TRANSFORM Your Life At Any Moment: Alcoholic Lawyer That Became "Fittest Man On The Planet"Rich Roll

Rich Roll 0:00 How much pain are you willing to tolerate before you're willing to course correct? A California lawyer turned himself into one of the fittest men on the planet. Rich Roll. Globally recognized ultra-endurance athlete. New York Times best-seller. And host of one of the biggest podcasts on the planet.

Steven Bartlett 0:17 You sat down with 800 of the world's smartest people. Is there one overall takeaway?

Rich Roll 0:24 This theme of transformation. So my story, I graduated top of my class, a world-ranked swimmer, and then I was working as a lawyer. So on the outside, it looked like I was doing pretty well. Inside, I was dying. My first escape was through drugs and alcohol. My family didn't want anything to do with me, a marriage that ended on the honeymoon, went to jail, could barely make it up a simple flight of stairs without being winded, and that was a harsh dose of reality. I needed to overhaul my life. I needed to do something that was gonna be hard and uncomfortable. You can't be a phoenix if you don't burn in the flames first. We all wanna be this idealized version of ourself, and yet we still don't do it. We are in a culture that prioritizes comfort, and luxury, and the impatience that we all have. And we overestimate what we can accomplish in a year, and completely underestimate what we could do in a decade. We don't have to suffer. We don't have to be in pain. It's our emotional lives that hold us back from accessing that potential.

Steven Bartlett 1:20 So how do people in that situation take that first step in transformation?

Rich Roll 1:24 What worked for me after trying many different things was ... (music stops)

Steven Bartlett 1:31 Why should you listen to this episode? All in all, this conversation is fundamentally about transformation, how you transform yourself from where you are now to where you wanna be. And Rich's life is the personification of human transformation. This guy has been down and out. He suffered with addiction, failure, and turmoil that most of us will thankfully never have to endure. But he says in this episode, and he'll prove to you, that pressure, that discomfort can be and should be your privilege. And if you lean into that, if you understand that pressure is your privilege and discomfort is the pathway to all the good things that you want in your life, then and only then can you reach your potential. And one of the r- things I really got from this conversation is this idea that all of us are much more capable than we believe we are. We have more potential than we l- allow ourselves to believe. And also, one of the big things Rich will leave you with in this conversation, which blew my mind, if I'm honest, is this idea that addiction is on a spectrum. We tend to think of addiction as, as he says, junkies or people that are ingesting or taking drugs. But if you think about it, we're all addicted. We're addicted to distraction,

Steven Bartlett 2:39 whether that's our phones, whether it's pornography, whether it's food, whether it's alcohol, as is the case in Rich's case, whether it's our work. How do we l- alleviate ourselves of that addiction to distraction? That's what you'll find out in this conversation. And most importantly of all, Rich has sat down with 800 of the world's smartest, wisest, and most successful people, and from doing that, he has learnt a lot. This is one of the episodes that you honestly should not miss. Enjoy. (instrumental music plays) Rich,

Steven Bartlett 3:17 this is a, a broad question, but it's intentionally broad. Who are you, and what mission are you on?

Rich Roll 3:28 Coming out of the gate hot. Uh, that's a very difficult question to answer. I would say that I am a spiritual being having a human experience, endeavoring, attempting to learn and grow in a number of ways. I had an experience, uh, in my early to mid-40s where I was able to tap into potential that I didn't know existed, and I expressed that athletically. And that experience taught me that we're all capable of so much more than we allow ourselves to believe, and it motivated me to go on this journey to grow and expand in other areas of my life. Because I realized if I had been sitting on this latent potential athletically for so long, there must be other blind spots, and I wanted to explore those. And so my mission has been to grow in the public sphere, learn in the public sphere by having these conversations on my show, um, and then share that wisdom with other people for the purpose of elevating consciousness and activating positive change in others.

Steven Bartlett 4:46 You know, you've got millions and millions of people listening to your show all over the world. You've interviewed, I think, almost 800 people, right?

Rich Roll 4:52 Mm-hmm. Think it's up there, yeah.

Steven Bartlett 4:53 750 podcast episodes or something, which is staggering. Um, on an individual level, what is it that you hope to impart, or what impact is it you hope to have on the individuals that listen to your show?

Rich Roll 5:07 I want everybody listening or tuning in to the show to believe to their core that they are capable of, of more than they may realize, that, that there is, um, a greater possibility for every single person regardless of circumstances, and there are tools available for accessing that. Um, I think that's super important because I think it's so easy to passively or reactively live our lives. We're all, on some level, in a routine, in a rut, and we have blinders on because we're in a certain, uh, social environment where there's unstated dictates about what's okay and what's not, and we're all creatures who wanna feel a sense of belonging and identity with whatever group that, you know, we're aligned with. Um, and I think that that comes with very good things, of feeling, you know, wanted and needed, but also negative aspects which...... create blinders to the greater possibilities that, that are available to us.

Steven Bartlett 6:07 Everybody is conditioned

Steven Bartlett 6:09 in-

Rich Roll 6:09 Sure.

Steven Bartlett 6:10 ... some way or another. Um, and that conditioning starts fairly early. What, what you're talking about there, at least in how I heard it, is to try and undo some of that conditioning so we can live more aligned to whatever worthy cause is, um, right for us. When was the, when did you start being conditioned?

Rich Roll 6:26 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 6:26 And what was that condition? What was the first sort of con- what's the first context or moment where your conditioning began, the conditioning that led you on the journey that you lived?

Rich Roll 6:36 I went to a high school that was very, um, achievement oriented. Grades were very important. Uh, academic achievement in my household was paramount. Uh, and it was a situation in which no matter what I did, it, you didn't quite get the validation that you were seeking, so you're always chasing it a little bit more, a little bit more, um, to the point where unbeknownst to me, or on an unconscious level, like, I needed to escape that paradigm. And my first escape was, was through drugs and alcohol.

Steven Bartlett 7:09 And bullying.

Rich Roll 7:10 Bullying, yeah.

Steven Bartlett 7:11 What, what, take me into the mind of that young guy that's being bullied. What is he thinking? What is he, is he scared going to school? Is he trying to escape who he is? Is he trying to fit in in certain ways? What is he doing and what is the experience of bullying like for him? In detail.

Rich Roll 7:28 Yeah, to take myself back, I think I just, I just wanted to feel like I belonged, and I always felt different than, other than, this sense of not being comfortable in my own skin, like other people had a rule book for life that I lacked. Um, and just not having the social skills or the confidence to be able to make friends or feel like I was part of anything.

Steven Bartlett 7:57 And then eventually, you, you cite alcohol and drugs as being the, the thing that made you feel other than yourself in a good way.

Rich Roll 8:07 Well, initially, it made me feel like myself. It was like this miracle salve where suddenly, all of the unconscious anxiety and sense of difference between myself and others seemed to vanish, and that discomfort in my own skin turned into comfort. Like, I suddenly felt like, "Oh, maybe this is how everyone else feels all the time." I've discovered this thing where now I feel like okay, like I can exhale, and I can be around other people without feeling anxious about it, and I can look somebody in the eye and have a conversation or, like, flirt with a girl, or do all these things that seem to come naturally to other people that seemed alien to myself. And I just remember feeling so at home with that and just wanting to feel like that all the time. And it got its claws into me, and that's how that kind of journey begins for many people who've had their version of my experience with alcohol.

Steven Bartlett 9:07 Addiction, addiction comes in many forms, and the, the role that addiction was playing, the role that alcohol was playing in your life at that stage can also be substituted for other things, right? So some people have it with food or with, um, or with work. From sitting there and interviewing hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people, what have you learned about the nature of really, like, the role that alcohol was playing for you, but also, like, the role that maybe for me, like, being a workaholic or-

Rich Roll 9:34 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 9:34 ... for some people, eating is playing. What is it doing for us? Is it like an escape? Is it, um, in your case, it was like the salve that made you feel, as you said, yourself. But what is that thing?

Rich Roll 9:45 Yeah, I think that, uh, this is something I've spent a lot of time thinking about. As somebody who's been in recovery since 1998, I've been to thousands of AA meetings. I know so many people in recovery. And over the course of 10 years o- of hosting my podcast, I've had so many experts in the realm of addiction, sobriety, and recovery. And I've come to believe that this notion of addiction lives on a much broader spectrum than we may realize. When we think of addiction, we think of, uh, the junkie or, you know, the gutter drunk. Um, but in between, you know, that polarity, there's a whole spectrum of addictive, and I would even weave in obsessive-compulsive behavior that ranges from continuing to get into the same bad relationship to being unable to put the phone down, uh, where we are seizing moments and opportunities through behavior or substance to distract ourselves from ourselves, because we are experiencing discomfort with whatever emotion is coming up. And it's easier to divert to something that will give us a sense of ease and comfort or distraction than to sit with that sense of dis-ease. Um, and I think that any kind of recurring, repeated behavior pattern that mimics that could be characterized as an addiction. It may be mild, but I think nonetheless, it's not, you know, it's qualitatively the same thing as the person who can't stop drinking. And it all goes back to this inside job of trying to understand what makes us tick, the nature and origin of those discomforts, what triggers those, and trying to find a way to not only sit with those, but confront them and work through them so you can ultimately transcend them and liberate yourself from the behavior or the substance or whatever it may be that is the kind of go-to default thing that you do when you start to feel, like, out of control or, um, nervous or anxious or insecure or perhaps, uh, you know, triggered or, or any number of kind of emotional impulses that might arise.

Steven Bartlett 12:06 What is

Steven Bartlett 12:07 the cost of...... not learning to be with myself. So I'm looking at all these things, phone addiction. I'm definitely addicted to my phone. All of these addictions, I've got some of them in, you know, var- varying degrees. Um, so what?

Rich Roll 12:20 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 12:21 What's the cost?

Rich Roll 12:22 Well, time will tell.

Steven Bartlett 12:24 Right.

Rich Roll 12:24 Right? Um, maybe there isn't a, a cost that is so significant that it mandates that you rectify that behavior. Again, it's a spectrum, right? So for you, you might be able to engage in a certain behavior without having negative ramifications in your life that are significant enough for you to redress that. For somebody else, it might destroy their life. But I think developing an awareness around those behaviors and paying attention enough, such that if you start to find yourself experiencing negative life ramifications as a result of those behaviors, you're not, um, in denial over that. And you can make a course correction.

Steven Bartlett 13:05 And what's the upside then of just learning to sit with yourself as opposed to reaching for the phone or for the, the cake or for the, the beer? What is the, what is the upside of that? You know, I say this because I think I live in a generation that have become so used to distracting ourselves. Um, and the thought of, like, meditating or not having our phone on us is actually ... I mean, it's like a, it's like a phobia.

Rich Roll 13:27 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 13:27 Um, we, we, we haven't learned to sit with ourselves, es- in silence with our thoughts.

Rich Roll 13:34 If you can't sit silently with yourself with your thoughts, then you are not living an intentional examined life. And I think to be addicted to your phone or to be living in that reactive mode where you're constantly distracting yourself robs you of something that we need as human beings, which is rumination and boredom. That is the juice of creativity. And as a creative person, somebody who does this show and talks to amazing people and is writing a book and is very much in a space where your creativity is really, uh, the driver of everything that you do, I would say to you, it is of paramount importance to protect your boredom, to protect your quiet time, to put boundaries around those distractions. Otherwise, you are not gonna be doing your best work, and you are going to be depriving your audience of the best version of yourself.

Steven Bartlett 14:35 The other thing is connection. It's definitely, it's definitely robbed me of connection.

Rich Roll 14:39 Well, it's, it's pernicious in that way, because at least with social media, it gives you the illusion of connection.

Steven Bartlett 14:46 Mm-hmm.

Rich Roll 14:46 And, you know, we're sitting here together because of social media. Like you reached out to me, I reached out to you. So it's not a binary. There are amazing things about it. And my entire career has been built on these digital tools, and they're very important to, you know, how I kind of navigate the world. But at what point does that meter kind of toggle over into, you know, the, the red zone where I'm being used by it and it's robbing me of my humanity and it's deluding me into this idea that I'm connecting with other people? But in the analog world, I'm just at home all the time, and I'm not actually interacting in the real world. And, you know, I think one thing we share, Steven, is our show is all about the in-person experience. Like I, I tried to do the Zoom thing.

Steven Bartlett 15:34 (laughs)

Rich Roll 15:34 I can't do it. It's like, this is not why I'm doing this.

Steven Bartlett 15:36 Yeah.

Rich Roll 15:37 I'm not getting ... It feels transactional and weird and-

Steven Bartlett 15:39 Yeah.

Rich Roll 15:40 ... and, you know, as, as, as much as these, these tools, which are phenomenal, um, have given us the ability to connect in a certain way, it's not true connection. And I think, you know, in order to really feel like we're part of the human race, we're hardwired to be with people in real world settings.

Steven Bartlett 16:01 When I look at your story, I see multiple chapters, and there's transformation in every chapter, sometimes for better, sometimes for worse, but it's always forward. It s- it seems like it was the path that you had to, to go on. You, you talked there about the first chapter of your life, which is you're young, there's bullying, there's this feeling of sort of inadequacy, and there's isolation. What's the next chapter?

Rich Roll 16:23 Yeah. So, um, awkward, insecure kid, difficulty making friends. Um, but I found solace in the swimming pool, and that was really my safe haven. Perhaps my first addiction. Um, and in lockstep with my improvement in that space, um, came, uh, came better grades. I started to perform better athletically. So by the time I was 18 and graduating high school, had my pick of going to any college I wanted to, got into Harvard, Princeton, ended up going to Stanford, which in addition to just being a premier, um, university, also happened to have the number one collegiate swimming program in the country. So basically anything I wanted to do was, like, laid out in front of me. Uh, I arrive in California for college. I grew up in Washington, DC so I traveled 3,000 miles away to go to school. Um, enter alcohol, and that be- began the sort of slow decline of my ability to express my potential, not only as an athlete and as a student, but as a human being, because it just gradually denigrated, um, all of my values and, and sort of, um, dented my aspirations to the point where I no really ... I no, I no longer really cared about my trajectory or where I was headed with my life and was solely concerned with rooting out where my next good time would be. And those were the good times. And I would say that initially alcohol really saved me. It taught me how to be a social person. Like I enjoyed going to parties, and I enjoyed figuring out how to talk to people, and it was really this fuel that transformed me from this navel-gazing, insecure kid into somebody who felt like I could comport myself in a social situation as long as I was using alcohol. I've taken some of those skills, and I'm now able to apply them without alcohol. Um, but very slowly over time, you know, my life, the quality of my life just sort of declined and declined and declined. So I was a functional alcoholic, um, for many years. Um, but I knew very early on that my relationship with alcohol was different from that of my peers, because I would be the last person to leave.... I was immediately sneaking drinks. I was the one who was throwing up and blacking out when everyone else knew what time it was to go home. I started going out, like, more and more nights every single week. Uh, and then fast-forwarding through later years, um, hiding my drinks, sneaking my drinks, hiding the empties and doing kind of all the dark stuff, um, that one does when they fall prey to this condition. Um, and it- it- it... there was nothing really sexy or romantic or rock and roll about it, it was just really kind of sad and pathetic to the point where at the end I was alone, alienated from my friends. My family didn't want anything to do with me until I sorted this out. I was on the precipice of, you know... Somehow I got through law school, but I was working as a lawyer, I was on the precipice of getting fired, was living in a sh- shitty apartment with barely any furniture, sleeping on a mattress on the floor. And it was, it was, it was very dark for a very long period of time.

Steven Bartlett 19:36 When did you get married? The first- your first marriage in 1995? 20... must have been 20...

Rich Roll 19:41 No, that was... So it would have been '95... '96, I think. Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 19:50 You're t- roughly 20s, late 20s?

Rich Roll 19:51 So I had an ill-fated marriage that ended on the honeymoon. That's a sordid story that would take a very long time to untangle and explain. Um...

Steven Bartlett 20:01 A marriage that ended in the honeymoon?

Rich Roll 20:02 It ended on the honeymoon, yeah. Uh, incredibly, um, painful, embarrassing chapter of my life. Um, that, that marriage took place after I'd gotten the D- the two DUIs, but I was endeavoring to get sober. And I think my fiance, not quite my wife because we didn't sign the marriage certificate, which is a whole other aspect of the story, um, I think that she realized that I would be problematic as a partner, but didn't have the courage to call the whole thing off and allowed the wedding, um, ceremony to take place, even though she didn't want to be married to me. And it all kind of came to head on the honeymoon, um, which is the last time that I saw her. And that was really my bottom, uh, as an alcoholic. Even though I drank for a period of time after that, because it was so emotionally devastating and painful, um, that was really the nadir, where I realized that my life had hit the skids in, in, in just a, a, you know, a way that I could have never imagined for myself.

Steven Bartlett 21:18 Post that, um, that... I was gonna call it a... I guess it, it was a wedding. Post that wedding and everything that happened, you returned to drinking again. You relapsed because of the pain of that experience.

Rich Roll 21:30 Absolutely.

Steven Bartlett 21:32 How long does that last, that, then?

Rich Roll 21:34 I mean, it was a long time ago. I think it was about six more months of my life kind of circling the drain, um, before I finally decided that I needed to really take responsibility for my behavior.

Steven Bartlett 21:52 At that point,

Steven Bartlett 21:53 what did- what did the people around you that love you doing and saying?

Rich Roll 21:58 Uh, friends slowly stepping backwards from me, um, distancing themselves from me. Uh, my parents were terribly worried, uh, and concerned, and they had sought out counsel of their own and started attending Al-Anon, and I believe they had seen a therapist as well. And, and thr- the advice that they got was like, "You need to cut ties with this guy." Like, "You can't will him into doing what you know is in his best interest. You have to detach." And I recall very vividly a conversation that I had with my dad where he's like, "I know what you're doing, it's very clear, uh, this path that you're on, and we just can't be part of it anymore. And if and when you're ready to make a change or to really entertain sobriety in a real way, we're here for you. We're your parents and, and we love you. But until that point, like, we really don't wanna hear from you anymore." So that was a brutal pill to swallow, incredibly painful. But also catalytic, because it snapped me out of whatever denial I was harboring, um, about getting over on people or them not really knowing how I was actually behaving. Um, and I think it was an important step in helping me realize just how dire the circumstances were for me at that time.

Steven Bartlett 23:26 When your father said that, what did you hear?

Rich Roll 23:29 I heard, "You're a failure," and, "You are unlovable."

Steven Bartlett 23:38 Do you think that was the right thing for him to say?

Rich Roll 23:41 I think in my case, and I'm only speaking from, you know, my perspective in this particular set of circumstances, it was the right thing to do because it effectively moved me in the direction that I needed to be moved in. And they had tried the other way, which is loving me and being supportive and, and kind of, um, offering up a soft landing pad, uh, and that was not working. And I think they needed to do that for themselves, to protect themselves as well. And, and I respect that choice. You know, I've been in many situations trying to help people get sober, and it's a very delicate, difficult thing to do. It's just really challenging, because if somebody's not ready and they don't wanna get sober, there's very little that you can do to try to, you know, create that epiphany in them. Willingness is a self-generated, um, response that you can't instill in somebody externally.... uh, and until somebody's really willing to confront their demons, um, you can't compel them to do so. So, uh, that's why I think sobriety or addiction is so baffling and so painful for the loved ones of people that suffer, who can so clearly see, "You're killing yourself. You need to do this," and yet that person won't make that choice.

Steven Bartlett 25:15 It's not just addiction and, um, sobriety in that sense that I was thinking about when I asked that question, because I've got people in my life that I've tried to help in various ways. And I've got a one- one friend who has struggled with, um, pretty severe addiction, and your natural inclination is to try and jump in there and give them advice and help them and pay for this and sort- sort this out, et cetera, et cetera. But after, you know, years and years of it never working, what do you do then? And I've- I'm thinking of one particular example of a friend of mine who's struggled with addiction, and slowly everybody has just fallen away. The person's management has fallen away. Their friends have fallen away. Um, and I wonder sometimes, I wonder to myself, is that what you have to do? Is that- Do you have to basically give them a void enough space and stop holding them up in, like, a sort of artificially suspending them, uh, and let them go to the bottom?

Rich Roll 26:12 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 26:12 Let them go to that rock bottom?

Rich Roll 26:13 There is a logic in that. You know, you don't wanna coddle that person. You certainly don't wanna be codependent-

Steven Bartlett 26:19 Yeah.

Rich Roll 26:19 ... in their behavior, in other words, making excuses for them that makes it easier for them to continue down that destructive path. Um, and there is wisdom in just saying, "Hey man, I love you. I'm available when you're ready to get help. Uh, but you know, you're- you're on your own thing, man, and I just- I can't be part of it. So call me when you're ready, but until then, good luck to you." Because the addiction elevator's always going down. It's a progressive disease. It only moves in one direction. The best case scenario is that person's life stays the same, but in almost every case, it continues to decline. And it will decline to the point where the pain experienced by the person who is the addict or the alcoholic, uh, becomes more unbearable than the fear of the change. And that is where willingness is born. And again, it's not something that you can instill in that person. You could- you could, like, hijack your friend and throw him in the back of a car and drop him off in a rehab, but he might escape from the rehab or he'll sit in the back and just bide his time until he or she gets out and they can go back to whatever they're doing. That's why this is such a difficult, um, problem to solve. It is an internally generated thing. The people that I know that have been able to get sober and stay sober are the people that shoulder responsibility for their own sobriety. You can't get sober for somebody else. "I'm getting sober for my spouse or my kids," or, you know, "I'm getting sober because if I don't, my boss is gonna fire me." Those are- those- You might be able to do that for a short period of time, but for the true addict, uh, unless you're doing it for yourself and you're making it your number one priority, uh, chances are, you're not gonna- you're not gonna last over the long haul. And it's confusing. And when you love that person, it puts you in a very treacherous position, because if you do create that boundary and that person goes off and something terrible happens, will you feel responsible or will you feel like you didn't do enough, or if you had just done this or that, that wouldn't have happened? Um, and that's a very real predicament to put yourself in.

Steven Bartlett 28:29 There's something quite counterproductive in the sense that when you're trying to help that person, what often happens is your relationship with them becomes strained. And then when your relationship becomes strained and you- you become frustrated with the lack of sort of effectiveness of your support, then arguments start. You might say some things that you regret, further h- tarnishing that person's self-esteem, self-worth, or whatever's triggering them to try and escape themselves through whatever addiction they might have. And it- it- it actually can h- make- make their situation significantly worse-

Rich Roll 28:56 Sure.

Steven Bartlett 28:56 ... destroy the relationship-

Rich Roll 28:57 Right. Which is why it's important to- to interface with that from a place of neutrality, right?

Steven Bartlett 29:04 Yeah.

Rich Roll 29:04 To not get emotionally agitated or activated by it.

Steven Bartlett 29:08 Which is impossible.

Rich Roll 29:08 And a good way of- of kind of recalling that or reinforcing that is to understand that there is the person, your friend, and there is this disease, this addiction, right? And if this person is acting in their disease, that's not the person. They're not a bad person. They're afflicted by something so powerful that they're unable to override it and- and, you know, be that friend that you remember. And I think when you- when you kind of approach it through that lens, you can have a little bit more compassion for that person, um, rather than take it personally, because they're not- they're not acting out of animus towards you. They're suffering from something that's so powerful that they're unable to- to control it.

Steven Bartlett 29:54 Quick one before we get back to this episode. Just give me 30 seconds of your time. Two things I wanted to say. The first thing is a huge thank you for listening and tuning into the show week after week. It means the world to all of us, and this really is a dream that we absolutely never had and couldn't have imagined getting to this place. But secondly, it's a dream where we feel like we're only just getting started. And if you enjoy what we do here, please join the 24% of people who watch this channel regularly and have hit the subscribe button. It means more than I can say. And if you hit that subscribe button, here's a promise I'm gonna make to you. I'm gonna do everything in my power to make this show as good as I can now and into the future. We're gonna deliver the guests that you want me to speak to, and we're gonna continue to keep doing all of the things you love about this show.Thank you. Thank you so much. Back to the episode. Okay, so this was a quote I- I found about your re- opinion of balance, "He finds balance extremely difficult and believes that if something is good then the more, the better. He believes balance is for ordinary people and he wants to be extraordinary. He says this can be a blessing and a curse."

Rich Roll 30:55 Yeah, definitely a blessing and a curse. Um, I am hardwired for extremes. Uh, this has been both a superpower and an Achilles' heel. It's the thing that has fueled me and allowed me to, you know, achieve, uh, some pretty cool things, but it's also been the thing that, um, has almost killed me. So it's that love-hate thing. But I think behind it, this notion of living a balanced life that we get served up, like, "You need to be balanced." And, you know, the best way to kind of pursue your life is in a balanced way, everything in balance. And the social conditioning around that idea is so powerful, that for years, I just felt like a terrible person or, um, like less than because I just could never figure out that equation to make everything feel like it was even adequately balanced, uh, because I feel most alive in those extremes. And that's part of what addiction is, like you're just searching for those peak experiences in unhealthy ways, and also in healthy ways through athletics, and- and, you know, and through, uh, creativity and- and other avenues. Um, but I always felt guilty about that. Like, other people seem to be telling me that I shouldn't be doing this, and yet this is where I feel like myself. And finally, I got to the place where I was like, "Fuck this whole balance thing. Like, this is who I am." And I decided to embrace it. Now, that doesn't mean that, um, you just blindly pursue these obsessions to the point of self-destruction. What it means is, for me, again, not giving advice, uh, in my experience, when- when I allow myself to, uh, immerse myself in something that, um, fascinates me, whether it's an ultra-distance race or writing a book or whatever it is, um, giving myself permission to really focus on that and take it all the way to the wall is where I do my best work. But that is only acceptable as long as that pendulum that's swinging all the way up over here swings back, goes this way and comes to the center. Because we all have buckets in our life of values that we, you know, need to nourish. So a creative project, for example, I'm gonna go, I'm gonna do that and that's fine as long as I come back and my family is nourished, my relationship is nourished, my friendships are nourished, all these other areas that are important to me don't fall by the wayside for too long. So balance in the macro but not balance in the micro. So on a day-to-day basis or a week-to-week basis, my life is wildly out of balance. But if you look at it over the course of a year, you telescope out, I think, I think it's much more in balance than- than one might suspect.

Steven Bartlett 34:00 Super interesting. I've, I think, uh, using that example of the swing, is it called a pendulum?

Rich Roll 34:06 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 34:08 In society, we started by glorifying hustle culture, I guess, and being out of balance, and then there was kind of a movement towards that's toxic.

Rich Roll 34:17 Right.

Steven Bartlett 34:18 And now I feel like-

Rich Roll 34:19 The new pride is like, "I don't set my alarm clock."

Steven Bartlett 34:21 Yeah. (laughs)

Rich Roll 34:23 (laughs)

Steven Bartlett 34:23 Yeah. And I feel like a little bit it's coming back the other way where people are going, "Fuck work-life balance." Like, that's, it's such, balance is such a subjective thing and work is completely different for everybody. Like, this is my work. This is not-

Rich Roll 34:34 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 34:34 I'm not... You know,

Steven Bartlett 34:36 for someone else, their relationship with that work might be tedium, it might be depressing, they might be doing something that really doesn't fill them up, but I think there needs to be nuance in the fact that all work is different, every individual is clearly different and is wired to find their fulfillment in different ways. So work-life balance in and of itself is a pretty ridiculous concept to think that- that there is a balance. There- there- there really must be a, as you kind of described it, a subjective balance where there's a balance for Steve and as long as I don't fall in, sacrifice social connection, isolation and all the other things-

Rich Roll 35:07 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 35:07 ... then I'm balanced. My balance could, you know, look much different from yours.

Rich Roll 35:11 For whom and when, right? If you're 22 years old and you've got this idea for a startup and you're a coder and you wanna code like a maniac, like knock yourself out. You have no other responsibilities, you have the time, you have the freedom to do that in that moment. But that 22-year-old 20 years later with kids and a mortgage and whatever, it's a different time. That person's in a different place. These things, you know, can't be, they have to be contextualized, right? And yes, if you want to achieve something great, you are going to have to work very hard and you're gonna have to get out of your comfort zone. You may even need to be obsessed. If you're living an entirely balanced life where you're home at 5:00 and you're always at dinner and all, it's like you're making it very difficult to achieve something extraordinary. That extraordinary thing is going to require an extraordinary commitment, which means in the social construct of balance, you are going to be out of balance. If you're gonna feel uncomfortable with that because you have other priorities in your life, then maybe that's not for you. And being out of balance to pursue something great, in my opinion, is perfectly fine, again, as long as you allow that pendulum to swing back and those other things in your life that are important are nourished and attended to. So it's a very specific thing. It depends on who you are, what stage of life you're in, what you're seeking, and having the self-awareness to understand that you can't be everywhere all the time and you can't be 100% for all of the things that are important to you in your life in every single day. So it's about...... conscious awareness and intentionality about where you're rowing that boat. You can only row your boat in one direction. Are you rowing the Steven boat towards Steven today? Are you gonna row it towards your girlfriend? Well, you gotta, you're gonna have to do a lot of rowing in a lot of different directions. It's just knowing that you're making a conscious choice, and doing that, um, with that understanding and appreciation, I think, is really important. Um, but all of this is to put the lie to the idea that anybody is living a balanced life on a minute-to-minute, hour-to-hour, day-to-day basis. It's like a, it's a construct that I think makes people feel guilty and-

Steven Bartlett 37:27 Yeah.

Rich Roll 37:27 ... bad about themselves, because none of us are adhering

Rich Roll 37:30 to that idealized version of a balanced life that we have a mental picture of.

Steven Bartlett 37:37 You can't have it all. You, you left rehab

Steven Bartlett 37:39 in September 1998. Um, an earlier run when you were talking about transformation, you described someone who goes from being a fairly ordinary person to running a marathon. That was one of the sort of examples you gave of something that intrigues you. Like, how did they do that? That's pretty much, in many respects, what you went on to do upon leaving rehab, is you, your life slowly moved towards ultra athletic sports.

Rich Roll 38:03 Yes and no. I mean, I think that, uh, the, the shorthand kind of Google version of my story makes it look like all this stuff happened in a very compressed period of time. Uh, but actually, when I left rehab, which is where I lived for 100 days, and resumed my life in Los Angeles, I spent the next 10 years trying to solve the dilemma of my life that I had self-created. I had to repair my relationships. I had to become trustworthy to other people again. I had to, um, you know, be somebody who was reliable and would show up on time when they said they would. All those sort of, like, normal things that normal people do, I had to, um, rebuild for myself. So, for 10 years, I immersed myself in the recovery community in Los Angeles, and I tried to become that corporate lawyer that I thought that I wanted to be, um, to be kind of approved of by my parents and by society, without really grappling with, um, who I wanted to be. Um, because I was so caught up and so ashamed of my past and embarrassed of how I'd screwed my life up, that I wanted to prove to myself and to everyone else that I could be that person that I was at 18 when I had all of these opportunities and choices, and I was blind to kind of the inner journey, despite sobriety, the blind to, like, really trying to figure out like what made me tick and what I might wanna do for myself that felt like an indulgence. And so the ultra stuff came much later. That came, like, so I got out of rehab at 31. It wasn't until I was turning 40 that I had another bottom where I had to reckon with my lifestyle choices, with diet and movement, etc., because I'd put on 50 pounds and was just pursuing this corporate life, um, to the point of, of, of, of illness, honestly. Like, I was, um, although I'd been this athlete, I just y- could barely make it up a simple flight of stairs without being winded, tightness in my chest, heart disease runs in my family, and just had a second situation in which I realized I needed to overhaul my life. So, there was a whole 10-year period in between those, those kind of moments of awakening.

Steven Bartlett 40:30 That 10-year period is, uh, a 10-year period that a lot of people listening to this right now can relate to, where you found yourself in a professional context or professional endeavor without asking yourself the question of, like, "Who am I and what am I actually interested in?" And you might be doing it because your mom wants you to be a doctor, or-

Rich Roll 40:46 Sure.

Steven Bartlett 40:46 ... you have Indian parents and they came over here and they want you to be a lawyer, whatever it might be. I hear that story a lot. What is the question i- people in that situation should be asking themselves, and how do they take that first step in transformation from becoming the banker that's in the city with a suit and tie on right now listening to this, to the person that, like, would mak- make them whole and full and, and love themselves in their life? Like, what is the first step? Is it a question? Is it a retreat they need to go on?

Rich Roll 41:15 Yeah, it's a great question. I think that question is probably different for everybody, but how about just asking yourself, "Who are you?" And I mean that in the broadest sense, perhaps the most unanswerable spiritual sense, but I also mean it in the very tangible sense of, like, "What are you doing? Are you really on the path that you wanna be on? Did you choose this path? Are you here because of external pressures or expectations that you didn't ask for?" And I think when you turn inward and start exploring your interior to try to grapple with, um, what is making you tick, what is impulsing the decisions that you're making, the big decisions and the small decisions, and developing a latticework or an understanding of what those mechanics are sets you on a trajectory to making better decisions for yourself. So, it's not like maybe that banker is supposed to be a banker, may be super happy. That's fine. I'm not here to tell people they should quit their jobs. I'm just saying that an examined life, meaning that inward glance into, uh, understanding why you're making the decisions that you're making, um, historically, uh, you know, the way in which you were raised that might have set you up to make decisions you think you're making for yourself, but are actually in reaction to unconscious, uh, uh, you know, kind of triggers that are built into you. Uh, I think developing, uh, an awareness of that is really important in trying to understand that question. And it took me a very long time to untangle that knot. I don't think it's a simple process. I think it's different for everybody. It can come in the form of talking to a therapist or meditation. There is no one modality for that. But I think simply the commitment...... to try to understand that, I think, is the process of gaining that understanding to help you make more intentional decisions for yourself. And maybe it starts with an easy prompt, like, "What did you enjoy doing when you were eight years old that you don't do anymore? And why don't you do it anymore?" Reengaging with, you know, the childlike nature, uh, that is perhaps lost as we grow older and kind of, um, get into the flow of our professional lives.

Steven Bartlett 43:40 One of the most important questions, I think I would add as well is, how do you feel? We very rarely ask ourselves that, and I think we all have this sort of internal compass which we've been given by life, which is like, "How do you feel in this situation? How do you truly feel?" Not like how do you feel in the context of, is your mother happy or is your father happy or is society impressed by you, but, like, how do you actually feel?

Rich Roll 44:03 Mm.

Steven Bartlett 44:04 You know? And I think that sometimes, for me, has sat apart from the accomplishments. So I could be achieving something great and know that people are impressed and happy, but really, I'm going through a fucking shit time internally.

Rich Roll 44:13 Right.

Steven Bartlett 44:14 And I'm tuning into that voice of, like, "How do I feel?" And tuning out of the, like, "How do people feel about me?" (laughs)

Rich Roll 44:20 Right.

Steven Bartlett 44:21 Um, it has, has really helped me in those moments where I've gotta make a big decision to quit. And I don't think people ask themselves that question enough.

Rich Roll 44:28 Well, they may ask themselves that question, but the answer is flippant, right? It's like, "I'm good."

Steven Bartlett 44:34 Yeah, yeah.

Rich Roll 44:34 "Cool, I feel good. You know, I feel like I slept good last night." No, like, how do you really feel? And then continuing to peel back the layers until it gets really uncomfortable. And then, you know, you're in the, you're in the sweet spot, right? That's where the juice is.

Steven Bartlett 44:49 I've peeled them back. I've re- and I've done, you know, raised my awareness. I realize I'm in the wrong place, but I'm 39 years old and I've got kids, I've got a house. We live in this part of London, so I can get to work quickly. We've built our lives around this,

Steven Bartlett 45:07 you know, person I thought I wanted to be, and now I'm held in place by the, my friendship group, and my mom lives down... People have that fear. They think, "How do I, how do I break out of that? How do I shed?"

Rich Roll 45:18 Yeah. Yeah, well, first I would say to that person, "Congratulations." Like, you created a life for yourself. Like, on some level, even if you wanna leave that career path or you're unfulfilled in that, you still are somebody who is deserving of acknowledgement for building something. And, you know, that's an amazing thing. So it's not about casting that aside or, um, disrespecting it. For me, I would say to that person, "What is it that gets you excited?" Like, "What is it that you feel is unnourished in your life? Do you have a creative itch? Is there something calling you or something, again, that you used to do as a kid that you really enjoyed and for some reason, unbeknownst to you, you don't do it anymore?" Maybe it's-

Steven Bartlett 46:01 Music.

Rich Roll 46:02 Like, yeah, m- it could be music or, or standup or... You play football, right? Like, being on a football team or doing some- you know, m- just having coffee with your friend or what have you. Uh, finding a way to build that back into your life in a way that isn't going to derail your current life. But I think just breathing on that, like, giving space to the things that bring you joy in the most primal sense. Like, the simplest things that just, you remember made you happy that you've forgotten and recapturing that and finding a way to respect that, protect it, nourish it, um, and, and inject it into your life. And I think the more that you, you kind of tend to that garden, suddenly, oh, a little opportunity over here pops up or, "Something is telling me I should move this way." These are very subtle energies that you have to be present for in order to, um, notice them when they appear, but I think those are the subtle energies. That's the, like, those are the waves you wanna be surfing. And you can do that while you're working at the bank. They don't have to be mutually exclusive. And over time, maybe you start moving a little over this way. Five years later, your life is unrecognizable. And I think this goes to the impatience that we all have. We all want to be this idealized version of ourself, happier, fitter, thinner, richer, whatever it is, overnight. And we overestimate what we can accomplish in a year or maybe in, in a couple years, and completely underestimate what we could do in a decade. We're not wired to think in decades. It seems too intangible. But if all you do is make tiny little changes to build in habits into your life that bring you joy or fulfillment or happiness or purpose in incremental micro allotments that don't disrupt the rest of your life, you do that for 10 years straight, your life is gonna be different, and I can promise you that.

Steven Bartlett 48:10 10 years after rehab, you have what you describe as your second rock bottom. You- you're a workaholic. You're trying to sort of appease the perception of people in your life to make them proud, I guess. Um, just before your 40th birthday, this is when that sort of reckoning in your life takes place. What is that reckoning in your life? What did you realize and, and what did you see as the solution to that confrontation?

Rich Roll 48:34 Yeah, so I had spent the better part of 10 years, uh, people pleasing and doing my best to be successful living somebody else's life, unbeknownst to me. Doing all the right things, checking all the boxes, becoming successful. So if you were on the outside looking in, it looked like I was doing pretty well. Inside, I was dying because my soul, my spirit was unheard and undernourished. Like, I didn't know how to pay attention to myself or the signals of my soul who were telling me, "I don't think you're that happy doing this," and repressing that year after year after year to the point where, uh...... I couldn't do it anymore. So, I was harboring a bit of an existential crisis about how I was living my life being this lawyer and kind of showing up in the world in a certain way that always felt like a costume that didn't fit me. Meanwhile, uh, although sober from drugs and alcohol, I'd sort of transferred a lot of that addiction energy into, into food and was eating, you know, a terrible fast food diet, gained a lot of weight, was inactive. Even though I'd been a swimmer in college, wasn't really moving my body in any meaningful way for a number of years. This existential crisis that I was having collided with this health scare shortly before I turned 40 where I was going up a flight of stairs after a long day at work and couldn't even make it all the way up. I had to stop halfway up the flight, winded, out of breath, tightness in my chest, like, wheezing (laughs) , you know, thinking, "I swam at Stanford. Like, I was a world-ranked swimmer. I can't... I'm, I'm, like, 39 about to turn 40. I feel like shit. I'm fat." And it just broke that spell of denial about how I was living where it became intolerable to continue along that path. And it was very much like the day that I decided to go to rehab, like, this moment back to willingness. Like, suddenly out of the blue, I was blessed with this realization not only that I needed to change my lifestyle habits, but that I had the willingness to actually take action on that. And because the decision that I had made 10 years prior when I went to rehab had been so transformational. Like, I could have woken up that day and made a different decision, what would my life look like? And I had this palpable sense that once again this was just such a moment where if I could make a decision like I had 10 years ago, maybe I could change the trajectory of my life. And I know that these moments are fleeting and, and they require kind of immediate action or they pass, right? You could say, "Maybe I should eat better or go to the gym once in a while. Like, I'm tired of feeling like shit." That's so vague, I knew that that wasn't gonna work for me and I needed to do something immediate that was also difficult that would mimic the experience of (laughs) going into a treatment center for drugs and alcohol. Like, I needed to have a structured situation that would snap me out of my comfort zone and kind of create a new trajectory upon which I could build something different.

Steven Bartlett 51:55 I think a- I think about this a lot in, like, businesses and organizations, they almost need to stage a crisis, I call it, to make change happen. Because when you're, when you're in an organization and there's maybe thousands of people, and let's say it's AI or an innovation comes along, people will go, "Ah, it's a problem, but, you know, we're fine," and then they'll kind of carry on, keep on keeping on. The organization almost needs to stage a crisis. Like, get everyone in a room and say, "We're changing today." And really sort of terrify (laughs) , terrify their team about the, the prospect of not changing. It's almost like staging a rock bottom because it will be the frog in the frying pan. It will slowly creep upon you if you don't-

Rich Roll 52:33 Right.

Steven Bartlett 52:33 ... at some point, as I call it, like, stage a crisis, which is to really get clear on where this is heading and where we're sleepwalking ourselves into, whether it's with our health, our relationships. I actually had this conversation with a friend of mine in his relationship because he's now in a sexless relationship and he's really un- unhappy, but he's not saying anything about it. He's kind of bringing, bringing it up s- sort of quietly once in a while and his unhappiness in the relationship and resentment is coming out in other ways in the relationship, like arguments and fighting, but he needs to stop and s- and, like, stage a crisis.

Rich Roll 53:08 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 53:09 Like, not allow it to be brushed under the carpet anymore and sit down and say, "Listen, if we can't solve this, I have to leave this relationship and, like, I wanna solve it with you, but it's a deal-breaker for me." See what I mean?

Rich Roll 53:20 Yeah, I get what you're saying. Basically, short of, of, like, sleepwalking yourself towards the cliff's edge-

Steven Bartlett 53:27 Yeah.

Rich Roll 53:27 ... do staging an intervention on your life-

Steven Bartlett 53:30 Yeah (laughs) . Yeah.

Rich Roll 53:30 ... by, you know, like, concocting a crisis-

Steven Bartlett 53:33 Sounding the alarm.

Rich Roll 53:33 ... that's gonna compel you to confront-

Steven Bartlett 53:35 Yeah.

Rich Roll 53:35 ... the elephant in the room that is the thing that is holding you back-

Steven Bartlett 53:38 Because-

Rich Roll 53:38 ... that's obvious to everyone else and yet you're refusing to look at it, right?

Steven Bartlett 53:43 Yeah, because we, as you said earlier, we want to avoid discomfort. So if we can, just sweep discomfort under the carpet-

Rich Roll 53:49 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 53:49 ... and procrastinate it into tomorrow, we do. We do that in businesses, we do it in our own lives. So how do we maximize the discomfort today by s- by presenting what the future will look like if we don't take action right now?

Rich Roll 54:01 Right.

Steven Bartlett 54:01 A- And there is often a point of no return, in relationships, in, in business, for sure, for sure. So, yeah.

Rich Roll 54:08 Yeah, I think that's a very kind of pragmatic, uh, you know, three-dimensional, uh, actionable way to look at it. Perhaps a more mystical way to approach this is to say that when you are living your life out of alignment with your best self, the universe comes knocking and it knocks gently. Like, you're, you're, maybe you're out telling lies or whatever it is. Like, you're just not... You're not, you're not living your life in, in integrity, like, in alignment with your own values. And we all do this, right? We're not all living perfect lives. And so... And, and, and so when you do that, like, there'll be nudges and those nudges will be very graceful at first. And if you ignore them, a little, a little bit louder, right? Yeah. Yeah, that's fine. I can, I can, you know, I can deal with that. The knocks start to get more intense, more intense, more intense, more intense and then you get two DUIs in six months and you're in jail or your partner leaves you or whatever it is, right? Like, how much pain are you willing to tolerate? How loud does the knock have to be before you're willing to course-correct? Change is very difficult. We don't want to make change or... Look, if, if, if, uh...If change were easy or it was a logical thing, like, "Here's the answer. Do this," and if everybody just did it, there would be no self-help industry. There wouldn't need to be any books. You just tell somebody what to do, and they do it. So, why don't they do it, right? We don't like to be out of our comfort zone. We have a certain way that we live our life, and until that is so disruptive- disrupted, we're gonna continue on that path, right? So, the question becomes, how much pain do you have to be in before, uh, you're willing to, uh, walk through the fear of the unknown that the change presents? How loud does the knock have to be? How low does the elevator have to- to drop? Um, and I think that that answer is different for everybody. But the amazing and confusing thing about it is that the possibility of change exists in all moments. We can make that choice at any time. We don't have to suffer. We don't have to be in pain, and yet we still don't do it.

Steven Bartlett 56:30 Why?

Rich Roll 56:30 So, unlocking that mystery, yeah, I mean-

Steven Bartlett 56:33 The comfort thing?

Rich Roll 56:33 Well, there's your book. You can answer that question.

Steven Bartlett 56:36 Well, I've been playing around with this idea in my book.

Rich Roll 56:39 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 56:40 There was a chapter I was gonna write about time, right? So, I wanted to write something about time and time management. So, I thought the best place to start is talking about death because that kind of puts time in context. It's finite.

Rich Roll 56:51 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 56:52 Um, so I started writing about that. You know, if you're 35 years old, you've got 17,000 days left. I'm trying to, you know, find all these ways where people can visualize the con- 'cause- 'cause of what you said, people can't think of decades. We can't think of finality. We can't think of infinity. We can't think of long periods of time. I also, at some level, don't believe we- we know we're going to die.

Rich Roll 57:09 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 57:10 We don't live our lives accordingly.

Rich Roll 57:11 Right, yeah.

Steven Bartlett 57:11 You know, we think like, it happens to other people.

Rich Roll 57:13 Yeah, exact- yeah.

Steven Bartlett 57:13 (laughs)

Rich Roll 57:14 Deep down, we're like, "Somehow I'm gonna sidestep this thing."

Steven Bartlett 57:16 Yeah, yeah. (laughs)

Rich Roll 57:16 "It's not actually gonna happen." Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 57:18 Yeah, and you see that in our decisions-

Rich Roll 57:20 Uh-huh.

Steven Bartlett 57:20 ... like the things we pour our attention into. Clearly, we don't think we're- we're on a clock here.

Rich Roll 57:23 Right.

Steven Bartlett 57:24 Um, a clock we can't see. So, that's how I started the chapter, then I went into time, and I was like, "Okay, time management techniques." I looked, I was thinking about my own time management techniques. I then was like, "I'll Google it." ChatGPT. Went on ChatGPT, talked to me about time management techniques. There's so many of them, and I thought to myself, "The reason why there's so many is the same reason there are so many fad diets," because none of them work unless you have discipline. So, but people just keep making new ones and they keep selling because none of them work without this thing called discipline. So, what causes discipline? And then I arrived at this sort of discipline equation in my head where I kind of believe when you want... I'm gonna say this in a super vague way, broad way. When your perception of how meaningful the goal is plus the enjoyment and psychological engagement you get from the pursuit towards the goal... So for me, I really want to be a DJ. I've played around with the idea for a long time. I finally made the decision I wanted to do it. Why do I want to do it? Absolutely love music. Love the thrill and the- how energized I am from- from performance, plus the psychological engagement enjoyment I get from the pursuit. It's like meditation, DJing, and the practice of it, right? So, you c- go upstairs into my kitchen. I spend hours listening to my favorite music and merging it with other songs I love for hours, forgetting about the whole world, minus the perceived psychological cost of the pursuit. So, what does it cost me to pursue DJing? And I think that is roughly my discipline equation. So, if you think about these three elements, how bad do you want it, how enjoyable it is, what does it cost? You can kind of think of how- why people might or might not change. And it somewhat fits into what you said about when the pain of staying the same becomes greater than the pain of making a change, then people make the change.

Rich Roll 59:04 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 59:05 Um, when they really, really want it and it's more enjoyable than it is painful, to go in that direction, behavior changes.

Rich Roll 59:13 Right. Well, I would take it one step further, but first-

Steven Bartlett 59:18 Please.

Rich Roll 59:18 ... let me- let me say this. I would say that you're already a DJ. You're making, uh, an assumption around what it means to be a DJ or to pursue DJing. That comes with a lot of baggage. It means success. Maybe you're envisioning a big crowd of people who are listening-

Steven Bartlett 59:36 Yeah.

Rich Roll 59:36 ... to your music. But the fact that it brings you joy and you found a way to carve time out to nourish that, it doesn't matter how far it goes or doesn't go, as long as you are kind of cultivating that out of that purity of spirit because it nourishes your life. So, that's what I n- mean when I was talking about the banker, right?

Steven Bartlett 59:56 Mm-hmm.

Rich Roll 59:56 Like, just DJ at your kitchen table. Like, it doesn't have to be any more than that. If it- if- if you're finding so much joy in it, then you can recalibrate that equation about how much energy, resources, and time you're gonna invest in it. But right now, if it fits into your life and it's- it's making your life better, then the question would be, does it need to be more than that? Do you need it to be attached to some external validation-

Steven Bartlett 1:00:24 Mm-hmm.

Rich Roll 1:00:24 ... or monetary reward or recognition in order for you to believe that you actually are a DJ?

Steven Bartlett 1:00:30 And this-

Rich Roll 1:00:30 It's not saying there's an answer to that question, but it's something to think about.

Steven Bartlett 1:00:33 This- th- the reason I gave the DJing example is because it was something I- I was able to stick at. I was able to, quote-unquote, "essentially change." And at certain... and my health was the same thing. It fits into that discipline equation of at some point in my life, I saw this pandemic happen. I saw the fragility of this thing called health that in my young 25 years, I never even knew was there.

Rich Roll 1:00:52 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 1:00:52 I never even knew I had health because mine had fortunately always been well. And then upon seeing the pandemic play out and hearing the doctors and scientists say that your current health, how, you know, obesity is linked to your chances of, um, suffering, having sort of worse effects of this disease, that was enough for me to put me in the gym for the next three years. And I haven't missed a- a... more than two days since pretty much in a week for the last three years. That was my behavior change. Before then, I was the guy with the fast food.

Rich Roll 1:01:18 Right, so that was the moment, that was the line in the sand moment. That piece of information created willingness in you.

Steven Bartlett 1:01:25 Which is the first part of that equation, which is the why. Like, why do I care about my health?

Rich Roll 1:01:29 Right.

Steven Bartlett 1:01:30 It added so much weight to me caring about my health...

Rich Roll 1:01:34 ... but discipline is easy when you have that why-

Steven Bartlett 1:01:38 Yeah.

Rich Roll 1:01:39 ... answered, right?

Steven Bartlett 1:01:40 Yeah.

Rich Roll 1:01:40 So if it was just that easy, I think that more people would be able to make positive changes in their life. But I think where it gets more complicated is when we understand beneath the surface that it's our emotional lives that are truly the things that hold us back from accessing that potential. You can be incredibly disciplined, but if you think you're a piece of shit or you don't deserve good things in your life, or you're being impulsed by some trauma that happened to you, you were abused as a young person, that's gonna show up in your life as a barrier or an impediment from you doing the thing that you know you need to do to become the person that you could potentially become. So the head, discipline, can drive us so far, but if we don't sort out the heart and what is making the heart beat, what is making us, uh, move in one direction versus another, and untangling or detaching or transcending, um, the emotional baggage that is the true impediment to our growth, discipline is only gonna take you so far.

Steven Bartlett 1:02:54 So you, um, became an ultra-endurance sports athlete from that point of where you couldn't walk up the stairs without losing your breath. What was that transformation?

Rich Roll 1:03:06 So after that moment, I decided to take responsibility for my well-being, um, and thus began a pretty long and inelegant and non-linear process of, first, trying to figure out how to eat in a way that would allow me to feel good in my body. That began with a seven-day juice detox cleanse that I did, not because I felt like I needed to detox anything, but I needed to recreate the experience of detoxing off alcohol that I had in rehab. Like, I needed to do something that was gonna be hard and uncomfortable, and not eating and just drinking juice seemed like a good way to accomplish that. I'd never gone a day without eating food before. Um, and that was an experience where I was incredibly uncomfortable and I felt horrible for a couple of days. But on the seventh day, I felt amazing, and I couldn't believe that only drinking juices for seven days could result, on day seven, in this boost of vitality and, um, mental acuity that I hadn't experienced in a

Rich Roll 1:04:11 long time as somebody who was eating cheeseburgers every day. Uh, and, and that made me wanna figure out a way to feel like that all the time. And so I ended up trying a bunch of different diets, and what worked for me ultimately after trying many different things was going entirely plant-based. Um, I'm not here to tell everyone that that's what they should do, but that's what agreed with me, and that's the way I've eaten for the last 16 years. And, you know, this, um, this, uh, approach to nutrition restored my vitality and gave me a renewed sense of energy, so much so that I had difficulty sitting still (laughs) and finally wanted to, like, move again, and pulled out an old pair of running shoes from the closet and just started moving my feet again. And I went back to the pool for the first time in a very long time, and was just connecting, frankly, with these things that brought me joy as a young person. Like, I was a swimmer, and I hadn't done it in a long time, and I'd forgotten, um, what it feels like to jump into a swimming pool on a sunny day and feel the water and connect with my breath and, you know, move my legs on a trail at dawn, and I really loved it. And I felt like that was a journey towards answering these questions that I was having on the existential front about what I was gonna do with my life, 'cause I had a lot of confusion at that time, and just the mental space of, like, being alone with my breath in the pool or on a trail running was very healing for me. And I had no aspirations of, of becoming a competitive athlete with it. I just wanted to feel good. I wanted to, like, lose this gut, you know, frankly, for vanity reasons. I didn't like how I looked in the mirror. And the weight came off really quickly, and I felt like I was making incredible progress athletically week after week after week. Um, and then one day I went out, like, maybe six months into this experience, and I was just gonna run for, like, an hour, and I had one of those days, you're an athlete, you know those days where you just feel like you just are bulletproof and you can go, go, go? And I just kept running and ended up running the better part of a marathon that day, like 24 miles, and I'd never done anything like that before. Despite having been a swimmer, I'd never been a runner, and that was a real watershed moment where I thought, "Wow, like, I feel really good." I didn't know that you could feel this good, certainly not at age 40, and that got me thinking about potential. And I had never really realized my potential as an athlete in college because alcohol really, um, destroyed my swimming career, and so there was a sense of unfinished business there, but I just wanted to see what I was capable of. And so that, um, that set me on this journey to find experiences where I could tap into that, and that's where I discovered this whole world of ultra-endurance and these crazy races, and I became fascinated with that and ended up competing in this race called Ultraman, which is a three-day double Ironman race, and that's the race that I ended up distinguishing myself in. And, and really the instigating point in that was reading an article where David

Rich Roll 1:07:24 Goggins had done that race back in 2006, I think, and it was the story of how he got through that race that really inspired me. And because he wasn't the traditional endurance athlete, triathlete, um, I was able to convince myself that if he could do it, that maybe I could, and that...... set in motion me, uh, training for this race and, and, and, uh, and competing in it a couple times.

Steven Bartlett 1:07:51 I've had two guests come here and tell me that we're in a comfort crisis. And what they mean by that is they say that we're kind of optimizing our way, um, away from comfort in every sense of the word where, like, you know, we live in these sort of room temperature rooms, where we can go on a piece of glass and get someone to bring us our food in a metal car right to our doorstep. And we're, we're... And in fact, discomfort and pressure is where our growth, our health, um, and all of these things, um, fulfillment in many cases comes from. Doing an ultra-endurance race is, for me, you know, the, uh, one of the epitomes of, of pressure and discomfort and sitting with that and accepting it. Do you believe that more of us should be making ourselves uncomfortable in that context more often, and that there's tremendous value in that? I think about it when I hear, like, Fuck, Kelsey, why don't I get on my bike and, and just ride, and just see, and push myself, see wha- see where I can take it?"

Rich Roll 1:08:52 100%. You don't grow unless you go out of your comfort zone. And that's in every facet of your life. If you want to become smarter, you have to read books or go to school. Like, that's not always comfortable. There's a million different varieties of this. But yes, we are in a culture that prioritizes comfort and luxury, and it's all about making our lives easier. Ironically, what makes us happy is putting ourselves in difficult situations, not so difficult that they capsize our lives, but difficult enough that we're testing ourselves and we're grappling with obstacles and we're overcoming them. And on the other side, we feel a boost in self-esteem, we feel more ourselves, we feel more alive, and we experience growth and connection with self and connection with other people. This is the stuff of life, and yet it is not the way that society is constructed to... We have to go out of our way now. We have to seek the... It used to be, this was everyday life-

Steven Bartlett 1:09:55 (laughs)

Rich Roll 1:09:55 ... just to survive, right? And now, we actually have to pay money-

Steven Bartlett 1:09:59 (laughs)

Rich Roll 1:10:00 ... and travel to places to have these experiences. What's so amazing is, is that, you know, when I started doing these ultra races, they're, they're all very kind of like low-key, under the radar, there's not a lot of media attention on them. Um, you know, it's a subculture, uh, that has been around for a while. But in the last decade, we've seen an explosion in interest, uh, in, in like doing 100-mile races. Like, there's lotteries now to get into a race where you have to run 100 miles. Like, if you told somebody in 1800 that this was gonna be the case, they would think you were insane, right? So what does that say? It tells us that we feel nourished by doing hard things, that there, that we are extracting value from those experiences that we don't get in the mundanity of our everyday lives. And yes, we have to consciously extract ourselves from the comforts of our environments and put ourselves in those positions. But the good news is, there's lots of those things right now. It's insane how many marathons. Uh, the London Marathon was the other... Like, how many thousands of people ran it? And then there's the Spartan Race. And there's just a million of these things now that didn't used to exist, because the human spirit needs it, it demands it. And we have too long deprived ourself of these types of scenarios. That doesn't mean that you wanna be unsafe or put yourself in peril. But, um, I just don't see any other way or any other path towards becoming the better version of yourself without placing yourself in scenarios in which you're tested. Because succeed or fail, you have an experience that's gonna teach you more about who you are, what your limitations are, and what your capabilities are.

Steven Bartlett 1:11:52 The popularity of these, um, endurance races and even things like ice plunge pools and stuff-

Rich Roll 1:11:58 Sure, yeah.

Steven Bartlett 1:11:58 ... the only things that make us feel really uncomfortable. Again, it reminded me of what I said earlier about the, um, because the, there's been a real rise in sort of social media and the dig- digital screens and all of these things. Now people are looking for places for community, so bowling alleys and in real life events have increased. And in the same way, 'cause we've optimized our lives to be more comfortable

Steven Bartlett 1:12:16 and easy, now there's a, a booming industry around things that make us, uh, feel uncomfortable. You said, "I didn't get into ultra-endurance sports to win races, beat others, or stand atop a podium. I got into it because it's the perfect template for self-discovery."

Rich Roll 1:12:31 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 1:12:31 What did you discover about yourself? And also, I think it's probably important to f- to say to people, you're really, really good at this ultra-endurance stuff. Like, we haven't quite gone through your CV yet, but, I mean, I've got a list of accolades that you've achieved, and you're, you're one of the, the best at this. So, I think that's worth saying before we proceed.

Rich Roll 1:12:50 Yeah, thank you for that. I mean, I th- I've, I've learned so much. The amazing thing about endurance athletics is you have to spend a lot of time with an elevated heart rate that's not so uncomfortable that you can't perpetuate it for hours and hours and hours, but is just uncomfortable enough where you're sitting in that discomfort and you have to develop a, a tolerance for that. So, what it does is it teaches you how to suffer, how to manage pain, um, but also how to be with yourself. Like, when I was training for these races, I would go out, like, all day alone, and it's just you, your breath, and your mind. And at that time, I really was trying to figure out, like...... "I can't be this lawyer anymore." Like, "What am I gonna do?" Like, "All I know is I really like doing this. This is not a career path. (laughs) You know, this is not... I'm not gonna support four kids doing this thing that I love. But it is bringing so much value to me that I just know I wanna keep doing it and I'm going to pay attention and pull whatever threads show up." And what I learned through this journey of training, most importantly the training, the races are just, you know, a demonstration of what you put into getting to that point, um, was on a surface level, as an athlete, I had a lot more to say, uh, than I, than I ever believed that I could. I was able to do things I never would have thought possible, um, and do it in my 40s, which is an age where people think you're way past your prime. Uh, so that was huge. And like I said earlier, that opened up the possibility of tapping into potential in other areas of my life. Um, but I also learned that when you cultivate and nourish that thing that is bringing you joy and you pay attention to the subtle voices that are telling you, "This feels right," when you commit to that completely, that will set you on a journey that will lead you to a place you can't possibly imagine. When I put on the running shoes for the first time and just thought, "I love doing this," could I have imagined that I'd be sitting across from you right now having a conversation? It's ridiculous. It's preposterous. So what I learned was the power of connecting with the heart, as somebody like yourself who lives in their mind and prides themself on their intellect and their analytic abilities, understanding the limitations of that, and finding a way to really pay attention to those kind of more ephemeral, ethereal, uh, messages that one will receive when you're really quiet, you're really honest with yourself, and you're committed to taking actions that are in alignment with that in a way that maybe you never prioritized before. And that has been a path that I've blazed for many years at this point that has caused suffering and hardship, but also beautiful, um, creative offerings and, you know, a life that I could have never imagined for myself.

Steven Bartlett 1:16:26 Metaphorically, it sounds like you, you almost ran away from your little career in law.

Rich Roll 1:16:31 Yeah, I guess so.

Steven Bartlett 1:16:32 (laughs)

Rich Roll 1:16:32 Yeah, I guess so. I guess so. Uh, you know, the law and me, like...

Steven Bartlett 1:16:37 How did that feel?

Rich Roll 1:16:37 I don't like conflict. I don't know how I became a lawyer in the first place. Like, I just, you know, I, I, I could will myself to be a, be the lawyer that I was, but it never felt right to me, and I knew that I wasn't in the right situation for myself. And it took me a really long time to walk away. Like, I, I probably walked away from it over a very extended period of time. It wasn't a very dramatic split.

Steven Bartlett 1:17:03 I was trying to figure out from the point of when you start doing the ultra-endurance racing to the point where you get into sort of f- financial hardship, 45 years old, you launch your Rich Roll podcast, you've got this law job, you start ultra racing, there's financial hardship. Is that because you, you quit the law job or is that because-

Rich Roll 1:17:24 No. So... (laughs)

Rich Roll 1:17:26 'Cause I was a bad lawyer.

Steven Bartlett 1:17:27 Oh, okay. (laughs)

Rich Roll 1:17:27 No, no, no. Here, what happened was... So I, I, I did exit, like, the big law firm thing-

Steven Bartlett 1:17:32 Right.

Rich Roll 1:17:32 ... but I continued to practice law as a solo practitioner and then in a couple different, um, incarnations of partnerships with-

Steven Bartlett 1:17:40 Ah.

Rich Roll 1:17:40 ... a couple people. But as I got more and more immersed in the ultra world, my enthusiasm and interest in my law practice-

Steven Bartlett 1:17:48 Ah.

Rich Roll 1:17:48 ... continued to dwindle, and I was my own boss at that point-

Steven Bartlett 1:17:51 Ah.

Rich Roll 1:17:51 ... practicing law. So not a lot of new clients coming in.

Steven Bartlett 1:17:55 Right.

Rich Roll 1:17:55 Um, I was still doing it, making just enough money to get by, but wasn't doing great 'cause I just wasn't into it, but I held onto it for a very long time. And when you're holding onto it, it's hard to get into the new thing until you're really willing to let go of the other thing. But making that transition was very challenging, even, you know, after Finding Ultra came out, uh, I, I completely severed my ties with the law at that point, but there wer- the phone wasn't really ringing that much and there wasn't a lot of opportunities coming my way and it took a lot of patience and faith? And I did the podcast for years before we were able to monetize it or do any kind of ads or anything like that. I just did it as, like, a fun hobby or project.

Steven Bartlett 1:18:40 What was it like for Julie during that period, between sort of 2008 and 2015? S- things are really tough financially. Um, you almost lost your house, couldn't pay a lot of your bills, had your cars repossessed.

Rich Roll 1:18:53 Yeah, it was very difficult. Um, she was really the strength in that equation because there were multiple occasions where I couldn't take it anymore and I thought, "This is ridiculous. I need to go back and get a law job. What kind of head of household or, you know, man of the house am I if I can't even pay the bills and I'm chasing this fool's errand in this direction of trying to do these creative projects or be this athlete? Like, who, who the hell do you think you are?" And Julie was the one who was like, "No. We've come too far for you to move backwards. And the answers that you are seeking and the solutions to the problems we face are only going to be found by continuing to blaze the path that you've established for yourself." And she had a conviction and a belief and an ability to see the more...... kind of, developed, actualized version of myself that I couldn't at that time. And without her strength, her faith, her conviction, I definitely would have abandoned the path. But she was in all the way. And she would say, "These things are just things. You're definitely on a path, um, that you should be on. I can, I can see that, and I want that for you. And if we lose the house, we lose the house. Cars are cars. This stuff comes and goes. But we're together, and we're, we're gonna, we're gonna walk this path. This is what we're here to do." Which is a fucking amazing thing for a partner to say to you. To have that kind of belief in you is such a gift. So, I just can't emphasize enough how powerful, um, she has been, like, in this whole thing.

Steven Bartlett 1:20:55 Of all the things you've accomplished in your life, of all the things you've done, uh, what does she mean to you?

Rich Roll 1:21:03 I mean, she's, she is my, you know, partner in all things. She's my North Star. She's my spiritual counsel. Um, she's my mirror. Yeah. Um, and, you know, we're normal people with kids who, you know, bicker and argue and have the same kinda issues everyone else does. Um, but she's a really special person, really special.

Steven Bartlett 1:21:35 It's really, it's really something when someone can see the potential in you in a way that maybe you can't see it at that moment in time, or maybe you don't quite believe it.

Rich Roll 1:21:45 It is such a gift. You know, they say, um, the greatest gift you can give somebody is your attention.

Steven Bartlett 1:21:51 Mm-hmm.

Rich Roll 1:21:52 But if you have somebody in your life who believes in you so thoroughly that they can see past whatever situation you're in or whatever faults you have or things that trip you up and holds a vision for that better version of you, and not only holds it for you, says, "I believe in you." They're not telling you what to do or how to do it. They're saying, "I believe in you, and I trust you to find your way towards that person. And I am holding that for you in my daily consciousness, in my sleep, in my thoughts, in my prayers."

Steven Bartlett 1:22:33 They're manifesting it for you.

Rich Roll 1:22:34 It's a very powerful energy. Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 1:22:38 It's a, it's a curious idea that someone else can manifest (laughs) your life for you in a, in a kind of inadvertent way. I've experienced that as well.

Rich Roll 1:22:44 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 1:22:44 There's been moments in my life where my partner has said something to me. I've heard what she said. I didn't believe it necessarily myself, but because she believed it, that I could do that. M- maybe it did change a, a, a, something in me. Maybe it did make me go, "I trust her, and she's smart, and she's usually right. And she's telling me that I can do this thing, so maybe it is possible."

Rich Roll 1:23:12 Hmm.

Steven Bartlett 1:23:12 I can remember so many conversations over 15 years where someone said something to me about what my future will look like. And because I trusted them, um, I think it helped that future become a reality.

Rich Roll 1:23:23 Sure. I mean, just imagine the young person who, uh, you know, has the opportunity to be with a certain teacher and that teacher says, "You know, you can do this. Like, you're good at it." Like, there's countless stories of people who win Oscars and get up and thank their whoever who said, "You know, you should keep doing that thing." And, you know, those are, those are really powerful, um, you know, gifts that we can give to other people.

Steven Bartlett 1:23:50 "He believes that if you follow your true path, the universe will support you." A quote I read about you as well.

Rich Roll 1:23:56 Yeah, I do, I do believe that. Um, that's been my life experience. I've seen that manifest in, in many people, um, that I know over the years, a lot of people in recovery. Uh, and that doesn't mean that it's easy or convenient or on your timetable. Um, I, I would say that the, the path that I've pursued has been the hardest path I could have imagined. It's the most meaningful and fulfilling, um, but it didn't happen overnight. It happened over the course of more than a decade, uh, and it required a lot of conviction and faith and patience and pain. Um, we have to... You know, we had to lose a lot. But there's that adage, like, you can't... You know, "The... You can't be a phoenix if you don't