We're back. We took a little bit of a forced hiatus. We're gonna talk about that in a second, but Adam, how you doing? Doing great man, feeling good. Great to be back in the, well. I don't wanna step on the, it's great to be in this particular room with you right now.
Yes, yeah. Good to see you, my friend, "Roll On" is resuming. Not only that, we are in a brand new studio. This marks the debut of the Rich Roll Podcast HQ. I did record a podcast the other day, but this is gonna go up ahead of that. So, I think officially this will be the first podcast. Well, I know it will be the first podcast that everybody gets to see the new space. So, I'm very grateful and excited about it. This is, it feels like home already, doesn't it? It does, yeah. What do you think? I love it, man. I remember when you showed me this space a few months ago, it's happened very quickly, and maybe two months ago? Yeah, I mean, we've been working on it for a while. It was well underway when you saw it for the first time, but we did hit our stride and this final push, we got a lot done pretty quickly. So it's pretty great. We got our boy Davey over here, he's making a video that's gonna take everybody behind the scenes on the whole thing, which I'm pretty excited about. And it's amazing. Now we have our own podcast headquarters. People don't realize like, well, maybe some people do, but you've gone through, this is at least the fourth space that I know about that you've been functioning in, five, if you count two spaces, or six, if you count three spaces. So for. Well, originally it just moved wherever the guest was. I was sort of a traveling salesman with the thing for probably the vast majority of the history of the show. I would do them occasionally at my house, but more often than not even when they were in Los Angeles, I would go to the person's house and set up there, which was kinda fun because you're in their environment. So they're already gonna be more relaxed and it just, and it's cool to like, go see how other people live, like the guests that you're gonna talk to. Yeah. You get an introduction into their space, which I think helps inform the conversation. And then when I would travel and go out of town and I still do this, like I have a travel case and I bring my stuff with me, but then it kind of migrated to this office. That's where we did the podcast. I had this little janky office in Westlake. Don't call it janky. It was a little janky. It was fine. It was good. Listen, I was very grateful to have a space outside of my house to work and I would do it there. Then we moved it into an open room in our house when the boys moved out and that's where we started shooting video. And that's what most people have seen when they've seen the YouTube video version of the show. And then when the pandemic hit, we had to for understandable reasons, not be having people come over to the house all the time. So we moved it to a temporary space, which is where we've been hosting it for the last nine months or whatever. Yeah. Meanwhile, while everyone's kind of sitting at home, trying to figure out what's next, we kind of went bold and locked down this 2000 square foot warehouse and began building it out. And here we are today. Into the Rogan ditch town. So now you're the biggest podcast in the West Valley. Listen, I think the lesson in it, is I could have never envisioned or anticipated or dreamed that it would become a thing that would even be deserving of something like this. And just by showing up for it day by day and building it brick by brick, it's like the natural evolution or progression of what happens when you put in a lot of work and kind of stay out of the results. I've been doing it for the process, the love of the process of doing it and just been on this journey. And it feels like I just woke up one day and here we are. But it's been eight years at this point, we just eclipsed the eight year anniversary of the show. And going hard too. Going hard. And I take from it is you could have easily said, okay, the pandemic hit, at first you were doing things virtually, like everybody else on Zoom. And then you kind of figured out a way to do it safely out of the house to keep everyone at home safe. And then it came into this. So it's like you, obviously you're in a good position to be able to do it, but you were thinking like you were able to kinda flip something that could have been, kept other people cramped in their vision kind of insular and not looking to jump ahead. And you were able to kind of figure out a way to make this whole thing move for you in a positive direction. It's a risk, but there is something cool about investing in ourselves, especially in a moment where there's a lot of uncertainty. So, it's new for me, like the largess of the whole thing, like getting used to it and feeling deserving of it is. where you had that with your house. For myself. Did you have that with your house? You still have. (laughing) Yeah. Yeah. More to be revealed. Like I said, we're gonna do a video and show everybody everything. We got a cool lounge here and it's just a great place for guests to come and feel comfortable, and also a place where the team can come and work also. So we're not just always a distributed group of people working on the show. Excellent man. It's such a quicker dry for me. And it's right over the hill from my favorite dive spot. You and me both. What dive spot is that? I'm not saying I don't do that. Okay. You don't wanna have stalkers showing up, rolling up on you? When you wanna to escape for a cocktail or something? (laughing) I don't do cocktails. I've done cocktails right after, but yeah. It's not a typical thing. Now I have to get back and make sure our baby is taken care of. Yeah, you do have to do that. So let's get into it. Well, the first thing I wanna say is that we missed the other week because you had a scheduling thing and we had to push this. And there were lot of people that were like, what happened to "Roll On"? That I need my "Roll On" fix. So that was nice. Thank you. I'm glad that people are enjoying it and feel like they missed it. Yes. That must feel good for you too. It does feel good. I didn't expect that, but it was just one of those things that scheduling came up last minute. I couldn't be avoided. And it's nice to that people are needing that fix. And it's nice that we're delivering something to people that they are enjoying. And that I'm a part of this great show. I feel like. You're a podcaster now. (laughing) I am now podcasts. I can't deny it. That's true. I like it though. I like this form. I like new media. Well, for people that are brand new and maybe this is their first episode of "Roll On", Adam Skolnick is the person you've been hearing. He's my BFF, co-host on this kind of a tangential edition of the show. Journey into riches minds. Adam is a journalist, he's an environmentalist. He's a contributor to The New York Times and outside perhaps best known as the co-author of David Goggins' hit memoir "Can't Hurt Me". And this is the show where we talk about current events kind of things that are top of mind. We share a few lessons. We do a little show and tell, and we answer listener questions. And it's a cool opportunity because this show is always about the guest to share a few of my thoughts on subject matters that the audience seems to be interested in. And we're gonna start today with a big story, right? Yeah. Well, before we get into that, I just wanted to let you know that you have a couple of new super fans. Speaking of the fans that are like "Roll On", my parents Trudy and Richard. (laughing) Excellent. What are their names? Trudy and Richard. What's up Trudy? What's up Richard? (laughing) And they. Have them come over here and we'll give them a tour. When I started doing your show, they would, okay, yeah, I'll definitely when the next time. When it's safe. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But when you first had me on, they watched it on YouTube and they thought it was cool. Then I kept turning up on the thing and they never really brought it up again. But somehow lately, they've been listening to not just this episode, but all these back episodes. (laughing) They've been like diving into the backup episodes. They are buying the products that you are selling or that you're advertising. Does your dad have a WHOOP? And he's like drinking Athletic Greens and stuff? No, but he's using the new roll on that you're advertising, and he's using the he's. Oh, the NATIVE Deodorant? That's it. My mom bought it for him. She wanted out of the Tom's racket. Right. She got into the NATIVE. And the Vegan Energy Bars I think are on his list. Cool, man. Yeah. That's very cool. So yes. So they're your newest super fans. They're probably listening to a back episode right now. They're deep into the archives. Right. Well, I think we'll do, maybe we'll do, this is actually gonna, we're gonna be taking a little bit of a hiatus from the show actually, 'cause I'm gonna take a break in January. Last year at this time I took all of December off and I was in Australia and it was really great to just hit pause on my professional life. I think we all need that at times in our life. And I intend on doing that again just in January, rather than December. So, I've been working my butt off the last six weeks or so, along with the team to get all the shows essentially produced. So there there'll be no interruption in the podcast, the shows will go up as usual. There just won't be any "Roll On" because these are recorded contemporaneously. Right. When we publish them. So January, you're saying I don't have work in January? I'll see In February. (laughing) Right. So. We might sneak one more in, right? No?
Maybe. We fill the schedule out for January, no room for another "Roll On" in January. So. I thought I had two more. We'll make it up today. Yeah. Yeah. Let's get into it. Let's do it, man. So the first thing that I wanted to talk about was a story that definitely impacted me for personal reasons and for broader reasons as well. And that is the passing of Tony Hsieh, who was the founder of Zappos who passed away on November 27th. He was 46 years old. The cause, the stated cause of his death was related to smoke inhalation from being in a fire. But there's a lot more to this story. And I think there's so many interesting threads, tragic threads to pull on to kinda understand what happened here. No doubt. When I first heard of the story, I'm new to him. Like I wasn't really familiar with Zappos really. And I read The New York Times Obituary, which didn't get into kind of the more, the dark side of what was happening, but it kinda, you could hint at it. You could tell that something was going on. But I was really interested in it. I like a con class who are thinking differently, the wealthy guy that lives in Airstream trailer that is revitalizing an entire area of Las Vegas. That's interesting to me. Someone who is interested in capping his salary, if not his entire compensation, who is interested in not having a corner office, but wants to sit in the bullpen. Right. Like these kinds of things of how he ran his company. Interesting to me. So, you forwarded this Wall Street Journal story that goes deeper into him in ways I had not read about. And I think that's what we want to get into that too, right? Yeah, of course. So the Wall Street Journal article is called The Death of Zappos's Tony Hsieh: A Spiral of Alcohol, Drugs and Extreme Behavior. But before we dive into that aspect of him, perhaps I can share a little bit of my personal experience. I only met him once and very briefly. So I can't say that I knew him in any meaningful way, but I will say that he was definitely a maverick and very beloved. When he passed away, the outpouring of love and support for this guy was unbelievable. On Twitter it seemed like every single person that I follow had had some story about their experience, spending time with him, he was truly a remarkable person and obviously an extraordinary businessman who in many ways, as an early pioneer in the e-commerce space, revolutionized that consumer experience by doubling down and really prioritizing the customer service aspect of what he was doing, which was essentially selling shoes. That's what's Zappos is. By making all of their customers feel heard and respected and really, almost like they were part of like a thing, like a community or like a family, like he would personally respond to customer service emails himself at like two in the morning, right? (laughing) And by really making that, the focus of how this company did business, they were able to grow it into this massive thing. It seems like he had that successful first company that he sold for about 200 something, million dollars to Microsoft. It's almost like Zappos became his Petri dish for how to run a company and how to be a business person and in a new kind of way, right? Right. Right. And like he said, he would sit out in the bullpen with everybody else and he didn't have a corner office. And he was a guy who loved people. And for reasons that we're gonna get into, needed to be with people all the time. He didn't like executive role, like they called it that monkey, what'd they call it monkey row? Something like that. Is that what he called it? Yeah. Yeah, he liked that better. So I first, when I met him, it was because I was invited to come to Zappos as part of a kind of curated weekend, called the Downtown Project. My friend, Amanda Slaven, who had a company called CatalystCreativ would invite a group of people a couple of weekends a year. I don't know. Maybe she did it every couple of months, to come and visit Zappos, but also get a taste of what Tony was doing in downtown Las Vegas, which was truly extraordinary. This is a guy who had his company headquartered in Henderson, which is kind of like a suburb of Las Vegas. He decided to move the company into a pretty decrepit part of Las Vegas, the downtown area that's well off the strip, which was the original kind of city of Las Vegas that had fallen into a significant level of disrepair. And most of the buildings down there were abandoned. And he envisioned creating this campus kind of like NYU, where Zappos would be integrated into the city, amongst many buildings where people would walk or ride bikes around and between them, with an effort really revitalizing this part of the city. And he personally put $350 million of his own money into doing that. And when I visited, which was many years ago, I'm sure it's much cooler now than it was then, it was pretty amazing what he had accomplished. He was taking over these like rundown one story or two story motor lodges and turning them into startup offices. He was putting seed money into all these businesses, everything from some new technology play to a coffee shop. And all over the place there was this sensibility, like an energy, like something cool is happening here. It was like, it's very hipsters. Its like 16 bikes and. Like Williamsburg and Vegas. And skate borders and things like that. And like artists painting murals on the side of buildings. Right. In addition, this thing called the Container Park, which was kind of like a little Plaza built with shipping containers, where there were little businesses and restaurants and like frozen yogurt and like t-shirt stores or whatever in this kind of park where he, with which he surrounded it by with these amazing sculptures, he had this huge praying mantis metal sculpture that I think he got from Burning Man, like would breathe fire at night, like a dusk every night. Amazing. And it was kind of an amazing thing. And as part of this weekend tour, which by the way, that's where I met Robin Azan for the first time. I met some cool people. I'd met Kevin Pierce, who was the snowboarder who suffered a traumatic brain injury and then became the subject of this documentary called "The Crash Reel", which if you haven't seen it, it's amazing. He was really cool. Him and his brother were there, Robin became a very good friend as a result of that experience meeting her on this weekend. But they took us to, there's a condo building on the edge of the city there. He was building condos too? Right? He was building all kinds of stuff. Yeah. Yeah. But there was a pre-existing condo building. And on one of the floors, I think it was the top floor, he had busted through the walls of like, I think almost every single apartment on that floor. Maybe not all of them, but a significant portion of them to create one massive condo that was kind of like a commune. And that's where he lived. Like he would, we were there, there were all kinds of people staying there and people would come and stay for a while and leave. Like, it was a transient kind of communitarian approach to living, including like a room where there was like flora growing on the ceiling, plants were growing from the ceiling down and he would kind of wander through, and this is the CEO of this massive organization. And so it was kind of frat house meets, hippie commune on some level. Meets real world. Right. And there's like a, I think there's a certain unique courage to live your life differently, especially when the stakes are high. And you're like this crazy high net worth individual to continue to kinda iterate and try things and experiment. He also was one of the people that backed the Life Is Beautiful event, which was kind of like this Coachella sort of weekend concert situation that also had speakers. And I spoke there and it was like, I met Bill Nye and I met Dan Price who was that CEO that instituted the salary cap and has all his employees starting at a base salary of 70 grand, I've met tons of cool people as a result of Tony Hsieh indirectly, right? Was that also in Vegas? The Life is Beautiful? Yeah. It's in Vegas as well. I don't know if it's still going on. I think it still is. The obit I read prior to the one I read this morning, but the obit I read was said something about how, for some reason he, when he revitalized downtown, it was going well, but then there was the backlash, oh, you're making downtown this one place that's affordable for people to live now unaffordable. So then he created the trailer park and moved there as kind of a way to say, there's other options he lived like in this Airstream village. Right. And I think there was low-income housing as part, incorporated into that from what I remember. Yeah. I think that's true. I just remember thinking if I was 23 or 24 and interested in startup culture or wanted to do something artistic and different, I would have considered moving there. Like it was a very supportive environment for that kind of thing. The housing is super cheap and there was this community of people that were doing, it's rare that when you think of trends or movements, like you think of Seattle during the Grunge period, or like Greenwich village during Bob Dylan, and those don't happen that often. Where would you point to now where there's some kind of emergent, artistic sensibility percolating up out of some someplace off the beaten track that then has a downstream significant impact on culture. That's like lightning in a bottle and I did have that sense that he was trying to craft that there, and there was an energy that something like that was going on. Yeah. I can't even remember, I guess you could say Williamsburg and the 2000s in New York. Maybe, yeah. And, but you can't really point to like some big cultural event that came out of that, other than just. I talked to, my boys are musicians and we have this conversation a lot. I'm like, where would you go right now? Where is the music scene happening? And they're like, it's not really like that anymore because of the internet. Yeah it's like, remember when Beck was coming up, in L.A. he was having a moment. Yes. Adam, what was that place in Silver Lake where all those bands would play? No, no. Star, starts with an S. Yeah, yeah. I'll think of it in a second. But there was that kind of feeling then, or when the Wallflowers were playing at Canter's. That was great. I love that. There are those moments where you're like, something is going on right now. That's more like the seeds of something cool, right? Anyway, that's the feeling that I got in this downtown section of Las Vegas. So in any event. But what was coming out of that was a new way of managing people, right? It wasn't so much a cultural product, like music or art, but what was coming up out of that was this new way of running a company, right? And that he was able to express in book form, he was speaking about it quite a bit. He was demonstrating it. It was a demo. His life was kind of not a performance at all, but like a demonstration of a new way of being. Right. If you wanna be a CEO, which you don't really see, usually what you see is yachts and Davos, you don't typically see Airstream, be on the same level with the people that you're managing. You don't typically see it. And when you do it's news, that's why the $70,000 a year CEO was news. Well, the legacy, he was at the forefront of creating that kind of idea of being a different type of leader. And I think you see that in startup culture now. And I would suspect that he deserves quite a bit of credit for that. This is a guy who, he did do events where he's sitting with Bill Clinton at some big fancy conference, but then you'd see him on stage somewhere else. And he has a Mohawk that's like two feet high (laughs) and he was a partier. Like, that's the thing. This guy loved to be with people. He loved to be out late into the night, having a good time, that all becomes relevant in the wake of him stepping down as CEO. We should mention that he sells the company to Amazon for 1.2 billion. Makes a ridiculous amount of money, continues to be a CEO, but I don't know exactly when he stepped down, but it was sometime last year. Yap. And with that, as you might imagine it from reading these long read articles on his life, that there was a bit of an existential crisis about what to do next. So he ends up moving to Park City. He surrounds himself with quite a few sycophants who he's paying, they're all on his part on his payroll, essentially. I think for a lot of them, there was something about, he would say, tell me what your dream salary is. And then he would double it. Is that right? Buying homes for some of these people. Yeah. He was buying up Park City and kind of the same way he was downtown Las Vegas. It was an idea that he was gonna try to replicate. I think that was his idea. Like, I wanna replicate what I've done in downtown Las Vegas in Park City. Except that Park City was. It's very different kind of community. (laughing) Yeah. Yeah. So he moves there quite a bit of partying is going on. Meanwhile, COVID hits and for a guy who is an introvert, but also seemingly needed to be around a lot of people being deprived of that took its toll on him emotionally in a pretty significant way. And he starts doing all this weird stuff, like experimenting with all kinds of psychedelics and really amping up his dosage of whatever he was taking and doing. They said then in the Wall Street Journal also drinking more, right? Yeah, I guess. And then doing all this other weird sort of behavior that I guess you could shroud in soul searching or even biohacking, but I think is indicative of somebody who's in trouble, who's having a hard time and searching for answers outside of himself. He ends up dwindling down to like a hundred pounds. He's doing these crazy fast and he's experimenting with oxygen deprivation. And that ultimately is related to, and he's locking himself in sheds and he's obsessed with candles. And he starts fires and he's breathing in the smoke. Like that's part of the oxygen deprivation thing. Ultimately it appears that that's what contributed to his passing. Do you wanna get into that now? there was a fire in New London, Connecticut. Right. And one report is that he barricaded himself inside this, they call it a shed, but it was like a three bedroom structure. I didn't know it was that large, I was envisioning some little tool shed in the back. Yeah, I know, I know. Well, maybe in New London that's, but sheds are three bedroom or something. But it was like a structure 'cause the three bedroom structure was on fire, according to that story. And then family couldn't get to him. And so originally the reporting was, it was just accidental fire, whatever. But then one firefighter did report that the person had barricaded himself inside. That doesn't mean. But didn't, he also tell his friends check on me every five minutes? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's hard to say that there was any kind of suicidal ideation. Like it wasn't a result of that. But it was some sort of stunt of some kind. Yeah. Yeah. Well, he was, among his experiments, he was like trying not to urinate, he was attempting to induce hypoxia. I think that's what that was all about. Okay. But, ultimately dies as a result of complications from that. Smoke installation a week later. Yeah. Only 46 years old. Meanwhile, there was indications that he was in trouble. There's this letter that's been published with Jewel, who he was friends with, wrote them a letter, basically saying, look, man, you're going down the wrong path here. Like I'm worried about you. And you're surrounded by all these people who won't tell you the truth about how you're behaving. So it wasn't unnoticed, but he didn't have people in his immediate circle who could intervene and course correct him. And I think the larger issue here, well, let me set it up by saying this, there's this legendary story that Tony used to tell about the moment when he sold Zappos to Amazon, where he traveled to Seattle to pitch Zappos to Jeff Bezos, who, like I said, ultimately acquired the company for a crazy amount of money, 1.2 billion, I think. And in the middle of the presentation, Tony starts talking about the science of happiness and how at Zappos, he was trying to use the company to serve the customers and the employees better. And Bezos then says, well, people are pretty bad at predicting what will make them happy. And Tony then says, yes, but apparently you are very good at predicting PowerPoint slides because this next slide address that very thing. But this idea of being bad at predicting what will make people happy, is so interesting because you can make the argument that Tony couldn't predict his own happiness. And this is a guy who wrote a New York Times best-selling book, called "Delivering Happiness". Like he was the happiness guy. He was all about serving other people. And he was an incredible example of that because he was unbelievably giving in his own life and yet the irony and the escapable irony, of course, being that he was seeking out happiness that alluded him. like the guy who was all about happiness, seemingly died an unhappy person. Is that surprise you? Doesn't. It doesn't. You see it again and again. Like there is this, it's not unusual to see somebody who is seeking, whether it's happiness or fulfillment or approval, successful business people, you can say, well, they're doing it through money. And then they get the money it doesn't work. They consolidate power, power doesn't work. They try to find it in sex or polyamory or something like that. Then you turn to drugs. Maybe drugs will be the answer, which kind of broadens the aperture of what we wanna talk about because that involves psychedelics, and psychedelics are very much in the news at the moment as a treatment protocol for that thing that we're seeking, that sense of happiness, or as a protocol for dealing with things like depression or PTSD. Obviously in Tony's case, he's taking it to these extreme levels, like losing all, dwindling down to 98 pounds, fasting, breathing, all of these practices. So what is fueling all of that? Why is it that this guy who seemingly had everything, who was about happiness, who was so generous with the people that he cared about was pushing the envelope so hard at this phase in his life where most people would look at it and say, dude, just hang out, it's good. Right. You built this amazing thing, like take a breath, enjoy your life. Right. For some reason, it appears that that escaped him, his ability to do that. It appears so. I think of Martin Seligman who started the positivity, I think at University of Pennsylvania, it's called Authentic Happiness. It's like a whole school of psychology, positive psychology out of University of Pennsylvania. It was one of the people that was the first to study happiness. And then there was a guy named Phillip Brickman, who's early on psychology of happiness person. I think for 40 years he studied it. He was the guy that did the lottery winners and accident victims study, which if you meet a lottery winner and someone who became a paraplegic and you interview them the day after it happens and then a year after it happens, it's interesting how in the day after it happens, yes, you're gonna have a big disparity, but a year later, sometimes the paraplegics actually fared better than a lottery winners of course. In my own life, someone who has been broke as a joke and has had eviction notices on their door, and was never a money guy, like I never really made my decisions for money, at least not until. But now you are a podcaster. (laughing) No. I'm not telling you, you got a little of that can't hurt me cash. (laughing) I joke about it. But I used to be like, the whole thing of money can't buy happiness. No, but it can buy happier. I've learned that. But that's up to a point. I think that's what these studies show. It's up to the point. Anyway, to not to bury the lead, but Phillip Brickman took his own life and he was an expert in happiness. So, it's almost like there, and I think we should get back to the psychedelic drugs in a second, but like, because I've taken my shares too, and we should talk about that. But I think there's something, the problem isn't happiness. The problem is, what are we chasing as human beings? What's the human animal looking for? 'Cause I'm not sure happiness is what we're designed to look for and consume and thrive under. I think happiness is great. We all wanna be happy. We all want comfort. We all want to be fed and watered and loved, but I don't think happiness is a permanent state anyway. And to pursue it as the main goal in life might be actually the wrong thing to do. Well, happiness is a very, a few sieve, fleeting emotion. It's not really a state of being, it's like a by product of something else that kind of comes and goes. And I don't think we're hardwired to just be quote unquote, happy as a permanent state, right? Right. I like to think of it more in terms of feeling purposeful, intentional, living a meaningful life, and as a result of those things, its like being fulfilled, like I'm very fulfilled in this vocation and in what we're doing right now. Sometimes it makes me happy, but often it makes me frustrated and anxious and all of those things, but I wouldn't trade it for some kind of state of, I don't know, like perpetual bliss. No. 'Cause I don't think that's what. Listen, I'm talking to it a very accomplished ultra athlete. Those are not the people that seek out happiness typically, right? Like you're seeking something beyond that. You're seeking you, ultra is the crucible to which you learn about yourself. It's kind of a good analogy In some ways to psychedelics. psychedelics would be a shortcut. But you're not trying to be comfortable when you sign up for, to do five iron mans. And by all indications, that pursuit of comfort, ultimately leads us away from happiness. Last night I got a screener for this new documentary that's coming out on Netflix called, "Less is More" by "The Minimalist" guys. You know, "The Minimalist" Joshua and Ryan. So they're coming tomorrow to talk to me. Oh, really. And this documentary, which is their second documentary, if you haven't seen "The Minimalism" their first one, it's fantastic, It's on Netflix. Everybody should watch that movie, I've talked about it many times. Directed by Matt de Avella who's gone on to become this huge YouTuber. And he's very talented and they're just really good, cool people on a really important mission. So I'm watching this documentary last night "Less is More", which is all about what minimalism is and what it isn't. But essentially the message is about where our consumerist ideology, which is really the foundation upon which this country is established, leads us away from these things like happiness and fulfillment and living a life of purpose and meaning, et cetera. And essentially the things that are most valuable aren't things at all. This is what Joshua says in the movie, but there are these intangible things. And they're the things that we don't spend enough time trying to cultivate in our lives like community and service and things like that. Those are the things that actually genetically we're hardwired to, that provide us with those emotions that we're seeking through the accumulation of material belongings. It's fulfillment, not happiness. Yeah. yeah. Like distinct, those are two different things for sure. But which one is the. I would pick fulfillment over happiness. I don't even know how you pursue happiness. Well, you can. Like there's this idea that I think the idea that Tony was trying to put out there, was that there's a way to have a happier workforce because what does happier workforce mean? It means employee retention. You keep the intelligence, industrial, whatever it is. But that happiness is a product of them being fulfilled in their role in the company, right? Because they feel empowered. They feel seen and heard they're taken care of, they're respected, all of these things that, yeah, I guess fall under the umbrella of happiness in some respect, but how are we defining happiness? And what does that actually mean? Right. It's a good question. It reminds me of like, it's like the intellectual version of what Guru always talks about when he talks about food. People nourish their bodies based on the first inch of taste buds. You know how he talks about that? Right. And it's like, it's the same, it's kind of like the intellectual equivalent. Like I'm unhappy today, today I'm sad. And depression's a real thing. I'm not talking about depression, but we're talking about like, can I be happier? The grass is always greener, and that's the kind of stuff you can get through by pursuing fulfillment over happiness. 'Cause if you're always kind of, not every day, is you don't wake up happy every day, some days you don't even sleep well, how can you possibly wake up happy? I think that that's where you go wrong. Well, there's also a conversation to be heard about the pursuit of those states externally versus internally. Like you can cultivate an environment that's more conducive to those types of emotions. And that's certainly what Tony was about with his Zappos corporation. But ultimately it's also, and fundamentally, mostly it's about your relationship with yourself, right? So you can be in a great job, but if you're disconnected from who you are or you're in the wrong career path or you don't understand how to have functional relationships with other people, or you have unresolved childhood trauma or, all of these things contribute to that, right? And if you're blind to that and instead focused on the big screen TV or the next thing that you're gonna buy, or the job promotion or the car lease, then you're losing the opportunity to really wrestle with what it is that fundamentally is gonna lead you towards a path of greater fulfillment and as a by-product happiness. Yeah. I think it's interesting. I think it's important to say that we're not kind of trying to get in his head and claim this is how this is how, this is all coming from an article that we've read. And I'm not vilifying this guy in any way, I'm celebrating his life. No, you are. But I'm looking at his passing as an opportunity to do a case study on the trajectory of a very successful life, what may have gone wrong, and what we can learn from that for ourselves. And the reason that we are surmising that has gone wrong or that things weren't going well, his own family in that Wall Street Journal story, said to have been planning an intervention for him. So I think. And certainly if you read Jewel's letter, it's pretty clear that he wasn't in a good place. Yeah. I think we should unpack a little bit about the psychedelics because I know that there's kind of overlap there with kind of some stuff that you talk about and guess even. And so, what are your thoughts on that? 'Cause I know that it seems according to that one story that he was increasing his intake in ecstasy and I think was it mushrooms or something? Yeah, I think there was some psilocybin. I don't know if there was ayahuasca or DMT. He was a big burning man guy, so I wouldn't be surprised. I'm sure he's had plenty of psychedelic experiences in his path, and maybe those were spiritual breakthroughs for him, that contributed to this culture that he created at Zappos. So, I'm not demonizing any of this. But I do think it's important to at least take a moment to pause on this notion of psychedelia for a moment, because we're in a cultural moment right now, where there is this convergence of that particular genus of drug culture with the wellness movement. Like those two circles are starting to overlap and to create a Venn diagram. And I think we need to appreciate just how incredibly powerful these mind altering substances are, and that their use, specifically their routine use is not without ramifications or consequences. Despite the fact that there is some incredible research coming out, that's been widely reported regarding the therapeutic application of these substances, which I don't dispute. And I do celebrate when you see work coming out of Johns Hopkins that psilocybin can help ameliorate depression or PTSD. Right. And these other therapeutic applications that are starting to emerge from the scientific community, these are good things. I'm celebrating that. But I also think that there's a difference between that and the kind of, what happens is you see that and then for some reason that creates a permissive attitude around these substances and it trickles down into what does become routine or overly routine use with people, right? So, if you look at Tim Ferriss talks about this all the time on his podcast, I think he's helped fund some of those studies coming out of Johns Hopkins. Oh, really. If you read Michael Pollan's book. That's a feedback loop. Well, I think it's a personal interest to him. Right. I think that he's very emotionally engaged with that whole thing. And I think that's a good thing. And he talks about all the time. And then there's Michael Pollan's book, "How to Change Your Mind", and I think there's a lot that can be learned from. He subjected himself to all of these different drugs and reported on it and did a deep dive into the science. So again, I'm not raising this in any disparaging way whatsoever. I celebrate all of this, but I do think it should be said in my opinion, that there is an epidemic right now of very unhappy people, a lot of people who are in considerable pain. And although some, or perhaps even many of these people may be good candidates for that kind of chemical therapy, there are too many people out there who are casually and irresponsibly looking to these substances for answers. For the answers that allude them, in this effort to kind of shortcut the path to greater self actualization or happiness, or, at the end of that spectrum, enlightenment. I've heard of people like actually going and get ayahuasca treatment in Mexico to stop taking opioids. I know somebody who did that. And I do too. And I know people who have done that and it's been successful for them. Yeah. So again, I'm not robbing those people of those experiences. I'm validating that. But that's different from I'm gonna do ayahuasca every weekend or we're gonna take mushrooms all the time because I'm unhappy and this is my solution. It's more complicated than that. And if ayahuasca was so effective, then there'd be a lot of enlightened people walking around right now. Now, some of those people are better people as a result of those experiences. Again, I fully acknowledge that, but I think there's also a lot of people who are a little bit awash and lost and return to those experiences looking for answers that continue to elude them. So there is no panacea here, and I'm always suspect when something appears in the culture as a shortcut to these things that, all of us seek more of and that there is a dearth of right now, these feelings of engagement with ourselves and the world and a sense of grounded, belonging and community and love and compassion and the like. So I'm only sounding a little bit of, not even really a cautionary tale, but maybe just a pause button so that we can reflect a little bit on this. In Los Angeles right now, the pot dispensaries are like Starbucks. And there is this idea that like, oh, well, THC is just part of your wellness routine and like microdosing and all of these things. And it's like, I'm biased because I'm a product of 12 step and I'm somebody who has addiction issues. So, I have my own kind of set of ideas around all this kind of stuff that maybe make me a little bit more calcified to the new ideas, but I just think that that's dangerous. Well, it's not just Los Angeles. It just got the decriminalized nationwide and it's in lots of places. And I think the big fear was young people were gonna be the ones that ended up getting high all the time and it impacts their brain development. And what we've learned is it's the baby boomers who go on QAnon and just get high and watch YouTube all day. They're the ones who really, we should have been watching out for this whole time. Well, if they just did that, I'd be fine with it. They just watch YouTube. It's when it spills into the world that it becomes problematic. You know what? I keep thinking of a couple of things. One with in terms of hacking your way to something, I think there is something inherently dangerous in thinking that you can take a shortcut, especially as something as, look, you're 12 step, but you're sober for years and years and years, and maybe there's something to going slower to get there and making it last longer. I don't know, I haven't looked at the studies, but I wouldn't be surprised if there's a higher relapse in people that do a shortcut versus that people that are in the community and doing the daily daily work that you do. Are you saying that it's about the journey, Adam? (laughing) Well, speaking of journeys at the same time, like the first time I ever kind of had that crack open love the world feeling, was tripping. So to me psychedelics were an important part of kind of crack in the open. It was a portal. Yeah, it's a portal. Yeah, and like, look as a sober guy, that's like a tripwire, like that pushes my buttons. 'Cause I know sober people who have in sobriety volunteered for psychedelic, under supervision had psychedelic experiences. And I think we've talked about this before, and emerge from it saying that it was revelatory. Right. And so that's interesting to me. That would be something that I would wanna check out. Maybe, I don't know, I won't dismiss it, but again, my instinct is when you, that the answers that I'm seeking are not gonna be found in a substance. That's not to say that that might not open up some portal for me, and put right in front of me some blind spot that I have. But when you tell somebody in recovery that the answer to their problem lies in a mind altering substance, it's like, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, like everything lights up in your brain and that scares me. Yeah. Well, I get it. I also actually don't even believe that. I think what it did for me and I was very young at the time. I was probably 20 at the time. Is it showed me that love can be unconditional and expansive. And then I was dropped right back into my body (laughs) that I didn't necessarily love, or it didn't feel very expansive and the way to actually get there in life, in day-to-day life isn't to take that drug again and again. You've got the lesson. It's the lesson.
You've learned what you needed to learn. And then you have to keep moving in life in a way that's productive. And so he didn't have to do that because he had too many resources at this disposal perhaps, and he could do whatever he wanted any day. There's danger to that level of freedom, to not being tethered to having to do X, Y, or Z, to get to pay bills or to accomplish this task or that task. It's almost like freedom and happiness were kind of what became the undertow. And I wanted to touch on escapism because I think that came up in a couple of the stories. He was into escapism and I'm not against escapism because if you look at the way the world is, and the way people treat each other and who would not want to escape from that every once in awhile. Like we escape in it in our different ways, whether it's a trail run or a free dive session or an open water swim, that's what it is. That's to me what it is, and I'm totally down with that. I think you'd be crazy not to want to check out for a little bit and try to reconnect in something that's bigger than the that we see every day. And I know a lot of your listeners are nodding in agreement would feel the same exact way. Escapism isn't the problem. The problem is when escapism becomes everything. Well, two things I agree. And two other things that I take away from this. One is the very significant emotional and mental toll that the pandemic has on a lot of people, right? This is a guy who could not be alone. Like he needed to be around people. And suddenly when that was removed from the realm of possibilities, I think that that impacted him disproportionately. I think that's a big part of what led to the spiral, and maybe being around people, I don't know him and I'm, can't get inside his head, but maybe him being around people all the time with some kind of distraction that kept whatever demons he had at bay, being a social animal and missed a group of people maybe he could be part of it, but also hide in it. And when that's gone and you're forced to be with yourself, the discomfort of that became unbearable. And he started to look for different ways to medicate that. it's interesting, he was interested in the communal mind, right? He was interested in that, like the hive mind, and maybe that was another escape, like you said to wait, so he'd get out of his own mind. Right. The second thing is, no matter how successful you get, it's absolutely critical that you surround yourself with people who can give you objective feedback, right? Like too many stories of people that get successful and are surrounded by yes people or people that have a financial incentive and you not being as healthy as you should be and things go haywire. Yeah. So surround yourself with good people and solicit feedback, honest feedback on how you're living. And when people deliver that, don't take it personally. Right. Right? Like thank them for that, because that's the stuff that's ultimately gonna catalyze the growth. Growth over happiness. But beautiful man, Tony, and it's quite sad what happened. So, I celebrate his life and he will be.
His life was kind of a work of art in a way. It was an incredible work of art, incredible work of art. So he will be missed. So let's take a break and we'll come back with a bunch more stuff. Should we talk a little antitrust? Let's talk antitrust. 'Cause its fascinating. People don't realize you're an antitrust expert. (laughing) It is. It might be one of the few As that I got in law school. Rich Roll got an A or two in law school. Which let's just be clear. My father is an antitrust lawyer. So, infer as you will, my deep seated need to get approval from my dad. That that would have been the one A that I got. (laughing) Now, in law school, did you have your Stanford swimming hair going still or did it grow up by then? Who knows man. I was drunk the whole time. It's very, it's it's all murky. (laughing) But no, not swimming, not the chlorinated hair. Yeah. Oh, you mean a flat top? No, We would get a flat top before big meets every year. So yeah, I would rock that like once a year and that was just not a solid look. Okay. Well, with the glasses that take up the whole face. 'Cause with that main you have, I was gonna be like, God, did he do that all in college? Because that'd be unfortunate. I have to wear my hair. This is the only way that it looks good. You can grow it long, you could get a mullet going. Yeah, I could do like the Trump mullet and like comb it over. That could be a good look. Yeah. No. Let's try that. (laughing) Try it blond. Biohack for you. Antitrust. Are we gonna have, we could have a new category of a podcast, legal corner. Ooh, legal corner with the "Rich Roll". Will see how this goes. The problem is, then we're gonna start getting calls and ask you to take the case. And next thing you know, you're in front of Judge Judy, it's a whole series and Netflix buys it. There is a reason why we're bringing up antitrust today. Yes. Because it impacts all of us, because I would suspect most people listening or watching are on Facebook or have some connection to Facebook. And Facebook is very much in the news right now, facing antitrust backlash. The U.S. Government and 48 States have sued Facebook for illegally crushing competitors and demanding the company to undo its acquisitions of WhatsApp and Instagram. And I think it's worth talking about for a couple of reasons, because it does affect all of us so deeply. And I think it raises interesting questions about the power of these massive platforms and the control to which they exert over our laws, which obviously is a subject. You and I have talked about before, with "The Social Dilemma" documentary and also talking about "Feels Good Man". Yeah. Which I just have those guys. So we, this is the second podcast that we've recorded in the new studio because I had the filmmakers from that documentary here the other day, that episode is not gonna go up for a little while, but I'm telling you right now that one is not to be missed. We had an unbelievable conversation that's rooted and related to how we use these platforms and the impact that they have and to the extent that they are wielding monopolistic power in an anti-competitive anti-consumer way. I do think as bland as a legal discussion around antitrust, potentially might be that it was worth planning flag here and talking about it for a few minutes. So, yeah. Just for a few minutes teachable moment on why it's important. I think one thing that I comes to mind for me is if you're gonna have a brain that you carry around with you in your hand, it would be better if it wasn't just a few dominant companies that are controlling most of what you're getting and seeing and accessing, because that starts to play on you. I think that's what you were talking about with the guys. And so the idea is kind of from what my understanding is, and correct me if I'm wrong, that they, the government, that Facebook acquired Instagram and WhatsApp in 2012 for WhatsApp, 2014 for Instagram, and in some reports are saying the government signed off on those acquisitions. Kara Swisher says that they just didn't intervene and they allowed them to go forward. And now with more data and more better understanding of how that has transformed the innovation in social media or lack thereof, the government is now saying that they acquired them in order to crush competition in that space. And because of that, that's illegal. That's my interpretation of it. Is that correct? Well, the federal argument and state argument is that these organizations, particularly in this case, Facebook, because that's what these specific lawsuits are about, the Google stuff's a little bit different, but in the Facebook context, the argument is that Facebook is trying to reduce competition by purchasing rivals in an explicit violation of the antitrust laws. Essentially when a another platform or a new technological advancement comes up before, or when it looks like it's an emerging threat to Facebook's business, they are faced with the decision of either crushing it or acquiring it. And in the case of WhatsApp and Instagram, they acquire these companies, they consolidated their power, and that has a downstream impact of reducing competition in the marketplace at large. Facebook's argument is that, as you said, the government signed off on these acquisitions, 2012 was WhatsApp, 2014 Instagram. They went through the whole process, like when you're a large company and you're acquiring another company, the FTC and the justice department have to get involved, like as a lawyer I've been involved in these situations, you have to produce a tremendous amount of documents. It's called a second request that the FTC does, where they look over everything and they have to do an analysis. Like, is this going to have an anti-competitive impact on the marketplace? Or what is the impact on the consumer? So this gets run through their system. And in the case of Facebook, Kara Swisher said they allowed it to happen, but I'm sure if you were to talk to one of the FTC lawyers that they did look at this stuff pretty intently, signed off on it. So Facebook saying that a do-over is unfair. And second to that, there other argument is that Facebook actually made Instagram and WhatsApp better than they could have been on their own. If you listen to Kara and Scott Galloway in their podcast "Pivot", they talk about this at length. And Scott, who's a professor of business at NYU, and just has an amazing mind for these kinds of things. He's basically like, I don't think that that's true. I think that, if you look at WhatsApp for example, what would WhatsApp have been had it been independent, particularly in a pandemic? Maybe they would've gotten into video. Maybe they would have innovated in different ways. Maybe they would have acquired some other company, maybe WhatsApp and Zoom would have merged or something. You can't say that these apps are better by dent of being under the umbrella of Facebook. Right. In fact, you could make the argument that Facebook has impeded their ability to iterate, because when you're part of a massive organization, you're not gonna be able to be as nimble with technological advances. The problem with all of this, we're just at the starting gate of these lawsuits, is that the burden of proof in an antitrust case is quite steep, and it's two pronged. Essentially the government has to show that Facebook purchased its rivals with the express purpose of squelching or killing off competition. So essentially they have to prove intent. And to prove the intent is very difficult. Although Swisher as hinting that there's some interesting Zuckerberg emails that are gonna come out of this. Well, there's this book coming out right about Facebook. Okay. And she's hinting at like some emails where he's basically hinting at, I want, we gotta crush Instagram or crash Whatsapp or staff like that. Right, right. Yeah, I've heard that. I think those emails have been like, he's like, yeah, they acknowledged that intent. Okay. Right. But then, they'll deploy a battery of defense lawyers that say that's taken out of context or what have you. I'm pretty sure they're gonna have some good lawyers. Yeah. Facebook is not gonna go quietly into the night on this. They have too much to lose. They're gonna fight this tooth and nail for sure. In the second prong of this burden of proof is that the government has to show that the consumers in the market would have been better off without the merger. And that's hard. That's a tough row to hoe. And my favorite part, there's a couple of New York Times articles on this, that we'll link up in the show notes. But there was one where my former Antitrust Law Professor George Hay, Law Professor at Cornell and former Antitrust Official at the Justice Department was quoted. So I felt so good about that. He basically said, it should be assumed that Facebook will seek to obtain all the internal work product that lay behind the original decisions at the acquisitions, did not pose a competitive problem. Right. Right? So this is just beginning, but I think it's gonna be fascinating. To me, year, right? Yeah, it's gonna take years, but to watch this, the battle lines are being drawn. And if I was a law student right now, or a young lawyer looking to be in the middle of the action, I think being at the FTC or the justice department right now would be an amazing place to be, because I think antitrust activity is gonna explode with growing political will to really look at these gigantic companies and the deleterious impact of the power that they wield over the market and the consumers. What do you think is, if they're doing Facebook is now, what do you see as some future kind of terrain that antitrust lawyers might look at? Well, honestly, I think that you do need to decouple WhatsApp and Instagram from Facebook. I think 100% that consumers would be better off and Facebook needs to be right-sized with that. But then when we look at the other big players out there, in the pecking order of like, who would be next? Facebook is the easy, first target because there's this sensibility around Mark Zuckerberg and this kind of the Evil Empire idea. Right. So that, I'm not surprised that they're going after Facebook first, but who's next? And I would look at Amazon and their suite of businesses that they Lord control over, AWS. They own the biggest cloud service in the world, like remember when, was it Twitter that? No. there was a day when you couldn't refresh your podcasts. Like all the podcasts were not available for a couple of hours. Because all of these platforms are backed up on AWS. AWS is like the engine behind the internet. Right. And the idea that that's owned by Amazon, this e-commerce website is crazy. If you're smart, you would prophylactically decouple some of these businesses from your core enterprise as a measure, as a defense measure against the government going after you. And that's something that Kara and Scott Galloway we're talking about with respect to Google. Scott was saying that, if you look at Google, all right, should YouTube be part of Google? Certainly those are businesses that should be separated, but Google is not gonna voluntarily cut ties with YouTube and spin it off. But if they were smart, if you listen to what Scott's saying, they would spin off their cloud service, right? Like, let go of Drive to say, we're a good actor in the space don't go after us. Yeah. So they can hold onto YouTube, right? You know what I mean? Like, it's gonna be fascinating to see the kind of jockeying and the strategy and the moves that these companies are gonna make. But I think breaking them up will be this amazing spark to innovation in the space. And I think consumers will benefit from that. So you think it's gonna happen? Well, the lawsuits are moving forward. Right. How they'll play out is anybody's guess. But I do think it's interesting that this is happening right at the end of the Trump administration, as we're heading into Biden. Certainly the Biden administration is gonna be much more politically interested in this. Although Trump, he was on record as saying, these companies are too big and seem to have an interest in. Yeah. Ultimately these just spark people bring these suits. They aren't really political appointees there. No, but if you're a DOJ, if you're the attorney general, you're still taking orders from The White House in terms of the kind of cases that they want you to pursue or not pursue. It's interesting when it comes to consumers, when you having seen social dilemma and we've talked about it, is like, who are the consumers of Facebook and Google and YouTube? 'Cause it seems like their consumers are their advertisers. It's not us. It's super interesting. Right And by users, I mean we're getting used. And it's like, we do use it, we do access it. Well, the social dilemma is we're the product. We're the product and the resource. Look, I do think, I use WhatsApp in my reporting. I use Facebook Messenger in my reporting. I think early on I used Facebook a lot to connect with subjects and then to keep in touch with people that are overseas, that wouldn't otherwise see. That became WhatsApp, small businesses, local businesses are deeply nodded into Instagram. The travel industry is deeply nodded to Instagram. There are people who this could affect. 'Cause if to decouple it won't be necessarily so seamless probably, although maybe it will feel seamless to us, but I am in favor obviously, of reduced corporate hegemony. (laughing) Yeah. Right. Anyway. And the idea that the market is better with these companies holding on all these things, all you have to do is look at antitrust history, look at the breakup of the telecoms, spinning off Ma Bell and to all these smaller companies that now was a period of great innovation as a result of that. And I think that's what you'll see here now, in terms of the moves that these companies are making, what should they do prophylactically? How are they trying to protect themselves right now? You see Facebook starting to take their messaging service and integrated across all of their platforms. So it becomes very difficult to disentangle. Whereas Apple conversely is cutting its commission charges on the App Store to say, we're a good actor. Like I think what Tim Cook is doing and how Apple is proceeding here, of all of these, they're in the best stead in terms of weathering this and not being a big target, but when Facebook is going out of its way to make separating WhatsApp from the rest of its ecosystem more difficult to me that makes them all the more likely hard targets. Well, also Apple can afford it 'cause their big money is the phone. It's the hardware, that's where they're making their coin. Right. It's different kind of thing, but they're so massive too, that the lens is gonna get aimed in their direction at some point. But this idea of who's the customer, is super interesting. Yeah. Like the advertisers are the customer, that's how they make their money. So they gotta keep them happy. And that's what comes out of this. Like, who's the consumer? 'Cause people are gonna, the news is gonna be reported and consumers is gonna be used a lot. And I hope that what we're paying attention to, is I wanna know who Facebook thinks the consumer is. Well, I think we know that Facebook thinks the consumer is the advertiser. But what do they call them? But what is gonna get reported and how is the narrative gonna be spot? I think that with the exception of very savvy reporters like Kevin Reus and the like, most of it's gonna get positioned as us being the consumer. Yeah. Don't you think? I think so. I think user and consumer are two different things in this case and often they're not. So like that's, that was always the argument for don't break up Amazon when they were getting all their terrible press for how they operated their business and abusive employee abuse and whatever, was that you can say what you want, but the consumer gets lower prices. That's what they tricky, right? Is the dipper company out of business, but the consumer gets lower prices. They chased that company out of business. Walmart cracks down on Mom-and-pop shops all over small town America, but the consumer gets a lower prices. But the problem is when you look at things just like that, the collateral damage is completely ignored and you would need to buy things so cheap if everyone made a little more money, right? If the wealth was shared a bit more. And that's the biggest problem with tech companies is they siphoned money into smaller and smaller straws or big straws, but for few people. Yeah. And that's why I think breaking them up and having more competition means more money gets spread around. And I think that that's not being talked about really, but that's what it's about. It's a way to redistribute wealth in an era of a Gilda age. Yeah. Facebook's argument is there is a robust market when it comes to social networks and there is a lot of competition when you look at Tik Tok and Snap and things like that. But is there really? Who looks at Tik Tok, Rich? (laughing) Tik Tok is huge. I know it's huge. I can't do it. That's the bridge too far for me. My daughters are on it all the time. I'm sure. I just, that's where I have to draw the line and say, okay, it's not appropriate. Maybe I'm just getting older. I'm listening to the Obama Book. That's what I'm doing for your talent. How is it? It's fabulous. Yeah. I'm sure it is. Him and his little book out there. (laughing) Dainty little 750 page volume one. All right. Well, more will be revealed on this. And I think that concludes this week's edition of legal corner. (laughing) Slash teachable moment. Yeah. I hope you learned something kids. What do we got next? We're gonna do a little show and tell. A little show and tell baby. Yeah. Well, my big show and tell which either we have locked down camera's here, but my show and tell is our new studio. That's fabulous. So check us out. If you're listening on Apple podcasts or Spotify, go to YouTube and see what the new studio looks like. We maintain the same aesthetic from the temporary place, but we've dialed it up a notch. Yeah. I'm getting a pedicure right now. Yeah, that's right. I'm telling yo it's socially is next level. Its a next level of stuff's going on. But you got a couple of things you wanna talk about, right? Well, I just wanted to because I couldn't make, I wanted to say hi to the guys that made "Feels Good Man" because just to reiterate, I love that movie. I think it's one of the best documentaries I've seen in years. I highly recommend everyone to see it. And I love Matt Furie and his ill-fated quest to try to reclaim his froggy, Pepe the Frog. Right. Pepe the Frog? Pepe the Frog. Pepe. But so my wife and I loved it so much. We went out and bought his children's book, "The Night Riders", which is his second attempt at reclaiming Pepe, but in a different way. 'Cause he loves drawing frogs. Well, it's a different frog. It's a different frog. They say in the movie it's unrelated to Pepe. It looks kind of a little like him. Right. But, he's the guy's killer frog since he was a kid. Right. So he's gonna draw them and it's the artwork in here is spectacular. It's like an art gallery as a children's book and it's so weird. And there's no words in it, right? Yeah. It's like incredible. No, that mushroom frame was in the movie. Yeah. I'll get something. Look at how he eats a moth. Right. It is beautiful. He is quite the artist and it was a bomber that you couldn't be here when Georgio and Arthur were here because they were amazing. And, I watched "Feels Good Man" a second time to get ready to talk to those guys. And it was better the second time. I bet. I'm telling you this movie is unbelievable and it's so shocking to me that everybody isn't talking about this movie constantly. It should be nominated for an Oscar. That's how good it is. Hopefully if there's justice in the world and maybe this is a subject for a future legal corner, if there was justice. Spoiler alert, there isn't. (laughing) They will get an Oscar nomination. But what's interesting about this movie is that despite premiering at Sundance and winning these guys and emerging filmmaker award at that lauded festival, struggled to find a distributor. And so, although it's available on a variety of platforms online, Apple TV, Apple, is it Apple TV? Apple Plus, what do you call it? It's there. Yeah, Apple Plus. They asked that people watch it there because Amazon takes a big cut if they watch it there. So it's available VOD, but there is a visibility problem. Like it's suffering from discoverability, I think. And so I just wanna shout from the mountaintops that I think everybody should see this movie 'cause I just thought it was phenomenal. And everybody that I've turned on to the movie absolutely loves it. Davies here, he was like watching it the other night, texting me like this is unbelievable. It's insane. It is insane. I was like oohing and aahing and the feelings I was getting similar to I got in "Blackfish", which is another great documentary expose something that I wasn't aware of. But this is artistically a whole other level. Artistically phenomenal, and also so relevant to our everyday lives. Like you watch "Blackfish" and it alerts you. It's an incredible movie to alerts you to a wrong in the world, but it doesn't necessarily impact you when you open up your computer screen every time. Right. Well, that's a perfect example. So your "Blackfish" colors you are wrong in the world it's very captivating in its own way. Then you have like the R Crumb movie, which awards literacy to weirdness and art in the world in a very disturbing way. And you wrap those things two together and the artistic value of this, I think the animation, this just is all those things wrapped up in one. That's why it's so great. So, you have to see it. I was delighted that they were the first, I love you Adam, but I was delighted they were the first guests in the new podcast studio, and they brought me an incredible gift, which was a print from Boys Club of the actual page where you see the four panes or whatever, it is culminating in the "Feels Good Man". The page you're saying, it's the page that Matt wishes he never wrote. I'm sure, Right? That's the one you have? Yeah. And it's in like this glow in the dark like color scheme. It's like, I don't know, three by two and a half, like just a beautiful print and what a incredible like artifact of culture, right? So they actually were going up to see Matt over the weekend and they were gonna get it signed for me, which I will proudly be hanging in this studio. So I appreciated that. It's very cool, but that book I wanna get, in the movie, they talk about the book and I can't remember, was it the publisher or somebody in publishing was commenting on "The Night Riders" and talking about how it's very much in the vein of where the wild things are and on that level artistically it's a pretty cool. But it doesn't have the words. It doesn't have the neat and tidy story for kids. It's like, you can kind of see it's not necessarily for kids or for it's for bigger kids. Did you buy it online? Yeah. On Amazon? I'm not at Liberty to say, Rich. (laughing) We will figure out where the best place to buy that is, and link it up in the show notes. 'Cause if you're listening and you have a very young children, I think it would be a really cool holiday gift. I hear they sell it on Amazon. You heard? Right? But I'm not gonna quote you on that. We're not getting into my past purchases at the show right now. (laughing) But I did make a past purchase. Rob Bell's Riding Class. Yes. I wanna hear all about this. You were gonna tell me about this earlier. And I said, don't tell me, I wanna just hear it fresh on the pod. Friend of the show, Rob Bell. Right. Very good friend of the show and good friend in person. Of both of us. Yes. I can't wait so we can see each person's again. Yeah. And beautiful human being. Great human being. An incredibly gifted writer and speaker and just guru of all things, unlocking creativity. He's so smart. It's just, that's why I took it. It's like I took it because a, I took it for a couple of reasons. One is yes, I'm wrestling with a novel that is kind of occupying a lot of space in my brain. And it's not easy for me 'cause it's a different form. I'm not used to it. And I have my own little imposter syndrome around it, but also I'm interested in kind of this part. I think we talked about this time of my career, looking at craftsmanship around writing and around storytelling and ways that I previously was just kind of didn't have time to engage in or just wasn't really that interested in engaging in. And so then knowing the third thing that Rob is so smart and brilliant that it's fun to listen to him anyway, and tell you about anything. Yeah. I could just listen to him, read the phone book, raise his eyebrow. He gets so excited. Well then, so that's the, and first thing I noticed is that he and I are very different in our approach to our own work. He's very thrilled by it all the time. And like at the beginning of a project, I'm very not thrilled with what I'm producing. And so, but that's the lesson, right? So one thing that he goes into the project with wonder. So, this class, he went through every book he wrote, and he kind of went through it and told the story behind it, and as he did it, he was opening each book and kind of gleefully looking at his chapter titles and just like really stoked on it. And I love that. 'Cause he's owning it in a way and giving permission to really love yourself and your work at the same time. And it's a great example. And it's something that I think is my biggest takeaway is to feel free to do that for myself, which I do not feel free to do typically. Right. And that enthusiasm and wonder is infectious. It is. But there's a half life on that too. 'Cause I've been in his orbit and I feel so good when I'm around him, and I find myself trying to meet his energy in that way. And then I leave and then I wake up the next day and I'm back. (laughing) You're like, shit. I wrote this shit? Yeah. But it's interesting is, he comes into it with, a what is this? That's how writing starts. What does this wanna be? He referenced the great architect, Louis Kahn, before he started designing, he asked the building, what does this building want to be? So he's asking, what does this thing wanna be? Coming into it with. He's co-creating with the thing that does not yet exist. Exactly. And he actually suggests interviewing the book idea, like interviewing and asking it questions. And in doing that, there's you become a steward of the energies of whatever the project is gonna be, because that's what he sees a writer as a steward of energies. It's not just you. Well, that's a very, big magic Elizabeth idea. And he and Liz Gilbert, I think there's a lot of overlap there. He's saying, are you a writer? If you write you're a writer and someday you'll become good. You don't have to worry about becoming good. That's not your job right now if you're a beginner. He talks about the separation between flow and edit. Flow, just let it come out, edit, go back later and deal with, which I've engaged. That's definitely something I believe in, I believe in certain amount of words per day and getting that out and not necessarily rereading it even the next day. I try to get through a whole draft before coming back and doing a full reread. Sometimes that changes. But that's what I try to do exactly for that reason. There's a flow draft and there's an edit draft for me. He talks about how it feels to him. How is it feeling when you're writing? Is it urgent? Is it personal? Is it spiritual? I think that's interesting. I don't really feel care about how I feel when I'm riding that much, but he's talking about the feel of the story itself. Not how you feel about it, but the feel of the actual product. The feel of the product. And that I got a lot out of. I actually took something. 'Cause I never thought about the feeling of the book. I've always thought about story points and characters, but now I have a feeling that's like a theme, and I'm only in the second draft right now. I'm like two thirds of the way through a second draft. And my goal is to have the second draft done by the end of the year. But then I, this is gonna be a 10 draft process to get this to any point where I even give it to my wife to read. It's gonna be a while. So to have the feeling now I think is great. So I got that directly out of it. And the number one thing I got out of it is own it. Own the piece. Don't question. If you're gonna write it, don't keep questioning, are you good enough? Are you doing it? Is it worth doing? Own the fact that it's worth doing 'cause you're doing it. And I think that that level of confidence has been missing and he just gives you permission to feel that way. And so I think overall, did I get a lot structurally out of it? Not necessarily. I don't write memoir. He's a guy who was, who basically writes about the Bible and writes memoir. He writes some fiction stuff he hasn't really shared necessarily. Maybe he is a much more, he writes about anything he wants, but the stuff that we know of him is typically memoir related. I don't do that. Did he share anything about productivity or sort of the resistant, the creative resistance and how to get over that kind of thing? Because the reason I ask, is he's one of the most prolific and productive, creative people that I know, He just doesn't ever seem to get gapped out in any way. Like he's just constantly putting out amazing stuff. And even his podcasts, like the amount of intention and thought, like most of them are monologues, that could be characterized as sermons and they feel very natural and casual, but it's indisputable that he's thought deeply about everything that he's saying. And the naturalistic approach that he, like it's so attitudinal because he does enter into everything that he does with a certain kind of enthusiasm and joy, as opposed to the gnashing of the teeth. There isn't seem to be a lot self doubt. I know and I'm like, how does that work? He doesn't have the self-doubt problem that we have. And I don't know if it's, or I have, I'm not, I don't mean to say it. But you got plenty of it? Yeah. And he doesn't seem to have it. It seems like that could be a product of his faith. The fact that he's got so much. But I would suspect everybody has these angsty moments, right? But he seems to be, I'm not standing over him watching him, right? But we should be getting them up. It feels like he's figured that out. That would be, it would be great to get them on. And just to talk about creativity. I've said this before, but he has, I dunno if it's still up on his website, 'cause I listened to it quite a long time ago. I suspect it is. It's called, I think it's called Something to Say, and it's an audio lecture that is hours and hours and hours. I think it's like eight hours or something like that. It's like an unbelievably long lecture series of lectures on basically how to create a speech or a presentation or a keynote. Like if you have something to say, here's how you take an idea and turn it into something worthwhile. It's a masterclass on communication, on clarity of thought, on executing on an idea. Of everything that I've consumed on the subject of creativity and writing, it was the most interesting, thoughtful and helpful thing that I've ever listened to and very different from anything else that I'd ever consumed. Well, this was not necessarily that. So he didn't get too in the weeds on structure and like helping you figure out. Right. This is a different thing. This is a little bit more general than I thought it might be. But a couple of things that were really stuck out is if you've written multiple things, it's okay to go back to the drawing board and write this one differently. So to him, he's like, how am I gonna write this one? Am I gonna do maybe this one? I'll do longhand. Maybe this one I'll speak into a recorder and have someone transcribe it. He likes to keep it fresh. For someone who's done a lot of writing, and he's very prolific, I think it was like nine books we went through, I forget. He's very open minded. He keeps that mind and that space as open as possible. How do I write this one? What does this one wanna be? How do I align head and heart? And like I said, I'll quote him here. Here's the thing, own it, own it. The thing you're trying to write, own it. If it's a scifi novel, inventing an entirely new world, make it as weird and wild and strange as you can. Own it, own what you're trying to do. And that's the key. I think that writers can get into trouble, trying to be too nice and he hates that. And so that was a nice piece to hear from him. Who is one of the nicer people (laughs) for him to say that, 'cause he knows that that won't come across well on a page, if something's too nice, if it doesn't have that edge, 'cause there's nothing for the reader to hang on. And I think, to me, he doesn't want people sanitizing their experience or sanitizing their writing. But for me, the things I got out of it is, how do I write this one? What is the feeling of this piece? And own it. Those are kind of the three main things I took. It was very worthwhile. And for somebody who's listening or watching, who's not a writer who doesn't consider themselves to be a writer, but perhaps as a creative spark, of these ideas, what can be extrapolated to anybody who's listening? Like the lessons baked into this are specific to writing, but they seem to me to be easily translatable to other pursuits. I think anytime that you have an idea that you wanna pursue and you feel self doubt, it's okay to own what you're trying to do and not give yourself a third degree about it too often. 'Cause that can, in fact what you're trying to do, it can, but insecurity can leak itself into the work itself. It doesn't always, but it can. So I think owning it is good. How do I wanna go about it? And asking yourself those questions, even if you're mid career in any job, like say you're a lawyer and you're taking on a new case, okay, how am I gonna research this case? How am I gonna try this case? Doesn't have to be the same way I've done, even if they're all wins What's the weirdest, craziest argument I could come up with? Right. Yeah. How do you attack each new project from a fresh and different angle? Yeah. And then he comes with the, don't be precious or attached to your writing. I think that's very important, that could be used for any idea in any job. Don't be precious or attached to your ideas. But he has something that's interesting. He has a bits file, stuff that doesn't fit into the, cuts he's made that he wants to keep. And then he puts it into a bits file. And he's used that he gave a couple examples of using it. That ends up in another book. Yeah. Right. And I've never done that. I always just move on completely and start again from scratch. So that's interesting. It's been years since I listened to that, something to say, but I seem to recollect that one of the practices that he talks about is just being more observant in your daily life. Because if you're paying attention, there's weird stuff going on all over the place, and making a habit of like writing one of those things down every day, or like making a list of those things. And the more that you do that, the more engaged you are with the world and your environment and the more you pay attention, the more that that kind of fuels a creative spark. I love it. That just reminded me. Maybe I just completely imagined that. But I, pretty sure. That just reminded me of that movie "Adaptation", where. I just watched it a couple of weeks ago with the boys, they'd never seen it. And I was like, how can you be cinematically literate and not have seen this movie? This is the greatest. It's the greatest adaptation. It's easily in my top 10 movies of all time. But I was just flashed on that moment where Nick Cage stands up and Robert McKee's Story Class, Robert Mackey is like, you probably have heard of him, he's on Twitter. But he kind of burst on a. Legendary screenwriting teacher, wrote story. Script doctor, he writes story, which is amazing. And, oh, he's likes are the mentor of the script doctors, right? Right. And Nick Cage raised his hand at this, he plays Charlie Kaufman, very like mousy guy. And he's like, I'm writing a story and it's about nothing. And 'cause nothing happens in life, so I want nothing to happen in this movie. And Robert, he just goes (laughs) it's who plays around with McKee? Brian? What's his name? I can't believe I'm blanking on it right now. Legendary.
Cox. Yeah, Brian Cox from "Succession'. And just launches. (laughing) And what do you mean nothing happens in life and then basically. Yeah. A lion's roar amidst from his mouth in an auditorium of thousands of people. It's classic. It's a classic scene. Cool. Anyway, Robert Bell's class was not like that. So, I trust this was like on Zoom, or how did you do this? Yeah, it was on Zoom. It was like, he had us all kinda muted and nobody. Was it unlimited? Like you could, everybody could sign up. Yeah. It was like 50 bucks and he did like a few sessions. And then people could, you could fire questions at him through the chat. And he was answering some of them. So it was like a mix of like 20 minutes of lecture, then some questions, 20 minutes of lecture and some questions. And it was really good. And he's going to repurpose it. I think he's gonna do some version of it on his podcast he claimed, but he hadn't decided when. Right. And so I don't know, it was good. It was worth, it, it wasn't, if you're looking for a nuts and bolts writer's workshop where you learn how to do X, Y, and Z, this was not that. But if you're looking for in true inspiration and trying to figure out how to find joy in it and to feel like you can do something, this was that. And then if you're a mid-career writer like me just looking for a fresh take on how it's done, I definitely got something out of it. Right. Thus concludes the, we love Rob Bell fan club, segment of the show, which will likely reappear at some point. / Adam takes a class. (laughing) I enjoy your continuing education. Adam's continuing education. That could be a theme. Send me on another mission. Let's talk about this Goldman Prize as the winner of the week here. Yes. The winner of the week is the Goldman Prize. Would you like me to explain the Goldman Prize? Yeah, please do. (clears throat) The Goldman Prize, a one way of putting it, is it's the Nobel Prize for grassroots activists, which is really what Goldman family who's behind the prize kind of created it for. Was to reward people. Every continent gets one winner every year. Except for Antarctica. So six continents a year recognized, and the winners are people doing grassroots work that have had a significant impact. And what they get is a cash prize, like the Genius Grant or anything else that they can do anything they want with. And it's a six-figure prize of some kind. I used to remember the exact amount, but it's escaping me. And so the first time I heard about Goldman Prize. was when Berta Caceres who we, I think we might've mentioned her on the show before. She's the Honduran environmental freedom fighter who was murdered for trying to stop a dam from being built on the river in her ancestral homeland. I think we did talk about her. And I went down and like a week after she was murdered, another environmental activist was murdered there. And Honduras is, there's no other way of saying it, is it's basically verging on failed state status. There's so much corruption that it's kind of leaked all the way up to the presidency. And the people who killed her have been connected to the current administration there through the lecture company. And so I went and reported on that. That's how I heard about Goldman. But what makes this announcement, this week special to me is that Kristal Ambrose from The Bahamas. Ocean plastics activists and pioneer in education and study of ocean plastics is one of the winners. And I was with her on the 5 Gyres Expedition from Eleuthra, where she lives and where she works to Bermuda. And her story is really interesting. She started kind of like, just as, she used to be a scuba diver in Nassau, like a scuba diving instructor at Atlantis. Atlantis. In Nassau. Right. And next thing she's in Eleuthra, and she sees all this plastic on the beaches, and she's saying that something's wrong here. And she starts through her curiosity, finding her curiosity in that, realizing that is this our plastic? Is this The Bahamas plastic? Or is it coming in from elsewhere? She started to collect it. She started to educate, she ended up connecting with 5 Gyres. She got last minute invitation to go on one of their expeditions to the Great Pacific garbage patch. She made the flight, made the, like the expedition and like loved the last minute, like running to get on the boat. And next thing, flash forward, whatever, seven years later, I forget exactly how many years later she's a Goldman Prize winner. And the reason that she won, is because in 2017 and through their Fifth Annual Plastic Camp where she takes students of primary and middle school age, and she gets them to look at the problem of plastic pollution and come up with ideas that could solve the problem. It's youth activism workshop. She hosted a second edition with kind of her all-stars from the Summer Camp Program, which is, and did something. The first is kind of a plastic pollution work education workshop. Then she did this youth activism workshop with our all-stars and they surveyed the community to find out if locals would support a plastic bag ban. And through this process, the students is high decided with Kristal, let's try to get The Bahamas to implement a plastic bag tax, not a ban, but a tax. And so eventually she got a meeting with the Minister of the Environment and The Bahamas with the students. And the students, this was 2017, that summer, she met with the students, 2018 she gets this meeting. And on the way to the meeting, she's all nervous. She's like, come on students, wait, wear your best clothes, no talking out of order, be on your best behavior. We have to do it properly. And the students are like, Ms. Kristal that's boring. We wanna sing the song that we wrote. And they'd written this song about, it was, ♪ we are the change ♪ ♪ we are the solution ♪ ♪ we can fix this plastic pollution ♪ Which had been a part of their video that had gone very well. And so that's what they did. They went in and they did their song and the minister was like, you wanna just ban or tax bags? What about all single use plastic? Oh, wow. And so grew into this thing where by 2020, after they helped write this bill, now The Bahamas doesn't, it's illegal now to import any single use plastic into the country. I didn't know that. And so because of this. Wow. So you cant get plastic water bottles in The Bahamas? It's now, it was a six month, there was a six month, what's it called? The six month phase in or whatever. Right, right. And now apparently you can't. That's amazing. And, but that doesn't solve the problem with plastic on the beaches because a lot of it is. Grace period. Grace period. Thank you. You're a lawyer. It took me a minute though. (laughing) It's not, that's not antitrust. I have a white beard for a reason buddy. But the plastic is coming in from elsewhere. It's coming in from cruise ships, it's coming in from the United States. The Gulf Stream goes right through The Bahamas. And so they have a lot of transboundary waste. And so right now she's getting her PhD and studying that exact thing, transboundary waste and how it's hitting these Island nations that are kinda caught in the middle. So, but she still is, got this, The Bahamas Plastic Movement is her baby. That's what it's called. And Kristal Ambrose is the head of that and. It's pretty cool. So this Goldman Prize is a big deal, right? Like for, and their whole thing is finding these gems, like these grassroots people that are making change. Exactly. Just a quick rundown, Chibeze Ezekiel the Ghanaian winner basically stopped a coal power plant and changed that into a solar plant basically. And did that through grassroots activism. Leydy Pech, I think in Mexico, she's an indigenous Mayan beekeeper and led a coalition that successfully halted Monsanto's planting of a genetically modified soybeans in the Yucatan. Lucie Pinson in France, Lucie maybe. She successfully pressured Francis three largest banks to eliminate financing for new coal projects and coal companies. And Nemonte Nenquimo in Ecuador, she is an indigenous activists that protected 500,000 acres of Amazon Forest in her territory from oil extraction. And then another one that kind of hits close to home is Paul Sein Twa in Myanmar. He's a Korean activist that created a 1.35 million acre piece park along the Salween River, which is a major river basin, a major biodiversity zone and a place where the Korean State, the current state is on one side, Thailand's on the other side. And Myanmar has been trying to basically eliminate the Korean State as a place and as a people for years and years. And there's been a rebellion there ongoing off and on for dozens of years. And so this was a peace park, a way to stop the war in this area and protect nature. And so all those people are heroes. They're all incredible activists, Kristal among them. And it's incredible. Slate, and I just felt bad because I was supposed to celebrate with Kristal in San Francisco at this great gathering. Right. Do they have some big fancy gala? They do. And the fancy gala, like Kristal comes from humble origins in Bahamas, and her father, her parents go to Florida every once in a while, but they never been to San Francisco where this was gonna take place. So she was kind of bummed. We were bummed for her, but at the same time it's gotten her lots of attention and press all these activists. And it's a great thing for all of them. And it's recognition for life work, without them looking at it, she didn't even know she was being looked at for this. Right. So they do it in such a really stylish way. And Robert was narrating her life on this video. We'll drop the links in the show. Yeah. Goldman prize.org. It's a one hour, you could actually watch the "Sigourney Weaver" hosts the one hour presentation and you can get there's many docs on all these activities. On each one of them. Yeah. So these docs are getting made and these recipients aren't even aware of that? So by the time that docs are being made, they knew. I see. So they do research on you when you don't. But they don't know if they're a candidate? It's not like you submit or you lobby for this. No. But like even the docs, like in the case of Berta, when she was down there, the activists were, there were threats against her life the whole time. And when the Goldman people went down there to actually do their mini doc, it was no puff piece. Like they got into some real trouble. They wondered if they were gonna get out of life. Wow. So it's like real, and sometimes some years it's real reporting in areas where there's real conflict and real stakes, life and death. Wow. That's cool. Yeah. Yeah. I was not familiar with that at all. That's that's pretty cool. And it's like, I like every one of those people that you named I'm like, that would be a good person to have on the podcast to learn more about that. That's true heroes, all of these people. Yeah. And I'll drop the link to the Berta Caceres story too, that I reported for Playboy. Cool. Congratulations Kristal. Congratulations Kristal. Kristal Ambrose, people. Let's do some listener questions. Okay. Thank you, Joe for that question. Northern New York is a place that I'm glad I'm not in right now, 'cause I know what it's like living in Upstate New York at this time of year, it's very cold and dark. So sending you good vibes from sunny California. This is an interesting question. It's a bit esoteric, which I like. And in trying to wrap my head around how to best answer this, I guess the first thing I wanna say is, of course you need ego. I feel like there's this tension that he's having between humility and ego. Right. You need healthy ego in order to move forward in the world, right? That does not exist at odds or in contradiction to things like humility. You can be humble with a healthy ego. And those things coexisting, I think is where I wanna focus my answer today. You also need patients for this kind of journey. And with that healthy ego and humility and patience, it's about learning to lean into intuition, which I think he's already understanding. 'Cause he's saying, looking for the doors that are opening for you. Sounds like he's got, sounds like he's excited about something. Yeah, what's beneath here? Like we don't have specifics, so I don't know exactly what's going on. But I feel like something has woken him up that is getting that sort of shaking the sleeping self a little bit and energizing him in a certain way. And I think looking for those doors that are opening is key here. Like learning to lean into your intuition about which doors to walk through, I think leads to a certain hypervigilance around your environment. Like the more you're paying attention, the more you're gonna see those doors or learn how to discern the doors that are opening from the ones that you should yourself close. So it's about paying attention to the signals that are being given to you. And I think so much of this is about not sweeping change or grand gestures, but really micro adjustments. Like when you're in that hypervigilant state and you're thinking about this move, and you're trying to identify those doors. It's about when you're saying yes and when you're saying no. And I think saying no is equal, equally important, if not more important than looking for the open doors, right? Like you're gonna have to say no to stuff you're used to saying yes to, and that can feel uncomfortable. And that's a practice that I think you have to kind of acclimate to over time and can be practiced in these little micro scenarios where it's essentially a low risk situation. But I think what's most interesting to me about this question, is Joe's perception that there's a conflict between his innate humility, this character trait that he obviously values in himself and living authentically as if to step out and into this more authentic version of yourself or to follow whatever this instinct or intuition is, must be some kind of ego trip, right? Like that by doing this, he's engaging him in his ego and he's betraying his humility that he prides himself on. Right. And I don't think that that's the best way to look at this. You need confidence in yourself. Choice. Well, I think it's a, well, let me explain it this way. You need confidence in yourself. You need faith, you need patients, but these things are not selfish. I think there's this false comparison that he's drawing between this dry for authenticity and it being an ego, a selfish ego trip. Because in fact, what it is, is an act of self love, like you're honoring yourself by listening to your intuition, by following that muse and creating boundaries around that, isn't an ego trip and it's not selfish. It's actually protecting what serves you. And I think that that requires conviction and courage, and those are laudable traits in a human being. So I would encourage Joe to not look at this as egoistic or selfish, but to flip it and to understand that it's actually selfish of other people and the world to want or expect you to be something that you're not. So if you've been living your life in a certain way, to fit into a box or to please other people, or for whatever reason, and you're worried about stepping outside of that, because it feels self serving or egotistic, consider the fact or consider what's kept you in that box or kept you limited in those ways. And those forces, if they are external forces, those are the self-serving forces, right? And you catering to that is an act of self betrayal in many ways. So I think. Interesting. Letting go of that ego aspect and understanding that it's self love will allow you to move forward while also honoring and embracing this idea of humility with the whole thing. I feel like you're picking up on some sort of like external definition of humility and ego that was transferred to him when he was younger. Well, let's talk about humility. Like when he's saying, I feel like this is in a front to humility, like, is it humility? Like, is this truly humility that he's considering? Or is it sheepishness? Right? Like, oh, when I stay small in this world, I'm being humble, but maybe you're just afraid, or maybe you lack the confidence to actually be yourself. And it's not in fact humility. So the question that I would pose and leave for Joe is, is there a sense that you're not entitled to live your life your way? And that to be humble is to stay in that box or to stay small. And so he was thinking of anything that is like, self promoting is considered ego kind of inflating, but you're talking about. But put that Rob Bell lens on. Right. Exactly. So elaborate more on that. Finding the joy. And you know what Rob Bell also said is that. And finding the joy, but also the freedom to be in self love and sort of congratulate, be your own biggest fan of your life. Yeah. And he also said is, it's not egotistical, it's humbling. That's something he specifically said in that. And it's true. Like if you really embark on something, doing something that feels like is connecting to your soul and what you're meant to be doing here, you're gonna find it's more humbling than it is ego. (laughing) But I don't mean that in like, beware, what I mean is that, it doesn't have to be in a negative way. It can be in like you feel so at one with the cosmos some days, that you feel like a speck. Yeah. And that is humbling in a way that's like, wow, that's how big the world. That's how beautiful the world is. And I'm playing my little part. And it could also be the other way which is, you might get kicked in the face a couple of times to see if you really wanna do this. Right. It is humbling innately to go on, branch out on your own path and try to do something that you didn't know that you could do, or that you just dared yourself to do. It is a humbling act I think. Right. Rob Bell would. So we're leaving Joe with this idea that what he thinks his ego is actually humility. And what he thinks is humility is actually ego and fear, because he's attached to this story that actually is false. Yeah. Or that's certainly one way to look at it. Right. And if it gets you on the road to self actualizing, then look at it that way. Right. And Joe, if this doesn't resonate with you at all, then. You get your money back. Yeah. (laughing) I'm refunding you because I don't know enough about the story, but I have a feeling we might be onto something there. And Color is just so I'm trying this new thing where if you are concise with your question, it gives you a better chance. That's the Skolnick algorithm. If you wanna game the algorithm, keep it short. keep it short and into the point. And also just be really clear thinking and it might help, a lot of these. You can tell, some people are reading from a script they've written themselves, and it's easier to answer a question that's a little bit clear. And even though that that was esoteric, it still was clear. He still had a very specific thing he was asking. He made his way through the algorithm. He made it through. All right, let's go to the Seth from Wisconsin. Let's go to Seth. Thank you, Seth. Thanks, Seth. Also coming to us from a very cold part of the world. Yeah. And it's a divorce question. I love divorce questions. You do? Yeah. Well, let me say this. We're not divorce relationship question. Right. Yeah. Poor self esteem and avoidance of discomfort is like the perfect one, two combo that fuels isolation, that keeps a lot of people stuck. Get some stuck, keeps them stuck and also is very effective for keeping people at arms length that day, right? Like if you don't feel great about yourself and you're not comfortable with any kind of conflict or doing anything outside your small little zone of comfort, then you're unlikely to take any risks with other people. And that's gonna keep you separated from other human beings. So when I hear those two qualities, I think what's behind that combination. And I hear somebody who feels like they don't have a voice, or they're not entitled to have a voice or to speak their truth. Somebody who's afraid of letting anyone else know who they really are. And perhaps somebody who even feels undeserving of love itself. And I think the avoidance of discomfort is rooted in the sense that if somebody really knew you, if they truly understood you, if they could see right into your soul, that they would leave you, right? That you're not worthy of love. But I think what I would urge Seth to do is, is to look at how these tendencies maybe contributed or in some way led to the dissolving of the marriage. Obviously we don't know anything about what happened there. But those things, that avoidance of discomfort that poor self-esteem, those are ways that they're like coping mechanisms to keep you safe, right? And to prevent you from being in the position of being hurt. It seems like he's figured that out. Like that is what led to it. Ultimately that manifests the very thing that you're trying to avoid. You get hurt. Right? So in truth, it's the vulnerability, it's the taking risks. It's the willingness and the courage to whether that discomfort that ultimately creates the intimacy. It's counterintuitive, right? Like if I stay safe, then I can be in this relationship and I'm not gonna get left, but you have to take the risk to pave the road for intimacy that brings you closer. So as uncomfortable and as counterintuitive as it is, that's I think the growth arc for this person to embrace. Vulnerability, meaning revealing your, how you really truly feel. Being willing to be honest with somebody else about your insecurities or your poor self-esteem, or what's bothering you, and the willingness to have the uncomfortable conversations. Understanding that they may lead to a conflict, but it's only through that kind of tension that you can come to a place of understanding and bonding. Well, you have some suggestions in terms of how to cultivate that. Yeah. A couple things. I think some of them are super basic and elementary. The first thing is, if you're trying to create those bonds, you've got to set aside time for conversation and treat that as sacred rather than just saying, well, the next time I see this person, I'll try to do it. Like if you establish it as a formal thing, that's calendared and respected by both parties, you're creating a crucible, like an environment in which there's expectations around that kind of thing transpiring. So setting aside time is super important. I know that it's scary if you're somebody who is conflict avoidant or afraid of that kind of discomfort. So the best way to get over that is to start to practice it in a low stakes environment. So maybe not with your ex-wife, but find a friend who you trust and use them as an experiment, like say something vulnerable, like take a risk and try to have a conversation that shakes you out of that safety zone a little bit, knowing that that person is somebody who's close to you and nothing bad is gonna happen. And I think that will help you acclimate or get a sense of how this can work. And then over time, slowly increase the intensity, take little, bigger and bigger risks until you're ready to kind of do this with your ex-wife. I wouldn't do the trial run with the ex-wife because my sense is that that might be too perilous at this moment. You can do pushups to get ready for something like that. Or even if it's for a new relationship, which it could be for, think of these things, it's still good to get the muscle working with a friend so that when the next relationship comes around, that you're ready to be who you are. Right. And what a burden you're carrying around, trying to prevent that person from seeing who you really are, like the weight of that is tremendous. And when you let that go and let somebody in, there's a huge release and the intimacy that comes with that is tremendous. The other thing I would suggest is in these exchanges or in this dynamic to always, this is something I do all the time and I do it on the podcast, is to lead with vulnerability. Like if you, instead of waiting for that person to give you the feedback or to say the intimate thing, like you've got to go first. And I think when you do that, you're giving the other permission for that level of intimacy. You're saying this is safe. I trust you. You can trust me. And then with that, it's practicing how to listen. Like really listen, because the most valuable thing that you can give another person is your time and of course your full attention. And the more that the other person really feels like they're being heard, then the closer they're going to feel to you, and the more they're gonna gravitate towards you. Staying out of the other person's reaction to your attempts at intimacy, I think is important. If you're wed to a certain result, like I'm gonna have this conversation and then this is gonna happen, then you're setting yourself up for disappointment. So it's not about the result. It's just about engaging in the process of being open, vulnerable, and intimate and trusting that over time that's gonna breathe the intimacy that you seek, but trust takes time. So patience, I think is super important. And then the esteem piece I think is super important. And forgive me if you've heard me say this, 'cause I repeat it all the time, but self esteem comes through performing esteemable acts, whether it's on behalf of others or for yourself, it applies to yourself as well. So simple things like setting, healthy boundaries and making time for those that you care about, investing and helping other people all will slowly open you up and ground you a little bit better and make you a healthier person for your current and future relationships. And then the final thing I would say, sorry, do you wanna say something? No, I'm just agreeing with you. The final thing, and this is important too, is to forgive yourself, to like let it go because there is this narrative about, I'm somebody with self-esteem and I don't like to be uncomfortable and I'm afraid of this. And I'm afraid of that. You've got to rewire that neurology and start telling yourself a new story. Like in other words, letting go of that story and opening up to perhaps a new and better story. And again, those pushups, those little actions that you're taking will help inform that, but that story is likely hardwired into you and pretty calcified. So it's gonna take some work and practice and intentionality to create that new narrative. But that's the work man, I think. Yeah. The only thing I'd add is that distancing that can occur in relationships. I think there is a certain as relationships mature, there's gonna be a certain areas of freedom where people can operate and you don't all, relationships can evolve and distance, it depends on what you mean by distance, but you can operate in different spheres and function differently. And as long as you have that, like you said, you have the space to communicate, you're listening, you're being vulnerable, you are not reacting and not expecting certain responses or certain things coming your way, and you feel good about what you're giving to the world, in the end, that distance won't even feel like distance. It'll just feel like your life is working. Yeah. And there's something about just owning your truth and being who you are. Yeah. And the more that you do that, the more you can kind of stand on your own two feet and it becomes less about what that person thinks of that and just about you and your relationship with yourself. And if you do all that and everything your wife says, everything will be fine. (laughing) Is that a guaranteed? Just a wife joke. It's a wife joke. Let's go to Michael. Sorry. (laughing) All right, here's Michael. We have another cold, wintry place right now. Sorry, next time it'll all be the islands. Great question, Michael, let me preface my response by making it very clear that I am not a doctor. I'm certainly not a cardiologist, but I would encourage you to see a cardiologist and develop a relationship with the cardiologist. I think it's always a good idea to have your heart regularly tested, get a calcium scan, get your blood work done. It's all very easy. Do you do that affordable? Yeah. I had a calcium scan done like a year and a half ago. I should probably get another one. Like starting at 50, you recommend that? I think even sooner. All the cardiologists that I've had on the podcast, say the same thing, which is that, the plaques in your arteries began in your teenage years. It's not like you wake up at 50 and suddenly you have a problem. Like this is a progressive thing over many, many years, that's informed by genetics, diet, lifestyle, all of these things it's complicated, but being ahead of it, I think is important. David call a cardiologist. So, at least you have a baseline to know what you're dealing with, right? If there are cases where people get a calcium scan and our alarm to get some crazy score because they're completely asymptomatic and then they realize like they have to deal with stuff, So that's a good idea. Of course, there are cases of endurance athletes that end up with heart issues and you hear this a lot. I don't know what the statistics are on this. And I don't know how many of the, how much of this is outlier versus versus majority or anything like that. But I think it's important to not live your life in fear and not use those incidents as an excuse to opt out of life or to make excuses for yourself. I think it's important to be prudent and responsible and appreciate the fact that as you age, you're not gonna be able to do things like you could do them in your 20s and that we need to gauge our efforts a little bit more consciously than we needed to when we were in the past. And the question is really specific to things that that I do or that we do. My life is very different now than it was when I was training for ultra man. So my training is at a very low boil right now, but even in the event that I was to sign up for a race that would be eight or nine hours or 10 hours or whatever, the gravel race distances that you're thinking about, some of the things that I would think about and take seriously is not over training, not being chronically exhausted. I don't think that those are good ideas as we get older and to pay much more attention to recovery, nutrition, et cetera, particularly recovery, and all the kind of pesky little things that are annoying, like foam rolling and body work and getting adjustments and having active tissue release. And all of those things I think are really important. And it's hard right now also. It's hard 'cause yeah, you're right. But you can get devices, that can at least help you with some of that stuff until we can safely do that again. Also it's important to train responsibly. You don't, this is not something, if you're gonna be out for nine or 10 hours, you don't want your training to be, you just winging it. And like I'm just gonna go out and ride my bike and ride hard when I feel like it, like, I would encourage you to get some professional consultation, whether it's a coach or a training plan of some form and paying attention to how your body is responding to that on a day to day in a week to week basis so that you're not overdoing it. I feel like a 54, I love just going out in that like zone 2 mode and enjoying myself. And that way I don't get run, I'm not over training, I'm giving myself a workout, but I'm definitely more gentle with myself than I would've been 10 years ago even. And do it for the joy of it, I think is important, to the point of endurance athletes having heart problems, for every person like that, there's a guy like Don Wildman, who I was talking to Laird Hamilton about who was just killing it, up through his 80s on the mountain bike, just destroying every young buck in Malibu, with his, Jack Lalaine lifestyle. So, there's guys like that too, who went all the way to the end and lived a very long and fulfilling life, basically doing what he loved to do. Yeah. So I guess those are my thoughts on that. Even Dan Buettner's guy who the in Loma Linda, who was swimming into his 90s, that doctor plant-based guy. Oh, right, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I forget his name. I think Dan had them on the tip of my tongue. I know who you're talking about. Yeah. Yeah. Amazing guy. That guy wasn't doing, he wasn't racing. No, but he was still active. And Michael lives in Boulder and everybody in Boulder looks like they're ready to win Ironman all the time. So it's a very hyper active and competitive environment. And middle-aged guys, especially there's so many of them. To be honest, I'm Michael I'm right now. I've got an ankle thing, a pack thing. Then my back locked up on me. I got a neck thing I've had my biggest problem. You have a baby? I got the baby. I haven't been, that's the main thing , is I haven't been doing my recovery. I haven't been doing the yoga, obviously massage is out. And so the recovery stuff backs up on you. And the next thing you know, your body starts to rebel. So, but I've never done the cardiologist, never had a calcium scan. So this is all news to me. So I don't have any (laughs) but that's why we have the group ultra here to tell you how to do it. I would, I think that makes sense to think about these things, as I'm getting older, I'm in my late 40s now, as I'm getting older, I think about it too. I think it makes sense to think about heart health. I think you're doing the right thing by even bringing up the question. I think it's something that probably a lot of people in their 50s think about and we've all heard, when we were kids, it was Jim Fix or whatever for, I forget who it was, the runner that right. It was Jim Fix, the guy that wrote that book. Yeah, yeah. He died. Who died quite young. Yeah. So there's always those crazy horror stories. And of course people you might know, but, and in Hollywood, the stories were always like the 50 year old producer who had had blow in his system, died on the basketball court, very different than Boulder. Right. On a very tactical level, a couple of things that you could do. Since you're living in Boulder, you probably have a heart rate monitor strap already. Like this is not going to be news to you. But if you don't, that would be one thing that I would do, get a heart rate monitor or track your heart rate when you're training, understand what your zones are So, you know specifically which energy systems you're training, which will help you be more efficient, to pinpoint how to work the systems properly without overdoing it. And you might wanna look into getting like a WHOOP, because a WHOOP basically is very good at tracking your recovery, how you're bouncing back by monitoring your heart rate variability and also your respiratory rate and all of these kind of markers help inform the level of strain that your body is prepared to endure. And that could be a tool in paying attention, paying better attention to your heart health. Yeah. And I'm sure there's plenty of doctors and perhaps cardiologists in Boulder who are well versed in this subject because it's so much a part of the culture there. So find the right person to be your consulting partner on this. And zone two forever. I just did a hour 22 zone two the whole time. For the first time, I was able. And look at that smile on your face. And it felt great. My back was killing me. My ankle was, but it was a great time. On that note. This show conclude. 2020s "Roll On" edition. Yeah, exactly. On that note. Awesome man. So I don't know when we'll be back with this, it will be at some point in the new year, stay healthy everybody, enjoy the holidays. Happy holiday, Love your loved ones. Be kind, be grateful. And I'll catch you in 2021 because we are putting this fucking bad boy in the rear view. Are we not? 2020 has gone baby. It's gone and dusted. We are done with it. It is not quite yet done with us, but it will be soon. Very soon. How do you feel? I feel great, man. This was a good first session. In the new studio. We did it, man. We did. Look good. Feel good? Feel good. You ready for the January break? I am. Travel's kind of out the window. So for the foreseeable future, yeah. I don't know exactly what I'm gonna do. Maybe get in my car and drive around, but we'll see adventure. Yeah. Cool. If you wanna learn more about Adam, you can find them at Adam Scolnick on all the fun social stuff that is owned by the giant conglomerates on Facebook. Yeah, that's true. You can find me at Rich Roll. If you would like your question answered on a future edition of the show, you can leave us a voicemail at(424) 235-4626. If you want to the Skolnik algorithm concise and clear. You don't sing, sing if you want. Do what you want. Yeah. Makes it crazy. What would Rob Bell help? Make it crazy. So don't be afraid. Don't forget to hit that subscribe button on YouTube, Apple and Spotify. There will be shown outs on the episodePage@richroll.com with links to all the stuff that we talked about today, all the, we I've already compiled all those links. So plenty of stuff to dive deep into today's subject matter. You can also submit your questions on the Facebook group, but honestly, leave us a voicemail. It's more fun that way. And that's it. I appreciate you guys. I love you. I don't take your attention for granted. I love doing the show. It means so much to me that you guys are on this journey with me and tuning in. So I will see you back here at some point in 2021. Until then enjoy all the shows that we have banked and all the intros that I've already recorded for them. That makes it sound like I'm in the present moment, but I'm actually in parts, unknown parts. Cool. Until then peace, plants Namaste.
