← The Rich Roll Podcast
The Rich Roll Podcast
Decoding Looksmaxxing: The Crisis Consuming Young Men & The Real Path To Self-Worth
01:05:38
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- [00:01]
Rich Roll
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- [01:33]
Adam Skolnick
Clavicular was mid jester gooning when a group of foids came and spiked his cortisol levels. Is ignoring the foids while munting and mogging moids more useful than SMV chat fishing in the club?
- [01:45]
Rich Roll
I've never felt so old in my entire life. Clavicular, how's it going? If you haven't heard of Clavicular yet, it's only a matter of time before you do. The 20 year old looksmaxing livestreamer has become inescapable online. Looksmaxing is the furthest extent that you could take self improvement. Do whatever it takes to ascend through any and every mechanism out there. Here's how you ascend. You do crystal meth, steroids and you like bang a hammer on your cheekbones for something called bone smashing. What is even happening? Anybody who has fallen into this trap, put the phone down. So let's begin with defining this term, looks maxing. I mean, looks maxing is basically this movement wherein young men are insanely committed to improving their physical appearance. And this entails a spectrum of behavior from what's called soft maxing behavior, which is like normal grooming habits, like taking care of yourself, brushing your teeth and conditioning your hair, and taking care of your skin to these Hard maxing behaviors which are more extreme, permanent or like even surgical interventions like we're talking about the people who like break their legs so that they can extend them and become taller. Something called bone smashing where you take a hammer to your like cheekbones. For some reason this is supposed to create, you know, higher, more pronounced cheekbones. There's roid maxing, taking steroids. It even goes so far if you like observe this clavicular guy to like taking crystal meth to suppress your appetite. Now this, if you've never heard of it before, just sounds like absolute insanity. But this is happening and there are a lot of young men who are engaged in this behavior or are being heavily influenced by people like this person called clavicular who is sort of an avatar of this movement. And the essence of it is much more than personal vanity. It is this gamified approach to maximizing your physical attractiveness on the premise that that is truly the only thing that matters. That your entire self worth boils down to the degree to which you are physically attractive. And not for nothing, it's not for the purpose of being able to then go out in the world and get a good job or find a partner. It's truly this, this game in which the point is to ascend this hierarchy in comparison. Like the zero sum game where you're ascending this hierarchy in comparison to other men. Like it's literally that.
- [04:36]
Adam Skolnick
Well, I think, I think it's this. It's basically from my understanding is it's accepted knowledge that unless you're in the rarefied air of this ranking system, then you have no hope of a partnership. You have no hope of making real money in this economy with AI you have no hope of a good life at all. You're just going to be like a bottom feeder. Unless you adhere to these principles, unless you pursue this looks maxing. You have no hope, especially if you just genetically look a certain way.
- [05:09]
Rich Roll
What is your explanation for why this has become such a popular trend with young men?
- [05:15]
Adam Skolnick
Well, it's like this, it's like the glow up, glow up gone bad. You know, it's like it's. Young women have been under pressure from the way they look and the way they're perceived for the entirety of popular culture. And young men have avoided that same to, to some degree, have avoided that same scrutiny. Social media changes, all of that. Now, although they're late to the party, young men are seeing themselves through that same looking glass and they're not liking what they're seeing. And, and I it this branches off incel culture and right wing culture. It's all about this isolated young man who is unhappy in their life trying to figure out a way to, to get better at life. And so, you know, all this self optimizing, it's basically self optimization just mutated into this bizarre appeal to look a certain way, not to accomplish a certain thing or to be a certain person, but to look a certain way. And that itself is the gift that's the gateway to the good life. And so it's all this stuff that we know has been toxic to some degree in a certain dose optimization, efficiency, the worship of the successful person, all this kind of stuff is now backed up on these young men. And you know, listen, when I was a teenager I wasn't so super stoked on myself. I wasn't a happy guy, I didn't have a bunch of girlfriends. I wasn't like, I mean I had friends, I was fine, but I wasn't like stoked on life to be an adolescent with like no girls around. Like, I wasn't really happy. But in our day it was, I think more normal. And now it's looked at not just through the kids in your school, but you know, you're judging yourself based on this infinite funhouse mirror of social media and it's just getting twisted.
- [07:17]
Rich Roll
Your entire worth is reflected back to you through the digital mirror of your lived experience. Like you're measuring yourself constantly against impossible standards that you can't live up to. And you know, if you're a young man and you are in that, you know, either adolescent state or post adolescent state, like listen, it's hard to be a human being, you know, it's particularly hard to be a young person more so than ever. Like it's so difficult and fraught and I'm very like empathetic to that sense of not knowing where you fit in, who you are, how are you going to, how you're going to connect with other people and you know, develop some degree of self esteem and like yourself, like I, you know, like I was not a vision for you. Like, you know, people know me as like oh, the ultra athlete. Or if you Google me, there's like pictures of my torso and I look very fit. But as a young person I was an isolated, lonely child who really had a hard time like making friends, connecting with other people. And it didn't help that I walked around with an eye. I wore glasses, but I also had an eye patch. I have a weak left eye. And the idea in the 70s was that if you want to Correct that problem. The best thing to do is to put a patch on your strong eye and make your weak eye work out until it gets adequately strong. This didn't work. This is a vestigial kind of torture device of the 1990s 70s that you know, I was victim to. And on top of that I wore headgear orthodontia, you know, that just for people that don't know, like wires coming out of my mouth with like a strap around my back. So imagine glasses, patch on the eye, wires coming out of my mouth, like walking the hallways of a school. Like this is, this is not looks maxing, this is looks minimizing.
- [09:20]
Adam Skolnick
You know, this is like a John Hughes joke.
- [09:22]
Rich Roll
And, and yeah, I was, you know, I was sort of a social pariah as a young person and it had indelible impact on my self esteem. Like I was a navel gazing kid who struggled mightily as a young person. And I can only imagine that I would have been vulnerable to you know, somebody who pops up on my social media feed and who's saying like, listen, comb your hair like you know, what's the entry point to this? Like you know what, like wash your face, brush your teeth, you know, comb your hair, like comb it this way, not that way. Use this grooming product because if you can just up level how you appear, like that's going to make a big difference. And before you know it now you're moving into this world where then it becomes this strange kind of deftly weaponized, pseudo scientific, eugenics coded, you know, vocabulary that has to do with like the, you know, the, the, the angle of your jawline and the distance between your eyes and you know, the, the, the degree clavicle is like, you know, straight or angled down, like all of this very bizarre stuff that then gets laden with meaning that is intertwined with self worth in a really kind of like perverse way where the ultimate kind of representative of this is Patrick Bateman from American Psycho 100%. So here we are, millions of young people are being influenced by this subculture. We've got engineer Desmond up there, also a young man. So do you, do you, are you aware of this look smacking like world and do you know anyone who's in it? Like how, how do you understand this? What's going on?
- [11:13]
Desmond
I feel like half of my friends are like that they're into it, they're into it because I feel like in our age social media is pretty like you know, prominent and then like everybody is just kind of like terminally Online, I would say. And then like you feel bad, like, you know, because when something gets trendy, like, you know, looks maxing.
- [11:37]
Rich Roll
Right.
- [11:37]
Desmond
It's like an idea for like, you know, men to like, look better so they can attract like, you know, their partner and stuff. So I think like everybody is just kind of like trying to seek like, you know, the approval that he didn't hat, I guess.
- [11:54]
Rich Roll
Yeah. It's almost like a video game. The gamified aspect of it with all these weird terms, the terminology. But beneath it all, not only is it this exercise in self indulgent self obsession, it's deeply nihilistic. It's basically the only thing that matters is your physical appearance. And your self improvement should be restricted to, you know, how you physically appear.
- [12:27]
Adam Skolnick
Right. I mean, it's all, it's all distilled down to that. Like your self worth is distilled down to your appearance. And it's something that, like I said before, like young women have dealt with their lives and had to, had to kind of figure out. Now young men are subject to it. I mean, the Patrick Bateman reference is so perfect. Like there's a scene in the movie his morning Routine where he ice packs his face and then he does a thousand crunches and that.
- [12:53]
Rich Roll
It's so mild compared to today's like morning routine, you know, self optimization. Kind of like stuff that you see on social media.
- [13:01]
Adam Skolnick
Yeah. And it's also satire about. Here's this guy who's a psychopath, by the way. He's murdering people. He's murdering people and he has to, he wants to look his best. And it's been viewed unironically millions of times. Like it's picked up speed. In 2023, it was up at 17 million views already. And so like, God knows what it's at now. You know, it's interesting. Like back when we were growing up, you know, we could go home and at least not be in the, in the lens, not be in the spotlight and we could just find some solace. But now with all these kids, like Desmond said, terminally online online, or young men terminally online, there's no escape. Because it's not just that you're comparing yourself to the whole world. Your own insular community is now looking at you all the time, like you can't escape from the judgment of your peers. And I think that this, this idea of you can learn how to do things online, which is good. Like, you know, the DIY aspect of YouTube is playing into this. Like everything that has been helpful to people to learn how to like do everything from baking sourdough bread to playing the guitar is now being used in a way to kind of to re examine how you look and what you look like. And there's a ranking system.
- [14:20]
Rich Roll
Yeah, it's, that's the gamification of the whole thing. You know, it's like there's wins and fails, you know, there's all that. Like this idea of mogging is basically like you're showing up somebody else standing next to somebody. Like who is the more dominant force. Like it's all competition premised on this zero sum idea that everything is a hierarchy.
- [14:43]
Adam Skolnick
Right.
- [14:43]
Rich Roll
Like it isn't like it is in a video game.
- [14:46]
Adam Skolnick
Like there's a scale of one to nine or something on how you look. And a nine is a slayer and eight is a chad. These are good. And then if you're four to six you're a normie and if you're one to three, you're sub human. And I mean that's how, and that's how people are getting judged. And you can get judged on in forums where other people judge you, sometimes harshly, sometimes they mean well. And, and others you can actually get AI to rate you. There's something called looksmac GPT or something looks maxing GPT. There's something called umax where you can go online and AI will judge you based on how you look, taking photos of your angle. And apparently like 13 year olds are into this. Like 13 year olds are, are engaging in some of these practices.
- [15:33]
Rich Roll
It would be comical if it wasn't so deeply sad and tragic. Yeah, you know what I mean? Like there is a, there is like you read that tweet, you're like, oh my God, what's going on? But I know that tweet that you read has something like 12 million views. You know, like obviously this is more than just a small thing. And you can't help but think like, how is this affecting the still forming prefrontal cortexes of like young people? You know, it's, it's, it's fucked up, man. It is, it really is. And you can empathize or sympathize with the young man who is feeling lost and you know, comes across something that, that seems just self improvement oriented enough to kind of bring you in, right? But then it becomes, it can become like this pipeline to some not great ideas. Like you're hooking a lonely person who hears a voice about how to get a better jawline, who they end up joining some community or some forum where they're following a creator and learning about this terminology. But essentially you're being indoctrinated into this comparison economy where, you know, you're in competition with every single person. Looks are everything. And this is going to make you, over time, like, more vulnerable to being manipulated into some not so great adjacent ideologies, like not for nothing, misogyny. You know, women are props, they're superficial. You know, they're not really what's important here. The idea that society is a rigged hierarchy. It's all set up against you, and this is your only chance. You have to invest in your looks, and this is your only way out. Like, it's, it's really tragic.
- [17:19]
Adam Skolnick
It is. I mean, it comes from incel culture, right? So they're lonely, lonely guys who couldn't get, who couldn't figure out a way to communicate with women who feel like they were. And some of them became proudly incel that, you know, we're never going to work. They're going to be celibate involuntarily for their life. And then this became an escape hatch for some guys out of that. And that's why you have teens and tweens, tweens posting detailed measurements of their bodies, photographing every angle of their face. I mean, think about that, a tween boy doing that and putting it up online for judgment and as, as a way to try to make sure that you are more attractive to the opposite sex. It's like this crazed. It's a, it's a, it's a anxious neuroses that just continues to spin. And so, like, it's, you know, how do you. I think the main thing is how do we get out of it? Like, why is our half Desmond's friends on there? Like, what, what is going on in culture? Is it that men and women, young men and women aren't connecting as much in normal life? Is Desmond, is that part of the, the draw that these men are not. They want to, they want to meet women and this is their, their way of doing it.
- [18:38]
Desmond
I think it's also because, like, right now we have like, you know, social media and then dating apps, right? I believe you guys didn't use like, you know, dating apps back then. And when you're using like a dating app, from my experience, you're kind of like, you know, shopping around to see like, who's attractive instead of like actually getting to talk to them. And then girls would kind of like, you know, only kind of like match with you once. Like, you know, if you're attractive enough to them. And since like, you know, becoming like, you know, looks maxing is kind of trendy right now, more guys want to be like, you know, that have that facial feature or like that height and stuff to like, you know, attract the opposite sex, I would say.
- [19:22]
Rich Roll
Yeah. I mean, I think it makes sense that this would be an outgrowth from the gamification of dating and relationships. Right. Like these dating apps are gamified and so. All right, so how are we going to play this? But I think what's, what's sort of distinct about looks maxing is that it's not about, it's not really necessarily about getting attractive to find a mate. It's getting attractive to like mog other men. You know what I mean? It's this hierarchy amongst men that's the ultimate.
- [19:57]
Adam Skolnick
I think that's coming from guys that have already gotten enough validation from women, don't you think? And then the next thing that they're promoting is to be above men, like clavicular.
- [20:08]
Rich Roll
The clip that kind of went nuts and put like clavicular on the map was when he was doing a podcast. Who was he with? Where basically he was comparing Gavin Newsom and JD Vance and he was basically saying that like, Gavin Newsom is A Chad and J.D. vance, you know, is not looks maxing enough. You know, like this guy isn't measuring up like in his jawline, you know, he's overweight or whatever. And he was so matter of fact in this like breakdown analysis, basically saying like, like I. He was basically saying, like, I agree with JD Vance's worldview, but I'm going to vote for Gavin Newsom because he's the chad in this equation.
- [20:45]
Adam Skolnick
That's right. It was a right wing podcast because these guys typically are. And, and he was, yeah, he was asked who he, who he'd vote for in a 2028 presidential contest. And apparently the host of the podcast. I forget who it is. There's no reason to big him up now. Is was shocked that this guy, who he knows is Republican, picks, picks the picks Gavin Newsom. And it's purely superficial. I mean, it's self improvement culture gone wrong.
- [21:14]
Rich Roll
Haywire.
- [21:15]
Adam Skolnick
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [21:16]
Rich Roll
It's like the nip tuck wing of the life optimization morning routine. Longevity extending kind of health influencer corner
- [21:29]
Adam Skolnick
of the Internet, which is interesting because we both in different ways have been connected to that.
- [21:34]
Rich Roll
Yeah. Am I like, am I like, responsible on some level for, you know, kind of planting the seeds for something like this to happen? Because these are topics that I talk about a lot, you know, and it's interesting to kind of like reflect on that. What is the, what is the relationship between this movement and like the alt, right? Like, what is that, like Nexus all about?
- [22:00]
Adam Skolnick
I mean, Nick Fuentes. It's, it's the groiperism. It's, it's that. What's the Pepe? It's the Pepe the Frog, right?
- [22:06]
Rich Roll
Goes back to 4chan incel culture and you know, it's sort of, you know, Nazi Youth coded as well. Right? Like there is a, there is a, there is a superior race kind of like aspect to all of this.
- [22:19]
Adam Skolnick
That's right.
- [22:19]
Rich Roll
That's, you know, deeply unsettling.
- [22:22]
Adam Skolnick
I watched Jojo Rabbit, by the way, again recently. Not for nothing. It's, it's, it's the, it's a, you know, it's a great satire of Nazi Taika Waititi. Yeah, it's, it's Taika Waititi's satire of, of like the Hitler Youth movement, like Boy Scout version. And in that movie, I bring it up because in that movie, the two kids who are the, who you care about the most, including one who worships Hitler, is being mocked because he's a nerd and he's small and he's not the, he's not like, he is not fitting the stereotype. So that's what's odd about this too is like some of these people will never fit the stereotype that they are trying to. There's like that part of it too. So yeah, I mean, it's very much connected to that social Darwinistic idea.
- [23:13]
Rich Roll
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- [26:53]
Adam Skolnick
It's the fight for the soul of this weird consensus, right, that has like put us in this mess. Now there's the, there's the roots in violence, the roots in self aggrandizement as well as self hatred. It's like a kind of a weird thing. And then there's this more holistic but still, I mean you can't take away violent from the white Christian kind of ideal. There's always been violence underpinning it. But like when you look at that world, they're much more focused on constructing some world, a new world. This one is like breaking yourself down and breaking everything down to the individual. So it's like these two weird reflections of conservative America. It's all about individualism and whatever it takes. And it's constructing this familial ideal because that's the right way to live. It's, it's, it's very interesting. It's definitely, you know, those are the ideals. You know, I was thinking about that, that article because he brings up this John B. Calhoun experiment in 1968 where he built a large enclosed mouse like cage for a mouse colony with abundant food and water, no predators, lots of space for nesting. And at first the population flourished. But later in the experiment a group of the male mice kind of came like separated from the others and focused all their time on grooming, sleeping and eating and maintaining clean, unscarred bodies and just being the perfect mouse. And they disengaged from the community and they stopped reproducing and eventually the entire population collapsed. So this, this navel gazing as you said, this, this sole focus on how you look and how you think you're being perceived ends up not just in the Dorian Gray way of kind of making you into a monster in some way. It actually from a social, the social cost is immense because it, it furthers the isolationism and it furthers the, the competition. It furthers all the things that are trying to pull apart. I mean, say what you want about the Kirk's turning point. They are trying to build a community. You know they are. And if you agree with them, you can be in the community. It's like there is a constructive element. I'm not saying I agree with everything, but like they're, they're trying to build something and this is, and this is not.
- [29:29]
Rich Roll
Yeah, the, the mouse experiment makes me think like oh, if you, if you meet everybody's needs then our own devices, it all goes to shit because we just become self obsessed and we concern ourselves with things that don't matter. Like there's no look smacking going on. On the precipice of World War II. This is not happening when there's real problems and we have to come together to solve them. We don't have time for nonsense like this. But when you look at looks maxing, it's black pill nihilism. We're doing it for the lulls or whatever, or, you know, Christianity, family values, traditionalism, these are very different movements, but essentially what's similar or shared about them is that they're both solutions to this search for meaning. And, you know, like if, if you took this mouse experiment, just imagine, you know, 10, 20 years from now or whenever it is when, you know, AI takes all the jobs and we, and I assume at some point we'll need universal basic income or something, right? And we're just, we just get money in our account every month and we don't have to work and we have to figure out, like, what's the crisis of meaning then it's, it's, you know, you think it's an epidemic now. Like, we have to figure out how to make our lives feel meaningful without having work as an outlet or a vehicle for that. This is only going to exacerbate this very. You think looks. Maxing is bad now? Like, what's it going to look like when AI is controlling everything and we, we, we are left with nothing but free time?
- [31:14]
Adam Skolnick
Right.
- [31:14]
Rich Roll
I mean, it's terrible, right? But, yeah, but then back to these two things. Christianity and looks, they're both searches for meaning. They're both answers to this search for meaning right now, this crisis of meaning that we're having. Like, what does my life mean? Oh, it's about physical appearance. Oh, it's about, you know, the nuclear family, or it's about my faith or, you know, there's different avenues for all of this. And I suppose when you look at it through the lens of like, the right wing, it's not by accident that this is happening under the leadership of one of the most, you know, as Chatterton Williams said, like, the most narcissistic and superficial president in U.S. history. It's like, okay, well, who's at the top? What does that guy stand for? Okay, downstream of that, that's what we're seeing happening with young people. But I think fundamentally, in this crisis of meaning, what you're trying to solve for is certainty in an uncertain world. Like, what is certain? It's like, oh, here are some rules I can hang my hat on. Like, this is what's important. Like this competition among men for looks or, you know, faith in my, my, my nuclear family and my sort of status within My community. But we have to find. Not that you know, that's all good. Like if you, your, your faith based life, fantastic. But with respect to looks maxing, like we need to provide an antidote to this for young men and on ramp to, you know, get them off of this track, this pipeline that leads them towards more dangerous ideologies.
- [32:57]
Adam Skolnick
Yeah, and, and, and the dangerous, I mean the dangerous, most dangerous ideology is like can't be looks maxing itself because some of these young people are getting told to go into rope smacking. There's no hope for you and, and encouraging self harm and worse. And so this fatalism.
- [33:16]
Rich Roll
Yeah, this is what you look like. There's nothing you can do, there's no hope for you. Like this is, this is, this isn't, you know, this is just a horrible violence.
- [33:24]
Adam Skolnick
It's horrible. I mean I have a five year old. It terrifies me not to even think about like, and what, so what's the solution? I mean I think some of this is coming from just the very real thing is that guys want to, want to be with a woman. We want to, we want to have sex. We want to, we want to, we want to fall in love. And in the old days you had to learn how to kind of make yourself attractive to women with whatever you had. And sometimes that took longer than others and it was easier for some than others and it's always been that way. But now it's like you said, this gamified version of it and it's so much more twisted. So how do we get out of it? Like what are the, what's the solution?
- [34:11]
Rich Roll
I think in order to answer that question, we first have to look at the tectonic shifts in our media economy. It wasn't so long ago, Adam, when you and I were younger that when we looked around at people who inspired us, it could be rock star, it could be, you know, a movie star, it could be a scientist or an astronaut or somebody like that. But these are people who distinguished themselves by doing something excellent. Right. They earned through their toil and their talent, their station in life and you know, have done something, you know, worthy of, of note. They have accomplished something. Right. At the same time, it's funny because we're all, we were talking about this earlier, like the world is so self, so obsessed with like startup culture and entrepreneurship and like, like, like the pinnacle is like becoming a CEO, right? But when we were kids, like CEOs were dorks, you know, like Lee Iacocca was like the, the, you know, like the Example of the successful CEO. None of us were like, I, I want to be a CEO, I still
- [35:24]
Adam Skolnick
don't want to be CEO and I don't want to be, I don't want to, I don't want to go.
- [35:28]
Rich Roll
But on the Internet, everyone seems obsessed with becoming a CEO. You know, this is like, this is a very unique thing of our, of our time. Yeah. But that, that turned, we went from that into a celebrity obsessed culture where the earning ratio was reduced because of things like reality tv. Like you just had to be famous. And there were many vehicles for getting famous and not all of them by necessity required that you achieve something noteworthy. You know, there was a, there was a, there was like a broader, a wider path towards celebrity status. And the goal then became to become a celebrity. And if you could become that, then doors would open and you would have a great life. That was the idea. Now we've migrated even beyond that where it's just about attention. It's not even necessarily celebrity, it's about getting a lot of attention. If you can get the most attention, then you can make money and you can do all these other things. Right. And by proxy, I suppose, like live a happy life. Right. But the incentive structure built around getting attention is a very unhealthy one. The way you get attention is by doing outrageous things or having an insane point of view or being contrarian or conspiracy minded or there's, there's different variations of this, but you can go from obscurity to getting extreme attention almost, you know, overnight. And I think that is warping to the brain of, to anybody, but particularly to the brain of a young person.
- [37:07]
Adam Skolnick
So their ambition goes from I want to be in the rock band or I want to be this great athlete to wow, if only I was like so and so and have the attention
- [37:18]
Rich Roll
that becomes, well, then it become, then it became like, then I want to be a celebrity. Then it became I want to be an influencer. And now it's just, it's not even that. It's like, how do I get a bunch of attention immediately? Right. You know, and not for nothing, like if you're really good looking, if you're looks maxing, probably easier to get a lot of attention or if you're making videos about like taking a hammer to your cheekbones and why this is a good idea, that's probably going to get a lot of attention also.
- [37:44]
Adam Skolnick
Yeah.
- [37:44]
Rich Roll
So we're upside down. You know, our, our, our moral compass is, you know, spinning round and round and can't find its true north. Right. Now and you know, there's a lot of, you know, confused young people in the wake of this. So when I think about my own work, the premise of this show is and always has been like, how do you unlock your best and most authentic self that could be interpreted on a superficial level? How do you like, look your best by eating the right foods or losing weight, Extending that to things like morning routines and daily workout routines and daily nutritional plans and everything from your journaling practice to your mindfulness practice. But essentially the deeper you delve into this and what hopefully I've modeled over the many years of doing this is that this is not a superficial exercise. That your best, most authentic self requires a deep examination of mind, body and spirit. And to become more self actualized by necessity requires self transcendence. You have to graduate from your self obsession into a life that is premised upon something bigger and more important than yourself. Looks maxing is the ultimate expression of self obsession. On some level there could be no more superficial pursuit than this. Self transcendence is the opposite of that. And in between there's all kinds of practices to get you there. We're all on the spectrum between these two polarities, I think, but to me that's how I've always interpreted it. And you begin wherever you're at. If you're a look smacker, maybe the path towards greater self actualization starts with brushing your teeth or combing your hair or even figuring out how to present yourself in a way that makes you feel better about yourself. And there's nothing inherently wrong with that. But ultimately we have to progress up the Maslow's hierarchy of needs in our quest for expansion and enlightenment and those things start to fall away and become less important. But I think at a base level, if you're dealing with somebody who has zero self esteem, doesn't see any opportunity for themselves, doesn't have the self belief to take the initiative in life. This is a person who's going to be susceptible to the wiles of the social media influencer look smackser. And that person might only be able to hear the most basic level stuff. And to that person it might be revelatory to begin with their appearance so that when they look in the mirror in the morning, maybe they feel a little bit better about themselves. But the point is you build on that and you're constantly graduating to different levels like, okay, what's next? What's more, it's an ongoing search for meaning and meaning, you know, will continue to elude those who look for it. In the context of their own self regard and self obsession.
- [41:04]
Adam Skolnick
I wanted to add on to that. What you're talking about is a way to have a more meaningful life. And a healthier life could begin with a looking in the mirror assessment. But we're talking about a healthier life. You know, a healthier life would never include using steroids, which is these teenagers.
- [41:27]
Rich Roll
But maybe, but maybe eat some healthier food.
- [41:29]
Adam Skolnick
Right.
- [41:29]
Rich Roll
And like lose a little bit of weight and the bags under your eyes go away. Like I'm talking, I'm not talking about like.
- [41:34]
Adam Skolnick
No, right, yeah, no, no jawline. I'm just underline. I'm just saying that's for actually further separation. It sounds like it's starting in the same place, but it's actually not. Because your intention is always better health. There's always a deeper intention from the get go. When you look at it from this point of view, when you look at it from looks maxer point of view, it's just how to get something some weird metric and, and it's by any
- [42:00]
Rich Roll
means possible, it's appearance over substance. Yeah. You know, it's all about aesthetics and appearance and you know, I'm saying that substance is what matters. Yes. And I think, you know, if you're just trying to short shortcut yourself to something like yeah, it's like oh how you look on the surface, it doesn't matter if there's any depth to you. It doesn't matter what you actually stand for or say or what your values are. It's just like what's on the surface level. Like good luck, good luck in life you will not find meaning or happiness or fulfillment or satisfaction. You can chase that as long as you like, but it only goes in one direction and it ain't good. If you want to find meaning, if you want to resolve your own personal crisis of meaning and you want to find real fulfillment and a path towards happiness and a sense of satisfaction with your life, you are going to have to plumb the depths and find something of substance to sink your teeth into. And wherever you're you find yourself, whatever your lot in life, this shift has to take place from aesthetic dominance to some degree of functional competence and character based value. So what are your values? What are you not good at? What are you good at? Where does your curiosity lead you? Start with your curiosity. Find something that excites you enough to learn more and develop some degree of skill and competence in it. That's the ultimate self esteem builder. Looking in the mirror is always going to be an Empty promise. And the more you look in the mirror, the more faults you're going to find in yourself, the more you're going to compare yourself to other people, the more you're going to gamify your life and the shittier you're going to feel. And there's no way out of that trap. The solution is to get outside of your self obsession. Invest yourself in something that has meaning outside of your own personal stake in gain and putting your phone down, going outside, being in a community with other people, looking to enter rooms with how you can contribute rather than what you're going to extract in this gamified zero sum idea of what life is, because that's not what life is. And, and finding meaning and value in your relationships and in cooperation, not competition.
- [44:37]
Adam Skolnick
And also it's like to be honest, to try to appeal to some sort of construct of beauty. You're often not beautiful. I mean, you're often not. You're often either beautiful in an obvious way that is common or you're not. You don't actually get there at all.
- [44:57]
Rich Roll
Well, anybody who cares that much about their appearance is ghoulish.
- [45:01]
Adam Skolnick
Yeah.
- [45:02]
Rich Roll
And true beauty is reflected, you know, in the person who's really engaged with life and you know, has that sense of fulfillment that is in fact like, you can read it on their face. It's not about the angle of their whatever, it's about like their, the way they carry themselves, their sense of self that is evident. Like when somebody walks in the room who's really happy with their life and is contributing and feels good about what they do that isn't. That is infinitely more attractive than the person with the sculpted eyebrows that creeps you out. Like this whole thing is like gross and creepy and weird and very like American Psycho, Clockwork Orange. And like anybody who has fallen into this trap, get the fuck out of it. Like, this is not a path to, to the, to what you think it is.
- [45:53]
Adam Skolnick
No, I mean that's the true ascension. When you find somebody who has got
- [45:57]
Rich Roll
like this idea of ascension is part of this whole world.
- [45:59]
Adam Skolnick
Right, right. Like so basically Clavicular tries to.
- [46:03]
Rich Roll
I can't believe we're talking about this guy.
- [46:05]
Adam Skolnick
This guy apparently is a coach and he gets people to do these things. A lot of this hard maxing, which is the steroids and the crystal meth and the hitting yourself with a hammer, what are we even talking about?
- [46:18]
Rich Roll
This is so insane.
- [46:19]
Adam Skolnick
It's insane. And it's called ascension.
- [46:22]
Rich Roll
But yes, you know, here's how you ascend. You do crystal meth, steroids, and you like, bang a hammer on your. Like, like.
- [46:29]
Adam Skolnick
Because their face looks different.
- [46:31]
Rich Roll
What is even happening?
- [46:32]
Adam Skolnick
I know it's hard to. It's hard to imagine why, how we got here, but we got here. I mean, I think it all. It all boils down to this right here. Dude, this thing right here, it's the phone, man. It's the phone. That's what did it. That's what got us here.
- [46:49]
Rich Roll
It's like the idea that that phone gave birth, that these ideas even exist, let alone have captured the attention and fascination of millions of young people, is so disturbing to me. Like, what have we wrought? And where is this leading us? This episode is brought to you by Oneskin. As a very proud Gen X elder, I promise you, no male that I knew when I was growing up ever talked about taking care of their skin. Nobody. Not just because it wasn't cool or considered a vanity thing. It just wasn't a thing at all. So I would say that I'm late to this game, so you don't have to be. And what I've realized is that I'm not too late because Oneskin is this line of skincare products that leverages this breakthrough peptide, they call it OS1, which is the first ingredient shown to target senescent cells which are a key driver of skin aging. This product, the topical supplement for the face, I use this every day. It's based on a decade of longevity research that clinically validates this peptide as supporting smoother, firmer, healthier looking skin. And I can tell you that that pretty much mirrors my personal experience as somebody who's turning 60 this year after decades of sun, salt and chlorine exposure, Oneskin really has made a difference in the health and appearance of my skin. So check it out. For a limited time, try OneSkin with 15% off using code richroll at Oneskin co Richroll. The crazy thing about all of this is that it's pitched as a way of getting ahead in life. Like, if you are worried about your lot in life, here's how you get an advantage. And you're being sold a fucking lie. This is not the answer.
- [48:48]
Adam Skolnick
No.
- [48:49]
Rich Roll
But the good news is there is an advantage. It's never been easier ever to get ahead of other people because everybody is so distracted by the phone. Put the phone down. Read a book, Go outside. Make friends. Build something. Do shit together. Push heavy weight around. Get your heart rate up, you know, commit to doing something hard. Set a goal for yourself and commit to achieving it. Push your body, invest yourself in something that is actually esteem building, contribute to somebody else, show up for another person, do a favor for a friend, touch grass, go out of your way to see people and say yes to new experiences. That's it.
- [49:41]
Adam Skolnick
That's it, man.
- [49:42]
Rich Roll
That is the solution to all of this. While everyone else is scrolling, if you can put the phone down and just make your life a little bit more analog and service oriented and constructive with a growth mindset, there's absolutely no limit on what you are going to be capable of achieving because everyone else is handicapped, right? So that is the answer. And you don't need to be sold a $99 or a $9,999 course to do that. All you have to do is summon the courage and the discipline to put the fucking phone down and start living your life proactively with a degree of intentionality, mindfulness, curiosity and intentionality.
- [50:35]
Adam Skolnick
Well said. Because what that gets you is that feeling of self confidence. That glow that you were talking about earlier. Like where you can feel that presence of somebody when they get. You have to earn it. You have to earn it. But it's.
- [50:47]
Rich Roll
You could put lotion on your face and like wax your eyebrows and do whatever crazy shit these people are telling you to do. It's not going to make you feel better. The only thing that is going to give you that feeling of personal satisfaction is when you go and get out of your comfort zone. Do something hard, achieve something, fail, make mistakes, learn, do it again. This is how you do it. You have to earn it. You have to put yourself in a situation that is a bit uncomfortable and see yourself through it. That's how you build a self esteem. You build self esteem by performing esteemable acts on behalf of yourself and on behalf of other people. And the attraction that you're seeking is not a superficial result of all of this bullshit you're being pitched. Attraction is the byproduct of living a meaningful life. Figure out what's meaningful to you, what are your values, Write them down. What is meaningful. Pursue that, Work hard towards it. Put yourself in those uncomfortable situations where maybe you're going to fail or you're going to get rejected and invest yourself there. If you do that, you will become much more attractive than you ever will through this other nonsense.
- [52:05]
Adam Skolnick
It's not the glow up, it's the glow in the way that mods are attracted to light. You have to glow inside. And if you glow in, then you become attractive. Then you're the attractive. Then you're like the tractor Beam and people come to you and opportunities come to you.
- [52:21]
Rich Roll
I will say that in my monologue about how it's never been easier to distinguish yourself because of the mass distraction that everybody's experiencing right now. At the same time, it is more difficult to go outside and make friends and be with friends and do things together and cultivate community because we don't really have the third spaces that we used to have. I mean, they're not completely gone. But if you're a young person, you know, there isn't the, the youth centers and the YMCAs and the faith based organizations and all the like that, you know, young people used to gather after school. So that is a challenge. I'm not, you know, not recognizing that, but that doesn't mean that it's not possible. You just have to really, you know, if you want to commit to something that is a, that is a worthy commitment to make.
- [53:18]
Adam Skolnick
There's a great parents article, like a parents magazine article about this and it includes a couple tips for parents. So I'm, I'm gonna just read off a couple tips that were in there for people because, so parents, if you have, you know, tweens and teens that, that you want to, you want to monitor this stuff, the main thing is you gotta have some sort of surveillance, surveying, control of the social apps. It's harder to do that because these kids know how to create fake accounts. But if you can somehow survey what they're getting on social media or, or
- [53:51]
Rich Roll
elsewhere, that's really hard.
- [53:52]
Adam Skolnick
I know it's hard.
- [53:53]
Rich Roll
Really hard. Like your, your kids are young. Like I'm, I'm just telling you, like they get to a certain age, like you're locked out, dude. It's really difficult like to have that. And, and you don't, you also don't want to be the parent where the kid is like, oh, my parents. Look at everything that I'm doing. Like, you're just, you're breeding distrust there. And I don't know. I'm not saying I have the solution to this, but I think a lot of parents are going to hear that and be like, yeah, that's not going to work in my case.
- [54:18]
Adam Skolnick
Okay, that's. So that one. This is coming from the article. So this is good because. So the other one they, they recommend is what article? Where was this Parents magazine. The other one is called it said they say talk about it and combined with an activity of some kind to bring it up to create a strength board of like a whiteboard of what you're good at. And kind of like talk about that with them, openly validate their experiences and fact check some of these ideas together. How much of that do you think could go or is that.
- [54:53]
Rich Roll
Well, I think, I think these two, these two points of advice are in conflict with each other. If you're the parent who's monitoring their social media, then that's across purposes with the goal of open communication. Because then they're like, they don't trust you, you know, you're what they're going to keep. They're going to have a finsta account where the real shit's going on, you know, and that's breeding like secrecy and lying and all the like. Yeah, but that second piece of advice I think is much more valuable, which is the goal is always to have the channel of communication wide open. And the only way to do that as a parent is to establish trust over a long period of time and create a non judgmental environment where the young person feels safe talking about these things. Most young people, especially when the teen years kind of enter the picture, the last people they want to share this kind of stuff with is their parents. And part of that is healthy. It's healthy individuation. You want your child to like, you know, develop some independence and not be so reliant upon the parents. And these are like kind of embarrassing things to talk about. And you know, there's, there's, there's very few people in that age bracket who are going to just bring this up with their parents. Hey, like I'm thinking about like banging a hammer to my, you know, cheekbones. Like any kid who would be considering that is in a pretty lonely, desperate state. Who's, who I would imagine is already like quite withdrawn. And that communication channel with the, with the parents or the, whoever is the authority figure in their life is probably not awesome at that point already. But the underlying principle is correct, which is open communication. How do you get there? You got to love your kids unconditionally and not judge them. So when they go and they make a mistake or they fuck up or they do something you told them they shouldn't or can't, you can't come down like a, you know, like a ton of bricks on them. You got to be like, okay, let's figure it out. Like, why'd you feel like that was, you know, like, tell me what, tell me what was going on. Like, try to understand, not judge. And I think over time you can create a more welcome mat for those types of conversations, but you also can't demand them or solicit them. Like the kid is in control of, you know, how much information they're going to share and they decide when they're going to open up. And sometimes you just got to put the time in until finally they're like, they start telling you about something that happened at school and you have to make sure that you're really present and available for that conversation. And this is something I learned from Lisa d', Amore, the parenting expert, the Ask Lisa podcast, part of our network. And her whole thing, like, if you want to just take, have one takeaway from this, if you're a parent, the retort or the response to all of this is always just tell me more. Like, oh, tell me more, tell me more about that. Like, be curious, you know, be non judgmental and just be like, oh, wow, really? Like, tell me about that. Like, how did that feel for you?
- [58:00]
Adam Skolnick
Except if they're in therapy, they're going to recognize that therapy talk and your mom's.
- [58:04]
Rich Roll
But there's a way of like just being like, oh, really? Like, I mean, you can use different phraseology, but the spirit is like, you know, is just be interested, you know, not look to like make a declarative statement about right and wrong with everything here. It reminds me of that Netflix show Adolescence, which is very much about the parents missing the signals and not being able to decode the vocabulary of young people. The teachers and the parents had no idea what was going on because there's a whole language happening, a whole, it wasn't looks maxing, but this is kind of like an example of something that's going on that I would imagine. And you know, a lot of parents of young people might have no idea that this is going on, which is one of the reasons why I wanted to do this podcast. Hopefully some young males watch or listen to this, but hopefully a lot of parents who have young male children, adolescents, teenagers or the like, the idea behind this is to, you know, kind of hopefully educate and clue, clue in some parents out there who might have no idea that this is the kind of thing that's going on. And if you don't, you're not alone. Like, the Internet is a scary place. There's lots of weird shit going on and this is a weird thing. But it's not just a small corner of the Internet. Like there are millions of young men who are falling under the influence of, of this right now. So it's, it's, it's, it's worthy of this conversation, I think. I agree.
- [59:36]
Adam Skolnick
It's great, great to, to talk about it. I just want to urge people who are looking at themselves in the mirror, looking at themselves a certain way, your quirks, the things that you think are not ideal, suboptimal or whatever it is. I mean, our quirks, that's. We're all a bunch of quirky, imperfect motherfuckers. And that's kind of the beauty of it. And you know that great phrase, perfection is the enemy of the good is pretty apt for this. And it's like, it's like the goal is to, is to see the beauty in yourself, not to make yourself beautiful.
- [60:11]
Rich Roll
If you're in high school right now and you're watching or listening to this and you're magic, how did you find us? Yeah, first of all, like, how did you do it? If you're here, the algorithm did, did something that, you know, like pulled a magic trick. But I'm sure you've heard this before, but I'm just gonna say it again because it's fucking true. If you're looking around and you're like, I'm not the, you know, I'm not the quarterback. I'm not going to be, you know, the king of the prom or I don't look like these guys wearing letterman jackets or whatever it is, right? I'm telling you, you don't want to be those people.
- [60:50]
Adam Skolnick
It's better not to be.
- [60:52]
Rich Roll
I turned 60 this year, later this year, and I'm here promising you that. The most interesting, the coolest, the most accomplished, the most attractive people that I have had the honor of meeting or hosting on this podcast. I've been doing this podcast for 13 years. We're almost at a thousand episodes. I've had some of the most insanely charismatic and compelling people on the planet sit across from me. Not one of these people was the quarterback on the football team or the prom king. They were all the misfits and the outcasts and the quirky weird nerds who had interests that nobody else, you know, kind of had. And they were left to their own devices and lost in their imagination to like, gaze at their navels and wander around lonely, like reading poetry or, you know, listening to fugazi or whatever it is. And these experiences become formative in kind of crafting the uniqueness that makes people not only special and accomplished in their own right, but beautiful. And that is the true standard of, the true standard of beauty should be inhabiting the fullness of who you are. It's self accepting of your unique, like, gifts that you have to share. And Standing tall on your own two feet, even if you're not 6 foot 4 and just owning your place with like real self esteem, self esteem that you earned out in the world by not apologizing for who you are or how you look, but instead having the gumption to plant your flag and, you know, be the freak that you are. Because I'm telling you, like later in life, all of these painful experiences that feel like they're never going to end are just blips on the radar and data points that if you use them properly, can become powerful tools, if not superpowers and helping you, you know, craft an identity that feels right to you and becomes a gift for the rest of us.
- [63:22]
Adam Skolnick
Very well said. The last thing I can contribute to this is if things were going so well at home, I wouldn't have been to 50 countries plus in six continents. I wouldn't have gone out looking and trying to find my place and find who I am and find happiness. And that external search then led to the internal search like, you know, things not being a plus in your head and heart and in school and at work. It's. It could be just a catalyst to all of this that you're talking about and so that we have to keep that in perspective too. It's like a perspective shift in multiple ways. And I'd encourage you to do it rather than fall into the trap of supposing quick fixes or demonization of women and girls or yourself, even worse, demonization of yourself and who you are and how you look. Because it's much more interesting to be interesting.
- [64:24]
Rich Roll
Yeah. And the most interesting person is always the person who is most interested in other people in life, in, you know what you're doing. You know what I mean? Like, so get interested in your own life and in the lives of other people and in the world. The search for meaning that's innate to being human. We're all on a search for meaning. Yeah, but what I'm telling you is you're not going to find the answer looking in the mirror. End of podcast. That's it for today. Thank you for listening. I truly hope you enjoyed the conversation. To learn more about today's guest, including links and resources related to everything discussed today, visit the episode page@richroll.com where you can find the entire podcast archive, my books, Finding Ultra Voicing Change and the Plant Power Way. If you'd like to support the podcast, the easiest and most impactful thing you can do is to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts on Spotify and on YouTube and leave a review and or comment and sharing the show or your favorite episode with friends or unsolved social media is of course awesome and very helpful. This show just wouldn't be possible without the help of our amazing sponsors who keep this podcast running wild and free. To check out all their amazing offers head to richroll.com sponsors and finally for podcast updates, special offers on books and other subjects, please subscribe to our newsletter which you can find on the footer of any page@richroll.com today's show was produced and engineered by Jason Cameolo. The video edition of the podcast was created by Blake Curtis and Morgan McRae with assistance from our Creative Director Dan Drake, content management by Shana Savoy, copywriting by Ben Prior and of course our theme music was created all the way back in 2012 by Tyler Pyatt, Trapper Pyatt and Harry Mathis. Appreciate the love love the support. See you back here soon. Peace Plants Namaste.