From Celebrated Pop Star to Olympic Hopeful: Cody Simpson On Chasing Big Dreams, Finding Himself & Lessons Learned From Sport & Stage

Imagine a young singer-songwriter of global acclaim—someone like Justin Timberlake or Shawn Mendes. Except this star also happens to be an elite athlete with an Olympic dream. It sounds like fiction. But this is the true story of Cody Simpson. Superstardom within reach, Cody Simpson put his guitar down and traded Hollywood for the black line at the bottom of a pool with one singular goal in mind: to compete in the Olympics. It's the story of a chlorine-soaked little kid who became a global star. He traveled the world, performed before massive crowds, modeled for luxury brands, even acted on Broadway and in movies and television. But something was missing. Out of an instinct for survival, he proceeded to do what many would consider unthinkable. He walked away from all of it. He couldn’t shake the feeling of what might have been had he not forsaken the Speedo for the stage and decided to do something about it. World-class competitive swimming is a sport in which the elite never dare to take more than a month off here and there. Not only did Cody return to this sport after a dormant decade, he quickly began to excel beyond any reasonable expectation, clocking world-class times in the 100-meter butterfly. Today we dive into the deep end of the pool and plumb Cody’s story. We trace his arc as a musician, what he learned as a performer that now helps him as an athlete, the whys and hows behind his Olympic dream, and how you can achieve two massive and wildly different goals in a lifetime. Note: This conversation was recorded back in May of 2023 on the cusp of Australia’s World Championship Trials. Alas, Cody narrowly missed qualifying for that team but is back in super-focused training. I coaxed Cody into performing a song at the end which you are not going to want to miss, so be sure to stick around. Enjoy! Show notes + MORE Watch on YouTube Newsletter Sign-Up Today’s Sponsors: Timeline Nutrition: timelinenutrition.com/RICHROLL Roka: roka.com/RICHROLL AG1: drinkAG1.com/RICHROLL Athletic Brewing: AthleticBrewing.com On Running: on.com/RICHROLL Indeed: Indeed.com/RICHROLL Plant Power Meal Planner: https://meals.richroll.com 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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• 0:44Rich Roll?

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• 1:13Rich Roll?

  The Rich Roll Podcast.

• 1:18Rich Roll?

  It's like if Justin Bieber was also an Olympic athlete.

• 1:21Speaker 01

  I suppose so, yeah. I find that there are similarities, though. One taught me that what you put in is what you get out. The work equals improvement. Sometimes you just sort of just have to jump off the deep end and then find your feet. Once you're out there, you're never gonna feel ready. My first race back was terrible. Failure isn't failure, really. Failure are just...

• 1:43Rich Roll?

  It's information.

• 1:47Rich Roll?

  I want you to imagine, conjure in your mind, a talented, young, handsome pop star. Someone like, maybe, Justin Bieber, or perhaps Shawn Mendes. Except, this particular pop star isn't just a musician. He also happens to be an incredibly talented athlete. An athlete so extraordinary that, a couple of years ago, he decides to put down the guitar and walk away from his fast-paced Hollywood lifestyle to get back in the pool for the first time since he was 13, and pursue, with all his focus, all his energy, a lifelong dream of competing in the Olympics.

• 2:29Rich Roll?

  It sounds like fiction, but believe it or not, this is the true story of Cody Simpson, a young Australian who went from this chlorine-soaked little kid sharing his musical talents on YouTube from his bedroom to, in rapid, almost overnight fashion, global fame. A dizzying, disorienting period in which he traveled the world, performed before massive crowds, acted on Broadway and in movies and television, modeled for luxury brands, dated celebrities, only to discover it an empty promise, a life out of alignment and integrity with his higher self. Something was missing.

• 3:12Rich Roll?

  Out of an instinct for survival, Cody proceeds to do what many would consider unthinkable. He walked away from all of it. He left LA and moved back home to the Gold Coast and began to reconnect with that 13-year-old Cody, the kid who loved to swim, was good at swimming. He couldn't shake wondering what might have been had he not forsaken the speedo for the stage and decided to do something about it. I cannot overstate how radical this is. World-class competitive swimming is a sport in which the elite never dare to take more than a month off here and there, but not only did Cody return to the sport after a dormant

• 3:56Rich Roll?

  decade, he quickly began to excel beyond any reasonable expectation, clocking world-class times in the 100-meter butterfly, and at this point is 100% legit in the running to make the Australian Olympic team for Paris 2024. Now, as a former competitive swimmer myself, I can tell you that what he is attempting to do, what he is doing, is absolutely unprecedented. I wanted to know more, I needed to know more, so when I found myself in Australia this past spring, I tracked him down, and here we are. Couple more things I want to add about Cody before we get into it, but first.

• 4:42Rich Roll?

  Okay, Cody Simpson. Today, we dive into the deep end of the pool to plumb Cody's story, his arc as a musician, the difference between art and fame, what he has learned as a performer that now helps him as an athlete, the whys and hows behind his Olympic dream, and how you can achieve two massive and wildly different goals in a lifetime. Now, I'll be honest, I wasn't sure what to expect with Cody. His story is certainly wild, but what kind of person is he? And all I will say is that I left this conversation super impressed with him, not just as an artist and as an athlete, but as a young man of copious talents I now call friend,

• 5:25Rich Roll?

  who has grown up, matured into someone who knows who he is, understands what's important to him, isn't afraid to take risks in pursuit of his dreams, and exudes an experience-earned wisdom that belies his age. Before we get into it, two quick things. First, this conversation was recorded way back in May on the cusp of Australia's World Championship Trials, which we discuss. Alas, Cody narrowly missed qualifying for that team, but I can tell you, he is back in the pool and super focused in his training. Second, I coaxed Cody into performing a song at the end, which you are not going to want to miss, so please do not skip out early on this one, people.

• 6:09Rich Roll?

  Okay, this is me and Cody. Let's dig it.

• 6:19Rich Roll?

  Thank you for inviting me into your beautiful home.

• 6:22Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 6:22Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 6:23Speaker 01

  It's an honor to have you.

• 6:24Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's cool. I've been following you for a while now, and it's been quite a kind of dramatic unfoldment in so many unique and interesting ways that I want to explore with you today. So you, you're that generation where you start as a very young kid, sharing your songs online, right? Like originally on MySpace?

• 6:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:46Rich Roll?

  That's how it all started? And then eventually YouTube?

• 6:48Speaker 01

  I was literally discovered on MySpace.

• 6:51Rich Roll?

  That's nuts.

• 6:52Speaker 01

  Which is crazy to think about now. And YouTube, but I was posting like songs I was writing when I was 11, 12, like on MySpace Music, and that was where I was initially contacted by a producer in the States.

• 7:07Rich Roll?

  How old were you?

• 7:08Speaker 01

  Uh, twelve. When I was first like contacted, I didn't go, end up going over there till I was sort of thirteen and then um fourteen when we moved. Uh, but originally I was twelve and when I started to see some kind of get viewership and all that stuff and I just had started for fun because I saw people were doing it. I saw kids were doing it. I saw um people just posting these handicap videos of them playing and singing, uh singing and playing guitar.

• 7:41Rich Roll?

  And this is sort of all well understood now. I mean, that's what happened with Justin, right?

• 7:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:46Rich Roll?

  I think it's the same with Shawn Mendes even, right?

• 7:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:48Rich Roll?

  So there's a, now there's sort of a tradition and a track.

• 7:51Speaker 01

  Now it's kind of like the only way you

• 7:54Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 7:55Speaker 01

  you are are seen, I suppose.

• 8:00Speaker 01

  And it's, it's a little bit more um democratized now in the way that you sort of, anyone can just sort of jump on and start building a fan base and everything.

• 8:08Rich Roll?

  Which is cool.

• 8:09Speaker 01

  Which is cool, but I was sort of at the beginning of that YouTube generation of kids that went on with the guitar and got discovered.

• 8:22Speaker 01

  And I was the first one out of Australia as well.

• 8:27Speaker 01

  From my knowledge, at least.

• 8:28Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 8:29Speaker 01

  But uh, and that, and that's sort of, I was flown over to the States and asked to sort of cut, start cutting demos and took some meetings with some labels who wanted to meet in, in New York and I'd never been out of the country before. So it was all very new to me and came home for, I was telling you this the other day, uh, like came home for six months, didn't really hear anything, went back to, to swimming training.

• 8:53Speaker 01

  And then basically got a deal off on the table. It was sort of contingent on moving to LA.

• 9:01Speaker 01

  And fortunately enough, my parents were willing to take me over there for I think what they thought would would only be a little while. But turned that turned out to be us relocating there full time. Once the train started moving.

• 9:15Rich Roll?

  And you have two siblings, two younger siblings.

• 9:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, they came over with me. My, I was only 14, so my sister would have been 13. My brother was seven. And so to have them do that with me and support me through that was pretty wild. Like, I don't, I don't think every family would, would

• 9:35Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 9:35Speaker 01

  would do that. And so my parents definitely weren't, weren't super well off or anything. Like, they, they helped us get over there. And then for a while, it was sort of like up to me to sort of make it happen.

• 9:48Rich Roll?

  Right. So on some level, you're supporting the family?

• 9:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:51Rich Roll?

  Yeah. And your, your mom was your manager, right?

• 9:53Speaker 01

  No.

• 9:54Rich Roll?

  No?

• 9:55Speaker 01

  She wasn't. But they, they were involved in the beginning, just, just making sure I was safe and all that. Like, I wasn't getting, you know, eaten alive.

• 10:03Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Well, you're not, I mean, you're 13, you're not going over alone.

• 10:06Speaker 01

  No, no, no. And but, you know, we, we were all super new to the business. Like, we didn't know anything. And, and as Australians too, you're kind of like, you feel like everyone's telling the truth all the time.

• 10:17Rich Roll?

  You're in a way, you're in these meetings, they're all telling you everything you want to hear. And then you realize like, it's all bullshit.

• 10:24Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. And you realize a couple of years later, oh, that was not true. Or, you know?

• 10:29Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 10:29Speaker 01

  So you wake up to that stuff pretty quickly.

• 10:33Rich Roll?

  Your parents seem like really good parents.

• 10:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:36Rich Roll?

  You know, your, your, your brother is like a concert pianist?

• 10:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:41Rich Roll?

  Yeah. And he's like, is he writing a, he's like, writing a musical or?

• 10:47Speaker 01

  He's, yeah, he's a very good classical pianist. He is, he's now, he's just moved to London. He bought himself a one-way ticket to London. So like, saved up for his ticket and for a few months rent and.

• 10:59Speaker 01

  Said see you later to us, basically. Wanted to go and work in theatre over there and he's just got himself a he'd done a lot of sort of local production and lighting and stage management and stuff like that. And he's now working on an opera.

• 11:16Rich Roll?

  Wow.

• 11:16Speaker 01

  On West End, like this Italian opera and he's like gets to get dressed up and go out and move props around and do all this and he landed himself that job within like eight weeks of being there. So he was like me a lot in that way where he's just like would go out and just make make stuff happen for himself.

• 11:33Rich Roll?

  And your sister's like a host and does a bunch of stuff, right?

• 11:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. A lot of sort of TV.

• 11:40Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 11:41Speaker 01

  Fashion, beauty, that kind of thing, yeah.

• 11:43Rich Roll?

  But it's interesting that all three of you are kind of in the creative arts. Your parents were both athletes, swimmers.

• 11:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:49Rich Roll?

  Like they weren't like making albums and writing operas.

• 11:53Speaker 01

  No, no, no. He's, um, yeah, my, my parents, well, my dad, my dad writes music and he sings and plays guitar and that's sort of what

• 12:04Speaker 01

  that's where I got it from. I think that's where we, my mom, my mom is not, not highly musical.

• 12:11Speaker 01

  But

• 12:13Speaker 01

  they never, they never pursued any, anything of the sort in their lives. So I think seeing us all take those paths is interesting for them.

• 12:21Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that is, that's wild. And so what do you, when you reflect back on how you were raised, the way in which your parents raised you, like what it, it, it feels like they must be very encouraging to pursue your dreams in whatever form that, that comes in. Like, how did they kind of support you on the day to day?

• 12:40Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, when they first, when they, when we talk about us first moving over there, they said, they said that even if we came back in a few months, they said, worst case, we taught you to follow your dreams and your gut. Cause I was so passionate about wanting to go over there and pursue this and take the opportunity I was given in music. So they said, worst case, we've, we've taught you that you can do that, you know? And I'm just glad they, they had an open enough minds to, to allow that to happen. And it was good too, because they never, they never were like pushy, even in swimming, like they never. They were encouraging, but never, never pushy, which is, which was good.

• 13:20Rich Roll?

  But when you wanted to get back in the pool, your mom was not so.

• 13:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, I wanted to get back in the pool. Mom was, mom was trying to stop me, prevent me from doing it.

• 13:27Rich Roll?

  You don't want to do that. Look what you're doing. You want to come, like, she knows.

• 13:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, she, she knew. So she, she was shocked. Um, but I think when she just saw the way I talked about it, she was like, well, I can't stop you. I haven't stopped you before.

• 13:41Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 13:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:42Rich Roll?

  So you've done so many things as an entertainer. We're never going to be able to talk about all of that. But, um, you did, you must've been 15, like, when you were, when you went on tour with Bieber? So you were like the opening act for him.

• 13:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, when I started, yeah.

• 13:56Rich Roll?

  I mean, that had to be bananas.

• 13:58Speaker 01

  Yes, it was only sort of, uh, a year or two into.

• 14:03Rich Roll?

  Being in LA, right.

• 14:04Speaker 01

  Um, just signed with Scooter Braun, his manager.

• 14:12Rich Roll?

  The Swifties are going to be very upset.

• 14:13Speaker 01

  Let's, yeah.

• 14:17Speaker 01

  And he, and so I started, started working with him and his team and, and got to know Justin a little bit. And, you know, who obviously at that time was the biggest young act in the world.

• 14:31Speaker 01

  And just got put on, put on tour with him for, I just, just released my first album.

• 14:37Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 14:37Speaker 01

  Through, um, through Atlantic, through Warner and, and pretty much jumped straight on tour as his opening act for, for.

• 14:44Rich Roll?

  How did that even, that came together because of Scooter?

• 14:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. And just, just, um, it made sense, you know, being the, I was a couple of years younger than him, but, but coming up as sort of.

• 14:57Rich Roll?

  Who's going to be, who's the next guy?

• 14:59Speaker 01

  Young artist, yeah.

• 15:00Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 15:00Speaker 01

  Um, and then so him and I sort of developed a relationship beyond that. Um, ended up working on, sort of playing music together and just, you know, developed sort of a loose friendship for, for a while.

• 15:15Speaker 01

  And, uh, yeah, it was wild to be sort of thrust into that at that, at that point. Yeah, going from.

• 15:22Rich Roll?

  That young.

• 15:23Speaker 01

  Six months prior, I was playing like shopping centers. Yeah, like I'm doing, doing arenas around the country and we, we ended up joining him on his Australia leg and, and some of Europe. And so that was wild.

• 15:36Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 15:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:37Rich Roll?

  How long were you with Scooter Braun?

• 15:40Speaker 01

  About.

• 15:42Speaker 01

  Three years, three, four years. And that was when I, I pretty much made changes to my whole situation at the same time, from management to record label, pretty much asked to be let out of everything I was involved in.

• 16:02Rich Roll?

  Once you were with Scooter or after leaving him?

• 16:05Speaker 01

  After, yeah.

• 16:06Rich Roll?

  Right, yeah. So this is what's really-

• 16:07Speaker 01

  When I, when I went, oh, I was still with him probably for, for the first, went independent label wise for, for about 12 months and then ended up, ended up changing management situation as well after that, just because I felt like I wanted a whole new sort of approach. It was, it was, looking back on it now, I think it was a bit drastic of me, but, but at that age, it's sort of like, I almost felt sort of trapped in.

• 16:35Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 16:36Speaker 01

  It's, it's, it was a weird thing because you, you like, you almost feel trapped in what you've built for yourself.

• 16:40Rich Roll?

  Right. So Scooter Braun, you know, notorious hit maker. I'm sure he's saying to you, look, I know exactly the building blocks here and I can get you to be the next Justin. Do these things, live your life this way. Here's how we're going to do it. It's all very strategic. So when you say prison, meaning the confines of like what that path was going to look like for you as a-

• 17:02Speaker 01

  I think so.

• 17:02Rich Roll?

  -as an artist or-

• 17:03Speaker 01

  Well, and Scooter though was to, to his credit, he was supportive of like the musical direction I wanted to take. I don't think he was, he wasn't necessarily pushing me into a cookie cutter.

• 17:14Rich Roll?

  Like a boy band.

• 17:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. He was like, I want you to, you know, you should play your guitar and you should, you know, he, he was sort of, he was, if anything, pushing me in a different direction, say to Justin, who was the, you know, pop star doing choreography and doing all that stuff. But it was more just within me that I sort of say, I want a different, I don't want to be in this circle, you know, and it was, it was more, it was more an act of just rebellion on, on my part because I wasn't happy with, or, or I didn't, I felt like a different person to what everybody thought I, I was.

• 17:50Rich Roll?

  Interesting.

• 17:50Speaker 01

  Just, just, just music wise. Cause I sort of started to grow up really fast and had a lot of personal changes. And, you know, at 15, you're, at, at 18, 19, you, you start to like a lot of different things than you did when you were 15, 16. And that happens pretty quickly. Or at least it did for me, like, and discovered all this other music and- Realized I wanted to sort of make big shifts from where I was. And now it was almost like this pendulum swing one way and then it goes all the way the other way. And then now I'm sort of back in the middle.

• 18:25Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 18:25Speaker 01

  And a little less like.

• 18:27Rich Roll?

  You were on Atlantic, right? You were assigned to Atlantic. So walk me through the decision to not continue to have a relationship with a big record label and to go independent. Because I think it speaks to a larger issue around rights of entertainers and how you think about ownership in your own career. Like now you own your masters, right? Like, is that true?

• 18:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 18:53Rich Roll?

  So you have control over your library now, which is very unusual.

• 18:56Speaker 01

  My later catalog, yeah. Yeah, my stuff sort of since, not my Warner catalog, but yeah, what I've done since. Yeah, I have, I have sort of control over what I'd like to do that, whether I, you know, keep growing it and you sort of, you know, get your own publishing deal based on, you know, the masters you own. I mean, I sort of co-own masters, say with my own masters, say with, you know, certain collaborators that I've worked on the, the albums with. But yeah, it's not owned by a major corporation or anything.

• 19:29Rich Roll?

  And so that decision was about, and you know, the creative aspect aside, like just from a business point of view and the way that the music business operates, how does that, like, what, how did that come about?

• 19:40Speaker 01

  At that point, I wasn't thinking about the business aspect as much. I wasn't really as, as business minded or as financially aware as I am now. Sort of having to, almost being forced to, especially once you do go out on your own, you're sort of forced to learn how that all works.

• 20:00Rich Roll?

  Yeah. I. Yeah, I get a sense of you feeling like maybe, you know, like, don't hold me out to be the guy who made like the best decision, right?

• 20:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 20:10Rich Roll?

  Maybe I would have done it a little bit differently.

• 20:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, I can't, I can't say I would have done it all the same way then, but, but.

• 20:16Rich Roll?

  But I think long term, it will, it will be to your benefit to have those rights.

• 20:20Speaker 01

  But I also got to zoom out a little bit and go.

• 20:23Rich Roll?

  Did you, did you like drop a grenade on your career unnecessarily?

• 20:27Speaker 01

  Right, right. Sometimes I think about that.

• 20:29Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 20:30Speaker 01

  But, but as you said before. When you look back in the rearview, it's like it all makes sense, kind of.

• 20:37Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 20:37Speaker 01

  The way it all unfolds. And I think I just gotta keep zooming out, knowing, thinking about where I'm going in the future as a musician, it's all gonna be to my benefit eventually to have, have ownership of a larger portion of my catalog. And yeah, at that point, I wasn't really thinking about the business side of it. I was more, I was, I was concerned with the way I was viewed and creatively and as a person and all this stuff. But I think now I feel much more comfortable within that, within myself. And yeah, I, and also I haven't, I haven't given it a whole lot of thought lately because I haven't really, I've just been so wrapped up in something else.

• 21:22Rich Roll?

  Sure. But the thing is, it's always there. Like, swimming can't always be there.

• 21:26Speaker 01

  No.

• 21:26Rich Roll?

  Because there's a biological clock ticking.

• 21:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:29Rich Roll?

  But there isn't as a creative and as a performer. Like, you know that when you're ready, you'll be able to devote your energy to that. You know, the other thing is, like, you started acting, you did Broadway, you did a bunch of TV stuff. So when you see, like, I don't know, like, when you see Timothy Chalamet in Dooned, do you think like, hey, man, if I had, like, not taken this detour, maybe that's me? Like, do you harbor those sorts of thoughts at all? Or are you just like, I'm cool, man?

• 21:59Speaker 01

  The swimming detour?

• 22:01Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Like, are you just, are you grounded and just that convicted in what you're doing right now that that doesn't, those kinds of thoughts are not part of?

• 22:09Speaker 01

  I have, I have moments.

• 22:11Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 22:11Speaker 01

  I have moments.

• 22:12Rich Roll?

  That guy? That guy's doing that? Come on!

• 22:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:16Rich Roll?

  I could have done that better than that.

• 22:19Speaker 01

  I have, I don't know about better than him, but yeah. I have moments for sure. They're, they're short, they're fleeting moments, but, but they're there. And sometimes you go, but I think no matter what decision you make, you're gonna, you're gonna wonder what the other one would have been like. But I also know that I have time.

• 22:38Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 22:38Speaker 01

  And that's, that's, that's what gives me comfort is that I've got time to, to.

• 22:44Rich Roll?

  You're doing this thing. It's like when Joey Foster went to college, you know, Yale, or Natalie Part, you know, it's like, this is your version of that.

• 22:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, exactly. And I know that, I know that, say, even if I stop swimming next year, like, I'll be 27 and I can, I can, you know, look at.

• 23:01Speaker 01

  Or a plan on whatever it is I want to sort of stop pursuing from then. It's going to be, I think it'll just be music. I, that's sort of my primary interest in post-swimming life is being a musician and touring and making records and stuff.

• 23:18Rich Roll?

  And that's not going anywhere.

• 23:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:21Rich Roll?

  I said this to you at breakfast the other day, like I have a special place in my heart for, you know, high performance in general, we can all learn from people who are excelling in their, in their respective disciplines, but there's something really cool and unique about people who find a way to achieve legend status in a multiplicity of, of kind of specialties. And I was sharing with you how I had Leslie Patterson on the podcast the other day, who is the Oscar nominated screenwriter for All Quiet on the Western Front. And the untold story, I mean, it's, there's articles about it, but I think it's underappreciated is the fact that she's a five-time world champion in off-road triathlon, like won three

• 24:02Rich Roll?

  Xterra World Championships, and she used her prize money to keep the option alive on this project.

• 24:08Speaker 01

  I had no idea.

• 24:09Rich Roll?

  It took a decade, you know, to get to the screen. And I think that that's super interesting because in my generation, like I'm your parents' age, I grew up in a time where you kind of had to pick, like, are you going to be an artist? Are you going to be a creative type? Or are you going to be an athlete? And like never the twain do those two things meet. And I was talking to my daughter, who's 19, the other day, and sharing with her about Leslie and how I was going to talk to you. And she's an artist and she's a painter and sculptor. And she's like, Dad, it's not like that anymore. Is that true? Do you think there's a permissiveness around that in a way that might have been different when I was growing up?

• 24:46Speaker 01

  I think that boundaries have sort of slowly been disintegrating in a way, like, and I think that's due to people doing things that I think otherwise or previously weren't considered possible or, you know.

• 25:04Speaker 01

  Too much to do or excel at in one lifetime, right? Like, I think, um, and that's sort of when I was jumping back in the pool was sort of one of my, not motivations, but, but something that, that I found interesting that I could possibly inspire people to sort of let go of those mental constructs of like, if I'm this, I have to only be this and only this forever.

• 25:31Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 25:32Speaker 01

  Um, and it was fun challenging that in my own life. And then also, it has been fun challenging that in my own life, you know, about just, just, just seeing what's possible. That's what all this has sort of been about for me is just seeing what's possible.

• 25:46Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 25:46Speaker 01

  And, and then also hopefully inspiring other people or at least challenging their ideas about what's possible too, you know?

• 25:57Rich Roll?

  Were you very conscious of that when you made that decision? Or is that something that kind of percolated up in the process of, of you getting back in the pool and exploring that?

• 26:08Speaker 01

  It, I think it happened in the process. I think that me getting back in the pool was just that I felt like I couldn't stay away from it anymore and had this burning desire to do it. Um, and just like, the whole thing was about, the what ifs were going to be too much for me in the future to, to not have a crack and, and, and to live with those regrets or what ifs of not having tried. Um, and then, and then when I started and things sort of started to, to develop and, and, and progress, I realized, I sort of became a little bit more self-aware about what I was actually doing.

• 26:47Speaker 01

  And when I started to realize that I didn't have anyone to look to, to, or a blueprint to follow about how it was, how it should be done, realizing that no one in swimming had really ever done that before. Um, you know, people had sort of won or made the Olympics and then like, won again 10 years later after having a bunch of time out, like, you know, and Anthony Irvin or

• 27:11Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 27:12Speaker 01

  these guys that have these super interesting stories, but they kind of stopped at a super high level or at the top and then kind of like took a bunch of years off and then came back, got back to the top. Um, whereas I don't think anyone sort of stopped. Young, at like an age group level and then decides 10 years later to try and make that elite level.

• 27:35Rich Roll?

  Yeah, there's no blueprint, there's no precedent, nobody has ever done that before. I remember when Pablo Morales jumped back into the pool, like he's my mate, he's my buddy. I went to law school with him, we swam together at Stanford, he was two years older than me.

• 27:50Speaker 01

  He's an OG man, watching him with no cap and goggles, like.

• 27:54Rich Roll?

  I know, no goggles, no cap, you know, old school, almost like Mark Spitz, you know, style. Winningest NCAA swimmer ever, was sort of anointed to be this extraordinary Olympic champion, and I think he kind of overtrained, was it 88, was it Seoul, where he didn't, shockingly, he didn't make the team, even though going into that Olympic trials, he was favored to just, you know, take everything.

• 28:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:21Rich Roll?

  And hung it up, went to law school, we finished law school together, we studied for the bar together, and then he got back into the pool and then did what he did at the following Olympics and shocked everyone, and that was at the time, like, super radical, and thinking back, like, how old was he? He wasn't that old.

• 28:37Speaker 01

  He would have only been, what, early twenties still?

• 28:39Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I think maybe, maybe 29, something like that.

• 28:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, which was old then.

• 28:47Rich Roll?

  Super old, super old, because there was no money in the sport at that time, and so when you finish college when you were 21, that was it.

• 28:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:55Rich Roll?

  Nobody progressed beyond that, now it's very different, and to your point, yes, Anthony Irvin, there's a few others, at the peak of their powers, took a break or stepped down and then made a comeback, but you stopped at 13.

• 29:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:11Rich Roll?

  And you were very successful as a 13-year-old, but it was unclear how far that was going to go, right? It wasn't like you were on a Michael Phelps track, like you were winning state championships and you were probably like, top in your age group, right? What was it like?

• 29:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I suppose there's a lot of, you know, countless swimmers that are good, young, and then you never hear of them again, right? That may be good until they're 16 and then disappear or whatever, I mean, I was, yeah, like I was winning sort of national. Age group titles there for a few years in a row, particularly in Butterfly and Freestyle events. And then, but that, you know, and obviously that's an indicator of, I suppose, you know, some level of talent or feel for the water or whatever you want to call it. But, you know, it's not necessarily a guarantee, you know, you're going to grow up to, you

• 30:03Speaker 01

  know, make your national team or, you know, go and compete at that level. So I suppose coming back to it, like I, it's, it's funny thinking back now to kind of like the, the blind confidence that I had coming back into it when not really realizing, I think that the mountain I was, you know, undertaking, trying to climb. And a lot of people, you know, was sort of met with a lot of, are you sure? So, you know, even from my own mom and who swam for Australia and sort of understood like

• 30:37Rich Roll?

  Both your parents were swimmers at a high level.

• 30:40Speaker 01

  And I think she was sort of like, you know, you've got this, you've built this life for yourself in the last 10 years. You sure you just want to like put that all aside to go and stare at the black line for, for, you know, hours a day and put yourself through all that? Like it's, it's grueling. And I didn't really have any reservations about it. Just, I just knew it was what I wanted to do.

• 31:00Rich Roll?

  And I think it's important to point out for people that are watching or listening who don't have familiarity with the sport of swimming. Swimming is a sport that is just all about the grind. And it's very unusual for a swimmer to even take a couple of months off.

• 31:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:19Rich Roll?

  To take a year off? Are you kidding me? Like, it's not something that people come back from when they do that. And it's also a sport where you spend just years and years and years developing those years between 13 and 20, whatever, right? But nobody has really popped in.

• 31:38Speaker 01

  I missed all those foundational years.

• 31:39Rich Roll?

  Yeah, you missed that. Well, what's interesting about that is, yeah, so you didn't have any of that. You were still 13. Like usually

• 31:45Speaker 01

  That's where I concerned with 200 fly.

• 31:47Rich Roll?

  Double workouts and all that kind of stuff starts around 14. Like that's when it starts to get hard. And so you skipped that part, but you were able to pop in at, so it was like 22, 23 when you, when you got back in the water?

• 31:59Speaker 01

  20, 22, I was starting to, um, Pop in every now and then a USC like that's that's I think when you were talking about Connor.

• 32:06Rich Roll?

  And Dave Salo.

• 32:07Speaker 01

  Dave with Dave Salo, but again, it was very much, it wasn't, it wasn't, I hadn't decided to come back yet. I was sort of like, I like to swim, you know, I'll just jump on the side here and you know, see how it feels. And I hadn't swum at that point and probably, I'd probably swum more than a couple hundred meters in like nine years or something, eight years. And so started to do that then with them, you know, when I was in town and I was still traveling a fair bit for work. And then COVID happened and I.

• 32:39Rich Roll?

  No touring.

• 32:40Speaker 01

  No touring, no nothing. Had already, had already been simmering on this idea for quite a while. Probably, probably since Rio, to be honest, because I went down to Rio and watched friends of mine that I grew up competing with, competing in the Olympics and succeeding and doing all this. And it kind of, I saw my old coach down there and we had like this small little chat about it, about the idea of it that just sort of sat with me and sparked something that simmered for, for years until I couldn't take it anymore and had to start to.

• 33:13Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 33:14Speaker 01

  Change my life.

• 33:15Rich Roll?

  It's not even like unfinished business. It's like business you haven't even begun.

• 33:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:19Rich Roll?

  You know?

• 33:27Rich Roll?

  Didn't you also perform for the Queen at Buckingham Palace at the Commonwealth Games?

• 33:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:34Rich Roll?

  The most, the most recent Commonwealth Games, right?

• 33:37Speaker 01

  It was for.

• 33:38Rich Roll?

  You had to be there and see all the athletes and there was something about that as well.

• 33:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was the 2018 Commonwealth Games torch lighting. And the 2018 games were on the Gold Coast here where we are, which is where I grew up. And I think because of that, they, being from the Gold Coast, they had me go over and perform and. Something like I still call Australia home and did all that in the grounds of the Buckingham Palace and got to meet the Queen and do all that. And I think, and then, and then four years later, I was competing in the next one.

• 34:10Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 34:11Speaker 01

  And at that time in 2018 was, yeah, hadn't, hadn't even really considered the idea of, of swimming.

• 34:18Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 34:19Speaker 01

  Um, or, or really jumping back into it. So it's kind of wild when I was getting up on the blocks four years later.

• 34:26Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 34:26Speaker 01

  Um, having known four years ago, I was doing what I was doing. Yeah.

• 34:31Rich Roll?

  That's so wild. But there must have been this sense when you're performing there as a singer songwriter, thinking, yeah, but I'm an athlete too. Like, nobody's seeing me as an athlete.

• 34:41Speaker 01

  Yeah. And no one knows. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No one knows that I can do this and that. Yeah. And that, that was, I think that was a little bit part of it too, was almost like a thirst to prove myself, knowing that it's almost like you, you can say you can do all this and that as, as much as you want. You can say, oh yeah, I could have been this or I could, you know, people, people do that all the time. But I, I really wanted to, I think, prove to myself and to others that I, I, I just wanted to see.

• 35:11Rich Roll?

  You were for real.

• 35:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, that I was real about it. Cause I think people, I knew people were kind of like, yeah, but.

• 35:16Rich Roll?

  Right. Well, even Dave Salo, didn't he say like, yeah, he told, didn't he tell Brett Hawk, like, yeah, this isn't going to work out.

• 35:22Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. Dave Salo told him, um, David Marsh told him that.

• 35:26Rich Roll?

  Uh huh. Marsh. Yeah. Marsh. Yeah. And these guys are like, for people who don't know, like, these are the legend coaches in sport, at least in the States.

• 35:34Speaker 01

  And David sort of since, David Marsh sort of has since, had since said, or at least even a couple of months after that, he sort of said, no, you, you, this is the second time in my life I've been proved wrong, or that my, my judgment wasn't correct, or, and I don't think it's that he thought that.

• 35:49Rich Roll?

  What was the other time?

• 35:49Speaker 01

  I'm not sure. It was like, he'd said it was way back. Um, but he, but he said, um, I think it was maybe about a swimmer that he didn't think would succeed in NCAA or something. It ended up being quite good. And, um,

• 36:03Rich Roll?

  Like see their C O L or somebody.

• 36:04Speaker 01

  Maybe Brett took me down. This was still very early. I'd only been swimming for a couple of months. Took me down to do some sort of technical stuff with David Marsh down in San Diego. And I think, um, it was more that.

• 36:18Speaker 01

  David, I think I just said to Brett, are you sure this, you know, I think he should just stick to what he's doing. Like, you know, he's had too much time out. This ship's kind of sailed, you know?

• 36:30Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 36:31Speaker 01

  It's gonna take, it's not gonna be possible to get to, you know, where I guess this kid wants to go.

• 36:38Rich Roll?

  Right. And in fairness, the first time you jumped into a meet, you swam like a 51, 100 yard fly, right?

• 36:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, that was, and that was like before I trained or anything. It was sort of like when I was doing those little one-off sessions at USC and they sort of said, well, there's this little meet invitational coming up. And I, at that time, was just like, yeah, I'll get in and have a go. And I was, I was so unfit.

• 37:03Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 37:04Speaker 01

  And, you know, swam horribly, like.

• 37:06Rich Roll?

  Yeah, 51. I mean, 51 would be, you know, good at a masters meet, but that's not getting you anywhere at the elite level.

• 37:14Speaker 01

  Not as like a 22 or 23 year old. And, and so that was, that was months prior to COVID and all that. When I, it was sort of like the first time I'd raced or done anything of the sort in a long time. It was almost just a bit of fun at that point. But I remember sitting, sitting with Dave Salo actually going, I want to go 51 and the 100 long course meter fly. And he kind of just, yeah, I could see him smoking going, yeah, you understand what that takes, you know? And last year I did it.

• 37:45Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 37:45Speaker 01

  Yeah. It's just like wild to, to think back, actually, sitting here with you. You don't, I don't often do that retrospect.

• 37:53Rich Roll?

  It's important to reflect back on that. I mean, I think, you know, it, it all happened pretty quickly also, not without its lumps. And 51 long course is like 51-0, right? Or 51-1?

• 38:07Speaker 01

  1-7.

• 38:08Rich Roll?

  Yeah. I mean, that's fucking legit, dude. Like, and what's exciting is that, to the earlier point of you. In this unprecedented way, jumping into the pool at a later age, and having missed that decade of the grind.

• 38:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:24Rich Roll?

  Most of the swimmers at the highest level, who all of them endured that decade of grind, are now trying to hang on, like, and stay enthusiastic about something that's just so hard to maintain long term, because you have to live this monastic lifestyle. And, you know, when you're 24 or whatever, you pretty much know you're going to have some gains. You put in the extra effort. There's always improvement to be had. But you're not really going to get a massive performance leap. Like, you pretty much know kind of where you are in the pecking order. But for you, there are no rules.

• 38:56Speaker 01

  Like, the potential is, you know,

• 38:59Rich Roll?

  the sky's the limit in terms of like what you're now capable of. And I know you're coming off a huge block this past year and you're about to, you know, compete and you're at the beginning of your taper.

• 39:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:10Rich Roll?

  And that's got to be way more exciting for somebody like you than even for Emma, your girlfriend, who's been in it for a long time. Like, they have a pretty good idea of probably where they're going to end up. And for you, I think that's just totally unwritten.

• 39:23Speaker 01

  It's one of the mental advantages that I think I have.

• 39:30Speaker 01

  Is that there's so much unknown still for me in the sport. And that sort of just keeps me going. Because I go, I just don't know where I can get to. Maybe I've shown my fastest swims. I don't know. If I have, you know, that is what it is, right?

• 39:43Rich Roll?

  But you did, you fulfilled that commitment that you made.

• 39:46Speaker 01

  But I made that to myself. And I, you know, wanted to represent Australia and I wanted to get that, you know, we call it our dolphin number, which is basically the Australian swim team are called the Dolphins and everyone that gets selected to compete gets a number. And so there's been, I'm number 838. So there's been 838 swimmers compete for Australia in the history of, I think it's been since 1901 or something like that.

• 40:19Speaker 01

  And so that's something really sort of monumental and special for an Australian swimmer to get their number. And I got that last year when I went to the COM Games and my mom had one. And so just sort of be able to have that together. And that's something that, having those little things is sort of...

• 40:35Speaker 01

  Makes me feel like no matter what happens in the future, like I've sort of have these things to show for what I what I've sort of committed to and what I wanted to prove to myself, which in a way I've done part of that already. I still feel like I have a lot more I want to do, but I'm really glad that I've been able to sort of uncover that, or at least at least prove to myself that I could kind of do what I suspected I might be able to with the right with the right work and stimulus and stuff.

• 41:03Rich Roll?

  I want to dig a little bit more into that in a minute, but here we are, spring 2023. What's the big meet? I mean, by the time this goes up, that meet will have passed. But talk about like kind of where you're at now and how you're thinking about next year and Paris and the Olympics.

• 41:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, I guess I'm almost three years into a four year journey that I that I embarked on. I I started having only the plan to swim for four years. Anything beyond that is still still unknown to me. I don't know what what I want to do or how I feel after Paris, either the, you know, trials or the Olympics or whatever, like kind of depends on how I go and and how I feel then. Yeah, but the whole plan is to be ready for 2024. So everything I'm doing is sort of with that in sight. There's a our trials coming up in a few weeks

• 42:00Speaker 01

  for the world championships this year. So that's sort of the next major team to qualify for in the between now and and the Olympics. So do my best to get on that one. And everything else is kind of leading up to about

• 42:19Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 42:19Speaker 01

  13, 14 months.

• 42:20Rich Roll?

  So this is still like a build year. Next year is the real year where, you know, the rubber meets the road.

• 42:25Speaker 01

  Pretty much.

• 42:26Rich Roll?

  And the super grind starts. But you've already made a Commonwealth team. You defied expectations. You got so for people that don't know, in order to go to the Olympics, you have to get first or second at your trials.

• 42:37Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 42:37Rich Roll?

  And third place.

• 42:39Speaker 01

  And under our qualifying time. So if you're second and you you don't know the time, probably not going.

• 42:45Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 42:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:46Rich Roll?

  That's not going to be a factor then.

• 42:47Speaker 01

  But but often for at least for the the strokes, the 100 meter strokes, they they usually want to take two per per event for the the relays and and there's a lot of relays now with the mixed. The mixed men's and women's relays and all that.

• 43:03Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 43:03Speaker 01

  So they want, I think they want to, you know, they'll want two men for a hundred fly, two men for a hundred breast, et cetera.

• 43:09Rich Roll?

  Right. So even if you get third, there's still a chance you could end up on a relay or as an alternate.

• 43:15Speaker 01

  Nah.

• 43:16Rich Roll?

  No?

• 43:16Speaker 01

  Third's not going.

• 43:17Rich Roll?

  Third and you're out?

• 43:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:17Rich Roll?

  Okay. I just didn't know if it was the same.

• 43:19Speaker 01

  Even if you're on the, even if you're on the qualifying time, which the Australian qualifying times are significantly faster than the FINA A cut times. The Australian qualifying times, they, they figure out based on what made last year's final at Worlds. So like the eighth, eighth time. So basically they're picking, they're only taking you if they feel that you can make sort of the international final or whatever. Which is, you know, it's probably, aside from I suppose the USA, it's probably the hardest swimming team in the world to, to get on.

• 43:52Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that's a debate we can have. The Aussie versus.

• 43:56Speaker 01

  Aussie versus US, that'll always be.

• 43:57Rich Roll?

  Legendary, yeah, rivals. So you got, so you're kind of sitting in this third place position. You got third at your trials last year. You almost went to the world championships though, because there was something about somebody was gonna not participate in that event, but then he changed his mind.

• 44:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, he ended up doing it.

• 44:15Rich Roll?

  So you ended up on the Commonwealth team.

• 44:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:17Rich Roll?

  Where you got fifth. But you're in the mix, I guess is the point that I'm making. But there's no guarantees either, either way. There's a lot of fast guys.

• 44:24Speaker 01

  I'm sort of on the precipice of, or the cusp of, of qualification for, at least from, from my events. Probably sitting, sitting right on the cusp of them. So it's, there's definitely no guarantees.

• 44:37Rich Roll?

  And do you feel that, that you have a leg up in terms of how you manage stress and pressure because of the things that you've done as an entertainer, where you've put yourself in kind of high stress situations?

• 44:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:55Rich Roll?

  And, and you have like a little bit of experience that, that, that maybe, you know, allows you to handle that stuff with more calm and grace?

• 45:03Speaker 01

  Probably.

• 45:04Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 45:05Speaker 01

  I, yeah, I tend, I tend to find I, I can and do thrive in high pressure, pressure situations.

• 45:16Speaker 01

  Having, as you say, the, having done many different kinds of things that, and been in many different kinds of, I suppose, high pressure situations, or at least doing things with a lot of eyeballs on you.

• 45:30Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 45:31Speaker 01

  Being up on stage.

• 45:31Rich Roll?

  Being up on stage in front of a lot of people, being on TV shows and all that kind of stuff.

• 45:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, I've found.

• 45:37Rich Roll?

  Broadway.

• 45:38Speaker 01

  Coming back into, coming back into the sport, like I wasn't, I was, part of me had that, that, that fear and nerve based around just being new and not having the experience and the race, race experience and confidence, knowing that when I did get up on the blocks, like people would be watching.

• 46:00Speaker 01

  Even at like local meets and stuff, when I first came back, I just always felt like.

• 46:04Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 46:05Speaker 01

  Eyeballs on me and stuff. Now it's, I think I've been here long enough where it's a little less. Feel like a little less scrutinized, but uh, was definitely prepared for that just through life experience that I've had.

• 46:19Rich Roll?

  Vice versa, do you feel that your career as a young swimmer when you were 13 and having to be in a high stress situation, even as a young person, helped you when you started getting up on stages? Cause I feel like I'm here, I gave this speech the other day.

• 46:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:34Rich Roll?

  And I had to do it in front of a lot of people. And even though it's been many years since I was a swimmer, like it is, it does, it felt like finals. It felt like, you know, you get, you're a little nervous, but it's that excitement. I know what this is like. I want to perform well, et cetera. Like there's a lot of overlap, I think.

• 46:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. I, I think that, oh, it taught me a ton as, as a kid, even just carrying that into my life as an artist and a musician beyond my swing as a young kid was, prepared me for, well, one taught me the, the correlation between sort of the what you put in is what you get out, sort of mindset, the work equals success or work equal, at least equals improvement.

• 47:19Rich Roll?

  But it's different in, in the creative arts. You can't, you can't grind a song out.

• 47:23Speaker 01

  No, no.

• 47:24Rich Roll?

  It's not like doing a hard set. Like you gotta be in a place of allowing and almost surrender, right? To like, let that come in, which is antithetical to the mindset of the swimmer who's like, if I push hard, I know I will have these gains.

• 47:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. I find that there's. I find that there are similarities, though, at least, at least from my experience, trying to improve as a guitarist or trying to improve as a vocalist to say go on,

• 47:51Rich Roll?

  The technical stuff.

• 47:52Speaker 01

  To go on, to do theater, right, like to do things like that.

• 47:57Rich Roll?

  Things where the reps pay off.

• 47:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, like where you sort of push, push, push for, for a period of time so that you can let it sort of happen when it's supposed to happen so that the, the, the second nature thing can happen, like.

• 48:11Rich Roll?

  Right, when you're, when you're, when you're racing at your peak, you're not using your brain.

• 48:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly.

• 48:16Rich Roll?

  You rehearsed it.

• 48:16Speaker 01

  So you can, you can think, think, think, think, think so that you can not think when you, when you don't have to. And I think that's the same thing for, at least for performing or, or playing a, a song, say it's something difficult that you've been wanting to learn.

• 48:30Speaker 01

  I was, I, I, I don't know if I, I said this at one point, if someone else did, if I heard it, but I, I like the idea that slow, like a slow growth stage will lead to a quick burst of blossom at, at the time that you, many slow growth stages will lead to a quick burst of blossom. I've found that that's very true for swimming. I think when you get that breakthrough, you touch the wall, look at the time and you, you get that, you know, when you have that breakthrough, that time drop, it's like a euphoric feeling.

• 49:02Rich Roll?

  Right, but you know the work that you put in to get to that place.

• 49:05Speaker 01

  And that's, I think that's what makes it so beautiful is, is what you put in and, and, and sort of grinding through that time to get that, to get that feeling and that reward.

• 49:15Rich Roll?

  Yeah. The one thing you gotta figure out, though, dude, you gotta figure out how to go faster at finals.

• 49:20Speaker 01

  I know.

• 49:20Rich Roll?

  I noticed, like, you, you, that's, that's a little bit of a struggle for you.

• 49:23Speaker 01

  That's, it's funny you say that, actually. You've done your research.

• 49:26Rich Roll?

  You're good, you're good at freelines, dude, but you gotta be ready for the big show.

• 49:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, and that's something, it's funny, my coach tells me that all the time. And that's something I'm working on is I'm good when I'm relaxed. I'll get up in the heat and go, okay, I can, at least, at least nationally, like, I know I can get up and go eight out of 10 and make the. The final. And often that swim will be faster than the one where I'm getting in and just trying to tear it.

• 49:53Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 49:53Speaker 01

  You know, and it's funny swimming in that way is that counterintuitive. Where it's more effort doesn't always mean faster.

• 50:00Rich Roll?

  Right, I mean, that's, that's a really important perspective, but I, I would feel that you would be somebody who would understand that better because I'm sure when you're performing music in front of a lot of people. It's gonna be better when you're relaxed.

• 50:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 50:15Rich Roll?

  If you're trying to force it or you're tensed up. It's gonna be a stiff performance, right?

• 50:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, and that's, I think that's just something I'm learning with experience, at least in the pool, realizing that it is that way.

• 50:30Speaker 01

  But I think it's gonna come with, with more. You know, I'm getting up, having swam, say, I don't know how many hundreds fly I've done in a race environment, maybe forty or fifty, I'm not sure. Getting up against guys who've done hundreds of them.

• 50:46Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 50:47Speaker 01

  I'm just sort of trying to get more of that under my belt so I can. But yeah, that is something I'm working on.

• 50:53Rich Roll?

  But the mindset has to be, these guys don't know. Like, you're the question mark.

• 50:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:58Rich Roll?

  You know, and that, that's like a superpower.

• 51:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 51:02Rich Roll?

  Cause you, you pretty much know what these other guys are gonna, you know, the range that they're gonna be in, but all bets are off when you get up on the blocks.

• 51:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 51:09Rich Roll?

  Because it's all so new.

• 51:11Speaker 01

  Absolutely, and I think that's the way it was coming into last year, like my, my time at least coming into the trials last year was really not, not anywhere near like.

• 51:23Rich Roll?

  You, you dropped from like a fifty-four to a fifty-one, right?

• 51:26Speaker 01

  In, in about.

• 51:29Rich Roll?

  A year. Was it?

• 51:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, in about, in about eighteen months, I think, yeah. Yeah.

• 51:37Rich Roll?

  That's, I mean, that's like, in a hundred meter, I mean, that's like an astonishing, you know, improvement for that period of time.

• 51:43Speaker 01

  But I think going into last year's trials was like two fifty-two, eight or something was as quick as I'd been and I, you know, I knew I'd have to go fifty-one again on the team and when I did that in the heat, I kinda showed myself I was ready to go there, but this year I have to make an even bigger drop, so.

• 52:00Rich Roll?

  What was that like? Dropping back in, moving back here, getting back into swimming with, you know, jumping into the pool with an elite squad of guys and gals. Did they welcome you back or was there a lot of sort of suspicion like, what are you playing at? Like, come on, man.

• 52:20Speaker 01

  I think there was some of that and some of the people who I'm now friends with sort of, you know, said that they just naturally had those thoughts. I think when I first came back, just they didn't know me. They didn't, you know, know really what I was doing, what my plan was. So I think some people kind of, at least, at least a lot of people in the public eye and stuff, you know, thought it was like a, some kind of publicity stunt or something.

• 52:43Rich Roll?

  Yeah. This is for, this is for the gram.

• 52:45Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I'm like, swimming, this is not worth it for the gram. Like, it takes way too much.

• 52:52Rich Roll?

  Well, that's the thing.

• 52:53Speaker 01

  So you could just like pull it together in a couple of days.

• 52:55Rich Roll?

  Yeah. I remember like.

• 52:59Speaker 01

  But I was welcomed. I was, I was.

• 53:01Rich Roll?

  Well, now you swam at 51, so it's legit. But at first, I would imagine there was a little bit of a acclimation period.

• 53:07Speaker 01

  Yeah. When I first came back, like I, I'd obviously dropped, I'd obviously gotten to a decent level in a short period of time, but it's not necessarily enough to like have people say like,

• 53:19Speaker 01

  you belong here, you know?

• 53:20Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Yeah. This is different than just, you know, photos of you on Instagram with your shirt off.

• 53:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:27Rich Roll?

  You know what I mean? And in fairness, like when I first got introduced to you and I was like checking, I was like, I don't know, man. I don't know about this. But like, when I look at your social media or like if, if someone is to Google you, it's just rife with a bunch of paparazzi bullshit. You dated like, you know, some well-known women and it's really kind of all about that. And it's easy to project or have a judgment about who you are or what's important to you based upon that.

• 53:53Rich Roll?

  And then when I met you and had breakfast with you the other day, I was like, oh, this is nothing like, like this guy in reality is nothing like I imagined based upon that kind of public persona or image. Like you're very grounded, you know, conscious, kind, pretty chilled out dude.

• 54:11Speaker 01

  Thanks.

• 54:12Rich Roll?

  You know, so it's not surprising that you would get, you know, some of that.

• 54:16Speaker 01

  Is it from your experience that a lot of people that at least have been through that aren't that way? Or, I mean, because you and I, I think both probably know a lot of people who have sort of had been shrouded in that, in that world or that.

• 54:29Rich Roll?

  I mean, I think I'm in a unique position to talk to you because I live in Los Angeles and I know a lot of the people that you've worked with. You know, I understand that culture, but I also have the swimming background. Like, you know, I can like, I have direct experience with both of those worlds. And I would say that in general, and this is no mystery, like somebody who experiences that level of fame and attention at a young age, they don't, you know, that, that has a tendency to really impair your value system. And it's intoxicating.

• 55:01Speaker 01

  And now that you say that, honestly, like a lot of the people that I, that I, or at least a few of the people that I do know, or have, have been introduced to that, that had that, do have a sort of warped perspective.

• 55:16Rich Roll?

  And I think in fairness, from my, and correct me if I'm wrong, but you look like somebody who flirted with that. You know, it could have gone the other way.

• 55:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 55:25Rich Roll?

  I mean, you were like, I mean, you were living a pretty fast lifestyle.

• 55:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely. And, and to, I reckon late teens, even, even early twenties, I was, there were moments I was caught up. Like, I didn't know which way it was going. I think my, and my parents sort of worst nightmares of like, you know, young sort of pop star kid, like going off the rails. It was like coming true for them.

• 55:50Rich Roll?

  Yeah. I mean, it comes true for most people in your situation. It's the rare individual that, that avoids.

• 55:55Speaker 01

  Fortunately.

• 55:56Rich Roll?

  For every Justin Timberlake, there's, you know, a hundred other, you know, heroin addicts.

• 56:02Speaker 01

  Yeah. You look at guys like, I mean, Aaron Carter comes to mind. So it's just.

• 56:10Speaker 01

  So many horror stories in that sense. And that was, I was just fortunate to, I think I owe a lot of it to my family, to my parents, you know, because I was at least still close enough to them where I really cared what they thought. And when they, when they expressed that, they felt like I was losing touch a little bit. They'd bring me back to earth.

• 56:32Rich Roll?

  Yeah. So maybe paint like a picture of that moment. You're going to clubs, you're dating women that are, you know, very well known. You're in, you have paparazzi following you around. You're getting, there's a lot of stuff going on, man. A lot of temptation. It's Hollywood.

• 56:49Speaker 01

  You just have access to it, to way more than you should at that age and way more than than

• 56:56Rich Roll?

  This is like, you're, you're like 19, right?

• 57:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. Younger, you know, 17, 18, start to be able to, you know, and

• 57:09Speaker 01

  I was probably 16 when I started going out there. So you just, you know, all of a sudden that age seeing.

• 57:16Rich Roll?

  Doors are swinging open.

• 57:18Speaker 01

  It's, it can, as you say, be intoxicating.

• 57:23Rich Roll?

  How did you kind of avoid the, the, the like drugs aspect of the whole thing?

• 57:29Speaker 01

  I didn't.

• 57:32Speaker 01

  And that's not something I talk about much, but like, you know, definitely present for, and for, for years, it was something that is just a part of being there. Everyone's doing it. You're going out. It's fun for, at the beginning, right? And then when it gets, when it gets too much and you see it start to sort of affect your personal life or affect your career. Like, I was still actively working and doing all that stuff the whole time. I was still playing music, still doing gigs, doing all this stuff. I mean, I was changing. I definitely had a lot of creative and musical change from being sort of a young pop artist

• 58:14Speaker 01

  to wanting to be a sort of more of a singer songwriter or play different, at least become a musician. I was sort of like, I was very conscious of it throughout that time, like wanting to set myself up as a musician. And, and, you know, I wasn't lost, that stuff wasn't lost on me. I sort of never really disregarded my career or anything like that. But you get caught up for sure.

• 58:38Speaker 01

  And it's a, you know, what I was sort of doing then was, and the lifestyle I was living then, even five years ago, you know, as a 21 year old is a, it's a far cry from where I'm at now.

• 58:50Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 58:51Speaker 01

  I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm waking up when I was going to sleep.

• 58:54Rich Roll?

  Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, it's almost like you've already had a midlife crisis.

• 59:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:02Rich Roll?

  At, at 20 or whatever, you know, in the biopic of your life, like I'm

• 59:06Speaker 01

  That was the midlife crisis.

• 59:07Rich Roll?

  You like waking up in some weird house after a, you know,

• 59:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:11Rich Roll?

  A banger of a party and, and thinking, man, I, I know where this is heading and I have this other thing. Almost like returning to swimming was almost a defense mechanism to save your life. Is that an extreme, that maybe I'm

• 59:26Speaker 01

  I just got goosebumps because I was about to tell, I was about to say that in a different way.

• 59:30Rich Roll?

  Yeah. So, so explain that.

• 59:32Speaker 01

  Um, swimming was like the sobering thought within the haze of the, the life I was living. Um, and was the thing that pulled me out of, even, even sometimes like in moments, like when you're out, I'm going, it's one or two AM, everyone's still going. I have, I, I remember that I want to do this thing in the future. So I can't like trash my body like this anymore. I have to like start, I have to start pulling myself away from these scenarios and this lifestyle. And I remember there were, there were many nights sort of before I really put my foot down on my, on myself, um, that, that I would have those

• 1:00:14Speaker 01

  moments. And I think if I didn't have swimming or I didn't have the, the desire to do that again, like I wouldn't have had anything holding me back from just sinking.

• 1:00:27Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:00:28Speaker 01

  You know, just going full force into, into that, that lifestyle.

• 1:00:32Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:00:32Speaker 01

  Because there would be nothing else that I would have had, nothing else I would have known. Um, so yeah, in a way, as you say, I think it did. Saved my life. God, I don't know what would have happened or where I would have gone beyond that. It was the only thing that that I think, aside from my family, like drew me out of it. Yeah. And I'm so glad it did because like now, and I'm sure you you can relate to this, obviously, probably not to the sort of extreme perhaps that that you're where your journey took you, but now I just am so much more consistently happy on a day to day basis. You know, maybe the highs, the highs aren't as high, maybe the lows aren't as low, but like, I would take this

• 1:01:14Speaker 01

  over that any day, I think. And I think even in the future, going back into music, like, I'd be very cautious about how I did it and and and for what reasons. You know, I'd probably want to stay based here. I'd go maybe go go back and forth to the States, but I don't know if I think I'd probably want to base myself in Australia and just do things on my own terms and and live a healthy, a healthy life and have a healthy approach to being an artist as opposed to the kind of destructive artist approach.

• 1:01:47Rich Roll?

  Yeah, the trope, the cliche, you know what I mean? And and, you know, but when you're in it, like, yeah, like, short of swimming, it is so, it's got to be so exciting. Doors are swinging open, you're meeting all these people you never thought you would meet. You're, you know, like, you just have this sort of access and and to say, you know what, I did that. I don't feel like myself. It's it's one thing for like, even if a normal person, like a, I don't know, like a, you call them sparkies here, like a sparky, right? Like an electrician who's like, you know what, like, I was good when I was 13, I'm gonna pop in again. Or you're somebody who's just living a normal life with a normal job and maybe is a little unfulfilled and thinks, you

• 1:02:29Rich Roll?

  know what, I'm gonna see if I have some more athletic potential inside of me. That would be an extraordinary story, but the level of of conviction and discipline that would be required to step away from that super like, you know, the peaks are so high, right?

• 1:02:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:45Rich Roll?

  And say, I'm not only am I gonna walk away from that, at least temporarily, like, I'm gonna go do this other thing that means I'm gonna be exhausted all the time. I'm gonna be staring at this black line. There's no guarantees of anything. This is certainly not like a strategic career move to, you know, to like, make money or, you know, like, it's, there's a level of insanity to the whole thing.

• 1:03:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I'd

• 1:03:10Speaker 01

  Even like I wasn't coming back into it like even financially like I wasn't really set up coming back into swimming like I'd kind of I'd had a few like lean years and was was kind of in a place where I it wasn't like sort of like I'd probably made some bad financial decisions and had some poor management on that side of things and and you know so it wasn't that wasn't it wasn't like I was going into it going I've got all this cash and I'm gonna

• 1:03:39Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:03:39Speaker 01

  I'm good.

• 1:03:40Rich Roll?

  I'm sure people believe that that's the case.

• 1:03:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:03:43Rich Roll?

  Oh, you're you're with this person and you have this and that so you must be living in a mansion and you know have a private driver and like.

• 1:03:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, but for me like the reality for me at that in in that moment just based on the way things had gone and just I think miseducation young about about money and and just had poor sort of financial management and things for a few years like I I was in a place where I wasn't sort of like yeah if I go and swim I'm can for sure support myself for the next four to six years and

• 1:04:17Rich Roll?

  Royalties.

• 1:04:17Speaker 01

  Whatever, right? Like it was sort of like um I was sort of going into it. I didn't have that kind of security necessarily going into it and um and it's it's funny because yeah people would sort of think well if you go and do that you you it's funny the way it's worked out because it's swimming coming back into swimming has sort of had actually almost opened up more opportunities for me outside of swimming um partially just because I think people thought it was interesting and wanted to be part of it um and but but go but beginning that like I I didn't know or think that I'd be able to make any money

• 1:05:02Speaker 01

  through it at least for years um you know I just thought I'd be sort of staring at the back line by myself and

• 1:05:09Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:05:09Speaker 01

  Have no one care about it or just think I was nuts for at least I was prepared for that to be the reality for at least like you know two to three years before I also didn't think I'd I'd progress as quickly as I did too.

• 1:05:22Rich Roll?

  So you're surprised at.

• 1:05:23Speaker 01

  I was prepared for like to be I was prepared to be shit for like at least two years before like I was anywhere near.

• 1:05:30Rich Roll?

  But the willingness to make that deal like that's super interesting.

• 1:05:40Rich Roll?

  This idea of being out of alignment with like your higher, better self, or this vision, or this sense of like who you are and how you wanted to like show up in the world, being tweaked and you know, kind of upside down while you're in Los Angeles.

• 1:05:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:05:56Rich Roll?

  And having enough self-awareness, conviction, and courage to correct that, and now be in this place where you like who you are, you feel good about what you're doing.

• 1:06:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:06:08Rich Roll?

  I think is something that everybody on some level can relate to. Like, I think that there is a more self-actualized, authentic version of ourselves within all of us.

• 1:06:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:06:21Rich Roll?

  And every day, we're, you know, we're kind of subconsciously wondering how in alignment we are with that person that we wish we were, or whatever, you know what I mean?

• 1:06:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:06:31Rich Roll?

  And that never ends until we die. I've certainly gone through, you know, my version of that, and I'm not perfect in that regard. But to have that kind of awareness as a young person and to correct that, I think is exemplary and also puts you in a position to speak to like that subject in general. Like, are we really thinking about what we're doing? Like, what is our intention and how do our actions line up with like the aspirational version of ourself? Or what is that dormant dream within all of us that maybe we're ignoring or repressing?

• 1:07:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:07:07Rich Roll?

  Because life is fucking hard and we're busy and like just trying to put food on the table is, you know, a big enough challenge for, for most people.

• 1:07:15Speaker 01

  It's, it's, and yeah, it's so easy to get stuck in,

• 1:07:20Speaker 01

  and I'm not saying everyone should just go and quit their jobs and like, become a movie director or whatever, but like,

• 1:07:27Speaker 01

  it's so easy to, to totally ignore it in the, in the quest for a steady salary or, you know, this or that.

• 1:07:36Rich Roll?

  But when you ignore it, you get these little knocks.

• 1:07:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:07:39Rich Roll?

  Hey buddy.

• 1:07:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:07:41Rich Roll?

  How you doing in there?

• 1:07:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:07:42Rich Roll?

  You know, remember me?

• 1:07:43Speaker 01

  I'm over here.

• 1:07:44Rich Roll?

  Like, I'm still here if you wanna have a chat.

• 1:07:47Speaker 01

  And it's often that, it's often like the kid in you, right? Like the child in you.

• 1:07:50Rich Roll?

  Sure, exactly.

• 1:07:50Speaker 01

  That, that.

• 1:07:51Rich Roll?

  It's the childlike.

• 1:07:52Speaker 01

  Follows instincts and follows impulses and, and, and listens to himself.

• 1:08:00Speaker 01

  Rediscovering that, I think is important.

• 1:08:04Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's something beyond the mind and logic that is childlike and uncorrupted by the difficulties of life, that still kind of lives as this seedling inside of us.

• 1:08:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's a good way of...

• 1:08:20Rich Roll?

  And I think, you know, looking at your career and your life, the rear view is always 2020, right? Like, when you look backwards, it all makes perfect sense. And when I see your career and the kind of art that you were interested in cultivating and the way that you expressed yourself as an artist, the theme of swimming is undeniable. Like, it's all about water, you know, like, even the Prince Neptune thing. It's like, it's all about like water and the ocean and, you know, your band was called The Tide. Like, it's all like, of course, of course, this guy was gonna find his way back to the pool.

• 1:08:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was a self fulfilling prophecy, kind of.

• 1:08:56Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:57Speaker 01

  Self fulfilling prophecy that was, yeah, as you said, ticking clock. Like, looking back on it now, it all makes sense. But there was a subconscious, you know, this little subconscious murmur in there the whole time. It was just drawing me back to where I felt most at home or whatever. But talking about that alignment with yourself, I now feel, I now truly sort of feel that way. And I think for a few years, I didn't feel that way. And I, and I, I'm so happy I followed it because I, I never thought I'd be able to just sort of sit around and say, I'm really, even in the midst of grueling training and

• 1:09:37Speaker 01

  doing all that stuff, like, it satisfies me. I can, I can sit down in my day and go, yeah, I'm at peace with myself and I'm as happy as I've ever been. And, and I feel like I'm on the path I'm supposed to be on. Sure, it took me a little while to, to find it, but, and I think now I just have learned things. Even if I stopped tomorrow and went back to, to playing music full time, I feel like I'd be the kind of...

• 1:10:07Speaker 01

  The kind of person I'd want to be going back into playing music full time. I think I'd have the right approach. And I think swimming teachers has taught me that already.

• 1:10:18Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that's cool. I think that that's that's sort of the new cool way to be a performer also.

• 1:10:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, like an athlete artist.

• 1:10:25Rich Roll?

  Well, yeah, it was like we were talking before the podcast and I was

• 1:10:28Speaker 01

  Going a bit early.

• 1:10:28Rich Roll?

  Asking you if you knew Mike Posner, like he's sort of on a similar thing like, hey, man, I did that other thing like, you know, I took a pill on Ibiza. Like, I know that I know that story.

• 1:10:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:10:39Rich Roll?

  And, you know, I don't want to live that way anymore. And now I want to walk across America and climb Everest and take people on adventures. And yes, I'm still cranking out songs and my songs fucking rule.

• 1:10:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:10:48Rich Roll?

  But I don't have to be that cliche of what you think a performer's life looks like.

• 1:10:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, I that's why I admire Jack Johnson so much as well. And why even when I was in LA, I was like, why aren't I doing this the way Jack does it? You know, he's he

• 1:11:09Rich Roll?

  Or Donovan Frankenreiter.

• 1:11:10Speaker 01

  Donovan, yeah, who I've had the chance to.

• 1:11:12Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I've met him.

• 1:11:13Speaker 01

  Had the chance to play with and chat to and the guys have sort of just forged their own path outside of like, I don't know if I don't know if Jack's been to the Grammys. From memory, like, he's never there, like, and whether that is by choice, I don't know. But

• 1:11:31Rich Roll?

  Have you met him?

• 1:11:32Speaker 01

  Jack I've met a couple of times, only briefly.

• 1:11:37Speaker 01

  But just watching the way he does his thing.

• 1:11:44Speaker 01

  He's just, I'm sure he had so many opportunities to go other directions and he's always just stayed on his own.

• 1:11:52Rich Roll?

  I live in Hawaii, I like to surf.

• 1:11:53Speaker 01

  You know, sure, his, you know, he had, he was a professional surfer and he has an accident that sort of redirected him into. I suppose creative, you know, more creative path, which has obviously worked out the way it has for him and for the benefit of all of us who like his music. But I just admire guys like that and feel like now I have the, the sort of confidence and self. I have the internal compass to hopefully keep that, keep that head like as when I do go back.

• 1:12:26Rich Roll?

  So that's what a valuable lesson to learn as a young person. Like maybe you had to have those peak experiences to grapple with that and come to terms with it. But to be able to have clarity on that at your age creates a foundation for your success and your happiness as you move forward.

• 1:12:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, and I feel so grateful for that because I know it just as easily could have happened when I was 45 instead of 25 and I'm just like it's.

• 1:12:53Rich Roll?

  Or never.

• 1:12:54Speaker 01

  Or never, yeah, I'm so grateful that it has happened now. And maybe I'll have more of them in the future. Like I might, I don't know what kind of cycles I'll go through as I get older and what more I'll learn, but I feel like I've been able to take a lot from my life experience so far, right, which is good.

• 1:13:13Rich Roll?

  You reshared a, you reshared a tweet the other day. Somebody had tweeted like, hey, remember that kid Cody that sang songs? Like this is what he looks like now and he's going for the Olympics and it's a picture of you with your cap and you're like, you're climbing out of the pool or something like that and you're looking super jacked. And you reshared it and you're like, yeah, that's what I'm doing. I don't, I don't remember, but it was sort of like a funny thing. And I, I was thinking about that because there's probably a lot of people out there who were fans of your music or maybe were at a time and then haven't thought about you. And then suddenly they see this and they're like, what the hell is this like?

• 1:13:48Speaker 01

  I see that on, especially on Twitter, I see that because I feel like, I don't know why Twitter community is that way, but, but I'll see that on Twitter a fair bit, whereas somebody that won't have, won't have seen or heard from him. Since, you know, from a moment, say, eight years ago or whatever, and they see that I'm now doing this and they kind of think it's some kind of weird joke or something.

• 1:14:11Rich Roll?

  Right, or it's just sort of a mind exploder, right? Like, it's so orthogonal to how people think of you. And I think the reason I bring that up is I think there can be a sense in the world publicly that all of this kind of happened with ease or overnight and without an appropriate level of appreciation for the courage of making that kind of decision and the amount of work that you have to put into it. And I think what happens is that a narrative gets crafted, that you're just, you're this unbelievably gifted person, it's all easy, you can just write these songs and then, and then you can just go over to the pool and these things happen and it makes you unrelatable, like you're this outlier.

• 1:14:56Rich Roll?

  Like, that's cool and I can be inspired by that, but it's not aspirational because, you know, I'm not, I'm not like that, right? And I was listening to your conversation with Brett Hock and he was framing it in an interesting way to disabuse people of that idea and to instead suggest this idea that I love and that I believe in, which is that we all are sitting on top of mountains of untapped potential. And the differentiator with you, of course you have talents, that's certain, we all have different levels of talents and different things. You recognize your talents, you put the work in to, to manifest them, but Brett said that

• 1:15:39Rich Roll?

  what people should understand is that you understand your potential and you know how to continually tap into that well and go back to it. It's a renewable resource as opposed to the person who maybe taps into it once and does something and says, well, yeah, but I'm out of gas now, like, that was my thing and now I'm done. Whereas you're like, no, it's there, it's always there. Like, how do you, how do you dip your toe into that current and, you know, continue to nourish yourself, you know, with this understanding that there's always more potential to be mined?

• 1:16:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, tapping that source.

• 1:16:13Rich Roll?

  So how, do you think about that consciously? Does that resonate with you or how does that land?

• 1:16:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I think.

• 1:16:21Speaker 01

  It's just, I think cultivating the resilience not to get discouraged by failure as well. I think there was a, there was a moment, my first, I wasn't, I wasn't, as you say, when you, when you think people think it happened overnight or whatever, like I wasn't, I was no good when I first got back in the pool. You know, it wasn't like I just started popping all these good times and training and doing all this stuff. It was like my first race back was terrible. It was absolutely terrible and I was so afraid to do it as well. Like Brett put me in some time trial down with David Marsh's group.

• 1:17:03Speaker 01

  I'd probably only been swimming, I'd probably been training for about three months. Um, at that point and, and certainly not, hadn't built enough to do a good 200 freestyle, but he put me in the 200 free and.

• 1:17:16Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that, that, that event doesn't lie.

• 1:17:18Speaker 01

  I woke up, yeah, I know. Yeah. And he, you know, he'd been putting, doing, giving me all this sprint training and doing all this. But at, at the time, he, he thought that I'd be a 200 swimmer. And so he was trying to start training me that way and put me in this 200, long before I was ready to do it. And I had so much anxiety about it. Like I woke up the morning of and in this like full body rash, just from, I've never had any kind of physical manifestation of stress or anxiety before in my life. And I've got this full body rash. I'm wondering what it is. I take myself to the urgent care and I'm trying to figure it out. And eventually I can kind of calm myself down and I go and do the race that night and it's just horrible.

• 1:17:58Speaker 01

  Like, and I, I remember, I remember coming back that night and sort of thinking, maybe this isn't for me. What am I, am I over my own head? Like, is this, you have that, that, that moment of.

• 1:18:14Rich Roll?

  You're drinking your own Kool-Aid.

• 1:18:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. Was I, was I delirious in thinking that this was possible for me? And, you know, it's just, is this going to be too hard? And I wanted to say, I was so frustrated that night. I think I'm, I think I maxed out on pushups at like midnight and then went to sleep. Just because I had all this like pent up like frustration and anger in me and woke up the next day, not sure if I was going to keep going.

• 1:18:38Rich Roll?

  Hmm.

• 1:18:38Speaker 01

  Um, and then I just looked in the mirror and thought, you know what? I've only given it three months. Let's give it six.

• 1:18:46Speaker 01

  And then after six months, if I'm still feeling this way, if I haven't seen anything else, if I haven't seen any improvement or anything, I think you got to give it six to.

• 1:18:55Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:56Speaker 01

  And then at six months, or yeah, it was about two and a half months later, I got my first qualifying time to go and compete at Australian Olympic trials. And so that was my first little win. And then it started to snowball from there. I'm so glad I saw those little two month, that two, three month period through.

• 1:19:12Rich Roll?

  Is part of that, like that panic attack response, a function of the fact that you know as someone who is a public figure, that whatever you do in the pool is going to get talked about in a way that isn't going to get talked about if you were just an average person?

• 1:19:29Speaker 01

  Oh, for sure. Yeah. I mean, I wish SwimSwam didn't.

• 1:19:31Rich Roll?

  External factors of just who you are that make it different.

• 1:19:34Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. And knowing that, you know, I didn't even think about this when I went and did that little USC time trial where I went 51 short course yards. SwimSwam did some article about it. And I'm like, I wish they, I wish they didn't.

• 1:19:49Rich Roll?

  Did they trash it on you?

• 1:19:50Speaker 01

  Because I don't want that to be there. No, not really.

• 1:19:53Rich Roll?

  Not my guy Mel, though.

• 1:19:54Speaker 01

  No, it wasn't trashing because I think at that point, people just, I think, people didn't really know that I was, you know, swimming or wanted to swim seriously.

• 1:20:06Rich Roll?

  That you would even.

• 1:20:07Speaker 01

  I think, I think people just thought like, oh, that's kind of interesting. And it's actually not that bad for someone that.

• 1:20:12Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:20:13Speaker 01

  Did, you know.

• 1:20:14Rich Roll?

  Yeah. If you haven't been training at all and you can jump in and pop off a 51, like, good on you.

• 1:20:17Speaker 01

  Like if you come, if you go and see, you know, Justin Bieber go and just do like some random track, track and field meet and go like, you know, 11 for like a hundred.

• 1:20:27Rich Roll?

  I know. This is the thing.

• 1:20:29Speaker 01

  You'd be like, what the hell?

• 1:20:30Rich Roll?

  When I'm describing to other people, like I've talked to my wife and a couple of, I'm like, yeah, I'm going to go talk to this guy Cody, you know, and if they haven't heard of you or don't know who you are, I'm like, just imagine, it's like, it's like if Justin Bieber was also an Olympic athlete or Shawn Mendes or somebody like that, you know?

• 1:20:49Speaker 01

  I suppose so. Yeah. Yeah. If Shawn all of a sudden was like on the. Olympic hockey team or something.

• 1:20:57Rich Roll?

  Hmm.

• 1:20:58Speaker 01

  Not that I've made the Olympics.

• 1:21:00Rich Roll?

  One of the other things that you talked about with Brett was this tall poppy thing, like this very specific Aussie thing where we want, we love our underdogs. We want our underdogs to win, but then when they win, the relationship shifts a little bit and it's like, don't get too big, buddy.

• 1:21:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:21:19Rich Roll?

  We're quick to cut you down. And I was with.

• 1:21:21Speaker 01

  Don't win again.

• 1:21:22Rich Roll?

  I was, yeah, like, yeah.

• 1:21:24Speaker 01

  Don't win again.

• 1:21:24Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:25Speaker 01

  Don't win three times.

• 1:21:26Rich Roll?

  I think it's heightened in Australia, but it's not unique to Australia. I think it's a,

• 1:21:29Speaker 01

  nah.

• 1:21:30Rich Roll?

  There's something human about that. And I was, I was with Ned Brockman the other day, who, you know, ran across Australia and is very famous for his mullet.

• 1:21:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:21:40Rich Roll?

  And what's interesting about the mullet that he rocks is that on the one hand, it's authentically who he is. It's this kid who grew up on a farm and Sparky was an apprentice to become an electrician, like kind of just a bloke, like a blue collar guy. And that's who he is.

• 1:21:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:21:55Rich Roll?

  But the other piece of it, I think is very intentional, like he maintains it because he understands that tall poppy phenomenon. Like he wants to make sure everybody understands who he is and that he's true to kind of his roots.

• 1:22:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:22:11Rich Roll?

  So that people are able to kind of meet him where he's at and embrace him. But you coming in with everything that happened in LA.

• 1:22:18Speaker 01

  I kind of grew up away from all that. Yeah. Like I grew up away from the tall poppy thing.

• 1:22:23Rich Roll?

  Right. But now you're in it. You're here and you're in it, right? Like, does that occupy, like you contend with that or?

• 1:22:30Speaker 01

  Yes and no. I think, um, I definitely think that, well, you know, living in LA, like people are a little bit more used to just people wearing whatever. And you kind of don't really look twice if, you know, someone's wearing like silver pants or something. You know what I mean? But like here, you'd.

• 1:22:49Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:22:50Speaker 01

  At least in the culture in Australia, like you'd kind of go, so that's that's different.

• 1:22:54Rich Roll?

  I've seen, I've seen Justin Bieber's car.

• 1:22:58Rich Roll?

  Like that reflective metallic.

• 1:23:00Speaker 01

  Like a chrome wrapped like Audi R8 or something like that. Whereas here people be like, what the hell, you know?

• 1:23:06Rich Roll?

  I know.

• 1:23:06Speaker 01

  What are you doing? You wanker or whatever, you know? But like, so yeah, it's certainly become more, become more conscious of it since moving back. But I feel like I kind of almost needed a bit of that in my life. You know, over there it can, it can.

• 1:23:22Rich Roll?

  Right. Yeah, actually it was, it was healthy for you.

• 1:23:24Speaker 01

  It was healthy for me to have that at that, at that point. So, and, and I think now,

• 1:23:31Speaker 01

  yeah, I've had just enough of a dose of it to sort of just level me out a little bit.

• 1:23:34Rich Roll?

  But you're still an underdog.

• 1:23:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:23:37Rich Roll?

  Which is cool.

• 1:23:38Speaker 01

  Which is cool.

• 1:23:39Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:40Speaker 01

  I'd like to always stay, stay the underdog. Yeah.

• 1:23:43Rich Roll?

  Than trying to hold on.

• 1:23:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:23:44Rich Roll?

  To the top.

• 1:23:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:23:46Rich Roll?

  So you also happen to live with, you cohabitate with your girlfriend, Emma, who just so happens to also be like the most decorated Australian Olympian, like.

• 1:23:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:23:58Rich Roll?

  She's for real. So how has like, how has like her experience? And obviously she's, you know, somebody who understands mindset, the champion mindset, like how to achieve goals, all of that. Like what have you learned from her experience? That's allowed you to kind of compress your learning curve to getting to where you want to be?

• 1:24:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, being, I guess, being with her and spending so much time with her. Well, we, we first met when she, she was already in the squad that I joined when I came back. So we met then and we always had a, a sort of a connection and a magnetism to each other. Something we, we didn't address until

• 1:24:44Speaker 01

  after her Olympic feat and when she, she was, she ended up being, staying, being away for another sort of six months after that. And it wasn't until she came back that we sort of connected and, and got together. But it was always there from when we first met and.

• 1:25:00Speaker 01

  I think, I think in a, in a, a good partner, you, you recognize a lot of qualities that you yourself, I think either would like to possess or already possess. And I think we, we sort of had that with each other. We recognize that we had sort of similar approaches to life and what we do. And, and at the same time, I, I just saw that, I saw the way she handled everything she, she's doing. And when, when we first met, like she hadn't yet done what she did last year in, or in 2021 in Tokyo. But I could see that it was going to happen, just the way she, she approached each day. And

• 1:25:42Speaker 01

  sort of since, I guess, being in a relationship with her now and living with her now, I'm, I'm inspired by the way she, she's probably the most level-headed athlete of that, of that caliber that I've ever come across.

• 1:25:58Rich Roll?

  And how do you account for that? Like, how does she maintain that?

• 1:26:03Speaker 01

  She's extremely, one, extremely, extremely close to her family, extremely grounded. And two, I think is never satisfied. Like, it's funny when she, just to see her perspective on what she's done. Like, she didn't, she doesn't even know. Like, you ask her how many Olympic medals she's won. Like, she probably knows now that she's heard a lot of other people say it. But I think when she did it, she didn't really

• 1:26:26Rich Roll?

  That's interesting.

• 1:26:26Speaker 01

  realize.

• 1:26:27Rich Roll?

  Are they in the house here somewhere?

• 1:26:28Speaker 01

  No, they're not here. She's got a few other things around. But even last year, like she became the, the most decorated Commonwealth athlete of all time. Like, not even Australian, or like, just of any, anyone.

• 1:26:44Rich Roll?

  And then just being Australian, where swimming, I mean, you're like, it's like Michael Jordan status here.

• 1:26:48Speaker 01

  I think that's true. I, that, I'm pretty sure that's the, the stat. But she finished the game and she didn't know that, you know? She's just sort of Has this really interesting approach to to the sport that doesn't sort of involve thinking about accolades.

• 1:27:09Rich Roll?

  Intrinsicly motivated as opposed to extrinsically.

• 1:27:11Speaker 01

  Yeah. And is so calm through it all as well. So.

• 1:27:16Rich Roll?

  I think it's hard to appreciate if you're not Australian, the way that your culture embraces swimming champions.

• 1:27:26Speaker 01

  Yeah. She's more decorated now than than Ian Thorpe and Susie O'Neill and these people that, you know, at least you grew up, you know, looking at as just the.

• 1:27:38Rich Roll?

  That's wild. I mean, I had, I'm friends with Michael Clem.

• 1:27:42Speaker 01

  So I wake, you know, you wake up and yeah, I don't really think about that when I look at her, but.

• 1:27:47Rich Roll?

  Michael Clem shared with me, you know, what it was like.

• 1:27:49Speaker 01

  Clem's awesome.

• 1:27:50Rich Roll?

  Yeah, when when that was at its peak insanity and, you know, there were just like basically like, you know, 10 story high billboards of him and his teammates like on on skyscrapers all over Sydney and like, it was just, you know, like.

• 1:28:03Speaker 01

  Swimming's not like that anymore here.

• 1:28:05Rich Roll?

  It's not.

• 1:28:06Speaker 01

  I think at least, at least the way.

• 1:28:09Rich Roll?

  Thorpe was like the last gasp of that, like, kind of superstar era.

• 1:28:12Speaker 01

  I think so, like around Athens, Thorpe was Thorpe, Ian Thorpe and Grant Hackett. That that era of swimmers, I think, I think it sort of was was at its peak, obviously, around Sydney Olympics being what it was in Australia and and sort of every athlete that was successful in Sydney Olympics was a absolute mega star. And then I think that sort of carried through to, say, Athens and then beyond that, Australian swimming, I don't think was as as sort of, I suppose, I suppose wasn't as as at the forefront of people's minds.

• 1:28:45Rich Roll?

  Well, now it's on you, buddy.

• 1:28:46Speaker 01

  But.

• 1:28:47Rich Roll?

  You as an Australian patriot to bring it back, you and Emma.

• 1:28:51Speaker 01

  Yeah. But I think that's changing a little bit and has been changing the last few years, just with the success that they had and that she had in Tokyo and people, you know, it's it's like in the news again and it's in the newspapers and all that stuff. But yeah, I can't imagine what that was like then because those guys were. On top of the world at that point.

• 1:29:11Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:29:14Rich Roll?

  Just the idea of making manifest a dream, whether it's a creative dream, an athletic dream, like, you know, anything, like, how do you think about, you know, tackling difficult problems, weathering the challenges and setbacks that inherently come with that and like, kind of staying in the game, like to go from being like, I could be at any party in LA right now and I'm choosing to stare at a black line. Like, there's a level of like, discipline and like self-regulation there that I think is intrinsic to your success. Maybe that's God gifted, but also I think it's something that you can develop a capacity for.

• 1:29:53Speaker 01

  You can develop it, absolutely. And I think I did develop it slowly. I think over a couple of years, like, building up the, I suppose, confidence to make the changes and sacrifices I made to get back in the pool or to change my lifestyle.

• 1:30:12Speaker 01

  I think that the,

• 1:30:15Speaker 01

  the work ethic side of it for me has always been semi-natural. The capacity or willingness to, I guess, quote unquote, do whatever it takes. And to prepare for and never, never, never like, under-preparing for anything, always doing what's necessary, has been something that

• 1:30:45Speaker 01

  has come naturally to me, I think.

• 1:30:47Rich Roll?

  Do what others won't.

• 1:30:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:30:51Speaker 01

  Either it's come naturally to me or I was just sort of taught through my, through my youth, I guess, swimming and then, and then everything else, sort of how to, how to do that. Either way, it's in me now.

• 1:31:06Speaker 01

  And I suppose, yeah, developing the awareness that failure isn't failure, really. Failure are just.

• 1:31:19Rich Roll?

  It's information.

• 1:31:19Speaker 01

  It's information, yeah, exactly. It's information, it's, it's.

• 1:31:24Speaker 01

  You know, a bad race or a bad session or something is just as important as a good one. And I think just developing the capacity for resilience, I think is important. But the only way you can do that is by putting yourself in uncomfortable situations or forcing yourself to do things that you just didn't or don't think you can do. And I think that was part of what I think Barrett Hawk was really good at with me in the, in the beginning was that, and he talks about it now, was that for the first six months, he just, he said he was just trying to break me all the time. I remember, it was probably on the about.

• 1:32:02Rich Roll?

  Because if he could break you, he could save time and you'll just go back to being physician. Like, let's just hard press him now.

• 1:32:08Speaker 01

  Get this out of the way, yeah. And, and he, he said he tried and tried so many times and I'd, I'd get out and throw up and then get back in. Just like, we had so many moments that early on where I had, I had no sort of aerobic fitness or, or capacity for lactate or any of that stuff.

• 1:32:25Rich Roll?

  You hadn't been a swimmer long enough to develop that base that you can tap into later.

• 1:32:29Speaker 01

  So some of the stuff that he was trying to make me do at that time would just make me vomit. And that was probably two, three times a week for a while until I was a little fitter. And I remember one morning, like I'd, I'd just broken up with my girlfriend the night before. And I come in the next day, I'm, you know, down and, and whatever. And he, he goes, okay, 200 fly, time trial. It's like, what the fuck? You know? And he goes, what if you break up with your girlfriend the night before the Olympics in four years? You gotta be able to get up and, you know, do this. And just little things like that,

• 1:33:07Speaker 01

  that, um, getting so far out of your comfort zone that you, you, you just feel like you're off in the deep end, you know, and then you start to find your feet.

• 1:33:17Rich Roll?

  Create resilience.

• 1:33:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, creates resilience within you. And, and, um, so I think that's just something I've been slowly developing those building blocks of resilience, sort of, since I started swimming again. I, yeah, sometimes you just sort of just have to jump off the deep end and then find your feet. Once you're out there, you're never going to be ready. That's what I've realized. You're never gonna be ready, or think, you're never gonna feel ready. Sorry, you might.

• 1:33:45Rich Roll?

  So you might as well train to do it when you're not ready.

• 1:33:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:33:48Rich Roll?

  And if the stars align and you are ready, great, but you know how to do it when everything's not lined up the way you wish it would be.

• 1:33:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. You just start doing things and you know that, you know that the first time you do it, you know, for example, say a 200 fly. He actually, he actually made me do one the very first day he got to LA to train. And like, it was, it was horrible, you know, it was, it was the most painful thing ever.

• 1:34:17Rich Roll?

  You got the elephant in your back on that.

• 1:34:19Speaker 01

  And he goes, okay, well, yeah, oh mate, I could hardly finish it. And he goes, okay, well, we got that out of the way. Like, that's the worst it's ever gonna feel. And I was like, okay, well, that was horrible, but it wasn't, my life's not over. Like, it wasn't that bad, you know?

• 1:34:33Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:34:34Speaker 01

  If that's the worst it's ever gonna feel, that's okay, you know? It's just finding, figuring out those unknowns.

• 1:34:40Rich Roll?

  It was reframing too. Like, if you're, oh, then now you have something to build on. Like, it's this different lens to like, look at where you're at.

• 1:34:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:34:48Rich Roll?

  And look at it as opportunity rather than.

• 1:34:50Speaker 01

  Doing something for the first time, no matter how bad it is, right? Whether it's writing your first song, or writing your first screenplay, or or your first day at a new job or something. Just do it, no matter how shit it is, you know? And the next one will be better, and then so on. And before you know it, it's almost like that compound interest theory, or that like, theory that, you know,

• 1:35:19Speaker 01

  what's that theory? If you double something, every time you double it.

• 1:35:23Rich Roll?

  That's compounding, yeah, yeah. So basically, you're, yeah, you're building it with these little micro habits over time.

• 1:35:29Speaker 01

  With a penny and then you get to two pennies.

• 1:35:31Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's invisible and it's anonymous until one day it isn't. Yeah, yeah, I love that. Are you writing songs? Like, you must be too tired to be writing songs and, well, now you're in taper. Maybe you got a little more energy.

• 1:35:42Speaker 01

  It's so funny that my, having experienced the way like, my creative.

• 1:35:49Speaker 01

  My creative side or impulses are so dampened by my exhaustion with training. Like, I'll take a break from training, we might get two weeks off for the year or something. And then like a couple days into that, two weeks, all of a sudden, I'm just having all these crazy ideas and all these. And I'm like, why isn't it always like this? And I was, and then I remember how tired I am usually all the time.

• 1:36:13Rich Roll?

  Cause you're swimming 20,000 meters a day, dude, or whatever it is.

• 1:36:16Speaker 01

  But I'm still, I'm still riding. Yeah, I'm still playing, not, not as much as I would be otherwise. But yeah, I try not to sort of let that, let that fade too, too much. I'm still sort of compiling ideas and songs and things that I can come back to when I have the time. Yeah. Yeah. And I will, I will eventually be starting to play and make music again.

• 1:36:41Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:36:41Speaker 01

  I'm looking forward to the day.

• 1:36:42Rich Roll?

  I'm, I'm not worried about that. I have no doubt, you know, that will come when it's supposed to come. But in the meantime, dude, like, honor to talk to you. I'm a fan, super supportive of this mission that you're on. I think it takes a lot of courage to, you know, kind of make the moves that you, that you have. And I think there's so much to be learned by the example that you're setting. And I feel like you're, you're showing up in a way that

• 1:37:09Rich Roll?

  is setting a really positive example for other people and how they kind of think about their own dreams and their own life. So.

• 1:37:18Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 1:37:18Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Credit to you. My boy Asher Gunsberg says, hi, you won the Masked Singer. He said you were a total pro. Like, just, he's like, that guy's a real deal. Like, you know, he wanted to, he wanted to pass along well wishes to you as well. And we didn't even talk about Prince Neptune. You're an entrepreneur. You've got a garment line. And also, there's a, isn't there a documentary out there, kind of chronicling your swim? This all came together so quickly that I wasn't able to like, see that or?

• 1:37:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, this, that was, it's cool having that because that documents the early, the very early days of, of me getting back into it. There was a documentary following, it's on Prime Video, documenting or following four different Australian swimmers at different stages in their career. Ian Thorpe was one of them.

• 1:38:08Speaker 02

  And so I was, I was in that and they were sort of documenting the early stages of me making the transition and coming in. And so that's out there. Yeah.

• 1:38:18Rich Roll?

  Yeah, cool. All right. Well, we'll link that up in the shout outs. Your Cody Simpson.

• 1:38:23Speaker 02

  It's called Head Above Water.

• 1:38:24Rich Roll?

  Head Above Water. Okay, cool. Right on, man. You gonna play a song?

• 1:38:28Speaker 02

  Thanks.

• 1:38:29Rich Roll?

  Come on.

• 1:38:31Speaker 02

  If I can have, if I can have a second.

• 1:38:33Rich Roll?

  You're turning brave right now.

• 1:38:34Speaker 02

  If I can have a second to figure something out.

• 1:38:36Rich Roll?

  Much love, dude.

• 1:38:37Speaker 02

  Thanks, man. I appreciate you having me on.

• 1:38:39Rich Roll?

  Thanks, dude.

• 1:38:39Speaker 02

  Cheers.

• 1:38:40Rich Roll?

  Peace.

• 1:38:42Speaker 02

  This was the last song on the latest record I released in 2022. And the title is You Don't Know Me, which I thought was kind of semi-appropriate for this chat.

• 1:38:56Rich Roll?

  Now we do though.

• 1:38:58Speaker 02

  Now you do.

• 1:39:11Speaker 02

  Young lady lover on the top of the world. Can't put my trust in all the things that have hurt. Somewhere inside you're still the girl I used to know. But I can feel you letting go.

• 1:39:37Speaker 02

  How's it gonna be? When you don't know me?

• 1:39:51Speaker 02

  How's it gonna be? When you don't know me?

• 1:40:08Speaker 02

  I used to run inside that circle you're in But that little bubble's bound to burst in a bit Go on wave goodbye to the man you used to know Can you feel me letting go? How's it gonna be? When you don't know me?

• 1:40:49Speaker 02

  How's it gonna be? When you don't know me? Sunny setting on a lonely road now The misty only knows the curse you carry I can't stand the things you're happy you found But I feel like I'll be cool at last

• 1:41:34Speaker 02

  'Cause this is how it's gotta be You don't know me, do you? How's it gonna be? When you don't know me? Know me, know?

• 1:42:28Rich Roll?

  That's it for today. Thank you for listening. I truly hope you enjoyed the conversation. To learn more about today's guest, including links and resources related to everything discussed today, visit the episode page at richroll.com, where you can find the entire podcast archive, as well as podcast merch, my books, Finding Ultra, Voicing Change, and The Plant Power Way, as well as The Plant Power Meal Planner at meals.richroll.com. If you'd like to support the podcast, the easiest and most impactful thing you can do is to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify, and on YouTube, and leave a review and/or

• 1:43:11Rich Roll?

  comment. Supporting the sponsors who support the show is also important and appreciated, and sharing the show or your favorite episode with friends or on social media is of course, awesome and very helpful. And finally, for podcast updates, special offers on books, The Meal Planner, and other subjects, please subscribe to our newsletter, which you can find on the footer of any page at richroll.com. Today's show was produced and engineered by Jason Camiolo, with additional audio engineering by Cale Curtis. The video edition of the podcast was created by Blake Curtis, with assistance by our creative director, Dan Drake. Portraits by Davy Greenberg. Graphic and social media assets courtesy

• 1:43:54Rich Roll?

  of Daniel Solis, as well as Dan Drake. Thank you Georgia Whaley for copywriting and website management. And of course, our theme music was created by Tyler Pyatt, Trapper Pyatt, and Harry Mathis. Appreciate the love, love the support. See you back here soon. Peace.

• 1:44:13Rich Roll?

  Plants. Namaste.