3 Questions

Excerpted from the first day of our recent Plantpower Ireland retreat, this special mid-week episode of the podcast is a dynamic Q&A session focused on the process of self-inquiry necessary to objectively asses your life — a condition precedent to birthing expression to an authentic, purpose-fueled path premised on the values you hold most dear. To place this conversation in proper context, the Q&A was preceded by a lengthy discussion (which I decided to not include so as not to overwhelm) on three fundamental questions specifically intended to help frame the assessment process: * Who am I? * If I had just 4 months to live, how would I spend that time? * What would I like to have contributed when life my life is complete? Journaling on the aforementioned is a powerful, highly recommended exercise for anyone seeking greater self-actualization. And this Q&A is an interactive discussion about the hows and whys that underpin these queries. Specific sub-topics include * the power of self-forgiveness * learning to love your faults * how to better align your actions with your values; and * the process of discovering and expressing your authentic voice I sincerely hope you enjoy the exchange. Peace + Plants, Rich Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:00Rich Roll?

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• 0:44Rich Roll?

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• 1:05Speaker 01

  It's about these three questions with whatever we're doing in life, which are: What am I doing? Why am I doing it? And is it in the highest divine alignment or alignment with my authentic blueprint, who I am? So, a huge clue is what brings you joy. If you can find that thing that gives you that feeling, spend time doing that. Make sure you spend time in that joy every day as often as you can, because being in that frequency of joy will create a magnetic energy that will find you. And you're going to find whatever it is in you that is your gift. And that joy creates more joy.

• 1:50Rich Roll?

  That's Julie Piatt, and this is the Rich Roll Podcast.

• 2:05Rich Roll?

  The Rich Roll Podcast. Hey everybody, how you guys doing? What's happening? My name is Rich Roll. I am your host. Welcome or welcome back to my podcast. Happy to be back in Los Angeles. I just returned last night from an incredible trip to Ireland. A couple of weeks spent there. It started off with our seven day Plant Power Ireland Retreat at Valley of the Lawn House in County Cork, which was just, it was phenomenal. And that was followed by two evening events in Dublin with the Happy Pair guys in front of live audiences, which was really fun. Both of these experiences were super meaningful for Julie and I. And the retreat in particular, very impactful, I think, for all who attended.

• 2:50Rich Roll?

  And I'm just, I'm so grateful. You know, words really just can't express what a cool experience it was. And I really feel that we were able to deliver, to activate the attendees on the retreat, the campers, to hopefully inspire them and provide them with the tools to make some significant life changes with Staying Power. We recorded several of the retreat workshop sessions over the course of that retreat, that week, as well as the Dublin events. And the idea is that we would excerpt and share some of them on this platform as midweek shows. And that's what today's episode is all about.

• 3:30Rich Roll?

  I will explain and contextualize what is to come in this episode in a moment, but first.

• 3:44Rich Roll?

  All right, today's episode. So today's episode is a Q and A with Julie and I that we excerpted from the first day workshop at our recent retreat. And to place it in context, this Q and A was preceded by about an hour-long discussion, which I decided to not include here so as to not overwhelm you guys. But in the course of that discussion, we talked about the inside job required to objectively assess your life, to trigger the self-inquiry process, so to speak. And to do that, we assigned a little journaling homework, essentially asking the attendees to... Spend time over the course of the week pondering and answering to the best of their

• 4:26Rich Roll?

  abilities, three fundamental questions. And these questions are, one, who am I? Just a little question. And the purpose behind this question is essentially to get people thinking about and pondering what is truly unique about them. What is the story that you tell yourself about yourself? And what is the narrative that you would like to replace it with? The second question is, if you had four months to live, how would that time be best spent? And the idea behind that is to get people focused on their values, what is truly important, and how that can be best expressed. And then thirdly, what would you like to have contributed to the world when your life is complete? In other words, like,

• 5:09Rich Roll?

  what would your epitaph say in a best case scenario? And this is a really great and quite powerful exercise. I would highly recommend anyone, everyone undertaking it. It's an amazing way to get better clarity on so many things. And so this Q and A is a loose and interactive discussion about the hows and the whys behind the exercise. It's a conversation about loving your faults and self forgiveness. It's about aligning your actions with your values and your goals. In other words, what am I doing? Why am I doing this? And are my actions in an authentic alignment with who I am or who I would like to be? And also, among other things, it's about a process of discovering and bringing

• 5:54Rich Roll?

  expression to what is truly most meaningful and authentic to you. A couple notes before we get into the episode. We recorded this live in a barn, which was kind of an indoor outdoor setting. So the acoustics were not fantastic. At times, it can be a little bit tricky or challenging to hear what is being said. I'm aware of it. We did the best that we could with it. But it is what it is. Secondarily, I understand and realize that perhaps not everything being offered and said in this conversation is going to resonate with everybody in the audience. And that's totally cool. As I always said, take what is meaningful or impactful for yourself, implement it into your life, and discard the rest. That's what it's all about. All right. So with that said, let's just get into it. Let's go back to

• 6:39Rich Roll?

  our first day in Ireland, which was last week, with Julie and the campers. And let's get some answers.

• 6:50Rich Roll?

  Alright, so, does anybody have any questions about any of that? We thought we could use the rest of this session to just open it up to you guys. I think the idea behind this is to kind of integrate this. I don't want it to be, Julie and I don't want it to just be us presenting to you. We want it to be interactive. So, to the extent that you have questions about this or any other subject, maybe we can just open it up and create a little bit of a roundtable. It's so formal with these mics.

• 7:23Speaker 01

  But we're recording. We need to record, so it has to be.

• 7:26Speaker 02

  Hi, Jeff. You're here listening to the charity.

• 7:29Speaker 01

  Hi.

• 7:30Speaker 02

  When you were speaking about loving all your faults, I found that really good, but also it challenges me a bit. And what I've found more recently is that it's extremely liberating to like, take things and forgive them, but I don't necessarily resonate so much with loving it. Like, is there a difference energetically for you in that?

• 7:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, beautifully. I actually think I like your word better. I mean, forgive it, loving is forgiving, right? Forgiving is moving forward. So yeah, forgive them. Forgive them, that's beautiful. Thank you. I like that. It's a, what I was trying to express is, is don't compartmentalize yourself and hide from them. And understand, I mean, just like, I could say the same thing about a life trauma, you know? I don't love that we went through a nine-year financial collapse, but I'm devoted to it. I pray to it, I bow to it, I love it, I'm grateful for it. I didn't need to forgive it, though.

• 8:36Speaker 01

  I mean, it just, I knew it was necessary. But forgiveness is a beautiful word to bring into that, however resonates with everyone. Thank you.

• 8:47Speaker 03

  Julie, tu avais dit plus tôt à propos de la vie étant merveilleuse et une bénédiction, et je suis d'accord avec ça. Mais je me demande ce que tu penses de la façon bouddhiste de voir les choses, en ce qu'il y a tellement de souffrance, et qu'ils veulent enfin atteindre un état où ils ne reviennent pas, et qu'ils ne sont pas reincarnés pour finir cette souffrance.

• 9:12Speaker 01

  Oui, tout d'abord, je ne suis pas bouddhiste, donc je ne sais pas. Je sais certaines choses, mais je peux juste partager. Je suppose que comme une jeune yogi, les bouddhistes ressentent comme si ils étaient un peu comme un buzzkill pour moi.

• 9:26Speaker 01

  J'aimerais la nirvana. Donc, c'est une sorte de choix, même si j'aime beaucoup les enseignements bouddhistes. C'est une pratique et une lignée magnifiques.

• 9:39Speaker 01

  Mais je dirais, oui, je dis exactement ça. Ce que je partage avec vous est parce que je ne suis pas intéressée à reincarner dans ce système. Je ne reviendrai pas encore, à moins que ce ne soit de ma volonté libre. Donc, ma vie est dévotée à la complète liberté, de ne pas être forcé à reincarner. Et c'est vraiment la clé de toutes ces pratiques, de comprendre que nous sommes beaucoup plus que un corps physique. Nous sommes forcé à reincarner dans ça. Il y a comme un mur, et nous continuons à faire ce cyclisme. Et il y a un multivers de réalité qui est disponible à tous nous. Et donc, c'est ce à quoi ma vie est dévotée.

• 10:21Speaker 01

  Et oui, nous ne devons plus faire cette nécessité karmique si nous réalisons la divinité de ce que cela signifie vraiment d'être un être humain, dans sa forme originale, avec tout le DNA agissant, aucun ADN mélangé. Et donc, je partage ça.

• 10:42Speaker 04

  Hi Julie.

• 10:43Speaker 01

  Is this on?

• 10:44Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 10:44Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 10:45Speaker 04

  Um, I think I have a problem with, um, well, I know I'm gonna have a problem with, I can't read this, the, number two, if you only have four months to live. I've already been there. And, um, that, having that mindset of like, I've only got this much time, kinda freaked me out. Um, so my way of getting through it was to do two things at the same time. Live like, today is the last day I'm gonna be here. And so try to get the most out of every day, and then live like, I'm gonna be, to live to a hundred. Doing both at the same time, so...

• 11:29Speaker 04

  But I'm struggling with thinking about just four months, 'cause that puts me right back where my brain was in February when I was in absolute freak-out mode. So, can you maybe say something that might help me wrap my brain around this better?

• 11:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, thank you so much, and I was thinking of you when I read your, your letter, and I was thinking of these, of these questions. You've already gone through that experience in real time, right? So you, you know, the, the difference is, is that most of us haven't had that, that lens. So, of course, I would say that every single day you're on planet Earth, you should live your life, the way you wanna live it. So when I put my head down on the pillow, I know that it was my life I lived. I didn't live any life that anybody else told me to. 'Cause I'm very aware how fragile it is.

• 12:23Speaker 01

  At the same time, I cultivate an awareness that we are all eternal beings. There is no death. There's none. So, in eternity, in some of the meditations that we're gonna do, we're gonna drop into this emptiness of space, but fullness. So it's the emptiness and the fullness. And so, yes, it's both of those things. So I would just skip that. You don't need to do that.

• 12:48Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 12:48Speaker 01

  Um, you can stay in the, in the present moment. You can be, you know, immersed in meditation. You can do what frees you in that way. So I can work more clearly with you and also for sure make sure that we do some of those meditations that open into that expansive space. But it's just sort of another, it's another step of experience. And anybody else that has the same experience as Janie, you know, can shift up.

• 13:15Speaker 05

  I was sitting here thinking the same thing as you, you know, described that question. And I take the same approach as Janie, I think. Like, sometimes it's, it's more liberating to think, if you're gonna live eternally, what are those things you're gonna do? But I, I think really it comes down to each person. And I guess what I, what I assume the intent of the question is more constraining yourself down to what are those core things that are intrinsic to you? What are your values, you know? And so you start to strip away a lifetime of, well, I want to be a mom, and I want to be a, a successful career, and I want to do this, and I want to do that. And then I guess if you, if you give yourself a finite

• 13:57Speaker 05

  amount of time, then you start to say, okay, these things are nice to haves, but these are my must haves in life. And what, you know, when I leave this life, this is what I want to do. So, I mean, I was kind of flipping it as well. But I struggle with the same thing. Because, you know, you think if you have a few weeks or whatever, well, I'm gonna, whatever, quit my job, I'm gonna go on a bender, just do all these crazy things. But that's kind of where I came back to, is, you know, what are the core values for you? And how do you want to live those?

• 14:28Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I mean, I think that's, that's why the four months number seemed to make sense. Because if you just say, well, live, it's like your last day. Well, what are you gonna do? You're gonna like, go to the beach or something. You know what I mean? Yeah, like, I don't think that's as instructive as if you have a certain amount of, of time, like a certain set, short period of time, it will focus, it will focus your intention on what those core values are, and are your actions in alignment with those. And I think, you know, getting back to this denial piece, we all sort of walk around thinking like, well, I have this value set. And like, I'm a good guy, and like, my actions line up with my values. And, and, you know, I would encourage everybody to kind of put that to the test.

• 15:11Rich Roll?

  And the way to do that is to, if you actually journal like, how you spend your time, like, you know, in 15-minute increments throughout the day, over the period of a week or a month, to really get clear and identify, well, do my actions line up with my values? Like, first, what are my values? Then, here are my actions. And where do they line up? And where are they mismatched? Because I think we sort of overestimate the extent to which our actions align with our values. And if you say you only have a short period of time, you can say, "Well, look at all these things that I'm doing. Like, this has nothing to do with anything. And like, actually, these are all things that I'm doing because, you know, I feel a responsibility to do them, or because I'm a people pleaser, or because, you know, this

• 15:55Rich Roll?

  is the career that my parents thought would be great for me." And, you know, to get clear on that, to really understand, like, "Oh, these aren't choices I necessarily consciously made in my best interest. How can I now address these so that I can adjust my trajectory so that that alignment between values and actions becomes, you know, they become more parallel?"

• 16:18Rich Roll?

  Does that, does that make sense?

• 16:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's good. And it's really, it's about these three questions with whatever we're doing in life, which are, what am I doing? Why am I doing it? And is it in the highest divine alignment, or alignment with my, my authentic blueprint, who I am? So, yeah. What am I doing? What am I doing? Why am I doing it? And is it in divine alignment, or you could just say, authentic alignment with who I am? You know, those might be more basic to some of us than others. It depends on what stage of your life, what you've experienced in your life, where you're at.

• 17:05Speaker 01

  But for some of us that are, you know, not sure why, why we're doing something, it'd be nice-

• 17:14Rich Roll?

  Dude, what the fuck are you doing?

• 17:15Speaker 01

  What are you doing?

• 17:16Rich Roll?

  Seriously.

• 17:17Speaker 01

  (laughing)

• 17:21Speaker 06

  Yeah, just to, just to kind of go off of that, my, I think my issue is the authenticity piece. So, society and normalized values from them has, so permeating to, I don't know, in my actions. So, trying to determine whether something is authentic, or, you know, if it's really aligned with who I am, how do you, how do you do that effectively?

• 17:49Rich Roll?

  That's the inside job part, you know? I think that's the assessment piece. That answer can only come to you clearly through, through the, you know, the meditation, and the yoga, and the journaling, and the alone time. And it's not necessarily like a lightning bolt that's going to hit you overnight, but I think, you know, fidelity to these kinds of practices are what are going to lead you to a place where you can have the ability to discern the difference between these two things, because it's tough. If you grew up in a certain social setting, then there are certain expectations that get baked into you. So what's authentic to you, and what is just something that you absorb through osmosis,

• 18:31Rich Roll?

  through your family, or, you know, your school, or what have you? And, you know, which choices are you really making in alignment with that, you know, authentic soul voice? And which choices are you making just because you're shouldering that expectation, or that, you know, sort of social pressure and constraint? And it's hard. You know, there's a lot of gray area in there. It's not like a black or white thing. But I think, like I said earlier, just the, the practice of asking yourself that repeatedly and consistently, even throughout the day, when you're making more benign, you know, smaller decisions, that will lead to that, that clarity. But ultimately, that's what you're seeking, right? Because when you can have that understanding, that will drive the decision tree about, like,

• 19:16Rich Roll?

  the knots that you need to undo, and the new paths that you need to blaze for yourself going forward.

• 19:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I would add to that is a huge clue is what brings you joy. So when I'm talking about the six-year-old child, there's a reason. It's like we, we all love something as a six-year-old. And we all got shut down. We all got wounded. You know, um, somebody said something, something happened, a life event happened. And you get disconnected from that child. So it's really what brings you joy. And that could be multiple things. But I think we find it in adult, as adults, when we engage in activities and we're like a completely lost, like it's like time just expands. And we get lost in that moment. And you know, artists describe it. I experience it in yoga. I hope you guys experience it, sometimes in yoga.

• 20:08Speaker 01

  Um, you know, music, um, I experienced it. I, I served, uh, my entire menu to 70 people at my book launch. And, um, I just know that I'm really dialed in with food because I work for two days and then serve 70 people and I'm not tired at all. Like there's no fatigue. So it, again, it doesn't have to be one thing, but it's that thing. And you do have a thing because you're sitting here and you're breathing. There is something magnificent.

• 20:42Rich Roll?

  And it sounds like it could be silly or ephemeral, but you know, the truth is like just reflecting back on my own personal experience, like, you know, I'm this corporate lawyer. This was not something that I found a tremendous amount of joy or satisfaction in. You know, in retrospect, very clearly I made these decisions based on social pressures, expectations, et cetera, until I reached a breaking point with that. And you know, there's a lot that went into that. There's getting sober and there's changing my diet and all these behavioral changes that are ways of, you know, activating that authentic voice or, or kind of, you know, getting on a path towards gaining greater clarity. But ultimately, you know, I reached a point where I was like, I don't want to do this anymore.

• 21:26Rich Roll?

  I just want to like be out on a trail and like feel the sun on my shoulders. Like that joy. You know, that six-year-old, childlike joy, it wasn't anything more than that. It doesn't make any logical sense. There's no professional career aspiration that could be extrapolated from that experience. And yet, making that decision is really the only reason why, like, I'm sitting here right now, as crazy as that sounds. So, these small things, like these inquiries and these little decisions, and these, you know, actions to try to reconnect with that, you know, innocent, joyful, you know, young child that's been repressed and quashed by virtue of just the gestalt of, you know, growing older,

• 22:11Rich Roll?

  is the portal to getting back to that, you know, authentic voice that we're all seeking to connect with.

• 22:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, and this is key in our journey, actually, because it was my connection to my devotion to spirituality, my connection to this knowledge that I knew. I could see that Rich was a lawyer, and he hated it, and it was like a push-pull message to the universe. It was like, "I'm a lawyer, I hate you. I'm a lawyer, I hate you." So, it was like, he was never like a massively successful lawyer. He just wasn't. It wasn't feeding that way, and it was destroying him. He's a very sensitive being. He is nothing, nothing about law is like what Rich is. Except, you know, it did teach him a really amazing skill, which is writing. So, he's a really beautiful writer, so there is a benefit to it.

• 23:03Speaker 01

  But overall, I could see that it was killing him. And when he had this reconnection with what he loved as a boy, I knew that that's what I had to support him to do. And it made no sense whatsoever. I mean, we had no money. We got, you know, our cars repossessed, you know, insurance, couldn't pay our mortgage. I mean, it was crazy experience. And yet, I knew that him serving his heart was the way through. That, and everyone in our community, they thought we were insane. They were judging us. It was very difficult, very, very difficult to walk that. I didn't know he was gonna write a book.

• 23:47Speaker 01

  And then I was gonna create a cookbook and we were gonna become wellness advocates. We're gonna be sitting here. I had no knowledge. The only thing I knew is that this boy loved to train. He loved that feeling. And what I'll share with all of you is if you can find that thing that gives you that feeling, spend time doing that. Make sure you spend time in that joy every day, as often as you can, because being in that frequency of joy will create a magnetic energy that will find you. And are you gonna become an ultra endurance

• 24:26Speaker 01

  athlete? Likely not. But you're going to find whatever it is in you that is your gift. And that joy creates more joy. So what we would say in a Western mind is, in that situation, go send out a thousand resumes and just take whatever work you can and just work. Solve it that way. And for some reason, by the grace of God, we solved it another way, in a much more authentic and embodied in beautiful way that changed our lives. Was that easy? No, that was not easy. And had I known that it was gonna be that long, I might not have

• 25:09Speaker 01

  been so vibrant, so strong in it. But I knew it was the only way.

• 25:22Speaker 03

  I have a question for Rich. I've helped a friend who did 200K runs. And each time I've been on them, I've thought to myself, I would love to do that. I think most people probably think they're nuts, but I thought to myself, I would love to do that. I've got a really good feeling inside about doing it. And I've meditated on it as well. And inside, it felt really good about trying to do that. But then I put together the training schedule, see how many 20 mile runs I've got to do, and all of a sudden, it doesn't seem like a good idea. So is that, seeing that training schedule, is that the sort of realization, or is that just the head trying to get in the way and saying, you don't really want to do that?

• 26:07Rich Roll?

  Well, first of all, I would say that you probably already know the answer to that question, deep down inside you. I think ultras have that tendency. It either repels people and they think this is insane and these are crazy people, or there's some mystical allure where people are like, "I gotta have this in my life." So certainly, there's an attraction within you to this world. You may have balked at the training schedule, and I would encourage you to not just repress whatever it is that got you excited about it, and just expand your timeframe a little bit and be a little bit more patient. Like, working up to something

• 26:48Rich Roll?

  like running 100K or 100 miles, that's not something that happens overnight. You could probably find training programs that will compress the period of time to get you ready for something like that, but what's the rush? You know what I mean? I think the journey and the value of participating in a race like that is everything that leads up to getting to the starting line. In retrospect, after you finish the race, that's what you'll value the most, and there's no reason to race through that. And I think if you build up more gradually and set a year window, or a two-year window, or even a three-year window to get to that, and start changing your lifestyle habits to orient around what

• 27:32Rich Roll?

  it takes to do something like that, then a year from now, the idea of tackling those 20-mile runs won't seem so onerous, because you will have some experience under your belt, and you'll look at that differently than you do now. Thank you.

• 27:51Speaker 07

  So, I'm not entirely sure what my purpose is, but I do know what brings me joy. I'm very clear on what brings me joy. I mean, there are things like putting my headphones on and just totally getting into some great music, or getting on my bike and the endorphins that I feel after that. And all these sort of micro things feel very self-serving, and they bring me joy. And I guess maybe my question is, is it in that state of joy that I will discover my purpose? Is that like a valid... Thing, um, I don't know. I mean, I have a lot of ideas of what my purpose could be, but I'm not really sure what it is.

• 28:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's okay. You're in a beautiful state of connection to yourself, just seeing you now from the last trip and everything that you've done. So, I think you're, you're on to it. I think you, you know, you're, you're definitely on to it. So, the more that you can spend time in that frequency of joy, the more you will get the messages that you need to and your purpose will be revealed to you in whatever form. Um, or you might just be one of these super special people that just get to live in the joy and not have a purpose. So, that would be one more thing. Um, yeah. And the other thing is, is that I use the word self-full a lot instead of selfish.

• 29:15Speaker 01

  Um, I think a lot of us have been told by spiritual teachings or maybe we believe that, that being selfish, it's being selfish if you just love to ride your bike. Um, but I take the opposite perspective and that is that that's being self-full. Because if you love yourself and you celebrate yourself, you will do something amazing. Even if it's stopping lost in the, in the forest and having an interaction with someone from another culture and what happens in that exchange. So, you, you connected to Julie and you loving Julie and celebrating Julie is a gift to all of us. So, just keep doing what you're doing and you'll find it

• 30:00Speaker 01

  or it'll find you.

• 30:03Rich Roll?

  That question of like, what's my purpose? It's like, there's so much pressure. Like, it's kind of like not good to walk around thinking about that all the time because I, I feel like it leads to a sense of paralysis. Because like, who really knows what their purpose is? And if you think you do, like, maybe you need to evaluate your ego a little bit, like, how do you know that that's really what your purpose is? You know what I mean? So, I think I would agree with Julie that the more that you can, uh, you know, connect with those things that bring you joy. That will make you, obviously, a more joyful person, and then you have more joy to give. And you will be in a place where you will want to share that joy. And that will lead to opportunities to be of service where that joy can then, you know,

• 30:47Rich Roll?

  infect the people around you. And I think if you're paying attention and you're doing that inside work of the meditation and the yoga and the active meditation of riding your bike and all these other things that are, you know, healing to you, that will make you more present in your life. And then you're more aware of the signals and the opportunities that arise that might present opportunities for you to make decisions to, you know, change how you're, you know, moving forward. And that's going to lead to, you know, greater understanding of self and more opportunities. And then ultimately, you'll wake up one day and think, "I think I know what my purpose is." You know what I mean?

• 31:29Rich Roll?

  So I think it comes as an evolving practice of engaging with what brings you joy and then finding ways to share that in a service-minded capacity.

• 31:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, and so at some level, this is important, and at another level, it becomes completely irrelevant. So it's just, it's an exercise. It's a practice. We're going to do a practice over the next day and a half to like set up, clarify some things, set up the week. And then, you know, we'll be doing a lot of other stuff. So it's only, it's only here for you. It's for you and you and for your own discovery. And, you know, if it brings some things into your awareness, then beautiful. And if not, we'll keep moving on. Thanks.

• 32:24Speaker 08

  I sometimes find myself in this place where, like, I know, for example, moving is a good thing for me, but, like, I have resistance, and so I, I mean, a dilemma whether to kind of wait a bit for me to feel a bit more drawn to it, like, that it comes from within, or should I just kind of like more from the head, or listening to others, oh, you know, you should make yourself move, you'll feel better, and then it'll come more naturally. So it's a kind of this where it should come from.

• 33:03Speaker 01

  Rich and I'll have two different perspectives, so Rich can go first.

• 33:07Speaker 08

  I'd like to hear both.

• 33:11Rich Roll?

  Well, as I'm fond of saying, mood follows action, something I say all the time. So if you, if you wait until you feel like doing something, you're unlikely to do it, but if you know that a certain activity is gonna make you feel better, even if you don't feel like doing it, the compulsion to do it anyway can shift that emotional and physical state. But I would encourage you to find something that you enjoy doing. You know, what is it that you would choose to do that doesn't feel like something that, you know, just sounds terrible to you, that you're gonna hate, and you're doing it just because, you know, everybody tells you that you should move your body in this certain way?

• 33:48Speaker 01

  Are you talking about moving your body, or moving residence, or moving countries?

• 33:53Speaker 08

  Oh, no, body, like, that's very physical.

• 33:56Rich Roll?

  Moving your body, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 33:57Speaker 08

  Yeah, I think I sort of know what sort of more natural, like, I am more of a dancing person, rather than like a, um, running, or the other kind of exercises. But at the same time, I, like, I really love the idea of that I can actually just, I mean, dance, like, I almost need certain circumstances to have that happen. So I really like that I'm more self-reliant, that I can actually move, and it becomes like a, not an issue, I just do it, and I feel good, and, because whenever I do it, it is usually good, but

• 34:36Speaker 08

  still, I feel that resistance. And, yeah, it is, it is hard to sometimes break that, really. Like, I, I think I, I am grown up a lot being in my head, and I have been really studious. So...

• 34:54Rich Roll?

  But you can wear down that resistance through consistency and creating momentum around it, you know what I mean? It's like that if you're doing it on the regular, that resistance will start to decrease. If you're in a practice of saying, "Well, at this time every day, or every other day, or whatever, this is when I do this," then that voice of resistance will start to fade in, you know, recede into the background. Does that make sense?

• 35:25Speaker 08

  Yeah, I think I'm curious about the mindset I should approach this, rather than being like a dictatorial and kind of, "Okay, I have to do it." Like, how to approach it in a very loving and inviting way, I think.

• 35:39Rich Roll?

  Well, you sound conflicted, because on the one hand, you say you really enjoy these things, and on the other hand, you feel like you have to do it, and you're looking at it like as a burden.

• 35:48Speaker 08

  Yes, because I think it does switch, really. Like, if it comes from outside, if my husband, like, he's super, kind of, you know, loves his running and all that, and I really am inspired, but then if he says that to me, I'm like, "No, I don't know, there is like a resistance." And there could be various reasons for it, but, like, in a way, I want to do it, but actually, I'm not really doing it. Like, from me to get into that action and doing it, it just, like, I switch off, or whatever. So, in a way, I think I want to be there. I want it to be an easy thing, an easy act. And I don't want to be like a big racer or anything, but I want it to come at ease,

• 36:32Speaker 08

  and I think, yeah, that's where I want to be.

• 36:34Rich Roll?

  Well, there's what you want, and then there's what is. You know, so you're, the resistance is, you're, you have an issue with the way reality works, you know, as opposed to the way that you wish it would work. And this is, there's a, there's a book by Steven Pressfield called The War of Art, and he talks about resistance. And I think what you're expressing is very common and applicable, not just in the context of, like, physical Exercise, but you know, professional and creative pursuits as well. So, any writer will tell you, they love writing, but it's also the most painful, horrible, you know, torturous thing you can possibly do. And that resistance always creeps up, and there's always a reason, or an excuse, or

• 37:19Rich Roll?

  some barrier to prevent the writer from sitting down and writing, because it's painful. When they finally do it, and they get to the other side, they're glad they do it, they feel good, they wish they could be in that flow, you know, on a consistent, regular basis, and then the resistance pops up again. And this, this happens with, like you said, with the physical activity that you're trying to engage in, but it, it happens in our lives in many different ways. So, that might be a book that you would like to read, because it talks about how you think about the resistance, and how you, you overcome it. And, I think you would, I think that would be helpful to you.

• 37:55Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 37:56Rich Roll?

  But I think this idea of just wanting it to be easy, where you're always gonna be super stoked to do it, like, that's just not how it works. So, for me, when I'm in that mindset, first of all, you like, set up your schedule, so that you have this set aside time, you've already, you know, carved it out of your day, and you've prioritized it, and everybody knows, so nothing can invade on that time. And then, even when you have that emotional resistance to just doing it, you have to figure out ways to like, just turn the brain off, and put one foot in front of the other. And you can break that down into like, little micro actions, that just move you forward until you're doing it, and then you're like, "Oh, I'm doing it." You know what I mean? And I could talk to you more about how to do that after this, if you'd like.

• 38:44Speaker 01

  All that, yes. And, I think another perspective that we can all benefit from, is by really starting to recognize this concept of the body being a temple for our spirit, for our soul. I don't think we really make that connection, and, these bodies are miraculous, and they are gifts, they're blessings. And, we lose connection between what we're putting in our mouth, and then what our Body has to do with that food substance. And in addition, we stop moving the body, or we look at exercise as some chore. And when you're really in a self-love, and you really understand what's going on, and

• 39:27Speaker 01

  that what this body has the potential to be, it should be your first priority. You know, the first priority is taking care of the body, and the body has to move. The body has to move to be able to retain or be able to hold more and more light. So, my choice of movement is yoga, because it combines those two things. Rich's choice is, you know, running and training and doing what he does. It doesn't matter what it is, but I would say to you that if you love dance, dance. Start a dance class. You know, figure it out. And every morning, get up and dance your, dance your little butt off for like, you know, forty-five minutes before anything else happens.

• 40:12Speaker 01

  It's actually kind of an easy thing to create. You can find a room, set up some speakers, you can dance alone. Don't lose touch with those natural tendencies. You don't need a club, and you don't need a party or a wedding to dance. You can do it right wherever you are. And I think dancing and, I know dancing and movement is a natural part of what it means to be human. And there are beautiful movements and artistic expressions that happen as a result of listening to the energy. And I've had experiences myself with my body moving in certain ways because it was able to listen to energy. So, I think there's a key for you there.

• 40:56Speaker 01

  And I think you don't have to move the way other people move if it's not what feels natural to you.

• 41:05Rich Roll?

  You don't want to jump in the Irish Sea every morning with Stephen and David?

• 41:12Rich Roll?

  Oh, you are.

• 41:18Speaker 09

  Can I just add something to that as well? I understand that pressure sometimes when you want to try something, but there's sort of external things that maybe stop you from like doing it. Because it's like, am I doing this for the right reasons? Am I doing it because someone might be telling me it's good for me? And that they enjoy it so much and, you know, you should get on that bandwagon too. And that kind of creates resistance. But something that's been really helpful for me is this idea of just trying something for 30 days and just being curious about it. And it just adds a level of commitment to it. That's, that's not like if I don't do it forever, I've failed.

• 42:01Speaker 09

  Or, um, um, like, because sometimes that's overwhelming. Because you think, oh, I'm going to start doing something. I better do it forever or I'd better do it. And then you don't do it and then you feel like you've failed. So that's just a like a little technique that's really been helpful to me. That, um, you know, you just say, I'm just going to give it a try and see what happens. And in all cases, I've found it to be incredibly transformational. But, um, and just approaching it with curiosity and non judgment, yeah, as well. So that's my two, two bobs with.

• 42:34Speaker 06

  And I have another thing to add to that. Um, exercise is one of my biggest trigger points for me personally. And I've had to, because I'll do anything and I have done any, well, not running, um, anything and everything. And a lot of times now I have to sit back and I have to honestly meditate before I work out and think about what my body wants to do today. Because as a result, if I work out and I'm doing things that I'm forcing, it's creating other imbalances in my body. So I'm having hormonal imbalances and acne breakouts at, you know, almost 30 years old.

• 43:17Speaker 06

  And so trying to, um, you know, honestly, listen to myself was something I was having the hardest time doing. So, um, I don't know if that's another technique that could help too.

• 43:28Speaker 10

  Thanks. Just to add to that, I think the, one of the, one of the things that I found really difficult to contemplate, I'm a very kind of obsessive intense person when I do things, and I had to learn how to meditate two years ago. And I was really lucky that I was working with somebody who figured out that, you know, it was going to be really difficult to try and get me to calm down and be quiet. And he said two things to me at the start. One was, you know, he said, "It's when you're on a plane and they tell you to tend to yourself before you reach into somebody else's seatbelt." He said,

• 44:09Speaker 10

  "This is the philosophy that we follow." But then he made me meditate for one minute a day for weeks. And I kept going back into therapy and I kept saying to him, "So, you know, am I ready to meditate for like three minutes? I can go do 10 now." And he's going, "No, no, no, it's one. It's one minute." And I eventually moved off one minute because he said, "Yeah, you can move off right now because you've stopped asking me. Is it really in as a time?" So then can you do something little and often and you build a habit, then you can find it so much easier. So, you know, don't try and kill yourself into pushing into something huge. That's like a massive tilt. Just do it small and often and then you can build and form a habit around it.

• 44:52Rich Roll?

  I think that's a really important point. You know, we're in this kind of life hack culture where everybody's looking for shortcuts to success or to some fitness goal or health goal or professional goal. And the truth is, is that, you know, mountains are moved through making very tiny lifestyle adjustments that you then stick to. Like, that's an amazing example. One minute a day for how long until it became a cemented practice that you did and that foundation was there.

• 45:27Rich Roll?

  Was established enough that you could then build upon it, that the person that you were working with felt confident that this glue had solidified enough that this was going to now become, you know, a non-negotiable aspect of how you're living your life. And I think, you know, that sort of strategy is equally applicable to diet and fitness and, you know, any other goal that you set for yourself. If you can make these changes in a way that then they become rote lifestyle habits as opposed to temporary destination-oriented, um, you know, habits that you probably think in the back of your mind, you're going to be abandoning at some point. Um, that's the way that you really move forward and with the best foot, I think.

• 46:12Speaker 10

  Yeah, yeah, great. I think as well, you, when you, when you look to change something in your life and it's for you and it's for, for health reasons, um, you have to look at things in a completely different light to the way that you ever look at anything else. And, you know, you find a lot of similarities in the way that you've operated before that you can, that you can bring in. But if you want to really make, you know, a huge change, that mammoth change just starts with the tiniest things. And, and people become disheartened and move off the, the plan the minute it becomes complex, the minute it becomes.

• 46:50Rich Roll?

  Or they don't see, the minute they don't see, they want results immediately.

• 46:53Speaker 10

  Yeah.

• 46:53Rich Roll?

  Right?

• 46:54Speaker 10

  It just doesn't come. It's, it's, it's a long road. But if you can just do tiny bits and, and kind of, you know, within your, within your, your, your, your goal setting, just break it down into its tiniest bite-sized forms, then it will happen. But making it big and making it, you know, claims of, of absolutely transformational, you know, Tony Robbins, four-day sessions and I'm going to go and take over the world, you get pretty disappointed.

• 47:25Speaker 11

  One thing I just wanted to add to all of that is forgiveness, I think, is really important, especially when you're starting these smaller challenges. I see it all the time. It's that, you know, if you do three days of this new thing and then you slip up on the fourth, it's not the end of the world, you know? It's to dust yourself off, learn from your mistakes, and come back stronger. That's why I see all the time this one, you know, beer that I'm involved in is constantly trying to remind people it's forgiveness, not the stick of guilt, that's really important. It's the same with the vegan thing. It's like, you know, I had some butter on some vegetables one day. Does that mean the whole thing's blown? That's it? I can't call myself vegan? I'm, you know, I'm a failure? You see it all the time, I think. It's such a natural instinct, but it's really just to encourage people that it doesn't matter, you know? Learn from your mistake

• 48:09Speaker 11

  and come back, and then just try and build longer streaks. That's the real key. Those longer daily streaks, I think, is really helpful.

• 48:18Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that's self-compassion and liberating yourself from this expectation of perfection. You know, you see this in diet all the time, right? Like, "Oh, I'm gonna go plant-based," or I'm whatever. It doesn't even matter what diet modality it is. Two weeks later, you slip up, and you go off the plan, and then people just, they just abandon it completely because they feel like it's too hard, or they can't measure up to this expectation that they've placed on themselves. And I think that's a beautiful sentiment, to like, build in that self-compassion and self-forgiveness, to just, and then to root yourself back into the moment of like, "What's the next best decision that I can make to move forward?" as opposed to like, you know, this narrative that you'll create

• 49:00Rich Roll?

  that it was all a disaster and a mistake, and you're not good enough, and you can't possibly, you know, do this thing.

• 49:13Speaker 02

  It's really good that you asked the question you asked, because clearly, all of us are thinking about this, and we all have a lot to add. And I think there's one thing, or there's one thing I'd like to add that hasn't been brought up yet, and it actually facilitated by a lot of the things that have already been said, but find yourself a community, like, that loves to do what you want to do, and I would say dancing, because then you have connection and accountability with people, and that's so huge. And like, that will encourage you to build the habit as well. That's how I got into yoga. I mean, I wanted to do yoga to facilitate running. And I did thirty days of like every single day and I was like boom, yoga is the thing now. I have not stopped, so.

• 49:58Speaker 02

  Community is huge and that's why we're all here too. Like it's no easy feat to get to Ireland. But the community was there.

• 50:05Speaker 12

  I just wanted to say, just a point that kind of kept coming to my mind while Julie was talking about patience, because I think this question is pretty huge of what is my life purpose? And it's like, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know. You know, it keeps recurring. And just your point of if you had known maybe how long it would have taken, it might have scared you away from saying that change is okay to leave your high-flying corporate job with money and all of those things that we think we're supposed to have. So I just think that's a good reminder to be patient and trust the timing and not have to know by four o'clock today what you're going to be necessarily or what your life purpose is.

• 50:47Speaker 12

  And then what you touched on with momentum, I think again momentum is really important because there's so many things you might not know about what your life purpose is, but the things that you do know that make you feel that joy and that happiness. If you keep concentrating on them, hopefully then it just becomes clearer eventually. So I just wanted to share that.

• 51:10Speaker 01

  Definitely. And I think also one of the illusions of stepping onto a spiritual path, it's just like a factor of immaturity is we seem to think that if we step on a spiritual path and suddenly life will be easier for us. It will be more graceful. And in fact, you know, that's not what life is about. Life is about, you know, evolution and basically an alchemical process where we get chiseled and refined into remembering who we are. And that takes the form of allotted different things. And it's not for the meek, it's not for the weary, you know, it's a warrior path. And you become devoted to the

• 51:53Speaker 01

  A servant of the process of the source and unattached to the outcome. So every, you know, I'm saying, you know, we've given you this homework and, you know, I have a lot of that as well, you know, things that I want to express, that I think are natural to me, that I want to leave here before I leave this life. And at the same time, every morning when I wake up, I dedicate my life to that. And every night when I go to bed, I give her all of it, all the great things that happen and all the shitty things that happen, like they're all hers.

• 52:33Speaker 01

  So the more that I can stay in that, the more fluid and graceful and the more miraculous my life is. And because I've been able to live as a mystic or as somebody who has that perception or that, it's a perspective that I choose, I choose it. I have been witness to many, many miracles in my life in vast ways. But it, make no mistake, it does not mean that you get an easy time or you get a pass go. And getting back to what Janie was saying, I've just been reflecting on deeply recently how this process of evolution will never end. It will not end when you leave this body.

• 53:18Speaker 01

  We were talking about the immense amount of amazing musicians who have taken their lives recently. And you look at these beings and they are being recognized for a creative expression in a huge way by like millions of people. And yet this is occurring. And so it brought me into meditation and reflection on wow, you know, it was hitting me like even, even with that amount of feedback, it's still not it, right? Still not it. But they didn't opt out of anything because there's no death. So all there is are more and more levels of required evolution.

• 54:01Speaker 01

  So then that brought me to the awareness that the really only important thing is this moment right now.

• 54:09Speaker 01

  That's it. Like, because you will be chasing, or looking, or searching for eternity, forever. So then it gave this really beautiful color to just the power of the present moment. And that's why, you know, I had a very close friend of mine whose four-year-old son drowned when we were young mothers, and I was with her very close through that whole thing. And there was no place of relief but the present. Because anytime you went to the past, you were in horror, and anytime you went to the future, you were in horror. So the only moment where there was any blessing was just in this moment.

• 54:51Speaker 01

  So ultimately, that's a perspective where we're arriving, but because we're in this other experience, these processes and these assignments might be helpful to some of you, and might be irrelevant to others.

• 55:17Speaker 13

  Julie Rich, I want to talk a little bit, or ask you. You said, Julie, before about the money side of things, how this world's, you know, dedicated to making money and that being our purpose. And I've been on a bit of a spiritual path, as you know, now, for a little while, and I still struggle with letting go of the fact that I have to earn an income to be able to pay for my habits, to spend time going running, or spend time on retreats like this, or going yoga and doing the things that are making me, hopefully, a better person, a more evolved person. They still cost money, and I struggle a lot with trying to let go of that. And I heard you say that, you know, we need to see that not as a purpose of life, but

• 56:02Speaker 13

  how do we do that better? I mean, you've been through a nine-year financial collapse, and so you've got the best advice on this, I would have thought.

• 56:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm an expert. I'm an expert. If anybody's having financial collapse, come to me. I know how the whole thing works. Yeah, well, obviously, Andrew, I mean- We're in a physical world, we need money, so don't misunderstand, I didn't mean to say that money is bad, okay? Money is good, because if we use it as energy, it allows us to do things. And the truth of the matter is, is we need more awakened conscious people to rise up in that area, you know, because the spiritual or awakened people have not stepped up in that way, and money is controlling the world, you know, that's what controls what happens. I guess what I would say is it's your attachment to the money, or who are you when you interact with the money, okay?

• 56:52Speaker 01

  So you understand that money is not the end, right? It's the means. And if you live your life as a spiritual servant, or as a servant, when I say that, a servant of your heart, a servant of your pure heart, really, then I think, you know, if you understand those, it's fine, then be super successful, please make a lot of money. Rich and I plan on making a lot of money. You know, we've been through our thing, and we plan on making really a lot of money, because we are gonna continue to do our work in the world and to move through circles. So, again, it's the, I guess it's a commentary more on the culture of the fact that we idolize people that have a lot of money, or that are, you know, pop stars, or, you know, and

• 57:37Speaker 01

  we tend to overlook all these amazing heroes, you know, like Vandana Shiva, or like, you know, people that really have done something to really shift consciousness. And this is changing, and I believe it's gonna change. But, yeah, we need you to be whole, and not everybody has to go through what we went through. Life will show up for you in different ways, you know, it just happened to be our thing. It brought us closer together, so normally that circumstance would have split a family apart, you know, Rich and I would have went into blame, and we would have caused a lot of problems in our marriage. In our case, it brought us unified. We were like in a war, and we were just all together with our family, just cemented, like,

• 58:21Speaker 01

  you know, with so much love, so much commitment. So, yeah, it'll appear in many different forms, and it doesn't mean that you have to go through what we went through. However, if you are idolizing money, and that is really where you are in your energetics, you know, Eckhart Tolle said, you know, that you can self-actualize with a million dollars in the bank, but it's not likely.

• 58:48Rich Roll?

  I would say that when I hear you share, I think that's a very, this is a common thing that probably a lot of us, you know, spend a lot of time thinking about. But I think baked into that, or kind of, you know, peeling back the layers of what you're saying, is this idea of, I have my traditional career path and this, you know, rewards me financially, and then I have the things that I love that are not financially rewarding. I would like to be doing all of these things, but I don't want to be broke. How do I bridge this gap? And I think there is a little bit of a lack of faith and a bit of a lack mentality in the sense that, the belief being that if you move over to the things that you really

• 59:29Rich Roll?

  love, that you are forsaking your financial well-being in so doing. And I would encourage you to like, have a broader perspective and think of it, you know, welcome the possibility that by stepping into these things, like with the New Normal Project, that perhaps that might be more financially rewarding than your medical career if you were to commit to it, you know, in a certain way that perhaps you're reticent to now because you have one foot in and one foot out. So it's not about the money, it's your relationship to the money. I think, you know, make as much money as you possibly can so you can do more of these things.

• 1:00:13Rich Roll?

  But I think, you know, this idea that if you're gonna be, you know, living this spiritual path, that you have to be some kind of renunciant, is, you know, not a functional paradigm. We all live in the world, like Julie said, so how can we live in the world, adhere to these, you know, values that we've erected for ourselves, carve out that time to do the things that we want to do? It doesn't necessarily have to be a career path for everybody. You know, maybe New Normal isn't your career path, maybe it is, I don't know. You will, you know, you will have to answer that question for yourself. But I think the idea that, that it's this binary, zero-sum thing that's related to your time investment is not necessarily

• 1:00:57Rich Roll?

  And you know, Russell Simmons, when I had him on the podcast, said the same thing like, man, I'm doing all this yoga, I'm gonna go broke now because I'm spending all my time in yoga. And, and actually, the awareness that he was able to like, develop as a result of his devotion to his meditation and his yoga practice and these things that he loved that weren't related to him making money and could, you know, could be argued to be a distraction from his professional career, only amplified his success in that arena. So these things are more intertwined and interconnected than I think we, you know, want to believe. And so I would, I guess my, my parting words to you would be to just kind of liberate yourself from the shackles of that like, binary mentality and, and you

• 1:01:41Rich Roll?

  know, make room for the wonder and the possibility that as you step more into this world, that it will only garner more success and more reward for you, not just spiritually, emotionally, mentally and physically, but also financially, professionally.

• 1:02:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I just want to add to that too, Andrew, and that is that as a spiritual warrior, you don't get to intellectualize what your path is. So I had somebody say to me during my collapse, well, I wouldn't choose bankruptcy. And I said, really? I said, well, it might just choose you someday. So you, you don't get to bargain. You don't get to jump with a net. Okay? That's not the way it works. Rich and I were literally on the razor's edge. We were, we could have been completely annihilated. Completely. Like, every single

• 1:02:40Speaker 01

  decision we made was wrong, you know? Or actualize all our dreams. It could have gone either way. And in that moment, we were required to remain devotional, to remain present to it, available to it. And what we learned in that transition time was, we never went hungry. We had cars repossessed. You know, we never, like, things worked out. I didn't have a bank account for four years. Like, how does that, like, how does that work? We just made adjustments, you know? It's like, you figure out a way and you keep getting tested. You get these tests. And then, what I realized was...

• 1:03:26Speaker 01

  If I could shorten the moment of resistance to anything that happened, you know, like, it would be like, "Oh, the car's on fire." You know, it would be nothing, like internally, emotionally. And I was working with Rich also to not be on the emotional reaction. Like, what does this mean? I've lost all my money. What does this mean about me? I don't have a bank account. What does it mean about me as a being that I got both cars repossessed? What does it mean about me as a mother that I can't provide health insurance for my kids? I had to face each one of those. And I had to blow it up.

• 1:04:08Speaker 01

  I had to break through it and be like, "It means nothing." Zero. And that quest and that commitment and vow that I would not let this experience take my humanity from me or my spiritual power from me. I met all of it in the face of a spiritual master, really. And that was the test. That was the initiation that we went through. Had we not gone through that, we couldn't speak to you from the place we speak to you. The podcast would not be what it is. Rich's podcast would not be what it is. His book would not have been what it was, what it is.

• 1:04:51Speaker 01

  My podcast would not be what it is. We had to go through that dismantling in order to stand in service. Because otherwise, it would have just been lip service. It would have just been an idea of like Derek Zoolander. You know, "We want to make a school for kids who can't read good."

• 1:05:13Speaker 01

  There's a lot of that going on. So, you know, it's a beauty of life. It's a depth of life. And there's this beautiful passage from the Ramayana, which is a thousands-of-year-old ancient Indian text. And there's a moment in that book where Hanuman, who's the monkey deity, is in the trees. And he's looking at Sita and Rama from afar. And he's admiring... ...their choice of mate. And he's saying that, uh, that they both share a ruggedness of beauty that is brought about from being bashed by the water like rocks on the shore. And that that's something that you earn, you become it. And that experience goes into your cells and no one can ever take it from you, no

• 1:05:58Speaker 01

  matter what you face. You are so much more powerful than money, than a job. And so that's the point that we're trying to share. So if you gain this awareness, you can use money, but you can be free of that implant in the planetary grid, that if we don't have it, we're all going to evaporate. So, anyway.

• 1:06:28Speaker 10

  Um, I was just gonna say on, on, on that theme, I think, um, from personal experiences as kind of an entrepreneurial person for 20 years, I made money, but I've always kind of visualized it over the last few years as if, you know, I kind of stand at the edge of the universe. And when I set something up or I want to do something, I jump in and I push and I pull and I fight and I scrap and I, you know, have tons of arguments with lots of people. And I just whip out what I need and I get back out and I'm kind of going, okay, now wait for my next turn to do that again. And I think one of the big changes that happened for me through, through my process

• 1:07:11Speaker 10

  in therapy and meditation was, I felt in therapy, I kept saying to, to, to my therapist, who's, who's my meditation guru, you know, you're gonna soften me here and you're gonna take away what it is that makes me successful. So I thought I'm gonna turn into, you know, this kind of lentil eating hippie who'll never really wanna make any money again. And he kept saying to me all the time, don't worry, it'll be fine. It will all happen. Kept having this conversation and he just wouldn't entertain it. He said, "Don't worry, you'll be fine. It'll all happen." And I think the big difference now that I feel, and I'm

• 1:07:50Speaker 10

  coaching three people who have had very successful careers and want to make changes, and we had some very profound conversations around this. But for me, I find that now that I'm in balance with nature and the universe, that it does just happen. So, you know, positive things happen, the weirdest things on the planet happen, and everything just works out okay. But where I've been coaching some people who've said, "Hey, you know, I really like what you're doing, and how do I get out of the rat race too?" But how do I still go on holiday? How do I still have all these things that I'd like to have in my life?

• 1:08:31Speaker 10

  And a big part of that is, one, I made everybody watch the minimalist TV show, because my 10-year-old made me watch it and told me we need to sell our house. So that kind of blew me away. And we did sell our house after he told me to sell the house. But I've also said to people then when I'm coaching them, you know, "Do you need to live in that house?" You know, "Have you thought about selling that house and living in a smaller house?" Because sometimes to really excel and grow, we've got to pare ourselves back a bit. And then it's like the pruning of a tree. By actually going through that process, you can have a rebirth into something much bigger and stronger. So it's hard, because you've got to do some painful stuff in the short term, but the long term, the growth is pretty

• 1:09:15Speaker 10

  awesome. But you've got to be open to just making some kind of big changes to your life.

• 1:09:20Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that's beautifully put. At the last retreat that we had in Italy, we watched the minimalism documentary as a group. So has everybody seen that documentary? You should definitely watch it. And I had Joshua on my podcast, and then I guested on their podcast as well. They're doing amazing work, those guys. But I love that sentiment, and I think there is something to this idea of, you know, Julie was referencing it earlier, maintaining your neutrality, like your fulcrum point. And meditation is a vehicle for being non-reactive and being more present and more engaged with your life.

• 1:10:03Rich Roll?

  There's that sense that if you go down that rabbit hole, that yeah, like you're gonna lose your edge and all the competitive, everything that made you who you are, your whole identity is under, is being assailed, right? It's under threat. And what does that mean? And it's the similar thing with Russell Simmons. Like, he felt like that too. "I'm gonna lose, I'm gonna turn into this, you know, granola-eating person, and my whole empire is gonna cave in on top of me." The result was the opposite. Because when you can remain neutral, and then you can surrender the results of your efforts, you can turn them over, and that's what we're gonna get into later in the week. That surrender process of not being attached to the outcome allows you to be, allows, sort of cements that sense of neutrality.

• 1:10:47Rich Roll?

  And ultimately, when you're in that place, there's some kind of weird mystical spiritual equation that ensues, that actually facilitates you getting what you want. It's almost like when you don't care, or all that emotional baggage and attachment, "I have to have this, if I don't have this, then who am I? And what do I mean if I can't get that house or keep up with the Joneses?" When you let go of all of that, it actually clears this path for a more effortless, you know, way of accelerating you towards that thing that you thought was going to go away if you engaged in these practices to begin with.

• 1:11:23Speaker 10

  Yeah, I agree, totally.

• 1:11:27Rich Roll?

  There's a book that I just started reading called, sorry, it's called The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck. Have you heard of this book? But it's kind of all about that. Like, his whole thing is like, "We give a fuck about way too much. If we just figured out what's important to give a fuck about, and just didn't give a fuck about anything else, then actually, life would be a lot better." And when you, like, don't give as much of a fuck about the things that you care so much about, that actually, you're more likely to get those things. So it's kind of a fun book.

• 1:11:59Speaker 01

  Okay, time for lunch. Thank you.

• 1:12:05Rich Roll?

  All right. I hope you guys enjoyed that. It was such a great group of people. This dynamic amongst the group during our retreat was just, it was off the hook. The energy was amazing. And this Q and A session was our first workshop on the first day. So we were still just kind of feeling each other out and trying to get to know each other. But by the end of that day, and then over the course of the next six days, I mean, the group just congealed and it was really phenomenal. It was such an extraordinary experience, getting to know everybody so well. And I think that this Q and A kind of gives you a little bit of a peek of what it would be like to attend one of our workshops. So again, I hope you guys enjoyed it. If you were impacted by my podcast conversation

• 1:12:45Rich Roll?

  last week with Scott Harrison of Charity Water, I would urge you to check out and donate to The Spring. It's Charity Water's monthly subscription service that allows you to donate a monthly amount and invest in a world where everyone has clean water, because everybody deserves clean water. It should be a right. 100% of all donations bring clean water to people in need. I'm donating by the month. My company is donating. To learn more and to sign up, go to our special URL, C W T R dot org slash Rich Roll Spring. That's C W T R dot org forward slash Rich Roll Spring. You guys want to get more plants on your plate? You're interested in going plant-based? Maybe you're part of the way there, but you

• 1:13:28Rich Roll?

  just can't get over the hump? Or maybe you tried it and then you abandoned it because you didn't have the tools, or you couldn't figure it out, or you felt like it was too overwhelming? That's the case with a lot of people. So don't be too harsh on yourself. In fact, eight out of 10 people who try to go 100% plant-based end up lapsing, not because they didn't feel amazing, or because they didn't enjoy it, or think it was a good idea, but because they just didn't have the tools, or they didn't have the resources to be able to make it stick. And that's why we created this amazing product that we recently launched, the Plant Power Meal Planner. It's basically an online portal that provides you with access to thousands, I'm telling you, thousands of plant-based recipes, unlimited

• 1:14:09Rich Roll?

  meal plans, grocery lists, even grocery delivery in 22 metropolitan areas. Everything is totally personalized and customized based on your goals, your food preferences, your allergies, your time constraints. Essentially, when you sign up, You have to fill out all this information so the system gets to know you and then it provides you with the recipes that it thinks that we think would be most appropriate for you. It's really very robust and everybody who is using it is just getting so much out of it. We get emails every single day with people saying, "I thank you. I can't believe how helpful this is." So I'm really excited to share it with you. I stand behind it 110%. To learn more, to sign up, it's only $1.90 a week, incredibly affordable. Go to meals.richroll.com

• 1:14:54Rich Roll?

  or just click on Meal Planner at the top of the page on my website, richroll.com. If you would like to support this show and my work, share it with your friends and on social media. That's the easiest way. Or grab their iPhone or their smartphone and just subscribe them to the show without them knowing. I'm not beyond that kind of thing. It's kind of sneaky, but I don't know, kind of fun, too. Leave a review on Apple Podcasts if you haven't done that yet. Again, subscribe. We also have a Patreon set up for people who would like to contribute financially to the work that I do, that I worked very hard at. In fact, when we were in Ireland and I was trying to get the Scott Harrison episode up, I stayed up till almost 4 o'clock in the morning after the evening session just to get the show up. So the show must go on no matter where I am, all that kind

• 1:15:37Rich Roll?

  of stuff. I worked very, very hard on this and the other content. So, you know, my goal is just to provide you with the best information that I can. This is what my life is about. I work really hard at it. And, you know, I'm not asking you to provide anything you're not comfortable with, but if you are interested in supporting what I'm doing, that's why we set up the Patreon. So, thank you to everybody who has made that leap. It really means so much to me. If you would like to receive a free, short, weekly email from me, I send one out every Thursday. It's called Roll Call, except I missed last week when we were in Ireland because I was just too busy. I just couldn't do it. You know, I can only do so much. In any event, this email just contains five or six things that I've come across over the course of the week. Usually articles that I've read that I think are interesting

• 1:16:18Rich Roll?

  or inspiring, products, a podcast I listen to, maybe a documentary I watched. No spam, no affiliate links. I'm not trying to sell you anything, just like good information. To sign up for that, you can just put your email address into any of those windows on my website and then you'll get it. That's it. That's all you gotta do. I want to thank today's sponsors, Design Crowd, custom graphic logo and web design from designers around the world. Get the perfect custom design every time by visiting designcrowd.com/richroll or entering the promo code RICHROLL. At checkout and receive up to $100 off your design project now. Also, Thrive Market, your online market for super healthy food at 25% to 50% off retail shipped right to your home.

• 1:17:01Rich Roll?

  Go to thrive market.com/ritual and get an extra 25% off on your first box of organic and non-GMO products, plus free shipping. Free shipping, people. Never pay full price for healthy food again. I want to thank everybody who helped put on the show today. Jason Camiolo for audio engineering and production. Sean Patterson for all his graphics. He's so good at that stuff. And theme music, as always, by Analemma. Thanks for the love, you guys. Happy to be home. Got another episode coming at you Sunday night. It's a good one. So you have that to look forward to. And until then, peace.