Why Kaepernick Took a Knee & What Kept Him Going

Key Takeaway

Write down one ambitious goal today, then spend five minutes mentally rehearsing the actions and obstacles between you and that outcome. Kaepernick describes how written goals—from playing for the 49ers as a child to becoming a starter and reaching the Super Bowl—gave his training direction. Treat visualization as preparation, not wishful thinking: identify likely scenarios, rehearse your response, and take one concrete action that makes the goal more real.

Episode Overview

Colin Kaepernick joins Rich Roll to reflect on the experiences, convictions, and preparation that led to his 2016 protest against police brutality. He discusses resilience, the cost of principled action, Know Your Rights Camp, his literacy-focused AI company Lumi, and why he still trains daily for a possible NFL return.

Full Transcript

Transcript of Why Kaepernick Took a Knee & What Kept Him Going from Rich Roll Podcast. Auto-generated from episode audio; may contain minor errors.

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Just visit prolonlife.com slash richroll. Surprising amount of people have come up and been like, I hated you. I've seen what you've done over the years, and you were right. Colin Kaepernick, he's the San Francisco 49ers quarterback. Knelt instead of standing during the national anthem. A gesture to protest discrimination against minorities in the US. Sparked both unity and outrage. The experiences navigating police, the experiences navigating racism, ultimately led up to that moment of protesting in 2016. Protesting to say police shouldn't kill black people was controversial. There were death threats, people trying to send bombs to the house.

You're sharing these experiences that you haven't talked about before, about what it was like to be you in a predominantly white neighborhood, racial slurs, et cetera. Like you had white parents who loved you, but just couldn't understand this. I don't want people to ever have to go through that. But I also think those moments of struggle, it built a internal resilience around that. And also how you come out the other side. To me, you come out stronger. Is there still an aspiration or a possibility that you could return to the NFL as a quarterback?

This is so cool, man. I'm so happy to meet you. I'm delighted to spend this time with you. Congratulations on the new book. It's just exciting for me to meet you. Oh, thank you. I'm excited as well. This is, I mean, it's a pleasure to be here. The book is sort of equal parts memoir and manifesto. And it's also a kind of primer on resilience. Like you see all these experiences that you have that have made you this resilient human being who is preparing himself to weather like what you've had to weather.

There are those two like near-death experiences that you talk about. Like you spun out on black ice and almost went off a cliff. You were at gunpoint on the precipice of a double homicide, I guess, in college, right? Triple. Triple, yeah. Which left you with this sense of life being precious, but also maybe a fearlessness as well. And an additional like degree of courage to kind of do the things that you've done. But what I really didn't know about you and learned a lot about was the dynamic that you grew up in as a child.

Like I knew that you grew up in Wisconsin and had white parents, et cetera. But the book just blasts you, you know, right from the get-go with like, here's what it was like when I was a kid and I was in fourth grade and these white kids like tied me to a rose tree, you know, and racial slurs, et cetera. Like right out of the gate, you're sharing these experiences that you haven't talked about before about what it was like to be you in a predominantly white neighborhood.

Not only on the receiving end of this kind of treatment, consistently, you know, throughout your life, you share all of these stories. But I think the real important piece here is that you had parents who loved you, but just couldn't understand this and really didn't wanna have the conversation and couldn't create a safe place for you. So you learned early and often that it wasn't safe to open up to these people who were charged with taking care of you what you were experiencing. And so you had to develop this dual identity of who you were.

And I interpret that as a unhealed childhood wound that I think explains so much about who you are and why you've made the decisions that you've made. It's an interesting dynamic to navigate. And, you know, I look at it less as a dual identity, but more so an awareness that you have to navigate and understanding how you show up in different spaces. And that was one that I knew throughout my neighborhood, walking into my house, there were gonna be certain parts of me that, and how my blackness showed up, like there are gonna be battles there.

And I think it built a, internal resilience around that of in constantly being in a position where you are having to defend who you are and just how you show up in a space, you get comfortable feeling, having this sense of isolation of like, oh, I'll have to figure this out by myself. I have to navigate this myself. You know, Turlock does not have a significant black population. So there also weren't a lot of, you know, black mentors within the community that I was able to turn to.

And I think the thing that I've learned looking back on all of the moments where there are racist attacks, I now look at those as moments that were opportunities to build resilience, build a level of focus, awareness, to be able to move forward and make sure that those aren't repeated. And ultimately has gotten me to a space where regardless of what the situation is, I look at it as an opportunity. Now, maybe very uncomfortable opportunities, but it may be an opportunity to show our resilience, to be able to show who we are, to be able to get better, to be able to bring people along and educate them in moments.

But on the other side of that, seeing success, I think is something that has allowed me to take those. And while they are traumatic moments, I don't have to accept them as something that were just purely negative. And I don't want people to ever have to go through that. But I also think those moments of struggle, they build and shape you and your character, and also how you come out the other side. To me, you come out stronger, again, even in the worst situations. Somebody else who was reared in a similar set of circumstances might have made a different decision to assimilate, to go along, to get along.

It sounds like maybe your parents would have preferred that for you. What was it about you, do you think, reflecting back on that period of your life that made you decide to go in this other direction and really honor your heritage in this really kind of strident way? I'm not sure if that is just innate personality of who I am. I'm not sure. There's a little punk rock, fuck you, you know? And maybe that's because of some of the experiences that you had when you were a kid.

But there's an anti-authoritarian streak that runs consistently through you. Well, I think it's that. I think it's also some of the competitive nature. I also think when you're in a space where just who you are is constantly challenged, you get to a place where it's like, well, the authority doesn't make sense. You're telling me who I am isn't acceptable. And that also gives me a space where, looking at some of the leaders in the sports realm that I looked up to, Allen Iverson and Randy Moss and Ken Griffey Jr., all players that, in their respective fields, like, this is who I am and this is how I show up.

And I'm also the best at what I do. Then you're undeniable. You become undeniable. You also become the space where, and I got to see it through them and I felt like there was a direct correlation to what I was going through, of you're undeniable at your sport. You're undeniable at your profession. But they were also constantly critiqued and hammered on who they were and just how they showed up within that environment. And it was primarily around their blackness and around their culture. And for me, seeing that also gave me a sense of, I don't have to assimilate.

And from a young age, I was, naturally I was pushing back on that. But it also gave me perspective on, oh, there's other people that are navigating this and they've made it to the highest levels without having to. And that message came through loud and clear. What also came through loud and clear was them just showing up as who they are, positioned them as rebellious, which also was a lot of what I faced from a young age. Wearing my natural hair or how I dress, the music I listened to.

All of those things became like, oh, you're being rebellious or this is a phase. At some point, you'll come back to the norm what our environment or culture is within the community. And that just isn't the case. Yeah, the premise that if you're undeniable, then you will be accepted is a flawed premise. When you become undeniable, then the reaction is like, well, what do you have to complain about? You've won. You're at the highest level. You're being handsomely rewarded for this. You're a celebrity. Everybody loves you.

Calm down. You get that and you also get, when you reach the highest levels, the level of influence that you have culturally across society also becomes a perspective of, no, we actually are going to try harder to get you to assimilate because we actually want the most successful and the leaders in our positions, and I think about this from the quarterback position specifically, this should fit this white CEO type profile. And when there's variance of that, the push or the pull to try to get you to be like, be as close to that as possible becomes so significant.

And it shows up from coaches. It shows up from the organization. It shows up from society more broadly. It shows up from some players. And being able to resist that and stay true to just who you are and how you show up in the world also becomes important because the same way that I got a very clear message from Allen Iverson and Randy Moss and Ken Griffey and a host of others become the same opportunity to be able to show people a world where our leaders can look different.

They can culturally be different. You can still go out and succeed at the highest level and you don't have to just assimilate to what is viewed as the status quo or the norm. As your cultural currency increases and you become more successful, more prosperous, more celebrated, the resistance to that in you being your fully actualized self becomes exponentially higher. It's like it ramps up in lockstep, right? Or even like the resistance exceeds that. It's almost as if it's designed to get you to some kind of breaking point with it.

Yeah, and the other part is the levers utilized within that become different as well. Say more about that. As a young age, it may be your family, it may be friends or coaches or direct community. When you get to the highest level, you'll get the GM, you'll get the coaches, the GM, you'll get ownership. You may have fans. You may have politicians. You may have corporate partners. All become influential people that are like, oh, you know. We want to do this deal with you, but we need it to look like this, but we're going to pay you a lot of money, but like it needs to look and feel like this.

Temptations become more tempting. The temptations become more tempting the dollar amounts become larger to know even with contracts. It's what we're going to pay you a lot of money like. You need to act like the face of the organization and it's typically never explicitly stated, but I got it in terms of hey, well, you shouldn't get any more tattoos. I know is it is the quarterback and leader of a historic organization like, you know, you need to look the part. It's like, well, define what that look is turn on any NFL game today.

Like it's so like we were talking earlier before you got here about how so many things that were just, you know, cultural bombshells 10 years ago would be like nothing now and you watch any NFL game like everybody's got sleeves, you know, everybody and you're getting grief for wearing a sleeveless hoodie or like whatever it was that you were doing was like causing all these problems for you. Now that looking back now, I mean, do you think like? Goddamn man, like, you know, like if you were coming up now in the NFL, like would it have been different?

A little bit, but the the pressure still exists there there is and there are more black quarterbacks in that position now. So I think that has grown and evolved because because of the performance because of the style of offense, like, again, it has to be undeniable before people start shifting, which is unfortunate, but it's the reality. I think culturally a lot of that still exists that a lot of the black quarterbacks that come in, it's like you in large part, you know, you have to uphold a certain standard and a presence that may not otherwise be just the norm for me.

Beyond the tattoos was like wearing a snapback was like, you can't do that. Like, you're the leader of the team. It's like, but I'm going out and performing at a high level. Like we just we just went to a Super Bowl. We just went back to an NFC championship game. I'm performing and showing up for the team in the way that I need to. Well, I think there has been movement there. I think there's still a much longer way to go. How does that square with guys like Deshaun Watson who get the two hundred and thirty million dollar contract and are all in all kinds of trouble?

I actually don't know how that one even happened, but what the NFL does have a history of is, you know, players that have had off the field issues. Coming back in and being welcomed back into the NFL with with open arms in large part. And. The thing that I think about most in relation to that is. It gives the NFL leverage and it gives the team's leverage to be able to demand a higher level of obedience. I we helped you out of this situation. We looked out for you.

Now you're going to do exactly what we tell you to do. Like you, you remember that, right? And. I think that's a dynamic that. It. It's important for people to understand because I've seen it show up over the years. It becomes almost a space where it's like. You're going to be our player that we help that helps get the other players to move the way that we want, want them to, which is. No, it's a interesting piece and players like you feel it and you see it because ultimately those players show up differently on the other side of it.

With the exception of the superstars, most NFL careers are super short. There's so many players. So that like power dynamic or that looming threat is really existential for a lot of these athletes because they don't know even from game to game if they're going to still remain on the team. So it allows like a kind of iron fist approach that I suspect is different in the NBA where there's fewer players and, you know, like these kinds of maneuvers and machinations would be a little bit more difficult.

But because there's so many players on an NFL team, you can move those pieces around in a pretty facile way, which gives the ownership more leverage. Yeah, that that's one of the interesting dynamics of football is. Because your success is so reliant on your teammates, you have 10 other people on the field with you that if they don't execute, you can look really bad as a player. Also gives teams leverage to say, oh, well, we'll replace you at any point in time. And you can also be set up to to fail.

Like if teams don't want to succeed and they don't want players to do well, you know, we're going to draw this these routes up. You're actually not even going to be in the read. You'll be on the field, but like the football isn't coming your way. So your catches may drop your yards and your touchdowns can drop. And as a running back, right? Oh, you're going to get fewer carries. You get down the red zone. We're going to put someone else in that. They're going to be the one who gets the touchdown.

It's not in the interest of the team winning. Those are things that in football you have levers to pull that are a little bit harder. And the instance of like basketball, where it if you put LeBron on the worst team, like he can still go get 50 if he wants to. And I'll be like, well, he's putting up numbers, but he's on a bad team in football. You can't just go on a solo mission and be like, hey, I'm just going to go out and get my do my thing.

Because 10 other players have to do that, too. And you also have control of coaches calling plays. So it creates a dynamic of you need to fall in line and you need to be obedient because you also know there's a level of control over your success that isn't just dependent upon you. It's fall already. Can you believe it? The calendar just gets abruptly, insanely crazy. The alarms get earlier. School is back in season. Work is at full speed all of a sudden. And suddenly every part of your routine is up for renegotiation.

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Here we are 10 years post the Neil. You've got this book coming out and you've made this conscious decision that now is the moment that you kind of want to talk about all of this, but you haven't been talking about it all along in the way that you could have. So why now with the book? Is it because of the 10 year anniversary? Is it something that has to do with where you're at in life? What is going on that you're now in this moment deciding to enter back into the public discourse?

I mean, the 10 year anniversary is I mean, it lined up great that way as far as the book releasing. But I think more importantly, looking at where we're at as a country and society and the work that needs to be done. I think there's a lot more momentum and movement that needs to happen. And being able to make sure that that people have urgent urgency around that, I think, is one of the things that led to this moment. This is also something that's been years in the making, like the last 10 years.

While I may not have been doing sit down interviews, like that work has continued. Yeah, just not in that public facing media kind of way. Yeah. And I think the other part that people don't realize is during the 2016 season, like as a quarterback, you're required to speak three times a day. So the press can come in, they'll just ask you whatever they want. So the frequency that people saw me in 2016, in part was because of an obligation, being an NFL quarterback. And then after that, it was, well, we have very intentional work that we have to be doing.

And I spent most of my time focused on that, as opposed to doing a lot of the sit down interviews and some of the media pieces. You've got all of these initiatives around educating underprivileged youth, providing them with the tools and understanding they need to know about how to navigate the world, etc. Do you want to just share a little bit about that? Because I think it fills in the gaps of like, what have you been doing? You've actually been doing a lot. Yeah. So we founded Know Your Rights Camp, which is our foundation where we do a lot of the community focused work.

We started ideating on that in 2015. 2016, we did our first camp. And the focus there was, how do we make sure that our community and our kids are making it home safe? Now, we're seeing this wave of police killings of black people. We're seeing it very viscerally on video. Our first step was how we make sure we get them home safe. Then how do we set them up to thrive? And we built the camps out around that. As we were doing that, that also allowed us to partner with other community based organizations, with school districts, educators, and other people that were doing work just directly on the ground.

It allowed us to build out a broader network in all of the cities that we're in. So we've done this across the country. Now, as we're doing that, we continue to build upon it. And that led to the launch of our autopsy initiative, giving free second autopsies to families who have lost a loved one while in custody. And beyond that, during 2020, we launched a COVID-19 initiative. We launched a legal defense initiative. So holistically, we've tried to approach it from a space of what is the need of the community?

And how do we serve that need and build programs and initiatives around that? What is your sense of the political climate now versus what it was like 10 years ago when you took a knee and it was this flashpoint in culture? Because a lot's happened since then. I think where we're at politically is we have a small group of people who are trying to redirect the country back 50, 100 plus years, culturally and systemically. What I see more broadly, though, is people on the ground and the community.

and the overwhelming majority of the country rejecting that and saying, no, that's actually not the future vision we have for this country. We're going to go out and make sure that we're supporting things that actually create equity, that actually create justice, that allow us to collectively thrive. And we've seen that show up with the work on the ground. We're seeing that show up with the politicians that people are supporting. We're in New York right now, and Mamdani just recently got elected. We're seeing Abdul El-Sayed. We're seeing Angie Nixon.

We're seeing candidates that previously may not have been the ones that would be at the forefront because of where we were at politically. And I think the groundwork of the last 10 years and 10 plus years has ultimately led us to a space where people are rethinking how they're viewing the political sphere, how they want to engage with it, and who they think should be representing them as part of that. Yeah. It does feel like the course is righting itself a little bit in comparison to even just a few years ago.

The right wing has been on a whole journey with their relationship to patriotism. And there's this interesting internal conflict around distrust of institutions and this growing disconcert with how the administration is operating that I think is setting us up for a new era and age, and the politicians you mentioned, of course, being at the front lines of that. I think it's a really interesting time. But it's been a rickety Coney Island roller coaster ride for the last couple of years. And I think back on that moment, that flashpoint moment for you, all that's happened in the wake of that progress regression, in the wake of that, though, in the immediate experience of that, this is what your book is really exploring.

Because you could have gone on a route where you were just a constant presence on television talking about these issues. Many people would have taken that route, and you decided to take a more kind of boots on the ground impact trajectory for yourself. But it's allowed other people to decide the narrative for you. And this book is your opportunity to share your perspective on what this was like. And I think there's a lot of people who are really interested in like, what was that like? I mean, can you imagine what a crazy experience you must have had to weather that at that time?

So what do people not understand about what happened and what you were going through leading up to that decision and in the aftermath of it? The lead up to the decision, I think, is an area that has a lot of parallels to my football career, where people assume it came out of nowhere. Oh, how did this happen? We didn't expect this. But it was actually years and a lifetime in the making. And I say that through my lived experiences, growing up black in a predominantly white community, growing up black in an adopted family.

My family is all white. And the experiences navigating police, the experiences navigating racism, having to educate myself and learn and do research and auditing graduate classes at Berkeley, all of those experiences ultimately led up to that moment of protesting in 2016, in addition to seeing the political climate of what was happening. This is on the back of Mike Brown being killed and Eric Garner and Tamir Rice. And then more recently into 2016 was Mario Woods, Freddie Gray, Alton Sterling, Philando Castile. And that's the backdrop that leads into the protest.

Similarly to the football side, when I first start in the NFL, that's 15 plus years in the making. So all of that leads to that moment and ultimately becomes a decision of, now that I have a better understanding of the systems that are perpetuating this, as opposed to looking at them as one-off instances, what am I going to do about it? Do I take this understanding and just sit back and be like, man, I hope someone fixes it? Or do I take action and try to affect change in the best way possible, in the ways that I feel like I have access and the ability to?

And that's ultimately what led to that moment. On the other side of it, the amount of manipulation of the narrative and the deflection and distractions that were created was something that was really interesting to see play out in real time. And we were constantly trying to navigate. Because in protesting, specifically saying systemic oppression and specifically police brutality, what was portrayed in the media over and over again was, is it disrespectful to the flag? Is it about the military? How you're protesting? And the majority of media actually didn't want to focus on the issue and try to resolve the issue.

The other part that I found really interesting in that moment was, just foundationally, protesting to say police shouldn't kill black people was controversial. I want people to take a minute and step back and just think about that. And being upset with that, what does that say about what you actually believe? It's uncomfortable to hold a mirror up to America and force them to look at something they'd rather not. So that's a natural reaction that comes from a place of denial, because it's an uncomfortable truth. The irony is that the essence of patriotism and citizenship is speaking truth to power.

I mean, this is the essence of the Fourth Amendment and the First Amendment. And yet, your actions were interpreted as treasonous instead of, basically, your constitutional right and the principle upon what the founding fathers intended, which is that this is a democracy and we should all be able to speak up and make our voices heard. But you're doing it in the context of a very powerful institution that commands the attention of hundreds of millions of people, so much money, so much at stake. And you were a threat to the sanctity of that institution.

And that's an additional discomfort that was intolerable. Yeah. And to that point, I think it also speaks to the foundation of the country and who has rights and who actually gets to access them and who gets to practice them. I think that becomes something that is also important for people to take and analyze. If we actually are a democracy, if there actually is equality for all and liberty for all and justice for all, why is this upsetting? If you believe in all of these things, you should be excited about this.

If you had to answer that for the people who were upset, they would say? I think they would go back to all of the deflection tactics of, well, it's the wrong place. It's the wrong time, the impact and influence of all of these other things. I think a lot of those conversations became disingenuous, again, to deflect from the actual conversation of, we have a major issue with the institution of policing. And that was also important for me to understand the historical perspective of policing. The immediate issue was, how do we make sure that they stop killing black people?

But also having an understanding of policing within the United States came out of slave patrols and the progression and development of that, the role that that plays in supporting and becoming a feeder into the prison industrial complex. These are all systems that have been built within the United States. And actually analyzing that in a way of, how do we actually build institutions that keep people safe, allow them to thrive, and actually build a better future? Today, those institutions are not doing that. So we actually need to rethink the outcomes that we're trying to produce and what different approaches we can take to actually get there.

The intention going into it being, let's have a discussion about this. Let's see some progress here. But that message getting lost in this sea of just personal attacks, et cetera, was progress made? How do you feel about what happened and what could have happened had things been different? Well, I think there was, I'll say, we also focus a lot on, and what I see more broadly focused on a lot, is the pushback that occurred. But it's also important to acknowledge there is massive support as well.

And there were people that were like, yes, we've been waiting for this. We have work to do. Now we can get people moving. So the awareness and getting people talking about it was step one. But step two is, now we actually have to take action against this and start changing the systems and getting people moving towards that. And over the last 10 years, we've seen this show up within policy changes, primarily at local and state levels. We've seen it show up with additional institutions being built within communities.

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

I would imagine that you knew full well when you decided to take the knee. And just so people understand, it wasn't one incident. I mean, first, you sat for the first couple games. No one said boo about the whole thing. There's a whole story behind the decision to then adopt the kneel. The media catches on. There's this massive response to this. I suspect you knew there would be a response, and the response would probably be very controversial and attract a lot of attention, negative and positive.

But I doubt that you could have ever imagined the extent to which it became so inflamed. And I'm curious around that expectation versus reality and also behind closed doors, what it was like for you just emotionally. You never know where things are going to go or how they're going to show up. I'll say I had to understand the historical perspective of what has happened to other athletes and other people that have taken similar stands and positions. In the moment, it was also something that, regardless of whether or not there was attention around it or that became a larger protest, I also knew it was something for me, personally, being able to look myself in the mirror and say, I'm doing the things I can to try to change this system, to try to make sure people make it home safely.

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

And you're able to create an alignment. alignment of messaging and goals and outcomes that you're working towards behind closed doors it is Constant like strategizing because you're We were navigating situations that we just there's no way that you can prepare for I Mean the the media response is one component of it Trying to organize players is another the response from the the NFL and NFL owners Is another piece of it? At that point in time Donald Trump on the campaign trail is using it as part of his his political messaging and that becomes another component of how we navigate so it becomes all of these different pieces that While in the middle of a football season and making sure I'm still preparing to go out and play And be successful with the team Also strategizing and doing all of that work behind closed doors How do we make sure that we're building and continue to move this forward and helping organize people on the ground death threats Bomb scares.

I mean your personal safety, you know is in question I'm sure You're communicate like I'm sure you had friends who said You know, you're my guy, but like I just can't say anything publicly or People you thought were your friends who suddenly are, you know Backing away from you like the experience of like figuring out like who really stands with you Knowing that anybody who does is incurring that same risk right like there's a lot on the line and You knew enough to know that you were risking a lot when you did that So what was it in addition to kind of this?

awakening that you're having around your passion for these issues and The position of power that you were in to do something about it Was there a particular moment where you knew like I I'm gonna I'm gonna roll the dice on this. I'm gonna I'm gonna do this Versus just like well, maybe you know tomorrow or maybe I'll let somebody else do it. Like I have a lot to lose One of the things that I think about a good amount is If we're actually going to be part of a society What is our role within that beyond just our individual interests and to me part of that responsibility is when you do have success when you do have access and opportunity How do you use that to create broader opportunity and help other people thrive?

and If we aren't doing that, I just don't look at that as like society That that just becomes like pure individualism. I trust. How do I get mine and how do I accumulate as much as possible? Like where does that leave us? Where does that leave us collectively? in For me and being in that position. I I've made it to a place where I'm playing in the NFL. I've accomplished a dream of getting to the NFL I'm playing in the NFL. I've accomplished a dream of getting there There's still a lot more.

I want to do within it and a lot more success. I want to have with it but at the same time I I'm Seeing people not being able to make it home and I think there's a responsibility to each other in that process To be able to fight and protect protect each other and And You know on the back end of that your point Yes, the the death threats people trying to send bombs to the house Those things came along with it. Yeah, but I also know those are Those are intentional efforts to try to deter the action of creating that change and I And maybe this is the football side of me and like the Some may say stubborn I will say persistent side of me it's like that's that's not gonna stop me and You know some some of what I mentioned in the book as well is like I'd faced death in my life previously so I also What was comfortable with the idea of I?

Almost that I'm playing with house money. Mm-hmm I had escaped those moments and made it through and past them and now in a place that and I'm gonna push the bounds with the time that I have and I hope that has a tremendously long time But same time like I I can't let that stop me from doing the work I also know Other people may not be willing to take that same approach or take the same risk But you can still help in other ways if you aren't willing to show up in the same way that That I think people should have There are still other ways to be supportive of the efforts and of the work and be able to take action That may not put you in the same light or same position that I was in You This episode is brought to you by eight sleep and oh man I can't wait to tell you what these guys are up to if you've listened to this show for any length of time You've heard me bang on about sleep as the single highest leverage recovery tool There is hands down and when people ask me what to actually do about it My answer is always the same dial in your sleep hygiene And one of the ways that I do that is through the pod by eight sleep It's this smart mattress cover that really has been Hands-down the biggest game-changer in terms of how well I sleep eight sleep just launched the next generation pod 6 and they're offering my audience all of you guys up to $200 off.

I haven't even gotten my hands on one yet I can't wait, but the pod 6 sports the lowest starting price eight sleep has ever offered They also shrunk the hub by 50% So it tucks under most bed frames now so the tech basically disappears and everything I love carries over smart sleep tracking and Cooling or heating each side of the bed from 55 to 110 degrees Fahrenheit the pod 6 delivers up to 34% more deep sleep Individual results may vary of course use my code rich roll at eight sleep Calm slash rich roll for up to $200 off the pod 6 you get 30 days to try it at home and return it If you don't love it pretty confident you will Autonomy wasn't something I was thinking much about when I recently got behind the wheel of a Rivian r2 with founder and CEO RJ's Grinch, but when RJ started talking about where Rivian is headed with it.

I couldn't stop thinking about it after What's your latest thinking on the short and long-term? future of autonomous driving I think short term. It's going to continue to get better for us. We get to a place by the end of this year where we'll do Hands-off point-to-point navigation so meaning you could plug the address and say tell it to go and it'll drive there on its own Today we have hands-off what we call universal hands-free where you can take your hands off it can drive But it essentially stays on the path that's on.

Yeah, but the next step is to integrate that it's navigation So it it navigates through turns obviously stoplight stop signs everything and that's this year and then next year we get to That plus eyes off. So we'll start with eyes off on highways. So you can be completely Doesn't it doesn't beat you can bring hands back. Yeah, you can do whatever you'd like Yeah you can do whatever you'd like the Autonomy and assisted driving features on the r2 today and the ones on the horizon are just part of what makes it such a compelling Vehicle you can learn all about the Rivian r2 Watch the rest of our conversation and even book a demo drive at stories dot Rivian comm slash rich roll The other thing that I learned reading your book and this is crazy is This premonition that you had like you literally wrote down your future How much you were gonna weigh how tall you were gonna be and That you were gonna play for the 49ers Like I want to know all about this So it was a fourth grade project and it was a time capsule project and I remember my teacher.

Mr. Sudderley Gave us this assignment and he was like You're you're gonna write out where you think you're gonna be and I think it was It was like 15 years from now or 20 years from now and Remember writing down like who my friends were but then Like where I was gonna be in the future. I was gonna be playing for the Packers or 49ers even if they weren't good and I was gonna be Six foot four. I forget the weight I put in there. It was somewhere like 170 to 190 pounds, I think and It ultimately came to fruition Slightly taller six five Got drafted by the 49ers.

I think it's a an interesting component of Like writing down your goals and being able to manifest them and at that point time I didn't I even realized that's what that was But Being able to manifest that and almost preparing yourself mentally for that outcome So as you're training as you're going through games and preparation and trying to bring that about I Mentally you are already in that space of where you're gonna be headed and The the second time this showed up was actually when I got to the 49ers and Jim Harbaugh who was our coach at the time made the entire team write down their goals for the season and I was going into my second year at that point in time and wrote down I'm gonna be a starter at this point.

I was a backup. I hadn't hadn't played. I'm gonna be a starter and We're gonna go to the Super Bowl And I remember him coming to me after and He had read through all of them. He was like, do you think you'll be able to accomplish these this season? I Remember looking at I was like, yes and at that point, I'm I'm the backup and uh, I don't know if he was asking that as like Hey, are you ready for it or if he was asking like All right, are these realistic goals for you, but either way my mind I was yes, that's as well I'm focused on and Ultimately in the middle of that season Alex gets hurt and We go to the Super Bowl.

My my tenth start in the NFL was Super Bowl so both of those instances of Actually just writing my goals down Got to a space where I was able to manifest them So I think there's power there. It also makes me feel like I need to write more things down No, I think it's a really powerful lesson in like the action based Idea of of Manifested it's like oh man is like manifest your dreams like it's it's sort of an airy-fairy thing But there are there is a practical application to that Yeah, first of all You have to believe you have to truly believe in the possibility of that and there is something about writing it down That cements it and like seeds this story That you begin to tell yourself that leads you to make decisions and take actions that maybe you wouldn't have had you not written that down Even if you forgot that you wrote it down It's in your you know unconscious And it's kind of doing a little bit of work, right and I think it's an important tool I know that I've used but I was curious around like how like did that mature into kind of a real of more formal like Visualization practice like before games like are you imagining how it's gonna go?

Like did you ever have any kind of practice like that that that that would hone your kind of mental game. I would do so much of it and I mean you get a lot of that going through game film like you're you're watching game film You're you're running through that as if you're running the plays and how you would respond to it what your reads would be What you would do in those situations? But then when you step away from it For me I naturally got to a space where When I'm I'm at the house when I'm on the bus on on the way of the game before the game Like you're going through every play call you're going through your first and second down plays you're going through third down You're going through red zone.

You're going through the blitz situations you're going through all of your audibles and running those through based upon what you think the defense is going to be doing and In many ways you're you're playing the game many times Mentally before you ever step on the field and I believe there's some some good neuroscience behind this of like in Writing goals down and visualizing that the preparation that you're doing actually reduces the friction When you get to those moments because it doesn't feel like it's something new It feels like you've already done it you've already accomplished it and that just as a practice I know some Then within athletics shows up significantly But I think more broadly is a great practice And it also becomes like meditative.

Yeah, do you do that for? Things outside of sport like for your life like anticipate like you're you're about to release this book Are you like visualizing what this experience is gonna be? Anticipating, you know some of this stuff that's you know, I'm gonna get hurled in your direction. Oh Oh, definitely. It's a little bit different like variation of it because Within football or within sport like there's some comp I do it. It's a contained environment I mean, there's a lot of variables in football though So you can only visualize like you don't know what's gonna happen.

There's all these players on the field Yeah, you don't you don't know what's gonna happen. But you do get to a space where You know, they're they're first and second down on defense like they may be in a Overfront and cover three as like they're their base and they may have a couple variations off of that. They like, okay I I have a pretty good sense of like I may get One to three or four things in this scenario and you can start playing those out And then the anomalies that exist outside of that like you adjust to in real time I Think when you get outside the confines of sport then it's All right.

There's so many variables. How do you try to distill it down to like? What you're trying to accomplish and then what variables you think are most likely to show up? And then going through the scenarios of how it would be like if you were in a situation Going through the scenarios of how would I address those? How would I talk through them? How do you navigate them? so I do that I'll say I don't have a Today I don't have a standard or formalized practice of it It's something that when I'm not in the middle of doing work.

I'm almost always doing some variation of breaded their scenarios That's just become more of the norm for me When you think back on that fourth grade assignment and You know kind of reflect on the fact that you like wrote down this thing and it actually happened like you're a person of faith You know, like what does that? Tell you about like the way the world works Beyond just like we're all powerful and we can create our destiny like it almost feels like There's a there's a deeper spirituality, you know it's one of those things that it's hard to reconcile like because It feels like you can create or do anything And you can you can manifest that you obviously have to put the work and the dedication and all of those things into it but it's hard to to put that into a definitive space of like X equals Y and I Think within that is I Don't know what the Direct connection or one-to-one connection is but like a sense of fate.

Yeah It it does and at the same time. I also believe like we have control over our destiny so it's almost a little bit of both and I I Go back and forth between that of like. Oh Were these things always going to happen? Or is this a space that Every decision I'm making I have control over and it just happened to lead me here. I don't know how to reconcile those but how I approach it just from day to day is I have to to make the best decisions I can to try to accomplish the the biggest possible goals and I Think the thing that it's taught me more than anything is Be more ambitious than where I think I can go because Seeing in a fourth-grade classroom like hey, I'm gonna play for the 49ers At that point in time people are like, yeah, it's a great dream.

Like good luck on the journey. I'd say That's not gonna happen for you Define the odds in that way. I think it also goes to a sense of mentality that you have to have in relation to you have to believe that you can do those things and The more that you have a sense of doubt or a sense of like that's never gonna happen I Think you're also Manifesting and creating the environment where you're setting barriers in front of yourself and you won't see the Opportunities when they do show up to be like, oh that may be my chance to actually further myself towards that goal We're just that Sense of self-belief come from I mean you had it so early.

I think part of it is you do have your innate personality of like I Think I was always a little bit of like I'm gonna push the balance and see what I could get away with But at the same time I think you build upon it over time with the little wins and little successes and then being able to take those further and further and It makes me think back to One moment early in my life I was doing I was supposed to go to a punt passing kick competition Which is you you do a punt you do a pass you do a kick?

Whatever that total is Whoever has the highest total as far as yardage ultimately wins And I remember going to the first one and I was so nervous and I got to a point that I was like I Don't know if I want to do this like and And No, my my parents are there they're like, you know, just just go out and try it like it's okay you can my And my brother and sister were there like, you know, you you're gonna do great. Just just get out there and I go out and I won the competition and I think the moments like that where it's like You have a fear or you have a hesitation or you have a doubt and you overcome it And it becomes like oh I I can do that now.

Now. Let's go to the next one. I think Over time as you build that up you get to a place where you have understanding every obstacle is An opportunity to be able to show you can do something that you previously weren't able to do Every doubt that you have is an opportunity to be able to show the the resilience or the dedication you have to overcoming that and Then that just to me becomes part of who you are. Like you have trained yourself now to a point where Any reality that you want to bring about?

There's just obstacles along the way that you're gonna have to get over But you've already have you already built this history of overcoming those obstacles so in many ways You have trained in practice for that that gets you to a space that's like, oh, this is just the next version of it You mentioned setting big goals. So what what are the big goals now? How do you keep them quiet? The big goals that I think about I mean, obviously the the work that were in the impact that we're trying to have on society Our efforts are still focused on Addressing police brutality Still addressing the prison industrial compact complex And being able to resolve those like those are those are massive goals That we want to go out and accomplish the other one that been very focused on right now I Have a company in the education space and we're trying to address this this issue of literacy across the country we have Approximately 70% of our students across the country that aren't proficient at reading and writing Largely, we've just accepted this as the norm my 70% just aren't gonna make it I think just an insane statistic when I was first presented with it is what got me to the space of This is such a massive issue That we are not setting people up for success Coming out the other side of education to be able to walk into the world and be Be as successful as possible be contributors to society in the most meaningful way and As we've been doing this work, I we've been able to work with and and meet phenomenal people but we've also been able to look at this through the lens of We're also going into a present and future with AI It's all built in natural language So our students aren't proficient at the foundational skills of literacy Their ability to access and utilize the tools of the future Actually is largely not going to be there and That's a massive one that we're we're trying to accomplish Because of the the downstream impact and ripple effects that exists with that as well.

It's called Lumi, right? Yes. Yeah, let me it's basically an AI venture like leveraging AI yeah to promote literacy and We we use the AI to be able to to personalize to the student So they get what they need specifically and one of the things that we've been focused on with this is also within k-12 infrastructure Like there's a lot of fragmentation within it So it's an opportunity for us to be able to align everything from our districts to our schools to our teachers And ultimately to our students so they are accomplishing their goals.

We also It's been interesting in the process of I in leveraging a tool like that How do you make sure that students aren't cognitively offloading? So we we've had to put very strict guardrails in place Like we will never write for students is one of the things that we've had to make very clear and Be steadfast in that. Yeah, that was my big question like AI is basically the can be the enemy of literacy it because of this offloading and so many young people don't know how to write and It's so easy to Basically cheat and copy paste and all that that kind of thing exactly and No, we we're seeing this show up at the university level Know what one of our advisors is at NYU and She was like I have students coming in they they can't write We're seeing that show up in the UC system in California where?

The the baseline coming into the university they're having to go back to basics We're seeing this deterioration of sorts and let's not say there aren't success stories out there as well, but For us we're looking at is this is a powerful tool But it's a powerful tool to be able to better understand the skills that students have where they have gaps in that knowledge and then being able to give them the right coaching and support to allow them to advance but always having the core and center of it as The student has to do the work like I think that is one of the things that that we know about learning is There does have to be progressive or productive struggle.

It can't just be something that Hey, I was able to complete the assignment like completing the assignment is It's easy to do now But the process of how you think through executing against it becomes a much more telling of a student's knowledge On the topic of literacy. I think an underappreciated Aspect of your story is is the fact that like you were an unreal student. I mean you were like a 4.5 Student in high school. You're doing all the AP courses. You go to college. You're 4.0 across the board Basically, there's a sliding door Situation where you would have ended up at a you know at an Ivy League school and maybe you're a professor now or something like that like and and the book really gives the reader a glimpse of The kind of deranging impact of being this really bright person who is Who is being perceived in a certain way because of being black and because of being an athlete?

That you weren't being taken seriously or you were dismissed etc So I'm curious or like can you share a little bit about what that was like and how that informed? You know kind of your activism and and how you think about how you show up and speak So from a young age Not I tested into gifted and talented programs and and magnet programs I Was a great student in relation to being able to get good grades It it became very apparent that in being successful on the academic side Was always a surprise and To me what it revealed was the expectation For I would say particularly a black athlete To have intelligence or to have intellect Was perceived as an anomaly informed how I move forward because Because while it may be in different spaces, there are brilliant athletes out there across the board that brilliance can show up in different ways.

And how I think about that in relation to the activism and the work that we're doing is, how do you create the environment where the expression of that intelligence and the opportunity to display that intelligence and be educated, that we create more of those opportunities and also continue to raise the bar of the expectations? I want it to be the norm where a black athlete walks in the room or a black person walks in the room and the assumption is, oh, they're going to be brilliant.

They're going to be well-educated. They're going to understand. And getting to that place, I think there's a lot of work that needs to be done. And it's also interesting having to navigate that because, to my understanding, some of the most educated people across the country are black women. And there's a sense of surprise around that being the fact. And again, I want to create a space where that becomes the norm. And I think that should be the norm. How you get there becomes interesting because it's not something you have full control over, as far as people's perceptions.

You can only expose them to it more and more. Expose them. And then you can just be this model of that and speak openly about your education and how you think about intellect and intelligence and the like and be somebody that a young person can see and identify and imagine their own possibility. Similar to the sports side. Just make it so undeniable and so obvious that it then becomes like, oh, I can't have a different perspective around it because it is so obvious. When you encounter young people walking on the street or whatever, what is the reception of the youth when you meet them?

You know what I mean? I'm thinking about the reception in the aftermath of the Neal and the eruption of culture around that. But then you have a whole generation of young people who were too young to be influenced by what people thought of that back then. Do they receive you differently? What is that like? The reception is, at least from my experience thus far, is always love. There is an excitement around it. And I think because we have a younger generation in Gen Z and Gen Alpha that are much more politically aware.

They're much more politically involved. And I have grown up in a way that they're definitive in the positions of, whether it is corporations or politicians or friends and family around them, that they want to make sure that they are taking actions to create more equitable environments. And I think that is what I've seen show up from a lot of those interactions. And oftentimes, it's different spaces that they're passionate about. But they come into it with, oh, we can create change. I think it's true. I do have power.

And they have a sense of agency that I think is different than the era that millennials came up in and some of the older generations. I think in part because everything is so visible to them as well through social media. And there's a lot of pros and cons within that. But I think one of the pros that it's done is it's opened up their perspective because they're able to see the world and see things globally in a way that previously just wasn't possible. When you think back on 2016, is there anything that you would have done differently, like with perspective?

You've had a decade to kind of process and think about everything that has happened. Would you have done it the same way? I think of two things. One, I think about, could I have pushed the balance further with the work that we were doing? And I tried to be mindful in the work of I wanted people to come to the space and be a part of the movement and be a part of the work because they felt passionately about it. I also think about, should I have tried to push people more aggressively within some of that work?

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

Should I have done that in much more visible ways? And part of the concern of doing that and the thought process around it was, if I do that publicly and if I do that in a louder way, does that become the focus of the conversation as opposed to what we're trying to accomplish? I'm not sure what the outcome is and how that changes things, but those are two of the areas that I think about a lot just in how can we create more sustained and more significant progress.

It's a tough one because if you were taking every criticism head on and trying to redress misunderstandings, you're providing oxygen to those arguments and they persist in the media cycle. But if you don't, then you're implicitly like not disagreeing with it. You're allowing other people to define your narrative for you. That's the trade-off, I guess, on some level. And it becomes also, there's different ways to be able to communicate it. And we did some of those pathways through my direct channels, through direct relationships, and things of that nature.

The areas that I didn't do or didn't really do as frequent was, hey, I'm going to go do a sit-down on 60 Minutes and address all of these and have it be done in a broadcast format. But not for nothing, you just did do that right now, right? Yes. Like, OK. So we're doing it. Now. But we hadn't done it at that point. But we are doing it now. That's important context for people to have. But at that point in time, we hadn't done it in that way.

Again, part of the realization of that moment, too, was media and journalism had changed, where a lot of it was the business models were changing. It was more around, hey, we have to compete for eyeballs now. We have to compete for the clicks and the likes and the visibility. So we also saw a lot of it turn more to, hey, we need the sexy headline to get people to come to us, and less around, what are the facts around this, and what are you trying to address?

And so journalism and media and journalism saw journalism in many ways that started changing. And there's still some people that do phenomenal journalism work. And I don't want to discount or discredit that. But larger media ecosystem became much more like, hey, we need the attention. We need the visibility. Less around, hey, let's do the true journalism work of what's happening and giving people the facts around the moment. How do you think Malcolm X would have handled the algorithmically driven media landscape of 2026? Oh, man, that is a great question.

I think he would have explored all possibilities there. I probably would have looked at streaming, probably would have looked at, like, Malcolm X the streamer. Right? But I'm thinking of it. Him and speed. Right? It's a really good question, because I did have a moment of thinking about this. Did you? Just of, like, at that point in time, how he was communicating and getting message out more broadly. Like, he was doing significant work there. Thinking about what that looks like in 2026, like. It's hard to imagine.

It is. But I think there's an element of streaming in there. Like, there's the substacks of the world, where it's like you have your personal channels and messaging. There's the social media aspect. You have the TV and broadcast side. Like, I think he would have explored all of the ways that he could have effectively communicated the message more broadly. But it feels strange to put that in perspective now. But here you are. You're kind of re-entering the town square in this more sophisticated media ecosystem. Back to the idea of quaintness.

Like, 2016 information landscape, quaint compared to today. There are coordination disinformation campaigns, some of which are being funded and propagated in foreign nations. Like, it's just insane, right? I mean, you are like, if there was ever clickbait, you're clickbait. Like, you are going to be the reason for everybody to write something. And you are going into this clear-eyed. You know this. How does that feel? And what is the message to the kind of daily wire end of that ecosystem where you're seeing Matt Walsh and Ben Shapiro?

There's a coordinated, like, OK, Colin's coming back. Let's get our podcast together. And we're all going to do podcasts at the same time with our perspective on who he is and what he means and how we should think about this guy. It's something that I'm prepared for that to come. Already at this point, like- You're like war-torn. Yeah, like, you've been through it already. Yeah. But still, I mean, it can't be fun, that side of it. No, that side of it, it's not fun. But if you're going to affect change, there is going to be resistance to it.

And you know that side is going to come. If you're not getting that, you're not actually pushing change. And I go back and forth on that. Because I don't like using that as a metric. Because if the metric becomes the goal of, like, oh, if they're responding to us and attacking us, like, that's how you know you're doing something right, that can lead us to extreme places that are just off the mark of what we should be trying to accomplish. I think we need to keep the goal the main focus and have an awareness that, yeah, this likely will come.

But I don't think that should be a measure of the success already at this point. Like, I see the bots ramping up. They're showing up more and more on my pages now. Do you pay attention to that stuff? Are you kind of scrolling through it and taking notice? I would check to have a pulse of, like, where are things actually at and have a sense there. Because I don't want to be caught off guard. I need to have an understanding of what is happening within the social realm.

I need to have an understanding of what's happening politically. I need to have an understanding just on the ground, how people are responding. And I think that allows you to get a better sense of how you calibrate. That side of it isn't fun, but you know you're going to have to navigate it and address it. But ultimately, at this point, I think the majority of people see through it. While I have the experiences and having to go through it, also as a society, people have had to go through it as well.

And I think there's a lot more informed community collectively now where it's like, we kind of know how people are going to frame and position things. We know where disingenuous arguments are going to come from and where manipulation will come from. Um, like we have a pretty good sense of that when you're trying to realize change, there's a tension. I'm curious around this tension that you must feel between taking an ardent, principled, uncompromising stance on something and the consensus building and kind of recruitment that's required in order to actually create the change.

Like you've got to be able to have people on board with you. Um, and those two things, they can work in tandem, but they're also, you know, antagonistic at times, right? Like they, they work against each other. Like, do you want to be the compromising guy who's like getting everybody on board and reaching across the aisle? Or are you the guy who's just the symbol? Who's like, this is the line. I think it has to be a both and, um, which is like a, it's a fine line to walk.

Um, the, the context that I think about is, you know, MLK, who is universally beloved today, at that point in time, it was like 33% of black people that supported him. Giving historical context is also important that in the moment people may resist it because it's different, um, because it makes them uncomfortable and that may be for a number of reasons. It may be, um, you're challenging some of the ideas that they hold, um, and in challenging those ideas that can feel like a personal attack.

Um, but it's more so like, how do we push forward collectively? I think about that in, in the moment today of when people do have a discomfort, gain them and giving them some insight as to why that may be the case. And also giving them the insight into this isn't a personal attack on you. This is a, this is us trying to address an idea that has created a negative outcome for society. And then putting it in that framework and perspective then becomes like, okay, if this isn't a personal attack, like, let me actually think about the thing now.

Part of what's given me that perspective is over the last 10 years, I've had a surprising amount of people. Um, and I would say candidly, I did not think this would be the case. The amount of people that have come up and been like, I hated you, like, I really didn't like you. And I've seen what you've done over the years and I've had conversations and you were right. And seeing, seeing people go through that process and transformation and come out the other side of it, um, and again, there's a good portion of the people in like deep Southern states that again, I candidly, it was like, yeah, there's probably no shot that they're going to change their mind on me or like what we're trying to accomplish time.

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

And what I've seen is as people step back from that, like that creates the window of opportunity where it's like, well, let me, let me interrogate this further. And also let me interrogate why I thought that thing. And sometimes that's broadening their perspective. Sometimes it's getting them to think about it from someone else's point of view. But ultimately what I've seen is there is a significant portion of people that are willing to take that, that process and that perspective to be able to get to a space of, Hey, is this actually the thing, is the thing that I originally believe the, the thing that is actually best for us?

Yeah. I mean, that must be a good feeling though, when you have those encounters. It's amazing. I'll say there, there is an element of like, I wish it would happen faster because the, there's very real impact on people's lives. The difference of people moving now and taking action now can be the difference of whether or not we save a lot of people's lives. So there is like a balance of, we need people to understand this right now and move right now. And also knowing that that's not how human beliefs actually change.

Like you're not just going to tell someone something once and be like, you know what? I changed. I got it. I'm a whole new person now. So it's a, having that balance of like trying to get people to move quickly, but having a level of grace and empathy of them grappling with their own beliefs in that is a, it's a delicate process, but we have to continue to push the bounds on what's possible there. I'm going to have to let you go in a minute cause I know you got to be somewhere else, but I'm not letting you go until you answer the question.

Are you still training every day? Yes. Is this true? Yes. What does that look like? And is there still an aspiration or a possibility that you could return to the NFL as a quarterback? Yeah. I still train every day, get up at 4.30 in the morning. I do my training, then I get to be- What is the training? So I still do all my, you know, my skill training, my lifting, my plyometrics. So I still train the way that I did while I was playing. And part of that has just become like a discipline and practice.

Part of it is also, it becomes another form of like meditation for me in there as well. I'll say I'm not as good at like the sitting still meditation. I'm like, I feel like I have to be going, we got to make moves. That becomes a space where I have a singular focus. Having headphones in and not having to navigate some of the outside noise like that becomes an area where I'm able to be just very in tune with myself. But yeah, I still love playing football.

There's a passion that I have. I want to step back on a field. I want to lead a team to a championship. I hope that door opens. And I know I have to control the things that I can control in that process to try to bring that about. Last year, 63 quarterbacks in the NFL, half of which ended up on the weekly injury report. A lot of injuries there, which means a lot of opportunity for a guy like you. When I reflect back, it's like insane that it wasn't a team that like gave you a shot.

I know there's been these flirtations, et cetera, but like, come on people, what are you waiting for? So what is the message to the NFL, to the various GMs? What's the pitch? What's your final kind of like edict to that institution? Be true to who you say you are. The NFL coaches, GMs, all say the NFL is a meritocracy and the best players will play. They want the best talent on the field. Be true to that. I think it's a good place to end it, man.

Thank you. Oh, thank you. I really appreciate it. Everybody pick up the book on sale September 15th. Yes. Available everywhere. If people want to get involved and learn more about all of your initiatives, where's the best place to send them? They can go to Kaepernick7.com and on the foundation side, KnowYourRightsCamp.com and LumiStory.ai. Awesome. Much love, man. Thank you. It's been a pleasure. Excited for this chapter of your life, man. I'm excited for it as well. Right on, man. All right. Peace. Peace. Nice, dude.