Roll On: The Practice That CHANGED EVERYTHING For Me | Rich Roll Podcast

We Roll on his back it's been a minute a couple months was February the last time that I think February it's like we're quarterly now man I guess I could live with that we'll see we'll we'll see how this one goes so I'm auditioning right now I want to make a plea for those who enjoy the podcast on YouTube the people who enjoy watching it if you have not subscribed to the channel but you're watching it please subscribe you just have to click that button it's no big deal and here's why yes of course it allows to grow but with that growth we then can leverage that to improve the show to you know hire more people and you know continue to get great guests and the like so that's it that's my big speech just click the button man that's it it's right there it's the red [Music] one today's episode is brought to you by the awesome organizations that make this show [Music] possible you just wrote a novel and that's being kind of pitched right now around around publishing houses and you're in that weird kind of limal space where you're awaiting responses right it's it's uh we have we're still out to like 20 different editors at different houses and you know how it works there's like what is it four big houses and then like all these different imprints all the imprints there's so many imprints but there's really only it's sort of like when you go to the grocery store and you think there's all these Brands but there's only like two or three companies that own all of them it's similar in publishing it's like that isn't it just one big thing it is it's like well and what's strange is like I've been doing this for so long and I still don't I mean I've had I've had a book published by Major Publishers I've gotten a second deal through David David got the deal but working with David got a deal David gogins got that another deal and we we didn't end up going with it because he self-published and since that I've been completely on the fringes of the publishing industry I do what I do like I don't really know anybody or know anything you're not interfacing with editors and all the like like the biz like so I get the whole submission list and I'm like Googling everybody and I realize I don't know anybody and it doesn't matter and I thought I'd get in the past bird has sent through like passes more frequently and I think um this time they keep it all away from me like I've gotten some thoughts back from editors like uh but we still have the the vast majority hav haven't gotten to the made their decision yet so I'm going to take that as news I feel really good about here's the the best part is I've been working on it since the since 2000 since the pandemic and on and off yeah because we had to we wrote never finished in there so it wasn't like all my soul Focus the whole time but I did 20 drafts of this thing and um I I I do believe it's my best work I I love it very much and it's going to it's going to happen um whether through a major Publishing House in indie or through under my own thing that if I have to do it I will do it it's going to happen it's going to be out and um you've done the work done the work and book is done I mean this is the difference between uh other types of books and novels usually you prepare a proposal The Proposal gets solicited you know spread around and you get feedback and responses pretty quickly right uh whereas a novel they actually have to read the whole thing right so to me the longer uh the more time that goes by and the longer you're waiting it feels like that might be a good sign because if somebody got two chapters in and thought no you know they would let you know right away I would think so but you know you just don't know it's like it's and and so the first week that we went out I slept really well because I've always thought this this book has been on a journey and hopefully when it comes out I'll I I if I remember everything that happened there's probably be 10 other things to talk about but um I'll I'll go through the whole thing but it it was my my feeling was once we got out to the Publishers um it's going to happen I never thought it wouldn't and I still feel that way I still very positive and I would like it to be under a major publisher be because I feel like you can get into more stores I don't have the social media engine that some people have where you you can do an indie thing and and and know that you're going to reach certain benchmarks in sales um but like I said you know it's it's not up to me and so all I can do is be be in the Gratitude space and for the first week I was able to do that and the second week the second week I was like checking my email five times an hour is that normal I know what that feels like you know when there's an anticipation uh and and the response can be something that could change your life in a in a in a pretty significant way like of course you know you're going to want to I mean it's not good it's not healthy to be doing that all the time but I can understand it certain I've certainly been that person yeah and so now I've kind of reached a happy medium where I've got a little bit of that but I'm able to kind of detach one thing I can't do is sit at my desk and like work for any long period of time I'm just like I think it's just too much and um for me so until there's I'm going to give it a little more time I don't think the resolution is going to come before I have to get back to work so I'm going to have to get over it but uh you know well now you're you're a member of the anxious generation I am totally I mean I think I've always been I've always been I've always been uh no I'm looking forward to talking about that you know that I love that show so I can't wait to talk about that yeah yeah yeah cool man yeah so Adam well you're awaiting a response from Publishers on your novel yes I just signed a contract for my next book ah so I'm steeped in trying to you know figure out how I'm going to turn these ideas into reality and it's been such a long time since I've written a book The Pony Express finally arrived with the contract huh yeah it did yeah it did that's a whole other thing but it is signed it's official uh and I'm curious I thought we could have an interesting conversation around uh creative expression because one of the things that's been really helpful in getting me settled into a mode of being creative is a meditation like I've gone not that I've strayed from meditation but I've just been much more diligent about it like to the point where it's like I don't miss a day like I'm doing it no matter what and returning to a very diligent journaling practice but not journaling in the sense of of morning Pages like journaling with intentionality and I'm doing that because I have this dilemma which is that when I'm writing on a laptop it's very hard to separate the the sort of Flow State creative dump mind that you need from the perfectionist editorial brain like those things start to merge because you can so easily like copy paste you know delete and start again and so I end up like tinkering forever and and and I don't make as much progress so for this project the mornings are long hand journaling on you know a specific thing that I'm trying to work on for this book and then I use later periods or afternoons for taking that and then doing the editing part or I set it aside and I do that part later and that's been really helpful because it lowers the bar like especially before you have a ton of momentum and you're entering into a new project it's such a heavy lift and there's so much pressure and I just had to like lower that cost and just make it like as easy a lift as possible and so hey I'm just going to sit down I got this P I'm going to write whatever comes out I'm not going to edit it I'm not going to judge it I'm not going to you know I could be total garbage and that's totally fine no one's going to see this um and that's been really good at getting me kind of into a rhythm all this so I guess I'm curious around how you approach your writing and these books that you're doing whether nonfiction or fiction and maybe there's a difference between those two things um well you hit on something that is is that is definitely consistent across anything I do and that is what you need to do as a writer in order to get your brain to not be terrified of the of the of the thing you signed up for is reduce the amount of blank space you have to deal with at a time and so um you can do that through outlining you can do that through just getting your research set up and your interviews set up if it's a non-fiction piece you can do it through just opening up and doing long hand in a on in a book with the pages smaller you know um you can do it with intentionality with journaling because you know you're writing about something so you don't have to wonder what is this going to be about or what where do I start um because journaling allows you to start anywhere and then eventually you get into it because the flow is built into it and you have a lot of experience with that so it's a comfortable kind of setting for you so reducing the amount of blank space you have to deal with it to me is is the best way to deal with with what people call writer block or some sort of any sort of impediment to getting some words down on page uh but for my process it's grown over the years when I first started I was very ritualistic about everything I was be like I'd light a candle I would do this I would have everything set up and now and then through time but that feels like it creates pressure because it's like you've done all this and now the magic has to happen for me that's paralyzing yeah like I have to get rid of all of that so that it's like hey it's no big deal have to you know create this insane environment well when when I was doing it that way I wasn't making a lot of money doing it so I think what happened was the more I did it the the less sacred it became and to the point where I wrote part of one breath in the back seat of a car on my way to Point Doom to swim and I would do that several times a week sometimes and sometimes I I've I've written stories off the side of a freeway because that's when it had to have the rewrite in I've done it every kind of different way um but what to me this the big consistent thing is is try to rce the blank space so with with fiction fiction is a lot harder that's one I've learned it's a lot harder um that it's harder to be great at fiction um it's harder to be great at fiction uh with non-fiction you know what you're dealing with so you can't really stray from that uh but the difference is you can always just decide to change something and and suit yourself in fiction whereas non-fiction you can't so you're kind of tied to it so they both have their advantages but U but fiction is just harder to be great um but um um my process isn't is is basically at this point I try to write a certain number of words per day knowing that the beginning of the day is going to suck it's very rare that you get up and you get right to it and you're just boom sometimes it happens it's very rare and so if my goal is 2,000 words a day and it might take me five hours to get down 500 Words and then I might do the last 1500 words in 30 minutes you know and are you able to do the writing part and do the editing later or are you trying to edit while you're writing that dependent on the deadline to sometimes to get back into the flow of like you're in the middle of a chapter or in the middle of a thought you have to go back to the day before and just look at it and so then you are going to probably rewrite and Tinker because you're going to see things that should change um so I'm not I don't have like this process no this this lump of clay will be fixed I'm not going back to fix anything yet no no if my brain wants to go there and you know any time you look at it can get better so I'll start there and sometimes that will will make it harder to get to the 2,000 words it mightbe you won't get there because you you actually the last thing you thought that was so great that you did in 45 minutes actually sucked and the thing that you thought sucked because it took you two hours to write 400 words actually is good you know you the feel the thing you have to separate is the feeling of the experience does not mean it's better writing that's the one thing that I think a lot of people confus it felt so good this is must be great cuz it did feel that way at the time and you're rereading it you're like yeah this is it actually no sometimes that stuff's crap you know and sometimes the stuff that barely comes out is good and so there's and there's no R and sometimes it's the opposite and there's no rule to it so the Only Rule really that there is is reduce the amount of blank space and just consistently be there so that you can just get it done because it's like building it's just building a house it's like it's like you know my version of that is this delusion that um unless I'm like bleeding out of my eyeballs and suffering you know that that it it could be better you know what I mean and then and then I'll proceed to make it worse you know because I was like I have to make my it's cuz it's like oh in the pool or you know it's like you got to push yourself um what is the you know creative version of that and that's really um kind of a lie but the other the other challenge I I face is sometimes like it's one thing if you have an outline you know exactly what you're going to say it's different when you're grappling with an idea uh and you're trying to get clarity around what you actually think and how to express it um and sometimes bringing the editor into the into that initial creative process is important because you know you're you're kind of pushing yourself to get clearer and clearer and clearer it's like I don't know who's who's the person who said um if you you know if you don't know what you think about something like start write like in the writing like you start to figure out how you feel about certain things and and for me bringing the editor into that process you know creates the tension that actually drives a certain amount of clarity that can make the rest of the writing easier and so I'm so sometimes it's like I need to bring that in you know because otherwise if I'm just vomiting out like it's it's so disorganized that it takes me longer later to like what am I actually trying to say here I don't know right right it's interesting and you're also dealing with first person right you're dealing in a first person space whether it's your Memoir whether it's kind of I I believe first person kind of essay stuff that you're working on now is like and that's different cuz I I'm I I get even my my novel's third person so it's like I can be the detached narrator and I could be the detach you know whether it's ghost riding or whether it's even reporting for the New York Times I I Am The Observer and so it's different you know it's a different approach but um listen man if you're getting like to me it's like just get words down and some people like to write books all along hand I mean there's there's plenty of writers that have made a living doing that like back the problem is that then you have these journals and you're going through them and you're like you can't just like copy and paste paragraphs you know yeah there's always connected tissue so that's that's a bit of an issue but I did want to like we can kind of pivot into both a little bit I I found these journals that I thought were cool that I would share these are your older Journal it doesn't matter no these are new journals it doesn't it doesn't matter what kind of Journal you're using like I'm not somebody like you have to have this kind of pen and it like that none of that matters but I did think that these journals are fun they're called uh lectum the lectum 1917 bow house Edition oh that's cool what's cool about them they come in different sizes and stuff like that um but when you buy them and they're not expensive you know they're just like whatever average um when you buy them online you can uh get a little inscription so you can get I have like my name on there in the year 1917 bow house they're yeah like here like look on the inside of that I mean that's a new one I I haven't even written that and this is like a larger one and I like the ones that are dotted instead of lined and those bow house ones are dotted with red dots which I don't know it's just sort that's cool I love Kinski aesthetically sort of groovy um anyway they're fun that's cool but I thought um we could spend a couple minutes talking about books uh we had kind of gone back and forth about did you have the inscription made or do they do that for you no that's what I'm saying when you when you when you order it online you want to think you can like I don't know it's only a couple bucks more and you can like have it say embossed with like whatever you want dude this is clean I love this they're cool right very cool anyway yeah yeah yeah um we talked about like sharing some books um I think you brought like some of your alltime faves you I I brought you you suggested bringing five the best books I read this year and then five alltime faves and I don't have all I think I don't I'm missing a couple but I brought brought I I did bring um the five best books I've read this year and then I brought a couple others that mean a lot to me yeah all right well how do we do this I don't want to do like a book report on every book um but maybe just rifle off uh the best books that you've read this year okay so I read uh I this is the most recent book I finished it's called the NASA archives I posted about it in a story but not in a post um does it does it talk about how they faked the moon landing and Stanley Cooper filmed it it does it does it talks all about how they faked the moon landing um and then that the Earth is really flat that's the whole point of NASA I don't know if they've told you that I found this book in Toto Santos in Baja at like this cool art book shop and it's a Tashan aash a Tashan and TSH you know Tashan usually has these big oversized books this is like I think this is kind of like one of those big ones that they've repurposed so you could actually read it and you know you don't really read no those are for like putting on the coffee table and looking cool but you don't actually end up reading them like like I mean that is pretty cool the photos that they have this like photos from the Moon cuz kubri did such a good job Kubrick's amazing um but I'm not like a super space guy or I never was I love the idea of of exploration but I was never like like the space nerd growing up I do remember where I was when the Challenger blew up anyway this book is archive material some speeches um letters from all the names you think of and then some deeply reported essays all about NASA from its Inception all the way up to the Hubble telescope launch and so it's very cool um here you go mer from Mercury to the marves Rovers that's what they call it um do you think that uh NASA has the coolest logo that was ever created I think NASA not only that I think NASA is the coolest governmental organization ever created yeah and I think I think turn to its you know kind of Heyday of absolute coolum I I I wish I we're just too we're just too grumpy to like be astonished what other what if like like uh you know HUD or like Health and Human Services all had like super cool logos TSA like hoodies and stuff like that what if TSA guys just look like Spacemen well I mean just you know that iconic logo that they had amazing amazing and not only that but like it goes through like how they decided to be at k um Can how where they how they start ended up in Houston like it goes into all that and like the early leaders and how you know and even just like Kennedy and the Russians and everything that was happening um it took some very big bets from people in government to put a lot of money and people were saying at the time you know we have a lot of problems here on Earth why would we spend this money and people have that's why NASA was curtailed to the point it is now because people stopped having the diet to put that money out into space but we are supposedly going to go to the Moon again um I mean what H what is it like I forget the number 20 four people or something like that 27 people have been to the moon and they were all one after another in those Apollo missions um and then they stopped we stopped going to the moon so uh it's it's very interesting to to me to to to dive into that so I love that I this is not the book but Philip Kerr wrote a series of novels they're called The Bernie Gunther novels and it's basically Noir Berlin Noir pre World War II and then through World War II this is the first in the series the book that I love the most was the last in the series and he wrote it while dying of a terminal illness and it came out I believe after he died and it's the it was a prequel to this series and and it it that one's that one is in 19 20s in Berlin when the Nazi party is starting to make inroads into the into the world it's like the Nazis versus the Socialists and then this it's in the 20s when that started and it's really super interesting it's it felt very current to our time and place now um and it's just literature disguises as genre fiction you know it's like it's really Philip Kerr if you like detective stories this one got some attention when it came out by Alvaro enri it's called you dreamed to Empires um I got it cuz uh Dwight Garner in the New York Times wrote a great uh he's a he's a uh uh book critic for the times and he's my favorite read in the New York Times And basically it's about when Cortez met uh met uh monuma and and then they ended up like taking taking psychedelics together but it's it's like it's a re it's kind of real it's it's kind of alternative Universe alternative history but that's what it's about it's about the Spaniard fan fiction no it's more like Spaniards coming in when the Spaniards arrived in t wakan basically and and monuma being there and all that and that's like that's the whole it takes place over a short period of time and what happened in that time and it's uh it's kind of brutal and funny and hilar you know it's hilarious obviously it's it's farsal but but really great um and then the best book I've read two two kind of oldtimers one I read brown dog it's a Nolla oh Jim har this is a collection of Jim Harris and novelas and the first one's called brown dog Michigan guy Michigan guy and Montana and Arizona um one of the greats uh to ever do it Jim Harrison and then like hardboiled yeah kind of hardboiled but like but like not as hardboiled as Cormac McCarthy no no no no much more heart much more heart you know like like a lot of heart and uh much more of like earthy kind of earthy energy yeah yeah yeah Annie prow I don't even know how to pronounced her last name I think it's PR um she wrote she's famous for two books or more than two books but this one The Shipping News won the national book award I believe and the pulit surprise I think it won both um and she this is this is magnificent and it was a it was a kind of a iffy movie with Kevin spy and Kate Blanchett but um but the book is magnificent uh this is Art and uh loved reading it if you love the ocean it's like it's not like a lot of books I think a lot of art that we see these days um is curated to the point where it doesn't offend you that it like it's trying to meet you where you are this has this is is brilliant and beautiful but has an edge you know like I want more Edge in in the med that's the whole that's the whole point of Art yeah yeah I mean I thought so so that's what we try to do right we try to try to try to tell stories with an edge in terms of like that's what the best books I've read so far and I that's good that's plenty I know you got more there but like that's that's cool let's wrap it up we're only a semi literary podcast listen uh yes you're in the movie I didn't ask you about the book you wrote okay it's good you can you can go there's other stands here enough we got enough skull there's apples over there you want an apple there's an appropriate amount of skull and then there's too much going the books that I chose the books that I chose are going to come as no surprise to anybody who who who follows me and because we were talking about writing and your process and and you know I have creativity very much on my mind because I'm trying to channel it uh the books that I that I chose um are all about unlocking creativity uh so the ultimate one and the starting place for me is the artist way by Julia Cameron which is I mean the subtitle is a spiritual path to higher creativity and it's just an incredible book that's also like a program with very actionable things to do over the course of a number of weeks to help you connect with your creativity um and there are practices like the morning Pages which we referenced earlier which is this practice of just first thing in the morning opening up a journal L handing just doing a dump you know to clear out whatever is in your brain um so that you can kind of get to a point of clarity before you actually do your creative work like that those journals are not meant to be seen by anyone they're not meant to be reread they're not meant to be insightful they're really meant to connect your hand to the paper and and to kind of clear the cobwebs out um and there's all kinds of cool stuff in here like the artist date like once a week you take yourself on an artist date meaning you have some creative thing that you'd like to do maybe you want to take Polaroids or you want to whatever and like you indul that you know which is something that ordinarily we're busy and you're just not going to make time for it or whatever um and I love this book this is the original copy um that I got I think I got this book in [Music] 1990 n 98 1998 that is well used I love this is this book is like you know coming up it's like over 25 years old that's been in some trunks of cars it's been under beds it's been in beds I know like fraying here and uh and I return to it time and time again that's awesome did you return to it to begin this project on now yeah yeah yeah I like a variation on it like I don't do it super rigorously exactly the way it's lined out because I've done it many times over um but Cameron also is sober uh and so there's a there's sort of a 12-step veneer to this also like it's a spiritual program in the way that um and the way that Alcoholics Anonymous is and so there's an overlap um and uh it was introduced to me by my friend um Sasha uh who's been on the podcast Sasha rasi uh and um I just love it and I recommend everybody check it out the other book that Sasha was the first person to introduce me to um was uh was um the war of art by Steven pressfield um and that's another book that I read and read and read and read again again and again and it's just like the ultimate kind of like primer for getting your head around the creative process and going to war with resistance um and I couldn't find my copy of that book I don't know where it's hidden but Stephen who's also been on the podcast twice and has you know become a little bit of a mentor to me I mean it's just like incredible this guy you know he just came out with this box set the Daily Press field okay um which I thought it would share comes in this beautiful box uh and it's sort of like the daily stoic like every page has like a prompt okay um that you can reflect on over the course of that day and then yeah he's got like little journal in here and like these cards and I don't know it's pretty cool all right so yeah there's the war of art on the back and then there's turning pro these books are just instrumental yeah uh and you don't have to be faced with the prospect of writing a book to gain value from these creative texts I think we're all creative beings and we all have something that we want to say and express and perhaps struggle with finding a way to do that and I just think they're they're they're manuals for living because 1999 is when you had the art of artist way right and that that you weren't thinking about no not at all creative yeah I've been doing this forever um a couple other texts that have been key and important to me the creative act uh Rick rin's book which you know probably most people have read at this point I think it's still on the New York Times besteller yeah it's it's crazy how well this book is doing and this book was like really um pivotal to me I just think it's a really beautiful book I have it teed up on Audible and I I you know I just like it's hard for me to get to my AUD knew it on Audible this is a book you should you should actually I think you should actually read I should read that so i' I've got an audible that I should also buy it yeah so Rick and Neil can get some benefit maybe yeah um creative calling shout out neilas yeah shout out to Neil who who was uh ghosters ghosters are people to the ghost riders need to unionize I think I don't think I don't think Neil wants to unionize no I'm just saying you know the unheralded they're sort of like you know this whole this movie The Fall guy that came out and part of that part of the narrative there is like we need to really appreciate these stunt men um they they they're they're barely credited nobody knows who they are they don't there there's no Oscar category for what they do and there was a real heartfelt sensibility by the director who's a former stunt man um to raise kind of like to to have us all like celebrate the work that they do um yeah I think there's something uh relevant to the Ghost Riders out there you know what I mean who toil in anonymity and do you know all this you know do God's work uh and and just are you know sort of like you know they're the ones who are jumping off buildings and and submerging themselves uh with masks on and nobody body knows who they are only writers want to V only writers want to want to award writers um the other book I would call out is creative calling by Chase Jarvis he's been a a guest on the podcast um this this book is really great um I would highly recommend it it's about like very practical actionable things that you can do to develop a daily practice around cultivating creativity um and in the same kind of Canon there's there's a couple books by a guy called Austin Cleon that I actually haven't read right um I think one is called steal like an artist something like that I really should read those have you had on no I haven't I haven't I haven't um those suggested to me and I don't know why I haven't read them but I'm sure they're great 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launch use offer code Rich Roll to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or [Music] domain what else is going on you're getting you you texted me the other day uh about bikes I was very happy to get this text you're considering buying a bike so my like I played baseball growing up baseball is my main sport like organized sport growing up and I reached a point where I just wasn't good enough anymore to keep playing in a in a the the highest competitive league so in high school I switched and I started to I was like early adopter of of cycling and Triathlon in America and so I was doing that stuff yeah I know I never told you these front teeth were smashed in the asphalt in a bike race in the desert when I was 16 years old really yeah someone cut in the whole new skullnick that I know nothing about you remember those Dave Scott Iron Man bikes I had one of those the first Shimano 600s or whatever that was on the market or something yeah I had that and I was really good at Hills I was I was really skinny and small and I didn't really grow in height till I was 16 years old and so I was really short at first and then I got I was too short for that bike then I really grew into it and I was great in the Hills I mean I was it's my of all the these Endurance Sports it's the one I'm best at more naturally and I think it's because I did it younger right so I had that experience I was doing I did rode from Santa Barber to La I used to ride down to lagona I did all that kind of stuff on this bike and then I was in this bike race and someone just cut in the peleton just they did they made the wrong move and I hit his back wheel uhuh and just went down and I didn't I it happened so quickly I couldn't move and smash my teeth and so uh and not long after I kind of lost my Flor for that was that was it for you it's kind of like the Jack Johnson hitting his head in pipeline or he smashed his teeth too he hit went head first into the reef uh of course he kept surfing big waves I got started partying or whatever I did yeah that metaph that that example sort of falls apart it's not not a good example well I'm excited for you to find a new bike because bike technology has come such a long way since then I mean the bikes that are now available I mean it's like night and day they're so fun so let me tell you like I I when I was uh got diagnosed with this herniated disc we've talked about this right and I couldn't run anymore I haven't been able to run and so I decided to get on this bike it got my back got better and I have the bike this like fixed gear type bike it's not a fixie because there's it's like the new fixies where you can flip it around and there's like a free wheel so you can Coast right so it's a single speed with a big chain ring up front small and you can't go at top speed downhill but you have to go hard uphill and so like i' I've got a couple different rides I do between 12 and 20 something miles and I get to pass all these people in Lyra and like high-end bikes going up San vente because I have to go so hard to go to go up at all right otherwise you'll you'll you'll tip over but I can't do Hills I can't get on the trails I can't so and then I've heard about these gravel bikes for years I've always threatened to get one and then I rode your one of your Canyons you have here for guests and I'm like I love this bike like why AR I on a on a a better bike so I've been looking at it so I've been looking at the canyon Grizz is one thing I've been looking at I talked to my uh my one of my my cousin's son Isaiah Goldstein he's a great cyclist he lives up in in Washington he's more Trails um and and he's like well the thing about Canyon is you don't have a bike shop and if you're a great if you have all the gear you know how to put things together that's one thing but so you should also consider while you make your selection looking at a bike shop just to see what they offer and so I looked at Specialized I went down to Helen so I've been looking at a few things and I think I've settled on a gravel bike with a slightly bigger chain ring changing out the front the front ring to like from a 42 to a 46 so you so I can use it in a triathlon scenario but I could also ride it up to Sullivan from my house and get on a trail and I could do all the things I want to do because I'm not that serious but I am serious in the fact that I'll be on the bike you know three times a week two three times a week well flexibility is important uh I think people tend to overspend on a very specific specialized type of bike before they've ridden enough to know what it is they are going to end up doing the most and I so so I think a bike that allows you uh you know the ability to ride it wherever you want in the way that you want um is the more important thing and then if you get totally hooked in you can upgrade later but I don't think that you should overpay now and I think with a with that gravel bike setup I mean you can change the tires on it for Road and you can have you know there's certain things that you can do to make it um more of a Universal uh type of situation for yourself but I'm partial to Canyon there is that idea that if you get a canyon it's a bike that um bike shops are reluctant to service because they have such specific components Etc but um I got a guy for you that shouldn't be that shouldn't be a consideration yeah there's a great company called velofix and they basically do bike repairs Mobile and they have a van you can book it online they come into your house they can build your bike because Canyon they'll just ship you you know you need somebody to assemble it that's it's there's there's plenty of people who can do that okay um and so I'll just introduce you to my guy but I'm partial to Canyon and Canyon is a company that we work with I love that company I love the brand I love the bikes I love that bike that I rode and that's why I was thinking God I should do and it's it is a better price point for what you're getting isn't it like then a lot of these highly I think so I I think their their bikes are really exceptional more about we'll talk about it what do you think of digital shifters versus the mechanical like the like the new Shram is it called or Shram shrim red and and di2 yeah I think they're great uh electronic shifting is is really fun it's very precise um you have to charge them uh and there's differences between Shram and di2 uh but it's really kind of a personal preference thing they're you know all of those components now are um pretty exceptional so I would I would go with electronic shifting if you can and that's in your budget okay cool yeah we'll talk about budget and you know I know the listeners out there are going to have opinions please send me your opinions please at me please me you're going to get a lot of opinions uh it's a very it's a very personal thing you know what I mean it is it is and the and as I said to you in the text like just ride a bunch of bikes and and and you know find the one that you enjoy the most that feels the most comfortable I mean obviously you want to get a proper fit and all that kind of stuff so some of that stuff you know you can adjust after you purchase um and these fellow Pi guys can help you with that right you can call you want to be excited about the bike that that you're getting but anyway well this is going to be a whole journey for you yeah it should be fun I I want to be able to ride with you sometime yeah let's do it yeah what else is happening uh oh what else is happening uh deepest breath one an Emmy deepest breath did win an Emmy isn't that today did they give you one would it have won an Emmy Without You appearing in that documentary probably um but the thing about it is that uh although they've been always very nice you know they had a cut of that movie done before they brought me in I was like the last interview because they felt they needed something more so I mean hopefully I gave Ed hopefully I did but I did get in the at the farmers market today the guys I see for like salad stuff and herbs um this guy's like looks at me and goes are you in the movies and I'm like me no man I'm not I'm not in the movies and he goes are you sure you're not in that movie that that you know the diving one and I'm like oh well yeah I'm in in that movie and so what happened was what usually happens when people approach me because they've seen something of mine or usually it's rual podcast they talk to me about it and they they're happy to to meet me and then I want to talk about them longer than they want to talk about me or talk to me to recede into the background they're trying to get away from you yeah I'm like I'm like and I also wrote a book about it he's like all right bro you know I didn't ask about your book dude that's pretty funny um when we had Orlando Bloom in here recently uh I invited you to come to watch because uh the episode of his Series where he he goes free diving was at um what's it called Deep Blue uh no the Blue Hole Dean's Blue Hole yeah the and people are kind of scholing him it was in the middle of the and I knew that you KN would know all of those people and there would be like a shorthand um for that experience so it was cool yeah it was cool to be here for that it was cool to see you know and to he hear his whole you know as we get into the recent pods he's one of them to hear his whole journey through Buddhism fascinating and just you know he's a beast you know he's like one of those undercover beasts you don't realize who can who can just Excel like he's just incredible athlete himself he's in a wing suit I know after 35 jumps that were compressed into like a two-e period basically right do you think that comes from just being an actor like you have to learn how to ride a horse really fast you have to learn how to do this really fast you have to like there's like this compressed time to learn to be good at something I have no idea I mean I think he's you know he's definitely like a you know an adrenaline Adventure junkie but I think he has like a base level of athletic Talent also yeah yeah yeah but anyway that was fun to have you here for that yeah that was fun it was fun to be here and uh like what have you been up to I'm doing good man we're we're we're we have all the kids home for the summer which is fantastic we have one who just finished her first year in college we have our youngest who just finished 10th grade at boarding school um not going to say where where but uh uh I never thought I would send a kid to boarding school but this school has just been phenomenal um for our youngest and she's now home and the boys who already lived with us so we're just all together as a family and it just feels great I'm so to be home she like well that's the thing that's that maybe you know of anything I've done that that you know I'm I just am so grateful for and and on some level I guess proud of that the kids want to be home like they they're they're off with their friends and doing all sorts of things but um but they're happy to be home you know and it's nice to have dinners and you know connect together so I just you know I love it I'm so happy that they're here soes I'm so happy to hear that man it's like uh you're my you're my fatherhood uh my my fatherhood example you know there's there's lot you know it's a roller coaster you know you go through phases and there's plenty of ups and downs and um I always say you know when the kids are are are little and young uh the problems are many but the problems and the solutions are relatively simple and when they get older um there's a lot of problems but the problems are more complicated you know they get trickier and they're more fraught uh and we've had you know every kind of you know color under the rainbow of stuff we've had to contend with as parents so it's not easy but I feel like everyone's in a really good place right now and for that like I just you know I couldn't be more grateful I'm happy to hear that that's awesome are you guys traveling at all this summer well we're going to be going uh to Paris for the Olympics all right um I'm doing some things with on uh in conjunction with uh with the big event that's happening there and so we're all going over as a family and we've rented a friend's flat uh in Paris um for a couple weeks so that's going to be good amazing so I'm excited to I've never been to the Olympic I'm obsessed with the Olympics and I've never I've never no witnessed one I've never I've never attended one so it'll be my first experience doing that and it's going to be great I'm going to do some activations with an and some other athletes they are track and field and Marathon athletes uh a couple panels one of which I think is going to be open to the public like the schedule is all still getting worked out so I'll make announcements about that um as we near and that information becomes public and hopefully I'm going to do some podcasts there we'll see okay um It's tricky because of the ioc and you know I mean I'm going to do it like I'm going to bring my gear or whatever and catch as catch can and see what happens um it's not like I have whole agenda or I'm renting a studio or something like that but just to kind of old school it here and there I just don't want to be caught flat-footed if I'm there and I don't have my gear and I come you know I meet somebody who you know wants to do it I want to be able to do it you what you need is a reporter on the ground I do who knows how to open some doors I could use a lot of things uh the the all all of which exceed the budget tell you that one with a with a blue blazer like this and a bicycle with a with a uh with a French bread holder maybe that I can slide right in now but on the swimming front yes I don't know if you've been following this uh the apparently the Open Water swimming and the swimming leg of the Olympic triathlon are meant to go down in the S I did I did see that I knew it was the Open Water I didn't know it was the triathlon leg as well but it made sense I believe so and so you know going back I don't know two years ago I started to see news about this and how they were going to clean up the water and make it swimmable um and I check back in that I was like is that still the case is that still happening last I heard it was was UN it was it wasn't ready that's I heard it wasn't ready I just read an article I'll link it up in um in the show notes that said that they're they've they've devised uh I'm sure going to mischaracterize this but they've devised some workaround because the sen you know has a lot of bacteria it's not like safe for swimming right um that they've cordoned off uh a certain like section of it that's you know like the size of 10 Olympic you know size swimming pools or something like that and they have these underground um tunnels where they're going to like funnel the the they're going to funnel the river water like bypass it like it it's like bypass surgery right and they're going to have this one area that where the water will be clean um and they seem to believe that they're going to hit their Target in terms of timing like they building a pool in a river I think think maybe like I don't know exactly um I should probably read that article more in depth or do a little bit more research but my sense was that this is still very much uh not only a possibility but but you know how it's going to go down so we'll see it's like it's like every Olympics though you know the you you hear oh the the all the venues are almost done and then they're like two weeks out and like you know there's all this stuff that has to happen in order for you know it to get pulled off and true Marathon swimmers are like I swam in the and the East River and all around Manhattan tell me there's not there's not gross water there they do it all time they have like people getting sick and all kinds of stuff like that so anyway yeah so that's that's going to be the big the big um trip this summer and I just you know I've been traveling a fair amount I was in India I was in Austin and then I was in Bentonville Arkansas but I went to we didn't we didn't do a roll on after I got back from I thought we were going to talk about yeah I want to hear all about that Dolly llama trip I mean that is unbelievable um so I got invited by Arthur Brooks to join a small group of about 20 people to travel to darsha uh to do a two-day thing with the dolly llama that uh was going to that was hosted by Arthur in conjunction with Harvard where he teaches at the business school and at the Kennedy School of government uh and so the group was you know there were people from his happiness Lab at Harvard that were there and there were some social scientists some interesting people rain Wilson came um right with his wife and uh and um Lisa Miller who's a podcast guest who teaches the science of spirituality at Colombia was there also but everyone else I was new to me you know but it was a really great group and basically it was two separate days of of sitting with the dolling llama in in these two-hour sessions where Arthur kind of hosted and uh you know sort of conducted a series of question questions and conversations with the dollar Lama and it was it was really cool I mean he's 89 years old uh it took place in this sort of congregation room that is attached to the domicile that he lives in that's adjacent to the actual Monastery uh and it was I mean it was amazing I was sitting like this far like as far as I am away from you uh from him two days in a row uh and you know Arthur has a whole series of questions that he wants to ask him and he's got a whole Arc and trajectory this journey that he wants to you know take the doy Lama on and take us on but he knows well because he's been doing this for over a decade that it basically doesn't matter what you ask the do Lama he's going to tell you what he he's going to he's going to assess the crowd and figure out what these people need to hear and that's going to be his message so most of his responses to these questions which had to do with love and Transcendence and Happ happiness and uh West versus East and and and the like forgiveness compassion could all be boiled down to one core answer that was sort of like his refrain or his Mantra that he kept returning to which is basically like the answer is always love to everything you know which is to the Western mind somewhat uh infuriating in its reductiveness and simplicity like we came all the way here like let pass the the Velvet rope man you know like this is it right um but when you reflect on it you know is there anything more profound than that no you know that that that basically you know everything that ails us all of the problems that we face and Etc um the solution can all be found on you know developing a greater capacity to give and receive love and what was interesting was how he framed it repeated over these two days which was if you don't know exactly what I'm talking about or you feel um challenged by how to how to conjure that emotion of Love look to the mother's love for the child or look to Nature to the Animal Kingdom and the mother animals love for for its Offspring and basically you know by by really trying to internalize like that that experience into your life is basically what I'm talking about and kind of behind it he means uh that that the love that he's referring to and the love that you should be exuding in your life uh should be that of that character like the way that that that unconditional love that a that a mother has for its child and the idea behind it being like love everyone as if you are their mother or you are the child right like that is the love that the the sort of unconditional most compassionate um version of love you're you're the mother and and the other person's the child that kind of love I think it's more you like the mother's love is basically what we're what he's talking about not the child's needy love and not the Father's Love I noticed the absence of father not the father's not the father's conditional love the mother's unconditional love and he spoke in his tongue and he had a translator um so he didn't have to you know he speaks English but he didn't have to like struggle with his words or or you know he could be more precise in his answers that way uh and a couple people had the opportunity to ask um questions I got that opportunity as well you ask I'm GNA hold off on that going to sit on that one yeah I'm holding that one to myself I I have I have a feeling where that might land so that was cool and it was great to do it with with Julie and to be there with my wife uh and we got to spend a ton of time with a lot of monks um there was there was a whole bunch of monks that came up from Southern India who live in monasteries there um who are part of his community uh many of which had Advanced degrees from American universities and Science and the like like super interesting guys really fun to hang out with super fascinating uh there's a monastery um school like as part of the dolly you know kind of compound and there were all these kids like little little like little monk kids you know who are growing up in you know that in that yeah basically and you know daraw is a trip you fly to Delhi and then you you get this like little plane that that flies North to daraa and it's about a 45 minute drive from the airport and you go up this mountain and it's sort of like the Tanga of India you know a lot of seekers a lot of Backpackers um and a lot of a lot of uh you a lot of cows in the road and that kind of thing and you know India is my first visit to India I mean India is just like being on another planet totally it's a trip did you like it yeah it was great it was hectic right pretty hectic and look it's a massive country so in in the aftermath of that experience Julie and I went to jaipore and spent a couple days in that region and rajesthan um went to some temples went to that City you know jaur and got a sense of the red City yeah exactly yeah have you been there I have oh you have yeah um it's wild man you know it's really cool it's a place of extremes and uh oh yeah I mean you know like Barbers and cows and everything on the street it's like like the peacocks everywhere peacocks running around it's I mean the the video you posted from the taxi D on darala was like I mean I was like man I want to be there it felt like you know I I lately I've had this like Pang like God remember the travel like those those Lonely Planet type travel days where you just get off get get in a cab you don't really know where you're going it's like we got a little bit of a flavor for that with the family women on our our little sabatical thing but um not like India nothing's like India there's nothing like it no nothing's like yeah there's no comparison really no um so I loved it it was fantastic and again it was great to do it um with Julie with my wife we had an amazing time and uh yeah I can't wait to go back continuing to reflect on the experience I'm doing a lot of writing on it are you yeah that's awesome I was like uh thinking what you were saying about love and what what he was communicating it's like it is the Mother's Love but it's actually it's actually harder because it's the mother's love that you're trying to repurpose in a selfless way because it's hard to love someone when there's nothing back for you you know what I'm saying even though there is something you do get something back for you and I I don't mean that in a cynical way I just I'm just kind of like philosophizing on it but like what am I getting out of this is that what you're saying well most people it's it's innate right when when it's your child you know there's a re there's a reason that love is so strong and when when we love our family and our friends or love uh we have that love but then we're confronted with some situation we couldn't have seen coming and you're you know someone hits you in your car or someone you know some crazy challenge right I mean really what he's saying is it's it's speaking to the illusion of Separation right idea of Oneness where you know we truly are all one and if you could you know treat everybody the way that a mother treats a child like wouldn't that be you know like wouldn't that be a better world and it is a Selfless Love so can you love another as if they you know in that Mother's way but also uh as as if they are yourself right because of this Oneness idea yeah and it's about like breaking that that that denial or that delusion around around separation it's simple but it's like it's like you can do it and but that's what life is right you wake up and you get another chance to do it again you know it's like it's like Groundhog Day in a weird way it's like it's like here's your next chance to try it again to do it better you know what I mean to be more Pure or not even pure but like more open more loving you know like every experience we have is our chance so you know like it really is so that's how I feel I know it sounds reductive and silly and trite but I mean it is the basis of uh spirituality right of course and there's a museum uh dedicated to the doy Lama in darsha where you can go in and you can see all of these incredible photographs and um artifacts that he's collected over the course of his like extraordinary life um pictures of him of course with like every single world leader including uh you know this insane black and white photograph of him talking to Chairman Ma you know it's like here he's like he is you know in the he's in conversation with the guy who basically exiled him and his and the government and and kill thousands thousands of people in a situation that's still you know unresolved and so if he can demonstrate compassion and love and and an attempt to understand with somebody like that like then you know the the the issues that we come across are obviously you know frivolous and trivial by comparison 100% you know when they say like when I interviewed someone from the self-realization fellowship in Mount Washington in La they they tried to get us to to talk in some conference room but it was like booked out and so we had to sit on these couches maybe it stop me if I've said this on the podcast before but we had to sit in the in front of the fireplace just in the main house and as the guy who sat across from me he was like you know this is where Yogananda would sit every night after because that was his main house that every night he would would sit and whatever guests were there and they'd have tea and he'd sit there and and they say that after sitting here for a while you might feel his presence in you as you leave here whatever and the guy that said this to me was very polite very nice very kind of academic almost like I didn't feel like that amazing unconditional saintly love coming off the sky um so I can't necessarily pin it to him and I didn't believe it when he told me that I'm like okay yeah sure you know and we have this long interview for like um you know an hourong interview this is back for La yoga years and years ago and as I left and I walked out of the garden I felt like it's almost like the sensation of coming on to psychedelics it was like this expansiveness and this feeling of energy and obviously it's real right curious if you had anything like that up there if you felt the kind of the calmness or you felt anything energetically up there I mean not not in that kind of heightened super heightened way I you know I know lots of people who had some version of that experience and you know always talk about it um I can't say that I've had that myself um which was part of the question that I asked him that I'm going to leave hanging I love it but let's take a quick break and we got much more to come hey everybody today's episode is brought to you by see gut health I talk about it all the time on the podcast you know it's important if you've even listened to a few of my podcasts I think I maybe devoted I don't know a dozen two dozen episodes to the microbiome you got to take care of your gut health if you want to have Optimal Health how do you do that well your nutrition your lifestyle habits sleep all of these things play into that but it's also important to find a really good Prebiotic and probiotic how do you do that well there's a lot of nonsense out there so you got to follow the science and the best evidence-based product that I found out there is seeds ds01 daily symbiotic I've been taking it for I don't know over three years at this point every single day there's just a tremendous amount of science behind this product I urge you to check it out and right now it's a great time to do that because you can get 25% off your first month of seeds ds01 daily symbiotic hit the link in the description below to visit seed.com roll and use code rich roll2 get on it you've had some amazing recent podcasts I've really connected to the Jonathan height one I told you that I texted you right away like I wasn't even finished with a podcast and I just like that to me cuz I have I have my my I always thought your first your first David episode to me is my favorite personally because it has meant so much to me but also just it did right away mean a lot to me and then I thought the Hub Moon one I mean these look at these these two met what they've gone on to become and in in no small part because of of starting here with you and get having it all unpacked and then this Jonathan height to me is on that level it's like that good it was you know he's one of those he's he's like the public in intellectual you want and need uh really authoritative but also thoughtful in his approach and a great writer um Great Communicator so um I thought you know that's that's one of those that can really help a lot of people I think so so I mean well first of all I appreciate that I mean he does tons of interviews and lots of media so he's got his you know his points down he knows what he wants to say so in the case of having him on the podcast like it was an easy lift for me because I can just sort of tee him up to say all the things um you know he can talk about with such uh depth and experience and but I think his book you know the anxious anxious generation I mean it's one of the more important books um that's come out in recent years and it's definitely making a cultural impact I think it was number one New York Times besteller and um it's you know uh it's alarming to read that book and I would imagine perhaps more urgent for someone like you whose kids are younger like my kids are already you know they're they're they're older and and so the parenting piece around that is sort of a ship that's already sailed yeah whereas for you you have to be thinking about this all the time yeah and it's looming on the horizon for Zuma thank I thank him for this you know cuz like now we know you know social the social dilemma was kind of one of the first things to to that kind of clude us in that we're the we're the crop you know we're we're the we're the crop we're the Harvest um and this it it it it to me this is like 10x in terms of the danger because that movie even though it touched on adolescence this is all about like and really and I think it's cuz the research has progressed it it takes apart how much childhood has been overwhelmed by it and and what that means which is suicide rates and depression and so you know it's it's it's weird because if it wasn't for social media I we wouldn't be sitting here right now in the same way like I wouldn't you you'd still have your podcast but like I mean your podcast was built off course not yeah I've built an entire career upon it so it's not a it's not a it's not a black or white thing right um it's a tool it's about your relationship with the tool yeah um but it's not as easy as saying use it to create things and not to consume things when uh it's so powerful it overrides your neural circuitry to you know addict you to do things and it's driven by algorithms that are bespoke to what interests you and agitates you yeah um and that's what's uh you know driving not only poor mental health outcomes but also in large part so much of the divisiveness and Division and acrimony right now that we're seeing culturally yeah 100% And so it's great that he's out there doing this work and a lot of it like you can get on his if you don't want to buy the book or for whatever reason you can get on his website he's got stuff he's got old articles he's got archived research it's it's really you've talked about this on the on the podcast but I just encourage people who haven't listened to that one yet to really dive in and and the book is just as good you know it really is pretty good yeah yeah so you told me you wanted to talk a little bit about the Johan Hari episode oh yeah that's another brilliant episode Johan I I mean I hadn't caught the last two so I didn't really have an understanding for his London charm and his gift for gab I mean he's quite charming and a hell of a I mean he is a gifted Communicator too like the two of you it's like there's you had something I felt I think I told you this I felt that there was like a brotherly thing almost like like you you were the big brother and he I'm not saying it's true but that's how I that's how it came across to me it's like it's like there was um there was like a a creative tension that I really liked in it not that it was tense it wasn't tense but there was a tension in point of view which I thought really made it interesting to listen to and and it was riveting well it's his third time on the show and and as a result of the other two experiences where at least on the second one I think I pushed back back on some of his ideas around addiction um we developed a bit of a rapport like I like Johan he's friendly he's super fun to hang out with he's um you know obviously like a good conversationalist and he comes ready like he's got all his talking points all the stories that he wants to tell and my whole thing with him also because he does lots of media and he's been on lots of podcasts is understanding and knowing that Johan has all these stories that he wants to tell and they're fine because they illust you know his thesis and the points that he's trying to make and the in the books that he's written but I try to get him off his I try to get him off that you know I I was like okay cool but like how can I you know throw a curveball at him and and get him off his game a little bit um and for whatever reason like the energy between us like it's friendly it's good like I feel like I can push back on him and we can have a good time and he and do it in a respectful way yeah um and so and so obviously that's what happened in that episode but I felt like it's interesting because when the conversation was over I was like that was great it was super fun and um you know we I we definitely have that kind of a rapport uh but the response to it has been super interesting there's certain number of people who found it to be much more contentious than I felt like it was um some people and also because weight loss in OIC is a very you know heightened kind of topic or issue for for many people people have strongly held opinions about it both both those separately together it's pushing buttons and I felt like we did a good job of canvasing not only the benefits and his you know firsthand experience on this drug but also you know highlighting the risks and the dangers and and the things we don't know about what's happening and I felt like I was pretty balanced in that regard but there also has been you know plenty of comments from people who are are upset and felt like I was too hard on him and that I was you know biased and contemptuous uh of of people that struggle to lose weight and I felt like I was no rather compassionate about that like I called myself out like there's the one time where I said something like you know you know part of my brain is like get it together but I said that in the context of also saying like I understand that that is a wrong-headed wrong-headed notion like it's more difficult for other people than for other for certain people than it is for other people um and I can't begin to presume what that experience is like or the intensity of one person's Cravings uh you know in contrast to whatever I experience and I was very clear to say that for certain people who are tremendously overweight and have tried and tried and tried to lose weight or sustain some kind of weight loss unsuccessfully that there is a real viable um reason to to explore this medication while also saying we don't actually know you know anyway it it hit a nerve I mean the episode's doing really well it's created like a discourse and and a dialogue and I I stand by it and I and I have to say also that that um Johan was a great sport like I was able to push back on him and we had fun with it and he didn't take it personally and it was kind of fun to jostle him and J when he's like you're still going to KFC or you had M&M's for breakfast like come on dude you know and I do feel like a chapter in the book is missing which is what what happens when he decides to go off it and I did get a lot of messages and comments from people who have taken OIC and are now you know I don't know how long like you know who've been taking it for a long time and have had that thing that happens with most drugs which is that the efficacy starts to wear off and you you start to need to either take more like the the hunger starts to return like the you know like and so they're starting to gain weight back while also still being on the medication and I don't know if that's a and again like I'm not aor is that anecdotal or is that yeah I don't know if that's a universal thing or that's something that only a few people are experiencing um and only and only time will tell and then the other criticism I got was that if I was going to have a conversation about OIC why am I having it with with this um journalist why aren't I having it with an expert in the field and I can hear that and maybe I will you know but Johan's the one who wrote a book about it he's having this experience and he's a great person to have a conversation with and I enjoyed it and it seems like you know a lot of other people did as well yeah I I was left with a well just hearing you talk I wonder if like kind of like your own weight loss Journey led to a life change that was so significant that it's it's almost incalculable like you you red discovered your your athlet your the athlete inside you you changed everything you got a new career it's led to this and without the pain and having the hard the hard work would you you know if you just could have taken a zic and that would have muted your desire for alcohol and food would you've become who you are today and so probably not but I can't project that expectation of experience on another human being no no but that could have that could be some subconscious feed in your own skepticism of I was left with kind of the interesting impression because at the end it got kind of science fictiony where you guys were talking about like imagine a drug that does X Y and Z and he saw he brought up S from bra new world and and I loved it I love especially the end and I thought I first of all for the record I don't think contentious is the word I thought I thought you brought healthy skepticism and you there was some sparring but it was all good natured and and he was open to it because he likes intellectual discussions so like it was kind of like and yeah not for nothing he's very aware of all of these risks they're all detailed in the book you know at length right so he's not sounding you know some kind of siren Call that everybody should be on OIC far from far from it you know and I felt like his frankness around like just being open like I'm taking it and here's what happened and and and not trying to you know say that it's changes eating like he's very honest like I still he still eats like [ __ ] or whatever you know like you know he's he could have like been less honest about those things so I appreciate that he very transparent I I guess the the only thing I would say was what what I was left with was this it's kind of a two-parter but um the one thing is it's very American right to have a pill like he brought up you guys were got into the alcoholism and a pill to stop alcoholism or addiction and and his response was well there's plenty of scientists who actually think OIC is that and which I the first I've heard of that and so we got you guys got into a long Thread about that you both kind of spoke at length and both said some really interesting and wise points and and what I was left he he described Portugal as this place where they took all the enforcement and and punishment for um drug use and and drug sales and put it all into addiction legalized drugs put all into into addiction treatment and housing and this in this thing and you know we you know and it worked you know their addiction fell but but you know that won't apply here because we are so individualistic as a country and always have been we've been that that I I just don't see that ever happening here not saying it can't I shouldn't say that I don't see it ever happening here because the way we function is the individual must do that's how this that's why these people came here back in the you know hundreds of years ago was to have opportunity they couldn't have it home and they were going to do what they wanted to do now not everybody had equal opportunity we know that that's not the story I'm telling but the point I'm trying to make is we're so individualistic that um two things come from that one is um you have to do it on your own because there won't be some systemic fix um and and some people need something they can some people will need to press the button right some people will need to because they can't you can't actually do it on your own right you have to find some way to do it like you have to plug in whether it's in your case a 12-step system that helped kind of you along or whether it's therapy or whether it's support groups or whatever it is you can't you know n you can't do it really actually do it alone so you need to figure out what that is but oek actually kind of lets you do it alone right so there's something uniquely American about it that's an yeah that's an interesting interesting thought I want to think a little bit more deeply about that but I think you're right when you say individualistic you're not saying everybody's different you're saying individualism like the whole premise of this country is based upon self ethic and the you know the we celebrate you know the individual at often or you know probably at the cost of the collective whole we do like that scale is off and that's driving a lot of the problems that we have but it also it also feeds the stories we like right like even right because every because they're self-made like go against all the obstacles and you overcome them and you did it yourself right the suff the suffering feeds your your it teaches you something and that you can use that to actually become a better and evolution and I agree with you on it because you said that and I totally agree with you um the thing is is that there's this General skepticism about we all have skepticism right we all are rightfully skeptical someone rightfully skeptical about a journalist telling you about a zpic or you know you rightfully skeptical about you know what's going to happen to your brain over time and your bone density and like that's so right um but you know we what I what I kind of came out of it is how many of us are we're all so skeptical we're selectively skeptical we're all selectively skeptical based upon our inherent biases yes and and what the stuff we consum we're not skeptical of the things we want to hear you know what we're not we're only skeptical of the things that challenge what we want to right and we're not skeptical of the way we think almost nobody is is is automatically skeptical of the way we're thinking well because we all think we have the best opinions because if we didn't think they were the best opinions we would change them right the version of skepticism for for that we tell ourselves isn't really skepticism it's self flag it's like it's like whipping you it's like it's like a whip excuse me but um uh yeah so anyway that's what came out of it for me this this individualistic uh kind of feeling that comes with Evolution that comes through the American kind of upbringing um and this kind of plays right into it it's it's it it's no no surprise that it's a big hit you know Asic and I think that what you brought up was all your points are so valid and and um there's got to be a balance and we the scary part is when you put a a a medicine out into the world or a chemical and you don't know it's going to happen I mean you you don't have to he he brought up the kind of 1970s diet pills but like DDT it's another great example thought people thought we're going to feed the world with DDT we're going to feed the world and then now there's of it in there's always there's always uh unexpected uh negative consequences that were unforeseeable at the time and so w we we will see we will see here you know but I think the point I was trying to make and I hope came across is that it isn't a black or white thing it's a Nuance thing and I tried to bring some Nuance to that experience and and Johan was a great sparring partner and I'm grateful that you know he was game for the conversation we had yeah it was awesome man it was awesome I want to do a little uh shift gears I want to do a little in memorium um we're recording this on May 29 and one week ago May 21 was the four-year anniversary of our friend David Clark's passing yeah uh David Clark was an ultra athlete uh a plant-based person who uh had lost hundreds of pounds I think he was 320 pounds at one point um changed his life around you know was has an insane sobriety story like his drinking career was off the rails and was an inspiration to a lot of people he was really a unique and amazing soul and he died too soon uh from complications from a lower back surgery I believe right like it wasn't like he you know no it was A Hern disc he was trying to fix yeah basically that probably influences whether or not you're going to think about surgery yeah that ended that um he was an amazing human being uh he changed a lot of lives and I just wanted to honor him today he's he's been on the podcast twice and we'll link up uh Jason coup's Reflections on him in the show notes Jason is an ultra Runner and a coach um who wrote like kind of a beautiful reflection on Dave's impact on his life and others yeah we are Superman we are Superman that was his thing right that was is yeah like we're all we are all Superman that's right yeah um and the other person I want to talk about today is is uh is Jon or bansek who you know in my opinion and my personal opinion um was the greatest swim coach of Our Generation okay uh and he died on May 9th uh at 87 from complications related to Parkinson's um he was a beautiful human being who impacted uh the hearts and minds of of of so many young athletes over many many years I had the good for to know him a little bit and uh he will be you know just really missed I mean John was my favorite swim coach I know for a fact that if I had swam for him in college I would have been a much better swimmer um he was just beautifully touched and had the right amount of um push to positive energy like he really invested in PE in in people like he you know loved the kids that he taught he believed in them he was very invested in their lives um and knew how to get the best performances out of them through positive encouragement as opposed to you know being kind of a hard ass I mean he knew how to be a hard ass but um he just had this touch with people and everybody who was blessed to swim for him just adored him and the outpouring of love and support in the wake of his passing on Instagram from so many Olympic swimmers over the years was was really quite something so John was the coach at the unity University of Michigan um from 1982 to 2004 for a long time he coached that team to 13 Big 10 championships one National Championship over the course of his career he coached 44 Olympians uh 21 medalists 21 Olympic medalists he was a coach on six different Olympic teams he was a coach to Michael Phelps when he was at the University of Michigan uh also Katie Lei Mike Baran who was my peer I grew up swimming with Mike in Washington DC who got got the gold medal in 1992 in the 200 meter breast stroke he's a world record holder Tom Dolan who swam for my club team and was a young kid when I was in high school so I didn't really know him I just knew him as this little youngster but he went on to you know great a claim as a swimmer Tom malchow many many others was he was he um who Michael Phelps would go back to Michigan between olympiads and when he first started to get like get in shape again Bowman was phelps's primary coach from North Baltimore and so you know that was really Michael's guy but Michael did attend the University of Michigan when he was there he swam he swam for John um later in his career John would was coaching in Southern California and he coached um the crew of postgrads who were training at USC for the Olympics so it was like Ryan locky and like Conor DWI and like a whole bunch of um people who who were out of college but you know quote unquote professional swimmers uh and I had the opportunity to swim a couple workouts under him there which was really fun CU I met so I met John uh in 1985 when I went on a recruiting trip to the University of Michigan and it's a story I've told many times I've told it in Finding Ultra uh University of Michigan and their swimming program has sort of a family Legacy piece for me because my grandfather dick spindle who died before I was born was captain of the University of Michigan team in like the late 1920s he had an American record in the 150 yard backstroke which was an event back then he was an Olympic hopeful I believe that he just missed the Olympic team um by one place at Olympic trials I think they took three in each event at the time and I believe he got fourth in his event so he didn't make the Olympics but he was one of the you know he was he was one of the top performers of his era and his coach was a guy called Matt man and the natatorium at University of Michigan is the mman auditorium like it's named after the guy that my grandfather coached and so uh also like you know my mother went to University of Michigan my you know my dad went to law school there all my you know a bunch of my cousins went there my cousin bill was editor of the Michigan Daily so like and I'm from Michigan originally so does o Pearlman know this I think he must have come up may I don't I don't know if I talked about O is a big Michigan guy yeah I know I know and like people who are into Michigan they're into Michigan like it is a it's like going to a Michigan football game is like a it's a whole experience man and um the stadium there I mean it's like it's 100,000 person stadiums yeah it's amazing looking I've never been I'd love to go so I went on a recruiting trip um and that's where I met John for the first time that was also uh one of my early experiences with with alcohol there was a dual meet and I ended up going to this house party uh after the meet where all the swimmers were and uh there was a keg and you know I think I drunk you I drank a couple times prior to that but um I was still like maybe only one or two times before that and I vividly recall um being handed uh you know a solo cup full full of beer um by this guy who when I looked at him I realized immediately who he was he was Bruce Kimble who um was other than Greg lugus like the the greatest American diver who who had gotten the silver medal on the 10 meter platform at the 1984 Olympics the year prior uh and whose father dick Kimble was the diving coach at the University of Michigan um and in 1981 Bruce was hit he was he was in a hit and run where he was hit by a drunk driver and he had facial you know sort of reconstruction you could tell his face had to sort of like it had to be like rebuilt it was a very serious accident um it was a life-threatening accident um but in 1982 he came back from that and made the world championship team in in diving and so he was like this comeback kid he was called a comeback kid it was like this amazing story where he came back from this accident um to basically get back to where he was as an athlete and so for me as this kid who's in high school you know I was like I knew this whole story I knew who this guy was and here he was handing me a beer and I was like of course I'm going to drink that beer and uh and uh again forgive me because I've told this story many times but he then proceeded to perform the greatest party trick of all time have I told you this no so he's holding his cup of beer and then he launches himself off the ground and performs an absolutely perfect 10 out of 10 backflip uh where he just plants his feet perfectly and he's and he doesn't spill a drop of the beer like he holds it so steady like it's a like it's like his hand is a steady cam you know so his hand doesn't move when his whole body moves exactly yeah yeah yeah I I still don't know how he did it and I just remember thinking like whatever that guy has like I want that like I'm going to hang out with this dude you know of course um little did I know that this was sort of a foreshadowing because I was like oh my God like so I just parted with that guy all night I bet um but but what would happen was that a handful of years later in 1988 um Bruce was drunk and he allowed his car uh driving they say between 70 and 90 M an hour into a crowd of teenagers he killed two teen boys injured four was sentenced to 17 years in prison um and ultimately served five and I believe now he's uh he's sober he has kids a family um I think he might still um coach diving but I mean one of the most tragic things that could imagine he yeah so he had his own you know Journey with alcoholism and tragic consequences as a result of that um and I think about that a lot um in any event that's all in the context of meeting um meeting uh John or bansek for the first time oh and at that same party I met um Jim Harbaugh too he was the quarterback right right he was at this party we were it was snowing and I remember we were outside this house and um and he pulled like so it had a low awning and there were icicles hanging from the awning and he pulled this huge icicle off and he used it to like stir his beer that is my memory uh of course memory plays tricks you know if I could rewind the tape I think is that exactly how that went down but I know that I I know that I met him there and we had there was a moment where I was like talking to him anyway um here's an interesting uh story that I haven't told though so I didn't end up going to Michigan um I think often of what would have happened had I gone and swam for John at Michigan uh instead and as I said I think I would have been a better swimmer and I know this because that summer the summer of 1985 I graduated from high school and I made the team for something that was called the national sports festival this is something that no longer exists that I wish did because it was such a cool thing this summer um summer of 1985 the the United States put on what was essentially an Olympics but only for American athletes where everybody went to uh Baton Rouge Louisiana and it was like a summer Olympiad all the sports of the Summer Olympics and the teams divided into North South East and West so I made the swimming team um East for the East yeah and uh and John Orban was the coach of that team so you know we you go early and you train and whatever and so I I had the experience of like kind of having him um coach me for a couple weeks over the course of that experience how' you do um I did get that was like one of my best performances were you I was leading the tter fly and then I got I got touched out by a guy called Jeff Olson so I got I got the silver so you that's almost like you were basically Olympic trials um I I never yeah I didn't I wasn't I never could get over see then so then I show up at Stanford and I had all this promise you know but I went on to squander that promise and so I never really you know realized my potential as an ath I don't know that I was never going to make the Olympic I wasn't that good I was like good the times weren't on that track no no no yeah yeah it's hard to know though you never know um and then John you know I would I would stay in touch with him over the over time and I remember I went to one of those USC workouts like right after I did otillo so I was super fit and he was like very kind I was like trying to keep up there locky was there yeah yeah Conor DWI invited me Dylan Efron is there who's sort of like who's sort of like Orlando Bloom he's Zack afron's brother but he's this incredible athlete he can do like any sport he's like super fit yeah yeah yeah and then I met I I I I was invited to go to the Olympic Training Center a number of years ago by a coach called Jack roach yeah and Jack is like was best friends with um with John they had this beautiful incredible close-knit friendship and they're very they're very alike in their sensibility and their philosophy around coaching both of them just love these kids and jack for many years was uh the coach of the um National Junior development team so and he he'd been on Olympic staffs and stuff like that as well I've heard that um yeah he's great and so there's a New York Times article obituary around JN or bansek that I'll link up in the show notes where um Jack is quoted in that but anyway this is a long way of saying that JN will be missed and also and I shared this on Instagram like coaches take note like if you want to be a great coach like study the ways of John Orban and Jack roach like these guys are like Whisperers for Olympic athletes um because understand how young people work they know how to motivate them and they do that through this really heartfelt investment in them as people and I just think that is you know a beautiful Testament to the power of a great coach uh and you know kind of the Legacy that that has on on lives you know many many many years and decades later because it's weird like I was very moved it's like if I count the number of times that I was in the presence of John arbans it's not that much you know but he made a profound impact on my life and I think about him often and and you know I didn't even have nearly the kind of experience that you know hundreds if not thousands of other of other athletes have had with him beautiful yeah man I think there's only one more thing that I wanted to cover with you today which is recently um should we clear the books off the table yeah maybe if they're in the let clear off let's clear off the books all right so recently in Los Angeles there's a a small chain of restaurants called sage Sage beastro uh they have been vegan restaurants and they're of the same family that is behind Cafe Gratitude and um graus Madre which are like you know these beautiful legendary plant-based restaurants in Los Angeles and I mean Cafe gradu started in San Francisco um Ryan inglehart who's a member of that family has been a guest on the podcast he's a big proponent of regenerative agriculture he's one of the guys behind the kiss the ground um nonprofit and documentary and the follow-up to that documentary which is called common ground and Sage was or is run by ryland's Sister Molly and the big news is that Sage which has always been a plant-based restaurant is now serving meat yes um and this tracks back to the uh farm that Ryland and M familyowned for which they were um using to you know provide the produce for these restaurants many years ago they went from that farm being totally uh you know just agriculture to actually harvesting animals there as well and that was a big kurur fuffle in the vegan movement and now the latest sort of kurur fuffle is that you know this legendary plant-based restaurant is now going to serve meat um so this has kicked up you know a bit of a controversy in the plant-based community um and I thought it was worth kind of exploring some of the issues that have that have come out of this and and to talk a little bit maybe about the regenerative agriculture movement at large right because that's the idea is that they're going to serve meat that they say is cultivated from this regenerative Farm which is part of the solution to economic degradation uh and environmental environmental environmental degradation yeah exactly so let's talk a little bit about it I mean I think to be sure and certainly uh regenerative farming is there's a lot of amazing things about this I you know I wish that all Kos and you know kind of factory farms could transition into regenerative practices it's a topic I've explored many times on the podcast uh remember the biggest little farm and um uh you know that couple that runs that farm they've been guests on the podcast uh so certainly there are things to be learned and and many benefits to moving away from monocropping to a more kind of sustainable wild grasses um rotating you know kind of Agriculture you know contained environment that's restoring the soil and at the same time um you know pulling the CO2 out of the atmosphere and putting it in the soil right but I also think it's worth talking about the fact that this isn't necessarily A A Panacea um I don't think that this is the way forward in terms of how we're going to feed the planet uh to raise animals on a regenerative Farm or to raise grass-fed beef requires a tremendous amount of land uh these animals are alive longer than the factory farmed animals like if there's one thing factory farm does well it's it's basically conserve as much you know basically conserve as much resources as possible to blow an animal up as quickly as possible Slaughter amount in the least number days ifle grass-fed on these regenerative Farms are going to be alive longer they're going to be consuming more they're going to be uh drinking more water and they're going to be kind of pooping and belching more so there's an argument that they're actually producing more each particular cowane as a result but there's fewer cows though and they require you know a lot more land and more and the longer they're allow obviously they have to be you know fed longer right so when you look at it from that perspective understanding that um producing a carbon neutral or carbon positive effect uh of of of a so-called regenerative Farm requires 2.5 times more grazing land than standard animal agriculture you quickly realize that this is not a realistic path forward in terms of providing meat for the world like it can provide um a small amount of meat uh at a higher price point for those who can afford it and certainly that's a better option uh but in terms of of meeting worldwide and growing demand for meat as of right now more than 50% of the planet's ice free land is already being used for livestock grazing and for livestock feed production so even if we continue to use conventional agriculture methods um much less 2.5 times more land there's going to be little to no aable land left if we want to continue producing animal-based foods for the expected population of you know 9 to you know upwards of 9.7 billion as we approach 2050 uh and I think part of the issue that maybe I'm having is that there's an implicit sort of greenwashing aspect to this in the sense that you can you can go to one of these restaurants or you can purchase your grass-fed whatever and you can convince yourself that you're you're you're doing what's in the best interest of the planet or you're making a choice that is you know serving um serving uh you know planetary repair uh when in truth look beef just requires a tremendous amount of resources and right in front of you you have the choice to just not eat beef why you know it's like eating this beef is not really helpful and I say that with the caveat that again like regenerative Farming Farming practices that are you know doing a lot towards restoring the soil is a good thing just don't be under the delusion that by eating these animal products that you're uh you know solving this problem right that you're on the good side of climate change or any number of issues you're saying yeah you're still participating also in this cycle of unnecessary suffering and look at plant products like for example 100 grams of tofu requires 74 times less land use compared to 100 grams of beef yeah and that's not to say that that's an argument for monocropping but at the same time uh you know I think there's a lot of hand ringing over certain crops that are very water intensive um at the cost of not understanding that most plant crops and foods that we can eat as humans um are just far less intensive than you know the ultimate intensive food product which is beef yeah so I'm just saying why not more plant-based and I think there's an argument with sage like oh we're we're kind of moving forward into this into this um way of serving food for a reason uh but I have to think like if it was thriving economically as a plant-based restaurant would they have made that move and I think right we're seeing the closure of a lot of plant-based restaurants right now and I don't know what's going on with that but um but I think if Sage had been you know killing it they would not have been making this clear you know they they're trying to survive as a commercial Enterprise as a business that's that's it they they you can in the letter I think or in the I forget in the announcement I think Molly said that her husband kind of grew up on a farm eating um animals as well as vegetables and always found it less authentic to be serving kind of vegan comfort Molly is still vegetarian right but I think that but so they're kind of dressing it up as a choice kind of Beyond economics but it seems to me considering all the vegan places that seem to be going out Nicks um you know the uh what's it called the um Mon's good burger went huge and then retracted quite a bit mon is still is still it's still around but it went it went really big and then it retracted quite a bit they closed a lot of a lot of their restaurants Running a Restaurant is hard under the best circumstances to make a restaurant uh successful commercially is incredibly difficult so I'm sympathetic to anybody who's trying to you know keep the keep the lights on and covid you know as we all know like resulted in you know just a I don't know what percentage of restaurants closed but a lot of them so even in the wake of that then this long tale before people started returning to restaurants so I understand why diversifying a menu uh might be the best way forward I'm just saying like don't be confused yeah like don't don't be confused and and it's it's just a more you know it's a Nuance difficult thing I'm not an environmental scientist but there are people who spend a lot of time studying this and looking at it uh and I'm going to link some stuff up into the show notes if you want to learn more about this um Simon hill our friend over at the proof podcast has done a lot of reporting on this uh he did a really he's done a number of interesting podcasts on this specific topic so if you go to the proof.com you can just search regenerative you know whatever and there's plenty of plenty of episodes for you to listen to um he's had George mbat on who is very outspoken about this George of course who writes for um The Guardian uh George you know George has basically said the only thing worse than feed lot beef is grass-fed beef like he's he does not me his words he's against it um yeah he's very against it but you know he'll go through all of his arguments um I'll link up some other articles as well there was a recent interesting study that came out in 2023 uh that basically looked at the difference between paste finish cattle farms and uh and these regenerative farms and and basically determined that pasture finished cattle Farms had 20% higher production emissions than grain finished Farms a figure that matched those from previous research but the most novel part of the finding was that when both the soil sequest and the carbon opportunity cost of the converted pasture land use was factored in that carbon footprint figure Rose to a striking 42% which is super interesting that is interesting so anyway this is a very you know hotly debated topic there are you know passionate people on both sides of it um and so I'm not saying that I have all of the answers but I think it's important to look at both sides of this and uh and that's all I'm saying yeah you have anything else you want to say on that well there was a great book by a guy named James rebanks who was um a legacy farmer his his father and grandfather were basically we'd call them Ranchers but they're farmers in um UK Northern England I believe it is and uh he inherited a farm that was they they were renting their land and it had lots of problems it had soil that was um degraded um it had uh there were bills to pay fences to rebuild he kind of took it over and decided to make it more regener like went the regenerative route and he wrote a really beautiful Memoir about it and for what you're left with after that book is that isn't isn't the the that regenerative farming is the Holy Grail to our food system because I I agree with you I don't think it is but what what what you're left with is it's um it's communicating with the land again it's uh it's reinvesting in the soil it's it's birds come back it's building it's building topography back I mean when we remember when we went to if you go out to the surf Ranch I went with Rich to the surf Ranch we we shredded um it was amazing it we were amazing KY Lenny is still talking about it Kenny can't stop talking about it um but when you go out there it's in the middle of this kind of uh decaying agricultural town like near an an it's on an Indian Reservation but there's also this kind of once vibrant agriculture Town that's down on its heels because there's so few Farmers needed now it's just all monoculture super monocrop city right it is and maybe that's the way you can make a living I don't know I'm not I'm not judging anyone but this is another way it did feel like you're not communicating with the land you're imposing on the land I get that that piece yeah to reconnect us with the land and to understand you know it its seasonality and and the importance of diversity like all the lessons that we need to learn for ourselves can be learned through the process of that reconnection and beautiful and spiritual about that like I don't I don't discount that at all and I think if you're if you were to go to the Central Valley in California and take over some of those plots of land and do that very thing where you're restoring the soil to create something beautiful and diverse and amazing I think that that's a laudable project um but what I don't think is a great idea would be to Deforest a plot of land so that you could build a regenerative Farm because the deforestation is doing more for the environment than whatever you're going to do on that regener farm so it's the conversion of of plots of land that are that are you know contributing to the decline and converting them into a net positive I think is is great right it's great environmentally but from a food system how important is it to have cows on these like can my whole thing is like can't you do this without the cows and there's a lot of talk well the cows and they they you know they they they you know they match the soil and I like yeah but like like there's other ways of doing that I know but you're not you're but I'm not a farmer either I'm just talking out of my ass and you're well you're also my bias you're against killing animals that's great you are it well if you you know yeah but if you're growing these plants on these Farms like lots of animals have to die for them to you know I like I understand I've had I've had this conversation with April just a gooser because I'm I don't I don't eat beef but I mean but we we talk about it like you know if you love animals you know if there's no if people aren't eating meat there ain't going to be no cows around anymore you know what I mean like all the all the farm animals won't be there anymore um that's not a reason to eat them I'm not saying eat them I'm just saying like we live in this yeah but we breed them I know to to they're not there because they were wandering around and we we like Coral it would be a fundamentally different experience you know to have this world where the foods is I agree I take the Dan Butner shout out Dan Butner I take the Dan Butner kind of how I stopped eating meat was the blue zones I started to to only eat and that I meant chicken and beef anything meat of three times a month because in his M that's what the blue zones that's what they did back in the day in a lot of these blue zones it was a special occasion thing it was expensive and they use it in a special occasion and by doing that my taste buds Chang I lost the taste for it I don't want chicken I don't want beef I don't want any of that um because I lost the taste buds for it and so then I started to just eat plans um and so but what what happened with this argument with April she doesn't like that she doesn't like hearing that she thinks I'm just making an excuse to eat meat which I'm not doing like like people who have this who are I was never a passionate vegan I just happened to go this route because I thought it was I because I liked it and it felt better and also yes I don't want to kill a bunch of animals like I don't want to do that but I'm not like you wouldn't put me I wouldn't be out like if you made me a climate activist I wouldn't be throwing tomato soup at you're not uh you know going to go throw blood on you know I'm not throwing Blood on the Tom Ford storefront or whatever I'm not doing I'm not I'm not one of those people who going to get outraged like that but um probably because I ate meat so so long right um and so I understand why people do it but the problem is the food system right which brings us back to Yohan actually and what we were talking about before the problem is this food system is broken and so you know to in order to get to the point where we can talk about getting rid of animal farming it's like a much bigger conversation um about changing the food system fundamentally from this extractive imposition kind of Dominator culture way and going back to a more communicative integrative way of being so in that sense regeneration sounds great it is great but is it and maybe it's the only thing that's going to save your restaurant but I take your point let's not tell stories here let's not like marijuana is legal now there was a time when it was only legal in as a medical but it was never medical it was all [ __ ] it was always [ __ ] I I was at the time couldn't wait for it to be legal medically I was all about it I covered it as a journalist I I was in some of the first medical marijuana shops um in Los Angeles in San Francisco too I thought it was awesome as a person who liked to enjoy it but um I never thought it was for patience but that's what was said right and so this kind of idea that regenerative farming is good for the I agree with you there's a lot of dishonesty in that it's it's not telling the whole story and I wish that more people told the whole story and weren't trying to pass a line and I'm not saying Sage is doing that I'm just saying in general as you see people marketing something something and saying it's for one thing when really it never was for that thing it kind of leaves a bad taste in your mouth and now we have yeah I don't know how I got in this tangent but now you can go to the farmers market in the morning with your kid and someone's going to be getting high like on the street and is that good you know is that an improvement you know so like these kinds of things when you don't when you're not honest about it you can't really grapple with it and then all of a sudden it's here and back to Jonathan height back to to Johan the same is true when we're talking about asmic the same is true with the social media companies they say one you know anyone who's saying something but not telling you the whole truth I I think you're contributing to the confusion and and and the chaos that we're all living with today and that's why there's so many outraged people because people aren't being honest that was a pretty good monologue it does was it just I felt like good I like you how you called things back and you just wrapped it all up in a nice bow I don't even know what to say to that I think you're right like I think yes when you look at regenerative Farms like our food system is broken Bren part of what's broken is our total disconnect from the cycle of nature in our food system and even beyond that right and to the extent that the regenerative movement is a way to repair that lost connection it's certainly a good thing we do need to repair our soils we do need to um understand that um resilience comes through cultivating diversity like there's so many lessons that are applicable not just with you know what we plant and what we Harvest but how that applies to how we as humans interact with each other and create the cultures and the future of our aspiration for future Generations like there's Beauty in that for sure but again yeah just like let's not be diluted or confused about you know standing or like sort of moral grandstanding on on on you know some kind of misplace justification around like eating beef when it's unnecessary and that's part of what's contributing the problem that's all I'm saying yeah less moral grandstanding and I like Ryland you know I like him a lot he's a beautiful guy and I always enjoy his company and I love the podcast conversation that we had so it's not this is not about a slight on anybody and I think the work that he's done and the advocacy that he's done around this movement is really laudable like Kiss the ground and these movies that he's put out like they've really struck a chord and for a lot of people it's their first it's like lifeball moment of like of course this is what we need to do and you are seeing Young people who are interested in getting into farming and want to you know learn more about like Agriculture and and the the more that this matures the more uh economic uh kind of resources get poured into it and the more um jobs there are for people like learning how to transition uh factory farms into regenerative like there's so much good there so I'm not I guess what I'm saying is like I don't want to I don't I'm not I'm not being like a angry vegan poo pooer you know I'm trying to see all sides of this that's well also also it is sad to lose another bespoke vegan restaurant like Sage is awesome I ate there many times I've eaten at Cafe Gratitude many times graus Madre every any many times I remember the old Real Food Daily like these are restaurants that we grow to love because we can only go to a few restaurants right and so then we grow to love them and so when they change especially in this way it's kind of a bummer right and then as a well and then you know then there's a there's a segment of the vegan Community that's very loud and aggressive about these things they want to kill you yeah like they get really mad and that's not helping anybody either you know so right the tone like there was the there was something in this eater article I don't know if you're going to post it but about the Ryland and Molly's father kind of launched CA gratitude right and graus Madre and then when it became out that he was doing this Agriculture and the animal Agriculture and he ate meat he was given death threats he like I mean I remember when that when that all came out that's crazy because I think people responding to a sense of duplicity like there was this idea that it was uh you know this idea like Utopia where um they had this cyclical thing between the farm and the restaurant and there was an Integrity to that that um when I don't know that they were ever hiding whatever they were doing but when it came out like oh yeah I eat meat that that's I think for certain people that was like difficult for them but that's not a justification for like that kind of spiteful anger it's You can disagree with it but um you're not winning hearts and Minds when you're like launching death threats of people I guess is what I'm saying no and for some reason vegans haven't won hearts and Minds I don't know why they really haven't they really hav't really you do you do you manage to do it I don't know man you do but I will say before we stop all the Doom and Gloom we do have plant planta now here in La that's right there's multiple locations everyone is different they're all over the country now too um I went to the one Marina del re and the the owner like the owner of all of them happened to be there and got to meet him briefly and um yeah they they're doing a good job yeah they are awesome I like that place yeah it's good so so in the meantime eat a salad treat yourself right and uh we'll be back here at some point in the future all right um all right that was fun dude I appreciate it me too man yeah can I ask you a question before I before we get out of here how's the how's the network going man how's it's good how are you enjoying being the head of a network uh it's what you know we're we're it's baby steps but we're out of the gate and it's going well I'm really enjoying like working with other creators and supporting them and um you know figuring out who we want to work with and all of that like it's it's been really fun and rewarding and we're just we're at the very you know beginning of what I think is going to be a cool Journey awesome so I have more to share about that later but yeah it's been great and uh keep us posted on the novel we'll do we'll do I can't I can't wait to see what happens cool I like I like coming here because I can't check my email while I'm talking to you you sure you didn't do that while okay well you can do it now um all right buddy love you cheers [Music] Namaste that's it for today thank you for listening I truly hope you enjoyed the conversation to learn more about today's guest including links and resources related to everything discussed today visit the episode page at Rich roll.com where you can find the entire podcast archive my books Finding Ultra voicing change in the plant power way as well as the plant power meal planner at meals. roll.com if you'd like to support the podcast the easiest and most impactful thing you can do is to subscribe to the show on Apple podcasts on Spotify and on YouTube and leave a review and or comment this show just wouldn't be possible without the help of our amazing sponsors who keep this podcast running wild and free to check out all their amazing offers head to Rich roll.com slss sponsors and sharing the show or your favorite episode with friends or on social media is of course awesome and very helpful and finally for podcast updates special offers on books the meal planner and other subjects please subscribe to our newsletter which you can find on the footer of any page at Rich roll.com Today's show was produced produced and engineered by Jason Cameo the video edition of the podcast was created by Blake Curtis with assistance by our creative director Dan Drake portraits by Davey Greenberg graphic and social media assets courtesy of Daniel siss and thank you Georgia Wy for copy writing and website management and of course our theme music was created by Tyler Patt Trapper Patt and Harry matys appreciate the love love the support see you back here soon peace plance day [Music]

Channel: Rich Roll

Views: 46,923

Keywords: rich roll, rich roll podcast, self-improvement podcasts, education podcasts, health podcasts, wellness podcasts, fitness podcasts, spirituality podcasts, mindfulness podcasts, mindset podcast, vegan podcasts, plant-based nutrition

Id: j3MHuAJH8cw

Length: 119min 16sec (7156 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 06 2024