Why Purpose Is The Strongest Form of Activism

What if the path you think you're meant to be living isn't your path at all? I grappled with this mental and spiritual Rubik’s cube for decades. Only now — at 48 — do I feel like I have any insight whatsoever into this quandary. Not so with today’s guest. After a drunken car accident at age 19, Jake Ducey had an epiphany: maybe, just maybe, the traditional promise of the American Dream isn't my path to happiness and personal fulfillment. What did he do with this realization? He up and quit school, walking out on a collegiate basketball scholarship to instead light out and travel the world. Along the way, Jake chronicled his journey, distilling his insights down to a book entitled Into the Wind . Undaunted by being turned down by every publisher, he nonetheless self-published his book. And without any marketing budget or publicist, Jake still managed to self-promote Into the Wind to Amazon’s top 300 – no small accomplishment. Jake subsequently piqued the interest and mentorship of people like Chicken Soup for the Soul* author Jack Canfield and Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus* author John Gray. He became a TEDx speaker. And at 23, Jake became the youngest author to land a motivational book publishing deal at a major publishing house (Tarcher/Penguin). The Purpose Principles* – hitting book stores this week — is the product of Jake's journey to date, drawing on the stories of success, failure, and the common threads among some of today’s most successful and influential people to illuminate a plan for living your best life in a changing world – a theme not inconsistent with this show. I’ve hosted more than a few impressive young and precocious twenty-somethings on the show over the last two years because I love getting the millennial perspective on life. I like young people and as a parent of two teenage boys and two soon to be teenage girls, I truly want to understand what makes the next generation tick. What is important to millennials? What is the lens through which they perceive their environment? And how will this perception frame and shape the world they will soon inherit and steward into the future? But let’s face it – at 48 I'm likely older than Jake's father. So is there really anything (anything at all?) that this 23 year old (or any 23 year old for that matter) could possibly teach me? Maybe I'm being a snob (probably). But it's a question worth asking, isn't it? What kind of insights could such a young person possibly have that would legitimize a book of any legitimate merit or substance? 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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• 1:07Speaker 01

  And really being centered in our purpose, I believe, is one of the cornerstone of fulfillment in a life well-lived.

• 1:14Rich Roll?

  That was Jake Ducey, and this is the Rich Roll Podcast.

• 1:29Rich Roll?

  The Rich Roll Podcast. Hey, everybody. Happy New Year. We made it. We're on the other side of the holidays. Can you believe that? We survived. My name is Rich Roll. I am your host. Welcome to episode 123 of the podcast, of my podcast, of the RRP, of the Rich Roll Podcast. Thank you for listening. Thank you for subscribing on iTunes. Thank you for spreading the word to your friends. Thank you for checking out my newsletter at richroll.com. And thank you for clicking through the Amazon banner ad at richroll.com for all your Amazon purchases. Thank you so much to everybody who did that over the holidays for all your gift purchases and all of that. That really helped us out a lot, and I appreciate it very, very much. All right. It's 2015.

• 2:15Rich Roll?

  What does that mean? Resolutions. You're thinking about, what can I do differently? What do I have to let go of? How do I take my game to the next level? Maybe that means that, hey, I should check out some podcasts that could maybe help me out. So maybe you're brand new to this. And if you are, thank you for giving this show a shot, a chance. I appreciate that. So if you are new and you have no idea who I am, well, who am I? I am an ultra-distance endurance athlete. I'm a bestselling author of a book called Finding Ultra. You can find that on iTunes or Amazon. I am a wellness advocate, a plant-based nutrition advocate. I'm a public speaker. I am a, I guess you could call me a lifestyle entrepreneur. And I'm a husband and I'm a father of four kids.

• 2:58Rich Roll?

  And this show, this show is about unpacking the tools necessary to live your best life. How to live a most excellent existence. So each week, I sit down with the best and the brightest and the most forward-thinking, paradigm-busting minds I can find in health, wellness, fitness, sports, nutrition, the arts, and even entrepreneurship to tap their experience, their knowledge, and their insights to help you guys discover, uncover, unlock, and unleash your best, most authentic self.

• 3:41Rich Roll?

  All right, if you guys know me, if you've heard me speak, maybe you're a longtime listener to the show, then you may know that one of my favorite writers is Henry David Thoreau, who's also responsible for one of my favorite quotes of all time. And that quote goes like this. "The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is considered resignation is confirmed desperation." That's a pretty astute observation. And if it was true in his time, I would have to surmise that it's probably even more true today. But what does it mean exactly? Well, one interpretation of it, one way of kind of distilling it down to its core, is what if the path you think you're meant to be living isn't your path at all?

• 4:26Rich Roll?

  What if the path you think you're meant to be living isn't your path at all?

• 4:31Rich Roll?

  Takes a little mental gymnastics to sort through that. And it took me decades to kind of navigate this mental Rubik's Cube. And it's only now at age 48 that I feel like I'm getting any handle on this concept whatsoever. But not so with today's guest. Let's meet Jake Ducey. Jake's a guy who at 19, after a car accident while drunk, had a bit of an epiphany. And that epiphany was that maybe, just maybe, the road to happiness, the road to fulfillment, might mean something different for him than the promise of the American dream paved by that well-trodden path of pursuing good grades and being a good boy and trying to get into

• 5:16Rich Roll?

  the best school and chasing after that secure career path. And it's an interesting story. I mean, Jake just up and walked out on a collegiate basketball scholarship. He quit college and he pooled what little money he had and he just lit out to travel the world. And along the way, he chronicled his journey and the insights it provoked, distilling them down into a book that he titled Into the Wind. And despite being turned down by every single publisher, nonetheless, at age 19, he self-published this book. And without any marketing budget whatsoever, or any publicist, or any team, he still managed to self-promote it up into Amazon's top 300.

• 5:57Rich Roll?

  And as someone who has authored a book, I can tell you that that is no small feat. That's a big accomplishment. So from there, Jake got a book agent. He landed the mentorship of Jack Canfield, which in and of itself is an amazing story. Jack Canfield, of course, is the author of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series. He sold like, you know, 800 bazillion books. Jake went on to become a TEDx speaker and became the youngest person to land a motivational book publishing deal at a major publishing house, Penguin, Tarcher. And the result is the book that came out this week, a book called The Purpose Principles. And this is a book that draws on the stories of success, the stories of failure, and the common threads among some of today's most successful and influential people.

• 6:42Rich Roll?

  And Jake really kind of throughout the course of this book, outlines his plan for living your best life in a changing world. And I love that because that's really the theme of this show, right? So if you're a longtime listener to the podcast, then you know I love getting the millennial perspective on life. I've had more than a few young and precocious enterprising people on the show, and I love young people. And as a parent of two teenage boys and two soon-to-be teenage girls, I really want to understand what makes the next generation tick. What's important to them? What is the lens through which they perceive the world? And how will that perception frame and shape the world to be, the world that they will inherit and that

• 7:25Rich Roll?

  they will steward over the next, you know, however many years? But I gotta say this. I mean, I wouldn't be honest if I didn't raise a certain question that bugged me when the prospect of interviewing Josh arose. I mean, come on, let's face it. I'm 48 years old. Is there really anything, anything at all, that a 23-year-old, let alone a 19-year-old, could possibly say that I could learn from? And, you know, I don't know. Am I a snob that way? Maybe. But let's face it, it's a real question. I mean, come on, right? I mean, what kind of life experiences or insights could such a young person have that could be distilled down into a book that would actually help inspire and educate

• 8:06Rich Roll?

  myself and people in my generation? I will say this. I was pleasantly surprised by this kid. I really enjoyed our conversation. It's a conversation that gives me hope for the younger set. And, you know, that younger set often gets a bad rap. The millennials are labeled as entitled, as lazy, and Jake is anything but that. And this is a conversation about what is really going on with millennials? I mean, what is really going on, right? Like, I want to know. And it's a conversation that delves into universal subjects that all young people, well, all people for that matter, should be grappling with. Subjects like, what is our purpose? How to be most fulfilled in our life? It's about the suppression of

• 8:51Rich Roll?

  creativity in our school systems. It's about self-directed learning, the importance of mentorship, how to connect with your passion, how to propel yourself forward in the face of fear, why it's okay to feel different, and why it's so important to go after your dreams. Because purpose is the strongest form of activism. Let's check this dude out.

• 9:16Rich Roll?

  You gotta be stoked, man. Your book is coming out pretty soon, right?

• 9:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, January 2nd. I'm really excited.

• 9:20Rich Roll?

  That's crazy, man.

• 9:22Speaker 01

  Thanks.

• 9:23Rich Roll?

  What's the plan? Do you have some big tour plan? I mean, you're gonna do stuff with the Warp Tour and you're going on the road? What's going on?

• 9:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's gonna be a crazy year. My manager is founder of the Warp Tour. So I'm gonna be doing a lot of things involved in that, from some emceeing, some speaking, live streaming. I'm gonna be covering the whole nonprofit community there. So I'm gonna be doing that. That starts June 18th till August 8th.

• 9:52Rich Roll?

  Wow. What do you mean covering the whole nonprofit community? What does that mean?

• 9:56Speaker 01

  Well, the really cool thing about the Warp Tour is it's not just like this music kind of arts thing. They have an entire nonprofit sector. They actually help launch invisible children. They sign young people up. 600,000, 700,000 millennials between 52 cities. So they sign people up. They inform people about what's going on. They have a whole, basically, center of the nonprofit stuff. So, you know, my work started primarily as an activist. I was a freshman in college and really pissed off at what was happening in the world and why I was learning these stupid things about economic theory in my economics class when then I, you know, we have to create shifts in just the way money's printed through private companies like Federal Reserve.

• 10:41Speaker 01

  And my teacher wouldn't let me ask those questions. And I've been detained by the Secret Service protesting the Keystone XL oil pipeline. And I just believe purpose is the strongest form of activism. That's what my new book is really.

• 10:54Rich Roll?

  Right. That's pretty cool. So wait a minute. You got detained by the who?

• 10:58Speaker 01

  Secret Service.

• 11:00Rich Roll?

  What, was the president around or something?

• 11:01Speaker 01

  He was at Martha's Vineyard when it happened. I've got a great picture. I can show you afterwards. It's getting loaded into the secret.

• 11:07Rich Roll?

  Just indulge me here. What exactly happened?

• 11:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm writing an article about it that's gonna be published on Alternet, which is a real big top 10 traffic political blogs online that'll come out the week my book's out, January 2nd. And I was, I just, I dropped out of college. I went to school to play basketball. I was a top recruit in San Diego. Dropped out. After I was really disenfranchised, traveled around the world, came back, wrote my first book, Into the Wind. In the process of writing it, I heard about the Keystone XL oil pipeline, which many top climatologists are saying is essentially endgame for the climate. It's one of the last largest carbon reserves on the planet. The Koch brothers, all these other people that are lobbying are putting in fifty million dollars

• 11:51Speaker 01

  into pockets of politicians to pass this because they're going to profit so much on the back end. All the money, all the bitumen, it's not normal oil, it's bitumen. And it takes four barrels of clean water to produce one barrel of oil. Then they're sending it all overseas to China and other people to sell it. It's not even going to us.

• 12:11Rich Roll?

  And the water use, is that due to fracking to get it out? Or how does that work?

• 12:15Speaker 01

  Similar to fracking in terms of destruction, but it's, and it's also similar in terms of clear cutting forests going down in the ground to get it. It is different than fracking, but it's so dirty that they need to use the water in order to extract it, and they're putting so much chemicals into it.

• 12:35Speaker 01

  So I found out about these things like that, and I was like, you know, what the heck? This is a total wrong step in the direction when Obama took the podium and he said, quote, like, "The rise of the sea level is going to stop." Like, "I'm here to create this change."

• 12:50Rich Roll?

  Right, the champion of the environment and all that.

• 12:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I, you know, as a nineteen-year-old, these guy, like, these guys, like the Koch brothers, they're not going to be around in twenty years. Like, they're blinded by their own short-sighted profit schemes. And people like us and your children and the children I hope to have, like, they're not going to have a world. And the more carbon in the atmosphere, of course, the warmer it's going to get. And so I went out, I flew from San Diego to protest it, three fifty dot org, put it on. Jim Hansen, Obama's chief climatologist, was there. We were, we had a permit to protest.

• 13:28Rich Roll?

  Where was, where was this?

• 13:29Speaker 01

  Front of the White House.

• 13:30Rich Roll?

  Oh, okay.

• 13:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I was nineteen or twenty, and so this was two years ago. And they came and we're like, yeah, we're just going to get like a ticket or something like that for maybe obstructing traffic. Because you're legally allowed to do that, you know? The Secret Service came and they put us in paddy wagons, handcuffed our hands and feet, didn't read us our rights, didn't charge us with anything. We weren't able to call lawyers. There were sixty-four of us. Uh, like seven, eight people were hospitalized between the three days.

• 14:03Rich Roll?

  Is that under like some kind of Patriot Act, uh?

• 14:06Speaker 01

  Something, not the Patriot Act, but it's a new thing that Obama signed like three years ago where basically if the Secret Service is present at anything, they're allowed to take you. Um, basically as a, as a threat to whatever, you know, schemes is going, whatever agenda you're obstructing. They held us for three days.

• 14:28Rich Roll?

  Three days?

• 14:29Speaker 01

  Three days, yeah. Three days, never charged.

• 14:31Rich Roll?

  Did you make a phone call or could you?

• 14:33Speaker 01

  When we first, when we first got there, we were able to, some of us, not everyone. I was able to make a phone call. Only about half the people were able to make phone calls. I called my brother. I'm like, hey dude, I don't know what's happening, but, and we weren't, we never got charged with anything. We never got booked. They told us, we're gonna keep you. You're eventually gonna go see a judge. And we didn't really know what our charge was. Dan Choi was the cell next to me. He was the first major lieutenant in the army that actually came out, um, as gay. And so that was really interesting because he's like, he's, his life has been in jeopardy by doing these things. So it was really interesting.

• 15:11Rich Roll?

  How many people got detained?

• 15:12Speaker 01

  Sixty-four.

• 15:13Rich Roll?

  Oh, okay. Wow. And were they all sort of under the three fifty dot org umbrella?

• 15:19Speaker 01

  Under the umbrella in terms of three fifty dot org organized it, I wasn't even familiar with three fifty dot org beforehand. Now I am. Bill McKibben, you know, of course the founder was there. And there were, you know, we were sitting there and there were young girls, five years old with their fifty-year-old parents there. And when the Secret Service came, the parents were like, okay, you gotta get it. Something's happening. You have to get out of here. They stuffed us in these wagons. Mess with us, like they would drive us to different jails all through the night and be like, "No, this one's full. We gotta go to the other one." And just messing with us. I saw like a sixty year old guy, like just crying, like he, he had lost all hope, like, you know, imagine being

• 16:02Speaker 01

  that age and like seeing really what they could do to you. Um, they weren't giving us water. Um, we were getting like these four ounce styrofoam cups every twelve hours. They forgot one day, we didn't get any water.

• 16:15Rich Roll?

  Really? I mean, there's this weird erosion of due process that's happening with the expansion of, you know, sort of executive authority to, you know, act without recourse. Uh, it's kind of amazing, you know, that you could get held for three days without getting charged, without, without any arraignment, without, you know, it's, it's, it's really,

• 16:35Rich Roll?

  it's really disturbing to see kind of the forming, the early formation of this police state that we're moving into and the sort of privatization of, of, you're seeing what's happening in Ferguson and all the protests that are happening right now. I mean, it's, it's pretty remarkable. If you kind of take a ten thousand foot view on what's happening, like this is not the country we were living in, you know, twenty years ago.

• 16:56Speaker 01

  No, no, I mean, granted, I was three years old at that time, but you know, a- and to wrap it up, they told us eventually we were going to-

• 17:03Rich Roll?

  Keep forgetting how young you are.

• 17:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, twenty-three. Yeah, they told us, you know, we're gonna see a judge on the third day. We got there, they were like, "All right." We waited the entire day in the, in the main holding cell. And they're like, "All right, you're gonna see a judge now." They put us up against the wall, they hang, they uncuff our feet and our hands. I know, they uncuff our feet, yeah, and our hands, and they take us through the hallway. We think it's to go see the judge. It's the door outside. And they're like, "See you later." They just let us go.

• 17:30Rich Roll?

  So it was just a whole mind game?

• 17:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, they were messing with us so we wouldn't come back, so other people wouldn't protest. That totally backfired.

• 17:36Rich Roll?

  It's really just about clearing you off the street and taking you out of commission for a while until like everything blows over and then releasing you.

• 17:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, and that was a total wrong move. Um, because that was really an inspiration for me to see the importance. You know, I came back, couldn't get a publisher for my first book, self-published, sold really well. Penguin picked me up and I really believe, you know, to wrap it in is like, I really believe that when we're really standing for something and we're centered in our purpose, that's how big business is gonna shift. Um, that's how things will really change when we're, when we're not at subject to everything from, from marketing to the agendas of, of big business and, and people that are putting millions into politicians' pockets, when we can really take a stand in our own way and find what matters to us.

• 18:26Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I appreciate that perspective and I wanna take it back and I wanna hear the whole, the whole sort of story, you know, how you got to where you are, where you are right now. But, but just before we do that, um, you know, I always love having millennials on the show. You know, because it allows me to kind of step into the generation beneath me and kind of try to see the world through, you know, a young person's eyes. Cause you know, let's face it, I'm like old enough to be your dad, even though I don't feel like that. Um, and you know, millennials get a bad rap. I mean, I've talked about this before on the podcast, but it's sort of like, oh, the entitled generation, you know, the generation of instant gratification. They don't wanna work hard. They expect everybody to just kind of, you know, cater to them and all this sort of thing.

• 19:11Rich Roll?

  And my experience with young people, and it's a self-selecting group because it's the people that are attracted to what I'm doing.

• 19:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:17Rich Roll?

  The people that are attractive to me and, and what they're doing. But, you know, I see a lot of people like yourself who are really concerned about the world, who are sort of pissed off and feeling disenfranchised by the way that the generation that preceded them has sort of treated the environment and treated the economy and how the government is running and with the transparency that the internet brings, there's a level of kind of awareness and activism that That I didn't have when I was 23 years old and that's what I'm seeing in people like yourself. So, you know, it's sort of walk me through, you know, your worldview, like what you see and like what you see in other people your age. Like, what's going on with the 20-somethings out there, man?

• 19:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, firstly, I'd like to, you know, acknowledge you for, you know, your interest in young people. Cause you know, there's a lot of people like yourself that have a really high level of influence in the world. Have podcasts, have shows, have radio shows. They don't want anything to do with young people. So, you know, I really respect and appreciate that and I have a different stance. I think that they're, you know, they always talk about how we're so disengaged. And I think it's because young people see through a lot of the crap. Like, we saw our parents, one out of like two families getting divorced. We saw them fighting over money to work out a job they didn't want to be at.

• 20:39Speaker 01

  You know, I was in fourth grade, I think, when nine 11 happened. And I remember the next two years, being a kid and the news was on. And they had, they were live streaming bombing other countries. Like, that's what we grew up to and like, young people before were really conditioned to the world. I believe that we have a sense that like, of what's real and what's not. And I think that there's not other alternatives being shared. And so I think that's hence such high levels of ADD, ADHD, depression, teen suicide. So much alcohol use excessively in colleges, drug overdoses.

• 21:23Speaker 01

  It's like, there's not being, fortunately, I was blessed enough to find a route out of it. And I think unfortunately, a lot of young people. Aren't finding those routes and the media focuses on those people, but I feel like older generations can do a better job of emphasizing. And so I think young people get the picture, even if they're can't have a debate about politics or the education system, they'll just, they'll summarize it like this, yeah, it's bullshit.

• 21:55Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I mean, there's, there's, there's almost like a level of x-ray vision, you know, that I think people your age have and, you know, for, for me, I'm 48, you know, my parents are baby boomers, you know, they grew up in the 50s and that was sort of the post-war generation where it was the first time where it's like you could get, you know, even if you had a blue collar job, you could buy a house, you could buy a car, you could raise a family, you could put, you know, you could like, you could take care, you could meet your needs and have like a good life. And there was an expectation that every generation that follows will kind of exceed the level of the generation that preceded it, like you can do better, right? And, and, you know, I think my generation was the first one to kind of believe that,

• 22:40Rich Roll?

  buy into that, but then get to a certain point and go, for a lot of people, it's like, wait a minute, you know, is this, why am I not happy or this isn't really working? But I'm, but I'm already like, you know, I'm already like a grown man where I'm having this, you know, realization that, you know, maybe this isn't the direction that I want my life to take, whereas you guys right from the gate are like seeing a world where things like job security, you know, that's just not, this is not what it was. Like, it's not a world of like you get a job and you work there for a long time and you, you know, save money and retire. Like, that's not even part of the mental calculus. Like, we're in this, we're in this like independent contractor, you know, kind of part-time employee, four-hour work week kind of situation for people that are your age. Like, that's the way you kind of perceive professionalism, right?

• 23:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, I, I definitely would agree with that. I think largely young people think the idea of retirement is a hoax. It's like, why would you?

• 23:33Rich Roll?

  Well, it is a hoax, but, but you're, I mean, we're just, we're just in denial about it. You guys see it immediately.

• 23:38Speaker 01

  And young people are like, why would you spend an entire life working at something that you would want to retire from? Why wouldn't you just find something you didn't want to retire from? And so there's definitely a shift in those type of philosophies and I think also... I read a couple of things I thought were interesting. My generation millennials are the first that are expected to make less, earn less, and have less than previous generations the first time. And, and also I was looking recently at a really big Gallup poll. And seventy-six percent of people that were polled are, these are not just millennials, are actively disengaged from their job.

• 24:23Speaker 01

  And like thirty-five percent of them are totally unhappy. And like, I think people just really recognize that. And the kind of, for our work week entrepreneurialism, do it as little as you can to find other things outside of work, I think is a product of we're not being given appropriate opportunities within the institutions and establishments in order to find things that are actually going to fulfill us, rather than, you know, ways that they say are gonna make us money so we can accumulate things. And I think since there's not those things, that creates, that's naturally what happens. It creates a disengagement, a disenfranchised of a generation, which is what we're seeing is happening.

• 25:06Speaker 01

  And I think that older generations, mainstream media specifically, doesn't recognize that component. And they're like, well, why aren't they buying into this? Well, because it's not working, you know? And so I, I think that's really what's happening, even with people that are in school. Fortunately, you know, I was a, I, I don't know, I just decided I was had enough and I dropped out and traveled and that served me really well. But I think even the people in traditional paths, they know it's not what they want to do, for sure.

• 25:38Rich Roll?

  And I think at the same time, there's a level of activism though. Like there's an interest in getting involved with, you know, NGOs and the three fifty dot orgs of the world. And, you know, I know people that are getting advanced degrees in permaculture and young people working on organic farms and things like that, that like I would have never considered, you know, when I was your age. That, that is interesting to me. And I think when I look at the culture, I wonder like, what would it take? For there to be kind of rioting the streets like there was during the Vietnam era. You know, like what would have to happen? Because, you know, for the most part, even, you know, like, we have food on the table, the DirecTV works, there's a Wi-Fi connection, you know, and it's like, so as long as that's

• 26:20Rich Roll?

  intact, it's very easy to just be like, well, everything's good, man. Like, you know, I can't be bothered with like getting involved in anything because Dancing with the Stars is on TV, or, you know, whatever it is. So, I, you know, and I kind of contrast that with the interests of people that are your age, kind of the things that are coming out of your mouth. What I'm seeing as a result of Ferguson and all the kind of rioting that's going on right now, and, and I think, you know, you see cracks in the fiber of the social fabric, you know, that's kind of holding all of this up, and it's showing its stress points, its fracture points right now. It's gonna be really interesting to see where it goes, and I think, you know, what does that mean to somebody who's 23 years old? Like, you know, how is that affecting your decisions about what you want to do with

• 27:05Rich Roll?

  your life?

• 27:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, no.

• 27:08Rich Roll?

  That's not really a question.

• 27:09Speaker 01

  It's not really a question, but I totally, I totally agree with you that it's not a question, and I also, I totally agree. I think it's more than just showing a bit of cracks. I think people are totally seeing this is going, something's about to give, something's about to totally blow away, and I think we're on the verge of, and I don't think that it's just gonna, the riots are going to continue because there's not an emphasis of the, of the feelings of the people that are rioting, both in the streets or emotionally rioting. There's no emphasis by the, there's no empathy by the establishment, and I think the more

• 27:51Speaker 01

  and more people, young people see that, the more and more force is used, the more you can, anyone can see that that's a sign of real weakness and, and, and a lack of stability within the system, and I think the more and more of those violence things happen, the more and more people start to awaken to things and...

• 28:13Speaker 01

  I I I think that the more and more companies like Penguin and all these companies start looking to younger people. You know, I I'm blessed to be one of them, but there's so many more of them that are getting the opportunity to create success untraditionally. I think that's the time when young people start to disengage more and more and they see, look, he did it, she did it, that person did it. Um, so you had said something about when will more and more young people see this as a sign in order to leave these traditional paths? I think the more and more a few people start, it's a domino effect.

• 28:53Rich Roll?

  Right. So, all right, well, let's, let's take it back. You're growing up in Encinitas.

• 28:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:58Rich Roll?

  You kind of got like a little bit of a Shaun White thing going on with the hair and the, you know, the flying tomato look a little bit, right? I mean, that's the community. I know Encinitas well. It's, you know, it's a beach town. It's a beautiful place to grow up. Must have been a nice place to be a kid and go to the beach and skateboard and play basketball and all that kind of stuff, right?

• 29:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was, it was incredible. Yeah, one, one time recently, when I was back in Encinitas, I was in the sauna and this guy in the sauna thought I was Shaun White. I was like, no, I'm not, man.

• 29:29Rich Roll?

  He cut his hair, don't you know that?

• 29:31Speaker 01

  Yeah. So it was a beautiful place to grow up and yeah, I feel so grateful for the opportunity to be able to go outside in December and, and to just have a lot of people that were active. Sports were a big part of my life growing up and gave me a really strong foundation that I've applied to other areas of my life since then. I grew up traditionally in terms of, at the time, my dad was a salesperson for, you know, big software companies and he traveled two to four weeks out of the, sometimes I wouldn't see him for four weeks, you know, he was traveling a lot, doing his thing. He was drafted by the Cubs out of high school as a catcher, All-American, went to USC, played baseball, blew out his knee, six foot four, good looking sales guy, you know?

• 30:16Speaker 01

  Making good money as a 25 year old and I saw how unhappy my parents were since I was a kid, you know? And that always had an imprint on me, but I followed traditionally, played sports, did really well. I was MVP of one of the top leagues in San Diego. We were top 50 in the state in basketball. And I was following that route. I thought, you know, I'll go to college.

• 30:37Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 30:38Speaker 01

  Get a degree, make a bunch of money.

• 30:39Rich Roll?

  Who wouldn't, you know, it's like play, play basketball in college. Like that sounds pretty good. You know, when you're a kid, that's, that sounds like a good deal.

• 30:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:48Rich Roll?

  So, so you end up going to college for, you, you're a freshman year, but it didn't, didn't last long before you were like, this isn't for me.

• 30:54Speaker 01

  And actually I tore something in my knee my senior year of my IT band. Ironically, uh, how uncommon that is. I tore my IT band and I had to have surgery. Cause this, it was just crazy inflammation. And so we found out it was torn after the season. So I had surgery. I was out for nine months and I started to think a bit going into the end of high school. Is this what I want to do? Get my knee all better and then lose them again in four years just to get my degree. I was never a good student. And I decided to decline a couple little bit bigger schools, some like Chico and Cal State Monterey. And go to a smaller school, Cal Lutheran. The coach told me it was going to be an opportunity to do a little bit more. I wasn't.

• 31:38Rich Roll?

  Cal Lutheran out in Thousand Oaks?

• 31:40Speaker 01

  In Thousand Oaks.

• 31:41Rich Roll?

  I know it well.

• 31:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. So.

• 31:42Rich Roll?

  Nice pool there.

• 31:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, dude. Super nice everything. And I thought it'd be a great opportunity to do more things. And we had to, we were required to be up there three months before school started. And they called it shoot around, but it was mandatory practice. And as soon as I got there, I realized it wasn't what I wanted to do. And then once school started, you know, it's, there's this, I believe there's a suppression of all creativity. And, and a lot of creativity in school. And I read a, one of my articles from my book releases, why I learn more by dropping out of college. I was going to study business. Um, in econ class, we weren't allowed to talk about economic disparities.

• 32:23Speaker 01

  We weren't allowed to talk about why we can't audit the Federal Reserve. That's how my first book starts me asking my teacher, I can't audit the Federal Reserve. So, you know, all these things were.

• 32:34Rich Roll?

  I'm trying to remember somebody who was on the podcast. Oh, it was my friend Evan Rock. He goes. Federal Reserve is about as federal as FedEx.

• 32:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, I know, isn't that the truth, man? So I'm, everyone else is in the class is trying to learn the book and I'm like, this is class, like, why can't we talk about things that are gonna affect our generation? Look at this debt, look at this, look at that. My teacher's like, basically like, come with me after class. He sits me down and he's like, clearly, you know, you have this intellectual curiosity and you can be a great student, but in class, you really need to focus on the textbook. You can go really far. I'm like, I don't wanna go really far. I wanna know what's going on. And that was how it was.

• 33:12Rich Roll?

  It's not part of the curriculum.

• 33:13Speaker 01

  No, it's not. And it's really sad to see, um, you know, and then general ed classes, which in my opinion are, it's a total waste. It's really sad to see, why would I, why would I need to know how fast a brick falls off the third story of a building or like what the circumference of the earth is and these things that are like on our tests? And it was just really sad. I felt super stuck and I remember I did a presentation in my economics class on how the North American Free Trade Agreement isn't actually the Free Trade Agreement and it's just a way for us to exploit third world countries. And I got an A plus on it and I was like, I'm never coming back to class again and I just left.

• 33:56Speaker 01

  And I started re, somebody gave me a book, like, first like Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth. Someone gave me like, uh, Jack Canfield's The Success Principles. And I thought they were stupid and I finally read them and they changed my life, changed everything about my life as a freshman. My dad started showing me about how money's printed and, and a lot of government corruption and economic disparities. And I was like, what am I doing?

• 34:21Rich Roll?

  Did you watch, uh, that Ted Talk by Sir, uh, what's his?

• 34:25Speaker 01

  Sir Ken Robinson.

• 34:26Rich Roll?

  Sir Ken Robinson.

• 34:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:27Rich Roll?

  The most watched Ted Talk ever about, cause you mentioned, uh, education killing creativity. I mean, that's his big thing.

• 34:33Speaker 01

  I think it's called that, education kills creativity. And so all those things really, you know, it's hard to be in a plate, it's a lot easy, it would be, been a lot easier if I, if I wasn't starting to question these things. Um, and I was.

• 34:49Rich Roll?

  Did you feel alone, like, were you the only one?

• 34:52Speaker 01

  So alone, man.

• 34:53Rich Roll?

  I mean, still you're kind of like a, that's kind of a conservative.

• 34:55Speaker 01

  Super.

• 34:56Rich Roll?

  Institution, right? So you're, you know, you're kind of hippying out on everyone.

• 35:00Speaker 01

  My hair was still bust and I decided then I was gonna grow it out. And I I was a big partier my whole life. I started getting really, I first time I did cocaine was a sophomore in high school. I just happened to be really good at basketball and things didn't affect me. I flipped my car four times four hundred down, four hundred feet down a ravine when I was drunk. Um, different things like that. And when I got into college and I started reading these books and started asking questions and looking into myself, maybe what is life all about? I never asked myself that. And that was mind blowing and that's what made me not wanna go party and go out. There's still a lot of parties at CLU and places like that.

• 35:40Speaker 01

  But I felt so isolated that the only thing I started doing was reading and writing poetry, actually, which turned into books eventually.

• 35:50Rich Roll?

  The brooding sort of Jim Morrison type.

• 35:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, Ralph Waldo Emerson was my, is my guy.

• 35:55Rich Roll?

  Yeah, well, I watched your TED Talk. You you reference him.

• 35:58Speaker 01

  Oh, cool.

• 36:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, so that was a big, man, to be in there and and feel so, I felt so alone. But at the same time, it was crazy to see that everyone else was noticing. My old friends are like, whoa, you look like really good. You look really happy. You look really different. And so it was, my path felt reassuring.

• 36:18Rich Roll?

  Right. So what do you think it, so it wasn't like there was one moment where you woke up and said, I gotta live my life differently. It was just a gradual process of kind of realizing like, hey, my shoes don't really fit so well right now.

• 36:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was a gradual process and the ultimate straw. It was a really gradual learning on my own, self-directed learning is what I call it. And what happened was one day I got in a huge fight with my economics teacher in front of the class. Like, I was like really mad. And I went home, slammed the door, and I'm never going back again.

• 36:52Rich Roll?

  Well, I could see he was just trying to direct you to the textbook and you wanted to have some kind of.

• 36:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, I wanted to, like, I wasn't talking conspiracy theories. I wanted to talk about like the debt and like the Federal Reserve and like how, so like, how do you think we, that my generation solves these problems? Like, we're learning these things to go work for these companies, but like, what if these companies aren't around anymore? What? And like the classes even arguing against me because I want to get an A on their paper, you know? And that was like, I just realized like it literally was not conducive to my learning. For other people, it may be great.

• 37:25Rich Roll?

  Well, there's a difference between like learning and and formalized education, you know, or or getting a degree versus like a thirst for knowledge, like true knowledge. Those aren't always, you know, simpatico, right? You gotta like be on the program, like you gotta hit these beats and move forward. We gotta take this test and then you take the next course. And that's different from just a general desire to kind of know how the world operates.

• 37:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, I know for sure. It was like when I realized like the difference between like specific knowledge and general knowledge. And I was like, why, I don't want to be in this place for general knowledge. And like I was at the time really looking into a lot of different um world events. And I was like, well, if the economy fully collapses and like whatever happens and the world really goes into shambles, there's a third world war, whatever, I'm gonna be so mad at myself if I'm stuck in this class. So I thought I was gonna quit basketball and school at the same time. I called my dad and my dad was like, dude, you should do what you want to do.

• 38:27Rich Roll?

  Really?

• 38:27Speaker 01

  My parents are divorced. Yeah, my my dad.

• 38:29Rich Roll?

  So he was down, he wasn't like?

• 38:31Speaker 01

  Super down.

• 38:31Rich Roll?

  Wow.

• 38:32Speaker 01

  Because my dad found out like eight years ago, everything in the corporate world, everything he was doing was total BS.

• 38:39Rich Roll?

  Oh, no.

• 38:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:40Rich Roll?

  So he had his own disillusionment and was, that was his way of saying like, I don't want this to happen to myself.

• 38:45Speaker 01

  To me, yeah.

• 38:46Rich Roll?

  Interesting. Wow.

• 38:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, he went through.

• 38:48Rich Roll?

  That's pretty cool.

• 38:48Speaker 01

  Super cool. My dad, my mom's great too. My dad is such a unique father, you know? Um, he, you know, he battled with a lot of depression and wondering what he was doing and and excessive alcohol just to battle so he could keep on the grind and he knew. He knew was he didn't want that for me and he he's like, you know, where's comes to where's go back to school, like, go travel. And that's what prompted me to get a backpack, no map, just cruise around, basically, and just kind of see what would happen, which was.

• 39:22Rich Roll?

  Right. So you did like this sort of nomadic, like, uh, you just just get a Eurail pass or something like that and bum around or?

• 39:29Speaker 01

  I didn't go to Europe. Yeah, I had a little money saved. And the cool thing about um, college, what's that?

• 39:36Rich Roll?

  I was gonna say, you went to Guatemala first.

• 39:37Speaker 01

  I started in Guatemala, exactly. And, you know, I I didn't want to go to that many places with other uh, white people. And like, I just wanted something really different that would really uh, put me in a place I'd never been before. So Guatemala was where I started.

• 39:54Rich Roll?

  It's like a, on some level, like a search for something real and authentic.

• 39:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:00Rich Roll?

  To like, get away from the veneer of this society and consumerist culture.

• 40:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was for me at the time. And, you know, when I look back at it now, I think there's just as much realness here, you know, as as there is in in Guatemala, you know, we're having, I was looking for authentic connection, communication. You and I are having that right now. I have it with a lot of people in my life. But for me at the time, it was where I needed to go. Um, I definitely don't believe the answer is to travel, um, especially after, you know, I came to my conclusion, um, after falling off a cliff in Indonesia and seeing my life flash before my eyes and realizing like, it's not about the next ticket I get or the next location in space and time. It was really about finding that place within me and like, bringing that to the world. So I definitely don't want to, I definitely try not to put the message out that like,

• 40:50Speaker 01

  you're, the answer is in.

• 40:51Rich Roll?

  To travel. Yeah, well, like, what you learn in recovery is, uh, you know, it's called a geographic, like, where you're trying to escape your reality, but the problem is you bring yourself with you. You know, it's like your external reality is different, but you're still the same person. I think travel is a great thing for young people to do, especially. You know, kind of growing up in the kind of enclave of a place like Southern California. It's very easy to be very provincial. And I know a lot of young people that are like, well, I would never live anywhere outside of LA. And they think everywhere else is terrible and sucks. And I'm like, you need to go live other places. You know, and I've had a great opportunity to do a lot of travel over the last couple of years. And you just get perspective, you know? And I think that perspective is important. And I think young people should live in different places. But I agree with you, that's not the solution.

• 41:35Rich Roll?

  You know, the solution is internal. It's like you read Eckhart Tolle, like he's basically telling you everything you need to know to get in touch with yourself and develop that greater relationship with, you know, who you truly are, your more authentic version of yourself. And to figure out how you're going to express that in the sort of three dimensional, physical world in which you're, you know, living and breathing.

• 41:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, for sure. And it was funny too, because I was reading all these books and I conceptually understood it. I prided myself at the time of knowing every quote you could like possibly know. But I wasn't applying it, you know? You heard in my TED Talk, I was really realizing the difference between learning it and living it.

• 42:15Rich Roll?

  There's a big difference between that. You see that online, like on Twitter and stuff like, it's really easy or on Instagram, it's really easy for people to like put inspirational quotes up. And that's cool and everything like that, but I also feel like it's kind of like lazy. You know, it's like, oh, like you did something by saying that. But like, is that really getting people to rethink things? Are they really changing? I mean, it's positive, it's good, but at the same time, I don't, you know, I'm like, quote yourself.

• 42:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I definitely believe there's a difference between living in inspired, an inspired life for sure is a totally different thing. And so it was really ironic for me to go to Guatemala, Australia, through Indonesia, Thailand and see the manifestation of these things I was reading about. I read, you know, that happiness is internal and that things aren't going to make you happy. When I saw kids on the ground that were happy and they didn't have 25 cents, they literally had nothing. To see it, the manifestations of these things, the examples of these things I was reading about, was like a big part of my journey while I was traveling.

• 43:24Speaker 01

  And going through Australia, slept on the beach, you know, all these different things like that, being, finding freedom in uncertainty.

• 43:34Speaker 01

  I before could tell people quotes about them, but to actually experience them was like, was really what I needed until I fell in Indonesia and these locals were taking care of me and.

• 43:46Rich Roll?

  What exactly happened?

• 43:49Speaker 01

  In Australia, I decided to go to Indonesia. I was in the airport and my flight was late like six hours or something and I was wanted to go. The flight was gonna leave at midnight Australian time. No, no, it was gonna land at midnight Indonesian time. And so they called us up and I'd just been lying on the ground on the floor and I went up to the thing to check in and I had lost my wallet. It had fallen out somewhere. So I had my passport and I had like, I don't know, twenty US dollars or something like that. But I lost like my wallet with like my cards, with anything. Yeah, I lost my driver's license. I still have my passport. I decided to get on the plane anyways and just go to Indonesia, like just see what happened.

• 44:35Rich Roll?

  That's pretty ballsy.

• 44:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was like, I was laughing, you know, I was like, it was one of those things where I was like, I'm nineteen, like, what can really happen? And I.

• 44:45Rich Roll?

  Just walk to some beach and sleep on it. Find a coconut or something.

• 44:49Speaker 01

  No, I met these guys, locals that hung out on the curb and sold stuff. They tried to sell stuff to tourists. They thought I was lying. They're like, hey, come here, come here, buy this, buy this. And I was like, um, well, I lost my wallet and they're like, like just laughing at me and we like connected and they took care of me, took me into the projects, um, fed me every day. They got me places to stay from their friends. They picked me up every morning. I sat on the curb, ate with my hands with these locals, spent all my time with them, helped them try and sell stuff to white people that wouldn't buy it and stuff like that. And they wanted to take me to their home island and. To their favorite quote, favorite waterfall.

• 45:30Speaker 01

  And we were climbing up it was pouring rain and and of course, there's not. Trails like there are at Malibu Creek, you know, and they're just we're just climbing up rocks and it's pouring rain, big rocks moss. And we got off the top crazy experience, we're coming back down and I slipped and I fell and I fell off the rocks and off the side of them. Basically got creviced, fell like eight, ten feet, covered my head up and like to myself, I was like, like. I felt okay regardless what would happen like it, I felt like I was doing what I needed to do in my life at the time. And right before I hit the ground, this was like, you're gonna be okay and like boom, I hit the ground and I'm like creviced into these rocks and.

• 46:12Speaker 01

  The side streams are coming down and s- the side streams are coming down and stuff like that and. I'm like, oh, my God, I opened my eyes finally, I'm like, okay, I don't think anything's broken, like I'm hurt, but nothing's broken. Open my eyes and I roll over and one of the guys named Ari jumped off after me and I started crying, literally, it was like most incredible thing someone done for me in my entire life. Literally, I was just crying, I was like, holy crap. And he couldn't get to me because I was creviced.

• 46:41Rich Roll?

  So he ju- um, he jumped down to try to help you?

• 46:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, he jumped off the rocks, we're climbing down off the side of the kind of cliff. Rock thing that we're climbing up to try and get me, which I had fallen off of.

• 46:55Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 46:55Speaker 01

  And like that just, you know, it was ten, twelve feet down um, on rocks. In pouring rain, like it's not dirt.

• 47:04Rich Roll?

  He just could have slipped and hit his head and that would have been it.

• 47:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, would have been it. And so I started crying because it was so crazy and. Um, he couldn't get to me because I was stuck and a couple of the other guys were up on top and I couldn't jump up to him and. Eventually, after five, ten minutes, I was able to climb up high enough where basically they were able to like levy me back up.

• 47:26Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 47:27Speaker 01

  And I got back up there and like, I, it was just crazy to see like just. An inch, one or two the other way and I could have been knocked out cold on the ground or dead and. Out here, like, away from my parents and everything that I loved and like missed out on the opportunity to really give my gifts to the world and like, what was I doing? I was gonna travel around for two more years, go all the way through Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, like, made me really wonder, like, what was I doing? And, like, I knew I was okay and, like, of course, they didn't and, like, they're breaking up all these fruits and making medicines and cleaning me and, like,

• 48:05Speaker 01

  massaging me and, like, I cancel, I was gonna go all the way through Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, like I said, and I ended with fourteen days silent meditation in Thailand instead and decided to come home and write my book and really try to stand for something.

• 48:19Rich Roll?

  Right, interesting. So that really was a pivotal moment. I mean, in, like, in retrospect, looking back on that experience, you know, what is the, like, what is the thematic, like, takeaway when you look at your life? Like, what did you draw from that? That is, that is sort of informed, you know, the first book and the book that you're, that's about to come out? Like, what is the, what are the principles that you're divining out of this as a young person?

• 48:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, what I really took out of it was, like, for me personally, I believe the most important thing in life is to really, is to really find our gift and, and really take a stand to, to bring ourselves into this world. And for me, I knew I had a story which became a book inside of me. And I, I really believe that right now, like, one of the most important things that we can do as, as people is really start to uncover more of who we are, what we're really about and what we really stand for. And I started to uncover those things. And I really wanted to share that with, especially with other young people, that, like, it's okay to leave the prescribed path

• 49:28Speaker 01

  and it's okay to really go after your dreams and, like, it's okay to, like, feel different. And different things like that was really what I wanted to share with the world. And what I took out of it was, like, it wasn't about... Getting a certain level of of fame or money or the perfect woman or whatever it was. It was just really about finding that place within ourselves. And when we find that place within ourselves, some people call it God, some people call it love, some people call it spirit, people call it self, heart, whatever. Finding that place and really projecting that into the world. And like, I believe that's what self-realization, self-actualization is. And to me, that's the most important thing in my life is like, is self-actualizing myself

• 50:13Speaker 01

  to the greatest degree I can to really contribute to this world that we talked about earlier. That's really falling apart in a lot of areas and really being centered in our purpose, I believe, is one of the cornerstones of fulfillment and a life well-lived.

• 50:29Rich Roll?

  That's beautifully put, man. Thank you. And, you know, I think that it's scary. It's scary to confront somebody and say, you have a gift and your job on earth here is to express that more fully. You know what I mean? For a lot of people, they're like, I don't even know what you're talking about. You know, I'm just trying to like, pay the bills. And a lot of people feel so disenfranchised that they don't believe that they have a voice that has value or that they deserve to, you know, sort of live this life of their dreams or that they have a gift. Because I think people equate that with something like a genius-level talent. Like, that's not what you're talking about. You're talking about whatever it is that makes you uniquely you. That's what you're here to express.

• 51:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I think that, you know, what I, in my new book, that book over there, The Purpose Principles, I cite a lot of like unfamiliar stories of familiar people. And I've found a lot of times, it's like, we think it's this, our purpose or our passion or whatever, our place is some grandiose, huge thing, writing a book, going multi-platinum with an album or something like, it's so much little, man. Like, I believe at the core, what we really need is like, more people who care about one another and more. Positivity and love that's shared in the world and like that's so on such little things like it's like how much of more of a difference would it make like I sometimes I walk into the

• 51:57Speaker 01

  to the store and like when I talk to the cashier it's like I can see in their eyes how much it means cuz nobody does that for them. Right. And little things like that just like the ways that we can you know um for whatever for holidays like a way that you can go give back to someone like really little things and I think that what we find is what I found at least and and a lot of the people that I speak with is they really find that they feel most alive when they're finding a way to to really share their their happiness or or finding really a way to to give back. And I think that when people when

• 52:38Speaker 01

  more and more of us realize that somebody else cares about us and that we're validated and that we're loved like we're gonna help other people find our power and find our places and it's not it doesn't mean it's writing a book like or whatever it is like that's not everyone's place just little things like I don't know what gift mother Teresa's was other than that she like cared about people a lot like you know and I think that those types of things on it's easy to over we have a world that focuses on the big things and our media focuses on the big things and Jay-Z sells a million bajillion copies and we see all these things this person sold this this person did that

• 53:19Speaker 01

  and those little things I think you know are are really important one time I got I had the honor of going with um Tom Shadyak that Ace Ventura all those. I got to go with him to go he's yeah he's really interesting guy man I got to go with him to he delivered two hundred fifty bicycles to the fifth grade um students at Foster Elementary um in Compton. Oh wow. For Christmas and I got to go with him to drop them off and what he said to them afterwards is he had all the kids come out and it makes me tear up every time he had all the kids come out and he got we got all the bicycles out and he's like

• 54:03Speaker 01

  I just want you to know that I'm not giving you these so you can have a bicycle. I'm giving them to you because I want you to know that we care about you and that you matter. And I think that the more we can do those for other people, the more we'll find that we ourselves matter. And that, you know, we'll find that the ways we can care more for ourselves, which will create more of like that freedom from the stress. And, you know, I think that the way will be made, as Larry Hamilton told me one time, when we start taking those steps. I think I like to share those because when the word purpose and passion and those things, goals get brought up, we think it's this grandiose thing. But even when we're on the daily grind and we can't step out of,

• 54:48Speaker 01

  or we think we can't step out of, you know, the nine to five grind, like there are ways where we can either, if you've always wanted to make an album or a book, for instance, spending, like Stephen King used to write for three hours every single morning before he'd go to work. That's how he got started. But then there's other things, just like on the weekend, going and see how you can, you know, share something with someone.

• 55:09Rich Roll?

  Well, it's never been easier to put out your creative product to the world. The, the sort of channels of distribution have been democratized and it's open to you. But, you know, I love what you said. I love that story about Tom Shadyak and the bikes. I mean, that's, that's beautiful. And really, you know, the, the takeaway for me from that is that fulfillment is in the giving, you know, it's in the service. And when you can get out of yourself and your problems and what you want or you need, and you sort of invest yourself in what somebody else needs and serve that end, that's when, that's when, you know, fulfillment and happiness can enter the equation. And it's not like happiness, like rainbows and unicorns.

• 55:50Rich Roll?

  It's like feeling good about yourself because self-esteem comes from performing esteemable acts. And for most people, it sounds like a burden, but it's actually a joy when you make that a practice. And it infuses your life with a level of purpose and, um, and value that you can't get anywhere else. And that takes you on your own journey. I mean, I think. You know, in your TED Talk, you quote Emerson with that, that, I don't know exactly what

• 56:17Speaker 01

  Do not go where the path may lead. Instead, leave the path and make your own trail.

• 56:21Rich Roll?

  There's that one, but there's also like, if you take a chance on your dream, the future will take care of itself, right? Sort of like stepping out in faith and knowing like, you know, I'm just doing this because this is, this is a good thing to do. Like, I'm not doing this because it's part of like, you know, step one of 10 of the how I'm going to get to the thing that I want to get that I think is going to make me happy. It's just, this feels right and I'm doing this now. And then that has its own energy.

• 56:52Speaker 01

  I also really liked how you said feel. In my book, I talk about how we think our feelings. I think I feel this instead of really going with our feelings. And I think we've created such like a rationalized, quote unquote, logical mind world where everything

• 57:10Rich Roll?

  Well, especially for men, too. It's not really like, we're not really encouraged to like, take actions based on our feelings. Especially like career choices.

• 57:17Speaker 01

  For real. Yeah.

• 57:20Rich Roll?

  And for those that are listening that don't know, like, just to bring it back to Tom Shadieak for a second. He's a incredibly successful film director. He directed Ace Ventura and like all these huge, you know, comedies, made, you know, bazillions of dollars, lived, you know, as, as large as, as you possibly can in giant mansions and all of that. And, you know, had a sort of crisis of conscience, like a spiritual crisis where he was realized like this, none of this is making him happy. And he had to like reevaluate his life. And he just basically got rid of all of his possessions, moved into this, this trailer in Malibu and downsized his life and made a documentary about it called I Am, right? It's called I Am?

• 58:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:01Rich Roll?

  I can't remember. Yeah. It's a beautiful documentary. I'll put a link in the show notes for you guys to check it out. Cause if you haven't seen it, it's really worth watching. He's an extraordinary dude. I'm trying to get him on the podcast.

• 58:12Speaker 01

  That'd be rad.

• 58:14Rich Roll?

  But, uh, but, um, that's cool. And he, you know, the message really is like, all these things that you think are going to make you happy, I'm here to tell you because I've lived it, that's not the answer.

• 58:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's really beautiful and like I also thought it was unique to know that his dad wanted, his dad founded St. Jude's, his dad wanted children's hospitals, dad wanted to be a doctor. So originally, he also followed his feeling and ended up creating this gargantuan success. And of course, he realizes, as you beautifully shared, that it wasn't the answer. But I thought that was interesting, too, that originally he just followed his, like, that feeling for sure.

• 58:52Rich Roll?

  Right, right, right. So, all right, so you come back from your travels and you're like, I'm gonna write a book, right?

• 58:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's what happened. Yeah, well, I in-

• 59:01Rich Roll?

  The ostentatiousness, the audacity of this young person, right?

• 59:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:06Rich Roll?

  What got into you?

• 59:07Speaker 01

  Uh, 14-day silent meditation, falling off the cliff, 14-day silent meditation was profound.

• 59:12Rich Roll?

  Where was it? Where did that go down?

• 59:14Speaker 01

  Thailand, in a, it's called Northern Insight Meditation Center. Um, I'm not, I don't have any, um, type of institutionalized spirituality or religion or anything like that. And it's technically a Buddhist place, but they let you go in, like, you don't need to be Buddhist to go. And that was really profound and I had an experience where I saw my whole life, saw like, this voice told me what I was supposed to do. I could see my book done. I could see all these things. And I was like, that's it, I'm going back.

• 59:48Rich Roll?

  How many days in, like-

• 59:50Speaker 01

  That was the fourth-

• 59:51Rich Roll?

  Day 12?

• 59:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, fourth day, after three days of tears and thinking I was gonna like, hop over the fence in the middle of the night and run and leave.

• 59:59Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:00:00Speaker 01

  And that was really profound. I, you know, just, also a little background on me, like, I failed junior English class in high school. I got a 1400 on my SATs. Could never, if there wasn't a word for least likely to write a book in high school, that was this guy, I cheated on everything.

• 1:00:17Rich Roll?

  Isn't, uh, isn't like 1400, well, they changed the scoring, right?

• 1:00:20Speaker 01

  It's out of 2400 now.

• 1:00:21Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it used to be 16.

• 1:00:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, it would have been that. It used to be out of 16.

• 1:00:25Rich Roll?

  That sounds pretty good.

• 1:00:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, I got, I got like, you know, uh, on the lower side of not a failure, but you know, like, nothing good.

• 1:00:36Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:00:36Speaker 01

  Um, and yeah, I came back, I taught myself how to write, um, along the way while I was traveling, before I left by re- and after by re-typing The Great Gatsby, because I heard Hunter S. Thompson did that, that's how he learned how to write.

• 1:00:49Rich Roll?

  Retyped it?

• 1:00:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, retyped it, yeah.

• 1:00:51Rich Roll?

  Like, literally just read it and typed it?

• 1:00:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, put it next to the computer and just typed it.

• 1:00:55Rich Roll?

  That's how you figured out how to type?

• 1:00:57Speaker 01

  That's how I figured out how to type fast, that's how I figured out how to, how to describe things, the way that I've, I appreciated them described, I liked the way F. Scott Fitzgerald would describe things, I liked the way he would describe American culture, I liked the way he just described, um, people, um, I liked the way that he wrote, the message that he shared, everything about it, it was just in the same way that if you want to be a reggae musician, you're probably gonna learn Bob Marley.

• 1:01:24Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:01:24Speaker 01

  Like, I wondered, like, once I heard Hunter S. Thompson, that's how he learned how to write, like, whoa, why don't we apply that to books? So I just like, just practiced, like, getting in the flow of someone who has, you know, uh, The Great Gatsby's like, one of the quote-unquote, according to our culture, the, one of the greatest speeches, pieces of literature ever. So I just like, tried to, you know, get some practice typing something that was apparently so profound, that really, for me, when I read it, really put me in, put me there, I, I really, the description was incredible, everything about it, the way he described characters, and everything was really profound to me, and that's like, kind of what gave me the space in order to write.

• 1:02:06Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:02:07Speaker 01

  I had had no idea if it would ever pan out, I ended up like, I just pressed the keys down and it just started flowing, and wrote this book about my journey, and like, these, these topics we've been all discussing, um, um, from the world to this type of discovery things, and, and put the, the, couldn't get a publisher, no one would publish me.

• 1:02:28Rich Roll?

  Right, so you hit the pavement with this thing, you're knocking on lots of doors, getting tons of nose, right?

• 1:02:33Speaker 01

  Literally knocking on doors, yeah, and like, it's like, to the point where it's like, the only reason that-

• 1:02:42Speaker 01

  People didn't get mad is because I was a kid, you know, I had that working for me.

• 1:02:46Rich Roll?

  Right, you could just, you could sort of like rely on just pretending naive kid, get away with all this stuff that like somebody my age, they would just be, they would not, it would not go well.

• 1:02:56Speaker 01

  It would not go well. Yeah, and everyone said no. I covered my wall in affirmations to be published by a certain publishing company, you know, that I, I don't want to mention. They were one of my, they were my favorite company. Met the, went over to the founder's house. I was for sure, I thought they were publishing me. And then they told me no. They told me I should self-publish it and I didn't have a platform and I wasn't famous and, you know, all those things. I had no, I didn't have a Facebook page and, or a smartphone. And I was so disheartened and every literary agent told me no. This is a cool story, but no one wants to hear a nineteen year old's memoir that no one's ever heard of.

• 1:03:39Speaker 01

  This will be great once, once you're famous. This will be great. I'm like, I'm not writing this to be famous.

• 1:03:43Rich Roll?

  You're too young to write a memoir. Your life hasn't even started yet.

• 1:03:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, and so what ended up happening is I heard about one other agent that I had on my list. I had never contacted him because he was the biggest agent that I had on the list and that I knew of in the category of books. Um, kind of counted myself out. And someone told me where he lived and I printed the manuscript and he lived near where I grew up. And I went to his front door with flowers and a handwritten note. And, and I knocked on his door and like he, him and I hit it off. And two weeks later, he wanted to represent me.

• 1:04:27Rich Roll?

  Wow.

• 1:04:28Speaker 01

  And.

• 1:04:29Rich Roll?

  What do you think it was? Like what, what, what tipped him? I mean, he's, you know, he was the, the most unlikely of all these agents, right? I mean, but like, was he just taken with this young person who shows up with flowers and seeing like, oh, there's potential here?

• 1:04:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, he took it as you're nineteen. I represent people in their sixties. If you're nineteen now and you can write a book in forty years, we're gonna have something really special. And if you have the like, the stupidity to show up at my door, you're probably gonna do a lot of other ridiculous things that'll work well. He also really connected with the fact that I was young. Um, there's not any really many other young people, you know, there's people that write to young people, but not very many that are young themselves. Um, a lot of different things like that that he really connected with. I think he appreciated the fact that I wanted it so bad. Like this wasn't a business opportunity for me. Like I'd, you know, it wasn't at all.

• 1:05:28Speaker 01

  It's starting to work out great now, but like, you know, it was not. And he appreciated all those things for sure. He really, I think he was just, he was taken aback that I was nineteen and like I was, I had enough confidence or just like fake confidence, whatever it was at the time to show up. And he's become like, you know, like a, uh, another father type figure to me since then. And two weeks later, we had a deal for him to represent me. No one would still take me even with him. So I had to self-publish.

• 1:06:02Rich Roll?

  Right. So even though you had this agent, he still couldn't get you a publishing deal.

• 1:06:06Speaker 01

  He couldn't get me one. Everyone said, no, self-publish, show us you can do it. And like, I was like, I'll show everyone, you know, I was like nineteen. So I was like, I was still a little bit, you know, out there. And, uh, and so I self-published the book and everyone told me like, you know, most books, uh, as you know, only sell like the average is like two hundred and fifty copies. If you sell three thousand copies, like you're in the top ten, fifteen percent.

• 1:06:35Rich Roll?

  Because people don't read anymore. Like you see like the Amazon rankings and all that. It's like, actually you, you don't have to sell very many books. To get to the top of that.

• 1:06:43Speaker 01

  And I think also like people think that the publishers are gonna do it for them. And so.

• 1:06:50Rich Roll?

  Yeah, we can do it. We can do it. I have a whole other podcast on that subject.

• 1:06:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, right. And so.

• 1:06:55Rich Roll?

  You gotta take ownership and responsibility for, I mean, taking responsibility for your path is, is a big part of your new book, but. And when you write a book, whether you're self published or you have a publisher, you still have, it's still, you're, you're the one who's gonna have to get out and hustle.

• 1:07:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, and, and I really, my agent told me that from the get go and he told me like, like, look, um, if you can sell a thousand copies in like, I don't know, a year and a half, like, that would be great, like, you know, kind of, everyone told me that, kind of expect to sell like a hundred copies, like, don't be disappointed if this doesn't work. And we sold fifteen thousand in twelve months and I went door to door, I did, like, literally to strangers.

• 1:07:33Rich Roll?

  So your dad's a salesman.

• 1:07:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, literally, I went to strangers' doors. I had doors, I had a guy tell me I was like.

• 1:07:40Rich Roll?

  You're not afraid to knock on someone's door, are you?

• 1:07:43Speaker 01

  I, no, I was totally afraid, man. I think that's the thing. Like, I was totally afraid, but I did it anyways. Um, Laird Hamilton wrote the foreword to that book and I got to interview him before it came out.

• 1:07:53Rich Roll?

  Yeah, how did that, how'd you hook that up?

• 1:07:54Speaker 01

  I emailed him and he answered, like, I think it's so overlooked, like, people don't think that people check their email, so no one sends them.

• 1:08:02Rich Roll?

  But I think it doesn't actually get to them.

• 1:08:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:08:05Rich Roll?

  That's the big secret is I think it actually, in most cases, it does.

• 1:08:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, it does.

• 1:08:08Rich Roll?

  Whether they, they're gonna respond to it or not.

• 1:08:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, it does. And he did the interview and like that, I cried afterwards and like, it changed my life to see this guy that is so honored as like this, um, man among men. And he says he's scared all the time. And like, I really took that into heart. And the book did well. I met Jack Canfield, who I read four years ago and gave that TED Talk.

• 1:08:33Rich Roll?

  That's a great story too. We're gonna get into that, but let's stick with Laird for a minute.

• 1:08:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, let's do it.

• 1:08:37Rich Roll?

  So you just went, what, did you go over to his house and interview him or like, you just, how did that work?

• 1:08:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, I went over to his house and I interviewed him and I went to his place up in Malibu and I, uh, he had, um, he, I got nervous the night before because I saw on his Facebook, he was in Tahiti. I'm like, did he forget about my interview? Like, what the heck? And, uh, so we drive up there and, uh, Gabby's, his wife, uh, is like, you know, uh, hey, like, he's gonna be a minute or two, um, because he fell into a reef last night in Tahiti and like, comes down, like, his whole arms, like, fanned and stuff. And uh, and I, he, it was like gonna be a twenty, thirty minute interview and we ran two hours.

• 1:09:24Rich Roll?

  Oh wow, it's cool.

• 1:09:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was so cool. And like, I told him, I was like, I don't care. I don't wanna talk about surfing. Like, I wanna talk about everything else.

• 1:09:32Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:09:32Speaker 01

  And it was crazy to hear from this guy, like, the ways, the, the first thing he said to me is, my favorite quote is by Henry David Thoreau, uh,

• 1:09:42Rich Roll?

  Massive men lead lives of quiet desperation?

• 1:09:45Speaker 01

  No, no, it was, uh, disobedience is the true foundation of liberty, is what he told me. And that was crazy, man. Like, I was ni- I think I was nineteen or twenty, you know? So to have that opportunity at that age, um, and really get the, uh, assurance from like, life, or whatever, the universe, that like, I was on the right path, was really big. Cause, you know, it was definitely scary. And it was cra- like, I learned so much from that, from, from that experience. Like, he grew up, you know, it sounds like you're familiar with his story, like, growing up, no running water, um, having nothing and wanting to surf. And like, teachers literally said, like, you can't do that. You can't eat your surfboard, like, would make fun of him. And they'd always tell him, you can't eat your surfboard.

• 1:10:31Speaker 01

  And, um, his, he was so poor, he couldn't get a surfboard at the time, of course, they're not like how they are today. But he first learned on, on a surfboard because some guy out in the water snapped his board, threw half of it away in the trash can. And Laird learned how to surf on a broken surfboard. And like, all those types of things like that were so incredible to learn. Cause like, I had no idea. It's, that's what my, I try and share in the, in the book, is that like, we don't know these unfamiliar stories of how, we just know, here they are now.

• 1:11:04Rich Roll?

  You know the myth, you know what I mean? You know the myth. And, and, you know, I know Laird and Gabby a little bit. Uh, Gabby actually was one of the first guests on this podcast.

• 1:11:12Speaker 01

  Oh, no way, cool.

• 1:11:13Rich Roll?

  Beginning when we were living in Kauai and they spent their winters in Kauai. And I remember, it's funny what you said about Laird saying, you know, oh, you know, him admitting, like, he gets scared or whatever. And it was the winter time and the north shore of Oahu was like pumping, right? And I was like, what are you doing here, like, in Kauai? Why aren't you on the north shore of Oahu? And, and he's like, they're mean, like, those guys are mean. I was like, what do you mean? Like, you're the guy, you know, like, like, to hear him say that, you know, it's like, he's a human being. You know.

• 1:11:45Speaker 01

  I thought that was so profound.

• 1:11:46Rich Roll?

  And we got to know some of the people that he grew up with that are his friends from Kauai. And that that experience is really, really interesting, but that's really cool that you had that and that he was so, you know, forthcoming and and wrote the foreword for your book. That's super awesome.

• 1:12:02Speaker 01

  Thanks, man. It was like, I wasn't planning on on him writing the foreword. The interview changed my life. And I was like, dude, like, here's what happened to me when I interviewed you, like, you know, if you really connect to what I'm about, like, I'd love it if you did that. But yeah, man, to learn all those things about him and like, see the way that he looked at the world and to hear that, like, he's like, the reason that I surf such big waves is because I get so scared when I'm in the water. And I think those waves are too big that I I either lock up or I paddle as fast as I can. And to like, learn those things about him was, yeah, it was, it was really, I was, I'm so grateful for the way that I was able to kind of kickstart my this this new path that I decided to venture into.

• 1:12:47Speaker 01

  And it was just.

• 1:12:49Rich Roll?

  Validation is validation from the universe, right?

• 1:12:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was.

• 1:12:53Rich Roll?

  Like, keep going, right?

• 1:12:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:12:54Rich Roll?

  And it kind of brings up this issue of mentorship, right? Like mentors and and you've been pretty like solicitous of people you admire to kind of help you out. I mean, you just randomly get in touch with Laird and the door opens. And then you roll up on Jack Canfield at a party, like, you drive like, you know, hours and hours and like, somehow weasel your way into some party, right? And just go right up to his table and sit down and start talking to him. I mean, you got, like, you do have that salesman, like, that fearless, maybe you're afraid, but you're you're sort of taking the action anyway to like, I'm going to connect with this dude. Like, this is my path.

• 1:13:27Speaker 01

  Thanks, man. I appreciate it. Yeah, it's it's been, it's, I think it's really fun to like, try and see if those things will work out. And Jack has been, you know, definitely, that's.

• 1:13:39Rich Roll?

  He wrote the foreword to your new book. Like, he's really, he really is like, he really has mentored you, right?

• 1:13:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, he really has. Yeah, that's why I even wrote the book. His book's called The Success Principles. Mine's called The Purpose Principles. So, yeah, really, he has. Like, I had no idea I was going to write another book. At least not, it just kind of happened after I met him and got to, you know, spend time with him. And he's, he really has given me a lot of of great.

• 1:14:07Rich Roll?

  I mean, what is, what is like, the most impactful thing that he sort of taught you?

• 1:14:12Speaker 01

  The most directly that he taught me was so simple. One time I was at his birthday party and like I finally got the nerve to ask him, you know, because I still I get nervous a lot. And I was like, Jack, what's the most important thing anyone needs to know in order to create success in their life?

• 1:14:32Speaker 01

  That's like a Tony Robbins question. Yeah. And he's like, uh, he's like, looks at me, he's like, write it down, make it happen. And I'm like, waiting, like, come on, keep talking. And he's like, kind of looks at me and he's like, oh, that's it. Um, he's like, you know, you have, you have within you the ability to, to realize anything that, that you really desire, or else you wouldn't have the desire in the first place. Like, that's what, all my successful friends, they writes things down clearly and then they just go make it happen. It's that simple. And like, I've just been writing things down and like, just crazy. It's just like, it really works. And simple things like that, indirectly, I really saw, like, his birthday parties are

• 1:15:16Speaker 01

  with every, like, people that he works with, people he's been friends with for forty years, like, he just wears a plain t-shirt around, like, he's really believes in what he's doing. And like, he's, of course, he's done really well. He created Chicken Soup for the Soul books, but. How many, I mean, how many books has that guy sold? Like, eight hundred million. He's on the Guinness Book of World Records for seven books on the bestseller list at one time. Oh, at one time? Yeah, seven at one time. Yeah. And he sold so many books. That's insane. Yeah. And it was just cool to like, see that, like, I met a lot of, of authors I thought were my favorite authors. And like, I totally respect they're on their own path. And like, we're all going through our own experiences. But I've been really heartbroken by a lot

• 1:16:01Speaker 01

  of them, that they didn't, who, they didn't appear who I thought they were. And like, those things from Jack, uh, about. Little things like friendship and different areas like that were really profound to see what he really valued while he had so many more opportunities. I've never heard someone speak bad about him, pretty much any other author in that field. I've heard a lot of negative things and of course, it's, we never know what's true and not true, but things like that. But the main thing I always take into heart was write it down, make it happen, write it down, make it happen.

• 1:16:34Rich Roll?

  Well, it sounds like he's somebody who's walking his walk as opposed to, I mean, especially when you're kind of in this self-help world, you know, where there's a lot of people saying, do this to be happy or successful and, and then looking at, at their actions versus the words on the pages of the books that they write. And when there's dissonance there, that's disappointing.

• 1:16:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, it is for sure.

• 1:16:56Rich Roll?

  And, you know, it's something that I'm always trying to check within myself, you know, like, am I with this podcast and the book that I, you know, it's like, am I, am I walking my talk? Like, I, you know, I'm a human being, like, I always have to check in and go, I can do better here. Like, one of the things I'm doing right now is, uh, I noticed how I'm, I'm, I, my relationship with my iPhone and like with social media on my iPhone has, has become like too addictive. Like, it's just, it's not healthy, you know? I'm checking it too much. When I'm driving and I hit a red light, like, I'll look at, like, who email, you know, it's stupid, right? And so I'm like, as a result of a podcast interview that I had with this guy Josh Ship,

• 1:17:38Rich Roll?

  the one that's up this week, he challenged me, he's like, take that stuff off your phone, man, like, do an iPhone detox, like, you can't, you gotta like create boundaries and rules around social media and it's, it's, it's, it's like infecting your life in a bad way. And you can be more productive, you can be happier, you can be more present and you will be more effective in all these different areas if you can do that. And it's like, I didn't want to do that, you know? I was like, I like that addiction, I like that rush that comes with it, but it's like, he's right, so I'm doing that now. Like, so that's an example of, you know, you can always do better, you can always improve. But, but trying to make sure that, that, you know, what you're saying to the world is matching with how you're behaving.

• 1:18:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:18:18Rich Roll?

  That's hard as a human being, but I think when, all you have is like your word and your, you know, your integrity and your...

• 1:18:27Rich Roll?

  Reputation as somebody who's like yourself is venturing out and becoming a public figure with with the book like that becomes really, really important.

• 1:18:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, I so that's that was the biggest thing that I really got. I know I've learned a lot of his little productivity and different types of strategies and things he implores like that. But just seeing the way that without him saying things, just watching him, you know, I'm someone that I just like to be around people that I'm inspired by, just so I can watch them a bit and see how they interact and different things like that. So that was a big thing for me and something I really, I don't want to, you know, and I know you don't either. I don't want to in two years and five years and 10 years to create a lot of success and jeopardize my backbone in order to do so.

• 1:19:19Speaker 01

  What is it? You know, then it's just ashes in our mouth for sure.

• 1:19:22Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's what is the value of it then? Right?

• 1:19:27Rich Roll?

  So when you look at kind of the pantheon of like, you know, books that are out there in the genre of your book, like, how do you approach writing your book? Like, what is it that you have to say that's a different? What is your perspective? Like, how are you contributing to this like base of knowledge in a new and kind of unique way?

• 1:19:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:19:47Rich Roll?

  It's like, hasn't everything been said or has it not? Like, how do you?

• 1:19:49Speaker 01

  I think everything's, I think everything's been said. I totally agree with that. I think that what I try to do with this book and my intention behind it, you know, Jack's success principle, "A son can grow rich" is stories. What there hasn't been is stories that appeal to the quote unquote, everyday person or or people that are interested in the corporate world and people that my book's not about money. My book's not really even about success. My book's about how to draw more meaning into your life. And, you know, like, I got a good review from Publishers Weekly and one thing that they-

• 1:20:27Rich Roll?

  That's good. That's not easy to get.

• 1:20:28Speaker 01

  No, it's not. But they said some, you know, they said their their things about like- I'm not trying to reinvent any wheel. Like, I think that there's nothing new that we need to learn in order to take our lives and our planet and our futures to the next level. My goal with this book is that I want the reader to see themselves in the same light as the world's biggest difference makers. And I'm doing that by sharing the stories of failure often between these people. Their humble beginnings and there are stories in there that I've never seen published anywhere.

• 1:21:07Speaker 01

  Um, stories that range from all types of people from Jay-Z to so far as how Taylor Swift got going to Gandhi, to Martin Luther King, to Bob Marley. So many stories that I've never heard shared together and my goal is really to, isn't to, it's great to hit the people that are naturally read self-help books. I want a young person to read that and say like, that likes music and they're like, I can do what Bob Marley did. I can do what Jay-Z or Taylor Swift did. I can do what Gandhi did. I can do that. I've messed up, but like, so have they. They started from nowhere. So have I. I can influence the world in a positive way.

• 1:21:52Speaker 01

  And my goal or my mission isn't different than a lot of people. Um, and I'm not trying to make it different, you know, it's just, it has my own energy, my own unique flavor to it. And there's definitely a lot of stories that people haven't heard in there. But it's, it's, I'm not trying to, you know, reinvent the wheel. I, I, what I do believe and something that is uniquely different than in my book is that I believe there's no difference between spirituality and being politically active or personal development and social evolution. And I was so disenfranchised with so many of my favorite authors in this.

• 1:22:36Speaker 01

  Movement because they shy away from political things. And I believe if we know how to improve our own lives, how to take our lives to the next level in our health, in our happiness, in our success, in our ability to reach our goals, and the ability to just be peaceful and content with nothing, then we know how to create change in the world too. And when we can find that space of peace within ourselves, then we can go in the center of the storm, you know, then we have, like as Martin Luther King said, the ability to step out of the narrow confines of our individualistic concerns, the broader concerns of humanity. We have the ability to do those things if we have that space within ourselves, then

• 1:23:19Speaker 01

  we're not so flustered, you know, with, with hearing about what's happening in the world and the, the, um, the activists and political movements that are so angry. And, and I think that when we understand how to channel our energy, we can change, we can channel our pain and upset into creative energy to create change. And so I really believe that, um, goals go one in the same with contributing to the world. And so if there's a uniqueness of my book, it's really that, that I, I, I wanna see the intersection, um, between quote unquote, a, a spiritual person and an activist and,

• 1:24:03Speaker 01

  and being one in the same.

• 1:24:05Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I like that. I mean, you know, it goes back to that sort of, you know, Buddhist precept of, you know, if you wanna change the world, change yourself, you know, if you wanna improve the world, improve yourself. And it's, it's, it's weird, you know, it sounds kind of like a selfish thing, but it's really true. It's like your ability to impact and influence others is completely contingent upon how healthy you are as a person, you know, emotionally, mentally, physically, spiritually, most importantly, spiritually. Like when you're intact in those areas, then you can carry forth into the world with a certain kind of energy and non-reactive, you know, attitude towards external events. And you have an ability to then, you know, kind of approach and tackle those issues kind of from a higher plane, right?

• 1:24:48Rich Roll?

  Like not that entrenched reactive angry place, but more objective, kind of grounded, um, place of solution oriented, you know.

• 1:25:00Speaker 01

  Approach. I believe that, I believe that a thousand percent and I believe that that's the play. I, one of my chapters in my book is about Martin Luther King's speech on April 3rd, 1968, the day before he died on April 4th, 1968. And he's, it's his, "I've been to the mountaintop" speech and he's like, "I've been to the mountaintop, I've been to the promised land and I'm not gonna get there with you. But I wanna let you know that I fear no man, my eyes have seen the glory, I will not get there with you." He knew the day before he was going to get shot, I believe. He's saying, "I'm not gonna get there with you. I don't fear any man and I've already been to the promised land. For now, I'm here with you, but I'm not gonna be with you for long."

• 1:25:45Speaker 01

  And the next, not 24 hours later, he was shot and killed. And I believe that that is an example, what you just shared. I think Martin Luther King was an example. And so that's a little taste of like what I put into the book and, and what I try and put across. Like, he was so connected to his purpose and to something higher than himself that he did, he knew he was gonna get killed and he's like, "I'm not gonna go hide in my room. I'm gonna go out and keep speaking and keep doing what I feel called to do." And so I, when, I think that, it's one of my favorite stories and I actually found out this morning. I get to speak in Washington DC at a really big event on Martin Luther King Day. Oh wow, that's cool. And I'm gonna share that story. What's the event?

• 1:26:27Speaker 01

  It is for a bunch of different corporate event, um, companies that are getting the day off in order to go do community service for the entire day. Oh wow. And I wanna talk to them about, uh, what could be more important than their ability to influence the world, opposed to their ways to make money. And I wanna cite Martin Luther King because it's MLK Day. So yeah, I, that's the first thing that comes to mind when you share that.

• 1:27:08Speaker 01

  I think one of the common things that comes in our head is like, "Well, I'm not MLK." You know, "He's perfect," or this or that. But I share all these stories of like, failure and like, mess-ups by so many people. Like, Gandhi's wife died because he refused to let her use western medicine. And like, two weeks later, he got the same infection and used western medicine. Like, you know, like, we're not perfect. And just because we've messed up before, or are messing up now, I believe we can still take life to the next level.

• 1:27:40Rich Roll?

  Yeah, one of the things I talk about a lot is trying to reframe or redefine how we conceptualize failure. You know, we have this idea that failure is bad. I mean, just uttering that word has this negative connotation. And there's this false notion that people that are successful are immune from failure, or have a different relationship with failure than you or I do. And it's just not true. I mean, we really need to embrace failure as an absolute prerequisite to success. Because if you're not failing, you're not pushing yourself hard enough. You've got to take yourself to that place where you can trip up and fall, and then have enough sort of self-esteem to be able to say, "That's okay, I'm learning from that experience," and not let it devastate you and like, take you out of whatever game you're playing completely.

• 1:28:24Speaker 01

  I believe that, for sure. I think another great example of that that I cite in my book is Jackie Robinson, his stance on, if you want to talk about failure, you know, like, people are, coaches from the other team are screaming the N-word, they're telling they're gonna kill him after the game. And he went out each and every single city, each and every single day, and he kept playing, and he could have died at any moment. And he went out and he kept playing because he felt this greater sense of purpose, this greater sense of passion moving him. And that ended up changing the world.

• 1:29:03Speaker 01

  And I think that that's a great example of the repetitive failures that can happen. You know, then I cite all types of other interesting stories.

• 1:29:14Rich Roll?

  Well, I mean, a big part of your book is about how to connect with your passion and kind of unlock, you know, the theme, the biggest theme of this podcast is how do you unlock and unleash a more authentic version of yourself, right? And your book speaks to that. And I think that what I want to kind of get into a little bit before we close it down is- Is how you begin that process because you had this epiphany on this silent meditation retreat that you wanted to write a book. It like came to you, right? And I have a pretty clear sense of what my purpose is, but for a long time I didn't. And I think most people, whether you're in my generation or your generation, they don't know. You know, we're so distracted by, you know, Facebook and television and video games and whatever,

• 1:29:57Rich Roll?

  you know, there's so much input coming in that we don't have enough kind of quiet interior time to really get to know ourselves enough to have an idea of what it is even that we want to express, let alone what our dream is. And maybe if we have a dream, it's really not the right, like, oh, my dream is to own a Ferrari and live in a mansion. You know what I mean? It's like, that's not really, that's not a real, that's not a legitimate, like, kind of purpose-driven plan for your life. You know, how do you begin that process of trying to solve that Rubik's Cube?

• 1:30:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:30:31Rich Roll?

  If you are that, if you're listening, like, someone's listening, they're like, I don't even know, you know, like, all I'm enjoying this conversation, but like, you know, I'm in a job I don't like, I'm in this cubicle, I, you know, I gotta, I gotta stay in this job because this is how I'm paying my bills. I don't know how I'm gonna get out of it. And I don't know what I would do even if I didn't have to be here.

• 1:30:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, right. Yeah, no, it's totally valid. And I think great ways to start at are just looking at like little goals in our life. Like, I think it's such a powerful question that I like to ask. And that's like, what would happen, what would have to happen one year from now for you to look back and say it was your most successful and fulfilling year yet? That doesn't mean you need to quit everything you're doing and pursue something else. But like, what are little areas and ways to like, start taking the next steps, especially if we're not content with where we are? And like, that, the answers to those things can be losing 25 pounds. Like, that's a way to really improve our lives if like, if, if it's health, things like that, you know, developing on the side, like, if we,

• 1:31:32Speaker 01

  somebody was listening and wanted to write a book and they were working A lot of hours all the time, like my girlfriend Ashley wants to get more and more into writing. She works crazy hours tomorrow. She works nine AM to nine PM. The other day she worked, she left at five thirty and she got back at midnight. And she wants to get into writing. So when she has spare time, she spends two hours here and there. And like, I think little ways that we can start pounding at things and asking ourselves questions like, what would have to happen one year from now to look back and say it was your most successful fulfilling year yet? Well, would it be like, maybe traveling somewhere? Would it be starting to go to the gym every day or starting meditating? Or like, whatever it is, looking at little things like that and like building and not looking at like grandos things.

• 1:32:18Speaker 01

  I think also it goes back to what I was saying earlier about little ways that we can start. Our purpose necessarily is not like, like my purpose isn't writing books. My purpose is like, I just wanna like, give more hopefully, uh, more positivity and more hope to the world. And like, that constitutes like, talking to the cashiers at stores. And like today, this guy, he's like, yeah, I don't feel that good. I have like bronchitis. And like, I just stopped and like, gave him some time and like, attention. And like, I really felt him appreciate that. And like, I think just little things like that are so overlooked.

• 1:33:00Speaker 01

  It's like, if somebody's listening to this right now and they're like, you know, they, maybe they're not, whatever they're doing. They, they don't, they don't think it's what they wanna do with the rest of their lives. Like, just looking at the little ways that we can get going in different areas. Like, even just meditating more, like ways that we can start giving back to people are really, I, I believe really important and really overlook things. And I think the other thing is, especially for young people, that I always talk about in schools, and I think it's so applicable to older people, is trying things. We kind of, once we get in our, our cycle, we quit trying new things. And I think the only way to find what we like and don't like and what may become a great passion to us, is to just keep trying things.

• 1:33:45Speaker 01

  If we know what we don't wanna do, that's a great step to find things that we wanna do more and more.

• 1:33:51Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I think giving yourself freedom to try things without that pressure of succeeding or failing, just for the experience of it. And, you know, I really believe that. That, you know, change is possible with everybody irrespective of circumstance, socioeconomic or otherwise, and that the ability to transcend your circumstances begins and ends with those tiny actions taken consistently. And it's not sexy to say that, you know what I mean? It's like, you know what, wake up 10 minutes earlier and meditate. Do what I did this week, which was take Facebook and Twitter and email off your phone. And instead, I have, I put where I used to have Twitter on my phone, I put the Headspace meditation app.

• 1:34:36Speaker 01

  Nice.

• 1:34:37Rich Roll?

  Down in the bottom dock. So, okay, so what I'm saying symbolically is, that's my priority.

• 1:34:42Speaker 01

  That's beautiful.

• 1:34:43Rich Roll?

  And so, that's a tiny, that's nothing. It's a tiny thing, but if I do that consistently, that's going to shift my energy and that's going to take me in a different direction. And, you know, in this kind of clickbait world that we live in, you know, we're, as human beings, we have this, you know, primate brain that is naturally gravitates towards the headline that says, "Lose 20 pounds in a week," or "Make a million dollars in your sleep," or whatever it is. And it's just, it's not real. It's just not, you know? And so, if you really want to change your life, it's hard work. You have to make a decision that you are going to reprioritize certain things in your life, and you're gonna have to do things that are out of your comfort zone and aren't that fun, but also don't have to be that big a deal. It's like what you said.

• 1:35:24Rich Roll?

  It's like, hey, I'm gonna say hi to the cashier, you know, instead of checking my email as soon as I wake up, I'm gonna meditate for 10 minutes. I'm gonna do the artist's way, and I'm gonna do the morning pages and journal, and I'm gonna take myself on a one-hour artist's date, you know, once a week. Like, all of these things, they seem unrelated to whatever your goal may or may not be, but these are the things that get you in touch with who you are, that open these doors and set you on a new path where you will develop clarity about what it is that you really want in your life. And that will be a valid, healthy trajectory for you to explore, as opposed to, you know, maybe a materialistic, you know, kind of pursuit that, something that you think you want, but really isn't what you really want, or what is really best for you.

• 1:36:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think that's beautiful, man. I think that's awesome.

• 1:36:09Rich Roll?

  So, I don't know, man.

• 1:36:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, I totally, I agree. I think that's like the most beautiful way it could possibly be said is like all those little things and like the subconscious shift that happens.

• 1:36:20Rich Roll?

  Yeah, people, people want the sexy fun answer and it's like, and it's disappointing when it's the same answer like again and again, really like, no, I want the secret answer. Tell me what the,

• 1:36:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:36:30Rich Roll?

  Like if I, you know, what's the VIP answer?

• 1:36:33Speaker 01

  I know.

• 1:36:33Rich Roll?

  You know what I mean? It's like, no, it's the same thing every time, man. You just have to take the action, you know? So what's it gonna take to bridge that gap between inspiration and action? And that's what, what I'm obsessed with. Like, what is it? What is it about certain people that they can be inspired and take action and other people, they read the same book, they read the same quotes, whatever, and, and they wanna take that action. They want it, but they just can't. They can't take that step. Is it because they're not in enough pain yet? Like, what is it that distinguishes that one person from the other?

• 1:37:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think that's beautiful. I, yeah, no, when, when you ask me the question, I'm gonna go and I'm, and I'm saying it, you know? In, within me, for me, I know what my truth is and I share that vocally. And then there's the other part of me is like, what about the answer that'll sound better? You know, like my goal is to get in, in better and better and shape. And I think a perfect example of that is like, dude, it's by going every single day. It's not by like-

• 1:37:32Rich Roll?

  It's like you go to the gym every day. You wake up early and you go running, whatever it is. Yeah, it's the same thing.

• 1:37:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, right. And how a book is written, you know? I think those are all beautiful examples of the slow and gradual process that, that happens for sure. And that, that is, I think, one of the coolest, I really talk about a lot about goals in the book, but I believe the most important part about a goal is who will become in the process. And the only way that character is developed is through exactly what you were saying. It's about the commitment every single day and the work every single day. You know, then there's the opposite side of the scale, the people like Gary Vaynerchuk, uh, who say, you only need three hours of sleep, man, and work harder.

• 1:38:12Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:38:12Speaker 01

  You know, there's a place in between for all of us. I agree.

• 1:38:16Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, I've, I've sort of written on- The subject of like life hacks in the past and kind of seeing my way through to the other side of that. And certainly, there's plenty of, you know, sort of tips to like, create efficiencies in your life that allow you to spend more time doing what it is that you're passionate about. But I think that a lot of people sort of look at that, these hacks as like the end game. Like that's like their whole life should just be hacking everything all the time. It's like, what are you, what are you hacking to get to? You know what I mean? Like, the hack is not the destination. It's a tool to be able to free you up to really invest yourself more fully in the thing that it is that you're supposed to be doing.

• 1:38:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:38:55Rich Roll?

  And that thing shouldn't be hacked. That's the thing that you should be investing all of yourself in.

• 1:39:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's beautiful. Yeah, like, one of my main goals is I really wanted more and more deeply develop my meditation practice. And I don't know if there's a five-minute hack in order to do it. It might just be that I need to sit longer. But I do, I also, you know, while we're on that subject, like, one thing I did learn from Jack that's really served me and, you know, some other people have also found value in, is what he calls a rule of five. You know, whether it's getting, our goal is getting healthier every single day, or it's starting to create financial freedom from an online business, or whatever it is, five things every single day to move closer to that goal. And when Jack was an unknown author, they, him and Mark Victor Hansen on the First Chicken Soup for the

• 1:39:44Speaker 01

  Soul book, they implored this rule of five. And they got the idea because they went around and interviewed like, tons of authors and marketers about how to do it. This one guy's like, if you were in the forest, and you were stuck out there, and like, you really needed, you're gonna need some wood for a fire. And there was this really big tree, and you didn't have any food, so you didn't have that much, um, energy forever.

• 1:40:11Speaker 01

  Would you just swing as hard as you could till you passed out? Or would you like take a little bit more concentrated like? Take like five hacks and take a little break, take five more hacks, take a little break. Eventually you'd come down. And they implored this rule of five thing where like five things every single day. So it's like, you know, the other thing that can happen a lot is like, maybe we know a direction we want to take, even if it's getting healthier every day. And so we go to the, we drink a bunch of coffee and go to the gym for four hours and then we're done for the next three weeks. Cause we're so sore.

• 1:40:41Rich Roll?

  Too sore, right? As opposed to just taking the smaller action every day, taking little bites out of the apple every single day.

• 1:40:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think it's a beautiful thing and I wanted to share that because I think it's a cool thing. Yeah, rule of five is what Jack calls it. I, I talk about that a bit in the book, so it's not as overwhelming. Like, we're not going to get there overnight and, and you know, it's, it's a great way to be able to stay on pace and know that we're still making progress.

• 1:41:07Rich Roll?

  Yeah, and it happens, you know, when no one's looking and it happens anonymously with the little things that you're, you're doing. You know, you don't, they don't have to be broadcast on Facebook. They're just actions that you're taking consistently. And when you, when you kind of crack that seal and start doing it, it develops its own momentum. You know, it's, it's that same thing like, like when you're going, when you, when you go to the gym and you start feeling fit, then you want to go to the gym and then you're going to the gym all the time. But then something interrupts you and you don't go for a week and, and then it becomes really hard to get back.

• 1:41:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:41:39Rich Roll?

  Right? Because your, your flow, your momentum is interrupted. So I think it's about creating those, those momentums in the various areas of your life that you're trying to improve or, you know, pursue goals.

• 1:41:50Speaker 01

  I believe that as well. Yeah, no, I, I also, I also was thinking in my head when you're, you said something about Facebook. I think it's also as a, a, a fun thing to do is like go out there and like.

• 1:42:05Speaker 01

  Do something for someone else and don't tell anyone about it. And like, I think when I have done that in my life and I notice like, how much more of that like feel-good energy stays with me instead of when I go tell some people or post it up.

• 1:42:20Rich Roll?

  Then you broadcast it. It takes all the magic out of this.

• 1:42:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think those are great, you know, little takeaways that, you know, all those little things can improve the quality of, they have improved the quality of my life and I believe they can help others.

• 1:42:35Rich Roll?

  Right, very good. Yeah, like I recently interviewed Dean Karnazis, ultra marathon runner, and he said, you know, basically a guy goes out and runs like thirty miles a day. Like he's his whole day, he doesn't even own a car, he's just running all the time. And he said he brings like, you know, a bunch of dollar bills with him and he just kind of holds them in his hand and he, he puts them on like windshields on cars when he's running by, just like little tokens of like, you know, dropping little like, just like little, you know, things that just, and he's like, it makes me feel great. Like it's just a small little thing or whatever, but you know, that's an example of what you're saying, I think.

• 1:43:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's beautiful. And if you don't have any money, I can't tell you how many times.

• 1:43:13Rich Roll?

  Yeah, just a smile on a nice exchange.

• 1:43:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, dude, the other day I was a little frustrated and I was walking down the street and this lady smiled at me. Dude, it made, I would literally, I was like, afterward, I was like, oh, there it is again. And like, it just changed my whole day. And like, she doesn't know that, but like, it literally changed my day. Just from somebody stopping to smile instead of looking at the ground. And like, I believe that the more and more that we do those things, the more and more like that's how we can create change.

• 1:43:44Rich Roll?

  I agree, man. I think that's a good place to close it down.

• 1:43:47Speaker 01

  I agree.

• 1:43:48Rich Roll?

  Thanks so much, dude. I appreciate it. So cool. So the Purpose Principles is coming out January 2nd, right?

• 1:43:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, January 2nd.

• 1:43:57Rich Roll?

  Is it up for a pre-order now?

• 1:43:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's up for, thanks, man. Yeah, it's up for pre-order now on, you know, online retailers and we'll be in Barnes and Noble and all that fun stuff.

• 1:44:06Rich Roll?

  Excellent. So we're in mid-December right now. So I'll probably post this like first week of January. I'll try to get it up there. So right when the book comes out.

• 1:44:14Speaker 01

  I'd be very appreciative of that.

• 1:44:16Rich Roll?

  If you wanna, if you wanna get it, pick it up on, use the, use the Amazon banner at it, ritual.com, of course, to pick it up. And if you're digging on Jake and you wanna connect with him, the best place to do that is jakeducey.com. Right?

• 1:44:30Speaker 01

  Yes, thank you.

• 1:44:31Rich Roll?

  I said your last name right, Ducey, right?

• 1:44:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, you said it right, that's it.

• 1:44:34Rich Roll?

  D U C E Y. And you're on Facebook and Twitter at Jake Ducey Author?

• 1:44:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, Jake Ducey Author, and I've got a YouTube channel, kind of unroll. I've got a cool series, done a bunch of videos that have not been released yet.

• 1:44:49Rich Roll?

  Ah, cool.

• 1:44:50Speaker 01

  So I'm pretty excited to put those out.

• 1:44:52Rich Roll?

  You're gonna like roll those out with the book coming out and all that?

• 1:44:54Speaker 01

  Exactly, yeah, I have a fun rollout plan for 2015 that I'm really excited about. And I think we've got some, put a lot of time into some cool videos that I'm really excited about.

• 1:45:05Rich Roll?

  And is all the places where you're gonna be speaking a lot too? Do you have like a schedule of that on your website?

• 1:45:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, my website and the Warp Tour is another big one, you know, especially for young people that want to go to that. It's a cool vibe to be around and, you know, that's just warp.com. But yeah, online and Facebook, all those places, I share all those fun stuff. For right now, I'm definitely, I decided this, for this launch, to experiment, putting more time into podcasts and less on physical events. So I'm pretty eager for that and really grateful for the opportunity to come on with you.

• 1:45:41Rich Roll?

  Yeah, cool, man. Well, my pleasure. This is, this is great, man. I really enjoyed it. So, thanks so much.

• 1:45:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, dude, thank you.

• 1:45:47Rich Roll?

  All right, peace.

• 1:45:48Speaker 01

  Peace.

• 1:45:48Rich Roll?

  Plants.

• 1:45:53Rich Roll?

  Hey, I thought that was pretty awesome. Let me know what you guys think in the comments section in the blog. Don't forget, I'm starting this new Q and A podcast format every two weeks or so. So if you have questions that you want me to answer, specific subjects that you want me to address, please send me your questions for future Q and A podcasts. All right, we're in 2015. What does that mean? With the new year comes those resolutions. How are you gonna eat better? How are you gonna take care of yourself better? How are you gonna accomplish those goals you've set for yourself? Well, good news is, I've got a couple online courses on just these very subjects. The first is called The Ultimate Guide to Plant-Based Nutrition, and the second is called The Art of Living with Purpose. Both of these courses can be found at mindbodygreen.com.

• 1:46:38Rich Roll?

  Both offer multiple hours of streaming video content, downloadable tools. They feature interactive communities, everything you need to get more plants into your active life, to dial up your diet, and also to set you on a new and healthier nutrition trajectory, help you probe deep inside to learn more about what makes you tick, and help you set the right goals for yourself and take those goals across the finish line to create sustainable long-term lifestyle improvements for yourself to ultimately raise the bar on your personal and athletic, if that's your thing, life experience. So, go to mindbodygreen.com, click on "Video Courses" at the top of the homepage menu to learn more.

• 1:47:22Rich Roll?

  For all your Plant Power provisions, go to richroll.com. We've got new t-shirts there. We have some tech tees, finally, they're in limited supply. Don't forget to subscribe to my newsletter for a free seven recipe download to stay clued in to what's what, including pre-order incentives on our new cookbook called The Plant Power Way, coming out this spring. Going to be a lot of information about that coming to you guys soon. If you like this podcast, please give us a review on iTunes. It only takes two seconds, you guys, come on, hook me up. And if you want to access the entire RRP catalog, back to episode one, the only way really to do that is to get the free iOS app in the iTunes App Store. Just go to the iTunes App Store, search Rich Roll, it'll pop right up. It's free, you'll love it.

• 1:48:04Rich Roll?

  Support the show by telling a friend, using the Amazon banner ad, and by donating, the donate buttons on the site. And please, keep Instagramming. I love it when you guys share the hows and the whys and the whens and the who's of how you enjoy this show. Just tag me at Rich Roll so I can spread the love. All right, we're going to close it down with the first assignment of 2015. No doubt, you are writing your resolutions out, if you haven't already. And this is all about, what do you want to drop in 2015? What do you want to bring in to 2015? What do you want to express more fully in 2015? Well, the point is this: nothing changes if nothing changes.

• 1:48:48Rich Roll?

  And the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results. So, this is what I want you guys to think about. What is going to change this time around that will make the difference between creating a long-term seismic sustainable change for the better in your life versus a goal you abandoned by mid-February? Which is basically, most people's experience of setting New Year's resolutions and then abandoning them shortly thereafter. So, I'm not asking you to do anything more this week than to simply ponder that question. Maybe do a little bit of writing around it. That's it. What is going to change? And by this, I mean, really change. See you next week.

• 1:49:33Rich Roll?

  Peace. Plants.