Rhett & Link On Building A (Mythical) Media Empire, The Price of Public Friendship, & Leaving The Evangelical Church

29:30Yeah, he did, however, eventually play soccer for the high school team. I did. I was there the night he scored two goals with his left foot, the only two goals he ever scored with his off foot. Back to back, I was one of 12 people screaming very loudly. Thank you, Rhett. Nice. Thank you for telling that story. What's going on in North Carolina? Like how far away is your town from where Mr. Beast grew up? Greenville, which is where he's at, is probably an hour and a half east of us. Yeah. So yeah. In fact, thanks for mentioning that because we recently saw the map of the most subscribed YouTube channel in every state, which if we happened to be in South Carolina or - We would have been on that map.

30:10Or Tennessee or Virginia would be on that map, but - Thanks to Mr. Beast, we are a distant second. But between the three of you, you commandeer like a pretty, you know, powerful corner of the internet. Yeah. More than a corner of it. Right. Okay, so we end up doing, you know, doing the oath. And that was what kind of just set us on this trajectory to eventually find a way into doing it full-time. But again, we had no idea. We went to NC State, we were engineering students, and then graduated and became engineers, believe it or not, for a little bit. But the thing that was kind of unfolding through all of that was we come from very evangelical Christian backgrounds, which we've talked a little bit about this.

30:55That's the world that we come from and we're not really in that world anymore. But that was a huge part of how we became entertainers was in the context of church and in the context of campus ministry with Campus Crusade of getting up at weekly meetings and doing monologues and showing videos and playing music and that kind of thing. We've always had this tendency to take a path, an unconventional path without knowing that that was what we were doing. Whereas somebody else might be like, well, if I wanna get into comedy, I'm gonna develop a tight standup routine and I'm gonna go to the local comedy club and then maybe I'll get to do that on the West Coast at some point or go to New York.

31:34And for us, it was, no, let's go into this place where there's a bunch of Christian college students who are not interested in comedy at all. They're not here for the comedy and let's give them something that none of them asked for where the standard for being funny is really, really low because you're competing just against a pastor who has a great opening story in his sermon. Which is good for kind of getting that early validation that maybe you needed to feel like you were onto something. Oh yeah. Oh yeah, we thought we were onto something. Built-in audience available. With low expectations.

32:07With no choice. With no expectations. With no choice. They can't leave. Blindside an audience. They feel an obligation to be there for completely different reasons. So this is like your bootcamp or the sort of Malcolm Gladwell-esque type of, you know, tipping point experience in the way that like Bill Gates had access to this supercomputer that nobody else did down the street that allowed him to, and you have access to this population of people, like an audience that's available to you to work your stuff out. Totally. And just like those talent shows in middle school, we lived for the annual conference, the winter conference that we would emcee and create videos and write songs for.

32:55So like all year round, we'd be working up material and testing it out. And yeah, kind of honing our craft, I guess you would say. Because when we graduated college, this is around like 2000, 2001. You think about YouTube didn't even exist until four years later, 2005 into 2006. And we had this, an accumulation of videos we had created that we put on our own website that then when YouTube came along, people stole a few, ripped them, put them on YouTube, and it got more views in a day here on our website. So we're like, okay. Then we started chasing this new audience. Let's do that on purpose. And we were older.

33:44So we had this more response. We were both married. I think we, by 2000 - We were getting ready to have - By 2005 - We both had a kid. We both had a kid, you know? So it was like - But you were a baby. How old were you guys when you got married? Yeah, I turned - I was 23. I was, I turned 22 on my honeymoon. Yeah, and I was 23.

34:13Sometimes the things we think are good enough suddenly get better in ways we did not expect. And that's what happened when AG1 launched three new flavors. Look, I was perfectly happy with the original. I've been drinking it every morning for ages. It does its job. But then I tried tropical, which tastes like papaya and passion fruit. There's berry with these blueberry strawberry notes and citrus with this lemon orange thing going on. This isn't about chasing novelty. It's about recognizing when something great becomes even better. The nutritional foundation of AG1 is exactly the same and remains solid.

34:53Multivitamin, prebiotics, probiotics and superfoods all in one scoop. I still feel that sustained energy, digestive support, all with the same confidence I'm covering all my nutritional bases. But now there's variety baked into my morning routine. All plant-based, no added sugar, no shortcuts taken. So if you've been on the fence about AG1, hung up about the taste, consider that fence officially removed. Give the new AG1 flavors a try today. If you head to drinkag1.com slash richroll, you'll also get a free welcome kit worth 76 bucks when you subscribe, including five AG1 travel packs, a shaker, a canister, and a scoop.

35:34That's drinkag1.com slash richroll to get started.

35:41This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. So I just read this book called Dealing with Feeling. That's right, Dealing with Feeling. It's by this Yale psychology professor called Dr. Mark Brackett. And it's all about emotional intelligence and why learning to understand and regulate our emotions is like the most important skill you can learn to live a better life, but also to better help others with their emotions. He calls it co-regulation, which in some sense kind of means that we can all act as therapists for each other in some way, which is an amazing thing. Very cool. But, and this is a big but, it's not a replacement for talking with someone who's actually trained to help you.

36:26Therapists are not just good listeners. They're clinically trained professionals. They understand patterns. They identify underlying issues. And obviously, they're well-equipped, unlike your barber or your bartender or your best friend, to provide you with tools that actually work. work. BetterHelp has been helping people find their therapeutic match for over 10 years. They have a 4.9 rating from 1.7 million client reviews. They do the matching work for you, and if it's not the right fit, you can switch therapists anytime at no extra cost. It's completely online. It's flexible. It fits into your life.

37:03As the largest online therapy provider in the world, BetterHelp can provide access to mental health professionals with a diverse variety of expertise. Find the one with BetterHelp. Our listeners get 10 % off their first month at betterhelp.com slash richroll. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P.com slash richroll.

37:31When YouTube is suddenly available, you're poised and ready to go. And when people say like, Oh, you guys are OG YouTubers. Like truly, like day one. We weren't in the very first wave. We're like nine months late to the day one. In terms of people who are still around. Because we had our own website. Like Smosh started in, the only people that I know that still do YouTube full-time who started in 2005, the very first year, Smosh. And then everybody else that I know was 2006. Yeah, is anybody still relevant from that first wave, still making stuff and putting our footprint on the internet from those early years.

38:14I mean - You got the Vlog Brothers, you got Hank and John Green. Hank and John Green go way back. You got Phil DeFranco still doing his thing. Yeah, that's true. There's not many. Not many. And then you've got Smosh. I'm sure there's a few more. Which ultimately you guys end up acquiring Smosh. Yeah, so crazy. Which is like crazy. Yeah. We acquired that business and then it was, and Ian just half of the duo. and then we, when Anthony came back, we sold Smosh back to them and then they took over and they're doing great. Right. Okay, so early days, YouTube, you guys have put in your time, you're good to go.

38:53And we're motivated because we've got kids and we're trying to make this a business. We're not just kids in our bedroom making response videos and it was a lot about community for a lot of YouTubers who were starting out. There were some comedy troops. There were some improv groups that we took some cues from. Okay, we've got our own sketches. We can do this. But we were very motivated to try to make it a business, to make a living off of it. There couldn't have been too many people back then who were thinking in those terms at that time. Again, we always go to the low competition environment.

39:34be the first person at the competition that nobody's at is really what we have always, again, I don't think it was intentional. I just think it's just, it worked out that way. So at that time - So we're no gatekeepers. Yeah. So there was no asking permission. Right, and so what we started doing is the only thing we knew how to do was, okay, there's no AdSense program. So there's no partner program. So you're not getting any cash for just getting views. So you literally have to get in touch with a brand to get them to pay you to put their product in your video. So we wrote a song about cornhole, the game.

40:12And we started cold calling different companies that sold cornhole equipment, literally like calling a mom who's running her cornhole business out of her garage. And we were asking for$2 ,000 as a flat fee to make the video. And then an agreement using something that we had just heard about called a CPM, where you would get paid according to how much, how many views it got. And we just, with the help of my dad, kind of just put together a little contract. And she was like, well, I don't have$2 ,000. And so, but we eventually get in touch with a couple of guys who were about our age. I think the site was ajjcornhole.com.

40:48And they were like, you guys are kind of like us getting started doing this thing. Yeah, we'd love to be a part of this. And that was like our first contract. And then we did that with a number of other businesses. and then a couple of years later started getting called by agencies directly. And that's when, oh, we're making an entire road trip series for Alka-Seltzer in 2008. And that was when we started thinking, I think that there is a sustainable business here if we can have enough brands get excited about what we're doing. But in the back of your minds, was it still very much, this is an audition for Hollywood because we need to drive this truck towards the TV show that we're gonna make with a big studio and a real budget?

41:33Or were you YouTube first? Sometimes we would get into a place where we could only think about trying to piece together a living as the number of mouths to feed were increasing. Right. Because Link has three kids, I've got two. And we were focused on that, but you would have enough conversations. We actually developed a really interesting connection kind of in 2007, right? Right there in the beginning, we had the opportunity to host a show on the CW. So a network show that was about internet videos called Online Nation, horrible show. Yeah, I saw the video where you guys like you're cringing. Yeah.

42:15But again, that was a point in which we got this little taste. It was like a Tosh 2.0 kind of thing, right? Or America's Funniest Videos type deal. So we got this little taste of Hollywood and coming out here. and we met at that point, we actually became, and one of the producers on that show became our manager. And that's when we started what we call, what they called general meetings. We're like, what is a general meeting? It sounds very non-specific. That's all we knew. And apparently it was when you go and sit down with a production company who makes television shows or makes movies and you try to get them interested.

42:51And we didn't know anything about how these worked. So around 2008, we show up, We go into one general meeting where we thought what we're supposed to do is give them an idea. So we're sitting in the lobby. We're looking at the movie posters that they have up. And it's like a comedy company, but they've got some, there's some alien thing here. We end up developing a pitch in the lobby and go in and act as if we've got this movie completely ready to go. That you just came up with. You just baked up in the lobby. Yeah. And we still love the idea. Yeah. It's about a band that in the 70s or the 80s, they were added to a broadcast that was sent out into space, kind of like the Voyager spacecraft was sent out in 77.

43:37And so they are a band, like a popular band that is featured on this record that then is intercepted by aliens. And the alien civilization becomes enamored with this particular band. Meanwhile, on earth, this band has gotten old, they've broken up, but now that alien civilization is coming to attack earth. And only thing that they want, and the only way to appease them is for the band to get back together and like give an incredible show to this alien. It's pretty good. It's sort of like waiting for Sugarman with aliens. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we got a taste of that and we were like, okay, we can come up with ideas and lobbies and maybe we should write scripts.

44:15So we wrote a pilot script and we started having more meetings and that kind of thing. And that was kind of a slow burn that over the years, things would get even closer to development. We started getting this taste for what it might be like to actually have a TV show that was our baby. But in the meantime, the traction on YouTube kept growing and we started realizing, oh, on one hand in the traditional world, we're spending all this time writing, writing a feature, writing multiple pilots, having all these meetings, trying to get people to get excited about stuff. doing a lot of creative work that never gets seen.

44:56Meanwhile, over here on YouTube, the minute we have an idea is the minute that we can turn around and make it for an audience that is growing. And we're also making money doing it. So it took us a really long time to get to this place where almost all the focus shifted to the YouTube side of things. And then we get to a point where, well, we've never made that movie that we just pitched to you. Because, I mean, that's on a different level in terms of the amount of cost and everything you would need to do that. You got to be plugged in in some way into a traditional entertainment lane, right? So there's always been this dream of we want to tell bigger stories.

45:38We do want to work on bigger projects. We have ways that we want to express ourselves. So there's always been this pull to create bigger projects. and sometimes that meant like doing the show for IFC or writing more pilots or pitching. And so we would oscillate between ambitious projects that we were dreaming about and then getting turned away and turning back towards what was working for us and appreciating it for what it is. But they're always different, those two lanes, right? The things that were working for us with our podcast, with Good Mythical Morning, with our direct fan interaction and building that business and trying to reinvest.

46:31But it never turned into making that movie or another movie or a television series. Yeah, I mean, when I look at it just as a fan and as a lay person and trying to understand like how you went from where you were to where you are now, I see like a very rational, thoughtful progression towards those more ambitious projects, tackling them when you finally have the capacity to do so on your own terms. Because Good Mythical Morning is like the anchor, right? Like this is the thing that the audience is tuning in for every day, very loyal, engaged, massive group of people that I suspect on some level is sort of paying the bills and has allowed you to expand your team and your capacity and then make more deliberate choices about what to do with that revenue and investing them in projects that are of a budget range that you guys can manage, which brings you to Wonderhole.

47:32Basically, here we are, we're having this podcast on the eve of the premiere of season two of this program, Wonder Hole, which is essentially a TV show. Yeah, half hour comedy. It's so, I was trying to like wrap my head around like, okay, what is this, right? And in so many ways, it is a television show. It's sort of like, take Nathan Fielder, for example. So I look at what Nathan Fielder has done and what he's doing and how he's kind of like expanding the scope and concepts that he's tackling. And on a certain level, he's kind of a YouTuber, right? He's kind of a YouTuber who got plugged into HBO and is making essentially what would work very well on YouTube just with larger budgets.

48:19And you're kind of doing the inverse of that. Like you're making, you're making, you're YouTubers who are making a television show with a more modest budget, at least with respect to, you know, whatever got spent on the rehearsal. But these things are very much of a piece, they're in conversation with each other, right? Which brings me back to like the kind of initial question that I had for you guys, like this blended situation that we're in right now, where you're self-funding your own TV show. And assuming it's successful, this then gives you the capacity to, you know, kind of expand, you know, the budgets next time around and be a little bit more ambitious with what you're doing, which is just gonna blend these things even more.

49:03Yeah, I think that the strategy for us has been, sometimes you can get really focused on the way that everything is changing around you and the way that the landscape is shifting. And anticipating those changes, that's some people's gift. And some people are like, oh, I'm gonna find some white space here or there. Our strategy, mostly just because it's all we know how to do. When the landscape is confusing, you focus on what you can control, which is what you're bringing to that confusing landscape. And for us, it is a very particular type of creative project that is rooted in that 40 year friendship, is rooted in our sensibility, which is, you know, our POV comes from what we think is funny, us being silly, having a good time together, our worldview, what it was and what it has become and like what it's like to have your worldview turned upside down.

50:01That all kind of blends into this recipe that gives us the ability to create something that only we can create. And all we can do is try to get that out as clearly as possible in a realistic way. And I think that's what Wonderhole represents in why Wonder Hole is what it is in terms of how you would describe the genre, which especially in season two, we did it a little bit in season one, but we really honed in on this very specific strategy in season two, which is every single video, the title - Don't even call it a video. Every single episode, the title and thumbnail of each episode is just like another video that exists out there on YouTube that has multiple millions of views.

50:49Whether it is, we spent the night in a$100 million mansion and a tiny home, or we spent, the first episode is, we spent 100 hours on a raft, stranded on a raft. We reviewed one-star hotels. These are videos that multiple people have done. Mr. Beast sort of created this type of video, and now there's a lot of people who do their derivative versions of it and to great effect. And when he says derivative versions, the titles and the thumbnails are exactly the same. The only difference is the person's face in the thumbnail is a different creator, but they're carbon copies, title, thumbnail, and format.

51:32So - But we don't wanna do that. We don't wanna do that. We don't wanna do the same thing. We wanna tell stories and we want to tell increasingly ambitious stories, but we don't wanna ask permission. So we have our original YouTube channel, the Rhett and Link YouTube channel. So we said, okay, what's a way to have our cake and eat it too? We wanna maximize the performance of these videos, but we want to create episodes of a television show and be a part of that conversation. This is the interesting thing about storytelling on YouTube that we are learning as we go. So what works on YouTube is driven by an algorithm that rewards a click and then engagement and retention.

52:21So you have to engage with the title and the thumbnail, and then you have to retain a viewer. And so, so much, you know, the videos that get, take Mr. Beast as an example, the videos that are getting hundreds of millions of views, they are essentially a recipe for engagement. It is all about engagement. It is from the very beginning, what draws you in to every single second is optimized for human engagement. And that's not just honestly, not exciting to us because we think that when engagement is the end goal, you end up creating something that, I don't know, when I get finished watching a video that's all about engagement, I feel like a little piece of my soul is left on the table.

53:06It goes into the ether. Because it's just a reptilian response. It's appealing to something in your brain that I don't necessarily, you know this in having a podcast, the pressures in every single industry, the way that the very democratic algorithm has influenced news in all media, I don't think is something we're gonna look back on and be happy about, right? So if you wanna tell stories in the context of that algorithm, you have to have the auspices of that algorithm. That's why the theme for season two is clickbait and switch. All the titles are clickbait. All the thumbnails are clickbait. But at some point in the first few minutes of that video, we're gonna take you down the wonder hole.

53:49That's about something that we're interested in is a story that we think would be entertaining. But we're focusing more on connection and less on engagement. And that's gonna mean lower views. We're not gonna get a hundred million views on a video. I don't think we could if we wanted to, but also I don't think we would ever try because what we would have to do in order to do that is not something that really resonates with us. So that's this question of operating in this algorithm that's all about engagement, but then trying to actually make a real connection with people in the way that is happening.

54:26When you talk about Nathan Filder, who is a big inspiration for us, the rehearsal is just so crazy and so weird and so awesome. and it's about plumbing that he's plumbing his own depths, right, personally and his eccentricities and making something that only Nathan Fielder can make. You know, you talk about it working on YouTube. I don't think it would work on YouTube because I don't think you could package it. I think what works from the rehearsal are the clips. They may work on YouTube shorts or may work on Instagram or TikTok, but the show itself, I think, lives best in a curated environment like HBO, where somebody else is having a say in, hey, we've got some stuff we want you to watch of a certain sensibility, but it isn't driven exclusively by people's impulses to click on something.

55:17There's a different dynamic there. It is a strange and unfortunate situation that not only YouTube, but the internet at large is constructed in this way. And I spent a lot of time thinking about this, like in what I do, like what would I have to change about what I do in order to optimize it to grow the audience? And it's really a decision of personal ethics and values more than anything else, right? And like, I wanna stay in love with what I'm doing. I want to make sure that what I'm doing is delivering meaningful value for the audience. and in order to play the game of hijacking the algorithm to like, you know, serve the agenda of audience capture is just not something I'm interested in doing while also being aware that I'm running a commercial enterprise and it has to survive.

56:10And I would like it to grow and I would like the people that have already subscribed to actually see it, you know, when it gets posted and all of these things, right? These are all things that we have to think about. But what's brilliant about Wonderhole is this, you know, click and switch idea behind it because essentially just to kind of underscore the conceit of it all, you are taking something that works, that's proven to already work on the internet. So for example, like what's it like to fly in a$30 ,000, you know, first class suite, you know, in a fancy airline where you have like essentially your own apartment.

56:43There's lots of videos out there that do very well on this. Casey Neistat did an incredible one. You know, this works, right? So it's like, all right, well, we're going to start with this. Like, what would it look like if you guys did this? And there is a Nathan Fielder piece to this in the way that you set it up. You're like, okay, you know, if it was Nathan, what would you, you know, on some level of it's Rhett and Link, like what is their weird approach to this? And it sort of starts out in a way that you kind of these things start out and then it just, the switch is, it ends up catalyzing this insane adventure that has nothing to do with the premise of the idea to begin with.

57:19But you're in for the ride because you guys are engaging and you're telling a story that the viewer gets wrapped up in. And suddenly you're in this completely different place that has nothing to do with the idea that got these people to, you know, click play in the first place. Yeah. And hopefully you're better because of it. Right. You know, you're left nourished. Did I just get manipulated in some kind of fast food, you know, like I have a hangover, like some kind of hangover from having been forced to watch the movie? Okay, in the fast food of it all. Yeah, exactly. Conscious intention. This is so real to us because all while Wonderhole is being made and we are super excited about the stories we're telling there, we continue to make Good Mythical Morning.

58:08I mean, that's coming out every single day. That's crazy. Well, Monday through Friday, basically year round. There's a couple of breaks where it goes to three times a week, But that show is all about connection at its heart. It's the two of us just hanging out with each other, having a good time. You are invited to be the third friend in that friendship every single day. But we've been playing that algorithm for almost 3000 episodes. And literally when you say fast food, fast food is so clickable. There's just something about us deciding that we're going to tell you what the best chicken sandwich is.

58:46what the best cheeseburger is. And there's something irresistible about that. Now, would we at our, if we were creating a show from the ground up right now, would it be like, let's taste test burgers? It's like, no, it's not a passion. It has - Though I do like a good smash burger. Yeah, yeah. We have a really good time doing it and I especially like to eat. But we have been sort of riding those two rails at the same time with Good Mythical Morning for a very long time of if you don't, there's so many people who haven't been able to avoid our faces and thumbnails on YouTube who are like, okay, I think I know what this is and I'm not interested in it.

59:26And I completely get that because me personally, if I saw the thumbnail of me holding up a burger and making an engaging face, that's not the kind of thing that me as a 47 year old dude would wanna click on. But what we have found is that enough people click and are like, oh, it is kind of about the burger for the click, but it's about the connection and the friendship once I'm there. So we've had to do that, growing a business in this environment. And then it was, okay, how else can you do that? Can you do that with a longer form comedy? And Wonder Woman takes a slightly different approach to that.

1:00:01And can you infuse even more meaning into, if we're working with the power of stories and we're tricking you or some people into that click and then we're switching it up. We really tried with season two to identify the themes that we were exploring and elevate our craft, I guess is the best way to say it. And I know that there's a lot of creators out there who don't wanna just emulate what's gonna work to get the clicks. They have something to say. And I think it is a real question of, is YouTube going to be the place where those creators can say those things? You know, in an episode we're really excited about, we are inspired by the format that Ryan Trahan, amongst a few other creators made popular, which is going and staying at a one-star hotel overnight and seeing how much of that nightmare from the reviews is actually true.

1:01:15Now that's intriguing, right? You can see why it's getting tens of millions of views and so many creators are jumping on the bandwagon. But for us, we were like, okay, what story do we wanna tell? We know at the very beginning, we're gonna be taking the black light out. We're gonna be looking in the drawers and seeing what nightmares are to be found. And we know in every hotel room, there's either a Bible or a Book of Mormon, or sometimes both, thanks to the Gideons and the Latter-day Saints, right? So. So we said, what if when you open that drawer, you found something other than either a Bible or a Book of Mormon?

1:01:57And can that be a way for us to explore our own spiritual journey? And can we get our friend Rainn Wilson to make a cameo? Yeah. So it's like a really fun Trojan horse. Totally, yeah. The gate is easily opened for that Trojan horse to come in. And then you sneak up on them with a bunch of soldiers who wanna talk about your spiritual transformation. Or at least what, like, who should you believe? How powerful is a personal testimony, especially when your best friend is the one who is now telling you that he's totally changed his worldview. How do you respond to that? And how do you earn trust? So these are the type of things that we do explore, yeah.

1:02:47But it's very silly. There's a hot tub baptism. There's a hot tub baptism. Yeah, yeah. But for us, it's not just about getting the chip off our shoulder to make a television show or to be talked about in the same conversation as a Nathan Filder, even though that feels really good. And I really do appreciate you drawing the comparisons. We really try to focus on what do we have to say and what type of experiences as creators and creative people do we want to curate for ourselves and bring our audience along for the ride. If we're going to lose a little money in the short term to make it without asking permission, we're gaining the experience of doing it and maybe staying engaged after all these years.

1:03:43I'm in the process of recovering from a pretty major surgery. and this has left me thinking a lot about legacy. The relationship between what we do now and what we're actually leaving behind for future generations. Well, my friend RJ, who founded and runs Rivian, thinks about this constantly. Sure, he builds electric vehicles for all kinds of adventures and amazing ones at that. His mission, however, is way bigger than that. A mission that is informed by asking a pretty deep question, which is, how do we keep the world adventurous forever? Adventure is only possible with a thriving planet. You can't have one without the other.

1:04:28Sustainability and adventure, these are not opposing forces. They're simpatico, they're partners. Every generation deserves wild places to roam, to climb higher, to be transformed by the journey. But that only happens if we're designing for a future where exploration doesn't come at the expense of nature, but actually inspires us to protect it. And it's for all these reasons that I'm just so thrilled and honored to join forces with Rivian, to partner with them in support of building the momentum they have already created to move toward a more optimistic, regenerative future. There's this persistent myth that creatine is just for bodybuilders and gym bros.

1:05:14And I kind of get it. The marketing has been terrible for decades. But what the science shows is that creatine is actually this fundamental cellular fuel. Your brain uses it. Your heart uses it. Every energy demanding process in your body relies on it. And this connects to everything I explore on the show. Cognitive well-being, physical performance, recovery, longevity. It's about improving how your cells generate energy at the most fundamental level. Momentus understands this. and their new lemon travel packs make it simple. I've got them right here. They're all naturally flavored, of course, perfectly portioned with grab-and-go convenience.

1:05:51But the real differentiator is Momentus' creatine itself. It's pharmaceutical grade, not the bulk powder of questionable origin that floods the market. Theirs comes from Germany and it's called CreaPure. So if you have been curious about creatine, but just kind of put off by the bro science marketing, this is your entry point. Use code RICHROLL at livemomentous.com slash RICHROLL for up to 35 % off your first order.

1:06:22A high quality television program can be made on YouTube and succeed. Maybe. Yeah, well. I think that right now that's the question. Well, okay. So we'll find out, right? I think we'll find out. But season one did well. Yeah. well enough for you guys to say, let's do it again and invest your own money in it. I mean, you know, so there's the show itself, the philosophy behind it, the creativity and what you're trying to say. And then there's, you know, where it fits in in this media landscape in terms of like the shift that's occurring, because it's a big deal. Like you're making a real television show and you're putting it on YouTube.

1:07:03It's kind of an amazing thing. Yeah. And I think it comes at a time when, you know, that merger of these platforms and the mind of the consumer is essentially here because the interface has merged. So now - It's just, yeah, the YouTube is just another little - It's just another icon. Kind of icon on your smart TV, just like Netflix or - Right, and so when my dad - Paramount Plus. When my dad is deciding to watch a YouTube video or a Netflix show, you know, as somebody who's almost 80 years old, it's like, you know that the transition has, the merger has happened in the mind of the consumer. I mean, the question that we're basically exploring on a daily basis is, you know, what are the limits?

1:07:51What are the limits of the kinds of stories you can tell in an environment that really does, and the reason that we've been so successful with Good Mythical Morning is the, we have a relatively low input in terms of resources and a great output in terms of views. And, you know, the amount of runtime of minutes of video that we put out into the world in any given year, it's gonna be 99 % GMM compared to wonderful six episodes that are about a half hour. We do more than a half hour of content for Good Mythical Morning and Good Mythical More, the show after the show every single day. So we're exploring like, what does that look like financially?

1:08:31So I think that where our mind is set is we are now really taking that look inward to what are the things that we wanna bring into the world? How can we do that in a way that we don't necessarily have to rely on anyone else? But we're a little bit agnostic when it comes to certain projects might make sense in certain places. And of course, YouTube is always gonna be our first option because we've got the audience there. but I think we're just kind of, we're exploring it as we go because in order for something like Wonderhold to really work, we don't have any sponsors. We didn't incorporate any sponsors into either season.

1:09:12We could have worked really hard to have like a commercial break but we were more like, hey, let's get the creative right and worry about that later but that would be an example of how you could potentially do it if you get a presenting sponsor to present a whole season or something. Yeah, the evolution of this is, you know, you hold some kind of upfronts and you pre-sell advertising on it or you get one brand and make it, you know, like a mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom sort of thing where they underwrite the entire thing. Or you do like the studios do and you finance it with outside investors and there are equity participants in this.

1:09:51I mean, I know that these things are already happening. you know, Colin Samir talks about, they talk about this stuff all the time. Like there's a whole world in which, you know, again, it's like, okay, well, it's all going back to the way it was before YouTube began. And it's just another version of like the studio system essentially. Right. Yeah, it always kind of works the same way. It's like the value of someone deciding to watch the thing that you've made. And that is gonna come from either some sort of subscription fee or advertising. It's like until they invent a new way. I mean, you were able to do it because GMM is so successful and is this revenue generating thing.

1:10:29But, you know, eventually it will be the show that is the revenue generating thing. And that becomes a self-perpetuating thing that allows you to do more things and bigger things. Yeah, I think determining that we weren't going to let anything stand in the way of us making the next thing unlocked. unlocked we trust that that's going to continue to unlock our future yeah you know even if everything if we're having to scale back on ambitions now for season two of wonder hole or the project after that it's we're still incrementally expanding but even more importantly we're getting stuff out there yeah you know and and trusting that is gonna doing things leads to things, you know.

1:11:18But your future relies entirely upon your friendship, right? So like, how do you nurture this? Like, clearly, if you guys aren't friends off camera, like you're not gonna be able to be friends on camera, right? And you have this incredible friendship that you've been able to nurture and sustain for so many years. Like, what are the principles and secrets behind that? I'm sure there have been difficult moments. Okay, I'll give you a recent anecdote if I think you're okay with this. Sure. So we took a vacation over the summer apart. This is like the second year we've taken like a multiple week vacation and we set up our production schedules.

1:12:03Matter of fact, we had to tell our team over a year in advance that we wanted to take multiple weeks off in July. And then they tooled our production schedule so that, retooled it so that we could do that. And we basically didn't talk to each other. So towards the end of this, I'm like, hey, when are you flying back? He was in North Carolina. I was like, you know, if you're coming back on Saturday, we could probably get together Sunday and just start to basically compare notes on what our breaks have been like, because we see it as kind of like a soul searching, rejuvenation time very much needed before we go into the office on Monday and just get right back into it.

1:12:48Get the ground running. That actually didn't work out for us to get together that day, but I got an email in my inbox. Now, first of all, the fact that I even saw the email, I don't check a lot of emails, especially on a break. Well, you know what I did after I emailed you, what did I do? You texted and said, I sent you an email. That's what it was. Yeah. And this, what was the subject line of the email was very unusual for Rhett. And it was like, thoughts about our friendship. Yeah, something like that. And I was like, oh shit. I'm not gonna, I will usually be like, I'll open this. I'm going to sleep.

1:13:26I'm gonna open this in the morning. Just like, oh, that doesn't feel good. We need to talk. Yeah, it was a we need to talk email. Right. And I mean, you can share the specifics of the email to whatever extent you want, but it was thoughts about our connection. And it was basically, well, I'll let you put that part in your own words. Well, in many ways, it was a, you had sent me a very similar email that we've also talked about at some point, I think with our fans. Maybe two years ago. No, it was like pre-pandemic, I think. It was a long time ago. And it was? It was during that, I can't believe you're, you're sending some time.

1:14:06Time compresses for me. This was actually. You're making it sound like this happened recently. Oh no, my story happened three weeks ago. Three weeks ago. But Link's original email to me was. I sent him an email. It was back in 2017. 2017 because it was the year we were doing Buddy System, which was our scripted show on YouTube, Red, YouTube originals. And we were also doing a version of Good Mythical Morning that had five videos a day that was funded by YouTube. And we were going crazy. That's when I started going to therapy. But he sent me an email at that time, which essentially said, it basically said what you've already stated, Rich.

1:14:40If we're not prioritizing our friendship for each other, then the fuel is going to burn away for everything that we're sharing with everybody else. And I've just felt the need for us to reconnect as friends. And we learned something about - And not translate that into content. Was that something that emerged out of an imbalance in your relationship in terms of how each of you interfaced with the work and what you do? I think it was a combination of being, both of us being burnt out because we were doing too many things. Way too many things. But also the way that, it's a little bit of a love language thing, which I think is also what the, you know, really the background for this most recent email.

1:15:27And it was that I, like Link wants quality time, but quality time for him isn't necessarily us working together. It's let's do something and hang out and have fun without talking about work. Whereas I get my hobby in so many ways is what we do. And so I'm like, hey, when we're figuring out this problem together and we're creating this stuff together, that feels like quality time to me. and I realize it's not the same type of connection and Link is like, I gotta have a connection that doesn't just live in the work because then you're like a couple that's together for the sake of the kids. Yeah.

1:16:06We can't keep doing this for everybody else if we're never doing it for just the two of us. And so that was my kind of wake up call email to him that then, you know, immediate response, like he comes over to the house, we're talking about it. And it was a turning point. It was a refocus and a reprioritization. Now, fast forward, you know. Eight years. Eight years. Not two. Eight years later, I get this email from Matt. I'm like, oh, now he's sending me one. And what I was feeling at the time. It was a little, it wasn't the same message. So one of the things that kind of hit me, and I discussed this with Jesse, my wife, while we were in North Carolina, just the two of us is, so again, our background is evangelical Christians and not just, hey, we're Christians, but no, we are Christians.

1:17:08And this is the most important part of our lives to the degree that it was our job for a while. We worked full-time. Professional evangelicals. Yes, so we worked with Campus Crusade for Christ. We were creating evangelism materials for college students. And one of the things that happened when we were, we basically, it's been well over 10 years since we called ourselves Christians, but when we were in it and we were doing it professionally, but also in those first few years as we were doing YouTube exclusively, we would have these moments where we would come together and I would be like, man, we gotta, our priorities are getting out of whack.

1:17:51We gotta remember why we're doing this. We gotta remember the opportunity that the Lord is giving us. We gotta realize that this isn't about us. This is about him. And we would get together and we would pray together. This was like a regular thing of like, sort of literally a come to Jesus moment that we would have in the context of friendship. And I think that since no longer being a Christian, like that framework, that religious and spiritual framework that allowed for that connection, which is incredibly meaningful to us as friends was no longer there. You no longer had the language in the framework to engage on that level.

1:18:29It wasn't like we weren't close, but I think that one of the things that's happened and we talk about, we kind of give an update on where we're at spiritually each year on our podcast. And in the past couple of years, the sentiment that has kind of arisen is that I'm still pretty interested in spirituality and spiritual things in general. And that's an important part of my life and maybe not so much for Link. And the thing that I've come to realize recently is that the way that Richard Rohr, my wife is reading a book by him right now. And I've read a couple by him, but he talks about spirituality essentially being the river beneath the river.

1:19:04It's sort of that grounding and the thing that's beneath the surface. And it's not all the external shallow things, especially the things that exist in this town where it's all about the transactional nature of relationships and who can do what for you. But it's really looking inward and it's about a more deeply rooted connection to the soul and the things that make you who you are. The email essentially said, I feel like one of the things that we have lost, not that we never talk about it, but one of the things that we've lost in losing the spiritual framework is something akin to those times when we would get together and talk about the real stuff and be like, how are you doing for real, right?

1:19:50And it wasn't like, we talk about our marriages. We talk about what it's like to be a father. We obviously talk about what it's like to run a business together. But it was never like that was the essential reason for coming together. And so the email was essentially like, I think this is an insight that I've had that I think one of the reasons that we may be struggling with a connection is that we don't have that framework. And I'm not saying that we have to have a specific framework, but we can just initiate the conversation so that we can have real meaningful, deep conversations about what's going on beneath the surface.

1:20:23And that was the, essentially what it was. And how did that land with you? Amazing. You know, I was, it made me feel great because he was reaching out to say, I value the connection and I miss a certain quality and depth of connection. That was exactly what I was saying in my email all those years earlier. And then to the love language point of it all, I think I was filtering it through the performative nature of friendship. I want to do things. I want to have experiences together that aren't for someone else to watch. And then I heard him saying the same thing that I want to connect. I want to have that experience of connecting with you around ideas and beliefs and the deeply held soul level experience.

1:21:24So, because that is so much of how he connects. And I'm like, well, okay, well, let's go surfing. I actually think is what I said. I was like. What's the vehicle for that exploration? I was like, let's go surfing. And I was like, hold on, I'm doing it again. That's not what he's asking for. I was like, we'll be able to talk the whole time, but we'll both be getting, you know, those itches scratched of like, we can do something together. We can enjoy ourselves together. And we can talk about some, the deeper realities of our experiences. And so it's a both and. Yeah. I have. And we did that. two reflections on this.

1:22:03First of all, you know, both of these overtures are very perceptive and mature, you know, kind of maneuvers, you know, short of like your first email, you end up like Metallica, you know, like, because you're headed, you're headed for a crash, right? You're fending that off before that happens. So, you have the insight and the sensitivity to realize like, hey, we're a little off track here. Let's course correct before we have to actually deal with some kind of car crash situation, which obviously neither of you want. And you were able to successfully do that like through mutual respect and communication and all of these things.

1:22:44And then by the time your email comes along, that's a deepening of the same idea, right? On some level. And when you remove yourselves from the evangelical Christian world, it doesn't mean that the quest, the desire, the search for meaning ends, right? What is replacing that? And if it's being replaced with views and engagement and nothing else, that's not going to be great. That's another car crash waiting to happen. And so what is that meaning? And that idea that you shared, Rhett, about getting together and being like, in the way that you were thinking about how you were serving God, Like, how can the two of you together, not only with what you share publicly, but in your relationship, like, how can we make this about something greater than ourselves?

1:23:34You know, that has meaning that we share. And that's like the sustainable juice of the whole thing, right? Like making it about something more than you and your, you know, respective ambitions and in the three-dimensional material world. Right. It's more about the soul. And I think the thing that I was also communicating, and then we talked about that day, was I think some of your hesitancy in having conversations like that can be a feeling that you have to have, because we come from a place where certainty comes at a premium and certainty was basically the foundation of our Christianity, was that you knew that you were right.

1:24:14You believed the right stuff. That was the most important thing. and believing that and being certain of that was kind of the point in a lot of ways. That's at least how we ended up coming out of that machine. A lot of people do. Some people don't. Richard Rohr doesn't think like that. But I think that has been some of your hesitancy is like, well, we start talking about that stuff because I was telling you about that principle of love your fate, the Amar Fateh, I think, which Nietzsche kind of talked about and was very impactful on Joseph Campbell. It came to me, it's essentially the principle of like, literally embrace and accept and love every single thing that happens to you, have that disposition.

1:24:59And it came to me three different times in a week and I'd never even heard of it before. And it comes from three independent places. And okay, so it feels like a synchronicity, right? And I think, and Link's like, how does that impact the way you think about the way the world works? And where I'm at now is like, I don't have to know. Like it could be that it is a coincidence and it just happens in three different times. It could be that the universe in some force is conspiring to bring this thing about. But to me, that's kind of an irrelevant factor because my experience is that this message came to me three different times.

1:25:32And it's a very useful message that's incredibly valuable to me right now in my life. And I wanna talk about it with you. And so I think that it was more like, you don't have to have the certainty of how it all works. The doctrine. In order to experience the benefit of having that conversation and what that principle is. Am I wrong to imagine, Link, that for you, perhaps this is a little bit like triggering, just even bringing up like these ideas that are maybe quasi-religious because of the history in the past. Yeah, it can trigger this scrupulosity for me of, okay, now there's something for me to judge myself against and come down on myself.

1:26:24but what I experienced in our conversation and kind of putting into practice walking through that open door of that email was a connection while embracing uncertainty. It's like, we don't need to have answers, especially if we're not on mic on our podcast giving our spiritual deconstruction update. It's that time of year again. So now let's talk about it. We got into that place where we would do it on a mic and then you're influencing people. And I'm like, well, I don't, I wasn't comfortable with that. But what that was interpreted, I think I was sending the message that that meant I didn't want to talk about it at all.

1:27:10And yes, there are aspects of it that are triggering, but the big application of it was, no, we can just rekindle those private conversations where it's like, I don't have a clue. And it's about that connection. And it's just about, yeah, it's not about coming to conclusions or any doctrine at all. It's, for me, it's about connection. I think for both of us, it's about connection and me getting reacquainted with the fun of playing around with ideas. When I find myself, and I think I said this in the email, when I find myself reaching out to other people and making new connections and forming new relationships with people, and that's the foundation for those friendships is those types of discussions.

1:27:57But yet I don't have that with my lifelong best friend. I think that's where the imbalance began to, again, it isn't like we talk all the time, but there are certain things where I'm like, I'm not gonna bring that up with him because I don't want that to trigger. I don't want him to think that I'm challenging him to something or whatever. But it was that realization that, oh. It was interfering with the depth of your friendship. Right. Yeah, it is approaching spirituality from the perspective of the question rather than the certainty of the answer. Yeah. And it reminds me of J.J. Abrams' TED Talk where he talks about the mystery box.

1:28:37Like every great story, it's about the anticipation of the answer or it's the quest to discover the answer. And even in your Wonder Hole episode where you have the time capsule, like that message is implicit in that story, which is that it doesn't matter what's in the box. It's basically the connection that the two of you have in the quest to discover it and unlock it. Exactly. So it's like, that's like a metaphor for everything you just shared. Yeah. And I think we did that on purpose. Did you? I was gonna say, was that intentional? No, yeah, it was. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, it's funny when you're concocting a story like that, you know, a lot of times you've got this idea and I assume this is what happened with Tarantino and Pulp Fiction.

1:29:23You have this idea of the box and you probably think to yourself, we'll figure out what's gonna be in the box at some point. Let's tell the story that we wanna tell, which is irrelevant to the contents of the box. And then when we have the perfect idea for what's in the box, it'll be inserted. And I think for us, it was, oh, obviously there's nothing in the box because it's literally about the process of us setting up this journey in the future to bring us back together and have to spend this time together. The adventure that will go on, not only over the course of a lifetime, but in the distant future together, when our wives are gone, we're living forever because we've signed some contract.

1:30:02But yeah, it was, it may not initially intentional, but became the answer. And then it was this aha moment. Of course, there's nothing in the box. Well, then at the very end, our consciousness, our souls are both in the box. Oh, yeah, yeah. Literally, yeah. Right? It's us. We're in the box. Well, I want to understand the decision to put the evangelical Christian identity into the rear view and what that experience was like for each of you. I think that placing certainty on this pedestal, it creates an exclusivity that undermines what I loved and still love about Jesus. So this incongruity of love and judgment, are you in, are you out, was a final straw for me.

1:31:10Judgment and exclusivity at the cost of empathy and inclusion. Totally. And the relationships that I had forged with those who were on the outside became a very powerful influence for me to say, you know what? This is not how I'm going to spend my Sunday mornings in this particular environment. Was that something that transpired over a long extended period of time? Oh, yeah. And very much in parallel with the story with Rhett's journey, which has similar and then different complexities to it. But yeah, for both of us, it was like, I mean, I would say over the course of a decade, but I'm not good with the time and the numbers.

1:32:10Well, I'm gonna try to condense this into something that just kind of hits the core of what I think happened. And as time goes on, I think some of this stuff falls better into place for me in my understanding of what actually occurred. But I think ultimately we were raised in an environment and the brand of Christianity that we were given is one in which it's about what you believe. Like believing the right thing is really what it comes down to. and believing that it's true. And when I say it's true, it's like Christianity is true. The Bible is true. Jesus is the only way. Those, these foundational truths were kind of what you were working towards.

1:32:53And yes, it was a relationship with Jesus. We would set a personal relationship with Jesus and it was about being saved by grace through faith and all that. But you had to have these intellectual ideas sort of lined up and have your ducks in a row, intellectually believing the right thing. And then when you have a mind like mine, which is very curious about, okay, well, you're telling me that this stuff is true, which means that it comports with reality. That means that the things that the Bible says comport with reality, they should be right. Historically, they should be right. If it touches on scientific things, it should be right.

1:33:29Jesus really did raise from the dead. Like if that's what the Bible says, this is how the Bible came together, all these things. and I just began to look into those things deeply and became thoroughly convinced that there were, first of all, most of it you could not be certain about in the way that I had been told that you needed to be certain about. But beyond that, there were some things that I was pretty certain weren't the case, right? I was pretty certain that we weren't, Adam and Eve didn't exist. The flood didn't happen. Moses was probably made up, that kind of stuff. And so the building blocks of the belief system begin to fall apart, then eventually you get to Jesus and you look at what the evidence for the resurrection is.

1:34:10And I'm like, okay, well, I can believe that on faith, but I don't know if I can believe that from like historical standpoint. And then in the meantime, there's a lot of emotional, you're beginning to sort of see everything differently and you start thinking very differently about how we relate to God and it not necessarily being through this thing that is said to be this specific revelation through the specific scripture. And that begins to essentially seem like people are trying to figure it out. And this is one of the ways that they packaged it. They also packaged it over here with Buddhism and they packaged it over here with Hinduism.

1:34:48Islam packaged it in this way, thousands of different ways it's been packaged. This way to connect with whatever is beyond us. And I really don't think we have a lot of grounds to say that one of those is right and the others are wrong. And so that was a 20 year process for me, really. It kind of started in college, but began to have an impact to the point where I was like, I'm no longer a Christian, probably about 10 years after college. But in the meantime, everything about our worldview and my marriage and the way that we see our job and the way that we see our place in the world was impacted by this worldview of, we are children of God.

1:35:31Like we had the Holy Spirit in us. And if I had met you 20 years ago, Rich, I would have been like, well, you're not a child of God. Like you don't have, you're just the flesh. You just have carnal instincts, but you don't have the Holy Spirit in you. Now he wouldn't say that to you. No, what I would say - That's what he's thinking though. Yeah, yeah. And I would have a conversation with you and then I would get to - Recruiting language. Yeah. Yeah, okay. And then I would be trying to get you to come to a point of decision where you would place your faith in Christ as the only way to have a reconciled relationship with God and to be able to spend eternity with God, right?

1:36:07And that was, and then when all of a sudden I was like, I don't think any of that's true. And I don't think there's any way to know. Where does that leave you? I mean, I thought that it meant I would get divorced. I thought that it meant I would have no purpose. I would have no meaning because I had been told that. And I had told a lot of other people that, that if you don't understand the foundation of the universe, it's like you don't even have a foundation for what's good and evil if you don't believe in a God that is the ultimate moral authority, right? That's the philosophical foundation.

1:36:40Because there's no foundation for morality or ethics without that framework. Right. Basically. And then what you realize, what I've realized in practice is that all of the same instincts and all of the same things that I want, I wanna be a good father. I wanna be a good husband. I wanna be a good friend. I wanna be a good boss. I want to live a life of service. I wanna be happy. I do wanna be happy. I wanna pursue things that engage my soul and give me joy. I'm still the same person. And when you start finding that you can have all of those things outside of a very specific worldview that says you're right and everybody else is wrong.

1:37:23now I feel freer than I ever did when I was a Christian. And it's not, and I don't see it as my job to talk people out of that. I do see it as sometimes I get drawn into conversations where I wanna try to say, hey, I don't think you can be so sure about this. I love Richard Rohr. Richard Rohr is a Christian. I love the way he talks about spirituality. But I also think that, I don't think that Richard Rohr looks at me and sees a lost soul destined to burn forever because I don't assent to the Nicene Creed. We had spoken previously, we were at a mutual friend's house for dinner and you were sharing with me that while you were kind of harboring these thoughts and coming to these realizations that your wife wasn't on the same page, right?

1:38:14Like there was this dissonance there. I mean, was that the same for you? It was. You know, it's like that creates a real issue, right? If you're not cohabitating with a partner who is sharing the same worldview. you yeah i was a chief sounding board for his experience and so we were connecting over that even though i wasn't in the same place i wasn't far behind because and the stakes were lower between the two of us because you know we probably thought we'd end up in similar places because we always have literally for our whole lives but we were taught and both believed as red said that like this was a very real and immediate threat to our marriages and our families staying together so yeah for both of us that was really extended right and your in your community and all of this yeah there's a perception i was talking to jesse about this last night because you know i'm still very close to a lot of Christians who think I'm gonna burn forever.

1:39:26And I think that the way I am talked to sometimes is, and I remember thinking this, is that there is no, the fruits of the spirit and, you know, wisdom, those things can only exist in the context of a Christian worldview and a correct Christian worldview, right? Like progressive Christianity, forget that, that's not real, that would be what we have said. And it's just so interesting to have this perspective that there's no peace and there's no patience and there's no faithfulness and kindness that really exists outside of that. And when you've been told that, it really sets up a traumatic experience for a lot of people.

1:40:11I mean, thankfully, I think that there was a smooth transition for us, But when I told Jesse, my wife, the first thing I told her was about evolution because I was really focusing on like where science and faith meet and we were creationists. I didn't necessarily believe that the world was 10 ,000 years old, but I didn't believe that evolution happened because I thought that you had to have a literal Adam and Eve so you could have a literal fall of man so that you could have a salvation, the original sin. I took that all literally. And not because there's evidence for it, but because it's theologically necessary in order to uphold what my worldview was.

1:40:47But when the evidence for evolution became overwhelming and inescapable by every measure, multiple lines of evidence, I go home and tell her, I'm like, I think evolution is true. And she just began to weep. Because what that meant is that I was taking this giant brick out of the foundation that we had built our lives on and clearly the next thing was the whole thing was going to fall down including our marriage we were headed straight for divorce now that was 15 years ago and we'll celebrate 24 years next june our marriage is better than it's ever been but it there was a lot to unwind and to work through because we had we've been indoctrinated you know and it takes a lot to undo a lot of that Was that similar to your experience?

1:41:42Yeah. I mean, it was, in terms of timing, there was a bit of a lag, but it was very similar and scary and protracted. But we, you know, Christy and I were committed to tearful conversations and we loved each other. and we discovered that we wanted to continue to invest in loving each other, even if we were told, that may be one of the things that we needed to reconsider was that the belief that we couldn't make it was wrong. And that's what we discovered. So yeah, we celebrated 25 years. I'm catching up. No, you'll never catch up. That's how time works. They're sort of making that decision for yourselves and in the context of your relationships, at the same time, kind of packed into that is this predisposition to judge other people for what they believe or don't believe.

1:42:42And I would imagine maybe that was kind of hard to shake, right? If that's baked into you and you're looking at people and saying, this is a child of God and this isn't, and how are you overcoming that and starting to be able to tell a less judgmental story about other people in this more empathetic and inclusive way. I mean, one of the big things is, I'm not saying this is true of all Christians or all evangelical Christians, but for me as an evangelical Christian, the way that I interpreted all this was that I had the truth and people who didn't subscribe to my particular worldview didn't have the truth.

1:43:23Even if you were Catholic, I mean, you were still lost, right? If you were a mainline Protestant, you were still lost because you didn't have the theology right. And so it impacts every conversation when you think that the key to the universe, the most important thing that you can know about, you actually have figured out. And in any interaction, you need to communicate that. It is your responsibility to communicate that. You cannot have that impact the way that you see people. and I find it interesting because I'm, you know, a lot of people talk about us now and they're like, well, now it's just, you're on the opposite end of the spectrum.

1:44:00You're just, now you're just intolerant of people who think like who you used to think and I'm like, no, I think the thing that we're the place I am right now is that I'm just advocating for uncertainty about things I don't think we can be certain about and I'm also advocating for accepting wisdom and insight from anyone who can bring it regardless of where they come from. And in fact, if they come from someplace that's different than I come from, I probably have more to learn and more to gain than just talking to another person who agrees with me already. Which on one level you can argue is Jesus-like because it requires humility, right?

1:44:38Like you have to humble yourself to this idea that you could know all or that you could be certain of anything. Yeah. Yeah. For me, my relationship with judgment, you talk about it, externally pointing it at other people and being taught and then literally trained to do that was something that I was never good at. And I was also not comfortable with it. It never, it didn't, I don't think it ever felt, it never felt good to me. You don't comport yourself as if that is your natural tendency. I don't like to debate. I don't like to argue. And I'm not gifted in communicating in that way, in the persuasive put together A to B to C.

1:45:32And I think that is a strength and a gift that Rhett has. But for me, I think the combination of those two things, not being able to do it well, and then it not sitting well. For me, when I left that behind, it was a relief. It's like, oh, thank God, I don't have to judge. I don't have to judge people and put people in boxes and are you in or are you out? But the thing that I discovered and I'm still unpacking is so much of that judgment was internalized. And that's - Directed towards you. Has been a big part of my journey is, from as young as I can remember being taught and believing that I'm flawed, that I am at the core bad.

1:46:27I need God to send his son to take the death penalty on my behalf because of I'm such a wretched person. And so I was very gifted at beating myself up. Okay, I didn't show enough devotion or I didn't step up in this way or just picking things apart. And so that became, you know, I went back and read through my journals, even through college, and it was just picking everything about myself apart in order to present it to God and ask for forgiveness. and it just, I didn't realize how unpleasant of an experience it was until I got out of it and exhausting, then entering into a process of dismantling and rebuilding of point of view of myself.

1:47:32So yeah, that's where the judgment thing really took its toll on me. Yeah. Was in that way. Did it still pop up? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. You can say the inner critic of it all. And I think that's why, for me, I was engaging with the ideas, like you said earlier, could be triggering. It would trigger those type of self-judgment. Yeah. But with each day, with each month, and with the passing years, I find myself being more at ease with myself and extending the compassion to myself that has felt easier to give to other people. At some point, you guys decide to make somewhat of a public declaration of this, right?

1:48:25Right. And then you had to reap the whirlwind of that. And you had shared with me a little bit about what that experience was like, but walk us through it. I will say we did not do it in order to lead an entire generation of children away from Jesus as we have been accused of doing. I wouldn't take the credit for that, even if it was true. I don't think we have that kind of influence, but - There are people who are commenting. I mean, there's comments that are being typed right now on people, on commentators' videos of our deconstruction stories that are, I'm either praying for their salvation or their demise.

1:49:04So it is still out there. For an ongoing discourse in the Christian community. We are seen as a threat. And especially because Rhett is, he'll pop up and still talk about it. I open my mouth about it enough. Yeah. You did Rain's podcast, you talked about it, you did Alex O 'Connor, you know, it's like, you know, this is in the ether. So it's still, even though it was a while ago, it's still kind of present, right? And so of course it gives people things to write about. Well, it started right before the pandemic hit, like at the top of the year. Yeah, 2020. We decided on our podcast, Ear Biscuits, to tell that our spiritual journey story.

1:49:47And let me just say, from a business standpoint, this was not a good idea. It's funny, the number of people who comment and say that we made this, first of all, we made the decision to leave our faith so that we would get the approval of Hollywood, but also then we decided to talk about it so that we would be like virtue signaling or whatever in order to get the approval again of Hollywood. It's all a big grift. But the thing is, is that based on what I see, the money is in going hardcore conservative. I mean, and like really just - Right now, for sure. Yeah, it's like, I don't know. If you wanna build a really motivated audience, that's what you do.

1:50:23But it had nothing to do with, it was not a business move because when you do comedy like we do, which is very approachable, we don't do politics on Good Mythical Morning, you want anybody and everybody you can to watch. Why would we alienate anybody? The reason that we talked about it in 2020 was because our background and our faith is such a huge part of who we are. And we've been making this podcast for years, Ear Biscuits, which is separate from Good Mythical Morning, where we have been talking about so many, every year that went by was we would get into something even more personal talking about our story.

1:51:03And it's impossible as we demonstrated today, like we can't tell the story of our careers and how we got to where we're at without talking about our experience in ministry. And what we did for so many years is we just skipped over that whole formative part of how we got into comedy. It was weird. And then we were like, we kind of need to disclose where we come from, but there's also this element of, that's not where we're at anymore. So the story becomes a story of who we were and who we are and how we went from A to B. And it was really just a, we want to get this off of our chests because it's weird to do so many appearances and so many interviews where we don't touch this thing.

1:51:44I didn't know, this was kind of before like the deconstruction thing was popular and people were, it's because there's deconstruction channels now and everybody's got their deconstruction story or whatever. And it's like, whether or not that's even a good word to describe what happened. This was all kind of at the very beginning of that. And that wasn't a part of, we weren't a part of that world. We didn't know any of those people. It was very much like, we just wanna be honest and tell our story. and we did not calculate at all the impact that it would have on just the perception, the public perception of who we are.

1:52:22And so many people would feel disappointed and so many people would feel like we were attacking them and that we had gone astray and we were leading people astray. That was just short-sighted on our part. I should have been able to anticipate that. Well, you had seen what had happened to Rob Bell. Yeah. So you knew that on some level, something like that was waiting for you. Yeah, but I think because we didn't see ourselves as a spiritual voice, I just thought people would be like, oh, they're not Christians anymore. It's funny, I've told Rob about this before, but I was given the opportunity to preach a sermon at my church back in North Carolina in the aughts.

1:53:00And it was when his book Velvet Elvis had come out. And I did a whole book, a whole sermon about how wrong Rob Bell was. and I used as an illustration, Timothy Treadwell, you know, who Herzog made the movie about Grizzly Man. And I showed clips of that. And I basically said that Rob Bell is like Timothy Treadwell and that Timothy Treadwell created his own reality as it relates to grizzly bears. And when you create your own reality that actually isn't consistent with what's going on and you say these bears are nice and the bears are not nice, the bears will eat you. You see how that ends? The bears eat you.

1:53:38So was the bear, I mean, just using a Herzog film in church was like so awesome. Yeah, that is like, that is pretty cool. So is God the bear? God is the bear. Yeah, God's the bear. No, the bears are the ones that Elijah sent down from the mountaintop to kill the kids. Anyway, that's a final story. But you told this story to Rob? Yeah, I told him that I had basically preached against him. What did he say? He just laughed and he was like, Like this is not surprising. I've heard worse. But yeah, so because he was a preacher, I think that that was why we thought people would care. But then all of a sudden we were literally, we were contacted, and this was a bit of an honor, actually, we were contacted by Answers in Genesis magazine.

1:54:27Answers in Genesis is a magazine that is the organization that built the ark in Kentucky. Yeah. So they have a magazine and they were going to feature us and they wanted to use like a picture or something like that. And I was like, this is crazy that we're gonna get an answers in Genesis, but it's because we've fallen away. But the pandemic happened. Because this was like February, 2020, I think we told the story. And then March, 2020, the world changed. And so a little bit of the attention was off of us, But I literally, I just, I try to stay out of it and try not to read it and see it because it's just, it's not good for anybody.

1:55:11And I don't like getting drawn into the mire, but like Link was saying that that comment was from a tweet, I think somebody sent to me, which was a picture of me. And it said, there is a special place in hell for guys like this, for deconstruction influencers or whatever we were called. and then the comments on that. And literally one guy saying, I pray for either their repentance or their demise. It's like the only two options for people as far as they see us are to become a Christian or to die. And that mentality where I'm torn is like, I just wanna make people laugh and make people think and use our comedy to touch on deeper things and not necessarily engage directly about these things because that's just not what I feel called to do.

1:56:03But the way that this mentality of, like I would have told you 20 years ago that the days of Christians in America burning people at the stake because of what they believe, those are over. But with the way things are headed in some circles of our country, like I think that there's people who would line up to burn people at the stake for their theological views. and I don't think we're fully awoken to just how significant that is. And I think they're, and I'm just like, why? And I just conclude that they're protecting something that's not God. They're protecting something else. That's how I feel about it.

1:56:51And that something else is what? I don't know, but exactly what it is. I mean, I could theorize, but I don't think it's protecting truth and God. I think it, you know.

1:57:09I don't want to guess. As somebody who is not from that world, I didn't grow up in that type of environment, it's just incredibly strange to me to take these beautiful teachings of this person, Jesus, and morph them into this notion of exclusion, right? This idea that you would wish harm on another or that somehow it's weaponized in such a way to separate us. It's the absolute antithesis of the teachings themselves. And it's just very difficult for me to understand how that occurred and how it's still happening. Yeah, I mean, I think it really is an illustration of how you can take a religious framework and religious teaching like the Bible and you can manipulate it.

1:58:12You can make it say the things that you want it to say to protect your own certainty. I mean, honestly, I think that's what is being defended. I think that people with, I remember, we went to a church and many people from evangelical circles can relate to this, is that there are people in the church who start asking difficult questions and those people are sidelined. You know, you ask the wrong question and you're not gonna be in a position of leadership. You're not going to be able to teach because your theology may be a little bit off in an environment where people asking the wrong questions and not continuing to reinforce the party line and are ostracized.

1:58:57I think that you begin to develop so much, so much of your identity becomes rooted in you being right about this particular thing and the way you see the world and everyone else being wrong, that anyone who's a threat to that, you can pretty quickly get from here to there where you're like, well, this person is influencing people and making them think wrong things about God. Isn't it better to burn them at the stake rather than to let them believe these things, to spread these bad ideas? Well, because any infection of doubt becomes terrifying. It's not only a threat to the organization and the group identity, but it's terrifying to consider, right?

1:59:38Like if this thing that we're so convinced of that we have such certainty around, if we start to question it, then like the whole thing unravels and then what are we, who are we, right? It's a terrifying proposition. Well, I think a lot of young men, especially who are kind of getting, like the numbers of young men who are kind of coming back to faith or coming to Christian faith for the first time. I don't think that this is what they're signing up for. I don't think that they've connected the dots yet to know that the people who are, a lot of people involved in this movement and the things that they actually want, like there's a really significant movement right now that's being entertained and accommodated by this administration to take away a woman's right to vote.

2:00:25And you think that sounds crazy. You think the Handmaid's Tale thing is just like, well, of course that's not gonna happen. And I don't think some of these like comedians that got on the Trump train, I don't think that they understood that that was what they were opening the door to was the repeal of gay marriage, the repeal of a woman's right to vote. They may think that sounds crazy, but you just start asking what some of these people want and you'll find pretty quickly, they're saying it even more boldly than they've ever said it before. I think with respect to young men, it doesn't take a genius to understand the motivations that might lead someone towards a faith-based organization right now, be it evangelical or otherwise, because we are in this epidemic of loneliness and we are in a situation in which the economic divide is greater than it ever has been.

2:01:15And at the same time, we don't have those third spaces, the community centers and the gathering places. And we don't have the rituals into manhood that we once had. And so there are a lot of millions of young men who are lacking a sense of purpose, who are looking around, not seeing a lot of opportunity and are more or less. And that's a scary, dangerous place. And it's attractive, like an organization that seems to have answers, or at least an affiliation with something that infuses their life with meaning and purpose. Because, you know, the best of these organizations serve that in a really good way.

2:01:55You know, there are, to your point, there are certain aspects of it that are being weaponized in not a great way right now, but that's a real problem that needs to get solved. And when you decide, okay, evangelical Christianity, not for us, how do you find your way back to some spiritual connection? Because there's a void there, right? And, you know, for somebody who's science minded, you know, how do you start to make, you know, create a new story around meaning and, you know, things that aren't, you know, available to us to understand? And I think our answers are going to be similar and different.

2:02:39I certainly think there's overlap and it goes back to like how we connect and how we conduct our friendship, like that part of the conversation. Maybe this is an aside, but when you were talking about that third place, I do think that the work that we've done to cultivate our community of viewers, we call them mythical beasts. It's an inclusive community where we celebrate curiosity and laughter and not taking yourself too seriously. We have discovered that we were creating that third place through our content on the internet for a lot of people and i'm very proud of that i'm also glad that we shared our stories i don't regret it because yes a lot of people are coming out of the woodwork in order to criticize or try to erase how they perceive our motives and influence, but we've had many, many more individuals let us know that us sharing our stories resonated with them and it gave them relief.

2:03:58It gave them a sense of connection, a sense of community, a sense of self-acceptance and hope and a path to move forward in a way that we're all figuring out. So back to your question of like, yeah, how are we moving forward? I think it is in the context of communities, in the context of loving relationships that I invest in, in concentric circles. and I think that's my approach to spirituality is continuing to do the work to still undo some things that have been built into me my whole life that need to be stripped out and changed and some scarring that might need to be removed. So there's still some of that but then the rebuilding of those values I think is to me happens in that, in loving connections.

2:05:05And it's not about belief anymore for me or conclusions. But God is in other people. The collective community is the higher power or the connection that that creates. It's hard for me to say it, you know? I think what you said sounded really good. But for me, it's like, I kind of have to observe my heart at work and the things that resonate. So, yeah, I think that, I think I agree with that. I say that because there's a thing in AA, like I'm a longtime sober person, and AA is fundamentally a spiritual program. And a lot of people who arrive on the doorstep of AA, these broken people with, you know, broken lives as a result of, you know, the places that their addiction has led them, also often come in with a very checkered or broken relationship with religion or any concept of God generally.

2:06:07and are put off by the idea that like in order to get sober, there's these steps and it's, there's this like sort of, you know, cloud of spiritual spirituality that hangs, hangs on top of it. And there's, you know, understandable resistance to that. And the way in, or the way to kind of, um, disabuse people of these notions around religion that, that don't necessarily serve us is to simply say like, this program requires that you have a connection with a higher power, but that higher power is up to you to decide. And it could just be this group of people right in front of you right now who knows something that you don't, which is like how to stay sober for today, right?

2:06:46Like it doesn't have to be anything more than that, that the collective group consciousness can be, you know, the higher power that, um, that you can invest your faith in. And in the same sense that you are lording over this large audience and it really is a community and there's a lot of love there and there's a lot of connection and the connection nourishes you to some degree, perhaps like that community and the sense of meaning that it gives your life on some level is its own form of higher power. I can give it that. And then maybe your relationship with spirituality doesn't need to extend any further than that.

2:07:25And that can be a really difficult thing for people who come from a background in which there was a framework and it was true and it was ever, it never changed. It was immutable, God's word just like him is immutable is what we would have said. And so when you take that out of your worldview, the real question is like, yeah, where do I find that meaning? Where do I find that purpose? A friend of mine, Britt Hartley, who was on Rain's podcast, wrote a book called No Nonsense Spirituality, where I think she speaks to a lot of this. And I think that there is one of the fundamental fears of humans is the fear of freedom, that you really actually don't want to have the freedom to come up with what you believe.

2:08:09It is easier to kind of just assimilate into a community where it's like, hey, they figured this out before I ever showed up. And I sent to these things that it is a easier way to live, to be a part of a community who has answered some of those big questions for you, who tells you what happens when people die, when people were born. And what do you say when you get married and all that stuff? And so it's a daunting task to think you're gonna leave that behind and then what are you gonna do? Start reinventing it yourself. And so I do think there are some people who are still a part of faith communities that have a lot of these rituals and a lot of these practices that are incredibly beneficial.

2:08:45And even from a non-spiritual, like materialist standpoint, these communities and these systems were created to be of benefit to people because we needed them and they are. And those spiritual practices are, whether or not they have some foundational truth to them or not. The frameworks are useful. And we have a sense of belonging to not just a set of ideas or an idea, but to a group of people, right? And to the extent that these communities or organizations serve that, like, and we craft our identities in the context of these group identities and our status within these groups is one we kind of contemplate in the context of survival.

2:09:23Like we don't wanna do anything that's gonna get us exiled from that group. Like that is like a fight or flight kind of impulse that is hardwired in all of us. And that community is so important. And what is the foundation of that community? I mean, I think this can be too simple of an answer for people about the virtues of faith, hope and love, but the greatest of these is love. Somehow we created a religious system in evangelicalism where love is not, it isn't the first thing. It's what you believe. It's your faith becomes the measure by which God judges where you're going to spend eternity, but it's not how much you love.

2:10:01It's like, what if it was about how much you love? Like why is the measure by which God determines whether or not you get to hang in his hood for eternity? Why is that not your capacity to love? Why is it your capacity to believe something that's really hard to believe if you really think about it? So I think that communities that are actually exercising love and are serving people. I think my philosophy is migrate to those communities and that is gonna be some churches, that's gonna be organizations and nonprofits that are doing work in places that need it. I think if you go to those places and you connect, like Link was saying, with the people who are leading with love, I think you're gonna find more spiritual water than you could ever hope to drink.

2:10:49I think it's all about love. I think like that is the question and the answer. I think it begins and ends with all of that. More that I think about it and the more years that I've lived, which brings us back to Wonderhole. Yeah. Yes. The Wonderhole, like the rabbit hole of wonder that is love. What is it that you want people to be, thinking about or excited about with respect to this new season of the show. How's that for a hard gear shift? I tried to segue it. It didn't really work, did it? No, it did. I think it kind of fell apart a little bit. I mean, we were in a... This cliche love fest is great.

2:11:37I mean, there's a reason why it's cliche because it's so good. I thought it was pretty good. No, no, no. I thought it was excellent. I'm trying to like serve up your opportunity for self-promotion. Yes. Thank you for that. but it is a labor of love. How about that? It certainly is. Yeah, and I think people giving, ultimately what we hope to accomplish with what we do is I think sometimes, I think our entire career is a little bit of a clickbait and switch, even when it comes to Good Mythical Morning and definitely when it comes to Wonderhole, is that the aesthetics of what we do because of where we do it and the platform that we do it on, I think there are a lot of conclusions that I would come to about what the content actually would be based on those thumbnails and those titles.

2:12:22And I think Wonderhole is a direct experiment in leaning completely into the ridiculous and superficial engagement of titles and thumbnails on YouTube, but seeing if you can tell a real story that's actually entertaining and funny. We're not like trying to break incredible philosophical ground with a show. We're just trying to figure out how two friends can be funny together in a way that they find engaging. Right. And I just think it's, hey, you may not have ever watched anything that we do, but check it out. This might be your way into our world. Yeah. Super fun, you guys. It was really great to have you here.

2:13:03I celebrate everything that you guys are about. It's incredibly inspiring to see what you've built. And I think there's a really even bigger future in lying in wait for both of you guys. You're genius creators and you have built something really powerful and you're using it in all the right ways. You know, you're reinvesting in yourself and continuing to, you know, double down on that investment in yourselves. And I think it's empowering for anybody else who's a creative person or a creator out there to see what is possible. And I think it's just the beginning. Like, you know, this is a really cool story that is, I think, still in its first act.

2:13:43Well, thank you. So thanks for saying that, bro. We'll hold you to it. All right, good. Yeah, thanks for having us, man. Yeah, come back and talk to me some more sometime. Yeah, all right. Thanks, you guys. Peace.

2:14:00That's it for today. Thank you for listening. I truly hope you enjoyed the conversation. To learn more about today's guests, including links and resources related to everything discussed today, visit the episode page at richroll.com where you can find the entire podcast archive, my books, Finding Ultra, Voicing Change, and The Plant Power Way. If you'd like to support the podcast, the easiest and most impactful thing you can do is to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify, and on YouTube, and leave a review and or comment. And sharing the show or your favorite episode with friends or on social media is, of course, awesome and very helpful.

2:14:39This show just wouldn't be possible without the help of our amazing sponsors who keep this podcast running wild and free. To check out all their amazing offers, head to richroll.com slash sponsors. And finally, for podcast updates, special offers on books and other subjects, please subscribe to our newsletter, which you can find on the footer of any page at richroll.com. Today's show was produced and engineered by Jason Camiolo. The video edition of the podcast was created by Blake Curtis and Morgan McRae, with assistance from our creative director, Dan Drake. Content management by Shana Savoy, copywriting by Ben Pryor.

2:15:19And of course, our theme music was created all the way back in 2012 by Tyler Pyatt, Trapper Pyatt, and Harry Mathis. Appreciate the love, love the support. See you back here soon. Peace. Plants. Namaste.

2:15:41Thank you.