The Perilous Fight: Colin Kaepernick On The True Costs Of Conviction

36:28And being upset with that, what does that say about what you actually believe? It's uncomfortable to hold a mirror up to America and force them to look at something they'd rather not. So that's a natural reaction that comes from a place of denial because it's an uncomfortable truth. The irony is that the essence of patriotism and citizenship is speaking truth to power. I mean, this is the essence of the Fourth Amendment and the First Amendment. And yet your actions were interpreted as treasonous instead of basically your constitutional right and kind of the principled upon like what the founding fathers intended, which is that this is a democracy and we should all be able to speak up and make our voices heard.

37:29But you're doing it in the context of a very powerful institution that commands the attention of hundreds of millions of people. So much money, so much at stake, and you were a threat to the sanctity of that institution. And that's an additional discomfort that was intolerable. Yeah.

38:21and justice for all. Why is this upsetting? If you believe in all of these things, you should be excited about this. If you had to answer that for the people who were upset, they would say? I mean, I think they would go back to all of the deflection tactics of like, well, it's the wrong place. It's the wrong time. Like the impact and influence of all of these other things. I think a lot of those conversations became disingenuous. Again, to deflect from the actual conversation, we have a major issue with the institution of policing. And that was also important for me to understand the historical perspective of policing.

39:13The immediate issue was how do we make sure that they stop killing black people? but also having an understanding of policing within the United States came out of slave patrols and the progression and development of that, the role that that plays in supporting and becoming a feeder into the prison industrial complex. Like these are all systems that have been built within the United States. and actually analyzing that in a way of how do we actually build institutions that keep people safe, allow them to thrive, and actually build a better future. Today, those institutions are not doing that. So we actually need to rethink the outcomes that we're trying to produce and what different approaches we can take to actually get there.

40:10The intention going into it being, let's have a discussion about this. Let's see some progress here. But that message getting lost in this sea of just personal attacks, et cetera, was progress How do you feel about what happened and what could have happened had things been different? Well, I think there was, I would say we also focus a lot on, and what I see more broadly focused on a lot is the pushback that occurred. But it's also important to acknowledge there's massive support as well. and there were people that were like yes we've been waiting for this um we have work to do now we can get people moving um so the the awareness and getting people talking about it was was step one but step two is now we actually have to take action against this and start changing the systems and getting people moving towards that and over the last 10 years we've seen this show up within policy changes, primarily at local and state levels.

41:27We've seen it show up with additional institutions being built within communities. We've seen it show up in relation to sending out social workers as opposed to police when we have issues where it's typically a mental health crisis or things of that nature. And those have all been ways that there has been progress made. At the same time, we're also sitting in a place where 10 years later, police killings are up. Police budgets have expanded. I think it paints the picture of the work that's been done has been important, but we have to go further with it. And we have to continue to push to make sure that we're making those changes because right now the trajectory we're on still hasn't reached a place where we're creating.

42:20a safer environment. I would imagine that you knew full well when you decided to take the knee. And just so people understand, it wasn't one incident. I mean, first you sat for the first couple games, like no one said boo about the whole thing. There's a whole story behind the decision to then adopt the kneel, the media catches on. There's this massive response to this. I suspect you knew there would be a response and the response would probably be very controversial and attract a lot of attention, negative and positive. But I doubt that you could have ever imagined the extent to which it became so inflamed.

43:09And I'm curious around that expectation versus reality and also like behind closed doors like what it was like for you just emotionally you never know where things are going to go um or how they're going to show up let's say i i had to understand uh the historical perspective of what has happened to other athletes and other people that have taken similar stands and positions in the moment it was also something that regardless of whether or not there was a tension around it or that became a larger protest, I also knew it was something for me personally, being able to look myself in the mirror and say, I'm doing the things I can to try to change this system, to try to make sure people make it home safely.

44:01And that was the initial impetus of it. As it became larger, you can't you can't predict it becoming a national conversation an international conversation a movement navigating that is interesting because there's a lot of conversations that you have to have behind closed doors of here's what we're trying to accomplish here's how we're approaching it. And on the other side of it, what people do with that, you don't have control over. And that's an interesting part of trying to navigate is how do you bring people along and get them to understand? And also make sure that in actions that people are going to take, You don't create further fragmentation and you're able to create an alignment of messaging and goals and outcomes that you're working towards.

45:04Behind closed doors, it is constant like strategizing because we were navigating situations that there's no way that you can prepare for. I mean, the media response is one component of it. Trying to organize players is another. The response from the NFL and the NFL owners is another piece of it. At that point in time, Donald Trump on the campaign trail is using it as part of his political messaging. And that becomes another component of how we navigate. So it becomes all of these different pieces that while in the middle of a football season and making sure I'm still preparing to go out and play and be successful with the team.

46:05Also strategizing and doing all of that work behind closed doors. How do we make sure that we're building and continue to move this forward and helping organize people on the ground? death threats, bomb scares. I mean, your personal safety is in question. I'm sure you're communicating. I'm sure you had friends who said, you know, you're my guy, but I just can't say anything publicly. Or people you thought were your friends who suddenly are backing away from you, the experience of figuring out who really stands with you, knowing that anybody who does is incurring that same risk. There's a lot on the line.

46:53And you knew enough to know that you were risking a lot when you did that. So what was it in addition to this awakening that you're having around your passion for these issues and the position of power that you were in to do something about it? Was there a particular moment where you knew like, I'm going to roll the dice on this. I'm going to do this versus just like, well, maybe tomorrow or maybe I'll let somebody else do it. I have a lot to lose. One of the things that I think about a good amount is if we're actually going to be part of a society, what is our role within that beyond just our individual interests?

47:45And to me, part of that responsibility is when you do have success, when you do have access and opportunity, how do you use that to create broader opportunity and help other people thrive? and if we aren't doing that i just don't look at that as like society that that just becomes like pure individualism like how do i get mine and how do i accumulate as much as possible like where does that leave us where does that leave us collectively and for me and being in that position, I've made it to a place where I'm playing in the NFL. I've accomplished the dream of getting there. There's still a lot more I want to do within it and a lot more success I want to have with it.

48:39But at the same time, I'm seeing people not being able to make it home. And I I think there's a responsibility to each other in that process to be able to fight and protect each other. And on the back end of that, your point, yes, the death threats, people trying to send bombs to the house, those things came along with it. Yeah. But I also know those are intentional efforts to try to deter the action of creating that change.

49:23And maybe this is the football side of me.

49:29Some may say stubborn. I will say persistent side of me. It's like that's not going to stop me. And, you know, some of what I mentioned in the book as well is like I'd faced death in my life previously. So I also was comfortable with the idea of like almost that I'm playing with house money. I had escaped those moments and made it through and past them. and now in a place that I'm going to push the bounds with the time that I have. And I hope that has a tremendously long time. But at the same time, I can't let that stop me from doing the work. I also know other people may not be willing to take that same approach or take the same risks.

50:32but you can still help in other ways if you aren't willing to show up in the same way that that i think people should have um there are still other ways to be supportive of the efforts and of the work and be able to take action that may not put you in the same light or same position that i was in this episode is brought to you by eight sleep and oh man i can't wait to tell you what these guys are up to. If you've listened to this show for any length of time, you've heard me bang on about sleep as the single highest leverage recovery tool there is, hands down. And when people ask me what to actually do about it, my answer is always the same.

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51:58The Pod 6 delivers up to 34 % more deep sleep. Individual results may vary, of course. Use my code, RICHROLL, at 8sleep.com slash RICHROLL for up to$200 off the Pod 6. You get 30 days to try it at home and return it if you don't love it. Pretty confident you will. Autonomy wasn't something I was thinking much about when I recently got behind the wheel of a Rivian R2 with founder and CEO RJ Skaringe. But when RJ started talking about where Rivian is headed with it, I couldn't stop thinking about it after. What's your latest thinking on the short and long term future of autonomous driving? I think short term, it's going to continue to get better.

52:42For us, we get to a place by the end of this year where we'll do hands-off point-to-point navigation. So meaning you could plug the address in, tell it to go, and it'll drive there on its own. Today we have hands-off, what we call universal hands-free, where you can take your hands off, it can drive, but it essentially stays on the path it's on. But the next step is to integrate that into navigation. So it navigates through turns, obviously stoplights, stop signs, everything, and that's this year. and then next year we get to that plus eyes off. So we'll start with eyes off on highway so you can be completely removed.

53:17It doesn't beep. It doesn't beep. You can do whatever you'd like. Yeah, you can do whatever you'd like. The autonomy and assisted driving features on the R2 today and the ones on the horizon are just part of what makes it such a compelling vehicle. You can learn all about the Rivian R2, watch the rest of our conversation and even book a demo drive at stories.rivian.com slash richroll.

53:44The other thing that I learned reading your book, and this is crazy, is this premonition that you had. Like you literally wrote down your future when you were a little kid, how much you were going to weigh, how tall you were going to be, and that you were going to play for the 49ers. like i want to know all about this so it was a fourth grade project um and it was a time capsule project and i remember my teacher mr suddenly um gave us this assignment and he was like you're you're gonna write out where you think you're gonna be and I think it was it was like 15 years from now or 20 years from now and I remember writing down like who my friends were but then like where I was going to be in the future I was going to be playing for the Packers or 49ers even if they weren't good and I was going to be six foot four I forget the weight I put in there, but it was somewhere like 170 to 190 pounds, I think.

55:01And it ultimately came to fruition. I'm slightly taller, 6 '5", got drafted by the 49ers. I think it's an interesting component of writing down your goals and being able to manifest them. And at that point in time, I didn't even realize that's what that was. But being able to manifest that and almost preparing yourself mentally for that outcome. So as you're training, as you're going through games and preparation and trying to bring that about, mentally, you are already in that space of where you're going to be headed. and the the second time this showed up was actually when i got to the 49ers and uh jim harbaugh who was our coach at the time made the entire team write down their goals for the season and i was going into my second year at that point in time and wrote down um i'm going to be a starter.

56:13At this point, I was a backup. I hadn't played. I'm going to be a starter, and we're going to go to the Super Bowl. I remember him coming to me after, and he had read through all of them. He was like, do you think you'll be able to accomplish these this season? And I remember looking at him and I was like, yes. And at that point, I'm the backup. And I don't know if he was asking that as like, hey, are you ready for it? Or if he was asking like, all right, are these realistic goals for you? But either way, my mind, I was, yes, that's what I'm focused on. And ultimately, in the middle of that season, Alex gets hurt and we go to the Super Bowl.

57:03My 10th start in the NFL was the Super Bowl. So both of those instances of actually just writing my goals down got to a space where I was able to manifest them. So I think there's power there. It also makes me feel like I need to write more things down to go. What did you write down this morning? No, I think it's a really powerful lesson in like the action-based idea of manifest. It's like, oh, man, like manifest your dreams. Like it's sort of an airy fairy thing, but there are, there is a practical application to that. First of all, you have to believe, you have to truly believe in the possibility.

57:49of that. And there is something about writing it down that cements it and like seeds this story that you begin to tell yourself that leads you to make decisions and take actions that maybe you wouldn't have had you not written that down. Even if you forgot that you wrote it down, it's in your unconscious and it's kind of doing a little bit of work, right? And I think it's an important tool I know that I've used, but I was curious around like, did that mature into kind of a real more formal like visualization practice like before games like are you imagining how it's going to go like did you ever have any kind of practice like that that that that would hone your kind of mental game i would do so much of it and i mean you get a lot of that going through game film like you're you're watching game film you're you're running through that as if you're running the plays and how you would respond to it what your reads would be um what you would do in those situations but then when you step away from it um for me i i naturally got to the space where when i'm i'm at the house when i'm on the bus on on the way of the game before the game like you're going through every play call you're going through your first and second down plays You're going through third down.

59:10You're going through red zone. You're going through the blitz situations. You're going through all of your audibles and running those through based upon what you think the defense is going to be doing. And in many ways, you're playing the game many times mentally before you ever step on the field. and I believe there's some good neuroscience behind this of like in writing goals down and visualizing that the preparation that you're doing actually reduces the friction when you get to those moments because it doesn't feel like it's something new. It feels like you've already done it, you've already accomplished it and that just as a practice, I know something within athletics shows up significantly.

1:00:04But I think more broadly is a great practice. And it also becomes like meditative. Yeah. Do you do that for things outside of sport? Like for your life? Like anticipate? Like you're about to release this book. Are you like visualizing what this experience is going to be like? anticipating, you know, some of the stuff that's, you know, going to get hurled in your direction. Oh, definitely. It's a little bit different, like variation of it because within football or within sport, like there's some confines to it. It's a contained environment. I mean, there's a lot of variables in football though.

1:00:44So you can only visualize, like, you don't know what's going to happen. There's all these players on the field. Yeah. You don't know what's going to happen, but you do get to a space where, you know, they're first and second down on defense. Like they may be in an over front and cover three as like their base. And they may have a couple variations off of that. that you're like, okay, I have a pretty good sense of like, I may get one to three or four things in this scenario and you can start playing those out. And then the anomalies that exist outside of that, like you adjust to in real time. I think when you get outside the confines of sport, then it's all right there's so many variables how do you try to distill it down to like what you're trying to accomplish and then what variables you think are most likely to show up and then going through the scenarios of how would i address those how would i talk through them um how do you navigate them so i do that i'll say i don't have a today i don't have a standard or formalized practice of it.

1:02:04It's something that when I'm not in the middle of doing work, I'm almost always doing some variation of running through scenarios. That's just become more of the norm for me. When you think back on that fourth grade assignment and, you know, kind of reflect on the fact that you like wrote down this thing and it actually happened. You're a person of faith. What does that tell you about the way the world works? Beyond just we're all powerful and we can create our destiny, it almost feels like there's a deeper spirituality here. It's one of those things that it's hard to reconcile Like, cause it feels like you can create or do anything.

1:02:58Um, and you can, you can manifest that. You obviously have to put the work and the dedication and all of those things into it, but it's hard to, to put that into a definitive space of like X equals Y. um and i think within that is i don't know what the direct connection or one-to-one connection is but it feels like a sense of fate yeah it it does and at the same time i also believe like we have control over our destiny so it's almost a little bit of both and i i go back and forth between that of like, oh, were these things always going to happen? Or is this a space that every decision I'm making, I have control over, and it just happened to lead me here?

1:03:54I don't know how to reconcile those, but how I approach it just from day to day is I have to make the best decisions I can to try to accomplish the biggest possible goals. And I think the thing that it's taught me more than anything is be more ambitious than where I think I can go. Because seeing in a fourth grade classroom, like, hey, I'm going to play for the 49ers. At that point in time, people were like, yeah it's a great dream like good luck on the journey i'd say that's not gonna happen for you define the odds in that way i think it also goes to a sense of mentality that you have to have in relation to you have to believe that you can do those things and the more that you have a sense of doubt or a sense of like that's never going to happen I think you're also manifesting and creating the environment where you're setting barriers in front of yourself and you won't see the opportunities when they do show up to be like, oh, that may be my chance to actually further myself towards that goal.

1:05:18Where does that sense of self-belief come from? I mean, you had it so early. I think part of it is you do have your innate personality of like, I think I was always a little bit of like, I'm going to push the balance and see what I can get away with. But at the same time, I think you build upon it over time with the little wins and little successes and then being able to take those further and further. and it makes me think back to uh one moment early in my life um i was doing i was supposed to go to a punt pass and kick competition um which is you you do a punt you do a pass you do a kick whatever that total is uh whoever has the the highest total as far as yardage ultimately wins and I remember going to the first one and I was so nervous and I got to a point that I was like I don't know if I want to do this like and you know my my parents are there they're like you know just just go out and try like it's okay you can my and my brother and sister were there like you know you're gonna do great just just get out there and i go out and i won the competition and i think the moments like that where it's like you have a fear or you have a hesitation or you have a doubt and you overcome it and it becomes like oh i i can do that now now let's go to the next one.

1:07:04And I think over time, as you build that up, you get to a place where you have understanding every obstacle is an opportunity to be able to show you can do something that you previously weren't able to do. Every doubt that you have is an opportunity to be able to show the resilience or the dedication you have to overcoming that. And then that just, to me, becomes part of who you are. You have trained yourself now to a point where any reality that you want to bring about, there's just obstacles along the way that you're going to have to get over. But you've already built this history of overcoming those obstacles.

1:07:52So in many ways, you have trained in practice for that. That gets you to a space that's like, oh this is just the next version of it you mentioned setting big goals so what what are the big goals now how do you keep them quiet the big goals that i think about um i mean obviously the the work that were in impact that we're trying to have on society um our efforts are still focused on uh addressing police brutality um still addressing the prison industrial complex complex and being able to resolve those. Those are massive goals that we want to go out and accomplish. The other one that I've been very focused on right now, I have a company in the education space, and we're trying to address this issue of literacy across the country.

1:08:48We have approximately 70 % of our students across the country that aren't proficient at reading and writing. Largely, we've just accepted this as the norm. 70 % just aren't going to make it. I think it's just an insane statistic. When I was first presented with it is what got me to the space of this is such a massive issue that we are not setting people up for success coming out the other side of education to be able to walk into the world and be as successful as possible, be contributors to society in the most meaningful way.

1:09:34And as we've been doing this work, we've been able to work with and meet phenomenal people. But we've also been able to look at this through the lens of we're also going into a present and future with AI. it's all built in natural language. So if our students aren't proficient at the foundational skills of literacy, their ability to access and utilize the tools of the future actually is largely not going to be there. And that's a massive one that we're trying to accomplish because of the downstream impact and ripple effects that exist with that as well. It's called Lumi, right? Yes. Yeah, Lumi.

1:10:19It's basically an AI venture, like leveraging AI to promote literacy. And we use the AI to be able to personalize to the student. So they get what they need specifically. And one of the things that we've been focused on with this is also within K-12 infrastructure, there's a lot of fragmentation within it. So it's an opportunity for us to be able to align everything from our districts to our schools, to our teachers, and ultimately to our students. So they are accomplishing their goals. We also, it's been interesting in the process of, in leveraging a tool like that, how do you make sure that students aren't cognitively offloading?

1:11:10So we've had to put very strict guardrails in place. like we will never write for students is one of the things that we've had to make very clear and be steadfast in that. Yeah, that was my big question. Like AI is basically the, can be the enemy of literacy because of this offloading. And so many young people don't know how to write. And it's so easy to basically cheat and copy paste and all that, that kind of thing. Exactly. And we're seeing this show up at the university level. One of our advisors is at NYU and she was like, I have students coming in, they can't write. We're seeing it show up in the UC system in California where the baseline coming into the university, they're having to go back to basics.

1:12:08We're seeing this deterioration of sorts. And that's not to say there aren't success stories out there as well. But for us, we're looking at this is a powerful tool, but it's a powerful tool to be able to better understand the skills that students have, where they have gaps in that knowledge, and then being able to give them the right coaching and support to allow them to advance. but always having the core and center of it as the student has to do the work. I think that is one of the things that we know about learning is there does have to be progressive or productive struggle. It can't just be something that, hey, I was able to complete the assignment.

1:12:55Like completing the assignment is easy to do now. But the process of how you think through executing against it becomes much more telling of a student's knowledge. On the topic of literacy, I think an underappreciated aspect of your story is the fact that you were an unreal student. I mean, you were like a 4.5 student in high school. You're doing all the AP courses. You go to college, you're 4.0 across the board, basically. there's a sliding door situation where you would have ended up at a, you know, at an Ivy League school and maybe you're a professor now or something like that. Like, and, and the book really gives the reader a glimpse of the, um, kind of deranging impact of being this really bright person, uh, who is, who is being perceived in a certain way because of being black and because of being an athlete that you weren't being taken seriously or you were dismissed, et cetera.

1:13:57So I'm curious, can you share a little bit about what that was like and how that informed kind of your activism and how you think about how you show up and speak? So from a young age, I tested into gifted and talented programs and magnet programs. I was a great student in relation to being able to get good grades. It became very apparent that in being successful on the academic side was always a surprise. and to me what it revealed was the expectation for i would say particularly a black athlete to have intelligence or to have intellect was perceived as an anomaly it informed how i moved forward because while it may be in different spaces like there are brilliant athletes out there across the board, that brilliance can show up in different ways.

1:15:13And how I think about that in relation to the activism and the work that we're doing is how do you create the environment where the expression of that intelligence and the opportunity to display that intelligence and be educated, that we create more of those opportunities and also continue to raise the bar of the expectations. I want it to be the norm where a black athlete walks in the room or a black person walks in the room. And the assumption is, oh, they're going to be brilliant. They're going to be well-educated. They're going to understand. And getting to that place, I think there's a lot of work that needs to be done.

1:16:01And it's also interesting having to navigate that because to my understanding, Like some of the most educated people across the country are black women. And there's a sense of surprise around that being the fact. And again, I want to create a space where that becomes the norm. And I think that should be the norm. How you get there becomes interesting because it's not something you have full control over as far as people's perceptions. you can only expose them to it more and more. Expose them. And then you can just be this model of that, you know, and speak openly about your education and how you think about intellect and intelligence and the like, and be somebody that a young person can see and identify and imagine their own possibility.

1:16:58Similar to the sports side, like just make it so undeniable and so obvious that it then becomes like, oh, I can't have a different perspective around it because it is so obvious. When you encounter young people walking on the street here or whatever, what is the reception of the youth when you meet them? You know what I mean? I'm thinking about the reception and the aftermath of the Neil and the eruption of culture around that, But then you have a whole generation of young people who were too young to be influenced by what people thought of that back then. Did they receive you differently? What is that like?

1:17:47The reception is, at least from my experience thus far, is always love. There's an excitement around it. I think because we have a younger generation in Gen Z and Gen Alpha that are much more politically aware, they're much more politically involved. and I have grown up in a way that they're they're definitive in the positions of whether it's corporations or politicians or friends and family around them that they want to make sure that they are taking actions to create more equitable environments and i think that is what i've seen show up from a lot of those interactions um and oftentimes it's different spaces that they're they're passionate about but they come into it with like oh we we can create change like i think it's true i do have power and they have a sense of of agency that i think is different than um you know the era that millennials came up in and in some of the older generations, I think in part because everything is so visible to them as well through social media.

1:19:08And there's a lot of pros and cons within that. But I think one of the pros that's done is it's opened up their perspective because they're able to see the world and see things globally in a way that previously just wasn't possible. When you think back on 2016, is there anything that you would have done differently? Like with perspective, you've had a decade to kind of process and think about everything that has happened. Would you have done it the same way? I think of two things. um one i think about could i have pushed the balance further um with the work that we were doing and i tried to be mindful in the work of i wanted people to to come to the space and be a part of the movement and be a part of the work because they felt passionately about it.

1:20:15I also think about, should I have tried to push people more aggressively within some of that work? And I don't know if that changes the outcome or moves the needle because I do think there's a sense of people have to internalize it and they have to believe it for them to actually do it and do it over a period of time and do that in a sustained way. But I do think like, are there ways that could have pushed the balance further? Should I have combated more of the false narratives in more visible ways while we were doing a lot of that work behind the scenes and doing it on the ground? Should I have done that in much more visible ways.

1:21:08And part of the concern of doing that and the thought process around it was, if I do that publicly and if I do that in a louder way, does that become the focus of the conversation as opposed to what we're trying to accomplish? I'm not sure what the outcome is and how that changes things, but those are two of the areas that I think about a lot. just in how can we create more sustained and more significant progress. It's a tough one because if you were taking every criticism head on and trying to redress misunderstandings, you're providing oxygen to those arguments and they persist in, you know, kind of the media cycle.

1:21:59Yeah. But if you don't, then you're implicitly not disagreeing with it. You're allowing other people to define your narrative for you, right? Yeah. That's the trade-off, I guess, on some level. And it becomes also, there's different ways to be able to communicate it. And we did some of those pathways through my direct channels, through direct relationships, and things of that nature. the areas that i didn't do um or didn't really do as frequent was hey i'm gonna i'm gonna go do a sit down on 60 minutes and address all of these and like have it be done in a broadcast format but not for nothing you just did do that right now right yes okay so we're we're we're doing it But we hadn't done it at that point.

1:22:56At the time. But we are doing it now. That's important context for people to have. But at that point in time, we hadn't done it in that way. again i part of the realization of that moment too was media and journalism had changed where a lot of it was the business models were changing like it was more around hey we have to compete for eyeballs now we have to compete for the the clicks and the likes and the visibility so we also saw a lot of it turn more to hey we need the we need the sexy headline to get people to come to us and less around what are the facts around this and what are you trying to address um and saw journalism in many ways like that started changing and there there's still some people that do phenomenal journalism work um and i don't want to discount or discredit that But larger media ecosystem became much more like, hey, we need the attention, we need the visibility, less around, hey, let's do the true journalism work of what's happening and giving people the facts around the moment.

1:24:22How do you think Malcolm X would have handled the algorithmically driven media landscape of 2026? Oh, man. That is a great question. I think he would have explored all possibilities there. Probably would have looked at streaming, probably would have looked at… Welcome X the streamer. Right? But I'm thinking of it… Him and speed. Right? It's a really good question because I did have a moment of thinking about this. Did you? Just of like at that point in time, how he was communicating and getting message out more broadly. Like he was doing significant work there. Thinking about what that looks like in 2026.

1:25:17It's hard to imagine. It is. But I think there's an element of streaming in there. There's the sub stacks of the world, where it's like you have your personal channels and messaging. There's the social media aspect. You have the TV and broadcast side. I think he would have explored all of the ways that he could have effectively communicated the message more broadly. but it feels strange to put that in perspective now. But here you are, you're kind of reentering the town square in this more sophisticated media ecosystem, back to the idea of quaintness like 2016 information landscape quaint compared to today.

1:26:14There are coordination disinformation campaigns, some of which are being funded and propagated in foreign nations. It's just insane, right? I mean, you are like, if there was ever clickbait, you're clickbait. You are going to be the reason for everybody to write something. And you are going into this clear-eyed, you know this. How does that feel? And what is the like what is the message to the kind of daily wire end of that ecosystem where you're seeing you know matt walsh and ben shapiro there's a coordinated like okay colin's coming back let's get our podcast together like and we're all gonna like you know do podcasts at the same time with our our like perspective on like who he is and what he means and how we should think about this guy it's something that i'm prepared for that like to come i already at this point you're like war torn yeah like you've been through it already yeah but still i mean it can't be fun that that side of it no that side of it it's not fun but if you're going to affect change there is going to be resistance to it and like you you know that side is going to to come If you're not getting that, you're not actually pushing change.

1:27:38And I go back and forth on that because I don't like using that as a metric because if the metric becomes the goal of like, oh, if they're responding to us and attacking us, like, that's how you know you're doing something right. That can lead us to extreme places that are just off the mark of what we should be trying to accomplish. I think we need to keep the goal, the main focus, and have an awareness that, yeah, this likely will come. But I don't think that should be a measure of the success already at this point. I see the bots ramping up. um they're showing up more and more on on my pages now um do you pay attention to that stuff are you kind of scrolling through it and taking notice i would check to have a a pulse of like where are things actually at and have a sense there um because i i don't want to be caught off guard like i need to i need to have understanding what was happening within the social realm i need to have an understanding what what's happening you know politically i need to have understanding just on the ground like how people are responding um and i i think that allows you to to get a better sense of like how you calibrate that side of it isn't fun but you know you're gonna have to to navigate it and address it but ultimately at this point i think majority of people see through it like well while i have the the experiences and uh having to go through it also as a society people have had to go through it as well um and i think there's a a lot more informed community collectively now where it's like we kind of know how people are going to frame and position things we we know where where disingenuous arguments are going to come from and where manipulation will come from um we have a pretty good sense of that when you're trying to realize change there's a tension i'm curious around this tension that you must feel between taking an ardent, principled, uncompromising stance on something and the consensus building and recruitment that's required in order to actually create the change.

1:30:29You've got to be able to have people on board with you. Those two things, they can work in tandem, but they're also antagonistic at times. They work against each other. Do you want to be the compromising guy who's like getting everybody on board and reaching across the aisle? Or are you the guy who's just the symbol who's like, this is the line? I think it has to be a both and, which is like a fine line to walk.

1:31:00The context that I think about is, You know, MLK, who is universally beloved today, at that point in time, it was like 33 % of black people that supported him. Giving historical context is also important that in the moment, people may resist it because it's different, because it makes them uncomfortable. And that may be for a number of reasons. It may be you're challenging some of the ideas that they hold. And in challenging those ideas, that can feel like a personal attack. But it's more so like, how do we push forward collectively? I think about that in the moment today of when people do have a discomfort, getting them and giving them some insight as to why that may be the case.

1:32:01and also giving them the insight into this isn't a personal attack on you. This is us trying to address an idea that has created a negative outcome for society. And then putting it in that framework and perspective then becomes like, okay, if this isn't a personal attack, let me actually think about the thing now. part of what's given me that perspective is over the last 10 years i've had a surprising amount of people um i would say candidly i did not think this would be the case surprising amount of people that have come up and been like i hated you like i really didn't like you and i've seen what you've done over the years and i've had conversations and you were right and seeing seeing people go through that process and transformation come out the other side of it um and again there's a good portion of the people in like deep southern states that, again, I candidly was like, there's probably no shot that they're going to change their mind on me or what we're trying to accomplish.

1:33:29Time? There is this notion like 50 years from now, everyone's going to look at what you did very differently than they did the week after you did it. There is an element of time. But the other part, again, I think it's being able to get people to separate the idea of what we're trying to accomplish from their personal identity. And I think because our beliefs become so personal to us, that when someone challenges a belief that we have, then it becomes, oh, you're attacking me personally. And the attack isn't personal. The attack is on the system, on the environment, on the processes that we've created that are driving to outcomes that aren't beneficial to anybody.

1:34:23And what I've seen is as people step back from that, that creates the window of opportunity where it's like, well, let me interrogate this further. and also let me interrogate why I thought that thing and sometimes that's broadening their perspective sometimes it's getting them to think about it from someone else's point of view but ultimately what I've seen is there is a significant portion of people that are willing to take that that process and that perspective to be able to get to a space of hey is this actually the thing is the thing that i originally believe the the thing that is actually best for us yeah i mean that must be a good feeling though when you have those encounters it's amazing um i'll say there there is an element of like i wish it would happen faster because

1:35:35there's very real impact on people's lives.

1:35:42The difference of people moving now and taking action now can be the difference of whether or not we save a lot of people's lives. So there is a balance of we need people to understand this right now and move right now. And also knowing that that's not how human beliefs actually change. You're not just going to tell someone something once and be like, you know what? I changed. I got it. I'm a whole new person now. If only the world would work this way. So it's having that balance of trying to get people to move quickly, but having a level of grace and empathy of them grappling with their own beliefs in that is a delicate process.

1:36:40But we have to continue to push the bounds on what's possible there. I'm going to have to let you go in a minute because I know you've got to be somewhere else. But I'm not letting you go. until you answer the question, are you still training every day? Yes. Is this true? Yes. What does that look like? And is there still an aspiration or a possibility that you could return to the NFL as a quarterback? Yeah, I still train every day. Get up at 4.30 in the morning. I do my training. Then I get to be – What is the training? So I still do all my, you know, my skill training, my lifting, my plyometrics.

1:37:24So I still train the way that I did while I was playing. And part of that has just become like a discipline and practice. Part of it is also becomes another form of like meditation for me in there as well. of saying I'm not as good at the sitting still meditation. I'm like, I feel like I have to be going. We got to make moves. So that becomes a space where I have a singular focus, having headphones in and not having to navigate some of the outside noise like that becomes an area where I'm able to be just very in tune with myself. But yeah, I still love playing football. I, there's a passion that I have.

1:38:26I want to step back on a field. I want to lead a team to a championship. I hope that door opens.

1:38:38and I know I have to control the things that I can control in that process to try to bring that about. Last year, 63 quarterbacks in the NFL, half of which ended up on the weekly injury report. A lot of injuries there, which means a lot of opportunity for a guy like you. When I reflect back, it's like insane that it wasn't a team that like gave you a shot. I know there's been these flirtations, et cetera. Yeah. But like, come on, people. What are you waiting for? So what is the message to the NFL, to the various GMs? What's the pitch? What's your final kind of like edict to that institution? Be true to who you say you are.

1:39:28the the nfl coaches gms all say the nfl is a meritocracy and the best players will play they want the best talent on the field be true to that i think it's a good place to end it man thank you oh thank you i really appreciate it everybody pick up the book on sale September 15th. Yes. Available everywhere. If people want to get involved and learn more about all of your initiatives, where is the best place to send them? They can go to Kaepernick7.com. And on the foundation side, knowyourrightscamp.com and lumistory.ai. Awesome. Much love, man. Thank you. It's been a pleasure. Excited for this chapter of your life, man.

1:40:19I'm excited for it as well. Right on, man. All right. Peace. Peace. Thanks, dude. Thank you.