J.R.: [00:00:00] Hello, everyone, and welcome back to another fun and exciting episode of One Thousand Gurus, where we share the stories and lessons from people of all walks of life, and I'm your host, J.R. Yonocruz. 

Today, we have a return guest, Rohit Murthy, all the way from the East Coast, Boston specifically.

For those of you who didn't catch his first appearance, Rohit was my college roommate back when we both studied at UCI for our undergraduate, and he's someone who I not only respect and admire for his career and life achievements,

Such as making his way up the corporate ladder to being a program lead for the transformation office in a major pharmaceutical company, as well as running operations and strategy for his family's skincare company. But as you can tell from our banter, we have really good chemistry, and it's always such a joy to catch up with this human being and hear about his recent life updates.

We get into a lot of various topics, such as his daily life, routines, travel, his recent extended vacation with his wife to the South of France, marriage, fitness, transformations in the pharmaceutical industry, as well as AI's impact on jobs, entrepreneurship and building a lifestyle conducive to having a balanced family [00:01:00] life, hobbies and activities, and ending with planting seeds for our future reunion, which will likely include running and some sort of alcohol.

Rohit is hands down one of my favorite guests of all time, and hopefully he'll be a recurring guest for years to come. So without further ado, please enjoy this episode with Rohit Murthy

All right. Rohit, welcome back to the show 

Rohit: Thank you for having me. Insert applause. Thank you. 

J.R.: Yeah, thanks for being back, man. Oh, yeah, that's the, that's, this is the sign to my editor future self to put in the post-production applause. You were on last year, almost a year, so 11 months pretty much, September 20th, 2025, episode 58, and now this is going to be, if I'm not mistaken, episode 97.

So, your episode was one of my favorites, still is one of my favorites. It was fantastic. We finally got to catch up after several years, and you had really good insights, a lot of personal stuff. So I'm, I'm appreciative that you were able to jump back on. [00:02:00] So, how's everything with you? How's every- how are you as a human being, Rohit?

Rohit: Yeah. It's good, man. I think this, since we last talked, a lot has changed in a good way. Transformation on my own, I think, is the theme, and that's how I'm feeling in health and wealth and family and, like, all of the right things. As strange as the rest of the world and the universe is happening around us, I feel pretty blessed in the way my life has progressed a little bit since we last talked.

And ask me how I feel today I got my fitness in, I got to socialize with my coworkers. I'm happy that we're in a position to be able to do that. I got off my wife. Things are pretty good. Like- Yeah ... I really don't have much to complain about. No. 

J.R.: Yeah. That's awesome, man. What is your daily routine like?

I'm curious. I know it probably varies day by day, but what is a typical day for you? 

Rohit: Yeah. I've actually been trying to have some more consistency since I don't travel very much for work anymore like I was in the last couple years. But now, if you can think about Monday through Friday in the position I'm in, a lot [00:03:00] of the-- a lot of my routine is built around career and then fitness, right?

And then personal life things on the weekends to make the most of the time and the place that we're in, right? So Monday through Friday, at least Monday through Thursday, I'm in the office. The office thankfully is a short walk from my house, about half a mile. That's very nice. And that's already a blessing in itself.

Yeah. Not having to drive, not having to get up, which allows me time to work out in the morning, right? So do some cardio, do some weights what have you. And then I generally leave the office with coworkers, and maybe we'll go get some happy hour, or I'll be able to come home, relax for a bit, work on the family business, and then spend time with my wife.

Maybe we go out for a walk or something. And that's pretty consistent Monday to Thursday. Friday, we'll get out and go do our own thing, or we'll socialize with friends. And then recently, for-- since the weather got nice, again, based in Boston, when everything is based around the weather. Since it got nice in around April timeframe, we've been trying to make the most [00:04:00] of local trips here in New England.

Maybe go down to Rhode Island, maybe enjoy something that's actually in Boston, something that allows us a little bit of outdoor time and also getting our steps in for the weekend. Maybe checking out a local orchard, and then trying to chill out on Sunday, get ready for the next part of the week, do our meal prepping, go to Costco, things like that.

It's pretty routine- Mm-hmm ... I think, for somebody- Yeah ... in their, in their mid-thirties, you know? 

J.R.: Yeah. I feel like it's kinda like that. I mean, maybe our sample size of two my r- I'm pretty routine as well, but maybe other people living, living you know, more chaotic lives probably have a lot more variety than us two.

Rohit: Fair point. I think, I mean, it comes in all sorts of shades of the spectrum, right? You never know what the other 35-year-old could be doing in their time. I think- 

J.R.: Yeah ... 

Rohit: be- having a routine is kind of a blessing, right? It just gives you more control over, over things that you then want to achieve on in the white space you have of your week, right?

J.R.: Yeah, actually that's a good point. I wanna get your thoughts on this because [00:05:00] I've heard before... Okay, no. I, I saw s- this person on, I don't know, social media or whatever, and he made a good point that y- you know, when you're younger and you kind of aspire to have this dream life where you get to travel all over the world, and you're just constantly in airports, and then you can see the world and do all these fun things, and that's great.

And if you like that, that's awesome. But what he proposed, and which I like and I kind of resonate more with, is that for me, being in one spot, the m- the drawbacks are, yes, less variety, but I, I personally appreciate having that routine because I feel like when my routine, my environment is more consistent and scheduled, I can do more of that deeper work and compound my habits and things like that.

And so I know I'm kind of like a weird person that- Yeah ... when I go on vacation, I feel like I need a gym, and if I, I, I'm kind of hesitant to take long vacations because it'll totally break my routine and I'm like, I'll feel like I'm gonna fall behind on my own progress if I don't [00:06:00] continue my routines.

And so even when I go to NorCal to visit my family, I'm like, "Okay, Mom, I'm gonna, you know, visit for basically twen- 24 to 36 hours, but what am I gonna do there? I have nothing. I'm just gonna see my family, spend time with you guys. It's fantastic." But I kinda wanna go back home to you know, my regular routine.

But I don't know, I'm curious what your thoughts are on that. 

Rohit: I, we, you and I are the same person. I 100% sha- share that mentality. I think, I think there's something about Being able to build a routine for, for your goals and what you want to achieve in life, right? And staying with that, especially as changes happen throughout the week or throughout the month, right?

I recall s- so much when I was traveling for work for a week at a time, and as... I am very blessed that I was able to do this, fly business class to Europe, go to Vienna, what have you. But you're... And I, I feel for people that are consultants, like I know it is a white-collar job, but, like you are constantly in the airport, constantly traveling, constantly influenced by things that are work well [00:07:00] beyond the eight hours that normally somebody would put in, and then client dinners and things like that and other entertaining, that your routine, if you're not ultra disciplined, goes out the window very quickly.

And if you do that for multiple work travels, you ruin all the progress that you're making against a goal that you have set up for yourself before, right? If you don't fill the white space correctly. You can look at like other senior partners or other things, people that have been like really veterans, and they all like, "Okay, we'll, we'll only have salads.

They're in the gym every morning." They try to stick- Mm ... to the routine exactly as you mentioned, even if it's like personal travel or for work travel, but it's so easy to fall off track on that. And I think one part that you mentioned is like even if it's vacations, my wife and I are the same, the long vacation puts us in a state of uncertainty, right?

Mm. And there's things that we crave getting back to, and part of that craving is built into the routine, right? And the, some of the [00:08:00] predictability or some of the just the relaxing that we know we can achieve because otherwise we would, we would find ourselves in that same bucket of maybe gluttony over that, that time, right?

In every sense- Yeah ... of the word, right? 

J.R.: Yeah, definitely. Yeah, I wanted to ask too, 'cause you had-- you did a trip recently, right? I think I saw some of your photos on social media. Where did you go, and how was the trip? 

Rohit: We did, we did a longer trip, and this is... It's longer because this time we were able to take a little bit of time off Melissa's work for a week to the, to some pretty unknown parts of France that a lot of Americans would not go to.

We were able to go to effectively like the woods, right? Like a campsite or like cabins in the Ardèche region of France. But we wanted to buck- to bookend that with a trip to Marseille. Very quickly, over two days, we were able to cram all the things that we saw that Anthony Bourdain did in the south of [00:09:00] France- Mm

like bouillabaisse, sailing on the Mediterranean, cool bars, things like that. Rent a car, drive up through Provence, and then go into these They're called gîtes, and gîtes are repurposed old cabins or old dwellings that exist in a very wooded, foresty area of France, which is beautiful for camping, hiking, biking, canoeing, what have you, through the Ardèche River Valley.

My previous boss retired and basically took over one of these gîtes as a groundskeeper, lives there, and he rents them out as throughout the holiday season. We're the first Americans- Mm ... in that whole region for that season. And it was nice because he knew that I wasn't trying to totally chill out like a lot of the other Europeans do.

So he has the Starlink set up so I could work on the family business. We were able to go on hikes and stick to the fitness routine behind it that most people don't do, but also able to tour these beautiful little French villages that are mostly untouched [00:10:00] during, during the year. And then we finally bookended that trip by driving up to Lyon, doing the food tour again one of France's best food cities and then closed out that trip flying back, and went right back into the routine the day after.

So it was- Mm ... it was good. It was good. It was, it was pushing on a long time out. We were, we were even feeling it for those- Yeah ... those nine days. We were like, "Okay, this is..." I understand people take these long extended vacations, but that was almost solidifying to us that it really has to be worth it, right?

Right. To break the routine for that long. 

J.R.: Yeah, definitely. I was gonna ask so, whose idea was it for France, and how did you... This is my analytical nuts and bolts brain talking, but, like, how did you structure this trip, plan it out? Like, how the itinerary or the activities, like, how did that come into be?

Rohit: Hmm. I... Couple things. So we, we knew we were gonna have- We knew we wanted to take time in the second half of May. That [00:11:00] was the first thing. So that's like the start of the tourist season in most of Europe. So we wanted to get ahead of areas that we could be going to. We know we wanted to do something that was a short flight from Boston, right?

So instead of burning two days to go to Asia like we did for our honeymoon, we wanted to do something that was achievable with an overnight flight and then a return the same day flight kind of thing. So th- Europe is... Western Europe is, is very much in that bucket. The third thing was my wife has not been to, to any part of France, and she wanted to see that, so we knew we were gonna go to France.

The thing that we were debating was, do we do multiple countries or do we go to some unique part of France? So that was first, first like setting of how we ended up in France. The second part of that was the more and more we thought about things that we like around food, the ocean cool bars and restaurants and things like that, Marseille, the [00:12:00] south of France city, port city of Marseille was more and more of a draw.

And so naturally went down the Anthony Bourdain rabbit hole, and that was like, okay, some of the best food in France as far as seafood goes, and the North African immigration influence like Moroccan spice influence is very much in the port city of Marseille. So those, so okay, so now we have that city.

The same thing for like cool food, culture, melting pot of things is Lyon, right? And so that's up the Rhône River Valley, and so we're like, okay, that would be a great city to visit as well, right? This is not Paris. There's not Parisians here, and people are so much friendlier than the stereotypical- Mm-hmm

like Parisian and like everybody's welcoming. So then the part was like, so what else do we do in that timeframe? So we also are lavender farmers, and we're like, okay, that's the start of the lavender season in that area, so maybe we can get our way to Provence and see some of the lavender, at least the start of it.

It won't be the full bloom, but we can see how they're preparing for the same sort of season that we would be preparing for. And then the thing that really sealed it [00:13:00] was I had remembered that my boss from Zurich did retire, did buy the Jeep there. I contacted him. We worked out a plan on how to get there.

Like we did have to rent a car. That was the first time I ever drove in Europe. But we figured that out. Now backing into like all of this and trying to prepare myself for flight patterns what it would be like to drive there, what it would be like to get to all these cities, I did actually use a lot of variations of generative AI.

So I ran like a Gemini prompt. I ran like a Copilot prompt. I did my own Claude prompt. Like I just use these pretty regularly for my own work or for work at my pharma company in the regular career. So I'm just like I try these once in a while to help me think about what's an optimal way to rent the car.

Like, where should we drop it off? What are the routes to take, right? Things that I would normally just do research on my own. I'm trying to stay very conscious of staying sharp while not just giving my brain to- Mm-hmm ... 

J.R.: generative 

Rohit: [00:14:00] AI, right? And lazing out that way. But that did help quite a bit when it came to some flight planning, day planning, as we made the plan between the days we had off, whether we were thinking about going Lyon to Marseille or Marseille to Lyon, right?

Through that. So that was all very useful in itself of having somebody there that was gonna be in the area that we could talk to, having some pretty well-published articles like Anthony Bourdain about Lyon and Marseille, and then also using generative AI. All kind of put that together, and then the rest of it was searching through Google Flights, Amex Chase.

What are the deals that are going through so I don't break the bank doing this. Mm-hmm. 'Cause, you know, getting to Europe is fairly expensive. When we were in those areas, Marseille, the hotels were pretty expensive, but everything else was fairly inexpensive. The Ardèche region relatively was inexpensive, and Lyon relatively inexpensive compared to something like Paris, but still pretty pricey.

But renting the car was like... Of course, [00:15:00] they did the Seinfeld thing where they're like, "Oh, you have a reservation. We didn't hold you the reservation, so now you have to take the upgraded reservation." Okay. And so we're like, so now we're out, like, I don't know, like, it was like 1,500 euros for this car for the week.

So I was like- Oh ... okay, that was a massive cost, but we- Yeah ... we, we made it back and it was, like, well worth having that reliable of an Audi and stuff to drive around. It was very fun. So- 

J.R.: Mm. 

Rohit: It was... Yeah. That was the long-winded answer, but it was a definitely unique experience, 'cause then we were able to drive around.

I, I would, I would ask everybody to look up the Ardèche region, because it is very unique to that part of Europe, of the rolling vineyards and the rolling forests that were cut through, through the ar- glacier pathways, and ha- now have the Ardèche River, which is a beautiful canoeing spot. But just wonderful rolling hills and mountains that were part of the original cat- crusades, part of the original conquests, and a bunch of picturesque Game of Thrones little- [00:16:00] 

J.R.: Mm

Rohit: castles and cliff-side villages that are still populated today, and we're able to just walk over to them or drive into them and talk to people. And with our very, very broken French and just pointing at things, and people inquiring where we're from. It was very nice. Yeah. 

J.R.: Yeah, yeah. Is there... Actually, on that point, are, like, what is the ratio?

Do they all speak English? Or are you guys just trying to speak French, or do you have to kind of know some French in order to navigate? 

Rohit: In the Ardèche region, I would recommend you know enough just general French phrases. There's a lot of people now with globalization that are learning English, but a lot of people do also learn German or Dutch because a lot of the tourists come from that area, so they might speak one of those fluently.

So people are learning English. We were able to get around with enough, After a while you recognize the patterns and I, I guess the downside of globalization is things start to look very similar that everywhere you go, right? We were able to go to a supermarket that was... [00:17:00] We had to get our groceries.

We're staying in a cabin and we basically had nothing, right? So the j- the gîte, the cabin had had cookware, had place settings but we had to go buy we had to go buy our eggs and our meats and our oils and things like that. So we went... So our, my boss, his name is Rob, direct- He's like, he's like, "You can go to the little French market, these are the times it opens, or you can go to your version of Walmart or the French version of Walmart."

Mm. So it's called Leclerc, and we drove over there, and you're basically av- able to navigate it 'cause we're all familiar with American supermarkets. Nobody spoke any English anywhere at all, so we just were able to point and sort of form the words of what we wanted. But it's not... It's so globalized now.

You just kinda know the boxes all look the same, they're just in French. The buffet or, or the butcher all looks the same, it's just in French, right? Enough pictures and even the cashier was, like, very helpful. Everybody's super nice, and they're, like, just trying to explain in French and point on what we're supposed to do.

So I wouldn't shy away from [00:18:00] going there again. Mm-hmm. I would probably pick up a few more phrases though. 

J.R.: Yeah, definitely. I feel like I'm the same when I go to places like Japan where I'm like, "Okay, Google Translate is gonna help out here," but also I'm kind of getting familiar with the vibe or even just etiquette or how you move through spaces.

You kind of get the vibe of that when y- after a few days in a place. You're like, "Okay- Yeah ... this is kinda how things work. This is where you go. This is how you pay. This is the normal behavior that people have in these spaces." So that's a, it's a good point. 

Rohit: You know, the, I mean, I think, I think, like Japan, I think we get-- We're, we're, we're blessed with the culture that Japanese culture is, and, like, how welcoming for the most part individuals are, and th- I think some of the, the chillness behind that.

I think the South of France was very much the same. Sri Lanka was very much the same. But going to India is... When we went is a bit more chaotic, right? There's, there's like- Yeah ... there's a lot happening. There's very much the [00:19:00] castes that are happening. There's very much shocking of what you'll see from the ultra-wealthy to the lowest of the low, and, like, how that splits between the influx of tech and just the sheer amount of people crammed into a space, that it's, it's, it's fairly uncomfortable for outsiders, right?

And just a quick aside into that is I wouldn't shy away from going to the South of France anywhere at any time, right? It was, like, ultra-safe, ultra-welcoming, like, all parts of that. You generally, to your point know how to move in the space after just a few hours, right? And how not to draw the attention to yourself.

India is just such a-- Well, Bangalore is just such a population density, and such a population density of men, that it is very uncomfortable to be in certain spaces because just the sheer amount of men that are there compared to any woman or not woman is just is very different than anywhere else in the world, I think, at this point in time.

And Melissa was not, maybe not the [00:20:00] most comfortable at that. But then you compound that with you-- The language barrier is pretty high, like- Right ... in that, and kinda the ways of, ways of moving and the cultural norms are just a little bit different. So I think there's places to learn in this as we, as we evolve.

I think there'll be even more globalization. Not to take away from the culture, but I think this is modern problems to solve, right? 

J.R.: Yeah, yeah. That reminds me, I've seen a couple, maybe they were Instagrams or TikToks of this, this Asian woman who's living or maybe just touring or traveling through India, I believe.

And she was, like, doing one of those trend videos where it's like ranking how safe I feel in this city. And- Yeah ... for the most part, I think it was counter what people were expecting, 'cause she was like, "Oh, these places are great, but I did have this one weird interaction, but just so you know." And so that was interesting.

But I'm curious, 'cause you mentioned the sheer volume of men, and I'm, I'm ignorant to what it's like there. But [00:21:00] why, why is there a high volume or, yeah, high volume of men in those spaces and where are the women? I don't know. 

Rohit: Yeah. I think, I think classically it stemmed from, well, two things, which is like I think if you were to go to Indian midsize or small cities or villages, you'll be very safe and everybody'll be super friendly and it'll be a great time.

Truly unique to, to go to these places off the beaten path or even on the beaten path, just less crowded. But if you go to a major city like Mumbai, Bangalore, Delhi, Hyderabad, right? You have, you have people that have come in for jobs, right? And cities that have built up around a man working and a woman being at home, and that sort of cultural norm has, is, is changing quite a bit now, thankfully, but it's very recent.

This is in the past five, 10 years kind of thing. So you just have a sheer amount of men who are in the service industry, amount of men who are still in white, white-collar tech, and then you, you just have like [00:22:00] men out doing things now with the income while women are generally at home. It's starting to flip.

It's starting to be safer as well, but we went on New Year's Day, right? New Year's Eve, we were at a very nice hotel and there was a rooftop party, and that rooftop party, I kid you not, was, was filled to the brim with if you were to take 100 people, it was 98 men, right? Wow. And like two women. It was w- truly wild to see that actually in person, right?

I, even I was uncomfortable. I was like, "Oh, this is like weirdly a lot of men all at the same time." Yeah. Like, this is taking us totally onto a different topic, but it is It's gonna be a problem in... If it's not already a problem, it's gonna be a problem for a lot of Asia, like just the men, men to female ratio, right?

That's how wars start, like unemployed single men, right? 

J.R.: Mm. 

Rohit: And even if they're employed, it's like single men, right? 

J.R.: Right. No, that's true. Awesome. Okay, cool. I [00:23:00] want to... I know we have a few other sort of topics we briefly discussed, but I'm curious. We're kind of on the personal side. So you mentioned one year being married.

I'm, I'm genuinely curious how that's been like. And then shifting it back, we did talk about the whole fitness thing a little bit and how we're both in our locking in into our fitness and our personal health. So how's, how's married life been? 

Rohit: Yeah. Thanks for asking. It's been really good, man. Married life has been really fun, right?

It is like living with your best friend. We get to be silly all the time, we get to be cozy all the time. It's really nice to have the person that you love in such close proximity. We were already living together before, and the only thing that really changed is now we have rings on. But we basically have, actually, I mean, one thing that did change is we're more aligned in routine, right? And more aligned in goals than ever, right? Now I think one thing is okay, we, we now kinda know where we wanna be financially, where we wanna be in our health, where we recognize some of our health problems that we've been individually having, and now building each other up to [00:24:00] figure out how we can solve that through diet and exercise or family history and things like that.

And then now even getting to family planning is a big topic, right? Which all relates into health. So it's been really nice to also enjoy life together. Okay, we, we have friends come to town, we've gone to so many other people's weddings, which has just been a blessing to travel for those and to see other parts of the world.

And then weather the, the winter that we had here together through all the the deep snow and blizzards and things like that, and then bring it out to spring and again back to the friends coming to visit, the best that Boston has to offer, and things that we want to generally explore together.

And it's been really nice in the time. But again that also allowed us maybe a little bit of being lazy to be like, "Okay, let's get a pizza," or, like- 

J.R.: Mm ... "

Rohit: Let's just go out." "Let's just have a bunch of drinks at the Greek restaurant," right? Or things like that, and that's caught up to us now in our mid-30s.

You know? 

J.R.: Yeah. So I'm curious, how have you been s- trying to swing that [00:25:00] pendulum back? So I know you've been career-focused for a long time, and then, you know, you guys just got married recently and getting into the routine. And I actually had a couple on this show, and they had talked about that. "Yeah, you know, it's great.

We're very comfortable, but then we got too comfortable, and then we're eating too much, and we're like, 'Okay, we gotta start working out.'" So- Yeah ... I'm curious how you've, how you've been swinging that pendulum back. 

Rohit: You know- So I'll start with a few things, and this will be a little long-winded, but I think I promise you there's like many points in this, which is part of, part of after we got married last year in May, there was...

It was the summer in Boston, which is a great time. Bunch of work travel happened, which kicked the routine, as we were talking about earlier. We had to move apartments, right? So we had to recently m- w- just last year, we had to move from maybe it was a mile away to, like, where we are today. Wasn't crazy, but it's another thing to add on.

Then more work travel and then a series of friends' weddings throughout the [00:26:00] fall of last year. Then our honeymoon through the Christmas break, which was a long time in Asia, but we saw family, which was very thankful for that. And then coming back into the winter. And amongst that was also a career opportunity that I really, really wanted to join within the company I'm in to lead some of this transformation, pharma transformation that we're in.

And this-- all of these things compounded to us trying to be healthy, right? Melissa's a bit more on top of going to solid core Pilates cycle classes 'cause she likes those, and I was just trying to fit, stay alive through kettlebell swings, long walking campaigns, some HIIT workouts where I could fit those in.

But all of that into, if we take from when we were married all the way through winter, all the way to spring, and then the new job starts, which was kind of A lot of camaraderie was built around like those [00:27:00] happy hours I was mentioning after work, so lots of beer intake through the, through the spring timeframe and winter timeframe, especially as it was cold, led to like definite weight gain in there.

Like we were getting both getting too comfortable through this. And I had started to do something which, to your analytical point, was like may-maybe this is a little overkill, but I was... I did something which was in the quarter of tw-- last quarter of twenty twenty-five, last four months of twenty twenty-five, I tracked how many drinks I had every day, right?

And I tracked what my workout was, and I tracked like generally just like how I felt, and I just ran it through a spreadsheet 'cause the, the blocker for me was like how easy it was to journal, which is open up Google Sheets and run that. And I was averaging a month drink count of like eighty to a hundred, right?

J.R.: Wow. 

Rohit: And it was eighty to a hundred because it was like, oh, it was a wedding, so blow out like 16 drinks on that. Then there was like a family [00:28:00] party, blow out another like 16 drinks in that. Then there was like happy hours. Then there was like travel, like on our own travel oh, weekend in weekend California, weekend with the family.

Like people come visit. Like then you have the honeymoon and stuff. We're trying all the things. So I was like, okay, this is not great in this timeframe, right? So for twenty-five, that was just the last quarter. So then I was like, okay, for, for twenty-six, I've every single day I've journaled on like how many drinks have I had?

Am I taking a vitamin supplement stack? Which is I'll come back to for... I originally started it for like winter health, and then I just kinda continued on with it. And then what is my workout? And then generally what was my diet for the day? How am I feeling? What activities? Did I like walk to work or not walk back, right?

And through Jan- I s- I noticed the drinks were trending up, right? It was like 40, 50, 60, right? And then in May when we went to the, to France, then we're [00:29:00] like, "Oh, okay, we're at like 65." And I'm like, This is a lot of beer, man. Like this is a lot of intake of alcohol, calories- The PR man

even though it's..." Yeah. And it was like, and I was, I was thinking about this, and I was like even if y- like financially is one thing, and we can touch on that in a second, but like I was looking at that while I was looking at how many workouts I was doing, right? Through that. I was actually more consistent in working out through '26 because I wasn't traveling and I had a routine, but my routine included going to like happy hours with friends, right?

Or like crushing a bunch of drinks or like we... Melissa and I would go out together and do the same thing. Bottle of wine. We love wine. Great. Let's just have one, maybe buy a couple. Do that whole thing. Started to really compound through the spring timeframe. So then we were like, "What is the things that will get us to like a more healthy state?"

And this is where family planning comes in because we were like, if we're really serious about trying to have a baby now We need to make sure our bodies are in good [00:30:00] health, right? And it's not just being lean, it's making sure that like we're producing the right sperm and right, right egg. So we really cut down on drinking starting from that basically after May.

Was like, okay, let's just wean off the stuff. People respect it enough if you have like athletic beers or like just don't drink at all. They're like pretty good about it. That's like I think the time of people like pressuring you is like well past now because there's so many non-alcoholic bees- like options.

But we got really serious about let's start doing the family planning thing, like the prenatal pills. Thankfully the supplement stack I was taking was like vitamin D and zinc and magnesium and stuff for like sleep optimization and sperm health and like just general health because you need that in the winter in the northeast, and that's also very good for, for for like sperm health and, and men's fertility.

So trying to work those into like routine and keep ourselves more responsible about not drinking, generally eating healthy, like being fit, like making sure we max our [00:31:00] like cardio through the weeks and through the, through the days, and also do like strength training and stuff. Like personally, I started this-- the f- like I'll-- I shit you not, but like the start of the year till like June, I don't think I dropped a single pound as much as I was working out.

But then June till mid... Sorry, mid-July till now with like staying on top of the nine hundred calorie burn a day, like twelve thousand steps, like genuinely eating healthy. We were eating healthy anyway. Like we always pack our lunch and stuff, just maybe less pizzas and less frequent like eating out. But I've dropped like ten pounds consistently, right?

And so averaging like a pound and a half or a pound a week kind of thing. 

J.R.: Yeah. 

Rohit: And like a lot of that also is again, not having like empty calories from alcohol. My body's training itself to make the right choices on what to burn. Then cardio and, and, and other strength training is helpful.

And Melissa's doing very much the same thing because again, like what can we do to prepare ourselves, prepare our bodies to, to really start a [00:32:00] family. And that goes into like what does our next year plan really look like if everything works well, knock on wood, right? If we're able to conceive, how do we build our next level of freedom, the next chapter in our life?

So that's kind of where we're at right now and how like we took all the joy we had last year of like eating and dining and like just generally, generally enjoying life and like still enjoying life, but try to make like health changes throughout that. 

J.R.: Hmm. I like that. A few things I wanna go back to.

First off, if you're ever on 1000 Gurus and you say, "I had a spreadsheet and I tracked something," J.R. will light up because he loves hearing about that stuff. So, Yeah. Hell 

Rohit: yeah. 

J.R.: If you say, "Yeah, I track my things, and I was doing this," and I was like, "Oh, that's awesome.

Pl- tell me about, tell me about this." Okay, so going back, you said that from, you said mid-July or something like that until now, what, what were the exact changes that allowed you to- that your body started to respond to? Maybe I missed that part. 

Rohit: Yeah. I I was [00:33:00] doing a lot of strength training through the winter months and into the spring, and then into, into summer I was doing a good amount of strength training.

I have a nice setup here at home, at least free weights, I can go to 50s. I have a treadmill, I have bench, like pull-up bar, things like that. And my body was responding well to that. I- thankfully, it's fairly easy for me to put on muscle, but it's very hard for me to burn fat. And the thing that I think changed the most, on top of, on top of diet I think that's...

Pulling out empty calories, I think, was the main lever, right? And pulling out those empty calories from beer and happy hours was, I think, the main lever. But then the second main lever that I pulled on was s- walking, right? I didn't realize how sedentary the day was. Even walking to work and back, or even just walking in the office, that averaged, I think, maybe 5,000, 6,000 steps, right?

Maybe... But then I looked at, [00:34:00] like, how much Melissa and I walked on the weekend when we'd walk around Boston or go for hikes or do bike trails and stuff, and I remember feeling like, "Okay, that's a workout, but I'm not exhausted from it," right? "I'm not sore from it." So I thought about what could I do every day to get to 12,000 steps and still be able to do it the next day.

And basically since July 16th, I've been at 10 to 12,000 steps every day. Just an easy walk in the morning on the treadmill, or I switch some incline in there for 10, 15 minutes and then go to a regular walk, and it fits well into my routine. And then, again, thankfully it's summer here and we're able to, after 8:00 PM, go out for a walk while it's still light out, right?

And so- Mm ... fit that into another day maybe with go to the office and you hit the steps easy. That has been a total game changer for me, right? Mm-hmm. I think just the ability to just do zone one, zone two, like, cardio, right? Yeah. My body's responded super well. And [00:35:00] I've-- There's a quote that's like, "Everything you want in life is on the other side of something you don't want to do."

And, like- Okay ... I never want to run, right? Like- Mm ... I never wanna do cardio, and I never wanna do that. I know it's something I don't wanna do. I feel out of breath and I'm sweaty all the time, but I just embraced it, really. I just embraced it. Even the morning calls and stuff at work, if I'm sweaty, I'm like, "Fuck it.

At least I'm making progress in my, in my goal." People- Yeah ... can deal with the sweat, right? But I- ... always avoided that, right? My body- That's awesome ... responded so well. Like- Yeah ... soon I was like, "Damn- Like, oh, wow ... I should've done this, like, years ago." Right, 

J.R.: right, right. Yeah. Wait. Okay, so just to recap, so you've, you've been doing strength training, but you said that you were doing more of it in the last six weeks or so.

Is that-- That was one part of it? 

Rohit: I've actually been doing- Maybe a little bit less, more focused strength training, and much more steps and cardio- Gotcha, gotcha ... that got my heart rate elevated to sweat. Right? 

J.R.: Okay, gotcha. Okay. So, and on top of [00:36:00] that, you mentioned maybe the empty calories. So you're probably con- your, probably your calorie intake has been dropping, right?

Is, that's probably has helped with 

Rohit: your weight loss. This is, this is, this is 100% true. The one thing of tracking that I just, I never got into, as many times as I tried with MyFitnessPal to track caloric intake, I think it is super important for people that are serious about weight loss. I think it is very- Right

important to understand, like, how much you're actually consuming by looking at your plate and weighing out just to have a perspective of what you're eating, right? I think for meat, maybe it's a little bit easier because we're kind of trained through restaurants to understand what a steak size is or what a filet is, things like that.

But, like, how much rice should you be having? Or, like, how many vegetables are really in the serving? I think those things that are also then hidden by baked goods or things like that I think it's super important to be serious about that, and that's actually the next plateau I'm trying to, to get around is okay, I got rid of the empty alcohol calories.

J.R.: Right, 

Rohit: right. Melissa and I- Those calories ... [00:37:00] generally eat a lot of whole foods anyway, like single-ingredient whole foods that we'll combine. It's getting away from maybe the weekend burger or pizza or really authentic Chinese food or layers of spice in Indian food. That's hard to give up.

I don't think we're gonna give that up anytime soon. It's just understanding the portion size in there, too. 

J.R.: Yeah, definitely. Okay. So you probably are trending into less calories, but also, what were... So in the last six weeks, you've been trying to hit that 10 or 12K baseline or something like that of steps.

What were you at before? Do you know? 

Rohit: Yeah. I think I was 6,000 or 7,000 steps on average- Okay, so like- ... if I was to look back. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, 

J.R.: yeah. Okay. I basically doubled it. So you kind of like doubled it. Yeah. Oh, okay, okay. 

Rohit: Yeah. 

J.R.: Cool. That makes a lot of sense. Oh man, I had a thought but then I lost it.

Oh. Yeah, so I've been working with my girlfriend Blessie on, like... I've been her fitness coach for the last four or five months now. Okay. She's made a lot of progress, and it's been pretty awesome, like I've told her. It's so [00:38:00] cool to, you know, progress for myself, but to see someone else hit their goals and...

You know, I'm not gonna try to take any credit for it. I'm just giving her guidance, knowledge, and stuff- Yeah, yeah ... like that, best practices, as someone who she's never really worked out or dieted or trained or anything like that before. But she's... What I'll give her is that she's very consistent, and when you give her direction, she follows it really well.

And so she's been controlling her portion sizes. She's been weighing herself. She's been tracking her calories. She's been trying to get protein. She's been working- Yeah ... she went from working out zero times per week to three times, and now she's like, "I don't know what's wrong with me because I think I like running now."

And I'm like, "Who are you?" Yeah. 

Rohit: Yeah. Yeah. 

J.R.: And so again, she was like you and like most of us, like we don't really like running. And so super proud of her because she's dropped, like almost 15 pounds, and she's tiny. She's like- 

Rohit: Nice. Yeah ... 

J.R.: she's like, you know, a, a really tiny Filipino girl, and she's I wanna say, yeah, minus 15 pounds now.

And I'm like, when she dropped her first 10, I was like, "Okay, we're gonna celebrate with Korean barbecue." But now she's- Yeah ... in that mental [00:39:00] habit of "Okay, I'm f- I'm actually full now," so it's like building those good habits. 

Rohit: Yeah. Yeah. 

J.R.: And then also you know, not, you know, when I tempt her with all of my bogos, if anyone follows my food Instagrams or anything like that, I'm constantly tempting her.

I'm, I'm the worst coach- ... because as a boyfriend I'm always like, "But we have buy one get one free Vietnamese- Yeah, yeah, yeah ... iced coffee." And I'm like, "Do you love me, yes or no? Do you want this?" And so she's like, "Okay, is this coach ta- talking to me or is this my boyfriend talking to me?" And I'm like- 

Rohit: Yeah

J.R.: "Well, your boyfriend will be sad, but your coach is proud of you, so..." But she's, she's been fantastic. Yeah ... and I've been terrible. But also on your other point of "I hate cardio," it's funny because for, for any of my gym buddies who work out with me, I'm probably the worst person to work out with because if, if I even get a hint or a whiff of, of a exercise you don't like, guess what we're doing first?

We're doing that exercise- Yeah. ... you don't like. And typically for my friends it's like core, and then it's like running or any sort of cardio. Yeah. And I'm like, "Okay, well, if you don't like doing it, then we have to do it. You do know that's- Yeah ... the rules, right?"

And they're like, "Fuck, okay." And then [00:40:00] I'm, I'm grateful that they're always game for it, but I'm like, I know I'm like the terrible friend to work out with, so it's kinda fun. 

Rohit: It's important though. It's it's, it's every excuse is is what do they say? Every excuse you have is a brick in a prison you built for yourself, right?

Mm-hmm. And it's like this, it's the same thing. It's all on the side of things you don't wanna do, unlock the person you want to become, right? And it's a lot of that really is, is running. Like, man, that really is the foundation of life. Like, humans are built for running long distances. That's- No

that's the efficiency that humans have. I was reading something like- That's 

J.R.: super true ... 

Rohit: there's nothing more efficient than the human body, right? Mm. Mm-hmm. And it's like, you, you eat a bowl of oatmeal, and you put the human on a bike, and you can go 30 miles. There's nothing else in the world that is like that, right?

And it's, it's just entirely efficient for, for what we were created to do, which is, again, run along, run long distances to hunt animals, or outpace cheetahs and stuff. 

J.R.: Yeah. Endurance, right? Yeah. I totally agree with that. I think there was a book that I read, it was either Comfort [00:41:00] Crisis or Built to Move or this other autobiography, but it was talking about how, yeah, our bodies are built for endurance, long distance, like the hunts for multiple days.

And so I always think about that when I'm trying to either do a fast or I'm like, okay, let me, let me skip this meal and then get my fasting period a little bit longer, or if I'm doing a run and maybe I'm a little bit hungry, but I'm like, my body doesn't need food. That's just my brain telling me that, oh, you know, you're getting a little bit low or you're exerting yourself.

Yeah. But when you break through that, especially on a run, right? After the first X amount of minutes, like five or so minutes, then you're like, "Oh, okay, this is pretty sustainable." And then I go from, "Okay, maybe let's just do an easy two miles," to be like, "Fuck it, we're doing four," like halfway in.

Yeah. And, and then it's oh, that actually wasn't too bad. And then as you start to, for me, I start to associate that feeling of accomplishment and the afterglow burn of running to my conception of running, which makes me wanna do it again. Yeah. And I think maybe that's a hack for [00:42:00] some people of let's say you don't wanna do something like running, but if you attach it to, like, how you feel as opposed to the immediate gratification.

So eating a burger feels amazing. Yeah. But if you attach it- Yeah ... to the, the first 15 minutes of eating, then of course you're gonna eat more burgers. But if you attach it to the last 15 minutes or whatever afterwards when you feel like shit, then you're like, okay, next time I'm like, mm, I don't know, that burger made me feel terrible, like- Yeah.

hours afterwards, so maybe I'll kind of lock onto that mentally. And that, for me personally, that's helped out a lot. 

Rohit: It's a huge part of it, right? I think, you know, I, I did start... Back to the point of data and to, like, how to start in a ways that, that are maybe less of swallowing the frog at the beginning.

There's some things that I, that I had to push myself into that I was trying to recall What I did during the pandemic when I lost so much weight so quickly, right? And things were... Because [00:43:00] I wasn't socializing with anybody, there was no alcohol intake. I was genuinely eating whole foods and things that I cooked from things that I knew how to cook or, like, when I was getting delivery, it was, like, rice bowls and chicken and stuff, like fairly simple and fairly affordable.

And then I remember to, to... We did yoga in the apartment, like CorePower membership. But then I was, like, thinking about it. I was like, "Damn, I really did go walk around West Hollywood a lot." That's what I did. To get out of the, get out of the house, I just went and walked around the neighborhood and discovered something new, right?

Neighborhoods I never would've seen because you don't really walk anywhere in LA, right? And I think that was a motivation to, to get out and see some things in the sunlight or climb up into the, like, Sunset Boulevard and see areas that, again, you normally wouldn't see 'cause you just drive around.

And I think I tried to channel a lot of that here in Boston, was like, "Well, why don't I just go walk around the neighborhoods and see what else is out there?" And I actually kind of enjoyed that, right? Just [00:44:00] observing life and stuff. And then, like, when it's cold or rainy, then I'll throw on Game of Thrones on the laptop and walk on the treadmill.

But it doesn't substitute to just being outside and seeing, seeing life happen, you know? Yeah. I think that was a piece that we were missing a lot when it comes to just, just the gym, you know? 

J.R.: Yeah. I totally resonate with that because if I had my choice, I would go out and walk out at the park.

I have a park close by to my place thankfully, and there's a track as well, and there's always people there, so it's great. You get greenery, there's people- Yeah ... and it feels lively. It's just when it's super hot over here that I'm like, "I honestly can't do it, so I gotta go-" Yeah ... "to the gym and walk or inside or something like that."

But you know what I got recently was I bought a manual kick scooter, and so now- Okay ... this whole going around the par- going around the neighborhood, now I can go further. So now I can, like- Yeah ... go to these nearby acai bowl places, or I can go to H Mart or something like that with my kick scooter.

And it's great because then dang, I feel like I'm a kid again because just scootering around. And specifically kick scooter because it's [00:45:00] weird that a, a, an electric scooter is almost the same price, but I'm like, "No, I'm gonna make this manual because I wanna get my, you know, workout in." Yeah. And the first, the first couple of weeks, I'm like, "Mm, my, my thighs are a little sore, my arm," 'cause you're kinda holding yourself up.

Rohit: Yeah. 

J.R.: But the downside, which is a first-world problem, is that I don't get as many steps when I'm on a scooter. And I'm like- Yeah ... "Dang, I scootered for, like, 20 minutes. I only got, like, a 500 steps or something like that, or like 1,000 or something." Yeah. Whereas normally a 20 minute would give me, like, 2,000 steps, so I'm like, "I know I'm getting the workout, but I'm not getting the credit for it," so it kind of annoyed me a little bit but 

Rohit: Oh, oh, believe me, I'm like, I'm exactly in that mentality right now 'cause...

So I look- I looked at- I looked at all the data sources I had for health tracking from the pandemic to try to understand what I was doing healthy there and why I was gaining so much weight in Boston, aside from the tons of pizza and beer, right? That was like- Right, 

J.R.: right, right. 

Rohit: But basically I had, I had a Fitbit back then, then I had, [00:46:00] I had a Fitbit for a long time, then I had a smart scale, then I had my health records through, through United and through Epic.

Then I had this Apple Watch, and most recently I have like different health records through like One Medical. And so I pulled all of those together and fed it to Gemini, and I was like, "Build me my, my trend over time," and watched myself get fatter, right, on the sc- on the chart. I was like, "Fuck." No, no, stop.

J.R.: Abort, abort. I was like, 

Rohit: I was like, "Damn it, Gemini, you're selling me out." I was like, it was wild learning. I was like, "Oh shit, this is like..." It was like- 

J.R.: Output delivered. You are fat. Goddammit. 

Rohit: That's basically what it said. I was like, "Oh man, this is like, this is not good. It's not a good time." But,

but I did the same, I did the same for the steps, right? I was like trying to pull out where I could get like some other qualitative health records, and it was like the [00:47:00] step thing is just, is such a cheat code to losing weight. Mm. Like it doesn't matter where you are. Like I've, I looked at like my trends of time for over the last six years of like when I was in periods of decline, my step count was just 7,000 plus, right?

And now that I'm like doubling that, it's a much more rapid decline. But there's areas of time again when the routine was broken, sitting on planes, traveling a ton for work, traveling for weddings. Yeah, maybe dancing at weddings or whatever, but like just no steps. Like totally like below the like 4,000, 5,000 mark, even if it was walking to work and around the office.

Just think about how sedentary you are throughout the rest of the time, like Ubering out to places or like eating out or whatever. It's like th- just not doing that was like s- such a, such a negative, right? And like now, now I'm like anybody can do it. Like- 

J.R.: Yeah. 

Rohit: And if you don't, and like now you're attached to the number, and so like- [00:48:00] If I substitute for biking or something, I'm like, "Oh shit, I still have to go get the steps somewhere."

J.R.: Yeah, 

Rohit: exactly. Even though I know I did it, right? Yeah. 

J.R.: Yeah, yeah, yeah. A few things. Yeah, so in those books, books that I referenced you know, our bodies are meant to move, but also n- aside from, let's say, the weight loss piece, there's also the our bodies function better when it moves. You know, like you look at all the blue zones and longevity and everything, it's always people who are, when they're older, they're still constantly moving.

But also, your immune system improves because as your body... I- I don't know the science behind it, right, or- Yeah ... the terminology, but it flushes out your system, where it's constantly basically it's oiling your machine by moving more constantly. And I even for my mom's birthday recently, I got her a Fitbit because I just...

There's some- there's, there's something about gamifying or seeing data that, at least for me personally, I love seeing. And then so she saw it and she's like, "Oh," and like, "I'm gonna get more steps." I'm like, "Oh, that's great." And so there's that piece. But also it's like now with my neurotic tracking I, I can't sleep if I don't have [00:49:00] at least 10,000 baseline, but I average like 12.

And for people who ever read my yearly summaries, I now, I have a baseline of I don't know what the number is, like 2.5 million steps per year. And so now I'm thinking in the back of my head, if I don't hit that, I'm a failure to myself. So, like- Yeah ... I'm trying to beat my last week's average from like 12K to now 15K, and I'm like, bro, what are you doing to yourself?

'Cause now it's a hedonic treadmill of steps. 

Rohit: Yeah. 

J.R.: And I- I know I'm just being dramatic. But now that I'm trying to dance more and I go to these sessions on every week and I'm like, okay, that's an easy eight, plus 8K, and I go clubbing on Friday or Saturday nights, and I'm just there to dance, not to do anything else.

Yeah. And so I get another like 5 or 6K. And so there are some days where I'm like hitting 20K because I get my 10 baseline plus the dancing, and then if I do my 5K runs like twice a week, then I get another 8K. So I'm like, all right, I think I'm gonna beat last year's J.R.'s step count. But also I'm like, oh, where...

If I reach, if I go to the logical conclusion of this, it's just [00:50:00] I'm nonstop walking the entire day and I my legs fall off. 

Rohit: Yeah. I was... My question for you is, well, twofold, which is how are you, how are you fueling yourself for a day where you're walking and dancing? And then now with, with dance coming back into your life, I remember that was such a big part of your life, like, how do you, how do you balance time for all these things, right?

I think that's the other piece of what do you structure your day around to, to cover your fitness, but also things that you want to do, fitness or not fitness? 

J.R.: Yeah, that's a great question. Was the first part you said, how do you fuel your days? 

Rohit: Yeah, 'cause you were mentioning fasting earlier. 

J.R.: Oh, yeah.

I feel like I eat plenty with all these buy one get one offers. So I'm like, I'm good. I'm good with cal- There are some days, like I'm like- And you know, 

Rohit: man, that makes so much sense. Like- 

J.R.: Yeah, no. Okay ... you eat a lot So I have all this extra calories to burn, so of course I have to go walk because, you know, my...

When you have a girlfriend who's on a diet and she's actually good with her diet, and now you have a buy one get one free, guess who's drinking both drinks? I am. So I drink one [00:51:00] to- one today and one tomorrow. Yeah. And I'll post a story. I'll be like, "Buy one, get one, because my girlfriend doesn't love me, so I'm drinking both by myself."

But anyways as an aside, I do try to eat really healthy. Like, 90% of the food I eat are, like, based on subscriptions. So I have this meal delivery service that's bulk protein, and then I'll do a can of whole, like pinto or black beans or roasted potatoes or something like that, and then the veggies from H-Mart, like pickled or seasoned- Yeah

veggies, kinda like kimchi and stuff like that. Protein bars, boba tea protein itself, and then maybe Greek yogurt with berries and honey and stuff like that. So my diet is very bland but it's been bland for so long, so I think it's fairly optimized. The part... The chink in my armor is really just all the buy one get one dessert sugars.

Sure. 

Rohit: Yeah. Yeah. 

J.R.: Because, like, I have a weakness for ice cream, I have a weakness for, for really good Vietnamese coffee deals. If I did not, like- If I did not like these offers and I didn't like ice cream or Vietnamese coffee, I would be like a shredded bodybuilder by now. But I'll, I'll go with like [00:52:00] just feeling good and just enjoying life.

But the other part, I was just recording an episode on 35 life lessons fro- from 35 years of life since I turned 35 earlier this year, and one of them was like rest and recovery is the biggest thing. And so the more that I push myself and the more that I feel the aches and pains, the more I know I need to rest more.

And so the biggest linchpin for me doing all these things, so like my 12K steps a day, my four workouts, my two runs, my two dance sessions, is I have to prioritize sleep. Yeah. So it's like alarm at 9:00 PM that tells me to wind down. It's s- less social media, less scrolling. The biggest unlock for me was actually just like not deactivating my accounts, but like logging out of my Instagram and that saved me hours per day, and the nighttime doom scrolling, which allows me to sleep, which allows me to get eight hours, which allows me to wake up early to do those workouts or whatnot.

Yeah. And I'll do it fasted because I kind of feel really good going on an empty stomach, insulin resistance, blah, blah, blah, yeah, yeah, yeah- Yeah, yeah ... science. But I do feel good [00:53:00] with the, like a fasted workout now and fasted runs. And so that's how I structure that, but the other piece was like how do I fit it into time?

Yeah. That one is really easy because- ... you have a lot of friends and you're very social. I have no friends and I'm not social, so I have so much time. So I, I don't drink- Fair, fair point ... because I have no friends to go out with. I c- Good point ... I swear to you, again, people who follow my personal Instagram, I go to this bar every Friday night and if I don't go with a friend I'm going by myself and I'm just drinking Diet Coke.

The bartenders all know me. They're like, "Hey, this one's on me," and I'm like, "Thanks man," and then I, you know, tip them a dollar or something like that- Yeah ... couple bucks. And then I'm just dancing for my- by myself for two hours 'cause I'm just vibing. Okay. I like dancing. 

Rohit: Yeah, yeah. 

J.R.: Alcohol-free and then I go home- Yeah

like only Diet Coke and so, it's a lot cheaper and a lot more efficient just to go by myself. Sure, yeah. But see that's the unlock for me is like I'm just by myself so no kids, no friends. Yeah. My girlfriend is super busy and she's on a diet, so 

Rohit: Yo, honest, actually, I mean, you, you [00:54:00] hit, you hit on something that was like, I actually, I didn't touch on this, but it's true.

I definitely tried to tone down how social I was at certain times and spend more time with the wife or have mutual goals. But like actually, I think that was also a big lever to pull on like financially, but also on like fitness. I was like, damn, I guess we don't have to go out and crush 10 beers.

Yeah. Like, that's probably an okay thing. And have like pizza and whatever and spend a bunch of money at this restaurant. Like- Yeah ... like I'm like, damn, it's actually, it's probably okay not to do- Yeah ... to like say no to those things. Like 

J.R.: You know what's cool? As you were saying that, like what was it? You were saying you're averaging like, what, 60 drinks per month or something like that?

I'm like, damn, that- 

Rohit: Yeah, it was crazy, man. I'll send you the spreadsheet. 

J.R.: Yeah. I'm like, dang, Rohit, you're putting up real numbers for your mid-30s, man. Like I... Dude, I, I smell a beer and I'm like already drunk, you know? Like I- ... I'm so lightweight. I mean, obviously I don't drink, right? Yeah. But yeah, I'll have, I'll have one thing and I'm like, "Dude, I feel this already, man."

Yeah. And then but I'm like, damn, you're doing 60 a month? I'm like- Yeah ... that's crazy numbers, man. I'm, props to you. Dude, it's- I don't think I could ever be on your [00:55:00] level ... 

Rohit: it's crazy, but I was... But it's but I like, d- so like we're, we're in d- very different parts of the country right now, right? I think like people-wise, like I just remember being in California, like you, you're very conscious of like what you look like and how you eat and like the job to be done of like showing everybody that you're healthy, right?

Boston is like, New England is very different. People are who they are, right? Nobody is striving for like the perfect body. Yeah, you will see like very athletic people running the marathon, and when it's nice out, people will be doing athletic things, but they also are those same people that will crush five beers after the marathon, right?

And then they pair up with friends, and then it's just like so much is based around drinking culture out here- 

J.R.: Mm ... 

Rohit: in ways that I had never experienced in Los Angeles, right, or in, in like California. But so much of it is based out of here. No matter where you go, it's like breweries and beer and like alcohol is always present, and people are like consuming it at a fairly [00:56:00] regular basis, right?

Family things around breweries, at the park, like on the boats, like in the company, like picnics, whatever. Things like that. It's just I've never experienced it to such a degree until living out here, and it was like a pretty normal thing. And I was like talking with some friends and some coworkers, and it's like everybody's putting numbers like this up.

That's the crazy thing. I'm like, whoa. 

J.R.: That makes sense. You are- I was like- ... hanging out around... You're, you're hanging out around winners, Rohit, so that's why you are, your numbers are getting up. 

Rohit: That's it, yeah. Yeah. Everybody's putting, putting these numbers up. PRs. And I'm like, what, like what are we doing?

Like, it's crazy. It's crazy. I was like, this is... Yeah. 

J.R.: Hey- Yeah ... respect, man. That, that takes, that takes dedication and effort over a long period of time, so respect to you, man.

Rohit: Yeah. 

J.R.: So yeah I don't have any good advice for people except for if you want to, if you wanna be fit and have abs, just be like me and have no friends, and then just run and work out all the time. But if you wanna have a happy life, you can be like Rohit and actually have a social life, [00:57:00] so.

Nice. I like it. Okay. So anyways, I know we're, we're almost-- we're about an hour. I wanted to ask about the other things, unless you had anything else on this topic, but I am curious about the job stuff and the entrepreneurship stuff and AI. I had a convers- a really good conversation with a friend of mine who also works in corporate, and we were both talking about our usage of AI in the whole industry and stuff like that.

I don't know if that's what you wanted to talk about, but maybe we get into that. So you said life changes, something that's unique to your industry and how it might affect jobs. 

Rohit: Hmm. Okay, so these all kinda come together, which is you kinda look at, You kinda look at the pharma industry as a whole all going through transformations, right?

And this is from a number of things, right? Whether it be rising external cost pressures, things like most favored nations, like political pressure in the pharma industry. Also the acceleration of science and discovery, right, in a good way coming [00:58:00] from areas like China or areas from universities in the US, right?

So you have these things that are both headwinds and tailwinds, and the same thing also with technology and, and AI, right? Whether it be for new drug discovery or faster ways to commercialize. And so that's kinda changed what, what it, what, what a traditional pharma company looks like, right? And so all companies are basically going through transformations now.

Transformations are unfortunately including a number of organizational changes where there will be employee impacts. And those employee impacts sometimes are just pure impacts where there might be somebody exiting and the role is not replaced because we're gonna prioritize a certain type of product or brand or market.

Or it could be the role is gonna move to a location that is somewhere else in the globe where there may be a favorable cost to the company in this [00:59:00] movement, right? But also expertise elsewhere, right? So for instance, this is why in the, in the early 2000s or in the '90s, you had areas move to the, like the Philippines or to India or to Eastern Europe or now to South America, has wonderful talent pools in there at prices that are a bit more favorable than a domestic employee.

When we say domestic, it could be in North America or it could be in Europe, right? And so that's like another transformation that's happening that most companies, not just pharma, is happening. And then you have artificial intelligence, right? And we've had enough, I think, in most industries of general productivity AI from Your co-pilots and your Geminis and things that are there for generative AI.

And I think we're starting to see people become experts in the space of how can my job fundamentally change if I have an agent do some of the busy work? And you see that in very process-based [01:00:00] activities like finance or like back-end HR processes, and we're seeing a lot of that actually come to fruition in good ways, right?

And you see that in, maybe in marketing campaigns. But you still, if anything, now more than ever, need human interactions, right? And you need people making decisions at the right places or more human relations to, to change something or to, to discover, you know, new products or to bring them through the pipeline.

So that's a big part of what my company is going through right now. And I had a job opportunity that was seeing that at the highest level, at the corporate level. I won't own any of these transformations, but I'll see them all come and track them financially, and that is a-- it's a bigger jump than what I was in before, where I was very focused in on technology delivery.

Now I can see true pharma corporate strategy, right? And so this has changed for me when you think about careers, you have like depth, [01:01:00] but then you have breadth, and you also have perspective, right? And while I like this job a lot and I really like my coworkers and what's happening, it's given me the breadth of seeing what's in a pharma company and the breadth of seeing what AI could do, right?

But also the, the breadth of seeing when you have internal politics get in the way of what AI could do, right? Because if you look at it from a purely financial point of view, your CFO is gonna bet on the early term guaranteed success, which is maybe changing a job from a high-cost location to a low-cost location, right?

That is guaranteed this will have a return. Putting that to agents is unproven right now for many areas, and so we have risk profiles that we're not the most like, you know, like risk-taking. We're like pretty risk-averse as, as far as my company is, and many pharmas are, are [01:02:00] maybe changing their risk tolerance in there, but it really depends on what's in their pipeline, what's their total sales and all of this.

And I think many industries are like this, especially as you look at heavy regulated industries where you have things that are gonna be pharmaceuticals for somebody to take you know, and you have FDAs and regulations behind it. So you don't necessarily wanna put everything into an unproven technology just yet A lot of us are very optimistic on what this can do.

Productivity AI has proven for itself. I think now we're just starting to get to the point of what can we really agentify and have as like a actual agent that's running on its own that we all know and trust, and we need to do interventions when we need to, but actually have that. I'll be honest, I have yet to see that happen.

We have plenty of ideas, plenty of PowerPoints, plenty of consultants, plenty of things happening. There's also plenty of data layers that need to change and ontologies. But seeing that actually come to fruition is gonna be maybe another [01:03:00] six months to a year right now, which-- and the rate of change is actually a little slow compared to some other areas.

But I think if we were to talk a year from now, I'd have very good examples of AI and in the, in the large company. Personally, I try to use productivity AI just for my, for my own productivity in the company, but also for my own business with the family, right? Lavender farming and turning that into skincare products.

We're trying to hold a couple lines true, which is it has to be farm-grown. We'll make everything ourselves. You'll always be able to talk to us directly. So then I'm trying to automate my backend with different types of agentic AI, right? If I need to send invoices or if I need to do anything on Shopify or anything on like automated email campaigns, like can I just have some agents do that and not have to pay subcontractors to do it?

So I'm trying to learn all those things, but I've learned a lot of how this works from being in the big company and just trying to do it myself. 

J.R.: I'm [01:04:00] curious-- So that's a lot of really good insight. I'm curious if there's anything that you would like to say or give to someone, let's say, within the industry or maybe trying to get into the industry, maybe like pharmaceuticals or, or your field or in general into the workforce, your perspective on how things have changed and what people should consider going into the workforce.

Rohit: You know, it's so interesting. I, I was thinking about this and talking about it with some friends. I think... You know, there is, there is a lot to be said like- These, these jobs that are like classical engineering, like mechanical, chemical, process engineer, like these kind of things, they still are so important, right?

There's so much human involvement that's needed. And yeah, like a productivity thing may help you edit some documents or whatever, but I think if anything, you can be on the forefront of turning some of those things into agents. I think that's incredibly important. I think ge- generally, like biological sciences is, is more important than ever [01:05:00] now, right?

I think human interactions, like what the healthcare field looks like, both from like a healthcare provider perspective or like patient services or even like the payer networks. Like having like biology understanding and not letting that get super diluted through just like general artificial intelligence is so important, having the human touch to it.

It's so underserved in so many areas, and we need nurses and doctors more than ever, and I think we need to start to, you know, prioritize that a little bit more. I think that's an incredibly important part. Same with like pharmaceutical sciences of like how drug interactions work. Yeah, AI can do a lot of that, but human, human oversight in that is incredibly important.

I think that's the, the main thing if you're thinking about like the pharma industry itself. And then all of that totally, totally eclipsed by the importance and necessity of like- Actual blue collar work, right? Operators and technicians, that's like the main [01:06:00] thing that is gonna be a problem very soon for a lot of-- a lot of industries, and pharma's no shortage of that, right?

There's only so many things you can automate, or like even turning it into automation will take multiple decades going through like regulatory filings, so you still need people to, to troubleshoot the machinery or to really know how protein separation works, things like that. And I think that's gonna be a, a big reckoning for, for like the workforce globally as as the next 20 years come around.

And I think that's an area that will be super opportune for people that maybe don't wanna go to college or maybe do wanna go to college and do something else. I think there's also a lot of pleasure of just doing something mechanical with your hands, right? And actually seeing that come to fruition.

I think we all get disillusioned over time of just moving PowerPoints around, you know? 

J.R.: Yeah, definitely. I have too many thoughts on AI. Like my YouTube algorithm, it just constantly sends me things about updates. And it's crazy because [01:07:00] six months ago, the conversation and my thoughts were so different than it is today.

Before, it was more of a... It used to be more, mm, I don't wanna say optimistic, but I wanna say I thought that there was more potential in AI, let's say, six months ago. And now there's all this sort of doom and gloom, again, from my perspective and what I've seen. There's all of this, okay, now that I don't know the saying, but now that the debt has to come pay, or they have to pay off the debt, and they have to, the chicken's come back to roost or something- 

Rohit: Yeah

J.R.: where it's not as good as they thought it was. And now that AI is not being subsidized by all these investors, and they want to make their money back, and all the data centers and trying to build it out, and all of the restrictions and the halts on building everything, and just the resource cost and the pushback on AI now most people don't, or the average person, like those polls where most people don't like AI and [01:08:00] its effect on the world and the job market, et cetera.

So it's okay, so it's not as good as we thought, and it's more costly, and it's gonna be more costly. And so therefore, this idea pushed a year ago, which is, oh, it's gonna take over all these jobs. Now I'm like No, even in my own work, as much as I use it, I'm like, it feels like the, the smartest dumb coworker I've had, where I'm like, "Your tokens are, are not going as far.

It, it doesn't seem as on top of as before." And it's on purpose because they're kind of diluting the output of generative AI or their AI models because they have to recoup their costs. And so I'm like, okay, well, at this rate, at this trajectory and this direction, it doesn't seem like it's gonna replace anything.

Though, I think as an assistance or as in cooperation with these skilled jobs and these roles, you can do a lot, and it'll save you a lot of time and productivity, to your point. But I think now it's even more hopeful that, okay, I think the job market will be fine [01:09:00] in the long run, and it's not gonna replace anyone's job.

But I think it does... I- it's still good to adapt and to learn the tools, but I don't think the tools are going to get that much better anytime soon, just based on how the money is going and how the resources and allocations are going. But just my opinion. 

Rohit: Yeah. I, I tend to agree with you on that. I think, I think when you think about, like- The general knowledge worker using a productivity tool, like I don't think anybody's gonna get replaced by that anytime soon, and maybe it'll help you do your job a bit better, faster, more efficient.

I think what I'm really hopeful for is like very specialized AI tools, again, for like drug discovery or for certain parts of compiling software or hardware. Like I think there's tremendous opportunity and new jobs are created on these like specialized AI models, and I think that is likely where investors will end up recuperating money.

I [01:10:00] don't know how that will work in like the macro of where data centers will have to be and how that will work. But I do also-- I also kind of understand and respect like the general population pushback against like agentification or AI everything that's being shoved down our throats. Like that, that got old pretty quickly.

And I think there's just a reframing that's necessary, and it's, it's kinda like... I think it's like, you know, similar to any other like industrial revolution where maybe it's a little forced down our throats right now, but then we'll find the right things come out of it. I think we definitely have to do some policy environmental changes around, and I think that will ultimately come back to like money and politics, and I, I think that will end up steering the ship a lot more than true like technology development.

I think there's so much possibility and so much good opportunity that could exist, but I think it'll get eclipsed by, by greed and power. Yeah. Right? 

J.R.: You know, as per usual. Capitalism. As 

Rohit: usual. Yeah. [01:11:00] Yeah. 

J.R.: I like that point that you made as well, like it might be more-- we might sh- see a shift in focus and resources and allocation to specialized AI technologies that might actually do some good.

Two things I wanna reference. I did watch this movie documentary in theaters a few months back called AI Doc, and it was pretty insightful of... It starts off, the first third of the documentary is like all the, the- what to call it, the positive sides of, like, all the people who are proponents of AI, and then the next third was, like, all the doom and gloom people.

And then it kind of ends right there of "Okay, well, I don't know what to think now because now I'm being pulled into two different directions," the, the narrator or the director of the- Yeah ... documentary. And then at the end, he combined it to be like... I forgot the lesson or the takeaway, but it was something like a more neutral stance of being optimistic but also still seeing the value that h- humanity has or some- some- something like that.

And another show or a podcast I listened to, which was [01:12:00] Hasan Minhaj's HMDK, which is his sort of video thing. He's, like, a comedian. Yeah, yeah. And he brought, he brought on an expert to talk about AI, and he was like, "There's, there's three types of AI, I guess," or whatever. And he said there's the thing, the AI that actually makes life better or the technology that's actually advancing progress, which is you know, in these specific sciences or in biology or chemistry or some sort of science and is actually doing good.

He referenced or someone referenced this oncology doctor and someone doing scans, and there's a patient, and the patient asks the doctor "Oh, when the AI tools do a check, have they caught something that you haven't?" And the doctor's like, "Oh yeah, for sure. The AI has caught things that I have not caught."

And then at the reverse, it's like, "Oh, have you... has... have you caught things that the AI didn't?" And then the doctor says, "Yeah, absolutely. I've caught things that AI has not." And so for me, the takeaway was, like, it's still gonna be used hand-in-hand with professionals in those sort of spaces. Second type of AI is the neutral thing where it's everyone just [01:13:00] slaps on the, the, the s- the sticker of "Oh, this is AI-powered," like this AI-powered toothbrush or this AI-powered washing machine or...

And it's oh, so is, is there a camera in the washing machine that looks at the water molecules and does this sort of calculation, and then it disperses at the right... Like, no, that's not... You're just saying it's AI when it's really just either some sort of technology that's already existed.

And then the third type of AI is just AI slop, which we all know is just- Yeah ... the worst type of AI where it's like, okay, w- why, why are you wasting water on this sort of thing? Yeah. But yeah, I don't know if you had any thoughts on those, but 

Rohit: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I, I think I f- I'm, I'm hopeful that the general population is starting to reject AI slop But I also recognize the places that we are in, like fairly privileged, fairly educated, like probably in the circles that we run with, like similar types of individuals.

But that's also not the majority of the US, right? If I was to take the US. Like, I think there's like tremendously underserved parts that [01:14:00] are maybe being fed a lot of the slop or a lot of the neutral thing that haven't gotten to experience what the good could be, and I think that's like a big opportunity for f- for, for everybody, right?

Not, not just for like investors and entrepreneurs, but I think also just to make like systems better for these people. But I think slop-- it's just so easy to get your hands on AI slop no matter who you are or where you are, and get influenced by that. I'm really hopeful that there is maybe there is some regulations out of that.

But let's see. 

J.R.: Yeah, hopefully. Yeah, we'll see. We'll see. We'll see if money wins or, you know, protecting people and- 

Rohit: Yeah ... 

J.R.: human rights and- Actually making 

Rohit: humanity better. Yeah. 

J.R.: Actually making humanity better. Yeah, we'll see if that wins. Okay, anything else on industry, jobs, et cetera? I, I know you kinda touched upon this, but also entrepreneurship, and you mentioned starting a family and building that pathway to freedom.

Yeah. Is there anything you wanna jump off on that? 

Rohit: Yeah. Let's-- This is-- So this is probably the, the main thing that's weighing on my mind, right? Which is the amount of perspective that I've [01:15:00] gotten in this job now has led me to, to think that I don't-- I previously really wanted to rise to the top of the ladder- But I think now more than ever, I'm looking for my own thing to run and do, and a lot of that is backed in by, again, perspective of what I see people at the top dealing with or the fiefdoms that they have created and the swirl that they've created in any industry, right?

But also, when I think about starting a family and what my wife and I wanna do, there's so many compounding things that come to mind, which is we live on one side of the country, family's on the other side of the country. We start a family here, how do we do childcare? We're bound by the jobs, so we're kind of handcuffed to those things.

Childcare is expensive, so then are we both working or one of us working? Like, how do we build this into a lifestyle? When do we get to spend time with our [01:16:00] kids that we hopefully have multiple of? When do they get to meet the parents? And the way I was really thinking about this for many, many days and months on end was like, I think the happy path is to start our own business where it's a family business, which is-- This is true, like the-- My parents are in this business together.

We have the lavender farm. We base it in Northern California, where we have the lavender growing. We're able to build our own little warehouse. We move out to Berkeley or Oakland. We're able to have the family where then I could take our kids to wherever our factory is, and they get to artificially have time with the whole family 'cause my parents are there too, right?

And I see that as total freedom. We're bound by the business, and we'll have to figure out what health insurance and stuff looks like. But it would also give an opportunity then for Melissa to maybe make a little bit more as a speech pathologist in Berkeley or [01:17:00] Oakland, actually lean into the bilingual Spanish.

And so I'm trying to figure out now more than ever how to accelerate the business to be profitable. And what I've really been thinking about is I hired fractional CMO to deal with all the, the marketing pieces while we can figure out how to scale and get more customers, 'cause I'm now more than ever running at that freedom, right?

And I think, a-again, day and age I think you can get a job in a lot of things, but we're also not getting any younger. Parents aren't getting younger. So how do we build into that freedom pathway where we can enjoy each other's time wh- with the limited time we have? So that's really what's been on my mind more so than anything, right?

Even when I'm running or even when I'm, like, trying to do healthy stuff or even at work, like, how do we get to that, that model quicker and make it sustainable for the future? And then figure out, like, how do we get all the families together? Because it's just not-- It's really not-- time is not slowing down, right?

And it's going faster than ever, you know, as we get older. [01:18:00] So that's where I'm, that's where I'm, like, focused on right now. 

J.R.: Yeah. The going the s- the s- similar spots too. That's

always something that I'm thinking about. I don't know if you ever follow or if you've ever seen or follow ali Abdaal. He's like a YouTuber and he talks... His whole thing is like he's a YouTuber, several million followers, but he always talks about like a f- a lifestyle business, so fun, freedom, fulfillment.

So creating a business that gives you just amount, the amount of freedom and flexibility and obviously fun built in so that you can achieve your goals and not necessarily, not necessarily chase the dream of a ton of money because we all know that that has its drawbacks, right? Like being the- Yeah ... CEO of a super large company is not...

It might not fit the lifestyle that you want, but if you can build a lifestyle business that checks all the boxes of what you value and you, what you wanna do, then that should be the goal, no matter where that is and, and not in comparison to anyone else's goal. So I've been thinking about that a lot [01:19:00] too, of okay, where, where can I invest the next few years into which pieces to align those things to also build something out, build out something similar.

Rohit: Yeah. It's, it's... I think we're all starting to have this thought like, do you remember Ian Abbott? I, I ran into him in I had to go to a trade show in Las Vegas. He was out there for fun. We ran into each other and obviously started talking like, you know, old men about our health and he has he has, he has a teenage daughter, right?

And so he's thinking about okay, if they have another kid, like, and their parents aren't getting any younger what do they do? And he's like in the, in the camp of what if we bought like a compound and we like grow food and vegetables and are able to like have self-sustaining? And I'm like, I love that concept too.

Like I think that's like- 

J.R.: Mm ... 

Rohit: actually more attractive than ever for people that like are very close-knit family and stuff, like to keep, you know, the grandmas and, and parents and all that together and have that cultural buildup that we're not lo- Yeah, 'cause that's so easy to lose that [01:20:00] culture now too with every- everybody becoming assimilated.

That's the other big reason for like this, this like even if we live out here and have our first kid, like how do we start to infuse the culture from both sides of our families? And the run to freedom is just like such a draw in that. Free- and freedom, again, relative to, to what you just said, which is yeah, you don't need to make a ton of money.

You need to achieve the lifestyle you want, but like time is the big factor for all this, right? You only have a limited amount of time and like limited amount of time with your parents and like limited amount of time to watch your kids grow up. So like that I think is becoming more and more front of my conscious now.

J.R.: Mm-hmm. Yeah. I like that. Okay. I think that's, that's all the, I don't know, the topics we ran through. Do you have anything else top of mind that you wanna chat about? 

Rohit: I do have a lot, but it's getting late on our end. 

J.R.: Yeah, yeah, no, for sure. For 

Rohit: sure. Yeah. I was gonna th- yeah. 

J.R.: Do, do you wanna throw it out there and then see what, maybe what sounds resonates?

And then maybe- You know [01:21:00] what? ... we can pick up the other ones. 

Rohit: It's actually what you said, which is, like, how you, you're, you're still dancing, and I, and for as long as I've known you, that's been such a big part. But it's also, like more, so important to keep doing things that you actually enjoy as a hobby that may not immediately pay you for it, right?

I think everybody is r- Or at all ever ... At, at all ever. But I wrestle with this where I'm like everything I, I do or think about is either gonna pay me in fitness, right? Or a run toward making that financial freedom, right? And I'm missing, I think... Aside from the walks that Melissa and I take, and go on boats and stuff I think that's, was quite nice, and certain restaurants, but I don't even know what a hobby is anymore, right?

And I think a lot of people are struggling with that 'cause we're all built into this hustle culture. 

J.R.: It's true. 

Rohit: And I, and I, like, it's- It's always, like, eyes on the prize ... I don't even know if hustle culture is a thing anymore, but it's I think it's just, it's, it's... I'm very proud of you for still doing that, and I think more people- Thank you

actually need to still have fun and do things, you know? 

J.R.: You know, I'm really leaning into my... I'm not single, but [01:22:00] it, it feels like a single life, where- 

Rohit: Yeah. ... 

J.R.: you know, not married, not a, don't have kids, and anything like that, have too much time and money on my hands. And so on top... Again, if you follow my, if, if you follow my Instagram stories- Yeah

folks who are out there. So yeah, all the fitness stuff on top of the dancing that I'm doing a little bit more, but I'm also bowling every single day. 

Rohit: Mm. 

J.R.: And- Yeah ... never gonna pay me. I'm, I'm... The fun part about that, I guess, as a hobby, is the s- I don't wanna say skill acquisition, but skill building.

Yeah. Because there is something very gratifying about improving a skill and so, whether it's archery or bowling or something like that, where it's like you can tangibly see that over the course of the season I've been getting better. Yeah. And that feeling of okay, my skill level's going up.

I'm never gonna do this competitively. I'm never going to get paid for this, but I do enjoy doing this. Yeah, there's that fitness aspect 'cause my heart rate goes up, and I know it's good for me, and I'm moving, and stuff like that, but it's, it's minuscule compared to what other things I could be doing t- for my fitness.

But it's just the pure joy of I love bowling, and I like getting better at something, and [01:23:00] so I'm trying to find more things like that. I know in the next coming year, it's always been on my list, but stand-up comedy is something that I've dabbled in. Yeah, yeah. But I- Yeah ... I wanna put that on the front burner w- like, the same way I'm doing with bowling of I do two to three open mics a week, get better at that, can see the tangible benefits.

Maybe will never get paid for it, and I really don't care if I do 'cause I, I want my money to come from somewhere else. But I want it just purely to be that I enjoy doing this thing and not be marred by oh, but I need to do this for the money, or I need to cater towards this, or the brands, or anything like that.

It's like, no, I just wanna be funny. I wanna be... My goal, and I put this in tangible words, is I wanna travel y- y- you know, with, like, a headliner maybe around the country or something like that. Yeah. Do, like, campus shows or small open mics or- these comedy shows, but not be so good that I'm the headliner, but be good enough that if I'm the first or second warmup, they're gonna be like, "Man, the headliner was good, but that second guy, he was kind of funny."

And I'm like, "I wanna be that guy." Yeah. And like, I'm not doing it for the money. I don't care about the payout 'cause I have- Yeah, yeah ... my money taken care of. But like that is- Yeah ... my tangible stand-up comedy [01:24:00] goal. Same thing with like- Yeah ... bowling and I guess dance is just to go out consistently 'cause I like doing it, just the feeling like I'm plugged in.

Rohit: Yeah. 

J.R.: But yeah, since I, you know, since I don't have to take care of kids right now and since my career is going fine and finances are good, I'm like, might as well live life and enjoy these things just for the sake of enjoying it. 100% ... so yeah, thanks for bringing that up. 

Rohit: Dude, 100%. It is actually one...

I mean, we can talk about this forever, but like one thing that I think the, the bowling thing is cool because The community aspect now more than ever is so important as we all have different careers, life online and stuff. And in-person community is so, so important. You kinda get that just by going to the bowling alley and talking- Yeah

to people that are there. So, 

J.R.: yeah. 

Rohit: And, like, becomes- That's 

J.R.: the other thing is 

Rohit: I- Yeah. 

J.R.: I do need to join a bowling league. That's my next thing because I am doing one-player bowling. Yeah. But I do have some funny stories that maybe we'll get into another time, but it's like the, the people who I bowl next to, it's always so funny [01:25:00] because I was tell- I tell Blessie sometimes, sometimes I'll be bowling next to a couple who's on a date, and my brain is like, "Yo, I'm gonna smoke, I'm gonna smoke both of them," right?

Yeah. And obviously no one's competing, just me in my head. Yeah, yeah. And so, like, I double both of their scores, and then I'm like, I, I'll tell Blessie, I'm like, "Yeah, I made that guy look bad for sure." I'm sure they're looking over like, "Oh, fuck, that guy got another strike." And then I'm like, "Yeah, that's right.

You better go on a different date place." Yeah. Or, or there's like a... I was next to this this older gentleman and his son and like... Yeah, so like a dad and a son, and they had their own bowling balls, and I have this weird... Y- you know me, I'm really competitive. I don't have my own bowling ball. I do the house ball.

And so when people have their own ball, I don't know how much you know about bowling, but- 

Rohit: Yeah ... 

J.R.: when you have your own bowling ball, it's like custom made, and it- Yeah, yeah, yeah ... there's, like, certain technology within it. What the house ball is just a solid ball. Yeah. And so I give myself a disadvantage by not having my own bowling ball, and my rationale for that is that im- it allows me to be more adaptable because any [01:26:00] bowling alley I go to, I don't need to bring my ball.

I can just bowl with the house ball, and if I'm good at that, then I can be good anywhere. Yeah, yeah. Period. Whereas if you need your ball, then you're, like, kinda screwed. So anyways- Yeah ... that's just my own ego way of being like, "Okay, I'm getting better with the house ball." And so this, this, this the dad next to me I'm just, I'm rolling, I'm doing well, and he looks at me, and he's, like, nodding, and he's trying to get my attention, and I, like, nod back.

I'm, like, smiling, and he's like, "Oh, good job." And I was like, "Oh, thank you." And then I had my earbuds in, and then he's like, "Oh, with the house ball, too?" And I just kinda shrug like this. Yeah. And then, and then then Blessie texts me like, "Wow, it must be so good to be the, the coolest person there, huh?" I'm like, you know, nonchalant.

You know, just highest score in the alley today. You know, d- no big deal. Yeah, so I find I always do my best when I'm bowling next to, like someone who's on a date- Yeah ... or, or little kids who will be next to me. Like, you know, there's a bunch of those are, you know, moms and a bunch of 10-year-olds or 8-year-olds.

Yeah, 

Rohit: yeah. 

J.R.: And it, they're so obvious when they're looking. They're like, "Oh, wow, look, he got another strike." Yeah. And I'm just, like- Yeah, yeah ... pretending like I don't see them. I'm like, "Yeah, I'm cool." You know. Yeah, yeah. This, you know, this 30-year-old man just [01:27:00] killing it. Yeah. So I have a whole drama in my head whenever I...

So anyways, my point being I need to go 

Rohit: meet some friends. We'll turn it into, like, a webtoon or something. Yeah. 

J.R.: Yeah, no, exactly. I need to join a league and actually talk to people instead of just these one-offs. 

Rohit: So important though. So good to keep it keep it fun, keep it active. These things it's so easy to just get caught up in just staying at home or doom scrolling or whatever.

But the fitness aspect is one piece, actually enjoying your hobbies is another, trying something new that you're getting markedly better at. This is the stack of humanity that's so important that we may be missing a lot of, you know? That's one thing- Yeah ... I think people should focus on. 

J.R.: I agree.

And actually, one more thing on top of that, which I really wanna get into, is the whole family piece that you mentioned of I, I've also been pondering the same thing do I move back? Do I hang out with my family? Every time I go home, it's really just to visit my, my mom, my sister- 

Rohit: Yeah

J.R.: and, like, my grandparents. And I love the time that we spend, and it's basically just 24 hours. But I'm like, "You know, I could get [01:28:00] more bang for my buck if I did live closer." And I've had so many different reasons on why I live down in SoCal, because I just like the area, I'm used to it now- Yeah ... friends, et cetera.

But I'm like, but in the long run, it's like, I won't regret living closer to family, especially now that I really appreciate it. You know, when you're younger, it's like whatever, you kind of wanna be- Yeah ... on your own. But now I'm like, actually I do love spending time with my family, and what is the down- the downside of actually moving back home?

You know, and m- you know, my parents, grandparents are getting... aren't getting any younger, and I can be- Yeah ... in a position where I can support them as well. And then when I- Yeah ... have kids, hopefully, and then my mom would be super stoked, 'cause that's all she wants is grandkids. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm like- This is good

yeah, it would be, it'd be nice to get to that point. So I think I'm also oriented in that direction of maybe the next move in the next chapter will be to move back to NorCal, make something happen, and then have a family, be closer to family, et cetera. Yeah, so 

Rohit: it's also one thing to think about.

We should definitely talk about this because I- I think it's so important also as, you know, kids of immigrants I think the, there's one piece that our kids [01:29:00] will eventually learn online or through schooling, but there's also another piece that they can just can't replace the family stories, right?

And that part of history is so important to preserve and to understand. And cooking I think that's so important. Passing of recipes, and, like, how we, how we preserve those things. And it's, it's, it's, it's hard to replace without the lineage of the parents, so I think that's hugely important.

But I also selfishly look forward to seeing you in NorCal. Maybe we'll all- Yeah ... just make it to Fremont again. I don't know. 

J.R.: Yeah. 

Rohit: Like, that's just what it's 

J.R.: gonna be. I wasn't trying to, I wasn't trying to explicitly say it- ... but I was kind of, trying to plant the idea. I'm like, "Oh, maybe we are all in NorCal again," and then it works out.

Rohit: Yeah, man. That's the move. Like, that's the place to be. Yeah. 

J.R.: No, I agree. I, I feel like there's now, there's this charm and allure bringing me back to NorCal. I'm like, "Okay, maybe it will happen in the future." I used to be more closed off to it. I'm like, "I don't think I'm ever gonna move back," 'cause I just, I'm fine having it be my hometown and visiting family.

Yeah. But now that my dad and stepmom and my brother moved to Philippines and my other brother's in Hawaii, and it's just my sister and my mom and the grandparents, I'm like, "Maybe- [01:30:00] Yeah ... that is the move." And makes less traveling on my mom, because, you know, she only travels to see us. So I'm like, if I move- Yeah, yeah

close, makes it easier for her. But, Yeah. So yeah, we sh- we shall see. It'll be fun. And then maybe we can finally make that, you know, business or organization or whatever we wanna do to work together happen, whatever- Hell yeah ... that may be. However that manifests- Yeah ... 'cause that's, that's also on my bucket list, is have some sort of business or something with Rohit.

I think it'll be super fun. 

Rohit: Dude, 100%. Yeah. J.R., we have so much potential. I think we just gotta figure out what it is- Yeah, yeah ... and we can make this happen. Like 

J.R.: Dude, trust me, man. It's, it- ... dude, it's in, it's in my yearly blog all the time. I'm like, "Yeah, it's gonna happen." Yeah. 

Rohit: Cool. 

J.R.: Awesome ... all right, so we're at an hour n- we're at an hour and a half.

I don't wanna take up too much of your time. I know it's later over there, and I know you gotta get back to crushing your 60 beers, so I don't wanna- 

Rohit: Yeah. 

J.R.: You need your, you need your beauty sleep to recover from that. We'll definitely have more parts. I, I think, you know, you know what? Next time, I'm... I have some alcohol in my fridge that has just been sitting there because I don't drink.

So I'm, like, telling my friends, I'm like, "We need to hang out because I need to get rid of this alcohol." [01:31:00] Yeah. So maybe next time we, we talk, I will drink in front of you, and maybe if you want to- For sure ... partake or if- We will do it ... if you're trying to- A 

Rohit: virtual beer. Yeah. Yeah. We'll do it. We'll do it.

J.R.: Yeah. Or if you're trying to hold off, it'll also make me feel good, 'cause there's nothing that I enjoy more than indulging in the thing that the person across me does, is trying not to do. Yeah ... because, because I'm just a terrible person. You bastard. Yes, that's true. Yeah. So anyways, 

Rohit: we 

J.R.: shall 

Rohit: see- Oh, too good

for part three. We'll do it. We'll do it. 

J.R.: Okay. 

Rohit: Awesome. 

J.R.: Cool. All r- all right all right, let's wrap this up then. So thank you for the time, Rohit. Actually, we have to sign off with gratitude, so Rohit, what are you grateful for? 

Rohit: Ooh, grateful for being on the show and talking to you again. I think it's been a long time, and just the, the general just catching up and humor, like we always share is, is so refreshing and so nice.

Very grateful for that. Grateful for general health and my wife and her health and everything that we have and parents' health. Like, I think that's the other main thing of life, is even if you have time, you gotta be able to healthy to be enjoying it, [01:32:00] and I'm thankful for a lot of that. And then thankful for people and, like, just the joy that I've had today who I've interacted with, you know?

It's just like a regular Thursday in summer, but it's been very- Yeah ... enjoyable, you know? 

J.R.: I love it. I love it, man. Cool. All right. Thank you, sir. We will sign off. Well, thank you, Rohit for everything, for your time, for jumping on for this conversation. I love having these because now we can immortalize this and have a memento moving forward.

I'll throw this out since I did so last time. Maybe the time where we actually meet up in person, we will do a run and crush a beer together or something like that. Just combine- Sure. ... the two, and then we'll celebrate our, that sort of reunion. But yeah. All right. And then I'll sign off for our audience, so thank you guys for being here.

I really appreciate it. Be sure to like, follow, subscribe, all that cool stuff. Leave Rohit love in the comments below. Reminder to always be kind to other people, especially yourself, and remember that you can always learn something from someone if you take the time to listen. So thank you guys for being here.