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We are brought to you today by the wonderful folks at Go Brewing. A few years ago, there was this guy, his name's Joe Chura, and he called me up out of the blue and asked if I would speak at this event that he was hosting in Illinois called go, which turned out to be this incredibly memorable weekend for me and for all of the attendees because it was all about how to take inspired action. Joe and I connected, but, you know, life moved on. That was many years ago. Then a couple years back when I was at Jesse Itzler's Running man event in Georgia, I'm walking the grounds when I see Joe. I was surprised to see him again, of course. Sort of different context, but also surprised because he had actually taken inspired action. I shouldn't have been surprised knowing Joe, but I guess I was in the moment. What he did was he took this idea of Go and he turned it into the hottest new brand in non alcoholic beer called of course, Go Brewing. 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So let me help you out and let me help you perhaps from spending your hard earned dollars on just something random by reminding you that the kind of gifts that people actually value are the ones that connect the person you care about to what they care about. Demonstrating of course that you understand what actually matters to them. And so if movement is something your cared one cares about, ON has got you covered because ON carries just a whole line of category. Best shoes and gear for running and hiking. Trail shoes like the Cloud Ultra for exploring nature. Cloud Runner 2 for road miles. Apparel like the club hoodie and accessories like performance socks, caps and bags that work as fantastic last minute stocking stuffers. On is just on point when it comes to getting out of the way so you can focus on doing the thing so you can enjoy that runner's high undistracted and experience the silence at the summit. For the experience itself, you're not just giving gear, you're giving someone the tools to get out there to explore, to push farther. And that matters more than something that just ends up forgotten somewhere. Making on the perfect gift for moving into the New Year. So move yourself over to on.comritrit and explore my picks for holiday gifts. I have always used people the way other people use substances. What that has made me into is somebody who can be extremely manipulative. A lot of people are in relationships and they don't even know what the other person needs. I think if you want to undertake the act of creation, there will always be a price that you pay. Hey everybody. Welcome back to Part two of the annual RRP Best of Festivities. I hope everyone is enjoying the holidays. I must say it really has been fun revisiting these conversations and putting together this special audio yearbook for all of you guys. And Part two does not disappoint. But before we get into it, I want to take a quick moment and share a little gratitude for my amazing team who made this show possible, who actually worked double time over the course of this past year to make up for me being out of pocket for extended periods of time due to my back surgery and my book writing. Thank you also to all my guests who delivered us with just so much hard earned wisdom and experience. But most importantly, I want to thank you everyone who watched, who listened, who shared a conversation with a loved one or a friend and put this wisdom to use in your own lives. If you've been with us for a while, then you know that your support really is the lifeblood of what we do here and your attention is never something that we take for granted. If you're new, it's great to have you here. We've got amazing things planned for 2026, but first, let's end the year with a bang. This is part two of the best of 2025 and we begin with the incomparable Elizabeth Gilbert. Sex and love addiction isn't really all that well understood and it's still attached to a lot of like taboos and fears. And I think maybe that's what keeps it a little bit more in the dark. So maybe talk a little bit more about what it is and maybe how even someone could self diagnose themselves. I think the best way to do it is to do this Like a qualification and just tell my story. And I think that people may recognize parts of themselves in it. I would be loathe to start giving tools of diagnosis for something that can be so subtle. But I can say this about me. I can say that what it manifests as in me is a sincere belief that there's somebody out there who I can meet who's going to make me feel okay lastingly, and that my job is to find that person. And it's a difficult thing because, of course, culture teaches us exactly to do that. And especially if you're a woman, you're very much taught that that's a story that's as old as the hills, that girls and women are taught. There's an incompletion in me, and I'm gonna go find the person who's gonna complete me. That's the sort of soft way to describe it. The way that I would describe how I experience it is that I have always used people the way other people use substances. So there are people who I have used as sedatives, and there are people who I've used as stimulants. And what I wanna take complete ownership over as I tell my story is what that has made me into over time is somebody who can be extremely manipulative. And that's the sort of side effect of this. It's like, if I don't feel okay and I need to find somebody who's going to make me feel okay, then in order to get that need met, I'm going to have to figure out how to be an operator in terms of how do I have to present, like, what do I have to become in order to get what we call in some of these rooms, lava, which is love, attention, validation and acceptance, right? So that's what I'm longing for, because I can't generate that within myself, right? So I need to go get this, Lava. Like, somebody else has this. Somebody's the plug. Like, somebody's got this stuff. I don't have it. And so what do I have to do? Like, what ends? Like any addict, it's like, what manipulations do I have to do? What lies do I have to tell? What tricks do I have to turn in order to get your eye contact on me? And the words that I need you to say, I need to make you say those words. I need to make you make these promises to me. I need to completely abandon myself in order to get you to do this thing for me. And if I don't get the thing that I need, I'll go get it somewhere else, regardless of what commitment I've made to somebody. And so when I look at my particular history with this, what I see is for 35 uninterrupted years, tiny little interruption. When I written Whit and wrote E Pray Love, there was like a nine month period where I wasn't doing this, which was actually the healthiest time of my life. Until now. I was just going between sedative, stimulant, sedative, stimulant. This person is extremely exciting. This person is extremely calming. You know, like, okay, now I'm so calm that I can't bear the restlessness and the irritability and the discontent. So now I have to go find somebody who's absolutely thrilling, who's going to like light me up until they withhold and then I go insane. And now I need another sedative. And now I need another stimulant. And this is what I did. To great cost, you know, to great cost to me. To great cost to other people. It involved cheating on people, allowing myself to be cheated on, breaking up other people's families and relationships. There's a ruthlessness that any addict has, which is what I have to do to get this. I will do no matter what it costs me or anybody else. And I knew my entire life that there was something wrong with me because I could see that other people weren't doing this. You know, like, I think that's something that every addict kind of knows from an earlier age than we could admit, which is like, other people aren't doing this. Like somehow other people are just going and having a Tuesday while I'm out here playing this like high stakes roulette with my life and with my body and with my heart and with my spirit. Bringing other people into danger with me, like putting myself at risk and not being able to stop. And that low level of self awareness drives shame and isolation and loneliness. And you start to compartmentalize it and create this secret life. Because deep down, even though you know you're not ready to confront it, you know that you need to hide and shroud it from everybody else. There's a line I quote in the book from Gabriel Garcia Marquez who said, everybody has three lives. A public life, a private life and a secret life. And the private life is the life you share with your family and your friends. But the secret life is the life you share with no one. And addicts secret lives are dark, you know? And the reason you hide your secret life is because it would Destroy. If people knew it, it would destroy both your private and your public life. Like if people knew what you were up to, you don't even approve of what you're up to. Next up is inner excellence author and high performance coach, Jim Murphy. We're storytelling animals. We're all walking around with a story in our head that we believe to be true and are blind to the fact that it was unconsciously crafted based upon the experiences that we've had. And whether it's positive or negative, it's still a fantasy and it's detached from reality. And in most cases, with most people to your point, it prevents us from having a more expansive understanding of what we're capable of or what's possible. But like unraveling that and figuring out how to tell it new story is a very difficult challenge. And you know, what happened to you is you had to come to the edge of yourself to be able to write a new story, to create a new narrative in your, in your life. Right. These new neural pathways, is that right? Yeah, but it was, it was a function of being backed into a corner. Like pain is the ultimate like lever for these sorts of things, like short of, of suffering some form of crisis, whether it's physical or existential, you know, would I have made those changes? It's interesting because, and I say this all the time, like we have the choice to make these changes at any given moment. It's just that it's very difficult to do unless you're pressured into it in some way. And the way I generally think about it is the moment of change is when the pain of your circumstances exceeds the fear of doing something different. Right. You have to confront that fear or these fears are in tension with each other and which one is winning out is kind of going to dictate how you behave on some level. It's this discomfort with uncertainty that we have. Like we don't like it and we delude ourselves into believing that we're in control of things. And if something goes wrong, like we didn't do something. Right. And I think disabusing ourselves of that illusion of control and acknowledging that uncertainty is just, that's just the landscape. Everything is uncertain. It's never going to change in that regard. So that you can detach a little bit and free yourself from self judgment or all of the unnecessary pain that comes with things not working out the way you would like them to. Yeah, exactly. You know what, one of the things that's such an important topic, I think now in America, there's so much and around the world, anxiety and fear and tension and so much out of our control. And there's a lot of people that are watching to this now. And I think that are. That have this anxiety and these unknown what's going to happen. And I think there's some really powerful things that they can do. When you're afraid of the future or you could. Whether you're a pro athlete or anyone. And there's some questions. You want me to share those with you? Yeah, please. Well, the first question is, are you willing to face your fears and we can get into also because I went through a very traumatic moment as well and I've kind of prayed a lot that myself and people that I love don't have to get to the point where we get to that major trauma to fully surrender, which is the power, right, in AA and the power that you talk about and the power that I talk about this surrender to a power greater than yourself. And so first asking yourself, am I willing to face my fears? And then am I willing to face any feeling? This is a big one because most people are not willing to face any feeling. They're willing to physically do a lot of hard things. But there's some feelings that we're like, no, I'm not gonna. If that comes, that's the worst. I'm not gonna be there. I'm gonna run from it, whatever. But if you're willing to face any feeling now, you've got some control and some power. So what is the process of doing that? Like summoning the courage to face that? Is there like something that you have learned or divined that is a practice to cultivating that disposition? Well, I can tell you about this experience I had with some pro athletes that had a mental block. So that when you have a mental block, then you're constantly thinking about it all day long. And it could have ended their careers. And so I worked with these pro athletes and when you have this fear, it starts with the feeling. It's like a panic attack. Starts with a feeling and then it goes into out of control. Right? And so the feeling is what we want to. We're going to go look for that feeling. And I got that from Conor McGregor. He talked about when he was first a new pro athlete and how he got into the ring or the octagon and he had all these nerves. He's like, what is this feeling? This is so uncomfortable. And then he started to go and look for it. He's like, now I go into Madison Square Garden and You know, I kick butt. And so I was like, yeah, we need to go look for the feelings, we can't run from them. We gotta look for those feelings that we're afraid of because that's our teacher. Because when you come to the edge of your feelings where you're most uncomfortable, that's where you can grow and that's when you can become someone you've never been before. Now we hear from my favorite authority on productivity, Oliver Berkman. One of the tools towards that end is this idea you have of asking yourself like what if it were easy? I think I first heard Tim Ferriss talking about that maybe it was with you, I don't remember and I just remember thinking that's just an outlandish proposition. It's just like I can't imagine, just take any project or whatever like in my example, like writing a book or whatever if I'm not like, if I'm not just bleeding out at the end of it, then I just didn't work hard enough on it and it's not going to be as good. Creative projects don't work that way. But the notion that it could be a different experience is deeply confronting to me because it brings up all of those presets around effort and achievement and striving, et cetera. And there is this indelible equation in my mind that my best work is, is inextricably tied to my capacity for suffering. And like in the people pleasing, I mean me too. Right. But like in the people pleasing it's so weirdly self centered in a way. Right. It centers you instead of the work it says like what really matters at the end of this process is that I've totally like dragged myself over the coals and feel awful and exhausted as opposed to because I won't feel satisfied or like I really gave it my all unless I do that. Right. As opposed to even if it doesn't matter if it's making it better. Right, right. Whereas I think ultimately when most of us are doing these kind of things, if we stopped and thought about it, we would want to produce the best work that we could produce and if it happened to be not grueling to produce it then that ought to be. Yeah, but how is that possible? That ought to be great. Well this is. Why were you able to accomplish that in the writing of this book? Well, I'll tell you what, it certainly got more, more of it got produced the more that I remembered and understood the value of this, allowing it to be easy. So the Tim Ferriss version of this question is something like, yeah, what would this look like if it were easy? Elizabeth Gilbert has a really lovely idea of sort of having the courage to allow something to be easy. And that to what you're saying, right, it sounds like it's on some level scary to think, like, what if it doesn't involve drawing blood? And that doesn't mean that there aren't difficulties, right? It doesn't mean it's not like some form of positive thinking where you're going into it saying, like, I insist that this is going to be incredibly simple or incredibly straightforward. It's more like you're like, I'm not going to start from the mental posture that this has got to be a fight. This is where I get a bit sort of impatient sometimes with approaches to creativity that are all about, like, you know, battling your way through resistance and just showing up and getting your ass in the chair and all this stuff. Like, I think it can have a role. But, you know, the metaphor that I've used somewhere I think is like, if you, like, barrel up to somebody in a bar looking for a fight who wasn't planning to have a fight, you'll turn it into a fight, right? You'll get a fight by sort of approaching reality and that kind of, okay, let's do combat. And in fact, things just go more easily if you allow the possibility that they might go more easily. And I'm not sure it quite. I'm not sure that the semantics are quite clear here, but you can almost even difficult things you can approach with a spirit of ease, right? Nobody's suggesting that a really difficult conversation in a business setting or a relationship setting or nobody's suggesting that bad things happening to people you love is going to be easy in the sense of fun or anything, but you can sort of not go into it, like, muscularly braced for it to be horrible and find that actually that's the way to make it go more smoothly. Even if it's sad or stressful or awkward or unpleasant in some way, it doesn't need to be like combat. Meditation has been very helpful to me with respect to that issue because it helps you notice how insane you are. Yeah, right, Totally. And when you begin to realize you're just running all kinds of crazy bullshit in your head all the time, then you're able to see with a little bit more clarity that quite often I'll just speak for myself. I'm my own worst enemy because I'm running some tape without conscious awareness that I'm running It and if I could just either stop the tape or get out of my own way and be in that state of allowing, then stuff comes forth. Especially with anything creative. I'm. Usually I'm stopping the flow through my conscious urges. And if I can just relax into it and be in that space of allowing, like it percolates to the surface naturally. Yeah, I think that's very uncomfortable, right? No, totally. And definitely the hardest part of this for me. And I write about this in like the third week primarily of the four week structure, but like the degree to which meaningful action is a question of getting out of the way, of letting the action happen, as opposed to needing to stand behind it and like push it forward is. Yeah. For a certain kind of person anyway, it's like much harder that part because it involves, you know, it's really where not trying to control everything becomes so salient. We continue our best of series with author and columnist for the Atlantic, Olga Kazan. Basically, nothing is predestined, so I will say that. So 40 to 60%, let's call it, half of your personality is inherited or like. Or genetic, right? It's influenced by your genes. However, like, no one is exactly like their parents, right? Because you get those genes and then they combine in unpredictable ways. Like, you can't always, you know, no kid looks exactly like their parents or acts exactly like their parents. You can't always place like, oh, this is from mom and this is from dad. Our genes kind of combine in unpredictable ways and then they kind of interact in unpredictable ways with the environment. And the environment is really what exerts a powerful influence on your personality. So if you're, you know, a kid who is a little bit introverted and you spend a ton of time reading and then you, you know, become this like, professor and you end up giving a lot of talks and like, you know, these are all. These things are all going to influence your personality kind of as you go along in life. If you happen to smile a lot and you attract a lot of people to you and you make a lot of friends, you know, those friends will kind of influence your personality as well. So I wouldn't say that anything is like, oh, my dad had depression, so I'm gonna have depression and there's literally nothing I can do. It's more like, okay, you might have a, you know, proclivity toward that, or you might have it be kind of drawn toward that to some extent, but you still have a fair amount of wiggle room depending on choices that are made for you by Your parents in childhood, and then choices that you make yourself, you know, in your early adulthood and throughout adulthood. I mean, that alone is so empowering to know. Like, it's a very hopeful message in which we have quite a bit more agency than perhaps we really understand. Yeah. And I mean, you see this with anyone who's ever, you know, quit drinking or completely changed their friend group or changed their job or gone back to school. You know, sometimes people just have these, like, bursts where they're like, I'm going to do something completely different and then that. Or, you know, either they're perfect personality changes and it leads them into a new situation, or they're placed in a new situation and it then changes their personality. I often think, though, in those contexts, I wonder, is it. Is it a desire to change your personality that motivates, like, a major life change, like a career change or something like that? Or is it a betrayal of your personality? Like, you're walking around, like, acting in a certain way, but you're like, I'm not happy. I feel like I'm living. Living someone else's life, or, this is not for me. I can feel it. To me, it feels like that's almost like a costume that you're wearing. Like, you've betrayed your personality. And your personality is like, year, like, the authentic version of you is. Has been muted and repressed and is. Has had enough. Right. And is like, come on, like, we need to, like, go over here. Yeah. Yeah. So my. My therapist, one of the things she would always tell me is, like, that I have a. Like, a true self and an anxious self. And that my anxious self is always, like, undermining the things that I want. So I. I do think some people do that. Like, they end up in a situation that they assumed was right or that they assumed was what they should be doing. And then, you know, sometimes it's because we don't believe that we can change, that we continue doing things that are counterproductive or just not a good fit for us or not a good fit anymore. Like, you also change over time. And what was fun when you were 22 is not maybe fun when you're 42. Have you. Are you familiar with internal family systems, like, ifs? Yeah, I had him in here, like, from his perspective. Like, there's. You have all of these person, like, voices and personalities, and all of them are trying to, you know, perform on your behalf and in all these various ways. And they're competing, you know, but. But recognizing them and honoring them. Like, oh, like, hey, you know, my neurotic five year old self. Like, I know that you're doing that because you feel like you need to, to protect me. And I'm so thankful for that. But like it's cool, like we're good. Like you can, you can like chill out, you know. Yeah, I think. Yeah. And there is like, yeah, there's an element of personality change to that is like, is like which side of yourself do you want to present in a certain situation? I talked to one another podcaster who has this like alter ego that she kind of like puts on when she has to do some like business transaction. Like when she has to talk to her agent or something. She's like, and now I'm a like successful businesswoman and she kind of trots out that side of herself which is, you know, not who she is day to day. Everything that you talk about in the book and you go through is, is very action based. You know, it's, you have to do things, you have to get out of your comfort zone. And it reminds me of, of what Susan David, you know, Susan David like this, she's this amazing professor of psychology and her whole thing is like discomfort is the price of admission to a meaningful life. And I think. Who was it who said in your book something around confusing for being like, basically like, I can't remember exactly what it was, but basically like being a betrayal of your personality. Like if it feels uncomfortable, like you shouldn't do, you shouldn't do it. Because I'm not, you know, I'm not the kind of person that does that kind of thing and disabusing people of that, like if you want to grow, change, evolve and engender your life with like more fulfillment and meaning, like it demands that you get out of your comfort zone. So don't confuse that with something else. Yeah, I mean, look, everything that you do that's new is going to feel uncomfortable the first time you do it. I mean, nobody, you know who has a baby like goes home from the hospital that first day and is like, I feel totally at ease with this. I feel confident I know exactly what to do with this baby. I feel like a natural born parent. Like everyone is like a total nervous wreck. Can't believe like they were allowed to leave the hospital with a baby, you know, is like googling how many ounces at what time you know it. Anything you do initially is going to feel very, very uncomfortable. You know, the first, like I said 10, 15 times I did improv, it was extremely uncomfortable. And I think part of it is just like, if you have a value or a goal that's on the other side of that discomfort, you can't let the discomfort stop you. You have to just kind of persevere a little bit until it becomes more comfortable. You know, we see this, like, most explicitly and literally with exercise where, like, the first time you run, it's, like, super uncomfortable, and you're like, why do people do this? And then you get good at running, and suddenly it's like, glorious and euphoric. That happens with, you know, mental things, attitudinal things, too. I found it in my notes. It was. It was Sonia. She said, just because it doesn't feel natural or comfortable doesn't mean it's not authentic. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And authenticity, like, the way we think, like, people think of authenticity, is just what feels good to me. Right. And so I would caution against letting that be your guide to everything you do, because not everything that feels good to you is. Is the best thing to be doing at the time. And not everything that's, you know, healthy or interesting or that's going to help you grow is going to feel good at first. This is Mark Brackett, psychologist and expert on emotional intelligence. Let's think about this for a minute. Ideally, we have ultimate control over everything that happens in our lives, and we don't need to regulate, like, everything is exactly the way Mark wants it to be. That doesn't happen. Like, we will have this election and we'll have. I'll get this job and this person will work for me, and this will happen, and everything just works out not going to happen. Okay, So I can't control the world. I can control some of the situations. I cannot go into the office of this person who really is mean. All you can control is your behavior and your relationship with your behavior. Yes. But ultimately, think about it. We would be kind of in this emotionally great place if everything just happened the way we want it to happen. Right. Can't rely on that. All right, so then just to backtrack a little bit, we've given ourselves permission to feel and everyone else, too, whether we love them or not. We've clearly labeled our feelings, and there's a whole lessons in there to do that. We have recognized that we need to deactivate our systems and have more mindfulness and be more present. We have cognitive strategies. We can be kinder to ourselves and our brains and reframe and engage in that spatial and temporal distancing. And then we do need social support. Sometimes you just need A good friend to talk through things with. And I have a few people in my life that they're like my go to people to problem solve with. And it really makes a difference because they're the emotional allies, you know, out there. And we have to find those in our lives because no one. I have an expression. It's not my expression, but I use it especially for kids. But all of us, no one should worry alone. Never worry alone. And then comes those cognitive strategies that we just talked about. Then I'm sitting by myself. I mean, how many times have we traveled to gifts? I did this one presentation recently. I had to get there. I was in Spokane, Washington, and I was coming from New York. I was in Denver for 12 hours. And I just said by 9 o' clock at night, I had to call the people and say, it's not happening. I'm just not getting there and I want to go home. And they're like, well, maybe. I said, there's no morning flight. It's just, I have to let you know it's not going to happen. I'm very happy to do this through technology. I'm very good with my Zoom presentations. And I, you know, but I was. And then I was in line with the person trying to change my flight, and she was not helpful. And, like, you have to call United. I'm like, I'm not calling United. Like, you're right here. Like, can't you just. No, I can't switch it because you're trying to go back to a place you didn't start from. I was out of my mind, and I didn't. I couldn't control it. I had no one to talk to. I sat in my seat. I did a few breathing exercises. I'm like, mark, you know, this feeling is impermanent. Like, this is a really rough moment. You want to be a lunatic right now? Don't go there. How is the best version of yourself gonna respond? And I just sat there and I paused. And I'm very proud of myself because I actually got what I wanted. I knew that everything wasn't gonna work out. They said you couldn't get in this flight. This wasn't gonna work out. I'm gonna figure this out. I'm gonna figure this out. I just sat, took a few deep breaths. I looked at the monitor. There was one flight going back to LaGuardia. I came out of Newark. I went to the LaGuardia turn, you know, the. Whatever that's called by the gate, and I looked at this person that was there. And I said, I've had a really, really long day. And I know that it's really difficult to do the change, but my hunch is that it might be possible. I just, I've been here for 12 hours. I would love to get home tonight. There's that last flight. Can you make it happen? And then when she put me on the flight. And so my point of that, of sharing that story is that emotion regulation really matters. It helped me take a really crappy day and kind of get the outcome that I was hoping for. If I were my old self, I would have been like, Adam, I would have been like, you got to be kidding me. I'm a million miler. And that would not have gotten me anywhere. She would have been triggered. I would have been triggered. She would have been like, I'm not helping this guy, He's a jerk. Instead, I went to my little corner, did my breathing exercise, engage in my positive self talk, envisioned the best version of myself, and had and thought about what that person could do in that moment to get the outcome. I don't know, it doesn't feel like magic to me. But the solution presents itself because you have the clarity of mine and the, the ground. Exactly. To not be reactive. In that moment, I no longer cared about the person who wasn't helping me. I cared about a. I am a. You know, I always joke, I am the director of the center for Emotional Intelligence. So I do want to have like, yeah, the pressure's on, right? So I do want to like be the person that I'm supposed to be, which I'm not always. And in that moment, I took that meta moment, which is I said, I'm going to build that space between stimulus and response. I'm going to go here and I'm going to deactivate and find my solution. And I can tell you that I have trained millions of people at this point on this technique and it really works, but you have to practice it. And I'll say one thing about this just before you ask another question, which is it can be a prevention technique too. So in that moment, it was very reactive. I'm like, mark's freaking out. Mark's going to go breathe and do his meta moment. But when my mother in law was living with us and I knew it was going to be rough in the mornings because she wasn't going home and I wanted some freedom when I come down the stairs to have coffee, I would envision the best version of myself before meeting with her for coffee. So it can be Forward looking is my point. As opposed to always in the moment. Yeah, we've got a lot more to come. But first, So the holidays are awesome. I think we can all agree on that. But, you know, not without their irresistible temptations. 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And what I love about all of this is that now, finally, everything I need to know about what is going on inside my body is consolidated in one single place. Which allows WHOOP to provide me with the right guidance, which I need right now. Because due to my recent back surgery, let's just say I'm not exactly in peak condition. So getting a comprehensive picture plus a plan on how to rebuild my body is pretty priceless. Every test is reviewed by a clinician, and instead of just raw results, you get a personalized plan that tells you exactly which habits from sleep to supplements are going to improve your specific markers. Go to join.whoop.com roll for one month free of Whoop. That's join.wh.com roll. All right, let's get back into the show with a clip from author James Fry, which I have to say was an absolute firecracker of an episode. If you missed it, check it out. I now think about moving forward like, okay, shorter books, right? You don't have the endurance. Refine that process 57 days. Okay. The next one I'm going to try to do 45, right? Can I refine it more? Can I prepare better going in? Can I come out of it better? One of the things I really learned with this book and it's interesting thing about Daoism and ancient texts, is after the experience of how I wrote this, it also fundamentally changed how I believe I can live with the dao and how I can exist in it. And so whereas before, the idea of being in an almost permanent state of wu Wei woo or thinking, not thinking, was some delirious dream, that I now believe I can get to that and live in the dao much more. I told you on my way out here, you know, I meditated for 30 minutes before I left the hotel and then for the entire hour I drove out here. And the meditation out here was a different kind than the morning one, right? The morning one was this absolute silence. The one coming out here, I talked about how the music I used to manipulate, I now believe I can use manipulate music to take me straight into the dao, right? There's certain music that reacts to me emotionally, that puts me into that state. And so as I was riding out here, I had headphones on and the Uber driver must have thought I was crazy because I'm essentially like I'm meditating trans dancing in the backseat and I'm moving. But what I'm really doing is just allowing all the gates to open just to be as free and as non thinking and to let my body and my mind and my soul go to wherever they want to go to some place where all that exists is the moment of hearing music and know that I'm moving and knowing that the world is alive. I suppose the next level of this, as it applies to how you write books, is to inhabit that state and be able to create without it, without the exhaustion part, you know what I mean? Like, can it, can it be, you know, can it be a joyous state of freedom in which it's flowing naturally but not paying this toll. Yeah, I don't think. Do you think that's possible? I don't. Yeah, I don't think it is either. I think I always. I think if you want to undertake the act of creation, there will always be a price that you pay, that your soul pays, that your heart pays, that your consciousness pays, your bank account with the dao pays. Right. But I think there are ways and as I've said, I've spent a lot of my life trying to figure it out, ways to do it differently or live in it differently or manage it differently. And you know, earlier you asked like, what, what, what is my day to day life like in terms of managing my mental and physical health? And it's all. It's been a long process of trying to find my way into this permanent state of being, not being right. Of focused, disciplined happiness. If that, if that makes any sense of utter acceptance of everything. Right. One of the reasons I can deal with the press and I don't care is because I just accept it. People, I don't. Why should I care what some guy says about me? Why does that matter in any way? It's his, it's his right and his job to say mean things about me. So why should I expect anything else and why should it bother me? Also, you know, your job is to create things for people to talk about. And there are other people who have. Their job is to, you know, comment on it. And usually that's going to include some negative stuff. Like that's just, that just goes with the job. One of the things that's been fun about this one, and this will get kind of weird, is the inside baseball fights of it. Right. Like, and so when the New Yorker wrote that article about me, it was the seven page tape. Yeah, I read it. Yeah. And it had a picture of me at a country club wearing a big platinum rope, standing in front of a Ferrari fancy car. Yeah. So the Times of London, which published an article two days later about my event in New York, which had an entirely different polar opposite position to it, used a picture from the same event, except it was pictures of me going like this. Right. And so when, and in a way that was also a statement from the Times of London to the New Yorker, those places. And so when you know you're doing that, when you know you're getting them to fight with each other over you without doing anything like, then I'm doing my job. Right. Next up is Joanne Molinaro, creator and plant based cookbook author. I Think the way that I did it was actually not bad, which is I cultivated a hobby. You know, I was in a job that in retrospect, was sucking my soul. You know, it. The amount of anxiety that I had walking into work every day was so toxic and so unhealthy, but I just kind of was like, oh, that's just everyday life. That's just normal, right? That's being an adult. But I stayed in that job for nearly 18 years. But during that time, I cultivated a hobby that gave me some respite that allowed me to invest pennies sometimes into my creativity, pennies into creative Joanne, artistic Joanne, and perhaps even entrepreneurial Joanne. I mean, sometimes I couldn't do edit at all. You know, two, three weeks at a time where I was on trial, I couldn't do anything right. But I think let's do a hobby first, because sometimes people know that they're creative and know that they're artistic, but don't actually know how best to manifest that creativity. Is it, you know, by being an artist? Is it by being a photographer? Is it by being a sculptor? Is it by being a cookbook author? They don't know. They just know that they want to do something. So hobby is such a non committal, non intimidating way to figure that out about yourself. How do you feel most fulfilled when it comes to self expression? And while you're doing that, you're also saving some money, putting some money aside, because that is an integral component to dream chasing. We live in a capitalistic world, whether you like it or not. And it is very hard to chase dreams if they are not capitalized, if they are not funded. I'm not saying you need a lot of money, some. And that is the way that I did it, which was I had a hobby and I socked money away little by little by little to make sure that if ever the day came where I would be given the Runway to really chase that dream, that that Runway would be fully funded for as long as possible. I think underscoring the hobby aspect of it is really important. Like at the outset of this, and perhaps even in its early full blown states, it still wasn't like, oh, this is my path out of this career. It was just something you enjoyed doing. And I think when you mentioned that people don't even know what their creativity looks like, I think that translates also into not even knowing what their hobby would be. So I think it begins with just indulging your curiosity or, or first even paying attention to your curiosity. Like where does it naturally Gravitate towards where do your eyes kind of like wander and just drawing some kind of present awareness to that and honoring, like noting it. Oh, that's interesting. Like, you know, when I open up the newspaper, why do I always pull the style section out first? You know, when I, when I should be reading the business section or whatever. Like, instead of saying, well, I should read the bit, you're like, oh, well, there's something there. Like, why do I, you know, why, why do I always kind of like do these things? And if you pull that thread, you know, maybe there's a hobby if you continue to pull. But I think it's just making this conscious decision to honor your curiosity and say, like, this is valid and, and if you continue to do that, there's always meaning on the other end of that. Whether that looks like a full blown career change is a different question. But I think to the extent that if you're in a certain situation in your life where things like meaning and fulfillment seem elusive, that might be a path towards a little bit more of it. I think the other big thing is to just do it. I mean, I think people sometimes are so enamored with the perfect manifestation of their hobby or their dream or their creative enterprise that it actually prevents them from taking that very first step of doing it. And it doesn't have to be be pretty. It is, it can be extremely. Well, it's not going to be. No, exactly. Like, it's not like you can't get caught up in that. Like, the first thing you write that all these things are going to be terrible. They are going to be so cringy, you're going to look back and you're going to hate them and you're going to be, you're going to hate the person who created it. But if you don't do it, you'll never grow, you'll never see what you could have become. And. But the thing is, if you put the word I'm chasing my dream on this project, if you label it as pressurized. Exactly. If you label as this is my future, this is my next big thing, this is my next career, this is the first step towards transitioning out of this job. I hate if you do that, you will almost certainly never start because there is so much anxiety that you have just injected into it. Whereas if it's, you know what, this style thing is actually kind of interesting. I wonder, you know, maybe the next time I go shopping, I should try pulling out a couple of pieces that I wouldn't normally and See what happens. Maybe I'll take a picture of it. You know, if you just do it that way and cultivate it as just a hobby, all the pressure sort of disappears from it. And the more you enjoy it, the more you're naturally going to invest in it. And the more you do that, the more, you know, stuff shows up to point you what the next thing is to do. But again, you don't get to know any of those things in advance. You don't, you don't. You do have to take a leap of faith in yourself. Now we hear from the amazing relationship expert Jillian Teki. You know, it's the question I get the most. Like the top three questions I get the most. How do I know if it's time to go? So low hanging fruit first? Because I think it's important. If there's any abuse, any violence of any kind, you get out, there is no plan B. You don't give them a second chance, it's done and you get help aside from that. And let's say you're invested. This is not someone you've been dating. So I think, I think I should answer it. Like, if you've just been seeing this person for like three months and you're not sure if this is it or like you're married or you're, you know, in full partnership. Let's start with the full partnership. Often when we are thinking about if we should stay or go, we're thinking about one person and one person only, ourselves. We're thinking about what we're not getting, the needs that are not being met. And we're not thinking, how am I, how have I been as a partner? Am I meeting their needs? Do I even know what their needs are? You know, what's like, remarkable to me? And maybe this is, you know, I don't know if you and your wife have done this or maybe this would be a fun thing for you guys to do later tonight, but a lot of people are in relationships and they don't even know what their partner needs. To feel loved and important, cherished. To feel like they are important to them. To feel like they're growing together. Like they just don't know what the other person needs. The needs are unstated. They're unstated. Yeah. You said this in uninvited. I love this phrase that you, that you use, which is unspoken expectations are premeditated resentments. Yes. Which kind of gets at the heart of that. That's it. If you don't bring your voice to what Those needs are. You can't expect them to get met. And when they're not met, you simmer with all sorts of resentment that, you know, just sours everything. Yes. So before you leave, you have to ask yourself, first of all, do I know what if there were three things that my partner can do differently and they were to do it, would that be enough? Because I've spoken to people and I said, okay, let's say they made all these changes. They did A, B, C, and D. They did all the things that have been missing, and I've had people say, you know what? I still wouldn't want to be with them. And then you kind of have your answer. Then, you know. Then you know. But oftentimes it's like, can you. If there were two things that they could change, would that be enough? And a lot of times people are like, yeah, I just need these two things. Okay, so now we can work with that. Then there's, do you know what they need? And how would you rate yourself as a partner? And can you try meeting their needs for about 30 days? Can you try just being the, you know, thinking about meeting their needs and being the partner that you want to be and seeing if something magical happens? Because often it does. Believe it or not, if you pull the ripcord before performing that experiment, yeah, you're. You're jumping ship too soon. You're jumping ship too soon. In the context of a newer relationship, though, like, how is it different? I think it's different because, you know, if you're, like, seeing someone for three months and you're not sure if you want to really build with this person, I think values are so important. I wish I'd learned this at a much younger age. Like, what's. Most people don't really take the time to figure out what's really important to them. And I think that having you don't want to be the same thing, same as your partner, that would be so incredibly boring. But you want to have some core values that are the same. You know, you want to have. You don't have to. I mean, preferences are one thing, you know, yeah, sure, it'd be nice if you both ate the same way or went to bed at the same time. These things help. But you can have all those things on point. But if you don't share, like, core values and how you and what you believe a life well lived is, it's never going to work. So you got to ask yourself, does this person. Do you feel like you can build a life with this person, do you feel like this is someone who you could really trust? Do you respect them and do you feel respected by them? We continue with another icon, none other than legendary broadcaster Katie Couric. We're not exactly in the best moment when it comes to funding medical research. Oh, my God. I know we're gonna have to talk about something fun eventually, because this is, like, such a bummer. But, no, I'm glad you brought it up because it's super important for people listening. So, yes, the NIH funding is being cut, I think by 40%. And, you know, much of my adult life after I lost my husband to colon cancer and my sister to pancreatic cancer, has been spent really focused on cancer, raising money for cancer research, getting to know a lot of scientists, increasing awareness. And I started Stand up to Cancer with some other pissed off women who were just very frustrated at the pace of progress. So I have been in this world not like scientists have, but I have gotten such a deep, profound appreciation for what these people do and how tirelessly they work day in and day out and how hard it is and how complicated these diseases are. Not just cancer, which is like a million diseases and a million different biologies, but all these neuro, neurodegenerative diseases and heart disease anyway. And the fact there's so much wrong with cutting medical research in this way, not only are we in a huge inflection point with AI merging with basic biology and other immunotherapeutic approaches. And I know you are interested in medicine, and I want to talk to you about this, actually, but I'll talk to you in a minute to pull the rug out from under these scientists and patients. Stop clinical trials. It is such a disservice to our country. And we're also already witnessing a significant brain drain. Scientists aren't going to stay here if their projects aren't funded. France is saying, come to France. Other countries are saying, we will fund your research. It is so foolhardy and disgusting. But there is a move on Capitol Hill with. I think it's pretty bipartisan to try to reinstate some of the funding into nih. So that's. That's good to know. I mean, that's the other thing. When you grow up in D.C. you grow up around kids whose parents were scientists at nih. Like a lot of my friends parents were researchers at nih. And listen, that was a long time ago. And I'm sure there's some bureaucratic bloat and all of that, but the idea that these People are somehow co opted by Big Pharma and are working at the behest of these corporate interests for. For their own personal enrichment is kind of insane. Like, these people have devoted their lives to science and they are immersed in these research projects that are expensive and complicated and take many, many years. And. And a lot of this has been interrupted and disrupted. And so a lot of that science is lost. And it's quite tragic for anyone who is depending upon, you know, cures and therapies for, you know, whatever they're suffering from. Right. It's a travesty, honestly, it's a travesty. And some of these clinical trials have been either shut down or delayed. And, you know, when you're sick, I know very well from my husband and my sister, and when you're sick, you know, every day matters and you're just praying. I remember when Jay was sick and he was diagnosed with stage four colon cancer. And it was bleak. The prognosis was very bleak. But I was just every day perusing the Internet, like, praying, is there something going on? I would call, like these pharmaceutical companies in Israel. I called Bert Vogelstein, who's discovered the Ashkenazi Jew gene at Johns Hopkins. He was not very encouraging. But I do love you, Bert, now, but you weren't that nice back then. But anyway, you know, just desperate. And I know what it's like. I know what it's like just saying, you know, anything, please just do anything that will extend my life. You don't even have to cure me. Extend it so I can go to my daughter's wedding or I can be at my child's fifth grade, you know, kindergarten graduation. I don't know. And. Or that can help me until something better comes along. But, you know, how can something better come along when they just aren't funding the science? It's so. It's maddening to me. Next up are two of the most popular people on the entire Internet, Rhett and Link. These behemoths are sort of collapsing under their own weight. And in that collapse, there is this emergent kind of thing happening right now that I see you guys as sort of the tip of the spe. Yeah, over 3,000 episodes of the show. The thing that has remained consistent was our connection with each other and our connection with that one viewer on the other side of the lens. So it's always been intimate in that way. The production value would increase and we'd add writers and producers and in order to free up our time off camera to pursue other projects. But when we sit down behind that desk is two friends who have known each other for 30 now, over 40 years. And it's real. And we created an environment where we're comfortable being increasingly more of ourselves over the years and valuing that connection, and that's irreplaceable. So I think the instinct that we needed to create something that was a touch point, we underestimated the power of that connection. And so, yeah, it has turned into this bustling studio in Burbank where people wear many hats and express themselves and pursue their own dreams. It's a fun, very challenging thing to run, but we work hard to not lose sight of that. The heart of it is this friendship. And yeah, it's all contingent upon you guys maintaining a very real friendship. Yeah, it is, because it will collapse under its own weight without that. Right. And so 40 years, you guys have been friends since you were little kids and made this blood oath, you know, and had to literally draw mythical creatures when you were in, you know, time out at school or whatever. Like, walk us back to the humble beginnings of. It's like, you know, rock bands. How do, how have you sustained this? Like most bands can't, you know, like people, you know, the human condition is to, you know, not be able to sustain something like this. Yeah. Well, it all goes back to 1984 and Ms. Locklear's first grade class in Buoys Creek, North Carolina, where we are both held in from recess for writing profanity on our desks. We don't really remember what we wrote, but in the mythology of our creation myth, it has become Dam in hell. Damn. Misspelled as D A M because that's funny, right? And we immediately connected and we're in a really small town where there's, you know, when Campbell University is in session, there's a thousand people, I think, in the. In the entire town. And we are essentially side by side from first grade to 12th grade as best friends. And there's people who rotate in and out of the friend group, but the two of us become, you know, inseparable. And then when we start in middle school, getting attention for doing things together either just in front of friends or better yet, you get up in front of the whole class and. Or you. Oh, there's a video project where you get to go and you get to do something on video to show to the. Your eighth grade class. Or the talent show. Oh, the talent show. That's where the, that's the opportunity right before you. Right before summer, if you were in seventh and eighth grade, you could submit a talent and then like friends and family, everyone would show up, fill the auditorium, and they'll be thinking about you all summer. Oh yeah, unless you blow it. But we lived for that. But if you perform, if you take I'm down with OPP during the fall festival and you change it to I'm down with Halloween and change the lyrics, they'll be thinking about you all year. So we started getting this positive feedback, this attention that we craved. And eventually, yes, when we're about 14, sort of heading into high school, that was when we were out in a cow pasture that we would go out to to chase cows as one of our, our main pastimes. And there were two rocks out in this field. There was a big rock and a little rock. And we developed this system where if you're sitting on the big rock, you could talk, but if you're sitting on the little rock, you can only ask clarifying questions. And so we would share training ground for a podcast creating a show. And that's how we learned how to communicate and listen. And we started just talking about dreams. And they were very nebulous. Dreams of essentially, we want to do something big together. We don't know what that's going to be like. Our form of entertainment, like what an entertainer was to a couple of boys in Buoys Creek back then was the guy who would come to our school dances and he was a dj, but he was also a magician. It's like that was a full time entertainer to us. We had no concept of going to California and being in media. We didn't even. We couldn't tell you what media was. I wanted to be a weatherman because you get to tv, you're on tv. We've got a lot more to come. But first, After hosting more than 900 episodes of this podcast, I have noticed a pattern. And that pattern is that the highest performers don't buy into the latest trendy hacks. Instead, they obsess on what actually works, which is always the unassuming basics. And there is nothing more basic than hydration. But here's the kicker. Your body can't hold on to water without the right minerals. Without them, water is just like this temporary visitor. But Element has cracked the code on this, which is why I've been using it religiously for years. Zero sugar, no artificial junk, just sodium, potassium and magnesium in the ratios that actually work. And look, I'm not exactly crushing ultras right now healing from this surgery, but it's in some ways I need it even more. In order to properly recover, I need to treat my body even better than ever so it can heal properly and expeditiously while also maintaining my focus and my energy levels. To rock out all of these podcasts, write a book, be a husband and a dad, and I gotta say, Element keeps my brain firing in a way that water alone can't. Their new sample pack features their most popular flavors. Citrus Salt, Raspberry Salt, Watermelon Salt, that's my favorite and Orange Salt. Eight stick packs total. Perfect for finding your favorite or sharing with a friend. Get a free 8 count sample pack of Element's most popular drink. Mix flavors with any purchase@drinklmnt.com Rich Roll Find your favorite Element flavor or share it with a friend. We're brought to you today by Birch. Sleep is one of those things that at this point, especially if you're a longtime listener of the rrp, we know matters. But sometimes we focus a little bit too much on nifty sleep hacks while overlooking the foundation that makes it possible, literally what we're sleeping on. Meaning of course, our mattress. Something most of us just kind of accept and live with without really considering considering the materials we're lying on for a third of our lives. And that's what drew me to Birch. They craft mattresses with responsibly sourced materials. Things like organic fair trade cotton and natural latex. No synthetic materials, no harmful off gassing that can happen in the manufacturing process. What's also impressive is that Birch owns their manufacturing facility and they rely on skilled manufacturing manufacturers to produce the highest quality product. Every Birch mattress comes with a 100 night risk free trial and a 25 year warranty. Deep, consistent restful sleep is so important. I want all of you who are watching and listening to enjoy that. And I want you to begin that process by checking out a new mattress from birch. Go to birchliving.com richroll for 20 off. All right, let's get back into the show with somebody who burst onto the scene in 2025, and that is public health expert Jessica Nurek. A lot of people will ask me, well, what do you think the Maha movement is getting right? And what I always say is the Maha movement, they largely get the problem Right. Right. And that's why it's so effective. They really have tapped into something in a very bipartisan way across the board that we all feel because, you know, maybe we can talk a little bit about how this, like this left to right change in wellness has happened. But many of us in public Health have been talking about these same problems that Maha is talking about. Right. We do have a lifestyle related chronic disease issue. That's why I got into this field and started studying chronic disease prevention, you know, a decade and a half ago. We do have a food environment that is nearly, by best estimate, 70% ultra processed food. Right. And there's a reason for that. And we do have systems that are not built for us to be healthier. They're really built for corporate profit and for the profitability of them. And so those truths are there and they really latched onto those. The issue is that they got the causes of those issues largely wrong. And when you get the causes wrong, you're gonna get the solutions wrong. And you're going to miss the mark on the solutions. And your solutions either will be kind of benign and not make any impact, or they'll be harmful in some cases. So right now we. Things like, you know, fluoride bans in certain states, we see mostly, I think Maha's solutions are really largely around like getting food dyes out of foods and getting these, like, ingredients out of foods. While we're focused very much on that. And we can all agree, like, maybe we won't all agree, but I would say that the vast majority of us would be completely fine with getting synthetic food dyes out of our food. Like, no one's really advocating for synthetic food dyes. Right. They're largely a marketing tool for these food corporations to sell more foods, particularly to children. So there may actually be some place there where you remove the synthetic food dyes, the food is not as bright and kids eat less of it. We don't have data to suggest that's the case. But I could see a scenario where that could happen. I'd love to see that happen. But the problem is that let's be honest about why we're removing the food dyes. It's not because, for example, the United States regulatory system is allowing them in our food and all of the other regulatory systems are banning them around the world because that's just not accurate and it's not done for safety reasons. And that might be surprising to some people who are listening that those food dyes aren't banned in places like the EU or Canada or Australia. Like, they're completely allowed there. Where I say the Trojan horse aspect of it is because we're very focused on this issue, right? This food dyes or the seed oils and french fries in fast food restaurants, meanwhile, you know, the foundation of our public health institutions are being gutted and we're rolling back environmental protections and we're cutting billions of dollars from healthcare access and food nutrition access. And all of these things that are the foundation of ensuring a healthy public in the United States are really being eroded because we're so focused on some things that really, there's not a lot of evidence to suggest are gonna make a measurable impact on our health. Yeah, there's a dissonance between rhetoric and reality. Like, all of the energy is going towards the discussion around food dyes and beef tallow at, you know, Shake Shack or whatever. Shaken steak. And what's interesting or curious about that, to me, beyond the obvious, is the fact that, I mean, first of all, like, to your point, like, no one, no one's in favor of these dyes. Like, I'm, yeah, get rid of them or whatever. But it's a distraction because ultimately, whether that dye is in the food or not, it's still a bad food that you shouldn't eat. You know, like, it's not part of a healthy diet at all. So it's like, oh, let's, let's. So let's get super excited about the fact that M&MS. Doesn't use this red dye or whatever. They're still M&MS. So why are we even talking about this? It's such a 0.001% of what's important to talk about when it comes to these issues. And the misdirection aspect of it is that it distracts us from focusing on what's really important, which are these initiatives, these policies, what research is being funded that's really going to drive these public outcomes in a positive way. On the one hand, it's almost like we're in favor of regulation because we want these dies. The only way you do that is by passing regulations that regulate food and pharma. But at the same time, behind the scenes, it's all about deregulation so that these big corporate entities can do what they want to do, which is basically double down on their corporate interests and not be impeded in doing so. Next up is the queen of clean beauty, Greg Renfrew, founder and entrepreneur. On the subject of consumer. The consumer lack of awareness or ignorance about these things, what is it that you want the consumer to know? Well, I think with respect to my industry, the beauty and personal care industry, I want people to know that beauty secrets are bullshit. I mean, it's all bullshit. I mean, just think about this. I mean, you and I are both, you know, getting older, right? I have wrinkles on my face. Right. I just do. Wrinkles aren't a problem. They're just a thing that the beauty industry is telling you is a problem. So they can sell you product. I mean, let's just start there. I mean really. Yeah, there's like a wrinkle is just part of the aging process and every single person in the world will get a wrinkle at some point. And it is not a process, it is just part of life. The entire industry of like building things like, oh, if you, you know, use this, you're going to have the fountain of youth. It's, I mean, it's all bullshit. So I think that, you know, one, I want people to understand that like there's no cream that's going to get rid of your wrinkles. They might improve the moisture in your skin. They might, you might feel a little bit more radiant that that stuff is true. But nothing's going to change things. That's one thing too. That don't be, don't believe what you see on a label. Like, you've got to do your research. You may not choose to want to do the work and that's fair. But if someone says it's all natural or clean or aloe based or, you know, it's got made with pomegranate seed or whatever, like there's always, it's just insane how creative these things get. Like, oh, infused with this and like special. It's like there's all kinds of crazy descriptors, you know, to make you think that there's some scientific breakthrough happening. Of course not. Of course. And they'll say things like preservative free. Okay, well that's, there's no way that if you buy a product and it's sitting on the shelf for a year or two without having to be refrigerated and doesn't expire in a couple weeks, like that's not preservative free. That means that that person went in and pre preserved the raw materials, extracted them. And because of, because of sort of loopholes, like they can claim that to be preserved because they didn't, they weren't like the, they didn't add preservedly preserved. It was preserved before they put it in the bottle or whatever. It's that kind of thing that people just don't realize. And it's the same with, you know, with the food industry. And I always say like the beauty industry drafts off the food industry. So what is happening there? We're going to get next. And so I always just say to people. If there's like one thing you can do, shop fragrance free. Because at least you know you're removing a lot of the chemicals of concern that don't have to be listed. No matter which brand it is. We will, we always list the ingredients, but people don't list it. But just, just know that, you know, what you see on the label isn't necessarily what you get. And that's okay if you're not trying to buy clean or natural product, but if you are, you need to do your homework. And what are the common chemicals of concern and why are they concerning? You know, I think there are a whole bunch, but a couple that you will see often on labels are some of the parabens, the methyl or ethylparabens. You'll see things like edta, the pegs, obviously formaldehyde, but it never shows up as formaldehyde on the label. But those things, and they are, you know, I talked earlier about phthalates and I think that anything that mimics your endocrine system and disrupts it can be really harmful in terms of your reproductive health or, you know, your neurological health. So I think that what I always say to people is like, look, I'm never, I'm not a scientist and I don't have all the answers or understand half of these chemicals, most of these chemicals. But what you should know first and foremost is that many, many tens of thousands of chemicals have been introduced into commerce in everything from electronics to food to be, and less than 10% of them have ever been tested for safety on human health. And so you're dealing with the wild, wild west. And so when you're making decisions about things you're putting in your body and on your body, just err on the side of being cautious. Like you'll put a seatbelt on when you get in the car, but you'll just put, put anything, any lotion or potion all over your body. And your skin's your largest organ. So if you're thinking about, you know, your longevity and your long term health, know that while it may not react in that moment, you might not see a huge rash breakout, it may have a long term impact and we may not know that. Maybe that one ingredient's okay in isolation, but how many products are you putting on your body every day when you brush your teeth and you shave and you put deodorant on and sunscreen and makeup and how do those chemicals interact with one another? With your body? Yeah. There's an interesting irony in that amidst all of this institutional distrust that's occurring right now, we have almost a reflexive, unconscious trust when it comes to all of these products. Assuming that smart people at the company have tested all of these things and that the FDA is overseeing all of this, and it wouldn't be on the shelf and available to buy unless it has been vetted and tested and approved for human health and safety. Yeah. It actually surprises me, even with my own friends, when. I mean, sometimes they'll say something, they're like, this is clean. I'm like, have you been listening to me for the last 10 years? Are you kidding me? This is not clean. This is not even remotely clean. But somehow you think it is because it has a leaf on the packaging or something and you think it's like this thing. I think that. But the burden of proof, like the presumption is upside down. Right. It has to be proven harmful. It's assumed. It's assumed safe until proven harmful, rather than having to be proven safe prior to being able to be available as a commercial product. That is true. This is Andy Galpin, my very favorite performance scientist. I changed this probably 10 years ago. I remember I was, you know, Brian McKenzie. I do. So I was at Brian's house, and he was talking about the. That exact thing. And I was like, oh, that's really interesting. His endurance programming was all based. Failure was defined as technical breakdown. Right. Not volume, not time, not anything else. It was a. When you break down technically, like, that's your. There's no point in continuing to run further or whatever at that point. Yeah. And then, like, two days later, I was in Colorado with Lauren Landau, strength conditioning coach, tremendous guy. He was with the Broncos for a long time. Now he's at Notre Dame. And he said the exact same thing, but not from the endurance perspective. And he was going through different drills he was doing, and I was like, how am I not doing this? Immediately was like, oh, this is the most ridiculous thing ever. And so we've pretty much used that almost exclusively since then. Is. We will always define. Not always. Most of the time, we define fatigue or endurance or failure as that point of diminished technical breakdown. Right. You're gonna, like, your posture will break and, like, you'll come back. But when we see whatever we're defining as a major technical breakdown, then that's the limit. And so, in fact, I got a text on the way here. One of our guys is preparing for a fight in China, and he told me last night he had a PR in our endurance work. And this is an aerodyne piece that we do for rounds, and those rounds are cut off with technical breakdowns. So this is a posture when he's leaning forward and the head starts flopping back and forth and his elbows start flying up, that's when we, like, cut him. And he doesn't know this, by the way. He just gets arbitrarily told he's done. He has no idea why. Right. We can't, because then he'll just hijack the system and he won't listen to this. What are you doing? Why are you. Yeah. Yes. He's like, no, no, we're done. He's just like, okay, but we got an extra round out of our stuff last night, which is now the third week in a row we've added a round. And I'm like, great. So what this showing me is he's holding position better at the same or higher levels of fatigue. Intuitively, he's subconsciously holding this. And then when he gets really tired, he breaks. Phenomenal. And then we see that in his actual skill training. So, yeah, that's a very big part of our stuff, especially when we are pushing close to competitions where volume and intensity are high, calories are low, stress is high. You're just like, you're asking for a recipe. There's. And you're looking for any excuse to dial something in and that for, for him, for some of our other athletes, it's honestly not as big of a deal. But the really practical application of this for the everyday person is next time you're in the gym and you're thinking, I'm going to go to failure on this lift. Failure isn't, you know, when you can no longer get the bar all the way up by doing whatever you have to do, you know, moving your body around to do it. It's as soon as you can't. Can't hold perfect form, then you're done. Right? And I think the other gem within that is that the most important thing in advancing your fitness goals is consistency. Like, you talk about this consistency over intensity, and everybody loves to, you know, talk about their, their, their monster workout or their massive lift or their incredibly long, you know, weekend run or whatever. And that's all fine, but it's only as important as, you know, as the rest of your program and how it fits into that, right? So quality, like volume being limited by the extent to which you can express it with quality. 100. And my rule is always, if I'm being consistent, like, less is always more because you're, you're not Just training for the day, you're training for the week and the month and, and the idea is to be able to get up and do it again the next day and the next day and the next day. And the minute you start, you know, kind of inappropriately stepping over the line and doing a little bit too much because you feel good that day. Like just because you feel good that day and you want to go for it doesn't mean that you should if you have a greater goal that you're working towards because that can come at a cost that's going to undermine your ability to express yourself physically the day after when that was the day when you really were supposed to, you know, do that other kind of workout to advance that our athletes and our non athletes, because by numbers I coach more non athletes, general population people than professional athletes. With all of them we have very specific, you can set this up however you want, but red days, days that you're going to go after. Right. And it doesn't always work like that, especially for non athletes. It's like I'm running a company and I've got a fam like this thing. Okay, great. But we will have that plotted for the month and ideally at least for the quarter as well. And so when we get to a spot where that person goes, I'm feeling great today, I want to go after it. Well, we know what's coming up next week and we know what came the week before. And so we can look at it and go, yeah, if you want, go ahead. Or we can go, no chance. Why? Because either we did a ton last week or we got a whole huge set coming up next week or next month or whatever. And so we're trying to really make an intelligent decision about like when to fly and when to not go. All that is orchestrated, whether this is just on subjective hard day, medium day, light day, or we have direct measures with a bunch of physiological variables and other stuff. We have a combination of super high technology and no budget, no technology sort of people. So you have some plan there. We continue with the soulful two time world champion surfer John John Florence. So if I was Mike Gervais, I would ask you like, what does mastery look like for you? Like how would you define mastery? I don't think. Yeah. Do you think in that context? I kind of do, but I kind of don't like, I don't think there's you can ever really become a master of anything. I feel like it's just endless and I feel like mastery for me is like Like, I'm really into the internal thinking in the mind, you know, because I feel like once you get a handle on that, you'll never have it perfectly, but you'll be able to apply it to anything that you do. And so I think that's mastery within itself is just being able to get a handle on your internal self. Mastering the self is the key to mastering anything else. Anything you apply yourself to. Well, you're not going to master anything if you're not a master of your own mind. Exactly, yeah. If you're just kind of completely acting at random, then I feel like the things you do are going to be at random. How do you define success? Has that evolved over time? Yeah, definitely. It's funny, when I was competing and going for my first world title, I was like, okay, world title. That's it. That's what I want. That's like the. Once I do that, that's I've done it, I'll feel good. And then it's just the craziest thing because you hear it from other athletes and stuff. They accomplish these huge goals. But when you accomplish with that and then I finish and you wake up the next day and everything resets. You're like, why am I the same guy? You're like, I'm the same. Nothing's changed. And so you kind of just keep going on about your day. And that actually was pretty hard for me because I was like, I just chased this whole life thing thinking that this would be, I guess, solve all my issues and then you win and then you finish it and you're like, everything's exactly the same. Okay, now how do I cope with that? And so figuring out how to cope with that and then come back again and be like, okay, now why am I competing? What's the point? Because you could go into that mode of just like, I accomplished it, I'm done, there's no reason for me to do this anymore. And I think that's where I really started getting into that mode of like, oh, no, I'm kind of going on this bigger picture, longer, full life. It'll take my whole life and I'll probably never accomplish really getting to know myself and master myself and the decisions that I make. So success then is a commitment to self mastery? Yeah, I guess so. Yeah, commitment. I guess it's a commitment. I think that's a really good way of saying it. What's really funny is every single person who's achieved some audacious goal has the same story. This is like the. Because you have to be sort of insane to chase these things and to achieve them, and driven in part by thinking that this is going to fix whatever broken part you have. You know what I mean? And every single person will say, and then I did it. And then I was the same guy. And it was so disappointing. It's like you could listen to a thousand versions of that story on a thousand podcasts and read a million books, but we all sort of think that we're going to be the exception. Like, yeah, but not for me. You don't understand. It's going to be different. It's like, this really will fix me. Or. Or then. But it sounds like where the maturity is. And what you learned was you learned from that and thought, well, winning a second one isn't going to fix it. Like, a lot of people just get on that hedonic treadmill. Like, oh, well, it didn't fix me. But that's because there's this other thing. Like, maybe if I do this and just your whole life, you know, but to, like, learn at a young age, like, that's not the solution. It's an inside job. And there's another focus of my attention and energy that's going to be required if I want to solve that dilemma. Yeah. And I think that's where it really helps me through, like, bringing up the injuries. Because I just felt like that was such a big part of my road to this last world championship, but, like, it allowed me to go into those and be like, okay, like. Like I said before, like, I'm just kind of changing what I'm doing, but I'm still going after my same, like, life goal, you know, and it allowed me to do that really well. And then. Then I healed. And then I'm like, okay, now I'm competing again, and I'm going to put my mindset back into this again. And you're always building this one thing, no matter what you're doing in your life. Right. Process over outcome. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's good that you love surfing. Yeah, Right. It makes the process part a lot easier. Yeah, it does, you know. Next up is Jungian psychotherapist John W. Price. I was told by a Jungian analyst that I worked with years ago. She was a professor of mine. When we were speaking in one of our classes, she mentioned a young woman who was sexually abused through much of her early life. So by the age of nine or ten, she had a pretty significant alcohol dependence. Nine or ten? Hardcore. Wow. So this was a horrible sexual abuse. The way that Priscilla spoke about it. She said that she was drinking anywhere from half a bottle to a bottle of vodka a day, I'm sure supported by some of the adults in her life. So this is as bad as it can get. And so at 16, the abuser was no longer in the home, and yet she still had the alcohol problem. The alcohol dependence, I should say. Okay, so I would argue that's not wrong. That was based in her need to do everything that she could to numb out from the catastrophic mistreatment that was happening. An almost appropriate adaptation. Absolutely survive. Absolutely. Just an absolutely overwhelming trauma. Yeah. So then how do you take somebody who, for the formative years of their life, has connected with this substance and it has helped them navigate their development? And how do you then. Because now the alcohol is killing her. And that's an extreme image of what happens to us all that we have these early adaptations about. Think about when you were in a relationship and you got your heart broken and you determined that you will never love again, or you were sexually violated and you made a proclamation about others in the world. This belief becomes ingrained. I will never do that, or they will never hurt me again, or I will never have this happen. We have these agreements. It's a contract with reality. So the sacred refusal is when we. We eventually recognize that we have to go through a process of grief and begin to unravel our connection with whatever that adaptation is. And oftentimes it's done so in trauma or a crisis, that this is what in AA would be referred to as a rock bottom that you have to hit that and eventually say, this is no longer tenable. I have to consider something else. I don't know what it is. So I will surrender over to a process that I can't possibly fathom. But I'll trust you enough, hopefully, that you will guide me through that process, saying it to the community or to the sponsor or to the therapist or whomever it may be. So sacred refusal is an opportunity for us to ritualize that process where we can honor the adaptation, we can commune with it in a way that recognizes its value in our lives, that it served a great and holy purpose in a lot of ways. But now we need to, on some level, kill it off and surrender it to the forces and the powers that be. And I think that process takes time. And in the best of times, it would be done with a ritual. But again, if you're not surrounded by elders who've gone through this experience and can find ways to ritualize that process, you're kind of left going at it alone. And that can be a scary and terrifying experience. And that's why in therapy, one of the things I help folks do is try to recognize the both and of the dance. Thank you. Thank you. And I set you free. And now I go through a stage of disorient, what I call disorientation, where my favorite example here is a hermit crab. And I thought about the hermit crab early on and come to find out they actually do this. The hermit crab outgrows its shell and it has to go looking for a new shell. And of course, the moment of transition from the old shell to the new shell is the. The most vulnerable time exposed. Yeah. And the second thing that I thought was really fascinating when I started looking this up is that it also goes through a phase of adjusting to the new shell because it doesn't quite fit right. And so it's got to take time to grow into that shell. So this is a stage of liminality, the in between. And our ego's need for control, for clarity, for certainty. We suffer the burdens of ambiguity, anxiety, and ambivalence. And during that stage, just not intellectually necessarily, but just our bodies are shaking and kneading ground. You know, I need my familiarity. We are in the uncomfortable transitional phase of the unknown. And so disorientation is a stage that really needs a kind of midwifing. And you need somebody to sit along and reflect for you where you are in your journey, or else you will regress into patterns that existed and were very effective before. Hence the nature of our entire addiction treatment process. Next up is another icon. You know her as Malala. Yes, Bhat Malala, the activist and Nobel Peace Prize laureate. When I had anxiety and panic attacks and flashbacks of the attack, I was introduced to therapy that changed everything for me. So I was hoping that, you know, that through sharing my story, I can help somebody out there who might feel lost, who might not know that they could ask for help. I wish I had heard a story like this, and I wish I knew that therapy is okay and you should ask for help sooner. So I'm hoping that this can help somebody out there. The mental health journey that's baked into the story. I mean, you didn't have to be as open and honest about how that unfurled as you were. Like your first panic attack was in the aftermath of doing your first bong hit, you know, and that's. I'm sure, you know, when people read that, they're going to be like, oh, My God. You know, just envisioning you doing that. I know. Like, I thought that was going to be the beginning of my, you know, journey, exploring and experimenting things. But that became my first and last bong experience because it just didn't turn out how I expected it to be. I remember that night because, you know, it became a scary night. I was initially, like, with my friends. We were just chatting about college life, and we were in the college gardens, and they showed me bong, and I said, oh, like, what is this? They said, you know, it's sort of weed. You try it. And, like, first attempt, I coughed. On the second attempt, when I inhaled it, I felt it just went all inside my body. And that's when it took a sharp turn because my body froze. I could not even move. And immediately I thought I was reliving the Taliban attack. And I felt that I was, you know, I was going to die. You know, it's. It's that time in this induced coma that I experienced after the Taliban attack where I could not understand what was happening, if I was awake or asleep, if I was alive or dead. And in that whole night after this long experience, I was sweating, shaking, terrified. I wanted to scream. It was truly, truly a nightmare. And I could not sleep. I could not sleep because I thought if I close my eyes, I would die. And it took me actually months to seek therapy. So for, like, this flashback. And then panic attacks started. I was not being myself anymore. But my college friends actually saw that something was not okay. And then one of my friends said that I should see a therapist, and she told me that it's okay. Like, a lot of students see therapists. Yeah. So seven years later, after the attack, was when I started therapy again. And you had to overcome whatever narrative you had in your mind about what therapy meant in order to. I thought it would be. Walk into that first visit, you know, they ask you how was, you know, how are you feeling today? And, you know, and what does that make you feel? I just thought they would never understand my experiences. So when I went to my first therapy session, I thought I would be given all the medication that would make all of these problems go away. And I was, like, waiting for some treatment for it to be fixed. But I learned that it was actually a process, learning how your thoughts and emotions are different from the actions and just understanding that this is actually PTSD and anxiety. That's what my therapist told me that, you know, it can happen. I think for me, the most, like, disappointing or painful part was that it was Happening after such a long time. I thought that I had overcome the attack. It was a story of the past. And somehow it all came back, like, as if it just happened all over again. That was really painful to process, and I just hated that. I was like, you know, I wish it's not ptsd. I just did not want to have ptsd. But these things can affect you, and I think it's important to raise awareness about it. Because you thought that that would mean that you were weak or because it was going to be so much worse work to get to the other side of it? I think it was both. I actually felt that I was not living up to the expectation of being brave and courageous. I thought I had somehow failed how I was supposed to be. And I was, like, really proud of myself before that. Look, survived a bullet. Look where I am. I'm fighting for all girls. And suddenly, seven years later, I am shaking. I'm getting scared and frightened. You know, when I cannot even figure out what is it that's making me scared? Am I failing if I feel scared? And I redefine bravery now, I think it is when you still stand up despite the anxiety, the panic attacks, the doubts, the trauma. I call it true courage now. True bravery. We continue with the historian and author Rutger Bregman. There's no place like the United States when it comes to ambition and entrepreneurialism and that sense of possibility, right? This is where you come to build things, and people encourage you to do that and celebrate that spirit. But it's also this place where my feeling is our very precious relationship with quote, unquote, liberty, like our personal liberties, feels a little out of balance. Essentially. We only get those liberties because we share this collective responsibility. And we don't really talk a lot about the responsibility piece, but we spend a lot of time talking about our liberty to do what we want to do whenever we want to do it in an unbridled way. And so how do you look at all of that and make sense of it? I think that if you look at American history, there's this continuous fight between two notions of what liberty is. There is indeed the shallow view of freedom that is very common today, which is just the freedom of, leave me alone, let me do whatever I want, let me just follow my own passion, fulfill my own desires. It's the Gordon Gekko greed is good kind of freedom. And I wouldn't say that that is entirely bad. I think you need a decent amount of that in a healthy liberal society. But I think we've moved way too far in that direction. And now we got to go back to an older, more deeper conception of what freedom is actually like. And that's the freedom to bind yourself. That's the freedom to make sacrifices. Today, we often say that we're living through the second Gilded Age, Right? The first Gilded Age was the late 19th century. And indeed, the similarities are so striking. There's a fantastic book by Robert Putnam about this. And in that book, he pulls a great trick where he, you know, gives a whole description about, you know, the corruption, the immorality of elites, you know, people dodging their taxes, you know, basically the decadence of that time. And you think, like, he's talking about today, right? He's talking about 2025. And then he's like, no, this is actually the late 19th century that I'm talking about. You also had these big robber barons, you know, that made massive amounts of money on their monopolies. Back then it was trains. Today it's AI. But again, the similarities are striking. What we're experiencing now is not new. Yeah, yeah. So that was also the shallow conception of freedom that was dominating in the U.S. but what came after that was the Progressive Era, led by people like Louis Brandes, the people's lawyer who ended up on the Supreme Court, but most famously, one of my great heroes in history, Theodore Roosevelt, the historian, the president who set things like. And I'm paraphrasing here, to complain about a problem and not propose a solution. That's got whining. He has this famous quote about, it's not the critic who counts, but it's the man in the arena. You know, the person who actually tries, who falls down and stands up again, who just keeps going and who's not one of those whiners who always stands on the sidelines but never can say, like, I actually tried. I actually did something. America's original conservationist. Yeah, yeah. And the Boy Scouts got started in the early 20th century also as a reaction to that era of decadence. It's so interesting. The similarities are everywhere, and I feel that we're now at a crossroads where we can go further down this really dark path. And I think it could be way darker than it is right now. I think we can really move into an authoritarian era. I've spent quite some time studying revolutions like the Russian Revolution. What you see when you study 1917 is not people who are super excited about the Communists taking over. No, not at all. People thought Lenin was an idiot. They really didn't like him. But they were just utterly apathetic. They were like, you know, we hate the Tsar, we hate the royal family, we hate the incompetent liberals who replaced them. We hate everyone. You know what, we'll plug out and sure, Lennon, you take over. You won't last for six weeks either. But six weeks became 70 years. And I really worry that that could happen in the US as well. Like, people are increasingly apathetic. And yeah, there are some people weren't as distracted then as they are now. Also, we've got by design, big tech is the new big alcohol industry, basically. So the problems are real and as are the threats, and yet you're able to hold on to hopefulness. Well, and that's like history gives me hope here because after the Gilded Age, we got the Progressive era. So it was a double movement. It was a bottom up movement of people joining unions, political parties, saying enough is enough. But it was also a top down movement of elites who were like, hey, let's not just check our privilege, let's use it it to make a massive difference. And I think that's what we desperately need right now. Across the west, we have been betrayed by elites from the left to the right. I mean, that's the one thing that in my view, Maga and Trump is absolutely correct about, is that we've been betrayed on a pretty massive scale by people who should have known better. And what we now need is what I'd like to call kind of skin of the game. Like people who don't just whine and moan, but who actually practice what they preach. And instead of just pointing fingers, they're like, okay, this is the problem and this is what I'm doing now. Do you want to join me? We're almost done, but not before putting a pin in things. And we're going to do it with Tig the comedian. Tig Notaro. What is going on with mental health more broadly, like within the comedy community? Like, do you have to have some kind of mental health situation going on to be an effective comic? See, I don't believe that, but you seem pretty balanced and grounded. Well, I've been working at that. Like I said, I wasn't and I don't know who I was before 2012, but I've never believed that you have to be miserable or struggling to be funny. I think you have. Are you depressed or neurotic? No, all of those tropes, I really don't. I think that when people like to put that on comedians or musicians or artists or whatever, I really all I can think about is, everybody's dealing with that stuff. Everybody's got cuckoo parents or anxiety or depression. We're the ones with the microphone. And so it's easy to blame us. Like, oh, they're going through a lot, and they're. You know, people can look at artists and. And just kind of be like, wow, they're miserable, they're depressed, they're struggling. They're wearing it on their sleeve. Right, right. Because if you go next door or you talk to your mail carrier or the pilot of your plane, you're gonna find cancer, alcoholism, depression. It's everywhere. We just have the microphone. And I feel like it's not that you have to be miserable and depressed. It's you have to be living a real life, I think, in order to get material. And I'm not, like, living a real life to get material. But you have to be in the world. You have to be in the world. But I just. I don't believe that you have to be a miserable person. What is your writing process? How do you know when something is funny? I think it's just an extra sense. It's funny. Going to dinners or parties where it's not entertainment or comedy people. And they're like, a comedian's here. Oh, I better watch what I'm saying. Oh, I'm gonna end up in their set. And I'm like, no, you're not. Chances are you're not gonna end up in my set. It's so. Cause you're not that interesting, and you're not that funny. Well, it's not even that. It's just. It's so rare for me. I mean, maybe. And there probably are comedians that everything strikes them or they are looking for bits. But I'm just hanging out with people, and if something happens, that extra sense, I'm like, oh, that could be. That's funny. You know, and it's never necessarily the obvious thing, and I'll just make a little note on a napkin and revisit it. But I don't. A napkin. That's your process. A napkin. Like, I had Birbiglia in here, and he, like, brought a notebook, and it's sitting here, and he's like, oh, I don't go anywhere without this. You know, he's like, all of a George. You know, I've got a seventh grade education, so I've got a paper napkin. Birbiglia's got. You know. But, yeah, I don't sit down. And I always say, if. Not if. But when I die, you're not going to find the lost writings of Tig Nikaro. The papers. The dirty library. The papers of Dignitaro. Yeah. A bunch of napkins. Like, what are you assembling these napkins? Like, how does it find its way from the napkin onto a page onto some kind of set that gets worked on? I wish I knew, Rich. I don't know. You don't know? There's no method. No. Sometimes I find a napkin and I'm like, tube sock. What was that about? And I'll be like, stephanie, did I say something about a tube sock? And she's like, I have no idea. I'm like, wow. Okay. But I also have that faith that if something is really funny, it's gonna. It'll come back up. It sticks around. Yeah. It'll pop back up. Because whatever it was about that tube sock will. It'll happen again. But, yeah, I just. I'll just. Just try different things out. And if it sticks and I remember it, then it feels worth continuing to work on. And are you somebody who is regimented? Like, okay, this is the time of day where I sit down and wear it. How does that work? I do all my writing, which is like, let's just dispel that illusion right now. I think it's a violence on people. We're all walking around trying to be balanced. Nobody's balanced. No. But I'll tell you what, I have way more balance. That's what I'm saying is like, I don't think it's balance. It's groundedness and presence in what you're doing and making sure that you're. Because you're never going to be able to show up and have all of these things in proper order every single day. Especially when you have kids and you're married. No. My son got educated. Professional adult life. Yeah. So we hold ourselves to that standard and then we feel bad about ourselves. Where I think the solution is really like, okay, well, this is what I'm doing right now, and I can't control the external world. And I'm just going to be focused on this and. Okay. With the fact that these other things are not getting attended to right now for sure. But all of the things that I can control of, like whether it's what I'm eating or how much work, how much time I'm spending away from home working, I do have control over that. And my cancer could return. But you don't have control over that. I don't. But what I do have control over is investing the time and energy into. I exercise every day. I believe I'm eating a healthy diet. Certainly throw some cupcakes and cookies in there. But yeah, I'm sure there's no peak balance like you're saying. But the place that I've gotten to now, I would say I'm happier and more fulfilled than ever on a very genuine, real level and in a present way. I mean, come on you guys. What an incredible year. I really hope you enjoyed this reflection in the Rear View and found these last two episodes uplifting and inspiring. This podcast has been an amazing journey for me and I'm just, I'm so grateful grateful that you're on it with me. I look forward to growing and learning together in the new year ahead and can't wait to see what we have in store. The full list of guests featured and links to the full episodes can be found in the Show Notes on the episode page@richroll.com and that's it. We did it. Thank you again for all the love and support and I will see you in 2026. All right, everybody, that's it for today. Thank you so much for listening. I really do hope that you enjoyed the conversation. To learn more about today's guest, including links and resources related to everything discussed today, visit today's episode page@richroll.com where you will find the entire podcast archive, as well as my books, Finding Ultra, the Voicing Change series, and the Plant Power Way. If you'd like to support the podcast, the easiest and and most impactful thing you can do is free. Actually, all you got to do is subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify and on YouTube, and leave a review or drop a comment. 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