Transcript

[00:16] Justin McMillen: So you were just talking about orcas, and I'm, like, trying to wrap my head around the idea of you being how far out in the ocean. How far?

[00:20] Rich German: Two miles.

[00:20] Justin McMillen: Two miles out in the ocean on your damn paddleboard?

[00:23] Rich German: Yes.

[00:24] Justin McMillen: How are you not afraid that you're going to get eaten?

[00:26] Rich German: Well, you want a little backstory, or you just want to know just how I was in that moment? Like, how are you not afraid, like, what if they- couldn't they climb the board? They could. Absolutely. Not my board, but here's what I've learned. No orca has ever harmed a human being in the wild. We know what's happened in captivity in places like SeaWorld, where they've killed trainers. But here's the bottom line. These orcas travel up to 200 miles a day, and they live with their families their entire life. So if you take an animal that's used to traveling up to 200 miles a day, first of all, rip it away from its family, which is no different than if somebody broke into your home and snagged a child. They have that type of connection, and then you put them in a pool that's about the size of this room. Literally, they go crazy. So in the wild, I mean, was I alert? Was I paying attention? Absolutely. But here's the bottom line. When this moment happened, there was like eight boats out there, a couple whale watching boats, personal boats and whatnot. So there was a couple hundred eyeballs on me. If there wasn't, I would have jumped in the water.

[01:42] Justin McMillen: And if you were with me, you would have jumped in.

[01:42] Rich German: All serious, after about five minutes, I'm like, there it is. I mean, orcas are dolphins. They're not- actually, whales are the largest species of dolphin. And after about five minutes, I realized I was totally safe. I would have just jumped in the water, but I knew if I did, I would get so much backlash. So I stayed on my board.

[02:01] Justin McMillen: Like no one's knocking on your door.

[02:01] Rich German: And all like that.

[02:02] Justin McMillen: We can go there. I've had that happen too, true story. So you're a whale watcher? Whale advocate, criminal?

[02:08] Rich German: No, I'm just curious.

[02:09] Justin McMillen: But convicted. But yeah, let's just go into this story. So you're out two miles into the water, and did you know they were there, or how did this go down?

[02:10] Rich German: Let me back up. So I moved into a home in North Laguna Beach, California, in 2010. I had never stood on a stand up paddle board in my life. It was kind of a brand new sport at that time. I had no idea that the beach right there happens to be perhaps the best beach in the world to paddle from, because even if there's waves, I can pretty much get in and out every single day. And I had no idea there's more species of dolphins and whales in that part of Orange County, Southern California, than perhaps anywhere in the world. So I started getting them on this board every day, and I would paddle out super close to shore, and I would see bottlenose dolphins pretty much every time. And I was like, this is freaking amazing, but I can get on my board and paddle with these wild dolphins. And the creative in me buys a cheap waterproof camera, and I start taking photos of these dolphins every day. And then over time, I get a little fancier, and I got a GoPro, and I strap it to my hat. And so now I'm filming video of me paddling with these dolphins. And so we have different species of dolphins. There's bottlenose, which are the most common ones that I see every day, including this morning when I was out there. There's also a species called common dolphins. There's about 150,000 or more common dolphins off the coast of Southern California. They're a little further offshore. In the winter, we get Pacific white sided dolphins, which don't tell the bottlenose, but they're perhaps my favorite. The most interactive, playful, adorable dolphins you've ever met. So I would pretty much hug the coast and play with dolphins. And then the first game changer, the orca story is actually the second game changer. But the first game changer, I think it was August or September of 2014, I'm hugging the coast like I always did. And then for some reason, I look out to the horizon and I see two massive spouts, like huge. And I didn't know what it was. But I'm thinking to myself, that's not a dolphin, that's a really large animal. And my curiosity got the best of me, and I paddled straight out all by myself. And at that time, there was a line of buoys off the shore. And I get to right where the buoys are, and I find myself in the presence of two 100ft blue whales.

[04:29] Justin McMillen: Oh my God.

[04:29] Rich German: The blue whale is the largest animal that's ever lived on the planet. The biggest dinosaur, T-Rex, is about 50ft. Blue whales get to be over 100ft, they're massive. And so I'm out there with these 100ft whales, and my mind's just completely blown. Hang out with them for a while, come back to shore. The next day, I immediately go out to the exact same spot. I'm like, how could this be that I could get on my board? And it took me about 40 minutes to get out there, not a big deal. And the next day I go out and there's a guy working on one of the buoys, he's on a boat and he's doing something to the buoy, and I said, he looked at me like, what the hell are you doing out here? And I didn't even know at that time how far off shore I was. And I looked at him and I said, hey, how far off shore are we? He goes, this buoy is exactly two miles off shore. So I was two miles. So this was September 2014. And for three straight summers we have blue whales just coming in to that exact spot because there's krill, and blue whales, which are the biggest animal in the world. Eat one of the smallest animals in the world, which is krill, like a little tiny shrimp crustacean. And there's just millions of krill a day. So when the water temperature is right and the conditions line up, we have tons of krill off the coast and blue whales show up. So that was the first game changer, the fact that I could get on this little paddle board and paddle for 40 minutes and be surrounded. I've been out there, no exaggeration, with 20 blue whales all at the same time, just everywhere you look.

[06:05] Justin McMillen: Oh my gosh, insanity.

[06:07] Rich German: So that's September, and this is all just again for the audience, people seeing this. This is all standing up on one of those paddle boards where- it's not everyone maybe knows- it's a big surfboard, 14ft long. It's long and fairly wide, so it's stable.

[06:20] Justin McMillen: Are you ever afraid?

[06:22] Rich German: The most afraid I am is when there's blue whales. I'm not- they're gentle giants, they're absolutely harmless. The only thing could be is when they come up to the surface, they'll breathe about a dozen times, and they'll just make a big circle if they're feeding, which is typically what they're doing when they're here, and then they'll dive down 300ft depending on where the krill is. And they're down there for like ten, twelve minutes, eating, eating, eating. And then they've got to come up to breathe. My only fear is if they come up and they don't see me, which they do, by the way, they're extremely conscious of their surroundings. But if they happen to hit me, you'll probably never see me again. But the way I look at it, that's the way I gotta go. I still feel like it's a lot more dangerous driving on the 405 than being out there on the ocean. So a little afraid, but I'm not afraid, just super conscious of my surroundings when I'm out there with big whales. Fast forward a few months, up to this point, I've paddled with blue whales, humpback whales, fin whales, which are the second biggest animal in the world. Gray whales, which six months out of the year migrate north and south from Alaska to Mexico. We can talk a lot about gray whales and how their population is down dramatically. Bottlenose dolphins like I mentioned, common dolphins, Pacific white sided dolphins. Like I said, probably more species of dolphins and whales than anywhere in the world. But there was one species that I had never encountered, that I literally just had dreams about, and that was orcas, killer whales. I would have visceral dreams of standing on my deck, and these huge orcas were just jumping out of the water. I had it recurring. And then it was January 6th, 2015. There was a report that a pod of four orcas was in Long Beach, which is 30 miles north of Laguna Beach, California, and they were seen at sunset and they were heading south in the direction of Laguna Beach. Next day I paddle out and I'm just kind of close to the coast. I look to the horizon, and I see, like I mentioned earlier, eight boats, at least- I don't- like eight boats, a couple of them are big, they're whale watching boats. And for some reason- I normally paddle in the morning, but this was in January. It happened to be, it's probably like two, three in the afternoon, and it gets dark at like 5:00, right, January. So I'm like, I only have a couple hours of sunlight. And I look out there, and here's what I know: boats are just sitting there looking at something. If whale watching boats are on the go, they're trying to find animals. But these boats are all just sitting there. And I said to myself, there's a tiny chance this is the orcas again. They travel 200 miles a day, they could be long gone. But I just had this feeling like, you got to go check, you got to take a shot. So I took my shot, paddled to the exact same spot where those buoys- the blue whales have been hanging out. Two miles off shore, and sure enough, I find myself in the presence of a pod of four orcas called the K21 pod. I didn't know that at the time, but I paddle out- you can actually go on YouTube, look up my name and just orcas Laguna Beach and you'll see my footage with the original GoPro, it's not great footage. It's ten years ago or more now, and you can hear- it's the cutest thing- there's this little kid on a whale watching boat, and the orcas start coming right at me, and this little kid just says they're coming to capture him. And they came right at me, and one of them specifically would come under my board like three times, just right at me, right under me. And they were just playing around.

[10:08] Justin McMillen: That's so nuts.

[10:10] Rich German: That's nuts. But that was the reason I like to tell that story. One, it's fun, it's kind of cool, it's unique. But two, that was the game changing moment, because up to that point I'd been paddling every single day for five years, and it was just a hobby, it was a passion. And what happened was I came home, spent like an hour with them, and then I came home to beat the darkness. I had this permanent grin on my face, and I looked at the footage, and like I said, it was an old GoPro, basic footage, but it was pristine, like you get to see the orca kind of right under my board. And the light, everything was perfect. And at first I was like, I'm not going to even share this video, I'm just going to keep this to myself. It was too sacred of a moment. And I showed it to like two buddies, and they're like, dude, this is way too cool, you have to put this out there. Yeah, but what I didn't want- I didn't want to be crazy paddle boarder risking his life to paddle with these killer whales. So I walked down to the beach and I shot a 90 second video, one take, where I talked about the experience, talked about how I wasn't afraid. I gave a pretty subtle jab to SeaWorld, that the only time orcas have harmed humans is in captivity, never in the wild. And then I spliced in the video and I threw it up on my Facebook page. And within like three hours, it was shared like 700 times, and it just went. And so I did one thing after that. I went on the websites of basically ABC, NBC and CBS in LA. I said, hey, this video is getting a lot of attention on Facebook. Here's the link. All three of them ran the story live on the news that night. And as you know, when they run a story, they'll run it at 5:00, 6:00, 11:00, and the next morning, all three called me and they said, every single affiliate wants to run your story nationwide, can they? I said, let me think about it. Yes.

[12:13] Justin McMillen: And then the thing just went nuts. Like you couldn't buy that kind of exposure.

[12:18] Rich German: Of course. But the real thing that was the game changer was actually the next day- I'm sitting at my home office desk, and within a couple hours, I got contacted by PETA, Save the Whales, Mission Blue, which is Sylvia Earle's organization, Oceana, which is probably the biggest ocean protection organization in the world. Just back to back to back, they all called me, emailed me, reached out, wanted to know what happened and if they could share the story. And I'll never forget, it was one of those moments- I'm just sitting at my desk and I just lose it, I'm bawling hysterically. And that was my sign from the universe that this thing that had always just been a hobby, a passion, needed to become my life's work. And that was the game changer.

[13:10] Justin McMillen: I've known you for a while now, and I had no idea that's how it all came together. What's coming up for me as you're talking is that you're kind of part of this group of people worldwide, and I can't think of any right offhand. I'm sure I will, in a moment, but there are human beings who end up communing with nature, or a specific animal, in a certain way, and they kind of rise up in their own way. And you've done this with whales and dolphins, and you guys are a certain kind of breed of human. It's almost like there's this relationship that's going on, and then it results in something, and for you it's almost like these whales gave you an opportunity, like they almost handed that to you.

[13:52] Rich German: Thank you for saying that. And I don't even know how it happened. It's funny, because when that whole thing went down, I remember saying to some people, like, I think I'm supposed to spend the rest of my life- I get emotional thinking about it- like I'm supposed to spend the rest of my life trying to protect the ocean and these animals, and they were all like, no shit. Like they'll realize it's obvious. And the saying is that I didn't know- the person being called is the last to know. For them it was like, duh. And for me it was like a big epiphany moment, because I don't know, maybe it's because I don't know how it happened or why it happened, and it feels like a huge responsibility.

[14:38] Justin McMillen: Yeah.

[14:41] Rich German: You know what I mean?

[14:43] Justin McMillen: Yeah. So since then- I mean, I'm familiar with the whole story of Vladimir. I'd love to talk about him a little bit.

[14:50] Rich German: Sure.

[14:51] Justin McMillen: And then your work you're doing on advocacy to shut down some of the sea life parks, that's an incredibly interesting topic. I don't know which we go to first. I think you're learning something from doing this. Are you learning about yourself as much as you're learning about people in general? Are you just learning about whales?

[14:59] Rich German: All of the above. It's challenging, because what's happened for me over the years is the more time I spend in the ocean, on the ocean- all my paddle boarding has been done in Laguna Beach, I've calculated that I've paddle boarded about 30,000 miles since 2010, the circumference of the planet. And whenever I do talks with kids, my first slide that I show is the planet, and I'll say to these kids, sometimes they're elementary school, I'm like, anyone know who can guess what's the circumference of the planet? And I'll get numbers from like 100 miles to like 100 million miles. It's 24,900, 901 miles. And I figure that I've paddled more than that, but all within a couple mile stretch, just going up and down the coast of Laguna Beach. My point is- I don't like saying this, but it feels true, so I'll say it- the more time I've spent with whales and dolphins- and what I was going to say was, not only when I- When I'm in Laguna, I paddle, but when I travel- Hawaii, Dominican Republic, travel around the world- I like to swim. I go to places where I can swim with dolphins and whales, which is a whole different experience. So I've had a lot of encounters, and there's just something about these animals. Dolphins, to me, represent pure play and joy. They're just living- you've been out there, you see it- they just live in this playful, joyful state that humans don't. And whales represent just a wisdom that's even hard to comprehend. And the more time I spend with them, the harder time I have with humans, quite honestly. And I still love humans, and I love you, man. But when I look at what humans have done to whales and dolphins, what we've done to nature, what we've done to the planet as a whole, it's created this little gap in terms of how I feel about them. So it's something I work on daily.

[17:10] Justin McMillen: How do you manage that in your head?

[17:15] Rich German: It's hard. Cynical and angry, it's a constant struggle not to become cynical, not to become angry, and not to give up, and not to be like, who the hell do I think I am? Like, can I really make a difference? And then I remember, oh wait, yes I can, we all can. So it's something I probably experience- it's a constant daily thing that I have to work on.

[17:30] Justin McMillen: Do you think that there's something about these animals in particular, because you're part of a lineage of people that have fallen in love with cetaceans-

[17:46] Rich German: Cetaceans would be- what is that, whale or dolphin?

[17:48] Justin McMillen: Whales and dolphins- that have really fallen in love with them and then ended up completely committing your life to them. I'm sure it's happened in other places too, but who are some of the people in the history of this?

[18:05] Rich German: I'm laughing because animal people in general tend to be a little strange.

[18:10] Justin McMillen: And then you're a little strange.

[18:12] Rich German: Hold on, hold on. And then there's the whale people, okay, they're next level. In some cases, in the last several years, based on the work I've done- so after the orca thing went viral, went crazy, I did two things. People for years were like, oh, you should publish a book of all your photos. So I made a book called Blue Lagoon, and it's just my favorite dolphin and whale photos that I've taken from my paddle board. We'll put a link on the show if people want to purchase it. And then the other thing, which hopefully is more important, is I started a nonprofit called Project O, and we have a couple of projects that I can definitely talk about, the things that we do. And one of them is my work with children, which I think is super important. But in putting myself out there, I've met- and I had a podcast like this for years- I did many interviews with some amazing people, like Captain Paul Watson. He's the one who co-founded Greenpeace, like 56 years ago. And then he's- he's the Sea Shepherd guy, very interesting story, he actually got thrown out of his own organization and now has the Captain Paul Watson Foundation, and they're still out there doing the work. I've interviewed Sylvia Earle from Mission Blue, who's probably the next- to Jacques Cousteau- the most famous oceanographer of all time. Definitely the most famous female. So a lot of amazing people. And we can get into the work I was doing with Vladimir, the Russian spy beluga whale. I met a lot of scientists and activists through that whole thing, and they're just a strange breed of people, passionate people.

[19:56] Justin McMillen: But there's something- I think it's funny that you put them over here, and you're talking like- have you considered the fact that you're just in that mix?

[19:58] Rich German: I've thought about this, is this therapy sessions we're here for? I just think- the way I like to consider myself is a fairly grounded human being, but maybe I'm not.

[20:10] Justin McMillen: You are. But I've seen you, it's a daily thing where you're out in the water, and I think it's safe to say you feel better around whales and dolphins than you do around people, and it got you enough to where it took over your life. You know, like that trainer from Flipper, who?

[20:30] Rich German: Ric O'Barry.

[20:33] Justin McMillen: Who then suddenly, something about these animals seems to get into people's hearts, and it kind of drives them crazy in some cases.

[20:38] Rich German: Yeah, I know Rick, he's a passionate dude, he's a strange guy, no doubt about him.

[20:47] Justin McMillen: I wonder if you find a person- there's some guy that's really good with wolves, his name- but he claims that he can communicate with them, I've seen videos of him growling at them, and I hope that hasn't happened to me, but I think with a lot of these people, there's something about- I don't know, because everyone loves dolphins and whales.

[21:07] Rich German: And so when you become a leader in that space, the ego tends to get in the way. And with the whole Vladimir story, so many people's egos just got in the middle of that project, and it happens all the time. It's interesting, because in all dynamics where people really reinforce their ideas, there's something to fight against.

[21:30] Justin McMillen: And so you guys are fighting to save the environment, which is a huge piece. But there's also this other thing, which is where most people have seen whales and dolphins, which is like marine wildlife parks.

[21:38] Rich German: Yes.

[21:40] Justin McMillen: And what is the current status of that, are they being- are more being opened constantly, or-

[21:49] Rich German: So, let me see if I can remember the numbers, the last I saw there was about 50 plus orcas still in captivity in marine parks around the world- there's three more, many of them have died- and about 300 plus beluga whales. And the big story recently was a place called Marineland in Canada, that was this old piece of crap park. And they had like 30 beluga whales, and it was finally shut down. So all the activists were always preaching, empty the tanks, empty the tanks, this is cruel, and it's hard to argue with the fact, like I said earlier- orcas travel up to 200 miles a day, and then you put them into a little swimming pool, they go crazy. It's just- and we do it for our own profit and our own entertainment, it's twisted. And I think a lot of people- most people- I went on a recon mission a couple years ago to SeaWorld in San Diego, had a buddy come from Norway, we were working on this project with Vladimir in Norway, and he came to California and we're like, let's just go check it out. It's the most depressing place in the world. They had three beluga whales and they just sit there, they don't even barely swim, they're in this tiny little pool, it's so screwed up. And they still do orca shows. So these things still exist. So everybody celebrates, oh, Marineland closed- well, let's just throw the whales in the ocean and they'll be fine. But the reality is, orcas and belugas, which are the most common whales you'd put in captivity, are trained. Are you hungry? You want to eat, or go do this show and then we'll feed you. So they go do the show and then they get the reward. Like a dog, sure, they can't feed themselves on their own anymore, is the point. So you can't just throw them back into the ocean, they would not survive. Just like if you were to take your dog and say, you're a wild dog now, go survive in the wilderness- your dog wouldn't last an hour. They wouldn't make it, so it's the same thing. So people celebrate, oh, they closed down Marineland- well, they took six of these whales very recently and moved them to different aquariums in the US, so they're still going to spend the rest of their lives in captivity. The hard reality is that these animals, their fate was sealed the day they got pulled out of the ocean from their family.

[24:19] Justin McMillen: Are they typically pulled out of the ocean as wild animals, or are they born in captivity?

[24:22] Rich German: Both. Most places now have banned breeding in captivity, that's illegal in most places.

[24:30] Justin McMillen: Why is that, just because it's cruel?

[24:32] Rich German: Yeah, absolutely cruel. I don't know that I'd assume that people make laws because they care about animals.

[24:38] Justin McMillen: That's maybe a good point.

[24:40] Rich German: Cynical, but- yeah. I mean, they're still building marine parks in China and India, so it's not going away. I don't think you'll see too many new ones pop up in the US. So a lot of the work that I've done- I'll just tell the backstory, because this is a wild story. April 2019, in Hammerfest, Norway- Hammerfest is the most northern city in the world you can go where people actually live, there's like 10,000 people that live there, it's extremely far north, north tip of Norway, very cold. A beluga whale shows up in the harbor in Hammerfest, and it's wearing a harness. No one actually fully knows, but it was believed- this whale that the locals named Vladimir- "hval" is Norwegian for whale, and because they think he came from Russia, it was a play on Vladimir Putin, so they named him Vladimir. We always called him Baldy for sure, but it was believed that he was part of some type of Russian military program. Nobody knows for sure, the Russians never claimed him, for obvious reasons. So he shows up wearing a man-made harness, so clearly he'd been in captivity- no other way. He had a little thing, it looked like they could strap a GoPro on him, so they probably used him for recon missions on submarines, and he would videotape stuff, who knows. To me, the fact that we would take our most sentient, mystical, intelligent animals- whales and dolphins- and use them to protect ourselves from each other, what does that tell you about human beings?

[26:20] Justin McMillen: Yeah.

[26:22] Rich German: And you could say, oh, the Russians, how bad- go drive down to San Diego, you can go to the naval base in San Diego. And we have dolphins, bottlenose dolphins, in pens in San Diego. So the US does that same exact thing. So this whale shows up in Hammerfest, Norway, and he spends about 4 or 5 months living in the harbor. And he became a spectacle, a huge news story in Norway and all around the world. And there was a filmmaker who split time between Southern California and Norway, she's married to a Norwegian guy- this is an amazing story- and she started documenting the story, and she was going to make a documentary film and really blow this up. And I was introduced to her by a mutual friend, and I was blown away. To me, the ocean is so big, and you have so many whales, it's hard to relate to. But now this one whale has a face, has a name and a story- you couldn't make up this story. And she was looking for help to protect the whale, who absolutely deserved protection. And then the bigger play was, we were going to try to build an ocean reserve, the first ocean reserve in the world, basically turn a fjord in Norway-

[27:55] Justin McMillen: A fjord, I know what it is.

[27:58] Rich German: Just for the audience, if you were to Google it, look it up, because they're so beautiful.

[28:03] Justin McMillen: Maybe we can slap a picture over this as we're talking. But it's just a big piece of ocean that's protected, and most fjords in Norway are basically surrounded by mountains, they're beautiful, kind of like a super long, skinny bay.

[28:15] Rich German: A long, skinny bay, that's a perfect way to put it.

[28:18] Justin McMillen: Okay, so what we want to do is take a long, skinny bay, also known as a fjord-

[28:21] Rich German: And we would basically put a fence off, and it's a huge area, and we could put whales in there, and you could feed them and have veterinarians and take care of them, is the best. Like I said, they've tried this before, you cannot take a whale that's been in captivity and just throw them in the open ocean. They won't survive. If you know the story of Free Willy- the real story of Keiko, the whale in Free Willy- what happens at the end of Free Willy, he jumps over the thing, jumps over the thing, roll credits, happy ending.

[28:48] Justin McMillen: Yeah.

[28:50] Rich German: Well, in real life, they let him free, and 18 months later he died. That's the real story. So that was kind of proof, you can't just- maybe ultimately we could get a whale to the point where he could feed himself, and he would be okay. But most of these whales that have been used to being fed for years and years, they're not going to feed themselves. So the next best option is to put them in an ocean reserve. And none exists in the world, so we wanted to build one. And so I heard about this and I'm like, I'm all in, we got the whale, we got the story, we can raise the money, who's not going to want to do this? And I went to Norway three times, spent about six weeks with the whale, which was some of the best moments of my life. We had a guy named Sebastian, like 25 at the time, a big- you couldn't have scripted this guy any better- a big, burly, bearded, jolly Norwegian guy, and his job, literally, we paid him to track that whale. Because what the whale would do is he'd show up in all these fjords, which are full of salmon farms. Well, the difference with Vladimir and another captive whale, like at SeaWorld, is he could feed himself. So he would just travel from salmon farm to salmon farm and eat fish and just fat annoy the shit out of salmon farm workers. So it was a miracle that they never killed him, because he'd go there and he would break their equipment. He was just a playful youth.

[30:28] Justin McMillen: And they can't- is it illegal to kill him?

[30:30] Rich German: Right, it's illegal to kill orcas- there's three countries in the world where it's still, today, in 2026, legal to hunt whales- Japan, Norway and Iceland. So they still whale. So the thought of a fish farmer coming out there in the middle of the night with a shotgun and killing the whale- It's a real possibility, it's not like America, where if somebody shot a dolphin or something, you'd be- yeah, got it. So we had a guy whose full time job- he basically quit his life to live wherever that whale was, he followed that whale around on a boat, we'd get a cabin wherever the whale showed up, and Vladimir would sometimes spend weeks in the same spot, and then he would take off. So I would go there, and I spent six weeks living with Sebastian in cabins and just putting on a survival suit, because it's freezing cold there, and we'd be on boats all day just with the whale. If you look at my Instagram, there's tons of video, it was the most intimate, amazing time, and beautiful.

[31:32] Justin McMillen: Have you been to Norway?

[31:35] Rich German: No, that's my people though.

[31:37] Justin McMillen: You would love it.

[31:40] Rich German: Yeah, we have a lot- mostly Norwegians, so we're Scandinavian.

[31:45] Justin McMillen: You need to go, the fjords, the northern lights, it's a beautiful country, hiking, the people are so kind and loving.

[31:55] Rich German: So, long story longer, we built a team of some of the top scientists, whale advocates in the world, and it just became apparent over time that it was almost impossible to raise the funds, because the people that have that kind of money- it would cost about, don't quote me, about 20 million dollars to build the sanctuary. The ocean reserve, and millions every year to keep this thing going. And it was just like, is someone who's got that much money going to put that much money into a project that's going to maybe save 10, 20 whales, or are they going to do something that might reverse climate change? So there was ego involved, and we worked so hard, and the whole thing just imploded. That was tough. That was one of the moments where I was just like, people, come on, we can do better.

[32:51] Justin McMillen: That was a tough one.

[32:53] Rich German: What did you learn? It's hard to think of that, I don't know what I learned, because it was one of those moments where the egos-

[33:00] Justin McMillen: Are the people.

[33:05] Rich German: I mean, you just learn- egos destroy good ideas.

[33:10] Justin McMillen: Yeah. If you had a fjord- and to be clear, this would be a place where you could take all the creatures from SeaWorld, and you could bring them there- not all of them, but get them out.

[33:13] Rich German: Yeah.

[33:18] Justin McMillen: And then this would be-

[33:23] Rich German: But it would then be like a marine park where people could visit, there would be no shows or anything like that, but the vision was we'd have some grandstand, and people could pay to come and get binoculars, and maybe you'll see a whale, maybe you won't- you're not necessarily going to get close, and it would help fund the operation. But the point is, if you can't put them back in the open ocean, the next best thing would be, at least they're in the ocean, in a protected area where no one's going to mess with them, they can be fed, they can have veterinary care. It's kind of the best in-between solution that anyone's ever thought of.

[33:58] Justin McMillen: I don't know if- there's a place I went to in Indonesia, I don't know if this would work, but- orangutans, people love orangutans, you told me about this.

[34:10] Rich German: Yeah, yeah.

[34:13] Justin McMillen: And for the audience that doesn't know it- so in Indonesia, there's wild orangutans, people want them as pets, so the palm farmers or whoever- they're deforesting, cutting down forests. They'll kill the mother and take the baby, so babies get sold on the black market. People love baby orangutans, but they all freak out when the orangutans get bigger. So you end up with a lot of orangutans in the back of a shop, it's a weird little thing in Indonesia. So this place- I think it was a nonprofit out of Sweden- set up an orangutan rehabilitation center, a set of buildings where they had a quarantine process. They'd bring in babies and different aged orangutans and quarantine them first. And then, about a mile and a half from the center, in a place where there are wild orangutans, they had a feeding platform. And every morning these jungle guides would go out with bananas, and they would let the orangutans out and follow them through the forest on the trail. They would feed them on the platform, and then elongate the amount of time they were there, and then eventually the wild orangutans would come, and eventually they would assimilate, and then they would disappear, and come back also as wild orangutans later. So you ended up with this amazing jungle where you had previously captive orangutans that were still kind of friendly, which you have to maintain too, because they're coming up to people. But it's incredible, the concept was so beautiful. I think it'd be much harder, especially with the great blue ocean, right, things are underwater, you're not tracking them, I don't know how you would, but I wonder if there could be something like that too- the ultimate hope of an ocean reserve was that you could rehabilitate these animals, teach them to feed themselves, and then ultimately release them into the ocean.

[36:04] Rich German: I think you could, I'm kind of an optimist, that was our goal, it's just been so hard. There's a project in Nova Scotia called the Whale Sanctuary Project, they've spent ten years now trying to open a whale reserve. I don't know if it's an ego thing, but they wanted to be the first ocean sanctuary in the world. They're still not open. So when these parks close down and they want to put these whales somewhere, it's like, oh, send them to Canada, to Nova Scotia- but they're not ready. It's just been constant bureaucracy, government, permits, and who owns the land, the water- it's a super complicated process.

[36:44] Justin McMillen: You would think it wouldn't be.

[36:46] Rich German: But yeah, I think it is. A lot of money, I think people having a profit motive is always sort of what drives things. Although the philanthropic community- there are people out there that would much rather see it go to something like that.

[37:03] Justin McMillen: Maybe someone will hear this, and if your vision comes true, that would be great.

[37:10] Rich German: That'd be great, and these whales deserve it.

[37:12] Justin McMillen: That's true. Well, why is it that these wildlife parks so- because I think people know how cruel it is, in terms of- I think they're starting to, way more than they used to.

[37:27] Rich German: Probably because of social media. But- I mean, when I told you we went on a little recon mission to SeaWorld, and it was like half empty, and the people there- it was just such a weird, dark energy there.

[37:38] Justin McMillen: Does it feel like it's dying?

[37:40] Rich German: It's a dying industry, and the industry knows it, but they're just going to milk it as long as they can. But in places like China and India, they're building parks left and right.

[37:58] Justin McMillen: So what about the claim that they do this, and the money that comes off of that goes to support saving whales?

[38:02] Rich German: It's not true. I mean, I can recall- SeaWorld does some decent work with rehabbing animals, sea lions and whatnot. But you're not going to convince me that SeaWorld's a good place for these-

[38:20] Justin McMillen: No, no, I'm not trying to, I'm just curious, because I think that's how people justify that sort of thing.

[38:22] Rich German: Like the zoo- oh, these animals are here because they're sick, or 500 other animals are being saved. If every animal at the zoo was a sick animal that they saved, great, but that's not the reality. After spending two years dealing with these marine parks, we were not as an organization anti- we couldn't be anti-captivity, we couldn't be anti-marine park, because we were building a hybrid, we needed people that knew how to work with whales who worked in the captivity industry, because it was basically a captive facility we were trying to build, but it was in the ocean. So we couldn't put ourselves out as anti-captivity. But here's what I know, after a couple years of doing this- the owners of these animals, running these businesses, don't give a shit about the animals. SeaWorld and these places are big business, they're all over the world, it's like an amusement park. Oh yeah, they have this beluga tank with three belugas just barely moving, and there's a huge roller coaster in the background, it was like the Twilight Zone.

[39:35] Justin McMillen: Oh man.

[39:37] Rich German: Yeah, it was so bizarre. But even so, SeaWorld is probably one of the better ones, because I've seen worse, like in Florida. There's Miami Seaquarium, another one, I hate to say it, but- and I think most locals in Hawaii feel the same way about the Sea Life Park in Hawaii. That place, the saddest thing about it is it's right next to the water. There's this little wall in the ocean right there, it's so sad. Someone needs to bring a crane in and just- if they're going to die, at least let them die in the ocean. Even if you were to move them, it's a stressful thing to take these animals and transport them. And so the big story at Miami Seaquarium a couple years ago was Toki, known as Lolita. She was like- I can't remember how old she was, I don't want to say the wrong age, I think in her 50s, her mother was still alive, living in the Pacific Northwest. And so the goal was to bring her back to the Pacific Northwest, but even if they transported her, they determined she was too ill to transport. And she ultimately died in that pool. But there was- maybe it was just the romantic in me- like, move her back to the ocean, at least let her die where she came from, that's what I would want. And that idea never happened because she died, and many of them die in captivity. Most of them, they're not going to release them, that's why I said their fate was sealed the day they got pulled out of the ocean. I heard that bottlenose dolphins will smash themselves into the walls, because they're going crazy, and they'll die way younger than they would in the wild. And then everybody knows the story of how the fin will droop, which is also crazy. I don't know, it's depressing, I wonder how people make themselves okay with it, and I'm sure tons of people do. I don't know who it was, someone was visiting and they told me they were going to SeaWorld, and it was an exciting thing for them. And I wasn't- I probably would have, like, read them the riot act about everything, but I didn't, I try not to. I hope I don't ever come off as too preachy, because this is your life's work, and I think there's a lot of people out there that do jobs and do work that they don't necessarily-

[42:14] Justin McMillen: It doesn't mean anything to them. And for you, this is why you wake up every morning, and everything you do revolves around this- how did you get chosen for this, sounds like.

[42:25] Rich German: How does a person go- yeah, I grew up- I mean, I was born in Chicago.

[42:28] Justin McMillen: Were you into whales as a kid?

[42:30] Rich German: No, it didn't. I'm telling you, I didn't- not until I moved to Laguna and started getting on that board every day.

[42:36] Justin McMillen: I think a lot of people who are listening to this think about the work they're doing and don't feel very inspired by it, and wish that something would grab them that way. How do you think a person knows- How do you know when something is the thing you're supposed to do?

[42:56] Rich German: That's a great question. I think that's perhaps one of the biggest struggles people have, finding their purpose in life. And I think in my case, like we're saying, it kind of found me, it wasn't something I was- as a little kid, I wasn't always infatuated with dolphins or anything like that. I can't explain it, I call it the universe, God, I don't know. I just feel like once you do find that purpose- like I know you have- it's your moral and spiritual responsibility to act upon it. And mine's a challenging one, because when you look at the problems the planet faces, the environment faces, it's like, where do you begin?

[43:42] Justin McMillen: And it's grown for you, right, it's going to be bigger than just this area in Laguna Beach. There's something about this process- would you say that you've fallen in love with nature through this, in a different way, whether it's just the ocean or the world, or all of it?

[44:00] Rich German: Yeah, definitely a much stronger affinity and love for the ocean than I ever had growing up. Like today's a good example, I started my day by paddling on the ocean, and then, because the water is just amazing right now, I went for a nice swim. It started as my exercise, my meditation, and it's become so much of my life over the years. I hurt my wrist pretty badly a few months ago, couldn't do anything, couldn't do yoga, couldn't paddle. And I noticed, after a few weeks- you just feel totally different, you know, if you hurt yourself and you can't work out, it's such a part of who you are, ingrained in you, if you can't do it, it definitely messes with you. So not only my personal love for nature, but wanting- That's basically what my- when I did a TED talk a couple years ago, that was basically the theme I was looking at. What can a person do to make a difference? And it just kind of hit me one day that the ocean doesn't need to be saved, that the planet doesn't need to be saved. I used to think if anything or anyone needed to be saved, it was us. But even then I felt like, I don't know if that's even it- I feel like the bottom line is, we've lost our connection to the natural world, we've lost our connection to ourselves. As such, we abuse ourselves, we abuse each other. We abuse the precious resources of the planet. So I think if there's one thing a person can do to make a difference, it's- I call it rewilding humanity- to reconnect with ourselves, with the planet, with nature.

[45:50] Justin McMillen: This is such an important topic in the current state we're in- we've grown so disconnected from all things natural, that we've gotten to this place where I don't even think we know who we are anymore. There's like an identity crisis, which is interesting, because it's just the logical, thinking part of the brain that doesn't understand it anymore, but everything about our genetics and our DNA does.

[46:20] Rich German: Yeah.

[46:22] Justin McMillen: So we're very wild creatures, but we're so cerebral that we're not in that experience anymore, we've domesticated ourselves, and it's making us sick. Yeah, I think that's a big problem. We don't really talk about it much, but we talk a little bit about Tree House on here- the whole theory with Tree House is that there are basic evolutionary needs that we all have, and if we don't have them, we grow sick, we get depressed. And one symptom of that is addiction. So the idea is, how do you bring these evolutionary concepts back? What are those basic needs- bonding. Humans are built for bonding, and if we don't have people to bond with, we'll bond with anything else that produces the same neurochemical response. Bonding was key to survival. That's how we got here. It's such a deep need, we know in the deepest parts of our ancient DNA that if we don't have a connection with another human, there's a signal that says we're going to die, because that meant we weren't part of the group. So humans need to find connections with other humans, even if we don't like them. That's the hard part, because you can't outsmart your DNA. Your DNA knows, hey, if you don't have people around you, no one's going to share their food with you. So we bred the people out of the gene pool who wanted to be alone, because they died off. We're built for that. That's one. The other is that we're built for moving, and we've always had a relationship with movement, until we started harnessing energy. And when we stopped moving, that produced a massive shift in our physiology, which created all these imbalances that lead to things like depression- most chronic disease comes from that. So we want to bring at least those two things back. And then you can parlay all kinds of stuff off of that- how do you bond? We bonded based on the idea that I have something to contribute, meaning we've each killed the antelope, we both do that thing and we share over that. So purpose really comes to be like the-

[48:30] Rich German: I find that with purpose, it comes down to- my purpose almost always is about serving humanity in some capacity.

[48:35] Justin McMillen: Yes.

[48:37] Rich German: And when you find that thing, it means, okay, I have a reason to be here with all these other humans, and this is my part.

[48:42] Justin McMillen: Yes, and so through that, people find connection. And then there's another one that's crazy, that's a tenet I've come to realize- I know this is true, there's this crazy phenomenon that when human beings have an existential threat, we come together. That's why after 9/11 we came together, in fact, historically, every war has caused people to unite, it's why people go to sports games- they have their team, they bond over an oppositional force. So if you just look at that through an evolutionary lens- anything from a famine to a saber tooth tiger- we came together and collaborated to survive. So existential threats produce unity. And that's a huge problem, because we're in a trap, because the only way we feel good is if we're fighting wars against the other, or we have an oppositional force. So hopefully we get to an abstraction of that, where we start to see that we maybe have to fight other things that are not other people, and we can unify over our health.

[49:48] Rich German: Let's fight- I kind of feel like we're devolving right now, based on what you said, why is this split, I don't feel like we're coming together. And that's the pessimist in me, I try to be an optimist, but I'm also a realist, and maybe sometimes sound pessimistic, because there is such division right now. To me, it's a lack of love. At the end, my mentor, Dr. Meltzer, who I call the chief- He's always- he must have said this a thousand times over the years I worked with him- it doesn't matter what the question is, the answer is love. There's a lack of core love. And I think it goes back to- if I don't love myself, if I'm not connected to the planet, connected, like you said, bonding with others, feeling purpose- then it's going to be hard for me to love you. And want to take care of you. We all treat each other how we- treat others how you want to be treated is actually a very true thing, we actually always do that. The people who are the most miserable treat people terribly. And if you don't love yourself, chances are you're not going to be able to love others.

[51:00] Justin McMillen: And that's so cliche, but it's just true. Hurt people hurt people. When you talk about bonding, it made me think of the blue zones- the five blue zones in the world where people live longer than anywhere, and one of their core tenets is community. And movement. So I think those things seem to be true, and I think we are headed down a really scary road, and I have a mission personally to try to change that in some way.

[51:25] Rich German: I think you do, two different ways.

[51:27] Justin McMillen: Different ways, but we're on the same path, which is why I'm so interested in talking to you. To me, it doesn't matter what the path is, whether you're working in the realm of addiction. Or the environmental realm, this is the great lesson I've learned- I've had, like you, great mentors over the years, and my probably most profound spiritual mentor made it clear- we're all here to elevate the collective consciousness of the planet. There was a moment in time where I thought for me, that was going to be through being a spiritual teacher, teaching meditation. And that's a whole long tangent we can get on perhaps, but now I feel like it's over here in this lane, trying to help protect the planet, and helping people deepen their connection to themselves and to nature. The idea is, if you're feeling connected to the planet, you're not going to want to destroy it. You're going to want to protect it like you would your own child, that's the real core tenet. So my point is that doing that work is my small role, hopefully, of helping to raise the collective consciousness of the planet, because I feel like if the consciousness hits a certain point, we're automatically going to take care of each other. We're automatically going to want to do the right thing when it comes to taking care of the planet, and everybody wins. But I don't think we're there.

[53:00] Rich German: I think what you said is so good, because I think this disconnection- we've moved so far away from this idea that we are- I say our species, it freaks people out.

[53:12] Justin McMillen: It's like, we are a species, we're on the planet, sure we are.

[53:15] Rich German: And we've moved so far away from our natural state that we really think of ourselves as other. That's the whole point, we're an animal, just like these dolphins and whales and orangutans- there's then guys like you who suddenly realize that you're part of and connected to it. So that's your voice for this then, that's your point- we're disconnected, we're completely disconnected from nature.

[53:42] Justin McMillen: But everything is nature, like everything, there's no this-is-nature, this-isn't.

[53:44] Rich German: That's true, but we've domesticated ourselves, and we've just lost touch with- that's one thing I love about you, you're like me, you never wear shoes.

[53:59] Justin McMillen: You're connected to the planet, there's a reason you're doing that.

[54:03] Rich German: I don't know, I've heard of earthing and all that stuff, I have a book, haven't read it, but I just like to feel the ground, I'm sure there's a base reason for that.

[54:18] Justin McMillen: Absolutely there is. I don't know what to do about what we're talking about, I'm curious, how do we get out of this mess, how do we get to a point where the world starts to understand? So let me rewind- you've got a bunch of people in poverty on this planet, those people are only thinking about their next meal. But historically, there's a force that's pulling everything forward. Maybe it's backwards, but there are technological advancements, there's a lot of unnecessary suffering being ended through technology, and the US is sort of sitting at the forefront of this, creating all kinds of problems too. But I don't think we're going to get the whole world at the same time. There's definitely leadership within the world, where the hegemonic force of the world is, right now anyway. So what can we do in this country to show the rest of the world how to be- what are we aiming for? Is it that all the buildings go away and we start over? How do we do this?

[55:24] Rich German: That's a huge question, I like huge questions. I'm going to give the cliched answer again- it doesn't matter what the question is, the answer is love. What else can you do besides love yourself, take care of yourself the best you can, work on elevating your own consciousness, becoming as strong and healthy as you can be, so you become the best husband, the best father, the best boss, the best coworker, the best human you can be, and hope other people-

[55:59] Justin McMillen: You know, I want- what your energy seems higher than mine, and I want to tap into what you're doing.

[56:08] Rich German: I don't know if it's- I don't know if the answer's in technology, I don't know if the answer is waiting for the government to fix it, at least not this government, which doesn't believe in things like climate change. I don't know where the answer is. I think entrepreneurship, there's a lot of solutions in that. But I think, to the individual watching, listening, all we can do is work to elevate our own consciousness, our own energy, it starts and ends with us.

[56:44] Justin McMillen: I think that's definitely true.

[56:49] Rich German: That might sound obvious.

[56:52] Justin McMillen: No, I think that's true.

[56:54] Rich German: I think it's interesting to think about what we're contending with- what is the thing that would make somebody not focus on love, why would people not just do this?

[57:05] Justin McMillen: Because our minds are completely screwed up and ruled by fear.

[57:10] Rich German: I was saying this- what was I doing last night, I said to my girlfriend, oh, I was in the shower, and for some reason this flood of happy thoughts just poured into my head, gratitude, I'm so grateful for this, all these amazing things. And I was just in the shower feeling good, and then all of a sudden my mind, my ego, is like, red alert, danger. We can't- you can't be happy, this is not good, he's onto us, this is the death of the ego. So my ego just started this screaming, tear me apart, it's crazy.

[57:53] Justin McMillen: I totally get it, I have some of the best epiphanies in the shower, and they come out of nowhere. Or- and I also have some super terrible thoughts in the morning, so much self-doubt and questioning and smallness- realizing you're so insignificant, you don't mean anything, like, making a difference. It gets- I've been trying to figure out how to skip that step in the morning for a long time. People who know me well know that's a thing for me, I'll get these terrible- it's almost like as my mind moves from that dreamy state, everything just turns on, like the tractor fires up, and it's loud, and it's all this crap.

[58:33] Rich German: What do you do to squelch it?

[58:37] Justin McMillen: I literally say it out loud, like, that's not true, hey, get that out of your head, there's nothing to be afraid of, think about who are you talking to, who's saying that, which one's you? Yeah. And a lot of it too is, the beauty of children is that when you take a part of yourself and it starts to exist out in the world, any kind of self doubt or hatred-

[59:01] Rich German: I'm worried- but yeah, maybe hatred, you almost end up with this crazy paradox, a conflict, because if you don't like yourself, and then you look and see yourself in the eyes of this kid that you love, you're like, I can't do that anymore, I'm not bad, that's part of me. More of my DNA is outside of me now than it is inside of me. And there's a part of it that kids have helped me remedy that, that's not why I had them, but it just happens.

[59:30] Justin McMillen: What do wounded people do, they go out and have children.

[59:35] Rich German: And instead of- because you're still wounded, you're going to take your wounds out- like you said earlier, you can't help yourself, not you personally, but what do we do, we just wound the kids. I heard the statistic though, so I have this buddy who's a huge data scientist, works all kinds of different realms of the federal government. He was asked to do an analysis of veterans' suicide, and they were looking for a signal for what would cause suicide or what would prevent it. And they figured out one variable that produced almost zero suicide, one change. What do you think it was?

[01:00:15] Justin McMillen: You probably guessed, because we're talking about change in why someone wouldn't kill themselves on purpose. That's actually kind of the abstraction of this.

[01:00:25] Rich German: But it was literally, if a veteran has a kid, their probability of suicide drops to almost nothing. Something about having children changes that completely. So maybe wounded people need to have kids, I don't know, I'm like the baby evangelist. I'm about to start saying you need to have all these kids, but I'm not going to do that because I'll make it personal. Children are something else. But ultimately, what are we talking about- if we bring this back to the ocean, the environment, we protect what we love. And that's the famous Jacques Cousteau line. So I feel like that's a big part of my work, and most days I don't feel like I'm making any impact at all, because a lot of what I've done over the years is I'll just show people what I'm seeing out on the ocean, and people will say all the time, that's the work. It's like getting people to fall in love with the ocean, the dolphins, the whales, with the hope that they'll want to protect the planet.

[01:01:25] Justin McMillen: The ocean, the home they live in, you are making a difference. I've been in a room 2000 miles from here, listening to somebody describe the work you're doing with the most romanticized sort of words- essentially what you're doing is contagious. Can you imagine, looking at your book and talking about what you see out there- the average person, what you see every day is not what everyone else is used to, which for you it's probably not anything, but the rest of the world is in wonder. You're bringing wonder to people, so maybe you're giving little seeds for them to fall in love- but how do you get them to go past, how do you grab hold of their distraction through their phones, feeding this dopamine, we're little dopamine monsters- into something with more, deeper meaning?

[01:02:27] Rich German: One of the things I'm definitely most proud of recently is the work I get to do with kids. So I've been a speaker for years, done hundreds, if not thousands, of talks with adults, and a couple years ago I was like, I want to work more with kids- and it's going to take everybody to solve these problems that we've created with the environment. But it's basically the children- if we don't right the ship, they're the ones, and their children, that are really going to suffer the consequences. If we don't think there's changes coming, we have our head in the sand. So I'm like, I'm going to work with kids. So I started locally in Laguna Beach, going to all the elementary schools, the middle school, the high school, put together a little slideshow of photos and videos, and I do my talk, and the kids eat it up, it's great. And then I'm like, well, wait, these kids live on the beach, they go to the beach every day- let's go inland, let's take the show inland. So I started going to places inland here in Orange County, Santa Ana, Anaheim, schools that have me come in, and I do the talks. It was great. And then one day I'm sitting on the beach, and this friend of mine, Michelle, kind of a fringe friend, I hear her off to the side- And she kept saying over and over, Compton, Compton this, Compton that. And I said, Michelle, what do you do? I didn't know what she did for a living. It turns out she basically at that time ran the Compton Unified School District, all their educational stuff. I said, Michelle, I've been going out doing these talks with kids, can I come to Compton and talk to your students? She looks at me and says, no. I said, what do you mean? She says, let's bring the Compton kids to the beach. And I was like, hell yeah. So I partnered up with- in downtown Laguna Beach there's an old movie theater, it was bought by Rivian, the car company, they converted it into this community hub, this theater, speaking of bonding in the community. I hosted a Laguna Beach event there a couple years ago, in 2024, so I know everybody there. I said, hey, can we do a field trip every month? We're going to bring two busloads of kids, 100 middle school students from Compton to Laguna Beach, I want to do this slideshow presentation on your big beautiful movie screen, will you host this? And they said absolutely. So there's, I think, 36 schools in Compton, 19,000 students, and over the last year and a half, we've brought 15 of the schools, focused on middle schools. So once a month we bring these kids, we get two buses, bring them to Laguna Beach, I do my talk, and then we take them to the beach. I'll tell a couple stories because I love this. We do a survey with every kid before they come, and one of the questions is, how many times have you been to the beach? These are middle school kids, on average 13, 14 years old, and they live in Compton, which is about 15 minutes from Long Beach- that's how close it is. Guess what percent of the kids checked off, when it asked how many times they'd been to the beach, and the first choice was 0 to 1 in their entire life?

[01:06:15] Justin McMillen: How many?

[01:06:20] Rich German: 90%.

[01:06:22] Justin McMillen: Really?

[01:06:24] Rich German: They'd never been to the beach. So the first time we do this field trip- this is important, because people have this thought around people that are in poverty, like, why don't you just get out- but you put it in a nutshell, right, somebody who's 15 minutes away from the beach is living in their own little bubble.

[01:06:37] Justin McMillen: I think it's hard to really wrap your head around what that means in terms of the reality of a kid growing up in a world like that. I wonder if it's as simple as just getting them out of the environment multiple times, to show them the world, so they go, oh, there's someone on the other side of that wall that's really interesting, and I don't have to stay in this place where I'm constantly in a state of tension.

[01:07:01] Rich German: Right. And Compton, by the way, is the most progressive, underserved school district in the country.

[01:07:08] Justin McMillen: What does that mean, progressive, underserved?

[01:07:10] Rich German: They're very focused on teaching these kids about environmental realities, climate change, things like that. So I'll finish the story- one of the things I'll do when I do my talk is I'll have them come up on the stage, and I'll ask them, what do you think the biggest challenges on the planet are right now? And the first time I did this, there were like five kids lined up, and it was as if they knew I was going to ask this question, which they didn't, and they each did like a little 30 second TED talk- I believe the biggest challenge the environment faces is sea level rise, or climate change. They knew their stuff, they're educating these kids, but they're not getting out of their little bubble. Maybe these are single parent households, or both parents working two jobs, they're 15 minutes from the ocean and they're not getting there. So the point is, I do my talk, and then we walk the kids across the street, and there's these stairs down to the beach, north of the main beach in Laguna Beach. And the first time, I'll never forget, I ran down in front of all of them- and I'm barefoot, as I always am, and they're all wearing their high top sneakers. And as they're walking down, I said, hey, do me a favor, take off your shoes. And they're like, no no no no, middle school kid. I want to take them out- just do me a favor, take off your shoes, you don't have to, but just do it. I'd worked with them for an hour or so, I had rapport, and so most of them did. And the reason I wanted that so bad- Most of these kids had never put their toes in the sand. Never. How many times are your toes in the sand a day? They'd never been to the beach, they'd never put their toes in the sand. So they're just super disconnected from nature, none of it, addicted to their phones like most people. So what we do when the kids come- Michelle's like, these are middle school kids, we have to keep them busy the whole time. In my mind I'm like, let's let them go run on the beach, since they never come to the beach. She's like, no, no, we got to do activities. So one time we break them up into three groups, 33 kids in each group, one group goes down on the sand, and we bring in another nonprofit that does science projects on the beach with the kids. Another group does an art project in the park, and another has lunch, and we rotate. So one time, it's the second or third time we brought the kids- we're doing an art project, we give them all these little figurines of sea stars and dolphins and ocean creatures, and a piece of paper and crayons, and they each get one animal and sketch it. So I'm just observing, and I notice this little girl sitting on the bench, and she wasn't drawing, she's just looking out over the ocean. And I walked over and said, hey, I noticed you're not drawing, are you okay? And she just looks at me and says, I don't feel like drawing. She says, I just want to stare at the ocean. She'd probably never seen it before. It's crazy, man.

[01:10:33] Justin McMillen: It's crazy, and good on you for going.

[01:10:35] Rich German: Let's get out of this little bubble of-

[01:10:43] Justin McMillen: Privilege, to a place where you can make a bigger impact. And I'll tell you, the right thing with one of those kids can flip a switch, and then you have all this fuel- somebody who's been through a lot of stuff, and then the combination of direction and that fuel, because there's resilience and strength, and some of the best humans on the planet come from difficult backgrounds. Absolutely, so you're planting seeds, you have no idea- you could be planting a seed with the next big ocean conservationist.

[01:11:20] Rich German: Thank you, hopefully, I don't know, but that's the goal.

[01:11:22] Justin McMillen: Yeah, you got to do more of that. And you've also done- I know you're a big part- people have heard this show, they know I live in Laguna Beach. But you're also working with a group of people, and there's this big conservation effort as sort of a pilot or benchmark for other cities. You guys have done some incredible stuff, just noticeable- it's incredibly noticeable what's happened, and I don't even want to talk about this, because I don't want everyone coming on the show to be- But the marine preserve that's happened there has done amazing things, so now you've got a model to carry around to other parts of the country. Can you talk a little bit about that too?

[01:12:08] Rich German: Yeah, and I can't take any credit for this beyond spreading the word, that's the-

[01:12:13] Justin McMillen: That's your voice for this stuff.

[01:12:18] Rich German: So, I started paddling every day in 2010, and when I would paddle out, if you were to look down into the water, you would see basically nothing- meaning there was no fish. And then in 2012, Laguna Beach took up a huge, controversial stand, and made it illegal. Not only did they create what's called a marine protected area, but it's also called a no-take zone- they made it illegal to fish. If you go to the north end of Laguna Beach, where it touches Newport Beach, and go six miles south, that six mile stretch of coast- Laguna Beach only goes one more mile, 27 miles long total. For some reason they stopped at six miles along the coast, and it shoots out a couple miles into the ocean, it's illegal to fish. I one day asked my buddy Charlie, who's a former commercial fisherman, I said, Charlie, there's no fish in the ocean, why? You know what he said? We caught them all. They fished it out, it was a dead zone. January 1st, 2012 is when the no-take zone went into place, and they said it would take years to make a difference, it would take scientists to prove it made an impact, they'd have to have the no-take zone for like ten years and do a pre-study, a post-study. I'm all for science, don't get me wrong, but I'm not a scientist, I know what I see. My point is, six months after the no-take zone goes into place- six months- I paddle out, I look down, what do I see everywhere- fish. Garibaldi, which is the state fish, California sheephead, which were hiding for years. Little fish, big fish, tons of fish. And oh, by the way, tons of dolphins and whales everywhere.

[01:14:19] Justin McMillen: Did the whale populations get stronger too, or more-

[01:14:21] Rich German: Let's come back to gray whale populations, that's the main species that comes through here, that's a big conversation, we should definitely get into it. But the point is, this was a testament to what happens when we just leave nature alone, leave the ocean alone- it has the remarkable capacity to restore itself. And that was six months in.

[01:14:55] Justin McMillen: You like to swim as much as anyone I know, what do you see when you go out there?

[01:14:58] Rich German: It's unbelievable, I've been all over the world, and what we have going on right off our coast is some of the richest, most luscious marine life. So now, this is 2026, last year going out, you see massive fish everywhere, the kelp forests are all over the place, it's like an underwater forest, you're literally swimming through it. I call it the greatest aquarium in the world, and we have it right here on our coast. Here's what's crazy- you wouldn't think fish are that smart, apparently they are, these fish are smart enough to realize that they're protected and can't be caught, they'll just come right up to you and hang out. I've touched them.

[01:15:33] Justin McMillen: Yeah, what are they called-

[01:15:35] Rich German: Sheephead, calico bass. Very frequently you can just hit their tail underwater. And leopard sharks, if the fish are getting big, does that mean we're going to start seeing- probably. Everybody knows, so keep away from Laguna Beach, no, I'm just kidding.

[01:15:55] Justin McMillen: Yeah.

[01:15:58] Rich German: But here's the point, we don't want to make this- this is a global conversation to me. That six mile stretch of coastline in Laguna Beach, which might seem like nothing when we look at the scope of the planet, is a microcosm of what's possible when we take a stand for our backyard and leave the ocean alone, allow it to restore itself. I mentioned Sylvia Earle, her whole mission in life- Sylvia is now 90 years old, she's been doing this for decades, is to create what she calls hope spots around the ocean- marine protected areas where we leave the ocean alone, pinpointed in specific areas. The idea is, if we protect enough of these spots of the ocean, we can protect the entire ocean. In fact, I told you this before we went live, there's two I'm working on- my brain, like yours, goes big, how do we save the whole planet? Even though I said before, the ocean, the planet doesn't need to be saved, but I want to do big things, and I'm working on two of the biggest projects ever. And I can't talk about either of them right now, because they're a little too premature, but hopefully, if you'll have me back, when you talk about it- one of them is regarding Sylvia and helping expand her legacy, creating more of these hope spots, more areas that are protected. It'd be so easy to bring people out and have them dive, or even shoot video, and I'm telling you, there's only a few places I've ever been that have- and they don't have that much life. I was telling- we have some friends in town from Hawaii right now, and I explained to them, you have to go underwater with me. You have to see this, because it'll shock you, just the richness of life that we have. Actually, speaking of, in Hawaii they have a term called kapu, which means forbidden. So not allowing people to fish is super controversial, mainly to fishermen, because they think, hey, you're taking my livelihood. Two things on that- because you cannot fish in that six mile stretch, guess what you have- tons of fish. So it actually works to the benefit of the fishermen too, because they can go just outside the line where it's legal to fish, and there's way more fish than there was before, more than they could ever catch. So there's a benefit to it. But going back to this Hawaiian term- what they would do is only allow you to catch certain types of fish, if they're overfishing tuna, they'll say, that's kapu, no catching tuna for the next- don't quote me, a year or two, whatever, to allow that population to come back. Focus on these fish over here. So I'm on both sides of this issue, there's definitely a part of me that says we should make the entire coast of California, other areas around the world, no fishing allowed, let it restore. But I don't want to take the money out of a fisherman's pocket, I don't want to stop a guy who wants to hop on a board, drop a line, catch a fish, and go feed his family. But the most sustainable fish there is, is a fish that you might catch in your backyard and go home and eat. So I absolutely see both sides of this equation, maybe there's a balance that can be found. You know I love spearfishing too, I'm into hunting underwater, I also like the idea of taking care of my family and feeding my family through what I'm able to kill. So I totally get it, and I've shot huge fish in Laguna, I shot a massive halibut, record size, basically my whole body, way back in the day. So I was bummed when the fishing ban happened, it was definitely hard to find fish back then. I don't believe I made any kind of dent, but collectively, we all do that, and maybe we make a dent.

[01:20:08] Justin McMillen: I wonder how you could have both, if there was some way people could be allowed to fish and also protected, because this is part of rewilding too, people need to understand where the food comes from.

[01:20:25] Rich German: Right, people have no idea where their food is from.

[01:20:27] Justin McMillen: So maybe you do a marine protected zone, gap, another marine protected zone. And then you have this area that you have to be lucky enough to have the fish come into, or maybe rotate them, so it evens out.

[01:20:40] Rich German: Yeah, I've thought about that. I think if you lifted the ban right now, you'd kill everyone- people would kill all the biggest fish, you'd have a big problem. It would kill the kelp, it would kill- you'd screw up this balance. But if you did have, like that one mile north in Laguna, I know you were pushing to have it also protected too, so I'm not pushing back on that.

[01:21:00] Justin McMillen: But I know people shoot fish on the other side, if that stays open, fish can come over, and if you're lucky enough, it's the right day. And it would certainly make it really hard for anyone to overdo it. So maybe that's the solution, you just have these little protected spots, a smaller spot.

[01:21:18] Rich German: I think the question becomes, how do you regulate it, and what's super cool about the way it happens now is it's kind of self-regulated. At the beginning, I think fishermen didn't even realize they weren't allowed to fish there. So there's many times I've been on the board and seen other people do it, where there's a boat fishing, and someone will nicely say, hey, maybe you don't realize this, but it's illegal to fish here, there's a huge fine, and nine out of ten times, they're like, oh, I didn't realize it. They didn't, but they would pack up and leave. One out of ten you'd get some snotty guy yelling at you, but for the most part it's kind of self-regulated. So I don't know how we'd regulate a more complex system, but I think it could be done. I don't know either. I just think it's probably the reality of the situation, that we've got a massive deficit, and it's not- there's no time for humans to get back to their old days of fishing. The commercial side, we dug our own hole there- and it's not that I don't have compassion for commercial fishermen, but we set ourselves up for this, and you can still fish two miles out. So all the fish can still be caught, and if you're fishing outside that area anyway, in a boat, two miles out is nothing. So it keeps people open to the big channel and all the stuff that's happening out there. Like I said, I see both sides of it, I don't want to put anyone out of business.

[01:22:51] Justin McMillen: But you just said it, we've overdone it.

[01:22:55] Rich German: Yeah, that's what humans do.

[01:22:57] Justin McMillen: I'll give a good example of dolphins versus humans- I'll be out on the water, you've seen this too, there's a huge bait ball, and all of a sudden dolphins cruise through, they could destroy that entire bait ball and go to town. But what do they do- they all feed on that bait ball for five, ten minutes, and then they leave, and go find another bait ball. They leave the bait ball intact. What would humans do if we found that- we'd take the biggest net we could find, we'd take all of them.

[01:23:33] Rich German: Gone, so we can learn a lot from these animals. That was actually the title of my talk- I want to bring up one of the core tenets you said a minute ago that made me think of it, so I'll bring that up- but the talk, I came up with, instead of calling it rewilding humanity, which is what it's about- They said, come up with a more creative title. So I called it "What Dolphins and Whales Have Taught Me About Being Human." And one of the four core tenets I talked about in that talk actually came from an interview when I had my podcast, it was called Our Epic Ocean, all the interviews are still on YouTube- I interviewed Paul Hawken, who wrote the book- Project Drawdown, he wrote the book Drawdown, and then his recent book was called Regeneration. And I think he was the founder, or co-founder, of Erewhon, if I recall correctly- really smart guy, great guy. And I said during my interview with him, Paul, what's the number one thing someone could do? Kind of like you asked me, what's the number one thing someone could do to make a difference? And his answer surprised me- he said, discover where you live, learn where you live. Most people have no idea where they live, they don't know the names of the flowers, the names of the trees.

[01:25:00] Justin McMillen: Kind of made me think of it, when you said people don't know where their food's coming from.

[01:25:03] Rich German: Go out and learn where you live, I thought that was so profound, super smart guy.

[01:25:09] Justin McMillen: Yeah, that's like learning your neighbors' names.

[01:25:12] Rich German: Yeah, I'm definitely more focused specifically on the human side, less so the environment side, but we're both on the human side, different paths to the same end result.

[01:25:21] Justin McMillen: Or similar end results, but for me it's like knowing who works at the grocery store by your house, knowing your neighbors' names, knowing people, caring about knowing- like, building community everywhere is important. And to your point, this is such a cool thing- when I first moved to California, I had a hard time. I'd have these panic-attack-type- not real panic attacks, but terrible experiences, because I grew up in such an open area where I could just drive and be away from people, and I was so used to that, it was such a staple in my life, literally back to North Dakota days, you'd walk out into a field and there's nobody for miles. So it was the same thing when I got here, I'd be driving and I'd have these moments where I was so aware of how people were everywhere, everywhere, everywhere. And my buddy George, who's a good friend of mine, I've interviewed him on here, I was telling him about it, I said, I don't think I like this place, it's like an anthill. And he was like, why don't you meet me, we're going to go do a little field trip. So the first thing we did was go to the Costa Mesa Historical Society, and he said, I think it would be good for you to understand what was here before all these people got here. So we did that, we looked at a map, we found this Native American burial ground, this original site where they dug up stuff, it was super hard to find, but we went out on this track and measured off a football field's length, and figured out- I don't know if I should say this, because I don't know if people know this. They probably do, but- on Adams Avenue in Costa Mesa, when you're coming down the hill towards Huntington Beach from Placentia, and you go left down Adams Avenue, there's a school, there's the Diego Sepulveda Adobe there, and then there's a school, a basketball court, and a big field. If you stand at Adams Avenue and walk about 200 yards, they found hundreds- a huge Native American burial ground, right there, under where the kids play every day, and I don't think anyone at the schools right there knows that. But we went to the river jetties, we went to the shell midden piles, these piles of old mussel shells as big as a house, from the Native Americans who used to come there every full moon. And then we learned about 2,500 year old villages that were in this area, how they used to be expert weavers, they'd weave these houses, and then they'd get fleas in them, so they'd burn them and re-weave them, just burn them and re-weave them. And so they became master weavers. And it's weird, because the indigenous population here in this area was flourishing, but they died off so quickly, and there was such rapid development, there was no preservation- the language is gone, we don't even know that much about them. It was almost like everywhere else they were preserving it, creating reservations, but none of that happened here. And so I learned about all this stuff. And Rich, just like what you were saying about the friend that said this- Paul Hawken- exactly, that completely changed my relationship to this place. To this day, I go walking in the park, down at the end of Monrovia Avenue. I'll go walk just to get away from things, and I try to imagine the village down there, it was called Lukup. And it changed my relationship to this whole place, and it's cool, I love thinking about that, because then I look at everyone running around and I'm like, zoom out.

[01:29:00] Rich German: And you're like, this hasn't been going on that long, we haven't always been this weird. And it gives peace.

[01:29:08] Justin McMillen: You talk about, where can I go to be alone?

[01:29:10] Rich German: That's why I love paddling two miles out in the ocean, that's the only place I go where there's nobody, truly. That was what I first fell in love with, with paddle boarding, even pre-dolphin obsession- it was just being- let me think about it- when you're on land, whether in Laguna Beach or wherever you live, you only see one way, you'd be on land and look at the ocean, but I was on the ocean looking at the land, and still, when I'm out there- I'm like, what did this look like 200 years ago, before all these stupid mansions were everywhere, this must have looked really cool, who was living on this land? Most people don't know who owns the land they live on. Do you know the Channel Islands have some of the oldest human remains, 12,000 years old, some of the oldest ever found? I think they were seafaring people, in these boats they made using tar that came from volcanic ash, almost like asphalt, to make these canoes. They've dug up stuff, they figured they were traveling and trading with the people on the mainland here. This whole area was just flourishing.

[01:30:24] Justin McMillen: Right, look at how the weather is here, you'd have like a utopian indigenous population.

[01:30:30] Rich German: Oh my God, and the ocean would have been flourishing too.

[01:30:32] Justin McMillen: The cool part about that is, in the spectrum of history, that's the vast majority, in fact we're like a pin scratch, this period of time- so in such a short amount of time, we did so much damage.

[01:30:51] Rich German: Exactly, but also, to think that the vast majority of human history has been one way- to think we're going to keep it the way it is now, chances are nature's going to grab hold of a lot of this stuff. That's kind of the core of what I've been thinking about and talking about for years now- it's going to go one of two ways, when there's a billion of us on the way to ten billion of us, we're either going to learn to live in balance and harmony as a species with the planet, or the planet's going to spit us off. And the planet will be just fine, maybe better without us. I personally think we will somehow figure it out. I think overall people are having fewer children, so the population will decline, which will make it a lot easier to feed the planet. We're in the richest time in human history, and there's billions of people starving, that doesn't make any sense. So hopefully we can find that balance. This is making me think of- if I can share the greatest ocean experience I ever had- it's related to gray whales, I mentioned earlier. Gray whales have the second longest migration of any land or ocean animal on the planet, they live up near Russia, northern Canada, Alaska, and they migrate to Mexico every year. They've been doing this forever, I don't know how long, millions of years probably. It's about 5 or 6,000 miles from Alaska to Mexico. So obviously to get there, they need to pass through Southern California, and they migrate down there every year to have their babies, and they all come, not just the pregnant ones, the whole group. And there's three main lagoons in Mexico where they go, and the moms have their babies and hang out for a couple months, the babies get the strength to make the migration back. At their peak, there was an estimated 27,000 gray whales in this population, and because of whaling, which used to happen here in Mexico, whalers would wait in these bays. For the last eight years or so, I've gone down to one of the three bays, called San Ignacio Lagoon, which I think you've been to- you need to put it on your bucket list for sure, it's old school Mexico, there's nothing there, off the grid, beautiful, the people are amazing, the food is insane. And the only reason people go there is for the whales, they set up these camps, you stay in a tent, the whales come into this lagoon, and you get on these little panga boats and go out. This is where people have what's called friendly gray whales, where people literally touch and kiss the whales, because the whales come right up to the boats. The most insane thing ever. But in the old days, the whalers would wait in these lagoons, and the whales would show up, and they'd kill them, slaughter them. And if you knew why we would kill these whales, it's crazy- it was basically for oil, it's so silly, how we figured out we could kill a whale and use their oil to light kerosene lamps, over 100 years ago. But that's what they did, and at the lowest point, there were 900 whales left- there probably used to be hundreds of thousands, and it was down to like 900. Then after whaling stopped, it peaked at 27,000. And then, in 2017, I think, don't quote me, there was what was called an unusual mortality event, where they were dying off left and right, and now the last consensus population was 14,000- it dropped almost 50%. There's a man named Steve Swartz, who's the main researcher down there- last year when I was there, we brought him to our camp and asked him, what's going on here? And his best guess is that they eat- they eat all their food up in Alaska, and this six month migration back and forth, half their year they're migrating. They don't eat for the most part, so they fatten up in Alaska on food that's like little shrimp, similar to krill, he said. Because of climate change up in the glaciers, it's affected the water temperature, which has affected the food, and they just don't have the food. And they're either dying during the migration, or not even getting pregnant, or not even bothering to make the trip, and the population is just dropping. So the point of this story is- I mentioned the orca story, which was January 6th, 2015, and as that story was going viral, six days later, another friend of mine happened to be on a paddleboard, and he went out two miles and saw the same exact pod of four orcas that I saw. And for whatever reason, he didn't have a camera on him, which is rule number one, I always bring a camera. He comes back to shore and tells me, dude, the orcas, they're back. I'm like, you're kidding me. He's like, yeah. So the next day he and I go out to the exact same spot, knowing there's a good chance the orcas are long gone. Orcas are not there, but what do we see, something going on in the water- I'm like, what the heck is that? It was a mom and a brand new baby. Normally, when I talk to kids, I show pictures of gray whales and videos, and I say, normally they go to Mexico to have their babies, but sometimes the babies hear about this amazing place called Laguna Beach, and they just can't wait to see it. So they're born right here in Laguna Beach. So we have a mom and this tiny little baby, the baby's about the size of my board, which is 14ft. I can't say for sure, but I'd bet money that baby was within hours or days old, brand new. If you look at my book, there's pictures of it. The last chapter of the book is these two whales, the mom and the baby, the baby looks like it was just born. But here's the point- I'm out there on my board, mom, baby, and for three straight hours that mom carried that baby right over to me, I watched as that mom taught that baby basically how to swim. She put the baby on her back, was like basically saying, okay, we're going to go up to the surface, she was teaching the baby, you need to come up and breathe. And they would circle around me to the point where they were lifting my board. I was just sitting there in tears for three straight hours, in awe, and that mom would just keep lifting my board out of the water. I was just mind blown. Now think about this- these whales can live up to 80 plus years, so some of these whales today that still make that migration to Mexico were around at the time of whaling. So these are smart animals, you would think a mom with her brand new baby, bad human being- She'd be like, we need to get the hell out of here. And she did the opposite, because she kept bringing that baby over, it was like she was saying, look at my baby, look her in the eye, love her. It was, that was way even cooler than the orca thing, the most insane thing.

[01:39:00] Justin McMillen: Why does it keep happening to you, do you think it's just numbers, or-

[01:39:10] Rich German: Yeah, it's funny, because people say, oh, you attract the animals, and I'm like, no, they attract me, I'm going in there. I'm like, they're attracting me, it's just a numbers game, I mean, you're there constantly. I could come up with some spiritual answer, but it is a numbers game in many ways. But the point is, for me at least, that mom wanted that interaction, and it was almost like a sign, like, come on- to me, whales represent forgiveness. Instead of that mom being angry about what humans have done to her species, it was the opposite. I think we can learn a lot. That's one of the core things I've been working on in my own life the last year, and it's interesting when you work on something, how you just get tested. For me it's been about surrender, forgiveness, and what you said earlier, service- how can I just surrender everything over to the divine, to God, whatever you want to call it. How can we forgive- it goes back to ego, if you did something I didn't like and I'm just going to be angry at you, who's getting hurt? I am. How do we forgive everyone for everything they've ever done to us, and how do we make our life about selfless service? One thing I've noticed when I've made this commitment to surrendering is, I just get challenged.

[01:40:35] Justin McMillen: And everybody can imagine you flourishing too, I don't think- as much of an impact as you've made, as much of a name as you've made for yourself over the last 10, 15 years, I think you're just getting started. So I'm very curious to see where you go, and what I love about the way you think is that it's bigger than just what it started with. In the time I've talked to you, and there's been many conversations, you just keep evolving, there's this evolution of what this all means, it's like this big human experience thing, but you're also continuing to find- It's like you're unwrapping layer after layer, just what's the truth in all of this. That's why I'm taking- this is a really big deal.

[01:41:27] Rich German: I appreciate that, thank you for noticing.

[01:41:30] Justin McMillen: Do you ever feel like you're not making an impact?

[01:41:36] Rich German: Of course, at all, of course, yeah, I think we all have doubt. I think there's times where all of us- I'm certainly guilty of this- it's like you might have some mild success, and then you start believing it, and then you get scared, like, oh, I'm not anybody, this doesn't mean anything, then you feel like a fraud, for sure. I'm just- you know, all these things.

[01:42:00] Justin McMillen: Yeah, totally.

[01:42:02] Rich German: And hopefully it's not imposter syndrome, but hopefully it's humility. I think we all have doubts for sure about who we are. But at the end of the day, you're going out in the water, you're suiting up and showing up every single day, and you're capturing something that is really important. That may not always be there. At the very worst, you're going to capture enough of it for people to see what was there. At best, you're going to make people fall in love, and you're going to have people give a shit enough to do something. Maybe that's not the best- maybe the best is that you learn things about being a human and about nature that you can clearly communicate to the world, that can make the whole world a better place.

[01:42:47] Justin McMillen: And I think you're a living example and a model of somebody who's living symbiotically with nature, and it's super respectable.

[01:43:00] Rich German: Thank you, thank you, I need to hear that.

[01:43:02] Justin McMillen: I'm just glad to give you a microphone to talk about it. I love it.

[01:43:08] Rich German: Yeah, appreciate it. Let's- I want to hear about your projects, I know there's going to be many coming down the pipeline.

[01:43:15] Justin McMillen: There'll be things that need to be supported, I think. So what we'll do is use some of this time- not now, but next time you're coming, you can explain your projects, everything has a cost, right, so we help with fundraising and some other things. So anything we can do to support you and your work, consider us on board.

[01:43:28] Rich German: I appreciate it. All right, thank you.