Russell Simmons: The Yogi Path From Hip Hop Mogul To Happy Vegan

It's rare to find a pop culture icon as devoted to raising consciousness as the man they call Rush. Hip hop impresario, entrepreneur extraordinaire, devoted yogi and long-time meditation practitioner, Russell Simmons is truly one-of-a-kind — incredibly warm, always quick with a captivating story you won't soon forget and authentically committed to spreading awareness concerning important issues of our time — the horrors of animal agriculture, the declining state of human health (particularly in African American and lower socio-economic demographics) and the disastrous state of our planet’s dwindling environmental health. Most are familiar with Russell's background, but in case his name is new to you, let’s break it open. Alongside Rick Rubin, in 1984 Russell co-founded Def Jam Recordings and quickly established himself as a prominent, guiding force in the quickly growing cultural revolution that became hip hop. Championing its breakout stars, Def Jam became the label by signing the movement's ground-breaking forerunners – acts like the LL Cool J, Public Enemy, and The Beastie Boys. But Def Jam was just the first step in Russell's empire building quest. Before selling the label to Universal Music Group in 1999 for $100 million, he formed RUSH Communications and quickly expanded his reach into artist management, apparel, and film & television projects like The Nutty Professor, Krush Groove, Gridlock'd and Def Comedy Jam. Russell's current holdings include a vast array of entrepreneurial interests and philanthropic efforts, including All Def Digital, Argyleculture, RushCard, Global Grind, The Foundation For Ethnic Understanding and Tantris, a yoga & lifestyle destination currently in development. All of this is fascinating. But what interests me most about Russell is his personal journey. How discovering yoga and meditation led to his embrace of a vegan lifestyle. And the tremendous extent to which his commitment to cultivating an inner life based on the spiritual principles of ahimsa — a Sanskrit term for no harm — has impacted both his private and public life, his approach to business and his commitment to service and advocacy. Today we unpack all of it. This episode is definitely my most unique to date. Generally, I endeavor to architect the basic trajectory of my conversations; I know where I want to start and I know where I want to go. Suffice it to say this did not happen with Russell. Within the first 5 seconds of our conversation one thing was clear — I was not in control. Russell's show, Russell's flow. When the dust settled, all I could think was, what just happened? That's charisma. This one's different. But I loved every minute of it. Topics explored include: * yoga, meditation & consciousness * the karmic debt of animal agriculture * the ecological havoc caused by food systems * the health implications of the American diet * Russell as agent for change * happy vs. angry vegans * using cryotherapy to revitalize * animal cruelty in factory farming * raising awareness from the top down * the benefits of meditation * the primacy of service * parenting & privilege * the effect of branding on consumer choice * empathy and compassion for others Note: This episode is chock-a-block with expletives. I typically run a clean, family-friendly show, but it's more important to me to allow my guests to be who they are. Enjoy! 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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• 1:05Speaker 01

  It's okay to get along with people you disagree with. In fact, it's critical that we all try to put ourselves in other people's shoes because I believe that we all have the same hopes, desires. You know, we're all inspired by the same kinds of things. We want to love and be loved.

• 1:22Rich Roll?

  That's the one and only Russell Simmons, and this is the Rich Roll Podcast.

• 1:37Speaker 02

  The Rich Roll Podcast.

• 1:41Rich Roll?

  Hey, everybody. How you guys doing? My name is Rich Roll. I am your host. Welcome to the Rich Roll Podcast, the show where each week I sit down with thought leaders, paradigm-breaking minds and personalities across all categories of health, wellness, diet, nutrition, fitness, science, entrepreneurship, mindfulness, meditation, spirituality, and the like. And the idea behind all of this is to help all of us, myself included, Unlock and unleash our best, most authentic selves. Thanks so much for tuning in today. I appreciate everybody who is sharing the show with their friends and on social media. And of course, massive shout out for everybody out there who is making a habit of using the Amazon banner ad at richroll.com for all your Amazon purchases. It really does help us out a lot.

• 2:26Rich Roll?

  The banner is right there at richroll.com on the podcast page. Can't miss it. And it's a great way to support the show. Doesn't cost you anything extra on your Amazon purchases, but it really does put some much needed wind in our sails so that I can do what I do here. So, thank you so much. Pretty pumped about this episode. I've got Yogi, meditator, hip hop pioneer and entrepreneur extraordinaire Russell Simmons coming at you in a couple few to talk about his life, his path, and his new book, The Happy Vegan. He's a super interesting cat, but first...

• 3:07Rich Roll?

  All right, everybody. I gotta tell you guys upfront, right before we get into the interview, that this is perhaps my most unique conversation to date for a wide variety of reasons, which I'm gonna get into in a second. It's with the impresario of hip hop, the vegan entrepreneur, Yogi and meditator himself, Russell Simmons. This guy is a straight up pop culture icon. Most people are familiar with Russell, his story, his entrepreneurship, but in case his name is brand new to you, I thought we could do a brief bio and break it wide open. In 1984, Russell co-founded Def Jam Recordings with Rick Rubin, and he quickly rose to prominence as this guiding force in the quickly growing cultural revolution that became hip hop.

• 3:49Rich Roll?

  And he did it by championing all its breakout stars. Def Jam became the label, signing all the movement's forerunners, acts like LL Cool J, Public Enemy, the Beastie Boys, and of course, Run DMC. But, Def Jam was just Russell's first step in empire building. Before selling Def Jam to Universal Music Group in 1999 for $100 million, he formed Rush Communications and he began... Branching out into a wide variety of interests, everything from management to apparel, film and television projects like The Nutty Professor and Crush Groove. And his current holdings include a vast array of interests and philanthropic efforts, including All Def Digital, Argyle Culture, Rush Card, Global Grind, and even a yoga

• 4:34Rich Roll?

  studio play in development called Taunteress. And all of this is fascinating, of course, but what most interests me about Russell is his personal journey, how discovering yoga and meditation ultimately led to his embrace of veganism, and how all of this has tremendously influenced his life, his business, and of course, his advocacy. And I think it's really rare to find an entrepreneur, a pop culture icon of his stature, who is so open, honest, very human, outspoken, and really devoted to raising consciousness around the issues of the day, issues like the horrors of animal agriculture, the declining

• 5:14Rich Roll?

  state of human health, particularly in African-American and lower socioeconomic demographics, and the disastrous state of our planet's environmental health. And today, we unpack all of it, everything from the impact of yoga and meditation on the evolution of his personal consciousness, this karmic debt accrued by virtue of our cultural addiction to animal products, the ecological havoc and deleterious health implications of the standard American diet, the responsibility, he feels, to be a change agent. And of course, it's all about his new book, The Happy Vegan, which is this really easy-to-digest primer on all of the aforementioned issues with basic, comprehensible, and budget-conscious

• 5:57Rich Roll?

  solutions for improving personal and planetary health through simple diet and lifestyle alterations. I will say this, I usually try to architect the general direction of my conversations. I have this idea of where I want to start and where I want to go with my guests. This is not one of those conversations. Again, probably my most unique podcast, primarily because...

• 6:26Rich Roll?

  I don't really think I was ever in control of this conversation. I was definitely not in command here. I'm not quite sure about how this one is gonna land. There was a little chaos here. We did the interview in his office. The door was open. People were coming and going. And when it was all said and done and the dust settled, I wasn't quite sure what exactly had transpired. And I suppose it goes with the territory when you interview someone this busy, someone with this level of charisma. It's part of the vibe that makes Russell Russell, and I loved every minute of it. And I think you guys are gonna enjoy it as well. Lastly, before we get into the interview, I've got a special guest coming on right after Russell for a short segment, so please stick around for that. I promise you guys, it is worth it.

• 7:10Rich Roll?

  And a final note, this episode is chalk-a-block with expletives. And generally, I keep things clean and family-friendly here, but it's more important to me to be real, to be authentic, and of course, allow my guests to be who they really are. And Russell's just a guy who rolls thick and deep with the language, just who he is. And to edit it out or to bleep it out, I think would just hit a false note. So just a heads up if you're queasy about this kinda stuff, or you got kids in the car, or whatever. In any event, let's dig on Russell. Without further ado, enjoy my conversation with Russell Sings. Movie project?

• 7:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, some film project, talking about this great script, kinda good script, I mean, good script. Good idea, depressed comedian. Everybody doesn't know, like, I know, like, everybody in Hollywood knows, or anybody who lives in this circle knows that comedians generally depress people. So it's a script about a guy who's, you know, is a writer, writes comedy, almost kills himself. Does kill himself. I think, if I made it, he would almost kill himself. I don't like depressing endings usually. I didn't like the end of Birdman. I don't know why the fuck he had to go out the window. Do you know why he went out the window, Simone? Did you want him to die?

• 8:25Speaker 01

  One in the diet of stress.

• 8:26Rich Roll?

  Did he die or did he fly?

• 8:29Speaker 01

  I think he died. That nigga just jumped out the window and died. He's never, he never flew before. He died. That was stupid. His daughter looks up in the air like, come on. I think he could have been okay if he just came out of the thing and was thrilled to be alive, you know, had a little bit of revelation. I'm always happy with the revelation that's okay to live rather than kill yourself. Not the best ending for a movie.

• 8:53Rich Roll?

  So you're doing this outside the studio system?

• 8:56Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, I read it from a studio. They gave me, they want me to produce it. We're talking about it. We'll see if we can fix it.

• 9:00Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 9:01Speaker 01

  But anyway, that's, I don't even know how that begins our conversation.

• 9:05Rich Roll?

  I know. It's all right, man. I appreciate you taking the time. It's been quite a media blitz for you the past two weeks. So thanks for taking a moment with me.

• 9:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, I, you know, I really believe passionately in this subject and I'm not sure if I should call this the poisoning of America or, you know, depending on the radio show, the poisoning of black America, you know.

• 9:26Rich Roll?

  Was there a conversation about the, was there a conversation about the title?

• 9:29Speaker 01

  Uh, yeah. I called it the happy vegan because all my books are so happy and I wanted people to be able to digest the ideas, you know? I'm not a, I'm not an angry vegan. I like angry vegans. You know, I'm sure that Martin Luther King was happy Elijah by having called a white man a devil. That's funny. It's funny because they got Martin Luther King a certain way. They got him as such a pacifist, nice guy, but he said a lot of tough shit. Nobody even ever talks about. And I think he liked it. There was a really more honest and not even angry. They were, I don't think the black Muslims were angry. They were just kind of straight, you know, they just said things that he didn't have to say. And they gave him the benefit of the anger that was brewing. I think militants sometimes are part of a process.

• 10:13Rich Roll?

  Well, I think you need all voices, you know?

• 10:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm always a bitch.

• 10:16Rich Roll?

  You need Malcolm X and you need Martin Luther King.

• 10:19Speaker 01

  Right. I'm always, I'm always a bitch.

• 10:21Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 10:22Speaker 01

  I mean, right, Simone, you would say that? Simone Reyes is an animal activist. She'll lay in there.

• 10:25Rich Roll?

  Right. So Simone's voice is different from your voice and there's a place for both of those in these conversations.

• 10:30Speaker 01

  Yes. Well, we need Simone to throw some paint on somebody's coat. I mean, I'm. That's my friend's coat. I mean, I didn't want her to wear it, but I mean shit like that's what she does.

• 10:39Rich Roll?

  Yeah, but that is the barrier, especially when you're, you know, doing mainstream media. You're sitting down at CBS this morning. I mean, you did.

• 10:46Speaker 01

  You see how angry my good friend?

• 10:48Rich Roll?

  Well, they accuse you of being the angry vegan when you're really coming at it from a really palatable, you know, sort of optimistic.

• 10:55Speaker 01

  I said, I told Gail, who I love, Gail King, I love, good friend. Backstage, we laugh and talk everything. I said, I'm not an angry vegan. She got on stage and said, I'm not angry vegan, but she said it a mean way. I told her that 50% of African American women over 20 have heart disease. She said, I'm healthy. I said, I, I, I know you're healthy.

• 11:15Rich Roll?

  She's interpreting that you're attacking her.

• 11:17Speaker 01

  You're fucking Oprah's best friend and you have all, all of the resources in the world and you probably never ate anything non-organic since you heard about organic. And some of that stuff is actually organic, some of it, right? So, so there's that, you know, and you have probably have every, you know, she's probably doing cryotherapy. I just did it. Fuck. Ever been in there?

• 11:35Rich Roll?

  No, I'm, I want to try it though.

• 11:37Speaker 01

  Oh, I go every fucking day.

• 11:38Rich Roll?

  Somebody died recently though, doing that.

• 11:40Speaker 01

  They always say that. Every time I bring up cryotherapy, they say somebody died. If you go, if you bump your head and fall out in minus 300 degrees and stay there for 10 hours, see what happens.

• 11:48Rich Roll?

  I think in, I think the person that died worked at the facility and did it after hours and there was no one there to like, oh, whatever, what was going on?

• 11:55Speaker 01

  And she did the one that's only, um, uh, which is where most of them are. The most they leased out are ones that are made out of hydrogen. The one in the tank is hydrogen and oxygen and she put her head under the smoke. You get into one that's hydrogen and it has this thing that lifts you up. You can only lift it up from the outside. So she's in the shit with her head in the hydrogen, inhaling the hydrogen. She fainted and she died.

• 12:13Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 12:14Speaker 01

  10 hours later, they found out, I guess she was frozen. If you spit on somebody, it'll freeze up on their face the second it gets on them. It's minus 300 fucking degrees. You don't want to fake.

• 12:24Rich Roll?

  But do you feel it? Like, what does it, what does it feel like when you're in the chamber?

• 12:27Speaker 01

  It feels kinda invigorating, you know?

• 12:28Rich Roll?

  Did you do, it's in Larchmont, right? Is that the one that you did?

• 12:30Speaker 01

  No, the one I did is right on La Cienega. And this body owner, so they have the big tank, which is cut, which has hydrogen and oxygen. And it wakes you up, but it also puts you asleep. Like it, cause for 48 hours, your body is racing back. The seconds you get in there, all the blood races to your heart. Cleanses all your organs and all this shit, revitalizes a lot of stuff and it gets rid of inflammation. And it's got a lot of benefits, they say, and psychosomatic asshole that I am, I believe it all. Well, I feel good. I feel high after, and I'm a junkie, you know, I like high. High, anything gets me high. So, you know, morning meditation is a different high from late night drinking, but I like that best, right? And then there's shifts that I've met, but they all get high.

• 13:15Speaker 01

  Put this amino acid under your tongue. Oh shit, how's that feel? Wow, I felt that. In fact, Dr. Oz sent me that shit. Dr. Oz Garcia, send me the amino acid he's been bragging about.

• 13:24Rich Roll?

  Uh oh, you're in trouble with that.

• 13:25Speaker 01

  Just put it under your tongue.

• 13:26Rich Roll?

  You know, but uh, yeah, it's cool. Tony Robbins swears by that. I think he's got his own chamber.

• 13:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, his own chamber. Yeah. Oh, you know all about it. Yeah, Tony Robbins has his own chamber. LeBron, all, it's hit the rich people. That's why you, I'm not, I'm not fucked up. Yeah, but a lot of people are, you know, underserved community members. And the book teaches people who don't, you know, necessarily have all the resources, how to, how to live as a vegan lifestyle cheaply.

• 13:49Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm. Well, that's the biggest thing, right?

• 13:51Speaker 01

  Oh, call Adidas too. I meant that. A second thing, you gotta call Adidas. It's time now for them to give me a vegan, vegan line.

• 14:00Rich Roll?

  How do you, you know, how you overcome this idea that veganism, plant-based diet is, is really something just for the elite or the well-heeled? Like, how are you gonna penetrate the food deserts?

• 14:10Speaker 01

  The book talks a lot about that, uh, because I know that's a challenge. I'm also gonna do a vegan soul food book. I just realized it's pretty much written. I might as well do it. And it's like, it's easy, you know? It's like a lot easier than people think. And that's what, um, people don't realize, don't, uh, don't, no one wants to promote, and there's no interest in promoting how cheaply you can live a plant-based diet. And, you know, it's a small community. Uh, lots of investment in companies like Beyond Meat, where they are studying the 40,000 plants on the planet. And the idea, and uh, what's the other one? Hampton Creek.

• 14:45Rich Roll?

  Yeah, Hampton Creek. I had Ethan Brown.

• 14:47Speaker 01

  Hampton Creek got a better promotion, but Ethan's shit is a little bit bigger. It's actually a distributor in every store. So, so Beyond Meat is everywhere. And you can get it, like meat substitutes, because a lot of people, they're just so used to it. They need something that, you know, it's like you need methadone to get off heroin, right? That's what Beyond Meat, the meat stuff is, but the other stuff is beyond that. It's just healthy stuff that, that, that is good fuel, doesn't give you cancer or diabetes or heart disease, which is what the animal product is doing to a great majority of America. Killing more people than any lobbyists, no lobbyists is fucking with the American people, not even close. ISIS is not even in the running of threat to America.

• 15:30Rich Roll?

  No, we should talk about the FDA instead.

• 15:34Speaker 01

  FDA is the worst motherfuckers, dumb niggas, murderers.

• 15:37Rich Roll?

  Well, there's this idea that they're looking out for our best interest.

• 15:40Speaker 01

  People assume that. Yeah, that's, that's the thing, they think, they assume always, people always trust in government. You know, I mean, our country, especially, you know, they're civilized society, they do civilized things. And then they abuse a hundred billion animals per year. You know, and then they say dominion over the animals.

• 15:57Rich Roll?

  Yeah, what are the subsidy numbers? It's like two, three billion or something like that?

• 16:01Speaker 01

  No, billion, thirty-eight billion money, thirty-eight billion dollars of American taxpayers' money going to making what they call affordable food, and it's meat and dairy. And then the vegetable industry gets seventeen million. That's a cornepita. They're gonna sue the shit out of me, I know they're coming after me, these fuckers.

• 16:17Rich Roll?

  Yeah, are you concerned about that with this media blitz?

• 16:20Speaker 01

  They're not that rich, man. I don't really care for the battle, these niggas like that. I'm gonna need help from the animal rights community. You fuckers better help me, because I know I'm saying shit and it's traveling. I'm surprised I got in all these shows. I actually thought they would say my sponsors won't let me have you talk that kind of stuff on my.

• 16:36Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it is interesting. Well, I feel like they always have to temper it. You know, they'll let you say what you want to say, but then afterwards they'll be like, "Well, but you should be careful about this or that." I mean, so, gale aside. Or just, "Well, I still like a little meat," or whatever, there's always like an exit door.

• 16:51Speaker 01

  I don't think she was doing it for the sponsors, she was just defending herself.

• 16:54Rich Roll?

  What was O'Reilly like?

• 16:56Speaker 01

  I knew O'Reilly this time, I did O'Reilly in the last book, when he went into that Beyonce shit. Went in my, got him. He actually believed in meditation. It was like, I've been on, I went to visit O'Reilly when I was at Fox. I was on Fox News, on a bunch of Fox shows. I went up to his office. You know, I get along with everybody. So, O'Reilly, he's my man. I like his daughter. His daughter's so sweet. She's a progressive. She doesn't believe a word he says. She's just like me, and she's only 14. And she's brilliant, and he's very lucky to have her. And I'm glad that she doesn't adopt any of his views. I don't think she'll grow up saying, oh, now suddenly I don't like people, or now suddenly I'm angry too. I don't think that'll happen. And he, you know, he's, to his credit, he says, yeah, my daughter's a liberal. We're sitting together at the table. You know, he, he's a smart conservative. Like, there's such thing.

• 17:40Speaker 01

  My friend Glenn Freeman might not agree.

• 17:42Rich Roll?

  He's an entertainer. He's a showman, and he's affecting this.

• 17:44Speaker 01

  No, no, he believes his shit.

• 17:44Rich Roll?

  Does he? On the level that he, that he, that he talks on, on air?

• 17:47Speaker 01

  Fuck, yeah, he believe it. So, you niggas take drugs, go to jail. He believes everything he says. What about the crack? You know, he believes his stuff. That's why he's good at talking about it, you know. Hannity believes his stuff, but he's stupid, so it's different. Or he's not shit to that. He's not as smart as O'Reilly, who seems to be more thoughtful. You know, there's a black guy on Fox. I can't believe this, this nigga. He told me that there's no global warming. I was like, did you forget? Didn't get the memo, Republicans stopped saying that? That you don't have to say that anymore, because now you're starting to look dumb. He said, no man-made global warming. And I looked at him. He's a black guy. I remember meeting him at Occupy Wall Street. And everybody, he was interviewing people, and everybody was mad at him, just because of the tone he took.

• 18:29Speaker 01

  And he said, you're black, like, don't you, you know, like, black people have one, one, one thing that makes them stick together. Jews have Israel. Blacks have poverty. Rich black peoples don't give a fuck, they're Democrat. They hope that someone like Bernie Sanders will come along. They're happy to pay the little extra tax. They're happy to, to, to shift the paradigm. You know, they, they're okay with it. They got too many broke cousins, I guess, not to be.

• 18:57Speaker 01

  And just like Jews, for the most part, have Israel in common. They don't like each other for a lot of reasons. You know, you think of the form Orthodox and Orthodox and Hasidic and Syrian Jews. I mean, I know the whole communities, and they, they don't really... You don't trust that Israeli bastard. You know, one guy will say, right, because they're they're they're separate but equal, right? Just like Latinos. And blacks have separation on many issues as well, but not on political choices because no matter how rich you are, you know, you're still sucked in by your family and you know, no matter how selfish you think you are, you know that you'll be an asshole if you don't support anybody who supports the undeserved communities.

• 19:33Rich Roll?

  Interesting. So I feel like you are, you know, progressing through this evolution of consciousness that began with, you know, getting sober at 30, finding yoga, then finding meditation and then becoming a vegan. And it's kind of, I followed a very similar track. I got out of rehab when I was 31. I found myself in yoga. This was back in, quick little story.

• 19:55Speaker 01

  Only girls, right? You and the girls?

• 19:57Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Well, here was the thing. I got out of, I got out of rehab and I'm like, I need new friends. You know, I just needed to change my community and I need to raise the vibration of the people that I'm hanging out with. I find myself in Steve Ross's yoga class.

• 20:08Speaker 01

  You too?

• 20:08Rich Roll?

  This was like 98, 99.

• 20:11Speaker 01

  How about that?

• 20:11Rich Roll?

  And there was Russell every night and I became really good friends with Steve. I met my wife in that class and that became my community.

• 20:18Speaker 01

  A lot of wives in that class.

• 20:18Rich Roll?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, originally I was like, of all the yoga classes in LA, I was going to Steve's because there was a lot, there was so many beautiful women in this class.

• 20:26Speaker 01

  You too?

• 20:27Rich Roll?

  Yeah. It was insane at that time.

• 20:29Speaker 01

  Similar path. I went to Steve Ross's class just for the women. I didn't see you that much because mostly it was just girls and me.

• 20:34Rich Roll?

  You were looking at the girls the whole time.

• 20:36Speaker 01

  And a couple of gay guys.

• 20:36Rich Roll?

  But it's funny because I remember.

• 20:38Speaker 01

  There were no straight men in yoga. You remember that?

• 20:40Rich Roll?

  I know. It was.

• 20:40Speaker 01

  Wasn't that amazing?

• 20:41Rich Roll?

  It was you and Dennis Quaid would go from time to time.

• 20:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, he would go.

• 20:44Rich Roll?

  But like Meg Ryan was going, I mean, there was, it was crazy.

• 20:47Speaker 01

  Well, look, Meg Ryan, look at all the Hollywood actresses. It was, it was typical of what they make jokes about in Hollywood because, you know, Steve Ross is like, he told me the last problem Lord Buddha had was like pussy, indiscriminate pussy too.

• 20:59Rich Roll?

  That's a big problem with the gurus.

• 21:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, he said that was Lord, Lord Buddha's last problem. You know, of course, the temptress, as you remember instead of Arthur.

• 21:07Rich Roll?

  And I asked my, I asked my wife this morning when I was leaving, I said, you know, is there anything you want me to ask Russell that's not, you know, an obvious thing? And she said, oh, yeah, just. She was remembering a time after one of Steve's classes, going down the little elevator in that little shopping center there.

• 21:22Speaker 01

  And tried to hit on her?

• 21:22Rich Roll?

  And you were, I don't know.

• 21:24Speaker 01

  Go ahead.

• 21:24Rich Roll?

  Maybe, but you were, you were tripping out at the time because you had some business deal that was going left on you and you were like, I gotta, I don't know if I could keep doing all this yoga and meditation. I gotta keep my eye on the ball with my business. If I keep doing all this stuff, I'm gonna lose all my money.

• 21:39Speaker 01

  That was something that Bobby Shriver always said. Bobby Shriver always says that. I said, if I keep, I was, my first response to yoga, if I, if I keep doing all this shit, I'm gonna lose all my money. Cause those seconds of presence, I used to think anxiety drove me. And I know stillness drives me faster. Anxiety has no place in the workplace and no place in service. We're here to be present, awake and smile in difficult poses and do our job. Do our Dharma is not served by being anxious and, and not thoughtful. You need to be thoughtful and awake. So yoga and meditation

• 22:23Speaker 01

  and these tools you have are meant to, as you know, the yoga sutra is the second sutra is about yoga or Christ consciousness or nirvana or samadhi or tawha for Muslims or whatever you call God consciousness is a state of needing nothing or the, the end of the fluctuations of the mind stuff, the noise in the mind is yoga or those things I mentioned or Christ consciousness, et cetera. So we wanna quiet our mind. And then, once that's done, we become so much more effective. So the first chakra first, the mulandara chakra first, cause you can't serve the world unless you take care of yourself, Simone. Simone?

• 23:07Speaker 01

  Because you're always out saving animals.

• 23:09Rich Roll?

  Why are you calling her out like that?

• 23:10Speaker 01

  Because she be just doing shit like without taking care of herself.

• 23:13Rich Roll?

  Right, I mean, the translation of that is...

• 23:14Speaker 01

  She's always saving animals and you can't save animals if you're sick.

• 23:17Rich Roll?

  You can't, you can't help others unless you tend to yourself first. Like, what attracted you to this yogi path?

• 23:23Speaker 01

  It's not selfish to take care of yourself first. If you're selfless, the blind dog comes first. Alright, well, the blind dog's gonna outlive you. Who the fuck can take care of the blind dog?

• 23:33Rich Roll?

  I know. For the listeners, Simone Reyes is sitting right over here, who, you've been Russell's assistant for a long time, right?

• 23:39Speaker 01

  Assistant, I think she takes exception to that.

• 23:41Rich Roll?

  Executive, like, how do you, I don't know what the, what you would, how you define the relationship.

• 23:45Speaker 01

  She's my boss now. She's a film and television executive and she, you know, that's what she does, on TV.

• 23:51Rich Roll?

  But, very avid animal activist, right? Of course, so, and she's sitting there with Yoda.

• 23:57Speaker 01

  She's like Malcolm X.

• 23:58Rich Roll?

  Yoda, the blind dog.

• 24:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, she takes care of, except she spends time taking care of a blind dog. I personally couldn't give a fuck about a blind dog. I mean, I really don't care about animals as individuals. I don't understand how people could, you know, walk their dog with a fur coat. But, same time, I don't understand how we can worry about one animal, saving the life of one animal. Of course, I do get, and it's in scripture, and certainly in Satchin and Nanda's translation of the Yoga Sutras, the story about the boy throwing the starfish back in, you know this story? He's walking down the beach, throwing starfish back in the water, thousands of them scattered across the floor of the, in the sand by the ocean. And the guy says, "You can't, why are you trying to save these starfish? You can't save them." He said, and he threw the one in the water, he said, "Not that one, I did save that one."

• 24:45Speaker 01

  So, that's the one at a time. And one at a time always seemed not fruitless, but not as fruitful, as making people aware of the massive suffering. But I think they need to be, they need to identify to, to really help. So, it's kind of a little two-edged sword, but, like the 200 horses, they say, "Oh, they did a good deal." I said, "I don't give a fuck if you save 70 of the 210 horses." I don't want kids to see the horses, Mayor de Blasio, at all. Because then they'll see our exploitation, our nasty habits, our lack of concern for life.

• 25:22Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 25:22Speaker 01

  So it doesn't matter if there's less horses. I couldn't give a fuck about the 70 horses. And when I said it was the Holocaust, they got all mad, Abe Foxman. I said, "The Holocaust was the 100 billion animals. 10 billion in America alone birthed into a horrible life of suffering through rape and every other factory practice

• 25:44Speaker 01

  just to destroy the planet and poison its inhabitants." That's what, that to me is the, the big thing. And I'm not saving one. The cow that jumped off the truck that ran away, and most cows couldn't run. It was amazing. Ran around through Queens, everybody chased it, finally caught the cow. Put it in the animal reserve. People visit the cow.

• 26:05Rich Roll?

  Yeah, well, it's like-

• 26:06Speaker 01

  But what about the other cow fucking truck? I mean, it's like-

• 26:09Rich Roll?

  I, I mean, I talked-

• 26:09Speaker 01

  Let's have a steak after we see the cow.

• 26:11Rich Roll?

  I talked to Gene Bauer about this on the podcast a couple of times. Because of course, at Farm Sanctuary, he's rescuing these farmed animals, right? And he can't rescue all of them. But it's almost like this symbolic act of just being in this place, of being of service to these animals in whatever way that you can. So it's, it goes back to that starfish analogy.

• 26:31Speaker 01

  God favors those who do have high intention and do good work.

• 26:37Speaker 01

  I know that that's it. And it's in a world in perfect order, there's suffering, there's this, there's that, and the other. And you have to live in it and be a servant of it. And that's the spiritual path. I break from that path in some ways. But then again, I think it's still the same thing. Do the best you can with what you have. What I have is a voice that can talk about the 100 billion animals. The dolphins, they talk about the dolphins. Y'all wanna talk about dolphins? Let's talk about it. It's fucking horrible. Y'all wanna talk about the two hippopotamuses that got their head cut off or whatever? They take their tusks? Yeah, talk about it. We don't want extinct species, but it's not about each species, it's much about each life. It's each life that matters. Rhinos, rhinos, whatever.

• 27:19Speaker 01

  I'm saying, I like that Shannon Elizabeth went to save some rhinos. I like that people are saving one or two animals. But the massive slaughter is the worst karmic disaster in the history of the world. And that, to me, is a focus that, you know, without the kind of compassion that saves one animal, then I guess we won't ever, you know, save them all. Or change the way that we birth them, treat them.

• 27:48Rich Roll?

  How do you, how do you think that you can most effectively get mainstream culture to remove this blind spot and get to actually, you know, understand what is going on on a fundamental kind of legislative, regulatory, and commercial level with respect to how we're raising animals for food? Because it's systemic. Like, we can all go vegan, and certainly that is the most powerful thing that we can do as an individual on an individual basis to correct this horrific wrong.

• 28:16Speaker 01

  I mean, do things like the Happy Vegan.

• 28:18Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 28:18Speaker 01

  My daughter thinks my books are very simple. They're just so simple. She laughs at them. My last book, she was 11, she read it about meditation, said it was remedial at best. This book is no more highbrow than that. It's simple. You can read it. I relied heavily on the, the damage that the factory farming industry is doing. It's an indictment of the factory farming industry in America. And, and it's a threat to your, your personal well-being. Aside from it talking about the karma, and aside from it talking about the destruction of the planet, all those things that are, are very real reasons to go vegan, most people...

• 29:01Speaker 01

  Don't want heart disease. And if you're 20 years old or older and you're an African American woman, it seems like you're 50% likely to have some kind of heart disease. That should be, that should be enough for some people. They're afraid for their life and they're disconnected from the suffering. They don't believe the earth is going to stop spinning. It won't, but people won't be on it, but that's a different subject. They don't believe in those things. They don't really, that doesn't touch them. But going to the doctor and getting a bunch of new pills and getting really sick is what touches them.

• 29:35Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 29:35Speaker 01

  So the book relies a lot on that as a way to transform the lives of the people who read it.

• 29:42Rich Roll?

  Yeah, and we were talking a little bit before the podcast. I mean, I read the book the other day. It's a very easy read and it's very, it's very extremely digestible, right? So anybody could pick this book up, read it, you know, pretty quickly and completely understand where you're coming from and also walk away with, you know, really practical tools and advice for how to make those changes. I don't know if you know this, but in the back where you have a list of cookbooks, you listed our cookbook, so I have you to thank for that. I appreciate that. Thanks a lot. But anyway, yeah, I think it, I think it has the potential and the power to really impact a lot of people. And for that, you know, I'm grateful that you've written the book and my hope is that, you know, millions and millions of people read it.

• 30:24Rich Roll?

  But as someone who kind of navigates the highest, you know, upper echelons of culture and business, you know, when you're rubbing elbows with policymakers and CEOs, et cetera, it seems like, you know, the book is an effort from the bottom down to raise that awareness and, and, and help people make that change. But how do we approach the problem from the top down?

• 30:46Speaker 01

  Well.

• 30:46Rich Roll?

  With the people that are really, you know, responsible for policy.

• 30:51Speaker 01

  You get people like Bernie Sanders.

• 30:55Speaker 01

  And they'd say things, and everybody says, "Oh yeah, well, what good is having him as president? I'll never get the shit done." Everybody should have healthcare. Everybody should have a two-year education for free. Everybody should, you know, we should, you know, raise the minimum wage dramatically. We should force people to have jobs on shore. We should tax corporations at a reasonable rate. We should help, we should not let the one-tenth of one percent get all the money. We should have some distributed amongst the poor. These ideas. We should stop global warming. Stop allowing them to waste our resources on building out these cows and, you know, and other animals.

• 31:40Speaker 01

  But, you know, when you have leaders who have big voices, like a president, who says things, whether the lobbyists have every senator or congressman in their pocket or not, there comes a time when a Republican congressman stops saying, "There's no man-made global warming." There comes a time when the people are educated on one subject or another, so much so that you can't say that shit anymore. You back away from the lobbyists, like, "I'm not fucking with you. What you're telling me to say is going to ruin my career. Your money can't even get me in office if I repeat what you're messaging." NRA convinced America they need guns. It's different. They got a little platform. Convinced people that the president's trying to take their guns away.

• 32:25Speaker 01

  They got a, you know, good little campaign going. People believe this shit. You see the president, but they're not wrong when they say the president wants to take guns. I thought it was so funny. He says, "Michelle and I were riding, and Michelle said, 'I lived all the way out here in the woods somewhere. I lived by myself. I think I'd want a shotgun.'" Uh huh. He didn't say, "Yes, honey, that's a good idea." He just didn't say anything. Uh huh. And what he really would like is to take everybody's assault weapon first.

• 32:52Speaker 01

  And then their rifle, then their pistol. He would like it, they're not already, you know, you're right when you say the president would like to take all your guns. He wouldn't be wrong. He'd be like every other country that has good sense. But they have been convinced and he's not gonna be able to do it. Just all he did was try to enforce what laws we do have. And they still they're crying about it, bitch ass. It's unbelievable that they're so powerful. Lobbies run this country. We have to get rid of Citizens United. Two candidates, both outsiders of saying how bad Citizens United is. One who used to be my friend has said one of the most horrific things I can't imagine. I hope he wins the nomination. It's Trump.

• 33:36Speaker 01

  He said the best thing on stage, one good thing. I always watch him, entertaining as shit until he's president. But he said, he stood in the middle, he says, you know, money corrupts good people. He looked around the podium like, and all of the candidates looked like little girls with miniskirts that should have longer skirts on. And all looked like whores. And I was sad, but it was true. He said, but I was glad that someone said it and it was funny that Trump was the one to say it. Bernie Sanders, of course, exudes that freedom, gets his money from underserved community members, stands up for them and tells the truth in regards to the lobby and some of the subjects that we care about.

• 34:15Rich Roll?

  Right. I mean, I think the first step is we have to change, eradicate, if not seriously change, campaign finance. Because about that, you know, that changes the landscape with lobbying and everything.

• 34:26Speaker 01

  This is a funny story. I, along with Dennis Kucinich, wrote a constitutional amendment that we introduced that was ratified by Occupy. It was the only thing Occupy, Wall Street ever all agreed on. And then we took it and I spoke it to Progressive Caucus. They said, great idea. Nancy Pelosi was like, this is fantastic. Passed around an amendment, written really nicely, really simply. Legal issues around, you know, campaign finance regarding public funding. It had to be written in such a way that, you know, so it was done. And all Democrats said, yeah, I want to do it. None of them really want to do.

• 35:09Speaker 01

  Nobody. Nobody wants a fair shot. I'm already congressman. Fuck them give a fair shot away. I've been in Congress 22 years. You think I want my competitor to have to gain as much finance as I do? Everyone might my guarantee shoe in shit.

• 35:24Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 35:25Speaker 01

  So, nobody wants that. Not even Democrats, no Republicans, nobody.

• 35:29Rich Roll?

  They want it theoretically, but they don't want it to impact their personal trajectory.

• 35:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, everybody wants it theoretically. Everybody wants people have a fair chance, you know, and ideas to win and the people to give the ideas that fuel that they need to actually get executed.

• 35:43Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm. So, yeah, I mean, so, you know, as somebody who, like, I, I, I'm trying to like encapsulate your life and think about like the, the evolution of like how you went from, you know, basically, you know, kid who's doing a lot of drugs to all this success and kind of where you're at now. And, and, you know, I kind of analogize it to, you know, taking the red pill in the matrix. When you start to wake up and you raise your consciousness and you start to become more and more aware of how like all of these systems function. And your responsibility as somebody who, you know, is a leader and a, and, and, you know, a public figure to speak to these issues.

• 36:17Speaker 01

  I think a lot of, in my community, if I, if I really call, I have lots of communities, but I mean hip hop community. A lot of the guys are big, big voices. And the next thing you know, they're realize that their voice is so valuable. And by the time their star has diminished and their voice doesn't shine as bright. So therefore now they can't make a difference. All they can do now is be one of the people marching. And before they could organize the march just by calling for it. People have 20, 30, 40 million Facebook followers. People have 25 million Instagram followers.

• 36:58Speaker 01

  It's unbelievable what they could do. Every so often, you get one of them to Instagram something out or tweet something out that matters. And it affects change. So I'm older and I'm still breathing and I'm still, in some cases, my shit travels. So I'm lucky, but you learn when you're older, they all learn something when they're older. It's more than the money they made. Their purpose is higher than the music, the money, the art they exuded. Because now their purpose has enhanced, their ability to execute on everyone's purpose is enhanced. Everyone is here as a servant, everyone else, everything breathes because something else breathed before it.

• 37:41Speaker 01

  Every tree, every bumblebee, every, everything, it's all connected. If God were the ocean, we'd be cups of God. We are all servants of this one big, living, breathing entity.

• 37:52Speaker 01

  You realize that more and more as you become older, for the most part. You can't help it, eventually you realize it. But maybe, you know, maybe some people say over lifetimes. Like say if God were a straight line, you know, God or goodness, you walked this straight line. Yogis refer to choiceless awareness, thy will. Like there's thorns on either side and you're walking. You get out of line, scrape the fuck out your arm. Other side, scrape the fuck out your arm. Eventually you just walk straight. But it doesn't always happen instantly. So you get out of line and shit feels good and you're floating and scrape your arm. You always scrape your arm. And then eventually you learn to walk in order. This is what life, they say that's life's struggle or purpose, is to evolve, to move you towards this,

• 38:37Speaker 01

  this service space where you work with all seven chakras, including taking care of yourself, without feeling selfish. And your purpose is what's in your sahasara, the greatest chakra, this service chakra. But it's because you've taken care of all the other six. Right. It's the idea of non-harming becomes a natural first instinct. Not line, not still, it's the brahmacharya, control of all these. So the first of the eight parts of yoga, the second, the third, for all in order, all together, all of these scriptural.

• 39:12Speaker 01

  Recipes, the science of religion, the sciences of the same one God told by many prophets over and over again in different languages, in different colors. You find out these things are true as you move more and more. So, I don't know how the fuck the Pope can tell you a woman can't preach. They're not quite sure about, not judging, but not sure about gays. But he doesn't know what dominion over the animals is. He hasn't said shit about the animals. How the fuck, did you not read the Bible?

• 39:46Rich Roll?

  Well, I feel like dominion of, over the animals is completely misconstrued and misunderstood.

• 39:51Speaker 01

  By them, if they say it's okay to...

• 39:53Rich Roll?

  Well, dominion, I mean, what is that, what's the definition of that word? What does that mean? I mean, I, for me, like, I read that as a responsibility to tend and take care of.

• 40:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:02Rich Roll?

  It doesn't mean to, to dominate in the sense of, of destroy.

• 40:07Speaker 01

  No, it doesn't mean that at all. And no one can really actually make a case for that. All they could do is like brush over it, act like it didn't have, like never heard it. And that's what they're doing, they're being sent, they're being, um, quiet on the issue because it's something that just read it quickly and forget about it. And it kind of plays into just take advantage, but you don't want to say it because it sounds stupid to say it. You know it's better than that, you know better than that. So it's an interesting discussion, um, how religious people can have right in their scripture one thing and then do something totally different. Um, it's a reality we have in all religions. Um, now I'm thinking the Pope is such an enlightened person for most part would say that.

• 40:50Rich Roll?

  What do you, what was going on with you that attracted you to this yogi path in the beginning? Like what, what brought you into this?

• 40:59Speaker 01

  I went, I told you the same reason you went, girls. Just us and girls, full class. That's where it starts. Sixty girls, loud rap music, Steve Ross, right? Played Fuck the Police when we were going to yoga. We loved it, right? That's how we got started. It's amazing we have that same. It's a landing pad. But then I started going to Peaches where they taught yoga sutras, the Bhagavad Gita, the healthy yoga padipa. You had to study the textbook of yoga psychology. If you were there, you were vegan. I mean, it was like this real hardcore yoga place. My gurus helped me. At Chiva Muthi? Yes. My gurus helped me to evolve more by reminding me of what's the truth. And in yoga scriptures as well. Who were those gurus? Sharon and David at Chiva Muthi.

• 41:42Speaker 01

  So they, they really were removers of darkness, right? Guru, the meaning of guru. So they were great for that. And then I decided I liked hot vinyasa. So now I'm always in these, these places that are like gyms sometimes. You know, they're just hot. Like Steve's class, but you know, gets hot anyway, but not at a hundred and five degrees. So I go to those classes all the time. I'm building a yoga studio. Yeah, I read about that. It's called Tantrus? Tantrus. Tantrus, yeah. Where's that gonna be? It's gonna be at the entrance of the Soul House. Oh, wow. You know, if I taught Oprah through, through Barbara to meditate, and if I taught Ellen DeGeneres through Barbara to meditate, if I pushed these people with big mouths to meditate, they pushed millions.

• 42:24Speaker 01

  And that is an amazing, that's why I say about the big picture. So imagine if I have my tantrus and it's there, the entrance where Sotheby's is, 9200 Sunset, and that's tantrus. And that's where we're gonna build out. It'll look like a temple. Is that gonna be on the, which floor is that gonna be? It's gonna be on the ground floor. All the clothes and the juice bar, you know, green juice bar. I even gonna have a dry bar. Cause I mean, not that I have a girlfriend, it's probably fruitless, but I used to like take girls to yoga on top and they would say, no, I can't go because my hair be fucked up. And so now I'm gonna put a dry bar. How many girls can't go to hot yoga? You probably, you have a girlfriend, but if you didn't and you invited a girl, you'd say, I don't know, my hair?

• 43:08Speaker 01

  A dry bar is the answer. So I'm gonna have a dry bar, a juice bar. Clothing and you go upstairs, there'll be three hot rooms. Probably two hot rooms and one room that can be hot. You know, in case I wanna have.

• 43:19Rich Roll?

  So you can go to yoga.

• 43:20Speaker 01

  And they all open up.

• 43:20Rich Roll?

  You can get your blow dry and then go up to Soho House afterwards.

• 43:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, you could if you're a member. inclusive they are. But I went, you know, and I feel like it'll be a school of yogic science or a center for yogic science. And I want to play Krishna Das and Kanye West. And I'm gonna give people, and I always say, Steve, why don't you fucking teach? Our first teacher, why don't you teach? You're deeply studied. You're a raw foodist for 40 years. Why don't you say, not preachy, just say, share with people something about the path. What are the eight parts of yoga? It's a science for happiness. Why can't you share that? People are happy in his class without him saying nothing.

• 44:04Rich Roll?

  Right, and I feel like it's interesting because he seems to take a lot of heat for being sort of this like, oh, you know, rock and roll yoga where you don't, he doesn't really teach at all. And what most people don't realize that he is one of the most practiced yogis that I've ever met. The way that that guy lives his lifestyle is like true blue and he is an incredible font of knowledge.

• 44:25Speaker 01

  Eckhart Tolle lived in this nigga's backyard.

• 44:27Rich Roll?

  I went and heard Eckhart Tolle speak before he blew up and was on Oprah. He came to, Steve had him come and talk at Maha. And there were like 20 people there. No one was there before anybody who was there.

• 44:39Speaker 01

  I gave it Oprah.

• 44:40Rich Roll?

  So.

• 44:41Speaker 01

  How about that?

• 44:41Rich Roll?

  You were the guy, so you're.

• 44:43Speaker 01

  I gave the book to Oprah.

• 44:44Rich Roll?

  That's interesting.

• 44:45Speaker 01

  She tried to say that Goldie Hawn gave it to her. I was like, you know, I know. And Oprah's like, my, my girl, she actually let me talk about him last time we were on, I was on a show. I said, I didn't get, a blonde woman didn't give you the book. I know it's your audience, but I gave you a book, a hip hop nigga. I didn't say nigga because Oprah. But a hip hop guy gave you that book. She says, I don't know, Goldie Hawn gave it to me. Helen Hunt was always there, right?

• 45:05Rich Roll?

  Right, that's right.

• 45:06Speaker 01

  And, but in all fairness, all the people she said gave it to her as well all went to Steve's class too, so.

• 45:13Rich Roll?

  Interesting.

• 45:14Speaker 01

  But I think I gave it to her first because she looked totally, when I gave it to her, me, her and Gail, having lunch, having early dinner at Chipper Yanni's, I gave her the power of now. And the next thing I know, you know, she was blowing him up. So maybe she got it for more than one person. I gave it to her first. Tell her that all the time. And we laugh about it.

• 45:34Rich Roll?

  Why do you, why do you think that Steve is reluctant to impart his knowledge, though?

• 45:39Speaker 01

  Because there are different roles for different people, maybe. Maybe Steve finds it to be preachy. But I see people in the class, although they're not stuck. They've been going to the class for 20 years. They have not even read the Yoga Sutras. They've never considered that this idea of smile and breathe in every pose. Right? This idea of the physical asana is just to, just to gain an asana, a seat in life. To be comfortable in your seat and operate from that space is yoga's goal. So to say it now and then in different ways is okay to me, but not to him.

• 46:24Speaker 01

  So people, I, I see people evolve because Steve introduced them to yoga, many, many, many people. But I, in terms of their interest in the knowledge about yoga or about yogic science. But I see people who just go to the class. It's a workout. They do it regularly. They might as well go to Pilates.

• 46:44Rich Roll?

  Right. I feel like on some level, though, it's also kind of an evolved perspective that he has. Because he understands that if you, that if that seed gets planted, that you'll go on your own journey with it. Like you have, like I have.

• 46:56Speaker 01

  He gave me a copy of the Yoga Sutras.

• 46:57Rich Roll?

  Right. So if you, like, if you solicit that, he will give it to you. But if you're like, is my leg in the right place in this position? He'll just say, you're fine. Because he understands, like, he's past that.

• 47:06Speaker 01

  He's only gonna adjust you if you're a girl.

• 47:08Rich Roll?

  That's true, too.

• 47:09Speaker 01

  I think he's never put his hand on me. I don't want his hands on me, but he has never adjusted me, ever. He adjusts 800 girls per class and never adjusted me in 22 years.

• 47:26Rich Roll?

  So, let's talk about meditation for a little bit. This is something you've been doing for 30 or 40 years.

• 47:32Speaker 01

  I'm not looking to get touched, in case Steve listens.

• 47:33Rich Roll?

  Alright.

• 47:34Speaker 01

  I'm just happy it's funny.

• 47:35Rich Roll?

  I don't know if Steve's listening to you, but Steve, we love you.

• 47:36Speaker 01

  Can we get some green juice? That shit must be poisoned from last time I was here, right? I just wanted one. Oh, word? Oh, good, I want one. Okay.

• 47:44Rich Roll?

  As somebody who's been... How long you been meditating? 30 years?

• 47:47Speaker 01

  No.

• 47:48Rich Roll?

  How long you been doing this?

• 47:49Speaker 01

  20 years.

• 47:50Rich Roll?

  20 years.

• 47:51Speaker 01

  I've been meditating probably 18 years.

• 47:52Rich Roll?

  Right, and if you had to encapsulate the benefits of meditation in your life, like, how would you articulate that?

• 48:00Speaker 01

  My name is Rush. I like my quiet time every day. Love it. Love it. It's self-reflection, it's personal. You get a chance to watch your life. If you ought to be in moving meditation at all times, or if you were to find a second of pure stillness in meditation, it's such an enlightening thing. A joke would happen. Everything goes away but the giggle if you get the future in the past. Meditation is to get hundreds of thoughts out of your mind, slow them down to four, or five, or eight, or 10, or 12, or whatever it is. Or maybe one thought, your mantra.

• 48:44Speaker 01

  This idea of quieting the mind, or rebooting the mind, has so many benefits, it's unbelievable. It's like now, it's not just, you know, the Buddhists and scriptures, and it's not just be still and know, it's not just a bunch of rigmarole from all the prophets all the time, it's not just that crap. It's Science Journal. It backs up what they've been doing for thousands of years. It changes the way the brain functions. It grows the gray matter in the brain. It connects the left and the right side of the brain. And it, you know, and that leads to better immune system, better memory, better, you know, able to, you know, function and live longer and it does all these things for you.

• 49:29Speaker 01

  So now you know through science that what they've been promising you is good, is really good. So that's like, how could you not want to do that?

• 49:37Rich Roll?

  Right, and I feel like, I feel like meditation is having a big moment right now. Like it's really kind of burst onto the mainstream because of all these scientific studies that are coming up with all of this information that you just spoke to. And I think that people intellectually understand all of this and yet they can't get over that hump or they just say, you know, I'm just too busy, like I get it, but it's just never going to happen.

• 50:00Speaker 01

  Nama Rishi had a great quote.

• 50:01Rich Roll?

  Very few people are as busy as you are, so.

• 50:03Speaker 01

  I think I do more and I do less. I meditate every single day. I don't give a fuck if I was negotiating between Putin and Obama, some great deal that had to get done and I was the mediator. If my last class of yoga today was going to close, I like to be with people, I like to do it. If that class wasn't going to happen because I'm stuck with these two niggas, I would leave them and say, y'all fix it yourself. I would not miss my yoga class at any time and I would not miss my morning meditation. So first chakra first, and I think I'm a better servant because of it and I don't make exceptions if I can help it. I mean, I've been on planes.

• 50:41Rich Roll?

  This is priority.

• 50:42Speaker 01

  It's stuck on planes and miss yoga. It's happened, but not possible. If it's possible to get there, in any city, no matter where I travel, I find yoga. And no matter where I travel, I sit in the space. I don't think you need to go anywhere to meditate. I don't need to go to an ashram, I sit in my bed, I sit up straight, I meditate. But the point I make is that I don't miss taking care of myself and those two things are part of my. You know, taking care of myself.

• 51:08Rich Roll?

  And what does a meditation protocol for you look like? Is like Vedic or TM? Like what kind of?

• 51:13Speaker 01

  TM.

• 51:14Rich Roll?

  Yeah, TM.

• 51:14Speaker 01

  What kind of TM? I'm on the board. I love it to give it to students. I gave away a mass mantra in my book, which I know is, you know, everybody's mantra is secret. And TM, the one I paid $2,500 for, no one knows. I paid for the motherfucker and it's my secret and I do use it.

• 51:30Rich Roll?

  Who taught you?

• 51:32Speaker 01

  Bob Roth. I bet you gave a lot of niggas the same mantra, but it's okay.

• 51:36Rich Roll?

  No one will know because you can't say it.

• 51:38Speaker 01

  Everybody's vibration is different. He can, I don't know how these monks or teachers, and I always call Steve, I always call my guy a monk. Bob Roth, the guy I sent to Oprah, the guy I sent to everybody, like Russell Brown, that guy? He's like, he eats lunch, his last meal is at two o'clock. So the sun's fires and digestive system and I said, how'd that come to that? He said, well, it's in our very science. But how did you come to do it? I came to do it. Like when you know what's right, you eventually start doing more and more of what's right. Till one day it becomes your routine. He lives like a, I mean, he's a monk. He hasn't had sex in 38 years. Are you fucking kidding me? And so he, and he said, not interested. He laughed, he gets a little shy. I said, you gay? You wanna fuck me?

• 52:21Speaker 01

  No, no, no, Russ, I'm not interested in, are you kidding me? It's the last thing I wanna do. You wanna fuck a girl? Not really, no. You wanna meet a girl? Not really, no, not interested. He's like a monk for real.

• 52:31Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 52:32Speaker 01

  Bob Roth, who runs the Maharishi Institute or David Lynch Foundation is a beautiful, beautiful person. He taught Ellen to meditate. They call him Meditation Bob in these circles, like Katy Perry and all of them. Then he taught Ellen, what's her name? You know, Gwyneth Paltrow, all these like celebrities. And I understood intellectually, I understand how it is that I get a place at the table some places because I sell ideas to it, a big picture. But I don't get that an enlightened person would buy into the big picture in a stupid way that I do. That's why I said, I kinda think it's weird that I don't like one animal, but I like a lot. I care for a lot of animals.

• 53:14Speaker 01

  Cause you should like, one, your compassion should be small or big and it should not matter. But I think being effective matters. So teaching Oprah or putting me at the head of the table to ask me if I wanna host a party for His Holiness the Dalai Lama. I said, my house? Yeah, I love hosting parties. I don't give a fuck, yeah, please, great. So twenty five hundred dollars, no. Twenty five thousand or something, no. Twenty five thousand dollars, no. If it's birthday party, it's somebody else. It's honored to have it, I am too. Twenty five thousand, no. I didn't want to do it. I don't like, sometimes I feel unworthy. I got three proclamations Sunday. Sunday. I put these things on my wall.

• 53:57Speaker 01

  I have them all over my house, these awards. People, other people do the work, I get the award. Peace Week. Erica Ford does Peace Week. And every year, I host, through Rush Card, I host the Mothers for the Deceased. Beautiful dinner in Queens. Served them vegan food. Amidulou Diallo's mother, example. So many mothers who've lost their children through violence. A greater number through police violence are in this group than I would have thought. Because I know it's a lot of kids killed themselves, but it was a greater number. And I realized, wow. You know, there is a great percentage of these kids.

• 54:40Speaker 01

  Anyway, they had have, they've been very, very successful. The I Love My Life, Life Camp program. And I support it, and I support that dinner. I got three proclamations. State councilman, the state senator, you know. If I'm getting all these awards for it, these people are doing all this work. All I do is support it, tweet about it, and raise the money, and give the money. So I got my shit, and I, I don't devalue it. I still like the proclamations, more than the gold records. But I realize it's just playing a role next to the person who's doing the work. God favors those who are doing the work, I'm sure, over those who are just, you know, hi, I'm Bill Gates, I gave, they'd probably like him too.

• 55:23Speaker 01

  I gave a hundred billion dollars, whatever the fuck he gave. But the guy in the jungle, administering a drug, saving an animal, the person, the whatever, the guy who's struggling and giving, you know, with, with purpose. He's favored, for sure. If there's like, you know, if there's that kind of God.

• 55:42Rich Roll?

  Boots on the ground, hand to hand service.

• 55:45Speaker 01

  You know what it is, boots on the ground, some shit. That's Simone, what's wrong with her? She be out there holding dead animals and shit, laying inside plastic, blood all over, looking like a piece of meat, naked. I walked in it, I was like, really? You know, I'm not doing that. But, you know, I fund it if she wants to go get naked, cover herself in plastic in 100 degree weather, lay there in the street. Picture one around the world.

• 56:10Rich Roll?

  It goes back to all voices, you know?

• 56:13Speaker 01

  All voices, exactly.

• 56:14Rich Roll?

  We need a happy vegan and we do need the angry vegan.

• 56:17Speaker 01

  I'm going to meditation, I'm going to yoga. I'm gonna go sit up in that theater, that expensive theater with the big seats and watch.

• 56:23Rich Roll?

  You're gonna go crossroads.

• 56:25Speaker 01

  Go to Crossroads, you know what I mean? While she's out there laying in blood.

• 56:28Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 56:29Speaker 01

  Laying in blood is probably better.

• 56:32Rich Roll?

  As someone who's walking this path of ahimsa, no harm, you know, how has this?

• 56:39Speaker 01

  Affected by Shelltoe Adidas? For instance?

• 56:43Rich Roll?

  I like that.

• 56:43Speaker 01

  I wanna call them niggas. I think it's time they can, they haven't given me any money. They just redid Pharrell's deal. His red Shelltoes, I wear them, they're red, but they're leather. And I wanna see if it's time now. Can I?

• 56:55Rich Roll?

  We need more cool vegan shoes, that's for sure.

• 56:59Speaker 01

  Say that to Adidas. We're gonna call Adidas right after we get up there.

• 57:01Rich Roll?

  That should be something you should look into and solve.

• 57:04Speaker 01

  I wanna speak to whoever the boss boss is. I don't know, he is.

• 57:08Rich Roll?

  I mean, how do you do that as somebody?

• 57:10Speaker 01

  That was the predecessor before the predecessor could remember, whatever, the guy back could remember that the song saved their life and these Shelltoes saved their company. And we can make these vegan and I can brand them and I can give the money to charity. And I want them to do that.

• 57:24Rich Roll?

  That's like a no brainer.

• 57:26Speaker 01

  It's a no brainer. Costs them nothing, it's additional. I see too many old motherfuckers walking around in Shelltoes. I was hanging out with Marla, right now I'm promoting. In the movie. Yeah, right. Marla Wayans, Tyrese, the other Wayans who was having the baby with my niece Vanessa. All of us were sitting around in white on white Shelltoes. What the fuck? I thought that we, you know, I was like, old people still buy sneakers and we buy, a lot of us buy Shelltoes. And young people be rocking Shelltoes. My daughter, Rita Ora made some new Shelltoes. I want these niggas to give money.

• 58:04Rich Roll?

  All right. All right, so this path of ahimsa, like, how has this in the long term, like, impacted your relationships? And how has it influenced how you parent your kids?

• 58:19Speaker 01

  I make my kids read my books and write reports on them. I don't do shit. No, no, my. Trapper. No, no, my ex-wife makes my kids read my books. Uh huh. And do reports on them. But she has, um, alligator Birkin back. She gets everything I want to teach my kids. She teaches them what she wants to teach them. They're A students, they're great people. They, they want, one of them wants to run Goldman Sachs. And so that's why she's in a certain boarding school because she wanted to go there when she was 11 because that's where her plan was. And she's inspired to do that. The other one, I sent her to boarding school with her. Because she had 200,000 Instagram followers, she just turned the shit on.

• 59:02Speaker 01

  My mother's famous and she's in Beverly Hills and like, you know what, you can go take your ass to that country too and go to boarding school. The mother doesn't want me to tell what country they're in. No one's gonna go to that country and kidnap them. But I'm not gonna say, but they're in a boarding school, a great boarding school. And it's good for, if you want to be in Goldman Sachs and it's good if you don't want to be a Beverly Hills brat. Mm hmm. Anyway, but they're in a good boarding school, they have to wash their own clothes. Uh huh. And are your, are your daughters vegan or no? No. No, they're not. No, they're not. But at least they're not eating American meat. Uh huh. Their mother is very conscious of what American poison they serve them because their mother and their stepfather, stepfather read my book, he reads my books, he's a good friend.

• 59:45Speaker 01

  You know, he isn't, he called me, he says, you know what, I just read Beef Gives You Cancer. I said, you read my fucking book? He's, yeah, but none of the scientific study. I said, I was quoting scientific studies. It's like, you know, people like, your friends don't believe you. Her husband, Tim, is my friend. Yeah. And he's like, yeah, all right, Russell, you and your happy vegan shit. You know, probably, he's probably a conservative, but never talked politics for me. And he's very sweet, he's like one of those guys, you know, measured. Cause he runs Goldman Sachs Asia. He's brilliant, smart, good influence on my kids in many ways. But, you know.

• 1:00:20Speaker 01

  We almost got in a fight with some Albanians in, on, we were on vacation together. I was on his boat. He's about to blow up their car. He's not a joke. He's smart, strong, German guy, like, you know, straight, straight Arnold Schwarzenegger type nigga. Great, my kids love him. He's loving, he's hardworking, he's family first. But he's a, you know, he's a different guy to me. So he read my book, good book hustle, I like the way he asked, he gave me notes, everything. But then when he read it in somewhere else, he tells me what I said, it's in my book. And it just reminded me how friends, how friends respond to you. I can't make none of my friends do shit.

• 1:00:56Rich Roll?

  No, it's interesting, yeah. It doesn't work that way.

• 1:00:59Speaker 01

  Your close friends are like, fuck you.

• 1:01:00Rich Roll?

  No, they don't listen to me, yeah, yeah.

• 1:01:02Speaker 01

  Oprah, I get her to meditate. Well, Kamara made my kids sit still with me for two years. She'd walk in the room where we'd meditate every morning before school. And if she catches one of them with their eyes open, they're in trouble. If she catches one of them giggling and playing, she's in trouble. Sit your ass fucking down. And when they sit down, they would disappear. But if she walked in and they weren't, just do it again. Kamara, just make them meditate. She would make them do, and I always worried they'll do what she does, which is not bad, it's just different, instead of what I, what she says. Well, that's bad, what she does. Some things she does, it's just the way of the world. She has all the best bags, all the best stuff.

• 1:01:44Speaker 01

  She's a high-end fashion designer, she has a shop on Beverly. And she makes beautiful, expensive stuff. And my daughter's like, they want this scarf. So I take her to buy this scarf, I can't say no to nothing, because I'm the dad who doesn't even live there, so fuck you. So they live in another country in boarding school. So when they come home, and daddy takes them shopping, I took them through Soho, I showed them all this beautiful shit. There was these like, these handmade, beautiful silken cotton scarf with Oms all over them, it looked real fashion-y, right? And they were really nice. You've probably seen these kind of things, but not, not this fabric, it was beautiful. They're like forty dollars. Really nice. I don't think they were handmade, I mean, they were really sweet.

• 1:02:25Speaker 01

  I go on Chanel, I see a little bullshit scarf made out of fake, cheap-ass fabric. It's like twelve hundred dollars. She said, Daddy, this is the one I want. I collect Chanel scarves. So I got her a Chanel scarf. I took her out in the street, and I bought her a piece of jewelry. From one of the vendors in the street.

• 1:02:42Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:02:43Speaker 01

  That she wears to this day. It's very beautiful. And that was handmade. And it cost nothing. And you could walk in, you know, her maze and buy a little piece of plastic shit to wrap around your wrist. The shit is five hundred dollars. It's unbelievable, what branding can do.

• 1:03:02Speaker 01

  And the way it affects people and how people buy into it and why they buy, I don't know why all. Sometimes the quality of shit is good. Come on, I have some sweater and I like touching it. We went to the movie, she had brought the theater out for Ming's birthday. Had all of her friends from school, ex-friends from school come. I went, but my girlfriend. It was fun. We watched that movie with the three girls. Not that good, like the grown up version of Project X. What was it called, Girls? You know, Simone.

• 1:03:31Rich Roll?

  Girlfriends?

• 1:03:32Speaker 01

  No, they just now came out. Sisters.

• 1:03:35Rich Roll?

  Oh, sister, yeah.

• 1:03:36Speaker 01

  It's like a grown version of a, of a Project X. It was, it was pretty bad, but it was funny moments throughout the whole thing. It wasn't for old Project X people, it was crazy. But anyway, we went there. And she had this like coat scarf. And I touched it, what the fuck is this? And who makes this? She said, you don't know. She said, it costs more than your car.

• 1:03:58Speaker 01

  Because Kimora is really rich. She said, it costs more than your car asshole. Should know. And, and my girlfriend said, that should know. It was a particular kind of a coat that's like a scarf or whatever the fuck. I don't know if it costs more than my car, but it was nice enough that I touched it like, wow, that's nice. She said, get your paws off it. So, anyway.

• 1:04:18Rich Roll?

  All right, yeah.

• 1:04:19Speaker 01

  What do you think about that, the branding thing?

• 1:04:21Rich Roll?

  Well, I think it's incredibly powerful. On some level, people want to pay more. You know, they want to be associated with a certain mark, you know, a certain label because that, you know, says something about who they are and where they stand in the world. So psychologically, I think it's really complicated, you know? Look, you're, you're a master marketer. Like you, you understand this, how this works?

• 1:04:42Speaker 01

  But it's just, it's, I mean, but you know, I, like my clothing, I, I moved them to pennies. I do, I'm telling you, moving your clothes from pennies to Macy's, from Macy's, there is a moment where there's a certain thing you have to, you, quality wise, that you have to figure your way around or don't make something. Or something you can't make. But that's a different, those two price points are, you know, not dramatically different, but there's a real difference. So in the shirt, the construction of a certain shirt at a certain moment. Certain argyle sweater can't have as many colors it will cost. There's a moment. But the moment between, you know, the $1,200 scarf and a $200 scarf doesn't exist that I'm aware of.

• 1:05:24Rich Roll?

  How do you?

• 1:05:25Speaker 01

  But I want to serve as pennies because I want to make the same quality for Macy's and put in pennies.

• 1:05:29Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:05:30Speaker 01

  Which in most part is what I'm doing and I'm going to ship 300 stores in next month.

• 1:05:34Rich Roll?

  Are all the garments that you make vegan? Like, how do you reconcile, like, being a vegan?

• 1:05:39Speaker 01

  I don't have any leather clothes.

• 1:05:40Rich Roll?

  In commerce at that level?

• 1:05:41Speaker 01

  I don't have any leather.

• 1:05:42Rich Roll?

  Ultimately compromises.

• 1:05:43Speaker 01

  I don't make anything that's non-vegan. I wear leather Adidas, I'm calling them now, like we said. I don't really make, well, I wear leather coats because they're too blatant and obvious.

• 1:05:55Speaker 01

  I don't, and I don't like them. And, you know, like, people get mad because, like, my book, they said I ate fish off my friend's plate sometimes or I cheated or whatever. Like, a lot of animal rights people, like, fuck you, you're already vegan, leave me alone, I don't care what you think. And I did eat fish off my friend's plate. I don't know if I got mercury poisoning, a little bit I ate off their plate, but, you know, I did.

• 1:06:20Speaker 01

  And so I wrote a letter and said, I vote chicken and fish, no, I don't eat chicken off people's plate. And in the beginning of the year, I go complete, like, I'm more of a monk. Toward the end of the year, I start lighting up, having a glass of red wine, doing dumb shit. All the way to New Year's Eve, I act a fucking fool. But mostly, I live a very straight life. And, like, I probably won't have, I won't probably eat fish off somebody's plate till August. Who knows when the fuck I'll do that? I mostly don't do these things. But I like people, you know, it's accessible, I'm real, we fall off the wagon, we get back on it, this stuff. I want people to be able to digest this message and not feel threatened by it.

• 1:07:00Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I think what happens is, is people find a reason to disconnect from it because they just find it to be so inaccessible or impossible. Like, there's no way I could live my life that monastically, so I'm not even going to try.

• 1:07:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, so the absolute is not always easy. I do believe, though, like, I'm always going to pick in a day and say, I'm not going to do this after that day. I'm not going to have one instead of two, I'm not going to have one cigarette instead of two, that's just stupid to me. Some people are good at weaning themselves off bad ideas. I mostly get rid of them.

• 1:07:35Rich Roll?

  What do you think is the biggest misconception about you? That you'd like to correct?

• 1:07:42Speaker 01

  I don't think there's any misconceptions. I'm so transparent, people probably know I'm a piece of shit in ways that I am. That I'm a servant in ways that I am, you know, whatever. I mean,

• 1:07:54Speaker 01

  I don't know, I really don't know.

• 1:07:56Rich Roll?

  You don't know.

• 1:07:56Speaker 01

  Well, I look at black blogs and say, do I hate my mother? Because I'm dating this blonde girl, right? And she said she was twenty, but she's actually twenty-eight. Said she was forty years younger than me, but she's actually thirty years younger than me. Anyway, what was interesting is, I could date, like, I date, I have dated anything. Only dates white women. Doesn't like himself, you know, I mean, I've seen that lately. That was yesterday, that's why I noticed, anyway, yesterday. But, I mean, I love everybody. I really like all kinds of people. I love diversity, I'm interested in, Mr. Farrakhan is my second father and I work to fight antisemitism for a living. I don't have a point, I'm not an angry liberal.

• 1:08:40Speaker 01

  Roger Ailes is my friend. I believe he believes himself. I don't believe a word he says. I try to tell him why I believe what I believe. I let people be. That's not a misconception, everybody wants me to be on their side. If they know me and if I'm working for them in some capacity, they say, why don't I just be on their side? Why would I say I cheat when I'm vegan? Why would I say, you know, people get disappointed that, they say, why would you go on Fox News? I say, well, you know, talk, have an argument with O'Reilly. We don't even yell, he and I, when I, you know, you're feeding them. You know, they're gonna be okay already. They're already a big show. They have more ratings than everybody. Can we give them a, and say it in a way people can digest it? Can we say things in a way that other sides?

• 1:09:26Speaker 01

  The idea of having imams and rabbis talk was a horrible idea at one time. We're doing it in fifty countries. Having imams and synagogues and rabbis in mosques.

• 1:09:37Speaker 01

  I feel like that's the thing. Like, people think that I should be one way or another, and I don't know how to be any of those ways.

• 1:09:47Rich Roll?

  I think it's really interesting that you're able to have these friendships with people that are on, you know, a very different side of the fence from Roger Ailes and this kind of famous relationship that you have with Donald Trump and that kind of...

• 1:09:58Speaker 01

  Head.

• 1:09:59Rich Roll?

  Well, yeah, the viral moment of writing the letter.

• 1:10:01Speaker 01

  I'm not sure. I haven't talked to him.

• 1:10:02Rich Roll?

  Oh, there's been...

• 1:10:02Speaker 01

  I've said a lot of shit, so, yeah.

• 1:10:03Rich Roll?

  Everybody wanted me to ask you if you've talked to him since the letter.

• 1:10:06Speaker 01

  I have not spoken to him.

• 1:10:07Rich Roll?

  You haven't, uh-huh.

• 1:10:07Speaker 01

  And, um, I don't know if he's gonna call me until he wins the nomination. No, until he wins the presidency. He said I'm gonna get 100% of the black vote. That was the best lie I've ever heard. What are you talking about? The blacks, they love me.

• 1:10:19Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:20Speaker 01

  He said that.

• 1:10:21Rich Roll?

  It's interesting. But, I mean, that aside, the fact that you can be friends with people that share a very different point of view, I think is a really kind of powerful thing. And I think it's unusual. People have difficulty understanding how that could possibly be.

• 1:10:34Speaker 01

  They said I'm an asshole for having had a friendship. To me and Reverend Jackson, there's a story in New York Times about our opinions about his statements, and both of them said that's a different Trump than we know. You know, we both said things that were not so bad about him,

• 1:10:51Speaker 01

  attacked his words, but not him. And he said we were both sellouts. Like, if I had been a civil rights activist and had been paid...

• 1:10:57Rich Roll?

  Wait, who said that?

• 1:10:58Speaker 01

  There was a big story on an important black blog. And I say important, like, one of the ones that... Where, you know, it's not a blog, like, gossip. It was like, you know, a news blog. And it was this editorial written about how, it's a perfect example of what sellouts look like and sound like. And it had come from that New York Times article. But I find it's okay. I mean, because a Republican governor was the one that... The most important thing I've ever done is changed the Rockefeller drug laws. Thousands of people came home from jail. It was a Republican governor who signed the bill and gave me the pen because I was friendly with Governor Pataki. And that's, that helped to build a bridge.

• 1:11:40Speaker 01

  And I negotiated between Senator Bruno and Shelley Silva, the deal. I got in trouble with a lobbyist, too. It cost me a lot of money, but that's another subject. But it, it's okay to get along with people you disagree with. In fact, it's critical that we all try to put ourselves in other people's shoes because I believe that we all have the same hopes, desires. You know, we're all inspired by the same kinds of things. We want to love and be loved. And I, and I know that there are some small differences that really exist in us. And that's from socialization or whatever. And, and, and we have to get over those and find the sameness and work on, you know, operating from that space on.

• 1:12:24Speaker 01

  And that's, and that's an important kind of, um, that's a premise to operate from. You know, I think, but it's easy.

• 1:12:31Rich Roll?

  Right, right.

• 1:12:32Speaker 01

  Easier. Life is easier if you decide to love people rather than judge them.

• 1:12:37Rich Roll?

  It's a, it comes from empathy. Like, once you, you develop a capacity or a reservoir for empathy, then you're, you're able to kind of see somebody else's point of view. Even if you don't share it, you can understand it in a certain way that I think like allows you to build a bridge.

• 1:12:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:12:58Speaker 01

  So, the book's The Happy Vegan. It's an easy way out for those who think it's difficult to become vegan. A very easy way out. It also is a little bit about your personal health, a lot about your personal health and how the American factory farming industry is poisoning you. The book could be called The Happy Vegan or The Poisoning of America. There is no one protecting you. The FDA is not protecting you. No one is. And they're giving you food that's causing cancer and heart disease and, and diabetes. And, I mean, there's just a lot of crap that's being fed to us. It's not, and, and so we have to make choices ourselves to save our families.

• 1:13:41Speaker 01

  If we're adults, we want to keep eating the same barbecue beef that if you eat as a 30 protein, is 20 cigarettes a day. That's how much carcinogens you're ingesting. If you want to have 20 cigarettes a day, go right ahead. Shoot yourself in the head if you like. Don't do it to your kids. Don't share, don't say, "I had a hot dog, my kid could have a hot dog." Because your hot dog is different from your kid's hot dog.

• 1:14:07Speaker 01

  So it talks about the compassion issue, which is, I think, a critical one, a karmic disaster. And it talks about this fact that if we keep it up, there won't be an, there won't be an inhabitable planet for human beings very soon. So that, that threat is looming. Your cancer is, is a threat that's looming. And your karma is being destroyed. So let's try to move away from that toward the plant-based diet. And, and become better servants of God if we're God-fearing. Better servants of our community if we love our community, if we feel connected. Let's make that a better mantra. So the book's available. That's it.

• 1:14:47Rich Roll?

  I love it, man. Yeah, one out of every three Americans will die of heart disease by 2030. Fifty percent of Americans will be diabetic or prediabetic. Seventy percent of Americans are obese or overweight. Meanwhile, we're destroying the planet at an unfathomable rate. The amount of water, land, resources required to run our current food system and animal agriculture is reprehensible. It's polluting our oceans at an alarming rate. It's causing species extinction. It's raping the rainforests. And the karmic debt that we're accumulating by this massive slaughter is unjustifiable on every level. And with respect to the healthcare statistics, I imagine that they increase precipitously

• 1:15:32Rich Roll?

  when you look at the African-American population and as you slide down the socioeconomic scale. We're at a crisis point. I think we're also at a very interesting and exciting moment where openness to the vegan movement, to the vegan lifestyle, to trying to live our, our life in a more sustainable sort of, you know, karmically-aligned way has never been, you know, more well-received or, or in vogue. And I, like yourself, share a certain level of optimism for that. And I appreciate your level of advocacy and activism in this arena because you could be doing anything with your free time. And you're making this choice to do this, which I think speaks to you and, and your character. And I think it's awesome to see where this is all going to be heading.

• 1:16:18Speaker 01

  That's a great wrap up. I mean, all that stuff's in the book and all that obvious stuff that you and I discussed and the way you repeated it and wrapped it up is brilliant because it's kind of, you can't argue with that. You know, the argument that's built around, and you said one interesting thing I want to add to, you said that it's becoming in vogue, books like this are becoming more accessible, likely be a Times bestseller, the other ones have. It's likely to be visible in places like Dr. Oz took us on and, you know, everybody's taking us on. So we're all these shows, we're getting this voice out. But we absolutely have to do it. So I think that's why it's in vogue, like you have to do it.

• 1:17:03Speaker 01

  Like, we're gonna fucking die, you know?

• 1:17:06Rich Roll?

  You're gonna be plant-based whether you like it or not, if this planet exists long enough, because we can't continue to feed the planet the way that we're doing it. It just doesn't work any other way.

• 1:17:15Speaker 01

  Doesn't work. Thank you so much for having me on your blog, man. I love talking to like-minded people. You're not angry that I tell you this? I share with you information and you spit it back at me, you know, even more concise. So it's really, really important to, to spread the word and do it the way that they can digest it, because Simone's gonna kick him in the ass. So we'll say it nicely, and Simone, you can kick him in the ass, and that's what... Thank you so much.

• 1:17:41Rich Roll?

  All right, man, thanks. Great to talk to you, Russell. Peace.

• 1:17:44Speaker 01

  That was good.

• 1:17:45Rich Roll?

  Lance.

• 1:17:51Rich Roll?

  All right, everybody, I hope you guys enjoyed that. Like I said, definitely unique. Tyler, what did you think?

• 1:17:56Speaker 03

  Yeah, it was a great, free-forming, kinda cool, eclectic conversation.

• 1:18:01Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I mean, it was a little bit different, a little less straightforward than my typical conversations, but he's so charismatic, he has such a big personality, and I thought it was really engaging. I think there's some good takeaways there. So anyway, I hope you guys enjoyed it. Make sure to make a point of checking out the show notes on the episode page for this week. Lots of links to take your edification and your infotainment beyond the earbuds. And I've got Tyler Pyatt here in the podcast studio. Say hi, Ty.

• 1:18:30Speaker 03

  Hi.

• 1:18:31Rich Roll?

  So Tyler, many of you know, has been my producer. He's my son, my stepson. And I think from day one, pretty much, Tyler has been boots on the ground, the guy who assembles the podcast, week in, week out. The theme music that you hear was performed by Tyler and Harrison, right? I think Harrison actually wrote the theme music.

• 1:18:53Speaker 03

  Yeah, Harry and I, Harry did like the, like the little ditty and then I just did some chords on top of it. We did it in the warehouse, right? Quiet on like the laptop.

• 1:19:02Rich Roll?

  Right, I know. Well, the funny thing about the theme music is that when we first started the podcast, episode one, I went to you guys and I was like, I need, I need some theme music. Can you guys like mock something up? It doesn't have to be perfect, doesn't have to be great. I just need something to get going and we can replace it later. And you guys did it in like an hour and that's still the theme music. And the idea was that I was gonna swap it out with something a little more, you know, you spend a little more time and make something a little more, I don't know, whatever. And it just kind of stuck and to this day, it's still the theme music.

• 1:19:33Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's kind of funny. I, I remember like you've, you've asked me a bunch of times to like, you know, see if I, you know, was inspired to like do more and.

• 1:19:41Rich Roll?

  Nothing ever happened.

• 1:19:42Speaker 03

  Well, actually, I, I, I did, I, I've had a couple of ideas, but funny enough, like they weren't any more like energetic and, and one I just liked, so I just, I wrote a song around it and just.

• 1:19:54Rich Roll?

  Oh, it became a song?

• 1:19:55Speaker 03

  Took it for myself, yeah.

• 1:19:56Rich Roll?

  Oh, well, thanks, man. Yeah, I'm still waiting, you know, for the new theme music. So there's a door wide open for that when you guys can get it together.

• 1:20:04Speaker 03

  Once I record that song, I'll, I'll give it to you.

• 1:20:07Rich Roll?

  All right, cool. So the reason that Tyler is joining me for the outro to this episode is for two different reasons. The first reason is that I just wanted to thank him formally and on air for all the hard work that he's done. Tyler is going to be moving. And we're gonna get into that in a second. But, thank you Tyler. I know that you've been very devoted and dedicated to making sure that this show is could be, you know, the best that it could be. Every week, Tyler's the guy that puts the whole thing together. So, he's gonna be moving on to greener pastures and before he departs, I just wanted to give him a shout out on air and say, "Thank you."

• 1:20:45Speaker 03

  Yeah, thank you. It means a lot.

• 1:20:47Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's been a family affair from, from day one. It's gonna feel weird to have somebody else working on it and I don't know who that person's gonna be yet. I should probably look into that. I'm probably gonna have to edit these myself for a little while until we find somebody to step in and, and take over that responsibility. But, you've done a great job and you're a big part of, you know, this show and the success that it's garnered and it's been great working with you.

• 1:21:13Speaker 03

  Yeah, likewise. Thank you.

• 1:21:15Rich Roll?

  So, Tyler is moving on because first and foremost Tyler is a musician. He is in a band. They just named the band. It's called Anna Lima, A-N-A, and then new word Lima, L-E-I-M-M-A. And that band is comprised of Tyler, who writes songs and performs basically every instrument. Mainly a guitar player, but you play every instrument. And Trapper, who's sitting over in the corner over there, who plays drums. Say, "Hey, Trapper."

• 1:21:45Speaker 03

  Hello.

• 1:21:45Rich Roll?

  How's it going? Trapper was with me for the Russell episode. What did you think of Russell?

• 1:21:50Speaker 03

  He's very charismatic, but he's gonna talk about what he wants to talk about.

• 1:21:54Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it was kinda.

• 1:21:55Speaker 03

  It's, it's kinda the thing where he's, he's just talking and you kinda have to adjust around him.

• 1:22:01Rich Roll?

  Right. And that's the thing, I think, with really charismatic, successful people like that. But, it was fun, right? It was fun to meet him. He was super cool. We hung out and chatted for quite a long time after the podcast and he couldn't have been more engaging and it was a good time. But, anyway, Trapper's the drummer in the band and Harrison Mathis, who's my nephew, is also in the band as well as Dylan Brosnan. And these guys are getting ready to record their first album. They've outfitted our garage and transformed it into- A professional recording studio and they're gonna be recording on 24-track analog. Right, so you have this giant console in the garage that looks like a relic from like Cape

• 1:22:43Rich Roll?

  Canaveral in the 1960s, you know, with the reel-to-reel tapes and the whole thing. It's quite a production. They've been trying to get this whole thing configured and ready for quite some time. And now the day has arrived, so they're going into the studio to do that and that's gonna obviously monopolize all of Tyler's time. These guys are extremely talented. The music is really unique and quite beautiful. I think it's unlike anything you've ever heard. And we're gonna take, we're gonna take the show out today with a demo of one of their songs. It's called "Be Still." I think Tyler would want me to say that it is indeed a demo. This was not recorded in analog, right?

• 1:23:23Speaker 03

  No, this is like, I mean, it is digital. It still sounds good, but yeah, I mean, it's not the, not the final.

• 1:23:29Rich Roll?

  Yeah, not the final, final.

• 1:23:31Speaker 03

  But good enough where we feel, you know, comfortable putting it out and sharing. And yeah, a good reason for like people to sort of start getting involved other than like we are a band, which doesn't really cover anything, like there's no, so we kind of are reviving our pathetic Facebook page and trying to get this.

• 1:23:47Rich Roll?

  I know, you just put a, you're very social media resistant, you know, so you're not exactly engaged online, but now the day has kind of arrived where you kind of have to step into that world a little bit. So they put up a Facebook page. It's facebook.com/anallema.

• 1:24:02Speaker 03

  Music, yeah.

• 1:24:03Rich Roll?

  Anallemamusic, A-N-A-L-E-I-M-M-A music. So check that out. And how would you describe the band and your music?

• 1:24:12Speaker 03

  I would say it is like, sort of like a really candid.

• 1:24:22Speaker 03

  Kind of left of field singer songwriter core, so like Harry and I just write with an acoustic guitar to start most times and and then kind of like building around sort of like a Nick Drakey Neil Youngy type

• 1:24:33Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:24:34Speaker 03

  core, like a lot of atmospheric and ambient touches that are really like, I don't know, we want it to be like forward thinking and very um spatial so that you kind of, I don't know, get it like a vibe and there's a, there's like a setting for the song that's unique and interesting and transporting.

• 1:24:51Rich Roll?

  Right. Yeah, it's sort of, it has a Nick Drake, uh, Bob Dylan vibe, but also very influenced by bands like Radiohead and Grizzly Bear and quite, uh, interestingly, you have Chris from Grizzly Bear who's kind of been mentoring you guys and you're gonna start, another reason why you're, you're stopping with the podcast is you're gonna start, um, working with him on production stuff, right?

• 1:25:14Speaker 03

  Yeah, I'm, yeah, I'm gonna be like, uh, yeah, his like assistant a few days a week, so.

• 1:25:18Rich Roll?

  Right, which is cool.

• 1:25:19Speaker 03

  Start tomorrow morning.

• 1:25:20Rich Roll?

  Yeah, cool. So we're gonna, we're gonna take the show out with Be Still. Um, anything you want to say about this particular song and what it's all about?

• 1:25:29Speaker 03

  Um, let me think. Um, I mean, yeah, this has been an interesting song. It's gone through like a lot of, a lot of changes. Um, and yeah, I mean, it's, it's kind of like, uh, yeah, it, it, this one definitely has kind of more of like a Neil Young thing going on, but, um, yeah, I mean, it's just, it's just kind of about connecting and trying to connect with people and, and having your own kind of inner dialogue about it. It's very impressionistic, so I think people can get whatever they want out of it. Um, and I think just in terms of the emotion, uh, yeah, I mean, it, it's kind of, it's very like melancholic. I think that's sort of a thread that runs through everything I do artistically and,

• 1:26:13Speaker 03

  and yeah, I mean, I mean, hopefully it's like, it's kind of, has a bit of a calm thing to it, but also, you know, still has some edges that we left on it, so. Yeah, I mean, we really hope you like it. I want to give credit to, obviously, my bandmates and also Jimmy Horry, who was a guy that we worked with for a long time, who contributed a lot to this song.

• 1:26:33Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:26:33Speaker 03

  So, hey, Jimmy.

• 1:26:34Rich Roll?

  It's a really beautiful song, and we're gonna play it in a second, but before we do that, a couple of quick announcements. I've got a new video up on the YouTube page. It's called Vegan on $25. It's short, it's fun. Trapper, who's here, helped me out with it, and he appears on screen, too. We had a lot of fun making that video. You can check that out on my YouTube page, just youtube.com/richroll. Add me on Snapchat, I am Richroll, I-A-M Richroll. I'm doing daily little videos there and have a lot of fun with that. Check out Julie's new podcast, Divine Throughline, her spiritual musings on the divine throughline in life, sharing her experience and very musically based. And you just guested on your mom's podcast, too, right?

• 1:27:19Speaker 03

  Yeah, I did, yeah. If you like the first song or want to try something different, there's an acoustic performance I did of another song. It's on our Facebook and on her Facebook and Twitter.

• 1:27:31Rich Roll?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or you can hear it performed on her podcast.

• 1:27:34Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, performed, yeah.

• 1:27:35Rich Roll?

  So, check that out. Of course, for all your plant-powered and RRP schwag and merch, go to richroll.com. We've got all kinds of cool stuff there. Keep sending in your questions for future Q&A podcasts at [email protected]. And thanks so much, you guys, to everybody out there who has supported the show by telling your friends, sharing it on social media. We love you guys. Of course, thank you to everybody who has been using the Amazon banner ad at richroll.com for all your Amazon purchases. And if you're interested in listening to the entire RRP catalog, beyond the most 50 recent episodes that you can find on iTunes, check out our free mobile app for your iOS devices. You can find that in the App Store or on iTunes. So that's it. Thanks so much Tyler, I love you.

• 1:28:19Rich Roll?

  I appreciate all the hard work that you've put into the show and I wish you luck in this venture. I think it's gonna be really successful and it's gonna be really exciting to see how this plays out and it's a pleasure and an honor for me to introduce this song and your band to my audience.

• 1:28:37Speaker 03

  Yeah, thank you and thanks to all the listeners and everyone. It's been amazing and I won't be going too far, I'm sure.

• 1:28:42Rich Roll?

  Alright, so "Be Still" by Anna Lima, written by Tyler. Did you write this with Harrison or did you write this on your own?

• 1:28:49Speaker 03

  I kinda started it, but really we all shaped it into what it is. So I think it's a group effort, for sure.

• 1:28:55Rich Roll?

  And your lead vocals.

• 1:28:56Speaker 03

  Lead vocals, yeah.

• 1:28:57Rich Roll?

  Lead vocals on that, alright. Enjoy you guys. Peace, plants, see you soon.

• 1:29:03Rich Roll?

  See you soon.

• 1:29:32Speaker 02

  ...

• 1:29:35Speaker 02

  Like I know you.

• 1:29:44Speaker 02

  Come round

• 1:29:49Speaker 02

  as I lay in the crown.

• 1:29:58Speaker 02

  Oh, tears be traces as they disappear.

• 1:30:11Speaker 02

  And steam in the cold of the morning.

• 1:30:26Speaker 02

  You knew the things I saw you do The things I said to do I went home to hate myself And resent myself too long Do you know how you come across?

• 1:31:13Speaker 02

  In time, the pain you feel is mine

• 1:31:27Speaker 02

  Your day, you wish that you never would wait

• 1:31:40Speaker 02

  Regret is all that I will get Be still, like I know you will

• 1:32:24Speaker 02

  When you do The things I saw you do The things I said to you I went home to hang myself And resign myself to love Do you know how you come across? The things I saw you do

• 1:33:09Speaker 02

  The things I said to you I went home to hang myself And resign myself to love Do you know how you come across?

• 1:33:43Speaker 02

  Do you know how you come across?

• 1:33:57Speaker 02

  Do you know how you come across?