EVERY SPOKEN WORD
105 min read · 21,255 words- 0:00 – 3:57
Start
- TFTim Ferriss
[upbeat music] Hello, boys and girls, ladies and germs. This is Tim Ferriss, and welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferriss Show. I'm so excited to have my guest today. His name is Rich Roll. And I'm gonna start in an unorthodox way, and that is by reading a tweet. I don't really do this. I don't know if I've ever done this, but this is a tweet from October 2018, and I think Rich is probably gonna see where this is going.
- RRRich Roll
[laughs]
- TFTim Ferriss
Just before his 52nd birthday. Here's the tweet: "I didn't reach my athletic peak until I was 43. I didn't write my first book until I was 44. I didn't start my podcast until I was 45. At 30, I thought my life was over. At 52, I know it's just beginning. Keep running, never give up, and watch your kite soar." And, uh, then there's actually another tweet within context. So I've retweeted this for people who wanna see it. They can also find it, of course, @richroll, R-O-L-L. I wanna mention one more thing before we get to more of the bio, and that is related to your first half Ironman. So [laughs] this is in Outside Magazine, and here's the quote. "In my first half Ironman, I barfed during the swim. By the time I got off my bike, my legs were so cramped up that I ran 100 meters," for you Yanks like me, that's about 300 feet, "and just stopped. It was DNF." That means he did not finish. "My beginnings in triathlon were very humble, but I loved it." All right, so I'm gonna give this in drips and drabs, but let's, let's start with paragraph one. So now zooming out to present day with a little bit of retrospective, at age 40, Rich Roll, like, as I mentioned, @richroll on Twitter, made the decision to overhaul the sedentary throes of overweight middle age. And I might, I may or may not, be in that place just right now.
- RRRich Roll
[laughs]
- TFTim Ferriss
Walking away from a career in law, he reinvented himself as a globally recognized ultra-distance endurance athlete, bestselling author, and host of the wildly popular Rich Roll Podcast, which I highly recommend, one of the world's most-listened-to podcasts with more than 200 million downloads. And I'm gonna modify the next paragraph a little bit. Rich has been named one of the 25 fittest men in the world by Men's Fitness and the Guru of Reinvention by Outside Magazine. He has written a bestselling memoir, Finding Ultra, and has co-authored the cookbooks/lifestyle guides, The Plantpower Way and The Plantpower Way: Italia with his wife, Julie. Is it Piatt?
- RRRich Roll
Piatt.
- TFTim Ferriss
Damn it. I knew I had a 50/50-
- RRRich Roll
It's okay
- TFTim Ferriss
... chance there. And I-
- RRRich Roll
It's a common, common thing.
- TFTim Ferriss
Ah, flubbed it.
- RRRich Roll
You're not alone.
- TFTim Ferriss
This is showing where the, and how the sausage is made because a professional would've asked, and in fact, I highlighted her last name [laughs] to ask you-
- RRRich Roll
[laughs]
- TFTim Ferriss
... before we started recording, but, you know, we live and learn.
- RRRich Roll
Don't worry.
- TFTim Ferriss
And, uh, just to get a few things mentioned, and we'll mention them again at the very end, richroll.com, you can find all things Rich related. Rich Roll on all social, including Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube, except for Facebook, which is richrollfans. Rich, welcome to the show.
- RRRich Roll
Thanks so much for having me, Tim. It's, it's really an honor to be able to, uh, join you for this, and I'm really looking forward to the conversation to come, so thanks for having me.
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah, absolutely, me too. And for those of you who can't see video, at some point maybe you should check it out because we have the perfect yin-yang color template here.
- RRRich Roll
[laughs]
- TFTim Ferriss
You have a rather disheveled Tim Ferriss in tan with white background and Rich [laughs] looking like a handsome devil with black clothing, black background. It's actually very striking. I should request that guests do this in the future. It, uh, will help viewers to
- 3:57 – 45:48
Alcoholism
- TFTim Ferriss
keep them separate. So let's, let's really dive in here. And I want to establish just a bit of background for folks, and we're gonna go all over the place. So at age 40, right, so you make the decision to overhaul, dot, dot, dot. But let's, let's get granular and maybe we could focus on one piece of this life puzzle, which is alcohol. And could you speak to the role that alcohol has played in your life? When it entered your life, when you really realized that you had a problem. Let's begin there if you're open to it.
- RRRich Roll
It entered my life, uh, near the end of high school and the beginning of college. Uh, prior to that, I was a very studious, uh, highly motivated person who was very goal driven, and that grew out of, I think in retrospect looking back on my life, on a deep insecurity that I had. Because as a young person, I was very much an introvert. I had a lot of difficulty connecting with other people and making friends. I certainly hadn't demonstrated any kind of, like, athletic talent or, or ability. I was the, you know, typical, like, prototypical kid who gets picked last for kickball and was very awkward and self-conscious. And at some point along the way, I discovered the po- the sport of swimming, and we can talk about that if you like. But that was the one thing where I kind of felt comfortable and showed some level of acumen at an early stage. And when you're a young person and you experience just a little bit of encouragement or success, you're gonna kind of double down on that, and that's what I did. And I think there was something about being underwater in, in almost a metaphysical sense or a psychological sense where I felt protected, like it was almost like this womb where I was insulated from all of the confusing emotions that I had as a young person. And so swimming really became my focus And I realized early that I wasn't the most talented kid, but I had this capacity to suffer and to work hard and a willingness to go the extra mile. And with that sensibility, I was able to bridge the talent deficit gap to some extent, to the point where by the time I was a senior in high school, I was one of the better swimmers in the Washington, DC area where I grew up. And the discipline that I learned in the swimming pool trickled into my academic pursuits. So I was able to go from a kid who really had trouble learning and was sort of a sit in the back of the class kind of guy to being a good student and ultimately getting into a bunch of fancy colleges. So, so at 18, I really was in a situation, a very privileged situation, where the world was very much my oyster and anything was possible. But I ended up going to Stanford University. I g- you know, I went to the opposite coast, and I'm sure there's some psychological reasons [laughs] why, you know, I flew three thousand miles away to go to college. And it was, it was... Y- you know, the reason to go there was twofold. I mean, first of all, Stanford is Stanford, and it's this amazing academic institution. But at the time, in the mid and late 1980s, it also had the number one NCAA Division I men’s swimming program. They were, like, the most incredible team, the most insane assemblage of Olympic champions and world and American record holders and, and the like. Uh, and the opportunity to be a member of that team was like a, a dream that I couldn't even imagine for myself. So here I am in this incredibly privileged situation where anything truly is possible. But enter alcohol. And alcohol was something that I first was introduced to when I was doing recruiting trips and traveling to colleges, which is what you do when you're, you know, an athlete and trying to consider where to go to school. And I had some experiences there that kind of really anchored in me from moment one that this was gonna be a thing for me. Like, I had that sensation that you hear about with recovering alcoholics, where from the f- very first drink, it was like this warm blanket that just I could wrap myself in, and all my troubles and fears and insecurities just sort of vanished. And for the first time, I felt comfortable in my own skin. And I just remember thinking, "This is the way that I want to feel all the time." Like, I could go to a party and I could strike up a conversation or crack a joke or talk to a girl, which were all things that were terrifying to me at the time. And so I just felt like I had found the solution that I had been looking for my whole life, you know, this young person who felt like everybody else had a perfect roadmap for how to live and suddenly, you know, those answers that eluded me were being provided in the form of this substance. And so when I got to Stanford, very quickly-- Well, quickly and gradually, but I would say that I got more and more progressively more interested in, like, "Where's my next good time?" than, "How am I going to create a foundation for a happy, successful life?" And a lot of those aspirations that I had about athletics and, you know, academic excellence soon became secondary to, you know, where's the, where's the party tonight? And it was just a situation where over an extended period of time, like, my w- my life began to degrade. So it wasn't a situation in which I created cataclysms out of the gate that, that derailed me because I could function, and you're-- it's easier to do that when you're younger, but I could function, you know. I could, I could comport myself in a way where I could still get good grades, show up for class, still, you know, go out partying until two or three in the morning and show up for six AM swim practice. But over time, like, this is not a good recipe for [chuckles] for living. And, and, you know, I lived that way for a very long time until ultimately things got really dark and scary and, you know, I hit that bottom that you hear about with people in recovery.
- TFTim Ferriss
What did any of the bottoms or dark moments look like? If we could paint a picture of any example that comes to mind.
- RRRich Roll
I mean, first of all, I would say that there was, there was nothing, like, cool or rock and roll about any of it. Like, it's just lonely, sad, and, and kind of pathetic and, and deeply embarrassing. You know, just, you know, I would, I would drive drunk and, like, wouldn't remember where I parked my car and would have to wake up the next morning and try to figure out where, where my car was when I was living in San Francisco when I was fresh out of law school. Um, one time, I woke up one day, didn't want to go to my law firm job and, like, flew to Las Vegas and lost my wallet and woke up not remembering anything that had happened and trying to figure out how I'm going to get home. You know, stuff like that, that's just... You know, I was the guy who, who, you know, was the last to leave the party. And when you're in college, you know, maybe it's cute, but when you're twenty-five, twenty-six, twenty-eight, um, you know, nobody's living that way anymore, and you have to find other people to do that with, and they-- You know, so you s- you're surrounding yourself with, like, what they call lower companions in the [chuckles] parlance of recovery until ultimately there's no one left and you're just alone, you know? And I was a guy who would drink alone in my apartment or wake up in the morning before work and, and have a vodka tonic in the shower. Like, it was all very Leaving Las Vegas.
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm.
- RRRich Roll
And I was only thirty-one at the time, but my disease had progressed to such a state where there was really only, you know, a couple things that were gonna happen. Either I was going to kill myself, kill another person, or end up in jail or some kind of institution. And that's really kind of what, you know, ultimately led me to getting, getting sober.
- TFTim Ferriss
And when you say kill yourself, do you mean via alcohol poisoning or a car accident or via some deliberate suicide? What do you mean by that?
- RRRich Roll
I was never suicidal. I didn't have suicidal ideation, but my life was getting smaller and smaller and more lonely. So if I was able to kind of maintain that lifestyle over an extended period of time, I'm certain that I would, would've reached a, a level of desperation where that would have seemed like a good idea.
- TFTim Ferriss
Why did you choose law? Why did you choose to pursue law?
- RRRich Roll
[laughs]
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- RRRich Roll
It's a very good question. You know, right out of, right out of college, I moved to New York City and got a job as a paralegal in a, in a big law firm in, in New York called Skadden Arps.
- TFTim Ferriss
That's a huge one. Yeah.
- RRRich Roll
And that was, you know, a situation that should have told me immediately that maybe this wasn't the right path for me, [laughs] you know? Um, but I think that, that I chose it not out of some kind of deliberate idea that it would be something I would be interested in or show some proficiency in, but more as a reaction to social and familial pressures.
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm-hmm.
- RRRich Roll
Like this idea of not really knowing what I wanted to do, but, hey, I can always go to law school, and society will smile upon that, and I can put a nice suit on and have nice lunches and have interesting conversations with people and, you know, make a good living. I mean, my self-inquiry really didn't go any further than that, and there was nothing about, like, my interests that would have indicated that law was a good path for me. But I was so disconnected from myself that even asking myself that question at the time was anathema to, to, to who I was. But I'm a good student, and I actually enjoyed law school. I enjoy the intellectual pursuit and, and all of that, but the practice of law is very different, at least in the corporate law firm context, very different than the law school experience.
- TFTim Ferriss
Yes, very. Knowing many people who went to law school, [laughs]
- RRRich Roll
Mm-hmm
- TFTim Ferriss
... I can, uh, through secondhand stories say that that seems to universally be the, the, uh, the perspective that people end up with.
- RRRich Roll
Yeah, but, and if you, if you love it, like, if, if that's your thing, then more power to you.
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah.
- RRRich Roll
But I just remember walking the halls of, of, you know, the various law firms that I worked at, being confused that there seemed to be certain people that enjoyed it, 'cause I was just gritting my way through it, thinking, "I'll just apply these tools that I learned in the swimming pool about suffering and pain tolerance," and I just thought everybody was having that internal experience. [laughs]
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- RRRich Roll
I'm sure many were, but there seems to be some people that, that seem to enjoy it. But I just know that the more that I kind of looked around, certainly, y- you know, with respect to the, the partners, that it was clear to me that I didn't really want that life, and yet I felt very stuck in that career path and unsure about how I could ever get out of it and do anything else.
- TFTim Ferriss
So we're gonna, we're gonna spend, just for people listening and also for, for you, Rich, so you don't think that we're gonna spend too much time in, in these waters, we're gonna spend a lot of time talking about turnarounds, techniques, pattern matching, all sorts of things. But I, I do want to spend a little bit more time on this chapter or maybe the chapter shortly after this point in time. What was the straw, what were the straws that broke the camel's back with respect to alcohol and seeking help?
- RRRich Roll
Well, there were a couple important inflection points, um, one of which was getting two DUIs essentially in a row with ridiculously high blood alcohol contents, um, looking at jail time, my boss finding out at the law firm, and, and being on the precipice of, of getting fired. Uh, that's a whole rabbit hole, you know, sort of chaotic disaster that I weathered. Another one would, was, uh, uh, a marriage, or I should say, like, a wedding that went awry. Uh, [laughs] yeah, I got married, and that, that, uh, relationship ended on the honeymoon, which is a whole crazy story, story [laughs] that is inextricably linked to... I mean, I was sober at the time, but it's very much linked to, you know, m- my alcoholism. So there's big events like that. But I, I think, you know, those situations created such a deep level of shame inside of me that I wasn't able to shake alcohol in the wake of those experiences because I didn't have the emotional tools to process them, so I continued to drink for a while. I mean, the, the, the wedding was really, you know, the nadir of the whole thing, and a, a reasonable person would've woken up and gotten sober at that time. But I needed to medicate myself through that emotional shit storm until one day, you know, I, I basically woke up, and i- i- it was, I was hungover, but it wasn't like I had s- you know, I reaped any kind of chaos the night before. But it's just that moment of realizing, like, I've had enough. Like, I can't live this way anymore. It's, i- it's just so lonely and desperate, and it only leads in one direction, and I think, you know, that's what it takes. Like, for anybody who has experience with addiction, particularly substance addiction, you have this sense, like you asked me earlier on, Tim, like, when did I know I had a problem. Like, I knew I had a problem very early on in my drinking career, but that's very different from the willingness to do anything about it. Like, I harbored this notion that this was a problem for me, but you're also protecting it because you wanna be able to keep doing it, and that's what, that's what leads to, you know, this sort of double life where you're hiding your behavior from other people and deluding yourself into thinking that they don't know what's going on. But ultimately, you realize, like, everybody knows what's going on, and on some level, it's a process of, like, stripping away those, those layers of denial until you can really, you know, face the objective truth of what you're doing, and that's a very terrifying thing. And, and so that's kind of what was going on inside of me. Until, you know, this day in 1998 where I was like, "Okay, I've had it. Like, I'm, I'm ready to really take this seriously and do something about it."
- TFTim Ferriss
How old were you roughly then? My math is, is gonna fail me at this moment, but 1998.
- RRRich Roll
Yeah, I was 31.
- TFTim Ferriss
31. All right. And because it struck me as a curveball, if you don't wanna get into it, that's totally fine, [laughs] but in my mind, I envisioned this honeymoon just going down as a fireball due to some catastrophe that was alcohol induced, but you said you were sober. [laughs]
- RRRich Roll
Yeah.
- 45:48 – 48:03
“Mood follows action”
- TFTim Ferriss
Let me throw out another mnemonic of sorts. Uh, but it's, it's a very short phrase that I'd love to hear you speak to in any way that makes sense. Mood follows action.
- RRRich Roll
I love that one. Um, that was something that my first sponsor said to me very early on in sobriety. I think I was complaining to him about some commitment I had made to sweep the floors or make coffee or, uh, something along those lines or, or something that had happened to me that day that I was annoyed with and I couldn't see my way through. And, and he just said, you know, he just said, "Mood follows action." And what he meant by that is you can't, you can't think your way into, into the mood that you seek or the state of mind that you aspire to inhabit. Action is the only thing that can trigger that change state. And I literally think about this every single day, and it was validated recently in a podcast that I did with Andrew Huberman, who I know has been on your show, where he studied the neurochemistry of this and realized that behavior has to come first and thoughts, perceptions, emotions follow from that. And when you think about that in the context of our daily lives, like let's just use running, for example. Like if you wake up in the morning and you're supposed to do a run because you're training for some race and you don't feel like doing it, we all resort to that state where we think, "Well, I don't want to do it right now. I'll just wait until I feel like doing it, and then I'll do it then." And when we, when we engage that way, we end up never doing it, right? [chuckles] Like if you're waiting until you feel like doing something, chances are you're probably never gonna get to it. But to take the action despite how you feel about it is the thing that catalyzes the state change. And, you know, in my case or anybody who's a runner, they'll tell you when they finish the run, they're always glad that they did it. They don't generally regret it, and then they feel better. And I think that that example is applicable to, you know, all areas of life.
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm.
- 48:03 – 1:01:48
Rich’s transformation
- TFTim Ferriss
So when did you turn-- I mean, of course, in the bio it says at age 40. Why did you decide to turn the ship around physically?
- RRRich Roll
Mm. After getting sober at 31 and emerging from that treatment center where I lived for 100 days, which is a pretty long time to be in a treatment center, and being told by the counselors that you have a very serious case of alcoholism, the kind of case that we typically only see in lifelong drinkers like guys in their 60s, uh, it was impressed upon me that I really needed to get this right or, uh, you know, I could, uh, you know, I was gonna die. Like it, it was just-- That point was made to me Very clearly. And I was able to hear it and take it seriously. And so I was super dedicated to creating this foundation of, of sobriety because my life truly did hang in the balance. And so that became my main priority for many years after that experience. So I returned to Los Angeles. I was going to multiple meetings a day. I was doing like all this stuff and, and, and building a new community of friends because I needed, I needed new people to ha- [laughs] you know, I just, I couldn't hang out or go to the places that I had, had, you know, had been to, had been going to before. Um, and with that was also, you know, unpacking the shame that I had about being this person who had all of this potential and all of these opportunities that I had squandered. And I felt compelled to repair all of that and get back to becoming that person that I was before I started drinking. And I did that with blinders on. In my mind, the best way to do that was to go back to the law firm and, you know, work my ass off and become a partner and, you know, get all the stuff so that the world would smile upon me and my parents would think that I was safe. Alcoholics Anonymous is a spiritual program, and I was developing spiritually, but I had not yet reached the level of maturity where I could really look inward and ask myself those fundamental questions about what it is that I actually wanted to do rather than thinking, "What is society expecting me to do?" But what is unique to me? What gets me excited in the morning? What do you think that you're here to express that is uniquely you? Like, that just was not part of my, you know, mental process in, in, in any way. And so a lot of those addictive personality traits, although I was not using substances anymore, were channeled into workaholism and in turn, some pretty unhealthy lifestyle habits. So basically, 80-hour weeks working as a lawyer and, you know, hitting the fast food drive-throughs on the way home and Chinese takeout for late nights at work and, and the like. And really, despite the fact that I'd been this swimmer in college, not exercising, just not really attending to or taking care of myself physically. And so over a 10-year period, that accumulates such that by the time I was 39, I was about 50 pounds overweight. You know, never like an obese person or anything like that, but just kind of like a heavy guy who looks like, you know, he works, [laughs] works too much in a law firm and subsisting on junk food and, and just feeling progressively worse and worse, lazier, not energized, not enthusiastic about my life. Um, and I think in the, in the back of my awareness was this percolating existential crisis because I knew that this career path that I had chosen, uh, was really not for me. And I could will myself into doing it, but ultimately, it was not only not making me happy, it was making me more and more miserable, like this square peg in a, in a round hole kind of thing. But I was too afraid to really look at that or think about how I could change that trajectory. And there was-- So I guess what I'm saying is there was a confluence of, of poor health, uh, on the one side and this, you know, spiritual existential crisis that I was harboring on the other hand, and they essentially collided with each other shortly before I turned 40 when I had this specific moment of, you know, walking up the flight of stairs to my bedroom after a late night at the office. And, uh, I had to like stop halfway up a s- a flight of stairs, like I was too winded to just walk all the way to the top. And I had tightness in my chest and, and, you know, kind of s- like I was-- had that sweaty pallor on my face from, from a flight of stairs and thinking I'm like this person who had swam at Stanford and would look in the mirror and see that person reflected back to me. I realized I was harboring a whole other level of, of denial that I needed to look at. And it was a scary moment because heart disease runs in my family. My mother's father had been a champion swimmer and captain of the University of Michigan swim team in the late 1920s and early '30s and, and, you know, is a guy who had an American record and somebody who-- he's a guy that I'm named after and in many ways like my doppelganger, but he had died of heart disease at a young age. And I had this flash where I realized if I didn't course-correct how I was living, that I was likely headed in his direction and would meet my demise probably sooner than he had because there was no McDonald's and Jack in the Box when he was kicking around. Um, and it was so-- it was sort of like a second bottom that was very reminiscent of the day I decided to get sober, like this very crystallized moment in time where it's almost like a window of opportunity presents itself, like a, a, a crack in the door or a line in the sand, and you have this opportunity to, to harness it, uh, take advantage of it, and, and take contrary action or not, right? And because I was so aware of how that simple decision of going to that treatment center had changed my life so dramatically that I was being once again visited by just such a moment, I realized that I needed to take action swiftly because if I didn't kind of grab onto it immediately, I knew it would just pass and become ephemera. And so that was really the moment that, that catalyzed kind of everything that, that followed. And, and even, you know, the fact that I'm talking to you today, it all tracks back to that very specific incident.
- TFTim Ferriss
What year are we talking more or less, do you recall?
- RRRich Roll
Yeah, this would have been, let's see, 2000. I was just about to turn 40, so 2006
- TFTim Ferriss
Okay. Did this coincide with something I've read you describe as complete financial dismantlement, which sounds brutal?
- RRRich Roll
[laughs]
- TFTim Ferriss
It doesn't sound pleasant. Was that around the same time b- before or coinciding?
- RRRich Roll
That started a little bit later. It was sort of precipitated by the crash in 2008, and it continued through, uh, [laughs] years after publishing Finding Ultra. Like, it was a very extended period of time [laughs] of, of being challenged to even put food on the table.
- TFTim Ferriss
Hmm. You know, we... I have all these cheat sheets in front of me, of course, and, you know, one of the, one of the questions I like to ask, as you well know, you know, what, what is the best or most worthwhile investment you've ever made? Could be time, money, energy, et cetera. And, you know, I give various examples of this, but it could be Warren Buffett talking about his best investment being investing in Dale Carnegie speaking classes, or anything at all. And you have, you have a couple here. Three, decision to train for 2008 Ultraman, stepping back from the law to write Finding Ultra, and then starting your podcast. So we could focus on the first one, but I wanna, if it's okay with you, and feel free to redirect, look at the second one, stepping back from the law to write Finding Ultra. When was that, that you stepped back to do that?
- RRRich Roll
I started writing it in, I think, late 2010 or early 2011.
- TFTim Ferriss
Okay. So the reason, the reason I ask, s- there, there seem to be these inflection points, and my inflection could go [laughs] multiple directions, not only up, but there seem to be certain decisions that, in retrospect, just really make a lot of difference in direction. How did you decide to step back from the law to write this book, given the complete financial dismantlement and all of these various things going on at the time? Was it... A- and was it an easy or hard decision?
- RRRich Roll
Hmm. I think it was a little bit of both. Uh, at that time, I had already been scaling back on my law practice. I was balancing training for these crazy races, which we can talk about, and becoming less and less interested in being a lawyer, and at that time, I was self-employed as a lawyer. I'd, I, I had made the step of getting out of the big corporate law firm hustle and had a d- a couple different incarnations of, of, of my practice, being solo, being with a couple partners, et cetera. So I had flexibility over how I was allocating my time, and, you know, The 4-Hour Workweek was actually really helpful, uh, at that time in helping me wrap my head around how I could straddle these both worlds and, and still get things done. So the truth is, I had already begun to take my foot off the gas a little bit on, on the law practice, but the opportunity to write this book was such a remarkable occurrence that I could have never predicted happening in, in my life, and I just felt so grateful to even have the opportunity.
- TFTim Ferriss
That was an inbound email or outreach of some type?
- RRRich Roll
It's actually a really interesting story. So what happened was, I had been doing these races and getting some notoriety for it and some press, and an article came out in the Stanford Alumni magazine, and it had mentioned what I was doing, and it, it had also mentioned that, that I had had this struggle with, with alcoholism and had been sober for a while. And somebody who I only knew very tangentially, uh, sent me an email and said, "Hey, I read that article. Um, I'm recently out of a treatment center," like he was an alumni. "I'm recently out of treatment center, and I'm the CEO of this company. My board doesn't know. Like, I need somebody to talk to. Like, can we just talk?" And so I struck up a phone relationship with this person and was just trying to help him and, you know, guide him to make good decisions about how to conduct himself in early sobriety. And at some point he said, "Hey, I know this book agent. Like, you have such an amazing story. Like, let me introduce you to this person." And at, at that time, I hadn't thought of writing a book. It wasn't on my list of things that I was thinking of doing. And that conversation with that book agent basically made me feel comfortable giving it a stab, and it was kind of a charmed thing where I wrote a proposal. I worked really hard on it because I recognized the unique and amazing opportunity it presented, and that led to getting a book deal really quickly. And so suddenly my life priorities changed because I was able to recognize that this could be a lever that would propel me into an entirely new universe of opportunities and trajectories with my career. So, uh, prioritizing the writing of that book was, like, the most important professional commitment that, you know, I made at that time and, and, and really created the foundation for me, me being able to do kind of all the things that I do now.
- TFTim Ferriss
You do quite a few things, and, uh, quite well, I will add. [laughs]
- RRRich Roll
Thank you.
- TFTim Ferriss
You're welcome. So, you know, we... you, you mentioned-
- RRRich Roll
I should say, can I, can I just say, like, really quickly, sorry to interrupt you, but, like, you have no idea how much that means to me, Tim. Like, it, it really is meaningful that you said that because-
- TFTim Ferriss
Hmm
- RRRich Roll
... I look to you and the example that you've set and all the things that you have done in the world in such a remarkable fashion, and, uh, you know, I aspire to your level of, of impact and, and influence. And I just also... So I, I wanted to thank you for that, and thank you also for being a support to me. Like, when the book came out, you let me do a guest blog post for your site. I think I pestered you and, [laughs] you know- Until you finally relented, but that was extremely helpful to me at the time, and I, I re- you have no idea how much I appreciate that.
- TFTim Ferriss
Oh, thank you, Rich. Well, it was my, it was my pleasure, and, uh, I, I will say that a compelling story is a compelling story. So I really appreciate the kind words, and you're doing a hell of a job, man. I mean, I, I really admire the work that you're doing in the world, and, uh, it's, it's fun for me to be sitting here asking you for very thinly [laughs] veiled advice.
- RRRich Roll
[laughs]
- TFTim Ferriss
I've been very indirect so far. Uh, but, but thank you for that.
- RRRich Roll
Very welcome.
- TFTim Ferriss
I figure, just as a way of... And we can go anywhere we wanna go, of course, but we're recording this around the turn of the new year.
- 1:01:48 – 1:13:00
How to transform
- TFTim Ferriss
I am in the next year gonna turn 45, and I've realized just in the last few years really that, uh... 'Cause I used to, not at your level with- within this kinda dynastic [laughs] uh, famed team at, at Stanford for swimming, uh, which we might come back to at some point, uh, but had competed in as, as an athlete, and when I competed, I found it very easy to motivate, uh, [laughs] for a lot of reasons, right?
- RRRich Roll
Mm-hmm.
- TFTim Ferriss
I mean, uh, but there's a lot of positive and negative reinforcement involved when you compete. And then in the last, let's just call it four or five years, have continued to train, but in a pretty lackadaisical, ad hoc way, right? Lots of travel, going to gyms, kinda figuring out what I'm going to do when I get to the gym. No real programming to speak of. And what I've realized in the last few years is what I was able to pull off for, let's just say 10 years of decent, kinda mediocre to h- high mediocre training is just not gonna cut it moving forward, metabolically or otherwise. Uh, and I've trained before, and having competed before, and, and I have found a lot of shame around, and, and judgment around having let it slip, if that makes any sense. And nonetheless, right, have, have really decided, all right, 2022, this is, this is the year that I want to make some significant changes. Given the book, given your podcast, you have no doubt observed many people try to emulate what you've done to differing degrees of success. What advice would you give to someone in my shoes? C- could be a- advice to me, but someone who is considering this, sort of doing a reboot, given the sort of s- the sample set that you've observed over time or just from your direct experience.
- RRRich Roll
Well, I mean, I guess the first thing I would ask you, Tim, is, like, why? Like, why do you... Like, what is going on? What's beneath the kind of surface level aspect of this that you just shared? Like, what is it that your f- you feel is lacking that would be fulfilled by you pursuing some kind of fitness goal? Is it just like, "Oh, I'm starting to feel lazy," or, "I've slipped off," or, "I don't feel the way that I'd like to feel right now," or like... I always like to ask that first-
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm-hmm
- RRRich Roll
... because people are very casual and cavalier about saying, "I wanna do this goal."
- TFTim Ferriss
Right.
- RRRich Roll
Like, uh, "I wanna do this race," or whatever, and I'm always like, "Why?" Like, why is that important?
- TFTim Ferriss
Why do I do it?
- RRRich Roll
Why is that important to you, right? So that would be the first thing I would ask you.
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah, I, I have answers. So the, the first w- I think overarching answer is mood follows action, right? So I know that when I am training consistently with a purpose of some type, not just going to yoga a few times a week. I can do that. I can lift weights two or three times a week, but training with a purpose I find just leads me to a, a better mental psycho-emotional state more often than not.
- RRRich Roll
Mm-hmm.
- TFTim Ferriss
It is the most reliable intervention, so to speak. So that would be part one. Part two, and I- we'll, we'll see where this goes, but I really, really miss the camaraderie of being on a team or striving towards a similar goal. Probably, it doesn't have to... I've never had that experience in a coed capacity, so it, it doesn't necessarily have to be all men, but that-
- RRRich Roll
Mm-hmm
- TFTim Ferriss
... experience, uh, which I have found challenging to replicate outside of sports would be another reason.
- RRRich Roll
Mm-hmm.
- TFTim Ferriss
And, you know, I stopped doing judo and jujitsu and so on quite a while ago, just because of the, the number of injuries. I'm okay with intermittent injuries. I- they just take a lot longer to heal from now than they did when I was [laughs] you know-
- RRRich Roll
Yeah
- TFTim Ferriss
... 16 to 22-
- RRRich Roll
Yeah
- TFTim Ferriss
... or whatever.
- RRRich Roll
Sure.
- TFTim Ferriss
So those, those would be top of the list, and I think that related to the first answer, this, like, mood follows action, I think that self, and we could probably p- pick this apart I'm sure, but, like, self image also follows action. Like, I just have, I feel better about myself when-
- RRRich Roll
Mm-hmm
- TFTim Ferriss
... I am training with some degree of focus and a goal of some type. You know, especially if it's time-bound, I just do very well with that.
- RRRich Roll
Right.
- TFTim Ferriss
And I haven't, you know, over COVID and everything else, not to make excuses, but I, I have, I have been very bad at doing that. And, and still-
- RRRich Roll
Mm-hmm
- TFTim Ferriss
... like, I'm training a couple times a week, but I've realized I'm barely skating by, kind of like look fit with clothing on fit-
- RRRich Roll
Right
- 1:13:00 – 1:23:01
Zone 2 training
- TFTim Ferriss
All right, I, I have a very specific question for you. It came up before we started recording, and I thought, you know, this is something I know very little about, so you can, you can safely assume that I can be a very effective stand-in for anyone in the audience who doesn't know what this is. Zone 2 training.
- RRRich Roll
[laughs] Yeah.
- TFTim Ferriss
Could you share your thoughts, recommendations, cautionary tales, anything related to Zone 2 training, perhaps beginning with a definition? 'Cause this is something that, as you know, Dr. Peter Attia has-
- RRRich Roll
Mm-hmm
- TFTim Ferriss
... has spoken quite widely about. What is Zone 2 training?
- RRRich Roll
Well, first of all, like, your conversation with Peter on this subject matter, and then Peter I know has done, like, AMAs where he's dove very deeply into this topic, are fantastic listens and everybody should check that out if they're interested in this subject matter, because my version of explaining this will be a very layperson's experiential version of it, compared to Peter's very scientific and eloquent-
- TFTim Ferriss
Encyclopedic [laughs]
- RRRich Roll
You know? Yeah, exactly. But yeah, I'm a huge, huge proponent of Zone 2 training, and I believe that my fidelity and adoration of the Zone 2 philosophy is a cornerstone in how I was able to be successful in ultra endurance triathlon in my mid-40s. So Zone 2 basically is a, a gauge of energy output in aerobic exercise that essentially is the state in which you are exerting yourself at a, at essentially a conversational level. You are in your aerobic zone, where your body can make use of one of two sources of energy, glucose or fat, uh, and it is the level of exertion that lives and breathes just beneath where you cross a certain threshold and go into a more anaerobic state, which is dependent more or exclusively on glycogen stores for energy. In endurance training, Zone 2, I think, is absolutely crucial for success because it is the best way or the methodology that you leverage to create efficiency, which is something that, that Peter has talked about. So most people, when they go out for a run, let's say they go on a run, a 45-minute run like three or four times a week or something like that, most people will go out and they will exert themselves so that they feel like they had a vigorous run. Like, they'll run as fast as they can to, you know, for that period of time, so that when they're finished, they feel like, "Oh, I got something out of that." Zone 2 is a level of output that is quite a bit beneath that level of exertion, because when you're doing that kind of mindlessly, like I'm just going out for a vigorous run, most typically you are in what is called the gray zone. You're going too hard and too fast to really develop that aerobic capacity and engine and efficiency, but you're not going hard enough to develop speed and the anaerobic kind of capacity that you're looking for for those really fast, shorter bursts. And in that gray zone, which is where most average people live and breathe, you can get to a certain point, but you will very quickly plateau and really never go beyond that. Zone 2 is a, is a certain kind of discipline because it's asking you to hold back. Zone 2 is the level of output where, like, basically you can get up and do it every day, and quite often you complete the workout and you feel like you didn't do anything, and you, you have this [laughs] impulse to wanna go faster, so you have to hold back from doing that. But essentially what it does is it, as Peter talks about, develop... helps you develop a greater mitochondrial density in your muscles. And in ultra endurance, this is absolutely crucial, because there's nothing about ultra endurance that is fast. It has nothing to do with threshold power or speed or any of that. It's truly the ability to efficiently persist. So the prize doesn't go to the fastest guy, it goes to the person who slows down the least. And when you kind of live in this Zone 2 place where you're training, you know, for long periods of time, developing this capacity, what you're doing is you're building this foundation of endurance from the ground up. And the way that you kind of calculate your zone, I mean, Peter talks about this, I go in for proper lactate testing. I'm on a bike, and I get my finger pricked as the watts go up, and you get this heart rate zone and this watt zone wherein you understand, like, this is the level of exertion required to, like, be right in the sweet spot of all of this. When I began training for these races, my Zone 2, like, pace, uh, when I was running was like 10 minutes a mile or 10:30 or something like that. But by rigorously adhering to this without doing any interval training or any tempo work, over a two-year period, I got to the point where I could run seven-minute miles at the same heart rate.
- TFTim Ferriss
Wow.
- RRRich Roll
So the same amount of energy output, but that level of increase in speed, not by doing any speed work, but by literally creating efficiencies and developing that mitochondrial density. And ultimately, what you're also doing is training the body to metabolize fat for fuel, which is your, you know, all-day source of energy. Like, you literally will never run out of it. Um, so in my experience, training the body to metabolize fat for fuel has really been... It's an N of 1 and experiential experience that I've had, but it's really much more about ... how you're training than what it is that you're eating or when you're eating it. Like, I've just found this training to be the best way to get into that place of, of the body learning how to, you know, metabolize fuel in that way so that you can literally continue to go for as long as you want.
- TFTim Ferriss
And there are, and certainly I'll, I'll link in the show notes to the conversations with Peter Attia that, that go, uh, [laughs]
- RRRich Roll
Mm-hmm
- TFTim Ferriss
... probably deeper than, [laughs] uh-
- RRRich Roll
I loved it, though. I think it's great.
- TFTim Ferriss
Oh, it's technical.
- RRRich Roll
Like, I'm... Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- TFTim Ferriss
It's great. It's great. It does get technical, but Peter knows his stuff. Uh, I'll, I'll provide some links to that for people who want to, to dig in. I would-
- RRRich Roll
You chopped it out and then put it at the end, and I went immediately to the end-
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- RRRich Roll
... to, like, listen to all of it.
- TFTim Ferriss
Right. So for people who haven't heard this episode-
- RRRich Roll
Yeah
- TFTim Ferriss
... basically the first, maybe it was the first question, and we launched into the cellular metabolism involved with Zone 2 training and mitochondrial density. [laughs] And I thought, "You know, maybe that 20-minute [laughs] appendix should be put at the end as an appendix," just so that we can get people in the door, right?
- RRRich Roll
Right.
- TFTim Ferriss
So we're not having people do calculus, uh, on their way into the club.
- RRRich Roll
Yeah.
- TFTim Ferriss
Maybe on the way out. But it is a great section, so we'll, we'll link to that, uh, in the show notes at tim.blog/podcast. Question for you, and this may be a dead end, but I'm just curious, have you explored using ketone meters as you have adapted and increased your mitochondrial density through Zone 2 training? And the reason I'm asking is I'm wondering if you've noticed, for instance, 'cause th- this is something I track, but without the Zone 2 training, in the case of, say, a two or three-day fast, how quickly my body will go to, will shift over to, say, you know, 0.7 millimolars or something like that.
- RRRich Roll
Mm-hmm.
- TFTim Ferriss
Get to the point where I feel like I am in ketosis, just subjectively through cognitive sharpness, uh, you know, mental acuity generally. Have you played around with that at all or seen a faster switchover?
- RRRich Roll
No, I've never... I haven't, I haven't. Yeah. Yeah, I don't have any experience with that.
- 1:23:01 – 1:37:21
Rich sleeps in a tent
- TFTim Ferriss
power. So there are three things, at least three things, but three things I would love to hear you speak to, and I'll, I'll let you... You mentioned buffet, so I- I'll throw out three, and then you can pick whichever one you wanna tackle first. So one is sleeping in a tent, two is taking a full month off the grid every year, and then, uh, number three is your daily architecture, so not committing to certain things or focusing on certain things-
- RRRich Roll
Mm-hmm
- TFTim Ferriss
... up to 12 noon. Uh, which, which one of those would you like to dig into?
- RRRich Roll
I mean, we could go any direction you want. I mean, we could start with the tent.
- TFTim Ferriss
Let's start with the tent. [laughs]
- RRRich Roll
Yeah, so, [laughs] uh, I've been sleeping outside in a tent for a couple years at this point, I think a little over two years, and I absolutely love it. It's really been beneficial to my sleep, and it's something that started from a frustration over my increasing inability to get restful slumber.
- TFTim Ferriss
Hmm.
- RRRich Roll
And the impetus, like, kind of, uh, original impetus was my wife likes the bedroom warm, I like the bedroom cold. I'm sure a lot of people can relate to this-
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- RRRich Roll
... relationship dynamic. And no matter how much we would try to compromise to, uh, you know, m- make it good for both of us, Julie would always be bundled up under a ton of covers, and I'm sleeping on top of the covers, like, sweating, and then neither of us sleeps, and we get up and, and we're not happy. Uh, we have a flat... You've been to my house. I have a flat roof on my house, and one summer evening, we did a sleepover on the roof with the kids, and we have a flat wall where we would project movies, and we're, like, eating popcorn, and we all just kind of slept on the roof that night, and in sleeping bags, and I woke up the next day just feeling amazing, like, from the outdoor air and the cool, like, desert air of Los Angeles. And I was like, "I can't remember the last time I slept so well." So I, I told Julie, I was like, "I'm just gonna sleep [laughs] on the roof again tonight." And it really began from there, and I just fell in love with being out- there's something about being outdoors that just agrees with me, and the kind of cool evening air. But I would wake up covered in, like w- like condensation, like completely wet. So I was like, "All right, I gotta get a tent." So then I got a tent. The tent was on the roof, then it got windy, I moved the tent to the ground. But I've really just enjoyed it. And as I get older, like, I'm so protective of my sleep, and it's so important to me that I get those eight hours, because I know what it feels like not to get them. And I s- it still eludes me quite often. Like, I, I really struggle with this. But it's been a huge benefit in the quality of my sleep, and I enjoy it. People always ask, like, well, you know, they think I'm having, like, some kind of fight with my wife or something like that. [laughs]
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- RRRich Roll
Like, we have our quality time, I promise you. Like, everything is fine in my marriage.
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- RRRich Roll
We've been together for a very long time. So it's all good. Um, and I also think it's been a cool kind of stoic practice, 'cause-
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah
- RRRich Roll
... I, I, I live in a really nice house, and I have nice things, but I actually prefer to sleep in the tent, and there's something about that where it gives me comfort, like if everything went terribly wrong and I lost everything, like I know that I'm happy sleeping in a tent, and I don't really need that much ultimately.
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah.
- RRRich Roll
And that, that's been really kind of nice in cultivating a little bit of a minimalist sensibility about how I live.
- TFTim Ferriss
So you decided being blown off the roof while you're sleeping [laughs] -
- RRRich Roll
Yeah
- TFTim Ferriss
... is probably not a good idea. I second that. Do you have mountain lions around those parts?
- RRRich Roll
We do, and I, I, I go running in all the trails all around, you know, where I live in the Santa Monica Mountains. I know they're there. I've never seen one, but they're definitely there. Where our, our property is fenced, so I feel okay being in the tent [laughs] now.
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah. [laughs]
- RRRich Roll
But, but yeah, I mean, for, they're, they're there, they're real, but-
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah
- RRRich Roll
... I don't know. We'll see.
- TFTim Ferriss
I remember this experience in Northern California, up by Napa. I went on this hiking trip, and everybody at the same time got the feeling that they were being watched, and I was like, "Yeah-
- RRRich Roll
Mm
- TFTim Ferriss
... we should probably pay attention to that."
- RRRich Roll
Yeah. [laughs]
- 1:37:21 – 1:49:10
A month off. Every year.
- TFTim Ferriss
A month off the grid every year. Is this, uh, let's, let's go to the Genesis story for this and how and why this is a priority.
- RRRich Roll
So you mentioned earlier on this, this extended period of, of financial dismantlement that, that we endured as a family, and, and it was a very painful extended period of time where I really struggled to figure out how to provide for my family in a meaningful way, and it's now all solved and everything's great. Uh, but I think there was a significant amount of PTSD that I experienced [laughs] from that, 'cause it was very emasculating and scary for me.
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah.
- RRRich Roll
And now that everything... You know, once things started, you know, functioning properly and, and, and working, a lot of my workaholism tendencies kind of came to the forefront, and I became so focused on building this thing and protecting it and making sure that it was providing for my family that I started to kind of overlook the principles that put me in the position to create it in the first place. Like the adage of like all this wellness is making me sick. Like [laughs] I was so-
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- RRRich Roll
... you know, you know? Like I was just working my ass off, right? And as you know, doing this show and doing other things in your life, like it's a lot more work than people think. Like it's a, it's a grind, and you can lose yourself in it. And a couple years ago, I, I started tiptoeing up to, to burnout, and instead of being excited to have conversations with my guests, I, I was... I wouldn't say I was dreading it, but I was, I was moving in that direction, and that's not a relationship that I wanted to have with this thing that you and I both do that we obviously really care about. Uh, it, it should be a joyful experience, and, you know, I hadn't taken a single vacation in like five years. Like no-
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- RRRich Roll
... break. It was insane. So, you know, it was, I was, I was due for it, and so I ended up taking a month off and I went to Australia, and it was incredibly nourishing, and I was able to come back from that experience with a renewed and refreshed perspective and, and, and relationship with, with what I do, and I just decided that this was gonna be an annual thing. So I'm getting ready to do... I'm taking January off this year, and I'm really looking forward to it. Like I, I, I need it, and I think it's, you know, it's important to understand in a performance context that you have to periodize your life just like you would periodize your training. Like you need those fallow periods to recharge the battery, and you have to live your life if you're going to have anything worthy to say about the human experience. Like if you're just constantly engaging in your profession and focused on, you know, what it is that you do, and you're missing out on the other experiences and the richness of life, then you're not really gonna be carrying a meaningful resonance or vibration that's gonna be helpful to other people.
- TFTim Ferriss
Hmm. Let's go to pre-Australia for a moment, because no, no vacation in five years-
- RRRich Roll
[laughs]
- TFTim Ferriss
... and then, "I took a month off, and it was great."
- RRRich Roll
[laughs]
- TFTim Ferriss
I feel like we're skipping a few steps. [laughs]
- RRRich Roll
Yeah.
- TFTim Ferriss
What did the preparation/self-talk, logistics, anything look like leading up to Australia? And if you wanna mention this first, we can mention this part first, which is what did, what did off really mean?
- RRRich Roll
Off didn't mean like completely like, like leave the phone at home. You know, I would, I, I, I wish I could tell you that that's what I did. I didn't do that. That is an ambition for this experience, though, uh, which is terrifying-
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- RRRich Roll
... but I'm excited about. So what are you asking specifically? Like the, the-
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah, what type of, what type of preparation was required? Now, if, if this current example, meaning January coming up, is, is a better case study to take a look at, I'm just wondering what the preparation looks like, right? So you have all of these various plates that you're spinning-
- RRRich Roll
Mm-hmm
- TFTim Ferriss
... of different types, and I, I literally just got back a few days ago from, from, uh, about three weeks off the grid, so I'm fresh-
- RRRich Roll
Oh, wow. Cool
- TFTim Ferriss
... having just returned, where I was in Antarctica, so I literally-
- RRRich Roll
Oh, wow
- TFTim Ferriss
... had zero cell or Wi-Fi signal, which was great because the possibility of backsliding [laughs] is basically-
- RRRich Roll
Mm-hmm
- TFTim Ferriss
... removed entirely unless you want to like sit in a tent by yourself with a satellite phone and try to make that work, which some people did, [laughs] uh, but I, I did not. So I'm wondering what prep is going into taking a month off.
- RRRich Roll
I'm much more interested in your experience [laughs] in Antarctica, but-
- TFTim Ferriss
Oh, yeah? We can talk about it
- RRRich Roll
... well, we can talk.
- 1:49:10 – 1:55:31
Rich’s billboard
- TFTim Ferriss
lot. If you could have one billboard anywhere with anything on it, what might it say? What might-
- RRRich Roll
Mm
- TFTim Ferriss
... you put on it? Could be image, quote, question, line, just, uh, metaphorically getting something out to many, many, many millions or billions of people.
- RRRich Roll
I've been thinking about this 'cause I know that you ask this question, and my original thought was "Who are you?" But I've modified that. I think a better question is, "Who are you becoming?"
- TFTim Ferriss
Hmm.
- RRRich Roll
And that's a question that I resisted asking myself for too long, and as a result, led me down some dark pathways or dis- distracted me from actualizing in a healthy way. And I think our culture is set up to, to distract us from that kind of self-inquiry. And the reason that I add the word becoming is I think that it speaks to the fact that n- none of us are static. Like, in every moment, we are shifting, and we are changing. And every decision that we make, every interaction that we have, every word that comes out of our mouth is either moving us towards a better, more authentic version of ourselves or away from it in the same way that that process is, as an alcoholic, either moving me towards a drink or away from a drink. So I think in the context of becoming, it's like we're always becoming... We're always on our, on our way to becoming something. Are you becoming a better version of yourself, or are you becoming somebody who is moving away from, you know, what I would characterize as, as your true essence? And I think the more that we can inhabit that sensibility, if we're in the habit of, like, thinking about these things, I think it anchors us more in the present moment and allows for more conscious decisions about how we're investing our energy and how we're conducting ourselves or relating to the world or responding or reacting to the world around us.
- TFTim Ferriss
Hmm. I love that. Uh, could you repeat it one more time? It was not who am I becoming, or is it what type of person am I becoming?
- RRRich Roll
Who are you becoming?
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah, who are you becoming? That's a really good modification, right? I mean, it's-- It sort of leads you to telescope out, right, looking at whatever the current decisions-
- RRRich Roll
Mm-hmm
- TFTim Ferriss
... and behaviors are. It's like, what does this look like in a year? What does this look like in three years? What does this look like in 10 years? Good time for me. You know, I'll put that on my mirror as my wake-up reminder.
- RRRich Roll
Yeah.
- TFTim Ferriss
That'd be a good one to add. What are you most excited about for the next year, or what are you excited about? It doesn't have to be the most, but is there anything that comes to mind?
- RRRich Roll
Hmm. What am I most excited about? That's a hard one.
- TFTim Ferriss
Or looking forward to in the next year.
- RRRich Roll
I mean, I'm looking forward to my break for sure. Uh, we have another edition of Voicing Change coming out in the new year, so I'm exci- there's practical things that I'm excited about. Uh, I think I'm-- But I think what I'm most excited about is this evolving, shifting relationship that I have with the work that I do. And this is something you've talked about a lot, Tim, which is overcoming or transcending this disposition to make everything hard. You ask this question, like, what if it was easy, right?
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm-hmm.
- RRRich Roll
And that's a very bitter pill for me to swallow because my whole life has been premised on this idea that if it, if I haven't suffered to create this thing, that I haven't worked hard enough or that it doesn't hold value. And I'm in this journey of, of trying to let go, and I've done that through systems and people here at the podcast, but in other areas of my life to, to hold the things that I care about more loosely and to approach them from that perspective of what if it was easy. Like, I don't have to suffer to create. Like, that is an illusion or a construct that I have created in my mind and affirmed over many years. But deconstructing it, I realize the fallacy of it. And so trying to recalibrate my relationship to the world in which I am able to, like, navigate it more from a perspective of, like, grace and joy and allowing rather than gripping on really tightly is so counterintuitive, yet also so liberating, while also-
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm
- RRRich Roll
... being terrifying. So I'm not-- I haven't emerged from the woods on this yet. Like, this is definitely, like, a, you know, a hill I might die on, but this is what I'm committed to, and this is part of the intention that I'm bringing into this month that I'm taking off, and I hope to emerge from that a little bit more consolidated around that idea and in a place where I'm ready to practice it in a way that's more meaningful than what I have been able to do historically.
- TFTim Ferriss
Hmm. That is a good intention. There is a book that I've been revisiting my Kindle highlights of, which is Effortless by Greg McKeown-
- RRRich Roll
Mm
- TFTim Ferriss
... which is the second book following Essentialism, also by Greg McKeown. But it's a very nice reminder along the lines of, of what you're describing 'cause certainly my, I shouldn't say default 'cause it's probably conditioned, but my sort of out-of-the-box programming is very similar, uh, [chuckles] to yours.
- RRRich Roll
Yeah.
- TFTim Ferriss
It's like if, if I'm not suffering, if I'm not redlining, then clearly I'm not applying myself enough to whatever X happens to be [chuckles] which is just, like, so self-defeating-
- RRRich Roll
Yeah
- TFTim Ferriss
... in so many ways.
- RRRich Roll
I know.
- TFTim Ferriss
So it's, it's a constant challenge. However, I ha- I have found that, uh, to be a very helpful book, so I have a tab open actually on this browser right now on top left-
- RRRich Roll
Mm-hmm
- 1:55:31 – 1:56:20
Where to find Rich
- TFTim Ferriss
So speaking of books, your books include your bestselling memoir, Finding Ultra, the- Cookbooks and lifestyle guides, The Plantpower Way and The Plantpower Way: Italia, which you co-authored with your wife, Julie P-
- RRRich Roll
Piatt
- TFTim Ferriss
... yeah. Piatt.
- RRRich Roll
Piatt.
- TFTim Ferriss
God, over two. Piatt.
- RRRich Roll
It's okay.
- TFTim Ferriss
Piatt. Good lord. I'm sorry, Julie. Forgive me. People can find all things Rich Roll at richroll.com, on Twitter @richroll. Are you most active on Twitter, Instagram? Do you have a preferred social media?
- RRRich Roll
Probably more active on, on Instagram than Twitter, but I'm on both.
- TFTim Ferriss
@richroll on Instagram as well. We'll link to all of those, YouTube, Facebook, et cetera, in the show notes, tim.blog/podcast.
- 1:56:20 – 2:01:30
Media vs. real life
- TFTim Ferriss
Is there anything else that you would like to say? Any closing comments, asks, or requests of this audience before we, before we wrap up?
- RRRich Roll
I mean, first of all, thank you for having me. It re- it really is a privilege. Um, and, and I've been doing a lot of thinking around how divided the world feels right now and how broken it can feel. There's just so much contention out there, but when I think about kind of what we do, like having these long form conversations, it just feels to me like there's never been a better opportunity to contribute in a positive way. And, you know, I just wanna encourage people to find a way to kind of transcend the predominant media narrative that seems hell bent on pitting us against each other, and to be more conscious about not just your media choices, but how you carry that sensibility into the world and the manner in which you interact with other people. Because in my experience, and I'm sure this is shared by, you know, most people, like when you go out into the world, it doesn't feel like what we're seeing on social media and on the national news. Like, people are fundamentally good, and we share so much more than what appears to divide us right now. And I don't know, you know, I despair of the way that I hear these narratives being spun online. And so to me, it's almost a reminder to myself to remember that what you see there isn't necessarily a reflection of the world's objective reality.
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah. Hear, hear. So true. And, uh, that is also, at least for me over the last few weeks, that has been one of the best medications, is the abstaining from these inputs that are very much designed to polarize, right?
- RRRich Roll
Mm-hmm.
- TFTim Ferriss
Very much designed to upset. So that's an incredibly good reminder, and I really appreciate you taking the time, man. I've been looking forward to this. It's landing, this conversation is landing at the perfect time for me, having just come back from this, from this time off the grid with pages and pages of notes on what I hope to be big picture changes or additions or subtractions that, of course, are, are, are great in theory. Fantastic. Well done.
- RRRich Roll
[laughs]
- TFTim Ferriss
Chap. You put it all down on paper, but you gotta translate it somehow. So this, this, uh, this, I think, will be a, a nice push for me. You have a very inspiring story. You also have a very human story, and you have not just the highlights, but you have the lowlights and the difficult times, as we all do, and you've been very vulnerable and forthcoming in sharing that full picture with the world, and I think it's such a service, uh, it's such a gift that you do that. So thank you very much for doing what you do, Rich. I really appreciate it.
- RRRich Roll
Thanks, man. I re- I re- I appreciate that, and I, you know, I think vulnerability is something that, you know, we can all use a little bit more of in this world. And when I hear other people being vulnerable, it gives me permission to be vulnerable, and I think there's real strength in that, so I appreciate that. And I am happy to be somebody to hold you accountable for this next chapter.
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- RRRich Roll
I'm excited to see where [laughs] you know, how this is gonna manifest. But, uh, I would encourage you to just figure out something to latch onto so that you can, you know, get into action-
- TFTim Ferriss
Yep
- RRRich Roll
... and not just ruminate and make more notes. Uh, and if you need somebody to, you know, hold your hand to the flame on that, I'm happy to be that guy.
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs] Right, so I don't spend the next year deciding which-
- RRRich Roll
Yeah [laughs]
- TFTim Ferriss
... bike to ride.
- RRRich Roll
Yeah. [laughs]
- TFTim Ferriss
I will [laughs] I'll do, I will, I will do my best. So getting something on the calendar. For me, if it's not on the calendar, it's... and if somebody else doesn't know about it, it's, it's probably made up. So [laughs] I will, I will, I will get something on the calendar, and I'm looking forward to it. I'm really looking forward to it 'cause I know, I know it can be done, right? It's not, it's not the first time out of the gate actually putting something together. I'm just out of practice, right?
- RRRich Roll
Mm-hmm.
- TFTim Ferriss
And hot damn, you know, stakes and consequences, if people prefer the term incentives, great. Uh, [laughs] they really do work wonders. So I'm looking forward to it. And, uh, I've really enjoyed this conversation, so thank you very much, Rich. And, uh, to everybody listening, we will have links to everything that we've discussed in the show notes at tim.blog/podcast. You can just search Rich Roll, and it'll pop right up. You can find him again at richroll.com. And until next time, be safe out there, experiment often, be kinder than you think necessary, and thanks for tuning in
Episode duration: 2:01:51
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