ROLL ON: Confronting Uncertainty, Exploring Consciousness, Psychedelics, Netflix’s Adolescence, & How To Get Unstuck

Summary

The Rich Roll Podcast: ROLL ON – Confronting Uncertainty, Exploring Consciousness, Psychedelics, Netflix’s Adolescence, & How To Get Unstuck

Release Date: March 27, 2025
Host: Rich Roll
Guest: Adam Skolnick

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1. Introducing the New Media Space and Podcast Network

Timestamp: [03:29] – [05:00]

Rich Roll kicks off the episode by welcoming longtime guest Adam Skolnick back to a special edition of "Roll On." They delve into the exciting developments of their newly established headquarters, designed to support a burgeoning network of podcast partners. Rich shares his enthusiasm about the collaborative environment, mentioning, “We have relocated to a new space… housing other creators and kind of have this collaborative community, which is really exciting” ([04:15] Rich Roll).

2. Discussing ‘Roll On’ Frequency and Production Challenges

Timestamp: [06:22] – [10:58]

Listener feedback prompted a discussion on why "Roll On" episodes aren't released more frequently. Rich explains the initial intent behind the show: “to provide an opportunity for me as the host to share more of my thoughts” ([06:24] Rich Roll). However, both hosts acknowledge the challenges in production timing and content relevance. Adam reflects, “They have to be kind of timely and of the moment” ([08:28] Adam Skolnick).

3. Confronting Uncertainty Amid LA Fires

Timestamp: [10:55] – [15:13]

Rich and Adam recount their personal experiences with the devastating California wildfires. Rich shares, “...we were evacuated for nine days” ([12:28] Rich Roll), highlighting the profound impact on their community and personal lives. Adam adds depth to the conversation by describing his firsthand encounters with destroyed neighborhoods, stating, “I've never actually been to a site like I saw in the Palisades where neighborhood was erased” ([15:13] Adam Skolnick). The discussion underscores the increasing frequency of natural disasters and their existential implications.

4. SXSW and the Evolution of Podcasting

Timestamp: [18:47] – [28:15]

Attending South by Southwest (SXSW), Rich reflects on how the festival has transformed, especially with the surge in podcasting. He notes, “There were just Dozens of panels on podcasting” ([24:43] Rich Roll), emphasizing the medium's meteoric rise. Adam provides historical context, explaining how podcasting has shifted from a niche hobby to a mainstream media powerhouse. They discuss influential podcasts like "Acquired" and the challenges of standing out in an increasingly crowded landscape.

5. Exploring Consciousness and Psychedelics: Rich’s Experience

Timestamp: [53:02] – [75:22]

A profound segment where Rich opens up about his transformative psychedelic experience. Initially skeptical due to his 12-step sobriety background, Rich describes undergoing a guided session with MDMA and psilocybin, which he terms “the most profound single event experience in my life” ([65:43] Rich Roll). He elaborates on the dissolution of his ego and the resulting insights into non-dualism and consciousness. Adam supports the discussion by relating it to broader themes of identity and personal growth, stating, “You can shed a skin and come out of it... with a different perspective” ([66:25] Adam Skolnick).

Notable Quote:

“I entered the tesseract and time and space evaporated... the complete dissolution of ego and the complete breakdown of identity.”
— Rich Roll [60:14]

6. Netflix’s 'Adolescence' & 'White Lotus': Social Commentary and Storytelling

Timestamp: [75:22] – [121:26]

Rich and Adam transition to discussing acclaimed Netflix series, particularly "Adolescence" and "White Lotus." Rich lauds "Adolescence" for its masterful storytelling and social commentary, describing it as “storytelling at the highest level of art and technical proficiency” ([79:22] Rich Roll). They delve into the show's exploration of teenage struggles in the digital age, drawing parallels to societal issues like rising mental health challenges among young men.

Adam highlights the show's impact, noting, “It shows the vulnerability of young men” ([91:07] Rich Roll), and discusses its role in sparking conversations about mental health and the pressures faced by today's youth. The duo praises the technical achievements of "Adolescence," particularly its single-take "oner" technique, which Rich describes as “meticulously planned” and integral to the narrative ([87:06] Rich Roll).

Notable Quote:

“Adolescence is... confirmation inferring vulnerability of young men... It's not all bad, but it feels bad.”
— Rich Roll [92:01]

7. Strategies for Overcoming Stuckness and Maintaining Mental Well-being

Timestamp: [116:23] – [119:00]

Addressing a listener question on how to get unstuck, Rich emphasizes the importance of taking action despite feeling resistant. “The unstuckness is a byproduct of the action, not the other way around” ([116:26] Rich Roll). Adam shares his personal strategy of jumping into the ocean every morning to disrupt his routine and foster resilience. They discuss the mental game required to overcome feelings of stagnation, highlighting the necessity of small, manageable actions to create significant changes.

Notable Quote:

“You have to do something towards that end. Like, do something actually in the real world that would advance that idea that you feel is important.”
— Rich Roll [118:22]

8. Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Timestamp: [121:14] – End

As the episode wraps up, Rich and Adam reflect on the themes of uncertainty and personal growth discussed throughout the conversation. Rich reiterates the importance of mindfulness and staying grounded, stating, “It's just not that hard to not be an asshole” ([52:39] Rich Roll). They encourage listeners to engage with their communities, foster meaningful connections, and continue exploring consciousness and personal development.

Rich concludes with teasers about upcoming episodes and expresses gratitude for the supportive network they've built. The episode closes on a hopeful note, emphasizing the continuous journey of self-improvement and societal understanding.

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Key Takeaways:

• Embracing Uncertainty: Developing a healthy relationship with life's inherent uncertainties can lead to groundedness and reduced anxiety.
• Personal Transformation: Psychedelic experiences, when approached thoughtfully, can provide profound insights into consciousness and identity.
• Media Evolution: Podcasting has evolved into a dominant medium, influencing mainstream culture and fostering deeper societal conversations.
• Youth Mental Health: Shows like “Adolescence” highlight the critical mental health challenges facing today's youth, particularly young men.
• Overcoming Stagnation: Taking deliberate actions, even small ones, can disrupt feelings of being stuck and facilitate personal growth.

Notable Quotes:

1. “We have relocated to a new space… housing other creators and kind of have this collaborative community, which is really exciting.”
   — Rich Roll [04:15]

2. “The unstuckness is a byproduct of the action, not the other way around.”
   — Rich Roll [116:26]

3. “Adolescence is... confirmation inferring vulnerability of young men... It's not all bad, but it feels bad.”
   — Rich Roll [92:01]

4. “You have to do something towards that end. Like, do something actually in the real world that would advance that idea that you feel is important.”
   — Rich Roll [118:22]

5. “I entered the tesseract and time and space evaporated... the complete dissolution of ego and the complete breakdown of identity.”
   — Rich Roll [60:14]

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This episode of "The Rich Roll Podcast" navigates through personal anecdotes, societal reflections, and profound insights, offering listeners a comprehensive exploration of facing uncertainty, personal development, and the evolving landscape of media and mental health.

Transcript

[Rich Roll]

Hey everybody. Rollon is back and it's coming right up. But first, gut health is health. As so many microbiome experts I've hosted on the show continue to stress. It's so important. We actually created an entire masterclass episode on the topic a couple years ago featuring many of the world's leading experts in the field, all of whom urge the importance of being proactive about our gut health, which includes responsible probiotic supplementation. Now, this is tricky because the market is unregulated, it's rife with substandard products making unsubstantiated claims. But a product I trust and that I have been using consistently for many years and is substantiated by rigorous and precise evidence based science is seeds DS01 Daily Symbiotic, which is a product that's formulated with 24 clinically and scientifically studied strains, all of which support whole body benefits, including gut health, of course, but also skin health, heart health, and gut barrier integrity, all in just two capsules a day. Another distinguishing factor is just how many people have had positive experiences with seed. 92% of members have recommended the DS01 to friends and family. And that level of trust speaks volumes, especially in the wellness space with so much noise. So start a routine that helps you feel your best by going to seed.com rich roll roll and use code richroll25 to get 25 off your first month. That's 25 off your first month of seeds DSO1 daily [e-mail] richroll code richroll25 we're brought to you today by Go Brewing. You know, I rarely get to witness the birth of a company from inspiration all the way to execution. But that is exactly what happened with this product right here, Go Brewing. And I find the whole thing kind of poetic. A handful of years ago I spoke at this all day event in Illinois. It was called Go. And it was all about taking inspired action in your life. And what I didn't realize was that something I said that day sparked something profound in a guy called Joe, the event's founder, leading Joe to create this innovative non alcoholic beer company. And what, what makes this story especially compelling is the meticulous approach they've taken to the craft. After testing literally thousands of batches in their modern brewery and lab, Go Brewing launched in 2023 and quickly earned gold and silver medals at the Best of Craft Beer Awards. Their selection features everything from double IPAs to sours, all crafted in small batches using carefully selected hops. These beverages are made with Natural ingredients, respecting traditional styles while offering a healthier alternative. No added sugars and no unnecessary process listening. The non alcoholic revolution is here, everybody. I'm proud to help champion it. Check out Go Brewing at gobrewing.com use code RICH ROLL for 15% off your first purchase. You will be very happy. Hey everybody. Welcome back to Roll on. Yes, Mr. Skolnick, welcome back to a much delayed return to the beloved Roll On.

[Adam Skolnick]

I couldn't be happier to be here. Thanks for having me, man. This is. It's an honor to be in not just back, but in this space.

[Rich Roll]

So we are recording from a brand new space for those that are watching on YouTube. Hopefully it looks exactly the same, but we have relocated to a new space. That space is unfolding story that we will be telling at a future date. I don't want to go too much into it, but we have moved into a new headquarters for the purposes of housing our burgeoning and quickly growing Voicing change media network of podcast partners with multiple studios so we can house other creators and kind of have this collaborative community, which is really exciting. So we're in the midst of honing in on the final details of completing it. Once that's done, we'll definitely be talking more about it. I'm sure we'll do like a video tour of the whole thing and it's gonna allow us to kind of uplevel not only the kind of creative aspect of this show by creating, you know, kind of ancillary types of content, but also content around all of our partners who are coming in and out. It's been wild because now that we have other shows recording here, I'll come to the studio and like, oh, hey, there's Abby Wambach in the lot. Like, what are you doing? You know, it's like wild, right? Like, it's very cool. I'm super excited about it. And like I said, more will be revealed, but welcome. This is the very first podcast episode of the RRP that is being recorded in the new space. The other creators have been here for a while, but we took our time moving our set over. And so this is the Virgin episode. And I couldn't think of anyone better to kind of celebrate that than with you, my friend.

[Adam Skolnick]

Oh, man. Thank you. Like I said, it's an honor. I'm stoked to be here. It's really exciting to see what's happening with the network, all the different collaborators that are involved, and, you know, I mean, I'm working on a little something.

[Rich Roll]

I know, yeah, maybe zip it for now, create a little anticipation. You're a storyteller.

[Adam Skolnick]

I'm a storyteller. You know, something might turn up.

[Rich Roll]

Build anticipation in the way that White Lotus seems very intent upon building anticipation by literally this incredibly slow boil where it seems like nothing is happening. You know, it's coming and it's like we're going to go through another episode with not that much happening. Anyway, we'll talk about that.

[Adam Skolnick]

I'm literally mimicking that slow boil with this project.

[Rich Roll]

All right. We also put out the call for some audience questions. We got a bunch. They kind of rotated on themes, but I thought what we would do is sort of answer them not at the end, but kind of throughout the conversation because they kind of dovetail nicely with the topics that we wanted to cover today. But one of them was, why don't we do Roll on more frequently? Adam?

[Adam Skolnick]

Yeah, that's a good question. Why not? Why not?

[Rich Roll]

I don't know. I mean, I think, first of all, I would say that the idea for Roll on was twofold originally. One was to kind of provide an opportunity for me as the host to share more of my thoughts because it's always so guest oriented and I'm not so great at doing it alone, looking at camera. I wanted somebody to spar with. And you have turned out to be the perfect person to do that with. And then secondly, because it seemed like an easier lift than all the prep that goes into the guests. Turns out, takes just about the same amount of prep in order to you kind of do it well, you know what I mean? At least maybe I don't need to prep as much for it as I do, but I end up doing that the same. And so maybe we haven't done it as much because it didn't alleviate that kind of first need of being an easier lift, but also because they have to be kind of timely and of the moment and with our production schedule and we work way ahead. And now I'm in the midst of working on this book and we're batching stuff. And so we've had that experience of recording a Roll on like a couple weeks before it goes up. And then because the news move increasingly faster and faster, the things that we talk about are kind of stale by the time it comes out. So this one we're recording on Monday, it's going up on Thursday. That's about as tight of a post production cycle as we can manage at this point. But it's a good question. And the fans have spoken. I think the fans of Roll on might be smaller, fewer than the larger podcast audience at large, but they're very passionate. I don't know about you, but I'm constantly getting pinged by people like, when's Roll On Enough of this with the guests, like, we need our Roll On. And then of course, we've got Chris Evans over in the uk.

[Adam Skolnick]

Hello, Chris.

[Rich Roll]

Constantly, you know, saying, like, get back on the Roll On. You should just be doing Roll on every day.

[Adam Skolnick]

Well, some people who love Roll on, that's like their favorite podcast, so it's like as if their podcast went off. But also I think when Roll on first happened, it was also a response to the fact that it was hard to do a show during the pandemic, like, because it was hard to get people in and there was a whole protocol around that that you hadn't met yet.

[Rich Roll]

That's true.

[Adam Skolnick]

And so we were doing it. That's probably too much because, you know, unless you're changing the whole format of your show, which you didn't want to do and you shouldn't, but, but yeah, like, you know, every, every so often it's like comforting for people. They want to hear, yeah, we're going.

[Rich Roll]

To, we're going to talk a little shit. It's a little unfiltered and it's a more relaxed version of me than the kind of, you know, sphincter clenched version of me that shows up when I have to sit across from somebody impressive and pretend like I know what they're talking about.

[Adam Skolnick]

I'm going to take that as a compliment. Yeah, but difference, though is when you're talking to an Adam Grant or someone like that, there's only so much of yourself that you're sharing, you know, because you're, you're mostly there to prop up your guest and to, and to like, explore their lives and what they have to say. And so this is an opportunity, I think, for your listeners to hear from you. And so that's probably why people like it the most.

[Rich Roll]

Hopefully a second question was, do we spend time together off mic?

[Adam Skolnick]

Not enough.

[Rich Roll]

Not enough. There's a bit of a bromance that goes on off mic, though. I wish I spent more time with you off mic. We do talk a lot, but it's not like you're coming over for Sunday brunch and stuff like that, but maybe we could rectify that.

[Adam Skolnick]

I could go anywhere, bro.

[Rich Roll]

I don't either. That's the thing. I don't hang out with anyone.

[Adam Skolnick]

No. I've got a four and a half year old. My Margins are small. You know what I'm, my margins are to the point where I just, I exercise them for exercise. Like I, my margins are tight. So like I'm not gonna cash in like a night out with people, like with the, with the boys for like a run. I just don't, you know, I'm not gonna do that. So, so I, I'm kind of. I had this conversation with a buddy of mine who invited me out and he goes and he, and he's got older kids and he said, you know, I forget what it's like to have a kid under five. You're right, there's a lot of staying home. And he was saying it as kind of. Not like he thought it was negative, but just that like there's, you miss out. And I think two things for me, I had Zuma late. We had Zuma late enough where I don't have any of the fomo. Like I did a lot of stuff, like I was all over the world. I did a lot, I was out a lot. I did all that and I don't have it. And so the second is I just like it. I like being home. I like practicing my guitar and going to bed early and watching stuff and reading. I actually like it.

[Rich Roll]

The comforts of the middle aged man.

[Adam Skolnick]

Yeah, I'm enjoying it. Yeah.

[Rich Roll]

Yeah, me too. Also, for people that aren't super familiar with the topography of Los Angeles, like I happen to live, you know, out in the middle of nowhere. This studio is quite far away from most things that people would consider Los Angeles proper. You live in Santa Monica and the drive from like here or my house to where you live ordinarily wouldn't be that bad. Maybe 35, 40, 40, 45, 40 minutes, no traffic. But now the Pacific coast highway is closed to the LA fires. It's still closed. And so without that, you have to go all the way around 101 to the 405 and you're looking at like an hour and 15. I mean, how long did it take you to get here today?

[Adam Skolnick]

Today was okay. It was like 45 minutes because it's a weekday and it's not. You don't have the beach traffic and it's a little off, off the time. I forgot I was going to bring my press pass to get through the checkpoints in case I wanted to go home. The pch, because I've done that a couple times where I just, I've driven through and you just have to have a press pass and they just let you through and I've done it for work. I haven't done it. Well, one time I did it for work, but also to beat traffic. To come out here for that year like that.

[Rich Roll]

Well, it's a worthy use of your press pass. You are on your way to a press event.

[Adam Skolnick]

Yes, yes, yes. And so I went through. But, you know, it's devastating. It's still devastating. And the fact that PCH is still not open just shows you what we're dealing with. And it's not open anytime soon, I don't think.

[Rich Roll]

Yeah, I don't think so.

[Adam Skolnick]

Yeah.

[Rich Roll]

I'm curious about what that's like, to see it up close and upfront like that. That's an experience I haven't had yet. And I'll preface that question by saying that although our home was incredibly proximate to the northwest edge of the fire, it was arrested, like, on the Ridgeline, just shy of our little neighborhood. We were evacuated for nine days. We went up to Ojai and because we were out of town, and when we were able to finally get back into our house, the PCH being closed and all these roads being closed, I actually have yet to even see with my own eyes any evidence of the burn. Like, my entire experience of the fire has been like, everyone else on Instagram seeing videos or on the phone talking to friends who lost their homes or were kind of like, right there. I mean, I've had plenty of conversations with people. I was at the. On retail store on Abbott in Venice, like, handing out apparel and shoes in the aftermath of the fire to, like, all these people who, you know, had lost everything. So I feel connected to it in that regard. I just haven't, like, like, seen it and I haven't been on pch.

[Adam Skolnick]

Yeah.

[Rich Roll]

Which is weird and deranging. Like, it's all around us.

[Adam Skolnick]

Yeah. But I think that's common. I think that's common. I think most people's experience of it, unless they've gone out and sought the views or. Or have the access. Most people saw. Have seen it on television or on Instagram. A lot of, like, drone footage or that chopper footage I saw, like, I can't remember exactly. It was probably the end, like in January when he had that dinner, like, later. January is when my first time I drove through it in the Palisade section.

[Rich Roll]

That was the time we hung out off Mike. Yeah.

[Adam Skolnick]

No, it happens. We get in the water sometimes.

[Rich Roll]

It's been a while since we met.

[Adam Skolnick]

It exists. But the Alphabet streets in the Palisades just completely wiped out, like a whole Plateau of homes. And we don't have to go too deep into it. Everyone knows what happened. But the things that have kind of stuck with me is that it was such an organism, that fire to start from that burn scar, from the New Year's Eve burn scar and just explode. And then it goes all the way, wanders all the way to Mandeville, all the way out by you. You know, this is what, how many miles? This is like 50, 40 miles or something like that. Just from point to point. That's how far that fire spread before it was even close to contained in any way. Just. Just one of those crazy nuclear storms.

[Rich Roll]

So when you're driving on PCH and.

[Adam Skolnick]

Seeing it, what is that like going through the Palisades? It's more like a neighborhood. Neighborhoods that are completely wiped out. So I've been for reporting, I've been in displaced people's camps. I've talked to people who've been victims of war and have had to flee in many refugees. But I've never actually been to a site like I saw in the Palisades where neighborhood was erased. I've been to the aftermath where I saw people who have left villages that were torched, but I've never seen it. I've never been in it. So it was very post apocalyptic. It was windy, the chains were rattling, the fire department was still around, the National Guard was still manning the checkpoints and I think they probably still are, but. So it was pretty early on to be there, but it wasn't like during the firefight. And so that was so overwhelming. And then coming down towards pch, Zuma's school is west side Waldorf. And they, their main campus was on Sunset, just inland from pch. And I thought it was completely burned down because that was the intel we were getting. But it was like half burnt. And that campus is owned by Self Realization Fellowship. So they were renting that space. So they're not gonna go back to that space. I mean it is burnt to the point where they can't. It's like an unsalvageable situation. Luckily Zuma schools in Santa Monica now all the kids are on that one little campus in Santa Monica which was originally a satellite campus. The point being I was so consumed by this feeling of a post apocalyptic doom and then checking out Zuma's campus that by the time I got to pch, it's overwhelming because you see it house after house burned, but it doesn't hit you to the same way as if you're surrounded by it because it's still on the flank of pch, so it didn't really hit. And then just Wednesday I was out on a boat. I was helping a photographer friend of mine, Glenna Gordon, who shoots for the New York Times Magazine sometimes. And she and I worked together in the past. She watched. She's trying to do something on the fire's long term impact on the coast. And so through our friend Kyle Tierman. You're my friend. I got hooked up with a buddy of his and he took us out on a boat and so she could get in the water and do some over under shots. And so I was in the. That was the first time I've been in the Santa Monica Bay since the fires, which is so abnormal for me. Like. And the water quality is something we've all been very concerned about in air quality. But the water looked and felt the same as it would in March. Anytime it was 53 degrees it looked very green. Algae, but not scary, contaminated or anything. And then that, it hit me harder that way. Cause I was looking at the whole coastline of houses where you'd normally see it and it was just gone and bald mountains behind. So that's my feeling of it. But for me, for our family, we evacuated the first night, that Tuesday night because it was coming closer and closer and we were voluntary evacuated. And then I came back the next day and the funny thing for me was I had rolled my ankle on a trail run on New Year's Day. And so I was in a boot, hobbling around in a boot getting the family out and then coming back and like clearing brush in my little, my boot. And it turned out I'd broken like I had a fracture in my fibula. So I'm like just scraping by. It was one of those comedies of errors while we're just like doom is taking place. So it was this very weird, surreal beginning of 2025 and that doesn't seem like it has ended. That's a weird dream.

[Rich Roll]

It's a lot, man. We went up to O Ojai. As soon as we arrived, we went to. There was a little farmer's market. There's like a field there and I guess it takes place once a week. We've got some friends up there and a friend of ours let us use a house that they owned that was sort of like vacant or whatever. Didn't even have any furniture. So we were sleeping on like air mattresses. But we go to this farmer's market and I kid you not, like within 10 to 15 minutes I run Into Pete Holmes and Rob Bell. That is sort of like the you podcasting annex of what you like. Those guys moved up there. Both of them are like.

[Adam Skolnick]

They live there now.

[Rich Roll]

They both live there.

[Adam Skolnick]

Okay.

[Rich Roll]

Both friends of the pod. Friends. There's got to be a better term than friends of the pod. How about Pod Champions? Oh yeah, Pod Champions. Rob Bell and Pod Punks. No, no, we'll work on it.

[Adam Skolnick]

Okay.

[Rich Roll]

Put your literary mind to work on that. You could do better anyway. There's a real sense of community up there. I liked it up there. I had a good time. But my intuition, my take is that all of these predictions around rebuilding are wild underestimates. I think it's going to be like 10 years before things feel like they're back to some kind of proximate level to what they were before. And all these people that are looking at rebuilding, I think most of them are going to of pull up sticks and move somewhere else. Somewhere else. Like the, the prospect of rebuilding, like waiting that long. So we're already seeing, seeing a lot of real estate sales, a lot of commercial real estate developers picking up these, you know, lots aggregating them. And you're going to just see over, they can wait it out. Right. And then they'll just build spec homes and you know, sell them at above market prices.

[Adam Skolnick]

Yeah, because the under, the under told thing about the Palisades especially, but also Malibu is that you know, these places weren't like ritzy places. And even as, as recently as the 80s, certainly there were some wealthy people that lived there, but it was also places where, where teachers lived. And you know, in Palisade's case it was kind of aerospace workers.

[Rich Roll]

Right.

[Adam Skolnick]

It was the, was the base of that population. And so, and so those, there's people that have lived there, they're in their 90s, they're not rebuilding. And, and then after Wolseley, my understanding, you know better than me that, that a lot of, of fire insurance premiums spiked. So people might have been carrying fire insurance and then all of a sudden they couldn't carry it to the same level. And so people are underinsured, a lot of people are underinsured. And so yeah, it's interesting. Like one of the takeaways for me is that nowhere's really safe anymore because if you go to the Palisades, sure they've been evacuated before, but it feels like a neighborhood, like even my neighborhood, even further from the Santa Monica Mountains and we weren't that far like it went to voluntary evacuation on that first night and we were two miles from flames. And so you could see it. It could have happened, like, even there, it could have happened. So there's no place you can really run to, especially if you like to interface with nature in this climate. So it's just we're going to have to deal with that existential threat and like how we deal with that and, you know, make the best of it, because that's kind of the era we're in. I think that's my takeaway not to be doom and gloom, because I don't mean it that way. It just means. It just does seem that we're in this new era where you can't. These once in a generation storms that never happen, the 100 year storms, they do happen now and they happen more frequently. Yeah, maybe every 25 years.

[Rich Roll]

Yeah. It's an opportunity to engage with uncertainty.

[Adam Skolnick]

It is.

[Rich Roll]

Life is fundamentally uncertain. As much as we would like to believe, believe it not to be the case. This is what Ellen Langer was talking about on the podcast. Like, it's uncertain and we're actually terrible at making predictions, even though we think we're good at it. And the more that we can have a healthy relationship with uncertainty, the kind of more grounded and less anxious I guess we can be. And here we are with this opportunity to engage with a tremendous amount of uncertainty in the century that is 2025.

[Adam Skolnick]

Yeah, it's quite a century so far.

[Rich Roll]

I know we're going to get to that. I did want to hit on a few things. You got to keep this moving because we have so many things to cover in the outline. I went to my first south by Southwest. What was that? Feels like months ago, but I think it was only like two weeks ago. Did a panel with the great Baratunde Thurston on why conversation matters. But despite always having wanted to attend this festival, I'd never gone before and I was really impressed. It felt like I'd heard that it kind of waned and maybe like that's Covid oriented, but it felt like it was firing on all cylinders. Like it was, you know, so many things going on in that city. It was almost impossible to get your hands around, like, what to go see and what not to see. All these events competing with each other. Of course, I know you dug into the history a little bit. It was historically music and then independent film and then tech kind of became a big piece of it. But I can tell you this year it was insane how much of it was about podcasting. There were just Dozens of panels on podcasting. There were all these live podcasts happening, and Spotify and iheart and these big networks took over hotels or spaces to throw big parties and gatherings. And it was just super weird and interesting to reflect upon the early days of doing this and realize how far this form of media has come.

[Adam Skolnick]

Wild. Yeah. I mean, even so, the. The quick backstory south by for those who don't do it. It started in 87, 700 attendees. Just a music festival. I mean, a cool music festival. Because at this time, Austin was still, you know, in the weird stage. It's not. It wasn't kind of on the. I guess it was known, but it was mostly known as an arty town, a music town, slacker town. And then by 2018, it was 161,000 attendees for the music festival festival or for the total festival in film and Multimedia. Launched in 94, 95. Film split from multimedia. Multimedia was renamed interactive in 99. And now from. If you look at like the music festival part of it, I looked at kind of the lineups. It wasn't big bands. Like, it wasn't too long ago, like, in 2018, it was really big acts that were still going there. And this year, kind of like that part seems to be dialed way down to like the 80s days. Like the. These interesting indie weird bands that might be great, but just not the same level of like Coachella level of headlining acts. And now it's the podcasters that have kind of become the rock stars of the event. Huh.

[Rich Roll]

Well, I think the bigger acts also are appearing in part of the kind of branding exercise around, like, the sponsors of the event. Like St. Vincent played at the Rivian party. You know, so there's. But that's not really part of the festival aspect of it. It's more like, you know, that's more like kind of marketing and branding.

[Adam Skolnick]

Yeah.

[Rich Roll]

So it's just mature brands are there, but they're not like, in the white hot spotlight of what the festival had traditionally been about.

[Adam Skolnick]

No. How does it feel for you, like, as a podcaster starting in the wilderness, where you had to explain what a podcast is probably to everybody you knew.

[Rich Roll]

For, like, I mean, it's great. It's dizzying, you know, it's both like, like gratifying, but also you're like, oh, man, like, now we're part of the, you know, kind of, you know, industrial complex of. Of media in a way that this was supposed to be kind of like the Radio Free Europe version of, you know, But I'm. I mean, Look, I'm super grateful to be in this incredibly privileged position where. Where, you know, what we're doing is successful and has an audience. Like, I can't imagine how difficult it would be to start something like this now, where there's so much competition and it's much more. If you want to do video, it's much more cost intensive. When I started, there was no competition and zero barrier to entry, and video wasn't even a thing. And so it was easy to get this thing up on its feet and cultivate an audience and distinguish it from everything else out there, because nobody was really doing very much at the time. And that's certainly not the case now. And now you have to have a strategy and you have to know exactly. You have to have kind of like a conceit and a value proposition. And there's all this kind of intensity that goes into how you launch a show. Like, I didn't launch a show, I just uploaded an episode and said, that was fun, let's do it tomorrow kind of thing. Those days are gone. But it was cool to go there. Like, I. Mark Marin did a thing. I went to go see him speak. You know, I didn't go to the Spotify Spotify party. I should, but, like, all these creators were there and, well, Simmons and Marin.

[Adam Skolnick]

And you and Rogan. These are some of the early names.

[Rich Roll]

Right. I mean, you know, I wasn't like, first. I mean, Marin was doing it before me by a couple years. Simmons was. You know, there were people around. I mean, Rogan had started Adam Carolla, like a lot of comedians. Right. But it just wasn't the landscape it is now. But interestingly, one of the things that happened when I was there was the launch of Michelle Obama's podcast with her brother, Craig Robinson, it's called imo. And I had the opportunity to kind of attend this intimate gathering at the Rivian House to celebrate that launch. So Michelle Obama was there, Craig Robinson was there, and they kind of came out and like, talked about their show. They had just recorded an episode with RJ Scaringe, the founder and CEO of Rivian. People who watch or listen to this show know he was on our show recently. And it's just. It's like, oh, Michelle Obama is here. Like, she's launching a podcast, you know, so that was really cool. I got. She split as soon as she kind of got out and said a few words. But Craig Robinson hung around and I got a chance to talk to him for a little bit, which is cool.

[Adam Skolnick]

Yeah.

[Rich Roll]

So, yeah, you know, Michelle Obama hosting a podcast. I would say that the medium has. Has come along.

[Adam Skolnick]

It might do well, that show.

[Rich Roll]

Yeah, I think they're. I think they're gonna. I think they're gonna do all right.

[Adam Skolnick]

Yeah. Okay. Yes, the medium has matured. The corporate. The corporate people are involved. You know, it's not just south by. Like, there are. People are selling out arenas to do their, like, live shows. Like, remember there was that.

[Rich Roll]

Acquired.

[Adam Skolnick]

Exactly, Acquired.

[Rich Roll]

So, yeah, yeah, speaking of acquired, those guys do an amazing work. If you're interested in entrepreneurship or just high performance in general or what makes successful people successful. Like, those guys are extraordinary at what they do, and they've developed an incredible following and they're doing arenas. Right. And I actually just listened to one of those episodes last week. Cause right after south by Southwest, I had a speaking gig in Tucson at an event called People for Bikes, which is sort of a bike industry gathering. And. And part of that speaking opportunity involved me interviewing Jim Weber on stage, who is the former CEO of Brooks Brooks Running. And he had been the guest on Acquired at one of their giant auditorium shows. So I listened to that to prepare for this conversation and once again, was not disappointed at what a good job those guys do. But Jim Webber was super interesting, very friendly, affable guy who came into Brooks in 2001 when it was a distressed asset. I think they had. I can't remember what their revenue was. Something. Maybe it might have been something like 60 million, but I think they were something like 20 or 40 million dollars in debt. They were losing 5 million dollars a year. They were teetering on bankruptcy. And he was the fourth CEO in two years brought in to try to turn this thing around. Everyone else had failed, and. And in a couple years, he did turn it around, and ultimately it blossomed into a billion dollar plus brand under his stewardship. So he's like this sort of really dynamic leader who also in 2017, got diagnosed with esophageal cancer and continued to steward Brooks. He only recently stepped down this past year. Wow. But it became a independently, like, wholly owned subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway. So he has all these stories about, you know, working with Warren Buffett, who he had always been obsessed with and stuff like that.

[Adam Skolnick]

He's amazing.

[Rich Roll]

Cool dude. Yeah.

[Adam Skolnick]

Warren might be my favorite billionaire of all my billionaire baseball. Baseball cards I got at home. I've got a whole. You know me.

[Rich Roll]

You do.

[Adam Skolnick]

I've got a whole altar to the billionaires. And Warren is now at the top of my. I've had to demote Some. I've had to demote a few of them. Yeah, I want, I want Zuma to know who the billionaires are.

[Rich Roll]

You do? Well, we do have an obsession with billionaires in our culture. For better or worse? Probably mostly for worse. Yeah, for worse.

[Adam Skolnick]

Long ago I thought billionaires should be banned because you should be able to get by with $999 million. So like, at a billion, like I had this whole.

[Rich Roll]

But how would you ban them? Well, so my, I'm not down with that. If you can figure out how to make a billion dollars, you should be able to do that. But I do think if you, if you are so lucky, so fortunate, so resilient or whatever to accumulate that much wealth, doesn't it come with a little bit of responsibility to give back?

[Adam Skolnick]

Right. So my whole thing was pre, predicated on like, you know, when Eisenhower was in office, something like people in the top tax bracket, after you earned a certain amount, like you had to pay like almost 90% in taxes. It was crazy. I, I hate taxes too. No one likes to pay taxes. I understand. Even billionaires don't want to pay taxes. They think they can do a better job with their money. Helping people probably is the narrative in their head, I'm guessing. But not having a billion dollars, I don't really know. But I did have this whole idea for my presidential platform, which was eliminate billionaires. If you make. Once you get to a certain amount of net worth, it's 100%. You can still do your job, still enjoy the job, but it's 100% taxed.

[Rich Roll]

You work for the government, then.

[Adam Skolnick]

Well. Or maybe there's a way to use entrepreneurial spirit as a way to solve some problems, like our infrastructure. Instead of just complaining, you have to actually solve one of the problems we have. And then my other thing, the conservatives could get around this. The second prong of my platform was you can no longer pass laws, you can only repeal laws. That was my second thing. So first you tax the anti billionaire tax, then you stop passing laws, you just repeal the laws that you don't want. And that was my two pronged platform. And then once that was in place, I would resign. So that was all I was gonna like. That was my whole. But now we have doge, which is kind of like the, like the worst version of that idea.

[Rich Roll]

It does channel a little bit of that spirit.

[Adam Skolnick]

Yeah, a little Doge. A little Doge in there.

[Rich Roll]

You're a light dusting of DOGE on your platform. I love coffee, but maybe not so much the jittery anxiety that it reliably delivers. And yet coffee alternatives, for me at least, always seem to fall a little bit short on the promise of delivering that morning boost that I admit to enjoying to hone my focus upon the day's demands. So I would say that it was with a bit of mild suspicion that I greeted a test with Peak's new adaptogenic coffee alternative called Nanduka. What is Nanduka? Well, basically it's adaptogen concoction based upon fruiting body mushrooms and ceremonial grade cacao that is, I gotta say, surprisingly tasty. Something in between maybe a chai tea and a sort of spicy hot chocolate that I have to admit left me feeling pretty elevated after drinking. Energized, yes, but also focused, calm and steady pretty much all day thanks to the lower caffeine slow release incident to the fermented pu erh tea ingredient. And without the roller coaster ride typical of coffee, the Nanduka formulation is pretty insane. It includes triple toxin screen, fermented pu erh teas, mushrooms of course, chaga, reishi, cordyceps, lion's mane, all of which are concentrated up to 20 times for potency. There's spices like ginger, cinnamon and nutmeg and cacao butter for enhanced nutrient absorption, all of which dissolves easily. It's organic, vegan and non gmo. So if you're looking to adjust your morning ritual, now is a good time to try Nanduka. You can get 20% off plus a free starter kit when you visit peaklife.com ritual that's P I Q life.com richroll I own a bunch of spectacles and I made the grave error the other day of donning a normal non Roka pair on my indoor trainer when I was riding my bike indoors and I got to tell you, it was a disaster. Every three to five seconds I had to take my hands off the handlebars and push my glasses back up my nose until I got so frustrated I just tossed them aside. This is the dilemma of every active but optically impaired person I know. And as someone who has relied upon eyewear every single day since I was five years old, it is also the source of endless aggravation, thankfully now eradicated thanks to Roka, the stylish performance eyewear company found surrounded by two former Stanford swimming teammates of mine who have gifted everyone like me and quite frankly the world with their fashionable line of super lightweight prescription glasses and sunglasses with patented no slip nose and temple pads that are just impervious to sweat. And no matter what you do remain locked on your mug, no matter how intense your workout, without the dork factor. These things go everywhere with me, from the trail to the dinner party. Put them on, feel the difference and wear without limits. Unlock 20% off your order with the code rich [e-mail]. that's R O K A dot com. But the executive branch doesn't even have the authority to repeal law. Laws.

[Adam Skolnick]

I know.

[Rich Roll]

It's like, I guess it doesn't matter, right? Does anything matter anymore when it comes to governance?

[Adam Skolnick]

Maybe not.

[Rich Roll]

Maybe that's part of the clear.

[Adam Skolnick]

That's part of the. The decade that has been 2025 so far is right after the fires. We're dealing with this chaos.

[Rich Roll]

There is quite a bit of chaos.

[Adam Skolnick]

A lot of people asked about it. A lot of people asked about.

[Rich Roll]

Yeah, I mean, listen, you know, you know, I. I'm sort of. Of two minds on this. I get a lot of emails from people and messages saying thank you for being a sort of safe harbor away from the political discourse that's out there. What I like about your show is I tune in because I need a break from that, of course. And the minute the issue of politics is raised, not only is it inflammatory and kind of alienating for a lot of people, it sort of violates that sort of sacred trust that people have come to rely upon with this show. At the same time, the countervailing perspective is what is the point in having a big platform? Like, what is the responsibility that then you then hold to kind of speak truth to power and kind of do the right things that use it to do what you think is right and responsible right now? And those two things I feel like are intentions. So I don't know what the solution to that is, but I would say that I guess my way into it is not to dive into all of the particularities of every issue. There are other people more equipped to do that. But there's a lot of wild shit going on right now. And for a lot of people, it's destabilizing and it's anxiety producing and it's confronting us with, again, uncertainty and. And fear. Right. And how do you navigate that? So there were a bunch of questions around, like, how do we, you know, how do we get through this period of time when it feels like, you know, we're dismantling the federal government or there's this broad expansion of executive branch powers, judges are being ignored. We've got Doge doing what Doge is doing. There's the deportations issue, you know, anti Semitism is on the rise. There's a, you know, there's seeding the groundwork for a third term, a lot of stuff. And the news cycle is so insane that you can't help but get caught up in it, get kind of agitated by the whole thing depending upon your perspective. And really the only thing that I feel like I can really speak to and provide value on is how do you kind of emotionally regulate throughout all of this? And look, there's the easy pickings in this which is like curate your media diet. You know, you don't have to be addicted to the news, you don't have to be up to the minute on every single thing that's happening. Like a lot of this stuff is sort of by design intended to, you know, agitate you and distract you and you know, distance you from kind of living your life. So I think it's important to just, you know, ground yourself. If you need to remove apps from your phone, do that, turn off cable news, invest in real life experiences, call up a friend, engage with the people you care about and exercise a little bit of self care. And also I think it's important to know your triggers, either avoid them or find a way to develop resilience so that you're not triggered. You and I were talking about, about Adam Grant the other day, his book Think Again. He's got this paradigm, instead of being a prosecutor or a preacher or a politician, your best to inhabit this kind of mindset of the scientist which is to approach conflict and ideas from a perspective of open mindedness and curiosity. Like to be kind of excited to find out that you're wrong or to kind of stress test your ideas, et cetera. And maybe that's a way for people to think about like how they approach difficult conversations or ideas that are getting thrown at them that perhaps they disagree with or find kind of emotionally, you know, charging and, or even just to.

[Adam Skolnick]

Cope, even just to cope with this information that is coming in, even just as a coping mechanism, like hold your.

[Rich Roll]

Ideas a little bit loosely. We all think we know what's right. Every man is right from his or her perspective. And like maybe we don't know, you know. And is there a way to kind of feel comfortable with receding a little bit further into the background for your own kind of self emotional preservation?

[Adam Skolnick]

Yeah, I have this one tried and true tactic whenever things get crazy and it's, I don't always do it, but I rely on it quite often. Show great concern and do nothing or don't just do something Sit there.

[Rich Roll]

That's the opposite of good advice, actually. Is there a, like. I think there's a lot of people who get. They get agitated and then you go into like reposting mode or like reply guy stuff and you feel like you're doing something. You're not doing anything.

[Adam Skolnick]

No, you're doing nothing.

[Rich Roll]

You're basically engaging in self harm. You're not accomplishing anything. So if you do feel compelled to be part of what you might believe to be the solution, then do something towards that end. Like, do something actually in the real world that would advance that idea that you feel is important.

[Adam Skolnick]

Well, it's such an overwhelm, right? All these things are happening at once. And like you said, it's like this. Dominoes are falling and we are easily triggered. Because first of all, it should be said that Elon Musk did do not. I mean, listen, I'm a Jew who loves Nazi movies. We've talked about it on the. I love that I'm a student of that era of history, partly because it was the liberation kind of narrative. But I know a Nazi salute when I see one. So when you see that, it triggers. But you know, he's not meaning it necessarily in that way he wants to trigger. Right. So when you're dealing with this, like the news is triggering, everything's triggering. But I think it's important to also, like, understand the dissonance that is happening as well, because it's not like everything that's happening is bad. Right. But it feels bad because the way it's happening is bad. But, like, I wasn't a fan of RFK necessarily, but he is the first guy that I've heard of in my life that has gone up against the food companies telling him we don't want this kind of food in our system anymore. He, you know, like, we were talking about pharmaceutical ads. He's trying to deal with that now. Like, all these things aren't necessarily there are bad things happening, but it's not all bad things. So when you hear about, like, that happening, happening, the RFK thing in particular, you're like, okay, that's interesting. And when you hear about tariffs. Well, I remember when, like, I was an activist when, you know, the WTO protests were happening in Seattle and everyone was against globalization. All the environmentalists didn't want it, none of the unions wanted globalization. Everyone was saying, this is going to be the worst thing ever. And a lot of bad has happened, a lot of good has happened at the same time. But they were trying to pump the Brakes on it, and they didn't like it. And now you have an administration who actually is trying to end it in its own weird, wacky way. And so, like, you know, is it all bad? Like, it is important to take the scientist approach is my long way of saying, because not everything is happening. Is happening because of the way you think. Even that dumb salute. You don't know why it's actually happening. So it's different. It's like, that's the dissonance. That's crazy. And so I don't think it's bad advice to say you have to take a beat and you have to, like, tune in with some modalities that are gonna help you get through it. Cause it's gonna be never ending. It's gonna be one after another after another. And I was saying this to like. Like, April was kind of stressing about this before inauguration Day. Like, I went through that in the last administration with Trump, where I was angry the whole time, and I wasn't gonna be that. Now I'm the guy that keeps an eye on the news. Because I feel like you do have to know, like, if prisoners are going to, like, psycho prisons in El Salvador, like, it's crazy. It is crazy. By the way, that El Salvadorian president is a crypto bro, and he's got crypto beach out there.

[Rich Roll]

I know.

[Adam Skolnick]

There's all these weird, dissonant, you know.

[Rich Roll]

And they have these, like, super prisons there. Yeah, yeah.

[Adam Skolnick]

And they have them because El Salvador was a gangster state. Like, normal people couldn't get through the day. That's how bad the gang problem was there. So then this guy comes in, goes super hard line, and now is in with crypto bros and the Trump administration. So I guess the point I'm trying to make is we try to solve a problem, and a problem is solved, but new ones crop up in the most bizarre ways. And that's kind of like the weird dark side of evolution. Right. Like, life evolves and things evolve, and civilization evolves in ways that are confronting and wrong a lot of times, but we have to live through it. So. So I guess that's.

[Rich Roll]

Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of crazy stuff that is going on, but there's also a lot of talking. And we don't know when that talking turns into action or not. Right. And I think in the context of, like, rfk to your point, like, yeah, like, I'm not gonna buy into all of his stuff, but the one thing that I can get on board with is his perspective on Big Food and Big Pharma, like the. These are topics that have come up since day one on this podcast. Finally, there's a guy who's got a lot of energy around him who seems intent upon not only doing something about this, but actually getting people interested in it, which I think in and of itself is interesting. And that doesn't mean that I'm down with Beef Tallow or a lot of his other stances that are very controversial. But here's one for you, and it goes to that topic of not knowing. Right. It's sort of the consequence of unforeseen circumstances that illustrates the difference between talking a big game and actually governing. Whether it's doge getting in there and dismantling things maybe they shouldn't have that are causing a bunch of kind of tangential problems as a result. With RFK going after Big Pharma, I believe he said, like, you know, he wants to make it illegal for Big Pharma to advertise on television. We've all had that experience of watching pharmaceutical ads. They're incessant, especially on, like, cable news. It's one after the other where two thirds of the ad is dedicated to all the side effects and it's comedic at this point. Right. But those ads sustain mainstream network television. Right. Like, if you. Like, I'm. I'm totally on board with getting rid of Big Pharma doing ads on television. I think it's criminal that that actually exists. But that is the business model at this point. At this point, suddenly that becomes illegal. Like that. There's, like, I don't know how. Not just like cnn, but, like, Fox News. Fox News is contingent upon that, like, to survive.

[Adam Skolnick]

Right.

[Rich Roll]

So if that happens or if that's on the horizon or being threatened, how long before Rupert Murdoch picks up the phone and calls Trump and says, you can't do this.

[Adam Skolnick]

Right.

[Rich Roll]

You know what I mean? We gotta keep Fox News going. The only way we keep it going is pharma.

[Adam Skolnick]

Right.

[Rich Roll]

So this is just an example of when you get into the nuts and bolts of actually trying to solve a problem or governing. There's all these other factors that come into play that you quickly realize, like, oh, this is more difficult than it appears to be.

[Adam Skolnick]

Right. Well, I mean, it's like. It's kind of like that. That old line, you know, be careful of the unintended consequences of good intentions.

[Rich Roll]

Yeah, that was the thing I was trying to say.

[Adam Skolnick]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, even if you're doing something good and it's the same, it's reversed the same thing like this globalization. And the Clintons were behind globalization. Right. That was that whole thing. So, you know, I guess ultimately it's. To me, it comes down to, are you making the world a little bit kinder or a little bit crueler? Because we're so minuscule in the grand scheme of things. Not to say our actions don't matter, because I do think we're here once, and this is. For all intents and purposes, this is it. And so you got to make it count. But to me, making it count, the ledger is, are you making it a little bit kinder? Are you making it a little bit crueler? Now, some people would think me naive for having that as my ledger, but that is my compass, right? Because a lot of people would be like, no, it's about efficiency or get the most you can get or whatever. I mean, you see it the way our society runs. But to me, it's really basic. It's like, kinder or crueler? What are you going to do? And we all have a million chances a day to answer that question in different ways. And I'm not saying you have to choose the kind choice every time because it's impossible, but, you know, that's kind of the needle I'm trying to move in my life. And so there's. You can still do that in this crazy time, in this crazy year. And it's kind of the only way to get through these kind of crazy times, in my opinion.

[Rich Roll]

Yeah. If you're struggling to find hope or some energy around optimism, like, I think, like, meditation and mindfulness is really key in that regard. Like, if you're, like, right now, now, in this exact precise moment, is anything different than it would have been if somebody else was. We're not affected in this moment. Right. Like, everything is fine. We're breathing air. We're healthy. We get to do this thing. We get to have fun. The more you can kind of ground yourself in the present, I think that's the pathway towards recognizing a little sliver of beauty, hope, and optimism in life. And I would say to kind of end this chapter. As podcast champion Ryan Holiday is fond of saying, it's just not that hard to not be an asshole.

[Adam Skolnick]

I love that. The more I see of him, the more I.

[Rich Roll]

There's a lot of assholery out there, and it's like, would it be that hard for you to not be that way? And maybe we can reflect upon that in terms of how we comport ourselves in this.

[Adam Skolnick]

In this. In this era?

[Rich Roll]

All right. Adam.

[Adam Skolnick]

Yes, sir?

[Rich Roll]

Did I mention that I had a psychedelic experience?

[Adam Skolnick]

Wait, what?

[Rich Roll]

I did.

[Adam Skolnick]

I think I heard about it. It was on a podcast, and it was also. You did tell me a story once. Just briefly. I want to hear more about it.

[Rich Roll]

So I did share this publicly in the recent episode with Annika Harris, us. It felt right because that was a conversation around the nature of consciousness, which is my utter, like, obsession and fascination these days. She did this incredible audio book, audio documentary called Lights on that everybody should listen to. It's really quite fabulous. And so she felt like the right person to kind of share that story publicly. But if you haven't listened to that episode. Episode. I'll tell a version of that here. And if you have, sorry, tell the story again. But I will contextualize it by saying that I. So this was in December. I went to Mexico City for the purpose of taping this thing with. On with Elmo.

[Adam Skolnick]

Right.

[Rich Roll]

So. So that all took place in Mexico City. It was with a brilliant ad agency called Flower Shop. There was a whole production crew. Like, this was all part of their new softwinds campaign, with Elmo being kind of the ultimate avatar of softness.

[Adam Skolnick]

Can I say, when you start out in the wilderness of podcasts where no one ever heard of a podcast, and then you end up in an on ad with Elmo, the only thing to do after that is a psychedelic. You're already living.

[Rich Roll]

I know. Well, that's why I'm telling this story, because the juxtaposition of these two things, you know, in proximity to each other. Yeah. To be able to have the. Like, when the opportunity arose, like, do you want to do this thing? I was like. I couldn't raise my hand fast enough. I was like, are you kidding me? Like, that's a once in a lifetime, you know, opportunity experience to have. Like, who doesn't want to hang out with Elmo? Yeah. Just for a day or whatever. I only wish my kids were younger so that they would kind of appreciate it. I mean, not that they don't now. They thought it was funny, but it was a really cool thing.

[Adam Skolnick]

They thought it was cute, but they would have been, like, through the roof.

[Rich Roll]

And it was really fun. They rebuilt the podcast studio to a T in this warehouse, and we shot for an entire day with, like, a, you know, a real director and a dolly and the whole thing. And, you know, Elmo is a. It's fascinating. Like, it's a whole nation state. Elmo. There's like, three. It takes three people to operate Elmo.

[Adam Skolnick]

Oh, really?

[Rich Roll]

And this one guy, Ryan, who does his voice, who's like a brilliant improviser, really funny guy. There's a groomer. Like, there's a stand that Elmo goes on. And like, there. There's like a. There's an eye mask that goes over his eyeballs when he's not being, you know, like, wow, he's not on camera.

[Adam Skolnick]

He's a real diva.

[Rich Roll]

Yeah. It's a whole thing. And it was just so much fun to do that.

[Adam Skolnick]

You were acting. It wasn't even interviewing you.

[Rich Roll]

There was a script, and then we kind of would go through it, and then we would riff, but there was only one camera, so we had to do the wide and the reverse and all the angles. So we were going through it a bunch of times, and I would say the best lines were the ones that Ryan kind of came up spontaneously on the spot. And so that was a super treatment. But because we were in Mexico City, we have a friend of a friend who knew this medical doctor who specializes in these types of experiences. And so it was just a timing thing that we happened to be there and this person happened to be available that it seemed to line up for me to do this now. Backing up. This is something I had thought about for a very long time, something that I've changed my mind about and something that, through the experience of hosting so many people on the podcast, became apparent to me that I needed to kind of adopt the scientist mindset and be a little bit more curious about it, because if anything, I'm a 12 step indoctrinated person. You're sober or you're not. And when you tell someone like me that the answer to all your problems lies in a very powerful mind altering drug, that's scary and dangerous. Right. And something I had decided a long time ago with respect to psychedelics, like, not for me, you know? And I would know. I would see and hear stories of many people whose lives had been benefited from this. But I just thought, like, I'm going to have to find another path. But then it was like the universe just kept pushing, putting. I would have guest after guest after guest. And the purpose of these guests was not to come on and tell me about their psychedelic journeys. It would just come up, like, ancillary to something else they were talking about. And so all of that's seeping into my mind. And then Michael Pollan's book and then his Netflix series, all these things kept happening, and it just became undeniable that this was worthy of deeper investigation. And I'd been In this process of trying to heal some childhood trauma stuff and make peace with my past and find a way to alleviate some of my unnecessary suffering and resentment and my challenges around gratitude and love and intimacy and all of these things. And I just thought perhaps this is a tool that could be beneficial with that. So I decided, decided to go forward with this and you know, have this incredible experience that was a combination of MDMA and psilocybin. It was like a six hour experience and really just was, was I would say the most profound single event experience in my life that over delivered in every category of, of what I thought it would do. Like I, I, my expectations were very muted. I thought in my mind because I'd never had I'd with psychedelics before. I thought maybe I'll have repressed memories will be unlocked or I'll have some conversation with my young mother or some way of healing my connection with my past or something like that. And instead it just kind of said well that's cute and let me show you this instead. And my head exploded and I entered the tesseract and time and space evaporated and I was, you know, in this cycle of death and birth and you know, the complete dissolution of ego and the, the complete breakdown of identity and the barrier between, you know, self and everything else and this sense of oneness that you can't describe in words. But I, I can't stop thinking about ever since.

[Adam Skolnick]

Love is a word.

[Rich Roll]

It's true, it's a word, it's a word, but what is it?

[Adam Skolnick]

That's what you felt, right?

[Rich Roll]

Yeah. But it was also scary. Yeah, it took me like all the way to the edge of. It's a flirtation with madness at times I think like I went as far as I could go and I had glimpses of wondering whether maybe I didn't wake up that morning and I was in some kind of afterlife or perhaps I had, I had imagined my life, life, but was in fact somebody like locked up in a padded cell living in my mind, you know what I mean? Like the whole time.

[Adam Skolnick]

Yeah. And you had blinders on, right?

[Rich Roll]

So yeah, I had an eye mask on and there was a soundtrack that was like, you know, quite intense taking you there. There was a bodywork piece to it that really kind of like in the sort of final third of the experience that like deepened it and when I emerged out of, of it and finally kind of, I was so glad to be like back in a body and I was in this person's home where it took place and this person has, like a big library of books, like, hundreds and hundreds of books. And I'm looking at the books as I'm kind of returning into my physical corpus and realizing, like, book after book after book. Book was written by somebody who had been on the podcast. Like, I know that guy. I know that person. I've read that book. And like, it was insane, like, how much it tracked. And then I thought, and I said this to Julie. I was like, I have this idea that I'm this podcaster out in the world and I've read all these books and I've met these people and I know them, but I'm now starting to think maybe I've never left this room. And I'm looking at these books and like, verbal Clint Klimt in what's that movie, the Usual Suspect, where he makes a. Like, it's all a story. I've imagined that I've like, you know, read all these books and talked to all these people, but I've actually never left this room. You know, like, that's the kind of scary piece to it, but it was pretty expansive. And I'd been really exploring this idea of non dualism in my meditation practice. This idea of that, that that consciousness is something that lives in your head. Like you. Who you are is kind of like in here, right? Like between your ears. And disabusing you of that. Like, that's just another appearance in consciousness. This sense or this feeling that you're in your head because you actually have no head. Like, that's sort of the non dual, like, kind of notion, right? It's such a difficult idea to get your head around. Around. Like, what do you mean? Like, I am me. Like, you have your sense of self, right? And to try to inhabit any kind of connection with the idea that that is an illusion is almost an impossible leap. That this experience allowed me to get a taste of that I've then taken back and incorporated into my meditation practice in a really profound way that has stayed with me. But I think the. The part of the reason I bring it up is because it gets to notions of identity. Like, I am a 12 step person and I'm sober and I have this much time. And that time is important because it's a defining attribute of, like, who I am that comprises a part of my identity. And to have an experience like that is to kind of shatter your identity. But then when you piece it back together, together, like, what does that mean in the context of me being like a quote unquote sober person? As part of a community that has a perspective on how you define sobriety, like, do I reset my clock? Do I not? I voluntarily took a mind altering substance. Right. So under the, you know, strict kind of like rubric of 12 step, I guess that means that I start my days over.

[Adam Skolnick]

But you weren't a drug addict. You were an alcohol, you were drink, you were drinker.

[Rich Roll]

You're, you're like, yeah, but you're. It's. That doesn't. Yeah, but it doesn't matter. That doesn't mean I can be California sober. You know what I mean? Like, you know what I mean? It's like mind altering substances are like off the table. Like, and it's a very binary thing.

[Adam Skolnick]

Okay.

[Rich Roll]

But I think with this experience, like, and that was something that maybe even in the lead up to this experience was scary for me. Like, what will that mean about, like what happens when I go back to that community? And I have to be honest about that? Do I get shunned? Am I then looked at differently? And I think this experience, like having that dissolution, that sort of ego death and dissolution of self has put me in a place where it has quelled the people pleasing tendency in me. And, and it's like, I honestly don't care. Like, that's not my business. It's up to them. If other people think that that should be the case, I'm totally fine with that. Like, their perspective or opinion is none of my business. And I actually feel like, okay about that because I do feel good about having made that decision. I don't have any regrets. And it's quite the contrary.

[Adam Skolnick]

That's cool. It's like, you know, there are people using ayahuasca to get over opiate addiction and things like that. And I don't know what the rate on that stuff is, but what you're bringing up is when you fundamentally start to engage with your consciousness and your identity, you can leave a big experience like that. And it doesn't have to be a psychedelic experience. It could be some crazy near death experience or whatever. You can shed a skin and come out of it not necessarily a wholly different human being because you're not wholly different, but with a different perspective that can guide you subtly and, but profoundly. Yeah. So it sounds like that's what happened.

[Rich Roll]

Yeah. And it's not like something that I'm like clamoring to go do again right away, you know.

[Adam Skolnick]

Well, not. Well, you did tell me you're going to introduce me to this doctor in Mexico.

[Rich Roll]

I will. I think I will. Do it again. I think I have more, more to, more to learn there. But it's not, it didn't, it didn't trigger that, like, addictive thing where there's like a craving. You know, I think that's the, that's the difference.

[Adam Skolnick]

I, I, I've, you know, it's been a long time since I went in the psychedelic into the, into the psychedelia. And I've never done it in this clinical setting, which is this new way of doing it.

[Rich Roll]

Right.

[Adam Skolnick]

Like this newer thing where it's like an accepted medicine that you can. Which is what, oddly enough, Timothy Leary and Ram Dass were trying to do. They were like, wanted to begin there in the 50s. They were doing it in a lab kind of more as a study, not as a, they were. But there was a guiding component to it. I'm pretty sure I have, it's been a long time since I read about. But it wasn't like they were feeding. They probably were. They hadn't mastered the dose and they were messing with people to some degree to understand it. But it's funny that it's coming back into not the lab, but the clinical setting. So funny. Peculiar. Funny. Good. Like kind of an interesting return in a way.

[Rich Roll]

I think it's pretty undeniable at this point that there are very real positive benefits from appropriate, medically supervised use of certain compounds in certain contexts, whether it's PTSD or depression or addiction. But I also think it's important to say that, you know, I'm not in a position to recommend this to anyone. And in fact, you know, quite the contrary. I probably spent five or six years thinking about this before I did it. And I don't think it's for everybody. And I think that, you know, you really need to do your research and be prepared if this is something you're, I mean, it was so powerful. I had no idea idea. Like it just completely, you know, exploded, you know, like a certain frame, you know, that I'd always applied to the world and, but it left me with a deepening of my fascination with the nature of consciousness itself. Like, I don't think there's anything more interesting than trying to understand the nature of consciousness. I think it's just an utterly fascinating rabbit hole to go down, down. Because it conjures not only science, but philosophy and faith and the nature of reality and quantum physics and, you know, all of these things. Like I said, I told Annika when I was in it, it felt like I was simultaneously in interstellar and inception at the Same time, like in Inception, you're going down. You're trying to. You're going down those levels, right? You keep going to a different level until you get to, like, the snow castle, right? And in interstellar, you're in that tesseract where there are, you know, an infinite number of realities that are available for you to kind of. Like, every moment is an opportunity to enter, you know, a different reality of yourself.

[Adam Skolnick]

Yeah, but that. That is an amazing allegory for, like, the truth about every moment, you know? It's true, though, in small ways, not in big ways. But, yeah, it's true. It's like. It is. We were talking about it yesterday. Our neuroplasticity hardens after we're 25 years old. Maybe in some way these substances allow you to revisit the plastic nature of reality. You know what I mean? But in the ultimate, then you come back out and you're back grounded in the Earth. And how do you. You then take it? Because I think. I mean, I started experimenting with psychedelic drugs like any California college student would. Dropping acid on college campus and then walking for miles to wherever you end up. But I came out of it with same, you know, this intense experience of oneness, you know, the very first time I. And that has stayed with me, that has guided me. And I've had experiences of that. That without psychedelic drugs since then. But I don't think it would have been possible if I hadn't taken them originally and had that original experience. So I have had, like. I mean, I remember I've had long versions that lasted a couple of days where I felt the oneness of the world, like, at my fingertips and was like. Like riding a high. And I've had little moments where, like, someone was pouring water into a glass, and it just, like, hit me like I was being poured into the glass class. But I don't think that would have happened. This is years after taking psychedelic drugs, but I don't think it would have happened if not for the first time. Having that first big. It's like a Shakti pod almost, in a way. It's like a Shakti Pod experience.

[Rich Roll]

Yeah, that's a good way of framing it.

[Adam Skolnick]

Yeah. It just fractures everything, which is why it's hard. But then, to me, the best experiences on that, your brain is basically fractured, like that tester act like you're talking about. And then all of a sudden, at the end of it, it kind of coalesces. And I. If it's a good experience for me, it always ends up in Love. It always ends up in. I'm a pagan at heart. Right. It always ends up in earth and love. You know, like nature and love. So maybe we just need to dose the new. This administration.

[Rich Roll]

I think, I think, I think, I think Elon is dosing himself.

[Adam Skolnick]

That's true.

[Rich Roll]

He's overdosed. He's overdose. The results of that are unclear. But yeah, I mean, I would say also, like, I still have this allergy to like, you know, there. I think we both know a lot of people who like, do too much of this stuff. Right?

[Adam Skolnick]

Yes.

[Rich Roll]

And that becomes. It's that become like all that pursuit of like, of ego death and like disabusing yourself of the illusion of self creates a different self and a whole identity. Like you can craft a whole new identity around that.

[Adam Skolnick]

You can have an addiction around that.

[Rich Roll]

Right. Yeah, of course. You know, you're doing the work, the quote unquote work. Okay, what does that mean? You know, and I think, I think that can be pro. I've seen it become problematic for people. And also like all the costuming around it.

[Adam Skolnick]

Yeah.

[Rich Roll]

You know, like, you start wearing, you know, long robes and, you know, things like that. You know, it's like that. That's not me. I had one experience. It was profound. I'm sharing my experience. I'm not advocating for or against this. It turned out to be quite profound and beneficial for me. And that is not to say, once again, that this is something for everybody.

[Adam Skolnick]

No. Well, I mean, the big story is Ram Dass, who is like in those early Timothy Leary experiments, and he ends up. He thinks he. He's like, found the secret to life, which is, take this, right? I mean, you know the story better than me. But take, take this, this acid, this is gonna, you know, you'll find the real nature of reality and it'll guide you home. And then all of a sudden he ends up in India and meets people who don't need the piece of. Don't need the tab. Right.

[Rich Roll]

Well, when, when Bhagavan Das, you know, leads him to Neem Karoli Baba, Bhagavan's the guy who, not for nothing, said, be here now, not Ram Dass. That's how it ended up. It's the title of his book. So when Richard Alpert goes to India, when he gets booted out of Harvard and he's walking around trying to find the meaning of life, he's out of options. He isn't meeting anyone. It's not working out. He's getting ready to pick up sticks and go home and he encounters Bhagavan Das, who's this kid from Southern California who was a surfer guy who had dreadlocks and is walking around India barefoot. And Bhagavan's like, come with me. And he takes them ultimately, after they do this long walkabout to Neem Karoli Baba and Alpert. It was Neem Karoli Baba who gave Alpert the name Ram Dass. But Alpert, if I have the story correct, gave LSD to Neem Karoli Baba and said, check this out. And as the story goes, Neem Karoli Baba took it like a massive hero dose or whatever and like nothing happened because he's already enlightened, he's already inhabiting like higher state of consciousness.

[Adam Skolnick]

Yeah. You know, when I first started practicing yoga, that's kind of when I stopped even playing in the psychedelic realm. Like, I stopped. So it's kind of interesting how that works because ultimately you have to. It's good to know kind of the nature of yourself in reality, but ultimately you have to contend with it on its terms. So you. It's not a tool to use to deal with reality on a daily basis. It's like, like a scope that you have to then take what you can and you just got to move forward in strength. That's kind of how I always thought of it.

[Rich Roll]

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[Adam Skolnick]

Dude? First of all, I could barely sleep last night after watching one episode of Adolescence like it was. So it is the most tense, kind of like nervy show. I think it is brilliant. It is brilliant. I mean, you know so much about it and I want to hear what you have to say about it. But like you just turned me onto it yesterday and I heard about it and I knew it was good. The subject matter scared me because it was like I have a four and a half year old and this is about like troubled 13 year old kid in like the worst trouble ever. And so I was kind of, you know, I wasn't interested in like putting my brain there and man, but it was quite an experience and now I'm hooked. Hooked. Yeah.

[Rich Roll]

There is no other way to describe adolescence other than just God tier television. It's unbelievable. And I will say that Roll on is. Is like one of the main reasons I like Roll on so much is it gives me this opportunity to like IND the audience with my content. Streaming, TV and film takes, bro, you.

[Adam Skolnick]

Go deep, you know this stuff.

[Rich Roll]

So secretly I want to just be hosting the show that I. The podcast that I listen to the most, or there's two is the Watch and the Big Picture, which are both shows about TV and film. I love those, those guys are the best at it. But I think I secretly harbor this desire to host like, like a film and television podcast. So maybe down the road I love doing this. Hopefully you'll enjoy this. But the reason I want to focus on adolescence today is not only because I think it's better than basically everything else out there at the moment. And it's the show that everyone's talking about. We got a lot of listener questions about it. It's mainly because the themes in this echo many of those that recur on this podcast. Yes. At this point, unless you're hiding under a rock, you've probably heard of this show or already watched it, I think we should do our best to not overly spoil it. You're like two episodes in. It's four episodes. I've completed it. But for those that don't know, Adolescence is a Netflix limited series. It's a four episode exploration of this 13 year old boy who's accused of having murdered a female classmate. It's utterly riveting. It's emotionally devastating. It is storytelling at the highest level of art and technical proficiency and social commentary. The character performance, the pathos. Like there is not a false note in this entire thing. It's extraordinary. And it was co created by Stephen Graham who also is a co writer and co lead. He plays the dad.

[Adam Skolnick]

Yeah, it takes place in England, like Birmingham or something like that.

[Rich Roll]

Yeah, Birmingham, yeah, Birmingham or I think Stephen Graham's from Liverpool, but you know, not in London. Right. Stephen Graham is a like lauded character actor who's been around forever. He was in Gangs in New York, Band of Brothers, Peaky Blinders. He has this great story, I don't know if it's apocryphal about how he got his start, which was when Guy Ritchie was casting Snatch and I think as the story goes, like a buddy of his was auditioning and he accompanied his friend to this audition where I think they were just auditioning like people in Liverpool or whatever, like average normal people or like kind of less experienced actors. I might have that wrong. Anyway, Guy Ritchie looked at Stephen and said, are you the Next auditioner. Are you auditioning next? And he's like, no, no, I'm not here for that. And Guy Ritchie said, I like your face, though. Like, show up on Monday. And that's how he got his start.

[Adam Skolnick]

He didn't even have no idea.

[Rich Roll]

Yeah, he's also in Tinker Tailor, Soldier Spy, which. Which Shout out one of. I think that might be my favorite all time spy movie up there with one of my all time favorites of the century, Michael Clayton.

[Adam Skolnick]

I love Michael Clayton, which I watch.

[Rich Roll]

Like twice a year.

[Adam Skolnick]

I love it.

[Rich Roll]

It's just a masterclass in every regard. Also a movie with not a single false note. And not for nothing, this is a little bit of an aside. If you're into kind of Tinker Taylor, Soldier Spy, like tradecraft spy movies, this is the greatest time ever. If you're like dadcore this like I am. There is so much incredible stuff out there, you know, in this terrain. If you're into the CIA or the MI5 or the MI. There's the Agency. Remember when we talked about Le Bureau on the podcast, which was this French series about the dgse, their intelligence service? Well, they remade it with Michael Fassbender.

[Adam Skolnick]

Oh, right. That's what that is. That's what the Agency is. Right, right, right.

[Rich Roll]

It's pretty allegiant to the orig, but with a lot of money and like this incredible cast. And it's set in London in the like the London office of the CIA. And it's incredible. And no one's talking about it?

[Adam Skolnick]

No. Well, that's the problem with. I mean, we'll get back to the show, but that's the problem with this overly contented era. There's just too much content.

[Rich Roll]

There's so much out there. Michael Fassbender, one of the great actors of our time, is the lead in this extraordinary series right now. And I haven't heard anybody talk about it.

[Adam Skolnick]

Nobody talks about it. Like some stuff Rises, Adolescence Rises, White Lotus Rises. It's kind of like akin to. It's partly because there's no rhythm to the TV schedule like there used to be, and partly because it's just like the streaming wars is like the aftermath of the streaming wars, but like, for instance, the Day of the Jackal, great novel that's been. Is getting remade right as a television series.

[Rich Roll]

Well, Eddie Redmayne. Yeah, it already aired. It's unbelievable. So good. Eddie Redmayne is like, you know, just going full bore.

[Adam Skolnick]

And Cate Blanchett's In Black. I mean, Cate Blanchett's like the greatest actor alive or something.

[Rich Roll]

And she's. Well, we have, we have. So in the spy genre, the Agency. Then there's Black Doves on Netflix with Kiera Knightley and Ben Whishaw who played Q in Skyfall. He's like that's it's. Then there's Black Bag with Michael Fassbender and Cate Blanchett. Like Fassbender again. And this is a Steven Soderbergh movie that's out right now. Day of the Jackals, Slow Horses, Lioness. Even the bad ones like the Recruit and the Night Manager on Netflix. Still like pretty good if you're like a dad like me. You know what I mean? Anyway, this is like a divergence away from adolescence. Like if you're into this genre, it's a good time anyway, so adolescence. Stephen Graham, co creator, co writer, Phil Barentini, director, who Graham had worked with, they did a movie called Boiling Point and a series called Boiling Point as well. And Jack Thorne, who's the co creator and co writer. And together this sort of theater troupe of extraordinary talents created something really special. And the conceit at the center of this is the one shot format. Each episode is told in. Each of the four episodes are told in one hour, meticulously planned, single take, continuous one take tracking shots which are called oners. So the camera never stops, right? And each of them, each episode is this really convention defying standalone piece of theater. A story within a broader story that slowly unveils. Like how this boy ended up in this place that again is executed flawlessly. No false performances, no false notes. And the one are conceived, you know, can go either way. I think in many cases I think it's misused because it's sort of show offy. Like look at how cool I can be with the camera. But when it's integral to the themes and the characters and what the piece is trying to say, I think it can be masterful. Like we think of the opening shot in the Player or the Copacabana scene in Goodfellas. Those are kind of very memorable kind of oners. But I think adolescence is the best use case I've ever seen for this technique.

[Adam Skolnick]

It's the most expanded. I mean you've never seen this before.

[Rich Roll]

It goes everywhere and it does take you out of it at moments. Cause you're like, how did they do that? When you wanna stay rooted in the story. Cause there's a couple like they're going in windows and you're like whoa, how did that happen? But I think it's masterful because at all times it's serving the characters and the narrative and the verite of all of it because it's seeming to say that life is really about the moments in between and when the camera never leaves the characters. A lot of what you're seeing is in the. In between. And when you watch the first episode, you're like, can we speed this up? Like, can we just get to the part where. And you're like, oh, no, it's about, like, what happens in between when you're there and you end up in that other place. And also it doesn't give you a break or the ability to look away from the really difficult moments that it's forcing you to confront. So the technical is really serving the narrative. And amazingly, from a technical perspective, they had, from what I understand, they had one day per episode to shoot. So one day to shoot an entire one hour episode. And they would have 10 chances to get it right. So they could go through it 10 times. And hopefully, because you have to go an entire hour without mistake, you get to like, almost the end and something screws up.

[Adam Skolnick]

Right? Or they. They have various outs where they know, like, the characters are.

[Rich Roll]

They could do a cut if you.

[Adam Skolnick]

You can say something wrong or you can. There must be a way. I'm not saying they cut. I'm saying there must be a way. I'm not saying they didn't get it 100% right to the page, but, like, there must be a way. Like if the camera went a little bit off where it's supposed to be, or the characters came out, maybe that ends up being the take they like, you know, in a certain way. Because it's more than.

[Rich Roll]

I'm curious. I don't know the answer to this, but, you know, usually there's techniques. You can, like, swivel a camera such that they could cut it. You can just like, you could do a cut in there and like mimic it so it looks like you didn't cut. And I would suspect there probably are a couple of those in there. I can't imagine they would go and maybe they did, I don't know.

[Adam Skolnick]

But the rehearsal must have been incredible.

[Rich Roll]

The rehearsal? Yeah. I mean, it is like theater, you know, it is like theater. And it brings up, like I said, like, a lot of themes that come up on this show. I mean, first and foremost, foremost, the relationship between teens and tweens and the Internet. It does this masterful job of really elucidating the shadowy world of communication that young People engage with that adults can't begin to understand, and the vast and destructive power of it that we kind of all underestimate, that Jonathan Haidt talked about on the podcast and Scott Galloway is always talking about. And it also leaves you with questions, but not answers. Like, it doesn't really land on, like, here's who's to blame, or it's this person's fault, or it's this institution that we should hold culpable. Kind of everyone's to blame, but no one single person is to blame for this set of circumstances that creates, like, this tragic event.

[Adam Skolnick]

It's interesting. Like, the phone is ever present in the school episode. You see it and you see the tension between the adults. There's a little cynicism in the public school representation that these kids go, you know, that they exist in. I think it's probably a version of reality. But I couldn't stop thinking about the anxious generation when I was watching it. It's like it's right there. And the one thing that the anxious generation, it talks about. I'm not criticizing because I think it's a groundbreaking piece of work. I think it should. It should win. I mean, to me, it's like one of the great gifts from, from, from academia to the pop culture era. One of those, one of those books that is seminal, but because of the way the evidence works, the data is more there for what it's doing to young girls. And it. He definitely talks about the impact on. On young men, but if you read the book closely, the data doesn't pile up to show young men are having the same level of consequences as young girls when it comes to teen suicide. And, and this, even though the young girl dies in this, so obviously she suffers the most. But I think what the takeaway here is young men and the struggles of young men. And so there are people out there talking about. Galloway's talking about this a lot. So not to, you know, there are people out there doing that, but to me it just shows. It's like Jonathan Haidt meets Galloway in terms of where the focus should be of society's ills. This is the place we should be looking.

[Rich Roll]

And not for nothing. And they're both professors at the same university at nyu. I mean, they're colleagues. Right. But I think you're absolutely right. This is at the core of adolescence is something to say about the vulnerability of young men. And when you look at violence, addiction, self harm, all of these things have escalated precipitously for this cohort of people. And when you look at the statistics, it's pretty crazy. I mean, seven out of ten high school valedictorians are girls. Girls are graduates, college at twice the rate of boys. Young men are 3 times more likely to overdose, 4 times more likely to commit suicide, 14 times more likely to be incarcerated than young women. And not surprisingly, 98% of all mass shooters are male. And this is not to say that we shouldn't be celebrating the advances of young women. Like, this is a fantastic thing. But clearly there's something going on with young men in which they're suffering in a profound way. And there's plenty of root causes for that. And you could spend hours kind of parsing all of that. But I think what adolescence does so beautifully is it doesn't point its finger at any one thing. It's basically saying everything is contributory to this. And when you mentioned the school, the teachers are like, I'm a zookeeper. It's chaos, right?

[Adam Skolnick]

It's chaos.

[Rich Roll]

So there's the institutions, there's the educational institution, there's. There's the judicial institution, there's the mental health therapeutic institution, and there's the family institution. Like, what is the role that parents play? And there's an episode that's kind of really all about that, which seems to say some version of like, it's not all your fault, but you're not off the hook either. And could you have done this better or could you have done that better? Sort of like, these parents are not bad parents. They're good parents who did the best that they could. Could they overlook certain things and in the aftermath are kind of looking back in the rearview mirror and say, should we have done that? Should we have done this? But I'm so much, you know, like, my dad did this to me, and I didn't do that. Like, we're all better than, you know, what preceded us, but what's right in front of us that. That. That we're overlooking. And what's in front of us that we're overlooking is those in between moments. Right? It's like. It's like being passive in the midst of the person who's scrolling right in front of you and not knowing what they're actually looking at and making that decision to not engage with the reality of what's occurring before your very eyes.

[Adam Skolnick]

Right. Well, we are in some ways more advanced in terms of how we handle emotion and things with our kids than our parents were. I mean, this is a vast generalization, but in some ways. But what's different is the Landscape is completely like a funhouse house mirror. And so the laws of physics don't apply because there's this other world that we don't understand and there's rooms in it we don't go. And so we can have more tools and be psychologically and emotionally more equipped to handle. And not all of us are, but we can be and still strike out in places because that's just human nature. And that's probably true anyway. But it's especially true now in this when there's a fourth dimension.

[Rich Roll]

Yeah. And in that dimension, you know, the fluency in kind of emoji encryption and what those things mean that speak to bullying in the manosphere and incel culture. Like all of these things are sort of probed in this series from the perspective of adults that have no understanding of it yet is so much a part of these young people's lives and how they kind of make sense of the world and what drives their behavior.

[Adam Skolnick]

And we say they, but like we are they. We were that. And I remember how lonely it was. You know, like even a good childhood in adolescence is very lonely at times. Like you're.

[Rich Roll]

But it's very qual. It's qualitatively different now when everybody has a phone in their pocket where, you know, everybody's talking about everybody else, you know, and. And they're doing it in that mean spirited way that only adolescents can.

[Adam Skolnick]

Right. Well, I guess what I was trying to say is that we carry a level of shame in adolescence. Like one of the beautiful things about being with a kid Zuma's age is the self awareness and shame isn't there yet. And so you can see the purity. But the shame's gonna come. And in adolescence, like pre adolescence and adolescence, it really peaks because it comes in tidal waves and you don't know how to manage it and you don't have the tools and you don't want anyone to know how you really feel, even your friends or your parents. So that's what I meant by loneliness. And that was true, I think, when we were growing up. But it's worse. Like you're saying the ramifications are worse.

[Rich Roll]

Steroids. Right. We're running this mass experience experiment and it's happening, you know. Right. You know. Right. It's happening in our homes. Like the idea that sort of advanced. You're not there yet. This kind of comes up in the fourth episode with the parents, you know, kind of reflecting on this and doing an inventory on their own parenting and thinking like, we did a good job Right. Like, didn't we, you know, like we got him a computer when he wanted it and because he was home thinking, like, he's safe, right? But not really understanding what's happening in that room, but because he was under the roof, like, everything is cool and realizing like, oh, that's not the case. And this gap between thinking, you know, what's going on, the sort of interior lives of teenagers will always remain a mystery. But to the extent that there is something to be said for the communication and the involvement of the parent in whatever that kind of discourse is that's going on, that is creating and driving so many of these, you know, unfortunate mental health and at times violent outcomes.

[Adam Skolnick]

It makes me really happy to see your new the new POD on the Voicing Change Network.

[Rich Roll]

Ask Lisa. Like I texted, I texted her and I said, please do an entire episode devoted to adolescence. Like, this is like I've never, never seen anything more up her alley to discuss. And the fact that this is like the number one show on Netflix and in the uk, I mean it's huge here, but in the UK it's massive right now and it's already having a kind of impact that Jonathan Haidt's book had here, right, in terms of driving change. So even Starmer, the Prime Minister is calling for screenings in parliament and in schools. Thorne, the co creator, is calling for a digital age of consent to ban smartphones under 16. Like there's a lot of kind of things that are actually happening downstream and that's the power of art, right? Like this is art at the highest level. It's something that has something to say that is very timely and of the moment. And whether you're a parent or not, you probably have contact with some young people who are struggling in some regard from some version of the malaise that these young people people are experiencing. And as demonstrated in this show, it's heavy shit, man, you know, but it's so well done, like it's absolutely captivating. Episode three, which you haven't got to yet and which I'm not gonna spoil, is probably one of the finest hours of television I've ever seen. It is pure theater and acting excellence. And I was astonished to learn that Owen Cooper, who plays the 13 year old boy, not only was this show his first acting job, that episode three was the first one that they shot, which is essentially him in a room with somebody else talking the entire time. And it is absolutely riveting. And the range that this kid shows in his acting skills, I mean, you're seeing the next Leonardo DiCaprio. Like, this kid is gifted his first acting job on the first day of the first episode of this thing, and he absolutely hits it out of the park. It's. It's unreal.

[Adam Skolnick]

Unbelievable.

[Rich Roll]

Fear, innocence, rage, power, Misogyny. I mean, the other piece here is the misogyny. And there's a lot to be said about the perspective of the women in this show. And again, I don't want to spoil it, but whether it's mother to daughter or this therapist in episode three that has to engage with not only this kid, but also another worker in this mental health institute, observing the dynamic between that other employee and this therapist, like, it has so much to say without saying anything about what women have to experience every single day. That plays into the behavior of this kid. It's just, I'm obsessed, dude. So good. There's also a great video on YouTube on the making of the show. I'll link that up in the show notes. But it's pretty cool. And I think it's only, like, I don't know, 10 or 15 minutes or something like that. It's great.

[Adam Skolnick]

Thank you for turning me onto it and ruining my next week of sleep, because I can't sleep after watching this.

[Rich Roll]

But listen, you will be better for it. Zuma. This is the time. My youngest is 17. I see this played out. And all the parents who have young people who are in the same age bracket, you're so lucky that. That you're getting schooled on all of this stuff in advance.

[Adam Skolnick]

We're not in the petri dish. We have a chance to escape the petri dish.

[Rich Roll]

You do? Yeah, we have a chance. And it's going to be work. It's going to be work.

[Adam Skolnick]

Well, one thing is April really is into Waldorf education. And I'm seeing it up close. I'm into it, too. It just happens to agree with. Also with Zuma's sensibility. So it's like a nice mix. And there's. There's no. Like, in some public schools, you're still getting an iPad for kids in, like, first grade or something like Waldorf. And there's nothing like that. And so hopefully we have a chance. You know, there's gonna be some bumps and bruises. I mean, I told April about adolescence, and we watched the trailer. She goes, I am not in on that. She's like. She was like, she wants to watch Megan make tacos for her girlfriends in Mendocino. That's what she wants to watch. And you know what?

[Rich Roll]

We could do a whole Podcast on that TV show alone.

[Adam Skolnick]

That's not a bad TV show. Not a bad TV show. That's where she's at before it.

[Rich Roll]

Before. I understand that. Yeah, me too. Julie doesn't want to watch adolescence for different reasons. Like, you know, it's. It's traumatizing to watch. It's. It's not. It's not a light thing.

[Adam Skolnick]

No, no, no. And, you know, my own media diet has been, you know, White Lotus is like the first series in a while we got into again because, like, I was back into, like, like High Maintenance, which is. I love High Maintenance. To me, it's one of my favorite television shows ever. You know, it came out years ago. It's like the. The weed dealer on his bicycle and he goes. And you get this. You get slices of life in Brooklyn. This was in the. I think it came out like 2010 or something. Like, I forget exactly. Maybe it was more recent than that, but. And I love that show. So I was watching that and just watching the Lakers and watching, you know, the Americas came out a great nature doc that Tom Hanks is narrating. Like, that's the media diet at our house. And then adolescence, it's like a different experience, but it's like, so visceral. I'm into it.

[Rich Roll]

I'm into it.

[Adam Skolnick]

I'm into it.

[Rich Roll]

Well, the takeaways are. Not only is it a must watch for parents or anyone who's a caretaker of young people, I really think it's something that everybody should see, especially anyone who has the opportunity, who's not a parent, to get involved in the life of a young person. A lot of it is about the lack of strong role models. And to the extent that it might motivate you to become a role model of a young person in your life, that would be a net positive for society as well. Yes. I also think I found it personally to be an incredible conversation starter with my kids. I had. I had a long talk with Mathis, our 21 year old, about it. Like, you know, she. She was onto it even before me, watched the whole thing. We gotta talk about this. Like, and I was saying to her, like, this is a lens into, like, what, you know, into a world that you understand that most older people don't. Like, what is. How accurate is it? Like, what is this? Like, do you feel like, you know, this is really giving voice to something that you've kind of always understood to be the case? And yeah, it was like, we had this amazing conversation about. So I think it's great Connective tissue as a topic of conversation with. With like your own, the young people in your life.

[Adam Skolnick]

Interesting. You know, and like the. The Ask Lisa podcast, perfect time for it. Like, people need this stuff. My, my friend Adam Dodge has that tech savvy parent kind of business where he's trying to educate people on what's happening to their kids in this world. Ask Lisa is kind of helping, you know, like to be able to have a resource like a Loveline was a res. Resource for parents, a place to go to ask questions. That's why I'm excited for that podcast on the, on the network because. Because it's important. Like it's like the best at it.

[Rich Roll]

Yeah, it's so good.

[Adam Skolnick]

We need it, man. We need it because we are in the dark and that. It's almost like it's shame transference in a way. It's like the, the adolescent is feeling this heavy dose of shame because it's kind of nature, but also the world, the way we structure things and then the parent kind of gets it by osmosis because like, yes, some parents are honest with their other parents about problems, but sometimes we're not. You know, like sometimes we want to keep because we don't want to expose this is what's happening with our kid. Not necessarily for judgment, but we don't want the kid to be judged. And so it's like this weird swirl of judgment where there's just not a lot of transparency. And so, you know, this podcast can help a lot of people.

[Rich Roll]

Yeah, no doubt about it. What else do you want to talk about?

[Adam Skolnick]

Oh, well, White Lotus. I love White Lotus. Is a good time.

[Rich Roll]

Yeah, it definitely is an indulgence if.

[Adam Skolnick]

You want a cocktail and kick it by the pool and make fun of wealthy people.

[Rich Roll]

You know, you could just feel superior watching all these horrible people behave badly.

[Adam Skolnick]

You know, hey, I'm enjoying it. You know, like, I miss. For those who don't know, I spent a lot of time in Thailand. I did covered Thailand for Lonely Planet for many, many different parts of it. I've driven up the coast from Malaysia to Burma and back. I've been lived in Phuket for periods of time. I've been in Bangkok many times. So watching this, I've got friends there, it's like makes me want to go back, you know, Makes me want. I love it there so much. You know, I lived in Ma on the Burma border for a period of time. So it's fun for me. Like, I know that some people like the, the, the chat was that Season three is kind of not as good as one and two, but that's not my experience. I love it as much, partly because of the location and partly because, look, I mean, that Sam Rockwell, if you haven't seen it, well, that was. That's, like, maybe the best monologue of all time. Incredible. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Rich Roll]

I mean, there's a lot to love. I. I'm not bagging on it. I really enjoy it. You know, I think this season is a little bit different because when you take Jennifer Coolidge out of the equation, you're not going to get a lot of that. You know, that. That type of humor. You can't replace her. Right. So the tone of the humor shifts a little bit. And I think just from a structural perspective, it's been a slower build towards the chaos that, you know, is kind of around the corner.

[Adam Skolnick]

You make a good point.

[Rich Roll]

And so every episode, it was like, well, these characters are kind of in the same place they were last week, having the same conversation. And, you know, it's. You know, you're inching towards something happening. But I sort of got progressively a little like, let's just get on with it. Like, we've already seen a version of this conversation already. Why are we doing it again? And the volume's slowly getting turned up. And, like, Mike White is a genius. I trust him. Like, he's earned my trust time and time again. He knows what. He is so masterful as, like, a satirist of kind of culture. Like, dude, it's amazing. And all of these people. I think one of the reasons why it's so good is the characters that he writes. We probably all know people who kind of fit them. So there's a relatability like, oh, I know that person. I know that. I know exactly who that guy is, or whatever. And so we have experiences with those people, and so we create this parasocial relationship with these various characters, and we want to see the whole thing implode.

[Adam Skolnick]

But he's so good. His dialogue on Buddhism, the stuff can. He can speak so intelligently about Buddhism. He can nail every bit of corniness. The corniness of the expat in Thailand, the corniness of the rich, rich family from North Carolina. The, like, his eye for detail on how insipid, like, humanity can be is remarkable. And his dialogue is just incredible. And, you know, it's funny, when I was reporting on the. The Burma story, displaced people in Korean state on the Burma side of the Burma border of Thailand, at one point, I had a meeting with One of the main guys in charge of delivering aid to all the different aid organizations, basically usaid, which has gotten in the news lately, was giving money to this organization, and it was in the millions and tens of millions of dollars was this budget and going out to different areas to service these refugee camps and displaced people. And I end up sitting down. He knows I'm there. I was there for Men's Health, and he knows I'm there as a journalist. And it just goes into this weird kind of. It wasn't Sam Rockwell, but it was in a ballpark of his, like, sexual deviancy in Thailand and who he was with, you know, like. And I'd met him in different, like, social occasions a couple times prior to that, but he just, like, opened the curtain on the guy he really was. And. And I never forgot that. It was so wild. And so everything you see is just obviously turned up to 10, but it's there. This is.

[Rich Roll]

It's true that people go there for that reason. Right. I mean, the first joke that I laughed out loud at this season was when the joke about, like, he's the bald guy. All the bald guys who are like, yes. Yeah. And the performances are great. Yeah. And I think the fact that he chose to set it in Thailand allows him to ask bigger questions this season.

[Adam Skolnick]

Yeah. More spiritual.

[Rich Roll]

It's identity, right? Like, the whole Sam Rockwell thing is, like, what is identity? Who am I? Or whatever. And I think all the characters are asking themselves some version of. Of that. Like, here I am in my life, and, like, you know, who do I want to be? Who am I? And to what extent does this identity that I have, like, hold me prisoner or hold me back from who I could be?

[Adam Skolnick]

And how about Sam Rockwell, the roles he chooses? Like, I don't know how. I would love to just hear him talk about how he ends up, like, in jojo Rabbit as, like, the Reluctant Nazi or in Three Billboards, or, like, this role, like, you know what I mean? He picks the most interesting, and then he shows up. And it always takes me, like, 30 seconds to figure out who he is. You know, I've seen him, but you know what I mean? Like, I knew. Wait, who's that? What's his name again? I always forget his name because he's the character to me.

[Rich Roll]

But in the case of White Lotus, he's married to Leslie Bibbs, so it's sort of like, we could have seen that coming, I guess.

[Adam Skolnick]

And he's buddies with Walter Goggins.

[Rich Roll]

Oh, are they, like. Yeah, you could see those guys Hanging out, like, partying together.

[Adam Skolnick]

Yeah, yeah. How great's Walter Goggins?

[Rich Roll]

Walton.

[Adam Skolnick]

Walton, yeah.

[Rich Roll]

Amazing. Amazing as always. Yeah. I mean, he's.

[Adam Skolnick]

Sorry.

[Rich Roll]

Walton. He's quite something, that actor. Yeah. On Monday, a podcast will go up between me and Maria Shriver.

[Adam Skolnick]

Oh.

[Rich Roll]

Which we recorded a while ago. We recorded, recorded it I think a day or two before the season premiere of White Lotus. So no episode had gone up yet. But her son is Patrick Schwarzenegger, who, you know, plays a pretty indelible character in the show and I gotta say is crushing it. I think he's doing amazing, unbelievable job. Like, he has taken this opportunity and like, turned it up to 11, 100%.

[Adam Skolnick]

And he's his own. Is his own actor. There's no. You know what it reminds me of.

[Rich Roll]

But he is like, I heard Bill Simmons talking about this. Like, there is a charisma that you're going to have when Arnold Schwarzenegger is your dad and you're part Kennedy, you know, and he, he's able to like carry that swagger pretty well, but also make it his own. Like, he's, he's doing protein shakes and getting buffed up, but he's not like trying to be his dad. Like, he is his own thing.

[Adam Skolnick]

He's almost like, God, why am I spacing on this major actor? He did Bradley Cooper. He's got some. I mean, it's deeper. It's a deeper experience. It's a deeper show and a deeper character. But like, he's kind. It's kind of like that Bradley Cooper and Wedding Crashers character for him. And look what happened to Bradley Cooper.

[Rich Roll]

Yeah, that was. Yeah. I mean, he crushed it in Wedding Crashers and then, you know, he really made the most of that opportunity and turned it into a career. Or the first time that you saw Brad Pitt on screen in Thelma and Louise.

[Adam Skolnick]

Well, yeah, that. Yeah, but he was likable. But like, here's an unlikeable. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Rich Roll]

But he's, but he's, he's likable in his unlikability, but he's so charismatic.

[Adam Skolnick]

I mean, if you haven't seen that, go watch, Go watch the Brad Pitt Geena Davis scene in Thelma and Louise. That's an old timer.

[Rich Roll]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. As soon as you see that, you're like, wow, that guy's going to be a movie star. Like, you just know it immediately. Right. Anyway, kudos, Patrick Schwarzenegger.

[Adam Skolnick]

Yeah.

[Rich Roll]

For crushing it. Yes. We got to get out of here. But I will say a couple quick things before we End. I got a question about the telepathy tapes.

[Adam Skolnick]

Okay.

[Rich Roll]

Have I told you about this? This was a astronomically successful podcast series.

[Adam Skolnick]

Yes, I've heard of it.

[Rich Roll]

Planet Rogan. For a while it was like the number one podcast and it's all about these non autistic people who quite possibly have telepathic powers. Like, this is wild. This is the craziest, most engaging podcast series I've listened to in a long time. It is really a great listen. It's fascinating whether or not there's truth to it or not. Who knows? It goes to the nature of consciousness and all these sorts of things that I'm interested in. But I had Kai Dickens on the podcast, so that episode is coming up. Cool. It's gonna air April 28th. We had a great conversation because a question came up from the listeners about the telepathy tape. So trust me, I'm on it.

[Adam Skolnick]

I've heard amazing, amazing things and I think that's it. There was one audience question you didn't get to is how to get unstuck if you feel stuck or when you.

[Rich Roll]

Feel stuck, mood fall his action.

[Adam Skolnick]

Do something.

[Rich Roll]

Yeah, if you're stuck, you have to do a pattern interrupt. You have to do something. And when you feel stuck, you don't feel like doing anything different. But the only way to get unstuck is to upset the balance. And the way you upset the balance is by taking a contrary action. And when you don't feel like taking a contrary action, you have to remind yourself that mood follows action and that you have to develop the reflex to act in spite of. Of your resistance or emotional baggage around it. And the unstuckness is a byproduct of the action, not the other way around. So I think it's identifying one small thing that you can do that perhaps isn't so intimidating that you're going to resist it forever and is just doable enough to get you over the hump. Because the unstuckness only gets unstuck by doing something that will unstick you. You know what I mean? What do you do?

[Adam Skolnick]

This is a Dr. Seuss. This is turning into a Dr. No, but you know what? It's true. It's like for me, it's mental game first. Right. Like. Like being stuck is a state of mind before it's a. Before it's your reality. And yeah, so changing up the routine, I guess, is hard when you feel stuck, but if you just do one thing. You know what I did once when I was feeling kind of like lost and stuck is I decided to jump in the ocean every morning. Rain. And I think it started in the new year, like January 1st. And so it was like cold water that I was looking for. And this was before I was ocean swimming or anything on a regular basis. And so I would walk from my apartment in Santa Monica to go jump in the ocean. I was like, trying to make it as a writer. It wasn't going well. It was like I was staring at my eviction notice phase. And that kind of started. Next thing you know, I'm an ocean swimmer. So that's a great example of exactly what you're talking about. Just do something.

[Rich Roll]

It's a pattern interrupt. You took a contrary action.

[Adam Skolnick]

I did, yeah. Yeah.

[Rich Roll]

Also, just the idea of being stuck is, is, is, you know, you, you said it starts as a mental construct, but it's basically a story. Like, what does that even mean? Right. It's something you're telling yourself and affirming as true. But is it even true? Like, can you deconstruct that story? What is the evidence to support you being stuck? And perhaps there's another story that you can tell that begins with, you know, taking an action that somebody who isn't stuck would take.

[Adam Skolnick]

Yes.

[Rich Roll]

You know what I mean?

[Adam Skolnick]

Yes. You know, it's interesting because we didn't talk about it, but Bonnie's Bonnie Shoi's.

[Rich Roll]

New book coming out on muscle.

[Adam Skolnick]

On Muscle. It's her follow up to why we swim.

[Rich Roll]

Another champion of the podcast.

[Adam Skolnick]

Another champion. You should lift it up, show the people this thing. I think it's her best book so far.

[Rich Roll]

I haven't read it yet. I can tell you have. It's dog eared.

[Adam Skolnick]

Yes. One of the. Basically, in true Bonnie fashion, it's a deep dive into a subject matter. In this case, it's muscle and the physical body. And it's also a memoir about her relationship with her father, who was kind of a great athlete. He was an early bodybuilder and a great artist. And then, and then her parents separated and her relationship became distant. And it's about all of that because Bonnie is a tremendous athlete herself. Great swimmer, great surfer. Just a. Just, you know. And you can read through how she became a great athlete. It's obvious. And her brother is also athletic. But then it's also deep dives into different, you know, different characters, different protagonists dealing with muscle or their body in some way. There's a paraplegic yoga instructor. She talks, she spends a lot of time with. She spends a lot of time with the guy Who? You know, the guy that jumps off, jumps into Lake Michigan, does flips in Chicago into Lake Michigan. You know that guy, he became, like, Internet famous. And she spent the same exact deal pattern interrupt during the pandemic. And now his job basically is to jump, jump into Lake Michigan. He's got fans everywhere. But to me, it's like, in terms of. I was. I liked why we swim a lot. So this is not to put down any other books. That's a good book. But this, I think, is her best work so far.

[Rich Roll]

All right. On muscle, and it comes out this month. Excellent.

[Adam Skolnick]

Yeah.

[Rich Roll]

Shout out, Bonnie.

[Adam Skolnick]

Yeah.

[Rich Roll]

Cool. I think we did Roll on. Did we do it?

[Adam Skolnick]

We did it.

[Rich Roll]

Do you feel good?

[Adam Skolnick]

We did.

[Rich Roll]

I feel good about it.

[Adam Skolnick]

I'm. I'm just happy to be here. Like, I don't need to know when the next one is.

[Rich Roll]

Sooner rather than later, most likely. We'll see. We'll see how this one goes.

[Adam Skolnick]

See how it plays.

[Rich Roll]

Who knows? You know, Back to uncertainty.

[Adam Skolnick]

Yeah, well, yeah, no, it's good to be here. It's good to be in the new space. It's exciting to time. So 2025 has been a long run, but there's good stuff coming this year.

[Rich Roll]

Yeah. Given the decade of experience that we've had in the last, you know, couple months. Yeah, it might be 20 years before we do another roll on.

[Adam Skolnick]

Yeah. Like in two weeks. All right. All right, man.

[Rich Roll]

See you soon. Peace. That's it for today. Thank you for listening. I truly hope you enjoy the conversation. To learn more about today's guest, including links and resources related to everything discussed today, visit the episode [e-mail] where you can find the entire podcast archive as well as podcast merch, My books, Finding Ultra Voicing Change and the Plant Power Way, as well as the Plant Power meal [e-mail] roll.com 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. Supporting the sponsors who support the show is also important and appreciated. And sharing the show or your favorite episode with friends or on social media is, of course, awesome and very helpful. And finally, for podcast updates, special offers on books, the meal planner, and other subjects, please subscribe to our newsletter, which you can find on the footer of any [e-mail] Today's show was produced and engineered by Jason Cameolo, with additional audio engineering by Cale Curtis. The video edition of the podcast was created by Blake Curtis, with assistance by our creative director, Dan Drake. Portraits by Davey Greenberg, Graphic and social media assets courtesy of Daniel Solis. Thank you, George Whaley, for copywriting and website management. And of course, our theme music was created by Tyler Pyatt, Trapper Pyatt, and Harry Mathis. Appreciate the love, love the support. See you back here soon. Peace. All right.