Latest / Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps / "Booze, Meat & Ultramarathons" with Rich Roll

Transcript

"Booze, Meat & Ultramarathons" with Rich Roll · Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps

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  Get a humans welcome in the safe space and dangerous ideas the one the only rich roll the crowd
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  goes wild as rich walks into the uncomfortable conversations arena athlete activist podcast guru I
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  ask him if he's a guru you left to listen to the episode to find out his answer rich if you don't
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  know him is one of the most influential people in the land of the pubs he's well what is he he's
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  and he's a best selling author that's how he first came to many people's attention because about a
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  decade ago he published a memoir called finding ultra rejecting middle age becoming one of the
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  world's fittest men and discovering myself so he's an ultra man like these are you know ultra
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  competitions they take a marathon and then like a you know a superhuman what do you call like
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  iron man thing and then they go even further the most difficult thing that you can do to the
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  human body in the world you know three day long hundreds and hundreds of kilometers of swimming
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  and cycling and running and I mean just to me this is hell this is the worst thing you could buy
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  if you gave me the choice of doing an ultra marathon or an ultra man I mean an ultra man competition
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  and then maybe or you could kill me I would think long and hard about which one and they may even
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  be the same outcome either way depending on my level of fitness and what's interesting about
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  riches he didn't get into this until he was in middle age he was a he was an entertainment lawyer
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  a drunk like just skimming along you know highly educated went to Cornell and Stanford and you know
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  basically drank his life away in his 20s and then ate a lot in his 30s and as he was about to turn
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  40 was like hmm am I going to keep going on this trajectory he was like no I'm going to do the
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  exact complete 100% opposite thing and has now built a massive global empire of sort of rich
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  books and podcasts and recipes and ways of life he's full on vegan he has he's he is a he has a
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  lifestyle brand I mean if you don't know rich but you know uh Gwyneth Paltrow's goop uh that was
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  that's an unkind analogy that would be a very unkind analogy to make and that's why I'm not going
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  to make it right now uh nonetheless that's probably all you need to know about rich if you don't know
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  if you do know him you know what an articulate and thoughtful person he is and what an inspiring
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  person he is I mean his podcast the rich role podcast which has now branched out from being
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  just about wellness into being about all I mean interviewing people who are who have interesting
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  ideas about all spheres of human creativity and knowledge and understanding um it's a wonderful
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  playground to dip yourself into and I was super stoked to be able to sit down with rich virtually
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  of course and have this conversation hope you enjoy it with the one and only rich role
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  little sideline just chronic lower back problems L4 L5 sciatic pain I'm trying to sort of out right
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  now so haven't been able to do the running that I would prefer to be doing right now
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  would prefer to be doing or feel like you ought to be doing uh that's a that's a very insightful
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  question I think I've I've let go of the ought to should aspect of it um there is a part of it
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  that I just love doing and when I can't do it I don't quite feel like myself um it's not really
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  about performance goals anymore it's just about the joy of doing it uh and I miss that part of
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  it right now and where is the joy like at what point of the process is the joy
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  well I think like I see I see like if I looked at your face when you're finishing an ultramarathon
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  where as you crossing the finish line your face does not look contented you know fair enough
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  like oh I love running a marathon I'm like really because I've been at the finish line of
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  marathons and not a single person look happy well I think there's uh there's two different things
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  happening here I think the day-to-day kind of training once you get past sort of getting into shape
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  like decent shape for doing the thing there is a joyful component to it um that is very primal
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  like just you alone on a trail just the voice uh you know the sound of the sound of your breath
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  and just the silence and you know being alone with your thoughts it is kind of an active meditation
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  and uh it just you know it makes me like in the way you know like finishing just a daily kind of
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  training run makes me feel like whole you know I don't know I always finish those runs I feel more
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  in my body and I feel clarity in my mind and I also am able to like problem solve and
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  relieve stress there's all these benefits you know that I experience as a result of that kind of
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  endeavor of course doing a race like that is a different thing it's a very difficult thing but there's
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  a satisfaction uh and a joy that comes with completing something that perhaps you didn't think
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  you were capable of doing that has a long-term impact of course in the moment of of doing it
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  it's not it's not joy in the conventional sense of how you would think of it but in the aftermath of
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  it there's a there's a sense of accomplishment that I think is quite beneficial you know I don't
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  I don't think like perpetually running ultra-marathons is a recipe for for longevity and optimal health
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  but you know it has its place yeah I mean I'm interested that you admit that the joy that joy
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  is not present during the process but the thing is worth having done I mean it's a bit like it
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  yeah or yeah like it in that wrong no I mean you know there's that thing of you sign up for
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  something really hard that's scary enough that you take the preparation seriously and then when
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  you're you know on the starting line there's butterflies and excitement and then in the middle of
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  it as soon as it starts to get hard you're cursing yourself and wondering like why in the hell did I
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  sign up for this how can I get out of this all of that kind of stuff but I think you know that that
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  struggle that kind of grappling you know with your own limitations and putting yourself intentionally
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  in a difficult situation where there's no easy way out is how we grow right and there is real value
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  in that and and I'm not sure that society is appropriately configured around you know challenging
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  ourselves in that way otherwise we wouldn't see this explosion in not only marathons and triathlons
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  but like the whole ultra world I mean that started out as you know just a rag tag group of people
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  who would pitch tents you know out in the woods to you know go run anonymously you know some race
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  that no one's ever heard of and no one will ever hear of and now like it's kind of entered
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  the the popular zeitgeist or you know vocabulary of kind of things to sign up for so you know to what
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  do we account that right like people need that in their life as uncomfortable as it is because
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  they're extracting some kind of value out of it I mean anything that's worth doing is probably hard
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  right and so that process of you sign up for it you're excited about it then you reach the
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  duct depth of the sole moment of the whole project where you think why the hell did I do this
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  and then you emerge victorious and you're ultimately satisfied and exhausted like that's the process
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  of writing a book that's the process of putting together a one man stand up show that's the process
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  of making a movie that's the process of doing anything difficult there's always the
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  process the actual doing of it is always full of moments that you dislike but you think in agriculture
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  I mean it's the process of having kids in a way isn't it so I wonder whether or not the rise in
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  interest in ultra marathons and marathons is partly I don't know an easy sort of psychologically
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  containable way to understand goals and a kind almost a manageable goal in a way I suppose yeah
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  I mean I think there is starting a startup you know it's easier than sure it's it's something
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  that has a defined period in time and it defines it can make it happen it will end and you will
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  either finish or not and along the way you're going to be alive you're you're going to have to grapple
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  you know with the dark you know recesses of the sole and you're either going to come out on the
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  other side of that having you know you know sort of proudly battled with it or you will have
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  faltered either way you're going to learn something about yourself and if sitting on the couch and
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  just watching Netflix all day in your super comfy condo was a recipe to happiness then you know
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  we wouldn't see the kind of explosion in you know these sorts of events from Spartan to ultra
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  marathons like I do think that there is something missing that we're seeking that that speaks to
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  what it is that that makes us human that's outside of the incessant marketing messages that are
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  telling us that you know the the fancy car or the new job or you know the the the kind of luxury
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  vacation is going to satisfy and I find that very interesting like right now the big thing is
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  is these dark retreats right where you go and you you lock yourself in a dark room for multiple days
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  and you pay for that like you know where did that come from you don't know about this
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  how have I missed the doctorate you haven't you haven't heard about this so this became
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  part of the the kind of you know popular parlance because Aaron Rogers who's a you know well-known
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  NFL quarterback decided that he was going to go into the dark room to try to figure out whether
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  he was going to stay in the NFL for another year or not and there's a couple places across the
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  U.S. one in particular in Oregon where yes you go into this room for I think it's like four days
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  and they slide food once a day you know through this sort of little latch so no like it's
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  into the room and you're just alone with your thoughts you know
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  fucking latch read yes I mean that's what we do was that's being we are paying for solitary confinement
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  Josh so from you know what do we extract from you know the the rising popularity of this as a
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  choice to how to spend our our vacation time I mean we I guess we extract the assumption that
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  Gitmo should have been bigger we should have expanded on the day to more and more
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  jihadis and you are new tourist destination that exactly an experiential yeah vacation yeah we
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  were sending the wrong people there we should have been sending aspirational NFL you know quarterbacks
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  who want to figure out what they're doing with them that's amazing so how long do you
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  expand in one of these cells I think the the typical stay is four days so I have a friend
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  Colin O'Brady who who's a adventure athlete who's done it he's getting ready to go back in for
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  a second time I think he did it recently and reported back to me how amazing it was how revelatory
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  it was just to be you know you when you can't escape your mind Josh is there any scarier place to be
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  no that's why I'm not going to be doing a dark room right right that's but so I mean these are
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  anyone who's done some kind of silent meditation retreat like I've been on year you know
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  your five night depack Chopra Southern California thing where you know one of these nobody's
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  talking to each other and I'm that alone is challenging enough but at least you can see that
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  there are other human beings in the world and sunlight like this that could be this could be
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  psychologically dangerous to be in the dark for four days yeah I would imagine that it's not
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  for everybody amazing I mean it does make me wonder and just coming back to endurance you know
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  the achievement and the benefits that people get from these extremely hard physical endurance events
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  whether now that you've done them I mean no one can accuse you of being lazy or you know given
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  the number of ultra ultra man championships that you've done so when you do it when you are now
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  running purely recreationally all of the things that you were saying you get from that like you're
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  alone with your thoughts and there's no sort of psychological input there's just you and nature and
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  the sounds and the breeze and a sort of sense of presence couldn't you get that by walking
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  yeah I guess you could I think there's something about you know the elevated heart rate in that
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  aerobic zone that seems to you know heighten the experience for me and you know upon completion
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  feeling like you did you know kind of clear out the cobwebs in a way that like a walk doesn't
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  achieve and I'm just speaking you know for myself and my own experience I mean I think that
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  you know the the trick with endurance sport and perhaps even you know more acutely ultra endurance
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  sports is they can become addictive like they take so much time out of your life to prepare for
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  and you know I think that they are incredible reservoirs for for developing a deeper connection
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  with yourself and for a better sense of self understanding and and also the you know kind of
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  esteem building of realizing that you're capable more of of of accomplishing more than perhaps you
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  realize that that that that that you were able to that spills over into other areas of your life
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  but I also think you can get stuck in that paradigm or that modality you know and for me it's
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  you know I'm grateful that I was able to learn a lot from that world but I don't feel the need to
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  constantly compete to you know prove anything to myself or to anyone else and I've kind of
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  extracted what I needed to learn from that and now I feel very nourished in kind of applying
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  that to other areas of my life that that you know provoke curiosity or that I'm interested in
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  exploring and I think when you realize like hey I didn't think I could do this in this other area
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  or I learned so much about myself I didn't of exploring this subculture where are the other
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  areas of my life that I'm ignoring or perhaps you know in denial about where if I shine to light
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  on them you know I could grow in other facets of this you know lived experience I mean it's
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  interesting that you use the word addiction because it does I do sometimes wonder when people are
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  as like as obsessive as you are with something like this sort of be impolite enough to ask until
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  a later on we know each other a bit better but since you mention it like I know that you've had
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  your struggles with drugs and alcohol in your 20s like are you just an addict who has swapped one
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  low status unhealthy addiction for a higher status healthier one yeah I mean I get that question a lot
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  and I think the sort of flippant response is to is to you know deny that reality but I think you know
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  it's it's it's worthy of recognizing that there are certainly aspects of that like if you go
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  to any Iron Man race or ultra distance race there are so many addicts in recovery you know lots of
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  tattoos lots of people who you know built their lives back up from some kind of some form of
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  broken state and there is a very specific allure in the endurance world that plays on the mind of
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  the recovering addict because it's an opportunity to kind of you know venture beyond the limits to go
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  to that unknown place to you know leverage and experience to kind of you know go beyond like
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  what it feels like to be normal and the addict is always looking for you know peak states of
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  of consciousness right like on some level you know an addict is is a seeker like they're looking for
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  answers they're just doing it in a very unhealthy way and I think endurance sports provides a healthier
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  alternative to that to you know explore that inner experience of you know what it means to touch
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  up against you know peak experience or to take yourself beyond you know what the normal person
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  feels but it can be addictive and I'd be lying if I didn't say that that wasn't part of the allure
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  or that I haven't at times had you know a less than completely healthy relationship with that sport
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  well but I think that that on the you know by and large and on the whole you know taking the drug
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  or taking the drink is always kind of the the backdoor exit it's the easy choice and strapping
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  on the running shoes you know when it's dark out and cold out and you don't want to do it is a hard
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  choice and it's a growth opportunity so they don't they're not you know pair they don't line up
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  completely in that in that paradigm of course so of course yeah you know what else is a hard choice
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  is locking yourself in the dark fucking room for four days I know I know that's also on the hard
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  dress and yet there's something strangely that's such an interesting phenomenon and now that you
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  opened that Pandora's box I'm gonna have to go down the rabbit hole and investigate that because
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  it's it's one of those things where it's a self it's a hard choice to make initially but then the
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  choice is sort of out of your hands then the journey takes care of itself almost like doing
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  acid or something you know the main one but here's the thing you're not you're not locked in
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  you can leave it any time well of course I mean that would be so yeah probably
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  but there's must be there must be a strong disincentive it must be like I will you kind of you press
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  the emergency red button and now you've filed some thing kind of like it now sure but imagine
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  the experience of not knowing what time it is and not even being quite sure what day it is like
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  how much longer do I have to be in here is this day two or day three when I fell asleep did I fall
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  asleep for an hour or ten hours like it's a mind-fuck from top to bottom absolutely you know I
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  was I got a little sick last week just having kids and you know they bring it back from school
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  or whatever and so I had a bit of a fever and I had a funny a funny tummy and I had one of those
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  nights where you know when you're kind of tossing and turning and you're hot and you're sweet you've
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  got the cold sweats and you've got the hot shivers a little bit and you keep looking at the clock
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  to see what time it is and you think it must be morning by now and the clock says 12 o'3 a.m.
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  and you go oh I can't believe I've got another five hours until I can get up that like it must
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  just be like that but for 96 hours I don't know I'm tempted I'm tempted to try and you're going
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  to do it you're going to do it I can hear it in your voice you should do it together you are you
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  get lucky I wonder if you can like knock on the wall to the guy in the cave you know the next cave
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  over I love it I love the idea I love the idea that you're going to be in in Sydney in May and
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  you know I'm going to get a call and you'll be like hey it's rich you want to go and get brunch
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  and I'll be like sure and when we get there I'll be like I have the same place and you'll be like
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  just come down come through down this hallway it's just down in the back I'll be like rich where
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  are you taking me where are you taking me rich no no the brunch is just back here and then slam
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  and you and I just need that room we've made arrangements for for your kids I talked to your
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  you know everybody at the studio you're fine I'm fine you got your days cleared oh my goodness
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  what were your drugs of you were talking about how easy it is to like to drink I mean alcohol
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  is such a mediocre drug God it's boring but were you into more fun drugs when you were a drug
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  in no you know I was I was pretty much a purist to be honest a throwback that was my thing you know
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  I dabbled in a few other things I never tried cocaine I was terrified of it I think I knew
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  that if I'd ever tried that it would be game over pretty quickly so my you know my addiction
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  story is is pretty conventional and tepid in that regard there's nothing you know super you know
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  kind of sexy about it it was just sort of a sad and pathetic you know drunkard story yeah right
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  you're probably lucky you're dodged a bullet on coke I would imagine yeah yeah because that
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  can that can not be pretty we've all seen what that can do sure I mean I I think I probably would
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  have loved it and it either would have gotten me sober sooner or it would have killed me or just
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  wreaked you know exponentially more havoc in my life but yeah you know it got dark enough for me
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  to you know have a reckoning and change course and I'm you know very grateful for that and did
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  rehab work it did you know I kind of came in on the recommendation of of a judge and the police
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  and you know some parents and some friends who thought it would be wise that maybe I should
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  take a look at my habits I was driving thing or what did you do yeah I mean it was it was a slow
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  decline for many years and then I moved to Los Angeles and I got two DUIs in rapid fire succession
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  within a period of what I think there were like six weeks in between both of them
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  and I was facing two DUI charges jail time like you know all kinds of pretty severe consequences and
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  it's a long story but one of the cases got thrown out because they lost the file which was a
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  crazy miracle and ended up getting charged with just one DUI but that was enough I mean the second
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  one that I got I got picked up in the first one I rear-ended in elderly woman at like three in
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  the morning at an intersection the second one six weeks later got picked up in Beverly Hills driving
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  the wrong way down a one-way street I blew like two nine and two seven you know like I was you know
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  I was gone like big big time like this is not like yeah it was serious and the one the second one
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  the cop who arrested me knew my boss the partner in the law firm where I was in associate because
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  my boss was representing the police department in a number of cases and so my boss called me in
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  on Monday morning after I spent the weekend in jail and said listen I got I got an interesting
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  call over the weekend like you're all fucked up and you got to sort this out and I wish I could
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  tell you that I got sober immediately and everything was rosy after that that's not what happened
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  it was a situation in which I I guess I needed a little bit more pain and to go to a darker place
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  but ultimately you know I I was in enough psychic and emotional pain and just a state of loneliness
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  in which you know I was a alienated from my family and just you know all of my good friends had
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  kind of fled for the hills and I realized that the only way out was through and I decided I just
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  woke up one morning and it was a morning that wasn't that dissimilar from so many other mornings
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  that I had woken up hung over but I just had a brief window of willingness to do something different
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  and got myself to a rehab up in Oregon where I thought I was just going to spin dry for a couple
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  weeks and get back to my you know quote unquote very important job and ended up instead staying
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  for 100 days and that really saved my life and created a foundation of sobriety that you know
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  allowed me to kind of come back to Los Angeles and and and build upon and you know I really credit
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  that to saving my life that's amazing how did you afford it I always wonder would rehab
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  still these Americans who are going to rehab like the recovery process from addiction seems so much
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  more prosaic and and arduous outside of the United States where people just kind of muddle through
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  and we don't have the same I guess reliance on rehab centers as there seems to be an America aren't
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  they expensive who pays for it yeah it's it's a situation that's not exactly covered by insurance
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  in the way that it should be and in my case I cashed out my meager 401k and then my parents kind
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  of matched that to make it work right so I was lucky in that regard and you know I had been in
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  and because the judge I got the nudge from the judge and I was going to a meetings to get my
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  court card signed but I wasn't doing it to get sober I was doing it to get you know people off my
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  back and you know I needed I needed a deeper you know kind of immersion into you know I needed to
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  be extracted out of my life in order to only focus on this and that's one of many you know one of
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  many like kind of annoying aphorisms out of I think I see I think we should produce a reality
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  television show modeled off judge Judy or judge Brown where you play the judge and it's called
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  a nudge from the judge with retro and it's people with addiction problems and you come in and you
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  go you just got the nudge from the judge and the person gets into rehab I think I would be
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  boring though because I would just send everyone to rehab yeah I just enjoy a brandy once at Christmas
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  once again rehab for you you got the nudge exactly yeah and well that's I'm glad that that all
• 27:43
  that worked what's what do you say to people who are not in such a also it's interesting you said
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  you're just I just want to follow up your friends had a bend in you often people who have drinking
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  problems are enabled by their social environment and that becomes part of the problem well what
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  what would I do you know how would I have fun when I go out all the time with all my other alcoholic
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  buddies who reinforce each other's drinking habits if you know if I was sober that wasn't the case
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  for you yeah well I think that's a case of of what we call lower companions Josh like as you're
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  as you're you know kind of as as this disease progresses there's a certain you know kind of
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  color that the people that you hang out with you know tend to tend to become like you you you
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  you sort of it's not that my friends abandoned me they just sort of slowly you know step backward
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  from you and and also on top of that like a big piece of addiction is a deepening of your you know
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  kind of isolating from the world because you know that your behavior is not kind of socially
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  approved and so you start hanging out with people that that aren't your friends but are the ones
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  that will not really call you out on your bullshit because they're on your wavelength so you start
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  hanging out with those people and then when those people start backing away from you you know you're
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  kind of going into a you know a darker and even darker place and so my good friends were kind
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  of unavailable and I was hanging out with people that I wouldn't ordinarily hang out with and I was
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  also you know isolating and and spending a lot of time alone in my apartment drinking by myself
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  which is you know for those of you out there strong and dish that you might have a problem
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  and just you know making decisions that I just wouldn't ordinarily make
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  uh and and my parents being very clear in saying like listen we love you but like we just can't
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  stand by while you continue to behave this way if and when you're ready to get sober we love you
• 29:51
  and we're here from you but until then like you're on your own with this adventure that you're on
• 29:58
  and it turns out that was the right approach by them yeah I mean that was very painful you know
• 30:04
  very painful and so you know at that at that dark you know that darkest hour I just I felt
• 30:09
  desperately alone you know and and you know realized that I had to change but it's so tricky
• 30:17
  because um because uh you don't want to let go of this thing that has become your best friend
• 30:29
  even though you know intellectually it's destroying your life and and that's the confusing part
• 30:35
  of addiction that makes it very difficult for like normal people to understand like why can't you
• 30:41
  just quit can't you see the damage that this is doing but um it's not something that resides in the
• 30:52
  intellectual part of the mind um and as they say another kind of annoying aphorism is that
• 30:59
  sobriety isn't for people that need it it's for people that want it and it's always you know
• 31:05
  bizarre like who's able to get sober and and who isn't like it's it's never who you think
• 31:12
  and the people you think have got a hold on it and up relapsing and the people you think
• 31:17
  oh that guy's never going to make it you know ends up putting together 20 years of sobriety like
• 31:22
  it's it's mystifying still you know I think it's this disease and I think the fact that it's so
• 31:29
  mystifying creates a lot of problems with normal people trying to understand like how to solve it
• 31:34
  especially when you have a loved one who's struggling like how do you help that person you know
• 31:40
  do you stand on the sidelines and let them hit bottom so that they develop their own willingness
• 31:45
  or do you intervene and if you intervene how do you intervene in a way that's going to produce
• 31:51
  the desired results hmm it's so true because from the outside what seems to be
• 31:59
  reasonable or rational is to point out to the person the ways in which their consumption is
• 32:04
  unhealthy or problematic and as you say when the sober person 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 in your life inside the addict's
• 32:16
  head they go yeah it's causing all of these fucking problems so how do you expect me to deal with
• 32:20
  them except for with a drink right so on the one hand they're also have a drink you want to have
• 32:28
  a drink if you are an alcoholic if your life was done by alcoholism how am I going to know with this
• 32:32
  water drink yeah on the one hand you're like fuck off I'm not hurting anyone why do you care
• 32:39
  leave me alone this is you know my thing not yours so stay away and on the other hand you know
• 32:45
  the the kind of pain that this lifestyle produces means that you have to keep using drugs or alcohol
• 32:54
  to you know mask that pain because that pain is so unbearable and it becomes this you know sort of
• 33:00
  snowball rolling downhill yeah that's interesting did you ever think will you ever
• 33:04
  on to the illusion that it was fun well it was fun for a long time and I think that's the other
• 33:13
  piece that that people don't really appreciate like what was that another again I'm just going
• 33:19
  to keep throwing these annoying you know kind of phrases at you but like they another one is it
• 33:23
  works until it doesn't like it work you know it works until it stops working and the reason that
• 33:29
  you go on this journey is because it does work and for a certain period of time it's fun
• 33:36
  and you feel great and you're like this is the answer to every question you know in my life like
• 33:44
  this is the solution to every problem that I didn't even know that I had I wish I had discovered
• 33:50
  this sooner I want to feel like this all the time I want to feel like this all day long and so
• 33:56
  that kind of cements this relationship with the substance that you know ultimately you know
• 34:03
  what you can't see at that time is that it will turn on you and in my case it was a very kind of
• 34:08
  progressive you know degradation of the things that I cared about in my life like as somebody who
• 34:16
  you know I was somebody joshu who kind of struggled academically and was kind of an insecure kid
• 34:22
  who had difficulty making friends and wasn't quite sure how to interact with other human being shy
• 34:29
  you know kind of bookish and I went to a school that was all about sports and football and all of that
• 34:37
  I never really you know figured out how I could connect with other people and and and uh and
• 34:45
  and and so I had this like kind of profound internal confusion about life thinking that everyone
• 34:53
  else had this roadmap or this um handbook for how to live that that I lacked and I just was walking
• 35:01
  around confused uh at the same time I did figure out like I I became the swimmer and I excel
• 35:08
  academically and so by the time I graduated from high school I'd gotten accepted into all these
• 35:13
  fancy schools and I go off to Stanford and I'm a swimmer at Stanford and and swimming at Stanford is
• 35:19
  cool like and so suddenly I'm in the cool crowd for the first time and I discover alcohol and and it
• 35:26
  was like this warm blanket being wrapped around me telling me that everything was okay and I felt
• 35:33
  comfortable in my skin for the very first time and it was like this epiphany experience that
• 35:40
  you know basically you know kind of rooted in me this idea of wanting to feel like that all the time
• 35:46
  and I had a great time in college I had a lot of fun I went to all the parties I learned how to be
• 35:52
  a social person I learned how to talk to a girl and like you know dance or do all the things that
• 35:58
  that seemed like normal people already knew how to do and so on some level it was like a teacher
• 36:04
  but it wasn't long before I didn't really care about whether I showed up for swim practice anymore
• 36:12
  or is it really all that important that I turn in this paper on time and you know it's that that's
• 36:18
  what's kind of insidious about the whole thing is that it starts very gradually you know and I was
• 36:25
  functional for a long time and ended up going to law school and God knows how I graduated law school
• 36:30
  but I could keep it together just enough but the more it progresses the more you bifurcate your life
• 36:36
  and you have the life that you live around other people and then you have this secret life that
• 36:41
  that you know you're ashamed of that you're hiding from that's driving that kind of
• 36:46
  for you know you to further and further isolate from from other people until you know those two
• 36:52
  worlds kind of come into conflict with each other and that's when you know chaos starts to kind of
• 36:59
  you know blossom in various areas of your life and and and you can you can continue to you know be
• 37:07
  in denial over that for a certain period of time until it becomes so obvious to everyone around you
• 37:13
  that you're forced to confront it in a certain kind of way and either that those are the moments in
• 37:18
  which you have a decision like are you going to deal with this and rectify your life and get sober
• 37:23
  choose a new path for yourself or are you going to say fuck you to everybody and just you know self
• 37:30
  destruct and you know I've been to a lot of funerals and I've seen a lot of people not able to make
• 37:35
  that leap or you know flirt with sobriety or you know have certain stints with sobriety but are
• 37:41
  unable to maintain it because they're not dealing with the underlying you know kind of pain that
• 37:48
  led them to that behavior in the first place and you know a lot of people don't make it and and
• 37:55
  die and so I'm very you know grateful that I was able to you know kind of come out the other side of
• 38:00
  it and when those chaos monkeys showed up will you I mean we when you say with the the kind of
• 38:07
  the role of professional lawyer and upstanding highly educated professional smashes into the role
• 38:17
  of alcoholic were you drinking at work was that was that like bleeding into your work life at the
• 38:22
  very end yeah at the very end it was I mean not not you know not initially but when it got really
• 38:29
  dark and there's a whole like kind of wedding I got married and it ended on the honeymoon story
• 38:35
  that's like a two hour soap opera that you know like contributed to you know the the me kind of
• 38:43
  you know really touching up against you know the darkest aspects of my story and and ultimately
• 38:49
  leading me to being the guy who's who's on a leaving Las Vegas trajectory of of having a
• 38:55
  volcanic in the shower and hiding drinks throughout the day and you know believing that I'm getting
• 39:01
  away with this and and nobody knowing about it and you know until like the whole kind of house of
• 39:07
  cards topples on you know on on your head and and you're forced to you know really get honest with
• 39:13
  yourself it's interesting that you say that it was fun until it wasn't because I have a I'm I
• 39:23
  went I have you heard of the Alan car a group of organization they help people quit smoking and
• 39:30
  drinking and drugs but they take it to British organization and like Richard Branson and like
• 39:37
  Anthony Hopkins and a bunch of top brits swear by it but it takes an opposite kind of view to
• 39:42
  predict traditional 12 steps in encouraging you to and that's how I stopped drinking a few years
• 39:48
  ago encouraging you to think to very closely and pay close attention to what's actually happening
• 39:55
  when you're drinking and how much of the fun actually comes from the drink and how much of the
• 40:00
  fun that you associate with the drink is the drink piggybacking on environments that are already
• 40:07
  fun and piggybacking on environments that are already not fun and it's interesting it's interesting it's
• 40:14
  like I mean they're basically they're basically philosophy is that that there aren't alcoholics and
• 40:19
  non-alcoholics that that alcohol itself or any addictive substance functions by
• 40:26
  just creating a narrative around it that is is full of bullshit that we buy into from a pretty
• 40:33
  young age and then when we start consuming it socially and culturally it's close enough to
• 40:38
  to the truth to get its claws into into us and it's there's it's only a one way trajectory really
• 40:44
  for everybody but there are enough pressures to avoid having another drink that exist in most
• 40:51
  people's lives that they can walk the tightrope of addiction but fundamentally it is an addictive
• 40:57
  substance that is that really only sort of seems like it's fun kind of because it's addictive and
• 41:03
  people who never drink if you're in if you're a Hindu or if you're a Muslim you don't go around
• 41:09
  a wedding wishing you could you know moaning about how you can't have a drink the way that someone
• 41:14
  who drinks who isn't allowed to have a drink does that the desire for the drink is caused by the
• 41:18
  fact that you drink all the time and the moment you're not drinking all the time and you realize
• 41:21
  that you don't need to be drinking all the time is the moment that you're kind of free free from the
• 41:26
  desire to drink as well and so when I think back about the fun of alcohol yes it's a slight
• 41:34
  anaesthetic yes it probably gave you some it lower your inhibitions occasionally in terms of
• 41:39
  dancing or talking to girls when you're in college and feeling awkward that's fine lots of
• 41:45
  anaesthetics could probably do that but what it really was was it was piggybacking on your
• 41:54
  experience of coming out of your shell and you're the natural experience that a lot of people
• 42:00
  have in their early 20s of growing a pair of balls and realizing that they can do things that
• 42:06
  they previously thought that they can't and feeling confident in themselves and beginning to feel like
• 42:11
  a grown up and psychologically alcohol comes along for the ride there and that's probably the
• 42:18
  source of the illusion of fun does that any of that bland yeah I mean I think I think there's a
• 42:26
  lot of wisdom in that I think that my response to that would be that well two things first of all
• 42:35
  the longer I've kind of been sober and the more kind of conversations that I have
• 42:44
  on my podcast and just socially with people in the addiction recovery and kind of psychology
• 42:51
  psychiatry space I've become more convinced that addiction lives on a much greater spectrum
• 43:00
  than we tend to think of it like we tend to think of addicts as you know people that can't
• 43:06
  pull the needle out of their arm or you know the drunk in the gutter in the paper bag and you know
• 43:11
  all that kind of stuff but I think on some level as human beings we're all prone to you know various
• 43:18
  compulsive behaviors whether they're substance-oriented or or or not to which we you know lack a certain
• 43:27
  level of control or agency and I think you know our phones have been a great example that have
• 43:38
  taught us like how powerless we can be at times over our own impulses movies like the social dilemma
• 43:45
  where we realize like these slot machine you know kind of features and the technology that's
• 43:52
  gone into these devices you know make us make us behave around our phones in a way that you know
• 43:58
  we wouldn't otherwise which makes us think like how much agency do I really have like what is the
• 44:03
  difference between the obsessive compulsive kind of relationship that I have with technology or
• 44:11
  social media you know versus addiction and I think you know whether it's alcoholism or drug addiction
• 44:18
  or gambling you know there's a whole other kind of world that falls into this addiction
• 44:29
  conversation that is less addressed like what about the person who keeps getting into the same kind
• 44:35
  of relation of dysfunctional relationship or you know the person that just you know whatever when
• 44:41
  as soon as they're standing in line or they're they have a moment of boredom they just
• 44:45
  compulsively pull out their phone and go to tiktok or whatever it is right like like this is
• 44:51
  you know something that's bred into us as human beings and it can be relatively benign or just
• 44:58
  mildly invasive into the quality of our life or it can be utterly devastating and debilitating in
• 45:04
  the context of you know somebody who just gambles away all their money or you know you know right
• 45:09
  but I don't think about looking to locate the problem in the somebody who's gambling away their
• 45:15
  money or in a particular attribute of that person as if they were born addicted addicted to gambling
• 45:22
  and they were just waiting like the gambling monster inside them was just waiting for the moment
• 45:26
  to play the first slot machine that that is a narrative that is popular among 12 step types
• 45:32
  that is rejected philosophy that I'm talking about which says that these things will inevitably
• 45:39
  if you allow them in every case lead to a catastrophic outcome it's just that we're all pretty good
• 45:47
  at holding our shit together like the dope what happens when you pull your phone out of your pocket
• 45:51
  and you get a little dopamine hit of noticing that there's a notification or a like on something
• 45:55
  that you've posted or seeing something interesting is that you get this little dopamine hit and then
• 46:02
  the next time you're waiting in line you remember that dopamine hit and you do it again and again
• 46:06
  and again and again and the dopamine hit gets less and less and less so you have to do it more
• 46:09
  and more to get the same amount of interest and innovation and stimulation from your phone and
• 46:16
  all of a sudden Instagram seems a bit boring so TikTok seems more interesting and you know at some
• 46:22
  point if you are not around other people porn we'll see more interesting still or whatever is
• 46:27
  increasingly addictive I mean the there is only one trajectory in order to maintain the same
• 46:32
  level of novelty that the thing gave you in the first place and that is to keep consuming it
• 46:38
  in ever greater amounts it's just that most of us have duties that prevent us from doing that
• 46:43
  but once you notice that that's the that's the game that the game is just I mean think about it
• 46:49
  with a heroin junkie or a smoker or something you have the first one it does something for you
• 46:56
  the second one does a little bit less that the one does a little bit less and before you know
• 47:00
  you're not quite sure why you're going back for the cigarette because it's not getting you
• 47:03
  the headspin that the first one did but you know that you feel a little bit uncomfortable
• 47:08
  without it and the cigarette is just creating I mean the permanent trough that you live in which
• 47:15
  the cigarette is then the solution to to bring you up to feeling the way that one smoker's feel
• 47:18
  all the time and when you're having a cigarette you feel as good as non-smokers do all the time
• 47:24
  but then as the nicotine bleeds out of your system you gradually fall into a trough that you
• 47:29
  addiction to nicotine is causing and that as a model is basically just the way that addiction
• 47:36
  works and it works on all of us equally some of us are just good enough at distracting ourselves with
• 47:42
  our duties of work and family and ambition and whatever that we don't allow our usage to get to
• 47:48
  such a high level that the trough becomes so deep that we can't climb back out of it anyway
• 47:54
  yeah no I hear what you're saying and I would agree that these things always move in one direction
• 48:00
  which is you know increased dosage as we you know kind of acclimate to the dose and you know it never
• 48:09
  ends up in a good place right like you there is there is that one singular path but I would I would
• 48:17
  add a ripple to that which is I do think that there are certain people who are just wired
• 48:24
  differently and perhaps that has to do with childhood trauma or their genetic makeup you know I can't
• 48:31
  quite identify you know specifically the nature of that but I can tell you in my own experience
• 48:37
  from the very first time that I drank alcohol I know that my experience and my relationship with that
• 48:44
  was different from that of my peers like yeah I immediately was the guy who was the last to lead
• 48:50
  the party who was you know drinking the half-filled empties with cigarette butts in them at the
• 48:56
  keg party like doing all kinds of crazy shit that like none of my friends were doing right like and
• 49:01
  that only continued to escalate so I think there is something qualitatively different at least with
• 49:07
  respect to alcoholism where that substance has a very different impact qualitatively on
• 49:16
  that type of individual that you know creates a result that that is that is much more negative
• 49:26
  than than the person who's like yeah I binge drink too much or once in a while I drink too much
• 49:31
  you know so and and I would I would couch this and saying that I'm very much a product of 12 step and
• 49:37
  that's my indoctrination and that's what saved my life and I know there's always these new
• 49:42
  modalities and people are are finding new ways of looking at the nature of this you know disease
• 49:49
  I call it a disease some people don't and finding you know treatment solutions in in psychedelic
• 49:57
  substances or in you know childhood trauma therapy etc and I even had you know to speak to your
• 50:04
  earlier point this friend of mine Andy Rommage on the podcast a while back and he started this thing
• 50:09
  he's a British guy he started this thing called one year no beer it's basically for normal people
• 50:15
  who are like you know what like my job I have to go out I have to socialize I have to go
• 50:20
  entertain clients and I have to drink and I'm just tired of it and I'm sick of feeling like shit
• 50:25
  the next day but I just feel like I have to do it or you know it's just part of my social
• 50:31
  environment like how do I step out of that and he created this really amazing movement that
• 50:36
  empowered a lot of people continues to empower a lot of people to liberate themselves from the shackles
• 50:43
  of that kind of thing and and and I think that that is you know sort of socially at least in the
• 50:50
  United States I don't know what it's like in in in Australia young people are not drinking in
• 50:56
  the way that young people were drinking when I was in my 20s like I think there's I think alcohol
• 51:01
  on some level has fallen out of disfavor and maybe it's been supplanted by other drugs I don't
• 51:06
  know I'm an old man now but I believe there is a different way of refa from time to time there
• 51:12
  is some reason they do yeah yeah yeah a little bit a little bit yeah I don't want to I don't
• 51:17
  be misunderstood that nothing that I said is inconsistent with the proposition that there
• 51:22
  are all there is also a variety of human reactions to these substances right right and I'm not
• 51:27
  I don't want to be understood as saying that these things are always going to lead to calamity
• 51:31
  for everybody clearly they don't for the vast majority of people people think that they're managing
• 51:35
  them the the point is what is the nature of the relationship between a homo sapien or a mammal
• 51:43
  and a thing that that functions in this way and you know sugar functions in the same way so but
• 51:47
  anything that is giving you this kind of hit in diminishing returns has the same dynamics some
• 51:54
  people are more susceptible to it than others but what I found liberating about Alan cars way
• 51:59
  of looking at the world he's dead now so I don't know why I'm talking about him but like this model
• 52:03
  rather than 12 steps was I didn't have to it didn't have to be a problem with me it didn't I wasn't
• 52:11
  broken it wasn't it wasn't an I mean you know you are the master here and I am a mere
• 52:18
  sensei in terms of the the level of alcoholism that we're talking about I didn't get to the to those
• 52:24
  kinds of depths and maybe if I had then 12 steps would have worked more effectively but I just
• 52:30
  remember thinking so there's this thing in my brain that says it would like a drink but the great
• 52:35
  thing is that's like I that thing doesn't have any hands and legs and it doesn't have any money
• 52:41
  so I don't have to give it the drink that I want actually you know it's that function of drinking
• 52:46
  of course I think that I'm a drinker of course a drinker would think that they want a drink
• 52:50
  of but how liberating to know that that's just that's the game that's the game that the substance
• 52:55
  plays with you with everybody sure that that's the trick anyway so that's I just thought that
• 53:00
  that was interesting I mean this also when you're talking about oh the one year no beer and like
• 53:07
  how would I go through life if I wasn't drinking and the the amount of non-sensical bullshit
• 53:13
  that people's brains their brains throw up when we're thinking about oh but how would how would I
• 53:18
  go out to dinner if I wasn't gonna have a glass of wine how would I go out to the bar if I wasn't
• 53:22
  gonna drink with friends and then when you're not drinking you just go well I just either have a
• 53:26
  zero beer or I have a soda water I have a whatever else I want it's totally fine I have a
• 53:31
  diet coke well you probably do you drink a you wouldn't drink a fake sweetener you know sparkling
• 53:39
  water I'm good with that like you know I don't know I mean I think the the the point that you're
• 53:44
  trying to make though is is we get caught up in our head in this obsessive way about how we're
• 53:52
  being perceived by others and and once you kind of step outside of that you're like well I went to
• 53:58
  the thing and I had my diet coke or my sparkling water and no one gave a shit because we underestimate
• 54:05
  the extent to which people are self-obsessed like they don't care they're not
• 54:09
  watching they're thinking about themselves and we do think that the substance is giving us a
• 54:14
  lot more fun than it is that's the funny thing like I did a month without booze a few years ago
• 54:19
  and I had someone else was paying for a business class flight from Sydney to LA and I was thinking
• 54:24
  15 hours in business class with all that free booze and I'm not going to have a single sip like
• 54:29
  what a miserable experience that's going to be I'm going to get to the lounge at the airport with
• 54:34
  all the free booze and I'm not going to have a single drink it's going to be misery a lounge without
• 54:38
  booze is just a room I mean all of a sudden I'm just in a room you know whereas it's a it's a
• 54:43
  playground of pleasure and plenty when I can have as many bourbon and coaxes I want but of course
• 54:48
  at the other end of the flight I was like oh that was great that was cool that was really nice I
• 54:52
  got to watch I got to read more than I would have I got to pay more attention to the movies and enjoy
• 54:58
  them more it was a completely illusory which I want to bring this round to veganism and to eating meat
• 55:04
  into the difficulty of shaking that habit as well I don't know if you heard Sam Harris name
• 55:12
  checked you in a recent chat that I had with him have a listen should you avoid any factory
• 55:18
  farmed products yeah I mean my answer here won't satisfy certainly any vegan you know I've been
• 55:25
  I was vegetarian for six years and then for another I don't know I think a year after you know
• 55:32
  some many years after that every time I've been a vegetarian I feel like I've been less healthy
• 55:39
  now you're gonna hear from all the vegetarians and vegans who will tell me I'm an idiot and
• 55:45
  that there's obviously a straightforwardly healthy way to do both of those things
• 55:49
  that may be the case but the truth is I'm apart from a few vegans who seem to have made
• 55:56
  their veganism truly a full-time job I'm not in the habit of seeing lots of vegans who seem
• 56:02
  especially healthy right I just honestly you you vegans have a problem if you think you're
• 56:09
  advertising abundant good health to everyone and it's just readily apparent because I see a lot
• 56:15
  of vegans who look like they're suffering from their veganism and so it's you know I leave
• 56:23
  ritual out of this but yeah if you watch ritual videos you just see how much time and attention
• 56:28
  goes into him getting his nutrition what do you make of that rich oh Sam I love you Sam
• 56:40
  yeah how do I so interesting I mean first of all you know I have you know a relationship with
• 56:50
  Sam I have tons of respect for Sam I see him socially from time to time him and Anika I would
• 56:57
  consider not good friends but you know sort of good social acquaintances and and it's funny
• 57:05
  because that's such a skewed perspective when I hear that from my lived experience I don't know
• 57:16
  where he gets the idea that that I've made veganism my full-time job like at this point I've been
• 57:22
  doing it I've been vegan for 16 years and it's so wrote for me now that it it doesn't feel like
• 57:33
  an inconvenience in the least let alone a full-time occupation right but that's so I mean this
• 57:40
  is the same I mean the people on the outside of the glass and the people who are inside the room
• 57:46
  the person who has not quit alcohol it seems unimaginably complicated and difficult to
• 57:52
  navigate life without drinking and to the person who's done it it's completely easy and but I
• 57:58
  think there's a similar dynamic happening with eating meat and I mean I don't play you Sam in order
• 58:04
  to troll you or Sam I play you Sam because he's articulating what I think is a very widespread
• 58:09
  view that I must say I succumb to myself where I go yeah you know I spent nine months not eating meat
• 58:16
  when I was in LA I was pescatarian I put on a bit of weight I was eating way too many carbs I wasn't
• 58:21
  doing it right and eventually I thought I'll look I'll come back to this when I figure it out but I
• 58:26
  didn't subsequently figure it out so then I made a pact with myself about not eating factory
• 58:31
  farmed meat and only eating organic meat and not eating meat when I'm at restaurants but you know
• 58:36
  eating it and bloody bloody bloody blood it becomes like the self bargaining that was happening when
• 58:40
  I was trying to avoid quitting alcohol and being like okay I'll only drink on weekends I'm only
• 58:45
  gonna have five drinks at a time you know whatever that those rules might be so what are we missing?
• 58:53
  I think that we tend to overcomplicate it in our minds and you know I've been on an evolution
• 58:59
  with this you know at first it was about losing weight and vanity and now it's become much more
• 59:07
  about the broader concerns around sustainable agriculture and animal suffering and the like
• 59:15
  and I've always but I've always kept it very simple Josh like on some level eating
• 59:22
  eating plant-based is really like popper food like I keep it basic like I eat tons of beans and
• 59:28
  lentils and I eat veggie burritos and I eat big salads you know I benefit from the fact that my
• 59:35
  wife is a phenomenal cook and she makes you know marvelous meals but you know I also travel a lot
• 59:42
  and I've been all over the world and I don't spend a lot of time prepping meals or you know
• 59:48
  doing any of that like I've always figured it out and that doesn't mean that I've been
• 59:53
  perfect in that regard but I still you know I'm 56 I feel good in my body I work out and you
• 1:00:01
  know I'm able to maintain or build muscle mass like it hasn't impaired me in any particular way
• 1:00:08
  and I think in Sam's case to speak to that I think that he he is burdened by a sense of
• 1:00:17
  of ethical dilemma because I think that he would like to be vegan and I think you know as he's
• 1:00:24
  spoken about in his podcast he knows that issuing animal products is the ethical choice to make and
• 1:00:33
  for some reason he hasn't been able to do it in a way where he feels like he's being sustained
• 1:00:38
  in a healthy way I've offered to help him I'd be happy to help him figure that out
• 1:00:45
  perhaps he's genetically wired in a way where it's not working for him I can't speak to that all I
• 1:00:49
  can tell you is that I feel good in my body and as long as I continue to feel good and my blood
• 1:00:56
  work is fine and all of that I'm going to continue to do it but I also think we're in this weird
• 1:01:02
  time right now where you know for many years decades ago if you wanted to eat vegan
• 1:01:08
  or or plant-based like there weren't really any options that were at least you know
• 1:01:15
  tasty from a culinary perspective you had to you know be a kind of granola person in order to
• 1:01:20
  make it work and now we're in this situation where there's all these vegan alternatives
• 1:01:27
  meat and dairy analogues and a lot of the food companies have figured out how to make certain products
• 1:01:35
  if not you know taste exactly like their meat and dairy you know versions close enough
• 1:01:42
  but these foods are highly processed and so you can dilute yourself into thinking like oh I'm
• 1:01:46
  eating vegan I'm healthy but you're really not in any better of a position than you would be
• 1:01:52
  if you were eating the real thing right so it's never been easier to be an unhealthy vegan person
• 1:01:59
  and and so you kind of have to go back to the basics like are the foods that you're eating like
• 1:02:04
  real food whole foods and and I think that takes it that that adds an added layer of like
• 1:02:12
  maybe complexity or confusion but it's actually pretty cheap to eat this way and you know
• 1:02:18
  I'm pretty content you know eating these types of foods all the time it's go ahead it's interesting
• 1:02:24
  that you say I mean I'm just thinking about the the wide availability of vegan foods and the fact
• 1:02:30
  that you can go into a restaurant or a cafe in any big city in the you know in at least in the
• 1:02:36
  Anglo-Panglo world and you can say you know you're a vegan and they'll understand they'll have
• 1:02:41
  option they'll have an option for and that didn't used to be the case of course yeah but the
• 1:02:46
  I mean you know you can go and coach Sam Harris all you like but you can't coach the other you
• 1:02:51
  know several billion people who think like him and me who feel like you know okay well Rich says
• 1:02:58
  it's easy but when Rich goes to Italy and he's in a little denomenazionic gomunare like village where
• 1:03:05
  they do things the same way that they've done things for centuries or millennia even and that
• 1:03:11
  involves cheeses and that involves you know milk products and dairy and honey and things
• 1:03:18
  like that what does he do that does sound like it would be hard and it sounds like to me you
• 1:03:23
  would be missing something sounds to me like I would very much be missing something if I was in a
• 1:03:27
  road trip in France and I couldn't eat any cheese or if I was in a road trip in Italy and I couldn't
• 1:03:31
  eat any prosciutto yeah I mean I think that goes back to your earlier point about not being able
• 1:03:39
  to drink on your you know business class flights from Sydney to LA and I think I've gotten so much
• 1:03:46
  out of this lifestyle that I don't look at it from that kind of martyred perspective and you know
• 1:03:53
  I've just found that that I've always I've always managed to find a way and even if I'm in Italy
• 1:03:58
  in some village you know I can get some form of you know Niochi or or you know a pasta that's not made
• 1:04:06
  with eggs or something like that like I just never I've never really like it's not always the most
• 1:04:12
  convenient but it's never been so burdensome where I thought this isn't worth it or it's too difficult
• 1:04:19
  and you know my health is benefited from it and I've done it in a way where it doesn't monopolize
• 1:04:26
  my life it's not my full-time job and and when Sam talks about like the if you watch the videos
• 1:04:32
  that Rich Roll makes you realize it's his full-time job I'm not sure which videos he's talking
• 1:04:36
  about like most of the videos that I post are me sitting in a chair talking to somebody in my
• 1:04:42
  podcast yeah he can see you can see that in deep inside you're toolmented by your lack of
• 1:04:49
  beat yeah yeah I guess I guess yeah look I'm sure it's easy it's just it is one of those things
• 1:04:55
  where it like you know I'm sure but we have you have our mutual friend Oshar I'm sure would
• 1:05:02
  would be happy to help you because he's all about it true that's true yeah Oshar is a TV
• 1:05:07
  a popular TV host the host of the batch and and let me just say to you know put a put a put a
• 1:05:12
  kind of button on this Josh you know I I made a promise to myself that when I started this
• 1:05:21
  lifestyle that I would not be you know overly dogmatic about it and should I start to you know suffer
• 1:05:31
  health-wise in in any way that I would you know be objective about the whole thing and give
• 1:05:37
  myself permission to change course or pivot and you know that just that just hasn't happened
• 1:05:43
  and I would say that when we look at food systems and we look at the food that we're eating
• 1:05:50
  there's personal health and I think you know at least you know in America it's like it's all
• 1:05:56
  about like me and how I feel like do I feel good do I not feel good and that's important of course
• 1:06:01
  we all want to be healthy I found that eating a whole food plant-based diet has given me the
• 1:06:07
  sustenance that I need such that it's powered me through athletic endurance challenges that
• 1:06:14
  that most people are not interested in and will never you know push themselves through so it satisfies
• 1:06:21
  the category of being enough to you know make me the athlete that that I aspire to be but beyond
• 1:06:31
  that I think it's important for all of us to consider our food choices and our consumer choices
• 1:06:37
  more broadly in the context of how they're affecting others the planet etc and a whole food
• 1:06:44
  plant-based diet not only allows you to avoid the processed foods and other foods that are
• 1:06:50
  contributing to like unnecessary suffering and human health in the form of the rise of all of
• 1:06:56
  these you know chronic lifestyle diseases that are debilitating millions of people across the
• 1:07:02
  world in the form of diabetes and obesity and all these sorts of things these are these are
• 1:07:08
  illnesses of processed food these are not illnesses of eating animal products per se I mean you know
• 1:07:13
  Joe Rogan will you know be able to eat as many animal products and be fit and healthy too right
• 1:07:20
  yeah but I think that there's a there's a longer longer conversation that's probably better
• 1:07:25
  had with with nutritionists and doctors and scientists around the impact of excessive saturated fat
• 1:07:34
  intake and your diet etc that are contributing to heart disease etc and so but you know I'm
• 1:07:39
  I've tried it's not from coconut milk or whatever substitutes you might be yeah it's different
• 1:07:45
  or you know I don't want to get too sidetracked on that but like my saturated fat intake is so much
• 1:07:51
  lower and and then again just to get into the then there's the environmental concerns like the
• 1:07:57
  impact of the you know the food choices that we're making and how are these foods made and where
• 1:08:02
  they coming from and what is that doing to our environment and and to opt out of this factory
• 1:08:08
  farming insanity that you know is creating all of this suffering yes for for no other reason then
• 1:08:15
  perhaps a you know a karmic you know reason so not participate in that you know is is you know
• 1:08:24
  something that I feel good about and it's not that eating plant-based you know obviates you from
• 1:08:28
  harm or anything like that I'm not trying to overstate the case but you know we vote with our
• 1:08:34
  dollar and we do that with the food that we eat and the other products that you know we we the
• 1:08:40
  companies that we patronize yeah I think it's insightful to notice the the analogy between
• 1:08:48
  the Italian or French road trip and the business class flight because I do I hadn't really
• 1:08:57
  thought about that before but I myself do when I think about being becoming vegetarian think about
• 1:09:05
  you know that that one great stake that I have you know once or twice a year at some fancy restaurant
• 1:09:12
  or that incredible meal that I have on the Greek islands where they're bringing misardines and
• 1:09:18
  barata and fresh tomatoes and you know whatever else it might be but that the fear of losing that
• 1:09:27
  is not a good justification for having eaten ground beef in my tacos last night instead of just
• 1:09:33
  having veins you know right it's the same thing when you're considering yeah it's not it's no
• 1:09:41
  drinking booze every single day because I might want a massive champagne at my daughter's wedding
• 1:09:46
  in 20 years exactly it's exactly the same thing like when somebody's getting sober and they say you
• 1:09:52
  know in nine months I have to go to this bachelor party in Vegas I'm never going to get through that
• 1:09:57
  without drinking you know or I'm going to go to Italy you know when I retire and I want to be able
• 1:10:03
  to eat x y and z yeah but what are you eating today what are you eating tomorrow like that's you know
• 1:10:08
  it's like instead of focusing on peak experiences and you know the outer edges of you know
• 1:10:18
  you know these possible experiences that you want to have in your life like let's focus on the day
• 1:10:24
  and then the day out yeah and cross that bridge when you come from it good when you come to it you
• 1:10:28
  may you know you may not want it I mean now I wouldn't I would previously have thought I can't
• 1:10:33
  drive around the south of France without you know drinking red wine with each meal as well but
• 1:10:38
  now I do that and that's not a problem at all and am I missing something I guess culturally I'm
• 1:10:43
  missing out on the culture of french wine drinking but that's not something that I value in my life
• 1:10:48
  at the moment so I don't miss it I mean I think that just to wrap up on this point the point that
• 1:10:53
  Sam is making about the PR is that there are there are people like you and like my friend Asha who's
• 1:11:01
  also a prominent Australian vegan who look fantastic who like obviously have their shit together
• 1:11:09
  physically and are in peak form and then there's the kind of gray pale nose ring dreadlocked
• 1:11:19
  22 year old girl vegan who is not doing the publicity any favours and
• 1:11:27
  I mean does he have a point there is because I there is a there is some kind of
• 1:11:32
  publicity problem with veganism yeah yeah I would a tipping point where morally everybody morally
• 1:11:41
  anybody who thinks it through understands that this is probably the easiest example of something
• 1:11:47
  that we're all doing that in a hundred years time people are going to look back on and go I
• 1:11:51
  can't believe that people thought that that was okay to do the way that it factory farming functions
• 1:11:56
  as well sure yeah I mean actually where where we have this cognitive dissonance and maybe part of
• 1:12:02
  the impediment is a preconception that we have about what veganism entails and does to our bodies
• 1:12:10
  yeah I mean I think that's that's an astute observation certainly you know factory farming
• 1:12:16
  universally you know we're it's a it's a bipartisan issue we're all you know we're all in favor
• 1:12:24
  of the eradication of of factory farming and I think that that deep down nobody likes the idea
• 1:12:30
  that animals have to suffer for our food but we've made this decision that it's it's sort of
• 1:12:37
  an unfortunate necessity for human health and when somebody steps outside of that and says actually
• 1:12:45
  you don't have to do that at all and you can be healthy that is either you know sort of
• 1:12:52
  received welcome in a welcome way by a certain small sector of the population
• 1:12:59
  and another perhaps larger swath of the world will can will be threatened by that because that
• 1:13:06
  is a challenge to their value set and it requires them to look inward and question this
• 1:13:12
  assumption that they've made that that eating animals is is a necessity which obviates any kind
• 1:13:19
  of ethical considerations around that so that becomes a sticky wicket I think and then to your point
• 1:13:26
  around publicity I think that you know vegans are often their own worst publicists and there's a
• 1:13:33
  real problem within the movement in terms of how this lifestyle is is communicated and advocated
• 1:13:41
  in that it's inherently you know a lifestyle that's about compassion and yet there's a there's
• 1:13:50
  sort of an ascetic tone of judgment and condescension that is levied from certain aspects of that
• 1:13:58
  community at others that is not helpful and I also think within the vegan plant-based community
• 1:14:06
  there's a lot of infighting and argumentation about how to communicate the benefits of this
• 1:14:12
  lifestyle or what's important and what's not that hinders the progress of it and alienates you know
• 1:14:22
  many many people out there and there's an interesting parallel between at least in the United States
• 1:14:28
  uh uh democratic and and republican politics uh in the way they mirror each other in the sense that
• 1:14:37
  like vegans are sort of like democrats they're always fighting with each other they're arguing
• 1:14:42
  about what their talking points are the right wing they've got it all in lockstep they're always
• 1:14:49
  on point with what they're saying and that would mimic the more kind of carnivore paleo perspective
• 1:14:56
  uh when it comes to diet and so i think the infighting within the plant-based community and the
• 1:15:02
  different factions and um perspectives uh end up uh at times you know alienating people who might be
• 1:15:12
  curious about it otherwise and so i've thought a lot about how to be the best advocate for this
• 1:15:18
  lifestyle and i've really abandoned trying to convince anybody that you know they should do what i
• 1:15:24
  do like i'm not in the business of trying to get to convince people that they should live their
• 1:15:29
  life or eat the way that i do and that's very much uh an outgrowth of what i've learned in in 12 step
• 1:15:37
  like in 12 step you don't tell people what to do you don't give them advice you share your experience
• 1:15:44
  so i'm happy to share my experience if that's meaningful to somebody else and they can extract
• 1:15:49
  something from that that's beneficial to them that's fantastic if somebody asks me about why
• 1:15:55
  eat the way that i eat or what it does for me or doesn't do for me happy to talk about it but i don't
• 1:16:01
  stand in judgment of anybody else's choices i'm not taking anyone else's inventory i would much
• 1:16:07
  prefer to just you know have a sort of pursue my life and and try to live well and be a lighthouse
• 1:16:16
  like to just stand in my strength and attract people who are you know vibrating on my wavelength and
• 1:16:23
  are possibly receptive to what i have to say but i'm not out there banging any kind of drum like
• 1:16:30
  that's just not the way to you know kind of win a war of ideas from my perspective
• 1:16:36
  right be the change you want to see in the world as Gandhi said you just go out and live a kickass
• 1:16:42
  life and be like an example for other people as i'm trying to think through what's working and what
• 1:16:47
  what works and what doesn't work on someone like me i would regard myself as being the cohort that's
• 1:16:53
  most winnable the the cohort that uh is basically sold on the morality of it what derails me sometimes
• 1:17:05
  the number of arguments as you as you just said from the vegan side some of which are a very
• 1:17:12
  in quality and our brains just will naturally latch onto the weakest argument and then try to take
• 1:17:19
  that one down and then think that and then feel like we've done a good job of dismissing all the
• 1:17:23
  arguments because we've dismissed the weakest one so you know it happened just a moment ago when you
• 1:17:28
  were talking about all the health problems from eating too much saturated fat you know i smell a
• 1:17:35
  rat there and i go well hang on what you're actually talking about is the open consumption of
• 1:17:39
  processed food and having too much saturated fat and on a lean protein all of which are manageable
• 1:17:45
  within the context of a healthy carnivorous omnivorous diet and then i think well because i've made
• 1:17:52
  that distinction therefore i can i can skip merely on my way and not worry about the other arguments
• 1:17:58
  for veganism that i regard as being more sound which are the more kind of pita singer based moral
• 1:18:04
  arguments about whether or not we've reached a stage of human conscious evolution that makes it
• 1:18:10
  untenable for us to treat other sentient creatures in as simply as uh as objects of our own use
• 1:18:19
  anymore and uh yeah if there was a clarity i think if there was a clarity of messaging
• 1:18:24
  around the moral question then maybe that would be that would be would be clearer i don't know
• 1:18:33
  um i want to i want to get to first date questions which i will pepper at you in a kind of a
• 1:18:39
  raw shark uh a test of random questions and you could just say the first thing that comes into your
• 1:18:44
  mind but before we before we get to those um i'm just interested in where you think of what you
• 1:18:51
  think of your goals and role as being at the moment like are you an are you an athlete are you an
• 1:18:57
  activist are you an interviewer are you a guru you were just talking about people vibrating on
• 1:19:02
  your wavelength like what what is the what is the trouble at this point definitely not a guru
• 1:19:08
  definitely not a guru uh yeah i mean it's uh it's a curious question i you know i try not to
• 1:19:16
  um overly identify in any kind of particular silo uh i i i don't you know i am athletic i'm not a
• 1:19:26
  competitive you know i'm not competing as an athlete right now does that make me an athlete does
• 1:19:31
  it not like i you know i'm not sure like all i can tell you is that um i in terms of goals
• 1:19:39
  there are certainly creative projects that i'm trying to realize right now but i'm not the person
• 1:19:47
  who's like i'm doing all of this to work towards this ultimate thing like this i have my eyes on
• 1:19:53
  this prize off in the distance like i just feel so incredibly grateful to be able to do what i
• 1:20:03
  get to do every day which is like have amazing conversations with fascinating people who inspire me
• 1:20:10
  and educate me in in different ways and of course we all want our platforms to grow and reach more
• 1:20:16
  people and you know my ego will get caught up in that as much as the next person but you know the
• 1:20:22
  truth of the matter Josh is that like if if it was lights out tomorrow like i'm it was a life
• 1:20:28
  well-lived like i'm just i'm so nourished in what i get to do today and so like sort of you know
• 1:20:34
  sort of semi-shocked that i get to do this thing and support my family in doing it uh that
• 1:20:41
  it doesn't necessarily need to be anything more than than what it is right now and in terms of like
• 1:20:47
  how people perceive me as an athlete as a podcaster as an author or whatever it is um that's their
• 1:20:54
  business like i try to not get caught up in what that might look like i guess you know in terms
• 1:21:00
  of the amount of time that i spend on certain things i'm probably most appropriately labeled
• 1:21:06
  as a podcaster because that's how i you know invest most of my time but i'm working on a new book
• 1:21:11
  and you know i would like to do a race at some point in the future if i can get my back sort of
• 1:21:16
  out and you know i've got four kids and i you know i i i have the privilege of being able to do
• 1:21:23
  lots of different things and be exposed to many different interesting experiences and i look at it
• 1:21:30
  all as as you know the the real privilege i guess in all of this i guess what i'm what i'm driving
• 1:21:35
  at is i'm in this unbelievable position where i get to choose how to invest my curiosity and i
• 1:21:42
  you know that is a gift that not many people um get in their life and i'm very aware of that
• 1:21:48
  and so how i choose to deploy that curiosity is something that i you know take take very seriously
• 1:21:55
  and right now it's podcasting in this book thing and you know we'll see where that goes but
• 1:22:01
  i don't get caught up in five-year plans or ten-year plans or anything like that i mean i'd be
• 1:22:05
  curious how you think about that five-year plans and ten-year plans uh what is your goal like what
• 1:22:14
  where do you see yourself in five years like are you know where are you taking all of this Josh
• 1:22:20
  you know what i mean i mean my answer is is easier to the question that i actually asked you
• 1:22:28
  rather than the one that you've turned it into in the sense of like what uh you know what are
• 1:22:33
  you up to i mean i'm up to having conversations that help people feel a bit more sane
• 1:22:40
  in the world and that move things forward in a way that's constructive and that avoids
• 1:22:47
  uh mischaracterization of people's ideas and that creates a stronger and sort of more robust
• 1:22:55
  demos in which we can have conversations and figure out problems and uh create a uh create
• 1:23:02
  solutions to yeah to things that to the shared problems that that we face rather than squabbling
• 1:23:08
  with each other over um irrelevant things or over misunderstandings about each other's positions
• 1:23:13
  you know i'm on a mission against tribalism and uh identitarianism and in favor of the greatest
• 1:23:20
  amount of kind of compassion and empathy and sort of intellectual empathy and as well as a
• 1:23:23
  emotional empathy that that we can must start to come together uh and understand each other and
• 1:23:30
  be well informed about the world so that that is for me a very kind of simple box in which i can
• 1:23:36
  sit and then the question is about exactly what i where i will be in five or ten years
• 1:23:41
  all stem from that you know in a way that i feel is more consistent for me than if i was running
• 1:23:47
  ultramarathons and doing a podcast and being an activist if you know what i mean yeah no i get that
• 1:23:53
  i get that um let's talk about first let's do first eight questions i want it we've uh only
• 1:23:58
  scratch the surface i mean i'm i'm i'm not i have a bazillion other questions that i could ask
• 1:24:03
  the life and everything that's going on in the world we haven't even touched on like
• 1:24:06
  you know culture war stuff or anything like that but what is what is getting
• 1:24:11
  what's happening now that in 20 years people will look back on and laugh about
• 1:24:18
  laugh about or or be surprised but like well i'll find humorous you think no
• 1:24:26
  you can take it either way like either shake your head and disbelieve or have a chocolate
• 1:24:34
  yeah that's a tough one well i think i think certainly you know and this is my you know i'm
• 1:24:40
  going to be mr. vegan guy like the idea that we eat animals you know i think in maybe not
• 1:24:45
  20 years but perhaps in 50 years people will look back and wonder young people will wonder like
• 1:24:52
  wait you actually raise these animals and slaughter them or you know all of that that's how you
• 1:24:57
  got your food i think that will seem weird with the advent of of you know the cultured meat
• 1:25:04
  movement which is well underway right now so i think that's certainly a possibility i mean my hope
• 1:25:11
  is that the institution of democracy at least in the united states will survive
• 1:25:17
  this strange moment that we find ourselves in and and perhaps we'll look back on this time
• 1:25:23
  curiously as a as a very strange moment in in our history um and that you know the ship will
• 1:25:32
  be sufficiently righted and we'll be able to restore some level of confidence in institutions
• 1:25:39
  and find our way back to reasoned civil discourse uh but i don't know i think that that could go
• 1:25:47
  either way yeah would you rather live full-time in an RV or full-time on a sailboat
• 1:26:02
  probably in RV because i don't know 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 i think we can teach you how to
• 1:26:10
  i think we can teach you how to sail i think if i knew how to sail i'd probably say a sailboat
• 1:26:15
  i think that's within the realm of your ability i'm not going to put you on the sailboat today
• 1:26:19
  and like keep you there for and you're not allowed to dock or learn uh i think you'll have some
• 1:26:24
  i think that the ports of call for the sailboat are are much more intriguing and exotic than
• 1:26:30
  than like the RV you know kind of like place where you sleep you know you pull over off the side
• 1:26:36
  of the highway to sleep so fine i think sailing sounds a little bit sexier and
• 1:26:40
  or inspiring yeah what's a cool place that you haven't been to that you want to go to
• 1:26:48
  Japan my uh my 19-year-old daughter just got back from three weeks in Japan with her
• 1:26:54
  with her boyfriend changed her life i've always wanted to visit and have yet to go there
• 1:27:00
  what's the worst movie you've seen i love me a bad movie like bad bad or like so bad it's good
• 1:27:12
  no i don't think this means so bad it's good i usually i'm usually asking for like the least
• 1:27:16
  enjoyable film not one that's so mad i can't oh man i'm gonna have to really think about that
• 1:27:25
  i see a lot of movies and well what's a recent one that you walked out of going oh that's a
• 1:27:30
  dud oh man am i really going to say this on a podcast i uh i did not enjoy avatar
• 1:27:47
  oh there's an avatar movie wow and i know the cameras and i so i feel bad and i feel like the
• 1:27:56
  themes of the movie i appreciate but i had a really hard time with the CGI nature of of everything
• 1:28:04
  and i'm not a part of entirely CGI film do you know i did i did yes i did do that i don't
• 1:28:14
  what is this i thought i was going to eat real flying animals i don't i don't like the 3d glass
• 1:28:21
  glasses experience and where everything you know just looks so not real it takes me out of the
• 1:28:29
  narrative and it made it impossible for me to enjoy the movie uh because i was so distracted by
• 1:28:38
  the rest were you expecting to enjoy it uh i went in with i went in i tried to go in with
• 1:28:48
  this blank a slate as possible but no i wasn't expecting i wasn't expecting it to be
• 1:28:53
  amazing but you know i was expecting to be so bored like i only i just caught it just before it was
• 1:29:00
  about to go off in the theaters i was like if i'm ever gonna see it i have to see it on a gigantic
• 1:29:05
  screen in three days so let's go and do it and i was like i don't see through the flying blue
• 1:29:11
  things and i don't know what oh my goodness i don't want to spend three hours so i'm
• 1:29:16
  living on my watch after two hours going i see i'm not only halfway through but i and i loved it
• 1:29:20
  i didn't get bored at all you did yeah i was like interesting but i think it's because i had such
• 1:29:25
  low expectations i was like it wasn't boring it was really impressive it was you know i'd liked
• 1:29:32
  the story i liked the big flying things it was like a being on a little ride i thought it was
• 1:29:38
  i didn't like ta oh man i thought tar was the best movie of the year wow i think in five or
• 1:29:48
  ten years we'll be looking back and really having a different you know perspective on that movie i
• 1:29:55
  thought that movie was brilliant it may have been also that i saw it light i saw it light and
• 1:30:00
  that was kind of time i saw it i saw it a second time i enjoyed it even more of the second you
• 1:30:07
  went back yeah i loved tar wow you're a glutton for punishment that's incredible i i encourage you
• 1:30:16
  to go back and there is absolutely when you when you feel fresh ever watch that movie again i'm
• 1:30:22
  not gonna i couldn't even i wouldn't be able to sit through the thirteen minute long musical credit
• 1:30:28
  sequence at the beginning that they force you to sit through like this is some 1942
• 1:30:32
  melodrama before you even get to anything happening in the movie i'd walk out within 90 seconds
• 1:30:37
  you know there you know that there was a there's a there's a there's a purposeful meaning behind that
• 1:30:42
  i'm sure there is what's the purposeful meaning i think it speaks to one of the themes of the movie
• 1:30:51
  is is putting to the test the lie or the idea of the the soul genius you know the the self-invented
• 1:31:01
  genius who stands apart from the rest of humanity and i think Todd Field in making this movie
• 1:31:08
  was saying not only is Lydia tar you know not you know not the the the sort of genius fabricated
• 1:31:17
  character that she you know she's a product of her own self creation like her her stature and and
• 1:31:27
  and sort of position in that world is the result of so many people behind the scenes all of the
• 1:31:33
  musicians all of these people that help to you know create the work that makes her you know the
• 1:31:40
  person that she is in that world similarly Todd Field right up front in making this movie is saying
• 1:31:47
  look at how many people it takes to make a movie like this just because you know my name as the director
• 1:31:53
  is front and center on this whole thing let's be clear at the very beginning like
• 1:31:58
  i want you to appreciate like the thousands of people that contribute to you know a work
• 1:32:04
  such as this and i thought that that was a cool and creative way of like of like you know basically
• 1:32:11
  um exploring that that theme that plays out over the course of that film that is one
• 1:32:17
  uh interpretation i like that one uh the alternative interpretation as it's a way to virtue
• 1:32:23
  signal to audiences about how creative and important this movie is and that he's gonna force you
• 1:32:30
  i will credit you there's a level of self-importance in it exactly straight out yeah because this is
• 1:32:35
  an epic which is going shooting for the stars and he's gonna win all the Oscars just sit there and
• 1:32:39
  endure these moments before i start pulling my pants down and showing you my dick it's like
• 1:32:45
  okay we get it Todd we get it so you're being very good at that that Berlin apartment was pretty dope
• 1:32:51
  though it was it was a lovely apartment i loved that uh what's the worst advice that someone's
• 1:32:57
  given you rich that's a tough one i think i think i would say get a humans if you'd like to hear
• 1:33:17
  rich's answer to the worst advice he's ever been given and my reaction to that answer you can
• 1:33:22
  get your own dedicated premium podcast feed for free at uncomfortable conversations.substake.com
• 1:33:26
  slash listen that'll generate your unique podcast feed to keep and it'll always contain more
• 1:33:32
  content than the feed that you are listening to does if not have a great week and i'll see you next time