Roll On: America's Overdue (R)Evolution

It feels wrong to talk about anything other than this current historic moment. So let's address it, head on. The first in what I anticipate will be an ongoing series of ask-me-anything themed episodes we're calling 'Roll On:', I'm joined today by Adam Skolnick to discuss all things Black Lives Matter. Best known as the co-author of David Goggins' juggernaut memoir, Can't Hurt Me, Adam is an activist and veteran adventure journalist who has traveled the world writing for The New York Times, Playboy, Outside, ESPN, BBC, Men’s Health, and many other prominent publications. You may recall his outstanding reporting on Colin O'Brady's historic solo Antarctica traverse in 2018 for The New York Times. And long-time listeners will fondly remember his 2016 appearance on the podcast (RRP #218), in which we discussed One Breath — his poetic biography of Nicholas Mevoli, America’s greatest freediver. Shifting roles from host to guest, today I share a perspective on race in America. Civil rights and social unrest. White privilege. And how I'm actively seeking to better myself — and this podcast as a whole. The RRP is not a news program. And it's not a political talk show. But it is a show about what is important. It's about having conversations that matter. And right now, no conversation matters more than redressing racial injustice. This is an exchange about our collective responsibility to act. To speak up for what is right. And to finally dismantle the systemic ills that have contributed to unspeakable harms that can no longer go unchecked. It's also a discussion about the history and mission of this podcast. My vision for the future. And goals set to broaden the inclusivity of my advocacy. But more than anything, this is a dissection of the untold history of racism in America. And the unprecedented opportunity this unique moment presents to evolve and heal. As individuals. As a nation. And as a global community. Note: This is the simply the first of many conversations to come on the theme of race. Over the upcoming weeks I will be sharing impactful conversations with a variety of people of color, including Byron Davis, Phil Allen, Jr., Knox Robinson, John Lewis (aka 'Badass Vegan'), John Salley, Shaka Senghor, Neil Phillips and many others. In the interim, I encourage you to explore the many copious resources listed in the show notes below. Read. Listen. Challenge yourself. Get active. Donate if you're able. The visually inclined can watch our conversation on YouTube. And as always, the audio version streams wild and free on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. To coin Cornel West's phrase, what we need right now is 'all season love warriors.' It is in that spirit that I offer this exchange -- with gratitude and respect for all my brothers and sisters. Peace + Plants, Rich Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:00Rich Roll?

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• 0:44Rich Roll?

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• 1:13Rich Roll?

  The Rich Roll Podcast. Hey, everybody. It's Rich here, Rich Roll, your host. This is my podcast. Welcome to it. How you guys doing? So, I think it's time to talk about what's going on, don't you think? It's time to talk about systemic racism, police brutality, civil rights. It's time to talk about Black Lives Matter, national upheaval, the call for change. And also, this unprecedented opportunity that this unique moment presents right now for us to evolve, to grow, and heal as individuals and as a society.

• 1:58Rich Roll?

  So, to do just that, I've enlisted my friend, Adam Skolnick, to host, or sort of co-host, what I anticipate will be an ongoing series of Ask Me Anything themed conversations, which is this new experiment in format change that I will be...

• 2:19Rich Roll?

  To some extent, trading duties, reversing roles from time to time, swapping seats, in order to share a little bit more of my own personal perspective on matters of audience interest. As for my friend Adam, longtime listeners will recall his 2016 appearance on the podcast, that was episode 218. In that conversation, we talked about his life, we talked about his book, One Breath, which is this really beautiful, magnificent biography of America's greatest freediver, Nicholas Mevoli. But for those of you who are unfamiliar, Adam is an activist, he's a veteran journalist, perhaps best known as the co-author of David Goggins' juggernaut memoir, Can't Hurt Me. You guys read that

• 3:03Rich Roll?

  book, right? Adam has written for The New York Times, Playboy, Outside, ESPN, BBC, Men's Health, and many other prominent publications. And you might have caught his series of really outstanding pieces on Colin O'Brien and Colin's historic solo traverse of Antarctica in 2018 that Adam wrote up for The New York Times. In any event, Adam is a great conversationalist. I think he's a really perfect fit for this new series, this experiment, and you guys are gonna soon find out. But first, let's take care of some business.

• 3:43Rich Roll?

  Okay, so before we launch in, I just want to say upfront that this podcast is not and has never been a news program or a political talk show. I don't go out of my way to court controversy, and I always endeavor to unite people rather than divide. But this show is also about what's important, and it's about fundamentally having conversations that matter. And right now, no conversation matters more than Black Lives Matter.

• 4:17Rich Roll?

  I've held off on posting an episode like this, not just because of the historically evergreen nature of this show and the kind of protracted production cycle we've historically operated under, but also because I didn't want to just simply react in the moment. I really wanted to take a minute to listen before speaking, to kind of process what's going on, to also participate in the protests with my family and of course, read, because I think it's important to address what's happening from an informed and reflective point of view, rather than a reactive

• 5:01Rich Roll?

  or kind of impulsive, reflexive perspective. So that's what we're doing here today. I'm ready to talk about it. And this is the first of many conversations I'm going to be sharing over the coming weeks about race in America. This particular conversation is about privilege, and it's about our collective responsibility to act, to speak up for what's right, to finally dismantle the systemic ills that have contributed to really unspeakable harms that that I think can no longer go unchecked. And it's also about, again, this unprecedented opportunity in this brilliant, unique moment, and what it presents to evolve and to heal as

• 5:44Rich Roll?

  individuals, as a nation, and as a global community. Finally, it's also a discussion about the history and the mission of this podcast, how I'm actively seeking to better myself and to broaden the inclusivity of the program and my advocacy in general. Final note, in the show notes, you'll find many resources, readings, essays, books, other podcasts, documentaries, and links to Black Lives Matter centered nonprofits. So I encourage all of you guys to explore that list, check it out, donate to the nonprofits there if you can, or find a way to support in other ways. I appreciate all you guys. I don't take

• 6:26Rich Roll?

  The responsibility of this platform or the authority that I have over this sphere lightly, it is a privilege and it's one that I intend to use to better myself and humanity as a whole. So with that being said, let's do it. This is me and Adam Skolnick.

• 6:48Rich Roll?

  Welcome to the podcast. Today, we're going to do something a little bit different. We're going to do a version of Ask Me Anything. We're experimenting with the format a little bit here to try to be current, not only with audience interest, but also with the news cycle to some extent. This is something that came up in my recent podcast with James Altucher, who was encouraging me to share more of my voice and my perspective and opinions on things that the audience is interested in. And I expressed to him in that conversation, my discomfort with just speaking into a microphone alone. So I then reached out to

• 7:31Rich Roll?

  my friend Adam Skolnick to join me so it could be more of a conversation and less of a monologue. You guys, longtime listeners will remember Adam, he was on the podcast. I can't remember what episode number it was, but it was quite a while ago. He is the author of a book called One Breath about Nick Mavoli, the freediver. He's also a journalist and a writer, frequent contributor to the New York Times, Outside Magazine, anything else, all kinds of different outlets.

• 7:58Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 7:59Rich Roll?

  And you write about environmentalism, you write about endurance sports and a number of other.

• 8:05Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, human rights, whatever, you know, stories, underreported stories, kind of.

• 8:09Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 8:09Adam Skolnick?

  That terrain.

• 8:10Rich Roll?

  We've been good friends. Adam has recently dipped his toe into the world of swim run. Adam's the guy who wrote the article for the New York Times about when I did the Otila World Championships. And then you participated in the one, the swim run in Catalina recently.

• 8:27Adam Skolnick?

  That's right. That's right. I did the experience.

• 8:29Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 8:30Adam Skolnick?

  And, and I haven't stopped running since.

• 8:33Rich Roll?

  Right. And you're looking super fit. Hey, thanks. And I always enjoyed my conversations with you. And I just thought that you would be a great person to volley back and forth with in this format. So we're giving it a go. Thanks for having me. Yeah, man, I'm excited to be here. Excited to talk to you today. Yeah. I think a good place to kind of kick this off is to directly address this very unique and historic moment that we're in right now, Black Lives Matter.

• 9:03Rich Roll?

  I've been not struggling, that's the wrong word, but trying to figure out the best way to communicate around what is occurring in the moment. Historically, this podcast has been

• 9:23Rich Roll?

  constructed in a way that has prevented it from being nimble enough and responsive enough to be of the moment. Like, the conversations are typically evergreen, right? And I will record lots of conversations and then we have a production cycle. And those conversations will be released some weeks later, sometimes four, six, eight weeks later. Right. In normal times, that's fine. Right now, that seems to be dysfunctional because everything is changing so quickly. And I felt this urgent need to be communicating about what is happening more concurrently

• 10:04Rich Roll?

  with this rapidly escalating and changing landscape that we find ourselves in. So this is an effort to do just that.

• 10:14Rich Roll?

  And I think, you know, one thing I want to speak to directly upfront is, is, you know, some criticism that's been hurled in my direction. My most recent podcast that went up this past weekend was with my friend Doug Evans. He wrote this book called The Sprout Book. We talked about sprouting. We did touch on food injustice, but predominantly, we spoke about his book and the nutritious power of sprouting. And there were some people who were ruffled by that because it's so asynchronous with what is happening right now. And my immediate reaction is to be defensive, but in truth, there's, that's correct, right? Like, it, you know, it does feel wrong to talk about anything but.

• 11:01Rich Roll?

  What's occurring in the news cycle right now, and I understand that. And this is, what we're doing right now is, is, is one way of rectifying that. And I do want to say upfront that I have scheduled numerous people of color to be coming on the podcast. Yesterday, I did an amazing episode with my friend Byron Davis, a former USA Nationals swim team member, and his friend Phil Allen Jr., who's a pastor and a poet and a filmmaker. We had an incredible conversation. That's going to be going up late Sunday night. I've got Knox Robinson coming back on the show. I've got John Lewis, the badass vegan. I've reached out to a whole number of other people, including Shaka Singur, Reverend

• 11:44Rich Roll?

  Michael Beckwith, some women, of course. So that's all going to be coming, but this takes time. You know, there is a production cycle here, so I encourage people to be a little bit patient. And also, I just want to let people know that I hear you and I under, and I understand. And I think that as I grapple with how to communicate about this, I went through a period in which I didn't want to be reactive in the moment. Like, I wanted to say my piece, which I did in an Instagram post for the moment, but then I also expressed that I wanted to take the time to also learn and listen, and I've done that.

• 12:28Rich Roll?

  Our family went out and protested, and I've just been paying attention to what's going on so that I can, when it, when the moment does arise to speak to this, I'm a little bit more informed and I can respond intelligently as opposed to reacting impulsively.

• 12:44Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah. Makes sense. You know, I was going through some of the listener questions, and you're talking about the future guests. Was it something that you ever tracked before in terms of having a diversity of guests? Or is that something that you're just kind of, you're noticing now and wanting to pivot to? Or is that something that you've been, has been on your mind for a while?

• 13:07Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's been on my mind. I mean, it's, there has been criticism in the past that the podcast is not diverse enough. And that's come up again more recently, like, why is your podcast so white and so male centric? And again, that's another instance in which I get defensive.

• 13:25Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 13:25Rich Roll?

  Because I look at my list of guests that I've had over the years and I think about Myrna Valerio and Shaka Sin Gour and George Ravelling and David Carter and Bryant Terry and Knox Robinson and David Goggins and Dominic Thompson and Light Watkins and Sean Stevenson and Dr. Robin Shutkan and Silas Rayo. And, you know, I can think of lots, I can rattle off like a lot of African American guests that I've had.

• 13:50Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 13:50Rich Roll?

  But when you look at the canon of the work, 520-plus episodes, it doesn't hold up. And that's something that I have to own. Like, I think that the podcast has a lot of growth potential in terms of the diversity of voices that I can bring to it. And I will be the first to admit right now that I haven't done the best job with that. And that's part of my learning curve in this moment, is being more sensitive to that truth and that reality, rather than just doubling down and saying, "Look at all the people that I've had."

• 14:23Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 14:23Rich Roll?

  You know, "Why are you saying that?" It's to actually reflect inward and honestly and objectively, and try to understand where that perspective is coming from. And when I do look at it objectively, I see that point.

• 14:37Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 14:37Rich Roll?

  And I think that there is improvement there that I need to commit to. And so I am committing to that right now. I've already taken action to, you know, rectify that to some regard. And I think that it's important right now to open this up to a diversity of voices. You know, this is not a news podcast, and I resist trying to be, you know, I've resisted politics in general, and I don't court controversy. But without a doubt, this is an unprecedented historic moment. And I think it's super important to be engaged in what's happening right now.

• 15:18Rich Roll?

  You know, I very much want to be on the right side of history, and I want to get this right. And despite the fact that this isn't a news podcast, at the same time, it is a podcast about conversations that matter. And right now, nothing matters more than Black Lives Matter and what we're seeing unfolding, not just nationally, but globally, worldwide.

• 15:43Adam Skolnick?

  Totally agree. I think, and by the way, that question came in from Stacy Alice Johnson. So I wanna, wanna make sure that we acknowledge that. But, you know, when, when you're, you're talking about that, a couple of things come to mind. One is, this is a moment where we all have to do, and by we all, I mean, white people have to do the inner work and, and examine our own relationship to race in this country. And I think that it's kind of a, this is the reconciliation moment. You know, and I, I started to, to think about, kind of the, the greater issues here and why it's taken so long and what this moment means.

• 16:23Adam Skolnick?

  You know, in, in, after World War II, I know this because as a Jew, I know, I mean, I'm like, well steeped in Holocaust info. And after World War II, there was reconstruction in Germany. And around 1960, there was this resurgence of German nationalism. And around that same time, Israel found out that Adolf Eichmann, who is kind of the managing director of all things Holocaust, he, he's got, he managed the trains and the schedules, he was found in, in Argentina. And they got him and they put him on trial all over the world. They could tune in and see him on trial in, in Israel. And after that moment, Germany totally changed their education system towards reconciliation and to, to educate.

• 17:08Adam Skolnick?

  So every year, for years, in school, Germans have to devote a substantial amount of time to examine what happened, how they slipped into nationalism, and, and what happened in the Holocaust, all the horrors, in great detail. And we don't do that. You know, we've never really done that. You know, we gloss over slavery, we gloss, gloss over Jim Crow stuff, segregation. It's not taught every year. It's not taught in great detail.

• 17:34Rich Roll?

  And it's taught through the lens of the victors. You know, this is something that came up in the podcast yesterday. Like, the way that we were educated around these issues is from a perspective that is rather myopic. And that's the, those are the covers that are getting pulled right now.

• 17:50Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah. Exactly, and so you can't, if you don't examine it, and it's all the thing, it's all about hard truths. I mean, what your podcast isn't a news podcast, but it is a how to live better podcast. It's not just a podcast of ideas. It's a podcast of ideas that you can relate to and improve your own life if you if you take the information as it is, like brain food, and decide to dedicate yourself to it. And these are hard truths that we have not dealt with in this country. And so now people are, you know, it's very exciting to see, like, the top of the bestseller lists are these, you know, how to be anti-racist and white fragility, and some books that are very recent, that did well enough, but now

• 18:33Adam Skolnick?

  are really selling. And that's, I think that's a great thing, because people are now doing their own education. But that doesn't mean that we shouldn't be doing more systemically.

• 18:44Rich Roll?

  Yeah, systemically is the key word. And it's this interesting juxtaposition. On the one hand, you have these massive protests that are very diverse in their socio-economic and ethnic makeup. You know, it's so interesting to take to the streets and see, you know, so many white people and brown people, people of color, people of all shapes and forms, uniting around these ideas. And I found myself much more emotional than I expected, which is so hopeful and heartening. At the same time, you go online, and the vitriol and

• 19:23Rich Roll?

  the resistance to these ideas is of equal force and measure at times. I think that that is going to, you know, lose out in the long run. But there is a certain swath of the population that's very threatened by this. And I'm interested in why that's the case. And my sense is that, on some level, there's a perception that it's a zero-sum game. Like, if we're talking about Black Lives Matter, that that somehow dismisses the value and importance of other lives. And right now, you know, on top of This uprising in awareness, we're also seeing the greater disenfranchisement of a lot

• 20:06Rich Roll?

  of people due to unemployment and, you know, the sort of domino effect of coronavirus in this pandemic. And that's making people more afraid and more calcified around their identities and their sense of, you know, protecting what's theirs.

• 20:25Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 20:25Rich Roll?

  And so there's an interesting turf war that's going on right now. And I think so much of that, you know, resistance to change or resistance to, you know, embracing this idea that we need significant reformation is coming from that place of fear and disenfranchisement.

• 20:49Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, no, I think you're right. But if you, and if you go back to the whole idea of race, I mean, it's obviously an illusion, right? It's an illusion created by white people. And it was created by white people for two basic reasons. One is to give ourselves, and ourselves meaning Europeans at the time, license to travel abroad, other lands, other cultures, take the land, take the stuff, do whatever they want with it, subjugate the people. So why? Because we were superior in the eyes of God. That was the idea of race, right? And it was created by white people. Nobody, nobody else created race.

• 21:32Adam Skolnick?

  So that's one. And the other reason it was used to divide people, to divide people up, mainly poor white people, for years have been fed this idea of race, saying, no, you're, you know, you're better off than, look at these black people over here in this country anyway. Look at these people over here, you're better off, you're superior to them. And that's what a lot of people latched on to. And that has allowed the powers that be, whether it be wealthy people, whether it be kings and lords, just wealthy, you know, Americans or the power structure, to exploit them and exploit all of us. And so it's basically a divide and conquer trick. That was created, and that's all race is.

• 22:18Adam Skolnick?

  Race is an illusion and a divide and conquer trick. And now it matters because it's been baked into the American way of life. It's like this weird neuroses that is, that has been baked into all of us and we all have it. That's why we're doing this kind of inner work now. Because we grew up and live in a place where that has been baked into the sauce.

• 22:38Rich Roll?

  Yeah, and it's a matter of debugging ourselves. Like rebooting our operating system with, you know, some kind of antivirus software to cleanse us of that. And I think that process of looking inward and evaluating the extent to which race plays a factor in the conscious awareness of the average person is challenging. Because most people would consider themselves not to be racist. I don't think that I'm a racist person. I don't, you know, co-mingle or surround myself with racist people. But when the racism is systemic, there are institutions in place that function in a way irrespective

• 23:22Rich Roll?

  of our own personal relationship with race, that tip the scales in the wrong direction and perpetrate these sorts of harms. And even deeper beneath that is that embedded system, that operating system, that on a very unconscious level, there is that awareness of, you know, stratification around race that is, and that's very uncomfortable to like, say, you know, what, what, what part of my own psyche is functioning on that operating system? And how can I deconstruct that? Or how can I get honest with myself about that so that I can transcend that? And I think a lot of people take offense to that because they think they're not racist and there is no work to be done.

• 24:06Rich Roll?

  But I would challenge everybody to, that's what I'm trying to do right now. I'm trying to be honest about that. And a perfect example is like, well, just look at all the guests that I've had on the podcast. Mostly white people, you know what I mean? So what's going on with me? I'm not a racist person, but, but here is the manifestation of my life's work and that tells a story. Right? So what is that story that's being told? And what aspect of that has to do with race? And that's like, that's the hill that I need to climb right now.

• 24:35Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, I mean, you know, we're all grappling with our implicit biases biases and that just happens like because we do have this weird overt awareness of race that that isn't serving any anybody, especially black people. And like Toni Morrison, I just saw Toni Morrison clip from the old Charlie Rose show and she was like, you know, but you know, she she flipped it and she was like, no, what's that doing to you white people? Because I'm fine.

• 25:04Rich Roll?

  Right. Well, Charlie asked her something like, is race still a thing for you because you're this Pulitzer Prize winning, you know, heralded, you know, poet laureate like you've transcended race. And she said, that's the wrong question.

• 25:18Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, the wrong, that's the wrong question. What's what? What? How do white people have to deal with race? And it's almost like if you can only be taller than me because I'm on my knees, what's that say about you and your significance? And, and so that, but if you if you look at the story of, of America, that's really the story. I'm always watching this Ken Burns documentary about Jack Johnson, the boxer last night and to see how the LA Times and New York Times were writing about him, the greatest athlete, because at the time, heavyweight boxing was the pinnacle of sports, the greatest athlete in sports. You'd be surprised how vitriolic it was, how racist it was. And these are, you know,

• 26:03Adam Skolnick?

  I write for the New York Times, but you we don't even know that, right? We don't know that as modern Americans that that's, that's how overt it was, that like there was straight up racist stuff in news stories. You know, we talk about fake news now because Trump's always talking about fake news and he's delivering and retweeting fake news and we had actual fake news affect our election in 2016. Black Americans have been dealing with fake news for hundreds of years. Stuff that they know has happened to them, reported as false in the mainstream media for years and years. You know, this is nothing new. So, you know, I don't know where I got on that tangent, but.

• 26:43Rich Roll?

  Yeah, well, you know, it goes back to, you know, history is told by the the victors. There was an interesting thread on Twitter and I'm forgetting who posted it, but it was a very long thread about Martin Luther King. And.

• 26:59Rich Roll?

  The extent to which white America embraces him and pivots around his message of nonviolence. But this sort of broke down a different reality about what his message was about. Yes, nonviolence was part of it, but but what gets missed in that is that it was all about civil disobedience. And with that, we're talking, you know, civil, yes, but disobedient, right? Making people uncomfortable was a big part of it, not protesting where they tell you you can protest, but protesting where they tell you you can't, right? And that gets lost in the conversation around MLK. I mean, that's just one example. And I think another flare up that we're seeing right now is the conversation around

• 27:44Rich Roll?

  defunding the police.

• 27:46Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 27:46Rich Roll?

  Because a lot of people are upset about that, like, oh, you want to get rid of the police? That's not what defunding means. Defunding could mean a lot of things, but I think what it really is getting at is the core dysfunction in the systemic institution of policing to begin with, which in which is very much a community based thing, but it goes back to what you were saying earlier about erecting mechanisms of control to solidify power structures.

• 28:12Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 28:14Rich Roll?

  I mean, we see protect and serve, but really fundamentally, that's what it's about. And it's become, you know, highly dysfunctional in our current era. And defunding is a call to have a conversation about the fundamental purpose of policing and the allocation of resources to drive towards a more productive goal for everybody.

• 28:36Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, you know, I was I was I wrote something down here. So I'm just kind of like sifting through, but like, these big ideas are very exciting. They scare people. I mean, the the defunding police talk does scare some people, especially more conservative people. But these these.

• 28:52Adam Skolnick?

  It's these big ideas are inspiring and we should stay open to them because I think what what defunding the police and really we're just talking about cutting budgets. You know, in very few cases is it is it talking about abolishing a police department?

• 29:05Rich Roll?

  Yeah, nobody, nobody's talking about that.

• 29:07Adam Skolnick?

  No, it's talking about cutting budgets, right? And I think personally, I mean, this is just my personal opinion, that we've for a long time have had a skewed budget towards militarization and the national level. I've always thought, God, why don't we take some of that military budget and put it into our underfunded schools and pay teachers more?

• 29:27Rich Roll?

  Yeah, social services, kids programs, mental health.

• 29:31Adam Skolnick?

  And and the funny thing is, I always thought about it as a national thing, but it's gonna start now with the police because of the activists in the streets, because of Black Lives Matter. This is where it starts. And I think we're gonna see if this, if we can push this and continue, continue the protests and continue the lobbying efforts and having lawmakers get on board, if we can see it at the, at the local level, moving some money from militarization and enforcement and, and basically, let's call it what it is, weapons and death.

• 30:02Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 30:03Adam Skolnick?

  And move it towards nurturing and nurturing life and, and giving people a better chance at a great life through education and, and through healthcare. I think we're gonna see a better country come out of it. So it's funny, the threat of defunding the police could be the, the trick, you know, that's what it is. If you can, if the threat is white supremacy and you can start pulling it through the defunding the police, what else, what can happen to this country in a positive way? And I think that's, that's the big idea to think about.

• 30:32Rich Roll?

  We're already seeing it. Minneapolis has already done that. They've basically said, we're stripping this thing down to its, to its, you know, to its studs and we're gonna rebuild this from the ground up. And I believe Camden, New Jersey is a kind of a pilot program example of that. They've done something similar.

• 30:48Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 30:49Rich Roll?

  In that regard, and, and again, that's another-

• 30:51Adam Skolnick?

  Austin, Texas has something where you, where you can call 911, but you, you can choose police or mental health responders?

• 30:58Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 30:59Adam Skolnick?

  First responders?

• 31:00Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's super inspiring.

• 31:01Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 31:02Rich Roll?

  You know, at the same time, we're seeing this malignant narcissist in the White House who's, you know, constructed a wall around his domicile.

• 31:11Adam Skolnick?

  It's not his domicile.

• 31:13Rich Roll?

  Yeah, right. It's the people's domicile, right?

• 31:15Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 31:16Rich Roll?

  Ensconced in this building while he's, you know, basically pulled out every trick from the, you know, despots handbook to activate his base. And my sense is that it's backfiring right now. There will always be, you know, his people who are going to support what he's doing. But there are significant cracks in that firmament at the moment. You know, I don't think that the average person takes kindly to seeing the extent of militarization in the streets to police its own people and armies, battalions of essentially soldiers who won't tell you who they work for or who they

• 32:01Rich Roll?

  report to, or Bob Barr out there pretending like he's Patton or something, you know, it's disturbing. And I think most rational people are struggling with what that means and what that says about America.

• 32:19Adam Skolnick?

  I think so. I mean, I think you were talking about the hardcore people that are resistant. Look at Buffalo Police Department and how, how I think they demonstrate this mass resignation from the riot squad because two people pushed over a 75 year old man instead of just dealing with them in a more peaceably way.

• 32:38Rich Roll?

  Right. It was like 57 of them.

• 32:40Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 32:41Rich Roll?

  They didn't, they didn't resign. They got reassigned, right?

• 32:44Adam Skolnick?

  Right. They quit the riot squad or whatever. And then 100 people showed up for the arraignment of those two officers and they cheered them. And it just shows you there's a, there's a sensitivity, especially among cops and police around the country. But this hardcore group, they're very sensitive. They don't want to talk about these things. They're resistant. And I think even, you know, a lot of us don't want to be piled with a bunch of guilt. You know, and it does, you know, we're, we're, no one's talking about this to make anyone feel guilty. It's, it's about making us feel responsible. Guilt is a worthless emotion. Responsibility is where you want to go, right? Like, what can we do to make it better?

• 33:25Adam Skolnick?

  And, and, you know, channeling it into efforts like banning chokeholds, you know, cutting the police budget so that it can go to, I think we should talk about not just defunding police, but what are we funding with it?

• 33:37Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 33:37Adam Skolnick?

  And, and, and I think that's part of the equation. You know, funding schools in a more profound way, making sure people have enough to eat. You know, just making sure we have a, a safer place for everybody.

• 33:50Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 33:51Adam Skolnick?

  To live.

• 33:52Rich Roll?

  Yeah, and we get to have that conversation now.

• 33:54Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 33:54Rich Roll?

  You know what I mean?

• 33:57Rich Roll?

  We were talking yesterday about the work that Deray McKesson is doing with Eight Can't Wait and Campaign Zero. And he's very much about, you know, data-driven solutions to, to the police force and, and, you know, what's required to, you know, in a very tactical way to deconstruct some of these practices that are leading to the harms and the results that we're seeing right now. And I think a broader conversation about, you know, where this money is going so that we can redress homelessness and we can redress, you know, everything from college debt to mental health.

• 34:37Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah. I mean, if, if, if there was a social worker in that police car in Minneapolis also to deal with the first car, the first car that showed up, to deal with someone who was, who was struggling and didn't want to get into that car because he was claustrophobic. If there was someone, and the same is true all the way down the line. If there's, if there is a, a mental health first responder in a car with a policeman, what does that do? Who does that benefit? It's not going to just benefit the, these, these victim, would be victims of, of police violence. It's going to benefit the cop as well. It benefits everybody because now you don't have that on your conscience, on your soul. So, I mean, I think.

• 35:22Adam Skolnick?

  These ideas of incorporating mental health into policing or into the way we protect one another, because it's not just protecting the neighborhood, it's protecting one another, right? Yeah.

• 35:41Rich Roll?

  Just to be clear, I'm not anti-police. You know, I'm not, there are plenty of amazing police officers and first responders and, you know, all the, all the kind of, you know, people that we need to, you know, keep society, you know, on the right track. But I do resist the bad apple narrative. Like, there's a lot of talk about bad apples, and certainly there are bad apples. But what we saw with, with George Floyd was, was, and I said this yesterday, like, it was so brazen, right? And the casualness with which that harm was perpetrated, that murder, and, you know, the fact that there were the other officers who were, who were just standing by and doing

• 36:22Rich Roll?

  nothing, speaks to a greater systemic issue that needs to get redressed. And I think that, you know, I'm sure it's, you know, community-based, but the bar to becoming a police officer, I feel like, needs to be raised. Like, you don't become a Navy SEAL until you go through BUDs, right? You go through rigorous training to become somebody who's capable of handling high-stress situations that could potentially escalate and be violent.

• 36:56Adam Skolnick?

  Yep.

• 36:57Rich Roll?

  And I would like to see more rigorous standards around who gets to become a police officer. These are people who are putting themselves in harm's way on the daily.

• 37:07Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 37:08Rich Roll?

  And with that comes anxiety and stress and post-traumatic stress and all these, you know, mental issues. And we want those people to be Mentally, emotionally, and spiritually fit to handle those situations, to understand what's required to avoid excessive force or lethal force when at all possible. And that, you know, it's common sense that that requires better training. When we're seeing what's happening right now, it speaks to a lack of understanding and training around these skill sets that are crucial.

• 37:45Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, I mean, the idea of when a crisis hits, does your pulse rate go up or does it go down? You know, we want people whose pulse rates go down, who can, who can stay on task in the midst of, of, of trying circumstances and aren't afraid of them. And, and if they are afraid, don't act. It's okay not to act sometimes. It's okay to pull back. You know, the fact that we have lost someone because he spent a counterfeit $20 bill is, is repulsive. You know, the fact that like, that he was even dealt with in any physical way, when you could just write a ticket for something like that is ridiculous.

• 38:28Adam Skolnick?

  So it's like, it's, it's, um, that, that goes into the training of exerting a physical will on another human being. There should be limits on when we do that. That should be a last resort, not a first resort, in my opinion. But, you know, um, I think that if we think about George Floyd and, and going back and you were talking about the news cycle earlier, I don't want to ask you a question about this, but, um, you know, first we have this long, really boring pre-apocalypse moment with the, with everyone staying at home.

• 39:00Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 39:00Adam Skolnick?

  With the pandemic, right? And everyone's kind of at home and it seems like, oh, wow, you know, we're looking at videos of dolphins coming into-

• 39:08Rich Roll?

  We're making sourdough bread.

• 39:09Adam Skolnick?

  Right, we're making sourdough bread. It's like, it's this long, kind of like, kind of low key type thing. And then overnight, the, it flips, but it started not with George, but it started with Ahmaud Arbery.

• 39:22Rich Roll?

  Of course.

• 39:23Adam Skolnick?

  And, um, we want, for me, you know, I'm a runner like you, not like you. I'm not a runner like you.

• 39:28Rich Roll?

  Yeah, you are.

• 39:31Adam Skolnick?

  I'm a runner also.

• 39:31Rich Roll?

  I got a back injury now. I'm sidelined from running for a little bit.

• 39:34Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, there.

• 39:35Rich Roll?

  So you're actually running more than I am.

• 39:37Adam Skolnick?

  But Ahmad, I mean, it's very personal. Like during, during where I live in Santa Monica, the beach path was closed. So I start running into these neighborhoods and I'm running into, you know, tax brackets that I don't belong in. And I never once felt unsafe doing it. And or like that it wasn't, that it wasn't okay. And then we had Ahmad Aubrey. What did you, you know, I know you posted that great video on your Instagram, but I just wondered what you think of now, because who would have thought then, and now it leads to this, but it is part of the, part of what's happened. I mean, that was the first.

• 40:14Rich Roll?

  Yeah, these things, yeah, there, there is a domino effect here and it, and, and this episode that we're seeing began with Ahmad and it's horrific in every regard. And I think, you know, to the point of looking at my own behavior around this, I feel like I didn't speak up around that at that time. You know, I was, I was late to the party on that in terms of putting words together in the public conversation around it. And I should have done that, you know, as a runner, as somebody who could identify, you know, with that aspect

• 40:51Rich Roll?

  of who that human being was. It's unbelievably tragic. And in reflecting upon that, you know, it's very clear, my privilege becomes very clear because I've run all over the world. I've run, you know, not just the trails around my house, but I've had the privilege of traveling to lots of different places. And whatever hotel I'm staying in, my favorite thing when I go to a new city is just to put on my running shoes and run around it. And never once did I ever think I'm putting myself in harm's way, no matter where I am.

• 41:26Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 41:27Rich Roll?

  And when I posted that the other day, there were some snarky comments like, well, that's because, you know, you're not running through Watts and you're not running through Compton. We have an apartment downtown because my daughter goes to a high school. Right next to downtown and that apartment is around the corner from Skid Row and I make a point of running through Skid Row on purpose because I want to see what's going on there. And I've never felt threatened. In fact, people, when I run through Skid Row, for the most part, and I've said this before, people are nicer to me than they are out on the trail. Like when I'm out on the trail and I wave to somebody and they don't wave back, I'm like, what the fuck, right? I run through Skid Row and I'm giving high fives to these

• 42:08Rich Roll?

  people who live in tents. And, you know, that's, you know, a potentially dangerous neighborhood. Now, you know, yeah, no, I'm not running through Compton every day or anything like that. Like, I understand that's a different thing. But the, the point is that I don't have to think about that or worry about that. And I've been pulled over by the cops so many times in my lifetime. When I was, you know, a out of control alcoholic, I got pulled over for DUI tons of times. Never once, um, not only was I not afraid of anything happening to me by the cop, I got let off like tons of times when I should have gone to jail

• 42:51Rich Roll?

  or been arrested. So many times. And, you know, I've run in the Middle East, I've run, like, I've run all over the place. And I've run through, you know, I've run through Beirut, Lebanon, and weird neighborhoods and, you know, places where, you know, I'm, I am the minority and never thought once about like my own personal safety.

• 43:11Adam Skolnick?

  No, because it's not, the law enforcement apparatus isn't geared towards you. And that what about ism is, is kind of people again, not wanting to listen because it's hard to hear. You know, I mean, I think you, you talked about David Goggins. Um, you know, obviously I, I,

• 43:27Rich Roll?

  Right, when we were giving your CV at the beginning, we left out like the,

• 43:33Rich Roll?

  That you, you were in cooperation, partnership with David, wrote his book Can't Hurt Me, which is still like the number one book in the world. It's crazy. And you did the audiobook with him.

• 43:41Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, yeah. Narrated audiobook. And, um, I mean, his, he's such a masterful storyteller, the way he tells his story. But one thing he is not afraid to do is look at himself with a micro, with a microscope and, um, and talk to himself in a way that's real. And, you know, the, the, the approach that you want to take when, when people are telling you something isn't, well, what about this? What about that? Is to listen and to look into yourself before you say, what about, what about? I mean, like, a great example of, of systemic racism in this country is, um, you know, we, remember when all the gunmen came around the Michigan State House, the guys with the AR-15s and all that? And, and

• 44:23Adam Skolnick?

  people were talking about, you know, um, if that was, uh, people of color, if those were black men, um, it would have been, uh, National Guard, they would have been arrested, all that. It got me to think of, uh, California gun laws. Cause you know, California has one of the best, uh, gun control measures in the United States. And do you know who passed those gun laws?

• 44:44Rich Roll?

  Oh, who?

• 44:45Adam Skolnick?

  Reagan. In the 1960s, Reagan was governor, and he passed those gun laws with the full cooperation and support of the NRA, because Black Panthers did try to come to the state Capitol with guns to do a demonstration. The guns were removed and they still came and they stormed the Capitol and they were able to break into the actual floor of, of the state house while, while legislation was going on, um, legislative session was going on. And then those people were arrested. Um, and then soon after that, they, uh, actually passed gun control measures in, in California. It wasn't Democrats who passed those measures.

• 45:26Adam Skolnick?

  It was Reagan with the full cooperation of NRA. There's no real better episode from history to show you that we couldn't even pass gun control measures in this country after Sandy Hook. Um, so that just shows you kind of like how the system is played out and, and lean, you know, as much as anything, in my opinion.

• 45:46Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 45:47Adam Skolnick?

  It shows you how it's, how, how it tilts.

• 45:49Rich Roll?

  Another interesting wrinkle to, uh, the issue of guns.

• 45:55Rich Roll?

  When you look at the Second Amendment and the intention behind that, which was to empower the people to rise up against a corrupt government.

• 46:06Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 46:07Rich Roll?

  Now, we're seeing the deployment by the government of basically a private militarized police force, which is the very thing that the founding fathers had in mind in terms of ensuring that the people would be able to resist just such a thing. But the people who are the most supportive and vocal about gun rights and the NRA are the ones who are the most supportive of the despotic move by the government right now.

• 46:40Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 46:40Rich Roll?

  And there's an inherent irony in that, which is, you know, kind of amazing.

• 46:44Adam Skolnick?

  It's so weird, you know, I was watching, uh, my wife is six months pregnant, so I've been very careful during quarantine and not, um, have not attended the, uh, the demonstrations, not out of a lack of wanting to be there, but just out of being super careful.

• 47:00Adam Skolnick?

  And it's really exciting to see how many, everyone is an activist now. I've been in and around activism, uh, mostly in the environmental side for, you know, my, most of my adult life. And to see everyone become an activist is very exciting and to want to be there. But that first, I was watching it very intently as it started unfolding in Los Angeles that first Saturday around Fairfax. And there was no looting in Los Angeles, especially around Fairfax and Melrose, until the cops oriented all their attention around the peaceful protesters and started hitting them with batons. That's when the first glass started to break. I mean, that's just the facts. And in Santa Monica, it was a very similar story.

• 47:37Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 47:38Adam Skolnick?

  How it played out.

• 47:40Adam Skolnick?

  And when I was watching the looting, uh, at first, it was hard to watch, you know, you don't want to watch that, you know, you feel really badly for business owners because of what they've had to, you know, to endure with quarantine.

• 47:51Rich Roll?

  Hundred percent.

• 47:52Adam Skolnick?

  And, and so you feel terrible about that. Nobody wants to see that. But at the same time, like 24 hours later, I, I started having a totally different view on the looting. And, and that view is, that's what no justice, no peace means. It doesn't just mean a hundred thousand people marching down Hollywood Boulevard peace, peacefully. It doesn't mean just sitting in front of the mayor's house. That's part of it. But it also means like, If you, if we can't create a more just society where everyone has a fair shot, everyone has a fair shake, um, then we are going, that's what no justice, no peace means.

• 48:28Rich Roll?

  Hmm.

• 48:28Adam Skolnick?

  And, uh, it means that there is going to be times where it's going to blow up. The frustration's going to boil over, um, and allow other people, opportunists or not, um, to get involved and, and loot. And so I think if we look at it that, again, the hard truths, that is a hard truth. Um, we, we created that moment by allowing this frustration to build and build and build. That's not something that happened because of them. It's not a them, them, like it's.

• 48:55Rich Roll?

  Well, you have to back it up.

• 48:56Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 48:56Rich Roll?

  And look at the seed.

• 48:57Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 48:58Rich Roll?

  You know, what, you know, this, this germinated out of these other events. Like you have to look at it from a global perspective. And, you know, listen, uh, there, look, that's certainly true. At the same time, there are other people who are just opportunistically out there voting, who don't give a shit about no justice, no peace. They're just like, oh, the cops are distracted. I can go break into Nordstrom right now and.

• 49:21Adam Skolnick?

  Totally, but then why, why are the police so focused on peaceful protesters? Why don't you just let people march and protect?

• 49:27Rich Roll?

  That whole situation was created because of the events that unfolded, of course.

• 49:31Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, and, and the strategy of orienting your peacekeeping around the peaceful protesters versus around, okay, let's just let them march and just protect the buildings.

• 49:43Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 49:44Adam Skolnick?

  And then nobody gets hurt. And there's no, nobody's throwing bottles at anybody.

• 49:47Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 49:48Adam Skolnick?

  You know, I mean, it's, it's, it's choices that are made over and over again. If you go back to the Michael Brown incident in Ferguson, when people were, were really pissed off in the streets and, and even in Minneapolis, people were pissed off in the streets. And I thought, let people be pissed off in the streets, especially now during quarantine. No one's trying to get anywhere.

• 50:06Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 50:06Adam Skolnick?

  So like, let people be pissed off in the streets. If you start to try to control that, it's going to blow up. I mean, it doesn't take brain surgery, but for some reason it's built in. People in the streets are a problem. We have to try to control problems as opposed to just let it run its course.

• 50:23Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 50:23Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 50:24Rich Roll?

  There was a sense when Ferguson happened that that was going to be a tipping moment.

• 50:31Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 50:31Rich Roll?

  That was 2014.

• 50:33Adam Skolnick?

  It was not.

• 50:34Rich Roll?

  It wasn't, right? And I will admit that when the protests began in Minneapolis, that I couldn't have predicted that it would catch fire and sweep the nation in the way that it did.

• 50:46Adam Skolnick?

  No, me neither.

• 50:47Rich Roll?

  I called my friend Brogan Graham, who lives in Minneapolis. After the first night of protests, it's to check in with him. He lives right in the middle of where all that was going on. And during that conversation, we were just talking and he was telling me, you know, the experience of being essentially at ground zero for that. But never once during that conversation did I think that this was going, that these protests were going to start happening in essentially every city and community across America and now overseas.

• 51:14Adam Skolnick?

  It's crazy. It's very, that's what's exciting about it, right? That's the excitement, that everyone now is keyed into this real, this other virus that is white supremacy and wanting to tackle it.

• 51:30Adam Skolnick?

  But at the same time, look at Arab Spring.

• 51:34Adam Skolnick?

  I mean, not to be, not to be a downer on this, but I, because I can see anything happening from here on out. I could see Trump losing 50 of 50 states.

• 51:42Rich Roll?

  Yeah, there's nothing off the table right now.

• 51:44Adam Skolnick?

  Nothing off the table. You can go from Trump losing 50 of 50 to him winning.

• 51:48Rich Roll?

  To winning in a landslide.

• 51:49Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 51:50Rich Roll?

  Who knows?

• 51:50Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, I mean, who knows? I would doubt a landslide, but he could certainly squeak out a victory.

• 51:55Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 51:56Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, but, but Arab Spring, like, is a perfect cautionary tale. Maybe there's, maybe Tunisia came out of Arab Spring okay and did better, but of all of the countries, I think every, every single one regressed and look at Syria. So it's.

• 52:15Adam Skolnick?

  We have to continue. You know, you were talking about eight can't wait. You know, what would you suggest your listeners do? Like, what would you do? Do you have advice on what to do if you're not? If, in addition to protesting, or if you haven't protested, things that you can do? Did you guys discuss that yesterday?

• 52:33Rich Roll?

  Yeah, a little bit, and I've been doing a lot of thinking about this. I mean, I think that I'm sympathetic on some level to the predicament of the white person in figuring out how to, how to, how to put, you know, whatever they're feeling into, you know, a productive channel right now. I think there's a lot of people who are hesitant to say anything because they're not sure what the right thing to say is. And like myself, they don't want to say the wrong thing. And so there's a paralysis that happens with that where you're like, well, you know, I don't really, you know, this is, this is, you know,

• 53:15Rich Roll?

  I should take a backseat here and let, you know, the black leaders lead the charge here. But, you know, there's a narrative that this, this problem is like going back to what Toni Morrison said. Like, this is a white problem.

• 53:29Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 53:30Rich Roll?

  And it's incumbent upon the white people to fix it. And that's going to require all of us to look inward and take stock in inventory of our own behavior. Change doesn't happen without interpersonal change and interpersonal change, right?

• 53:44Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 53:44Rich Roll?

  So we have to be fearless in our own self.

• 53:46Adam Skolnick?

  Interpersonal change, interpersonal change, which starts with interpersonal change.

• 53:50Rich Roll?

  Exactly.

• 53:50Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 53:51Rich Roll?

  Right. Like, you've got to reflect inward and do an honest and open and objective inventory on your own behavior, and that's what I'm attempting to do right now. And with that comes a responsibility with how you interact with other human beings on the one-on-one and then on public forums like Twitter and Facebook and the like.

• 54:13Rich Roll?

  And that means being open to new ideas, being open to challenging your worldview about your own personal relationship with race, you know, being courageous enough to, you know, read the books like How to Be an Anti-Racist, or watching the documentaries, and, you know, entertaining perspectives that might be different or uncomfortable for yourself. You know, I think that, you know, there's no other, there's no way around that. Like, it has to begin with ourselves and our relationship to ourselves and our own,

• 54:52Rich Roll?

  you know, mining our own, you know, consciousness to try to peel back the layers on, on, you know, our own interpersonal history with race.

• 55:03Adam Skolnick?

  How do you do that? Have you, have you just, is it something that you just do? Like, you meditate on it? Do you journal about it? Have you been just talking to, you know, Julie or other friends? Or how, how has that manifested for you?

• 55:15Rich Roll?

  I mean, it's, you know, I'm talking to a lot of friends. You know, I, I will admit also that, you know, I was, you know, I was hesitant in how I communicate publicly about this because I didn't want to get it wrong, and I had a sense of that paralysis, and I did want to take a beat to like, learn and listen. And I think, my sense is that there's a white fear about how the black community is going to respond to what a white person has to say about this.

• 55:44Adam Skolnick?

  Especially in the public eye, you mean?

• 55:46Rich Roll?

  But the more African Americans that I speak to, they're waiting for those white voices. Like, they're, they want, you know, the white people to come forward and acknowledge what is happening right now, and to...

• 56:05Rich Roll?

  And to give voice to their openness for entertaining new solutions right now. So I'm trying to have those conversations. I am trying to listen, but I'm also trying to responsibly message around that to encourage everybody to find their way of being part of the solution. And I think that's going to depend on your own psychological makeup as well, right? Like, not everybody is the person who's going to take to the streets with a sign. But we all have people in our lives and we have choices around how we communicate with them about these issues.

• 56:42Adam Skolnick?

  I think that that's interesting because I love how you said the interpersonal is and interpersonal. In this kind of thing, yes, you can journal, you can write it all out if that's your thing. But also interpersonal can can open the door to the interpersonal. If you have someone you trust that you want to talk about these issues with, it could be really valuable to get on the phone with someone and just talk them out and be completely honest, be completely raw and be unafraid of what comes from it. Because that's how you purge it, right? I mean, it's interesting.

• 57:15Rich Roll?

  I think it's, you know, for those that are on social media, it's also about, you know, seeking out the people of color and the variety of voices that are available to you and making the choice to follow those and to pay attention to what those people are saying, like break out of your silo that's comfortable for you and, you know, seek out the people that are giving voice to this in a different way, even if that challenges your own personal worldview.

• 57:43Adam Skolnick?

  Hundred percent. I remember a book that was that kind of politicized me in a deep, deep way when I was 20 years old was the autobiography of Malcolm X, which is the original kind of how to be an anti-racist tome. And it's written by Alex Haley. I think the best ghostwritten book ever.

• 58:05Rich Roll?

  It's an incredible book.

• 58:06Adam Skolnick?

  Probably the best memoir, American memoir ever. I think that's a good place to start. You know, I haven't actually seen that on some of these reading lists that are.

• 58:16Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's interesting. I've noticed that as well.

• 58:18Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. But to me, that like. And at the same time, I used to read a lot, like when I was 20, 21, 22, this I was, I read about COINTELPRO, which was this CIA, FBI, local law enforcement apparatus that was set up to crush the civil rights movement, especially the black power movement. I read all about that. I have not been reading about that voraciously as I grew older. I've gotten comfortable on knowing what I knew and feeling like I'm a pretty good person and, you know, and that was good enough. Even with Ferguson happening, even with all these horrible things happening, I've not skewed my life towards getting involved

• 59:00Adam Skolnick?

  in police brutality issues or violence. You know, I haven't. So, you know, that's my personal failing too.

• 59:09Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 59:10Adam Skolnick?

  So, and that's from somebody who, I care about these issues a lot. You know, I've been studying these issues for a long, long time. So, you know, we all have a lot of work to do because we don't want this to be Arab Spring 2.0.

• 59:22Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 59:23Adam Skolnick?

  You know, we do want to end up with a 50/50 kind of landslide and victory. And most important, we don't want our brothers and sisters getting killed in the streets anymore.

• 59:31Rich Roll?

  Hundred percent.

• 59:32Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 59:32Rich Roll?

  Hundred percent. Well, the one thing we can all do is we can vote. And I have concerns about what's going to happen in November.

• 59:41Adam Skolnick?

  Talk to me.

• 59:42Rich Roll?

  If the pandemic and coronavirus, you know, continue at their current rate, or we see a second wave, like, listen, you know, we were talking, we were joking about this before the podcast. And this speaks to our own, my own, you know, cognitive biases. When I saw videos of people partying at Lake of the Ozarks, what was that, like 10 days ago, when those videos were going around, I remember feeling outraged, like, how could these people do this? This is so irresponsible. They're just going to contribute to the spread of this virus. Fast forward to two days ago, or three days ago, or whatever it is, and you see this drone footage above Hollywood Boulevard, and it's just, you

• 1:00:26Rich Roll?

  know, packed with thousands and thousands of people. And my heart was full. And I thought, what a beautiful, amazing thing. And yet. In the context of coronavirus, that's perhaps the worst possible thing that anybody can do. You know, and it's like, did we just decide that the coronavirus isn't a thing anymore? I think what it is, is there's a hierarchy of concerns and needs, right? When we're thinking about our own personal welfare, we want to sequester, we're wearing the masks, we're doing the social distancing. But when a problem's so acute and so demanding of immediate redress and voice, we will take to the streets.

• 1:01:09Rich Roll?

  And there's something that makes that extra inspirational, but also worrisome in terms of the inevitable spike in coronavirus cases that we will undoubtedly see unfolding over the next couple of weeks. And what is that? How does that bode in terms of what's going to happen come November? We have this huge election on the horizon. There's so much unrest right now. There are so many questions that are being asked about what America means for the people and in the eyes of the world. And we're going to cast a vote and decide. And if that, if we're in a situation in which people can't access the ballot box,

• 1:01:53Rich Roll?

  or there's certain measures in place that are, that provide a chilling effect on that, that's going to lead to greater social unrest. And if whoever wins doesn't win by a significant margin, we're going to see potentially greater unrest around, you know, campaign malfeasance that could literally lead to the undoing of our country. Like, I'm deeply concerned about that. On top of that, we have this problem of...

• 1:02:27Rich Roll?

  Of weaponized social media and fake news.

• 1:02:30Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:31Rich Roll?

  I would have hoped that in the wake of what we saw with the 2016 election, that we would have figured out how to get a handle on this. But instead, all we've seen is a, an explosion, a mushroom cloud in the impact of how the media functions on the psyche of the American voter.

• 1:02:56Rich Roll?

  And I, I despair the more that I think about that because I don't see a solution to this problem. I see it only being fomented at an exponential rate.

• 1:03:09Rich Roll?

  And I think that that means that it's incumbent upon all of us to

• 1:03:14Rich Roll?

  be as active as we possibly can and to make sure that our voices are being heard and to be, you know, on that, on that inner, that, that personal inward journey to, you know, challenge the edifice of our own information diets, to break out of those silos and to make sure that we're empowering ourselves with the best, most vetted education possible.

• 1:03:39Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, I mean, I think anything can happen, just like you said, this is, we're, we're at the crux of either we're going to go into, it's not going to be status quo, no matter what. It's either going to be a perverted version of the last four years with Trump even worse, or it's going to be some reimagining of America, which is a beautiful thing, but it might be messy at times, but it's a very cool opportunity. Like, I feel like we're at this opportunity, we haven't been since Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was running for president in 1968. And of course, Martin Luther King and he, and him were killed very, very close together. And everything went kind of, the, the nadir came and, and the advancement that we were all hoping for, the pullout of the, I mean, we, I wasn't alive yet, but you know, I studied it.

• 1:04:24Adam Skolnick?

  America didn't get out of the war, they doubled down. We didn't get better. We, we did slide back. And now.

• 1:04:35Adam Skolnick?

  You have this same moment, but the good thing about it is that people are so politicized that even in a pandemic, they are marching shoulder to shoulder.

• 1:04:42Rich Roll?

  Right, that's the uplifting aspect of this.

• 1:04:44Adam Skolnick?

  And so like, people will turn out. I don't think people are gonna be afraid to vote, because I think we're gonna remember all those people marching in the streets. I don't think people will be afraid to vote. I think we will vote. And Trump's gonna lie anyway. I mean, no matter how he loses, he's gonna lie about it. Whether, if he loses 50 out of 50, it's almost worse. The lie might even be more believable to some people. Be like, how could I lose 50 states? How could I lose all these red states? They love me in Texas, you know, that kind of thing. So I think we can't be worried about that. That's just inevitable. That's like the sun coming up in the morning. He's going to lie. But what's interesting is, in this reimagining of America that I think, because another great read

• 1:05:24Adam Skolnick?

  that I haven't seen people talk about is The Case for Reparations, which is Ta-Nehisi Coates' essay from The Atlantic that kind of launched him in terms of being a public intellectual. And we're seeing the first, we're seeing the first bits of reparations. The Kentucky governor has extended healthcare coverage to all black residents. We're starting to see these little bits of what America could be coming out of this. And so that's exciting. You know, that's very exciting. But you're right, there's a lot of work to do. This is just the beginning of something, like you had said to me earlier today, not nearly the end, it's just barely the beginning.

• 1:06:06Rich Roll?

  Yeah, and I think on top of that, you know, there's always this push with every election cycle, like, we gotta get the young people out to vote. Like, you know, it's all about like, trying to, you know, marshal that sector of the population to get them to the ballot box. And they never do, right? Like, no matter what, it's always, you know, it's like, whether it's MTV, you know, whoever's pushing this, like, the young people still don't do it. But I feel like, now they are. Like, I've never seen young people more energized around anything in a civic manner like they are right now. And I think that that is super encouraging.

• 1:06:47Adam Skolnick?

  Agreed. I think that's. To see this level of politicization and and knowledge of it and to see it pop up in viral videos from like Whitefish, Montana, small towns in Mississippi. That's why I think the 50 to 50 thing is in play. Losing 50 is in play for Trump because I'm seeing stuff I've never seen before. But it's going to take concerted effort and people are doing it. You know, there's there's all sorts of efforts. I would love to see McConnell get kicked on his

• 1:07:19Adam Skolnick?

  on his rear end out of town. There's lots of stuff that are in play now that we would never would have thought before because of this incredible moment that we're in.

• 1:07:36Rich Roll?

  What's also interesting is the power of the moving image and how that plays into all of this. You know, the most impactful filmmaking that's happening right now in the world is happening on the cell phone. These moments that are getting captured, whether it's, you know, what we saw with George Floyd or what we saw with the Buffalo, you know, police officer that knocked over the elderly man, or even with, you know, the white, the white kids that are looting, you know, the Nordstrom or, you know,

• 1:08:13Adam Skolnick?

  Patting on the surfboards.

• 1:08:14Rich Roll?

  Whatever it is, like this is all, you know, playing into how we're grappling with how to think about these issues in such a powerful way because they just get shared.

• 1:08:28Rich Roll?

  The manner of distribution has become so democratized that it doesn't matter that the movie theaters are closed. You know what I mean? Like, we are being fed these images so in such a, you know, in like this waterfall of information and we're trying to figure out how to process all of this and then determine a path forward for this country at a very, you know, interesting time. Like, this is, we are living in a truly historic moment right now.

• 1:09:03Adam Skolnick?

  I mean, it's partly because the movie theaters are closed. It's because no one's going to work. It's because of, I mean, I don't think the crowds would be this big. You know, there would be some crowds. I mean, Occupy Wall Street happened when everyone was working. But like, it wouldn't be to this level if there wasn't this many people available.

• 1:09:20Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:09:21Adam Skolnick?

  So it's almost because of it, in my opinion. But that's how, that's how history happens, right? It's like multiple crazy things all happening in the confluence of one time and place.

• 1:09:33Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:09:34Adam Skolnick?

  That's how, that's what makes history.

• 1:09:35Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:36Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:36Rich Roll?

  And to think, like, think back to New Year's Eve, right? And we're all thinking about what's gonna happen in 2020. Nobody could have ever imagined that we would be in this position. It's quite remarkable.

• 1:09:53Adam Skolnick?

  It is, it is. I mean, I'm gonna have, my wife's gonna have our first kid in September.

• 1:09:59Rich Roll?

  What's the due date?

• 1:10:00Adam Skolnick?

  September 10th. And, you know, we've been having a fine time. We've been staying very close to home and it's all good, but, and she's handling this like a rock star. She's not like poor me-ing at all. And I'm built, I'm built to find the higher ground. I'm built to keep it simple. Like, it's very easy for me to find the good in, in any moment. And what I can do to make my life great on a daily basis. I'm just kind of, I've done some work on, in that area and I'm, I'm built for that. But when this started to blow up with George Floyd at first, when we first saw his video. It's very sad, you know? You think about

• 1:10:45Adam Skolnick?

  bringing somebody into the world, into this world, the way we have it set up. It was very sad, you know? We were both sad about it. And now, like, a week or two later, I'm, I'm excited. You know, like, I'm stoked to be bringing another person into this world, because we could make it better. Like, we can. Become like a Scandinavian, like an American version of this social democracy. We can have like affordable public school, I mean, great public schools and affordable daycare and affordable preschools, maybe even free preschools that set people up. We can democratize nutrition to the point where we have better food for more people.

• 1:11:29Adam Skolnick?

  We can do all those things. And it's so interesting because even though I studied this before and I've heard it from friends who have been kind of had the, have to deal with white supremacy their whole lives, the key really is now, I mean, the thread is loose. And if we pull that thread and we eradicate that one thread that's just been woven into everything, maybe that is the antidote. Like pulling that thread, maybe that is what's going to take to become a better version of ourselves. And I mean, look at the NFL, look at the Commission NFL now. The guy who was like anti-Kaepernick is now publicly saying he's with the players. I mean, I personally, you can read that in a number of ways.

• 1:12:14Adam Skolnick?

  You can read that as a political move. But, but you have to, the whole point of activism is to change people's minds. So to me, that's a win.

• 1:12:21Rich Roll?

  It's a small win.

• 1:12:23Adam Skolnick?

  It's a small win, but it's.

• 1:12:24Rich Roll?

  It was definitely political.

• 1:12:25Adam Skolnick?

  It's political, but it, but you, you know, you do this for a reason and you don't do it to get people to change their minds and then shame them. You do it to change people's minds.

• 1:12:34Rich Roll?

  That's a key thing here. You know, like we have to allow people to grow and change. And we're in this cancel culture where we're holding people accountable for things that they said and they did very much in the past. We have to provide people with a path to redemption. And we have to allow people to, we have to celebrate those wins, right? When people are able to make those shifts rather than continue to harp on the thing that they did in the past. I think that's a healthy, you know, way to, to, to go forward right now. And it's so interesting to think about, like. The hullabaloo over Kaepernick when that was happening in comparison to what we're

• 1:13:18Rich Roll?

  seeing right now and how relevant that remains to be.

• 1:13:22Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, I mean, what a hero that guy is.

• 1:13:25Rich Roll?

  It's crazy, right?

• 1:13:26Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:13:26Rich Roll?

  It's unbelievable. And then there was the videos going around, which I didn't know, like the guy who inspired him to take a knee in the first place.

• 1:13:35Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:35Rich Roll?

  Was like a Green Beret.

• 1:13:36Adam Skolnick?

  I didn't know that either.

• 1:13:37Rich Roll?

  Like a white Green Beret guy who was like telling his version of that story and how it all came to be.

• 1:13:41Adam Skolnick?

  Cause he asked, what would be a respectful way of doing it? And the Green Beret said kneel.

• 1:13:45Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:13:46Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah. So he was trying to do it the right way.

• 1:13:48Rich Roll?

  I know.

• 1:13:49Adam Skolnick?

  He wasn't even trying to be, um, he, yes, he was trying to make a point, but he knew, I mean, he's very smart, so he knew it was gonna cause.

• 1:13:56Rich Roll?

  Of course.

• 1:13:56Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, he knew, he knew.

• 1:13:58Rich Roll?

  Well, one more thing I want to talk about before we, we round this down. You're talking about having a child and, um, you know, I've got four kids and there was a question that came in about, you know, how, how my kids are doing through all of this, you know, it's my, it's been a very interesting time and I've got a 12 year old daughter, my youngest turns 13 today, it's her birthday today.

• 1:14:18Adam Skolnick?

  Happy birthday.

• 1:14:19Rich Roll?

  Happy birthday, Jaya. And, you know, I look at her and I think about what, what the world is gonna be like for her when she's 30, 40 years old. You know, what is the psychological imprint that's happening right now? And how is that going to be manifest in a society that exists when I'm long gone? Right? Corona kids, like what is, you know, she hasn't been able to see any friends.

• 1:14:50Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 1:14:50Rich Roll?

  And we've been homeschooling her, like she's gone through this period where she's been incredibly socially isolated, like what is the impact of that? And on top of that, um, I can tell you.

• 1:15:04Rich Roll?

  From the perspective of my kids, you know, Jai is turning 13, Mathis is 16, our boys are 23 and 25. They're so politically up to speed on everything by dint of social media. Social media's got a lot of problems, especially with young girls, and that's a whole other podcast. But one thing, one, one thing that it is serving them well in is, is, is how informed they are about what's happening and how, not only are they aware of what's going on, like, they, they are fully briefed on all the arguments about why things should be a certain way. And when I reflect back on what I was doing when I

• 1:15:45Rich Roll?

  was 13 or 16, I can tell you that the conversations that I was having with my friends were not around civil rights and social justice and the like. No. And that gives me great hope. That doesn't mean that this hasn't been a challenging time for them. But I think there is a, there's a, there's a, there's sort of this chrysalis moment, like, they're being forged for lives of purpose. And the seeds of, you know, what is right and what is wrong, and what should the world look like, are being kind of like fertilized at the moment. And I think that's happening all across the world.

• 1:16:26Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, and this, and this doesn't have to be a scary, like, this new America, this new future that we're imagining right now together, it can be beneficial for everybody. You know, I think that's what, what we want to keep in mind is like, I've seen some stuff online saying, losing your privilege will feel like oppression. So, but don't be afraid. And I, I don't feel like that's actually true. I feel like-

• 1:16:51Rich Roll?

  How, I don't even understand that.

• 1:16:53Adam Skolnick?

  Well, the idea is, right, like, the idea is that I think I've seen online is, if you, if you freely give up your white privilege, it'll mean you get less or something. But I don't agree with that idea. I think that- I think that what we want to do is create a place where everyone can have a better life and everyone will benefit. So I don't think there should be any fear of like, you know, losing your station in society or any of that bullshit. You know, like, you know, there is, there is only us, you know, it's like a team. It's like we're, we haven't been behaving like a very good team. It's been a fractured team.

• 1:17:33Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:34Adam Skolnick?

  But we really actually are on a team and

• 1:17:37Rich Roll?

  It would be nice if we had some leadership, if we had a coach.

• 1:17:40Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 1:17:40Rich Roll?

  That could unify us a little bit.

• 1:17:43Adam Skolnick?

  Well, that's where, that's where old Joe comes in, I guess.

• 1:17:52Adam Skolnick?

  Good old Joe.

• 1:17:52Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:17:54Adam Skolnick?

  Ah, Joe. Joe, he's what we got.

• 1:17:58Rich Roll?

  I hear you, brother.

• 1:17:59Adam Skolnick?

  Wouldn't it be funny if Bernie, I mean, it would be great if Bernie was around here, he'd be, he'd be screaming at the cameras somewhere.

• 1:18:04Rich Roll?

  Oh, my Lord.

• 1:18:05Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, it's amazing that we don't have him actually talking about it.

• 1:18:07Rich Roll?

  I know.

• 1:18:08Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:08Rich Roll?

  I know. And, you know, there's all different, you know, I think, I think also it's interesting how relevant some of the things that Andrew Yang was talking about. It's like UBI, like this is the moment, like he was ahead of the curve and bringing that into public awareness.

• 1:18:26Adam Skolnick?

  Absolutely.

• 1:18:26Rich Roll?

  That's a real conversation that we should be having and entertaining right now.

• 1:18:30Adam Skolnick?

  We've got it. I mean, people are getting checks.

• 1:18:32Rich Roll?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:18:33Adam Skolnick?

  He actually predicted it.

• 1:18:34Rich Roll?

  Right, yeah, yeah. But we need to, I think we need to institutionalize that in a real way, not just this one check.

• 1:18:40Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 1:18:41Rich Roll?

  And say, we've dealt with it. I mean, certainly that, that's not the case.

• 1:18:45Adam Skolnick?

  No, no, no. No, no, there needs to be more effort, but, um, cool, man. That's good. I'm not sure if we, if we asked you a lot of these reader questions this time.

• 1:18:55Rich Roll?

  Well, what was funny is, uh, yeah, so here's the thing. Um, we started this with the idea of doing a, and ask me anything. I went on the Facebook group and said, I'm going to be doing this. And there were like, you know, over a hundred comments and Adam dutifully went through all of them and created a spreadsheet. And I said to you, like, I'm so long-winded, we're only going to be able to answer like two or three of these. But the truth is, like, we have to talk about what's going on right now. So I understand and realize we didn't get to We, I think we answered two questions.

• 1:19:26Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:26Rich Roll?

  Out of this, but I think this went well. How do you feel?

• 1:19:30Adam Skolnick?

  Oh, yeah, it was great, man.

• 1:19:32Rich Roll?

  So I think we're going to be doing this, we're going to try to figure out a way to do this on the regular.

• 1:19:36Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:38Rich Roll?

  And that way we can sort of, you know, begin the process of, of working through the questions that you, that you want answered. And this is something that, that I want to do more of. The podcast obviously has historically been about putting a spotlight on the guest. It's not about me, but as I discussed in my, my conversation with James Altucher, like he's, and I think he's correct. Like there is a place on the show to have looser conversations where, you know, I can share some of my insights. And there seems to be an interest in doing that. So I want to serve that.

• 1:20:13Adam Skolnick?

  Absolutely.

• 1:20:14Rich Roll?

  We'll do this more.

• 1:20:14Adam Skolnick?

  And are the show notes, are you going to direct people to different things they can do, reading or?

• 1:20:20Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I'm gonna, I think I'm, I'll put some, I'll put some effort into the show notes and try to provide some, some resources. So that people can broaden their horizons and their perspectives. A friend of mine sent me a Google Doc that had tons of amazing stuff on it. So I might just.

• 1:20:38Adam Skolnick?

  Perfect.

• 1:20:40Rich Roll?

  Put a link so other people can access that same document, which is basically like a syllabus with all of these links and books and.

• 1:20:46Adam Skolnick?

  I've seen that one going around.

• 1:20:48Rich Roll?

  And I think that would probably do the trick for now.

• 1:20:51Adam Skolnick?

  Perfect.

• 1:20:51Rich Roll?

  All right, man. Well, you want to come back and do this again with me?

• 1:20:54Adam Skolnick?

  Hell, yeah. Let's do it. Let's talk about sprouts.

• 1:20:57Rich Roll?

  Awesome.

• 1:21:01Rich Roll?

  Talk about sprouts. It's funny because I did a podcast with an environmentalist the other day. And just any, talking about anything other than what's going on right now, it just feels awkward and wrong.

• 1:21:14Adam Skolnick?

  It's tough. It's tough to get anything done either, you know?

• 1:21:16Rich Roll?

  And yet we're still in the midst of a global climate emergency. It's not like, you know, that went away.

• 1:21:22Adam Skolnick?

  No.

• 1:21:23Rich Roll?

  So it is important to also talk about other things, but you can't do that unless you're also engaged in what's happening right now.

• 1:21:31Adam Skolnick?

  Agreed.

• 1:21:31Rich Roll?

  So.

• 1:21:31Adam Skolnick?

  And this is the, this is the moment that could unlock a lot of solutions if we, if we let it, if we follow, if we walk through the door together.

• 1:21:39Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Well, other than cooking a new baby.

• 1:21:43Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:43Rich Roll?

  What else you got going on? Are you working on any long pieces or what are you writing right now?

• 1:21:47Adam Skolnick?

  I am. I've been working on, I've been wrestling with this novel that I've been wanting to write for a long, long time. And, um, and so I'm, I'm almost done with the very first raw draft of that. And then working on a nonfiction project, kind of at the same time. I can't announce anything about it yet, but, um, uh, so I've kind of been doing those two, researching a little bit of the nonfiction and doing this. Um, writing this novel and then, uh, when stories come through, they come through. I, the most recent thing I did. Um, journalism wise was, uh, a story on surfing during the pandemic, um, for New York Times Sports.

• 1:22:23Rich Roll?

  You also did a story on the wall.

• 1:22:25Adam Skolnick?

  I did a story on.

• 1:22:26Rich Roll?

  Outside?

• 1:22:27Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, that was outside. That was in November, late, late November last year. I think it came out. I went down to Tucson, um, and was there when they were building the first pieces of the wall through, um, preserved and, you know, preserve national. Park land.

• 1:22:42Rich Roll?

  Right. So it was through the lens of the environmental impact of.

• 1:22:45Adam Skolnick?

  The environmental impact on cutting off, uh, wildlife corridors and the environmental impact of the wall. Because we, basically what's been happening in there, you know, while this protests have been happening. He actually expanded these powers of the federal government to waive the endangered species act, clean water act, clean air act. Um, 21, I think it was environmental laws were waived with a stroke of Trump's pen. Um, and that became legal because of a very obscure law, which, uh, which was passed during the W. Bush years. Um, basically as a budget writer. And so that, that was buried in, in, as a budget writer in this bill that passed easily. And Trump is the first to use it to sweeping, sweep away environmental laws to build, and he did it to build the wall.

• 1:23:29Adam Skolnick?

  But just recently, he did it to build anything. So now you can, those same laws have been waived, uh, for construction projects in cities across the country on infrastructure stuff.

• 1:23:40Rich Roll?

  Right. It's, it's a, it's a bit of a sleight of hand because there's so much unrest right now, but behind the scenes. There are measures being taken like this that are erased from the news cycle that he is able to accomplish and get away with. Because we're, our attention is placed elsewhere.

• 1:23:58Adam Skolnick?

  Exactly. So you always watch what that other hand is doing. Luckily there are lawyers that do watch that. There are lawsuits. Um, I mean, obviously the, the, the wall is being built. That's happening right now. But the more recent measure of, I think it was last week, those will be challenged in court. So, no reason to panic just yet, but it just shows you where they're, where the mind of this administration is.

• 1:24:21Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:22Adam Skolnick?

  And it's not, it's not for the benefit of everybody. Yeah.

• 1:24:26Rich Roll?

  You talked to Goggins lately?

• 1:24:28Adam Skolnick?

  I haven't spoken with him lately. I speak with, I spoke with Jennifer more recently, but I have not spoken with him lately. But yeah, he.

• 1:24:36Rich Roll?

  He blew out his knee or something, right?

• 1:24:37Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, it looks like he blew out his knee.

• 1:24:39Rich Roll?

  But I ain't stopping him.

• 1:24:42Adam Skolnick?

  He's walking on his hands on the treadmill.

• 1:24:44Rich Roll?

  I saw that. I was like, oh my God.

• 1:24:48Adam Skolnick?

  I mean, I think of, I, you know, obviously, working with Goggins has been the highlight of my career. I think about the lessons that he talks about all the time in my life and, and, and even now. That's another thing to think about is, is, is, is making sure you're honoring yourself and doing the hard work you need to do. No matter what's happening out in the world. The world's always going to be noisy and crazy. So, take time to do that, too. I would, I would tell all your listeners, you know, make, make sure you're doing what you need to do, too. Sometimes it could feel like if me swimming in the ocean and doing some freediving and, you know, it seems like it's not fair.

• 1:25:28Adam Skolnick?

  You know, why am I doing that when all this stuff's going on? And I, I just don't pay attention to that. You have to do also.

• 1:25:34Rich Roll?

  You have to take care of yourself. Yeah, you gotta, and, and, you know, Goggins mantra is really, there are so many things in this world that you can't control.

• 1:25:42Adam Skolnick?

  Right.

• 1:25:42Rich Roll?

  So, stop being a victim. Take control of what you can control and, you know, take care of yourself.

• 1:25:49Adam Skolnick?

  Right. And, and deal with the hard truths.

• 1:25:53Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:54Adam Skolnick?

  We're dealing with them.

• 1:25:54Rich Roll?

  Yeah, and that's what we're dealing with right now.

• 1:25:56Adam Skolnick?

  That's right.

• 1:25:57Rich Roll?

  You know, all right, my friend.

• 1:26:00Rich Roll?

  We're gonna be doing this again, so thank you. If you want to, if you want to find out more about Adam, where's the best place to track you down?

• 1:26:08Adam Skolnick?

  AdamSkolnick.com is my website and

• 1:26:12Rich Roll?

  Adam's Vibe?

• 1:26:13Adam Skolnick?

  Twitter and Instagram, no, Twitter and Instagram's just @AdamSkolnick.

• 1:26:17Rich Roll?

  @AdamSkolnick. What was Adam's Vibe?

• 1:26:19Adam Skolnick?

  Oh, that's just, you know, you really want to know the origins of Adam's Vibe? In the 90s, when email first became a thing, it was Adam's Vibration. Adam'[email protected]. And then that became this thing, but I'm, I think I'm gonna fix that at some point. Maybe, because when you're 70, you don't want to be Adam's Vibe.

• 1:26:44Rich Roll?

  Awesome, man. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. This was super fun.

• 1:26:48Adam Skolnick?

  Yeah, thanks for having me.

• 1:26:50Rich Roll?

  And I will link up everything in the show notes. Also link up Adam's stories that he was talking about and all the good stuff. So go there. And that's it for today. I guess I'll just do, I can just do the outro now. Appreciate you guys listening to the show. Check the show notes for all the links and resources. Find out more about Adam. I want to thank everybody who helped put on today's show. Blake Curtis, who videoed today's show. Jason Camiello for doing the audio engineering. Ally Rogers for portraits. My boys Tyler, Trapper, and Hari for the theme music for the podcast. Georgia Whaley for copywriting. Who else? What else did I forget? Ah, Jessica Miranda for her graphics, of course. Awesome.

• 1:27:34Rich Roll?

  We'll be back here in a couple of days with my conversation with Byron Davis and Phil Allen Jr. It's a banger. You guys are gonna love it.

• 1:27:42Adam Skolnick?

  Can't wait for that one.

• 1:27:43Rich Roll?

  Until then, be well, my friends. Peace.