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The Rich Roll podcast. Hey, everybody, welcome here.

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Welcome back to another hot off the griddle edition of Roll On. But before we dive in, you know I love my greens. You know, I love my athletics, but put them together and like peanut butter and chocolate boom, more athletics, more greens.

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That's what I always say. And more greens, more athletics is what I say right now, at least.

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Which is why I'm delighted to once again remind you that athletic greens isn't just a match made in heaven. It isn't just delicious and easy. It is the best, most comprehensive daily all in one superfood powder on the planet packed with 75 vitamins, minerals and whole foods sourced ingredients.

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It's basically everything you need to put the opt in optimum or the max in maximum, my friend. Yeah, and right now I thought of Greens as offering my audience a free one year supply of vitamin D. Very important. And five free travel packs with your first purchase. When you visit my link today, you'll basically never have to buy vitamin D again. Simply visit athletic greens, dotcom rich roll that's athletic greens, dotcom slash rich roll to get a free one year supply of vitamin D and five free travel packs.

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Adam?

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Yes, sir. Do you enjoy high performance recovery, making sure that you're being as well?

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Sometimes sometimes good enough for me. So let's talk about the healing properties of light therapy, specifically the new cutting edge light therapy modality called JUV.

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Is that three or four? It's two O's. But even more importantly to these Jakov, that is sorcery.

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It is juv is a futuristic, wall mounted panel of basically small light bulbs that emit isolated red and near infrared wavelengths of light, which are crucial wavelengths for human health.

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And they deliver them directly to your skin and your cells, which stimulate your mitochondria and help you effectively produce more energy.

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Then in a very 2001 A Space Odyssey kind of way or a 2021 kind of way out, all I got to say, joking aside, you've really has aided in my own recovery and sleep and maintaining circadian rhythms, not to mention keeping my skin glowing, which I noticed when I finally shaved my beard off.

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It's very cool and it's become a big part of my daily routine.

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So go to Juv Dotcom Jakov dotcom slash rich role and check out the juice. That's Jay of dot com forward slash rich roll. Use that specific you URL and when you're there you'll see a unique code that will provide a discount on your device exclusions. Apply Happy Duvan.

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Let's do the show. You ready? Yes. All right, let's do it. Hey, everybody, what's up, people? Thank you for permitting us to once again infect you with a potent new strain of roll on.

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Where in myself, in my sidecar hype beast, the always congenial and ponderous Sir Adam Skolnick chew on matters of the day withdrawal repartee in a manner that is hopefully somewhat instructive and possibly at times even entertaining.

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You're entertaining. I get fan mail now.

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I just I try to develop a rapport with whoever I'm telling you.

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You're in communion with the audience, right?

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I try to build rapport.

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Well, as always, you guys know, we talk about matters of the day. We do a little bit of show and tell. We answer listener questions on the back end of the program. If you would like your question considered, leave us a voicemail at four two four, two, three, five, four, six, two, six.

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Before we dive in, my kids, who are my YouTube mentors, tell me that I must demand you indulge us with a powerful smash to that subscribe button on YouTube.

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OK, Boomer Apple podcast Spotify.

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Click that YouTube notification bell hit the thumbs up like button. Leave your thoughts in the comments section below and that's it. Let's get into it. Adam, how are you doing. Happy Passover. Thank you sir.

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Happy half Passover to you. Half past actually half tense. You have some. No, I'm an honorary. Oh Your Honor. Not half. Yeah. Honorary Passover honorary. You know what's funny about Passover is that, you know, back in the day well, today, actually after the day, like way back in the day.

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Well, like yesterday, any day you could actually walk from Egypt to Jerusalem in under a week or the Iron Cowboy could probably do it in five days. Right. And but back in the day when it was just a caravan of opinionated Jews with no ways. Wrong turn, left turn, right turn, 40 years later, they wind up in Jerusalem lying about which way to go. It took a long time.

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Yeah, is it really you could do it in seven days.

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Now you can do it like it would be further, but I guess not. You must have to go around, like, through Jordan or something.

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But Steven Pressfield, new book, A Man at Arms. There's a similar journey that takes place in that novel. Oh, yeah. I seem to recall it takes these people a little bit longer than seven days.

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Yeah, they they were they were loafing. Well, you know, no ways. What are you going to do?

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You know, I found deficient and like the monochrome of the desert. I mean, how do you know where you're going? Yeah, Polynesians, they were not I mean, you can say a lot of good things about Jews. They were not they were not guiding themselves by the stars.

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Okay. How are you doing otherwise?

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Good, man. Good. I was back out in the cold, murky Pacific Ocean. What's the temp these days was 53, 54.

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It's pretty cold. And it was like it was like there was usually the water. The clarities is decent enough. I mean, often it can it can get murky, but often it's also really blue. This time it was like we were swimming through the remains of a million jellyfish. Right. Brown and green and stringy and and cold. But, you know, that's what is so fun about that swim around that reef. And is that still always beautiful?

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It's always a good idea.

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Did it give you a moment to ponder the themes of CCRC, which we're going to talk about a little bit later?

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No, because I hadn't watched you. Oh, you had I cram for my my studies last night, last minute, and I was the last one. But but I was thinking about Alexi Molchanov and how cold it was for him and how cold it was.

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We want to talk about that right now. It's not a winner of the week.

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It is. But you can hat tip it all, hat tip it to another world record for free dive champion extraordinaire Alexi Molchanov. He dove eighty meters in a lake in Siberia.

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Underneath the ice, underneath the ice, the water temp there it was one to two degrees Celsius.

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So, you know, 35 knots. And I was in and he was in a seven ml. But he actually did a test dive the day before in a five ml. And I was in, you know, triathlon wetsuit, which has some close to five millimeter panels and others, you know, you know how they are. They're mixed panels. And I was in fifty three fifty four degree water and I was and I wasn't diving eighty meters. Yeah.

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Yeah.

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Well, you wrote a great piece for The New York Times once again, the free diving correspondent at large for the time. Yes.

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But what's cool about in addition to just being, you know, very well written piece, I guess we're kind of talking about it. Well, we can show that and talk about it later. But is the the the presentation, like the multimedia aspects of storytelling that the time seems to be embracing?

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Because it's on it, it's on another level and they like it and it helps actually get more eyeballs to it and ends up it happened with Mya's record wave as well. It sets it sets the when you can get video, it's setting it apart. So and and that is definitely a driver to the stories when I'm selling them.

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So on a fitness level, are you resting on your four by four by forty eight laurels, or have you been able to, you know, perpetuate the momentum?

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Well it's funny because I knew I was doing four by four by forty eight. I, I kind of joined one of these Garmin challenges for like a badge. And so through March 31st I'm supposed to run 505 kilometers from January 1st to March 31st for the first quarter. And I'm close to that market. So I've got to knock that off by Wednesday. And I've been getting some zone to motivation. A couple of your listeners, one more recently reached out and said that when he started zone tubing three years ago, he was running 12 minute mile zone, too.

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Right. And now he's doing extended periods in the low 70s. Wow. And it was just like, that's huge.

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But it's really, you know, everybody who has reached out to me, I really appreciate it. And that kind of stuff is very motivating. And I have been continuing to do my Zonta stuff. And I'm not resting. I've been trying. It's hard because I want to keep running five, six days a week. But I'd like to get in the ocean, too. And I just have a limited amount of time. So it's a matter of choosing.

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But I think if you intersperse, like, I don't know that you need to run six days a week. I don't run that much. I mean, I think if you intersperse it with some swims, it'll actually benefit your running. OK, but perpetuating that like dedication to Zone two, it's it's playing a long game. You know, most people I get so much feedback from people saying I tried the zone to thing, but I just got bored or I gave up or I wasn't seeing progress or wasn't working.

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And I think people are just impatient like it works. But you have to really dedicate yourself to it.

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And it does require a different kind of discipline because you have to let go of everything you think you know about what it means to get fit. Yes, and just understand that you're going to be on a journey for a long time and you're not going to see results for quite an extended period of time, but then when it starts to kick in, it really makes a huge difference.

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As in the case of that example you just cited.

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I feel like I've shaved in six months a minute off my mild time that submerge my own time in Zone two.

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So it's not about getting faster. It's becoming more efficient so that the strain on your body is reduced. And what, you know, you used to be able to do at a 10 minute pace or whatever, if you're doing it at a nine minute pace with the same amount of output, just continuing that trend. Imagine running seven minute miles and having it feel like it feels like when you're running ten minute miles.

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That's my dream. So, like, that's and that's why I feel like I'm I do I'm starting to see some small movement. And I also like mostly I'm feeling it in my on my feet, which because I used to be such a pounder and I'd be hammering like you could hear me come in from like 100 miles away shaking and shaking the buildings. Yeah. And now I'm really just like I'm very quiet now compared to what I used to be.

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Right. And not just the breath, but the my footsteps. Cool. And so I do feel like that's helping. But at the same time, my form is not great, you know? I mean, there's a lot of improvement that can happen. And then Nicholas just messaged me this morning. There's some swim run challenge happening in June where he's trying to get like teams around the world did. Do you know, to pile up the swim run miles and to have some sort of virtual competition?

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Oh, wow. I'll look at that. I'll bring it to you. That's cool. Yeah, that's cool. Yeah. I had my coach, Chris Howe and Caroline Burkel in here the other day, and Chris is training for a trans Tahoe assault.

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Or you go and and I can't remember how many miles it is like twenty eight or something like that. And he's trying to recruit Caroline and I to swim segments and crew him. And I just I've been swimming at all like pools are so difficult to get into. And, you know, I'm not thrilled about getting into 53 degree water.

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Yeah, it's fine for, you know, a plunge, but like for training, that's a different thing.

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So. Right, right. I don't know. I got a text this morning putting some pressure. You got to do it, man. Let's get up there. We'll see what happens. How are you how what's going on in the right space?

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You know, I'm a little foggy and groggy today. So if I lapse into, you know, kind of zoned out space, it's on you to carry this podcast.

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I just didn't sleep well last night. We're recording this on Monday. What's the day to day? The twenty ninth. Yes.

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The full moon has been in full effect the last couple of days, actually has been really dramatic in L.A. with it resting low on the horizon. Yeah.

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Has looked huge. And I don't know what it is. I think we talked about this before. Right. Like I just don't sleep great on the full moon. So I'm for because you're outside of today. Julie's out of town with one of our our daughters. So I'm on kid duty, home duty. It's been a busy past week getting in some interesting training in the gym.

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It's weird, like I've really committed to this this this strength program that I'm on.

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And, you know, I feel like my body's changing, like I touch a weight and I like bulk up immediately. So I feel like bulky and like it feels good to be strong. Like, I haven't felt this way in a long time, but my body is changing and in a way that I'm not used to like. I'm used to being very lean and agile.

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And now I feel like this brick walking around. Really? Yeah.

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I'm going from, you know, hippy trail guy. Right. A long beard, like basically, you know, playing volleyball and top gun.

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That's the trajectory that I'm on. I want to get back now. It's like summer out. I wanted more outdoors, like I'm not a gym rat, but I really do want to, you know, take this thing to another level and, wow, get strong and see where that leads.

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How's the back? So it's it's good.

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I've been doing the cold plunging and that's been great. I've got the temp down to like forty six now I'm taking it down like two degrees every couple of days and how long I want to work down towards to thirty nine but I do three rounds of four minutes alternating. There's a there's, we also have an outdoor bathtub so I put hot water on that and I go back and forth, I do four minutes in the tub, three rounds. Wow.

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And it's been good and I'm adjusting to it and I'm not like when I first started at like fifty four degrees, I'd be like shivering, you know, and now I just get in.

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I'm like this feels awesome.

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Like to do acclimate to it. Not that it gets easier, it's still kind of a shock, but I look forward to it now and it really is quite refreshing, especially if you do it like in the late afternoon when your energy is starting to lull. Yeah, it's like taking a two hour now and it's really helping my back a lot, which has been great. So. You get to 39, you say, I'm enjoying that we're hard at work on voicing change volume two, which is cool.

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I keep trying to carve out time to work on that book.

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But this podcast takes up a lot of time.

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Brother, to tell you what, I have made time to get out on some gravel with with my bike, which has been really fun. It's just opened up like all these trails that I've never that are kind of too far away for me to run. But now I'm exploring them on two wheels and that's been super fun, like I can get from my house all the way over to the West Side and tour all around.

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And it's just like a whole different part of L.A. has suddenly opened up to me and the weather's gotten super warm.

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I wrote both Saturday and Sunday and and that was great. And then last night, just working on getting the Alex podcast up, which just went live, which is super fun. Early feedback on that is great.

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Got some good stuff coming up. Matthew Walker is doing the show on Saturday.

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People know him as one of, if not the preeminent authorities on sleeping with this amazing book, Why We Sleep. So I'm really looking forward to podcasting with him. I read his book when it came out and now I'm listening to it on audio book, which has been great.

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And a really cool development is that it looks like in two weeks we're going to travel to Minneapolis to do a series of interviews, including a sit down with the mayor there, Jacob Frei. As many people know today, the the trial just began, the Derek Shervin trial. He's the officer who's being charged with second and third degree murder of George Floyd. So that city's on pins and needles. And I think it would be a really interesting boots on the ground experience to go there and kind of get a sense of what's happening there, no doubt about it.

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So that's going to be incredible for you to get in there and weigh in and feel it should be should be heavy. And by then, who knows where the trial will be. I know. I know.

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Or the I mean, I can't imagine the stress that the mayor is shouldering at the moment and he could suddenly become unavailable. But I just think it's important, you know, I want to understand it better and the opportunity presented itself. And how did that come through? My buddy Brogan Graham, who's been on the show, is a buddy of mine. He's the founder of November Project. He used to live in San Diego, but he moved to Minneapolis a couple of years ago.

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And he's he's running buddies with with Jacob. Yeah. You said he's a really good runner.

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Yeah. So, yeah. Yeah.

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Mauffray is a very good runner, so hopefully get out on a run with him as well, which should be interesting.

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In other news, I got into a bit of a Twitter spat. I saw that the other day. Well, it's kind of a one sided Twitter. It's not like he responded or he didn't.

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But I don't know. I was feeling like a little bit spicy in response to this tweet that was posted by Senator Marshall, Dr. Roger Marshall from Kansas, who was railing.

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There was a video. He's railing against Meatless Mondays like it's some kind of crazy government overreach. And he was spouting he's a he's a he's a physician, but he was spouting all this nutritional nonsense. And I just couldn't let it stand. So I lost in there and kind of shared my I don't do that.

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Like, I'm not I'm not like you apply shit stirrer, but you play Twitter. Was I polite?

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You were Senator. You said why? You said quote unquote, Senator.

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I mean, that was kind of snide, I think, actually.

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But the engagement on that tweet was so crazy. I was like, oh, this is how people build their following on Twitter. Like they said stuff. Yeah. Like, you know.

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Now that's going to be true, though. I mean, he was attacking Meatless Monday.

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He opened the door and he was saying all kinds of stuff like if you're ah, it was in reference to imposing Meatless Mondays in high schools.

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Right. Right. And he was saying that if you're a high school athlete, there's no way that you can make this work. It's just it's going to be impairing children. And I just think that that's untrue. Why would you sell a good protein?

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And this is a guy who's propped up by Big AG in the meat and dairy industry. So he's, you know, probably on the receiving end of some lobbying dollars and his constituency is making sure that those industries are chugging away, as always.

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So, of course, he's going to take the side of those industries and the real like the government overreach isn't Meatless Mondays.

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The government overreach is propping up this industry that's, you know, going the way of the dodo, no doubt. And he's also on the receiving end of ritual's boot in his ass, I'll tell you that.

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Not really. It wasn't that. It wasn't like that. And also, we should talk about Kevin Roose. Yes, it was on the show, a famous person, too.

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Now he's now he's yeah. He basically is one of the most highly paid artists in the world, right?

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Yes. It kind of came up in our podcast. We were talking about Mufti's, and he was considering the idea of doing a book and releasing it as an NFTE. But what he did on the heels of the podcast was release an article.

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Which was about NFTE as an NFTE, and he auctioned off that article, the first in one hundred and seventy year history of The New York Times, to be distributed as an NFTE, a PMG file that ended up at auction, raising over 500000 dollars for charity, which is Bonanos.

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Right. But who wants that?

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Well, it's like I have the first NFTE from The New York Times. However, I guess it's bragging rights.

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I mean, who who wants the Mona Lisa? And we can go down this rabbit hole again. But, you know, I think whether you can get on board with this idea or not, this is the world that we now live in.

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It's a currency, right. Is what it is. It's just another currency in certain respects. I mean, it's a currency like like a painting as a currency. I suppose it's a non fungible token item is what it is.

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I know. I know. But I know what it is. Yet I have no idea the kind of just netta nature of the whole thing.

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And and also, Kevin's like sheer confusion and delight on Twitter. How this thing unfolded was really kind of fun.

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So what's your take? What's Kevin's take on this? What do you think? Zero. I mean, it's for charity, right?

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Oh yeah. It's for yeah. His his financial take was nothing.

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Right. Yeah. I thought you meant his like no take. I'm sure that part of them was like damn yeah.

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He's like well I'm sure he's thinking maybe I really should do that because it NFTE, right. Yeah. And it's made me think because we talked about this last time about. Creating an NFTE from the first episode of this podcast, and of course, there's the environmental concerns which are the real impediment, I would have done it already if it wasn't for that.

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Right. But how does that balance out if we auction it off for charity? Are you looking for me to announce NFTE adventure, you have your height. Are you going to be I'm going to call your aliments. All right.

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I said I'm not my my job is to say go for it. That's not your job.

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Your job is to know what you think. I think that you should wait until it's on to that. It's not a theory. Mm hmm. Yeah.

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And just wait. But then the bubble will be burst like a true what do you think the first episode will go for.

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But what if what if what if we raised we gave the money to like the Honnold Foundation, which is all about solar energy. So how would that balance?

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I guess it would depend on how much you raised as to whether it would cancel out the the carbon footprint. That was required to mint the NFTE in the first place. This particular riddle requires a smarter person than me.

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Yeah, I know. I know the people that some some some sort of block chain person.

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Yeah, someone who run the numbers on. Exactly. Maybe we need the block chain to run the numbers if we should do the block chain.

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Yeah. OK, should we turn to the Iron Cowboy ticker. How about this guy here.

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This has become like just a, you know, basically a cornerstone of Rollan. Right. Like checking in on the Iron Cowboy.

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How could it not be this guy is like gone from basically barely making through these marathons to actually picking up the pace and going hard.

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He does seem to have had a bit of a renaissance in terms of his energy and enthusiasm and mood lately. Yeah, so we're on day 29 as of today, which is Monday. He is going strong. There is this turning of the tide. He looks strong, his mood seems elevated. And all of this despite what appears to be some pretty insane weather that they have gone through.

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Like if I was him, I would have started this thing in like May, you know, but he was like, he doesn't like the heat.

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He doesn't like it. It doesn't do well with the heat.

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But instead he's going through sleet and snow storms and all kinds of stuff. Yeah, he does maintain a pretty high vibe.

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So I have kind of a positive negative spin on all of this. But before we get into that, let's talk about the why, because that's something we talked about when you were heading into the Gorgons challenge. Yes. James posted about that the other day.

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He posted about the way, right? Yeah. Yeah.

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Do you think that was a call back on your question about why you think he'd listen to the podcast and he's like, I need to declare my wife? No, I don't think so. So this is something that the ultra athletes talk about your wives a lot.

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I feel like there's a sneakiness in how you just say, I didn't mean it that way.

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Yeah, no, you ultra athletes like to talk about the Y like it's some kind of, you know, I mean, like sort of mental exercise and nonsense or a mental exercise period, just like in the fact that, like, it's something that you guys do consider and talk about and and think about before taking on something that's seems kind of like a superhuman attempt. It's something I think I think that should be a question everybody should be asking themselves all the time about whatever it is that they're investing their time and energy in.

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Yeah, right. Yeah.

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But he said specifically that his wife was knowing there are millions of people in the world that need a little sparked a light there sparkle and don't know where to find that spark. In his words, if I can be the spark for just one person to believe in themselves, that's enough. And I think that's great.

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I appreciate that. And I you know what? I you know what I like about it. Is that it's honest what you see a lot with endurance athletes, they'll declare their Y as being a charity or I'm doing this for the kids or I'm doing this for spinal bifida or whatever it is.

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And those are all laudable things to raise money for charity, which is something that James is also doing in the in the pursuit of this goal. But I always find those to be somewhat disingenuous.

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It's like you're not really you're really doing it for you, right? No. I mean, like, let's be honest, no one spends money doing it to see if you can do it right.

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And there's nothing wrong with that. You don't have to say you're doing it because of this other thing. Right. But I think that that I find, you know, James, his declaration on this to be quite earnest. And I think it's cool. And listen, you know, I'm a huge fan as as many of you guys know. I was early on board with James before he even attempted his 50 Ironman in 50 states in 50 days. I had him on the show when very few people were paying attention to what he was doing.

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I had him on after the show. I ran the final marathon with him in that attempt. And I've always elevated this guy's message. I just think he's a beautiful, amazing soul, an incredible athlete, of course, an incredible family man. I've had the opportunity to see him deliver his keynote. He's a very gifted public speaker. His presentation is unbelievable.

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And what I like about this chocker 100 challenge, the sort of feat itself aside, is how incredibly inclusive and participatory it is. He's developed this amazing community around this event. He's got crazy support. All these people that show up every single day on Instagram, he's just crushing the Instagram games like amazing stories constantly. Who's doing this daughter?

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Well, I think his daughter and his wife, Sunny, are probably managing most of it. His daughter is crushing it. Yeah, she's checking in all the time. Sunny started sharing her perspective on stuff and answering questions that people have for her. Like what's it like to be James's wife and, you know, how are you taking care of yourself and all of that? And she's been very kind of engaged and and forthright about where she's coming from on all of this, which I think is cool.

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He's got his wingman, Erin Hopkinson and Kasey Robles, who are just hilarious.

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I mean, these guys like talk about good friends, like they just show up for James. One hundred and ten percent.

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They did this on the the fifty fifty fifty. They're doing it again.

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And they they're like comedians, like they're participating alongside of him, but they keep the mood light like they're they're literally his court jesters and his and his ultimate support team.

[00:29:03]

Well you have to laugh. All right. You have to laugh at the absurdity of the whole thing because it's a huge dark tunnel he's in.

[00:29:09]

But the thing is, you would you would think like. That it would all be about the darkness and the heaviness, but when you watch the Instagram stories, it's like they're laughing about having fun, they're joking.

[00:29:21]

And yeah, I guess that's a that's a strategy. Right? Right. I just know when I'm super tired, like, it's very hard to get into that headspace, like you become really grumpy and difficult to be around. And he seems to be pretty jovial and convivial like throughout the entire thing, which is unbelievable.

[00:29:38]

Yeah. So that's cool.

[00:29:41]

I mean, these guys, Aaron and Casey, you know, truly BFX goals, like if you could be so lucky to have friends like these guys and the fact that they all seem to be having fun, I think that's great.

[00:29:54]

I mean, on the. So that's the positive.

[00:29:56]

OK, but I think. You know, I would be remiss in not sort of sharing a different side of this.

[00:30:07]

You know, I think what's unique about James is that typically the mine caves into the body, right? And Goggins talks about this all the time, like the mind gives in, you know, when the bodies dies, 40 percent left or whatever. It's the mind that goes first when the body is capable of more.

[00:30:23]

But I think with James, it's actually the opposite.

[00:30:27]

I think this guy's mind is is much stronger than his body. Maybe his mind is 40 percent stronger than his body. And that's a very unique and something to be celebrated. But he's so mentally tough that. I think. If he had his leg amputated in the middle of this whole thing, that he'd still figure out a way to, like, finish it, right.

[00:30:49]

I have no doubt that he possesses the will to complete this insane challenge and that he. Well, very well, compulsivity to complete it, but I would I do think it would be. Irresponsible, if I didn't at least voiced some concern regarding the long term health complications that he's risking by doing this, I really I love James. I don't want him to break his body beyond repair and walking with a cane at at 40. And I suspect that under the best circumstances, it's going if he if he completes this, even if he pulled the plug now it's going to take his body a really long time to recover.

[00:31:30]

Could be a year. It could be years. I mean, the adrenal fatigue alone. So if anybody can do it, this guy can certainly do it. I don't doubt him for a second, but I would just hate to see him push his body beyond irreparable limits.

[00:31:46]

So do you do you want him to tap out? No, I don't want him to tap out. I just I know that he has a lot of support and he goes home, you know, during the transitions and at night. And he's got all kinds of people working on him. So I presume that he's having his blood drawn. He's got doctors who are monitoring him and all of that who would tell him, like, look, you're digging a hole you're not going to be able to crawl out of, would he?

[00:32:10]

Would he? If faced with that kind of medical diagnosis, would he pull the plug or would you keep going? Hmm, I don't know the answer to that, but I just care for him. I just don't want to see him get harmed in the pursuit of this challenge. That's all.

[00:32:27]

I feel like the swim is kind of a break for him. Like the swim isn't the hard part, right? He's the swims like recovery. Yeah. He's like part of the right. You see him crawling out of the pool like no danger.

[00:32:37]

He is doing this dude is working. You know, it's so easy to get up that get up that ladder. That's going to be a very tall ladder. He's like, fuck, now is the real.

[00:32:48]

And there's something soothing about like every day you see him crawl up the ladder and put his his his crocs on and like saunter over to the locker room, you know, and it's like, oh, man, that's like a metronome.

[00:33:01]

Yeah. He's like, God, I like that. Maybe I wish it was five miles in the pool. Yeah.

[00:33:06]

Anyway, send him your love. Follow him on Instagram at Iron Cowboy. James and we love you, James. It's very impressive, James. And I love I just love his little motivation tactics like wearing 23 and having LeBron be the theme of 23. And then each day is a different theme. And and just seeing.

[00:33:25]

Got to mix it up, though, right? You got to keep every day fresh. Otherwise, I think they switched up the course a little bit.

[00:33:31]

Yeah, right. Right. And he likes that better. Yeah. I am excited. We got to get like towards the end we should really road trip out. Yeah. Yeah we'll, we'll figure that out.

[00:33:41]

I mean what happened with the fifty fifty fifty. I went out there did you know I was there for the final day and was hoping to get a podcast with him. Obviously not right after but the day I hung around the day after and he was just to, it wasn't going to happen. So I went home and then flew back like a week or two later and did it. But, you know, it's historic and something to be celebrated.

[00:34:05]

But if you go out there, don't bring the gravel because it would be rude to have a motor.

[00:34:08]

It would be rude. Right. How dare you? You know, I would never do that. Can you imagine? I was seriously, bro, it has been funny.

[00:34:18]

Like I've posted my gravel rides on Strava. Yeah, there is an E bike, you know, it'll upload and then I got to quickly switch it to E bike. So I'm not, you know, holding myself out as having, you know, rode a route, you know, because the stats.

[00:34:32]

Right. Whatever. Right. But there was a couple like sort of snarky like seriously man Your Honor. And I was like, look man, come at me, bro. But like, I'm having fun.

[00:34:42]

Like, I'm just enjoying myself. I love that you're doing that. And I love the idea of it's like it's like under the bridge down under the bridge downtown, like I think of under the bridge from Red Hot Chili Peppers. Like I walk through her hills because she knows who I am. Right. About L.A.. Right. Right. The fact that you're unlocking different canyons and and fire roads, it's like I think it's awesome to see the city through her canyons is really the best way to see L.A. and to understand it.

[00:35:09]

And and so to be able to do that and cross that much territory, it's not it's not a small ride.

[00:35:15]

No. I mean, I went down Saturday.

[00:35:17]

I wrote all I wrote over all the you know, I took trails all the way down into Brentwood, through Santa Monica, down through Venice, and then wrote back up through PCH, took Los Flores up yesterday, dropped down and I dropped down, oh, down into the Palisades and through the Highlands.

[00:35:33]

I'd never been there. I didn't you know, that whole, like, development in the Palisades. It's way up on the Hill. I never knew that existed up there for like 20 years, really.

[00:35:42]

I mean, I knew there were houses up there, but I'd never driven up there. I didn't know anything about it. It's not gated up there. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:35:48]

But you drop down a trail, kind of drops you in at the top up there. And then I saw some rows back down anyway.

[00:35:54]

Bike the big house thieves did. So the next thing. Yeah right.

[00:35:59]

Shout out to specialized. Who's my partner in this. I've been really enjoying working with them and the Krio is awesome. I do need to get a legit road bike and Anani gravel bike at some point so yeah I'm working on that.

[00:36:12]

Sharada specialized so ok I don't want one. Don't call me. I've never seen you on a bike.

[00:36:19]

I did see you on a super seventy three though. I have a fixie. Yeah that's it. I use gravel tires on it.

[00:36:26]

I used to, I used to ride back in the dad but it's been a long time. We'll rectify that. Yeah. All right man. Let's take a break and we'll be back with the big story and more.

[00:36:37]

All right. We'll be right back. But first, Adam, yes, I just noticed today that you have a website. I don't know why I didn't know this, but I didn't until now.

[00:36:48]

You mean Adam Skolnick Dotcom? Yes.

[00:36:51]

Did you use Squarespace for that? Oh, no.

[00:36:54]

No, you didn't go to Squarespace dot com slash rich role and enter the code. Rich, roll a check out to get 10 percent off your first purchase that exists in 2002.

[00:37:03]

What are you even doing here? Listen, I love you, buddy, but let's be honest.

[00:37:08]

The site your site is fine, but I think it could use a little bit of an upgrade.

[00:37:14]

I know. I know. I just, you know, where's the time? Where's the skill?

[00:37:18]

Oh, you do have time.

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[00:38:00]

Adam, I bet you don't know what this black man thing is around my left wrist.

[00:38:04]

Is it a laser deflector shield. It's close.

[00:38:09]

This is what the cool kids call a woop.

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[00:39:24]

All right, we're back at Adam, we got to talk about guns.

[00:39:27]

I know, man, uniquely American obsession that we're has since we last convened two mass shootings, 18 people dead in Atlanta. A white dude motivated by anti Asian misogyny hit three massage parlors and claimed eight lives in Boulder. A Muslim dude shot up a grocery store, King Soopers, with an AR 556 pistol bought six days prior.

[00:39:55]

I think he bought it like the day of the Atlanta shooting or somewhere the guy in Atlanta bought it the day of the day, I think.

[00:40:02]

Yeah, but that Boulder guy bought it like the day the Atlanta shooting happened or day after or something like that. They are five, six being sort of a pistol version of the AR 15. OK, and here we are again. Hmm. You know, gun violence is up 25 percent from last year.

[00:40:20]

Some of that is fueled in part by intimate partner violence, gun purchases are up, in part motivated by people fearing becoming a victim of gun violence. And we're in this vicious cycle that as a society, we just can't seem to find our way out of.

[00:40:36]

I agree. I personally am starting to feel complicit, to be quite honest with you, because. You know, it happens over and over and over again. And what have I done about it? You know, like what? I wrote a story about guns after the Pulse nightclub shooting and the Dallas officers were killed by that other sniper. Mm hmm.

[00:41:03]

But, you know, and I maybe I gave money to every town or something, but, like, that's not really doing much.

[00:41:10]

You know, I could see from the company that I've had that I've done anything or participated in the solution. I just when when this happens, I go numb and then I feel powerless. And I don't want to be among the thoughts and prayers chorus. I want to participate in something meaningful. But it's unclear what exactly that is other than, you know, basically voicing outrage on social media, which I don't really think is productive either.

[00:41:36]

It does nothing. Let's go through some of the stats. Right. So we're not going to talk about thoughts and prayers, because this is this is a systemic issue and thoughts and prayers don't solve it. So America has more guns than any other country, 300 million guns, one for every person in the country, one for every person. Japan has less than one gun per 100 people. So and they have 10 deaths a year. We have. Gun related murders in our country are 25 times higher than any other country on Earth.

[00:42:09]

We have three point four gun murders per 100000 people, next highest is Canada at point six, and probably some of the graph there's that we're referencing a New York Times opinion piece.

[00:42:20]

And they show this graph country by country. And the US is like, you know, it just looks like it's 20 fold higher than the next closest country.

[00:42:29]

And I give Canada a little bit of a pass there there at point six. But, you know, some of those people are Americans.

[00:42:35]

Model for regulating guns is the automobile. I like right now.

[00:42:40]

We have you you sent me this interesting story about how the NRA has basically twisted up the Second Amendment right. So we have this we're in this position where. We have no way to control guns because of a few reasons. One is we have this whole chunk of the country that has become connected to the Second Amendment. The Second Amendment is the right to bear arms.

[00:43:06]

That was put in there as kind of a placeholder for states to have their own militias.

[00:43:11]

So there wasn't a centralized army that dominated different states, regulated militia, regulated militia, which is its regulated militias, karma, which is the part of the Second Amendment that gets glossed over in this conversation that's been twisted to be all about individual gun ownership rights, which is not really the original intent of the Second Amendment right.

[00:43:35]

And so what happened was the NRA went through a change like in the 50s. They were about marksmanship, training, fire, firearm safety, education. And now in the 70s, they turned into kind of a legal organization to expand the application of the Second Amendment to include private ownership and personal protection. Why?

[00:44:01]

Because their members, meaning the arms manufacturers, not the people that pay for membership fees, the individual people made money off it and they made inroads in the Republican Party mostly and but throughout government donating to different campaigns. And next thing you know, you have it makes it almost impossible to pass any legislation regulating guns. We call it gun control. That's really the wrong way to put it.

[00:44:26]

It's like we don't call driver's licenses, automobile automobile control, more person control. We're just saying let's make sure people are are safe when they're operating something dangerous. I'd like to I think the NRA could be rebooted to be an organization that does all the things that could help us, that would be talking about background checks, talking about smart guns, talking, taking a public health approach and saying, you know, this is if you're going to own a firearm, these are the things you need to think about.

[00:44:58]

You know, everything down the line, marksmanship, hunting classes, all these good things, licensing certifications, all these things that could actually encourage storage, use smart guns.

[00:45:11]

Right. That if they fall into the hands of somebody who's not registered to use it, they don't work.

[00:45:16]

It is interesting that we've been unable to make any inroads on that. And past attempts at gun control, which have focused on an outlet outlawing certain aspects of guns, just end up in end runs around those details to create something that's just outside of the regulation that still achieves that the end. Yes.

[00:45:37]

Like whether it's a particular scope or whatever it is on the gun, I'm no gun expert. Those have traditionally failed.

[00:45:44]

And it is interesting. I mean, what was the inflection point with the NRA where they tipped from being this kind of regulatory body that was heavily invested in in education and the like to now being this absolutist organization that basically won't give an inch on any issue and couches the whole thing in the context of governments trying to take your guns away from you.

[00:46:11]

I think according to that story, what happened was there was a and you'll link to it. It's called how the NRA rewrote the Second Amendment. And, you know, it used to be on there, on there. I think I have it in here on their door of their main office in D.C. There were were letters that kind of is like embossed on the door, firearm safety, education, marksmanship, training, shooting for recreation. And now there is an abridged version of the Second Amendment that that it takes it completely out of context.

[00:46:45]

Right. And I think what happened was there was a, quote unquote, revolt against the leadership and the NRA, which at the time was for gun regulation and from the 50s all the way to the 70s and the whole board got fired and someone else took over and that so in began this kind of long game of rewriting laws and and getting through the courts to expand civil liberties or call it civil liberties, but to expand the meaning of these amendments, to include conservative principles like bearing arms.

[00:47:19]

And, you know, the Second Amendment literally says a well regulated militia, a well regulated militia, comma, being necessary for the security of a free state, comma, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, comma, shall not be infringed.

[00:47:38]

So. It's a sentence that's rife for all different kinds of interpretations, but nowhere in there does it reference directly the individual's right to bear arms is specifically in reference. And that comma after regulated militia to me hammers at home that this is all in the context of arming a regulated militia.

[00:48:04]

And it's the third kilojoule. Yeah.

[00:48:06]

And it's that third clause, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. That's the only thing they have on their door now. Yeah. Yeah. So the first part of it gets forgotten.

[00:48:15]

And I think, you know, the founding fathers would would be turning in their in their graves at how this has been exploited.

[00:48:26]

So what's the way forward? I mean, one of the arguments that gets thrown around a lot is it's a mental health argument. This is about the mental health of these people, this idea that we have more mass shootings because we have more mental health problems. But the data doesn't really support that.

[00:48:42]

No, countries with high suicide rates tend to have low rates of mass shootings. They found that video games don't correlate racial diversity and immigration issues also don't correlate. And it really is. And this is, you know, borne out by the data that it's about access to guns. The more access you have, the guns, the more shootings and deaths you're going to have.

[00:49:07]

And if we look at a couple of different case studies, you know, Sandy Hook being. Obviously, the one of the most horrific of every one of these horrific Sandy Hook is obviously on a scale because we're talking about kindergarten children and whatnot. There was, I think, an advertisement that was connected to that, where he bought a certain rifle or he wanted that rifle, his mother bought it for him as a gift because it was a lot like, you know, some some ad he'd seen, whereas about about empowerment, about young men and empowerment.

[00:49:45]

And he went out and did that horrible crime. And right afterwards, the victims couldn't really sue the gun manufacturer because the government had passed a law, basically a rider on some other law, making it impossible to sue companies for use of their products in a crime. Mm hmm. Everyone thought that it had been challenged a couple of times. It always had been upheld. A lawyer in Connecticut named Josh Korsakoff took on that challenge of maybe challenge, and he found another way of arguing against that.

[00:50:25]

And the gun manufacturers, the NRA didn't take it seriously because they'd won so many times on it and they showed up in court and the judge gave them the go ahead to sue.

[00:50:33]

And it became this new way of approaching this problem, basically, because if if the companies now like using RICO to go after the mob.

[00:50:42]

Exactly. And if if the if the gun manufacturers suddenly had to pay the victims of these crimes right. Then they would do things like they wouldn't fight things like smart guns where you're where your fingerprint is the only way that you can fight you.

[00:50:57]

It's an alignment of incentives, basically. So when the gun manufacturer is not incentivized to make sure that these things are safe and from a product liability perspective can make the argument that the gun was used in the manner in which it was manufactured. There was nothing there was nothing dysfunctional about the gun. Right. The gun was used in the gun, worked properly.

[00:51:22]

So therefore, the gun manufacturer bears no culpability for this. But if you say that's the argument. Right. But if you say actually they do, where are you hanging your hat on that argument, though? Like, how does that I'm trying to wrap my head around how that works.

[00:51:37]

The argument is, if you are creating a product and advertising a product in a certain way and is and then it's use and you pretend it's not your fault, basically you have some responsibility for your product and how it's used. Why are you selling it?

[00:51:50]

How can you. That's tricky, though. Like, how do you draw the line with that?

[00:51:54]

Well, that's the question, right. So, you know, the the real question is we should all be asking ourselves is why can we go in and buy an AR 15 with high capacity magazines and things like that? What's the use? And saying it doesn't make any sense. Absolutely insane. Right? It's totally outrageous. It makes me furious. Right.

[00:52:13]

Why can't we get our shit together?

[00:52:16]

The the citizenship is overwhelmingly in favor of universal background checks. There are so many things that we gun owners are in favor.

[00:52:24]

Yeah. Not so many things that we could do.

[00:52:27]

And it's interesting when you look at how the NRA has handled this by not budgeting, like not giving an inch, like that's the strategy, like never give in on anything because it's a slippery slope and because of that tactic and they've been able to create the situation that we're in right now. But the truth is we need well-informed, logical, rational regulation of this landscape.

[00:52:54]

It's insane. It isn't that we're in this situation and it's going to continue to perpetuate unless we do something. So now we have. Joe Biden is president, we've got a you know. Democrat controlled House and Senate, like, can we get something done here? Well, the answer to that is will the will the Democrats waive the filibuster? Because the only way you're going to get 60 senators to support any sort of law in terms of regulation of firearms is going to be to get the Republican to vote for it, eh?

[00:53:32]

And you need at least nine of them, which I think is a reach because you need 60 votes to override a filibuster or you kind of throw away the filibuster for this issue. And if you do that, what happens in the future? But that's the question. You know this and it doesn't look like that's happening. Right. He's moving on to infrastructure first. So we'll see how you know what? He's going to do something. We'll see what he proposes.

[00:54:02]

We have this kind of brutal cocktail in this country of racism, misogyny, religion and guns and this growing absolutism on either side of any hot button issue. So it makes it hard to communicate across party lines and to get anything real done. And then when you have. Like take the Atlanta shooting, he was the son of a pastor and an evangelical kind of minister. He felt he was in violation of his whatever full of lust or whatever, and his solution to that is to eliminate.

[00:54:45]

Women who are struggling just to get by working in these spores and the red light district of Atlanta, I mean, that's his solution to his own problems.

[00:54:55]

Yeah, it's a complicated one, because on the one hand, you know, it's basically a.. Asian hate crime. But it was really motivated by this guy's internal conflict as much as it was. I don't know that that had those those massage parlors been, you know, populated with messages that weren't Asian, that it would have been any different. I don't know enough about it to comment on that one way or the other. But I think it's it's a it's a you know, it's complicated in that regard when you dive into, like, motive.

[00:55:28]

But part of that motive was his his guilt.

[00:55:31]

Right. It was a religiously motivated crime.

[00:55:35]

And it was I think he might have felt the women were less disposable. Maybe if they were. Yeah, that's a that's a good point. And and so and then there's the whole history and the certain context now of all the A.H. and hate crimes that are happening all over the country, in San Francisco, in New York, specifically the most, but happening elsewhere. And then this one pops up as kind of like high like it just is part of it.

[00:56:03]

And, you know, he bought his gun the day of the shooting, a nine millimeter pistol, a day of crazy.

[00:56:09]

So, like, you can't tell me. That's not the look of all these things I just mentioned. Racism, misogyny, religion and guns, which is the one you can control easiest. Yeah. Yeah. Because we're not looking to control the others. You know, you can't control them.

[00:56:24]

You can't control a person's set against a backdrop where gun related murders in the United States are 25 percent higher than in any other country. Yeah, it's so glaringly obvious that we need to redress this in a meaningful way. And yet our ineptitude, because we're so caught up in these traditions and this ideology that surrounds guns, literally people are just getting slaughtered.

[00:56:50]

You know, I was talking a lot about this with my wife. My wife's from Australia. She's from Sydney and Australia. They had their own Columbine. And it didn't take long for them to pass legislation to have people turn in their own guns. And I'm not suggesting that we call for everyone turning in their guns. So don't ask me about that. But I'm just saying that happened in Australia and now she sees this happen. And it's not the first one since she's been in the country.

[00:57:16]

She's seen a number of them now and then. What is the news? The next day it's in Georgia, the after this Atlanta shooting, the thing that's making news, the laws that they passed in the state of Georgia is to make it illegal to bring water to someone standing in line to vote.

[00:57:35]

Right, that's what they did, and she's like, where are the priorities of these leaders? Like that's what they're doing with their time. It's it's astonishing the lack of leadership in this country, and it's well, meanwhile, wasn't it was it the Texas governor who was bombed that Texas was only second in terms of gun purchases? Like he publicly said something like, we got to we got to be number one?

[00:58:00]

Yeah. Who are these donkeys, dude? Like, how do you vote for these people? Understand? Yeah, I don't understand. And then, you know, then you have this black lawmaker woman who is trying to I forget her name. I don't have at my fingertips. Forgive me, but she was trying to knock on the door of the governor while he was signing that. And, you know, the Georgia there in the voting control, not not gun control in Georgia.

[00:58:24]

And she was arrested. And if you look at the if you look at the video of her getting dragged away by those guys and crewcuts, it could have been like Bull Connor era, like these these bullheaded guys are dragging this professional woman down the halls when she was just trying to knock on the door of the governor, you know, where are we?

[00:58:44]

What is happening in this country? It's it's it's appalling. And it does it does scare me. And it makes me wonder, like, you know, where do I belong in this place? You know, like if we can't figure out, like we all you have we have kids, you know, you know, like if you can't trust the leaders to remove real big obstacles for children because you can. Right. We've had it with used to be able to nurse your baby in the back seat.

[00:59:10]

Now they have to be in a car seat.

[00:59:11]

Why is that? Didn't Delta Airlines get dragged? Because they supported that voter suppression law, did they? There was something about that. I just I don't know enough about it. There was a headline. Yeah, about that. But but Atlanta is Atlanta, the Delta hub. Atlanta is the delta.

[00:59:30]

So I don't know. Yeah. So something to do with that.

[00:59:32]

And then, you know, bolder like that's Atlanta than in Boulder. You have this is what they had Columbine in 1999, Aurora in the movie theater shooting. They had something in Colorado Springs, the abortion clinic. And now you have King Soopers in Boulder. That's right.

[00:59:47]

And they've had like I think there's more if you count any multiples of people getting shot and killed, it's beyond those four. But those are like the four real big mass shootings. And it just keeps happening in Colorado. So let me before we go, there is one thing right that I've been thinking about, and that is if you look at the Vietnam War protests and what happened then. Right.

[01:00:15]

The reason that that turned and we were and we got out of Vietnam was a couple there were some major reasons. One of them, though, is that the draft had happened and you couldn't get out of it anymore.

[01:00:27]

And so now all of a sudden, teenagers realize it was their own life and death at stake. It was no longer just about this dodgy war and this oppression of people far, far away and this military industrial complex. It was about I might get drafted and I might die. Right. And so people went nuts and they hit the streets and and it grew and it grew and grew. And eventually the government caved.

[01:00:53]

Well, we have now have we need an uprising like that because more Americans have died of gun violence in America than have been killed in every single war combined.

[01:01:04]

Hmm. So so it is a direct threat to us all. We it's such a diffused threat. We don't feel it.

[01:01:11]

That diffusion is at odds with with progress, though, because we don't feel it or process it in the same way.

[01:01:18]

But it is as big a threat or a bigger threat. Yeah. And and I think that's what it's going to take. It's going to take a massive grassroots mobilization like what we saw this summer with BLM. But around gun regulation, that's what it's going to take.

[01:01:34]

Yeah, it's hard not to be pessimistic, though, because we've just been around this carousel so many times and the outrage cycle just continues, right?

[01:01:43]

It dissipates and then here we go again.

[01:01:45]

And you're like, you're right. If we can't get it done now, if we can't waive the filibuster for this like I know, what can we do?

[01:01:52]

I now fucking filibuster. And then there's the Supreme Court just waiting there as well. Yeah. So. All right.

[01:01:58]

Well, more will be revealed.

[01:02:02]

Let's move on. We got a couple more things we got to talk about. All right.

[01:02:05]

Should we talk about it feels really like this is a bad like is what they call that sex is the worst Segway ever.

[01:02:16]

But we have this my friend Toby Morse shout out to Toby, punk rocker from H2O, my friend.

[01:02:25]

He's been on the show. I did his podcast.

[01:02:27]

When I did his podcast, he had he had cans of this stuff called Liquid Death, which is a really bad Segway from what we were just talking about, Segway.

[01:02:36]

But it's basically these cans that it looks like malt liquor. They're like 16 ounce black and gold. I remember those like Gothic writing on it. It's basically sparkling water, though. It's like Lacroix for punk rockers.

[01:02:49]

And Tobi just had like a whole like multiple cases of this stuff just sent to the studio.

[01:02:55]

So I just wanted to thank Tobey and Liquid Death.

[01:02:57]

I actually like thanks to me it's good, but it's kind of hilarious, right? It's sort of like if you're really dark and edgy, you can feel good about your sparkling water, I guess.

[01:03:08]

I don't know. Peligro marketing. It's punk rock. Pelligrino basically. That's what it is. Yeah.

[01:03:14]

Let's talk about Cece Barazi. Let's talk about it. You hadn't watched it when you went out into the frigid Pacific, but you've watched it since. I have watched. I've since watched it. Right.

[01:03:23]

So CCRC, many of you have probably seen it by now. Premiered on Netflix last week, produced by a friend of the pod, Kip Anderson, who is the co-director, along with Keegan Coon on conspiracy. And what the hell is this film? He did not director, co-director. It was directed by Ali Tabrizi.

[01:03:42]

And it basically is this comprehensive 360 look at what we're doing to our oceans. It's a deep dive into marine destruction, corruption, and it's similar to conspiracy in that it it it kind of adopts a similar storytelling architecture. Mm hmm. And dives into the conflicts of interest that exist between environmental groups that were that we trust to protect ecosystems being funded by organizations that profit from marine exploitation, the fishing industry, the marine park industry, etc.. And it's very well done.

[01:04:26]

The cinematography, the editing is compelling. Ali is much like Kippin conspiracy. Ali is the protagonist. He's the filmmaker and the protagonist in this story who goes on this adventure to learn more about what exactly is going on in our oceans.

[01:04:43]

And I think it's very effective at revealing. Some uncomfortable truths about the fishing industry, about the environmental organizations that are charged with protecting these waterways and and getting into some details about things like bycatch and farm raised fish, the human rights implications and abuses that you see throughout Southeast Asia.

[01:05:17]

And I was very impacted by it. I've been trying to get Kip and Ali on the podcast.

[01:05:23]

Kim, I don't know if he wants people to know where he is, but he's not in the United States right now. Ali lives in London. I'd really like to get both of them on the show to talk about the movie. I'm hopeful that at some point I can make that happen. But until then, it's just you and I brother talking about this movie. You had an interesting take on it, though.

[01:05:43]

I do. Well, I don't know if it's interesting, but I have a take. I think I have a few takes. One, it's great to see a young filmmaker dive into this world with such passion and energy and heart. You know, he clearly loves the ocean, cares about it just like we do. And he's gifted with a camera.

[01:06:00]

So it's crazy those those sequences of him as a kid and he literally wearing the Jacques Cousteau red hat and the striped shirt like, you know, he was channeling you could see his future, you know, being forecast.

[01:06:13]

Yeah. And he and he cares a lot. And that's really important. And so I'm all for it. Powerful footage, especially at the end. And good call to action. So at the end as well, I don't want to spoil it. We're going to spoil it. Right. So but I do have some issues with it. And the overall one is of sensationalism. So he covers a grab bag of issues we've seen before in various documentaries and reporting and in my opinion, covered better the Cove Ghost Fleet.

[01:06:44]

He when he gets into the issue with slavery and untie fishing boats that was covered in a great movie in 2013 and came out called Ghost Fleet, which is a profile of a Thai labor activist and Nobel Peace Prize nominee named Fatema Tump, who jackhole, and she is based in Thailand and she's been responsible for liberating 7000 Thai, Burmese, Lao and Indonesian fishermen from these kinds of.

[01:07:12]

Well, we could we could take these points seriatim. I mean, I think in fairness to to Ali and Kiip, that movie which I haven't seen was a single issue focus film that delve deep into that one thing, whereas Ali and Kipe are trying to cover many different things. So they touch on those human rights abuses. But the whole movie isn't about that one single thing. And that's something that I knew almost nothing about other than just sort of hearing about it tangentially.

[01:07:39]

Yeah, yeah, that's true. I mean, I just think overall there was this sense of taking the worst of the worst cases, like the Maui case in Scotland, cherrypicks stats on fishing, going after third party certification systems, which I think, you know, we talk about fair trade certification and products, which is the same thing is what the Marine Stewardship Council does and and kind of casting them as in a very negative light and when there's much more nuance involved.

[01:08:14]

I know about picked stats with fishing because I did a story on overfishing. And it's very easy to find a stat that that sounds very alarmist when you look at all the reports. But if you do deep dives, you find that different parts of the world have very different regulation bodies and governing bodies. And it's not as simple as it made makes it sound. So when you're using the most sensationalistic data, it's not necessarily the best data. So I would just question that.

[01:08:45]

There's this kind of maximum journalism is the later you are to the story, the smarter you have to be. And because he's taking on so many different.

[01:08:56]

Aspects of what's going on with our oceans, I think it's hard to get to that level, but you can't also and I'll just I'll be devil's advocate here on behalf of the film, you have to appreciate the spotlight that these filmmakers are placing on some pretty horrific ills.

[01:09:20]

Yes.

[01:09:20]

And this is the misalignment of incentives in the labeling industry.

[01:09:24]

I mean, the fact that, you know, basically these, you know, quote unquote, nonprofits make their money off of granting labels. So they're inherently incentivized to grant these labels. And then when you have the interview with the guy and he's like, basically, I can't guarantee doesn't say dolphin safe tuna, it's outrageous.

[01:09:43]

I'm not defending the dolphin safe tuna situation, but the Marine Stewardship Council is is a nonprofit because it is created by it is funded. You don't pay for it.

[01:09:55]

Here's the thing.

[01:09:55]

Like, certainly there are people doing good things in the world and there are there are well-intentioned activists and non-profits out there that I have no doubt are making a positive impact in this space. Clearly, the point of this movie, I think, if I was to read their minds, was to provide an introductory course on where we've lost our way across a variety of different issues with respect to our relationship with the ocean.

[01:10:25]

So whether it's commercial fishing, with the trawling and the bycatch, whether it's shark fins, whether it's, you know, whaling, whether it's what's going on in Japan with the dolphin slaughtering, like all of these things are horrible, horrible ills that most people are completely unaware of.

[01:10:46]

So, yes, it's very energizing and enervating to watch this movie and realize that this might not be what you think it is. And and you're Pescatore and Diet, which you thought was on the better end of, you know, perhaps a more economically, ecologically sound nutrition approach, perhaps might be misguided. Yeah.

[01:11:09]

When you when you realize that it basically disabuse you of this idea of of, you know, the fisherman casting his pole into the into the sea and pulling out fish one by one, and you realize the damage that commercial fishing is reaping irreparably on the oceans. When when George Monbiot, who I think is a highlight of the movie that I've been following him forever, he writes for The Guardian on a variety of environmental issues. He was so solid in the movie.

[01:11:35]

And when he's talking about, you know, basically he just puts matters to rights in terms of how blunt he is about how bad this problem is.

[01:11:43]

And often Lander, who also is in conspiracy, talking about how little of the oceans are actually protected, like what is it, five percent is meant to be five percent, but then it's actually like less than one percent that's so actively protected and preserved in a in a responsible and probably he probably means one percent is no catch zones.

[01:12:04]

And there's there's you are allowed to have recreational fishing in some APAs. And I would guess I would think that that five percent would preclude commercial fishing. Maybe there are some companies that allow some regulated commercial fishing. We've talked about the 30 by 30. That's that's something I wish this movie got into more is that there is there are there are there is a movement afoot internationally to try to protect 30 percent of the oceans by 2030.

[01:12:29]

And that means make them real marine protected areas that would demand basically, you know, the movie makes the point that that requires a policing effort. Right? Like the open seas. It's anything goes well.

[01:12:44]

You see that being played out off the coast of Somalia and what led to, you know, basically the whole pirate thing.

[01:12:52]

Right. Well, so the idea of if you if you're if you haven't paid attention, I mean, this is pretty well covered area. But like Somalia's fishing fisheries were decimated by international fishing units. And whether that was illegal or whether they paid government, you know, officials in Somalia for the rights to go in and just take out all the fish. Basically all these villages along the coast in Somalia then had to turn to piracy because they lost their food source.

[01:13:20]

I would never defend trawling. I think commercial fishing has a lot of issues. I've written about it in the past and I'm not in favor of unregulated fishing, illegal fishing. I think it's horrible. But when you make a movie, it would be nice if the stats weren't cherry picked and if the issues weren't sensationalized because they are important issues and you want to make sure people understand them in a more nuanced way. If you use the worst case scenario as your case study, then you go and start to try to have a conversation with somebody else about it later and try to really gather the energy you end to end up in a conversation with someone who.

[01:13:56]

Maybe skeptical of your one movie Awakening, you know what I'm saying? And so I think as a as a piece of journalism, which a documentary should be, it would be nice if just if the the facts were the facts and not used in a sensationalized way. That's my only point. But I do agree that highlighting these horrible things are happening. The ocean is important.

[01:14:19]

You know, I think I mean, listen, if you watch the movie and the only thing you take from it is what's going on with bycatch and trawling. Yes, like, that's enough. Like enough already. Look what we're doing to these oceans. And because it's out of sight, out of mind, we're completely blind and unaware to the incredibly deleterious environmental impact. Like when who's the woman who's his hero at the end, the legendary Sylvia Earle.

[01:14:44]

Yeah. Yeah. And she's talking about she's fabulous. Yeah, she's incredible. Right. Like, she really anchors it. Like she gives the end as she gives it a gravitas, I think, and allows you to really kind of.

[01:14:57]

Embrace the message because she's so highly credible. Yeah, and such a legend, but basically her saying there is no such thing as sustainable fishing, like I believe that like Apollinaire said, that in conspiracies like fishing, you know, fishing is by definition overfishing at this point.

[01:15:15]

And the extent to which not exactly. That's so. But it is.

[01:15:19]

And the extent to which we rely on a robust marine ecosystem to sequester carbon, I think is another point that Earle makes that's so important to understand and how that's so much more important that, you know, we put a lot of attention on the rainforest, but we completely overlook the importance of marine ecosystems in this equation.

[01:15:42]

I agree. Right now, it's out of sight, out of mind. People don't care about the marine ecosystem, even though it's responsible for every second breath. The the the plant life in the ocean is a carbon sequester, carbon carbon sequestration system that is number one in the world, 80 percent or something of our carbon is sequestered in the ocean.

[01:16:03]

The and the marine ecosystem is in trouble, reefs are dying, we're losing kelp forests here, even just here in Malibu there. I don't know if you see them, but in right around, starting right before Christmas and for several months, you get trawlers that come in from Marina del Rey and then from Oxnard and Ventura and they come and they scoop up squid and they bring out their Christmas lights on their ships and they attract all this squid to the service.

[01:16:31]

And they they put their nets out and they bring them in. And often they bring in sea lions and there's guns on these boats and they shoot sea lions sometimes because sea lion will bite your ass. Do they bring in dolphins? They very well might. We don't know. There's not someone out there really patrolling that.

[01:16:49]

Well, that's the point of the movie, right? No, I agree with you are completely on patrol.

[01:16:53]

I totally agree with you. And there's. And but. There are people that will there's going to be an officer on at the harbor when they come back in, so there is some control of it in the United States. I mean, there is some, but, you know, and sometimes there's observers on the boats. Right. That does happen. But we have problems just here. But at the same time, there are things we can do.

[01:17:17]

Marine protected areas are one way of of creating nurseries so fish can replenish. Like George said in the movie, Leave the ocean alone.

[01:17:26]

If you leave the ocean alone, it will replenish itself. Right.

[01:17:29]

And but the one issue I will say to say, Paul Watson, Paul Watson is Sea Shepherd guy.

[01:17:34]

They both did, I think. Yeah.

[01:17:35]

And but, you know, to say any fishing now is overfishing, I think is oversimplification. It's not exactly true. Like a spear fisherman goes out and shoots one fish. That's not overfishing. That's right.

[01:17:48]

But I think it disabuse you of the idea that that's how fishing is performed.

[01:17:52]

Like it depends where you're eating your fish, right? If you're buying commercial fish and you don't know where it's coming from, that's your problem.

[01:17:59]

You also the movie hammers home the point that you it's very difficult to know where your fish is coming. It's difficult, even if you're a well minded, intentional consumer trying to purchase fish that was raised in the in in you know, in a more I guess I'll say more. I don't think, you know, it's like I don't eat fish, but in a more responsible way, I guess.

[01:18:23]

Yeah, but there are you know, there are changes. And he he goes after fish farming. Paul Hawken thinks open ocean aquaculture is one of the top 20 things you can do and draw down and and open. Ocean aquaculture would be taking a fish farm, putting it in an ocean where there's current that blows through. There's low density pens. They're being fed feed that comes from algae, not from wild fish. And there are fish farms doing that.

[01:18:47]

And and it's it's a very small percentage, admittedly. And there is this dream of maybe somehow stringing, you know, clams and oysters off these pens which feed off of the fish effluent, the poop and all of that and grow. And you have kelp kind of growing at the same time and you have this ecosystem to regenerate. There are different ways of maybe approaching the problem. But the way in this film kind of all fish farms go under.

[01:19:13]

Dominant fish farm, though, is of the model that you see in Scotland.

[01:19:18]

And I think it's that's the worst case scenario in the world. So my my point is, you can't to if you take the worst case scenario in the world and say this is how it is, I don't know. That's responsible journalism. I guess that's my problem.

[01:19:30]

Right. I don't know that that Ali or Kip would would call themselves journalists. Right. Right, right. That's the thing. Yeah. Right.

[01:19:36]

So you have to you're looking at this through the lens of through the through the eye of of an investigative journalist.

[01:19:43]

Like that's your approach to the subject matter. That's not necessarily their approach. Their approach is more certainly like it's more it's more activist oriented. Right. Like so understanding that, I think you can appreciate it for what it is and the message I was trying to put out there and and and the kind of, you know, energy that it's trying to bring to this discussion. So you can hate it. You can love it, you can disagree with it.

[01:20:12]

But it's provocative enough to provoke conversations about the subject matter. It's a hit.

[01:20:20]

Yeah, it's a hit always in the top ten on network. It's a hit. It's so, you know, and it's beautiful to watch.

[01:20:25]

It's amazing. And let's just shout out just for a minute. Sorry I interrupted, you know, but how bad ass is that fucking Sea Shepherd boat? I love it. The the the Sam. What's his name. The guy who started the the guy who created. Is it Sam. Sam Cedar. No, not Sam Cedar. Who started Sea Shepherd. No, no, no. He was a huge donor. Oh the Sea Shepherd. Before he died of cancer.

[01:20:52]

I don't think, I think he created The Simpsons.

[01:20:55]

Oh. So he made a ton of money. Sam Simpson. No, no, no.

[01:20:58]

What am I doing? I'm going to have to Google Earth. I Google it.

[01:21:02]

But Sea Shepherd. I love Sea Shepherd. I mean, what Sea Shepherd. And he goes with them and I can't remember them. And Sea Shepherd.

[01:21:10]

Sam Simon. Sam Simon. Yeah, the boat is called the Sam Simon.

[01:21:14]

I mean, Paul Watson. What he has done and their work and just recently and the Great Australian Bight to raise awareness how much like the Galapagos of South Australia basically and how much life there is there. And they stopped a big oil development project in South Australia with their work. I mean, it's just they're they're on the short list, my favorite environmental organisation. Incredible. Yeah. Incredible what they're doing. People also shout out to a friend of the pod, Paul together.

[01:21:45]

Oh, yeah. Truthy hands on sharks. He was fabulous. Yeah. Yeah.

[01:21:49]

I mean, you're right. It is a great primer. Like, if you're not familiar with these issues, I'm probably too familiar with these issues so that I get grumpy. Well, you're just you're getting caught up in the details. Adam, come on. It's like human rights, you know, trawling. Yeah, bycatch, shark fin soup.

[01:22:08]

Like all these things are new ideas to a lot of people. That's right. And we just think the ocean is, you know, a resource that will give and give and give forever and to appreciate just how delicate it is and how and how misinformed so many of us are. I mean, one of the things that I liked a lot was the whole, you know, talking about micro plastics and how all that all the energy goes into, you know, no straws and all of that.

[01:22:36]

Yeah.

[01:22:36]

And how little of an impact that is in comparison to what's really going on, what we should be placing our focus.

[01:22:43]

Yeah, but I mean, overfishing isn't as underreported as he thinks it is.

[01:22:47]

So like but to the to the average person it is. You think it is not to you. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's a good question, though. The one question that comes up for me when I think of these alternate, because he talks about plant based shrimp and plant based fish and these plant based solutions and there's their shots of him eating it. The problem when you have when you take this diffused kind of economy like fishing was and certainly subsistence fishing is and and ranching and that kind of thing.

[01:23:20]

Now there's whole industrial component and it's there are certainly big conglomerates doing some damage out there. But if you replace it with, you know, a few winners in this kind of capitalistic game of of of, you know, there's a few companies doing these plant based meats. Is that is that a good replacement, you know what I mean? Like like get a few people rich and everybody else is a consumer. Is that sustainable for the country? For the world?

[01:23:50]

Well, I mean, that's a whole other podcast that we could do and I can go way down the line with you on that, but right now it may just be a few companies, but there's actually like if you canvas the startup landscape, there are tons and tons of companies that are innovating in the plant based protein sector all the way from plant based alternatives to the cultivated meat landscape and all the, you know, wild stuff, innovations that are going on there.

[01:24:18]

Certainly some people are going to get rich, but these are very early days and there's plenty of room. You know, Julie's got a plant based dairy company that's very small right now. Nobody's stopping anybody from joining. Yeah, replacing, you know, making a footprint right now. And there's a lot of money that's being invested because this is what consumers want. People want to believe that the food choices that they're making are doing right by the environment.

[01:24:43]

And to the extent that you can develop a plant based alternative to your favorite fish, that is just as nutritionally valuable that. Isn't harming the oceans and plays out in a carbon footprint sounds better than marine life, like why wouldn't you do that? Like that's the world that we're moving towards. That's the world that I would like to live in. And to kind of coin the Sea Shepherd guy.

[01:25:15]

What's his name again? Paul Watson. Paul Watson.

[01:25:17]

Why do I told you I didn't sleep very well last night, Commander? Right. Command captain. He's like, look, we're on this.

[01:25:26]

You know, we're on this this this blue spaceship hurtling, you know, across the universe. And we've got a life support system and we've got a crew. And when the crew starts to die at some point, these life support systems are going to start breaking down. And that's what we're happening. So leave the ocean alone. And we're so far from that right now that any inroads in that direction are things that I'm going to celebrate.

[01:25:51]

There you go. Well, I love this. I can't wait to see. His next film is very talented.

[01:25:57]

He is right. Cool. So check it out. See spacy streaming on Netflix. How long we've been going on, we're doing a long podcast today, but we can't we got plenty more. We still got to get through here, right. Let's talk about really quick, because I don't want this to be a four hour podcast.

[01:26:16]

There's a new podcast out called Lost Hills that's produced by Pushkin, which is Malcolm Gladwell, his company. Yep. It's hosted by Dana Goodyear, who is a New Yorker writer. And it's all about it's a true crime podcast series that explores these this this murder that took place in Malibu Creek State Park, which is literally my backyard, and several attempted murder and several attempted murders.

[01:26:44]

And this all took place in June. It was all around June twenty eighteen where a guy called Tristin Beaudet was camping with his two daughters. And I think his brother in law. Yes, his brother in law, and was shot like basically point blank.

[01:27:02]

I remember when this went down. And this podcast series tells the behind the scenes story of how this happened, who did it, and so many more things that I was unaware of, which are shocking, given that this is my neighborhood right down the street.

[01:27:17]

This guy. Trying to pick off cars on lost virgin mass, shooting it at ongoing cars en masse version is, which is a road I drive on every day. And I remember when this transpired how shocking it was to hear about this murder. But what you find out in listening to this podcast is that the car shootings took place earlier than that. And there were a couple other people who were shot at in the park, like backpackers and stuff. And none of this was reported to the public.

[01:27:44]

Right. The Lost Hills Sheriff's Department kept a lid on it. And I just had they had they had they allowed people to know what was going on. Certainly Tristin Beaudet would not have gone camping there and would probably be alive today, probably. And I just remember how details and little anecdotes and stories amongst people who live in the community started to eke out like what is going on.

[01:28:08]

I think at some point my daughters were going to a school that was right off lost virgins. And there was they got school was called off because they found a dead body nearby. And I mean, we're only on episode three of this thing. Mike Moore is going to happen. But this is a very idyllic part of the world.

[01:28:26]

Right. And Malibu Creek State Park is where I go running all the time. All the time. And I can't help but think like I tweeted for you and has tweeted like, don't listen to the Lost Hills podcast while you're while you're trail running in Malibu Creek State Park, which is exactly what I was doing.

[01:28:43]

You're like the guy at the beginning of the no hour movie running through the right.

[01:28:47]

Wow. This is an amazing true crime podcast getting shot at. You know, it's unbelievable.

[01:28:53]

But there's a lot of interesting Malibu characters that pop up in the storytelling who are all people that I know. And, you know, because, you know, I do know CSI.

[01:29:03]

I mean, she's a she comes out, she's she's a local muckraker. Muckraker. I've met her a couple of times. I just know that, you know, she I don't know her that well. But I would you know, I see her on Facebook going off about this or that, the other thing. But she's the one who really got traction on this whole thing and got people to pay attention to it.

[01:29:23]

Yeah, she she she rattled the cage of the Lost Hills station.

[01:29:28]

And, you know, I mean, I drove by the Lost Hills Sheriff's Department on my way here today, like it's literally our local police department.

[01:29:37]

So it's just surreal and bizarre.

[01:29:39]

But I guess you don't feel very protected, do you? Well, it's all fine now. I won't give it away. But anyway, it's very well done. Dana and the Pushkin team and everybody who worked on that, the show I've only lost in the first three episodes, but it's pretty fascinating if you like true crime.

[01:29:55]

Yeah. And you like L.A., aren't that right? Yeah, it's great. I can definitely I can't wait for the for the series. It will definitely.

[01:30:04]

Oh yeah. Series or a movie of the week or so. Yes.

[01:30:07]

It's like what's the what was the podcast model now. Yeah. Right. I mean wonder it built its whole business on that dirty job is one very show like just taking the you know, these true crime podcast and adapting them for television and movies.

[01:30:22]

It's going to be good. So I want to do a giveaway. Yeah, I got some hats here. If you're watching on YouTube, which are all podcast cats, we've got a black one. We've got a black and white one. We've got a white and black one. And also some of these t shirts I never wear like my own swag. But this is the official I'd wear your Schwarzschild podcast t shirt. So I want to give away five hats and five t shirts.

[01:30:47]

There are three steps to pitch in for this. The first is subscribe to the YouTube channel. The second is share one of your favorite YouTube episodes on social media. Take a screengrab and email that grab and subscription confirmation to info at Rich Roll Dot Dotcom.

[01:31:05]

And we will pick five people for a hat and five people for a T-shirt.

[01:31:11]

How's that sound? Sounds good. I still also I've been remiss the book giveaway that we did the other day. Yeah. What have I got to go through the comments and pick the pick the one you know we have.

[01:31:23]

That's not a good look. Right. I'll take care of that this week for sure. Also getting a lot of comments about these coffee mugs, the ritual podcast, coffee mugs. We didn't we just have a couple here for the studio. But so many people seem excited about a bug that's an NFTE.

[01:31:39]

This is and this doesn't actually exist yet while you're watching it on YouTube. It doesn't exist in a three dimensional space.

[01:31:44]

I we need to start, like, taking the drinks out of our hands as we're sipping so that people wonder if they're really NFTE.

[01:31:52]

You're going down the matrix rabbit hole. I'm ready pilled.

[01:31:55]

Adam, I can't. I have a friend who right now is probably still typing, trying to read Kill Me. Right.

[01:32:01]

And by the way, this liquid death, sparkling water, I, I'm enjoying it. But they didn't sponsor the show or anything like that was just a gift from the company and from Tobi.

[01:32:11]

So it's a comforting gift. Yeah. Let's do one of the weeks you go wins of the week, I should say.

[01:32:17]

My my big win of the week is my buddy Robbie Bélanger, another friend of the pod. He many of you might recall he came on after he ran across America in twenty nineteen.

[01:32:30]

Well as you do, yeah. As long as you do. Right. Last week, March 20th, he set that at the fastest known time for most laps logged in Central Park. It's called the Central Park Loop Challenge. In one day he did sixteen laps for just over almost one hundred miles, ninety eight point four, nine miles an hour, seven minutes and forty three seconds.

[01:32:55]

He broke the record by five loops. It's a six mile loop. Have you ever run that loop in Central Park? No.

[01:33:02]

Got to do it. I know it's my favorite one of my favorite runs in the whole world. I haven't done the whole live. I've done a piece of it.

[01:33:08]

It's got a surprising amount of elevation, I think. Oh, you just run around flat. It's New York City. But on the north end is you're kind of rounding the corner and starting to head head sort of south west.

[01:33:22]

There's a huge hill there. So over the course of the day, Robbie ended up bagging. What was the elevation? It was something like 4800. Yeah, 4800 feet of. Of gain and the way this whole work, this works, the rules are you have from five minutes after the park opens at six a.m. to five minutes before it closes at 1:00 a.m. to run as many loops as possible. So he absolutely crushed it.

[01:33:50]

Super cool to see this thing happened.

[01:33:52]

And I just so happened, coincidentally, to do a photo shoot with the guys from 10000 who are who are sponsoring Robbie in this endeavor. The guys who documented that came out and we did a shoot the other day. So they were telling me all about like what it was like like they were behind him on SCAP. They're like two dudes from San Diego and they were on skateboards and like getting all this cool stuff with them. And they gave me all this behind the scenes on on just how badass the whole thing was about those last five loops.

[01:34:22]

He'd already broken it. And, you know, there must have been a great temptation to just be like, OK, cool, I already got it. Like, how do you keep going for like another five?

[01:34:30]

Because he's got like probably had like six hours left.

[01:34:33]

Right. You know, so he was still like that kind of stuff. Like, it's impressive, like. Right. I could see the first victory lap, but after a while, like, should I keep like that last lap. I don't need it. I'm already four laps ahead. But I think what was driving him was to get 100 miles. So I think after he got his 16 laps, which was just under 100 miles, I think he ran until he eclipsed 100, even though it doesn't count because it wasn't a whole other full loop.

[01:34:59]

Right. Anyway, shout out to Robbie and Classic. Instead of just going home and putting on the normal boots and chilling, he ends up joining this guy, Hella Sidibe. What on in the Navajo Nation? Hallah is in the middle of doing his own run across America. I did not I was not familiar with Hella until Robbie put them on my radar. But Hallah is in the midst of his transcontinental attempt and Robbie dropped in on him in the Navajo Nation and ran some segments with him, which I thought was pretty cool right after this.

[01:35:34]

Yeah, right. Like right after this basic lasing, which is crazy.

[01:35:38]

So Hella is new on my radar, but I wanted to give him a shout out. He seems to be a guy who's just brimming with inspiration. He seems super cool.

[01:35:47]

He's at hella good nine hlah good. And then the No.9 on Instagram. So give him a follow, give him a shout and put a little wind in his sails. Love it. What do you got. We're going to talk about free diving under the ice.

[01:36:02]

Yeah, I'll just talk about Alexi Molchanov again. He dove eighty meters under the ice in a Siberian lake called Lake Baikal. He's an ambassador for this lake now. It's one of the largest freshwater lakes in the world. It goes hundreds of metres deep in different areas. It's got I think it's like one of the biggest expanses of freshwater there is in the world, just in terms of volume, maybe the biggest. And it has freshwater seals and all sorts of stuff.

[01:36:34]

And there's villages on the shores and there's been environmental issues with Lake Baikal. And so part of his the reason he did the dive was to kind of raise awareness for this Great Lake.

[01:36:46]

But, yeah, so he he decided, you know, it was a couple of years ago, he's got the the deepest dive in the history of the sport with a monophone 130 metres. He's got the the record for free immersion, which is pulling down the rope at 125 meters. He pulled down a rope and then you pull back no strings at all. And and so he's featured in my book One Breath, and I've known him since I first started covering the sport in 2013.

[01:37:13]

I've spent time in Russia with him and with his mother, who has since passed. His mother is Natalia Molchanov, and she was the greatest in the history of the sport. And she disappeared in 2015, free diving on a fun dive. And and overnight he had to kind of take control of the entire business that he had, his mother had built. And so this story is about this dive and it's also about that experience for him and recovering from that.

[01:37:40]

And one thing I wanted to just kind of bring up was this this idea of deep concentration. That's something that Natalia taught in free diving. And it's a tool that basically you don't you try to concentrate. You don't focus on the discomforts of the free dive. You don't focus on the need to breathe. You don't focus on the busyness at the surface. You don't even focus on how beautiful things are down below. Everything is at a remove. And that allows you to stay more present and and more broad and and it makes it puts you in more control.

[01:38:16]

It's kind of like almost a Daoist way of looking at things. Right.

[01:38:19]

I'm thinking like this is an approach that I that I would like to apply to my life. Exactly. So deconcentrating concentration as a tool for diving in life. Right. And it's exactly that's exactly it. And, you know, if you ask Aleksi. What what. Is the sport of free diving to you? He says it's about the mind and this is a he's a great athlete. He's got, you know, incredibly thick thighs and calves. He works out, he pumps iron, he does yoga, he does everything.

[01:38:46]

And he's an incredibly fit athlete at 34. But for him to say that that just shows you what you can do with your mind. And so I just thought that was cool. So we'll link to that story.

[01:38:58]

How many meters did he go 80 meters in?

[01:39:01]

And what did we say in 39 to 39 degree? Thirty six degree water, 34 degree water.

[01:39:08]

And, you know, they they cut the ice with chainsaws and these Siberians built in ice sauna right there next to the pole, which isn't in the story.

[01:39:16]

But they actually literally built out of these bricks of ice, nine tons of ice. They built this sauna, they heated with hot stones and they cut another hole in the sauna. And so after he he did the dive, he came back out and the whole crew came back out and they like basically had a had a celebration in the ice sauna. And they were like going in the sauna and diving into the water and coming back out. And that's how they celebrated.

[01:39:40]

So pretty cool adventure. I mean, imagine being 80 meters under the water and thirty six degree tap the day before.

[01:39:51]

He was trying to figure out what thickness of the wetsuit.

[01:39:54]

Just the the. The composure that you would have to have to not lose it, he talks about that, like when you get down that deep, what you want to do is kick hard to get back because you know how far you have to go, but you can't because it's like an oxygen savings account in your body and all the oxygen in your blood. And it's going to burn if you kick harder and harder. So you have to tell yourself, even though your body's like rebelling, you're getting these contractions where your body's trying to inflate your lungs, but you can't.

[01:40:29]

The pressure is heavy and you can't open your mouth for obvious reasons. And so you have to kick and keep your composure, the concentration and knowing that your mother died doing this.

[01:40:40]

Knowing that, too, but of course, his position is if he had been there, she would not have because there wasn't a there was not a safety diver at her level that was there at the time. So it was a mistake, but. You know, pretty amazing, he had just come from the Maldives, by the way, diving in tropical rain. That's quite a contrast. He had one day to practice in the lake.

[01:41:02]

I would I would opt for the Maldives. I'd stick around there.

[01:41:06]

Yeah, well, you know, he and he's what's cool about it is the winter is the off season for most of these professional free divers. And a couple of years ago, he decided, you know, I'm going to add some winter diving to something else. Fun to do when he's not busy, like teaching, diving. He just had his wife just had a baby, too. So he's got, you know, a million things going on.

[01:41:25]

But he also has the record for the longest dive, 180 something meters in a in a quarry. How dark is it when you're 80 meters down underneath Siberian ice?

[01:41:35]

I mean, it's dark. Eighty meters down, even in the ocean, in the tropical and tropical water. But in Siberian ice, that's like black ice. It's basically midnight. However, he had a safety diver, a technical diver scuse me at the bottom taking footage, but also there in case something happened and another one at 45 meters. And those guys had cameras and lights. So there were periods of places where there's lights and then the bottom plate itself was illuminated.

[01:42:00]

And he has a light like a miner's light that he also like a pen light that he uses even in deep dives in the ocean. So but it's still dark most of the time. And then he gets down to the bottom and it must have been like blinding for him. It was a three minute dive.

[01:42:15]

So a sequel to one breath to press one and a half brother.

[01:42:21]

Can I use that? Yeah, you could use that one's free, buddy. The first one's free.

[01:42:27]

Hats off Alexi Schepper. That's incredible. All right. Let's do some listener questions.

[01:42:33]

All right. So the first one I'm going to read because it came in via email all the way from Durban, South Africa. Good day, Mr. Russell. Thank you so much for an amazing, powerful podcast. You truly are an inspiration to me. I am a pediatrician working in Durban, and I've been running for the last three years now. As with any sport, I set out books on running and came across Frightening Ultra on audio. It was tremendous and I still listen to it on the odd day to gain inspiration.

[01:42:59]

Following the audio book, I naturally started listening to every podcast of yours. Slowly but surely, I started to adjust my diet and lifestyle with more veggie days than usual. On one bright morning on my way to work, I listen to an episode which featured Ingrid Newkirk, and that evening I told my wife I was stopping meat and dairy. That was around the 8th of May 2020. And since then I've been gaining all the benefits from the change.

[01:43:21]

I feel that there were many straws that were placed onto the camel's back to eventually get me to that point. But I can assure you that if it was not for your life story and podcast, I wouldn't be at the most fulfilling time of my life. I did want to ask a question on ROLLAN, but being in South Africa, I'm not able to leave a voice note. My question deals with how to properly address being with my friends nowadays because I find it difficult to still hang out and spend time with them.

[01:43:46]

I've actually become quite an introvert and spend more time with matters dealing with work and family, which I prefer and enjoy thoroughly. Is this something you and you initially experienced? This is a great question. Thank you, Kumaran, Kumaran, Moodley, Kumaran, Moodley, that's an incredible name.

[01:44:07]

So a couple of observations before I answer the question. A unbelievable name to Paediatrician's spelled Paey. I appreciate that.

[01:44:18]

Make sure that wasn't like the sort of the Commonwealth spelling.

[01:44:22]

I'm sorry. I thought that was a typo.

[01:44:25]

And then thirdly, I like how it was a bright morning on his way to work. He's got to listen to that podcast.

[01:44:30]

Got the writerly gift. I'm sorry, Kumaran, for not saying it was you who sent in the note. Yes.

[01:44:36]

Kumaran Moodley. Yes. So if I'm understanding this correctly, my sense is that Cameron's introversion. Is motivated, at least in part, by a shift in his value system, which in turn is creating this growing distance or valley between what he cares about and that which his peers value.

[01:45:03]

And it appears that he feels sheepish about just being who he is with his friends, which is not a good place to be.

[01:45:13]

So I guess my first question is, is this this move towards becoming more withdrawn and introverted because you're afraid of being judged or because your values have shifted such that you now feel you have less in common with those people that you have been spending time with? If it's the former, again, not a fun place to be.

[01:45:36]

So I would encourage you to do a little internal inventory on what the downsides are of just being who you are and you're fully express state. If your friends castigate you, then are they really your friends? Right. If you feel like if I tell them that I'm vegan or whatever else is going on with him and they're going to mock him or make fun of him, maybe some of that is just friendly repartee.

[01:46:03]

But if there's something more fundamental deeper beneath that, then it's a question of of of really, you know, how valuable are these people to you? If you feel insecure just being you, then what does that say about you and the environment that you keep, which is a way of saying, I'm not necessarily answering the question, but suggesting things for you to evaluate or think about? I think personally that come around you should feel super proud of the changes that you've made for yourself, like you're basically making an investment in yourself.

[01:46:39]

It's agreeing with you. You feel good about these decisions that you've made and you should feel comfortable expressing that without fear of reproach. So I would do two things. I would look more deeply within yourself to examine that insecurity. If that's the case, that's motivating the introversion and try to figure out what is that about.

[01:47:00]

And if it's your environment, then the good news is you can change your environment and start surrounding yourself with more like minded people. So it kind of leaves him with two options first. The choice to maintain your friendships, and I think it's OK to care for people who see the world very differently and hopefully your friends can do the same in your direction. And again, if they're true friends, they should respect your your values as you do theirs. Meanwhile, it's not incumbent upon you to change them or for them to change you.

[01:47:35]

So it's about finding a way to gracefully coexist with these people that you care about.

[01:47:43]

The second thing is that. I would. Encourage you to consider that perhaps this trepidation around your friends and it's difficult to answer this question, as I just don't know enough about this dynamic, but it's possible that this this dynamic of fear lives larger in your mind than in reality. And the only analogy that I can share is that when I quit drinking, I thought, like, oh, my God, like, everyone's going to know I'm not drinking or I'm not going to be able to hang out with my friends because if I'm not drinking and they are, they're not going to like me or I'm not going to be able to participate.

[01:48:18]

And what I've discovered over time is that, like, people are self-absorbed, like they don't give a shit right.

[01:48:25]

Like no one cared.

[01:48:26]

And if somebody did care, then I knew, like, that person wasn't really my friend to begin with. At the same time, you can also seek out new friends who share your values with whom you feel comfortable being who you really are, because you can't be a healthy, actualized individual if you feel muted, whether that that sort of self editing is emanating from within or from without. So what are you running from? What are you running towards?

[01:48:55]

What do you what are you hiding from your friends? And is that fear real or is that fear imagined?

[01:49:02]

Hmm. I think, you know, the other thing that I'm getting the sense I'm getting is that that there's a loneliness to all of this. You know, I tweeted one time, you can't break paradigms and expect to be embraced by the mainstream. The idea being like if you're going to do something that's kind of outside of. You know what your social environment approves of or that is in alignment with what your peers are doing, that can be a difficult, lonely place.

[01:49:31]

But it's also an opportunity for you to invest in your own values and to work on healthy boundaries around what's OK and what's not OK for yourself. And if you can do that, you will experience a boost in self-esteem. So I think a lot of this does emanate from some esteem issues. So maybe look at that as well. But if you can say this is who I am and I'm going to stand on my own two feet and and, you know, be that individual doesn't mean that you have a megaphone and you're trying to convince other people to share your values.

[01:50:04]

But just to be comfortable in your own skin is a very self affirming, self actualized self-esteem building endeavor for yourself.

[01:50:14]

He does call it the most fulfilling time of his life. So there may be maybe there's an aspect of it that is also very expansive. So it's like a contraction and an expansive expansion at the same time, like he's feeling connected in ways that he hadn't before, maybe in the old, but in a way that makes him feel alienated from those friends like that.

[01:50:31]

My sense is just that he's changed and his friends are in a different place and he's trying to figure out how to connect with those people and his. Not able to do that right now, right? That's very good advice, sir. And so you're he was asking for your experience that the only experience you can relate to really experience it with with changing my diet so much.

[01:50:51]

But I did experience it when I quit drinking. Yeah, for sure. To eat a lot. And what you realize is so much of it is in your head.

[01:50:58]

Do you think it helped that being an athlete in college and just knowing people in that space, like having a fitness and nutrition regimen, is normal? Right. So it's like it wasn't like. No, but I mean I mean, certainly I had to deal with a lot of like what you're not eating, that's why you eating that. And, you know, I don't know. I guess I I had done enough because I had been sober for a long time.

[01:51:20]

I had some tools. Yeah. For how to deal with all of that. So it wasn't as challenging or difficult, but being newly sober was very confusing and, you know, an alienating and all of this stuff that he's sharing I can relate to from that period of my life.

[01:51:36]

Nice one. Well, thanks, Coonrod. Congrats on all the progress in your own life. Absolutely. And congrats on the name.

[01:51:43]

Yeah. All right. Let's see if we got Casey from Austin. Yeah. Hey, Reg and Adam, this is Casey, I'm in Austin, Texas, so I have friends that are always really intrigued by the plant based diet I eat and they always want to know more, but they never commit. And I and I'm wondering. You know, what do you say to your friends that are interested in going plant based, really interested to hear your answer and then a kind of a follow up on that is the meat eating tends to have like this masculine tendency, like people feel masculine.

[01:52:19]

And it's kind of like one of those things that you attach to whenever you're like like a man. Right. That's what I find with my friends. At least I'm wondering how do we how do we make eating plant based more masculine? I don't know if that makes sense, but it's just something that I've been trying that I've been sharing with my head, not that I don't feel that way, but more just to make my friends see it as like less of a less of a weakness, if that makes sense.

[01:52:44]

So, anyway, thanks for taking my call, Adam. Great job on the four by four by 48 actually hearing you that you were going to do it kind of inspired me to do it and had a great experience as well. Have a go.

[01:52:58]

And that's awesome. Yeah. Congrats, Casey. On the four by four by forty eight. That's cool.

[01:53:04]

Congrats, Casey. This is a great question, it's a pretty common one, I mean, the first thing I would say, Casey, is just just get out of the business of being attached or whether your friends do or do not adopt a plant based diet.

[01:53:17]

Like it's just it's a it's a recipe for for frustration.

[01:53:22]

So I try to, you know, kind of in a. If you look at it through the lens of like codependency, like I just try to be not invested in what my friends or other people do or or don't do, and you can still be an advocate for the things that you believe in without getting caught up in the results of that activity. So I would just say that up front.

[01:53:46]

Second to that, the best way to kind of carry the message is to fan the flames of positive change and be the example that you want these guys to see. So if you want to dispel the myth that eating a plant based diet is somehow feminist is feminine, if you want to be, you know, a masculine example, then then be that person and stand in the light and live your life accordingly. And I think that's more resonant and more impactful than anything that's going to come out of your mouth.

[01:54:18]

If your friends are. It sounds like some of them are interested. They kind of dance around this. Just have them watch the Game Changers documentary. I mean, that that documentary does a pretty good job of diving into that very issue. Agreed. And most dudes find it to be pretty impactful if they don't just you know, unless they you know, there's a there's a sort of broad tendency to to switch switch off the, you know, be like, I can't hear this.

[01:54:40]

But if they are somewhat receptive, that would be the first resource that I would direct those guys to. Again, just detach from your expectations.

[01:54:49]

If they don't commit, it's not your business.

[01:54:52]

So the idea is that it's about attraction rather than promotion, which is kind of a sobriety thing. You want to be the lighthouse? I know I keep talking about this. I keep hammering on this point, but stand in the light and be a tractor beam, attract those like minded people into your life rather than trying to compel other people to see the world the way that you see it.

[01:55:14]

And I think you also have to respect the fact that this masculine meat eater stereotype is just so crazy embedded in society. It's very difficult to untangle a knot that was wound decades ago in that person's life. Like our whole lives, we were told or hammered home the idea that eating meat is what it means to be a man. You can't snap your fingers and have somebody suddenly, you know, not believe that anymore when they've been told that a bazillion times or just society reinforces that constantly everywhere that you you turn.

[01:55:55]

So I get the dilemma.

[01:55:58]

And I think, you know, on a personal level, it's one of the reasons that I've been over indexing on the gym and on strength work lately.

[01:56:08]

Like I do like I have this idea, like I'm not really racing right now, so why don't I get jacked? You know, why don't I get big and strong? I turn 55 in October and I can be a vehicle for dispelling that very myth. And that's kind of what I've been focused on. That's one of your one of your goals, right? Yeah. I'm going to play volleyball in the next Top Gun movie. That's the goal.

[01:56:32]

Are you going to be the Tom scared of the next Top Gun? I might be that old by that time, you know, I don't know anyway.

[01:56:39]

Yeah, like b, b, b. The example that you would like to see, I guess, is the point that I'm trying to make and understand that change is difficult. And in the best case, best case is it's gradual and non-linear. So if you have your the good news is it seems like you have friends that are kind of interested in what you're doing. So that's cool.

[01:56:58]

Like I said, fan the flames of positive change and put out the welcome mat, you know, and make them feel excited and energized by what this adventure might look like and couch it in the context of of, you know, including new things into your diet rather than like what you're not eating. Like focus on like, hey, this amazing recipe, you've never tasted anything so good and try to, like, blow their minds.

[01:57:23]

You have to make it appealing. If you want to appeal to the masculine mind, you've got to make this something that is compelling for that person to change their mind. And that's not an easy task. So in the meantime, live your life. Well, that's really the most powerful way to advocate.

[01:57:40]

Hmm. I think it's great. The only thing I would add is, yeah, I could totally understand where you're coming from. I'm sure in Texas not to stereotype Texans or anything, but I'm sure that's even doubly so, you know, like the call to the meat and yeah, I agree with that.

[01:57:55]

But also it's also yeah. I mean, like Austin's pretty vegan friendly place.

[01:57:59]

So it's vegan and a hippie way, but it's also the home of Rip Esselstyn, the the the king himself, the founder of the whole thing. Like he's the first plant based athlete that I ever like.

[01:58:10]

He's the grandpappy. And so you you know, you have an opportunity. You could throw a party. There's ways of doing it where you could like just like cater your own event. Right. Where people are, like, trying it for the first time. But I think what you're saying is perfect. Just be polite. Be who you are. I also think that the idea of like the masculine stuff like this, that's not for you to worry about.

[01:58:33]

Like, you know, like it's interesting. The next question kind of plays in as we have friends and then we're going into talking about masculinity, which is something I never talk about, really, I never even think about. But it is interesting, the concepts of masculinity, what that means to young guys. I think it's OK to separate from that, not even deal with that.

[01:58:52]

It's like not the but the problem there and why this is so core to the whole thing is that it's what makes it it's the difference between habit change, like I'm going to break this habit or I'm going to adopt a new habit.

[01:59:05]

And identity change like identity like this speaks to the core of who I am.

[01:59:10]

Like I'm a man and a man behaves in in in this manner. I do X, Y and Z. And now you're telling me I can't do this thing. That's a threat to how I see myself. And so you've got to rewire that whole programming. So it's much more difficult than just saying, hey, maybe don't eat that thing because it's not good for you.

[01:59:29]

Right. Well, I think game changers will is the perfect place to go, and if you think about it, if you're an NBA fan, Chris Paul, low key, went plant base, didn't make a big deal about it. And his whole like he became injury free and dominated all of last year and was one of the best players in the league again last year and this year again. So it works. Yeah.

[01:59:51]

And that's why the athletes are so important in this conversation, because, you know, for a lot of people, particularly dudes, it's that's what they pay attention to.

[01:59:59]

They just want to see those results. And so you need those guys out there crushing it. And there's lots of them. Lots of them.

[02:00:05]

And the funny thing about Chris Paul was he didn't want to talk about it, not because he was ashamed of it, because he didn't want other people to do it right. He was keeping it kind of edge. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right. We got one more question more.

[02:00:17]

Hey, fellas. My name is Cindy from New Hampshire. You can play this on the show. I think you two make a great team and you're great models of male vulnerability and connection. And I think a lot of listeners would benefit from hearing you to riff on masculinity and particularly how you navigated your own boyhood and early manhood. And I know you shared a lot of that in this book on his show. But the two of you could inspire guys to dig into masculinity, expectations, feeling man enough.

[02:00:46]

The idea suffered to worthy and just the whole process of unhooking from all that throughout your life, because even before covid, many boys, young men, older men, women struggling emotionally in a not comfortable seeking help they need before they before they crack. So I think men are desperate to know they're not alone. And I think you guys could inspire some serious healing. Thanks so much.

[02:01:08]

Bye bye, Cindy. Just going to the heart of the whole thing, that men need help. Men need a lot of help. It's a masculinity twofer.

[02:01:19]

It's masculinity crisis. Folks back to back masculinity. Is the problem too much masculinity? Well, yes.

[02:01:26]

I mean, there's there's this is this doesn't even have anything to do necessarily with what toxic masculinity being at the far end of that spectrum?

[02:01:34]

No, no, no. I'm talking about that. Yeah, we're not talking about that.

[02:01:36]

But what we are talking about is, again, it goes back to identity.

[02:01:42]

And it seemed that, you know, Cindy was interested in kind of hearing a little bit about how iue we navigate our own boyhood in early manhood. I mean, I'm somebody who never thought of myself as particularly masculine, but I did spend most of my boyhood and early adult life trying to find my own way into masculinity by adhering to social norms like swimming, academia, law. And the more that I tried to do that or double down on that, it didn't work because it was at you know, it was it was turning a blind eye to a little self exploration to figuring out, you know, my own identity rather than trying to make myself fit into some paradigm.

[02:02:26]

Hmm. You know, I was a quiet kid, introverted, outside of the norm. I went to a very masculine, hyper male high school. And I could never really identify with what a lot of the other boys cared about, like football. And and I think at that time, looking back in retrospect, that led me to really question my own inherent manhood or relationship to masculinity. And I think that in turn led to insecurity and feelings of less than that.

[02:02:58]

Something was wrong with me. And that in turn led me to withdraw even more and feel ashamed. And then, of course, enter alcohol. Right. Which almost killed me.

[02:03:10]

So this is how serious these things can can become. And it was only when I was so broken that I had no other choice but to embrace vulnerability, no other choice than to surrender to the truth of myself, that I was able to summon the courage to not only ask for help, but to receive help, which I think is harder than even, you know, for a lot of people, much harder than just asking for it. And in turn, to be able to heal and accept myself and mend my insecurities and then access and grow into a more authentic incarnation of myself.

[02:03:49]

But I think for most men, this process is essentially anathema. It's counterintuitive path that is just off the table rather than remain stuck in pain.

[02:04:05]

I think many people are what am I trying to say? I think there are a lot of people who would rather remain stuck in pain than appear weak because showing your truth is a very terrifying prospect, I think, particularly for for a lot of men. And so, you know, over the years, I've worked hard to dispel this myth that vulnerability is weakness, that's showing emotion is weakness, and that by leading with vulnerability and emotion. It's like this disarming force that allows and permits others to kind of meet me in that space, and I think it's also correct that most men, young boys, adolescents suffer in silence.

[02:04:49]

Their emotions are in lockdown. They're afraid of being open and honest with anybody. And over time, if not unlocked, like this is going to fester. It's going to metastasize. And the result is is never good. And that's when we get into toxic masculinity and violence. So it's about normalising the process of asking and receiving help. It's about normalizing vulnerability and understanding that that vulnerability and being kind of more on the surface with your emotions is not mutually exclusive from masculinity.

[02:05:24]

You can love football. You can love American cars and guns or whatever we associate with conventional norms that surround our definition of what is and what isn't masculine and be open, honest, vulnerable, caring, all of those things.

[02:05:41]

And inquisitive and yeah, yeah, yeah, I think that. You know, you demonstrate that I think that's part of the appeal to David Goggins, major part of it, and Joe Rogan as well, kind of like this masculine version of being open and inquisitive and vulnerable about life, basically. And I think that I think the podcast host that exemplifies it perhaps better than anybody is, is DAX Shepard, because he's he's very much like a dude's dude.

[02:06:10]

He likes to race cars and like, yeah, he wears like cutoff shirts. And he's a blue collar guy from Michigan and like, chews tobacco and like, you know, like he's a dude's do. Yeah. But he's also somebody who wears his emotions on his sleeve and he's very vulnerable. And he tells his friends he loves them and he does all this stuff that is sort of counter to what you think like a dude's dude would do. And I think it's part of why his message is so powerful and impactful and why I think he's such a good podcast host.

[02:06:40]

But it's it's that like combination like, you know, I'm not a dude's dude in the way that.

[02:06:45]

Right. That Dax's but. I still would characterize myself as having a certain kind of masculinity that threw a lot of internal work is not under threat because I tell you out of my love, you know what I mean. Thank you. I love you, too. Yes. We'll make out afterwards.

[02:07:03]

I agree. I mean, my story I'm going to drop a little bomb here, but we don't to belabor it too much. But I grew up I was sexually abused at seven years old. I didn't know that. Yeah. And and then grew up and went through puberty late and was really small for my age. Most of my life, even though I was interested in sports and was pretty good, I had to question myself along the way. And I kind of like stuff down the abuse.

[02:07:34]

For a long time. I didn't tell anybody and then I didn't really come up and address it until. What was it to like '99 2000, I think, right around there. So I would be 28 around then is when I first started to deal with it. And at first it was hard grew, helped me through it at the beginning. And I went through a process of therapy through him, but not through traditional means, like going to a psychotherapist.

[02:08:03]

I went to a yoga teacher who happens to be like a great therapist also, but he's not traditional and at the same time, kind of like what's helped me isn't been attaching to I've never felt like I needed to be some macho dude. That's never been my thing because I never was, because I was always kind of smaller and felt smaller even when I grew. And so I just never felt the need to do it. I never, never wanted to be in that in that mode and was never attracted to it.

[02:08:33]

But at the same time, like, you know, I'll throw out just like anybody else. So I understand like having a group of guy friends can be empowering to young guys and having some people you close to you can be. And so that was never a problem for me either. So I've kind of is writing this line of having this secret and and bowing out and never really addressing it. And then in my later, like, what's helped me most of all has been kind of discovering things like yoga, which is kind of a more feminine practice.

[02:09:02]

And and Daoism, which is a book I read out of Ching from cover to cover. Basically I read a verse, you know, maybe multiple days in a row. Then I'll start again the beginning and I'll switch translations. And that is again, kind of looking at the universe in in in a not in duality, but in oneness. And so I don't think of I think my advice would be or things I like to tell people is let's not try to look at things in duality.

[02:09:29]

Let's look at things as as a unity that we're a part of everything all the time. And I'm not one of those people that's like against gender constructs in any way, shape or form. I just think it's beyond gender. It's a conversation beyond gender. It's a connection beyond the individual. It's an expansion that we are everything all the time. And when you think of it that way, the deep concentration of the small thing and get bigger, you know, I feel like sometimes I feel like the luckiest man in the world.

[02:09:58]

Yeah, that's I mean, wow. Thank you for sharing that story. I didn't I didn't know a lot about you.

[02:10:04]

Yeah. Thanks. That's pretty heavy. We can talk more about that. Can impact after. Yeah. Well, well we will definitely unpack that a little bit more of that. I think that.

[02:10:15]

I agree with you on all of that, but I also think that that's some of what you're talking about is a bit esoteric, like in the context of like a young male who's struggling with his relationship to masculinity and and his peer group.

[02:10:29]

The only way to. To motivate that young individual to engage with his interior emotional life. In a healthy way, if you know, if he's one of these people that been shut down in that regard is to model healthy behavior in that guy's environment. So putting a strong male in proximity to that person who is an example of, you know, how to kind of do this in a healthy way, I think is is really the lever that moves the needle.

[02:11:04]

So whether it's somebody in the community or a relative or a coach or a teacher or somebody on YouTube or a podcast host or something like that, that that young person can connect with and start to think a little bit differently about. How he's relating to himself and and his direct environment, I think is a really powerful thing. Yeah, and I think could be the advice that I would give having mentors is key and then and also holding yourself accountable and working on yourself.

[02:11:37]

And, you know, if you say you're going to do something, go do it. Like these kinds of things can make you feel. I was probably just about growing up in general, but as a young man, it can make you feel more of a man. If you know you can rely on yourself to do what you say you're going to do. You can feel more empowered as of right. But the trick is you can do that and still be repressing all of your emotions.

[02:11:56]

That's you know what I mean. So it's about having a healthy relationship with those emotions, like what is the outlet for that so that later on in life it doesn't manifest in a toxic manner.

[02:12:07]

What would you say a good outlet would be finding therapy or doing?

[02:12:10]

Well, I mean, it depends on the individual, but that's why I think just having having healthy males that that model healthy behavior in the orbit of that young person will be the most powerful because it will demonstrate to that person like, hey, it's OK for me to, like, talk about my feelings or it's safe. You know, I'm not going to get chastised or ridiculed because I have this weird emotion and I'm afraid to share it with anybody.

[02:12:35]

Good points. You model healthy behavior rituals and not all the time. I lose my shit every once in a while. You do? Yeah. All right. Well, we've been going for like two and a half hours trying to wrap this thing up. Thank you for sticking around. If people are listening, still.

[02:12:53]

Right. Thanks for listening to Old Journey today.

[02:12:57]

And if you didn't listen to the last bit, just forget I mentioned it. Yeah.

[02:13:01]

You feel like you just had a catharsis. Yeah, I feel like I feel like you're my Oprah. I don't know about that. That makes me nervous. You did disclose something pretty heavy there, though. I did, but it's OK. I've just I once wrote a novel where it was part of it, and so I was prepared to disclose it. Then, of course, nobody bought it so I could have taken it back.

[02:13:22]

Well, you did it in a way that felt very comfortable to you. So clearly, you've done enough work around it that it's not like causing you distress. No, thank you. So appreciate it for you, man.

[02:13:33]

Thanks. Cool. Well, until next time we'll be back in two weeks. Follow Adam and Adam Skolnick, of course, that rich role. If you want your question considered for the show, leave us a message of 44 two three five four six two six.

[02:13:48]

Check out the show notes on the episode page role dotcom. We'll have links up to everything we talked about today. Again, hit that subscribe button on YouTube, Apple, Spotify. We recently create a clip's channel on YouTube. We've got to start uploading more clips there. We're behind, but we got big plans for that channel. You can find it by searching rural podcast clips on YouTube or we'll link it up in the show notes as well.

[02:14:12]

Smash that button smash hit.

[02:14:14]

I want to thank everybody who helped put on the show today, Jason Camillo for production, audio engineering, shout outs, interstitial music, all the good stuff like Kurtis for videoing today's show.

[02:14:24]

Jessica Miranda for graphics, David Greenberg for taking portraits. Georgia Whaley for Copywriting, DKA for advertising relationships and theme music. Diing back to Episode one.

[02:14:34]

My boys, Tyler Trapper and Harry Tyler Trap are in the studio recording their first album.

[02:14:41]

Finally.

[02:14:42]

That's amazing. Yeah it's pretty exciting. That is exciting. Yeah it's really cool.

[02:14:47]

Appreciate you guys. Love you. See back here in a couple of days with another awesome episode and Adam and I will be back of course in two weeks. So until then, peace plans I must say.