Eat Concrete, Not Meat

People say people don’t change. Bullshit. I have the great honor of seeing and participating in lives that have changed so dramatically the people they are today bear almost no resemblance to who they once were. Weight loss, sure – I see that all the time. I'm talking more about drastic career changes; dramatic spiritual awakenings; and impossible recovery from profound addictions. I'm talking about people who change from that person you’d shuffle across the street to avoid – literal mental insanity – to becoming inspirational leaders among men. Alterations so stunning I'm left awestruck; and with a profound sense that there must be powers at work beyond the mere mortal. If this show is anything, it's an effort to share those stories to inspire that kind of hope, aspiration and possibility in you. That no matter what your circumstance or plight in life, that transcending the obstacles you face is within reach. When I recorded the introduction to this episode and wrote down these thoughts, it was 3:30 am. Jetlagged and wide awake, I just returned from a whirlwind trip across the globe – 3 weeks on the road in Canada, Beirut, Lebanon and all across Saudi Arabia. Riyadh in the heart of the Arabian desert, Al Khobar on the Persian Gulf & Jeddah on the Red Sea. If you follow me on Instagram or Facebook you might have seem some pictures of me running in all those places. Apologies for all the selfies, but I just wanted to share what I was experiencing with everyone. It was such a fantastic journey and privilege to see parts of the world I never in a million years thought I would ever have the opportunity to see. I gave 6 talks over the course of the trip; all in their own right amazing. Particularly in the Middle East, where the cultural divide can seem so profound and impenetrable that making a true connection seemed almost impossible. And yet to connect with people on a fundamental level over things and concerns we all share no matter what the dictates of our cultural prerogatives – our health, the health of our children, nutrition, prevention of disease, fitness and the ills of our food system ecosystem – was life altering for me. I know it made it impact on them as well. It feels really good. An experience I am immensely grateful for. An experience I won't soon forget. My point is that I have changed. Dramatically and irrevocably. Mostly in ways I didn’t expect. Could never have predicted. And certainly never dreamed, consciously plotted or specifically devised. But definitely in ways I embrace and love. For most of my life, all I wanted was to be someone else. And now I can say that I would not trade my life for anyone. It all started when I made a decision to do the inside work. As I got healthier — physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually — I learned, very slowly and stubbornly I might add, how to lean into, trust and take action on my (once dubious and self-will driven) instincts, no matter how illogical or contrary to my chosen life path they may have seemed at the time. This has made all the difference. It is the reason I enjoy the life I have today. It begins with mining your personal truth. And then embarking on the journey of living it. Something I want everyone to experience — and why I do this show. If today’s guest is anything, he is a guy who is living his truth. Living his own unique brand of passion. Walking a road less traveled, and inspiring people the world over. Timothy Shieff. 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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• 1:04Rich Roll?

  Welcome to the Rich Roll Podcast, episode 86, with world champion freerunner and parkour artist Timothy Sheaf.

• 1:21Rich Roll?

  The Rich Roll Podcast. Greetings, people, citizens of the globe. My name is Rich Roll. It is not Rick Roll. You are not being Rick Rolled. And this is my show, The Rich Roll Podcast, so welcome, truly. And thank you so much for tuning in. If you're new to the program, let me quickly break it down. Each week, I bring to you the best, the most forward-thinking, paradigm-busting minds in health, fitness, athleticism, creativity, diet, nutrition, art, entrepreneurship, personal growth, spirituality.

• 1:53Rich Roll?

  The goal is to empower you with the tools and the knowledge and the inspiration and the motivation to take your life to the next level, to help you discover, unlock, and unleash your best, most authentic self, pure and simple. People say that people don't change, and frankly, I think that's bullshit. I've had the great honor of seeing and participating in countless people's lives that have changed so dramatically, the people they are today bear almost no resemblance to who they once were. And I'm not talking about just dramatic weight loss, that's cool, of course, I see that all the time. I'm talking about people who are getting off their medications, I'm talking about drastic

• 2:33Rich Roll?

  career changes, spiritual awakenings, recovery from profound addictions to drugs, alcohol, food, gambling, relationships. I have seen people change from that person that you would actually cross the street to avoid, people afflicted with complete mental insanity. And I don't mean that in the pejorative sense, but in the true clinical sense, to becoming inspirational leaders among men, and that is not an exaggeration. Alteration so stunning, it leaves you in awe, in a sense that there must be powers at work beyond the mere means of man and his flawed state of nature. You name it, I've seen it, and this show is really, if it's anything, it's an effort

• 3:16Rich Roll?

  to share those stories, to inspire that kind of hope and that kind of aspiration and possibility in you, in your life, that no matter what your circumstance, transcending the obstacles you face is always within your reach. So, right now, it's about 3:30 a.m. I'm jet lagged, I'm wide awake, I just returned from a whirlwind trip across the globe. I was gone from my house for three weeks on the road. I was in Canada, I was in Beirut, Lebanon, and all across Saudi Arabia. I was in Riyadh, in the heart of the Arabian Desert, I was in Al Khbar, on the Persian Gulf, and then I was in Jeddah, on the west coast of Saudi Arabia, right along the Red Sea.

• 3:58Rich Roll?

  And if you follow me on Instagram or Facebook, you might have seen some of the pictures that I posted of me running in all those places, the selfies, I get a little crap for taking so many selfies, but, you know, I just wanted to share what I was experiencing with everyone. It was such an incredible, fantastic journey. And a privilege to see parts of the world, frankly, I never thought in a million years I would ever have the opportunity to see. And not just to visit, but I was there to share my message. I gave six talks over the course of the trip, and all in their own right, they were amazing. Particularly in the Middle East, where the cultural divide can seem so profound and impenetrable, that making a true connection almost seems impossible.

• 4:43Rich Roll?

  And yet, I was able to do that. I was able to connect with people on a fundamental level over things and concerns that we all share, no matter what the dictates of our cultural prerogatives, our health, the health of our children, nutrition, the prevention of disease, the ills of our food system, fitness. This was a life-altering experience for me, and I know I made an impact on the people that I met along the way, and that feels really good. It was a life-altering experience, and one that I'm truly grateful for, and one I soon won't forget, won't soon forget. But anyway, I'm happy to be home, and the point that I'm trying to make, albeit long-winded, is that I have changed. I've changed dramatically, I've changed irrevocably from the person I was only a few years ago.

• 5:28Rich Roll?

  And in so many ways, the person that I've changed into is something I would have never expected, you know, changed in ways I would have never dreamed, or plotted, or could have possibly devised, but in ways that I embrace and I love. And for, you know, for most of my life, I can honestly say that all I wanted to do was to be somebody else. And now I can say that I wouldn't trade my life for anyone. And again, that's a really good feeling. It all started when I made a decision to do some inside work. And as I got healthier, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, I learned how to lean into and trust and take action on my instincts. And my instincts didn't used to be things that I could rely on.

• 6:12Rich Roll?

  My instincts generally would take me down dark alleyways and get me in trouble. But as a result of this kind of evolution that I've been on, this journey that I've been on, now I'm in a place where I can really lean into and trust those instincts. And they're sort of my higher self, I guess you could call them. And no matter how illogical or contrary to my chosen life path, they seemed...

• 6:34Rich Roll?

  Sort of trusting in that and walking in faith has really made all the difference in my life. And it's really, truly the reason that I enjoy the life that I have today. And again, I'm being long-winded, I realize that, but the point is that I want everybody to have the gift of experiencing your version of this in your own life. And really, that's what the podcast is about. It's about sharing these people that I've had good fortune of coming across, allowing them to share their message, and hopefully you get to take away from that some nugget here and there that will be helpful in your path. So today's guest, if today's guest is anything, he is a guy who is certainly living his truth,

• 7:15Rich Roll?

  his version of the truth for him, living his own unique brand of passion and walking a road that is less traveled, very less traveled, and inspiring people the world over as a result. His name is Timothy Sheaf, AKA, otherwise known as LiveWire. Tim is widely considered one of the world's best, if not the world's best, freerunners. What is freerunning? Well, freerunning is essentially a version of what we also know as parkour. And parkour are like the guys that you see in the Jason Bourne movies and the James Bond movies, who run up walls and jump off roofs and generally defy gravity and the laws of physics with

• 7:56Rich Roll?

  nothing but the mere momentum of their bodies. So this is a way of saying that this English chap, Timothy Sheaf, can do things that you probably can't. Mind-bending, mind-blowing things that have made him a superstar in the parkour, freerunning world and beyond. You should check out his YouTube channel, it's just youtube.com/livewire, and you'll get my meaning. But be warned, it can suck you in, you might lose a few hours watching him do these crazy things on video. It's quite impressive and amazing. But honestly, that's not what's most striking or impressive about this young man, and it's not why he's on the show. The reason he's on the show, and what makes him so inspiring to me, is

• 8:37Rich Roll?

  his incredible passion in spirit, his drive to inspire other people, especially young people across the world, towards self-betterment through the incredible transformative power of body movement. He's passionate about the planet, he's passionate about the environment, the animals, and his discipline, if you will, is almost, in certain respects, I think you could qualify it as a form of physical, political performance art. It's sort of a demonstration of how we can live more in harmony with nature and our surroundings. It's a reframing of what a building, or a rooftop, or a curb, or staircase railing actually means by inverting and expanding upon the ways in which a human can interact with it. And also, he's a plant-based athlete, too.

• 9:22Rich Roll?

  He's got a lot of opinions about that as well, which I think you'll find intriguing and make you maybe just rethink a few assumptions about food and athletics. And to coin his phrase, eat concrete, not meat. So it's one thing to be an endurance athlete like me, you know, somebody who just goes out and runs long distances. It's not exactly threatening or the most masculine of physical or sport pursuits, but it's another thing altogether to be a guy like Tim where explosiveness, power, speed, and incredible body strength and precise coordination dictate everything. What Tim can do with his body is honestly nothing short of extraordinary, but it's his mind, it's the mind, it's the spirit that makes the difference.

• 10:07Rich Roll?

  This very particular relationship that he has to develop with fear in order to do what he does. And that's something that we explore in the conversation, it's really fascinating. You know, this relationship that he has to walk through it and sort of defy fear, or the feelings of fear that crop up that allow him to place himself in situations that most people certainly wouldn't dare. And the fact that he does all of this, and does it as well as he does, if not better than anyone else on the planet, eating nothing but plants, by the way, is, you know, it's profound. And it undermines and inverts and reframes everything we traditionally think about when we think about the relationship between nutrition and extraordinary athletic performance.

• 10:50Rich Roll?

  This is a message that he shares, not just through his physical motion, his physicality, and across his various social media platforms, but he's also a peer to the Movies, he's been in the Harry Potter movies, he played Death Eater. And he can be found preparing delicious vegan meals and sort of post-workout smoothies, etc. on his buddy Jamie Oliver's YouTube channel, which is pretty cool. Links to all this stuff will be up on the show page at richroll.com if you want to check all that out. In any event, I found out that Tim was visiting LA from the UK when my buddy Mac Danzig, the MMA fighter, UFC fighter who's been on the show, you should check out that interview if you haven't already, it's a great one, one of the most popular

• 11:34Rich Roll?

  ones that I've done. Anyway, Mac was texting me, he's like, "You gotta meet this guy, Tim, he's amazing, he'd be great for the show." And I was sort of thinking, "I don't have time." I was really busy at the time, I was juggling a lot of different things and I wasn't sure I was gonna be able to squeeze it in. And then, the next day, I ran into my ninja warrior parkour buddy Travis Brewer, who's also been on the show, you might remember him, a couple of episodes back. And he was telling me that he had just worked out with Tim that day. And so, when I heard that, I thought, "The universe is making it pretty clear that I really need to meet this guy." So I made the time, and I'm glad I did.

• 12:15Rich Roll?

  Travis also sits down with us today, he's the co-host with us, and we dug in.

• 12:31Rich Roll?

  So you had lunch with Mac today?

• 12:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:34Rich Roll?

  How do you know Mac?

• 12:36Speaker 01

  He hit me up actually on Twitter, like, not too long ago, he said, "I dig what you're doing." And then I didn't really know about it, I watched UFC, I love UFC, but I wasn't into it from when he was kind of more in that scene, and he's kind of stepped back from that now. And he hit me up, and I thought, "Yeah, this guy is cool." Like, when I checked out his background, and he was like, "Next time you come in, let me know, let me know." And I came, and I didn't get a chance to see him before, and this time I've been, I was hassling him, I was like, "I'm here, I'm here, let's hang out." And, you know, he's got to spend a lot of time with his daughter, and he found some time, and we went for lunch, went to Native Foods Cafe.

• 13:11Rich Roll?

  Oh, cool, that's a spot, man.

• 13:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, there's a lot of, I call it, fast food vegan cuisine.

• 13:17Rich Roll?

  It's like that and veggie grill, though, like, Native Foods is a little... Cleaner.

• 13:21Speaker 01

  Little cleaner, there's more salad options, you know, that's how you gauge the health by like how big the salad section is on the menu.

• 13:27Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 13:28Speaker 01

  And, you know, that was great. And while I'm here, I'm enjoying those foods.

• 13:32Rich Roll?

  Yeah, he's a, and Max is a great guy. And, and he, it's funny, cause he started texting me a couple of days ago. I was getting ready to go out of town, like quick out of town trip to Colorado. And he's like, hey, I got this guy Tim in town. Be great for the podcast. You, you should definitely check him out. And I was like, really juggling like a lot of stuff. And I was like, I don't, I don't know if I can do it. It sounds awesome, but I don't know. And, and, uh, maybe I could do it Thursday afternoon. And he kept check, he wouldn't let, he kept checking in with me, you know, like, let me know. It's cool if you can't, but like, just let me know. And then I get back from Colorado yesterday afternoon, I had to go straight to this little event at Lewis Howes apartment for Adam Braun, for his book, uh, uh, The Promise of a Pencil, to honor him, which was really cool. And Travis was there. Hey Travis.

• 14:16Speaker 02

  Hey, what's up guys?

• 14:17Rich Roll?

  And he's like, dude, I called you today, went right to voicemail, but I was working out with this guy Tim. And he said he was gonna do your podcast. And I was like, alright, you know, the universe is speaking, you know, we gotta hook it up. So I'm glad that, uh,

• 14:29Speaker 01

  He did the job for me, yeah.

• 14:31Speaker 02

  Glad I could gently nudge, because I knew this needed to happen.

• 14:34Rich Roll?

  Oh, cool. No, I'm totally pumped. And for the listeners out there, uh, these two guys just put on an impromptu free running parkour clinic, climbing all over my house and doing insane stuff. I'm, I'll post some pictures from it, but it was pretty epic, man. That was a treat. That was really cool.

• 14:50Speaker 01

  Oh, you're welcome. And thanks for giving us the architecture to play on. Every time I'm in a new environment, I get inspired. And Travis out here kicked things off, and you know, got it started.

• 14:59Rich Roll?

  It was, it's kinda like, uh, I mean, for me-

• 15:02Speaker 02

  Thanks for the beautiful house. It makes it easy to do beautiful things.

• 15:05Rich Roll?

  Thanks for making the way up. But, um, I was thinking about it, and it's sort of, it's not dissimilar from when you started climbing up on the roof and you're kind of looking around, like, what are our options? What can we, what can we do? Like, what can we do creatively here? It reminded me of surfers who, you know, park along the side of the road by the beach, and they spend a long time, like, looking at the waves before they ever get in. They're trying to like, see, you know, where's the sweet spot? Like, where, where, you know, where can I position myself? And, you know, it's that kind of performance art aspect of what you do. Like, there's a lot of- You know, I think when you're in the midst of doing it, you're in this no mind state where you have to really turn the brain off.

• 15:44Speaker 01

  Completely.

• 15:44Rich Roll?

  But before that, I can see the, you know, the wheels of the mind turning, like looking around, like trying to figure out.

• 15:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's accessing creativity, I think that's what I'd call it, is that you use, you know, the mind to find that realm of what can I register here from something I kind of recognize that I've done previously, and then you try and build on that. And so to see this, I'm looking for things I've kind of done in the past, and then when I start to play on it, you start to find new things that maybe I've never tried.

• 16:10Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 16:10Speaker 01

  It's really fun.

• 16:11Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's cool. I want to get into all of that, but before we do, like, why don't you just, for the uninitiated.

• 16:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:17Rich Roll?

  Explain what freerunning is, like what parkour is.

• 16:21Speaker 01

  Freerunning is kind of that thing everyone did when they were a kid, and they balanced on a wall and their mother held their hand. And it's kind of like, you're climbing around your environment and exploring, and it kind of evolved. It came out of Paris, it was called parkour, which means obstacle coursing, but with a C and they spelt it with a K, P-A-R-K-O-U-R. About 20 years ago, a guy called David Bell invented it. It came from his father, who trained firefighters how to get around environments efficiently. And then it came to England maybe 10 years ago, and I saw a documentary there called Jump Britain. And it just blew my mind, because it was like this evolution of kids in the playground to adults with big muscles, climbing around buildings, their environment, using it in

• 17:05Speaker 01

  such a unique way. And, I mean, a lot of people see that and they think that's dangerous, and they see kind of this negative side of it straight away, and they're kind of, you know, the older generation, the more fear, they kind of put their own perception of if that was me climbing on that wall, that could be dangerous. But for me, as a kid, I just saw, you know, this beautiful movement, and it, yeah, it's just moving through your environment, be it walls or through nature, I like to climb trees, in a creative way. Initially, it was about efficiency, it was going from A to B as fast as possible. They say be strong to be useful, so you know, if you let yourself out of your house, or there's a fire, you can get away from it, or go save someone. It's being able to be in any environment and know the limits of what your body can achieve. A lot of the things we do, sometimes people say, oh.

• 17:49Speaker 01

  I reckon I could do that, but I'm just scared to try it. And we're, we get to that level where we know what we can do, you know, there's no gray areas. It's black or white. I can do this or I can't do this. And it's having that confidence in any situation to, to know your environment.

• 18:01Rich Roll?

  Hmm. Yeah. And it's, it, it's this weird merging of incredible physical, physicality, physical prowess, physical acumen with almost this like ballet-like performance art aspect to it. And what I always notice is the amazing use of like leverage and momentum to create efficiencies. You know, when you see, when I see you, you know, sort of climb up or down my wall or, you know, sort of bounce off two walls to go up, you're using your, it, it, it looks so, you make it look so easy because of, of this mastery that you have over your body to kind of create these momentum that carry yourself.

• 18:38Speaker 01

  It must make it, I think because it's such a natural thing that we do, it feels so natural when you get to like a decent level. And it, I did, that, that's why it looks easy to people because it's something that our bodies are designed to be able to do. We used to have to climb trees and things like that. And then, like you say, you've got ballet and these movements look so poetic. And it's kind of that, that balance of, you know, calisthenics, which Travis is a complete master of. But then you're using those, those strengths you get from that to try, to traverse across an environment.

• 19:06Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 19:06Speaker 01

  And then you kind of add flair and that's where free running came about from the parkour was, it's kind of, you move through an environment, but then you can add flips and tricks and make it more of art performance.

• 19:17Rich Roll?

  Right. So that's the difference between what would be considered strict parkour and free running?

• 19:21Speaker 01

  That's what online became, became the difference. I don't really agree with, I, I use the both terms like, so I free flow between parkour, free running. I don't mean the same thing, yeah, interchangeably. But, but for some people, they need that difference and parkour is the efficient movement. Free running is the poetic movement.

• 19:38Rich Roll?

  Right, right. And it's this use of your environment, wherever you are. Like I was watching some of your videos and it's just using the urban landscape or the natural landscape and then figuring out how to navigate through that in a really beautiful artistic way.

• 19:49Speaker 01

  Yeah. It's just an outlet of creativity for me. And I was always, as a kid, I looked up to break dancers and gymnasts and this movement, like that kind of expression movement got like, it's hit something in my soul. And I was, I was blessed that I was able to now make a career out of this thing because. I believe everyone's here on this earth with a destiny and they've got a gift that they're given that their soul matches up with. And then, you know, you use that gift and then you have to have a positive message with that. So I'm in a position now, I've got this gift and people look to me because of what I do. Okay, so I'm in a position where people are going to listen to what I say. I have to make sure I use that responsibly. And that's what I think we're here for. We're here to, you know, have a gift and then use it to promote something positive.

• 20:31Rich Roll?

  Right. I mean, that's, that's a big theme of this podcast. And I was, I was actually laughing out loud when I was reading your bio on your website, because, you know, I'm thinking, all right, you know, two time world free running champion. I'll click on his bio and it's going to be this long list of all these sort of accomplishments and things that you've won and et cetera. And instead, it was like this beautiful polemic about life, this sort of philosophical, you know, kind of perspective on, on, you know, how you see yourself in the world and, and what you feel is important in what you do and how you express yourself creatively, athletically and physically. And in reading it, I was like, you just captured exactly the, basically the primary theme of what I try to use this podcast for, which

• 21:14Rich Roll?

  is to help empower people to find that, that thing inside of them, you know, that maybe they once embraced as a child and kind of got eroded over time.

• 21:23Speaker 01

  Exactly the case.

• 21:24Rich Roll?

  To try to find a way to express that more fully and to kind of step into a more authentic, fully actualized, you know, version of, of yourself. And every guest that I have on is some form or another of that in, in a variety of different ways. But you said it so beautifully. I loved it.

• 21:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, thank you. That, but yeah, I sent it to a friend and he went, wow, like, you've gone a bit too far with that. Because it's like about me section and it should be, you know, your arguments or whatever, but.

• 21:48Rich Roll?

  But I thought it was great because you don't like, you're like, that's what you're expecting.

• 21:52Speaker 01

  I wanted to be honest, man. I wanted to be honest. And that's how I feel. And people can read that and be like, whoa, he's this hippie schmippy dude. Or some people can be like, damn, that we want him involved with what we do. And those are the people I want to work with.

• 22:01Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 22:02Speaker 01

  It cuts out the.

• 22:03Rich Roll?

  I think it's powerful. And I think if, you know, if you were a yoga instructor, people would be like, oh, well, that's what you would expect. Somebody who's meditation teacher, like if it was Charlie Knowles or somebody like that, you'd expect something like that. But with somebody who is so into the, this. You know.

• 22:19Speaker 01

  It's explosive what we do.

• 22:20Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's very, it requires incredible amount of strength and power and agility and skill and, and you know, in, in certain respects, sort of almost a martial art in its own right. And it's very different from, you know, the hippie sports or like what I do, endurance running or endurance sports. It's, it's very, very masculine in the same way that what, you know, Mac Danzig does is very masculine. And I think when somebody who is so skilled or has such great proficiency in something like that, like yourself, when you express yourself that way, I think it's much more powerful.

• 22:50Speaker 02

  Yeah. Timothy, actually, when I were driving up here and we were just kind of talking about kind of the evolution of where like parkour and free running is going, where calisthenics is going and like being able to use, you know, being good at a certain art, you have an, an ability to, you know, put your own message on it, you know? We, we feel very strongly that, you know, we can direct something with, you know, like I'm so appreciative of Timothy because that is his bio, you know? And like my bio would be something that's similar.

• 23:15Rich Roll?

  You would be the same.

• 23:16Speaker 02

  You know, it wasn't, it's like, I, I'm not here to brag about what I've done, you know? It's really like to display a message of how we can make the world better, you know? And how I, you could find your passion and what you want to do.

• 23:25Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I think the beauty now is the universe appears to be supporting those people more, like whether it was 2012 or whatever they say. But, you know, the people that are authentic and to themselves and they've got integrity, they seem to be surfacing to the top now. And all these companies coming about that care about eco-friendly, the environment, you know, veganism, like promoting life and health, they're slowly surfacing and servicing. And it's a really exciting time to be involved in this movement. And part of me is like, yeah, I just know that we're going to win in the end. So I'm just on this team. Like, it's kind of like a selfish thing, but you know, it's win-win. Like, that's, that's how it works.

• 23:58Rich Roll?

  Uh huh. Yeah. Yeah, it's funny. Um, I mean, I agree with that too. And, and sometimes people say to me, well, you know, not everybody can be so talented, you know, like not everybody could do what you do or, you know, not, and I agree, like not everybody.

• 24:12Speaker 01

  I could do what you do, brother.

• 24:13Rich Roll?

  Well, I mean, not everybody can be, but that's not the point. The point is, you know, not everybody can be LeBron James, you know? But I think everybody has an innate talent for something or at least a passion for something. And I think that the way our society is contrived, we're. Especially men, we're not really encouraged to explore that. It's just, you know, it's something we're supposed to kind of repress and put behind us.

• 24:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, put on the side, it's like a side hobby. But the thing is, you can make it now because of YouTube and the internet. And you can make a living doing what you're passionate about. And it's about finding it and making it work and acknowledging that it may take a bit of work in the beginning. And it may take a year or two till you find your feet and you have to juggle a few things. But when you get there, there's nothing more rewarding than making a living doing what you love. But then at the same time, you know, once money gets involved, it changes things. So there's a constant struggle that you have to kind of find the right balance of what you're doing.

• 25:06Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 25:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:07Rich Roll?

  When you were, so how old were you when you first saw these documentaries or you became interested?

• 25:12Speaker 01

  I was fifteen, sixteen. I was sixteen, I think. I'm twenty-six now, so it was about ten years ago.

• 25:17Rich Roll?

  And you were like a breakdancer.

• 25:18Speaker 01

  I was a breakdancer.

• 25:19Rich Roll?

  Already kind of into this.

• 25:20Speaker 01

  Movement, yeah. Yeah, I loved it. But there was a lot of competition in breakdancing and it was very one dimensional. The music got really boring to me as well. Like, I did really love it at the time, but that really gave me a unique style when I came over to freerunning. Because a lot of freerunners, either they didn't do a sport or they did skateboarding, roller skating. Some did martial arts, but there was no style in those kind of, I guess skating and that has a certain style. But breakdancing is very, there's not many freerunners that came from a breakdancing background. And that gave me a unique perspective on it. And it made me stand out pretty early on. And within nine months of starting freerunning, I was making videos and I joined a team called Ever Free Fly. And I went to Iceland to do a show for Nokia out there. And within nine months, I'm getting paid, you know, to do some of them I'm just passionate about as a kid.

• 26:04Rich Roll?

  Right, right.

• 26:05Speaker 01

  And that's when it picked up from there.

• 26:06Rich Roll?

  And, I mean, did you ever imagine you'd be able to make a career out of doing this? Or you were just following your heart?

• 26:11Speaker 01

  It wasn't a thought, man. It was following my heart. It really wasn't a thought. People ask me that and I'm like, now, it's obvious. Yeah, of course you can. But at the time, I was at school. I enjoyed doing maths a lot. I got into university to do a maths and physics degree at nineteen. And I was doing a bit more at freerunning and I'm lucky, I was blessed. My parents, I mean, they supported me enough. I mean, they don't get the whole vegan thing, but at the time, they said, okay, you can defer your university for a year. Try the freerunning thing. If, when it doesn't work out, you can go to university. They gave me that opportunity. Not, I mean, at that age, you should have free will anyway. But they supported me enough to let me do it and I pursued it. Made enough money that they said, okay, you can do it for another year. And it just rolled from there. It's been really good.

• 26:55Rich Roll?

  And what is it about like the, you know, part of it, part of your journey is tapping into this, this sort of thing that in many ways is very like childlike or

• 27:07Speaker 01

  Incredibly childlike.

• 27:08Rich Roll?

  You know, so a big part of your story is trying to get people to understand or embrace this inner child within, right? So tell me a little bit about.

• 27:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think parkour gives too much of a label to what I do. Like people say, oh, there's skateboarding, there's parkour, there's BMXing. It's not like any of them. There's no variable. There's no alter thing that you have to do it with. It's just play. Like parkour is too, as soon as I say, we're just playing, you know, let's go out and play. We often call it training and I've started not using that word because it makes it sound like work.

• 27:41Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 27:41Speaker 01

  And it shouldn't be work. It should be, I don't feel like I've worked a day in my life. I play and I've got, you know, good physique, good muscles, good strength. And I just play and climb around it like I did on your house, you know, that's 10 minutes on this house. Imagine what I can do. You give me a whole city and you just get stronger and you get better. And whatever you practice, you get better at. And that's, that's all we do.

• 28:01Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 28:01Speaker 01

  And it is just looking at your environment like a kid looks at a playground. Like you give a playground some swings and a slide, they're not always going to swing and slide down the slide. They're going to start climbing on the frames, you know, kids don't do that. And that's what we have to do as adults is look at the world in this perspective of here's a walkway. Okay. But people just zone out. I've got to get to work. So I'm going to walk to work the same route. But they don't take in anything around them. And it makes you observe and it puts you in the moment because wherever I walk, I'm always looking for things to do. And so I always know my environment wherever I'm at.

• 28:30Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm. Yeah, it grounds you in the present.

• 28:33Speaker 01

  And that's the key, right? And that's what everyone tries to teach, but we kind of have that in us. We just lose it as we become an adult. And they say, you know, you need to go grow up, stop doing that, stop being childish. I remember I used to walk on my hands as 10, 11 years old from my kitchen to my living room, get a tape measure out, how far can I walk? Try and beat that distance, be that. Eventually I got in and I walked around the table and I was like, yes. I went to high school, you call it here when I was like 12. Is that high school 12 years old?

• 28:59Rich Roll?

  Uh, middle school.

• 28:59Speaker 01

  Middle school, middle school.

• 29:00Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 29:01Speaker 01

  And then we call it secondary school. And I did it there and the teachers told me off. They said, you can't do that. What if the kids copy you and hurt themselves? So I stopped for a few years. And then, you know, I realized when I was like 15 and I wanted to break dancing, why did I stop? Like, what are they to tell me? Like what I should do with my own body? This is my expression. And that was a real like realization that. We're really in a society, and those people don't mean to be like crushing what we do. They just raise it away, you know, they they think that it's out of the ordinary, don't do that. And we just need to change that, and we're starting that change now.

• 29:34Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's cool. That's like Tyler, that's like, remember when we interviewed Casey Neistat in New York? And he was saying that he used to get in, he's a, he's a amazing filmmaker and YouTuber. Makes these incredible movies, but very much an icon, an iconoclast and a free thinker. And he told a story about how he used to get in trouble in high school all the time for skateboarding around. And that, and the teacher would say, do you think you're gonna be able to skateboard when you're at work? And when he finally had a studio for himself, he built a half pipe in his studio. He's like, yes, I do. I can skate at work, you know? And, and being able to maintain that, that like, you know, that passion that you have as a kid.

• 30:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, and we, you know, we brought up in a society that kind of crushes that, but it's changing. And, and there's so many like TED Talks from kids that were homeschooled in that just.

• 30:22Rich Roll?

  Oh, yeah, the kid in the beanie. What's that guy's name? Do you remember that guy? Yeah.

• 30:25Speaker 01

  But things like that pop up, and it's just so inspiring to see, you know what? And the, the truth can only be hidden for so long, and it's, school is not, the system isn't right at the moment. It's gotta change, because you can't put everyone into this one box. We're such different, we express ourselves so differently, and it's.

• 30:42Rich Roll?

  Well, we're in an amazing time where we've never had more access to information. And culture and society in, in certain ways is forced to be more transparent than it ever has. And people have very finely attuned radar for what's authentic and what, and when they're pitched or, or sold something, right? And so I think people are gravitating more towards, you know, this search for something more real or authentic. And I think at the same time, the internet isolates us and makes us feel alone. And I think that that drives us even deeper towards this need to try to connect with something real and authentic.

• 31:18Speaker 01

  It does, and.

• 31:20Rich Roll?

  Oh yeah, what's his name Ted, uh Logan Laplante.

• 31:23Speaker 01

  Check that.

• 31:23Rich Roll?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, he's that Ted Talk kid, homeschool kid, yeah.

• 31:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, I watched, there's a documentary, it's a black and white one on diplomatic school in England. And this head teacher's philosophy was you let the kids play as long as they want. Eventually they're gonna wanna come inside and learn something. And that was the whole philosophy was you let them choose. And there's a school in Denmark that does this now. They can play for as long as they want, but after an hour, they wanna come in and learn something that they're passionate about. You limit it to an hour and they're like, oh no, it's the end of play. It's funny how it works, right? You create these boundaries and you don't need to, kids find it themselves anyway. And so they come inside and the school in Denmark, they have five year olds and eighteen year olds working on the same subject. Because they can help each other and they can learn.

• 32:01Rich Roll?

  There's a school in Russia like that as well, there's a documentary about it. It's called, I think it's called The School, but it's amazing. Where they have, yeah, the older kids are helping the younger kids and they pick a subject and they all go in deep together on it. And you know, we homeschool all our kids and that's been a big, you just sound like my wife when you were talking right there. The way that we've sort of approached our ten year old daughter Mathis's education. And you know, she's already discovering what her passions are and she's very self motivated. And it's in large part driven by my wife's conviction that it's important to like sort of leave them alone to breathe and figure out who they are.

• 32:36Speaker 01

  That's exactly it, right? I'm really, I'm really down with that, yeah.

• 32:40Rich Roll?

  So, cool. So then, how does it, it seems like it almost becomes like a conflict of interest or some dissonance when you take this sort of joyous pursuit, this art form, this performance art, and then suddenly there's competitions, right? How does that, how does that work?

• 32:57Speaker 01

  I agree, I agree, and that's why since I've, I've left competition.

• 33:00Rich Roll?

  Oh, you have?

• 33:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. And I kind of knew at the time that they weren't right and there were always pockets within the community that were like fighting the competition and were, of course, not about competition and you know, and there was always a part of me that was like, yeah, these guys are right, but I'm just gonna act like I'm not hearing it. You know, and, and it was, and the thing is, the competitions were really a great opportunity for people around, because they flew people from all around the world. People I'd seen on YouTube that made videos from Brazil and Australia, they flew us all together. To compete and these are great opportunities to hang out with people you'd never met before.

• 33:33Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I mean, it sort of takes community, I would think.

• 33:35Speaker 02

  Which is awesome.

• 33:36Speaker 01

  And that was awesome. So we were like, these events are great. We get to hang out. But then there was always the underlying theme of at the end of it, there's going to be one winner and there's going to be one loser and or a few losers and there's going to be an after party and there's going to be people that are getting praised and there's going to be people sat in the back that aren't as happy because they didn't win. And I don't like, that's kind of like an energy pool back and forth of like this guy won the energy today of everyone. He gets all the and it's and as much as you can say is is no one's really that competitive there. It's kind of going that way now where people are more competitive and they're being secretive with their with their runs and which is fine. I mean, that's tactics. That's what competition is, but I don't agree with competition anymore. I think it's kind of someone called it the modern war, you know, it's like this this thing and I see the parkour community going that way now where people are the next generation of kids are training just to

• 34:22Speaker 01

  go to competitions to win competitions. And that's never why I did it. I didn't do it for those reasons. I did it because I was a kid and I enjoyed playing with my friends on walls. And it's and you really lose that purity. And so it kind of it kills the soul for me a little. And that's why I'm going to move to LA because I need to help as much as possible, those people that want to keep it you know, authentic and real. I want to help them people and promote that because it's it's real and kids want to do it and it's healthy for kids to do it. And I want to make sure these kids grow up with the right attitude and they don't grow an ego attached to competition and being the best and they start saying, oh, I can jump further than you. I can jump higher than you. It's not about that. Everyone's got different skills. Everyone's better at something than everyone else. So why start this, you know, this competition?

• 35:02Rich Roll?

  Right, right. It reminds me a little bit of, have you ever seen Danny McCaskill's videos who kind of does what you do except on a bicycle?

• 35:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 35:10Rich Roll?

  Amazing videos.

• 35:12Speaker 01

  And he never competed, right?

• 35:12Rich Roll?

  And they're not, yeah, I don't even know if they have, maybe they have competitions around that or whatever, but I don't think so. But just, you know,

• 35:19Speaker 01

  I've hung out with him a few times.

• 35:20Rich Roll?

  Beautiful artist. Oh, yeah. I mean, guys are magical in what he can do.

• 35:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 35:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, I was I was put into a competition. I was actually, you know, challenged essentially to be in it and I wasn't really excited to be in it, but you know, I did it and. Battle this amazing guy, you know, always go wide on Instagram, but after, you know, very grateful that I won, but I really made it a point that we were both the winners and like really were able to set a tone, you know, like if you watch the video, like I raised his hand with my hand, you know, like we hugged, hugged and embraced, like one of my favorite photos ever on Instagram is like, we're hugging as soon as we were announced the winner, you know, and like the whole community came and like hugged us together, you know, so like being instilling that community as opposed to like, I'm the king, you know, like it's gotta stay that way. And so like, I was just grateful that I had that opportunity and I, you know, I didn't know that what was gonna happen, but I'm hopefully that, you

• 36:05Speaker 02

  know, using that voice to continue if competition is, is, you know, around.

• 36:10Rich Roll?

  I think it's about intention because, you know, especially if you're, if you're motivated to inspire other people or kids, you know, kids look to that and they go, oh, this guy's the two-time world free running champion. And it gives you, it gives you a platform and a voice. And then it's about, you know, your respect for that position that you're placed in and what your intentions and motivations are with what you do with that.

• 36:34Speaker 01

  I think it's different as well with what you do. What I do is so subjective that to compare people that, you know, just expressing their individualism and, and what comes to them naturally, to compare them isn't right. Whereas with yours, it's more structured, who can train the hardest, you know, and I, I support competition with, in terms of speed competition within free running. And I think that's what could really take it to the next level, possibly Olympics, is if they built the same course and had eight people run it alongside each other. That would be exciting to watch. And then it's less subjective. It's just, you know, who's trained the hardest for this. And again, it's still a bit of competition, but it's, it's not as much like, oh, the judges chose this person on this day. It's, you know, it's more set. No one can, there's no judge and just time is the judges.

• 37:15Rich Roll?

  When you're like running around London doing this stuff, I mean, are you like, are the cops chasing you? Or how does that work? When you're climbing up on top of buildings and everything?

• 37:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's funny because, you know, we always get security guards approach, police approach. I was training yesterday at USC and this policeman came up, I was on the roof of a building. And he said, this is the second call we've had to complain that you're around. I said, is what we're doing illegal? He said, no. I said, can't you just explain that to the people? If it's not illegal, then your job is to explain that. You shouldn't just enforce something because someone complained. I could complain about the way this woman walks. But you're not gonna go up and stop a walk in that way. Like, it's not fair. If it's not illegal, don't make it. Cause it's not illegal enough. I did a video where I had a GoPro on my forehead and I ran along some rooftops in my hometown Derby. And the police got involved. It was in the local paper. They like said, oh, this is a really cool guy. Cause some girl that worked for the paper, some young girl liked it. And the next day, they got loads of complaints from the article about promoting this dangerous thing.

• 38:09Speaker 01

  The next day, they ran another article saying about reckless use, like, you know, they changed their tone because they'd fit in the audience. And then the police. I had to go on a radio interview and I spoke to a policeman on the other side and he said, actually, what you're doing wasn't illegal because you're on top of it. You're not inside it. Trespassing is when you're inside the property. And I was like, oh, thanks. Thanks for that. So I know I'm not doing anything wrong. And for me, the philosophy is that we're not leaving a trace, you know, it's not, there's no damage left done. And at the end of the day, even if I did, and I climb trees a lot, if I snapped a branch, which I really try not to, I love trees. If I snapped a tile on a rooftop. Okay, I'm sorry, right? At least I'm trying to explore something. People kill animals on a daily to eat them, which they don't need to do.

• 38:51Speaker 01

  These are natural beings that exist and we're killing them. If I snap a slate on a rooftop, build another one or like do, or I'll pay for it or whatever. But the fact, the way our minds work is that it's okay to do this, but then this thing is so far from what we should be doing.

• 39:05Rich Roll?

  Right. So when does the vegan thing come into the picture? Cause it wasn't that long ago, right?

• 39:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, about a year and a half, two years. But it is a shock to me, you know, I was.

• 39:14Rich Roll?

  What happened?

• 39:15Speaker 01

  I saw Gary Yurovsky video.

• 39:17Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 39:17Speaker 01

  Rock on that guy. I love Gary Yurovsky, man. He's a preacher for the people. But he, I mean, he's preaching for vegans. He has a hard message, but you know what? I can't ignore truth. If someone speaks the truth to me, my ego won't get in the way. I'll acknowledge that as the truth and that's what he did. I always thought I was.

• 39:31Rich Roll?

  It's that one, like he has like a one hour lecture.

• 39:33Speaker 01

  It was that lecture and the stuff since then that he said that he's got some great quotes. He's thought a lot about it, but I think.

• 39:40Rich Roll?

  Explain for the listener who hasn't heard of Gary Yurovsky.

• 39:44Speaker 01

  He's a, he's a very big vegan activist. He's been arrested. He wants freed load of mink. From some factory and cost one point two million worth of damage and got put in prison for a while and he's banned from several countries because of that for saving the lives of animals. It's it's kind of ridiculous, but he does a talk on YouTube called The Greatest Speech You'll Ever Hear and it just resonated with me because I always knew growing up killing animals was wrong. I if I I wouldn't kill a spider, I'd put it in a glass and take it outside. If I trodden a snail by accident, I'd feel really bad for that snail for about five minutes and then I'd be inside eating probably eating a chicken sandwich and didn't put the two together that I'm feeling guilty for this and yet this is okay. And I remember when I was like five years old, I asked my mom, is lamb that we're eating, is this the

• 40:27Speaker 01

  baby sheep? And she said, yeah. And I thought, what? That's really mean. Why are we doing this? And then, but she was the one that loved me, that raised me. I trusted her opinion. I trust her, you know, I'm five years old. What am I going to know better than my mother? No, of course I don't. But turns out you do when you're a kid, often know the truth more than parents. We just get, we get conditioned and then we just accept these these social norms. Once I realized that, you know, I'm an open minded guy and I allowed the truth to come into me and it resonated. And obviously it's a challenge getting over because I was probably twenty three. So for twenty three years, three meals a day, I've been conditioned to eat a certain way. Now, that's a lot of untangling to undo. And so I had to work through it and I'm just a process. I mean, being vegan, I mean, some people can do it

• 41:10Speaker 01

  overnight, you know, they get it. I I've got, both my sisters are quite obese. I I I wasn't fat, but because I trained out, it turned to muscle. So I was quite bulky from eating burgers and I didn't eat that badly, but I still ate a lot. I love burgers and fries and I definitely came from a heavy meat background. But, you know, I flourished when I became vegan. It made me thrive. And I think it's still hard because London is, you know, there's other things I really want to move towards the sun and fresher fruit and vegetables. So I've still got a lot of growth to come. But that first step on the ladder, I was like, wow, this is. So it really was like, it was watching that video, like, who encouraged you to watch it? Or did somebody say, or did you just stumble upon it accidentally? And what led to that? I was in Bucharest and I was with a friend and he's vegetarian and he's really

• 41:55Speaker 01

  strong guy. And I was like, oh, I'll try, maybe I'll try this thing. And I can't remember how I came. I've seen that video, but I'm so grateful I did. And as a few people I've shared that to since, boom, done. You have to choose your audience because it's. And the thing is, it's not about converting people to veganists. I don't like that word. It's not like a religion. It's reminding them to be vegan. When we're children, we don't want to harm animals. And I wouldn't take, I wouldn't know to take a chick, egg from a chicken or things like this. It's. I knew that as a kid. I asked my mom about, is this lamb the thing? Because I don't want that on my, on my conscience. It's just reminding people, you know, we've got this empathy. We've evolved to feel for animals. We feel compassionate for them. Now, why don't we just act in it? When's that a diet going to catch up to this compassion that we, we feel?

• 42:37Rich Roll?

  Well, the entire system is set up to prevent us from confronting that truth. Like, we're very, we're so distanced and isolated from the process by which our food is manufactured, raised, you know, slaughtered, distributed, packaged, and all of that kind of thing, that you have to make a very conscious effort to consider that. Because if you, if you don't, it's easy to just be on autopilot. And, and it's hard to, you know, denial is very powerful. You know, I've, I've had, you know, I, I struggle with denial a lot in my life with unhealthy behavior patterns. And I've, you know, had my issues over the years. And I know what it's like to kind of sort of relax into, you know,

• 43:20Rich Roll?

  an inaccurate perspective of reality, you know? And it's, it's, it's very difficult to kind of put that aside and say, no, this is the way that really is, and I'm going to act accordingly. So I think it's, you know, I never, I have no judgment on how other people live their lives.

• 43:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:39Rich Roll?

  And I got into it originally for health reasons, not for ethical reasons. The ethical aspect of it has become much more important to me, more important to me than I ever thought that it would. But that wasn't the original motivator.

• 43:52Speaker 01

  Yeah. For me, I was, I was.

• 43:56Speaker 01

  One that was the moral issue of killing animals when we don't need to. But there are a lot of people, some people do it for environmental reasons, people do it for health. A lot of people do it for health reasons and then they realize, oh, what am I doing? I need to watch V educated, a few people have told me about that one, have you seen that?

• 44:08Rich Roll?

  Yeah, yeah, that's a good one.

• 44:09Speaker 01

  Where they take meat eaters that think they'll never ever change and by the end the animal activists. It's like, that's all you need to know, you know, like.

• 44:16Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 44:16Speaker 01

  It keeps you, I mean, there's so many chapters to it, there's the science behind it. But for me, I like it on a spiritual level, you know, you eat these dead animals, they're fearing and you, you take that on, on board. And it keeps you brainwashed, that word is gonna freak some people out if they're not vegan, but eat, you realize and I've had so many friends that have been vegetarian since that. They realize eating meat keeps you at that level of thinking it's okay. It's hard to see because you're in this cloud, this smog of, of it's all right to do this. And when you come out, you realize and now I look at, at meat, you know, it's just flesh like any human flesh and it's, it's, it's scary. And when I see in the TV show, there's a kid eating a burger, I mean, I accept it, I'm not, I don't freak out and go, oh, I need to stop this.

• 44:58Speaker 01

  Cause it's the way, you know, you gotta laugh at this, you can't take life too seriously. That's what I live in, that's the, this chapter of whether you believe in reincarnation or what, that's this life I'm in. This, this is the, the chapter that the whole, you know, human race is in right now. That's part of it, but it's still kind of sticking in there, you know, what's really going on, the reality of things.

• 45:16Rich Roll?

  Right, you know, everything is, without sounding like too new agey, but you know, everything is energy. And energy cannot be created or destroyed, it's just transferred. And we have a choice about what kind of energy we want to take into our bodies. And that applies to the people we want to surround ourselves with, you know, you always say like, you know, surround yourself with high vibrating people. If you're around people that are positive thinking, you know, sort of highly motivated, well-grounded people, then you feel better, you know, right? And so why would that not apply to what you're taking into your body? If you're, you're making this choice about whether you're taking a low vibrating food and that doesn't, that, that, you know, can apply to Frito ships too.

• 45:58Rich Roll?

  You know, it's sort of, you know, things that are, that are dead and inert versus.

• 46:03Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 46:04Rich Roll?

  You know, a living, you know, sort of, you know, micronutrient dense plant food. That's a different energy that you're taking in, you can feel that difference. So why would that not apply to the animal products that you're taking into your diet and. You know, it's, I think that's something I never would have considered or believed in until I had the experience for myself.

• 46:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, people are coming over to that, that whole thing now as well. People are starting to sense the vibrations and feel that. And I know when I eat raw, I aim to eat raw, but it's, you know, in London or when I'm in LA for a week, it's like exciting to go to all these restaurants. But I know how much better I feel and I actually feel my whole vibration is better. I went to Thailand for a week. I was doing yoga quite often in London. I went to Thailand for a week and I ate really healthy, raw, clean. It's so easy to eat fresh fruit out there. And I came back and I remember my first yoga class back, I felt so like it was the easiest thing and it just my whole, this vibration that was at, this frequency. And I was like, wow, this is, it's possible to feel this way. And I'm sure it's somewhere people can get to on drugs, but there's a natural way to, to reach that kind of, that feeling. And it helps, you know, when the collective

• 47:08Speaker 01

  consciousness rises as we're all rising and we all get better at this. It's only, we're only going to feel better and better. And when I see like a fight or like now, or you see, you know, someone at the slaughterhouse or something, I feel this sink in my whole energy just drop. And it's, and it takes you a while to get back out of that slump. But I'm really sensitive now to energy of people around me and vibration and things.

• 47:29Rich Roll?

  It's all about positive energy.

• 47:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 47:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's pretty interesting.

• 47:44Rich Roll?

  Have you seen Damian Manders TED Talk?

• 47:48Speaker 01

  No.

• 47:48Rich Roll?

  He's the guy.

• 47:49Speaker 01

  The big South African?

• 47:50Rich Roll?

  Yeah, the South African.

• 47:51Speaker 01

  Amazing. That's good for like jock men, like.

• 47:54Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Well, he's like the most alpha male dude of all time, right? Like this guy. And he was, he was a, was he a South African or a British soldier in Afghanistan? I'm trying to remember. It's been a while since I watched it.

• 48:06Speaker 01

  He's the one that was on about conserving animals in Africa, right?

• 48:09Rich Roll?

  Right. But originally he was like this major hardcore like sniper dude.

• 48:13Speaker 01

  He was SAS or something, yeah.

• 48:14Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's like special forces guy who, you know, was in the, in the muck big time and just saw more than his fair share of, you know, killing it, you know, in warfare. Australian special forces. Australian, right? Yeah. Have you watched that Ted Talk? It's insane.

• 48:29Speaker 01

  Warrior, what's it called? Some of the warrior?

• 48:31Rich Roll?

  I'll put a link up in the show notes.

• 48:33Speaker 01

  Incredible.

• 48:34Rich Roll?

  But then he, uh, yeah, like then he, he bought, he bought land in South Africa, right? And he started to see how the poachers were treating the big game and, and it just, it just enraged him. And he decided he was gonna take a stand against this. I think he actually was off like hunting these guys. You know, like, yeah. And, uh, and he gives this incredibly eloquent Ted Talk about his position on animal welfare, especially big game animals. And it's, it's beautiful and it's, it's very potent because he is such a force of masculinity.

• 49:05Speaker 01

  He is, but, and then that shows his transformation was his mind realized, why are these elephants more important than the cows? Like he'd be saving these elephants and then going back and making barbecues. And he posted a question there, he says, does a cow value its life more, or do I value this barbecue more than a cow values its life? And no one could ever, there's only one answer for that.

• 49:25Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 49:25Speaker 01

  Obviously the cow values its life more. And, um, and now you're getting people on Facebook. I see so many people, these, these, a lot of girls, I guess, posting about these animal problems, like these dolphin slaughter, or they fed a giraffe to some lions in a zoo. And, you know, again, about dogs in China and there are all these things. And then I asked them, I say, are you vegetarian? You know, you care about these dolphins here, or you care about this giraffe, but yet you're making a choice that causes death to other animals. And it's not, as humans, it's not our choice to say what animal is more important than another. How about we just don't fuck with any of them, you know? Can I swear on this podcast?

• 50:02Rich Roll?

  You can say whatever you want.

• 50:06Speaker 02

  A lot of passion. I respect, I respect that.

• 50:08Rich Roll?

  I like the passion. Um, as an athlete, what were the differences that you?

• 50:14Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 50:14Rich Roll?

  Saw when you started to eat this way? Cause you're, you're a big guy. I mean, for a parkour guy, I think, you know, a lot of the guys are like, they're, they look like rock climbers, right? Really skinny little dudes, but you're like a big dude.

• 50:24Speaker 01

  Yeah. Um, so I trimmed up more than I did and I wanna trim up a bit more cause agile, it feels fun to be agile, you know? For me, it's not about look, I've never cared about this, how I look as body wise. That's just a, it comes with, with, with a train. It's like secondary. I, so I trimmed up a bit. I had Achilles tendonitis. I had, um, I've never broke a bone, touch wood.

• 50:46Rich Roll?

  You've never broken a bone?

• 50:47Speaker 01

  No.

• 50:47Rich Roll?

  I see like the outtakes in your videos where you're like wiping out and everything like that. Like, I would assume you're getting injured all the time.

• 50:53Speaker 01

  It's very calculated, that's the thing is.

• 50:55Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 50:56Speaker 01

  We're quite, it's only you and the environment that you're working with. And so long as you check the environment and you trust your body. And there's a certain faith that we do things with. That's what this movement really taught me faith, you know? Cause everyone says fear isn't real, you know? Danger's real, fear isn't real. And so when you go at something second guessing it, problems come up. And so I've learned to have faith in what I'm doing and go at it calm. I don't like doing things when there's adrenaline pumping through my body. Cause then you're not quite as clear as you should be. When I'm calm and I'm like, yes, this feels right, you know? That's when I'm doing some of my best stuff because it's a meditate, it's a moving meditation.

• 51:33Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm. And so how did the dietary shift kind of, you know, change that? Or what was the impact of that on that?

• 51:40Speaker 01

  So I tore my meniscus a few years ago, probably six or seven years ago. And I had surgery on there and it took a while to heal. And so every winter I'd feel kind of aches in my knees and I had Achilles tendonitis. And since being vegan, the aches in my knees went away in the winter. Achilles tendonitis went away, not come back at all. And these little changes, because you know, your digestive system gets a chance to rest. When you're eating heavy meats, that's a lot of energy gone to there. And as soon as you're eating lighter foods, frees up all the energy and your body's like, right, let's take the chance to go heal this bit that we've been waiting so long for to go heal. And so all these things, these little things cleared up and it's been amazing.

• 52:17Rich Roll?

  And how did the sort of parkour community where you live?

• 52:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:21Rich Roll?

  Uh, what was their reaction? I mean, I would assume that sort of the paleo diet is probably the predominant diet in the, in the parkour community.

• 52:28Speaker 01

  Well, in the American parkour community is a bit, but I've, since I've spoke out openly on it, cause I am in a position where some of the community listen to me. Of course, some of them make jokes about, you know, the younger kids, they don't quite understand it yet. They just want to remain in their ignorance and I would have done the same thing. I remember saying to vegetarians years ago, how about if for every animal you don't eat, I eat three? Would you eat animals then? Absolutely ignorant, what an idiot, like. But there's a lot of them have taken to it. I've I spoke out openly and the kids have gone, "Yep, you know, that's right. Well, all we what we do is about not leaving a trace behind. And if you're leaving a trail of animal carcasses every meal that you eat, that's you're leaving a trace, you know, being strong, strength should build up, you know, it shouldn't take from anyone. It shouldn't take a life, especially shouldn't take a life. So and when you can be

• 53:12Speaker 01

  just as strong, if not healthier, fitter, you can thrive on a vegan diet. That's the ethos of parkour. It's about we flight over fight, you know, it's already about not damaging your environment and animals environment goes as far as animals because that's really the big environmental issue.

• 53:27Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm. That's pretty interesting. Yeah, I like that flight over flight over fight.

• 53:33Speaker 01

  Yeah. And the parkour really is a very spiritual practice, the way it was came across initially. It could be the first, you know, full vegan discipline. Like, I don't see it anytime soon, but people are ready to hear it. They're starting to listen and there's so many people get it. And it's really nice for me to the amount of kids I get messages every single day from parkour kids said, "Thanks for helping me. I'm vegetarian now and I feel a lot better." And it's, you know, there's kids like me. Some people have fast metabolisms in there or the skinny ones. I'd maybe have a slower one. That's why I build more bulk or whatever. And there's kids like me that are able to do parkour at a better level because they would have been a, you know, chubby kid or something.

• 54:07Rich Roll?

  Right. Well, I think the most powerful thing is for you to just continue to improve and get better and do what you do. And that speaks louder than anything that comes out of your mouth.

• 54:16Speaker 01

  You're right. You're very right there. Yeah.

• 54:17Rich Roll?

  So how does this, uh, how does this then, how does it work as a vocation? Like, how do you make a career out of this? Like, you're able to travel, you're making these videos and, you know?

• 54:27Speaker 01

  Um, YouTube gave me a bunch of funding last year to produce content because YouTube are smart. They realize, you know, people can watch YouTube at any time, anywhere in the world, whereas TV shows, you know, they're limited to a country at a certain time. So they're starting to put money towards it. And they realize free running is a big online YouTube community. Let's fund a few YouTube channel, which is youtube.com/flow. We got a good name on that one. And they gave me funding to produce fifty percent of the content and it was like good fun, like six figure funding and I've got a production team that worked with me and we traveled, I could do whatever. Well, I pitched eight strands of series I wanted to do and they chose seven of them and that's what I got the funding for. I got to travel the world. I went to Hong Kong. That was one of my favorite episodes we did was in Hong Kong. I went to Cairo.

• 55:12Rich Roll?

  Youtube dot com slash Flo, right?

• 55:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, check that out. The Hong Kong documentary we made. Really excited when we put that out and I got really good feedback for it. It went all over the Hong Kong media. They loved it out there as well because we were on rooftops in the nature and it was beautiful. Went to Cairo, climbed a pyramid there illegally, three in the morning.

• 55:31Rich Roll?

  Oh, wow.

• 55:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's daunting, but that video is coming out in the next few weeks on there. And so, yeah, I got a bunch of fun. I just got back from Sydney. I flew direct from Sydney to LA. Jamie Oliver's double. I do some, I double him. Initially, it was for stunt work. I was like, we became friends through, he made an epic veg time.

• 55:51Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 55:52Speaker 01

  Which is like epic meal time. And I met his manager and he knew I was vegan. He was, I'll come down for this. And I met him that day and we got on really well and I've met him a few times since. And he got a contract with Sobes, which is an American, a Canadian supermarket. And he said, oh, let's write Tim into the script because he's running around delivering healthy food to houses. He said, let's write Tim. So I'm jumping in between. We've got similar hair.

• 56:11Rich Roll?

  Oh, so you, I see. So you body double for him.

• 56:13Speaker 01

  So I borrowed all of it for that. And then I went to Canada, Toronto, did an advert there. And then he shot one for Woolworths in London, which is an Australian supermarket. And what he's doing with them is, and with Sobes as well, is when they sign a contract to be associated with Jamie Oliver and they have his face all over the shop and on their products, they have to sort their animal welfare out. He's got animal welfare guys that are really on point with this. I've met a few of them. And they go to all the farms that these people buy from and they check the standards and the quality and they make them raise it. In Europe, Jamie Oliver did a TV show about six years ago that got rid of battery farm chickens. One forty-five minute TV show done. England completely banned it. Europe's banned it now since, six years it's been gone. Australia still has battery farm chickens all over the supermarkets. So for Woolworths, which is the biggest supermarket

• 56:58Speaker 01

  in Australia, to sign their name with him, within the next six years, they have to completely get rid of all battery farm chickens.

• 57:03Rich Roll?

  Oh, wow.

• 57:04Speaker 01

  Free range, the animals have to be all free range for their meats and everything like that. So he's making a difference. And if I can do anything to support him to help this cause, then, you know, I'm all in.

• 57:12Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that guy's amazing. And, you know, even not being, you know, somebody who is a vegan, he's had. Possibly a larger impact on on animal welfare than any single human being just because of the amazing healthy example.

• 57:25Speaker 01

  Pretty much any company, yeah.

• 57:27Rich Roll?

  Yeah, he's amazing. And now you're making nutrition videos on his YouTube channel, right? I saw a couple. I saw your your date smoothie one. What did you call it? Daterade.

• 57:36Speaker 01

  Daterade. I kind of ripped that from a Durian Rider.

• 57:38Rich Roll?

  From Durian, yeah.

• 57:40Speaker 01

  But he's all about promoting the message. I know he doesn't care about that. There are other vegans that if I stole a name, they might be a bit...

• 57:45Rich Roll?

  When you were in Thailand, did you go to see Durian Rider?

• 57:48Speaker 01

  No, I didn't. But I met him at Woodstock Fruit Festival.

• 57:51Rich Roll?

  Oh, you did. Oh, you went to that last year.

• 57:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, if you ever get a chance, any of you vegans that I know about that, that's the... I'm going there again this year.

• 57:57Rich Roll?

  Oh, you're going this year?

• 57:58Speaker 01

  I'm going to be a special guest there. I'm going to do a talk and I'm going to teach people.

• 58:01Rich Roll?

  Michael Aronstein invited me to come this year. I don't know.

• 58:04Speaker 01

  I listened to that podcast.

• 58:05Rich Roll?

  Oh, you did? Oh, cool. Yeah.

• 58:07Speaker 01

  He's a cool guy. I mean, he runs that and he's cool.

• 58:09Rich Roll?

  Yeah, he's great.

• 58:11Speaker 01

  If you get a chance, man, it's good vibes out in nature. Like, it's really nice.

• 58:14Rich Roll?

  It's good, so you'll be going back.

• 58:15Speaker 01

  How are you with the raw vegan? Do you try it often?

• 58:18Rich Roll?

  I don't...

• 58:19Speaker 01

  Eighty, ten, ten?

• 58:20Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I mean, I don't... Oh, the eighty, ten, ten. I've never gone full bore into that. And it's interesting because, you know, I've talked to a lot of people that are having great success with that. Obviously, Michael Aronstein, Durian Rider. I don't know if he's... He's like, there was all that controversy with that.

• 58:37Speaker 01

  I love the guy.

• 58:39Rich Roll?

  But even Mac Danzig.

• 58:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:44Rich Roll?

  Is he still doing it?

• 58:45Speaker 01

  Uh...

• 58:46Rich Roll?

  Because he was super into it. He had just started it when I had him on the podcast. He was like, said he was feeling great.

• 58:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, he said he drifts out of it, but he does it for like months at a time and he feels so much better just on so much fruit, just mangoes and oranges.

• 58:57Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 58:58Speaker 01

  And yeah, I know I feel better when I do that. It is, it is key. And I think we'll get there as, you know, the whole world is slowly drifting. And the more people there are in that community, the more it makes it easier for vegans to step over to raw vegan. And the thing is, there's a lot of raw vegan cuisine that's really fancy coming out. And I think that's kind of missing the point, you know?

• 59:15Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 59:16Speaker 01

  I do this to try and simplify my life. And I'm going to enjoy, like I said, it's a process. I'm still enjoying being vegan and going to these fancy restaurants. But I know where I'm aiming for, and I know I'm gradually getting there. And it is raw veganism. It is Whole Foods. It is a simple lifestyle, even though you're eating a lot of the time. But you don't have to cook anything. You don't have to prepare these fancy raw cuisines. You know, you can just get by. And then I think we use food, the way we use alcohol, the way we use drugs, you know, the way we use... Burgers and things is kind of a Norman thing, you know.

• 59:45Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 59:46Speaker 01

  That's why fasting is important. I've not done much fasting. I want to do more of that meditation.

• 59:50Rich Roll?

  Well, it's all, it's all a process of really getting in touch with how much we use food to, to manage our emotions.

• 1:00:00Speaker 01

  I use it.

• 1:00:01Rich Roll?

  To repress our emotions and, and in order to really sort of get an objective viewpoint on that, you have to, you know, try a fast or change your diet sufficiently enough where you can feel those trigger points like, oh, why am I craving this right now? What's going on with me emotionally? That's, that's making me feel this way. And, you know, journaling over that or exploring that and getting in touch with that. That's, that's the way that you can really sort of use it to grow.

• 1:00:27Speaker 01

  You can see yourself from the other side then, when you try, when you make a change and you look back or you slowly get back into the old habit and you start, yeah, you realize the trigger points.

• 1:00:35Rich Roll?

  Because it's really, I mean, it's so much more than the food. It's about, um, you know, the food is a step in your growth, evolution process. And I think there are a lot of people get so caught up in the food part of it and it just kind of stops there. But I look at it like, you clean up your diet and you start doing this so that you can then develop a greater relationship with yourself.

• 1:00:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:55Rich Roll?

  Sort of cultivate this, you know, increase in your vitality and energy so that you can then channel it in a healthy way with a healthy relationship with yourself. And I think if you don't sort of step into that aspect of it, you're stunting your own personal growth.

• 1:01:11Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I mean, it's okay to have spiritual plateaus every once in a while, but we are spiritual beings and we are here for spiritual progression. We come to the earth as a school for us to learn and you have to really pick up on, on these things and make sure that you are growing. You know, I look back to a year ago and I see a few things I did then and I go, right, no, I am growing. Cause sometimes you beat yourself up. You think I've not changed that much. Are these things I want to work on? I've not worked on them recently, but it's a juggling act and you've just got to make sure that every time you get better, like. You gradually get it getting somewhere and it's it's open. You've got to accept the up and down, the up and down, but as long as you know, the average line is going upwards. It's all right.

• 1:01:46Rich Roll?

  Right. When you were at the Woodstock Fruit Festival, did you meet Evan Rock?

• 1:01:50Speaker 01

  I did meet Evan Rock.

• 1:01:51Rich Roll?

  Did you?

• 1:01:51Speaker 01

  He's in Hawaii now.

• 1:01:52Rich Roll?

  I know. So he's a he's a good friend of ours. He used to date

• 1:01:58Rich Roll?

  the the young lady who babysat our little girls.

• 1:02:01Speaker 01

  Cool.

• 1:02:02Rich Roll?

  And so he would come over to our house and Julie would teach yoga to him and we got to know him quite well. And he lived nearby here and he would ride his bike by on the weekends and he's probably listening. So, hey, Evan.

• 1:02:12Speaker 01

  Yes, hey, Evan.

• 1:02:13Rich Roll?

  He wears like organic athlete kit and he's just a friend of our family, right? And I didn't know that that he we had spent three years living on the North Shore of Hawaii last year on an organic farm and he would call me and say, I'm looking for the next thing I want to do with my life. I'm not sure yet. Like, I'm really interested in what you guys are doing like, and you know, we ended up not staying. We came back, but he was I could tell he was already starting to think about how he wanted to change his life. And fast forward to, I guess, about four or five months ago, he quit his he had a really, you know, good career as a he worked in commercial real estate. He did very well financially and all of that. And he's and I would run into him at Whole Foods at lunchtime and he would be in his suit and tie, but he'd have an entire watermelon out.

• 1:02:58Speaker 01

  I've never seen him in a suit and tie.

• 1:02:59Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I know. So like, that's the way he was like working in a suit and tie, right? Which is hard to imagine, knowing probably the context in which you know him. And he would joke like all the people at Whole Foods know him, like, they see him. Oh, here's the guy who comes and eats a whole watermelon for lunch.

• 1:03:13Speaker 01

  Lovely. I love that.

• 1:03:14Rich Roll?

  And now he he bought a really sizable parcel of land on the big island of Hawaii and he just moved there. And he's like building his like he he's been putting up YouTube's videos every week. He's like clearing the land. He already built like a little house there. He's got some people living there with him and he just wants to create this like conscious community there.

• 1:03:33Speaker 01

  He wired me out.

• 1:03:34Rich Roll?

  Oh, did he?

• 1:03:35Speaker 01

  That's why I want to move to LA and then I'm closer to Hawaii. I do think that's the next step by some point in my life.

• 1:03:40Rich Roll?

  So it's almost like careful what you ask for. You like go 80 10 10, you start going like off the off the grid.

• 1:03:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:03:47Rich Roll?

  Ironically enough. I actually used to work in commercial estate. Yeah. Oh, you did? Yeah. I have a very hard time seeing that. Yeah. It's a whole photo for you guys. But the point, the reason I brought that up is because I love Evan and I love seeing how he's evolved, you know, and it's because he made a conscious decision about, you know, the sort of the foods that he was eating. And that changed his perspective and his consciousness about how he wanted to live his life and what was important to him. Yeah. And he's made a radical change in how he's living, he's pulling like a Henry David Thoreau, you know, by going out and like, you know, it's sort of living off the land.

• 1:04:21Speaker 01

  I really respect that. But my only qualms for me is I can't disappear too. I feel I've got a responsibility to remain relevant and remain about and remain a voice. And maybe I shouldn't feel that, but that's how I feel right now. Leaving London to come here, you know, there's starting to be a community there, there's starting to grow a scene. You know, should I stay there and like be that positive energy out in there and help infiltrate and grow that there? Or, you know, or do I just leave it and be like, you know what? I need to charge my batteries. I'm going to come here for a bit. I think my destiny is pointing me this direction.

• 1:04:56Rich Roll?

  Listen to your heart.

• 1:04:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:04:58Rich Roll?

  The answer is there.

• 1:04:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:04:58Rich Roll?

  I mean, you know, I think you can live in the world. You don't have to exempt yourself from modern society. And I think that you're in a rare and fortunate position where you have the ability to, you know, influence young people and that carries a responsibility with it. But that's also a gift. That's a beautiful thing. And to see you out there putting a positive message out is awesome, you know? And I think we need more young people like yourself.

• 1:05:24Speaker 01

  I think I can get more of a voice from LA as well, to be honest.

• 1:05:27Rich Roll?

  Yeah, for sure.

• 1:05:28Speaker 01

  And more backing from the right, like-minded people. Like, thank you for this, you know?

• 1:05:32Rich Roll?

  For sure. So Venice, and you're just gonna, why don't you just stay? Or you're what?

• 1:05:37Speaker 01

  Yeah. Summer always gets busy for me and I get a lot of work traveling around the world and my base isn't, it'd be too hard to up and shift base right now from where I am, but I'm gonna wait till the summer's over and then October, I'm probably gonna move out somewhere like Studio City or something, not quite Venice, but around there so I can train with Travis.

• 1:05:54Speaker 02

  You can leave some stuff in my garage.

• 1:05:55Speaker 01

  There we go.

• 1:05:57Speaker 02

  Start the move now, I'm ready for you.

• 1:05:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, missed that flight.

• 1:06:00Rich Roll?

  Did you need the gym set up and the whole thing?

• 1:06:02Speaker 01

  It's great.

• 1:06:03Speaker 02

  We're gonna train hard, it's gonna be beautiful. We've got a positive message we're gonna send to the world, so.

• 1:06:07Rich Roll?

  Alright, good. So Travis, we were at this party last night and Julie Handler came up to you and she wanted to talk to you about how she could perfect her handstand and you guys had a really interesting conversation where you were basically saying, handstands are really about fear. Like if you could do a handstand against the wall and kind of balance yourself for a couple of seconds and you can probably do it and what screws people up is that fear of falling or what's gonna happen. And I think that's really relevant to, you know, Tim, what you do and how you kind of approach these sort of extraordinary athletic feats and do it with a self-confidence and a sort of grounding in the present. And that, so what interests me about that is your relationship to fear, like how you confront

• 1:06:52Rich Roll?

  it, how you deal with it, how you walk through it, or how you put it out of your mind.

• 1:06:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's not putting it out of your mind because it's definitely there for a reason. What I say to people with handstands is, practice on a soft ground like grass, falling over. Your fear is of falling over, so go fall over somewhere that you're comfortable falling over and you realize that it's not really that big a problem. Often, what you don't see with free running is we've fallen a lot on maybe four foot off the ground, three foot off the ground, we've tried and made a jump and we've fallen back from it and we've worked out how to save ourselves, how to catch ourselves. So when we're high up, if the same thing happens, we kind of have that faith that if it's not gonna work out, there's this backup option or there's the, and that's what, it looks like just some reckless guy hurling himself across, but it's very calculated. There's, you know, there's backup

• 1:07:37Speaker 01

  options, there's other things involved in it and I think it's very much.

• 1:07:44Speaker 01

  It's quite like it's like heart intelligence, you know, it's that confidence that comes with the training that gives you the ability to apply it and have the fear there, but then go, no, you know what, I'm all right because of this.

• 1:07:58Rich Roll?

  I think also what people probably don't realize, or at least consciously realize is that when you go out and do these things, that is the evolution of many, many, many hours of practicing over the years.

• 1:08:10Speaker 01

  Progression.

• 1:08:10Rich Roll?

  And, and these tiny incremental sort of increases in the distances or the heights that are almost probably imperceptible to you. But, you know, if you're doing some, you know, jump or whatever it is, you know, and you're 30 feet off the ground, you've probably done a million at, you know, 28 feet and then a million before that at 26 feet. So it, so but by the time you're at that 30 feet, it doesn't feel any different than it did eight years ago when you were three feet off the ground.

• 1:08:37Speaker 01

  Well, that's, that's exactly right. It becomes the same thing. Another thing is when you are higher and you still, I mean, there's a innate human thing about you looked at, we're scared of heights and loud noises, right? They're two inbuilt fears. So when you're stood in a high building, you look down and it is scary, but then when you back up to do the jump, you're not actually on the edge and you're not looking at the drop. You're just focused on the landing area and, you know, just making it across. But when you are there and the thoughts come to you, you could die, right? You have that thought. I like, there is a scenario right now, because if you're, if you're just walking outside or something, you don't have that thought in your head, I could die now, because that would be quite mad. But when you're up there, you think, yeah, this is a scenario which could cause a death or a really severe injury. That makes you appreciate life so much more,

• 1:09:19Speaker 01

  you know, because you've been closer to it. And so then for me to feel how that feels or the possibilities there and then cast that onto an animal from knowing how it feels, we live in a culture that's so scared of death, we're so terrified of death every day. The news, all this propaganda, fear, terrorists, we really put it into our brains deeply, be afraid of death, you might die, these things might come, it might happen to you. And yet we cause that, we make a decision three times a day that has that on an animal. Why, how can you constantly act so afraid of death and then be so hypocritical and be like, oh, but it's okay because it's food, you know, we think it's a bypass because it's food, but we know now with people like you and us, you don't need that. We don't need it. Yeah. The truth is there now, it's coming.

• 1:10:02Rich Roll?

  So.

• 1:10:06Rich Roll?

  You left me speechless.

• 1:10:06Speaker 01

  I'm sorry.

• 1:10:08Rich Roll?

  I'm always quick with a response to that. But I mean, where is this, where is this going for you? Like, where do you see yourself five, 10 years down the line with this?

• 1:10:18Speaker 01

  I don't know. I enjoy promoting this message and I can get caught up with it. But I think the vegan thing is really fun for me because I've never felt, I've got a wristband. I never wear wristbands of like Nike or anything. This has animal liberation on it. I'm not passionate about any like, I've got my own free running team. I don't wear a wristband with my team on it. Animal liberation is important, man, because it's a decision that wasn't about me. It's the first decision I made that was like, this isn't about me, but it benefits me as well. What a bonus. You know, it's about, I shouldn't make any decisions in life that take from something else. I want to live a simple life. I want to live as gently as possible on this earth. If, if the bees die out, humans will die out within two, three years. You know, you hear that, whether it's true or not, within so many years we'll go. If ants die out, we'll die out within five or six years.

• 1:11:02Speaker 01

  If humans die out, what do you think happens to the planet? It has a point.

• 1:11:05Rich Roll?

  It'll be fine.

• 1:11:06Speaker 01

  It'll be fine.

• 1:11:07Rich Roll?

  It'd be better than fine.

• 1:11:08Speaker 01

  It'd be better than fine, better than ever. Right. We are to a degree a virus. Like, it may sound extreme, but on the planet, we, you know, we cause all these problems. I've got to live a life that shows, leaves as little trace as possible, just as much gratitude. And I say that as a guy, that I have a leather belt that I still have from before I was vegan. I drive a car which puts fumes into the air. You know, it's a gradual process.

• 1:11:30Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:11:30Speaker 01

  As we, my role is to be a free runner and use that gift to promote this message. I feel that I've kind of found that that's my current position. It may change in 10 years. I may want to do, be a DJ and I'll go be a DJ. If that's what I'm passionate about, I'll just follow my passion. But for now, as the world grows and you've got cars like Teslas coming out and even Prius was, it was a big start, even though people will hate on that as well. There's always a reason to dislike something. We're slowly headed in the right direction and my role is just to be a free runner and do that. As long as someone else works on the car, making that more ethical and someone works on this, you know, as a race, a species, we'll get there and we'll start to live in harmony with the planet and all diseases will end up disappearing and, you know.

• 1:12:06Rich Roll?

  So you're, you're optimistic.

• 1:12:08Speaker 01

  I'm super optimistic. Oh man, it's not a matter of hope, it's a matter of time. It's only a matter of time.

• 1:12:12Rich Roll?

  I was listening to an interview with Shane Smith. Who's the guy at Vice dot com and he's been doing a lot of like pretty incredible investigative work with that organization. Concerning environmental change and they were they like went to Greenland and the message that he's coming back with is so like dire, almost like it's too late and all of that. It's very, you know, it's very grim. And so I

• 1:12:37Speaker 01

  We could change it overnight if we wanted, if we let the right people take the charge.

• 1:12:40Rich Roll?

  It's true, you know, so I struggle with how I, you know, like I'm, I just got back from, I spoke at Colorado College last night. And or the night before and it was amazing to go to a university and go to their cafeteria where they have all this organic produce and locally sourced food from nearby farms, some of which they grow on campus. And a community of young people that are interested in permaculture and sustainability and environmental change and all of these kinds of things. And then a ton of people showed up for the talk and I ended up hanging out afterwards, talking to all kinds of people, young people.

• 1:13:19Rich Roll?

  And when I was in college, you know, I'm like twice your age, right? Nobody, there was nobody, I didn't know anybody who was studying permaculture or interested in these kinds of things. So when I see that and I hear what you have to say, that gives me great hope, you know, it's very encouraging and it makes me feel optimistic about the future. But then I sort of contrast that with what I know about, you know, sort of the typical North American and kind of the way that, you know, how powerful these systems are that are in place that want us to perpetuate, you know, our reliance on fossil fuels, et cetera. And like yourself, I'm not immune from it. I drive a car and on some level, if you, if you pay taxes, you're complicit in this system

• 1:13:59Rich Roll?

  because that money goes towards farm subsidies and all these sorts of things that you may not personally support. So.

• 1:14:05Speaker 01

  Change is coming though. You can only do, your role is, you know, to be the athlete and promote this message and you do your podcast and you have your books and you promote completely the right message. That's your role in this planet. As long as you die, knowing that you did what you were here to do, that's fine. Someone else is working on the oil issue. Someone else is working on infinite energy and all those things and they'll be suppressed for a bit and I'm sure they have been, but it's gonna come. Eventually, there'll be like radical change needs to happen. You said the people at college, you know, working on these projects and it's only it's gonna happen. And I can only do my part that I'm here to do right now. And if it does fuck up in the future, so like, you know, don't take life too seriously. I've done what I'm here to do. You know, I could worry about all these things, but I don't have any knowledge on that. I have no passion to learn about that.

• 1:14:49Speaker 01

  I know they exist. I know problems are happening. It's not my calling, I'm afraid, and I love hearing inspirational stories of people changing it. I will support them and you can you vote with your pounds. So try and give money to, you know, vegan restaurants. I do big tips. So if you have one, invite me down. I'll give you a big tip because I'm supporting those things. You vote with your money and so long as you do as much as you can at the moment and you're spiritually progressing. We'll be okay. Otherwise, animals will have a fun world without us.

• 1:15:16Rich Roll?

  Right. It's easy to get overwhelmed because there are too many problems. And I think that what you said was very astute, which is, you know, find that one thing that you can kind of.

• 1:15:26Speaker 01

  Contribute.

• 1:15:26Rich Roll?

  Yeah, exactly. And you can't do everything. And if you start to think that way, you just become paralyzed.

• 1:15:32Speaker 02

  It goes back to the self-realization of, you know, following your passion and what you're supposed to be here on the world floor. And look internally to find that.

• 1:15:40Rich Roll?

  And I think that's the key. And I also think that's something that most people really struggle with. I think if you ask the average person, you know, what are you passionate about? Or what is it that you think you're here to do? You know, I just know because personally I was in this position before. Like, I don't, I didn't know how to answer that question. I didn't, I didn't have a healthy enough relationship with myself to know what it was that made me feel passionate.

• 1:16:05Speaker 01

  That's where you're an inspiration though, because what age did you turn it around? You were like fourteen, right?

• 1:16:09Rich Roll?

  But I mean, you're somebody who's fully, you know, in your passion and you're, you know, you're very clear on.

• 1:16:18Speaker 02

  What you believe in and what your message is. And so to somebody who's listening out there who may be struggling with these things, I mean, what, how can you kind of give somebody some inspiration to, you know, find what that thing is for themselves?

• 1:16:32Speaker 01

  I think you said it earlier when you said like kids kind of know what it was they wanted to do. And you kind of have to reconnect with that in a child because there is somewhere that knows what you wanted. Ask your parent, you know, ask one of your parents, what, what did you really like to be involved with that maybe slowly just back towards that. The most important thing you can do is, yeah, everyone has a gift there to give is to find that gift. And if, you know, it takes a bit of searching, you have to stop doing what you're doing for a while, go find that gift. And then when you find it, you know, contribute to the world in your way. And if it's small and it's in a small community and it's your friends around you and your family or whoever you're contributing to, that's fine, that's your part, you know, you're spreading, pay it forward, whatever. And if you, you do

• 1:17:15Speaker 01

  get a position, a voice, you know, people listen to you, you become successful, like you became successful. Now people listen to you with the running, the Ironman. And I did it with free running. I was, I wasn't vegan at the time, which is kind of a shame because I would love to use that platform. But like I say, I don't agree with competition anymore. So I'm just using, you know, what I've got at the moment from that, you know, you don't have to be a world champion for people to listen to you, you can just be

• 1:17:40Speaker 02

  But you're still making influence.

• 1:17:42Speaker 01

  That's what I mean.

• 1:17:43Speaker 02

  I remember I was watching the last Red Bull Art of Motion and you were one of the judges. And every time they would cue the video to the judges, you had a piece of broccoli or some

• 1:17:51Speaker 01

  Different piece of fruit.

• 1:17:52Speaker 02

  Just a fruit or vegetable that he was eating. And I was like, that, that's awesome. You know, like

• 1:17:56Rich Roll?

  Well, it's kind of like how

• 1:17:58Speaker 02

  People, you know, see that.

• 1:17:59Rich Roll?

  Yeah, they see that.

• 1:18:00Speaker 02

  It changes people's thoughts.

• 1:18:02Rich Roll?

  It's like, do you follow Steve-O's Instagram?

• 1:18:05Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:18:06Rich Roll?

  So Steve-O.

• 1:18:06Speaker 01

  And his cough.

• 1:18:07Rich Roll?

  Yeah, he's, well, he's always like lying on a giant bed of produce, you know, or he like puts himself inside the refrigerator with all this like produce.

• 1:18:14Speaker 01

  What a guy, right? And it takes some time to go that far to the, the other side to come back and realize, you know, this is life is made by helping others, you know, you're kind to others, that's where the happiness comes from. And that's what I want to do is, and every time, you know, a kid messages me saying I've helped them, I always make sure reply and say, that's great. That like, not for me, I'm not, there's no ego boost to me saying, oh yeah, I'm helping people. It's like, you helped yourself, something within you recognized what I said was truth and you went and did it yourself. So that's not, it's nothing I've done, you've done it yourself. You just let the connection be made.

• 1:18:45Rich Roll?

  But you can accept thanks for being on some level a catalyst for that.

• 1:18:50Speaker 01

  Of course, but that isn't what drives me, but it's just nice it keeps you going.

• 1:18:55Rich Roll?

  Of course. Oh, it's incredibly motivating to get those kind of emails. And I think, you know, really what I always try to say is, you know, if you're not happy with how your life is going, or you're feeling stuck, or you're not sure, you know, what it is that you're supposed to do, you have to shake things up and start doing things differently. Because if you keep just doing things the way that you've always been doing them, you're going to get the same results.

• 1:19:14Speaker 01

  For things to change, you have to change.

• 1:19:15Rich Roll?

  You have to change. And that could just mean changing one thing initially and seeing where that leads you, you know, and trying to stay out of judgment about whatever path that's on and being open to new ideas and new ways. And that doesn't mean that it's easy, because actually it's kind of hard. It might be the hardest thing you ever do, but it's really kind of why we're here.

• 1:19:37Speaker 01

  The rewards are so worth it, that's the thing. At the end of the day, veganism is, can be hard for some people, but the rewards are so worth it. So there, and you have to remember that the only truth you really know is your own experience. Like, you can read science facts, you can read blog posts on for and against every single thing that you want in your life. People are going to write good things about your bad habits because they want to sell books. And people are going to want to flame and say bad things about, you know, the things you don't like as well, so that it reaffirms things with you. But the only truth you know is experience. And if you've never tried these other things, you've never tried yoga, you've never tried meditation, or veganism, or parkour, I mean, maybe it's not for you, but try things, experience them, and then you realize, oh, no, this is, there's a reason people go on about this.

• 1:20:21Speaker 01

  You know, there's a reason this is popular and growing, and it's up and coming.

• 1:20:26Rich Roll?

  Do you take some heat online? Like, do you have, like, some haters?

• 1:20:30Speaker 01

  Not too much. Someone posted a video the other day, and it was a short clip on Facebook, and it was like me starting to say why I stopped eating meat, and then they cut to a clip of someone going, "Nobody cares."

• 1:20:43Speaker 01

  And yeah, and that's funny, and that's kids, and I get it, because I was a kid once, and I was quick to hate on someone, because there's a lot of kids around the world that get it, and so they make a change, and then other kids in their community flame them, because they think they're copying the trend, or they're following what someone popular says, and you know, that's on them, they can be haters, that's all right, they'll all realise eventually, I think, I think the world will be from vegetarian in the next hundred years, like, injustice can only last for so long, and the speed, this is exponentially, you know, speedballing right now, is so much growth.

• 1:21:17Rich Roll?

  Well, certainly, our current system is unsustainable, so something's gonna change.

• 1:21:22Speaker 01

  Environmental issues is probably the number one reason it will change.

• 1:21:24Rich Roll?

  Yeah, we're headed, you know, the train has already pulled out of the station in terms of environmental disaster, and we just simply can't continue to produce food for, you know, the billions and increasing billions of people on the planet the way we always have. No, I haven't seen that.

• 1:21:39Speaker 01

  Do you know what that is?

• 1:21:40Rich Roll?

  Yes, I do.

• 1:21:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, I watched the documentary on it the other day, a twenty minute piece, and the guy's quite deadpan, but he says, you know, it's a solution, he just drinks it every day, and it's every bit of nutrition you need, I mean, there's no free rides, and I think you're missing a lot, there's a reason we're supposed to eat plants that are colourful and chew our food, and some bad things may come along the way with that, but at the same time, you know, I respect that if they sent this to some countries that need starving countries, it could make a difference, and people are looking, so long as people are looking for a solution, or looking in the direction, the truth will be like, I'm over here, and it will come about.

• 1:22:23Rich Roll?

  How do you feel the question, which I'm sure you get all the time, which is, you know, what's wrong with paleo, like, why don't you eat the paleo?

• 1:22:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, because strength shouldn't take, it should build up, not build down, and as long as you're killing animals, there's no... That's not strength. That's not a real warrior, I don't think. Warriors, you know, they're considerate, they're compassionate, they they respect. Animals are so innocent. Like, we laugh at the innocence of a child, but when the innocence of an animal, we manipulate it, we take advantage of the innocence of animals, because they can't speak our language, you know. We we think they're here for us to eat, and they're not. They have their own purpose for living. And just because our human brain and our ego can't comprehend why a cow sits in a field over there, that doesn't mean that it's there for us to go and eat. And, you know, paleo, they want to be strong, but it's very selfish. It's very, I want to be strong because I want to be bigger, because I want to be better, you know. It's

• 1:23:12Speaker 01

  like, how about you can do that, but you can live in a compassionate way, in kind way?

• 1:23:18Rich Roll?

  Well, I think it brings up issues of of of what the definition of masculinity is. And I think that there's this sort of cultural perception of masculinity as being, you know, sort of, super, super, um, you know, strong and aggressive. And any kind of

• 1:23:37Speaker 01

  That's dying out there.

• 1:23:38Rich Roll?

  demonstration of compassion is considered weakness. When I think if you look back through history at the greatest leaders of all time, they were all actually very compassionate people. They were firm, they were firm and very masculine, but they understood when compassion was in order. And and that's what distinguished them from average to being great.

• 1:23:57Speaker 01

  Completely. They and that's what people don't get. And that's what people are starting to realize now, you know. And as more, you know, whether this is the first time people hear veganism is from me, or I'm the second or the third, it it adds up, you know. If someone hears it and they're like, no, that's, you know, complete bullshit, I'm not going to listen. And then maybe someone in the family becomes or the friend and they're like, whoa, okay, but still don't agree. And then, you know, they'll hear it from a few sources and and they'll start to, because I've thought about this so much. I've thought about every argument for and against, and I've been in every discussion for and against. And like, you yourself, you you get it, right? It's the it's the truth. That's why we're here. That's why we do this. And, you know, life is here, we're here to serve others. And if you're here in the service of death and negativity, then

• 1:24:41Speaker 01

  you, you know, that's not the right thing. I'm here to serve life and the life and positive and truth. And you can't eat meat and serve life. Like, that's fundamental. I know.

• 1:24:51Speaker 01

  A hundred years ago, we didn't make that connection. Now, well, people did. You know, Einstein was vegetarian and he talked about the evolution of human consciousness were called when we all adapt a vegetarian diet. And he was, he's a very smart guy and I think we're all starting to realize, yeah, you can't really be compassionate and spiritual and know yourself that much if you still want to take lives of others for you. You will not, we don't have more importance than other animals. That's what I'm trying to represent.

• 1:25:18Rich Roll?

  I like that. Also, a big influence on you is Russell Brand, right?

• 1:25:22Speaker 01

  You nailed it. Thanks for bringing him up. Yeah.

• 1:25:25Rich Roll?

  I love that guy. I can't wait to read whatever he writes in his videos. I am endlessly entertained and enlightened by his.

• 1:25:32Speaker 01

  Did you see the compilation I made of his?

• 1:25:34Rich Roll?

  I watched part of the one where he's reading the news.

• 1:25:37Speaker 01

  Truths. That's great. I watch that every day. I made a compilation of Russell Brand because he does a lot of interviews that go unnoticed. All the main commercial MSNBC, they get noticed. He does a lot of underground ones that unlike conscious TV, Gaia TV, that go unnoticed where he speaks a lot of spirituality, a lot of truth, speaks about vegetarianism. He's a vegetarian himself, mostly vegan. He has honey and eggs sometimes, he says. But I made a compilation that got nearly 700,000 views now. He's tweeted it like three different times and it was about him talking about, you know, love is all that matters. And, you know, you feel happier when you're being kind to others. And it's a compilation of all these nice quotes from him.

• 1:26:14Rich Roll?

  I think what people don't realize is that he's exceedingly intelligent. He's an incredible writer and he's extraordinarily articulate. And when he's in a debate with somebody on television, or when he's speaking his truth in his mind, it's captivating to watch.

• 1:26:29Speaker 01

  But people want to spin it and they think it's just fancy words and he's not carrying it out. It's not his role to be, like I'm saying, that's not his, his role is to draw attention to it. His role is to call to arms people like me and you who can listen to him and understand him and be like, I'm inspired by this guy. Let's keep doing what I'm doing. His role isn't to be like, oh, here's the solution. Let's do this. That's, he's only one man.

• 1:26:49Rich Roll?

  He's just there to, he's pulling covers, you know, to get people to think about things.

• 1:26:53Speaker 01

  Exactly that.

• 1:26:54Rich Roll?

  I think the last thing that I tweeted out that he wrote was a piece that on addiction that he wrote shortly after Philip Seymour Hoffman passed away, that I thought was just so beautifully written. You know, he has a, he has a facility to extract the truth out of some of these situations in a way that. Most people can't and I love reading his stuff.

• 1:27:15Speaker 01

  He's great. He sent me a message.

• 1:27:17Rich Roll?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:27:17Speaker 01

  He's seen some of my free running stuff.

• 1:27:18Rich Roll?

  Oh, really?

• 1:27:19Speaker 01

  I'm looking forward to meeting him.

• 1:27:20Rich Roll?

  What did he say?

• 1:27:22Speaker 01

  It was like an Instagram video. He was with one of my friends and he was like, Tim, you free runner. I'm gonna free run, come free run up and down my legs and down my mind. He's quite a funny guy.

• 1:27:33Speaker 01

  But yeah, that's gonna be, he's a very big inspiration. People think he's all this material, sex-driven guy, but he's, you know, he's really finding his true self now and he's been completely sober from drugs and alcohol for 11 years. And like we said with Steveo and that, he's, he was a heroin addict and he's gone that far down and it makes you see the depth of which you can go and it's pendulums the other way. He's come so far in the other direction.

• 1:27:55Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I mean, it's easy to take a swing at a guy like that, but it's, I have a tendency to invest more faith in people that have lived on, you know, the dark side and have come out the other side. And I respect his transparency about that and his willingness to talk about it because he knows that if he's open about it, that he has the opportunity and the chance to help somebody else.

• 1:28:17Speaker 01

  And he, and he's found that's kind of his thing now. He's, he's, he doesn't want to be like the, the mayor of England or, I don't even know what the.

• 1:28:28Rich Roll?

  Prime Minister.

• 1:28:29Speaker 01

  Prime Minister. That's the word.

• 1:28:30Rich Roll?

  You've really, you've been in LA too long and you're already getting soft.

• 1:28:34Speaker 01

  President, yeah.

• 1:28:36Speaker 01

  But his role isn't that. His role isn't to speak on environmental issues. He just knows there's a problem with the environment. His role is now he's finding it now. It's in the addiction thing. It's to show that addiction isn't, it shouldn't be illegal. It shouldn't be a legal issue at all. It's a medical issue. These people just need a bit of love and a bit of care and not to be treated like they're doing something wrong. Cause then that pushes them away and it makes them think it's a taboo and they hide themselves in a dark corner and it just gets worse and spirals out of control. He's saying it's a medical issue. Give them some love. Speak to them like a human. What's the problem? Let's try and help you find a solution. And he's realized, yeah, that's where he can speak on it because he's come from that place.

• 1:29:09Rich Roll?

  Right. Yeah, it's cool. For people that are listening that are kind of interested in this idea of eating a plant-based diet, but they're not quite there yet, I mean, what are the kind of things that you usually say to somebody to try to help them take that first step?

• 1:29:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's a process. I mean, often one is pescatarian. I did that for like a week or two weeks. And then there was, within the first six months, there was the odd time I'd have a bit of fish every now and then when I was with someone. And I had a girlfriend at the time who was, she was still eating fish, and I'd eat a bit of her plate. And accept the process, you know, it's a lot of work. The society's brought us up one way. To undo that overnight is hard. Some people are strong-minded enough. I wasn't. So accept the process, you know, it's okay. Go pescatarian, just cut certain meats out of your diet. Gradually go down. Just add fruits and vegetables. Don't feel guilty eating 20 bananas in a day. It's okay to do that. Like that way you'll really start to see the difference. Eat nuts instead of crisps, you know.

• 1:30:05Speaker 01

  Slowly this transition foods, hummus was a good one for me. Hummus and bread, if you normally have sandwiches with cheese and stuff, use hummus and bread is delicious. Like find a few vegetables in there as well. It's okay to like eat unhealthy but vegan. Get peanut butter, have loads of peanut butter sandwiches, peanut butter jelly.

• 1:30:23Rich Roll?

  Just to acclimate, sort of as a bridge.

• 1:30:26Speaker 01

  As a bridge, to step over, to begin. Go vegan for breakfast, then go vegan for breakfast and for lunch. There's one called V till six or something.

• 1:30:32Rich Roll?

  Yeah, Mark Bittman's book.

• 1:30:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, and so just, it's not that hard. Like if you take it one day at a time and you do do vegan breakfast, lunch, and then at dinner you eat whatever you normally eat. Slowly from those breakfasts and lunches, you realize what foods in the vegan category you like. And then you can start applying that to dinner and you really, I've never enjoyed food. I used to love, I used to come to LA and eat In-N-Out every single time. I used to love lasagna and carbonara. And I've never enjoyed food as much as I do now since I've been vegan because it's, you know, it's a whole, you're like, wow, you can enjoy it.

• 1:31:02Rich Roll?

  That's the thing that people have a hard time like wrapping their brains around or believing.

• 1:31:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, I remember how like deer in the headlights I was at first, but now it's so rewarding.

• 1:31:12Speaker 02

  We talked about this at Cafe Gratitude yesterday, like, you know, now it's great that there's a bunch of, you know, great tasting vegan restaurants, but before that, you know, it was the comparison of like, oh, this, you know, meat or this other type food tastes so much better, but my always argument was, yeah, it tastes good for like, the two bites that you have and swallow it, but like you feel like, you know, like, like ish the whole rest of the day versus like now the vegan food tastes just as good in my mind going down and then like the whole rest of my day, I feel incredible. You know, and that even that argument, even if it doesn't taste, you know, just as good.

• 1:31:44Speaker 01

  The rest of the hours.

• 1:31:45Speaker 02

  The rest of the hour of the day is totally completely worth it as opposed to you having to go take a nap because you had like, too much steak and like a beer, you know, like. I've never left Cafe Gratitude with somebody because I bring people there all the time where they went, I'm not going back there.

• 1:31:59Speaker 01

  That place is amazing.

• 1:32:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, every person was like, that was an incredible meal and people from all different kinds of walks of life and diet. One of my favorite things to do is ringing out of town and straight to Cafe Gratitude.

• 1:32:11Speaker 01

  But those pioneers that were doing it before Cafe Gratitude exists, man, rock on to them because they had a tough time. I'm, I feel blessed that I'm in a time where I can speak on veganism and people get it and people will listen to me. People that saw it this way 20 years ago, man, they must have had a tough time and I have so much respect for them, carrying on with it. I mean, once you're there, you don't have much choice, but they carried on with it and, and here we are today with restaurants like Cafe Gratitude, which is great to bring people in, transition them in, you know. Try something new, go find a vegan restaurant. There's an app called Happy Cow, really good app. Any country I go to, any city, put in Happy Cow and you can choose vegetarian, vegan or just vegetarian friendly. And then it comes up with anything, it comes up with a distance away, it gives you a map, the area, you can, you can ring the place, you can open hours or all that and,

• 1:32:55Speaker 01

  just try something new, go to these places, you know, and they're very welcoming places. Vegan restaurants are so welcoming. It's a good vibe.

• 1:33:01Rich Roll?

  Yeah, one of the things I always say to people too is, is, you know, don't judge yourself because you're gonna, you're gonna screw up, you're gonna make mistakes. And if you're too hard on yourself, you'll just say, well, that was too hard. I'm not gonna do that. Like, forget it. And just understand that you're a human being and you're fallible. And, you know, and, and to kind of change habits you've had your entire life is a very difficult thing, and it takes time. And to be gentle on yourself. And to also look at it, you referenced this before, but to focus on, on all the new things that you're gonna be adding to your diet, as opposed to perceiving it from a deprivation point of view, and focusing on the things that you're not eating. You know what I mean? Like, look at it as an adventure. Like, you're gonna go to the farmer's market, and you

• 1:33:41Rich Roll?

  get all these crazy vegetables that you really haven't experienced before. Or, you know, if you don't have a farmer's market, your local supermarket, or whatever, and make it into something fun, like an adventure.

• 1:33:53Speaker 01

  Yeah. Sweet potato and dates are pretty like two staples that you can just have. Bags of dates and just big sweet potatoes. And they'll, you're guaranteed to get filled up, and they're so delicious, especially with the skin on. Like, those are two of my main points. I tell people, you know, fruit, vegetables, nuts and seeds, but sweet potatoes and dates, ten bananas.

• 1:34:10Rich Roll?

  You don't have to be a chef either.

• 1:34:12Speaker 01

  You don't. Oh, I'm, I'm no further from a chef, but you can mess up a vegan meal, and you're not gonna give yourself food poisoning. You know, it's all right.

• 1:34:19Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm. Cool. All right, man. Well, we gotta wrap it up here, I think. But, uh, that was inspiring, man. Thank you for taking the time. I have a lot of respect for your point of view and, and your advocacy and all that you're doing to kind of raise a vibration for young people and raise a profile for parkour. It's such an exciting time right now, and I'm really encouraged and looking forward to see what you do next.

• 1:34:43Speaker 01

  Thank you. Thanks for this opportunity to speak on it, and thanks for this beautiful view we get to do this, this podcast.

• 1:34:48Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's nice, man. Any final thoughts you wanna leave for people that are listening who, like I said, you know, maybe are stuck, or they're struggling with diet, or their life, or maybe just a little morsel?

• 1:34:59Speaker 01

  You're a beautiful person, man. We're all beautiful. I'm no different from anyone else. I'm just from a small town in England, and I just, you know... Had a bit of compassion and it drove me in life, like find that part of you that's compassionate that cares about something. And we've all got it in us and just go with the flow, you know, let life, the best, most important people I've ever met in my life, sometimes when I just let life flow and I didn't try to control life too much. Often we try to control life too much, but you know, if you know what's right and you just sit back a bit, life will give you everything you need.

• 1:35:30Rich Roll?

  I guess in some ways, parkour is like a parable of that, right?

• 1:35:33Speaker 01

  It's a physical power.

• 1:35:34Rich Roll?

  It's a, it's a practice in which, I mean, it really has to be, you really have to be a master of your mind in order to excel at that. And I'm sure that you're forced to, you know, if not practice like a strict meditation practice, at least have a sort of, you know, mind, body, soul connection that is well developed and, and that, and understanding of how to kind of be fully in the presence of what you're doing. And, and I think that there are, we sort of ripples, that, that creates waves out, ripples out into the rest of your life and how you perceive the world.

• 1:36:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, it does. It's holistic, that everything, the diet, the training that I do, yoga as well, sleeping, staying hydrated, it, it all works as one. It's just living in a positive, healthy manner.

• 1:36:20Rich Roll?

  Cool. Well, if you ever want to come here and make some crazy video, our house is your house.

• 1:36:26Speaker 01

  Thank you, man.

• 1:36:26Rich Roll?

  Did you guys make, did you make a video while you were here?

• 1:36:29Speaker 01

  No, I've not had time. And so I'm just trying to meet loads of people, but I realize how many friends I have here that is, I'll be back.

• 1:36:35Rich Roll?

  You guys should make a video together.

• 1:36:37Speaker 01

  We talked about it, we're gonna do it.

• 1:36:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, we're gonna do it. We're talking about, very excited.

• 1:36:41Speaker 01

  We get Frank Madrono.

• 1:36:43Rich Roll?

  Frank Madrono, yeah, yeah.

• 1:36:45Speaker 02

  Frank, I know you're listening, I'm gonna get you on this podcast.

• 1:36:48Rich Roll?

  I know, come on, man, where's Frank?

• 1:36:49Speaker 02

  I'll get him.

• 1:36:50Rich Roll?

  That guy is ridiculous, what he does on that.

• 1:36:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, we're on the same team.

• 1:36:54Rich Roll?

  I know. Cool. All right, man. Well, thanks. So if people want to hook up with you, the best way to do that is?

• 1:37:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, Twitter at Timothy Sheaf, Instagram at Timothy Sheaf, my website now, spiritoftim.com, made that the other day.

• 1:37:08Rich Roll?

  Right. Is that, is it the Tumblr one? Cause you have two, you have one.

• 1:37:11Speaker 01

  Tumblr, that chief sheaf is my Tumblr, but that's more. Like of a board to keep nice quotes and things on there. You can check that one out as well. Yeah, Twitter, I check that every now. I deleted it from, I actually deleted Twitter and Facebook from my phone.

• 1:37:25Rich Roll?

  Oh, you did?

• 1:37:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, I've got Instagram on there still. That's kind of nice. It's not too hectic, but the others, I just wanted a bit, bit more freedom. I still check out my computer, but, but it's actually really nice. You know, you realize that's a whole nother subject we could talk about.

• 1:37:38Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Well, you come back when you move here next year.

• 1:37:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:37:41Rich Roll?

  We'll sit down and talk about that.

• 1:37:42Speaker 01

  All right.

• 1:37:43Rich Roll?

  And then on the YouTube, you have, well, you have the LiveWire channel.

• 1:37:46Speaker 01

  YouTube.com/LiveWire. I'm doing more vegan stuff on that and Russell Brand Edit, which I really recommend you check out. That is on there. Then YouTube.com/Flow is all my hardcore content. And then there's YouTube.com/StormFreeRun, which is my free running team, which is more of my own free running, better content. I'm putting out, and I put out a yoga video on there as well.

• 1:38:05Rich Roll?

  Sweet. All right, man. Well, keep me posted on what you're up to, man.

• 1:38:10Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 1:38:10Rich Roll?

  And I hope you'll come by next time you're in town.

• 1:38:13Speaker 01

  For sure.

• 1:38:13Rich Roll?

  All right, cool. All right, man. Thanks.

• 1:38:15Speaker 01

  Much love.

• 1:38:16Rich Roll?

  Peace. Much love. Plants.

• 1:38:19Speaker 01

  Namaste.

• 1:38:25Rich Roll?

  All right, people, that's our show. How'd it go? How about those apples? Let me know in the comments section at richroll.com on the show page and throw a review up on iTunes. We love that. Thank you very much. If you're inspired by Timothy's message of following his heart, living in faith, and being an inspiring example of what a young person can do in this world, and maybe you're thinking you're stuck in your own life, or frustrated, or not sure how to get off the dime, well, maybe you might want to check out my new course at mindbodygreen.com. It's called The Art of Living with Purpose: How to Set and Achieve Goals, Transform Your Life, and Become Your Best, Most Authentic Self. So, from the path

• 1:39:08Rich Roll?

  that I've walked the last few years, kind of what I shared in the intro to this episode, and the incredible experiences I've had traveling the world and doing this podcast, I've learned a few things. I've learned some ideas, some tools, some strategies on the subject of how to embrace a new and more fulfilling, personally meaningful approach to life, how to uncover and embrace Latent Passion: How to Transform Your Life. And again, to tout the theme of this podcast, become your best, most authentic self. And so in this course, I took the best of these principles and distilled them down into an online program, which culminates in a little over two hours of streaming video, divided into six modules and 14 sessions.

• 1:39:52Rich Roll?

  In addition to that, we have an array of downloadable tools and resources on the fundamentals of transformation, how to properly set a goal, how to erect a roadmap, how to create effective structures, momentum, community, and accountability, and why people traditionally fail or fall short in their goals or their pursuits, and the essential foundational principles and practices behind every successful sustained life transformation. All in all, I think it's a really valuable toolbox that contains the assets required that you need to make changes in your life necessary to become the person you always wanted to and deserve to be. And we all want that, right? So if this feels like something that you might benefit from, then have a look. All right, cool. So that's it with that. The iOS app, we're in the final stages, coming soon.

• 1:40:37Rich Roll?

  I keep thinking it's almost going to be ready. We got a couple hurdles we gotta jump through with the sort of Apple Development Program. The app is essentially done, but we just have to do a bunch of bureaucratic nonsense before it gets uploaded into the App Store. And again, I will keep you posted on that. So if you want to support the show, you've been enjoying the content, just tell a friend. That's all we ask. Spread the word, okay? We're building this global audience, the Plant Power Warriors, the Plant Power Revolution. So just mention it. That's cool. If you want to take it to the next level, please, for your next Amazon purchase, use the Amazon banner ad at richroll.com. Buy whatever you're going to buy on Amazon, won't cost you a penny extra. Amazon gives us a little bit of commission change, and we love that.

• 1:41:21Rich Roll?

  And that is helping us keep this thing going. It's helping me pay Tyler, my son, to produce the show. So in the spirit of entrepreneurialism, another theme of this show, that is good for Tyler, and you can feel good about supporting him. So thanks for that. Go to richroll.com for all your plant power provisions. Throw an image up on Instagram of you listening to the podcast. We love that. Tag it RRP or Rich Roll or Rich Roll Podcast. And that's it. We've got a bunch of great shows lined up, already in the queue for the upcoming weeks. And I'm excited to share all of that with you. So have a great week, you guys. And let's see how you can expand.

• 1:42:05Rich Roll?

  Send me a Twitter message or a Facebook message and let me know something that you did this week that you never did before, something that scared you, something that expanded your own personal horizons. So I'll look forward to hearing from you guys on that note and I'll be back again with you guys next week. Until then, peace. Plants.