Roll On Re-Entry: AMA on Addiction, Lifestyle Chan

The Rich Roll Podcast. Roll on his back. Yeah it is. What's on our Vienna? Are we in zone two? I don't know. We'll figure it out. But first. We're brought to you today by Athletic Greens. When it comes to health, it's all about forming repeatable, doable, non-negotiable positive habits around things like daily exercise, hydration, meditation, sleep, nutrition of course. And drinking AG1 by Athletic Greens has

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Athletic Greens.com slash Rich Roll. All right. Let's do the show. All right. Let's just get into it. Hey, everybody. How's it going? How are you, Adam? I'm doing great, man. It's great to be back here. Welcome back. Back to Roll On. Back in the studio, did you believe it? It looks great. I don't look great. I don't quite know what to do. It's been, I checked.

It's been since, November 10th, 2022, since we've done this. Wow. Feeling a little bit rusty. Right. You and me both. I've been just locked in a room with no windows or doors. I don't know how I got in there. They built it around me. Uh-huh. And there's a trap door. They fed me. They did. Yeah. The darkness retreat. Is that what you're talking about? Yeah. So

I actually have a funny story about that. I thought about doing that as a matter of fact. The reason we haven't done Roll On since November 10th is, I mean, I had a bunch of travel stuff. And then I did what I do every January, which is I take the month off. And in this case, I ended up going to Australia. And I can share a

little bit about that in a minute. But I was kind of looking at experiences to, you know, kind of catalyze a little bit of growth. Yes. And the darkness retreat thing came across my trance and I looked into it. There's a place. I actually had it. In the outline, where is it? Is it in the Pacific Northwest? Well, there's multiple different places, but there's a place

called Sky Cave Retreats, which is in Ashland. Okay. And it's kind of like a little boutique sort of retreat center, like hotel situation. But yeah, they you get a room. And you basically, I think it's three days six. I think you can do six days, something like that. I'm not sure. And you're in darkness for the entire time. And they feed you food, I think through

like a trap door thing. But in a way where no light ever like penetrates the room. So like during the day, too, there's no light, no light, no devices, no nothing like utter total complete darkness with no stimulus. Listen, rich, which actually sounds like you're like, wow, that would be intense. And then the more you think about it, you realize how just utterly terrifying. Right. That

does not sound like a vacation to me. What kind of resort is this? So, but I think as we speak, yeah, our friend Colin O'Brady is in sconstant just such an experience. Of course he is. Yeah. He was talking about it. I think he's in the middle of it right now. Yeah. So I thought about doing that. And then I thought. I already live in a

prison of my mind. I should probably resolve some of those things before I put myself in that situation to torture myself. Like, I guess the idea is you, you come to the silence at the end, right? Yeah. Or you work through that level of discomfort. You arrive at some level of like peace and immersion in presence. But isn't that like, it's got to go sideways though

for some people. You would think, right? Right. I mean, isn't that what they did in Shawshank Redemption with Andy Dufrein. They put them in the. You it's in the sky cave. It's voluntary. It's voluntary solitary confinement, right? Except in the dark. It's a punishment. It's not a retreat. Well, you know, isn't an ultra endurance event like, hey, run a hundred miles. Yeah. You could. Yes. Through

that as a punishment. It is the mental version of a Spartan challenge or a cold plunge or any of these things that we sign up for. Are, you know, they're all voluntary, you know, exposure to different forms of discomfort. It's true. No, I get it. I understand the idea is to kind of short cut you to like some shock depot moment of self acceptance. I'm just

saying. I think I would rather run a hundred miles to be honest with you. It is a pretty scary aspect, right? Yeah. Anyway, I got through line one of the outline before we got sidetracked, which is why I love doing this. Yes. For those of you who are tuning in, maybe you're new to this whole format or perhaps the amount of time that's laps since the

last time that we've done this has led to some kind of memory failure situation. So if that's you, this is the version of the show where in the most general sense, Adam, Mr. Adam Skolnik sitting across from me and I play a little fast and loose with items of interest that have caught our fancy and our whimsy and we share our curiosity on certain things. It's

a little bit different from the normal show that we do. And it is also a format that we have now kind of put under the microscope and maybe playing with in the new year, which we can talk a little bit about. But I think today is going to be pretty standard, except we're going to kind of cut to the chase and be a little bit lean.

It's going to be much more of a AMA kind of listener question focused type episode. We're going to get some stuff off which roles mind. Let's just clear. Let's clear the slate. It's been through. Three months. Some pack the bag. You know, my goal when I come here is to share nothing. I want to share nothing personal. Come on. No, no, no. Come on. No. Um,

how are you? I'm going to check in. Um, so I feel like I can describe the essence of fatherhood. I think it's distilled into these little moments. And one of them is my newfound appreciation for ice ice, baby. Uh-huh. How long have you worked on this joke? I'm saying this is a true story. Go ahead. Is it true story? Do you know what it's like? Like

when you, like a song you never liked, but as caught is become an earworm for your two year old. Mm-hmm. And then it's been, you know, a minute. I thought we're in different phases of fatherhood. But, excited. Go ahead. So somehow a while back, he heard ice ice, baby. And couldn't stop saying ice ice, baby. So it became a go to on the zoom of playlists.

And over time, at first, I was kind of has been tempted to, you know, I never liked the song much, even though I grew up in ice ice babies, era. Mm-hmm. I never really liked it that much. Even though I admittedly, it's catching. I never thought was a good rap song. But now. Now I, I know it's a good rap song. And is this my love

for Zuma? Is it latent appreciation for the artist that is vanilla ice? Is it just a good rap song? I don't know. It's confusing. It's all very confusing. Right. So what is the trueism that you're extracting? From this experience? My point is you can love someone so much that you learn to love the songs they love, even if you don't want to. There's a poem in

there somewhere. Yeah. That's my hike. Less a joke. More poems. It's kind of point. The things that the person you love loves. Right. Right. Because he loves it. He jumps around to it. And to be honest, when it comes to the point in the song where he's like, A1A, beach front avenue. I say it out. I just like that. That's what I do. Well, enthusiasm is

infection. So I love ice ice baby now at me if you must. I love it. All right. Yeah. Good. All right. So we checked that box. Fatherhood. Fatherhood distilled. My foot is a little better. Better than it's been in a long time. It's not perfect. It may never be perfect. But it's. I had that to PRP injections. My post to be all tendon has reconstituted itself

of its own accord. That worked well for you. It's worked well. I'm running. I've done like six runs in three weeks. So it's not like I'm hammering it. I'm back doing that. I'm in the gym. Part of my rehab. Dr. Goggins ordered me into the gym to lift weights, which is not my favorite thing to do. But I've been doing it. Join it. With the great

Nick Nure. Shout out. We were in Kauai. We did a sabbat. We did a mini sabbatical, but not like a total sabbatical about the whole family. Yeah. And that was awesome. Sossum old friends in Kauai. Because I know we both have a Kauai backstory. And so that was January for us. We kind of skipped out a lot of the rain. And other than that, it's just

been kind of watching the Goggins book kind of happen and unfold. And that's been really rewarding. Right. So the last time we sat down together was before the book came out. That's right. That's right. Not only Michelle Obama, but like the Royals. Yes. Right. So the royal. The royal. But like mixing it up up there. I mean, by all appearances, it seems like it's done fantastically

well. It's done really well. You know, we did. We were number one for that week on Amazon. And then Harry came out. But we've been. We were never one on Audible for like five weeks. I mean, we were doing really well. Can't hurt me. Got a bump out of it. Yeah. Is the audio book outselling. Yeah. And that's been the way it's been. I mean, I

think it's like, I don't exactly know the numbers, but it's like 55 or 60% of it. It's audio, right. Which of course, the margin, you know, doesn't even compare. Right. There's no cost. Right. When you're self publishing. That's massive. Yeah. Yeah. When you're self publishing. It's massive. And so that's been really cool. And David hasn't even really been. I mean, he was on the Joe Rogan

podcast. Right. You did a couple podcasts and that's it. Yeah. That's it. So, you know, it's pretty amazing that it's staying up there. And you know, it's. I will say that like when we were writing it, David's idea was so he was always thinking about the reader from the beginning. And that experience more than any other experience I've ever had in writing, including the lonely planet

books, which are obviously service journalism. And you should be thinking about the traveler. I don't think I've ever been in a space of thinking about my readers more than I am now. And part of that is David part of that obviously being on the show with you as well, because it is service in its own way. And so obviously like it wouldn't be doing this well

without the readers. We really appreciate you guys. I can't thank you enough for all the support both personally for the Gogan's books. You know, we do care about giving this content in a way that will motivate and inspire you. It does mean a lot that it's working. And also want to thank you, because you know, I wouldn't even know who David was. It wasn't for your

original interview with him. And you would have eventually. Yeah, yeah, I would have eventually. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But then the fact that we're like started there and then to come full circle. It's just it's such a cool thing. And so like to see David who is this incredible, you know, he really does set an example on so many levels. And I look up to him a

lot, even more so than ever, really personally. And so it's just great to be a part of it. And really thank all the listeners out there who's been who's been supporting it. Yeah, it's cool, man. I'm proud of you. I'm happy for you. I'm happy for David. It's quite, you know, a trajectory. And you know, the books are powerful. And they do motivate and inspire people.

I mean, I'm sure countless lives are, you know, kind of permanently transformed by his work. And, you know, the work that you put in to making it the best that it could be is like no small thing. Yeah, man. Cool. But you know, it made me a better writer. Like it made me better in so many ways. So it's like, it's great to have gone through

that process. And the process is always different. But the good thing about writing is is is a process. You can rely on the process. Uh-huh. When you've done it enough. And really the process is just continuing to. And that's happening since it can't hurt me. Was a hit. Like I've periodically would get real offers from like real publishers and then just random people who say, hey,

I've got this, you know, and some, some of these random people are Olympians or like, you know what I mean, but who are asking me personally? I have so far said no to all of it. I'm not against it. Obviously, this is the golden age of ghost riding. You know, we've talked about it. It's obvious. It's the New York Times. It's a story on J.R. Moringe

who's like the Alpha Ghost Rider who just did his Harry's book. So the fact that it's out there being talked about is interesting. It is this golden age of ghost riding. So the funny thing is you can get paid more as a ghost rider than as like riding your own stuff, which is kind of like backwards, right? But typically when someone asked me to write their

book, I do my best to convince them to write their book. That's what I do. That's my first move. I think you should write your book. That's what I say. Well, we'll talk a little bit about that in a minute. But just to kind of wrap up going on with you, you also just published this New York Times story, which got a pretty good reaction. Right?

You want to talk about that a little bit? Yeah. Yeah. I did a story on Lockba Sherpa, who is a Sherpa woman from Mount McCallew in Nepal. And she last, climate season, last May. She became the first woman ever to get 10 summits of Mount Everest. She's the first woman ever to go to hit the summit and make it back to base camp alive. There was

another Nepali woman who in the 90s reached the summit, but died on her way down. And she was the first to do it. Now she's the first to get 10 summits. That's like a hallowed number. So if you're a sports fan, it's like 500 home runs or 3000 hits and baseball. It's like this number only 36, I think is the number of people have ever done

24 of them are Sherpa and they're all been men. And so she's the first woman to do it. And her life story is just tragic, but also try and fint in its way. She survived domestic violence. She moved. She's she's been working at Whole Foods in West Hartford. She cleaned houses for a living. She's an immigrant woman. She came over here after something at twice with

a Romanian climber and started living in Hartford, Connecticut and has gone through the ringer like as a single mom. And but still managed to get back there and add to her summit toll. She was on the mountain when the big avalanche came through Bay and she was on the mountain when they had the big earthquake. So she's, you know, her mentors have died there. She is

just this incredible woman that has never been sponsored. And so it was a great story. I was tipped off to it by a guy named Ben prior, listener of yours, who has done some research for me. And he said you should do this. And at the time it was like six weeks after she'd done the climb, maybe it was like a month. And I thought it's

too late to do a story like that now. But then I tried to get a hold of her couldn't do it. And then Bodra Sharma. Who is a New York Times reporter out of Kathmandu. He and I worked on the NIMS story together. I messaged him and I said, Hey, do you know Lockeba or have you ever met her? And it turns out he was there

when she came back to Kathmandu and had this hero's welcome. And had a great interview with her. So we started there. We got in touch. I interviewed her after that. And we just kind of collaborated on this piece and it's people have loved it. Yeah. Yeah. It's cool, man. Yeah. Thanks. Well, it turned it in in September. And then it didn't get published. And then it

was like, I'm going to go back to the hotel. And I'm going to go back to the hotel. And I'm going to go back to the hotel. And I'm going to go back to the hotel. And I'm going to go back to the hotel. And I'm going to go back to the hotel. And I'm going to go back to like last week. Wow. Welcome to mainstream

media publishing, I guess. I don't know. I think what happened was I interviewed her in July, August, but I think in August, but I couldn't get to it until late September, because I was finalizing. Never finished. And then by the time I got to it, I turned it in like a week before the World Cup. And like the time sports desk was falling. Yeah, yeah. In

Qatar. Interesting. Carter. Cool. Yeah. Carter. I think Carter. Carter. Are you working on this? Are you working on anything else for the times? There's a there's a swim race in late April in Arizona. Have you heard of this thing? The scar race? It's where it's this four contagious lakes reservoirs in Arizona that people swim in a stage race. And so I'm going to do that story

for the. Yeah. I haven't heard of that. Yeah. Monotonous. Turn me on to it. And so he won it last year. But this year apparently a lot of really established and well regarded open water swimmers who've got like the resumes on these guys are insane. Right. They're all going to be there. So it should be in a more interesting kind of weird carnival. Yeah. To follow

around in Arizona. Cool. So that's on my radar. But other than that, just finishing up this other big project. And excited to talk about that at some point. When appropriate. When appropriate. Cool. Yeah, man. How are you? Good to have you back. Yeah. Thanks, man. How is it going to be back? Sabatical was great. I'll get into it in a second. Before that, I just want

to make sure I make this announcement, which is that we are finally reprising our plant power. Italia retreat. This is something we've done every year up until COVID. And then we canceled it a couple years in a row. And last year it was sort of on the fence and ended up deciding not to do it. This year it might be the last time that we do

it. It's going to go down April 22 to 29 right now. We're about half sold out. So I think that leaves about, I don't know, somewhere between 15 and 20 open spots at the moment. And it's a pretty remarkable kind of life changing experience to spend a week with a group of people cooking, doing nutrition, hiking trail running. Do a yoga, meditating, touring, you know, tusking,

you know, hanging out music, like live podcasting, kind of sessions. Like we do tons of great stuff. We have special guests. It's, it's really quite something. And so I'm really looking forward to it. Especially guys meeting like yoga teachers or like every year. Like we've had different kind of people. Like and we'll figure that out at some point. I'm sure, you know, TBD, but it's always

pretty cool. We've had the happy pair guys come, for example. And we'll talk about it. We do like a live podcast with them, that kind of thing. And we do it at this place called Aisilana, which is this incredible, agritary. I was like a working farm, but it's beautifully appointed like villa and accommodations with like two pools in this beautiful yoga room and dining hall. And

it's nestled sort of halfway between Sienna and Florence, like just incredible, you know, part of the world. Very sky cave. And it's very, this is a very sky cave. This is the antithesis of the sky cave, right? You know, hanging out with like amazing people doing really high vibe shit. So if that sounds cool to you, you can learn more about it at our plant power

world.com, our plant power world.com. I'll put that link up in the show notes. Again, about half full. So if you're interested, I'm pretty sure it's going to sell out quickly. So jump on that. And then just to, you know, kind of going on recently with me. Yes, I did this sabbatical. But prior to that, we haven't done a roll on because I was traveling. I went

to Hawaii to crew for the Ultraman World Championships, which is the race that I did a number of times, like 10 years back. I hadn't been back, I've been back to the big island, but I hadn't been back to that race. And that race is really so much about, you know, not just the aloha spirit of Hawaii, but also like O'Hana, like family, right? And, you

know, giving back is kind of a fundamental aspect of participation in the race. And that was kind of a glaring omission in the relationship and my relationship or history with the race. Like I always felt compelled or, you know, this desire and need to go back and serve the race that had given me so much and an opportunity arose to go and crew for a friend

of mine, how he Nordstrom, who was competing. He asked me and I said, of course, this is great. Like he's asking right at the moment where I thought, like, I need to do this anyway. Right. And it was cool. Like it was weird and cool to be back there after so long. Right. So much of it is exactly the same. Like it's sort of a racist

credit. It has not like sort of succumbed to the pressures of commercialism. Like it's very much, you know, still in its roots of what it is in that kind of purity. I suppose to these under mile races that have like mushroom didn't. Right. Like sponsors get involved in and then they grow into some, you know, kind of big money making enterprise. And it loses sort of

its soul. Like Ultraman is not that. Like it's still like, wow, this is exactly the same as it was. Same people. Some of the people who are racing when I was racing are still doing it. I mean, the race, I don't want to be a man. I mean, I think it's because it's so hard that like the demand is still not great. Or do you think

it speaks to just the fact that they have to do it? I mean, there are like, you know, when they're a moa, there's the Moab 240. Like there's a lot of hard stuff out there. Right. I think there has been a conscious, you know, concerted effort to keep it that way on purpose. Like there's an intentionality behind that to keep it small. Like only, you know,

30 to between 30 and 40 participants, et cetera. And it was great. It was great to be back. And reconnect with that, you know, part of myself. And it brought back a lot of memories and then to serve Howie and get him, you know, across the finish line. And, you know, that race is hard for everybody. And it had its highs and its lows and all

of that. And to be on that side of that equation and appreciate just how challenging the crew role is. And being in that service capacity was, you know, an amazing experience. And I did it alongside another friend of Howie's this guy Ryan Smoke, who is an Iron Man athlete, who is one of those guys that does it in partnership with a challenged athlete. Like he pushes

a younger kid. Yes. But really cool guy. We had fun serving Howie. And it was, you know, it was hard. And it was there were highs and lows and all that kind of stuff. And it was cool to meet some of the younger athletes. And also see how the quality of athletes continues to improve like on the women's side, especially like D D grease bearer who's

a very accomplished former Iron Man professional champion. And he's a very talented athlete who's now 52, just absolutely like crushed it, rewrote all the records, got third overall, which dominated the whole thing. And and was amazing. And that was really cool to see. On the men's side, Richard Thompson from Australia, I got first in this guy, Stephen Keller, who's a veterinarian, got second. And, you know,

those guys were both just, you know, superstars and and excelling, you know, at a pretty high level. So it was, it was cool. A full circle moment to be back. And I feel like, you know, that chapter has kind of like, okay, you know, like it's complete now. Julie was like, if you go back and do that, do you think you're going to want to do

that race again? Right. Or some other kind of. Sensibility. I was like, no, I did it. Like I, I had that experience. I learned what I wanted to learn and what I needed to learn from it. I went back and contributed to it. And it feels like complete. What about ultra in general? I don't know. I mean, the back has to get healed. Right. Yeah. You

know, and that's not the case at the moment. Right. I can't really make any of those predictions until I figure out how to get to the other side of that. Fair enough. She's longer. But that's pretty cool to be able to do that. And then, and then I think you remember you telling me that there was this cool banquet afterwards. And you got to say your

piece too, right? Um, you got to speak to the. No, I didn't speak. I mean, there was a bit like they do a banquet at the end and every athlete gets to go out to the podium and share their experience of, you know, participating in the race. And so you get to hear all of these stories and all their flavors and everybody's got a crazy story.

Right. Like you don't sign up for something like that unless you're, you're like, you know, kind of living outside the box on the wall. Nobody has an easy day. Yeah. And, you know, all the different flavors of that are pretty cool. And it was also cool. Like to go back and know, like some of these people, like listen to the podcast. Yeah. Cool too. You know,

that was, that was really funny. I would imagine. And gratifying and all of that. I'm sure there's people that were there that because they read your book or heard the podcast, there has to be some. There were a couple. Yeah. Yeah. There were a couple people who, yeah, that, well, that was the initial spark. Like I was like a, you know, hearing about the race. And

frankly, like David Goggins, like reading about Goggins doing ultra man was a spark for me. Right. Like so that lineage continues. Yeah. It's pretty great. Yeah. Um, but I returned from Hawaii. And then, you know, almost immediately, uh, while I was in Hawaii. My college from coach Skip Kenny passed away. Yeah. So when I returned, I had to go up to Fresno for, I didn't have

to. I drove up to Fresno for a memorial for him. And I just wanted to check it out. We wrote withilated form of presence, something like so many people with abilities and various elementions back in my journey, like a great weekend tour and watching out. The video was awesome. We asked myself, yeah, what is the kind of experience you sent? Going back there, there was no,

I'm not sure if that's true one thing. I just wrote it. I was like, yeah. Yeah. I just wanted to make a look. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know, I've seen that in there a lot of fun travel events. I think it's really exciting. I'm really excited. I can relate that to advanced The Sunspecially Hmm. I think, because we have the way of erasing the ball.

From athletes who, we have this special stage, the visuals and the like putting an end cap on a life experience, you know, in a sort of a sense of completion. And also, you know, sort of a resolution to a relationship with a complicated guy who was very successful. He arguably one of the most successful NCAA collegiate athletics coaches of all time across any sport. Right. His

winning streak and his success speaks for itself. He's the John Wooden of the swimming basically, right? Yeah. And, you know, I had like, I don't even know the stats off the top of my head, but like, you know, so many NCAA championships, like an incredible streak of winning Pack 10 championships, the number of Olympians, NCAA champion, you know, individual athletes that have passed you the program.

It's like, it's pretty crazy. And, you know, I have conflicting emotions about the whole experience. Because on the one hand, I'm so proud and to have been, you know, a member of those teams and purchase. It's like a, it's such an honor to, you know, have competed and trained with so many great athletes during the heyday, that heyday in which Stanford was the reigning, you know,

number one swimming program in the world. But also, you know, like reckoning with the fact that, you know, at least for me, like, skip didn't work as a coach. And it left me kind of reflecting on mentors that I've had in general in my life. And the role that this show kind of plays in terms of providing mentors to other people. And then what is the

relationship to like on an unconscious level? I started this podcast. Right. And I started inviting these people on who I guess on some level, I'm sort of like, well, how can this person mentor me now, at least for two hours. And then sharing that. There seems to be some kind of connective tissue between those two things. And is that why you went in? I don't want

to jump on you like push the outline we have here. But you do. And I did just do this intense therapy week too. Like that was before Byron Bay, right? Right. So then, so then I get back from the perfect time for the day. Yeah. And I'm thinking, like, what am I going to do? You know, what am I going to do? You know, I'm trying

to figure out some kind of growth catalyst. Yeah. To kind of shake me out of my stasis a little bit beyond just going to a nice place and relaxing. And that's where the idea of the sky cave retreat thing came up, which I quickly dismissed thinking, I still got some like demons in the closet. Like if I'm in a dark room for six days, without having

ever really confronted that in an honest way, what's that going to look like? That might not go so well, right? So maybe I should find a therapeutic modality to kind of deal with some stuff that's just been a hum in the background for, you know, most of my life. And that's where the idea of doing a week of family of origin therapy came up at Paul

Conte's clinic in Portland. So listeners are trying to think about what the brain tends to do. I mean, on the side of the childcareoid class, it's a thing that I've done a lot of work. And they might be just invoicing myself for, like, first of all, that months I did that in Wonderland, and so I had to figure out yet that I could not do that.

I gave your patterns, like, with my wife or in the way that I parent my kids. And Julie's off on the one to point out, like, hey, you're, you know, you're kind of mimicking this pattern that you said you didn't want to do, or that is something that, you know, was something your parents did that you didn't like. So she's always like, you know, I'm like,

oh, wow, you're right. Like, I am doing that. Why do I do that? When everything about me is trying to not do that and be kind of in opposition to that, right? And sometimes it's so embedded in you, right? And so part of just who you are, it's hardwired into your system because it was implanted there at such a young age. And I just felt like

I have this time, like, I'm going to go really dig into this. And it was an incredible experience. You know, five days of, like, you know, eight hours a day, working with a team of different therapists to really, you know, figure out why I have certain latent anger issues or resentments and, you know, how to really kind of work through this. You know, saying, it's something

I've lost a lot of confidence in is that it is actually very medicine. And it's never going to hurt. It's been like, do I need more confidence? And so that's it. If I'm adult and I don't know what it is, I'm going to think of me as I slow down. So Doctor. David, please allow me to say. Guys, like I have a lot of stuff like

percolating in my unconscious is an experience I had doing whole-etropic breathing many years ago. I've had good experiences with whole-etropic breathing experience. But on this one occasion, and this has happened like two or three times, I did a very intense whole-etropic breathing exercise with a group with Julie. And in the wake of that felt this overwhelming sense of anger, like almost like rage, which is, I'm

not an angry person. I'm not an ill or anything. And I literally had to go into a room and shut the door and be away from people for more than a day, like almost 48 hours to reset. And it was very disorienting and confusing. Why did that happen? What is going on there? And it just made me realize, and this was many years ago, I got,

there must be something driving this. I don't know why that is. And so that was always in the back of my mind. If you really want to be whole and free yourself from whatever that is, you're going to have to go towards it. So six days of intensive therapy. It was five days. Yeah, Monday through Friday. And then you get on a plane to Byron. I

mean, I think you know my holidays. I had holidays with the family. And then, yeah, it took a couple weeks in Byron Bay to like kind of reset, which was, it's like my favorite place. I love it. Yeah, yeah. And this is the fourth year that I've done like a break of this nature to really just, you know, stop everything and, you know, go inward and

meditate and write and engage in a little solitude, sun, surf, you know, all that good stuff. And it was fantastic, you know, I did do one podcast while I was there. You did. Yeah. So you know this guy, Ned Brockman. Yes. They're runner. He's the best. Yes. I was like, I'm in Australia. Like you love Brockman. Yeah. And it was like, you know, an Australian hero

right now. It's dude like ran all the way across Australia. He's the most Australian dude of all Australians with the bleach blonde mullet. And like, you know, you can't even like his Australian slang and vernacular is like so, you know, like intense that you're like, what I don't even know what he's talking about. But you can't help a fall in love with this guy. Like he's

very, he's so earnest, right? And he's young. He's like, he just turned 24 and remind me. I got to go. He did. So he, so he, after only running for two years, he only had like two years of running experience. Besides, he's going to run all the way across Australia, which is. In the range of running across the United States, about the same except like you're

in the middle of nowhere. You're in the outback. There's a lot of bugs and like, but a lot of like, you know, these apparently like these trucks, like the 18 wheelers, they go, they're called cargo trains or something like that because they drive together. So there would be like a whole bunch of them at once. And there's not a lot of shoulder and you know, so

there's a lot of like harrowing experiences that he had. But it's like, I got to meet this guy, right? And when he finally finished and ended up in bond with him, he was like, I'm going to be a guy. They were like thousands of people to greet him. 5,000, 10th. I'm that. I'm estimating numbers. But it was quite the thing, right? Like all of Australia turned

up to like support this guy. And so anyway, I did do a podcast with him. Did you rent a studio space? No. So friend of the pod and personal friends Simon Hill, who was a Byron Bay resident. He was like my sort of Sherpa introducing me to people. He hooked me up with this place called Soma in Byron, which is a 28 acre meditation. And retreat

center that is owned and run by these two guys, Gary Garrow, who's a meditation, Vedic meditation teacher in the sky, Peter Ostek, who's sort of an entrepreneur, who is the kind of financial partner in all of this. And it is the most beautiful meditation retreat center I've ever seen. And I'm not alone in thinking that because Hulu and they built it apparently like right before lockdown

and COVID and all of that. And they complete it. Lockdown happens. So they can't even host retreats. But Hulu came along and said, Hey, we'd like to rent this place for this limited series. We're doing with Nicole Kidman. That was called like nine perfect strangers. Do you remember that show? I do. I've vaguely remembered a cult guru or something like that. I haven't watched it. But

apparently the whole series takes place at this meditation retreat center, which is like beautiful modern architecture and rolling green hills and like incredible or whatever. So anyway, Peter and Gary made the space available for us to record this. Yeah. Cool. Yeah. So that'll be coming out at some point. But yeah, I loved Byron. Just brought my bike road and the hills there. It's like, a lot

of influencers there. There was like a, I think there was some sort of show about that. Like a funny reality show about the Australian influence. I think there's a show called like like a reality show called like Byron Bay. There's some like that. But I was told not to watch it that it would ruin my my relationship with this beautiful place. I've seen a little bit.

place to go have brunch or breakfast. Okay. Have your green smoothie, healthy food. He's plant based. He's a meditator. And you know, he's in this like successful rock band, but he's into like surfing and on. I got to hang out with him. And he took me surfing. I cut my finger open. It was fun though. And introduced me to a bunch of people. And you know,

I was able to go to his house for dinner. I just was by point being like I was made to feel very at home. Yeah. In a place that's very far away from my home. It felt very much like a home for me. Yeah. It's like a blend of like Hawaii. There's Hawaii. There's California. There's like, you know what I mean? There's like a mix of

like a hippie. Yeah. A lot of natural organic markets and vegan food places and stuff like that. So it's, you know, I mean, I'm not sure. To me, it was like Topanga meets Maui with a like a light dusting of Ireland. Like when I was riding my bike and the hills are these incredible ranches and everything is so green. Like these rolling fields and, you know,

but then you have like 80 degree water and just beach breaks in every direction. I mean, you know, incredible. Like very surfable breaks all over the place. Like it's pretty cool. Super cool. Man. Anyway. So it was good. Did you cry in the departure lounge? I did not know. I did not. I'm always on the lookout for tears in the departure lounge of a place like

that. I did not. Yeah. We got to take a break in a second here. But before that, I will say, I'll kind of round out this story by just saying that it was very productive in terms of cracking open a new book project and getting lots of on that, which I'm pretty excited about. And you were with me the other day when we were with our

mutual friend and literary agent bird level. So I was able to show him shout out bird level. Shout out bird. The pages that you showed him. Yeah, I showed him some stuff. Oh, because you were talking about it. I had to leave and you showed him some pages. You didn't leave. And then I was like, let me show you what I'm doing. And he was very

happy. Like Adam's gone about safe. Let's show him the pages. So anyway, I feel really. And he was so excited about that. Yeah. So I'm excited. That's so cool. Man. You know, like because I was listening to the Seth Godin podcast. You did recently. And you were talking about like this drive to get back to riding. But this like this block because you're diving into the

podcast. And you have all these commitments. But there's a part of you. There's like the thing about riding that I found is 90% of it is dealing with this insect. Nying at your brain. You deal with it. Yeah. Like it doesn't go away. Right. I mean, it does not go away. You can try to like it's like the court of steps and last of us like

eating away your your your brainstem. It is. So now you're dealing with it. And then it kind of quits down. Not only does it quiet down. You actually feel good about you like you're like, Oh, now I feel like a normal person. Right. You feel a little bit more when you're like, yeah, attending to it. When you're ignoring it. Yeah. You walk around like just angsty.

Yeah. All the time. Right. It's it's cool. Man. I can't wait to read some stuff. And I'm really excited for you. So let's take a quick break. And then we're going to do some listener questions. A few more things to say about the future of Roland in 2023 in general. And yeah, it's going to be awesome. So stick around. We're brought to you today by native.

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code rrp at checkout for 20% off your first order. All right, everyone, we're back. We're going to get into some listener questions. Before that, though, we mentioned earlier that we're going to be exploring a few forms. So, let's talk about that for a hop minute. Let's do it. So I think what we're going to do is move roll on to once a month. And then for

the other midweek episode, we're going to play around with some new kind of supplemental ideas. And we're also going to iterate on roll on. And we're going to, you know, I don't know, push the envelope here. I think there's there's a sense that at least my sense is that Adam is a very talented man. And the format in which I'm going to be I think we

are engaging with roll on right now. I'm not sure takes advantage of your best talents. And I think there are better ways to use this opportunity to be, you know, a better servant to the audience. I had a percent agree. I think not today though, because we're just bullshitting and banishing and people are like, what are you even doing? Like, why am I listening to this?

Right. Like this kind of I am a good bullshitter. You are not as good as we're now. Have we provided value yet for the audience? I don't know. You know, I'm excited about doing some original reporting with you doing some like we're going to I think the idea is to script it a bit more and to do kind of segments. And, and, and this is what

we've talked about. We don't really fully know what's going to happen. But the thought was to put a little more pre and post production into it and create one idea is to create a an audio magazine that reflects kind of the ritual pod universe and kind of dive into some cross subject matter. And if we're only doing one a month, we have the time and the,

you know, kind of bandwidth to do something a little bit more elevated. Yeah, just a little more creative and like a little put more resources in because so many people are just turn on mics now. And like you've done that and you're great at it. But fun to see, you know, to create in a different way. And I think people who love the banter because I

we've got some calls about like there's some people who just love this format. The banter will be there. We're going to sit down and talk about it. We're not going to just like do throw some segments together and not talk to each other. The banter is going to be there. It's just going to be in a different kind of way. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, on

that note. I think it's important to throw it out to the audience like what we know. Yeah. What would what would be most beneficial for you audience member. In terms of how Adam and I use this, you know, opportunity to serve you and maybe the best place to let us know would be in the comments. So, we're going to have a section on YouTube because that's

an easy kind of one stop place to go and canvas through that stuff. Perfect. So if you're like, we're talking about if you think about it from an audio magazine perspective, like what are the departments you'd like to see. Like what are the worlds you like us to explore and kind of and sometimes it might just be. Like one thing we thought about as a Q&A

with someone from the ritual audio verse. Some of it could be an original report like MPR or this American lifestyle. Reports and anything in between. So and some of it's going to be just rich kind of speaking his mind and writing some stuff and sharing where he's at. And just like we're doing now, but just a little more elevated. Yeah. And a little bit more creative,

I would say. Yeah. Right. And I think, you know, my perspective is always. I want to serve the audience. Like it's working for you. Is it not working? I don't want to waste anybody's time. And I think now, you know, everybody there's a lot of content out there. There's a lot of choices. Right. And so, you know, I think that's what I'm going to say. So

I want to be in a position to be delivering at the highest level, the needs and the desires and the wants of the person who's taking time out of their busy day to check this out. Right. And if we're missing the mark, like I'd like to know that. Yeah. How can we do better? What would be interesting. And then also us on our own, like pushing

the creative envelope and trying to think of things that aren't being done right now that we think that we could, you know, do well and executing on that. I think is exciting. Very exciting. I'm excited to be a part of it. Should we dive into some questions now? Let's do it. We're doing it a little bit differently this time. There was a lot of questions because

we had been doing this for a couple of months. So we had a lot of stuff in the voicemail. So what I did is kind of combed through and found some subject matter that I'm going to paraphrase. Like headings, like top, like sort of themes. Yeah. So these are questions that have come in in various forms more than once. And that's where we're going to start.

We're going to dive right in. The first question we're going to handle is tips on breaking bad habits. And when do you know that a bad habit is actually an addiction, such as gaming or doom scrolling. This one is spurred by listener who's Iron Man training got way laid by travel and a gaming addiction. So the listener was training for an Iron Man and something happened.

And he got also his game and then got on to gaming, like video gaming. I think gaming was always a thing. Yeah. Warcraft, I think it was. Right. Yeah. And that, and that like just cratered his, his Iron Man training. Cratered everything. Yeah. Everything went into warcraft. I love it. Okay. You love a good addiction story. Right. So essentially the question is bad habits versus addiction.

What is the difference? Yes. And there is a difference. There's a difference between what a habit is. And what an addiction is. A habit can be like a persistent behavior that you perpetuate. And it might even have negative consequences. But the difference between that and an addiction is that addiction entails a psychological and generally also sometimes also a physical dependence. And there's a discomfort when we

don't engage in the addiction. Right. That sense of withdrawal or like craving or yearning. It's something that we do repeatedly, despite negative repercussions, addictions are things that typically escalate over time, whether it's behavior, the frequency of use, the dosage of use in the case of substances. And we do this irrespective of escalating negative consequences. Right. I think there's also like a compulsivity to addictions that are

that's different from the other. There's just a bad habit where there's this physiological again or psychological need for engaging in this habit. And when we don't do it, there are symptoms. Right. Anxiety, irritability. You know, there's physical symptoms with substances like tremors or nausea upon withdrawal or abstinence. That is the state of being addicted. Right. And I think addiction, and I've said this many times, is

something that is a self-diagnosis. Like you only you can diagnose yourself as to whether you are engaging in addictive behavior or just a bad habit. And I think in trying to figure that out for yourself, and distinguishing a habit from an addiction, think about choice. Right. Like with habit, choice plays a larger role. With addiction, part of addiction is the removal or the denigration of choice

in the matter to the point where it doesn't feel like there is a choice. Like there's such a compulsion that it just happens and you're just, you know, you're, you're, you're wish to have a choice over it. It like happens no matter what. I mean, I think that's a good kind of litmus test for figuring it out. So examples, right. Like a bad habit would be

like you, you know, you just put it in your mouth. You put your dirty dishes in the sink and you don't wash them or like you don't brush your teeth before you get a better, something like that. Right. Not great. You know, there's not awesome habits. But is there a compulsivity around it? Is there a sense of unease when you wash your dishes? You're not, you

know, you're not just leaving them dirty in the sink. No. Right. So that's the difference between, you know, something that would be an addiction. So you would put gaming more into the addiction category for that. Well, I don't know. You know, only he, he, he has to ask himself that. Right. There are people that play video games and who are not addicted. And there are people

who are addicted. And often the, the amount of playing isn't necessarily the determining factor. You know, I think a lot of that's the problem with smartphones. A lot of people are addicted to the tech now. Right. It's low level. But like they can't put their phone down. They can't stop scrolling. No. Right. Of course not. Right. And it's, it's not, is it low level? No, maybe

not. You know, and this is, this is, you know, I've been banging this drum for a while. But let's expand our notion of, of addiction and how we think about addiction. Like addiction isn't just alcoholics and drug addicts or people that, you know, lose all their money gambling. Yeah, it is, you know, the, the, the inability to like, you know, put down the phone can be

an addiction. It is, you know, taking you out of the present and robbing you of the experience of, of being in your life, right? Video games are, you know, another screen version of that where there's an engagement on behalf of the individual. But certainly, you know, plenty of people are addicted to video games. And the fact that this guy like cratered his Iron Man training because

he got all caught up in a video game. I mean, that's what it sounds like. I don't know the details of it. But sounds like an addiction to me. But again, like it's not for me to diagnose this person. Like questions to ask that this person or who are in the brain, whatever is relating to this should ask themselves is, you know, do you feel like

this is a compulsion? Do you feel like your engagement with it is outside of your control? Is it something you covet? Is it something that you, you know, tell lies about that you rationalize or downplay? And then getting honest about what the cost of of this behavior are to yourself and also to other people, right? And then the other question I had is kind of going

behind the question, like the question is, is this a bad habit or an addiction? Like, why is he asking this question? If he's asking the question, it's probably a problem. If it's not a problem, you're not asking this question. No. And there's sort of a light dusting of hopeful, hopefulness that like I'm going to say this is just a bad habit and don't worry about it.

Like, does it matter? What I say is this a bad habit? Is this an addiction? Because my sense is that this is interfering with this person. This person's well-being, right? And he knows it and he's looking for an excuse or some way to rationalize continuing to engage in the behavior, which is to me, in disha of it being an addiction. Does that make sense? Yes. Absolutely.

Like, like, you already know it's not good for you. You know it needs to be addressed. This is why you're asking. Because you're not just asking your friend, you're calling a line. There's like a lot of decisions you have to make. Yeah. Like, you get this question. The person knows the answer to the question already, right? And maybe that answer is uncomfortable, but, you know, deep

down when the head hits the pillow, the clarity is there. Yeah. That's why I haven't had an insomnia. The, the, the hive of the brain hiding out. What are you hiding? What are you running away from? It's so deeply hidden. I can't tell you. Right. Well, maybe you need to go to the Sky Cave retreat and sit with yourself in the dark for six days. I

think I would try to get the room next thing would come up next to Colin and I would just be like, more scouting. Hey, there must be some of that. Like, it would be so interesting. You know, like whoever the people that own that place must have stories about people losing their minds. Exactly. Like, did you get the chocolate pudding or just the yellow? This is

shit food. So like, how would you, I don't know, so many questions. Anyway, let's go to the next. All right. Next one question. How do you speak to friends or family members about lifestyle changes that might help them? When is it time to help? And when is it better to let them struggle and come out of it on their own? This is a kind of a

composite of a handful of questions of people. And you know, we've asked, we've answered kind of something like this before, but I think it's always bears repeating some of the stuff. Yeah, it's, this is a very tricky delicate thing. Yeah. You know, by lifestyle changes, that could mean like, hey, don't eat crappy food, eat this food or maybe don't stay up all night or maybe don't

drink so much. Right. You know, or, you know, it could be anything, right? But, you know, one of the things that I've learned in recovery is that I, you know, I just don't, like, I stay out of giving advice or trying to change other people. And I try to just keep my side of the street clean and for people that are interested, happy to share my

experience. So that's kind of the general way that I approach all of this stuff. So I do have this default reluctance or, or kind of, you know, reflex to hold back from getting involved and solving other people's problems. Especially when it comes to lifestyle changes, which, you know, often can be the most recalcitrant of problems to change. And there's, there is a, I recognize there's a

little bit of irony in this because this show and, and what I do is, you know, fundamentally about change, right? How can we be better serving as this sort of change agent as you will? But, but if you pay attention to the show, I think you'll find that it's quite rare that I ever tell anyone what to do or not to do, right? Like, you know,

I'm always trying to kind of abstain from judgment or taking other people's inventory or providing any kind of unsolicited advice. And, and this is especially true in my experience when it comes to friends and family. And again, another built in irony here is that, you know, the people that you care the most about are often, you know, the people that are the most difficult to reach.

And that, and, and, you know, myself or whoever is trying to carry this message are often the exact people that they can't hear the advice from, right? Like, you're just too close to them. And I have countless examples of, you know, family members, friends, you know, people who I've worked with, you know, like, like, I can, through the show and books and all this things that

I do, like I carry a certain message, right? And, and I try to be divorced from how that lands or whether it impacts people or changes them or not. But, with family members, like, you know, there's like a force field around it. Like, they can't hear it from you. Like, you're the kid that, you know, like, like, they also know, they also know where it's not

you're not always, you're not always as as perfect as it might sound, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So they know all that stuff. Right. So, I think that's what I'm saying. So after like, you know, doing this for so long and then suddenly, you know, somebody's like, Hey, I just, you know, I'm 30 days plant based or I did that. And I was like, great. Like,

how did that happen? Oh, I heard, I read this book from like somebody else or like on YouTube or something like that has nothing to do with me. And it's always funny. It's like, right here, Ben right here, the whole time kind of saying the same thing. But like, okay, that's great. You know, but that's the way it works, right? Yes. That is the way it

works. Friends and family. Like, you can't make somebody willing to change. And when you're kind of forcing your idea, like you've had, okay, let's say you've made a lifestyle change and it's improved your life. And you're enthusiastic about that. And of course you want to evangelize that. But that makes you annoying. And people don't want to hear that, right? Right? Right. No. You know, that you

become like the antithesis of what you're trying to accomplish in that other person. You're more like, be the example, you're a lighthouse. You put it out there. The lights on and leave your life. Yeah. You know, yeah. Live your life. I would say that the exception is when the advice or is solicited. Like if somebody comes to you and says, Hey, I need help. Like, can

you help me? Here's what I'm working, you know, struggling with or do you have any advice for me? That's a different situation. And I think in those cases, the response that I generally offer is like, do you want me to tell you what I think and give you advice? Or do you want me to just listen to you? And be supportive. Those are two different things.

And sometimes people who are coming to you under the root, under the kind of auspices of seeking advice, actually, they just want to be heard. Yes. And listen to. Yes. And they don't really want you to tell them what to do. So getting clarity about that, I think is important. They don't want your dimes to always know they don't. Right. And so behind all of this

is willingness, right? Willingness is what drives transformation. And you know, without willingness and by willingness, I mean, you know, that that that internal desire to change that is driven from within the self and not impulse by something external. Any kind of sustainable change is impossible. Right. And you can't will somebody to be willing. No. You can't compel somebody to be willing, no matter how much they're

suffering or no matter how much you think you have the solution for them. They have to decide for themselves that they want that. And you being in the position of trying to convince them, not only, you know, how to change, but that they should change is really kind of a fool's errand. And it's a mistake that I see a lot of people make often. And I

think in those cases, you're probably better off, like leaving the person alone, letting them know that you love them and that you're available for them. If and when they want to do something different than whatever it is that they're doing. But in the mean of the fact that you're not going to be able to do something different, that you're not going to be able to do

something different. And sometimes like allow them to to be because perhaps they need to, you know, be in the world and have this experience that might actually catalyze that internal willing at some point. You don't want to rob them of that. But it's hard. It's hard to watch people struggle. I mean, I think that's really hard. It's hard to actually want somebody that you care about.

Right. Especially imagine your child. Of course. Imagine my parents when I was doing what I was doing. Like it's it's this is like the hardest thing. Yeah. It's really hard. Like when do you intervene? When do you, you know, try to help? When do you say enough is enough and you step aside? Like these are very difficult, you know, situations. And it's a case by case

thing. Life does not fuck around. Does it rich? No. No. Anything else there? Any other thoughts that I have on that? I think I would just say. For that person that you're seeking to, you know, be of service to, I don't see a problem in. In testing the waters from time to time, for example, just, you know, kind of. Calling them up or, you know, getting

together with them and then, you know, posing. It as a question. Like, hey, how's that thing going for you? Like you happy? Like what's going on? Like trying to strip any judgment or kind of veneer of like, you know, like I'm here to change you or help you just like get rid of that and just be curious about. Or even just hang out like you could

just say, Hey, I'd like to get a lunch. Sure. I like it. I like to like, let's go watch a concert or something and just hang out right and not even bring it up. And sometimes that's the thing to do to reach somebody. Right. But when it's family, that's pretty hard to do because there's so much history and baggage. Like, oh, you want to take me

out to lunch? What are you going to tell me what to do with? You know, it's like it's already fucked up. Yeah. So, you know, this is why I should not. It's not. It's not AM a D. A.M. AM. Ask Adam anything. It's not. It's. Anyway, those are my thoughts on that. I don't know if that's a more than that. But folks. Cool. So this is

another one inspired a lot of people called in with they knew someone that they want you to interview or that or they had a recommendation for someone they admire. They want you to interview. Josh Lewis recommended Bob Weir, the great legendary Bob Weir, the grateful dead for the pod. I mentioned Henry Rollins to you in the past. We talked about that privately. And I'm just curious

if you want to give us your list of rockers and musicians at the top of your pod guest wish list. And. And then also if you want to talk to the folks, you just tell them because people are asking about booking people. Like, how do you generally select guests and book them? Right. So there's two questions. I mean, the the the general question around selecting and

booking guests is kind of an evolving. That kind of things. So they're like. Yeah and that's me. And I'm just sort of working on trying to look at it in terms of like what. Therefore I do want to talk about motivation to be there. Many people are talking about social andzi called me a guy who is a great glamour frame of art. And I mean at

that time you could encounter this thing I 61 years ago. Right. So I really wanted to also tell them. Some so that's what I want, because I think some people said very important things and it's like, that's a really unusual feeling. It's not a proposeddonality but like I just said a lot of people are very. Friends I see them like I don't really write a script

artist, I mean these people died in the air. So I want to say they're closely and the people who can be. Yes. Well, I can't tell them why I'm talking. But I've got all the moments I think they have been together in the past. And who murdered so I'd tell them to. And some of these people like I don't. I'm like, how am I going to

figure out how to get to I don't know, you know, like I can DM them on Instagram. But you know short of that like it's difficult. So a lot of these take a long time and there's a lot of nose. And I think I also have, you know, if I'm being honest about my weaknesses with this I've been overly reactive in terms of booking the show

as opposed to proactively going after the people I really want. You know, and I I've never been super systematic or about the whole thing. And I think I have a lot of room for improvement there. And that's one thing I want to do better this year than I've done in the past because the shows at a scale right now where I get a lot of incoming,

you know, and I have a lot of. Hey, you know friends who recommend or whatever. And so it's pretty easy to be like, oh, that that would be cool. Yeah, sure I'll do that. Like that's being kind of responsive to easy stuff that's over slot people. Yeah. And it's and when but I'd like to think of it differently from the point of view that. Over the

course of a year with the exception of the master classes and the best of's and the role lines and things like that, I have about 50 open slots for the year. Who are the 50 best people in the world that I can get to come here and sit down with me like looking at it not like, oh, that would be cool. Let's do that and being

very casual about it. I'd like to be a lot more conscious and intentional about really going on. And I think what I'm doing after the people that I want the most and I think what has traditionally gotten in my way is somebody to say, oh, you should get this person in some like fancy. Yeah, I was like, I don't know that they don't want to do

it. You know, like I get I get self-defeating about it. Like why would they come talk to me, you know, as opposed to, you know, just having more at bats and if they say no, fine, but like try. You know, but so the answer is like, yeah, have a list. And you know, I'm in communication with lots of people. At any given moment. And sometimes it

takes a long time before schedules aligned because we only do it in person. But every time I come across somebody interesting, they get added to that list. And so I kind of slowly work my way through that list. In terms of musicians, yes, the other part of the question. Yes. Yes. Who are the musicians that are on the list? Who's on that list? There's some interesting

ones. I mean, I'm not going to go through all of them. But maybe the ones that are most interesting, Dave Grohl, number one on that list, got to get Dave Grohl. Yeah. I listened to his audio book when I was in Australia. It's good. Now, if you read his book, I have not. It's I should I should really get it's super. I'm going to get the

audio. I mean, like that dude is awesome. Of course. Yeah. So he's up there. Flea is up there. Another incredible. That's a great. He's read his. Right. Yeah. I love. I love. I love both Laker fans. He was watching a Lakerium on his iPad in Australia while playing bridge over troubled water. It's not it's been a fraught season. Right. And I just sometimes I watched that

Australian too. Yeah. I struck up and I'll show his kid. Yeah. Both both his parents were Australian. Yeah. Who else? Bruce Dickinson from Iron Maiden. I'm not like a heavy metal guy. But this guy's life story is bananas. So until I'm you're saying he flies his own. He flies his own plane. He has like such a diversity of expertise and and like different things that he's

into. So yeah. He came a commercial pilot like when Iron Maiden was huge and and started a whole like aircraft maintenance and pilot training company. And he he would fly the band. In a 750 seven like he piloted the band in their own 750 seven. So the reason that's amazing is because in Bali. I can't tell you how many times I used to cover Indonesia a

lot for lonely planet and and every almost a lot of times not every time. I frequently would fly into Bali and see. In and out of Bali and see Iron Maiden's plane. Like that's him. Yeah. So he flies it. So he has a he's in Bali a lot obviously. Apparently. Yeah. I don't know about that. He also writes novels and films. He does and like. Yeah.

I mean, just like Google the guy. I will. It's crazy. I got to get him. It's perfect for you. Yeah. Dave Grohl, Bruce Dickinson, Flee, Michael Steip, top of the list. Do I'm massive. REM fan. Did you hear Courtney Love on Mark Marren's podcast? You got to check that out. It's wild. All right. Like wild. I can't tell whether she's a genius or like bananas or

somewhere in between. But she's got stories. She has stories. You know, it's kind of amazing. So I think Bjork would be incredible. Yeah. I think Shnato Conner would be amazing. I mean her life and kind of how she was treated and everything that happened with her. Just Bo Burnham count. Of course. Bo Burnham is incredible. Yeah. I tried to get Tom Morello a while back. I

think he had a book coming out and I went through a publicist. You said no. Really? I might have to revisit. Yeah. I mean, you know, who else? Tom York, Trent Rezner. One, one, one musician who I quite fancy who people might not be familiar with. Is this film composer called Ludwig Gorenson? Yes. Sweet composer. He wrote the score for Black Panther, the score for the

Mandalorian. He works with Christopher Nolan. He wrote the score for Tenant, and the score for the upcoming Oppenheimer movie. He also produced Childish Gambino. And like this guy's cool. Like he makes these videos where you're in his studio and he'll show you his process. Like he goes through the whole thing about how he came up with the theme for the Mandalorian. Oh, really? Working with all

these weird instruments and how it all came together. And I'll put links up to some of those videos in the show notes. And he's kind of like the new kid in terms of advancing what a film score can be. Like iterating on like, you know, kind of a new, you know, new sound modalities for film. Like if you go and like really listen to the music

in Tenant, like it's it's pretty wild. He doesn't that movie. So anyway, I would love to sit down with him. Cool. I'm glad I asked you that question. Yeah, it was kind of a paraphrase, but also it was my curious. That interesting to anybody. But anyway, all right. I don't know. I think the way you choose your guests is interesting and all of that. And the

fact that you've been reactive. Now you're going to be more proactive. Hopefully event and and you know, try to break down these publicists, these publicists working with the old game, you know, old media. Don't get me started. Keep going. Then there were a lot of messages, messages from listeners who were actually just calling to thank you. You know, and for a show that enriches their lives.

And I just thought it was cool because it just shows, you know, then they would talk about how they recommended to friends or they would they would recommend their friends and mentors to you to be there to be to be guests on the show. It just speaks to this powerful connection word of mouth phenomenon and how the branches kind of link back and forth. And, you

know, so I just thought I wanted to share that with you having haven't gone through so many of these messages and curious about how that makes you feel hearing that. Yeah, it's it's weird, you know, on some level. I mean, it's incredibly gratifying. The fact that this thing that, you know, we started 10 years ago on a creative whim without any kind of plan and and

just sort of nurtured with love and curiosity has grown into this thing that I would have never imagined. And it didn't it didn't happen because of any kind of like business plan or anything like that. And we've never advertised or bought reach or done any kind of pay promotion. You know, we've never really had a viral moment that produced any kind of huge gross spike. I

mean, we've had some shows that have done well. The human one in particular, which did like 12 million, I guess. So that would be an outlier. But in general, like it's just been this very slow creep of, you know, growing the show gradually and organically. It's it's the analogy is like being an ultra endurance athlete, right? Like slow and steady wins the race. Like getting the

torridous, the prizes and go the fastest. It goes to the guy who slows down the least. And and we've just maintained a certain pace over a very long period of time. When we began, we were kind of in the right place at the right time. There's a lot of luck involved. And then a lot of work that went into it, into it behind the scenes that

that, you know, made it what it is today, which, like I said, is very gratifying. It's, it's, you know, it's an incredible thing that I feel incredibly privileged. Like I just, you know, I get to do this thing every day. Like, are you kidding? It's amazing. But it can be a little bit weird and surreal at times, because there's this parasocial relationship with the listener. Yes.

That occurs that that can create some kind of strange encounters in the world. But also nice. And there are things that, you know, I don't, I don't deal with really when I'm at home. But when I travel and I'm at airports or in different cities, and I get approached quite a bit. But it's always like, like, when somebody comes up to me, it's almost as if

we have a pre-existing relationship. Like they already know me. Like, I'm their friend that they just, they were just with the other day. And like, oh, now he's here now. So I'm going to go say hi to him. Right. Right. Right. Right. But it's a one-sided thing, you know. And, and so there is a little bit of awkwardness with that. But it's actually, it's really, it's,

it's very endearing. Like, and, and, and I guess, you know, the main thing in terms of like what I could impart to the listener, the viewer, is that this experience has proven to me that we're all more powerful than we think we are, especially in this internet era where anybody can, you know, go online with a camera or a microphone and, and, and share, you know,

share themselves. And the fact that, you know, I'm just a guy and I started this thing. And over time, it's become important to other people. And like, I don't have any more ownership over it than, than the audience does. Like, it's as much theirs as it is, you know, mine or the team of talented people that I now surround myself with that work really hard to

create this thing every week. Like, they, they work harder, you know, or at least as hard as I do to do this. So it's really not about me. I think it's really about the power of the individual to, to produce change. Like, if I could do this thing, like, I just think everybody has something inside of them that they could express. To make the world a

little bit of a better place. And, you know, if I could do this thing and, and, and perhaps change people's lives a little bit, I think everybody, you know, can make a difference in the world. And, and I can tell you that being engaged in the process of like trying to offer something positive to the world and, and, and not get caught up in metrics and,

well, that guy's doing this and he's bigger than me and like, why is that gas doing the, you know, like, when I get, when I free myself of all of that noise and just remember like, why it is that we're doing this. It's just, it's just a like an overwhelming sense of like gratitude. So I want everyone to feel, you know, their version of, of that.

And I think it's, we're in a, a time in a, in a place where that's more possible than it ever has been in history. Boom. So there you go. Well said, well said, we have one more department. We did that. The media diet. We got to do it. And with the media diet, we're doing the media diet. One more department, the media diet. We're going to,

all right, introduce this. So I was, uh, Joanne Molinarra, the Korean vegan, had us over for dinner the other night. And she was saying how she loved knowing that you're a binge watching geek, just like everyone else. Yeah. It's so funny because I, I see her at the gym and she's like, oh, I, I, I like figured out what to like stream because of what I

was like, really? Yeah. Like you might be the only one. But okay. So you had a lot of time on your hands. Yeah. In the sky cave of Byron. Um, did you do some binge watching? Did you stream? Or not? I tried not to stream too much, but I did, I did, uh, I, you know, I did, I did watch a few things. So tell us

the highlights. I don't give everything. Yeah, I want to make like a huge thing of this. But I did one thing that I do every year, which is I rewashed Michael Clayton because I need to watch that movie every single year. I love Michael's one of the greatest movies I've ever made. Fantastic. I love Michael. Love it so much. It's like an old school suspense movie.

You know, like one back, like, yeah, but some great performances. It's fantastic. Right. It is, it is the, I don't know, it's everything that I love in a movie. And I think Tony Gilroy who wrote and directed that movie is now applying his talents beautifully in and or, which is the star war spinoff. Oh, that's theories. Yeah. Tony Gilroy created that. So that would be another

streaming recommendation. It's also great for the family and the kids and all of that. Uh, you know, I'm somebody who likes Star Wars, but I'm not like a huge Star Wars person. And now in this extended Star Wars universe of like all these shows and all these movies. It's sort of like really. Um, but and or stands apart on a quality level. It's like, I've heard.

And Tony loves doing it. Like he, he's like in his prime, he gets to write the stuff that he cares about. And the themes that he explores in his movies are explored in and or it's like, it's like, you know, I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to do that. I'm not sure if Star Wars for grownups. Okay. And it's almost not even Star

Wars. Like with the occasional tie fighter flies by, but like you could forget it's even Star Wars. It's just a very well crafted story about economic disparity, uprising, revolution. Uh, you know, it's political in that regard. Like early, like the first part of a hundred games. It's, it's like the early part of the rebellion. Like what caused the rebellion? What is actually happening? What is the

empire doing to these people that's causing them to want to rebel? It's classic sci-fi parable to the present day. It's good. Um, what else? You know, a lot of a lot of the movies that I watch are rewatches. Okay. I rewatch broadcast news. I rewatch cop, coplan, which is Silvestre Salon's best movie. Never seen it. You've never seen coplan. Never seen it. Come on, man. Uh,

also hot take. Hot take. Have you seen the informant? Yes. I've seen the informant. My hot take is that this might be Matt Damon's best performance of any movie. I like him in seriana. I like seriana too. Yeah. I think that to me, that's, and I also, I mean, he's amazing and talented. Mr. Ripley. I, I really like seriana. Seriana got like a bad rap from

the critics. I don't know why. I think it's great. I do too. And I love Stephen gig and I think he's amazingly talented. Uh, filmmaker. Yeah. Who wrote writer to. Yeah. And amazing storyteller who would be welcome on this podcast at any time. Yes. I love. I don't know why people didn't like seriana. I like seriana. Very much. Yeah. Um, I rewatched a little known series

called Rubicon on AMC, which is kind of like hard boiled, you know, spy trade craft a little bit of stuff. Anyway, what are we talking about here? Like, I, you know, I watched white Lotus. I like that. I want to shout out the climb. Okay. The Jason Mamo and Chris Sharma series, which is really people love that. I have not seen it yet. Really good. Yeah.

Last of us are in the last of us. I am because my kids are super into it. Yeah. And I've enjoyed that. Yeah. Of course you are. We talked about close ups. We just got into it. Uh, one other kind of off-kilter series that I would recommend on Netflix is song, exploder. It's based on podcasts. We've talked about it. Yeah. When the RMA, um, they have

a season two up right now. There's only like four episodes per season or whatever. But I really love that show. It's fantastic. And then in terms of podcasts, because we're talking about streaming podcast falls in that. I enjoyed this limited series called the new gurus by Helen Lewis, who's a writer for the Atlantic. Each episode kind of looks at this secular guru landscape, kind of in

the way that the decoding the gurus guys do it. Okay. Um, but she does it in a documentary kind of style. And it kind of paints the picture of what this new world of internet gurus looks like and what is doing to people and where it's working and where it's going sideways. And, you know, Helen is very introspective and insightful on this subject matter. She's got

to check that out. Yeah. I had to shake her. She was trying to tell me here. Yeah. She's got to knock on our joy. Um, she actually just wrote a really amazing piece for the Atlantic. Uh, I'm pulling it up right now. It's called the internet loves an extremophile. Uh, this subtitle is online culture favors influencers who pinball from one enthusiasm to the next. Uh, it's

a pretty great long read. Yeah. I'll link that up in the show. That's as well. Let's do that. Um, but yeah, I don't know. Cool. What have you been enjoying? Um, I, uh, so far I haven't seen too many movies. We saw everything everywhere. All at once really like that. Obviously, um, saw white lotus, uh, love white lotus. Uh, the last of us were just getting

into now. But I think of all the things that I've seen or heard. I've been, you know what stuck with me the most is David Sederis is new audiobook happy go lucky. I think it's probably the most, um, prescient. I think it's probably the most, um, fresh and, uh, take on the pandemic and the lifestyle that we all kind of had to undertake and his responses

to it. I mean, if you don't, obviously David Sederis, he's, he's a master at the height of his powers here. He's meant to be heard, not just read. He's so great when he reads it himself. He unpacks his life story, impacts his family members. He basically puts the light on everything and he really, I mean, he's merciless. Uh, but in the end, you, you know, there's

so many poignant moments and you, you learn about kind of his relationship with his father. You learn about his relationship with his siblings. You learn his own quirks and he's just obviously hilarious. I mean, I think to me, he's a descendant of Mark Twain. I know Mark Twain was a master novelist. He's not a novelist. So it's, it's not exactly a great comparison. But in terms

of an American humorist who kind of can nail the American culture so easily and mercilessly. Here's the guy that does it is, laugh out loud, funny and cringey and awesome. Happy go lucky. Happy go lucky. I will definitely check that out. I love that guy. Yeah. And I, I have been listening to dialogue by Robert McKee. I know he's a guest that's coming up. Yeah, he's

coming up. I know. I know. And you know, like working on this other project for so long, I'm like, I get so crazy. Is it good? Is it going to suck whatever? And so like I ended up diving into like writing. I got out of become a writer. I'm like learning to be a writer. So I found this book. And the one thing I will say,

I don't want to, I don't know if he talks about Shakespeare. Do you guys talk about Shakespeare in your podcast? We recorded it so long ago. Do we talk about that? I don't think so. So one thing I'll say, because I'm the one of those writers. I'm not the guy who's in love with Shakespeare. Like I like certain plays. But I'm not, you know, to me

Shakespeare is awesome. I like certain plays, but I've never been the guy that has to read everything. And sometimes I think, you know, why is it overblown? But what I didn't realize and what he said as a dialogue is that Shakespeare invented like thousands of words that have become part of the English language lexicon among them. Elbow eyeball. Like when he needed a word, he made

up the word. That comes out of dialogue by Robert McKee. And so like that's why there's that basically ding, ding, ding. That's why there's this obsession among so many people in English departments with Shakespeare. Because he didn't just entertain. He crafted the lexicon we're all using now. Does that mean that we're allowed to make up words now? Yes. Okay. Yes. Yes. Yes. That's cool. Yeah. I

didn't know that. Wow. Interesting. I forgot to mention that, you know, on the on the tip of like sharing movie stuff. Yeah. You know, I did spend near Zeeve at the Arrow Theatre in Santa Monica enjoying a 70 millimeter print of 2001 space Odyssey. So that should like ensure my like film nerd card. Oh yeah. I was spending years with Zeeve. Big time. That's what that

sounds like a great. Actually, it was awesome. Was it just you and Julie and Jaya? Oh cool. That's pretty cool. That's a great one. My favorite. I should we'll wrap it up. Like my favorite movies of this year. The Oscar nominations just came out. Yeah. I still think. I mean, tar is incredible. I gotta see it. You haven't seen tar. I gotta see all these that

you have. But I'm glad that everything everywhere all at once. You know, it felt like maybe that came out too soon. But then it got like what'd it get like 11 months? Do I think it's gonna win? It's like it's gonna win. I think it's in a good position. Yeah. Banshee's of In a Sheeran. Incredible. I love that movie. You haven't seen it. Not yet. I

even know I, I, you know, in bruises. I'm a very brilliant in that movie. Yeah. The movie that I think got sort of dismissed or overlooked. Maybe this is a hot take. But I really like this movie is white noise. Yeah. Some people didn't like it. Yeah. Yeah. I've not seen it. I've done the little book, you know, a bomb back like it takes a lot

of big swan things and maybe it doesn't always connect. But I don't know, man, I dug it. It's built for middle-aged guys trying to figure out what life's all about. Yeah. My choices are like, you know, like I like spy stuff. Like I'm dead core. Like, give me Jack Ryan on Amazon. Like I'm happy. You know what I mean? Yes. You are dead core. Like so.

And then the other, the other movie that I really enjoyed is trying all of sadness. I don't know if you saw that. That's amazing. That's fantastic. We got to watch all of it. But we're just reading more. But in the meantime, Goshi Megan, because that movie fucking rules. Megan. Yeah. The AI robot that goes on a killing spree. Come on, Adam. That sounds like Terminator. Terminator.

It's a little girl, four foot tall girl. Oh, you know, killing rampage. Come on. All right. I think I'm high brown. It's AI. Good idea. Well, Goshi Megan. I've already seen Terminator. Why aren't we doing AI? It's a bad idea. Please go see Megan. Okay. And we will reprise roll on again soon, right? But not in some point. Is this it for this? Yeah. What? I'll

be a little kibbutz. We got to have some kibbutz. And, you know, like I said, you guys let us know. Leave a comment on YouTube. All right. Tell us what you think. Okay. Is that it? Well, that's good. All right. Thanks everybody. Welcome to 2023. Adam, so good to see you. I love you, buddy. Love you too. Yeah. Thanks for having me. Let's do it. Alright.

Cheers. Peace. Good to see you. Goodnight. We'll see you. Bye. Bye. Thanks and until next time. Bye. Bye. Bye. Thanosay. Hey, bye. Aw.