I think it's important to have goals, of course. It's cool that you're excited about this marathon and this race. But I think, as older people, we have other values and things in our life that are also important. So, as you chase this goal, you also have to make sure that you're protecting the other values in your life that compete for your time and your attention. Otherwise, it will start to degrade the quality of your life,

• 1:51:47Rich Roll?

  and the quality of your relationships, which is at odds with your goal, which is to leverage competitive sports, or endurance sports, or whatever activity it is, to improve the quality of your life.

• 1:52:00Adam Skolnick?

  I like that. Can I interject real quick? I think that that... This idea of, because you understand the competitive athlete mind, which is you kind of zero things out and focus so hard to get it done.

• 1:52:12Rich Roll?

  And there's something beautiful about that, but it's not sustainable.

• 1:52:15Adam Skolnick?

  But you know that that's there, and so you're saying, take the long view. The long view wins in, as an athlete, as an adult, you know, like the long view is the only thing, because really, the process and your life is what to focus on, not that small thing anymore. That bullseye, that bullseye could take your eye off the ball that you really need to be focusing on, right?

• 1:52:37Rich Roll?

  Sure, and I don't know the details of Kirsten's life and what else is going on, but I think there's a season to things. Like, I think it's okay to go all in on a goal like that, as long as you realize like it's temporary, and that the other things that are important in your life are being taken care of adequately during that period of time, if not maximally, but that pendulum will swing back when that race is over. And everybody who's important in your life is on board with that. Again, there has to be communication around these things, and there has to be buy-in from the people that are in your life, so that it doesn't become a disruption unnecessarily.

• 1:53:14Adam Skolnick?

  Yes, sir.

• 1:53:15Rich Roll?

  To the second point of the question about myself and competition, I mean, the truth is, I don't really care about competition anymore, like, it just doesn't really speak to me in the way that it used to. I certainly don't care how I measure up to other people at this point. I want to be fit, but I want to be fit for life, not for performance reasons. I want to be the guy who's kind of good to go for any kind of adventure at a moment's notice, to be fit enough when that call comes, like, hey, we're gonna go do this thing in two weeks, or whatever, and just not worry, like, oh my god, I'm out of shape and can't do it. But the idea of toeing the line at a race for a high-performance goal, just really

• 1:54:00Rich Roll?

  isn't that interesting to me anymore. Like, I've done that, I've learned what I needed to learn about that experience, and it's not that those experiences aren't nourishing, or couldn't be nourishing to me, or that I couldn't learn things about myself by doing that, but the amount of time and energy required to go from, like, good or okay to, like, excellent, is so extreme, that it would cut into all these other things that are...

• 1:54:34Rich Roll?

  Equally important to me and require my time and attention. And so when you run like a cost benefit analysis, it doesn't make sense. To justify that, that kind of, that kind of commitment. And that doesn't mean that I won't, won't jump into some races at some point, but it's just not a huge priority mirror to me right now. I just don't, I don't really care how fast I go or how long or how far I can go. I'm really caring more these days about how I can impact people in a positive way. And sometimes doing a race or demonstrating some kind of prowess athletically can serve

• 1:55:14Rich Roll?

  that end, but not in comparison to, you know, what, what we can do with the podcast and the books and all those other things, which, you know, take, take a lot of time.

• 1:55:24Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:55:25Rich Roll?

  So, that's my big answer.

• 1:55:27Adam Skolnick?

  That's a great answer.

• 1:55:29Rich Roll?

  But I'll probably jump into a race at some point.

• 1:55:30Adam Skolnick?

  You will?

• 1:55:31Rich Roll?

  Well, who knows? As long as I, I mean, right now, getting, getting, getting completely healed is the most important thing.

• 1:55:37Adam Skolnick?

  Listen, it's great news you're, you're pushing it on a bike like this. Like when I was seeing some of the like, you're like you're, you're going uphill. I mean, those are, that's a lot of climbing. At one point you were on a gravel bike, like on the road to a beach. Like you, did you have, did you have multiple bikes you were working on?

• 1:55:51Rich Roll?

  No, no, I was just taking a road bike on gravel.

• 1:55:53Adam Skolnick?

  Oh.

• 1:55:54Rich Roll?

  Yeah, but like, you know, it's fine.

• 1:55:56Adam Skolnick?

  A little powery rebo, what's that, what was that?

• 1:55:58Rich Roll?

  Perry, Perry Roubaix.

• 1:56:00Adam Skolnick?

  Roubaix.

• 1:56:01Rich Roll?

  I wouldn't, I wouldn't go for that. That's cobblestones. That's a whole different thing, Adam.

• 1:56:05Adam Skolnick?

  Is it gravel? Hey, Frenchy, is that?

• 1:56:10Rich Roll?

  Talking about biking?

• 1:56:11Adam Skolnick?

  Is that French gravel? Yes. Well, listen, it's good that you're, you're back at it.

• 1:56:16Rich Roll?

  I love riding my bike and I can't wait to get running again.

• 1:56:20Adam Skolnick?

  And pool, pools like, pool is the last thing because of the way, because of the flip turn?

• 1:56:24Rich Roll?

  Adam, here's the deal. You know what I'm training for, honestly?

• 1:56:26Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 1:56:27Rich Roll?

  The Olympics.

• 1:56:30Rich Roll?

  It's true, though.

• 1:56:31Adam Skolnick?

  All right, Larry.

• 1:56:31Rich Roll?

  I'm going to Paris this summer.

• 1:56:33Adam Skolnick?

  Oh, you are?

• 1:56:34Rich Roll?

  For the Olympics to do a bunch of stuff.

• 1:56:37Adam Skolnick?

  Fantastic.

• 1:56:37Rich Roll?

  And I would like to be very fit when I arrive there.

• 1:56:39Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:56:40Rich Roll?

  Not because I'm gonna be competing, but just because I would like to be well-trained when I arrive.

• 1:56:44Adam Skolnick?

  Dude, that's gonna be awesome.

• 1:56:45Rich Roll?

  So, you heard it here first, I'm training for the Olympics.

• 1:56:48Adam Skolnick?

  Are you going with on?

• 1:56:50Rich Roll?

  I'm gonna be doing some stuff with on.

• 1:56:52Adam Skolnick?

  Fantastic.

• 1:56:53Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:56:53Adam Skolnick?

  Oh, we should talk about that at some point.

• 1:56:55Rich Roll?

  We will.

• 1:56:56Adam Skolnick?

  All right. Teased, teased here first.

• 1:56:58Rich Roll?

  All right.

• 1:56:59Adam Skolnick?

  All right, roll on.

• 1:56:59Rich Roll?

  Let's wrap it up, let's get to this last question and get it done.

• 1:57:03Adam Skolnick?

  Rich wants to leave.

• 1:57:04Rich Roll?

  I gotta go.

• 1:57:05Adam Skolnick?

  Uh, okay, let's go, one last one. Here's Petra.

• 1:57:09Speaker 04

  Hi, Rich, I have two questions. The first question is, what would you say your top five podcasts are in terms of the most important content for people to hear? And I know this is a really subjective question, but I'm just curious what your thoughts are. Like, if everyone in the entire world could listen to only five podcasts, what would they, what would they be in order for everyone to hear them and the world would change because of them? And my second question is, can we be friends in real life?

• 1:57:43Speaker 04

  I love everything you are about and the podcasts are just so amazing, thank you for everything. Okay, bye.

• 1:57:49Rich Roll?

  I will be friends for life with anyone named Petra. I think that might be the first Petra.

• 1:57:55Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:57:55Rich Roll?

  That I've ever been introduced to.

• 1:57:57Adam Skolnick?

  I knew a Petra once.

• 1:57:58Rich Roll?

  Yeah, but this Petra, it's a whole different thing.

• 1:58:00Adam Skolnick?

  It is.

• 1:58:01Rich Roll?

  Don't you know?

• 1:58:01Adam Skolnick?

  Yes.

• 1:58:02Rich Roll?

  Like cobblestones and gravel, they're different.

• 1:58:05Adam Skolnick?

  Either way, Rich Roll can ride his bicycle over them.

• 1:58:08Rich Roll?

  Thank you for your question. Actually, you know, I get some version of this question a lot. It's so hard to be asked to choose among your babies.

• 1:58:18Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 1:58:19Rich Roll?

  When you use superlatives, best, top, you know, making lists about, you know, these are human beings, Petra, I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings.

• 1:58:28Adam Skolnick?

  No.

• 1:58:30Rich Roll?

  I don't know that I can give a sufficient answer, but I'm gonna try. And the way I'm gonna try to answer this question is with a very unsatisfying caveat, which is, it depends, right? Like, it depends. Like, what is your dilemma? Like, what is the thing that is calling you? What is the problem you're trying to solve? Like, are you somebody who needs help with addiction, who's trying to get sober? Are you somebody who's trying to change your life? Are you somebody who's trying to lose weight? Or somebody who struggles with sleep? Or has a mental health issue? Or a problem getting off their devices? Or are you somebody who feels creatively stymied?

• 1:59:14Rich Roll?

  Who's looking for guidance and counsel about how to be more expressed? Are you looking to upgrade your mindset? Like, all of these categories have domain experts that I think speak very well to solving these problems, or providing tools. So to say, "Oh, here's five, these are the best ones, this is what everybody should listen to." I mean, I think, listen, if there is an overarching theme to the whole show, it's about this idea that we all have more potential to improve our lives than we believe, or we allow ourselves to believe.

• 1:59:56Rich Roll?

  Like, our capacity for change and growth is much more enormous than I think most people understand. And to the extent that the podcast allows people to connect with that idea and put into action steps that lead them towards that sense of greater expression, I think that's really the thing that I'm always trying to get at. And we've had lots of people who are pretty good. At speaking to that through their own personal experiences and and stories of personal transformation. I mean, if there's a couple that stand out, I mean, the John, we talked about that movie or that limited series, The Gold, and John McAvoy, like,

• 2:00:39Rich Roll?

  my first episode with him is still to me, one of the most astonishing stories I've ever heard about somebody who has changed their life completely and wholesale to go from quite despondent to somebody who is not only fulfilled, but of service. I think it's really a beautiful story. And there are versions of that in all the different categories, like if if if health and weight is an issue that you contend with, I would suggest Josh LaJanni or the Dave Clark episodes that we've done. Dave has since passed away. But those are also stories of personal transformation and change. They're just in the context

• 2:01:20Rich Roll?

  of health and and and weight loss. And Dave, on top of that, is this incredible or was this incredible sobriety story as well? Like, his story is is is quite stunning in that regard. Sleep, Matthew Walker, technology, Max Fisher, I think the episode with Johann Hari was pretty great on that. I mean, when it comes to mental health, there's just too many to name. But on the subject of creativity, Steven Pressfield, Rick Rubin, Cal Newport, we just did a second episode with him the other day, Mark Manson, James Clear, all really great episodes on on that topic. Mindset, there's nobody better than Michael Gervais.

• 2:02:03Rich Roll?

  And then what about spirituality? Julie, of course. I thought the second conversation I did with Brain Wilson on that was pretty great. Raghunath Kappa, we have all these Guru Singh episodes. So it's really a choose your adventure thing. I mean, what do you think? You you it's not like you've listened to all of them, but like, are there ones that stick out for you?

• 2:02:23Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, I well, I think in terms of impact, the David Goggins episode.

• 2:02:28Rich Roll?

  Oh, yeah, of course.

• 2:02:29Adam Skolnick?

  Is the one that's the first one I've I heard that that was David's story.

• 2:02:34Rich Roll?

  Like, yeah, changing your life, or you need a kick in the pants, or you need some motivation or inspiration, or some tools to more discipline yourself.

• 2:02:44Adam Skolnick?

  Right. But not just that, but that like, that's how I heard of them. And then The books kind of for me started there and so and then Huberman, Look What He's Built. I mean, that came after your podcast. I think those those two are very big impacts like beyond just they're great to listen to. They've actually manifested to these amazing.

• 2:03:03Rich Roll?

  Those are those are or are among the most, well, the Huberman one is is by far the most watched.

• 2:03:10Adam Skolnick?

  Most watched, yeah.

• 2:03:12Rich Roll?

  And probably the most listened to of all the shows that I've done. But they David Goggins episodes are are pretty close up there as well.

• 2:03:20Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, and then if I wasn't on your podcast my very first time, I wouldn't be married to April Wong. Because she heard that podcast and that's how we kind of reconnected, even though we'd met before. And so.

• 2:03:32Rich Roll?

  So that episode, so that episode that she heard that led to this would be the one that you would say has been the most impactful to your life. But is it the one that you would recommend other people?

• 2:03:44Adam Skolnick?

  It won't work for you. It won't work for you.

• 2:03:46Rich Roll?

  It's not going to change their lives in the way that it did for you.

• 2:03:49Adam Skolnick?

  But like if you're looking at me.

• 2:03:50Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 2:03:51Adam Skolnick?

  No, and then, but yes, there's so many like, like, some of them are like just amazing, amazing stories. I mean, I loved, I always liked Alex Honnold on the podcast. I love the Kevin Ruiz one a lot. I like that that one was good for for devices as well.

• 2:04:10Rich Roll?

  Oh, yeah, that's right. Yeah, cool.

• 2:04:12Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 2:04:12Rich Roll?

  Is that your favorite roll on, the AI one that we did?

• 2:04:15Adam Skolnick?

  The AI one is my favorite roll on? No, no, no. I don't have a favorite because.

• 2:04:19Rich Roll?

  It was pretty great to have Chris Evans on.

• 2:04:21Adam Skolnick?

  That was great.

• 2:04:22Rich Roll?

  That might be, and that was the last one we did, right?

• 2:04:24Adam Skolnick?

  That was the last one.

• 2:04:25Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 2:04:25Adam Skolnick?

  That was a fun one. I mean, they're always fun, you know, for me, the roll on part, just to be part of this community is pretty, it's a treat because I never expected it. And so, and especially now you have everyone and their brother starting a podcast, but you feel like you're in this kind of like, who's listening to all these podcasts? Like, it's crazy. So to be able to kind of hitch my wagon to you every once in a while and to be on a podcast that actually does make an impact and has people listening is it's it's a treat and any journalist would tell you that. So that's why you get somebody who want to be on your podcast. So to be able to be on here multiple times and as many times I've been on, listen, it's great and I'm excited that the audience has. Connected to me, at least a portion of them.

• 2:05:08Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 2:05:08Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 2:05:09Rich Roll?

  They have, man.

• 2:05:10Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 2:05:10Rich Roll?

  I love you. They love you. I love you and roll on. And this was great, man. This was super fun.

• 2:05:16Adam Skolnick?

  Always fun.

• 2:05:17Rich Roll?

  Any parting words? That was a parting. That was sort of a beautiful parting message.

• 2:05:21Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, man. Thank you. Thanks for having me back. Thanks to you and the audience.

• 2:05:24Rich Roll?

  We'll do it again soon.

• 2:05:25Adam Skolnick?

  Cool.

• 2:05:25Rich Roll?

  Yeah. And we'll just, uh...

• 2:05:27Adam Skolnick?

  When?

• 2:05:28Rich Roll?

  I don't know. We'll see. Yeah, it'll be, it will be, we're not, it won't be six months.

• 2:05:32Adam Skolnick?

  No, no, no.

• 2:05:32Rich Roll?

  Yeah. It won't be six months. Um, this was great. We're definitely gonna do it again soon. In the meantime, again, uh, Voicing Change, Volume Three is out week of March 11th, as well as this beautiful box set. All the editions and the volumes are signed. It's, uh, quite stunning as a coffee table adornment, or as a gift. We're really proud of the latest, uh, the latest volume, as well as this beautiful box set. I just, you know, I haven't ever seen anything else like it in the world.

• 2:06:05Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 2:06:06Rich Roll?

  And really excited for people to enjoy it. So you can find that at richroll.com. Sign up for our newsletter when, if you want to be notified the day that they come out, but it will be that week.

• 2:06:19Adam Skolnick?

  Very cool, man.

• 2:06:20Rich Roll?

  Cheers. Back again soon. Love you, buddy.

• 2:06:23Adam Skolnick?

  Love you too, brother.

• 2:06:24Rich Roll?

  Peace.

• 2:06:37Rich Roll?

  That's it for today. Thank you for listening. I truly hope you enjoyed the conversation. To learn more about today's guests, including links and resources related to everything discussed today, visit the episode page at richroll.com, where you can find the entire podcast archive, as well as podcast merch, my books, Finding Ultra, Voicing Change, and The Plant Power Way, as well as the Plant Power Meal Planner at meals.richroll.com.

• 2:07:08Rich Roll?

  If you'd like to support the podcast, the easiest and most impactful thing you can do is to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify, and on YouTube, and leave a review and/or comment. Supporting the sponsors who support the show is also important and appreciated. And sharing the show or your favorite episode with friends or on social media is, of course, awesome and very helpful. And finally, for podcast updates, special offers on books, the meal planner, and other subjects, please subscribe to our newsletter, which you can find on the footer of any page at richroll.com. Today's show was produced and engineered by Jason Camiolo, with additional audio engineering

• 2:07:50Rich Roll?

  by Cale Curtis. The video edition of the podcast was created by Blake Curtis, with assistance by our creative director, Dan Drake. Portraits by Davy Greenberg. Graphic and social media assets courtesy of Daniel Salis. Thank you, Georgia Whaley, for copywriting and website management. And of course, our theme music was created by Tyler Pyatt, Trapper Pyatt, and Harry Mathis. Appreciate the love, love the support. See you back here soon. Peace. Plants.