0:02

G'day humans, welcome

0:03

to the safe space for dangerous ideas.

0:05

The one, the only, Rich Roll! Oh,

0:10

oh, oh, the crowd goes wild as

0:12

Rich walks into the uncomfortable conversations

0:15

arena. Athlete, activist,

0:18

podcaster, guru, I ask him

0:20

if he's a guru. You'll have to listen to the

0:22

episode to find out his answer. Rich,

0:24

if you don't know him, is

0:27

one of the most influential people in the land

0:29

of the pods. He's,

0:32

well what is he? He's a best-selling

0:35

author. That's how he first came

0:37

to many people's attention because

0:39

about a decade ago he

0:41

published a memoir called Finding Ultra,

0:44

Rejecting Middle Age, Becoming One of

0:46

the World's Fittest Men, and Discovering

0:49

Myself. So he's an ultra

0:51

man,

0:52

like these are, do you know ultra men competitions?

0:56

They take a marathon and then like

0:59

a super human, what do you call it, like iron man

1:01

thing and then they go even further.

1:04

The most difficult thing that you can

1:06

do to the human body in

1:08

the world. Three day long,

1:11

hundreds and hundreds of kilometers of swimming

1:13

and cycling and running. I mean just,

1:16

to me, this is hell. This

1:18

is the worst thing. If you gave me

1:20

the choice of doing an ultra marathon or

1:23

an ultra man competition and then,

1:25

or you could kill me,

1:27

I would think long

1:29

and hard about which one. And they may

1:31

even be the same outcome either way depending

1:34

on my level of fitness. And what's interesting

1:36

about Rich is he didn't get into this until he was in middle

1:38

age. He

1:40

was an entertainment lawyer, a drunk,

1:43

like just skimming along, highly

1:46

educated, went to Cornell and Stanford and

1:50

you know, basically drank his life

1:52

away in his twenties and then ate

1:54

a lot in his thirties. And as he was

1:56

about to turn 40, he was like, hmm, am

1:59

I going to keep going?

1:59

on this trajectory, he was like, no, I'm going to do the

2:02

exact complete 100% opposite thing, and

2:05

has now built a massive

2:07

global empire of sort of rich

2:10

role books and podcasts

2:13

and recipes and ways of life. He's full

2:15

on vegan. He is a lifestyle

2:20

brand. I mean, if you don't know Rich, but you

2:22

know Gwyneth Paltrow's

2:24

Goop,

2:25

that's an unkind analogy.

2:28

That would be a very unkind analogy to make. And that's why

2:30

I'm not going to make it right now. Nonetheless,

2:32

that's probably all you need to know about Rich. If you don't know

2:35

him, if you do know him, you know what an articulate

2:37

and thoughtful person he is. And what

2:39

an inspiring person he is. I mean, his podcast,

2:42

the Rich Roll Podcast, which has now branched

2:44

out from being just about wellness into being

2:46

about all, I mean, interviewing people who

2:48

are, who have interesting ideas about all

2:50

spheres of human creativity and

2:53

knowledge and understanding. It's

2:55

a wonderful playground to dip yourself

2:57

into. And I was super stoked to be able to

2:59

sit down with Rich virtually,

3:02

of course, and have this conversation.

3:04

Hope you enjoy it with the one and only Rich Roll.

3:17

I'm a little sidelined.

3:20

Just

3:20

chronic lower back problems, L4,

3:23

L5, sciatic pain. I'm

3:25

trying to sort it out right now. So haven't been

3:28

able to do the running that I would

3:30

prefer to be doing right now.

3:32

Would prefer to be doing or

3:34

feel like you ought to be doing? That's

3:39

a very insightful question. I think

3:42

I've let go of the ought to,

3:44

should aspect of it. There

3:47

is a part of it that I just

3:50

love doing. And when I can't do

3:53

it, I don't quite feel like myself.

3:57

It's not really about performance

3:59

goals anymore. It's just about the joy

4:01

of doing it and I miss that

4:03

part of it right now And where

4:05

is the joy like at what point

4:08

of the process is the joy?

4:10

Well, I think yeah, I

4:12

see I see like if I looked

4:15

at your face when you're finishing an ultra marathon Where's

4:18

you crossing the finish line? Your face does not look

4:20

contented You

4:22

know Fair enough like

4:24

oh, I love running a marathon I'm like really because

4:27

I've been at the finish line of marathons and not a single

4:29

person looked happy well,

4:32

I think there's a There's two different

4:34

things happening here I think the day-to-day

4:36

kind of training once you get past sort of

4:38

getting into shape like decent

4:40

shape for doing the thing There

4:43

is a joyful

4:46

Component to it That

4:49

is very primal like just you alone

4:51

on a trail Just the voice,

4:53

you know The sound of the

4:55

sound of your breath and just the silence

4:58

and you know being alone with your thoughts

5:01

it is kind of an active meditation

5:03

and It just

5:06

you know, it makes me like in the wit, you know,

5:08

like finishing just a daily kind of training

5:11

run Makes me feel

5:14

like whole, you know, I don't know. I always

5:16

finish those runs I feel more

5:18

in my body and I feel clarity

5:21

in my mind and I also am able

5:23

to like problem solve and Relieve

5:26

stress there's all these benefits, you

5:28

know that I experienced as a result of that

5:30

kind of endeavor of course doing

5:32

a race like that is a different thing. It's a

5:35

very difficult thing, but there's a satisfaction

5:39

and a joy that comes with Completing

5:41

something that perhaps you didn't think

5:43

you were capable of doing that has a long-term

5:46

impact Of course in the moment of doing

5:49

it. It's not it's not joy

5:51

in the conventional sense of how you

5:53

would think of it, but in the aftermath

5:56

of it, there's a there's a sense of accomplishment

5:59

that I think is

5:59

Quite beneficial. You know, I

6:02

don't think like perpetually running

6:04

ultra marathons is a recipe for

6:06

longevity and optimal health. But

6:09

it has its place. Yeah,

6:12

I mean, I'm interested that you admit

6:14

that joy is not present during

6:17

the process, but the thing is

6:19

worth having done. I mean, it's a bit like it.

6:22

Yeah, or am I getting it wrong?

6:24

No, I mean, you know, there's that thing of you

6:26

sign up for something really hard that's

6:29

scary enough that you take the preparation

6:31

seriously. And then when you're, you know,

6:34

on the starting line, there's butterflies and excitement.

6:37

And then in the middle of it, as soon as it starts

6:39

to get hard, you're cursing yourself and wondering

6:42

like, why in the hell did I sign up for this?

6:45

How can I get out of this? All of that kind

6:47

of stuff. But I think, you know, that

6:49

struggle, that kind of grappling,

6:52

you know, with your own limitations

6:55

and putting yourself intentionally in

6:57

a difficult situation where there's no

7:00

easy way out is how we grow,

7:02

right? Yeah. And there is real

7:04

value in that. And I'm not sure

7:06

that society is appropriately

7:09

configured around, you know,

7:11

challenging ourselves in that way. Otherwise,

7:14

we wouldn't see this explosion in

7:16

not only marathons and triathlons,

7:18

but like the whole ultra world. I mean, that started

7:20

out as, you know, just a ragtag

7:22

group of people

7:23

who would pitch tents, you know,

7:25

out in the woods to, you know, go

7:27

run anonymously, you know,

7:29

some race that no one's ever heard of and no one

7:31

will ever hear of. And now, like

7:34

it's kind of entered the popular

7:37

zeitgeist or, you

7:40

know, vocabulary of

7:42

kind of things to sign up for. So, you

7:44

know, to what do we account that?

7:46

Right? Like people need that

7:49

in their life as uncomfortable as

7:51

it is because they're extracting

7:53

some kind of value out of it.

7:57

I mean, anything that's worth doing is

7:59

probably.

7:59

hard. Right. And so that process

8:02

of you sign up for it, you're excited

8:04

about it, then you reach the dark

8:06

depth of the sole moment of

8:08

the whole project, where you think, why the hell did I do this?

8:11

And then you emerge victorious. And you're ultimately

8:14

satisfied and exhausted. Like, that's the process

8:16

of writing a book. That's the process of putting together

8:19

a one man stand up show. That's the process

8:21

of, of making a movie. That's

8:23

the process of doing anything

8:25

difficult. There's always the process,

8:27

the actual doing of it is always

8:29

full of moments that you dislike. But

8:32

you think in aggregate, I mean, it's the process of having kids

8:35

in a way, isn't it? So I wonder

8:37

whether or not the rise in interest

8:39

in ultra marathons and

8:42

marathons is partly,

8:44

I

8:45

don't know, an easy sort of psychologically containable

8:48

way to understand

8:51

goals and a kind of almost a manageable

8:54

goal in a way. I

8:57

suppose, yeah, I mean, I think there is

8:59

starting a startup, you know, it's easier than

9:01

sure, it's, it's something

9:04

that has a defined

9:06

period in time, and it defines that

9:08

can make it happen.

9:10

It will end and you will either finish

9:12

or not. And along the way, you're gonna be alive, you're gonna have

9:15

to grapple, you

9:17

know, with the dark, you know, recesses

9:20

of the soul, and you're either going to come out

9:22

on the other side of that, having, you know,

9:25

you know, sort of proudly battled with

9:27

it, or you will have faltered

9:29

either way, you're going to learn something about yourself. And if

9:31

sitting on the couch and just watching

9:35

Netflix all day in your super

9:37

comfy condo was a recipe to

9:40

happiness, then, you know, we wouldn't

9:42

see the kind of explosion

9:45

in, you know, these sorts of events from

9:47

Spartan to ultra marathons. Like, I do think

9:49

that there is something missing

9:53

that we're seeking that that speaks

9:55

to what it is that that makes us human that's outside

9:57

of the inception of the world. that

10:00

are telling us that, you know, the fancy car or

10:03

the new job or, you know, the kind of luxury

10:06

vacation is

10:10

going to satisfy. And I find

10:13

that very interesting. Like right now,

10:15

the big thing is these dark retreats,

10:17

right? Where

10:20

you go and you lock yourself in a dark room for

10:22

multiple days and you pay for that. Like,

10:25

you know, where did that come from? I don't even

10:27

know that case, tell me. You don't know about

10:29

this? How have I missed the

10:31

dark retreats? Oh, you haven't heard about this.

10:33

So this became part of the kind of, you

10:35

know, popular

10:40

parlance because Aaron Rogers, who's a well-known

10:42

NFL quarterback, decided

10:45

that he was going to go into the dark room to try to

10:47

figure out whether he was going to stay in

10:49

the NFL for another year or not.

10:51

And there's a couple places across the US,

10:54

one in particular in Oregon, where

10:57

yes, you go into this room for, I

11:01

think it's like four days and

11:04

they slide food once a day, you know, through this sort

11:06

of little latch. So no light

11:09

gets into the room and you're just alone with

11:11

your thoughts. You know? It's

11:14

a lot of fucking latch, Ridd. That's

11:17

all right. I mean, that's what we

11:19

do. I mean, worst. That's being

11:22

paid. We are paying for solitary confinement, Josh.

11:24

So from, you know, what

11:26

do we extract from, you know, the

11:29

rising popularity of this as a choice to

11:32

how to spend our vacation time? I

11:34

mean, I guess we extract the assumption that

11:37

Gitmo should have been bigger. We should have expanded

11:39

to more and more. Thanks,

11:42

Paul. Jihadi's. Your

11:44

new tourist destination. Exactly.

11:48

An experiential vacation. Yeah, we were

11:50

sending the wrong people there. We should

11:53

have been sending aspirational

11:54

NFL, you know, quarterbacks who want

11:56

to figure out what they're doing with their lives instead of

11:58

our credit. That's

12:01

amazing. So how long do you spend in one of these

12:04

cells?

12:05

I think the typical stay is four

12:07

days. So I have a friend, Colin O'Brady, who's

12:10

an adventure athlete who's done it.

12:13

He's getting ready to go back in for a second

12:15

time, I think. He did it recently

12:17

and reported back to me how

12:20

amazing it was, how revelatory it was

12:22

just to be, you know, when you

12:24

can't escape your mind. Josh, is

12:26

there any scarier place to be? No,

12:29

that's why I'm not going to be doing a dark room. So

12:34

I mean, these

12:35

are anyone who's done some

12:37

kind of silent meditation retreat,

12:40

like I've been on your, you know, your five

12:42

night Deepak Chopra, Southern California

12:44

thing where, you know, one of the

12:46

days nobody's talking to each other. And

12:49

that alone is challenging enough. But at least you

12:52

can see that there are other human beings in the world

12:54

and sunlight.

12:55

Like this, that

12:56

could be, this could be psychologically dangerous

12:59

to be in the dark for four days.

13:00

Yeah, I would imagine

13:02

that it's not for everybody.

13:06

Amazing. I mean, it

13:08

does make me wonder, just coming back

13:10

to endurance, you know, the achievement

13:13

and the benefits that people get from these

13:16

extremely hard physical endurance

13:18

events, whether now that you've

13:20

done them,

13:21

I mean, no one can accuse you of

13:24

being lazy or given the

13:26

number of ultra, ultra men championships that

13:28

you've done. So when

13:30

you do it, when you are now running

13:32

purely recreationally, all

13:35

of the things that you were saying you get from that, like

13:38

you're alone with your thoughts and

13:40

there's no sort of psychological

13:42

input. There's just you and nature

13:45

and the sounds and the breeze and

13:47

a sort of sense of presence. Couldn't

13:49

you get that by walking?

13:52

Yeah, I guess you could. I think there's something about,

13:55

you know, the the elevated heart

13:57

rate in that aerobic zone. that

14:00

seems to, you know, heighten

14:04

the experience for me. And,

14:06

you know, upon completion,

14:09

feeling like you did, you know, kind of

14:12

clear out the cobwebs in a way that like

14:14

a walk doesn't achieve. And

14:17

I'm just speaking, you know, for myself and

14:19

my own experience. I mean, I think that,

14:21

you know, the trick

14:24

with

14:25

endurance sport and

14:28

perhaps even, you know, more acutely,

14:30

ultra endurance sports is they

14:33

can become addictive. Like

14:35

they take so much time out of

14:37

your life to prepare for. And,

14:40

you know, I think that they are incredible

14:42

reservoirs

14:44

for developing a deeper connection

14:47

with yourself and for a better sense

14:49

of self-understanding. And also

14:51

the, you know, kind of a steam

14:53

building of realizing that you're capable

14:57

of accomplishing more than perhaps you realize

14:59

that you were able to, that

15:02

spills over into other areas of your life.

15:04

But I also think you can get stuck in that

15:07

paradigm or that modality. You

15:10

know, and for me, it's, you know,

15:12

I'm grateful that I was able to

15:14

learn a lot from that world, but I don't feel

15:16

the need to constantly compete

15:19

to, you know, prove anything to

15:21

myself or to anyone else. And I've

15:23

kind of extracted what I needed to learn

15:25

from that. And now I feel very

15:27

nourished in kind of applying that

15:30

to other areas of my life that,

15:33

you know, provoke curiosity or

15:35

that I'm interested in exploring. And

15:37

I think when you realize like, hey, I didn't

15:40

think I could do this in this other area, or

15:42

I learned so much about myself,

15:45

I didn't have exploring this subculture,

15:49

where are the other areas of my life that

15:52

I'm ignoring or perhaps, you

15:54

know, in denial about, where if

15:56

I shined a light on them, you know, I could grow in

15:59

other facets.

15:59

of this lived experience.

16:03

I mean, it's interesting that you use the word addiction because

16:09

I do sometimes wonder when people are

16:11

as obsessive as

16:13

you are with something like this. I mean, I'm going

16:15

to sort of be impolite enough to ask

16:17

until later on. We know each other a bit

16:20

better. But since you mentioned it, I know that

16:23

you've had your struggles with drugs and alcohol in your

16:25

20s. Are you just an addict

16:28

who has swapped one low status

16:30

unhealthy addiction for a higher

16:33

status healthier one? Yeah,

16:35

I mean, I get that question a lot. And

16:38

I think the sort of flippant response

16:41

is to

16:43

deny that reality. But I

16:45

think it's

16:48

worthy of recognizing that there are certainly

16:51

aspects of that. If you go to any

16:53

Ironman race or

16:55

ultra distance race, there are

16:57

so many addicts in recovery.

17:00

Lots of tattoos, lots of people

17:02

who built their lives back

17:05

up from some kind of some form

17:07

of broken state. And there

17:09

is a very specific allure

17:11

in the endurance world that

17:14

plays on the mind of the recovering

17:17

addict because it's an opportunity to kind

17:20

of venture beyond the

17:22

limits, to go to that unknown place,

17:25

to leverage and experience

17:28

to kind of go beyond like

17:32

what it feels like to be normal. And

17:34

the addict is always looking for peak states

17:38

of consciousness, right? Like on some level,

17:40

an

17:41

addict is

17:43

a seeker. Like they're looking for answers.

17:46

They're just doing it in a very unhealthy

17:48

way. And I think

17:50

endurance sports provides a healthier

17:53

alternative to that, to explore

17:56

that inner experience of

17:59

what it means to...

17:59

to touch up against a peak

18:02

experience or to take yourself beyond what

18:06

the normal person feels, but

18:09

it can be addictive. And I'd be lying

18:11

if I didn't say that that wasn't

18:13

part of the allure or that I haven't at

18:16

times had a

18:18

less than completely healthy relationship

18:21

with that sport.

18:23

But I think that by

18:26

and large and on the whole, taking

18:30

the drug or taking the drink is always

18:32

kind of the backdoor

18:35

exit. It's the easy choice and strapping

18:37

on the running shoes, when it's dark

18:40

out and cold out and you don't wanna do

18:42

it is a hard choice and

18:44

it's a growth opportunity. So they

18:47

don't line up completely in that paradigm.

18:52

No, of course, of course. You know what

18:54

else is a hard choice is locking

18:56

yourself in a dark fucking room for four days.

19:00

I know, I know. That's also

19:02

on the hard list. And yet there's something

19:04

strangely,

19:05

that's such an interesting phenomenon. Now

19:07

that you opened that Pandora's box, I'm gonna have to go

19:09

down the rabbit hole and investigate that because

19:12

it's one of those things where it's a

19:14

hard choice to make initially, but

19:17

then the choice is sort of out of your hands.

19:20

Then the journey takes care of itself, almost

19:22

like doing acid or something. You know what I mean?

19:24

But here's the thing, you're not locked in. You

19:26

can leave at any time. Well, of course, I mean, that

19:29

would be criminal probably. They

19:31

might choose. There

19:33

must be a strong disincentive. It must be like,

19:35

well, you've kind of, you pressed the emergency red button

19:38

and now you've failed something. I

19:40

don't like it now. Sure, but imagine

19:42

the

19:43

experience of not

19:45

knowing what time it is and not

19:47

even being quite sure what day it is.

19:50

Like how much longer do I

19:52

have to be in here? Is this day two

19:54

or day three? When I fell asleep,

19:56

did I fall asleep for an hour or 10 hours?

19:59

Like it's a mind

20:01

from top to bottom. Absolutely. You

20:03

know, I was, I got a little sick

20:05

last week, just having kids

20:07

and you know, they bring it back from school or whatever. And so

20:09

I had a bit of a fever and I had a funny, a

20:12

funny tummy. And I had one of those nights where,

20:15

you know, when you're kind of tossing and turning and you're

20:17

hot and you swear you've got the cold sweats and you've

20:19

got the hot shivers a little bit and

20:21

you keep looking at the clock to see what time

20:24

it is. And you think it must be morning

20:26

by now. And the clock says 12, 0, 3 AM. And

20:29

you go, I can't believe I've

20:31

got another five hours until

20:33

I can get up. Like it must

20:35

just be like that,

20:37

but for 96 hours.

20:40

I don't know. I'm tempted. I'm tempted

20:42

to try it. You're gonna do it. You're gonna do it.

20:44

I can hear it in your voice. You should do

20:46

it together. You are. You

20:49

did luck. I wonder if you can like knock on

20:51

the wall to the guy in the cave, you

20:53

know, the next cave over. I

20:56

love it. I love the idea

20:58

that you're gonna be in Sydney in

21:00

May and I'm gonna get a call and you'll be

21:02

like, hey, it's Rich. Do you wanna go and get

21:05

brunch? And I'll be like, sure. And when we get

21:07

there, I'll be like, I haven't seen this place. And

21:09

you'll be like, just

21:10

come through down this hallway. It's

21:12

just down the back. I'll be like, Rich, where are you taking

21:14

me? Where are you taking me, Rich? No, no, the brunch is

21:16

just back here and then slam. And

21:18

you and I are just in the dark room.

21:20

We've made arrangements for your kids.

21:22

I talked to your, you know, everybody

21:24

at the studio. You're fine.

21:27

I'm fine. You got your days cleared. Oh

21:30

my goodness. What were your

21:32

drugs of, you were talking about how easy it is to

21:34

like to drink. I mean, alcohol is such a mediocre

21:36

drug. God, it's boring. But were you into more

21:39

fun drugs when you were a drug addict? No,

21:41

you know, I was pretty much a purist,

21:43

to be honest, a throwback. That

21:46

was my thing. You know, I dabbled in

21:48

a few other things. I never tried cocaine.

21:51

I was terrified of it. I think I knew that

21:53

if I'd ever tried that, it would be

21:56

game over pretty quickly. So

21:59

my, you know,

21:59

My addiction story is pretty

22:02

conventional and tepid in that regard.

22:05

There's nothing super kind of sexy about

22:07

it. It was just

22:10

sort of a sad empathetic drunkard

22:12

story. Yeah, right. You're probably

22:14

lucky. You dodged a bullet on coke, I

22:16

would imagine. Yeah. Yeah,

22:19

because that can not be

22:21

pretty. We've all seen what that can

22:23

do.

22:24

Sure. I mean, I think I probably

22:27

would have loved it and it

22:29

either would have gotten me sober sooner or

22:32

it would have killed me or just reeked

22:35

exponentially more havoc in my life. But

22:38

it got dark enough for me to have

22:41

a reckoning and

22:42

change course. And I'm

22:45

very grateful for that. And did rehab work?

22:49

It did. I kind of came

22:51

in on the recommendation

22:53

of a judge and

22:56

the police and some

22:58

parents and some friends who thought

23:00

it would be wise that maybe I

23:02

should take a look at my habits. How

23:05

did you get involved in the role? Was this a driving

23:07

thing or what did you do? Yeah, I

23:09

mean, it was a slow decline for

23:11

many years. And then I moved to

23:13

Los Angeles and I got two DUIs

23:16

in rapid fire succession within

23:18

a period of, I

23:19

think they were like six weeks in between

23:21

both of them and

23:24

was facing two DUI charges,

23:27

jail time, like all kinds

23:29

of

23:30

pretty severe consequences. And

23:33

it's a long story, but one of the

23:35

cases got thrown out because they lost

23:37

the file, which was a crazy miracle

23:40

and ended

23:41

up getting charged with just one

23:44

DUI. But

23:46

that was enough. I mean, the second one that I got,

23:49

I got picked up in the first

23:51

one I rear ended in elderly

23:54

woman at like three in the morning at

23:56

an intersection. The

23:58

second one,

24:00

Six weeks later got picked

24:02

up in Beverly Hills driving the wrong way down

24:04

a one-way street. I blew like

24:06

two nine and two seven. You know, like

24:09

I was, you know, I was gone. Like big

24:11

time, like this is not like a, yeah,

24:13

it was serious. And the

24:16

one, the second one, the

24:18

cop who arrested me

24:20

knew my boss,

24:22

the partner in the law firm where I was an

24:24

associate, because my boss was representing

24:27

the police department in a number of cases.

24:30

And so my boss called me in on Monday morning

24:32

after I spent the weekend in jail and said, listen,

24:34

I got an interesting call over

24:36

the weekend. Like you're all fucked

24:38

up and you gotta sort this out.

24:42

And I wish I could tell you that I got sober immediately

24:44

and everything was rosy

24:46

after that. That's not what happened. It

24:49

was a

24:50

situation in which I guess I needed a

24:52

little bit more pain and to go to

24:54

a darker place. But ultimately,

24:56

you know, I was in enough

24:59

psychic

25:01

and emotional pain and

25:03

just a state of loneliness

25:06

in which, you know, I was alienated

25:08

from my family and just, you know, all

25:10

of my good friends had kind of fled for the hills.

25:12

And I realized that

25:15

the only way out was through and

25:17

decided I just woke up

25:20

one morning and it was a morning that wasn't that dissimilar

25:22

from so many other mornings that

25:24

I had woken up hungover, but

25:27

I just had a brief window of willingness to

25:29

do something different and

25:32

got myself to a rehab up

25:34

in Oregon where I thought I was just

25:36

gonna spin dry for a couple of weeks

25:39

and get back to my, you know, quote unquote,

25:41

very important job and ended up

25:43

instead staying for a hundred days. And

25:46

that really saved my life and created

25:48

a foundation of sobriety that, you

25:51

know, allowed me to kind of come back to Los

25:54

Angeles and build upon

25:56

and, you know, I really credit that to

25:58

saving my life.

26:00

That's amazing. How did you afford

26:02

it? I always wonder with rehab stool, these Americans

26:04

who are gonna rehab, like the recovery

26:07

process from addiction seems so much more prosaic

26:09

and arduous outside of the United States where

26:11

people just kind of muddle through and we don't have the same,

26:14

I guess, reliance on rehab centers as

26:17

there seems to be in America. Aren't they expensive? Who

26:19

pays for it?

26:20

Yeah, it's a situation

26:22

that's not

26:23

exactly covered by

26:25

insurance in the way that it should be. And

26:28

in my case, I cashed out my

26:30

meager 401k and then my

26:33

parents kind of matched that to

26:35

make it work. So

26:38

I was lucky in that regard. And I

26:40

had been in it because I got the nudge from

26:42

the judge and I was going to

26:44

AA meetings to get my court card signed, but

26:46

I wasn't doing it to get sober. I was doing

26:48

it to get people off my back. And

26:50

I needed a deeper kind of immersion

26:53

into,

26:53

I

26:56

needed to be extracted out of my life

26:58

in order to only focus on this. And

27:01

that's not to say that- You got the nudge from the judge. I

27:03

like that sociology. You got

27:05

the nudge from the judge. One

27:08

of many kind of annoying aphorisms

27:10

out of 12 step-in-law. I

27:12

think we should produce a reality television

27:14

show modeled off Judge Judy or Judge Joe

27:16

Brown where you play the judge and

27:19

it's called a nudge from the judge with ritual. And

27:21

it's people with addiction problems and you

27:23

come in and you go, you just got the

27:25

nudge from the judge and the person gets

27:27

into rehab.

27:30

I think it would be boring though because I would just send

27:32

everyone to rehab. Yeah.

27:35

I just enjoy a brandy once at Christmas,

27:37

once again. Rehab for you. You

27:39

got the nudge from the judge. And

27:42

well, I'm glad that all that worked.

27:44

What do you say to people who

27:46

are not in such a, also it's interesting you said

27:48

to your, just I just want to follow up, your friends

27:51

had abandoned you. Often

27:53

people who have drinking problems

27:56

are enabled by their social environment

27:58

and that becomes part of the problem.

27:59

Well, what would I do? How would

28:02

I have fun when I go

28:04

out all the time with all my other alcoholic buddies

28:06

who reinforce each other's drinking

28:08

habits if I was sober?

28:12

That wasn't the case for you? Yeah,

28:14

well, I think that's a case of what

28:16

we call lower companions, Josh. Like

28:19

as this disease progresses, there's

28:24

a certain kind of color

28:27

that the people that you hang

28:30

out with tend to become. It's

28:35

not that my friends abandoned me, they just

28:37

sort of slowly step

28:40

backward from you. And also

28:42

on top of that, like a big piece of

28:45

addiction is a deepening

28:47

of your kind of isolating from

28:49

the world because you know that your behavior

28:52

is not

28:53

kind of socially approved. And so you start

28:55

hanging out with people that aren't your friends,

28:57

but are the ones that will not

29:00

really call you out on your bullshit because

29:02

they're on your wavelength. So you start

29:04

hanging out with those people. And then

29:06

when those people start backing away from you,

29:08

you know, you're kind of going into a darker, an

29:12

even darker place. And so

29:15

my good friends were kind of unavailable

29:17

and I was hanging out with people that I wouldn't ordinarily

29:20

hang out with. And I was also isolating

29:23

and spending a lot of time alone in my apartment,

29:25

shrinking by myself, which is, you

29:28

know, for those of you out there, strong

29:30

and dish that you might have a problem and

29:33

just, you know, making decisions that

29:35

I just wouldn't ordinarily make.

29:38

And my parents being very clear

29:40

in

29:41

saying like, listen, we love you, but like,

29:43

we just can't stand by while you continue

29:46

to behave this way. If and when

29:49

you're ready to get sober, we love

29:51

you and we're here from you, but until then like

29:53

you're on your own with this

29:56

adventure that you're on.

29:57

And it turns out that was the right approach.

29:59

But

30:00

Yeah, I mean, that was very painful,

30:03

very painful. And so

30:06

at that dark, that darkest hour, I

30:09

felt desperately alone and realized

30:11

that I had to change.

30:14

But it's so

30:16

tricky because you don't

30:19

wanna let go of

30:25

this thing that has become your

30:28

best friend, even though you know intellectually

30:31

it's destroying your life. And

30:34

that's the confusing part of addiction

30:37

that makes it very difficult for like normal

30:39

people to understand. Like, why can't you just quit? Can't

30:41

you see the

30:43

damage that this is doing? But

30:47

it's not something

30:49

that resides in

30:52

the intellectual part of the mind. And

30:55

as they say, another kind of annoying aphorism

30:58

is that sobriety isn't for people

31:00

that need it, it's for people that want

31:03

it. And it's always bizarre,

31:06

like who's able to get sober and who

31:08

isn't? Like it's never who you

31:10

think.

31:11

And the people you think

31:14

have got a hold on it end up relapsing

31:16

and the people you think, oh, that guy's

31:18

never gonna make it, ends up putting together 20

31:21

years of sobriety. Like it's mystifying

31:23

still, I think this

31:26

disease. And I think the

31:28

fact that it's so mystifying creates

31:30

a lot of problems with normal people trying to

31:33

understand like how to solve it, especially

31:35

when you have a loved one who's

31:37

struggling. Like how do you help that person?

31:40

Do you stand on the sidelines

31:41

and let them hit bottom so that

31:43

they develop their own willingness?

31:45

Or do you intervene? And if you intervene,

31:48

how do you intervene in a way that's

31:50

gonna produce the desired

31:52

results?

31:54

Mm, it's so true because from the

31:57

outside what seems to be really,

32:00

reasonable or rational is to point out to

32:02

the person the ways in which their consumption

32:04

is unhealthy or problematic

32:07

and as you say when

32:09

the sober person

32:10

Says to the addict can't you why

32:12

don't you quit can't you see all of the problems that it's causing

32:15

in your life? They're inside the addict's head. They

32:17

go. Yeah, it's causing all of these fucking problems So

32:19

how do you expect me to deal with them except for with a

32:21

drink?

32:22

right, so they're

32:25

also You

32:27

want to have a drink if you are not coffee if I give your life

32:29

was yeah How am I gonna go

32:32

with this bladder drink? Yeah on the

32:34

one hand you're like

32:35

fuck off. I'm not hurting anyone Why

32:38

do you care leave me alone? This

32:40

is right, you know my thing not yours. So

32:42

stay away And on the other

32:44

hand, you know the the kind

32:47

of pain that this lifestyle

32:49

produces Means that you have

32:51

to keep using drugs or alcohol To

32:54

you know mask that pain because that

32:56

pain is so unbearable and it becomes this,

32:59

you know, sort of snowball rolling downhill

33:02

Yeah, that's interesting. Did you ever think were you

33:04

ever under the illusion that it was fun?

33:10

Well, it was fun for a long time

33:12

and I think that's the other piece that that people

33:14

don't really appreciate like What

33:17

was another again, I'm just gonna keep throwing

33:19

these annoying, you know kind of phrases that

33:21

you but like another one is it

33:24

works until it doesn't like it work, you

33:26

know, it works until it stops working and

33:28

the reason that you go on this

33:30

journey is because it does work

33:32

and

33:33

For a certain period of time.

33:36

It's fun and you feel great

33:38

and you're like, this is the answer to every

33:42

question You know in my

33:44

life like this is the solution to every

33:46

problem that

33:47

I didn't even know that I had I wish

33:49

I had discovered This sooner. I want to feel

33:51

like this all the time. I want to feel like this

33:53

all day long and so

33:56

that kind of cements

33:58

this relationship with

33:59

the substance that ultimately,

34:03

what you can't see at that time is that it will

34:05

turn on you. And in my case, it was a very

34:07

kind of progressive, degradation

34:12

of the things that I cared about in my life.

34:14

Like as somebody who, I was somebody,

34:17

Josh, who kind

34:19

of struggled academically and was kind of an insecure

34:22

kid who had difficulty making friends

34:24

and wasn't quite sure how to interact with

34:27

other human beings, shy,

34:29

kind of bookish. And

34:32

I went to a school that was all

34:34

about sports and football and all

34:36

of that. I never really figured

34:38

out how I could connect with other

34:40

people. And so I

34:43

had this like kind of profound

34:46

internal

34:50

confusion about life, thinking

34:53

that everyone else had this roadmap for

34:55

this

34:57

handbook for how to live that

34:59

I lacked. And I just was walking around confused.

35:03

At the same time, I did figure out, like

35:05

I became the swimmer and I excelled

35:08

academically. And so by the time

35:10

I graduated from high school, I'd gotten accepted

35:12

into all these fancy schools and I go off

35:14

to Stanford and I'm a

35:16

swimmer at Stanford and swimming at

35:18

Stanford is cool. Like, and so suddenly

35:21

I'm in the cool crowd for the first time and I

35:23

discover alcohol. And

35:26

it was like this warm blanket being

35:28

wrapped around me telling me that everything

35:30

was okay. And I felt

35:33

comfortable in my skin for the very first

35:36

time. And it was like this epiphany

35:38

experience that basically

35:41

kind of rooted in me, this

35:44

idea of wanting to feel like that all

35:46

the time. And I had a great time in college.

35:48

I had a lot of fun. I went to all the parties. I learned

35:50

how to be a social person.

35:53

I learned how to talk to a girl and like,

35:56

you know, dance or do all the things

35:58

that seemed like normal people

35:59

already knew how to do. And so on some level

36:02

it was like a teacher, but

36:05

it wasn't long before I didn't

36:08

really care about whether I showed up for

36:10

swim practice anymore, or

36:12

is it really all that important that I turn in this

36:14

paper on time? And

36:17

that's what's kind of insidious

36:20

about the whole thing is that it starts

36:23

very gradually. And I was functional

36:25

for a long time and ended up going to law school

36:28

and God knows how I graduated law

36:30

school, but I could keep it together

36:32

just enough,

36:33

but the more it progresses, the more you

36:35

bifurcate your life. And you have the life

36:37

that you live around other people, and then you have

36:40

this secret life that

36:42

you're ashamed of, that you're hiding from, that's

36:44

driving that kind of you

36:46

to further and further isolate

36:48

from other people. Until

36:51

those two worlds kind of come into

36:54

conflict

36:54

with each other, and that's when

36:57

chaos starts to kind of blossom

37:00

in various areas of your life. And

37:05

you can continue to be in denial

37:08

over that for a certain period of time until it

37:10

becomes so obvious

37:12

to everyone around you that you're forced

37:14

to confront it in a certain kind of way.

37:16

And either those are the moments in which you

37:19

have a decision, like, are you gonna deal with this and

37:21

rectify your life and get sober and choose

37:24

a new path for yourself,

37:24

or are you gonna say fuck

37:27

you to everybody and just

37:29

self-destruct? And I've been to

37:31

a lot of funerals and I've seen a lot of people

37:34

not able to make that leap or flirt

37:37

with sobriety or have

37:39

certain stints with sobriety but

37:41

are unable to maintain it because

37:43

they're not dealing

37:46

with the underlying kind of pain that

37:48

led them to that behavior in the first

37:50

place. And a lot

37:53

of people don't make it.

37:54

And die. And so I'm very

37:57

grateful that I was able to kind of come

37:59

out.

37:59

the other side of it. And when those chaos monkeys

38:02

showed up, will you, I mean, when

38:04

you say with the kind of, the

38:08

role of professional lawyer and

38:10

upstanding, highly educated

38:14

professional smashes into

38:16

the role of alcoholic, were you drinking

38:18

at work? Was that like bleeding into

38:20

your work life?

38:22

At the very end, yeah, at the very

38:24

end it was. I mean, not initially, but

38:28

when it got really dark and there's a whole

38:30

like kind of wedding, I got

38:33

married and it ended on the honeymoon story.

38:35

That's like a two hour soap opera

38:37

that like contributed

38:40

to, you know, the me

38:42

kind of, you know, really touching up

38:44

against, you know, the darkest aspects

38:46

of my story and ultimately

38:49

leading me to being the guy who's

38:51

on a leaving Las Vegas trajectory

38:55

of having a vodka tonic in the shower. Hiding

38:58

drinks throughout the day and believing

39:00

that I'm getting away with this and nobody

39:03

knowing about it. And,

39:05

you know, until like the whole kind of house of cards

39:08

topples on, you know, onto your

39:10

head and you're forced to really

39:12

get honest with yourself. It's

39:16

interesting that you say that it was fun until

39:19

it wasn't because I have a, I

39:22

went, have you heard of the Alan

39:25

Carr group of, organization,

39:28

they help people quit smoking and drinking and drugs,

39:31

but they take it to British organization

39:35

and like Richard Branson and then like

39:37

Anthony Hopkins and a bunch of top Brits that swear

39:39

by it, but it takes an opposite kind of view

39:42

to traditional 12 steps

39:44

in encouraging you to, and

39:46

that's how I stopped drinking a few years ago,

39:50

encouraging you to think

39:52

very closely and pay close attention

39:54

to what's actually happening when you're drinking

39:56

and how much of the fun actually

39:59

comes from the drinks. and how much of the fun

40:01

that

40:02

you associate with the drink is the drink piggybacking

40:04

on environments that are already

40:07

fun and piggybacking

40:09

on environments that are already not fun. And it's

40:13

interesting. It's like, I mean,

40:15

they're basically, their basic philosophy is that there

40:18

aren't alcoholics and non-alcoholics

40:21

that alcohol itself or any addictive substance

40:23

functions by

40:26

creating a narrative around it

40:28

that is full of bullshit

40:31

that we buy into from a pretty young age.

40:34

And then when we start consuming it socially

40:36

and culturally, it's close enough to the

40:38

truth to get its claws into us.

40:42

And it's only a one-way trajectory

40:44

really for everybody, but there

40:46

are enough pressures to avoid

40:49

having another drink that exists in most people's

40:51

lives that they can walk the tightrope of

40:55

addiction. But fundamentally, it is an addictive

40:57

substance that really only seems

41:00

like it's fun,

41:01

kind of because it's addictive.

41:03

And people who never drink, if

41:05

you're a Hindu or if you're a Muslim,

41:08

you don't go around a wedding wishing

41:10

you could, moaning about how you can't have

41:12

a drink the way that someone who drinks

41:14

who isn't allowed to have a drink does. The desire for

41:16

the drink is caused by the fact that you drink all the time.

41:19

And the moment you're not drinking all the time and you

41:21

realize that you don't need to be drinking all the time is

41:23

the moment that you're kind of free,

41:25

free from the desire to

41:27

drink as well. And so when I think

41:30

back about the fun of

41:32

alcohol, yes, it's a slight anesthetic. Yes,

41:35

it probably gave you some, it lowered

41:37

your inhibitions occasionally in terms of

41:39

dancing or talking to girls when you're in college

41:41

and feeling awkward.

41:44

That's fine. Lots of anesthetics

41:46

could probably do that.

41:47

But

41:49

what it really was, was it

41:51

was piggybacking on your

41:54

experience of coming out of your shell and

41:57

your

41:58

the natural experience.

41:59

that a lot of people have in their early 20s of

42:03

growing a pair of balls and realizing

42:05

that they can do things that they previously thought that they

42:07

can't and feeling confident in themselves

42:10

and beginning to feel like a

42:12

grownup.

42:13

And psychologically, alcohol

42:15

comes along for the ride there.

42:17

And that's probably the source of the illusion

42:20

of

42:20

fun. Does that any of

42:22

that land? Yeah, I

42:25

mean, I think there's a lot of wisdom

42:27

in that. I think that my

42:29

response to that would be that, well,

42:33

two things.

42:34

First of all, the longer I've

42:36

kind of been sober

42:40

and the more

42:42

kind of conversations that I have on

42:44

my podcast and just socially with

42:47

people in the addiction recovery

42:50

and kind of psychology, psychiatry

42:52

space, I've become more

42:54

convinced that addiction

42:58

lives on a much greater spectrum

43:00

than we tend to think of

43:03

it. Like we tend to think of addicts as people

43:05

that can't pull the needle out of their arm or

43:08

the drunk and the gutter and the paper bag and

43:11

all that kind of stuff. But I think

43:13

on some level as human beings, we're

43:16

all prone to various compulsive

43:19

behaviors, whether they're substance oriented

43:21

or not,

43:24

to which we lack

43:26

a certain level of control or agency. And

43:30

I think our phones have

43:32

been a great example

43:36

that have

43:38

taught us like how powerless we can

43:40

be at times over our own

43:43

impulses, movies like The Social

43:45

Dilemma, where we realize like these

43:48

slot machine kind of features

43:51

and the technology that's gone into these devices,

43:55

make us behave around our phones in a way

43:57

that we wouldn't otherwise, which.

43:59

makes us think like,

44:01

how much agency do I really have? Like what

44:03

is the difference between the

44:06

obsessive compulsive kind of relationship

44:09

that I have with technology

44:11

or social media versus

44:13

addiction? And I think

44:16

whether it's alcoholism or drug addiction

44:18

or gambling, there's

44:20

a whole other kind

44:23

of world that

44:25

falls into this addiction

44:29

conversation that

44:31

is less addressed. Like what

44:33

about the person who keeps getting into

44:35

the same kind of dysfunctional relationship

44:39

or the person that just, whatever,

44:41

as soon as they're standing in line or they have a moment

44:44

of boredom, they just

44:45

compulsively pull out their phone and go to

44:47

TikTok or whatever it is. Like

44:50

this is something that's bred

44:52

into us as human beings and

44:55

it can be relatively

44:57

benign or just mildly invasive into

44:59

the quality of our life, or it can be utterly

45:02

devastating and debilitating in the

45:04

context of somebody who just gambles

45:07

away all their money or who keeps

45:09

it to myself. Right, but I don't think

45:11

to locate the problem in

45:13

the somebody who's gambling away their money

45:15

or in a particular attribute of that person

45:17

as if they were born addicted to gambling

45:22

and they were just waiting, like the gambling monster

45:24

inside them was just waiting for the moment to

45:26

play the first slot machine. That is a

45:28

narrative that is popular among 12 step

45:32

types that is rejected by this

45:34

philosophy that I'm talking about, which says

45:36

that these things will

45:39

inevitably, if you allow them in every case,

45:42

lead to a catastrophic

45:44

outcome. It's just that we're all pretty

45:47

good at holding our shit together. What

45:50

happens when you pull your phone out of your pocket and you get a little

45:52

dopamine hit of noticing that there's a notification

45:54

or a like on something that you've posted or

45:56

seeing something interesting is

45:59

that you get the

45:59

little

46:00

dopamine hit and then the next time you're

46:03

waiting in line, you remember that dopamine

46:05

hit and you do it again and again and again and again and the

46:07

dopamine hit gets less and less and less. So you have

46:09

to do it more and more to get the same amount

46:11

of interest and innovation

46:14

and stimulation from your phone

46:16

and all of a sudden Instagram

46:18

seems a bit boring. So TikTok seems more interesting.

46:21

And you know, at some point, you

46:23

know, if you are not around other people,

46:25

porn will seem more interesting still or whatever

46:27

is increasingly addictive. I mean,

46:29

the there is only one trajectory in order to

46:32

maintain the same level of novelty

46:34

that the thing gave you in the first place and that

46:36

is to keep consuming it in

46:38

ever greater amounts. It's just that most of us have

46:40

duties that prevent us from

46:43

doing that. But once you notice that that's the

46:46

that's the game that the game is just

46:48

I mean, think about it with a heroin junkie

46:50

or a smoker or something. You have

46:53

the first one, it does

46:55

something for you. The second one does

46:57

a little bit less, the third one does a little bit less. And before

46:59

you know it, you're not quite sure why you're going

47:02

back for the cigarette because it's not giving you the head spin that

47:04

the first one did. But you

47:06

know that you feel a little bit uncomfortable without

47:08

it. And the cigarette is just

47:11

creating, I mean, the

47:13

permanent trough that you live in, which the

47:15

cigarette is then the solution to to bring you up to

47:17

feeling the way that non smokers feel all the time.

47:20

And when you're having a cigarette, you feel as good as non smokers

47:23

do all the time. But then as this as the nicotine

47:26

bleeds out of your system, you gradually

47:28

fall into a trough that your addiction to nicotine

47:30

is causing. And that as a model,

47:33

is basically just the way that addiction

47:36

works. And it works on all of us equally.

47:38

Some of us are just good enough

47:41

at distracting ourselves with our duties of work

47:43

and family and ambition and whatever that

47:45

we don't allow our our

47:48

usage to get to such a high level that the trough

47:50

becomes so deep that we can't

47:52

climb back out of it. Anyway, yeah,

47:54

no, I hear what you're saying. And I and

47:57

I would agree that these things always

47:59

move in.

47:59

one direction, which is increased

48:02

dosage as we acclimate to

48:05

the dose. It

48:09

never ends up in a good place. There

48:13

is that one singular path, but

48:16

I would add a ripple to that,

48:18

which is I do think that there are certain

48:21

people who are just

48:23

wired differently. Perhaps

48:25

that has to do with childhood trauma or

48:28

their genetic makeup. I

48:30

can't quite identify specifically

48:33

the nature of that, but I can tell you in my own

48:36

experience from the very first time

48:38

that I drank alcohol,

48:40

I know that my experience

48:42

and my relationship with that was different

48:45

from that of my peers. I

48:47

immediately was the guy who was

48:50

the last to lead the party, who was drinking

48:52

the half filled empties

48:54

with cigarette butts in them at the keg party,

48:57

doing all kinds of crazy shit that none

48:59

of my friends were doing. That

49:01

only continued to escalate. I

49:04

think there is something qualitatively different,

49:07

at least with respect to alcoholism,

49:09

where that substance

49:11

has a very different

49:13

impact qualitatively on

49:16

that type of individual that

49:20

it's a result that

49:24

is much more negative

49:26

than the person who's like, yeah, I binge drink too

49:29

much or once in a while I drink too much. I

49:33

would couch this in saying that I'm very

49:35

much a product of 12-step and that's

49:38

my indoctrination and that's what saved

49:40

my life. I know there's always these

49:42

new modalities and people are finding

49:45

new ways of looking at the nature

49:47

of this disease.

49:49

I call it a disease, some people

49:51

don't. And finding treatment

49:54

solutions in

49:56

psychedelic substances or in childhood

49:59

trauma.

49:59

therapy, et cetera. And I even

50:02

had, you know, to speak

50:04

to your earlier point, this friend

50:06

of mine, Andy Ramage on the podcast a while back,

50:08

and he started this thing. He's a British guy, he started

50:10

this thing called One Year No Beer. It's

50:13

basically for normal people who

50:16

are like, you know what, like my job, I

50:18

have to go out, I have to socialize, I have to go entertain

50:20

clients, and I have to drink, and I'm just

50:22

tired of it, and I'm sick of feeling like

50:25

shit the next day, but

50:27

I just feel like I have to do it, or, you

50:29

know, it's just part of my social environment,

50:32

like how do I step out of that? And he

50:34

created this really amazing movement

50:36

that empowered a lot of people, continues

50:38

to empower a lot of people to

50:41

liberate themselves from the shackles

50:43

of that kind of thing. And I think

50:45

that that is,

50:47

you know, sort of socially, at

50:49

least in the United States, I don't know what

50:51

it's like in Australia, young

50:54

people are not

50:55

drinking in the way that young people were drinking

50:58

when I was in my 20s. Like I think there's,

51:00

I think alcohol on some level has fallen out of

51:02

disfavor, and maybe it's been supplanted

51:05

by other drugs, I don't know, I'm an old man now,

51:07

but. I believe

51:09

there is a different. I think there is a different I do enjoy a reefer from time

51:11

to time, there is some reefer men. They do,

51:13

yeah, yeah, yeah, a little bit. Yeah,

51:16

and I don't wanna be misunderstood, that

51:18

nothing that I said is inconsistent with the

51:21

proposition that there is also a variety of

51:24

human reactions to these

51:25

substances, right? And I'm not,

51:27

I don't want to be understood as saying that these

51:30

things are always gonna lead to calamity for everybody.

51:32

Clearly they don't, for the vast majority of people, people

51:34

think that they're managing them. The point

51:36

is what is the nature of

51:39

the

51:39

relationship between a homo

51:41

sapien or a mammal and a thing

51:44

that functions in this way. And you know, sugar

51:46

functions in the same way. But anything

51:48

that is giving you this kind of

51:50

hit in diminishing returns

51:52

has the same dynamic. Some people are more susceptible

51:55

to it than others. But what

51:57

I found liberating about Alan Kars

51:59

way of looking.

51:59

at the world. He's dead now, so I don't know why I'm talking

52:02

about him. But this model, rather than 12 steps,

52:05

was I

52:06

didn't have to, it didn't have to

52:08

be a problem with me. I wasn't broken.

52:10

It wasn't a,

52:13

and I mean,

52:15

you are the master here, and I am a mere

52:18

sensei in terms of the

52:20

level of alcoholism that we're talking about.

52:22

I didn't get to those kinds of depths. And maybe

52:25

if I had, then 12 steps would have

52:27

worked more effectively. But

52:30

I just remember thinking, so there's this

52:32

thing in my brain that says it would like a drink.

52:34

But the great thing is,

52:36

that thing doesn't

52:38

have any hands and legs, and it doesn't

52:40

have any money. So I don't have to give it

52:43

the drink that I want, actually, you know?

52:45

It's that function of drinking. Of course, I

52:47

think that I'm a drinker. Of course, a drinker would think that

52:49

they want to drink. But how liberating to know

52:51

that that's just, that's the game. That's

52:54

the game that the substance plays with you,

52:56

with everybody. Sure. That's the trick.

52:58

Anyway, so that's, I just thought that was interesting.

53:01

I mean, this also, when

53:02

you're talking about, oh, the

53:04

one year no beer,

53:06

and like, how would I go through life if

53:08

I wasn't drinking? And the

53:11

amount of nonsensical bullshit

53:13

that people's brains, our brains throw up

53:15

when we're thinking about, oh, but how would

53:18

I go out to dinner if I wasn't going to have a glass of wine?

53:20

How would I go out to the bar if I

53:22

wasn't going to drink with friends? And then

53:24

when you're not drinking, you just go, well, I just either

53:26

have a zero beer or I have a soda water, I have

53:29

whatever else I want. It's totally

53:31

fine. I have a Diet Coke. Well, you probably,

53:33

do you drink a, you wouldn't drink a fake

53:36

sweetener?

53:37

You know, sparkling

53:39

water, I'm good with that. Like, you know,

53:41

I don't know. I mean, I think the point

53:44

that you're trying to make though is,

53:46

we get caught up in our head

53:49

in this obsessive way

53:51

about how we're being perceived

53:53

by others. And once you kind

53:55

of step outside of that and you're like,

53:57

well, I went to the thing and I had my...

53:59

my Diet Coke or my sparkling water and

54:02

no one gave a shit because we

54:04

underestimate the extent to which people are self

54:06

obsessed, like they don't care. And

54:09

they're not thinking about themselves.

54:12

And we do think that the substance is giving us a lot

54:14

more fun than it is. That's the funny thing.

54:16

Like I did a month without booze a few

54:18

years ago and I had someone else was paying for

54:20

a business class flight from Sydney to LA. And

54:23

I was thinking 15 hours in

54:25

business class with all that free booze, and

54:27

I'm not gonna have a single sip. Like what a miserable

54:29

experience that's gonna be. I'm gonna

54:32

get to the lounge at the airport with all

54:34

the free booze. And I'm not gonna have a single drink.

54:36

It's gonna be misery. A lounge without booze

54:39

is just a room. I mean, all of a sudden I'm just

54:41

in a room, you know, whereas it's

54:43

a playground of pleasure and plenty when I can

54:45

have as many bourbon and coke as I want. But

54:48

of course, at the other end of the flight, I was like, oh, that

54:50

was great.

54:51

That was cool. That was really nice. I got to watch,

54:53

I got to read more than I would have. I got

54:55

to pay more attention to the movies and

54:57

enjoy them

54:58

more. It was completely illusory.

55:01

Which I want to bring this round to veganism

55:03

and to eating meat into the difficulty of

55:06

shaking that habit as well.

55:09

I don't know if you

55:10

heard Sam Harris name-checked

55:12

you in a recent chat that I had

55:15

with him. Have a listen.

55:17

Should you avoid any factory-farmed

55:19

products? Yeah, I mean, my answer here

55:21

won't satisfy

55:23

certainly any vegan. I

55:26

was vegetarian for six years and

55:28

then for another, I

55:31

don't know, I think a year after, some many

55:33

years after that. Every time I've been

55:35

a vegetarian, I feel like I've been

55:38

less healthy. Now you're

55:40

going to hear from all the vegetarians and vegans who

55:43

will

55:43

tell me I'm an idiot and that there's obviously

55:46

a straightforwardly healthy way to do both of those

55:48

things. That may be the case, but

55:51

the truth is, apart from a few

55:53

vegans who seem to have made

55:56

their veganism truly a full-time

55:58

job,

55:59

in the habit of seeing lots of vegans who

56:02

seem especially healthy. I just

56:05

honestly, you vegans have a problem if

56:08

you think you're advertising abundant good

56:10

health to everyone and

56:12

it's just readily apparent because I see

56:15

a lot of vegans who look like they're

56:17

suffering from their veganism. And

56:20

so it's, you know,

56:22

I leave Rich Roll out of this. But

56:25

if you watch Rich Roll videos, you just

56:27

see how much time and attention goes into him getting

56:29

his

56:29

nutrition. What do you make of that,

56:32

Rich? Oh,

56:36

Sam, I love you, Sam.

56:40

Yeah, how do I, so interesting.

56:44

I

56:45

mean, first of all, you know, I

56:48

have, you know, a relationship with

56:50

Sam, I have tons of respect for

56:52

Sam. I see him socially from time

56:54

to time, him and Annika, I

56:56

would consider not good friends,

56:59

but you know, sort of good

57:01

social acquaintances. And it's

57:03

funny because

57:06

that's

57:07

such a skewed

57:09

perspective. When I hear that

57:12

from my lived experience, I

57:15

don't know where he gets the idea

57:17

that I've made veganism my

57:20

full-time job. Like at this point, I've been

57:22

doing it, I've been

57:24

vegan for 16 years.

57:28

And it's so rote

57:30

for me now that it

57:32

doesn't feel like an inconvenience

57:34

in the least, let alone a full-time

57:37

occupation. Right. But that's because you're

57:39

a vegan. I mean, this is the same. I'm making it.

57:41

I got it. Yes. It's when the people on the outside

57:44

of the glass and the people who are inside the room,

57:47

the person who has not quit alcohol,

57:49

it seems unimaginably complicated

57:51

and difficult to navigate life without

57:53

drinking. And

57:55

to the person who's done it, it's completely easy.

57:57

And but I think there's a similar.

57:59

dynamic happening with

58:02

eating meat. And I mean, I don't play you Sam

58:04

in order to troll you or Sam. I play Sam

58:06

because he's articulating what I think is a very widespread

58:09

view that I must say I succumb

58:11

to myself where I go, you know,

58:13

I spent nine months not eating meat.

58:16

When I was in LA, I was pescatarian.

58:19

I put on a bit of weight. I was eating way too many carbs.

58:21

I wasn't doing it right. And

58:23

eventually I thought, Oh, look, I'll come back to this when

58:25

I figure it out, but I didn't subsequently

58:28

figure it out. So then I made a pact with myself

58:30

about not eating factory farmed meat and only

58:32

eating organic meat and not eating

58:34

meat when I'm at restaurants, but you know, eating

58:36

it and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And it becomes

58:38

like the self bargaining that was happening when

58:41

I was trying to avoid quitting alcohol and being like,

58:43

okay, I'll only drink on weekends. I'm only

58:45

going to have five drinks at a time, you know, whatever that

58:47

those rules might be. So

58:50

what are we missing?

58:51

I think that we

58:54

tend to overcomplicate

58:56

it in our minds. I've been

58:58

on an evolution with this.

59:01

At first it was about

59:04

losing weight and vanity. And

59:06

now it's become much more about the

59:08

broader concerns around sustainable

59:11

agriculture and animal suffering

59:14

and the like. And I've always,

59:16

but I've always kept it very simple, Josh,

59:19

like on some level eating, eating

59:22

plant-based is really

59:25

like popper food. Like I keep it basic,

59:27

like I eat tons of beans and lentils and

59:29

I eat veggie burritos and I

59:31

eat big salads. You know,

59:34

I benefit from the fact that my wife is a phenomenal

59:36

cook and she makes marvelous

59:39

meals, but you know, I also travel

59:42

a lot and I've been all over the world and

59:44

I don't spend a lot of time

59:46

prepping meals or, you know,

59:48

doing any of that. Like I've always

59:50

figured it out and that doesn't mean that I've

59:53

been

59:53

perfect in that regard, but

59:56

I still, you know, I'm 56, I feel good

59:59

in my body. I work out

1:00:01

and I'm able to maintain or

1:00:03

build muscle mass. Like it hasn't impaired

1:00:06

me in any particular way.

1:00:08

And I think in Sam's case, to speak

1:00:11

to that, I think that he is burdened

1:00:13

by a sense of ethical dilemma

1:00:20

because I think that he would like to

1:00:22

be vegan. And as he's spoken

1:00:25

about in his podcast, he

1:00:28

knows that issuing animal products

1:00:30

is the ethical choice to make. And

1:00:33

for some reason, he hasn't been able to do

1:00:35

it in a way where he feels like he's being

1:00:38

sustained in a healthy way. I've

1:00:40

offered

1:00:41

to help him. I'd be happy to help

1:00:43

him figure that out. Perhaps

1:00:45

he's genetically wired in a way where

1:00:47

it's not working for him. I can't speak to that. All

1:00:49

I can tell you is that I feel good

1:00:51

in my body. And as

1:00:54

long as I continue to feel good and my blood

1:00:56

work is fine and all of that, I'm gonna continue

1:00:58

to do it. But I also think we're in this weird

1:01:02

time right now where for

1:01:04

many years, decades ago, if you

1:01:06

wanted to eat vegan or plant-based,

1:01:09

there weren't really any

1:01:12

options that were at

1:01:14

least tasty from a culinary

1:01:17

perspective. You had to be a kind

1:01:19

of granola person in order to make it

1:01:21

work. And now we're

1:01:23

in this situation where there's all these

1:01:26

vegan alternatives, meat and dairy

1:01:28

analogs, and

1:01:30

a lot of the food companies have figured out

1:01:32

how to make certain products, if

1:01:35

not taste exactly like their

1:01:38

meat and dairy versions,

1:01:41

close enough, but

1:01:42

these foods are highly processed. And so you can

1:01:44

delude yourself into thinking like, oh, I'm eating

1:01:46

vegan, I'm healthy, but you're

1:01:48

really not

1:01:49

in any better of a position than you

1:01:51

would be if you were eating the real

1:01:54

thing. So it's never been easier

1:01:56

to be an unhealthy vegan person.

1:01:59

And so you kind of have to go back to the

1:02:02

basics, like are the foods that you're eating like

1:02:04

real food, whole foods? And

1:02:08

I think that takes it, that adds an

1:02:10

added layer of like

1:02:12

maybe complexity or confusion,

1:02:15

but it's actually pretty cheap to eat this way.

1:02:18

And I'm pretty content eating

1:02:21

these types of foods all the time. Go

1:02:23

ahead. It is interesting that you say, I mean,

1:02:25

I'm just thinking about the wide

1:02:28

availability of vegan foods and the fact that

1:02:30

you can go into a restaurant or

1:02:32

a cafe in any big

1:02:34

city in the, at least in the Anglo

1:02:36

world.

1:02:37

And you can say,

1:02:40

you're a vegan and they'll have an option for you.

1:02:43

And that didn't used to be the case, of course. But

1:02:47

I mean,

1:02:47

you can go and coach Sam Harris all you like,

1:02:49

but you can't coach the other several

1:02:52

billion people who think like

1:02:54

him and me who feel like, okay,

1:02:57

well,

1:02:57

rich people says it's easy, but when rich

1:02:59

goes to Italy and he's in

1:03:01

a little denominazione,

1:03:04

like village where they do things

1:03:06

the same way that they have done things for centuries

1:03:09

or millennia even, and

1:03:11

that involves cheeses and

1:03:13

that involves, you know, milk

1:03:16

products and dairy and honey and

1:03:18

things like that, what does he do? That

1:03:20

does sound like it would be hard. And it sounds

1:03:23

like to me, you would be missing something. It sounds to me

1:03:25

like I would very much be missing something if I was on a

1:03:27

road trip in France and I couldn't eat any cheese or

1:03:29

if I was on a road trip in Italy and I couldn't

1:03:31

eat any

1:03:32

prosciutto. Yeah.

1:03:34

I mean, I think that goes

1:03:36

back to your earlier point about not

1:03:38

being able to drink on your, you

1:03:40

know, business class flight from Sydney

1:03:43

to LA. And

1:03:45

I think I've gotten so much out of this lifestyle

1:03:47

that I don't look at it from that kind of martyred

1:03:51

perspective. And you

1:03:53

know, I've just found that

1:03:55

I've always managed to find a way and even if

1:03:58

I'm in Italy in some village. I

1:04:00

can get some form of gnocchi

1:04:04

or a pasta that's not made

1:04:06

with eggs or something like that.

1:04:08

Like I just never, I've never really,

1:04:11

like it's not always the most convenient,

1:04:13

but it's never been so burdensome where

1:04:15

I thought, this isn't worth it

1:04:17

or it's too difficult. And

1:04:20

my health is benefited from it. And I've

1:04:23

done it in a way where

1:04:25

it doesn't monopolize my life, it's not my

1:04:27

full-time job. And when Sam

1:04:29

talks about like, if you watch the

1:04:31

videos that Rich Roll makes, you realize it's

1:04:33

his full-time job. I'm not sure which videos he's

1:04:36

talking about. Like most of the videos that

1:04:38

I post are me sitting

1:04:40

in a chair talking to somebody in my

1:04:42

podcast. So. Yeah,

1:04:45

but he can see that deep inside,

1:04:47

you're tormented by your lack of people. Yeah,

1:04:49

I guess, I guess. I

1:04:52

mean, look, I'm sure it's easy. It's just,

1:04:54

it is one of those

1:04:55

things where like, you know,

1:04:57

I've tried. Sure, but you

1:04:59

have our mutual friend, Asher, I'm

1:05:01

sure would be happy to help you because he's

1:05:03

all about it. True, that's true.

1:05:06

Yeah, Asher is a TV, a popular TV

1:05:08

host, the host of The Bachelor. And let me just say

1:05:11

to, you know, put a kind of button

1:05:13

on this, Josh. You

1:05:15

know, I

1:05:16

made a promise to myself that

1:05:19

when I started this lifestyle,

1:05:22

that I would not be,

1:05:24

you know, overly dogmatic

1:05:27

about it. And should I start

1:05:29

to, you know, suffer health

1:05:32

wise in any way that I would,

1:05:34

you know, be objective about

1:05:36

the whole thing and give myself permission

1:05:38

to change course or pivot. And,

1:05:41

you know, that just hasn't

1:05:43

happened. And I would say that when we

1:05:45

look at food systems

1:05:48

and we look at the food that we're eating,

1:05:50

there's personal health. And I

1:05:52

think, you know, at

1:05:54

least, you know, in America, it's like, it's

1:05:56

all about like me and how I feel. Like,

1:05:58

do I feel good? Do I not feel good?

1:05:59

And that's important, of course, we

1:06:02

all wanna be healthy. I found that

1:06:04

eating a whole food plant-based diet has

1:06:07

given me the sustenance that I need,

1:06:09

such that it's powered me through athletic

1:06:12

endurance challenges that most people

1:06:15

are not interested in and will never

1:06:17

push themselves through. So

1:06:20

it satisfies the category of being

1:06:22

enough to,

1:06:24

you know,

1:06:26

make me the athlete that I aspire

1:06:29

to be. But beyond

1:06:31

that, I think it's important for all

1:06:33

of us to consider our

1:06:35

food choices and our consumer choices

1:06:37

more broadly in the context of how

1:06:39

they're affecting others, the planet,

1:06:42

et cetera. And a whole food

1:06:44

plant-based diet not only allows

1:06:46

you to avoid the processed foods

1:06:49

and other foods that are contributing

1:06:52

to unnecessary suffering and human

1:06:54

health in the form of the rise of all

1:06:56

of these, you know, chronic lifestyle

1:06:59

diseases that are debilitating millions of people

1:07:01

across the world in the

1:07:03

form of diabetes and

1:07:05

obesity and all these sorts of things. These

1:07:07

are illnesses of processed food.

1:07:10

These are not illnesses of eating animal products per

1:07:12

se. I mean, you know, Joe Rogan will,

1:07:14

you know, be able to eat as many animal products

1:07:16

and be fit and healthy

1:07:19

too, right?

1:07:20

Yeah, but I think that there's a

1:07:22

longer conversation that's probably

1:07:25

better had with nutritionists

1:07:27

and doctors and scientists around

1:07:29

the impact of excessive saturated

1:07:32

fat intake

1:07:34

into your diet, et cetera, that are contributing

1:07:37

to heart disease, et cetera. And so, you know,

1:07:39

I'm- But you can get a lot of saturated fat from coconut

1:07:41

milk or whatever substitutes you might

1:07:43

be using. Yeah, it's different.

1:07:45

Or, you know, I don't want to get too sidetracked

1:07:47

on that. But like, my saturated

1:07:50

fat intake is so much lower. And

1:07:52

then again, just to get into the, then

1:07:56

there's the environmental concerns, like the impact

1:07:58

of the, you know, that we're making

1:08:00

and how are these foods made and where are they coming from

1:08:03

and what is that doing to our environment? And

1:08:06

to opt out of this factory

1:08:09

farming insanity that

1:08:11

is creating all of this suffering

1:08:14

for no other reason than perhaps a karmic

1:08:17

reason. So not participate

1:08:20

in that is something

1:08:22

that

1:08:25

I feel good about. And it's not that eating plant-based

1:08:27

obviates you from harm or anything like

1:08:30

that. I'm not trying to overstate the case, but

1:08:34

we vote with our dollar and we do that with the

1:08:36

food that we eat and the other products that

1:08:38

we, the companies that

1:08:40

we patronize.

1:08:42

Yeah, I think it's insightful to notice

1:08:45

the analogy between

1:08:47

the Italian or French road trip

1:08:51

and the business class flight

1:08:54

because I do, I

1:08:57

hadn't really thought about that before, but I

1:08:59

myself do when I think about

1:09:02

being,

1:09:03

becoming vegetarian,

1:09:05

think about that one great steak that

1:09:10

I have once or twice a year at some fancy

1:09:12

restaurant or that incredible meal that I

1:09:14

have on the Greek islands where they're bringing

1:09:16

me sardines and burrata

1:09:19

and fresh tomatoes and whatever

1:09:21

else it might be. But

1:09:24

the fear of losing

1:09:27

that is not a good justification for

1:09:29

having eaten ground beef in my

1:09:31

tacos last night instead of just having beans.

1:09:34

You know what I mean? It's the same thing when you're

1:09:36

considering, yeah. It's

1:09:39

not, it's no- I'm talking about drinking

1:09:41

booze every single day because I might wanna

1:09:43

have a glass of champagne at my daughter's wedding

1:09:46

in 20 years.

1:09:47

Exactly, it's exactly the same

1:09:49

thing. Like when somebody's getting sober

1:09:52

and they say, in nine months, I

1:09:54

have to go to this bachelor party in Vegas,

1:09:56

how am I ever gonna get through that without drinking?

1:09:59

Or I'm- I'm going to go to Italy when I retire and

1:10:02

I want to be able to eat X, Y, and Z. Yeah,

1:10:05

but what are you eating today? What are you eating tomorrow?

1:10:07

Like that's, you know, it's like instead of focusing

1:10:11

on

1:10:11

peak experiences and the outer edges of, you know,

1:10:19

these possible experiences that you

1:10:21

want to have in your life, like let's focus

1:10:23

on the day in and the day out.

1:10:25

Yeah, and cross that bridge when you come from it, you

1:10:29

know, you may not want it. I mean, now I wouldn't, I

1:10:31

would previously have thought I can't drive

1:10:33

around the South of France without, you know, drinking

1:10:36

red wine with each meal as well. But now

1:10:38

I do that and that's not a problem at all.

1:10:40

And am I missing something? I guess

1:10:43

culturally I'm missing out on the culture of

1:10:45

French wine drinking, but that's not something

1:10:47

that I value in my life at the moment. So I don't

1:10:49

miss it. I mean, I think that just to wrap up

1:10:52

on this point, the point that Sam is

1:10:55

making about the PR

1:10:57

is that there are people like you

1:11:00

and like my friend, Asha, who's also a prominent

1:11:02

Australian vegan who look fantastic,

1:11:04

who like obviously

1:11:06

have their shit together physically

1:11:09

and are in peak form. And

1:11:12

then there's the kind of gray,

1:11:15

pale, nose ring, dreadlocked 22

1:11:20

year old girl vegan who is not doing

1:11:22

the publicity any favors. And

1:11:25

I mean,

1:11:27

does he have a point there? Or is that, because

1:11:30

there is some kind of

1:11:32

publicity problem

1:11:34

with veganism. Yeah,

1:11:37

I would at a tipping point where

1:11:39

morally everybody, morally anybody

1:11:42

who thinks it through understands

1:11:44

that

1:11:45

this is probably the easiest example

1:11:47

of something that we're all doing that in a hundred

1:11:49

years time, people are gonna look back on and go, I

1:11:51

can't believe that people thought that that was okay to

1:11:53

do the way that factory farming functions.

1:11:56

Sure. Yeah, I mean. So I

1:11:58

think where we have this. this cognitive

1:12:01

dissonance and maybe part of the impediment

1:12:03

is a preconception

1:12:05

that we have about what veganism entails

1:12:08

and does to our bodies.

1:12:10

Yeah, I mean, I think that's an

1:12:12

astute observation. Certainly,

1:12:16

factory farming universally, it's

1:12:19

a bipartisan issue. We're

1:12:22

all in favor of the eradication

1:12:25

of factory farming. And I think

1:12:27

that deep down, nobody likes

1:12:29

the idea that animals have to suffer for

1:12:32

our food, but we've made this decision

1:12:34

that it's sort

1:12:37

of an unfortunate necessity

1:12:39

for human health. And when somebody

1:12:42

steps outside of that and says, actually,

1:12:44

you

1:12:45

don't have to do that at all and you can

1:12:47

be healthy, that

1:12:49

is either sort of

1:12:52

received welcome in a welcome

1:12:55

way by a certain small sector

1:12:57

of the population and another

1:13:00

perhaps larger

1:13:01

swath of the world will

1:13:04

be threatened by that because that is

1:13:07

a challenge to their value set and it

1:13:09

requires them to look inward and question

1:13:12

this assumption that they've made that

1:13:15

eating animals is a necessity,

1:13:17

which obviates any kind of ethical

1:13:20

considerations around that. So

1:13:22

that becomes a sticky wicket, I think. And

1:13:24

then to your point around publicity,

1:13:28

I think that vegans are often

1:13:31

their own

1:13:31

worst publicists and there's a real

1:13:33

problem within the movement in terms

1:13:36

of how this lifestyle is

1:13:38

communicated and advocated

1:13:41

in that

1:13:43

it's inherently a lifestyle that's

1:13:46

about compassion.

1:13:48

And yet there's sort

1:13:50

of an acerbic tone

1:13:52

of judgment and condescension

1:13:55

that is levied from

1:13:57

certain aspects of that community at other.

1:13:59

that is not helpful. And

1:14:02

I also think within the vegan plant-based

1:14:05

community, there's a lot of infighting

1:14:08

and argumentation about how

1:14:10

to communicate the benefits of this

1:14:12

lifestyle or what's important and what's

1:14:14

not that hinders

1:14:18

the progress of it and alienates,

1:14:22

many, many people out there. And

1:14:24

there's an interesting parallel between, at

1:14:26

least in the United States, democratic

1:14:31

and Republican politics

1:14:34

in the way they mirror each

1:14:36

other, in the sense that like, vegans

1:14:39

are sort of like Democrats, they're always fighting

1:14:41

with each other, they're arguing about what their

1:14:43

talking points are. The

1:14:45

right wing,

1:14:47

they've got it all in lockstep, they're

1:14:49

always on point with what they're saying, and

1:14:51

that would mimic the more kind of carnivore,

1:14:53

paleo perspective when

1:14:56

it comes to diet. And so I think the

1:14:58

infighting within the plant-based community

1:15:01

and the different factions

1:15:03

and perspectives

1:15:07

end up at

1:15:09

times, alienating people

1:15:11

who might be curious about

1:15:13

it otherwise. And so I've thought a lot about

1:15:16

how to be the best advocate for this lifestyle.

1:15:19

And I've really abandoned trying

1:15:21

to convince anybody that they

1:15:23

should do what I do. Like I'm not in the business

1:15:26

of trying to convince people that

1:15:28

they should live their life or eat the way that

1:15:30

I do. And that's very much

1:15:32

an

1:15:33

outgrowth of what

1:15:36

I've learned in 12-step. Like in

1:15:38

12-step, you don't tell people what

1:15:40

to do, you don't give them advice, you

1:15:42

share your experience. So I'm happy

1:15:44

to share my experience, if that's

1:15:46

meaningful to somebody else and they can

1:15:49

extract something from that that's beneficial

1:15:51

to them, that's fantastic.

1:15:53

If somebody asks me about why I eat

1:15:55

the way that I eat or what it does

1:15:58

for me or doesn't do for me, happy to talk to you.

1:15:59

about it, but I don't stand in judgment

1:16:02

of anybody else's choices. I'm

1:16:04

not taking anyone else's inventory. I

1:16:07

would much prefer to just

1:16:09

pursue my

1:16:12

life and try to live

1:16:14

well and be a lighthouse,

1:16:17

to just stand in my strength and attract

1:16:19

people who are vibrating

1:16:22

on my wavelength and are

1:16:24

possibly receptive to what I have to

1:16:26

say. But I'm not out there banging

1:16:29

any kind of drum. That's just not the way

1:16:31

to win a war of ideas from my perspective. Be

1:16:37

the change you want to see in the world,

1:16:39

as Ghandi said. Yeah, just go out and live

1:16:41

a kick-ass life and be like an example

1:16:44

for other people. As I'm trying to think through

1:16:46

what's working and what works and what doesn't

1:16:48

work on someone like

1:16:51

me, I would regard myself as being the cohort

1:16:53

that's most winnable.

1:16:54

The cohort that

1:16:57

is basically sold

1:17:00

on the morality of it. What

1:17:02

derails me sometimes is the

1:17:05

number of arguments, as

1:17:07

you just said from the vegan side,

1:17:10

some of which are of varying quality.

1:17:13

And our brains will naturally

1:17:16

latch onto the weakest argument

1:17:18

and then try to take that one down and then

1:17:21

feel like we've done a good job of dismissing all the

1:17:23

arguments because we've dismissed the weakest

1:17:25

one. So it happened just a

1:17:27

moment ago when you were talking about all the

1:17:30

health problems from eating too much saturated

1:17:32

fat. I

1:17:34

smell a rat there and I go, well, hang on.

1:17:37

What you're actually talking about is the overconsumption

1:17:39

of processed food and

1:17:41

having too much saturated fat and not enough lean

1:17:44

protein, all of which are manageable within

1:17:46

the context of a healthy carnivorous,

1:17:49

omnivorous diet. And then

1:17:51

I think, well, because I've made that distinction, therefore

1:17:53

I can skip merrily on my

1:17:56

way and not worry about the other arguments

1:17:58

for veganism that I regard as being more

1:18:00

sound, which are the more kind of Peter Singer

1:18:03

based moral arguments about whether

1:18:05

or not we've reached a stage of human

1:18:08

conscious evolution that makes it untenable

1:18:11

for us to treat other sentient

1:18:13

creatures in simply

1:18:16

as objects of our own use anymore.

1:18:21

And yeah, if there was a clarity, I think if there

1:18:23

was a clarity of messaging around

1:18:26

the moral question,

1:18:29

then maybe that would be clearer. I don't know. I want

1:18:32

to get to first

1:18:36

date questions, which I will pepper at

1:18:38

you in a kind of a Rorschach

1:18:41

test of random questions and you could just

1:18:43

say the first thing that comes into your mind. But before we

1:18:45

get to those,

1:18:48

I'm just interested in

1:18:51

what you think of your

1:18:52

goals and role as being

1:18:54

at the moment. Like are you an athlete?

1:18:56

Are you an activist? Are you an interviewer? Are

1:18:58

you a guru? You were just talking

1:19:01

about people vibrating on your wavelength.

1:19:03

Like what is the...

1:19:05

What is patrol at this point? Definitely

1:19:08

not a guru. Definitely not a guru. Yeah,

1:19:10

I mean, it's

1:19:13

a curious question. I try

1:19:16

not to

1:19:19

overly identify in any kind

1:19:21

of particular silo. I

1:19:25

am athletic. I'm not competing

1:19:28

as an athlete right now. Does that make

1:19:31

me an athlete? Does it not? I'm

1:19:33

not sure. All I can tell you is that

1:19:37

in terms of goals,

1:19:40

there are certainly creative

1:19:42

projects that I'm trying to realize right now,

1:19:45

but I'm not the person who's

1:19:47

like, I'm doing all of this to work

1:19:49

towards this ultimate thing.

1:19:51

I have my eyes on this

1:19:54

prize off in the distance. I just feel

1:19:57

so incredibly grateful.

1:20:00

to be able to do

1:20:03

what I get to do every day, which is like

1:20:06

have amazing conversations with fascinating

1:20:08

people who inspire me and educate

1:20:11

me in different ways. And of

1:20:13

course we all want our platforms to grow

1:20:16

and reach more people. And

1:20:18

my ego will get caught up in that as much

1:20:20

as the next person. But

1:20:22

the truth of the matter Josh is that like

1:20:25

if it was lights out tomorrow, like it

1:20:28

was a life well lived. Like I'm just, I'm

1:20:30

so nourished in what I get to do today.

1:20:32

And so like sort of, you know, sort

1:20:34

of semi-shocked that

1:20:37

I get to do this thing and support my family

1:20:39

in doing it, that it doesn't

1:20:42

necessarily need to be anything more than

1:20:44

what it is right now. And in terms of like

1:20:47

how people perceive me as

1:20:49

an athlete, as a podcaster, as

1:20:51

an author, or whatever it is, that's

1:20:54

their business. Like I try to not

1:20:56

get caught up in what that might

1:20:58

look like. I guess, you know, in

1:21:00

terms of the amount of time that I spend on certain

1:21:02

things, I'm probably most

1:21:05

appropriately labeled as a podcaster because

1:21:07

that's how I invest most of my time.

1:21:10

But I'm working on a new book and I would

1:21:12

like to do a race at some point in the future

1:21:14

if I can get my back sorted out. And I've

1:21:17

got four kids and I have

1:21:21

the privilege of being able to do lots

1:21:23

of different things and be

1:21:25

exposed to many different interesting

1:21:28

experiences. And I look at it

1:21:30

all as, you know, the real

1:21:32

privilege, I guess, in all of this, I guess, what

1:21:35

I'm

1:21:35

driving at is I'm in this unbelievable

1:21:37

position where I get to choose how

1:21:39

to invest my curiosity. And, you

1:21:42

know, that is a gift that not many

1:21:44

people

1:21:45

get in their life and

1:21:47

I'm very aware of that. And so how I

1:21:50

choose to deploy that curiosity is

1:21:52

something that I, you know, take very

1:21:54

seriously. And right now it's

1:21:57

podcasting and this book thing. And, you

1:21:59

know, we'll see. where that goes, but I

1:22:01

don't get caught up in five-year plans or

1:22:03

10-year plans or anything like that. I'd

1:22:05

be curious how you think about that. Five-year

1:22:09

plans and 10-year plans?

1:22:12

You're like, what is your goal? Where

1:22:14

do you see yourself in five years? Where

1:22:17

are you taking all of this, Josh?

1:22:19

You know what I mean?

1:22:24

My answer is easier

1:22:26

to the question that I actually asked you rather

1:22:29

than the one that you've turned it into, in the sense

1:22:31

of what are you up to?

1:22:35

I'm up to having conversations

1:22:37

that help people feel

1:22:40

a bit more sane in

1:22:42

the world and that move things

1:22:44

forward in a way that's constructive

1:22:47

and that avoids mischaracterization

1:22:50

of people's ideas and that creates

1:22:52

a stronger and more robust

1:22:55

demos in which we can have conversations

1:22:58

and figure out problems and create

1:23:02

solutions to the

1:23:05

shared problems that we face rather than squabbling

1:23:07

with each other over irrelevant things

1:23:10

or over misunderstandings about

1:23:12

each other's positions. I'm on a mission against

1:23:15

tribalism and identitarianism

1:23:18

and in favor of the greatest amount

1:23:20

of compassion and intellectual

1:23:22

empathy as well as emotional empathy that

1:23:25

we can muster to come together

1:23:29

and

1:23:30

understand each other and be well informed about

1:23:32

the world. So that is for me a very

1:23:34

simple box in which I can sit and then

1:23:37

the questions about exactly where I will

1:23:39

be in five or ten years all

1:23:42

stem from that in a way that I feel

1:23:44

is more consistent for me than if I

1:23:46

was running ultra marathons and doing a podcast

1:23:49

and being an activist, if you know what I mean.

1:23:51

Yeah, no, I get that. I get that. Let's

1:23:54

talk

1:23:55

about first. Let's do first eight questions. I

1:23:57

want it. We've only scratched the surface. I mean,

1:23:59

I'm I'm not, I have a bazillion other

1:24:01

questions that I could ask you about your

1:24:04

life and everything that's going on in the world. We haven't even

1:24:06

touched on like, you know, culture wars

1:24:08

stuff or anything like that. But what is, what

1:24:10

is getting, what's happening now

1:24:12

that in 20 years, people will look

1:24:15

back on and laugh about.

1:24:17

Laugh about or, or be

1:24:20

surprised. Like,

1:24:23

like, find humor, humorous, you think? No,

1:24:26

you can take it either way.

1:24:28

Like either shake your head and disbelief

1:24:30

or have a chuckle.

1:24:33

Yeah, that's

1:24:35

a tough one. Well, I think, I think certainly,

1:24:38

you know, and this is my, you

1:24:40

know, I'm going to be Mr. Vegan guy, like the

1:24:42

idea that we eat animals, you know, I

1:24:44

think in maybe not 20 years, but

1:24:47

perhaps in 50 years, people will look

1:24:49

back and wonder, young

1:24:51

people will wonder like, wait, you actually

1:24:53

raised these animals and slaughtered them or,

1:24:56

you know, all of that. That's how you got your food.

1:24:58

I think that will seem weird with

1:25:01

the advent of, of, you

1:25:03

know, the cultured meat movement, which is

1:25:05

well underway right now. So I think

1:25:07

that's certainly a possibility. I

1:25:10

mean, my hope is that

1:25:12

the institution of democracy,

1:25:14

at least in the United States, will survive

1:25:17

this strange moment that we find ourselves

1:25:20

in and perhaps we'll look back on

1:25:22

this time curiously

1:25:25

as a, as a very strange

1:25:27

moment in, in our history.

1:25:30

And that, you know, the ship will be

1:25:32

sufficiently righted and we'll be able

1:25:35

to restore some level

1:25:37

of confidence in institutions

1:25:39

and find our way back to reasoned

1:25:42

civil discourse. But

1:25:45

I don't know. I think that that could go either way.

1:25:48

Yeah. Would you rather live

1:25:50

full-time in an RV

1:25:52

or full-time on a sailboat?

1:26:02

Probably an RV, because I don't know

1:26:04

how to sail right now. Although I love the water.

1:26:06

If I knew how to sail, I'd probably say a sailboat.

1:26:09

I think we can teach you how to sail. I think we can teach

1:26:11

you how to sail. If I knew how

1:26:13

to sail, I'd probably say a sailboat. I

1:26:16

think that's within the realm of your ability. I'm not gonna

1:26:18

put you on the sailboat today and

1:26:20

like keep you there for, and you're not allowed to

1:26:22

dock or learn. I think you'll

1:26:24

have some- I think

1:26:25

the ports of call for the sailboat are

1:26:28

much more intriguing and exotic

1:26:30

than like the RV, kind

1:26:33

of like place where you sleep, you

1:26:35

pull over off the side of the highway to sleep. So

1:26:37

I think sailing sounds a little

1:26:39

bit sexy or more inspiring. Yeah,

1:26:42

what's a cool place that you haven't been to that you

1:26:44

wanna go to?

1:26:47

Japan.

1:26:50

My 19 year old daughter just got back from three

1:26:53

weeks in Japan with her boyfriend.

1:26:56

Changed her life. I've always wanted to visit

1:26:59

and have yet to go there. What's

1:27:02

the worst movie you've seen?

1:27:06

I love me a bad movie. Like

1:27:09

Bad Bad or like So Bad It's

1:27:11

Good? I think, no, I don't think

1:27:13

this means So Bad It's Good. I'm usually

1:27:15

asking for like the least enjoyable film,

1:27:18

not one that's so mad like him. Oh

1:27:20

man, I'm

1:27:21

gonna have to really think about

1:27:23

that.

1:27:25

I see a lot of movies. Well, what's

1:27:27

a recent one that you walked out of going, oh,

1:27:29

that was a dud.

1:27:37

Oh man, am I really gonna say this on a podcast?

1:27:44

I did not enjoy Avatar. Oh,

1:27:47

there's a second one. Wow.

1:27:50

And I know the Cameron's and

1:27:53

so I feel bad and I feel like

1:27:56

the themes of the movie I appreciate,

1:27:59

but I had a really hard time.

1:27:59

hard time with

1:28:01

the CGI nature of

1:28:04

everything. And I'm not a Marvel guy. Well,

1:28:06

he is an entirely CGI film. Are you aware of this

1:28:08

going on? Did you know that it was like

1:28:10

four hours? Yes, I did

1:28:13

know that. I don't. What is

1:28:15

this? I thought I was gonna get real flying

1:28:17

animals.

1:28:18

I don't like the

1:28:20

3D glasses experience

1:28:23

and where everything just looks

1:28:25

so

1:28:26

not real. It takes me out

1:28:29

of the narrative and it made it impossible for

1:28:31

me to enjoy the movie.

1:28:35

That's so interesting. Because I was so distracted by

1:28:37

the rest of it. Were you expecting

1:28:40

to enjoy it? I

1:28:44

went in with, I

1:28:47

tried to go in with as blank a

1:28:49

slate as possible, but no, I wasn't

1:28:51

expecting it to be amazing.

1:28:53

But I

1:28:55

struggled with that. I was expecting it to

1:28:57

be so bored.

1:28:58

I just caught it just before

1:29:00

I was about to go off in the theaters. I was like,

1:29:02

if I'm ever gonna see it, I have to see it on a

1:29:05

gigantic screen in 3D. So let's

1:29:07

go and do it. And I was like, I don't wanna sit through

1:29:10

the flying blue things. And

1:29:13

I'm like, oh my goodness. I don't wanna spend three

1:29:15

hours. So I'm looking at my watch after two

1:29:17

hours going. I'm only halfway through.

1:29:20

And I loved it. I didn't get bored at all. You did? Yeah.

1:29:23

It was interesting. But I think it's because I

1:29:25

had such low expectations. I was like, it

1:29:27

wasn't boring.

1:29:28

It was really impressive.

1:29:30

It was, I liked the story.

1:29:33

I liked the big flying things. It was

1:29:35

like being on a little ride.

1:29:37

I thought it was great. I didn't like TAR.

1:29:41

Oh man. I thought TAR was the best

1:29:43

movie of the year. Wow.

1:29:46

I think

1:29:48

in five or 10 years, we'll be looking back

1:29:51

and really having a different

1:29:53

perspective on that movie. I thought that movie was

1:29:55

brilliant.

1:29:57

It may have been also that I saw it later.

1:30:00

and I was kind of tired. And

1:30:03

I saw it a second time, I

1:30:05

enjoyed it even more the second time. You went back?

1:30:08

Yeah, I love tar.

1:30:10

Wow, you're a glutton for

1:30:14

punishment. That's incredible. I encourage

1:30:16

you to go back and- There is absolutely

1:30:19

no- When you feel fresh. I will ever watch

1:30:21

that movie again. I'm not gonna, I couldn't

1:30:23

even, I wouldn't be able to sit through

1:30:25

the 13 minute long musical

1:30:27

credit sequence at the beginning that they forced you to sit

1:30:29

through. Like this is some 1942 melodrama before

1:30:33

you even get to anything happening in the movie. I'd walk

1:30:35

out within 90 seconds. You know that

1:30:38

there was a, there's

1:30:40

a purposeful meaning behind that. I'm

1:30:43

sure there is.

1:30:44

What's the purposeful meaning?

1:30:46

I think it speaks to, one

1:30:50

of the themes of the movie is,

1:30:52

is putting to the test the lie

1:30:55

or the idea of the, the

1:30:59

sole genius, the self

1:31:01

invented genius who stands

1:31:03

apart from the rest of humanity.

1:31:05

And I think Todd Field in making this movie

1:31:08

was saying, not only is

1:31:11

Lydia tar, not

1:31:14

the sort of genius

1:31:16

fabricated character that

1:31:18

she, she's a product of her own self

1:31:21

creation. Like her stature

1:31:22

and sort of passion in

1:31:29

that world is the result of so

1:31:31

many people behind the scenes, all of the

1:31:33

musicians, all of these people that helped

1:31:35

to create the

1:31:38

work

1:31:38

that makes her the

1:31:41

person that she is in that world. Similarly,

1:31:44

Todd Field right up front in making this

1:31:46

movie is saying, look at how

1:31:48

many people it takes to make a movie like this, just

1:31:50

because my name as the director is

1:31:54

front and center on this whole thing. Let's be

1:31:56

clear at the very beginning, like I

1:31:58

want you to appreciate. like the thousands

1:32:00

of people that contribute to, you know,

1:32:03

a work such as this. And I thought that that

1:32:06

was a cool creative way

1:32:08

of like, of like, you know, basically,

1:32:12

exploring that, that theme that plays

1:32:14

out over the course of that film. That

1:32:17

is one interpretation. I like

1:32:19

that one. The alternative interpretation

1:32:21

is it's a way to virtue

1:32:23

signal to audiences about how creative

1:32:26

and important this movie is. And

1:32:28

that he's going to force you to... I will grant

1:32:30

you there's a level of self-importance in it. Exactly.

1:32:33

Strap yourself in because this is an epic, which

1:32:35

is going shooting for the stars, and he's going to win all the

1:32:37

Oscars. Just sit there and endure

1:32:40

these five minutes before I start

1:32:42

pulling my pants down and showing you

1:32:44

my dick. It's like, okay, we get

1:32:46

it, Todd. We get it. You're being

1:32:48

very, very fierce. That Berlin

1:32:50

apartment was pretty dope, though. It

1:32:52

was. It was a lovely apartment. I loved that. What's

1:32:56

the worst advice that someone's given you, Rich?

1:33:07

That's a tough one. I think

1:33:11

I would say... G'day,

1:33:16

humans. If you'd like to hear Rich's answer to

1:33:18

the worst advice he's ever been given, and my reaction

1:33:20

to that answer, you can get your own dedicated

1:33:23

premium podcast feed for free. At uncomfortableconversations.substack.com.

1:33:27

Listen. That'll generate your unique

1:33:30

podcast feed to keep, and it'll

1:33:32

always contain more content than the feed that you are

1:33:34

listening to does. If not, have

1:33:36

a great week, and I'll see you next time.