Eduardo Garcia Is The Bionic Chef: Regret Nothing, Forgive Everything

Imagine yourself alone in the Montana backcountry. You're doing what you love — camping, hiking and simply enjoying the wilderness — when you stumble upon a rusted old relic. An old oil drum perhaps. Curious, you approach and peer inside to discover the remnants of a long-dead black bear cub. You set down your backpack and reach inside to further investigate. What happened next would forever alter the life of this week’s guest – a flash of electricity so intense it should have instantly killed this young man of 30. 2400 volts that seared his insides, utterly destroyed his left arm, left his body with 9 severe exit wounds and delivered him to the ICU little more than a dead man with a heartbeat. Eduardo Garcia would spend 48 days in intensive care. He would undergo 21 surgeries that would claim four ribs, a ton of muscle mass, and even his left arm. On top of everything else, he would be diagnosed with testicular cancer. But against all odds, Eduardo survived. A chef by trade, Eduardo began his career at 15 before attending culinary school. He spent the next decade traveling the world cooking for various high-end people on various high-end yachts. In 2011, he decided to return home to Montana to start Montana Mex, a food company that today produces a line of fine organic & non-GMO sauces and seasonings. But the tragic accident that would soon befall Eduardo would ultimately set his life on a new and unforeseen trajectory beyond his wildest imagination. Dubbed the Bionic Chef, I first came across Eduardo's story by way of Charged*, a feature-length documentary that elegantly chronicles the spirit of what this man lost but more importantly, what he found. It's a survival story built on the foundations of love and forgiveness. It's about building stronger relationships and a better life after tragedy. And it's about finding your best self so you can live life fully charged. Today I have the great privilege of sharing Eduardo's incredible story. It's an inspirational tale of facing and overcoming extraordinary adversity. And it's about the power of attitude to persevere. But more than anything, it's about one man's journey to wholeness — and ultimately, redemption. For the visually inclined, you can watch our entire conversation on YouTube here: bit.ly/richandeduardo I sincerely hope you enjoy the conversation as much as I enjoyed having it. Peace + Plants, Rich Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Rich Roll?

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• 1:04Speaker 01

  Everything that comes across our doorstep, anything that comes through our wheelhouse on any given day can be used to impact your life to any end. So it could be negative, it could be positive. You get to choose, you get to work with it, and it's what we do with it. And staying true to your convictions, true to your beliefs. I will share my experience for as long as I'm on this earth, as I believe it brings value to others and elevates my own healing and continued education and being.

• 1:43Rich Roll?

  That's Eduardo Garcia, and this is the Rich Roll Podcast.

• 2:01Rich Roll?

  Just for a moment, I want you to imagine yourself out alone in the wilderness, specifically the Montana backcountry. You're camping, you're hiking, you're doing this thing that you love, this thing you've been doing your whole life. When suddenly you stumble across a rusted old relic, you're not quite sure what it is. Perhaps it's an old oil drum. You approach, you peer inside, and you discover the remnants of a long-dead black bear cub. You set down your backpack, you take out your knife, and you reach for the paw to further investigate. What happened next would forever alter the life of this week's guest. A flash

• 2:44Rich Roll?

  of electricity that, by all accounts, should have killed this young man of 30. 2,400 volts that seared his insides, destroyed his left arm, left his body with nine severe exit wounds, and delivered him to the ICU, little more than a dead man with a heartbeat. After 48 days, 21 surgeries, including the removal of four ribs, a ton of muscle mass, and your left arm, plus, on top of everything, a testicular cancer diagnosis, somehow, this guy survives. My name is Rich Roll, and today I have the great honor of sharing the incredible story

• 3:26Rich Roll?

  of Eduardo Garcia, a truly inspirational saga of unbelievable adversity, extraordinary perseverance, and ultimately redemption. There's so much more I want to share about Eduardo and this conversation before we dive in, but first.

• 3:52Rich Roll?

  Okay. So I just got back from 10 days in Dublin and London to arrive home to 115 degrees Fahrenheit of heat. It's so hot in Los Angeles right now. I'm sitting in my container studio and I have to turn the air conditioner off in order to record these things. And it went from semi-tolerable to sweat just pouring down my face as we speak. But hey, it's home and I love it. I just want to thank everybody who came out to see me and the Happy Pair guys at Smock Alley in Dublin last week. It was a really great event. It was so nice to meet so many of you. Then I went on to London, which was amazing. I did a bunch of podcasts out there that I'm excited to share with you guys soon.

• 4:32Rich Roll?

  And in retrospect, I really wish that I had scheduled a public event there as well. I met so many cool people on the street who stopped me to say hello and tell me how much they enjoy the show and I really appreciate that. And I just thought, why didn't I do an event here? So next time, for sure. Okay. Eduardo Garcia. This is quite the story, you guys. So who is this guy? Well, Eduardo's a chef by trade. He began his career at 15 before attending culinary school and then spent the next decade traveling the world as a chef on various yachts before returning to his home in Montana to start his very own food company called Montana Mex. The tragedy that is the sort of focus and subject of today's conversation and his life,

• 5:16Rich Roll?

  quite frankly, happened in 2011. But rather than let it bury him, Eduardo's story is really one of, it's one of strength. It's one of adaptation, forward propulsion, forward movement, and ultimately service. He's dubbed the Bionic Chef for good reason. And I first came across his story in this incredible documentary about his life entitled Charged, which you guys should all please go check out. It's available on iTunes, Amazon, and Vimeo. I'll put a link up to that in the show notes. And finally, this episode is also viewable on YouTube and I highly suggest you check that out. You can find it at youtube.com/richroll. It's worth a watch.

• 5:59Rich Roll?

  If you are enjoying the videos there, please hit that subscribe button. I've already said too much, so I'm gonna let Eduardo tell you the rest.

• 6:11Rich Roll?

  Eduardo, man, so nice to meet you. Thanks for coming out to Calabasas. Great to meet you. We were talking before the podcast. Been wanting to meet you for a long time, man, so it is a pleasure to have you in the studio.

• 6:23Speaker 01

  It's my pleasure, likewise. Honored to be here and really looking forward to it.

• 6:28Rich Roll?

  Cool. So you were actually born in Calabasas.

• 6:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:32Rich Roll?

  Do you remember? Or were you really young when you moved to Montana?

• 6:35Speaker 01

  I mean, that's what they tell me, right?

• 6:37Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 6:37Speaker 01

  How many of our memories are formed by our true memory or by our sort of created memory through repetition and storytelling and, you know, whatnot?

• 6:46Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 6:46Speaker 01

  But what I can tell you is, you know, I remember frying eggs on the sidewalk when it was like 100 plus, you know, and I did not do that in Montana.

• 6:54Rich Roll?

  That's not happening there.

• 6:56Speaker 01

  No, I remember, I mean, there's photos that prove it, you know, Ashkash Bagash overalls somewhere on an ocean, you know, like, so, yeah, we, we, let's see, in this area until 86.

• 7:08Rich Roll?

  To 86, so you're, you're, and your mom was like, super into like a spiritual community, right? That was like, and that's what moved to Montana, but that started here?

• 7:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, so there's a, there was a spiritual community called Church Universal and Triumphant that was founded in Pasadena and had their campus or their, you know, community headquarters in Pasadena and in the mid to early 80s bought property in Montana.

• 7:39Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 7:39Speaker 01

  And, um,

• 7:40Rich Roll?

  Let's go outside.

• 7:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, everybody made the mass, mass movement, like, everything in the vehicles drove north to largely this ranch property that was right on the northern border of Yellowstone National Park.

• 7:53Rich Roll?

  Wow, is she still part of that community?

• 7:54Speaker 01

  Very much so.

• 7:55Rich Roll?

  And you were, you grew up in it?

• 7:57Speaker 01

  I grew up in it, yeah.

• 7:59Rich Roll?

  And what was the kind of theological bent?

• 8:02Speaker 01

  Mm hmm. It's, um, it was like an all-purpose seasoning for spirituality. It was, you know, I have to speak in chef metaphors, right?

• 8:10Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 8:11Speaker 01

  But like, if you took, this is how I described it, because how many times in my life have I had friends coming from the conventional or Catholic or Christian or, you know, route and... Being like, so Ed, what kind of crazy like commune or compound or cult like, you know, and so, I mean, when I was a kid, I defended it. I was like, you know, hey, F you, man, you don't say that. You don't talk about me and my family like that. And then at some point, I started to question like, well, what is this anyway? And, and so what I, what I could say to summarize is that I believe the Church Universal and Triumphant to be a, a compilation of the world's religions. So grew up knowing

• 8:51Speaker 01

  who Mother Mary was and who Jesus was, and also reading the Ramayana books while we ate chicken soup. You know what I mean? Like on a Saturday night. And, and my mom being of Jewish descent, so studying the Kabbalah and, you know, you factor in all world religions.

• 9:09Rich Roll?

  All that, the Bhagavad Gita, the Quran.

• 9:11Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 9:12Rich Roll?

  So jambalaya, spiritual jambalaya.

• 9:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, listening to Bajans, one of my buddies were like, listening to Bon Jovi. Like, what?

• 9:19Speaker 01

  We were, we were the kids bringing like tempeh, you know, burgers to public school lunch.

• 9:26Rich Roll?

  Right, super hippie.

• 9:27Speaker 01

  Everyone, yeah, and everyone's like trading their lunches out. Nobody wants to fucking trade my tempeh burger for their Capri Sun and, you know, whatever.

• 9:35Rich Roll?

  Did you, uh, have you watched Wild Wild Country yet?

• 9:39Speaker 01

  I haven't been told I need to.

• 9:41Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I mean, it's impossible to have this conversation without me thinking about that, you know, obviously, you know, what you're talking about is different, but the idea of like a spiritual community kind of moving west and creating like they create, it's crazy. You gotta watch it.

• 9:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:55Rich Roll?

  I mean, it's super compelling. But anyway, man, that's wild. So, um, so now you're here and let's get into the meat of this because, you know, look at your, look at your arm. I want to hear the story. Do you get tired of telling it?

• 10:11Speaker 01

  There was a period, so there was a period right after my injury where it's not that you tire of it. It's you question why you're doing it, just like you question.

• 10:20Rich Roll?

  Why are you telling the story?

• 10:22Speaker 01

  Yeah. You know, it's very rare. I find myself tired of doing something, you know, I think that's like an easy out.

• 10:28Rich Roll?

  And so what is, what is your why behind that?

• 10:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:31Rich Roll?

  If you had to answer why you tell the story?

• 10:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, so at some point, um, you know, where I tired telling, retelling the story was, um, is this still serving everyone, including me? Like, there's a certain amount of our time here that I, I think we, we give to others, but we have to always give to ourselves. But I mean, like, I, just saying this makes me grin while I'm talking to you because I'm just on the ride up here, I'm thinking, all right. And I talked to my fiance today, I was like, honey, we need to focus on the shit that makes us happy, that brings out our best bits. Just say no to that gig and I'm gonna say no to this, whatever, you know? And so for, for telling this story, I will share my experience for as long as I'm on this earth, as I believe it brings

• 11:17Speaker 01

  value to others and elevates my own, like, healing and continued education and being, you know?

• 11:25Rich Roll?

  Right, I think, I think that, that what I like about that answer is the kind of commitment to continually healing and growing, um, because I think it would be easy to just kind of stay in one place, like, I'm the guy with this and this is how I define myself. And, you know, it becomes an all-consuming, you know, identity for yourself, rather than a part of your story.

• 11:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:48Rich Roll?

  That has value for others and informs kind of how you make decisions and live your life going forward, but isn't the end of the story.

• 11:56Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 11:56Rich Roll?

  Right?

• 11:57Speaker 01

  That's right. And I, I feel like we're getting, we may be getting ahead of ourselves with some listeners, but the, the easy one here that's to that point is, um, like, at the end of the day, it has to check out with me. Like, whatever the action is, whatever the story I'm telling, if I'm gonna go on Good Morning America to talk about how my hand blew off, whatever it is, um, it has to, it has to gel, it has to make sense to Eduardo, otherwise, and that's what I found at some point, I was like, I'm not doing any more interviews where I don't have a certain degree of control in the finished product, because it's not what I want to be a part of, another article going out, talking about how I did X, Y, and Z, which may or not be true.

• 12:42Speaker 01

  Like, I want to be a part of it. If I'm gonna be interviewed, I want to be working with you to create the best piece of content, not working to just fill like some hype and a page, you know?

• 12:52Rich Roll?

  We're gonna get into the story, but, but I feel like it's, it's still a good time to ask you, like, you know, what is it that, that you want people to take away from your story? Like, what is it that you want them to walk away with that they can use to impact their own lives in a positive way?

• 13:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, quite simply, it is to, it is the,

• 13:22Speaker 01

  to push for the understanding that everything that comes across our doorstep, anything that comes through our wheelhouse on any given day can be used to impact your life to any end. So it can be negative, it can be positive, you get to choose, you get to work with it. And that is, that is my takeaway is it's, it's not about being called the Bionic Chef and being an amputee and all these things. It's that happened, but that's no different than someone else's this or that happening is what we do with it. It's, it's, and, and

• 14:02Speaker 01

  staying true to your convictions, true to your beliefs from that, you know?

• 14:08Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's about your relationship to, to obstacles and rather, and failure and whatever gets thrown in your path. And rather than just looking at it from the perspective of anything from victimhood to annoyance to understand, like, these are opportunities for your personal evolution and growth, which is easier said than done.

• 14:28Speaker 01

  Totally, man, you kidding me?

• 14:30Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 14:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, that's, that's, that's, I mean, that's why I'm here today, you know, is, is for me, this is an opportunity to have sort of a no bullshit, I mean, that's how I want this to be, a no bullshit sort of conversation that reminds me of where I've been, who I am, like, what I'm doing and where I'm going. And sometimes it's, it's, I mean, I have been there where I look, I'll catch myself in a moment where I need to audit, like, immediately, like, quick. And I'm like, wait a minute, I'm still working on this two-year-old vision, this or this one-year-old vision of who I am or who I'm supposed to be. And it's like, no, no, no, no. So I mean, that's the takeaway. If I was to wrap it up for everybody is wake up every

• 15:13Speaker 01

  morning empowered by where you've been and encouraged with the curiosity and the wanderlust and the possibility of where you're about to go in that day. Short term can be so impactful and super, super powerful. And so just focus on that, you know, do not be dragged down by however many years you've had behind you.

• 15:37Rich Roll?

  It's so hard, you know, we get in our, like, I love what I do, but even reflecting back on how I've lived my life the last three or four days, like, I've just been in a work groove, you know, I feel like, you know, it's so easy to just like carve that line and you stay in it and it becomes rote, it becomes routine, it becomes easier to repeat and it becomes, there's more and more resistance, it becomes more and more difficult to just stop and like be present and connect with gratitude and awe and wonder and all these childlike qualities that, that when I think of your story and then watching the movie and all of that, like, that seems to be, that's really like, you know, the beauty in what you have to share.

• 16:21Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 16:22Rich Roll?

  So, I don't know, man.

• 16:24Speaker 01

  I appreciate that.

• 16:25Rich Roll?

  Help me out.

• 16:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, I appreciate that.

• 16:27Rich Roll?

  I've been working like around the clock the last couple of days and it's like, and that, and then watching your movie and I'm like, man, you know, I need, I need to hit pause in my own life, you know?

• 16:37Speaker 01

  Right. We all, we, we, yeah, we, I think there's no negative there, man. No negative. I, yeah.

• 16:45Rich Roll?

  So let's, so let's, uh, let's walk backwards and, and talk a little bit about where you came from.

• 16:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:55Speaker 01

  Short, long, as it relates to this?

• 16:58Rich Roll?

  Just, yeah, I mean, so you grew up in Montana, I mean, you're outdoorsman from the get-go.

• 17:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:03Rich Roll?

  A little bit of a hyperactive kid.

• 17:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:06Rich Roll?

  Some scruffs in school.

• 17:08Speaker 01

  Uh, yeah, I mean, the, beyond that, that's, I don't know if that's, um, Moving to Montana at the age of six in nineteen eighty-seven was like a dream come true for a kid that didn't know he was dreaming about it, right? Like it just, like where am I, you know? There's wild animals and there's Mother Nature, just whether I knew it or not, between the ages of zero and six, is my beacon, is my muse. And so showing up in Montana is like walking into the hallowed halls of whatever your passion is gonna be. And so, you know, I think I say in the movie, you know, moving to Montana was like stepping

• 17:51Speaker 01

  into a National Geographic magazine for real, like in real life, you know? So for me, that was my focus, was the outdoors. I was a Boy Scout, you know? I was, as you know, as you say, I had, my mom says I had a lot of energy and for me, I think there's a curiosity that was just untethered and that comes out in disruption and rebellion and, you know, and then of course, gotta own it, you know? At some point, you just start making shitty decisions. You're a teenager, growing up with a lot of single parent homes in our community, a lot of dads were not in the picture. And so it was not just me, you had a motley crew of guys and gals who, we had good parents,

• 18:33Speaker 01

  you know, that were feeding us well, we were, we had all the things we may or may not have needed, but we were well taken care of, but they were hustling, they were working, a lot of them weren't present. And so we were self educating and that leads to, you know, chemicals, drugs, you know, rebellion, making poor decisions, getting in trouble with the law, whatever it may be.

• 18:54Rich Roll?

  How much of that do you think is, is a function of you just being a kid who like wanted to be, you know, roaming around outdoors and you're forced to like sit in a chair, you know, in a classroom all day and it just becomes like an intolerable situation for somebody who's wired like that?

• 19:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, a hundred percent, that was the situation. And again, it was, I like, I'm gonna say this for the record, is I loved, loved education, school, you know? I mean, right now, I'm thirty-six years old and I'm thinking about, what is my next continuing education, you know? To sit and be educated, it's stimulating and exciting, to sit and be told to sit, to raise your hand and maybe I didn't know how to say it at twelve, but I, you know? Hey, got a question. Hey, and I was the kid with the hand up. But what I was trying to say is like, I'm not learning what you're saying.

• 19:42Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 19:42Speaker 01

  And I'm not dumb, but I'm just not getting this.

• 19:45Rich Roll?

  Well, you're somebody who learns experientially, right?

• 19:48Speaker 01

  Absolutely. Or, you know, that just sitting, it wasn't getting to me. Through the one question I was allowed every 10 minutes or else I was being disruptive, right?

• 19:56Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 19:57Speaker 01

  And so then that, what do you do? You know, you get cornered by, I'm not learning this and I should be. So now I know I'm behind the eight ball.

• 20:04Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 20:04Speaker 01

  Now I'm also being labeled disruptive and all I'm trying to do is learn. And you gotta do one of two things. You, you, either someone hand, like throws a hand out lifeline.

• 20:13Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 20:13Speaker 01

  Which didn't happen, or you just give the middle finger and you're like, all right, well, screw it.

• 20:17Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 20:18Speaker 01

  Like, I don't need any of this.

• 20:19Rich Roll?

  And how much of it do you think is, was because you had an, your dad was gone? Like your dad left when you were super young, right?

• 20:27Speaker 01

  Yeah. Um, yeah, dad left while we were actually still here in LA. Um, I think I was about two months old. And you know, in so many ways, I, uh, I'm glad he did, you know? Um, what I, how I understand is my mom, you know, my dad has a, had a problem with alcoholism. And my mom was like, I don't want my kids growing up with, and, and maybe, let's just say alcoholism is the banner that we'll put up, but there's all the things that fall under that, under the disease, which is alcoholism. Um, and so all of those other attributes are attributes that she chose to not have her kids influenced by. Um, and, and I thank her for it, you know? It meant she had to work harder. It meant she had to do three jobs. It means she had to sell her jewelry and clothes to put us into school.

• 21:12Speaker 01

  But, um, she was able to raise us with morals and values and in this way.

• 21:17Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 21:18Speaker 01

  That was free of the disease of alcoholism. You know, we grew up in a home that was free of, um, uh, free of that and many other, um, sort of poor parental traits that a lot of kids grew up with.

• 21:30Rich Roll?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 21:30Speaker 01

  So I'm grateful for that.

• 21:31Rich Roll?

  And he, he comes back into your life later though.

• 21:34Speaker 01

  Yeah. And that's the thing. So, yeah. And, you know, yes, I didn't have a dad growing up and I'm certain that that impacted me negatively. Or that impacted me in a way that was not really beneficial. Considering 12 year old kid just doesn't know what to do with the fact that they don't have a dad around. You know, um, but dad did come back in the picture when I was 14 in 93. Um, and, um, grateful, my little sister is a byproduct of that sort of remarriage. And, and I think that was the second time married. And Dad, we figured out how to be friends.

• 22:10Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 22:10Speaker 01

  You know.

• 22:11Rich Roll?

  One of the things that I loved about the movie was that, as much as it is a story about like what happened to you and the sort of recovery and the rebuilding of your life and the, you know, sort of struggles that are packed into that, it's really a movie about your relationship with your dad or reconnecting with your dad and also with Jen, you know, who's really kind of, you know, a protagonist in the movie. But the evolution of kind of how you find a way with your father was like a really beautiful like thematic three lines throughout the whole thing. And I feel like the movie is as much about that as it is about anything else.

• 22:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, it is.

• 22:54Speaker 01

  The director, the director of the film is Philip Baraboo and the film we're talking about is Charged. And I chose to not produce the film. I chose to not be a part of that. I was, Jen and I both were highly encouraged to not produce this film. And so we didn't. And what's beautiful is that a team of creative storytellers took all of this footage, like 386 hours of footage, and edited it and built a human piece compelling and worth sharing at the tune of 86 minutes, edited and cut. And, you know, at some point, they had to make a decision. Do we cut out? Like, all of a sudden it whittled down where when it was a two and a half hour film,

• 23:38Speaker 01

  it was too long and it had this super beautiful, long storyline of Eduardo and his dad in that story. But then the directors ended up cutting that out because it's, I mean, the film isn't about Eduardo and his dad. It's about this guy's journey through all of these things, which include the dad. Right? But, you know, my journey with my father,

• 24:04Speaker 01

  I believe the time I did get with him on this earth

• 24:09Speaker 01

  taught me everything I needed to know about.

• 24:16Speaker 01

  How to not make the same mistakes he did. And I apply those, you know, I mean, I got thirty six years. But, you know, I got twenty, I'll take him.

• 24:26Rich Roll?

  Yeah, and you're, you're the legacy of his experience. I mean, you know, he has this love of the outdoors and the water and, you know, the fishing and he was a chef as well. And those are all things that, you know, are defined you.

• 24:41Speaker 01

  Isn't something like, I'm Manuel Alfredo Garcia's kid. I grew up without him in my life and I'm in love, drop dead, infatuated with Mother Nature and the outdoors. And when I do finally meet my dad, when I'm twelve or thirteen, and then over the next twenty years of having a relationship together, um, we almost get to connect as two devotees to the same practice. We both love nature.

• 25:06Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 25:06Speaker 01

  And he's been doing it forty years long, but we both get to connect on it, you know? Um, I, I can't sit in the lineup without Pelican flies over. I like talk to it on my dad's behalf.

• 25:16Rich Roll?

  Oh, yeah.

• 25:16Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, like I can, you know?

• 25:19Rich Roll?

  So where does, uh, where does cooking come in?

• 25:21Speaker 01

  You know, cooking, uh, cooking found me at an early age. It was not, you know, me on the buckboard counter with grandma and the apron stir and the pot, you know, like, uh, that was not part of it, you know? My mom, um, like I said, did a lot of great things for us. Cooking was not one of her skillsets, even though she's, she's great in the kitchen. She was busy hustling, you know? Um, so we would have like ten PM chicken soup and we'd have that for like, you know, five days or something. So cooking for me was, uh, hanging with the homeboys in the summer, fourteen years old and thirteen years old, twelve years old, and no one, no one available to cook. So what do you do? You just open the fridge, you start making it happen, you burn some things, you botch some things, you...

• 26:05Rich Roll?

  Most people just eat Fritos though, or eat like peanut butter sandwiches.

• 26:08Speaker 01

  I know, man, but we, we had like five pound tubs of miso paste in the fridge and like, you know, you know what I mean? Like, we didn't even catch it.

• 26:17Rich Roll?

  Intended for, for like the communal dinner at the, at the commune.

• 26:21Speaker 01

  We had Bragg's amino acid and like bags of...

• 26:23Rich Roll?

  Oh, you did?

• 26:23Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. You know what I mean? So like, and so whatever, but we ate those things and, um... But, you know, so cooking for me professionally was being fifteen and just needing a job. You know, like, I kind of say I was, I got, I got tired of stealing quarters from my mom's purse that she didn't have.

• 26:47Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 26:47Speaker 01

  You know, and got a job at a local place, flipping burgers, throwing pizzas.

• 26:53Rich Roll?

  Yeah, like line cook.

• 26:54Speaker 01

  Yep, totally. And I mean, it was fun. I mean, there's a tourism industry in Montana, so you're fifteen and you're with your buddies fifteen and, you know, you're slinging burgers and watching all these, you know, cute girls from out of town cruising through. And I mean, it's like a fun place to be for the summer. And I realized, well, I'm naturally, I can keep up in a kitchen. And, you know, it was an easy transition into saying, all right, well, I don't think I have it in me to do four years of committed college type of a post grad work. I don't think I, you know, like, I couldn't see myself sitting for four years. And, but I knew, I knew food is something I could keep doing. And so culinary school was an easy, all right, well, let's get educated. Let's, let's go get a degree in this. Let's make this legit.

• 27:40Rich Roll?

  Was you, was you thinking like, oh, I'm gonna, you know, be like a fancy type chef or, or just wanted to learn how to cook better? Or like, what was the, did you have an ambition or like an idea of where you wanted to take that?

• 27:52Speaker 01

  I didn't, not, not at the first. No, not even. And, and it's interesting, like, how many times in my life have I tried to sell myself on this false sense of self? And knowing right in the very, like, first notion, this will never work, but you try to sell yourself on it for sometimes a day and sometimes ten years or longer, you know, of being this thing. And for me, I always knew, like, I don't, you know, I don't, I don't believe I'm going to be that chef who.

• 28:20Speaker 01

  The way I envisioned it anyway was I don't think I'm gonna be the chef that has ten restaurants all over the world. But but not knowing what was in front of me was my motive, was my impetus was, well, I don't know what it's gonna be, but I'm just gonna focus on doing food and doing it as well as I can.

• 28:37Rich Roll?

  Yeah, like an adventure.

• 28:39Speaker 01

  A hundred percent.

• 28:39Rich Roll?

  Just the way you head out on an expedition.

• 28:41Speaker 01

  A hundred, I mean, so then where did my career take me? You know, I was either gonna work three jobs and pay off student loans and, you know, knock, knock, knock, I got a phone call from a yacht that was in Seattle saying, hey, we need a chef overnight, are you interested? And I was graduating culinary school, I was looking for work and, you know, I guess humorously I turned that job down at that point. I did, only five months later to have the same captain call me one final time and I did take that job. So the adventure began, you know, I had no idea what I was gonna do with this degree in cooking, but at that point, like, I mean, I'd been cooking in restaurants for six years.

• 29:22Speaker 01

  I knew the rhythm, I knew the drill, I knew I was gifted enough to do well in the industry in regards to palate and flavors and all of that. And I think I fell into a dream job on so many different levels and, you know, it took me a while to realize the passion for food, but...

• 29:43Rich Roll?

  But then the ability to travel the world and, you know, learn about cuisine in all these crazy places and...

• 29:50Speaker 01

  Right.

• 29:51Rich Roll?

  I think I read, like, you'd take your skateboard and you'd, every port of call, you'd cruise around, go to the bakeries, the various restaurants and...

• 29:58Speaker 01

  Oh, it was, so, again, that, I always say, like, you know, during my twenties, it was an opportunity to explore, but I traded the mountains and the rivers and sort of the grizzly bears and all that stuff in Montana in for... You know, the map of the world and, you know, instead of riding a horse or hiking, I was skating or surfing or wakeboarding or diving. I mean, I went to the water and I did that jam for 10 years as a yacht chef and we didn't cover the whole globe, but we did a lot of it.

• 30:31Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 30:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:32Rich Roll?

  So yeah, 10 years, so two and a half years on, on Dorothea, right? And then like 10 years total?

• 30:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, two and a half years on the yacht Dorothea, which I mean, that was Captain Mark Drewlow, who lives down in Encinitas and just south of us here. And talk about an influential friend, mentor, person, um, you know, he, he, he was the type of guy who had adventured in his life and wanted to continue adventuring there go by opening the door for others to do the same. So, you know, the option was to sit on the dock in Point Loma for, you know, two weeks or explore Baja for nine days. And once we got on the dock, hustle to get it clean and ready for the owners or something. And like hand would go up, be like adventure. Like you kidding me?

• 31:20Rich Roll?

  I mean, it's, I mean, it sounds amazing, you know? What do you, what do you take from that experience? Like, what was the biggest like lesson that you learned from just

• 31:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:30Rich Roll?

  literally a decade of constant travel?

• 31:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's a, it was in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean on my first, I did four different crossings of the Atlantic Ocean on different vessels, but on a sailboat, we crossed for, we got, we started in Mallorca, Spain, in the Mediterranean, and we crossed to Antigua and it took us about 30 some days and we stopped along the way. And at some point from halfway, I guess, between the Canary Islands and Antigua, you know, you're in the middle of the ocean, you're about as in the middle as you can be. And, and I don't actually, I don't believe in my memory that it was a typical, it was a,

• 32:15Speaker 01

  Stormy day, or you know, I'm not going to paint that picture. I think it was just a day at sea and there was motion of the ocean. We were cruising along. And yet there had been rough weather on either end of it and probably rough to come. And I remember sitting out and looking at the horizon line. And just kind of having it hit me that there's no control. Like the whole notion of control is kind of out the door. You're sitting, you're surrounded in a floating body of water. You cannot breathe or eat it, drink it, anything. And you are on this manmade vessel that is your lifeline. But ultimately, your peace and your salvation and all of it just starts within yourself.

• 32:56Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 32:56Speaker 01

  And like that's, the control is like a misnomer for presence and like presence, like being within yourself, being seated.

• 33:04Rich Roll?

  It's beautiful. Yeah. I mean, it's a humility, right?

• 33:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:09Rich Roll?

  It almost like it's preconditioning you. It's, it's like pushups for what you're going to have to face later.

• 33:15Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 33:16Rich Roll?

  Right?

• 33:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, I love that.

• 33:17Rich Roll?

  You know, like, like that experience probably, I would imagine came into play in helping you weather what you had to get through.

• 33:24Speaker 01

  Must have.

• 33:25Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 33:25Speaker 01

  Oh, must have. I mean,

• 33:28Speaker 01

  the, on a prior crossing, really, really rough weather, bigger boat, really rough weather. Everyone still has to eat. I still had to get food done. And there was a German engineer.

• 33:40Rich Roll?

  Cook with the boat like.

• 33:41Speaker 01

  Oh, it's no, it's nuts, man. It's nuts. You know, I mean, your, your ass is against the wall and you're, you know, you're kind of like just trying to find stability and, but anyway, the German engineer in the middle of a very gnarly storm, he, he brings in a little speaker setup with his, and this is before iPhones, this was with his iPod or whatever it was, MP3 player. And he puts on hardcore, like trance, electronic music, not my usual Johnny Cash genre, you know? And, um, and I roll with it and I realize that he brings the storm into the kitchen. Right? So he like brought all of this energy and this music and this.

• 34:22Speaker 01

  Impact into the kitchen, instead of it just being this chaos around me. He's like, you gotta dance with this, bro. I brought it into the kitchen. And all of a sudden, as you're cruising and grooving with it, you realize like you forget that the boat's getting tossed around. You know, you elevate your movement.

• 34:38Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 34:39Speaker 01

  To match.

• 34:39Rich Roll?

  To meet it, yeah, to like meet that vibration. So rather than fight it or resist it, like, hey, let's not even only, not only accept it, but like, I'm gonna take you one step further.

• 34:49Speaker 01

  You meet it up.

• 34:50Rich Roll?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 34:51Speaker 01

  You know? My fiance's uncle was a very well renowned rock climber, Todd Skinner. And one of his quotes I love is, we cannot lower the mountain, therefore we must elevate ourself. That's the jam.

• 35:06Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that's like a Zen koan.

• 35:08Speaker 01

  So good.

• 35:09Rich Roll?

  Yeah, cool.

• 35:17Rich Roll?

  All right, so you get back. You're cooking, you're doing your thing, man. And so, so, you know, lead me up to the life-defining expedition.

• 35:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, so, you know, yachting was a 10, 11-year career. I realize I don't want to sleep in a bed that's two feet wide by a foot and a half tall for the rest of my life.

• 35:43Rich Roll?

  Are there people that do it, like their whole lives? I guess this guy, Nsaneetis, right?

• 35:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, I mean, Mark, Mark did it for ages. I have friends who are chefs that started the same day I started in the yachting industry that are still doing it. And, you know, like, for me, I mean, I, so on the way up here, I listened to the podcast you just put out with you and Julie.

• 36:06Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 36:07Speaker 01

  And one of the things she's, she mentioned is only committing to do and be the thing that is love, like that brings you and creates love, like, you know? And at some point, I realized, like, look, we can force ourselves to do all kinds of things. And Yet, that's not your true self, for me. You know, for me, it's whatever gets you screaming and jumping to get out of bed in the morning, that's what you need to be doing more of. And at some point, I realized that chefing on the boat, I was kind of sleepwalking. I was, I knew how to do it. I could crush a meal for however many people over however many days in any country.

• 36:48Speaker 01

  But I was really looking forward to my off time when I was building a food brand and writing a TV show and focusing on my home back in Montana. And at some point, I was like, you know what? I can no longer continue to work without the passion. I need to chase the passion, which is no longer being a yacht chef, but starting these other businesses and moving home.

• 37:10Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 37:10Speaker 01

  And that was 2010 and yeah, 2011, March was making that jump off the boat.

• 37:15Rich Roll?

  Right. And so, uh, let's, let's talk about, um, the accident. How, when, so this was, what, when are we talking now? This is 2000.

• 37:26Speaker 01

  2011, I left, you know, 10, 11 year career in the yachting industry in March. Was signed with William Morris Endeavor, pitching a TV show, um, had incorporated a food brand, um, that was supposed to be like this farmer's market, fresh salsas and guacamole brand.

• 37:44Rich Roll?

  Montana Mex or was this something before that?

• 37:46Speaker 01

  Montana Mex, yeah, Montana Mex.

• 37:47Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I got your stuff right here, dude.

• 37:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:49Rich Roll?

  You sent it to me. Thanks for sending it.

• 37:51Speaker 01

  No drama, no pressure.

• 37:52Rich Roll?

  I haven't tried it yet, but like, I'm looking forward to it.

• 37:54Speaker 01

  So prior to these products that are sitting with us, you know, Montana Mex was a food, um, like a, like a farmer's market, fresh food brand.

• 38:00Rich Roll?

  Like perishables.

• 38:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. And so that's what we were gunning towards during the summer of 2011. And, um, my business partner and ex-girlfriend, Jennifer Jane, um, by my side through all of this and the creation of companies with our other partners, uh, my sister and brother. And, um, and yeah, you know, what's interesting is we could get into, we could spend two hours just talking about the day of my injury, but really what was happening in that point in time was I was transitioning from being a yacht-based person and a, having a career in the yachting industry to being a business owner.

• 38:35Rich Roll?

  Right, entrepreneur.

• 38:36Speaker 01

  Being a host of a TV show.

• 38:38Rich Roll?

  How do you go from like yacht chef to like getting an agent at William Morris?

• 38:41Speaker 01

  Yeah. Uh, yeah. Uh, one of the guests was Ari Emanuel's elementary school bro.

• 38:48Rich Roll?

  Oh, really? I know Ari.

• 38:49Speaker 01

  Yeah. And we sent, um, We we sent our sizzle reel to Ari Emanuel and he immediately sent it on the same day in the same hour to both offices in North America, so New York and LA office. And they FaceTimed or Skype videoed each other and were like WTF, what is this thing?

• 39:10Rich Roll?

  Why, what was it about the sizzle reel? Like, it's like, okay, you're a chef. Like, what's the spin? Like, what made it unique?

• 39:17Speaker 01

  We filmed the sizzle reel ourselves with it. Well, no, we hired a production team and we directed the shoot. And it's the concept, if show was called Active Ingredient. And my, and the premise was that I believe, and I still do, that we all, we are the active ingredient in our recipe, in our life, Rich Roll, you are your own active ingredient. And through all of the other ingredients, which could be our partners, our friends, our lovers, our kids, that we are the necessary component to activate all of those into gelling, into like, yeah, like, this is, this is the thing we're sharing. This is the prana. This is the food, right?

• 39:57Rich Roll?

  Yeah, but that's, this sounds like a motivational inspirational. Well, you're like, where's the cooking part?

• 40:01Speaker 01

  No, totally. But so the cooking, the cooking was, was the, based on my lifestyle, which is if you and I are gonna go surf or hike or head out into the woods recreating or be out in the field, even vacationing in another country, I wanna cook a meal. And I want the day out to incorporate, to bring in elements that we incorporate into the dinner. So Active Ingredient was saying like, hey, we all can find our truest best selves. This show is about me doing it, and I hope it serves as a metaphor for you in whatever your Active Ingredient moment is. For me, it's about food. It's about cooking. And it's about making, it's about bringing others who are sharing the meal with me and

• 40:46Speaker 01

  the locale, whether that's in the ingredients or the weather, bring that into the meal.

• 40:50Rich Roll?

  Yeah, to make it experiential.

• 40:52Speaker 01

  A hundred percent.

• 40:53Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that's cool. I'm, dude, I'm ready. I wanna watch that. I wanna see that show. What happened?

• 40:57Speaker 01

  I know, right? We are, we're pitching it right now.

• 40:59Rich Roll?

  Oh, you are? Good.

• 41:00Speaker 01

  Well, we put, I mean. I mean, it's tragic, right? So we had a, we had a meeting with the buyer at the Food Network set for October the 15th. And I was flown to the ICU in Salt Lake City on October the 9th. So four days before that meeting, which, you know, like contracts had kind of been drawn up and just we needed to seal the deal.

• 41:23Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 41:24Speaker 01

  So bittersweet, but.

• 41:25Rich Roll?

  But you're resurfacing it again now?

• 41:27Speaker 01

  We have not let go of that concept and repackaged it called The Hungry Life. And we're pitching it right now, so fingers crossed.

• 41:36Rich Roll?

  That's cool, man. You should have a TV show.

• 41:38Speaker 01

  Thanks.

• 41:39Rich Roll?

  I mean, I think you're the perfect person to do it. And especially, you know, as an ode in the legacy of Anthony Bourdain, with somebody with your level of not, of life experience and world, like with the travel that you've done, but also what you have gone through to get to this place, like you're, you're sitting in a place where it's not just about the cooking and the food. It's like you have all of this wealth of information and insight that you could bring to an audience that makes it much more dynamic.

• 42:11Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 42:12Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 42:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, I appreciate that. I have not let go of that. We'll see what happens, you know?

• 42:16Rich Roll?

  Did you ever, did you ever meet Anthony Bourdain? Did you know him at all?

• 42:19Speaker 01

  No, I knew him how most of the world knew him, through his books and through, through his, his voice and influenced me greatly. Yeah. Influenced me greatly.

• 42:29Rich Roll?

  Well, that's a lot of people.

• 42:31Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 42:31Rich Roll?

  It's tough, man.

• 42:32Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 42:33Rich Roll?

  All right. So, so you're, this is what's, you have all this momentum happening in your life.

• 42:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:39Rich Roll?

  And walk me through the day.

• 42:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I was, I was out elk hunting, you know, as a, the chef, there's a, there's a part of me as a chef that loves to know where my food comes from, whether it's the carrots in my, in my garden, or whether it's, you know, an animal-based protein, like I want to know, I want to know more of the story about it and I want to be involved in that. So hunting is, has always been a part of my life. And I, it's interesting, you know, as a hunter, I often.

• 43:18Speaker 01

  Prior to a harvest, take a moment to connect with the animal in life and, and just, you know, I don't need to make this sound all woo woo, but in the hunt- And you're talking to a vegan, so- Yeah, well, you know, but in, I don't know who's listening, and I just want to- Lot of vegans listening. Yeah. Lot of other people, too. So, but I, but I, so I do this when I, you know, like, I'm putting a garden in, um, on Saturday, so when I get home tomorrow, I'm gonna be in the garden all day. So even when I'm pulling a plant up, is I thinking about it? Like, is this strawberry ready? Has it done its thing? Is this, have I over harvested this asparagus patch, or whatever it is? So, anyway, the morning I'm out hunting, I pass on an animal. I decide not to harvest that animal, for my reasons. And I end up resetting-

• 44:03Speaker 01

  What was it about? Like, something just didn't feel right to you? You know, I, I had, um, I had kinda told myself, I want to harvest this, I wanna harvest a, a younger, um, a younger cow elk, or, you know, a younger, um, female elk, not what I saw in front of me that day, which was this huge, beautiful, male elk, which 99% hunters around the world would be like, why in the heck didn't you, you know? Wasn't what I wanted. And I think intention, right reason, right motive, right cause, like, intention is huge, you know, like, that wasn't my intention for that day. So although I could have been seduced by how big and beautiful this thing looked, no.

• 44:48Speaker 01

  So I decided to keep going hiking later on in the afternoon, and I come across a, I'm, just to put this in perspective for everyone, I'm in a valley at about 5,000 feet, and I'm heading from the sage, sort of valley floor, winding my way three miles up into the conifer or evergreen forests. And within those, that forest, there's, we're still, you know, everything is sloped, you know, gentle rolling up, and, um, I'm in a little drainage, small, small drainage. And I I see a can, like literally a 50 gallon oil drum cut in half on the ground. And curious, I walk up to it and when I

• 45:25Rich Roll?

  Which is a weird thing to see.

• 45:26Speaker 01

  Which is a weird, which is a weird thing to see, except, um, you know, except in the Rocky Mountain West and even in many parts of California here, there is a lot of detritus. There's a lot of leftover mining camp, sheep camp, uh, homestead junk out in the woods from our predecessors, you know, from the folks that were here before us. And I just assumed that that's an old

• 45:52Rich Roll?

  Campsite.

• 45:52Speaker 01

  Camp something, you know? And I look inside and and there's what literally just envision a black toupee, everybody with like a claw or two and some bone, you know, the size of like the volleyball, like deflated. That's what I see in the bottom of this can. And I'm like, what the heck is that? You know? And growing up, you know, a student of the outdoors, I mean, I've picked up every feather. I've checked out every animal dropping, like, you know, I study it all. And so I think, huh, that's interesting. And part of me thinks, well, it looks like a very, like, two to three year old dead, like, been here for three years, dead baby bear cub or something. And so I pull a knife off my right hip and I put it in

• 46:34Speaker 01

  my left hand and my plan is just to take a claw off, just like you would harvest, you know, a, a interesting branch or something that's, you know, fallen. And I'm gonna take the claw and, you know, put it in a curiosity case or make it a necklace or give it to my friend who works at the Boy Scouts and is always collecting to teach with, you know? And, um, I mean, I don't even get within 15 inches of the base of this can before 2400 volts of electricity arcs into the tip of the knife I'm holding and into my body.

• 47:08Rich Roll?

  You didn't even touch it.

• 47:09Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 47:10Rich Roll?

  It just jumped at the metal.

• 47:12Speaker 01

  It arced into, it had arced and it's interesting. I had both hands going down into this barrel. I'm on my knees leaning over. I have both hands and you know, because like the knife is going to pop the cloth and the right hand is going to pick it up and teamwork. And what's interesting is had I not been holding that knife, like nothing would have happened. But that knife curated the conduit for that electricity to jump.

• 47:35Rich Roll?

  Wow. So had you just, had you touched it with your hand though, you, it would have conducted the electricity, wouldn't it? Or was it, it was, you had to have metal in your.

• 47:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think it was the metal.

• 47:46Rich Roll?

  And so what, what, what was going on was there was a, there was a, an exposed power cord beneath the tank.

• 47:53Speaker 01

  It was a, it was a buried line that was going to a backcountry cabin. And this can was sitting on sort of a point where the line had like, it was, it was a ground junction access point. And the lid had many, you know, and so what I come to understand, you know, and what I can share is that, you know, this junction box had been compromised by weather and neglect and time. And was not maintained and the lid became unsecure and fell off. It should have never been exposed. I mean, it should have been labeled and fenced and the whole thing. So, um, you know, in that moment, I knew none of this. So in that moment.

• 48:29Rich Roll?

  So I mean, how would you think like, better not touch that? Like there's, there might be an exposed wire underneath. I mean, you would, it would never occur to you.

• 48:35Speaker 01

  Contrary, it's, it's, you know, the, the only thought would be, should I touch that? It looks gross. Like that's the thought, you know?

• 48:43Rich Roll?

  So how many volts?

• 48:44Speaker 01

  2400.

• 48:45Rich Roll?

  2400 volts.

• 48:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:47Rich Roll?

  And does it just hurl you? Like what, what?

• 48:50Speaker 01

  So I, so I wake up, right. So I wake up on, on my back staring, I wake up staring at the clouds and treetops and.

• 49:01Speaker 01

  You know, I, at this point, all I know is that I'm staring at the clouds.

• 49:06Rich Roll?

  Did you know that you were electrocuted?

• 49:07Speaker 01

  No.

• 49:08Rich Roll?

  And like, what did it feel like?

• 49:09Speaker 01

  No, in that, no, in that moment.

• 49:12Speaker 01

  In the moment I got electrocuted, it was like someone had inserted me into, inside the speaker cable of like a yes concert or something. It was just straight up electronic symphony in the back of my head with heat, with like the gentle, warm flood of heat.

• 49:33Speaker 01

  Lights out, my eyes open up. I don't know how many minutes later, and I see clouds and dappled blue sky and treetops. And I think to myself, get up.

• 49:47Speaker 01

  Get up. What are you doing? And I roll over and I'm on my knees and my hands, hands and knees. And I say, get to your feet. And so this is all I remember is just talking to myself to get stand up. And I must have stood up and I'm next to this barrel, all my gear, my backpack, my bow, my things. And the next memory I have is just me, is the next memory I have is of the sound of gravel and I'm, I'm on a dirt road. I'm no longer in the trees. I'm no longer next to that can. I don't have any of my things with me, except in my right hand, I'm holding a can of bear spray.

• 50:27Speaker 01

  And my left hand, I look down at it and it is blackened and burnt and seized into like a claw shape, you know?

• 50:35Rich Roll?

  Right. And, and what's the pain? Like, you feeling anything? Or are you just in this weird adrenaline?

• 50:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:42Rich Roll?

  Like?

• 50:43Speaker 01

  No, dream mode, total, total dream mode.

• 50:47Speaker 01

  Total dream mode. I mean, I, I gathered where I was. Okay, I'm in this part, I'm in this valley. This, I'm walking downhill. Why am I walking downhill? Why is my hand black? And then of course, like, oh yeah. I saw, like, I saw that dead, like dead baby bear. I went to get a claw, put a knife, and then it's like, oh man. That noise, that heat.

• 51:19Speaker 01

  Did I get a, I must have got zapped. I mean, we've all been zapped through static electricity or the random one time where you get a little too close to something and it's, you know, like zaps you back. And I think, again, life experience, those small little tidbits of being in touch with electricity in my life, definitely all of a sudden come full center. I'm like, wow, I think you actually just received, I think you just got electrocuted, like bad. And now I take account. Now, now my head's on a swivel. And I look, and I look at the hand, and it's grotesquely disfigured and black and gripped into a claw. I look at my leg on my left thigh, and I see that my pants are black, and I kind of poke a finger

• 52:03Speaker 01

  through there, and I can see it's just charred flesh. And I don't have to look anymore. Now I realize that I am walking down this road to get help. And this was a subconscious decision I made when I was no, like not in my body.

• 52:17Rich Roll?

  Yeah, like your unconscious mind just went into survival mode.

• 52:20Speaker 01

  A hundred percent.

• 52:21Rich Roll?

  Without any memory of that.

• 52:22Speaker 01

  A hundred percent. No one, I don't, I don't think we remember the day that, the day, the moment we're born and take our first breath outside of our umbilical cord, you know, but it happens. And how do we know to do that? That's the miracle.

• 52:35Rich Roll?

  Genetically wired to do it.

• 52:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:37Rich Roll?

  So do you have like a sat phone or a cell phone? I would assume there's no service or anything like that. Like you're way out back country, right?

• 52:46Speaker 01

  The cell phone, the keys to the truck, the water, the first aid kit.

• 52:50Rich Roll?

  It's all back at the.

• 52:51Speaker 01

  It's all, it's all on the ground.

• 52:53Rich Roll?

  And how far are you from like civilization or help?

• 52:56Speaker 01

  I'm about three miles. I mean, I've gone back to the site many times. I've retraced all these things. I mean, I'm about three miles from where I received help. And, and what's, what's just interesting is

• 53:10Speaker 01

  That I'm carrying my bear spray. Somehow, in that collected moment of getting to my feet and leaving the site, I make a decision to not carry anything but bear spray. Like, just think about that for a second.

• 53:24Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that's wild.

• 53:25Speaker 01

  It's like, anyone ever packed for that trip where you're running out of time and you need to get out the door by this time, or you will not make your flight or something, and you just have to decide what to take and what not to take? It's like triage, it's like, I just gotta get there.

• 53:38Rich Roll?

  Well, it's all the more remarkable, I mean, when you see the movie and you see, we're gonna talk about this in a minute, but like, when, when you see the condition that you're in, it's not just your arm, like, it's your head, it's your, like, the fact that you could do anything is shocking. Like, the fact that you walked three miles, when you see what your body looked like, it's, it's just unbelievable that you didn't just die on the spot.

• 54:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's, it's the flip side of watching the Olympics. You know, those folks are training and putting everything they have for decades into being their most maximized self. And I think dying and surviving an experience like that is the flip side, is you are using everything in your tank, every facet of every ounce of energy you have to, towards salvation.

• 54:28Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 54:29Speaker 01

  Like, no doubt.

• 54:30Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 54:31Speaker 01

  No doubt.

• 54:32Rich Roll?

  It's the flip side, but it's also similar. You're tapping into every reservoir that you have to accomplish your goal. And that goal may be a gold medal on a podium, or it may be just living.

• 54:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:44Rich Roll?

  Right?

• 54:44Speaker 01

  No, and it's, I mean, okay, so here, here's, here's the million dollar question, Rich, is like, how do we access like, that type of clarity, that type of conviction, and that type of follow-through and execution?

• 54:56Rich Roll?

  Tell me it would.

• 54:56Speaker 01

  On the daily, bro? Like, how do we do that?

• 54:59Rich Roll?

  I don't know, yeah. I would like to know the answer to that. Are you here to like, reveal this secret to me?

• 55:03Speaker 01

  Well, I'm hoping that Charge, the film, somehow inspires all of us to at least be aware of it and recognize that deep within all of us, there is a almighty power, like, deep inside. And yet, it's time, you know, that, that we...

• 55:26Speaker 01

  We cover ourselves up in all the layers that, you know, are shed immediately when it's time to fight or flight, like it's immediate. But when it's kind of everyday life, we are held back by all the stuff, man.

• 55:38Rich Roll?

  Yeah, we become myopic. I mean, you know, my story is about change forged through pain, a different kind and certainly not as severe. And I think that, that, you know, like I said earlier, like these, these obstacles that are placed in our path are teachable moments to help us get closer to who we really are. And I think that's a big part of your story in a very extreme way. But why is it that, you know, I can't change until I'm in pain? Or that pain is required, or obstacles are required, or hardship is required, or overcoming these things is required in order to get in touch with the fact that it is about the moment,

• 56:19Rich Roll?

  that it is about gratitude and love and appreciation and service and sharing and all of these things that are innately part of who we are and available to us as a choice on a daily basis to use as guiding principles in our life and, and in our behavior, and yet are so much more difficult to access when we're just, when things are okay.

• 56:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's, it's true. It's true. And that's, I mean, you can fast forward or however we want to do this. But I mean, that, that was part of, that was most of my reasoning to be available and agree to have a documentary made about this tragedy in my life was just that. Sort of the, to be a part of creating something that serves as a reminder to others and myself included, that this is just part of the, this is part of the jam. This is life, man. This is how, this is what it looks like. This is what it feels like. And, and actually what's for charge for the documentary,

• 57:22Speaker 01

  I mean, we as collectively as a group, were in a very unique position that we were filming this TV show. Right? And so we had footage, well professionally, you know, like quality capture footage from years prior, leading up until the day of the injury. And

• 57:41Speaker 01

  Day four of being in ICU and you know,

• 57:44Rich Roll?

  Cameras on.

• 57:45Speaker 01

  The production company we were working with Citizen Pictures out of Denver, you know, they show up not to document, but they showed up to be like, holy, are you okay? And to, you know, respectfully and lovingly show up. But of course, they, you know, we talked to them and Jenny arranged and they brought a camera. They brought a light and then a friend drove down with our camera and you know, Jenny Jane rolled, rolled that camera through and captured still photos and video that I think all the way through the 50 days of ICU and then the next couple of years, she continued to document. And then even a friend of ours, Phil Baraboo, who ended up being the director on the film, not knowing why we're capturing this.

• 58:30Speaker 01

  Except maybe Jen. Jen, Jen, I think, knew there could be something to salvage from all this. And I think Phil, being, I mean, as a documentary filmmaker, he's had, you know, he probably saw that coming. And for me, I was just, I remember naively saying, well, we're capturing this because, you know, my hope is it never happens again. And I don't want to have to remember it through experience. Like I want to, I'd like to be able to.

• 58:54Rich Roll?

  For posterity for yourself only.

• 58:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know, like I don't need, I don't want to have to get zapped again to remember this. And so that, but that serves us like we circle back to like, why this film? What do others get from it? And.

• 59:06Rich Roll?

  Well, we're, we're creatures of story. I mean, that is, that's part of who we are. And there's nothing that, that can move the human soul more than an incredible story well told. Right? That's how like you as an experiential learner, I think us as creatures, we can read textbooks, but when we hear, when somebody shares their experience and they do it in a compelling way, and it's an extraordinary story, I think it has. The ability to connect with us as animals in a certain way that other information cannot. And you know, your story is a perfect example of that. And it's so, I mean, that's the thing. When you're watching the movie, you're like, oh, my God, like there's just like,

• 59:49Rich Roll?

  I think it, there were, there were a couple of places where it looked like, okay, are they like, they had to recreate you going, you know, touching the knife and all of that. But like, post accident, like they're right there. Like it felt like day one through the entire process. And I want to work my way up to that because that footage in the hospital is, is excruciating to watch. When you see the physical condition that you are actually in, I mean, in a, in a very graphic way. I've never seen anything like that. You know, I think you're, obviously when people meet you, they see your arm and your hand immediately. And it's like, okay, he lost his arm, his forearm and his hand. But your torso, I mean, it's,

• 1:00:30Rich Roll?

  it is just charred to nothing. Like half of your upper body is essentially gone. And it looked almost like, like the ribs were just black. It looked, there was like just a hole into your, into your organs right there. I mean, it was unbelievable. And there you are. And you're like, you got a smile on your face and you're like cracking jokes. I'm like, how is this guy even conscious right now?

• 1:00:55Speaker 01

  Rich, I was on so many drugs, man. It's easy.

• 1:00:57Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I was, I wrote down like, ask him what he must have been on.

• 1:01:01Speaker 01

  You know, um, like you, we're going to administer ketamine, Mr. Garcia. Well, what's that? You probably here have known it as special K. Hey, what are you trying to imply? You know, like, um, God, they say that in ICU, they have a really big issue with folks who have severe recreational, you know, chemical dependency, recreational.

• 1:01:24Rich Roll?

  Tolerance is so high.

• 1:01:25Speaker 01

  Their tolerance is so high, they can't medicate them, you know? Um, but I, you know, I, look, I think obviously the, my care team did a phenomenal job keeping me at a threshold that was tolerable.

• 1:01:40Speaker 01

  I don't know why I have a hard time talking about this or to like wrapping my head around like the whole concept that we all have different tolerances for pain. And, you know, maybe I have an issue with if I say like, hey, Rich, I have a really high tolerance for pain. I think I've heard that and it's hit me as this like ego laced like macho type of thing. But in reality, I think I have a higher tolerance for pain than a lot of folks. And I also, I've experienced a lot of pain and I've been in ICU a lot. Maybe not from my own experience, a few times from my experience, but I've had a lot of

• 1:02:15Rich Roll?

  A few?

• 1:02:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know, with my dad, when he had heart surgery in 2005, like that one time when I did this, when I broke my wrist three times, like I've been in and out of those scenarios a lot. And then I gotta say like, look, I know this sounds strange, but I don't, I don't fear death, you know, like I, I, I understand the process here. I get it.

• 1:02:43Rich Roll?

  Is that a result of that experience or did you have that before this occurred?

• 1:02:48Speaker 01

  I think it's compounded through this experience, but it's been around and it, I think a lot of it has to do with killing a deer for the first time when I was 11 years old and watching life disappear and, and, and then working in a garden a lot of my life, like I, I mean, I'm this all like, I stopped pulling live flowers off of stuff because I was like, oh man, I won't see it die. I'm gonna find, you know, like I've been, I've just been so closely connected with life and death through my lifestyle for so long that, look, I'm not saying it changed the game, but I think it wasn't new. The scenario wasn't new, right? So my approach was, all right, this is a job. This is what's happening and I have a role to play here.

• 1:03:33Speaker 01

  And so I did that.

• 1:03:34Rich Roll?

  Yeah, part of that, that humility cycle of life, being in nature, understanding it's not personal.

• 1:03:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:03:41Rich Roll?

  Right?

• 1:03:42Speaker 01

  Yeah. And look, I, I have never actually offered that as a, as a conversation point when asked like, how was your experience in ICU? I just hit on that right now here with you because of how we're talking and, you know, the way it came to me. But I, I, I do want to say that I think one of the greatest prescriptions that, you know, I didn't I didn't have given to me was ignorance is I just didn't know how close I was to death. I like so many times Eduardo, you know, shows up to the scene or shows up to the moment of. And through the whole way I am, I just didn't know.

• 1:04:24Speaker 01

  I didn't know. And therefore, if you don't know, you're about to die.

• 1:04:28Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:04:29Speaker 01

  You're not going to take it as seriously as.

• 1:04:30Rich Roll?

  I think that comes across in the movie. I mean, I got that because I'm watching you and I'm like, this guy doesn't realize the severity of the situation that he's in. I mean, half his skull is missing.

• 1:04:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:04:39Rich Roll?

  And you can like literally see inside his torso, you know, and, and your thigh. I mean, a giant, you, you literally like you put your hand inside your thigh at one point, like when you're laying in bed, right? You lift up and it's like somebody had just carved, you know, just this massive chunk out of your leg.

• 1:04:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:04:56Rich Roll?

  And you're like, this guy's not going to make it.

• 1:04:59Speaker 01

  I mean, I felt, I felt supported, you know, and I think here, I mean, that's the, that's the thing is.

• 1:05:04Rich Roll?

  Supported by your community, Jen, your family, or supported in like a, like a more broader spiritual sense?

• 1:05:12Speaker 01

  Um, all of the above, you know, I, I felt so the only, I came out of a surgery test. So you were talking about the hole in my, my torso, my ribs. So indeed, right? So like in front of Rich right now.

• 1:05:28Rich Roll?

  Right. You're missing a bunch of ribs.

• 1:05:29Speaker 01

  I'm still missing those ribs. I'm like pushing on my torso and it's like bobbing like a beach ball right now. But, um, I had four, two to three inch sections of ribs removed. And coming out of that surgery, there was a miscommunication with, with the anesthesiologist. And I came off of that surgery on a lower epidural dose than I should have had. And I was in excruciating pain. I was in the most pain I've ever felt in my life coming out of that surgery. And a friend of ours who does search and rescue with his dogs all over the world, um, happened to be coming through Salt Lake and came into the ICU on that day to say hi to me. And his name is Arturo Acuna, a good friend.

• 1:06:10Speaker 01

  And Arturo knelt by my bed as I'm just out of the surgery and starting to feel pain. Come on, because the anesthesia of surgery is wearing off. And Arturo.

• 1:06:24Speaker 01

  I'm in so much pain, I can't speak. I can't let alone just focus on breathing for hours. I did this, you know? And Arturo whispered in my ear about the earthquake in Haiti. You know, almost what 10 years ago now, or whenever that was? And he shares a very short story about his experience in Haiti. Maybe a minute or two, just to tee up the lesson, which is, hey, be grateful for what you do have. You're in the best house possible. You have the best care possible. You're surrounded by loved ones. There's no lack of blood for transfusions. There's no lack of care. It could be worse.

• 1:07:04Rich Roll?

  Except for that anesthesiologist who screwed it up.

• 1:07:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know, exactly. Exactly. And but that just that hit me like a ton of bricks. You know, just like, that's right. I I'm doing I'm doing great, all things considered.

• 1:07:26Rich Roll?

  The thing that I think struck me the most in the whole movie is, and you could chalk it up to naivete or what have you, but there's something about you, like throughout this whole process, you're in ICU 48 days. Yeah. Not once, I mean, maybe you did off camera, but like, not once did I see you complain or play the victim. Like, you have a smile on your face. You're making everyone who comes in to see you comfortable. And you have this, this not just hope, like optimism and just sense of joy and gratitude about you.

• 1:08:08Rich Roll?

  And I want to know like where that comes from, because that's not faked. And I don't think that that was learned through the tragedy, the tragic accident. I think that's just part of who you are.

• 1:08:23Speaker 01

  That's core. Now, that's, that's, that's core to who I am.

• 1:08:29Speaker 01

  That's core to who I am. And I am, I can lead. And I'm also a really good soldier. I'm a really good team player. And in that scenario,

• 1:08:42Speaker 01

  the only thing that I was leading was attitude. If I could smile, if I could grin, if I could twinkle an eye, if I could.

• 1:08:53Speaker 01

  Really share that my genuine effort with everybody around me. They were going to lead in my recovery in that moment.

• 1:09:01Rich Roll?

  Were you conscious of of adopting that perspective? Or was that just natural?

• 1:09:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, both. I mean, natural, it naturally occurred and came out of me. And then I was aware and encouraged by my own actions. Like, oh, yeah, this is what I can do. This is how to the point where a nurse, you know, a couple of my nurses would be like, hey, don't be afraid to

• 1:09:24Rich Roll?

  It's okay.

• 1:09:25Speaker 01

  to grieve a little bit and be emotional and let it out.

• 1:09:28Rich Roll?

  Because you don't want to be repressing emotions either.

• 1:09:30Speaker 01

  And and that was her concern in that one moment. But but like, I will share too, that that's my MO. That's how I choose. That's my typical approach. However, there is a Jekyll and Hyde in this guy. And, you know, to give my family credit and definitely my ex girlfriend Jenny Jane, who flew back from England to be my caregiver and help me and be by my side. You know, there were durations of time where I reflect back now. I'm like, I was really nasty. I had no patience. I had no tolerance and.

• 1:10:09Rich Roll?

  Yeah, but that's to be expected.

• 1:10:11Speaker 01

  Sure, but, you know, and so so it's to be expected. And but I think at some point, I think that no matter like, you know, you get a cough or a cold or when we are out of sorts, our patience drops, our tolerance level drops. That doesn't mean that's an excuse to take the piss and just kind of do that every time. We still owe it to ourselves and those we love and those around us to make the effort to be pleasant, etc., which I was. But I'm just saying that even though the film shares, I never made an edit on the film. Like, they did a masterful job. However, I have had comments from folks say like, hey, like, when did you struggle? Because we don't see it in the film. Like, we see it a little, but you know.

• 1:10:55Rich Roll?

  What I saw was, I mean, the first time that.

• 1:11:01Rich Roll?

  You see you struggling with this is the day that you get out of the hospital and you're forced to like, okay, now it's time to go back to your life. And it felt like, and I don't know how much of this happens in the edit and what's real versus like, you know, creating a narrative, but that's the first time where we see you break down and it feels like it's all dawning on you what has actually happened. Like you had to remain like, it's another type of fight or flight survival mode. Okay, you're in ICU for 48 days. Like you have to keep it together to survive this thing. And then once they release you, it's almost like a pressure valve release. And then you're like, oh, wait. And it felt like a ton of bricks just landed on you. And you're like, oh, my God, that's what

• 1:11:44Rich Roll?

  just happened. And this is where I'm at my life.

• 1:11:47Speaker 01

  A hundred percent. That was, that was the second, that was the second sort of wake up call, emotional wake up call I had. And I was scared. I was freaked out. I was scared. Are you kidding me? Leaving ICU after 50 days of almost dying and knowing that it's just me and Jen and not 20 nurses and an on-call staff and a medication team.

• 1:12:09Rich Roll?

  And what were the doctors telling you? Like when you first came in and they have to say like, you know, what's the prognosis here? What are we looking at?

• 1:12:16Speaker 01

  Um, yeah. Dr. William Morris, who was the surgeon on call that did save my life. Um, I think he's, he's quoted as saying, that's a bag of bones with a heartbeat.

• 1:12:32Rich Roll?

  Basically like, no, no chance.

• 1:12:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:12:36Rich Roll?

  Well, you were literally toast.

• 1:12:37Speaker 01

  Toast. Yeah. Um, you know, and, and so I, I only now realize how close I was to dying that day. And even for the next three days, pretty dicey.

• 1:12:52Speaker 01

  You know, but for the emotional part, I just want to share, you know, Rich, you mentioned that scene where I'm walking out of the hospital, I'm being discharged and I break down and that's the first time we really see the sort of the beginnings of the emotional dawning of what's happening. And there was one, there was one moment prior, because we talk about being strong in like the heat of the fire and how you, you know, how to smile and be courageous in ICU and how that happened. And that was very much my personality. But there was a moment where Jen and I were watching a movie. She was on my left side. And so that's the, so it watching a film on our laptop. So I'm in my hospital bed. Jen is either in the bed with me or sitting next, right next to it. We're watching my

• 1:13:34Speaker 01

  laptop, watching a movie. And in my mind, I am caressing her knee. Like I have my hand on her knee. And I'm like, just, you know, touching it, just like you would kind of put a hand on your significant, you know. And then at some point, I look over and it hits and I realized like, I don't have a hand on my left arm anymore. And what I was feeling was 30 years of memory that when you sit next to someone you care about to watch a movie, you throw an arm over and you just touch them on their leg or their shoulder.

• 1:14:05Rich Roll?

  Like a phantom limb thing.

• 1:14:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was, it was in my mind, it was so real. And I, and I remember just breaking down in that moment. That there was going to have to be a whole mental shift that you no longer have a left hand, guy.

• 1:14:19Rich Roll?

  So they, they amputate up to like, like halfway up your forearm, right?

• 1:14:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:14:27Rich Roll?

  That's about where it is?

• 1:14:28Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 1:14:28Rich Roll?

  Uh huh. And what do they do to your torso and your, and your head and your thigh?

• 1:14:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:14:34Rich Roll?

  They graft skin on there? Like, what was the process of like healing from that?

• 1:14:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, the, for the most part, that 48 day stay was, you know, up to 12 surgeries, which was every other day, every three days, every four days of surgery, grafting skin, harvesting skin from a healthy part of your body and using it to cover and rebuild skin on a wound site. You know, and that was, that was every day, you know, and actually, we stopped my surgery short. We stopped my surgery short because it was, let's say it was midway through my stay. One of my exit wounds was in my scrotum. And

• 1:15:17Speaker 01

  As the surgeons through their process are cleaning up all the dead tissue in my body, I go into a surgery and they, I come out of the surgery and they're like, you know, you get a report or a debrief and, you know, hey, we couldn't save your left testy, or whatever it was. And, you know, I'm losing so many body parts and bits and pieces that it's just kinda like, okay.

• 1:15:41Rich Roll?

  Yeah, you didn't think, you didn't think that was on, on the menu?

• 1:15:44Speaker 01

  No, man. And I bet there's some listeners being like, whoa, whoa, whoa, what are we talking about?

• 1:15:49Rich Roll?

  Yeah, like, you think it's bad, and then it's like, alright, you know, you're gonna lose this too?

• 1:15:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:15:55Rich Roll?

  You're like, but that wasn't part of the deal.

• 1:15:57Speaker 01

  No, it wasn't. And, and, and yet, so the doctor leaves, right? And, and, and my brother's in the room, and, and Jen, and I don't know who else. And I, and the nurse, there's a nurse in the room. And I just kinda shared to the room, maybe my brother, whoever, like, huh, well, I never, never liked that one anyway. That was one that always gave me problems.

• 1:16:17Rich Roll?

  Uh.

• 1:16:17Speaker 01

  And I don't know if my brother asked, well, what do you mean by problems? Or if I shared, but, you know, years prior, while yachting, years, years prior, I remember having a pain in my groin. I remember having a doctor check it out. Squeeze, squeeze, pull, pull. You look fine. You know, you're on your feet 20 hours a day. You're probably just pulled or something. Take an ibuprofen. And I just put that idea to bed that I needed to look into my physical health. But in that moment, when they're like, oh, you just lost your left testy, I thought to myself, like, that memory shot up. And I was like, oh, wait. Years ago, I had an issue with that thing, like, good riddance. And my brother chases the surgeon down the hall, and is like, hey, just wanna throw this out there. After you left the room, Eduardo mentioned this,

• 1:17:01Speaker 01

  and I don't know what you do with that. And so that kinda set an alarm off in the doctor's head, or the surgeon's. And they, so they went to every body part, that every piece that leaves you goes to the lab, and they run results. So he had that testy ran, and it came back with positive tumor markers for seminoma testicular cancer. So...

• 1:17:21Rich Roll?

  You just can't get a break.

• 1:17:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, right? Yeah, yeah.

• 1:17:24Rich Roll?

  There's that, there's a, the funny scene in the movie where Jen's like,

• 1:17:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:17:29Rich Roll?

  You know, cause you, you had your ups and downs in this relationship, and, and she's in a position where she has to sign off on the removal of the testicle of her ex-boyfriend, you know?

• 1:17:42Speaker 01

  She and she also is like, well, good riddance.

• 1:17:45Rich Roll?

  Yeah, yeah, exactly. Right. Exactly. Her little like revenge as she's taking care of you 24 hours a day.

• 1:17:51Speaker 01

  I, I, yeah, it's totally she Jen is a, is a voracious screenwriter and sticks to comedy, stand-up comedian as well. And so just that actual reality that the girlfriend that got cheated on gets to sign away the ex-boyfriend's, you know, testicles. Like, I mean, how good does it get?

• 1:18:08Rich Roll?

  Yeah, you can't, you can't write, you can't script that. But I mean, come on, like, all right, you're literally hanging on for your life. And then it's like, oh, by the way, you have testicular cancer. And then they find it in your spine.

• 1:18:20Speaker 01

  So there, there, so then, of course, I mean, the red lights go on, the sirens blare and, and I get a whole panel done and CAT scans. And there was a mass of tissue in my lower abdomen, right up against my spine that was just assumed to be trauma related to the electrocution, but not of concern. And now all of a sudden, they're like, wait a minute, that could be a second stage tumor. And so, I mean, it was just insane. I, you know, I'm, I don't even know how to talk about it in short verse, you know, because I'm in the hospital, having my life saved. Limbs are getting chopped off left, right and center. I'm losing all these pieces of my body.

• 1:19:03Speaker 01

  And, um, and I'm just trying to make it through these surgeries, man, you know, like I am just trying to see the light at the end of the tunnel, to be courageous, to not give up, to believe that it's all going to be cool. And then, oh, and you have testicular cancer, by the way. And so at that point, I was just, I remember being frustrated and for, I mean,

• 1:19:30Rich Roll?

  frustrated, that's it?

• 1:19:31Speaker 01

  That's it, right? But frustrated because I was eagerly anticipating knocking these things out and getting back to life, like just getting back to what I wanted to go do, et cetera. And now I have to stop my surgeries. I go do rigorous chemotherapy in Montana for three months. I got the choice Salt Lake City or go home. I went home.

• 1:19:51Rich Roll?

  How, where were you in the process of, you know, recovering from all the injuries at that point? Like?

• 1:19:58Speaker 01

  Right. So, I mean halfway, I still had pending surgeries, reconstructing my scalp. So I, we stopped, you know, we stopped, we kind of closed all my wounds up, got myself stable, went through chemotherapy. And then when I finished my last round of chemo, took up remedial surgery on my amputated forearm to clean up that, that site. And then did another year's worth of plastic surgery work on my scalp. So it really, I mean, it slowed things down and extended another 12 months of recovery.

• 1:20:30Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I can't, I mean, you're trying to, your body's trying to repair itself from these cataclysmic injuries. And then, you know, okay, so now we're going to just bombard it with chemotherapy and just crush your immune system. And just, I can't imagine, like, you know, the, the body must have just been like, shut down.

• 1:20:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:20:51Rich Roll?

  You know?

• 1:20:51Speaker 01

  Yeah. It, it, I mean, it was, I mean, that's not what chemotherapy does. It kills all your rapidly producing cells. And I, I had a goal. If I hiked every single day that I sat in that infusion chair, I would like, keep, it was like me against chemotherapy. And I, I may not win, at least stay above it, but I was going to meet it toe to toe every day.

• 1:21:13Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:21:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:21:14Rich Roll?

  And you're cancer free now?

• 1:21:16Speaker 01

  Yeah. As I'm told, I get a checkup once a year.

• 1:21:18Rich Roll?

  Right, right, right, right. Wow. So, so how many surgeries, all told?

• 1:21:25Speaker 01

  About 21.

• 1:21:26Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:21:27Rich Roll?

  How did they fix your head?

• 1:21:29Speaker 01

  It's amazing. I have, listen, man, I, plastic surgery, you know, it's such a misnomer that, I mean, plastic surgery is for all of these, you know, we use them for whatever we want plastic surgery to be. But I'm, I never forget walking into Corey Agrewal's, my surgeon's office, and there's all these different breast cup sizes on her counter as a display, you know, like dozens of them. And, you know, that's her work. So she, you know, we're, she's talking about what they are. And then I realized that plastic surgery is, is a, in. Incredible piece of technology that allows people to return back to their most

• 1:22:10Speaker 01

  complete physical sense, you know, and so for me, I had two giant, like the size of an orange wounds in my scalp where my skull was attached, but my scalp was gone. One on my forehead, which you can't see, and one on the right side of my head. And they basically inserted baggies and stretched my skin out. And when there was enough elasticity in that stretched skin, they pulled it over the chunk of skull that no longer had scalp. I mean, just extraordinary process.

• 1:22:40Rich Roll?

  Yeah, because I can't, looking at you right now, like, I can't see anything. But when you watch the movie, you're like, oh, my God. You know, and your torso, you know, in the movie, you see without your shirt on, like, once it's healed, it's remarkable how normal it looks.

• 1:22:54Speaker 01

  The surgeons did an incredible job keeping my torso symmetrical. So my, my latissimus was, is connected from your hip and runs up to your scapula. And they removed, they disconnected it from my hip and brought it basically out the side and then what's called a muscle flap. And they used it and pulled it over my torso and my abdominals to cover that lack of body matter. That was, you know, my obliques, half of my obliques, half of my pectoral muscle on my left side were all removed. And the way the surgeon says, he's like, we just removed all this muscle from you and we have to fill it back in with something.

• 1:23:32Rich Roll?

  Yeah. But you still have unbelievable range of motion, considering you're lacking all that, that's those structural muscles on one side of your body. Like, how are you even able to, like, move your arm and your shoulder? Like, how does that?

• 1:23:45Speaker 01

  So I asked that question.

• 1:23:46Rich Roll?

  I saw you doing pull-ups. Like, how does that work without lats?

• 1:23:49Speaker 01

  I asked, I asked that question. I said, so like, how does this work? You know, you're telling me half of my obliques, all left side, half my obliques, half my pectoral, my abdominals, my latissimus, it's all being removed and either is gone or being, you know, my latissimus is still there, but it's brought over and no longer serving its function.

• 1:24:08Rich Roll?

  Connects to a different place.

• 1:24:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's just atrophied as a filler. And. My doctor just, you know, was like, well, you have all of these subset of mine, subsets of minor muscle groups below the major groups. And with the big group not present, or that large muscle not present, those smaller muscles are going to kick into gear and start working and developing and growing stronger in lieu of big brother no longer being there. And that's what I've experienced. I mean, it, look, when, you know, I'm missing a huge chunk of my left quadricep, and I don't know if anyone out there believes in karma or what it is, but I'm like, all of these things are left side on my body, whether it's the hand, the testicle, the muscles, everything, it's all left side for the most part. And

• 1:24:51Speaker 01

  so you'd think that the entire left side of my movements would be totally off. And I am just grateful that the way I was put back together, that I can run and jump and bike and swim and do my thing without really, with, with no noticeable skew to the left type movements.

• 1:25:11Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:12Speaker 01

  Which is incredible.

• 1:25:12Rich Roll?

  When you're running, it looks totally normal.

• 1:25:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:25:14Rich Roll?

  Which is crazy. I mean, the, the amount of muscle removed from your quad is like, you know, a giant sirloin.

• 1:25:20Speaker 01

  Yeah. And, and yet, when I hike, you know, if I'm going vertical up a hill, or if I'm by any, if I'm locomotive, I'm moving, I don't feel that. And, and I truly believe that whatever, that all these supporting muscles just rallied on that side and said, this side needs to be as strong as the other side, let's go.

• 1:25:37Rich Roll?

  It's interesting that the only real injury on the right, on your right side, um, is in the, is in your head to the brain, but the right side of the brain controls the left side, right? That's wild.

• 1:25:51Speaker 01

  That is wild.

• 1:25:52Rich Roll?

  Yeah. And we should say, just because I don't know that we've made it clear, these injuries, like, it was the electricity leaving your body, right? The electricity, like, exiting your body, literally through your skull, through your torso, and through your quad.

• 1:26:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, nine, nine different exits.

• 1:26:08Rich Roll?

  And your hand. Yeah.

• 1:26:10Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 1:26:11Rich Roll?

  That's crazy. And what you have, but you have some scars on your right hand. Is that from something different?

• 1:26:15Speaker 01

  No, that's exit.

• 1:26:16Rich Roll?

  That's exit too. There's just, just a little less severe than the other ones?

• 1:26:21Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. They, uh,

• 1:26:24Speaker 01

  Isn't that something? You know, you look at those scars, you know, and I always say that our scars are sort of the roadmap that shows us how we got here, you know? Emotional scars, physical scars.

• 1:26:37Rich Roll?

  Yeah, and I think, you know, that's, that's sort of how you end the movie. Like, how do you, you know, looking back on this experience, like, how do you process it? And like, how do you think about how it informs your life?

• 1:26:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, I, I'll just say quite simply, I'm still working on that. Every, like, you know, I woke up today in LA and came out here and my morning was spent talking to my fiance about our future plans right now. And I'm reminded every single day in a very positive, welcoming way about this injury. You know, it's like, I don't wake up every day and say, oh, man, I wish I wasn't an amputee, or, oh, man, you know, like, I wish I hadn't lost three years of my life to that. It's rather like, oh, man, what am I doing today? And I'm going to be sure to not agree to do anything or to put myself

• 1:27:38Speaker 01

  into any scenario that's not exactly how I want my life to be. So it's, you know, in so many ways, on the outside, in that first glance, if you, if we've never met and you've never heard the story, it's like, that's the most tragic thing I've ever heard. And then, on the other hand, it's like a blessing, because it's a daily reminder to just go get it.

• 1:28:00Rich Roll?

  Do you wish that it hadn't happened? Or do you feel like, in some weird way, by having these things removed, that it has completed you?

• 1:28:12Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 1:28:15Speaker 01

  I...

• 1:28:19Speaker 01

  I do not wish that this didn't happen.

• 1:28:23Rich Roll?

  Hold on a second. You don't wish that it didn't hap- wait.

• 1:28:26Speaker 01

  Like, some folks are like, oh, would you go back?

• 1:28:29Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:29Speaker 01

  Would you, would you go back if you could go back to 2011 and not get electrocuted? Would you do it? And at this point, absolutely, like, no, I love the person I am today. And

• 1:28:42Speaker 01

  I am blessed with the opportunity to still be alive and share my experience with others.

• 1:28:51Speaker 01

  My, it enriches my experience here, you know, and

• 1:28:57Speaker 01

  yeah, it enriches my experience. My mom, my mom says something along the lines of, we all need to, we all are well-served, understanding humility. And look, I'm not saying anyone wishes something like this on anybody. The point being is that humility can be found through so many different ways. And I could tell you right now that I am better off today than I was prior to this injury, given sort of

• 1:29:32Speaker 01

  my connection with my heart, my true self, my desires, my physical person in the world. Prior to that, probably a little imbalanced, probably getting a little too far ahead of myself with like, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna be this, and I'm gonna go this way. And, and more so today, in large part because of this injury, I don't get so far away from that. Like, hey, don't forget who you are and who you need to be in this world.

• 1:30:00Rich Roll?

  Yeah, you've literally been forced to slow down physically. Like, there are those sequences in the movie where it's like, you want to go in the kitchen and like bam bam bam and like do it the way, it's like, no, it's not gonna work that way, dude. You're gonna have to like chill, like chill, bro, right? But that compulsion on a very physical level to slow down seems like it then makes its way into your kind of emotional, spiritual, you know, body and perspective to go, hey, man, let's just like be here right now. It's like, how can we honor this moment in a different way?

• 1:30:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, we started this conversation talking about a show called Active Ingredient whereby pre-injury Eduardo believed that there, you know, that we are all the integral part of our own best recipe of self, right? And like I wrote that show, you know, like I believed that and yet post-injury, I get to, like I live and walk that now way more than I ever did.

• 1:31:02Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that's super interesting because yeah, you, it's almost like you literally had to burn in this fire to become that person that you sort of thought you were beforehand, that you were trying to embody, but you actually weren't that guy. Now you are that guy. You can carry that vibration in a way that when, because I'm sure it's going to happen, this show happens, that you can be that impactful voice that you always wanted to be, that perhaps you thought you were before, but now you actually really are.

• 1:31:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:31:34Rich Roll?

  Like in recovery and they always say like you can't transmit something you haven't got. You could talk about transmitting something you haven't got, but if you're not backing it up with actually who you are and your life experience, like if you haven't lived it enough, then you can talk about it, but it's not going to connect with anyone else.

• 1:31:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:31:52Rich Roll?

  Like unconsciously, we know, you know, like is that guy full of it or is that guy like the real thing?

• 1:31:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. And across the board, right? So like whether it's, you know, the Eduardo pre the injury, wanted to share my love of life with the world on the largest platform possible. Okay, I'm going to be a TV show host and I'm going to create and sell a TV show. The why behind that was genuine and authentic, but like only like it just didn't, maybe it didn't have that level of understanding and like authentic experience to add to it. Uh, you know, and, and you know, as well as with the food company, you know, with Montana Mex, like I had been cooking for most of my adult life and I had been cooking for the

• 1:32:42Speaker 01

  last decade for families, for kids, like really.

• 1:32:47Speaker 01

  Really inspired by the fact that I was a conduit between life and death for people. Like, we gotta eat every day, you know? And so being a part of how people eat was a beautiful part of my life and like going into that injury, but coming out of that injury, still having the food company Montana Mex. I only came out of that injury stronger in every single conviction. Like, yes, I still want to share my passion with the world and my belief that we are our own active ingredient. Yes, I want to talk to the world on the largest scale possible about how national food companies can be free of all of this junk, of all of this stuff, can be philanthropic, can give back, can make better business sense.

• 1:33:32Speaker 01

  Um, I mean, in every step, in every sense of the word, stronger.

• 1:33:38Rich Roll?

  Well, you're, you're, you're a literal conduit between life and death in a very different way than what you described, you know, you could carry prior, right?

• 1:33:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:33:49Rich Roll?

  Like in an emotional way. Yeah, charged. I mean, what's funny, it's like grounded too. Like you literally like, you know, the word grounded like from, you know, in an electrical sense, you know, but grounded in a very emotional and, and spiritual sense as well. Like you can own your, you can own your footing in a way that you couldn't before. And look, you don't do, especially as a young person, like you don't like aspire to have a TV show unless there's some ego involved, right? So what is the, and that's fine. Ego's fine unless it's out of balance. So what is the balance of ego in that equation versus from then versus now?

• 1:34:28Speaker 01

  Yeah. The, I think there's a certain amount of, maybe, I mean, you can, I mean, help me out, you know, maybe there's a word outside of ego that is that thing within you that.

• 1:34:42Speaker 01

  Knows it is desirable, knows that it is capable, knows that it is valuable. And you know, I think we associate ego into the sense of I, I am this, I am that. And yet, at some point, I needed a certain amount of whatever that was, just to make it through that time.

• 1:35:04Rich Roll?

  Sure.

• 1:35:05Speaker 01

  I needed to believe that I could do this. I was gonna be okay. Like, I could add value to the team around me. But the humility that is often not present with ego is definitely something that I pulled out of that fire.

• 1:35:20Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:35:21Speaker 01

  It's like, I can believe in myself all day long, but you need to be, like, be yourself too. And yourself is not that guy that you left behind 10 years ago or that, you know?

• 1:35:31Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I would imagine that it's some combination of like, the strength that comes from self-belief, that I guess on some part, it's derived from ego, and if there isn't a word for what you just described, there should be. Balancing that against deep humility and really like, a surrender to the fact that you have so little control over this, right? Like, like you're in that boat, being tossed around by those waves, and you're in an ICU, you know, at the behest of a team of doctors who are doing their best, but like, there's very little that you can do. What are the things you can control? You can control your attitude, how you're, how you're acting towards, you know, your medical staff and the loved ones that are, that are caretaking for you.

• 1:36:15Rich Roll?

  And your frame of mind, your, your optimism or pessimism about what is actually occurring in real time.

• 1:36:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's true.

• 1:36:24Rich Roll?

  But the surrender part, and I think this gets, I'm interested in your thoughts on this. I think what gets lost when we talk about surrender is that we, we sort of think that that means giving up, or, you know, that letting go is a weakness. But in my experience, and I'm interested in yours, like, surrendering creates like a freedom and a different kind of strength to approach a problem from a more empowered and humble perspective that ultimately, in my experience, leads to better results.

• 1:36:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, I, I, I agree, and I think from my perspective.

• 1:37:07Speaker 01

  Nothing is stronger than truth, right? Like, truth is bedrock. And for every, every opportunity sense this injury and, and, and moving forward, because, you know, post this injury, there were a lot of moments that challenged my truths. And, and I've had to recognize them and, and decline to engage in whatever those were. And you wake up at thirty something and you're missing all of these body parts, right? And you're, you're no longer who you were. And you just can't lie to yourself.

• 1:37:52Speaker 01

  Like, you can't. You don't have that left hand. You are no longer symmetrical. You are no longer the person you were prior. It's just not true. And so owning the truth of this is the me going forward is also, becomes sort of like the foundation of, all right, do I want to do that thing? I don't know. Is that who I am is to say yes to that or agree to that? Or is it to decline it and say no? And so to your point of giving up, it's, it's not like, honestly, I think, it's, it's nothing to do with giving up. It's, it's actually a super strong, bold, powerful move is to just make a decision

• 1:38:37Speaker 01

  based on truth, you know? And, yeah, I don't, that is the power for me anyway.

• 1:38:45Rich Roll?

  I think that the, the hard part for a lot of people is, is trying to divine what that truth is, though.

• 1:38:54Speaker 01

  Sure. And, and yet I think if you boil it down, though, and you, you look at yourself naked in the mirror, and it's like, well.

• 1:39:03Rich Roll?

  Here's what it is.

• 1:39:03Speaker 01

  Start somewhere. What makes you happy? What makes you sing? What fuels your fire? Do something small. Do something small, you know, on like by the hour, by the day, by the week, by the month. And for me, go, you know, in, in, in chemo, when I was going through all my treatments for three months, for me, it was reading and it was hiking outside and, and I could maybe only hike for 10 minutes on any given one day and then all of a sudden it was 15 minutes and then it was two hours and then, you know, it was half a day. But I knew that that, here's the thing though, too, is I knew I needed that. I knew that that was going to just keep me moving, but at some point I recognized that I was taking advantage of that, too. And I wasn't growing.

• 1:39:48Speaker 01

  I was just comfortably being like, oh, I'm gonna hike every single day and this is gonna solve everything. This is gonna keep me cool. And at some point, I had to push out of that.

• 1:39:57Rich Roll?

  Well, I think part of the lesson, you know, as somebody who, a hyperactive kid, wants to be outdoors, can't sit still, you know, in the kitchen, you know, I, I would imagine like, you know, sort of thriving on the chaotic, you know, like environment of being in a kitchen, like all of that is like, that's your, that's your like mana, like that's your fuel.

• 1:40:17Speaker 01

  The dance.

• 1:40:17Rich Roll?

  And here you just get, you just get sidelined where you have to stop and you cannot do these things that are part and parcel of who you are, but I would imagine on some emotional level are almost like ways of escaping or not dealing with things that you really need to work through if you want to become fully actualized, to become a whole person. And you have to have these body parts removed in order to confront that and become whole so that you can sit here today and do the things that you, that you do.

• 1:40:47Speaker 01

  Yeah. I think it's, what's interesting is, um,

• 1:40:53Speaker 01

  That moment, Central Park, 2013, with a group called the Challenge Athletes Foundation out of San Diego, the group that kind of got me involved in triathlon sports and

• 1:41:02Rich Roll?

  It's incredible organization.

• 1:41:03Speaker 01

  Oh, my gosh. They check them out if you haven't. They do terrific work. And a friend is a big supporter and recommended I check out the Challenge Athletes Foundation. And they invite me to their big fundraiser event on the East Coast. And there's a fun run in the morning, Central Park. And I show up, you know, kind of, you know, t-shirt with my prosthetic on, wearing like skate shoes and skate shorts. Like, I don't know, not really ready to run. Maybe I had tennis shoes on.

• 1:41:31Rich Roll?

  First like, kind of like, sort of legit, structured, race type of that kind of thing?

• 1:41:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, this is, yeah, and this is a fun run. But this is what it is. This is the first time that I have stepped into a room of peoples, not all of who have disabilities, but into a room that recognizes the person with a disability. And says like, you're an amputee. And it's not a bad thing. Like, that's how they're just defining, like, cool, you're 13 years old and you're male. Or, you know, oh, you're an amputee below the elbow. Cool. You know, what sports do you do? Or, it was like, it was just like, boom. It was like saying, what's your name? You know, and I, and for me, that, like, I had to give

• 1:42:17Speaker 01

  up, or I had to throw my hands in the air and say, I give up on this notion that I can hide and protect the old Eduardo. Like, when my hair was falling out, going through chemo, my sideburn stayed on for some random reason. So I could wear a beanie, and maybe it looked like I still had hair, you know? And then, whatever, I look at photos of that now. And it's like, what were you thinking? You didn't have eyebrows, man.

• 1:42:44Rich Roll?

  Yeah, but you don't, you don't strike me as a guy who's like, trying to hide. I mean, like, in the movie, you're like, having fun pulling your hair out with Jen. And I was like, wow, like, that's, you know?

• 1:42:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, but, and so, to be fair, though, Rich, that was in my home. That was in private. Like, and I didn't go out. I didn't, you know, like, I, other than my family, like, I remember, I remember having Passover in Montana, and my grandparents were there. And

• 1:43:13Speaker 01

  I like, I didn't ask my grandmother, but I kinda just told her I was considering not wearing my hat at dinner inside, but I always wear my hat because my head's got this big divot and I haven't finished all these surgeries because my surgeries were put on hold. So my head was like bald, no hair, big, big, big, open, like, you know, divot in the back of it, really like disfigured looking. And she just looked at me, she's like, Eddie, we don't love your head, we love you. Take the hat off, you know? And so for, so when I went to that run with the Challenge Athletes Foundation in Central Park, I gave up the idea that I needed to hold on to the old me. And an 18-year-old kid, Thomas Kane,

• 1:43:55Speaker 01

  was my catalyst. He came up and he was like, hi, I'm Thomas. And I was like, hey, I'm Eduardo. And he immediately just zeroes in on my left hand. He's like, you gonna run with that on? And he's pointing at my prosthetic. It's like saying, hey, Rich, are we gonna go do a marathon tomorrow? Are you bringing your backpack? You want your backpack? You know, like, you're not gonna run with that on. And I just had never considered that I could comfortably take off my prosthetic in public and just have my forearm exposed. And I did in that moment. I surrendered and I just owned it. I said, I need to own whoever I am right now, today. Like, I need to love this person. I need to be proud of this person. And I need to be an active part of whoever I am moving forward, not stuck in this old concept of self.

• 1:44:40Rich Roll?

  And how did that feel to take it off and do that run?

• 1:44:43Speaker 01

  Gosh, I mean, I was like-

• 1:44:44Rich Roll?

  You hadn't run without it? Or you hadn't like, you just never, you're always covering it up in public?

• 1:44:49Speaker 01

  I hadn't moved without it being on. Like, I'd gone to bed, I'd take it off at the end of the day and I'd go to bed, but I hadn't really done anything active without it on. And it was, you ever seen like a, you know, an animal frolic through the fields? It's like, bing, you know, like-

• 1:45:01Rich Roll?

  Feel free.

• 1:45:02Speaker 01

  Yeah. It was liberating. And, and, you know, I cried. It was like, man, like-

• 1:45:10Speaker 01

  Not, I can do this, like I can still run. Well, how far can I run? And so, I mean, immediately that night at the fundraiser, you know, it's in the Waldorf Astoria, downtown Manhattan, 800 people in the room, and someone like nudges me, and they're like, Eduardo, are we gonna see you at our triathlon? And I was like, yeah! And then I woke up the next morning, I was like, wait a minute, what's a triathlon? You know, no, no, I had no concept of what I had just done, other than I was just super jazzed with the freedom to be me again.

• 1:45:40Rich Roll?

  Yeah. And you've gone on and done lots of stuff with CAF, right?

• 1:45:44Speaker 01

  Every year, yeah. Every year, every year, do a handful of triathlons or events and support them in any way we can.

• 1:45:52Rich Roll?

  So I saw, I noticed that you, you somehow strap like a big hand paddle on your left forearm to compensate a little bit, like how you make those adjustments.

• 1:46:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, for swimming, and I'm still working on my bike adjustment.

• 1:46:08Rich Roll?

  Do you have a different sort of attachment to allow you to grip the handlebar? How does that work?

• 1:46:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's, imagine like a Pac-Man hand, you know, so you can just kind of flex it around the round handlebar. They, I mean, there, and there's, there's a lot out there for amputees. And then, I mean, that's what the Challenge Athletes Foundation specifically, what they do is they're like, you wanna be a Paralympic snowboarder? You wanna be a rugby, you know, basketball player, or a wheelchair rugby player? For kids to, you know, adults of all ages. So for me, I have a hand and a special carbon fiber attachment that I use for biking, specific, and...

• 1:46:51Rich Roll?

  Yeah, they help get those very specialized athletic appendages to, to those people.

• 1:46:57Speaker 01

  Yeah. And so now, like, lucky me, right? Like now, I'm an amputee, I get to understand this whole new part of being human, which is living with a disability, or whatever you wanna call it. And so then I, you know, so it impacts every part of me. Like, I'll talk about our food company, Montana Mex, and just that... We've always wanted to be a company that was organic, was free of preservatives, was free of colorings, was free of any chemicals, was transparent, was not, you know, doing its best to be a great contribution to people's lives in the world around us. That's pre-injury. And like you said, like, you know, you can't transmit something until you have it. And then

• 1:47:37Speaker 01

  after my injury, I mean, we kept the company open while the whole company was in ICU with me, brother, sister, myself. You know, we had one employee still running the show, you know? And now Montana MX represents so much more in that it's living and breathing. Like before my injury, we wanted these products to be the cleanest best they could be for people. And now they still are those, but now we partnered with the Challenge Athletes Foundation, put them on our label. So now we get to be like, hey, we don't just want this company to succeed from a business point of view. We want this company to really add value. And, you know, by the end of the year, know that we have executed our business successfully

• 1:48:19Speaker 01

  enough to actually give back to others, not just in food, but help a kid get that rugby wheelchair. So cool.

• 1:48:27Rich Roll?

  So you divert some of the revenue towards CAF every year? Is that how it works?

• 1:48:31Speaker 01

  Five percent.

• 1:48:31Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that's cool.

• 1:48:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, five percent of proceeds.

• 1:48:33Rich Roll?

  That's awesome, man. What, what, I saw some video of you with like the, the actual the hand, the bionic hand. Do you still have that?

• 1:48:42Speaker 01

  I do. I got a, oh my gosh, my.

• 1:48:44Rich Roll?

  How come you don't wear that?

• 1:48:45Speaker 01

  I got a drawer full of them.

• 1:48:47Rich Roll?

  Do you?

• 1:48:47Speaker 01

  I do. Um, yeah, there's a great story of my girlfriend, my now fiance moved in and she discovered the hand drawer. It's like, ah, freaked out and like kicked it close and you know, I guess I forgot to mention that the lower drawer to the right in the bathroom was the hand drawer.

• 1:49:02Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:49:03Speaker 01

  And.

• 1:49:03Rich Roll?

  Like she just stumbled into some weird circus from the 1920s or something.

• 1:49:07Speaker 01

  And I wasn't home. So, you know, but you know, I found that I have friends who are bilateral amputees. So they have, they're missing both limbs and it really serves them well to have a prosthetic that is powered through a motor and that communicates with sensors to the muscles in whatever part of the body is affected. And for me, I, I've had those, I've worn them and I never really progressed far enough to a place that I was really excited to use them. For me, it was just like, ah. It's too slow. It doesn't really work as well as I want it to.

• 1:49:46Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:49:46Speaker 01

  And I've found that what I'm wearing right now is a, I would say this is your more typical prosthetic. You're used to seeing upper bodied people. So there's a hook and it's pulled and powered by a cable that's attached to a harness on my shoulder. So it's all body powered movements.

• 1:50:03Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:50:04Speaker 01

  And the beauty of this is that I can get it wet. I can beat it up. I can fix it with what's in my suitcase.

• 1:50:10Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:50:10Speaker 01

  It's indestructible. And if it breaks, it's not a hundred thousand dollars to repair.

• 1:50:15Rich Roll?

  Yeah. And also you're diversifying your dexterity because that can do things your hand can't do. If you had two hands, they do the same thing, but that can probably, that can do a bunch of stuff your hand can't, right?

• 1:50:26Speaker 01

  It's true. The hook has come in handy.

• 1:50:29Rich Roll?

  Yeah. I had a, do you know Paul De Gelder?

• 1:50:32Speaker 01

  Uh-uh, I do not.

• 1:50:33Rich Roll?

  He's a double amputee who survived a shark attack.

• 1:50:38Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 1:50:39Rich Roll?

  And I had him on here. He's got a crazy story. He got attacked by a nine foot bull shark in Sydney Harbor. And he's the equivalent of like a Australian Navy SEAL. And now he does shark preservation. And his story is different than yours, but also similar in the way that he's like using what happened to empower other people, but also give back to causes. And you know, it's just cool that, that he still goes and dives with sharks. And he's all about like preserving this animal that literally almost took his life, should have taken his life.

• 1:51:09Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:51:10Rich Roll?

  But he had an actual hand and it was amazing that how you can, you know, make all the finger, like the level at which this technology has developed to is really quite shocking.

• 1:51:20Speaker 01

  A hundred percent. A hundred percent.

• 1:51:22Rich Roll?

  And the freedom it's giving people.

• 1:51:23Speaker 01

  Yeah. No, and so, you know, I'm 36 years old and you know, the way that my body now works with a prosthetic left hand is not how it's supposed to be. I have to put a lot of pressure into making this hook work every day.

• 1:51:39Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:51:40Speaker 01

  And you know, I feel in my joints. And so one day I may shift to a myoelectric powered hand. But for now, this serves me. I can beat it up and use it as a hammer and.

• 1:51:51Rich Roll?

  What has been the most challenging part of this whole journey for you? Like what gets lost in the narrative that we see out in the world about you? Or what do people not understand? And you know, something that has been difficult for you?

• 1:52:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:52:11Speaker 01

  You know, I, I think

• 1:52:16Speaker 01

  that there's a certain level of,

• 1:52:23Speaker 01

  I keep wanting to say confusion, but it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, there's a, there's a certain amount of me that feels I owe everyone and everything so much to the point that I, it's really become a challenge for me to make sure that I'm still focused on what I need, even though I've said that so many times, just over the last hour with you, in that, I mean, how many times when this film, like, this film came out of nowhere? I mean, like, let's say there was no documentary, I would, you know, gone back to work and I would have worked on the food brand and worked on the TV show and Eduardo and his life. This documentary kind of came out of nowhere. So I feel like there's a part of me that

• 1:53:09Speaker 01

  anyone who's witnessed this story, watched the film, or, um, you know, follows, follows me through whatever public medium, just the part they don't see is the struggle to present, continue to present this life because I'm very proud to still be alive. I'm very grateful and I feel like sharing this film with others, sharing my story with others is beneficial to many. And I know it, I've heard it, I get the feedback every day by the dozens. But then there's a part that really struggles with saying like, I want to hermit up. I want to go find my retreat. And, um, what I'm working on right now is, is not doing the extreme of either.

• 1:53:51Speaker 01

  And rather just finding the balance of how much time do I need to work on preserving my sense of self and my own energy and my own compass north, so that I can still be in service of others.

• 1:54:04Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Well, if you lose sight of that, then you don't have anything to give anyway.

• 1:54:07Speaker 01

  None.

• 1:54:08Rich Roll?

  You know?

• 1:54:08Speaker 01

  None.

• 1:54:09Rich Roll?

  But I can't, yeah, I can imagine that the, the, the demands on you to show up here and there and they're probably all cool and sound like fun, but your tank will quickly empty.

• 1:54:20Speaker 01

  Well, and

• 1:54:23Speaker 01

  Like, it's tough, man. I, you know, so my dad passed away last November. And the film has offered me this incredible two-year time period where I'm being interviewed with my dad and we're putting together content for this documentary without which I would not have like incredible, incredible pieces of pearls of wisdom in the form of video or written or edited or recorded. And so like, I'm, I'm all for this process. I'm all for sharing charge. I'm all for sharing myself out there with the world. But at the same

• 1:55:06Speaker 01

  time, I just, I feel like I get a little lost in, I'm, I'm, I'm hungry for things. So like, if I want to go do something, I really want to go do it. And it's still continually very hard, feeling guilty of not giving myself to others when I'm just like, man, I'm falling apart in here. Like, I need to be at home. I need to tend to my own tools. I need to tend to my own field here. I need to like, get myself in order so I can continue to give for the rest of my life to others.

• 1:55:33Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:55:33Speaker 01

  That's a hard balance.

• 1:55:35Rich Roll?

  Yeah, but you live in Montana, right? It'd be harder if you lived here, maybe, or like New York or something. You get to go home to your retreat and take care of yourself. Say no a little bit.

• 1:55:44Speaker 01

  I do. I mean, I did 220 days.

• 1:55:46Rich Roll?

  Have somebody else say no for you.

• 1:55:47Speaker 01

  I did 220 days traveling last year.

• 1:55:49Rich Roll?

  Have that fancy agency say no for you.

• 1:55:51Speaker 01

  Telling you.

• 1:55:52Rich Roll?

  You know what I mean?

• 1:55:53Speaker 01

  I do. Yeah.

• 1:55:54Rich Roll?

  What is, what's been the most kind of interesting or impactful experience that you've had in sharing the movie and going around and screening it?

• 1:56:03Speaker 01

  Oh, the, this isn't an example, this is a nonspecific example of what's happened many times, but.

• 1:56:15Speaker 01

  When, when an individual watches Charged not knowing what it is, but they just, it shows up on their feed or they wa- they're at a festival and they just, you know, the festival uses a poster of me with a fly rod. This literally happened and a guy and his gal went in and thought they were going to a fly fishing film.

• 1:56:31Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:56:32Speaker 01

  Hello, you know, not a fly fishing film.

• 1:56:34Rich Roll?

  There's some fly fishing in there.

• 1:56:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:56:37Rich Roll?

  A little bit.

• 1:56:37Speaker 01

  And yet this guy raises his hand in the Q and A and he's like, I'm, I'm a veteran. I was, you know, in Afghanistan and in Iraq and these wars. I have lived in this town my whole life and nobody, this is the first time I've ever said this publicly, but I struggle every single day, X, Y, and Z. And I thought I was going to a fly fishing film today. And yet through your, through watching your journey and I am inspired to stand up right now because I know that my community is in this room, Small Film Festival in Martha's Vineyard. And he looks around and he's like, I feel empowered to share my true self, which is I'm this guy. He says his name and I struggle every day.

• 1:57:20Speaker 01

  And it feels really great to say that right now after 15 years.

• 1:57:23Rich Roll?

  That's it, man. That's, that's the first step in healing, that kind of stuff.

• 1:57:27Speaker 01

  Share your story.

• 1:57:27Rich Roll?

  Powerful. Yeah.

• 1:57:29Speaker 01

  Share your story.

• 1:57:31Rich Roll?

  I think that's a good place to wrap it up, dude. It was pretty good.

• 1:57:34Speaker 01

  I'm grateful.

• 1:57:34Rich Roll?

  How do you feel?

• 1:57:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, I, uh, I'm inspired to get home, plant my garden tomorrow.

• 1:57:39Rich Roll?

  Good, man. Well, we'll get you home, man. I really appreciate your time, especially even more now knowing that, that you have a tricky relationship with coming out and talking. So I don't take it for granted, man. It's really powerful and I know that everybody listening is, is, is going to be really impacted by it. So, um, thank you.

• 1:58:01Speaker 01

  My pleasure.

• 1:58:02Rich Roll?

  Um, if you want to connect with Eduardo, uh, you can check out his incredible line of food products, Montana Mex, montanamex.com, right?

• 1:58:14Speaker 01

  That's it.

• 1:58:14Rich Roll?

  Definitely check out Charged. That's all we've been talking about for the last hour and a half. Uh, you could, I know you could see it on Amazon and you could see it on Vimeo. Are there other places to check it out?

• 1:58:25Speaker 01

  Amazon, Vimeo, iTunes.

• 1:58:27Rich Roll?

  iTunes, all those places. Cool.

• 1:58:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:58:29Rich Roll?

  Charged the movie and if people want to connect with you directly, what's the best place for them to do that? Um, or maybe you just don't want them to.

• 1:58:36Speaker 01

  No, please say hi, uh, either on Instagram at Chef Eduardo Garcia. Or go to chefeduardo.com and say hi.

• 1:58:46Rich Roll?

  And I'll be looking for that new TV show.

• 1:58:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:58:48Rich Roll?

  When it happens, come back and talk to me about it.

• 1:58:50Speaker 01

  I will. I'm hoping to see you at a Challenge Athletes Foundation.

• 1:58:52Rich Roll?

  Oh, I'd love to. I know, I'm sure you know Bob Babett.

• 1:58:56Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 1:58:56Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I know Bob. So I would love to. I've been invited in the past and for whatever reason I haven't been able to make it, but I would love to. So I can make that commitment to you.

• 1:59:05Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:59:05Rich Roll?

  Cool. Right on, man. Peace.

• 1:59:07Speaker 01

  Nice.

• 1:59:10Rich Roll?

  What did I tell you? I told you it was an incredible story. I think you delivered on that promise. In any event, I really hope that you enjoyed that conversation. Just a reminder that the podcast is also viewable in its entirety on YouTube at youtube.com/ritual. Check it out there. Hit that subscribe button while you're at it. And let Eduardo know what you thought of today's conversation by hitting him up on Instagram at chefeduardo Garcia. Also, definitely check out Charged on iTunes, Amazon, or Vimeo. There's a link in the show notes to that. On the subject of show notes, check them out. We put a lot of time into them. It will take your edification, your experience of today's conversation beyond those earbuds stuck into your ear. If you're looking for nutritional guidance, check out

• 1:59:53Rich Roll?

  our meal planner, meals.ritual.com. We're offering thousands of plant-based recipes, all customized based on your personal preferences. We have unlimited grocery lists, even grocery delivery in most US cities with international delivery rolling out soon. Available to you for just $1.90 a week when you sign up for a year. To learn more and to sign up, go to meals.ritual.com or click on Meal Planner on the top menu on my website. If you would like to support my work, please subscribe on Apple Podcasts or on Google Podcasts or on whatever platform you enjoy this content, YouTube, anybody, and share it with your friends and on social media. That's the best way. You can also support my work on Patreon at ritual.com/donate. And I want to thank everybody who helped put on the show today.

• 2:00:36Rich Roll?

  Jason Camiolo for audio engineering, production, show notes, interstitial music. Blake Curtis and Margot Lumen for video editing and graphics. Reese Robinson for portraits. And theme music, as always, by Anna Lima. Thanks for the love, you guys. I'm going to see you back here in a couple of days with an incredible podcast with this guy called John McAvoy. I recorded it in London. It's not going to be on video because we just did it in a conference room there. But I'm telling you, I'm not going to say too much other than that it is one of the most intense and compelling podcasts I have ever, ever conducted. Until then, be well. Love large. And what else do I want to say? Eat plants. Peace. Out.