The Best of 2018: Part I

Welcome to the 6th annual Best of the RRP Anthology — our way of taking a moment to reflect on the year, express gratitude and give thanks for taking this journey with us. Over the last twelve months, I've had the honor of sharing meaningful conversations with a wide variety of extraordinary people. Second listens brought new insights — and more reminders that that these evergreen exchanges continue to inspire and inform. For long-time listeners, the next two episodes are intended to launch you into 2019 with renewed vigor and intention. Lean in to the wisdom. Leverage it to clarify your 2019 goals. If you're newer to the show, my hope is that this anthology will stir you to peruse the back catalog and/or check out episodes you may have missed. Links to the full episodes excerpted in this anthology are enumerated below. The video version of this episode (minus Mirna Valerio & Alex Hutchinson, which are audio only) is available on YouTube at bit.ly/bestof2018_1 Here's to an extraordinary 2019. Join me, and let's make it the best year ever — together. 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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• 1:06Speaker 01

  To me, the big moments were sort of identifying that this is something that is important enough to my life that I'm willing to do the work. And then the moment where I'd realize that I had done all the work that I needed to do, which is sort of a different way of looking at, I'm now ready to do this. Instead of looking at, I was like, I'm ready to climb all cap, it's actually more of, I have done the work that I needed, and therefore, being able to do it naturally follows. I think that people should just think about, what is the thing that's worth it to you? And then, what is the work that you need to put into that?

• 1:34Rich Roll?

  That's Alex Honnold, and this is Part 1 of our annual Best of 2018 edition of the Rich Roll Podcast. The Rich Roll Podcast.

• 1:57Rich Roll?

  Hey everybody. Happy holidays. Welcome or welcome back to the podcast, the place where I do my best to have deep, to have meaningful, long-form conversations, conversations that matter with the world's best and brightest across all categories of health, wellness, diet, fitness, nutrition, basically positive paradigm-breaking culture change. Appreciate you guys for listening, for subscribing to the show, for spreading the word. It's been an amazing year. And as part of the process of preparing for the year to come, I think it's important for all of us to reflect back, to celebrate our victories, to take stock, take inventory of where we were last December, and use that, leverage that as a means of

• 2:39Rich Roll?

  beginning the process of visualizing and preparing and setting intentions and goals for where we would like to be 12 months from now. And it's in that spirit that we started this annual tradition here on the podcast to end each year with a look back at the previous months of the show, to look back in the rearview mirror with this sort of two-parter compilation of clips excerpted from the year's best guests. The idea being to have this kind of refresher course for the avid fans, as well as an anthology or a digest for those who are newer to the podcast. And it's all coming up quick, but first.

• 3:21Rich Roll?

  Okay, I gotta say upfront, before we even get into this, that it is very hard to choose amongst my babies, because I love all my guests. Every single one of them has been a gift, and it's almost impossible to choose who to put in the best of series and who gets left out. So please know that if one of your favorites was omitted, that I get it. It breaks my heart to leave anybody out of this. Not only did we do our best, I think the next two episodes are the best of our annual best ofs to date, and I'm super excited to share it with you. Anyway, these next two shows are basically a love letter to all of you guys. It's my way of saying thank you, that I recognize you, I appreciate you, I believe in positive change, I believe in you, and I believe in the power we all have to

• 4:07Rich Roll?

  Do better, to be better, to live better, to step into our best, most authentic selves. And essentially then help others around us to do the same, to live and be better. So with that being said, let's just dive in. Right up top here, we have one of the most remarkable people I have ever met. The free soul of free solo climbing from episode 351, none other than Alex Honnold. Alex is a renowned professional adventure rock climber, whose audacious free solo ascents of America's biggest cliffs have made him one of the most masterful and compelling athletes of our generation. Over the course of almost two hours, we covered his boundary crushing LCAP Free Solo Climb, which is now an amazing documentary, Free Solo.

• 4:50Rich Roll?

  You can learn more about that at freesolofilm.com, as well as his most recent expedition to Antarctica. We discussed his passion for environmental conservation, the benefits of his minimalist lifestyle, and of course, we explored his training routines and mostly vegan diet. But more than anything, this was a conversation that not only examined the how behind Alex's feats, but the why behind his pursuits. Here's Alex. Well, this conversation around fear and death, I mean, this is, this comes up, I mean, it's impossible for anybody to have a conversation with you without that. I mean, you get tired of like talking about it?

• 5:28Speaker 01

  No, I think people, I think people should think about that stuff more. I mean, when was the last time the average person thought about the mortality and really made choices that could lead to death?

• 5:37Rich Roll?

  I mean, my perspective-

• 5:38Speaker 01

  Other than lifestyle choices, like eating a Twinkie or whatever.

• 5:41Rich Roll?

  Right, right, right.

• 5:42Speaker 01

  Those are so far removed that you don't get that immediate like sense of dread. You know, they're like, oh my God, I'm so afraid. If I eat this, I'm going to die in 40 years from heart disease. You know, it's like a different-

• 5:50Rich Roll?

  Right. Well, I think that, that most of us live our lives in a waking dream and we, we expend a tremendous amount of energy trying to pretend we're not going to die or denying that the inevitability of it.

• 6:02Speaker 01

  I think that's such a, such a shame, really.

• 6:04Rich Roll?

  And in certain ways, you have a healthier perspective on it because you're so connected with that reality.

• 6:10Speaker 01

  I was back in Yosemite in the fall and I look up at LCAP and honestly, it doesn't, you know, even having, having climbed without a rope now, it's- Still looks so crazy. I'm like, what an amazing wall. Like, that's so cool.

• 6:20Rich Roll?

  I mean, do you think like, you know, when I was fifteen or whatever, like, do you think back to that young kid? And, and think, what would he think of what you've been able to do?

• 6:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, ten or fifteen years ago, the first times I looked at LCAP, I thought it looked totally crazy. And now, I mean, it looks a little bit less so, but you still look at it, and you're like, that's an intimidating wall. Like, that is a big, crazy wall.

• 6:40Rich Roll?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 6:41Speaker 01

  It's like, yeah, I mean, you see people up there, and it's like little tiny dots, and you're just like, wow, that's really big.

• 6:46Rich Roll?

  Right. It is crazy, man.

• 6:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:48Rich Roll?

  I mean, what is, what is, what do you think is like, behind it? Like, what's driving you? What is the, what's the motivation? Is it, is it love? Is it a, is it a sense of adventure? Is it a competitiveness? Like, what's the psychology behind what motivates you to do all this?

• 7:05Speaker 01

  I don't know. I mean, it's, it's a lot of things, I guess. But, I mean, part of it is definitely trying to see what I can do, what I'm capable of. I mean, especially with LCAP, it was something that I felt like I was maybe uniquely capable of doing in, in this generation at least. I mean, I'm sure people will do it in the future more, and, you know, it might not be that crazy in twenty years. But, um, but at this point in time, I was like, if anyone is gonna do this, I think it could be me, if, if I apply myself to it, and if I really care about it. And, you know, being the first to do something like that, I mean, was, that, that hasn't always been a huge motivator for me for various projects. But for LCAP, I mean, I did kind of, I did kind of want that. You know, I was like, I mean, you look at that wall, and you're just like, I don't know, it's so proud.

• 7:50Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 7:50Speaker 01

  You know, and, and I'd spent all my years of climbing looking at it as the ultimate objective, like, the pinnacle of rock climbing. And I was like, that could, you know, I could, I could do that. That could be me. And so then, you know, I sort of felt obligated to try.

• 8:04Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I think there's something almost like a, um,

• 8:09Rich Roll?

  Like a childlike innocence about, you know, what you do. It's so primal. It's like, there's a mountain. I'm gonna climb it. Like, there's that thing.

• 8:16Speaker 01

  It's elemental.

• 8:17Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's very.

• 8:17Speaker 01

  It's very basic.

• 8:18Rich Roll?

  Yeah, and I think to ask someone like yourself, like, why do you do what you do? It's just like, this is who I am. You know, this is, it's an expression of, of something so deep and, and so innate in my personality and how I'm hardwired.

• 8:31Speaker 01

  Why do people serve?

• 8:32Rich Roll?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 8:33Speaker 01

  Because it's awesome.

• 8:36Rich Roll?

  You know, but I mean, for you, it's, it's a love. For somebody else, they're like, that's the most terrifying thing I've ever seen. Like, I wouldn't go anywhere near that.

• 8:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's fair. I mean, that's how I feel like about singing. You know, if I had to go up on stage and sing, like, I might as well just kill myself. Like, it would be a disaster. But a lot of people love, you know, music, performance, any of that. And that's great. I mean, everybody has something that they're passionate about.

• 8:58Rich Roll?

  Right. What else scares you then?

• 9:00Speaker 01

  Oh, I don't know. I mean, that kind of stuff is probably at the, at the core of it, you know, public performance.

• 9:05Rich Roll?

  Like, being in front of people.

• 9:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, being in front of people.

• 9:07Rich Roll?

  But you get up and give talks all the time.

• 9:08Speaker 01

  But that's because I've got a lot of practice now. Yeah. But so, interestingly, I'm supposed to give a TED Talk this year at like, the conference in, in April in Vancouver, like, the big TED.

• 9:18Rich Roll?

  Wow.

• 9:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, which I'm like, oh.

• 9:19Rich Roll?

  Fantastic.

• 9:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, big opportunity. Yeah, exactly, exactly.

• 9:23Rich Roll?

  You're like, way scarier than climbing El Cap.

• 9:25Speaker 01

  Like, oh, so I've sort of written an outline for it, and I've like, worked through some ideas and some themes, and, um, which is all due basically tomorrow, the end of the month, which is tomorrow. And so I'm like, oh, no. But, um, I think that what I've been kind of struggling with or working on is to make the climbing more applicable to, to the layperson, to, to any average person.

• 9:44Rich Roll?

  What are the lessons?

• 9:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I think that one of the ideas is, is like, what is the thing that is worth putting the work in for you? Or what is the thing that's most important to you? Like, in my case, I'm talking about El Cap and my preparation for freestyle and El Cap. And, and to me, El Cap was the thing that was worth the work. But basically, like, what is the thing that's worth it to you? And then, what is the work that you need to put into that? You know, and... I'm still fleshing out the ideas, but with El Cap, you know, to me, the big moments were sort of identifying that this is something that is important enough to my life that I'm willing to do the work. And then the moment where I'd realized that I had done all the work that I need to do, which is sort of a different way of looking at, I'm now ready to do this. You know, instead of looking at, I was like, I'm ready to climb El Cap. It's actually more of, I have done the work that I needed. And therefore, you know, being able to do it like naturally follows.

• 10:30Speaker 01

  But um, I don't know. So I mean, I think that people should just think about what is the thing that they want to do. And then, you know, what are, what are the steps to do that? Like, what is the work involved? And like, I don't, I don't know. It's, it's very much a work in progress.

• 10:43Rich Roll?

  Yeah, no, I like that though. I mean, you know, baked into that is, is, is a, an appreciation for the hard work. And the level to which, you know, you completely devoted yourself to this pursuit, not just El Cap, but like, you know, just climbing in general. In a culture in which it's all about hacks and shortcuts, right?

• 11:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, that stuff drives me crazy.

• 11:06Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I can't stand it, you know? I can't stand it. If you really want value out of your life experience, like, stop trying to find the shortcut.

• 11:15Speaker 01

  I know, I know that, yeah.

• 11:17Rich Roll?

  Because when you're 70 and you look back on El Cap, you're probably not gonna, it's, it's the memory of being on the peak. Probably pales in comparison to thinking about all those days of preparation that, you know, that's the meaning of it for you.

• 11:30Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, I mean, the memory of being on the peak is pretty, I'm still very excited about it, but it is true that, but it's years and years.

• 11:36Rich Roll?

  The meaning on the peak is so meaningful because of everything that's preceded it.

• 11:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, because I've spent years working on it, years thinking about it. And you're, yeah, no, I mean, for sure, for sure. I mean, that, that idea of, you know, like, what's the life hack to mastery? And you're like, oh, the whole, by definition, mastery takes years and years, you know? It's like, you don't, you don't just like life hack it or whatever. That, that stuff really annoys me. Cause you know, if, if there was an easy way to do it, then everybody would do it. Like, you know, I mean, if it was easy, then it wouldn't be hard.

• 12:03Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 12:04Speaker 01

  But that's, I mean, some things just require time and work and effort and you just.

• 12:08Rich Roll?

  Well, mastery certainly does. Proficiency, not necessarily. And it seems like we've, we've prioritized, you know, adequacy over, over like the appreciation for truly, you know, what it takes to be a master of something.

• 12:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, that's another one of the ideas that I've been thinking about a lot with regards to potential TED Talk or something, the idea of mastery and like, because like, why is free solo climbing so important to me? And, uh, you know, the pursuit of mastery is a big part of that, like feeling like you're good at what you do.

• 12:35Rich Roll?

  It is an example, it is a, it is a manifestation and expression of mastery.

• 12:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, so what is that thing you want to master and how much work do you have to put into it?

• 12:45Rich Roll?

  And speaking of free solo, episode 407, a more recent episode, Grace does with the amazing filmmaking couple behind that masterpiece documentary, Jimmy Chin and Chai Vazarelli. If you enjoyed the Alex Honnold episode and my conversations with other adventure athletes like Conrad Anker, Hilary Nelson, Colin O'Brady, then this dynamic duo's conversation is one you're not going to want to miss. Free Solo is this beautiful cinematic celebration of human possibility, and these are the brilliant minds behind it. So without further ado, here's Chai and Jimmy.

• 13:20Speaker 02

  You know, that cross pollination essentially from Chai's talents and where she comes from and her very strong background of last, what, 15 years of, you know, serious nonfiction documentary work, combined with, you know, what I've, what I've been doing for 20 years. And, you know, I think the biggest thing is that there's a lot of trust there. And, you know, sometimes I wonder, you know, I, in some ways, our, our, our working relationships

• 14:00Speaker 02

  on films, on this film, it's almost simpler compared to our, compared to like being married and having children and all those things, because we, you know, I think it's very easily recognizable, like what we each bring to the table on that level. And I guess it's, it's, it's similar. Yeah.

• 14:26Speaker 03

  But it's hard, I mean, the... It was wonderful to bring our children to Yosemite. You know, and it was definitely part of my motivation was keeping everyone together and bringing our children to this wonderful place. But now in this part, right, like you've got both parents on the road and that's hard.

• 14:45Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 14:46Speaker 03

  So it's there are kind of those very practical considerations that become tough on us as a family.

• 14:52Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 14:53Speaker 03

  But in the work, in the work, it's really, it works because Jimmy and I trust each other so much. Like, I know he's gonna make the right decisions when he's shooting. He trusts when I'm asking for something that I'm asking for it for a reason. Like, you know, get that shot. And it's really important that we film that.

• 15:15Speaker 03

  And it kind of works that way. And like, just even on this film, like, they're toiling away on the, on the wall with Alex for eight hours, 10 hours. And then Alex, you know, Alex sits down, but they're still up there, kind of, you know, gathering the ropes and getting down. And, you know, myself and a different team, like a Verite cinematographer, would be there to talk to Alex about life and love and his dad.

• 15:39Rich Roll?

  And you need both. I mean, Jimmy, you know, on the one hand, like, you're the only person who could be doing what you're doing. You have the climbing expertise and the background and the experience and you have this incredible acuity with the camera, your cinematographer's eye. And then Chai, you bring the emotionality and the narrative structure to this to really take these extraordinary visuals and turn them into a narrative that will connect with people's hearts. Is that fair?

• 16:08Speaker 03

  I think it's fair, but I think that it's often easy to underestimate Jimmy in that particular respect, whereas I think we have a great cheat, so to speak, where Jimmy, in this, one brings such an intimate knowledge of this world. And I often feel like just more of an interpreter. For like his instincts and bring some exteriority to it.

• 16:29Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 16:29Speaker 03

  Because what I think what also is strong about the film is that it looks at Alex's interior life and tries to build a story while also aspiring to be something that the core respects.

• 16:42Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 16:42Speaker 03

  Right? Like that there's an authenticity that is 100% Jimmy.

• 16:46Rich Roll?

  Yeah, you have to serve two masters, right? You don't, you can't alienate the hard cores, but you also have to make it appealing and interesting and compelling for somebody who knows nothing about this world.

• 16:57Speaker 03

  Yeah, so it has, it has to make both of us happy, which is kind of what that is, right?

• 17:01Rich Roll?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 17:02Speaker 02

  And then, and it, and it works that way. I mean, I think she's very accurate about that in the sense that, you know, a lot of the heart and the soul of both Meru and Free Solo are ideas that, you know, I've experienced or seen or feel deeply about because I've been in this world and they're the great lessons or the great conflicts, internal conflicts that I have suffered or people around me in my peer group have experienced. You know, those are ideas that are really the inspiration behind the films, you know, the mentorship

• 17:43Speaker 02

  and the camaraderie and the friendships that I felt so deeply, you know, that have driven me to make these films. The task, though, is that I've never, it's, you're so close to it, it's really hard to translate. And like I said, I mean, Chai has been like the, the great interpreter. She has been able to kind of stand outside of it and be able to tell that story in a way that people can digest it.

• 18:17Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 18:19Speaker 02

  That is really powerful because I have not, you know, I know it well. And so those are the conversations, you know, when Chi and I are sitting there in the edit room or when we're making these films, it's, you know, she's just kind of, you know, her first strokes at it are usually very good and then, and then we start to kind of refine those things. And then also making sure, you know, of course it has to also speak to the core, like, there's no way I'm ever going to put out a film where I can't feel proud walking into a room full of my peer group.

• 18:52Rich Roll?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 18:53Speaker 02

  You know.

• 18:54Rich Roll?

  Yeah, but I would suspect that from your perspective, Jimmy, you may think you're conveying a certain point because you're so close to it and Chi can say, yeah, you think you're saying this, but actually I'm not getting it, or the average person is not going to understand what you're trying to convey.

• 19:11Speaker 03

  It's more like, that's a wonderful point.

• 19:15Speaker 03

  It's very important that we achieve this other thing.

• 19:18Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 19:19Speaker 03

  We get to that other thing and then I'm like, okay, let's go back to what Jimmy was saying.

• 19:25Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 19:25Speaker 03

  And see if we can make it work within what we've done.

• 19:28Rich Roll?

  Uh huh. So you're each polishing each other's stones, sort of. Yeah.

• 19:31Speaker 03

  Yeah. And it's really important. It's like this concept that was incredibly important in the film. It's a good example about preserving Alex's experience of the climb, right? Like, that's actually the most important part of the task for, for us was to make sure that Alex enjoyed and got what he wanted out of this. But that is a very elusive idea for people who don't understand climbing.

• 19:56Rich Roll?

  Right, right. And I, I mean, you certainly achieved that.

• 20:00Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 20:02Rich Roll?

  It's an extraordinary accomplishment, this movie. I mean, you guys have achieved something extraordinary with the work that you have done and I have no doubt will continue to do for people out there that are interested in either narrative or documentary filmmaking and are struggling to figure out their voice or how to get going. What, what can you say to those people?

• 20:27Speaker 03

  I think that making films is hard. So if you're gonna make a film, it should be about something that is incredibly meaningful to you. And that's why you would use your voice. So that meaning, find that meaning. And it's okay to wait until you find it, or like, bumble along the way and find it later, but it should be meaningful.

• 20:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, I would echo that. I mean, it's really about finding, it's a bigger question. It's about finding your purpose and finding what gives you meaning and finding things that you're inspired and passionate about because, like Jay said, it's very hard to make films, but when you find something that gives you that drive and purpose, you have to be relentless regardless. It's a lot easier when you find something that has a lot of meaning behind it.

• 21:32Rich Roll?

  Our next clip is from Zach Bush, MD, who is a triple board certified physician and one of the most profound, deep thinkers that I've ever come across when it comes to diet, nutrition, disease prevention, wellness, environmentalism, and soil conservation, among many other subjects. This was an absolutely mind-blowing conversation. We explored new insights into the mechanisms behind human health and longevity, the massive misunderstood impact of industrial farming, chemical pesticides, the pharmaceutical industry, and even errant Western medical practices have had on both human and planetary health. And I think we only scratched the surface when it comes to Zach's depth of expertise.

• 22:17Rich Roll?

  And I got good news, because he's coming back in early 2019, but until then, have a listen.

• 22:25Speaker 04

  One of the reasons I think that glyphosate was not put on the market in 1958 when it was discovered is because the Japanese inventor of that chemical recognized that that was a water soluble toxin. You do not want to introduce a water soluble toxin into the environment because you can never get it back, right? And that where if you have a fat soluble toxin, it'll actually be sequestered by mycelium in the soil. If it gets into a human or another mammal, it'll be sequestered by fat cells, so it never hits the brain. It'll be protective. A water soluble toxin, on the other hand, can't be subtracted out of the ecosystem because everything on planet Earth, including your human body, is water.

• 23:03Rich Roll?

  And that means that, sorry to interrupt, but that means that this chemical can pass through that one cell width of the brain blood barrier as well, right?

• 23:14Speaker 04

  It's going everywhere. And it's also before it even gets to the human body, going everywhere. And so, the current statistics is that less than 1/10 of 1% of the Roundup used on the planet actually hits a weed. The other 99.99% gets into the soil and into the water system and washes off. And so, we are now seeing the runoff from these farms and in the water table itself. So, we have fossil aquifers in the United States here that run from Canada all the way down to, historically, Mexico, that has now dried up. We've turned over 1,000 square miles of Texas into desert over just the last 20 years from sucking water out of the ground. That fossil aquifer is now contaminated with

• 23:55Speaker 04

  Roundup that's filtered down into this ancient freshwater source for us. And then, in the same moment, you've got the Mississippi River, which collects over 80% of all of the Roundup in the country, and then it's evaporating the whole time, so it's going into the air that you breathe, and then it goes into the clouds, and then it rains down on us. Recent studies in the air and rainfall in the southern United States is showing 75% of the rain, 75% of the air contaminated with Roundup. So, before you even take a bite of food, you're being hit with an antibiotic when you breathe. You're getting hit with an antibiotic when you experience rainfall. And so, you may be growing organic crops, but they're getting rained on. And so, we have now locked this water soluble toxin into our environment.

• 24:40Speaker 04

  Fortunately, to give you a little bit of breather here from the bad news is that there are bacteria and fungi that can eventually digest the glyphosate. The downside is we need to stop spraying it so they can return. We're decimating those very bacteria and fungi by the presence of Roundup to the point where they're not digesting it. Current estimates is if we stop spraying Roundup tomorrow, it would take about 50 years before our ecosystem saw a drop in the level of Roundup below our toxic levels.

• 25:07Rich Roll?

  And what is the current, I don't know, market cap isn't the right word, but like it's billions of dollars, right? Is there anybody outside of the organic farming community that does not use Roundup? Or people that are even just weeding their own gardens at home and spraying their lawns?

• 25:25Speaker 04

  It's actually where it started. So before, we genetically modified crops to be able to be sprayed directly with Roundup in 1996, and that occurred. But before that, it was really the homeowner that was contributing most to our toxin load, because in the 1980s, the EPA allowed Monsanto to go direct to consumer with their advertising for this chemical. And so they created those Super Bowl commercials of a guy walking out of his suburban garage with a dramatic soundtrack, and he had two pistol grips on his side, and he came out and boldly sprayed down the four dandelions that were in his driveway, which happened to be superfood that kill cancer. But anyway, he sprays these four dandelions.

• 26:01Rich Roll?

  Kills the two that actually are awesome.

• 26:04Speaker 04

  Kills the only medicine on his property. And so suddenly, it was by far and away the most effective direct-to-consumer advertising ever, because suddenly males in the United States realized it could be manly to weed.

• 26:17Rich Roll?

  Right, they're like shooting guns.

• 26:18Speaker 04

  They're shooting guns. It's easy warfare, whatever it is, instead of having to actually bend over and put on a pair of gloves or whatever it is. And so we started broadcasting this stuff across driveways, sidewalks, patios, into our own garden spaces and everything else. And now, the difference between a homeowner who's going to go through a couple gallons and a farmer who will go through tens of thousands of gallons, the farmer is super careful with the usage because their margins are so low. The homeowner doesn't care. So they're spraying it down, and they might use a quarter of a gallon of glyphosate in an afternoon, whereas a whole farm might treat the entire thousand acres with that same quarter gallon. So the smaller the user, in some ways, the more...

• 27:00Speaker 04

  Dumping of this chemical they were doing. So by the 1980s, we were drinking Roundup out of our municipal water systems.

• 27:05Rich Roll?

  Getting into our water system. That's unbelievable. Well, let's take a moment and just kind of, you know, canvas what the discussion is around glyphosate, because I think, you know, it's worth mentioning that as soon as you bring this up, we start to venture, tiptoe into this world of like, you know, crazy conspiracy theories and you must be some, you know, insane hippie person to be bringing this up. And, you know, don't, don't mind him like he's just a wacko. He's a whack job. Like he's a marginal character. You know, we know this stuff is safe. It's been around forever. It's been vetted. You know, the EPA, they're on it. They know what's healthy for us. If it was dangerous, they would have outlawed it. And this has been around for a long time. And there's no indication that anybody's getting sick from this. So what are you talking about?

• 27:48Speaker 04

  Yeah. If the conspiracy theorist was right, then we'd see one in two people with cancer. We'd see one in 30 kids with autism. We'd see Parkinson's going crazy. And they're literally repeating back. If it was toxic, we would see literally what we're seeing. And so the reality is the public health statistics have gotten so grim in the last eight years that nobody can call this a conspiracy theory anymore.

• 28:11Rich Roll?

  But it's almost like, yeah, but that's where's the direct, where's the smoking gun?

• 28:15Speaker 04

  The smoking gun is what's been missing. That's what we found in 2012. So in 2012, we found it backwards. I don't think anybody's actually smart enough with the human gray matter that we're given to actually create a paradigm shift prospectively, right? So every great, you know, mind that we look to in past Galileo, or, you know, Ben Franklin, or anybody we said, oh, they discovered something, or, you know, Edison. These just came at moments when the evidence got so overwhelming that it became obvious, right? And so, in the same way, in 2012, the evidence was getting so overwhelming that we were on to something in the nutrition world. But we, at the time, I was still thinking cancer, cancer therapy,

• 28:57Speaker 04

  because my background was in chemotherapy development. And so when I found these molecules in soil that looked similar to the chemotherapy I'd been making, a lot of bells started ringing of like, what is that? Where'd it come from? How is there medicine in the dirt? Like, where's that coming from? And within a few weeks of that discovery of those molecules, we found out that bacteria and fungi were making these specific shapes of these carbon molecules. And that really closed the loop for me because there had been some

• 29:24Speaker 04

  Papers coming out in the mid 2000s in the cancer world that were starting to say that the bacteria in your gut were predicting which cancers you would get. If you're missing these bacteria, you would get prostate cancer. If you had these bacteria, you would get breast cancer. That was so radically bizarre and out there for our current model even to this day as to how cancer worked. But now you fast forward eight, 10 years, and now there's tens of thousands of articles that are showing that genomically, the bacterial genome is way more important in determining cancer than the human genome. And, and so this reality was hitting. And so in 2012, when we discovered these chemicals that look a little like chemotherapy that are made by bacteria and fungi in the soil, it suddenly closed the loop of, oh my gosh, what if the bacteria in our gut is doing the same thing?

• 30:07Speaker 04

  What if the bacteria and the fungi are actually our best source of medicine for everything? And so that's the direction we were going. But as soon as we put this into petri dishes with cancer cells and beyond, we suddenly realized, no, no, no, there's something way deeper happening with these, this information stream coming out of bacteria and fungi. And it was my chief science officer, Dr. John Gildea, he's a PhD in genetics and cell biology, and he was the first to realize that we had put our finger on the glyphosate toxicity issue, is that this communication network from the bacteria and fungi was actually supporting the protein structure in our gut lining. And so it turns out that the gut is held together as these trillions of cells that make up that cellophane layer by tight junctions.

• 30:49Speaker 04

  These are Velcro-like proteins that hold one microscopic cell to the next to create this coherent carpet of two tennis courts. And he had recognized before this, in a number of other labs, it started to publish, that glyphosate seemed to increase the permeability of this membrane. And nobody was really sure why yet. But we suddenly realized that if this bacterial communication network was in there, we, we couldn't injure the, the membrane. It became bulletproof to the glyphosate injury. And so in that journey, we started to really study glyphosate and its relationship to the human cells, because like you said, Monsanto's been swearing up and down that there is no harm to the human body because the chicanate pathway only exists in bacteria and fungi. Well, that may be true regarding that enzyme target, but the classic thing with

• 31:34Speaker 04

  any drug is it always has off-target effects, right? So that's why drugs have side effects, is they don't actually go and do exactly what your doctor says it's gonna go do. It's gonna hit a bunch of the receptors and do other things. The side effects of glyphosate that are outside of the schicchymate pathway is direct injury to the protein structure that holds your gut lining together. This would be bad news if that was it, but it turns out that every macro membrane in your body, the blood vessels that fuel your entire body with oxygen and nutrients are held together with the same tight junctions. The blood-brain barrier that protects your peripheral nervous system and your brain, same tight junctions. The kidney tubules that are held together to detox your body, same tight junctions.

• 32:17Speaker 04

  And so what's happened, as we've introduced a chemical that's directly toxic to this Velcro-like protein, is we turn into leaky sieves on the front end, gut leak and nasal sinus leak, and so every time we breathe, every time we eat, we're starting to leak and our immune system gets overwhelmed. Then the blood vessels that are supposed to deliver either an immune response from peripheral or get nutrients to some distant space is also leaking, and so we're getting permeability of the blood vessels. Then you get to the blood-brain barrier, this is supposed to be the holy of holies. A peripheral nerve or the brain is supposed to be protected against everything in your blood, because even glucose, which is the main fuel for your brain, should not get into the brain in an unregulated fashion, it will damage the nerves. And so the holy of holies of the central and peripheral nervous system is being destroyed.

• 33:01Speaker 04

  And so if that's true, if glyphosate was really damaging that, then we should see a massive explosion in neurologic injury to children and adults, starting in about 1996. And that's exactly when we see this steep increase happening in autism, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, neurodegenerative conditions like MS, autoimmune diseases and all the rest.

• 33:22Rich Roll?

  That just blows my mind.

• 33:25Rich Roll?

  So if you've been on this podcast adventure with me for a little while at this point, then you know well that addiction, alcoholism, recovery, these are big recurring themes of the program, subjects that are very close to my heart, as somebody whose life has been spared by sobriety, which is why I'm so excited to share this next clip from my friend Amy Dresner. Amy is a recovering drug addict and all around quote unquote fuck up in her words. She's a writer, she's an author, and she wrote this amazing book called My Fair Junkie, A Memoir of Getting Dirty and Staying Clean. I dig a good addiction yarn, and Amy's chronicling of her descent into the throes of addiction and ultimately

• 34:08Rich Roll?

  redemption is pretty much one for the ages. And this is definitely one of my favorite conversations of the year. Amy is incredible, she's hilarious, and what she had to share, I think, was really profound, especially for those that still suffer or have loved ones that are currently suffering. So without further ado, here's Amy.

• 34:30Speaker 05

  I had to lose everything so I could be grateful and build it back on my own so I could have self-esteem. I think that when you're privileged and you're given everything, it cripples you in a weird way. I never did anything because I didn't have to, and then I felt like I couldn't, and then I didn't. And it was this horrible cycle. And so...

• 34:55Rich Roll?

  You had to be dismantled and dragged through the mud for years in order to wake up and...

• 35:01Speaker 05

  And it's like, I mean, sweeping the streets, I mean, created a sense of unity and compassion for other people I never had before. It was like, you know, growing up in Beverly Hills and all this stuff, it was like, well, that'll never happen to me. And it's like, I'm here to tell you, like, or getting arrested for felony, like, all the things, or shooting up in your neck, all of it, psych wards, like, you, anything can happen to you. You are not immune. So if there's someone else and they've gone through that, try, have compassion. That could be you. I'm here to tell you, that absolutely could be you. Under the right or wrong circumstances, with the right mix and wrong, just...

• 35:43Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 35:44Speaker 05

  I mean, that, all those things that I, and I was just like, wow, I'm not immune. And it really humbled me and connected me with other people in a way that I hadn't been before.

• 35:55Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm. You know, when I have people on that are in recovery, like I always want to hear what they have to say to somebody who might be listening, who is struggling, whether it's with relationships, sex, or substances, or some other behavior that is causing them pain. As somebody who's been there and found their way out, like, how do you speak to that person?

• 36:16Speaker 05

  I would say, first of all, be gentle with yourself, you know? Drop the shame, because that will just continue the use. Like, you're doing the best you can with the tools that you have. I would say to be honest with other people and get help and go get a therapist, or go to AA, or go to SLA, or whatever, get into a support group, because it's so important, you know, when we're in a behavior that's that feels pathological, we isolate, and that just makes it so much worse. And for me, a huge part of the healing has been the fellowship and my friends and feeling connected and reaching out.

• 37:01Speaker 05

  I would say, don't give up, no matter how many times you slip. Like, if you're alive, you've still got a chance.

• 37:09Speaker 05

  That you can get through this, that you're not a bad person, even if you've done bad things.

• 37:16Rich Roll?

  I mean, I think that's amazing advice. I think the hardest part for people

• 37:21Rich Roll?

  is that first step. Like, how do I reach out? Or like, what exactly is, what is the thing that I actually need to do first?

• 37:29Speaker 05

  And the other thing is, don't wait till you feel like you're ready. You'll wait forever. Like, if I waited till I was ready to write a book, or if I, like, I've been waiting to feel like I'm ready and want to go to the gym, and that's been a year and a half. I know, don't judge me. But it's like, you know, you, you take action and that changes the feeling.

• 37:49Rich Roll?

  Mood follows action.

• 37:51Speaker 05

  That took me forever to figure out. And there's a line in the book, you know, that my dad told me, and it took me 20 years to figure it out. He said, he said, "Stability..." Doesn't create discipline. Discipline creates stability. I was waiting to feel okay before I could do these things. But it was doing these things that made me feel okay. So I would say, you know, tell your feelings to shut the fuck up. Your head to shut the fuck up. And you take the action and it will change things, you know? And it's like, you can get better. If I can get sober, anyone can get sober. Sorry, like, come on. That story is gnarly.

• 38:32Rich Roll?

  Yeah. And, and one of the things you've written a lot about is, is the importance of structure in your life. Like having a schedule.

• 38:39Speaker 05

  Well, now, I mean, I work from home. I, you know, I, I, I work from home. I have a, a three day a week editing job. I, you know, work for the, and it's hard. It's really hard. I have to force myself, you know, to like get out and do things like. I guess the other thing too, it's like you can change. You can change. I really thought forever I was broken and I was stuck with that person who I was. And it's like, I, I'm not that person today. I'm a completely different person. And it's like, I never thought that I could be the person who shows up and is inspiring to people.

• 39:20Speaker 05

  And, you know, sweeps the floor, not the streets, but you know what I mean? Like it's.

• 39:26Rich Roll?

  Yeah, and when you're in that cycle and you're surrounded by people who are telling you you're a piece of shit and you're never gonna change.

• 39:33Speaker 05

  Yeah, that's yeah.

• 39:33Rich Roll?

  Believe that you're never gonna change.

• 39:35Speaker 05

  Of course, yeah.

• 39:35Rich Roll?

  And you can never see your way out of it.

• 39:37Speaker 05

  Yeah, fuck what people tell you, you know, you can do it. And also the other thing too is like, you know, if you have an urge to use or drink or whatever, or text that guy that's bad for you or whatever, it's like, give yourself 20 minutes. Take a bath, call someone, watch an episode of Ozark, jack off, whatever it is. Like do something and buy yourself 20 minutes. Call someone, take a drive, take a walk. The, because the urge passes whether you pick up or not. That's really, it took me a long time to figure that out. And it's like, but if you don't ever sort of wade through that feeling, you don't realize that you can get through it. It feels overwhelming and then the urge comes to you like, "I gotta do it, I gotta do it." You know?

• 40:21Rich Roll?

  Yeah, and you feel like you're gonna die if you don't indulge that impulse and you don't understand that. It's so true.

• 40:27Speaker 05

  Right.

• 40:27Rich Roll?

  It will pass.

• 40:29Speaker 05

  Yeah, and if you could just get through that and realize and go, "Oh." You realize that the feeling doesn't control you, it doesn't, it won't kill you, you don't have to obey it. And that's where that freedom comes from. You know, you can, you're like, "Oh, I can change." And it's slow, it's a slow process, as you know.

• 40:49Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 40:50Speaker 05

  Takes a while to...

• 40:51Rich Roll?

  Slow bridey.

• 40:53Speaker 05

  I know, right? I hate that.

• 40:54Rich Roll?

  All the annoying slogans.

• 40:57Speaker 05

  But that you can rewire your brain slowly over time, you know, through action, you really can. And you can, you can be happy, you can have a good life and you don't have to be, you know, a prisoner to that crap.

• 41:10Rich Roll?

  How you guys doing out there? Are you doing good? Don't worry, we've got a ton more great stuff coming up in a couple few. But first,

• 41:21Rich Roll?

  this next clip is from my friend Paul DeGelder. It's from episode 350. Paul is a former Royal Australian Navy Clarence Diver, which is essentially Australia's version of the Navy SEALs. And it's the story of the shark attack that nearly killed him, but ultimately actually saved his life. It's a death-defying tale of survival, perseverance, positivity, grit, hope, rebirth, and the extraordinary breadth of human possibility. Paul is, hands down, one of the most inspirational people I have ever met. This conversation left me breathless and it inspired me beyond measure. So here's Paul recounting the attack that didn't take his life, but instead gave him a new one.

• 42:07Speaker 06

  It was early in the morning, we were doing a counter-terrorism exercise. The goal was to test this new equipment that the R and D department at the military had created. It was unmanned video and sonar designed to detect attack swimmers and attack divers coming in to put bombs on our ships and equipment. So they set it up on the pier in Sydney Harbour alongside the Navy Base. And it's very central to everything. You can see the Harbour Bridge, it's not that far away, the Opera House that everyone knows about. You can see all of that. So I've got the new guy in the water, he's pretending to be an attack swimmer. All the R and D guys and my chief are up on the bow of one of the warships watching

• 42:52Speaker 06

  and this equipment's on the pier trying to detect him. And he's swimming around for about half an hour and I thought I'd do him a good turn and I said, "Jump out mate, I'll take over for you." I rolled over the edge of the little black Zodiac in a black wetsuit and a pair of fins. And I was doing what we call finning. I was on my back, on the surface, just kicking my legs. And it was a three-tier thing. We were going to do surface swimming to see if it could detect us, we were going to do scuba to see if it could detect us, and then pure oxygen rebreathers with no bubbles to see if it could detect that. So we're still in the first phase, you know, this is 40 minutes into testing on the very first day. And I'm in the water, on the surface.

• 43:33Rich Roll?

  And this is like, this is simple routine shit.

• 43:36Speaker 06

  Yeah, this is nothing. This is like the boringest day ever and I had to get up at four o'clock in the morning for this shit. So it's end of February, it's February 11th, so the start of February, which is the end of summer for us, it's probably the hottest season of the year. But it was kind of chilly. It was overcast, the water's murky in Sydney Harbour, so combining all of that, you can't see through the water at all. And I'm on one of my first runs towards one of the warships that I'm, you know, pretending to attack. And I look over my left shoulder to make sure that I'm going in the right direction. And before I can turn back, I just get this massive whack in my leg, like someone's hit me with a baseball bat. And it didn't really hurt, it was just surprising more than anything else.

• 44:20Speaker 06

  And I turned around to see what it was, thinking the guys in the boat maybe got too close. I couldn't hear because I had water in my ears. And I turn around and my brain couldn't comprehend what I was seeing. Because I'd never seen a shark's head up close in real life like that before. And it took me a few seconds and I I thought, holy fuck, it it's a fucking shark. And all of these things ran through my head and I thought, okay, okay, okay, I've seen I've seen the crocodile hunter. I've seen Discovery Channel, I'll jab it in the eyeball.

• 44:51Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 44:51Speaker 06

  And so I tried.

• 44:52Rich Roll?

  To punch it in the face, right?

• 44:54Speaker 06

  Yeah, yeah, right.

• 44:54Rich Roll?

  Or is that like a real thing?

• 44:56Speaker 06

  That people have said it works. Um, I I just thought eyeball because that's the softest spot. So I tried, but I couldn't move my arm for some reason. And I looked down and I could see all the teeth half embedded into my thigh. I could see the lips pulled back, all the pink gums and the teeth going all the way up my leg. Over my wrist, which was by my side. So it had my hand in its mouth, which is why I couldn't move it. And it's still at this point, it didn't hurt. I can see the teeth embedded in my hand. I just thought, okay, left hand. So I reached for the eyeball, but it had me by the back of the leg and I I was inches away from that eyeball. Just desperately trying to get my finger in it, but I couldn't reach. So I tried to grab it by the nose and push it off, sort of lever it off that way.

• 45:42Speaker 06

  But all that did was push the teeth of the lower jaw deeper into my hamstring. So I stopped that and I cocked back to give it a a whack in the nose. And just as I was coming in, it started to shake me. And this all encompassing pain rattled me to my core and all the strength went out of my punch. And I yelled, and I think that's when the guys in the safety boat saw what was going on.

• 46:08Rich Roll?

  And when it's shaking you, the lower jaw detaches, right? And it goes side to side. So it becomes like this sawing effect on.

• 46:15Speaker 06

  Yeah, it's it's movable. So that, yeah, it just basically was sawing the flesh out of my body. While I'm in agony, terrified, drowning. This is my worst nightmare. I was terrified of sharks. Uh, really, the only two things I was scared of was sharks and public speaking. Uh.

• 46:35Rich Roll?

  And now this is your life.

• 46:37Speaker 06

  I know, it's weird as fuck.

• 46:39Rich Roll?

  That's the way the universe works it out, man.

• 46:41Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 46:41Rich Roll?

  You know?

• 46:41Speaker 06

  Your, your greatest fears can actually become your greatest strengths.

• 46:45Rich Roll?

  And that, I think at the end, that's really the theme of your, of your whole story.

• 46:49Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 46:49Rich Roll?

  You know?

• 46:50Speaker 06

  You gotta embrace that shit. Because you don't know, you don't, you're not fully aware of what you can accomplish. If you're letting, especially if you're letting fear hold you back.

• 47:00Rich Roll?

  I mean, after you've survived what you've survived for, I would imagine your relationship with life and death is, is, is different. Like, what, you know, what does fear look like for you?

• 47:09Speaker 06

  Well, I, I already accepted death. When I was under the water for those 10 seconds drowning in total agony, I came to a realization that I was gonna die. My brain was telling me, okay, you're gonna die right now. You're not going home today. This is it. And so I accepted it already. And I just thought, everything sped up in my brain and I was thinking a million miles a minute. And I just thought, well, I've lived 10 lives in these 31 years. If it's my time to die, then I'm okay with that. And so I let go. And a calm came over me. And then the shark removed my hand, removed my hamstring. And because of my wet suit, I was positively buoyant and I popped to the surface. And I looked around and the, the tail of the shark splashed water in my face.

• 47:54Speaker 06

  And I saw my safety boat and I thought, oh shit, I'm not dead. I better get out of here. So I start swimming back to the boat. And so I, I, I already accepted death and I realized that it's not, it's nothing to be afraid of.

• 48:07Rich Roll?

  And so how does that color your day to day life?

• 48:09Speaker 06

  Well, I, I don't have to hold on to the mortal coil like everyone else does because I know that death is not scary. You know what's scary? Not living. Not doing everything that you possibly can to live the best life you have. Because trust me, when you come to the end of your days, the only thing you're gonna have is your regrets. And if you don't have any of those, it's a sweet home run. You got nothing to worry about.

• 48:33Rich Roll?

  So when you go and you give these talks, what is the, you know, what's the message that you're, you're trying to leave people with?

• 48:40Speaker 06

  It really depends on what the client asks me to talk about because I talk to everyone from primary school kids, six, seven, eight years old, surprisingly enough, all the way through high school, all the way through college, all through military groups or big business. I've got IBM coming up, Microsoft, big investment corporations, twelve bankers, twelve CEOs in a room and just me.

• 49:08Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 49:08Speaker 06

  And we talk about whatever they need to focus on. So there's a lot of common themes. There's embracing change because a lot of them go through takeovers and they're getting melded together with other companies and it's a change of culture and it's a change of personnel and everyone always fights against change because it makes them uncomfortable and they don't wanna do something different when they're comfortable doing it this way. So talking to them about embracing change and the opportunity that comes out of changing with the situation, overcoming adversity, obviously, working the team network, being able to focus on looking after each other and doing a better job that way. So it's

• 49:50Speaker 06

  not just helping people on a personal level. It helps people throughout the whole process of living, being happy, the secrets of being happy. So you would probably believe, I would normally say you wouldn't believe, you would probably believe how many unhappy people there are.

• 50:09Rich Roll?

  There's no question about it.

• 50:11Speaker 06

  And I meet them every time I finish my presentation. Sometimes they break down in my arms just because they're so grateful, because you've given them a little nugget to make them believe that they can still be happy.

• 50:24Rich Roll?

  And what is the message that you're delivering on happiness?

• 50:27Speaker 06

  Well, it's all about.

• 50:31Speaker 06

  What you value and what is going to improve your life. They have to be on common ground.

• 50:41Speaker 06

  What we were talking about earlier, doing things for other people. I've never had a greater sense of happiness than doing things for other people that can't pay me back.

• 50:53Speaker 06

  It's mostly weaved throughout the story. The things that have really broken my heart and the things that have made me elated and the value that I found in things that I really didn't think I would. And that giving with no expectation of receiving is a big one. Um, even if it's something as simple as going to the blood bank, it doesn't cost you anything. Costs a little bit of time, go in, throw some blood down a tube. Because I went through one hundred and fifty donations. And I could have all the doctors in the world, I could have the best surgeons. But without that blood from those hundred and fifty amazing people, I would not be here today. It doesn't take a grand gesture, it just, you know, a pat on the back, a well done, a handshake.

• 51:39Speaker 06

  Take someone out for a coffee and be a kind ear. If it's someone that maybe doesn't have anyone to turn to at work because they're not really well liked. Maybe just put up with it and and go and have a chat with them and make them happy. Because you might change that person's whole day or whole outlook on life. And that only comes back to you. It makes you feel good. That's where happiness is found, in service.

• 52:02Rich Roll?

  It's so true and it's it's such counter programming from what we're kind of told growing up. Because we're kind of set in motion on this on this path of like trying to get as much as we can out of everything. And we approach situations with a perspective of like, how am I going to gain from this? What's in this for me? Like, how am I going to come out of this better than I was before? Uh, and that.

• 52:28Rich Roll?

  Doesn't really lead to happiness.

• 52:29Speaker 06

  No.

• 52:30Rich Roll?

  It does not. And when you approach a situation, an encounter, whatever it may be, from a perspective of, how can I give? How can I contribute to this? Then you're on, you're on a different, you know, that's, that's a different plane of consciousness. And it's not my default, but when I remember and I practice that.

• 52:49Speaker 06

  Exactly.

• 52:50Rich Roll?

  You know what I mean? It's a practice. It's a practice. It's like, it's not just like, oh, well, that guy just, that's his instinct and that's how he does it. Like, no, you have, like, remind yourself to do that.

• 53:00Speaker 06

  How do you get good at anything? How do you learn to ride a bike or learn to read or play a sport or do your job? You do it over and over and over until you get really good at it. It's the same with happiness, the same with gratefulness, it's the same with positivity and motivation. You have to keep practicing it. And the more you do it, the easier it gets.

• 53:18Rich Roll?

  This next clip is from Mirna Valerio, who's one of the most interesting, compelling, joyful, amazing and inspiring examples of self empowerment and self acceptance through running. What's interesting about her is that she doesn't cut the image of what you conjure when you think of a runner, because she's big, she's 250 pounds, but make no mistake, she is definitely a runner with an impressive slew of ultra marathons to her name. I first came across her story by way of a mini documentary produced by REI called The Murderator that was viral. I was hooked on that, determined to track her down, share her powerful story with you. And we did that in episode 340. She's also the author of a book called A Beautiful Work in Progress.

• 54:03Rich Roll?

  And in this clip, she talks about her pain, her pain of being challenged because of her size and being a runner. You know, is she glorifying obesity? And changing people's perception and shifting paradigms. This conversation is definitely one of my favorite of the year. It's an exchange about the need to redefine how we think about and define athleticism, the spirit of sport and fitness in general. So without further ado, please enjoy this clip from my friend, Mirna.

• 54:34Rich Roll?

  What do you think people most misunderstand about what you're about and what you're trying to speak to?

• 54:44Mirna Valerio?

  Yeah, probably one of the the most common comments that I get is, or that I hear about or that I read about when I'm, you know, being spoken about in third person.

• 54:54Rich Roll?

  When you get those notifications.

• 54:55Mirna Valerio?

  Yeah. Or like, "Don't tag me in things. I don't want to, I don't want to read that."

• 55:02Mirna Valerio?

  Is that the thing that people misunderstand is they really do think I am... There are two things that I, I'm really trying to glorify obesity. And there are so many issues with that word anyway, that I'm, uh... Because that word dehumanizes fat people and it makes it a very clinical thing when there's a lot of shame in that and in the medical arena when it comes to fat people. And so there's that, that I'm, that I'm glorifying obesity just by being, just by being, like, being alive.

• 55:43Mirna Valerio?

  Because people would rather not see me. And then, yeah.

• 55:46Rich Roll?

  That's gotta be painful.

• 55:48Mirna Valerio?

  It is. It's painful, but I know it's there. I know it's there and I'm still gonna keep doing what I'm doing.

• 55:55Mirna Valerio?

  Because as, as you and I talked about, like, it has definitely hit a nerve with people in a positive way, that they are now, they now feel entitled to go outside or to start a new physical fitness routine or to join a gym or to do whatever it is that they feel like they need to do to improve what they need to improve about their bodies or what they want to improve about their bodies or change. And so that's that. And then the second thing is that people really do think that I'm sitting on a couch and eating a bag of potato chips.

• 56:33Rich Roll?

  You're just faking the whole thing.

• 56:33Mirna Valerio?

  Yeah. You know, and I'm not gonna lie, I love potato chips.

• 56:39Mirna Valerio?

  Jalapeno kettle chips. But, you know, I'm not doing that. And so like, you know, and I do know that people see me as an anomaly and, and like, you know, they can't wrap their minds around that. But those are the two big things. I'm glorifying obesity and that I cannot, in reality, be doing all the things that I say that I, that I do.

• 56:58Rich Roll?

  Right. Well, when you're, when you're in the business of, of trying to reframe these paradigms, it's so contrary to people's worldviews that they have to dismiss it somehow. Right? So, oh, she must not be doing this. It's the same thing with me being vegan, like, oh, he's not really vegan. When no one's looking, he's eating this. Or like, cause, cause.

• 57:16Mirna Valerio?

  You got a steak in your back pocket.

• 57:17Rich Roll?

  Like, if what I'm doing doesn't fit their worldview, there has to be a way to dismiss it somehow. And that comes in the form of some offhanded, you know, remark that makes them feel better, but ultimately isn't rooted in any fact.

• 57:31Mirna Valerio?

  Right. Yeah. Um, and I would love to see people actually backing up their statements. Oh, so how am I glorifying obesity? Like, what, what is, what does it actually mean to glorify obesity? Like, what does that mean? Do you even know what you're saying? Or I get a lot of, you are going to ruin your knees. So that's what, that's like, that's a really, really good example of, you know, people just saying things because that's what they've always heard.

• 57:58Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 57:58Mirna Valerio?

  That is what their norm is, even though it is not rooted in any truth or in any facts. And, uh, okay, so well, tell me about, tell me about how renting ruins my knees. Tell, tell me about that. Uh, and I'm not afraid to have that conversation. Um, you know, that's kind of what I do in my job. You know, I, I deal with, um, cultural identity in my job and I'm, uh, my job is to have difficult conversations with people and to push people.

• 58:22Rich Roll?

  On the cultural diversity aspect of what you do.

• 58:24Mirna Valerio?

  And so, yeah, so, so where did you hear that from? Did you, do you have, is there a scholarly article that you have about this particular thing about how am I ruining my knees?

• 58:33Rich Roll?

  You get it, you did, you roll your sleeves up and get engaged in these conversations.

• 58:37Mirna Valerio?

  Yeah, I love it because it's just, you know, like, it.

• 58:41Mirna Valerio?

  Because I really want to know where people are coming from. Like, and, and if I can convince another, one more person that you can't just say things because that's what you've always heard, um, without any real factual information, um, then you can't just be saying these things because it doesn't mean anything.

• 59:04Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 59:05Mirna Valerio?

  Um, so, yeah, so I, I kind of see it, that's my job, but like, it's something that I, I think I do well. I think I pull things out of people and, and, and try, I really try to bring people to a new understanding of things. And, and if that is what I'm doing by just showing myself in public, and, um, I think it forces people to confront their own, you know, ideologies about body image, or, you know, or, or aesthetics.

• 59:33Rich Roll?

  So what is the message that you want women to hear from you?

• 59:37Mirna Valerio?

  Um, you can still be a good mom if you take care of yourself. In fact, um, in my own personal experience, uh, the more I took care of myself, the healthier my family was, um, the better sleep everyone got, um, and the better our family is in general. Um, because if mommy's sick, everybody's sick. Uh, if mommy's tired, everybody's tired. Um, and so, yeah, and, and, and it's not just if, if you're a parent, you don't have to be a parent, uh, to, to heed this message.

• 1:00:16Rich Roll?

  Um, you know, perhaps a few words of wisdom that you could impart to, to somebody who can identify with you physically, who's listening, who just feels scared, or feels like, well, I see Mirna out there doing it, but I just, I don't know how she does that. Like, somebody who is in a situation where they don't feel healthy, or they don't feel empowered in their own body, but they want to make a difference, but they just can't, they don't know where to start.

• 1:00:41Mirna Valerio?

  Number one, the utmost important thing is practicing self-love. And for a lot of people, that is going to take you out of your comfort zone because you probably don't know how to do it. There are lots of resources and whatnot, but just looking at yourself and saying, "I love you, and I am strong, I am powerful, I am able, I am capable." Those things, like having a mantra, you can even use somebody else's mantra, and repeating those things to yourself.

• 1:01:20Rich Roll?

  What are your mantras?

• 1:01:21Mirna Valerio?

  I have so many. I really love this mantra by Dr. Christiane Northrup. "I love myself unconditionally right now." And, you know, sometimes you just have to go through the motions of saying it. Eventually, you will start to believe it. But there is a lot of power in saying things out loud. Again, even if you don't initially believe it, you will start to believe it. Language has so much power. So get yourself a mantra. Take somebody else's. Say it to yourself. Whenever you are feeling doubtful, when you're feeling happy, when you're feeling powerful,

• 1:02:03Mirna Valerio?

  just say it to yourself over and over again. And I think that's, for a lot of people, that's, it's an easy step. You don't have to buy anything, you don't have to, you know, really do anything differently. You're just, you're just stating that you love yourself. And then figure out ways to express that self-love, whether it's taking a walk, or writing in a journal, or doing morning pages, something I used to do all the time.

• 1:02:29Rich Roll?

  Oh, yeah, me too. Artist's way, man. I recommend it constantly to people.

• 1:02:35Mirna Valerio?

  Yes, you know, I don't do morning pages anymore, but when I did it, it changed my life.

• 1:02:40Rich Roll?

  Super powerful.

• 1:02:41Mirna Valerio?

  Yeah, you know, whatever is you got to find, find ways or find things that make you happy that aren't hard to do and just incorporate those things into your daily routine. And then it becomes a routine, becomes a habit, and then you can add on to that. And then, and find something that you might be interested in that maybe you think you can't do, or maybe someone has told you, you won't be able to do that. And god damn it, do it anyway. Just do it, you have to. This requires a huge step out of your comfort zone, but you are not going to learn anything or progress if you don't step out of your comfort zone.

• 1:03:26Mirna Valerio?

  So if you continue to stay in your own bubble, you're not gonna be able to do something different.

• 1:03:32Rich Roll?

  Yeah, at some point, you have to take an action, right? You can read a zillion self-help books and intellectualize it all, but ultimately, you have to like put something into motion, right?

• 1:03:43Mirna Valerio?

  Absolutely. And then find people, you know, find a tribe, even if you're an introvert. Find a tribe, find people who are your cheerleaders, people who will do stuff with you, people who will tell you the truth, people that love you unconditionally because now you love yourself unconditionally, you have to find a tribe that replicates that. And yeah, do you, you know, maybe it's not running, maybe it's not, maybe it's not writing a book, maybe it's, I don't know, swimming in a lake, whatever it is, you know, do it and find somebody that'll do it with you.

• 1:04:25Mirna Valerio?

  Or even if not, even if you don't find a buddy, do it on your own. There's so much power in doing things individually. Yeah, and all of these things, you know, I keep seeing that these things have to be a habit, but it's true. If you don't have a habit of self-love, if you don't have a habit of stepping out of your comfort zone. You won't experience growth.

• 1:04:50Rich Roll?

  So the first step is creating that habit.

• 1:04:53Mirna Valerio?

  Creating a habit.

• 1:04:54Rich Roll?

  And the creation of the habit begins with the first act.

• 1:04:56Mirna Valerio?

  Yes, absolutely. And the last thing I'll say is that nothing happens overnight. So know that whatever you are changing, whatever you're doing, whatever your goal is, it is going to be a journey. There will be moments of just of joy and amazement and there will be moments of awfulness and where you just have to sort of be in the trenches and do the work. But that has tremendous implications for success.

• 1:05:33Rich Roll?

  A regular speaker at Fortune 500 companies, James Clear is a writer, blogger, author, and speaker who specializes in evidence-based self-improvement. He is the author of the massively bestselling book, Atomic Habits, which is this comprehensive primer on what actually works when it comes to behavior change. I found this book and our conversation, which was episode 401, very powerful, potentially game-changing, and my hope is that this clip will help you reframe how you contemplate and act upon your ambitions. It's an explanation of why true behavior change is actually identity change. Here's James.

• 1:06:17Speaker 08

  There are a couple of ways to think about it, but I would say, just a quick definition. A habit is a behavior that has been repeated enough times to be performed more or less automatically, so you can do it pretty much on autopilot. But another way to think about it, and I think this is a useful way to define a habit, is that as you go through life, you face different problems. And some of those problems are big and some of them are small, like you need to tie your shoes. And whenever you face a problem, your brain starts looking for solutions to that. And as you come across solutions to the recurring problems in life, you start to automate those. And so every morning you wake up and you put your shoes on and you've got this little problem that you need to solve. And pretty soon, after you tie your shoes 100 times, or 500 times, or 1,000 times, you

• 1:07:02Speaker 08

  can do it pretty much without thinking. And so that's another way of thinking about habits, is that they're kind of these like automatic solutions we fall into for whatever the recurring problems are we face.

• 1:07:12Rich Roll?

  Right. Behavior that becomes habituated.

• 1:07:14Speaker 08

  Yeah, and you know, like there, the interesting thing about this is you don't necessarily have to have the same habit to solve a recurring problem. Like if you come home from work each day and you feel stressed and exhausted, one person might play video games for an hour, and that's a way to resolve that problem. So they get in the habit of doing it and they just walk over to the controller. They don't even think about it. Another person might go for a run for 20 minutes or meditate for 10 minutes. A third person might smoke a cigarette. And all of those are just solutions to that problem that you're facing. And that, I think, is another powerful lesson is that your original habit is not necessarily the optimal one. And once you realize that, then it kind of becomes your responsibility to

• 1:07:56Speaker 08

  become a little more aware of what those habits are and then think about can you shape them or design them.

• 1:08:00Rich Roll?

  Right, and so to kind of deconstruct what a habit is, how to change it, what's a good habit, what's a bad habit, how to flow from bad to good. It demands, I would imagine, and you're the expert here, you know, a real analysis of like how our brains function. You have to look at psychology, you have to look at neurology, you have to look at the science and understand the human mechanism in its holistic form.

• 1:08:24Speaker 08

  I think that's true, and you bring up a really interesting point and one that I wanted to answer or think about in the book. So in the book, I lay out this four-stage model for how habits work. And the reason the second stage is there, it's all about craving and prediction. In other words, like you come across a cue or some kind of context and then you interpret it in a certain way. And that's where we're getting to this point that you're just making, which is that the habit only comes after, the habit is the behavior that follows your prediction or your interpretation of how you should act in a given context. And, you know, for one person, they might see their couch as the place where they read for an hour each night. And so their interpretation of that context is I should open up a book. For another person, they might see the couch as the place where they

• 1:09:08Speaker 08

  turn on Netflix for an hour and eat a bowl of ice cream. And so that's a different interpretation of the same physical cue. And so in that way, habits kind of follow, they're this lagging measure of how you predict you should respond to the different contexts in your life.

• 1:09:24Rich Roll?

  I mean, it's really, it's interesting that the more, this is like a subject matter that's so important because the habits that comprise how we behave and navigate our day are determinative of our entire experience as a human being. Not only do they determine whether we're going to be, you know, quote unquote, "successful" or "failures," they literally dictate every aspect of our experience as humans. So, on some level, like, there is no subject more important than really understanding how behaviors work. I'm interested in what got you interested in this subject matter to begin with. I find that most people

• 1:10:07Rich Roll?

  who, you know, walk that path of becoming obsessed with a certain subject matter or idea tend to be people who are trying to solve that equation for themselves. So is that part of the influence?

• 1:10:21Speaker 08

  In a sense, every article I've written in this book is just a reminder to myself. I definitely had an internal desire for that. And then there have been a variety of areas in my life where I've had to implement that: athletics, photography, writing, and building a business, of course. And all of those have been kind of like test labs for me to put the ideas into practice.

• 1:10:43Rich Roll?

  Right. So why zero in on this?

• 1:10:45Speaker 08

  On habits?

• 1:10:46Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:48Speaker 08

  Well, I think that a little bit of it comes back to what you just mentioned a few minutes ago about how important habits are. I didn't know this at first. So, I was a baseball player for many years, and as any athlete can tell you, there are all kinds of habits that you have at practice: rituals, things like that. And I was benefiting from that. You know, my strength coach would tell me to do something, or my coaches would hold me accountable to certain habits, and that would help pull the rest of my life in line. You know, I always did better in school when I had sports as well. It would, like, give me something to anchor my day around. And so, I knew that it was working, but I didn't have a language for it. And so, it was only until maybe five years after my career ended, and I finished graduate school, and I started, like, looking into this stuff a little bit more, that I started to come across the science of habit formation

• 1:11:33Speaker 08

  and behavior change, and developed a language for it, and started to write about it. So I kind of implicitly knew it was important, but didn't discover that, the actual way to write about it until later. Now, the second thing here, though, is that I, as I dug into the topic more, I started to like unearth these layers and realized, wow, this is actually even more important than I thought. And this comes back to the point that you made a few minutes ago, which is that habits are, one of the phrases I'd like to use is that pretty much any of the results in your life are a lagging measure of your habits, right? So your weight is a lagging measure of your eating habits, your bank account is a lagging measure of your financial habits, your clutter is a lagging measure of your cleaning habits.

• 1:12:15Speaker 08

  Like, the outcomes are just the, the manifestation of the behaviors that preceded them. Right. Um, so you kind of get what you repeat in that way. Well, that makes sense. People understand that that's important. So that's one reason why habits are crucial. But there's another thing that habits do that is even more central, even more important. And that is that your habits are the way that you embody a particular identity. So every morning that you make your bed, you embody the identity of an organized person, someone who's clean. Every time you go to the gym, you embody the identity of someone who is fit. Every time you sit down to write a sentence or a page, uh, you embody the identity of someone who's a writer.

• 1:12:57Speaker 08

  And so in that sense, habits are like, every action you take is kind of like a vote for the type of person that you believe that you are. And as you take these actions, you build up evidence of a particular identity. And pretty soon, your beliefs have something to like root themselves in. It's like, man, I, you know, I showed up at the gym for four days a week for the last three months. I guess like, I'm the type of person who doesn't miss workouts. And that, I think, is the true reason why habits are so important. Uh, once I realized how beliefs and behaviors are connected, that there's like this two-way street, um, then I've started to think, all right, maybe this is really something. Not only does it deliver those external results, the clean room or the, you know, bigger bank account, but also the internal results of shaping your sense of self-image and what you believe.

• 1:13:42Speaker 08

  Right. This is why I think identity is such a crucial issue with habits, is that true behavior change is really identity change. Um, because you're, you're not really looking to go from the type of person who doesn't run to the type of person who can run a 5K. That's fine. That's good. It's the outcome. But the goal is not to run a marathon. The goal is to become a runner. The goal is not to write a book. The goal is to become a writer. And once you identify as that type of person, In a sense, you're not even really pursuing behavior change anymore. You're just acting in alignment with the type of person that you already believe that you are. Right. It's like one thing to say, I want this. It's something different to say, I am this.

• 1:14:22Rich Roll?

  This next clip is from plant-based dietitian Juliana Hever and former NASA scientist turned nutrition scientist Ray Cronice. These two combined their wonder twin powers to collaborate on a number of projects that include personalized nutrition consulting and co-authoring of both medical journal articles as well as their recently released book, Plant-Based Nutrition: The Idiot's Guide Series. In this clip excerpted from episode 345, Juliana and Ray discuss the benefits of eating more fruits and vegetables, less food in general, hardly controversial, and finding a community of like-minded individuals to stay on point. Here's Juliana and Ray.

• 1:15:07Rich Roll?

  The book and this conversation, I think, is a perfect launchpad at this time of year for people who are finally in that spot and want to take that leap. So I thought it would be good and instructive to try to help guide people towards that first step. And because it is, you know, look, it's called The Idiot's Guide to Plant-Based Nutrition, right? By its very nature, the work that you guys are doing is introductory for a mainstream audience. So let's start at square one. Like, somebody's listening to this, they're like, okay, tell me what to do. Where do I go? What's my first step? What do I get rid of? What do I eat? What do I focus on? What do I not have to worry about? What's the first step?

• 1:15:48Speaker 09

  The first step is to keep it simple. You know, we really just, there's an infinite variety of combinations of vegetables, fruits, whole grains, legumes, nuts, seeds, herbs, and spices. And you can meet any kind of taste preference. You can meet any kind of, you know, culinary desires from experimenting with those foods, those basic foods. So the first step is to go, okay, I'm just going to do this, you know, commit to a certain amount of time just to try it and see what happens. And now, I mean, my gosh, from the time that we made this transition, it's completely different now with the internet is exploding with Recipes, there is information everywhere, there are books everywhere, your books included. There are so many great sources and there's so many great things on the market. So, you know, I like to look at it as learning a new language. You know, first you've got to learn the letters, you know, if there's a different alphabet.

• 1:16:33Speaker 09

  And so, oh, there's 10 different varieties of rice at the market now. And there's five different types of, you know, colored lentils that I could try. So those are like the letters and the words and you start kind of putting them together. Look for recipes, do a search, find books that sound good, that appeal to you. Look online and find recipes that sound delicious to you and then flip through them. And if you happen to love meatloaf, try a nut loaf or a lentil loaf. If you happen to love chili, try, find a great bean chili. Just anything that speaks to you, start marking those off. And I like, you know, you just slowly build up your repertoire and you start building those words and those sentences and suddenly you become fluent in this because you can go to the market and go, "Oh, I'm going to make that, you know, that burrito and I just need these three ingredients."

• 1:17:17Speaker 09

  Sort of like you just have it on the top of your head. But it's a learning curve and it just takes practice and experimentation. But I also recommend people think of it in a positive way. You know, it's not like, "Oh, my gosh, I can't have, I can't have that, I can't have this." Instead, think about all the new things you get to try. And you're literally recreating the plate. You know, we all grew up with that meat in the center of the plate and we're used to thinking about food in a certain context. But there's so much more and if you look, just even, you know, culturally speaking, there's so many delicious cuisines that are based on these plant foods, you know. You know, Ethiopian food and Mexican food and just traditional diets that have all these really delicious types of cuisine that you may not have really spent time with. This is the time to do that.

• 1:18:02Speaker 09

  You know, go to different types of countries and look at their traditional diet and start experimenting. You know, look at how many times, three times a day in Asia, rice is consumed. You know, that is like the staple or potatoes in Peru or, we're talking about potatoes, or corn. But find the simple ingredients, find, start with simple. It doesn't have to be complicated, you don't need to make some gourmet meal.

• 1:18:21Rich Roll?

  We want to overcomplicate it. Like, where's that, but I need, what kind of spirulina do I need?

• 1:18:27Speaker 09

  Yeah.

• 1:18:27Speaker 10

  If it doesn't have an expiration date on it. Buy it. Food that naturally that you can tell that it's not healthy to eat like fruit, fruits and produce, they don't have expiration dates on them. You can tell that it's rotten.

• 1:18:38Speaker 09

  Oh, but they expire faster than the processed foods on the shelves ironically.

• 1:18:42Speaker 10

  But you know that. So what my point is, they don't need a label. Fruits and vegetables don't need labels. And you know, you can buy things without labels.

• 1:18:50Speaker 09

  Yeah, I mean, it's really, it is so simple. If you think about it like what we, no one will argue that we need to eat more fruits and vegetables. If you make that your number one New Year's resolution to eat half your diet from fruits and vegetables, you're gonna do better.

• 1:19:02Speaker 10

  Eat less frequently and eat more fruits and vegetables.

• 1:19:04Speaker 09

  Yeah, that's the two takeaways. Yeah, so simple.

• 1:19:07Speaker 10

  Two things done. If you just eat less frequently and eat more fruits and vegetables, you'll do well if you don't soak them in sugar, oil and salt. So when we're talking about eating fruits and vegetable, let's be clear, we're talking about whole food. We're not talking about potato chips and french fries. Those don't count. Veggie chips, veggie whatever stuff in the bag with the stuff that you're talking about from the evil companies that you guys were discussing, right? We're not talking about the middle of the store stuff, right? But it's true. But if you just go with a vegan or plant-based label, we have to say it today. We didn't have to say it a decade ago because those things didn't exist. But

• 1:19:49Speaker 10

  today, everything can say vegan, can put the vegan. So I'm saying if you go to and eat-

• 1:19:54Speaker 09

  You mean, you're just saying that just because it's vegan doesn't mean it's healthy?

• 1:19:57Speaker 10

  Right, exactly.

• 1:19:58Speaker 09

  It just, you need to recognize it in nature.

• 1:19:59Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Well, one of the things that I think is interesting in your approach, like I wanted to ask, like, you know, in your experience of working with all these people and all the success stories, you know, people screw up. They, they mess up, they make mistakes, they slip backwards. You know, what are some of the common things that you see that are tripping people up? Followed by the next question, which is what are the strategies to avoid that? But even before that, like we were talking before the podcast and Ray, you had said something really interesting that you actually build in this like failure mechanism into the approach. You want them to fail because that experience of failing will confront them with the kind

• 1:20:41Rich Roll?

  of circumstances that led to the misstep, which creates greater self-knowledge for long-term future success.

• 1:20:48Speaker 10

  Yeah, just like fatigue and muscles and working out to the failure point causes that strength to happen. I believe that the main obstacle we have to success are the social pressures to eating. You know, today, it's a lot more socially acceptable to say, I didn't eat for 24 days than it was two years ago.

• 1:21:10Rich Roll?

  Only marginally.

• 1:21:11Speaker 10

  Marginally.

• 1:21:12Rich Roll?

  And we're in LA.

• 1:21:14Speaker 10

  But more people do it today.

• 1:21:16Rich Roll?

  What do they say in Alabama?

• 1:21:18Speaker 09

  They think he's crazy.

• 1:21:19Speaker 10

  I'm fixing to shoot you.

• 1:21:21Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:22Speaker 10

  No, but today it's more acceptable to say, I eat a plant-based diet than it was 10 years ago.

• 1:21:29Speaker 09

  Everywhere you're saying it. Now, we've been all over, we've been all over the country and beyond now. And like, no matter where you go, even in Huntsville, Alabama, where he lives, people go, when you say you're plant-based or vegan, they're like, oh, like they know so, oh, I was vegan. Everyone has heard that term or is more familiar with it.

• 1:21:45Speaker 10

  And so what I was gonna say with this is that the social pressure to eat is huge.

• 1:21:51Speaker 09

  Yeah, and that's one of the pitfalls, and that's also one of the solutions. And one of the things people should focus on if they're going in there, find your people, find support. Even if it's not, if your family doesn't agree with you, or your friends, you don't have a friend that's on board with you, find it online, go to a conference, find people that are like-minded because support is really important.

• 1:22:09Rich Roll?

  How are you guys doing so far? Good stuff, right? You know what else is good?

• 1:22:19Rich Roll?

  Okay, you guys, up next is three-time RRP guest and favorite Dr. Joel Kahn. Previously appearing on Episodes 44, 128, and most recently 349, that conversation, the most recent one, was focused on diet wars and the popular debate of plant-based versus ketogenic diets. Dr. Kahn is an interpreventional cardiologist, a clinical professor of medicine at Wayne State University School of Medicine, founder of the Kahn Center for Cardiac Longevity in Michigan, and a summa cum laude graduate of the University of Michigan's prestigious Iniflex Program, which is a six-year undergraduate/graduate program that developed doctors fresh out of high school. He's authored hundreds of articles on heart disease, he's a frequent lecturer on heart

• 1:23:04Rich Roll?

  disease and its prevention, he's performed thousands of cardiac procedures, and he's the owner of Greenspace Cafe in Ferndale and Royal Oak, Michigan. In addition, Dr. Kahn is the author of five books, including The Whole Heart Solution and his newest offering, The Plant-Based Solution. And with that, I give you Dr. Joel Kahn.

• 1:23:24Speaker 11

  The ketogenic diet is very popular right now. The idea that really strictly eliminating carbs, and we always have to be careful in the definition, carbs are, you know, plants have, food has usually carbs, protein, and fat in almost every food until you refine it. Coconut has all those, and olive has all those. Once you refine it, you may end up with only fat. So all foods have the three macronutrients. I don't think there's any exception to that, maybe different percentages. So a low-carb diet, of course, many of them continue to eat a decent amount of greens in their diet, but they're eliminating all the whites, and they're hyper vigilant about it. The big difference in the ketogenic diet, are you doing high-fat, low-carb, low-protein,

• 1:24:08Speaker 11

  which we can talk about, and with a plant-based approach may actually have some benefit in science, or are you doing a low-carb, high-fat, and high-protein diet, which probably ages you quicker than any other diet on the planet? And that isn't always parsed out in their conversation. So the scary skeleton in the ketogenic diet. Ketogenic diet closet is you'll lose weight, you may have some boost in energy for a period of time, you may be increasing your mortality risk, and they just don't talk about that with great regularity. So it's a it's a difficult diet and you know, on the road, it's easier to be plant-based than it is to eat a strict ketogenic diet right now of, you know, a

• 1:24:49Speaker 11

  high-fat options, you're gonna have to carry around your own food. But the gravest concern is, is it a healthy pattern? Is there any natural population that even slightly approaches it and has done well long-term? Kind of a bullet shot at the plant-based movement, show me a society that's been plant-based for centuries and has thrived. You can talk about Eskimos and the Messiah who lived to age 30 or 40. Well, that's not kind of the example we're talking about. Show a Okinawa-type population that was 90% plus plant-based and thrived. Great, we have our our example that approximates the way we eat. They have great difficulty with that. In fact, the scientific data is it's the converse that

• 1:25:29Speaker 11

  they are at-risk shortening their lifespan. If it's an animal-based, low-carb diet, particularly if they're emphasizing foods that they feel are high in protein, which are typically going to be meats of a variety of kinds, no matter whether it's grass-fed or not, it's the basic constitution of animal muscle that can age you excessively, and the science is well-known.

• 1:25:49Rich Roll?

  So a couple of observations on that. First, with respect to the the degree of difficulty of maintaining a ketogenic diet, it's an interesting thing to talk about because you're right, like, to actually do a ketogenic diet properly requires an incredible amount of like, forethought and planning and discipline. It's not easy to really dial that in and make it work compared to a plant-based diet. And yet, I feel like the plant-based diet gets unduly criticized for being restrictive and too difficult and is something that people are just never going to be able to maintain long-term, despite the fact that both of us have done that.

• 1:26:32Rich Roll?

  But people are very quick to jump on the ketogenic bandwagon and try it with enthusiasm without that same concern being applied.

• 1:26:42Speaker 11

  Yeah, I agree completely. You know, just a couple of examples, there's, Joe Rogan had a surgeon on Sean Baker, and I don't know Sean Baker very well, we go at each other a little bit on Twitter, and he said very, you know, casually even, he's an M.D. I've done, and the ultimate example of these diets is there's a whole group of people eating nothing but meat, three meals a day, and literally nothing but meat. And for reasons I don't completely understand.

• 1:27:11Rich Roll?

  He was the carnivore guy, right?

• 1:27:12Speaker 11

  Yeah, and he's one of many. I mean, he's not the only one that shows up there. They can claim short-term, some pretty impressive pictures of their abs and weight, and some of them have some heart CT data. Of course, there's nothing published in the literature, I want to come back to that. But, you know, Dr. Baker said, "Well, I didn't even bother to check my labs." Joe Rogan said, "You've been doing this for a year?" He goes, "No, I didn't check my labs." Well, I have patients that do that, and they get their labs checked, not under my advice. And I have one that I'm going to write up, maybe on the airplane flight back to Detroit later this evening. His cholesterol went from 250, I've never seen this, 250 to 750 during the two months he did a meat-only diet, trying to approximate what he was hearing on these, you know, rogue, not Rogan kind of podcasts.

• 1:27:55Speaker 11

  And it's insanity, and it's like religious fervor and follow the leader without thoughtfulness. The only medical condition that has any data, everybody can verify this, PubMed.com, put in ketogenic diet, refractory epilepsy in children and sub- degree adults. Have a number, I mean, several dozen published studies on a impact if standard drugs like Dilantin don't work. And in fact, before Dilantin, ketogenic diet was a reasonable choice for kids with epilepsy. As soon as drugs came out, it kind of faded off, and it's come back for that use. Daniel Amen, very famous local psychiatrist and a friend, has a grandson that had refractory

• 1:28:37Speaker 11

  seizures, rather sadly and ironically, ketogenic diet was very beneficial. You go back. Beyond that, you're just, you're absent data. So another startup that's hot and it's worth talking about because your listeners will hear this is Virta Health, V I R T A, backed by Stephen Finney, M.D. I don't know much about him. He appeared in Dr. Malhotra's documentary about visiting the home of Ansel Keys, one of the most distorted and misleading documentaries ever done, called The Pioppi Diet, P I O P P I. Don't read it, don't watch it. It's a waste of time, money, and honesty. But Virta Health claims with a ketogenic diet that you can reverse your type 2 diabetes with a high frequency, and they've got a

• 1:29:19Speaker 11

  lot of backing, and they've got an app, and they've got, you know, a coaching system. So they have published a study in a journal that is so obscure and so non-reputable, but it is a journal, which is a proliferation of scientific journals that are open and you can either pay to publish an article or get access. But it's a small study of six months duration, actually, originally 10 weeks duration, non-randomized, no control group. In the scientific world, this is about as low as it goes. And yes, with the dietary plan they advocated, very high dropout rate in the group studied. They showed some drop in measures of diabetic control towards the better with their ketogenic diet coaching

• 1:30:00Speaker 11

  system. And on that, I speak to, like, brilliant people, and they say, "Well, the debate's over. Virta Health has shown that ketogenic diet can solve multiple health problems." It's so overblown, and in fact, what's missing is the six, seven studies that suggest. To get to the point, big studies, hundreds of thousands of people, these are association studies. Group of people ate a certain way, questionnaires, food questionnaires, once food questionnaires, several times during a number of years, follow these people at Harvard School of Public Health, Tufts School of Nutrition, very prominent places. Dramatic rise in long-term mortality by people whose food pattern, it can be called the low-carb, high-fat diet, a rise in death rate. If you've had a heart attack, and you fill out

• 1:30:45Speaker 11

  questionnaires at the Harvard School of Public Health, and they follow you long-term, and your diet can be described as a low-carb, high-fat diet, you're much more likely to die. And follow up than people that describe diets that are closer to high carb, hopefully complex plant choices, though these aren't vegans, you know, more like a Mediterranean style diet. So that's the untold story for anybody listening and that's falling for this optimization of performance and metabolism and control of cardiovascular risk. The data needs to be addressed about death rate. And until there's a study that resolves that issue and says that's wrong, six, seven different studies in different parts of the world,

• 1:31:25Speaker 11

  I could not in any good conscience advise somebody do a animal based low carb ketogenic pattern, particularly if it's high in protein. Protein activates aging pathways. Protein activates biochemical pathways that right here in the city of the angels have been found from yeast to mice to humans to cause accelerated aging and aging in every aspect of our body. And it is animal protein rich in an amino acid called leucine is the main trigger and you can't get around it. Grass fed beef, free range chicken and line caught fish all have tremendously more leucine than the amino acid structure of plants. They have it, but they don't have near the same amount.

• 1:32:06Rich Roll?

  Our next clip is from Dotsey Bausch, a seven time US national champion, former world record holder and two time Pan American gold medal winner in track cycling who earned a silver in team pursuit at the 2012 London Olympics. Not only was she a longtime vegetarian at that time, now vegan, she was almost 40 years old when she won that medal, the oldest ever in her discipline and one of the oldest athletes to ever compete in an Olympic Games. So obviously Dotsey's accomplishments are extraordinary, but more remarkable to me is the hard fought road that this extraordinary athlete trudged to achieve these heights because Dotsey's biggest victory is the battle that she won to resurrect her life from the depths

• 1:32:51Rich Roll?

  of an eating disorder that was so severe, it very nearly claimed her life. So in this clip, she talks about being vegan, sharing the truth about the misinformation about dairy, disease and animal agriculture, plus a little bit of advice for people struggling with an eating disorder.

• 1:33:09Speaker 12

  It's such a joy to sit down at every meal and you're aware that you are choosing conscience over ease, like whatever is just there. And it is so uplifting and so fulfilling and such an empowering feeling. Like, I feel so strong every time I'm slightly challenged, let's say at like a business dinner and we're like at Ruth Chris, you know, like whatever, that happens once a freaking year, who cares. But people really don't understand, not only protein, but they don't understand iron, they don't understand B12, they don't even understand what B12 is, that it's a bacteria and you know, where you can get it from. They think animals make B12. So there's, there's just a lot of misconceptions out there about

• 1:33:53Speaker 12

  the different nutrients that they think that you need from the myth that we've been told and lied to about our whole lives, that you can only get that from animal flesh.

• 1:34:03Rich Roll?

  Right. Well, it's amazing as somebody who, who not so long ago didn't even know these worlds existed, that you're having PSAs airing during the Olympics and you've created this compassionate champs movement. Like, tell me what that's all about.

• 1:34:17Speaker 12

  So, I'm learning more and more every day, but when I started Compassion Champs, it was, it was really, it was kind of more out of a desire to meld together compassion and strength. I felt like there was, you know, nobody really that was having a real conversation about being able to be caring and compassionate and loving and empathetic, but also strong and fierce and badass. And, you know, those, those two just weren't coming together as, as a, as a group of people. So that, that's, that's where it was kind

• 1:34:56Speaker 12

  of born out of. I'm learning more and more as I am traversing this movement and reading more research and understanding more from being a part of the Game Changers film, which we can talk about.

• 1:35:11Rich Roll?

  I want to talk about that.

• 1:35:12Speaker 12

  That, you know, people, and, and just from my own experience, sadly, and, and really disappointing to me is...

• 1:35:23Speaker 12

  By and large, people don't care about the animals. They just don't. They just, they don't care about the suffering. They don't want to know about it. They don't want to hear it. They don't want you to show them. They don't, definitely don't want you to talk about it. And they really don't want you to talk about it when, when you're all eating. But people do care about their health and they do care about their performance, not just athlete, you know, athletic performance. People just care about their general performance and being better in their life. Right? A lot of the people that you've had on here. So the conversation that I'm having is, is changing a bit more. I think it's, I'm almost feeling more like a undercover animal activist

• 1:36:06Speaker 12

  because it's at the core of what I care about the most. It's the least effective way to change people's minds.

• 1:36:15Rich Roll?

  You have this competitive nature. You have retired from cycling. Where are you going to channel this, this, uh, this energy into this movement? Yes? Or how does this?

• 1:36:27Speaker 12

  Oh, my God, yeah.

• 1:36:28Rich Roll?

  You know, is that?

• 1:36:29Speaker 12

  There's, there's no question in, in, in my mind that I will do this till the day I die. It's, it, it, it fills every piece of my bursting heart with so much joy and, and, and need and fulfillment. And that this is, this is, revealing the secrets behind this is, is very similar to back in the day with tobacco. I, I feel such a, um, such an inherent deep need to share truth with people. Like if, if it's not, if they're not, if they're not being told the truth, somebody has to tell them the truth. Somebody has to, you know, uncover.

• 1:37:12Speaker 12

  And, and if I can use the Olympian thing or the Olympics thing that I, you know, did and fought really hard for. Cause you're right, people. People are interested in what an Olympian eats, or what an Olympian does. I mean, that's part of this PSA with the seven Olympians. It's like, nobody's going, "Oh, God, stupid Olympians. Put them in the corner." You know, people just kind of are inherently like, "Go, team." And so, that platform will hopefully allow us to reveal and uncover these untruths that people have been told their whole lives,

• 1:37:55Speaker 12

  from animal agriculture, all the way to all the different diseases, the seven top diseases that we're dying from in this country. People are just consuming incredible amounts of dairy while they're fighting prostate cancer. You know, incredible amounts of dairy while they're fighting ovarian cancer. It's insane. And so, it's the only thing, besides my relationship with my husband, that I care the most about. It's everything to me.

• 1:38:27Rich Roll?

  Well, it's beautiful, and it's exciting times. You know, I think the awareness is getting out there, and there is a growing interest and receptivity to these ideas that I think is only going to build. And your role in all of that is prominent and growing. So, it's awesome to see. One final thing, if you'll indulge me. Do you have to go?

• 1:38:54Speaker 12

  I gotta see the traffic.

• 1:38:56Rich Roll?

  So, I think it would be great to kind of end this with leaving a few thoughts for somebody who's listening to this, who perhaps is suffering from an eating disorder, or is stuck in the cycle of a pattern that they can't see themselves through. So, is there a lifeline that you could throw to that person? Or something they could think about or do? That could perhaps be helpful.

• 1:39:25Speaker 12

  Well, there's a couple of things. I think that when you're deep into the disorder, you definitely don't feel like there's ever any way out. And that's especially true with eating disorders, because you have to continue to eat, right? You can't just be like, "Okay, no more drugs, no more alcohol." I felt so isolated by that. And just...

• 1:39:50Speaker 12

  Letting them know that there truly is a way out. Once an anorexic, not always an anorexic. It's not the same as it might be or how many alcoholics look at it and for their own recovery. There is freedom on the other side. There really is a pathway, whichever pathway you choose, to have freedom from it. So many eating disorder sufferers that I met, that's the one thing that they just don't really believe is true. And it is, there really is freedom.

• 1:40:28Speaker 12

  And I think the other thing is that most eating disorder sufferers are fairly type A and they, most that I've met, want to contribute to society. I mean, they have a kind of a yearning, kind of a desire. If you let this disease run its course and you die from it, you're not going to be able to do anything. You're not going to be able to have an impact on the world and you're not going to be able to do anything for the greater good. And you're definitely not going to be able to do anything healthfully for the greater good while you're sick. So allow that to be your bright guiding and shining light out of this.

• 1:41:13Speaker 12

  That was a big part of it for me is recognizing that I can't do anything if I'm dead. You know? So let that come to the top of your heart and let that guide you. There is a way out and you can't do anything for the world if you're dead.

• 1:41:33Rich Roll?

  Yeah, beautifully put.

• 1:41:38Rich Roll?

  A National Magazine award-winning journalist, Alex Hutchinson is a former runner for the Canadian national team, turned writer, writer on all things athletic performance. He is the author of one of my favorite books of the year, Endure: Mind, Body, and the Curiously Elastic Limits of Human Performance. It's an incredible read that blends cutting-edge science With incredible storytelling, kind of in the spirit of Malcolm Gladwell, who actually penned the foreword, to suggest the seemingly physical barriers we encounter when tackling a challenge are set as much by the brain as by the body. So even if you're not an athlete, this conversation, which was episode 359, will,

• 1:42:20Rich Roll?

  I think, leave you rethinking your own limits so that you may reach higher, push further, and ultimately become better in whatever discipline you are devoted to mastering. So without further ado, here's Alex.

• 1:42:34Speaker 13

  In a way, the most powerful ways we have of changing those unconscious things may be through conscious strategies. So here's another example of something that kind of blew my mind when this experiment happened. This was a guy named Samuel Markora at the University of Canton, England. He did a study with subliminal or unconscious images. So he had cyclists pedaling to exhaustion in a room, and on the wall in front of them, he was flashing smiling faces or frowning faces. But he was doing it, it was about 16 milliseconds per image, so that's like a tenth the length of a blink. You're totally unaware that there's-

• 1:43:14Rich Roll?

  You're not even consciously aware, you don't even actually see it? You're not consciously aware that you've seen it?

• 1:43:18Speaker 13

  The cyclists didn't know there were images. They thought there was just a black cross on the wall.

• 1:43:22Rich Roll?

  I didn't get that part when I was reading it. I knew it was quick, but I didn't realize it wasn't registering.

• 1:43:26Speaker 13

  Yeah, no, afterwards, the debrief afterwards, like, you know, what was on the wall? Nothing. They had no idea that there were even pictures on the wall. So this kind of gets rid of the placebo problem, because when you do these brain experiments, you want to find out how the brain is limiting you. It's almost impossible to disentangle the question of expectation and self-belief when you know you're getting some sort of intervention that's supposed to help. So in this case, they just thought they had a couple rides to exhaustion, but they were something like 12% faster when smiling faces had been flashed instead of frowning faces. So this is a good example of changing the unconscious in a way that's not really replicable outside the lab. You know, you're not going to have, well, we hope we're not going to have subliminal images on the wall. But-

• 1:44:11Speaker 13

  It points the direction, or points an arrow towards ways you can change. You know, you can smile and that can achieve, that can achieve some of the same ideas of, of creating this sense of ease in your brain that affects how your brain is interpreting the signals from the rest of your body.

• 1:44:26Rich Roll?

  And 12%, I mean, that's significant.

• 1:44:30Speaker 13

  Yeah. So, and, and you know, one interesting, one sort of methodological thing that's worth pointing out is that a lot of lab studies use time to exhaustion tests where they say, cycle at a certain power until you can't anymore. And the reason, one of the reasons they like those is it, it's, it takes out the, the role of pacing. So it's, it's more replicable, but it produces really big, the, the differences, if, if you do something that improves performance, the difference that you'll see is about 10 times, 10 to 15 times bigger in a time to exhaustion test than a time trial. So when you see 12% in a time to exhaustion test, that means probably a little less than 1% in a race, which is still massive when you think of.

• 1:45:08Rich Roll?

  Well, the highest levels, that's determinative.

• 1:45:10Speaker 13

  Yeah, that's, that's, that's winner versus, you know, off the podium.

• 1:45:13Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:45:14Speaker 13

  I mean, it's also, you know, for a lot of people, it could be, you know, BQ versus, uh, no, you know, Boston qualifier versus no Boston qualifier.

• 1:45:20Rich Roll?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:45:21Speaker 13

  Or personal best versus not personal best.

• 1:45:23Rich Roll?

  Yeah. I mean, it's crazy. So you, you, you break this down, you kind of evaluate the various, um, aspects of performance limitation, you know, by chapter, and you have pain, you have muscle, you have oxygen, heat, thirst and fuel, right? So we're kind of talking about pain a little bit. So maybe we can dig into that a little bit deeper. You know, one of the things that I thought was really cool in your exploration of that was, you know, the obvious question is like, do some people have a higher pain threshold? Like what is pain? Do people experience pain differently? What would happen if we could remove pain?

• 1:46:03Rich Roll?

  And there's that amazing experiment that was done with fentanyl where they're like, all right, we'll give them fentanyl. They won't feel anything, but then they had no ability to gauge their own pace. And they ended up not being able to perform because they couldn't like sort of evaluate their output.

• 1:46:20Speaker 13

  Yeah. So this was a really interesting series of experiments. Uh, again, like you said, with fentanyl. So the neat thing about fentanyl is it doesn't block the signals traveling from your brain to your muscles. So you can cycle like normal, but it blocks the signals from your muscles to your brain and, and. What the researchers said is, you know, you give these guys fentanyl and ask them to cycle a 5K time trial, they just feel great for a couple K. They're like, they're pedaling as hard as they can and they're feeling no pain and they're on pace for a great time. And about halfway is when things start to crater, they start to regress to their, you know, what their normal pace would be. And then they just keep getting worse and worse and they get so slow by the end that they end up cycling about the same time. They just, they can't pace themselves because they don't have that feedback that tells

• 1:47:05Speaker 13

  them how close they are to their muscular limits. And so without that, they actually hit muscular limits and their legs, it was pretty funny listening to the descriptions from the scientists saying, you know, these guys, they literally could not walk. That, you know, they'd be on the bikes and they'd try and help these guys off the bike and they would just, the first one would like collapse down the floor. And after that, like, okay, we basically have to carry these guys over to the chair over there to, you know, let them sit down because their legs have totally maxed out.

• 1:47:33Rich Roll?

  Right. Yeah. Which, which, you know, your brain will prevent you from doing that under normal circumstances, right? So there's these outlier examples that you kind of document in the book and reference where, you know, somebody does die because they've pushed themselves past that point, whether it's a freediver or there's that, um, you know, high school football player who dies of heat exhaustion after practice and the various expedition mountaineer people. And we kind of, you know, create a big story around these people. But what like Nope says is like, what's more interesting is that there aren't that many cases. Like it really doesn't happen that often. These are outliers.

• 1:48:18Speaker 13

  Yeah. And, you know, that when you start talking about the brain's role and limits and how do we get around them, you know, the first, you know, a very good question is, well, maybe those lessons, you know, those limits are there for a reason and are, is it dangerous to remove the limits? Ultimately, maybe yes, but like you said, it, you know, we're so far from our limits that it's, it's very, very hard to push to a point like no matter if I, if I headed out the door and just started sprinting and said, I'm going to run myself unconscious, I wouldn't be able to do it. Like I would, I would get too tired before I could run myself unconscious. And so.

• 1:48:52Rich Roll?

  Yeah, like everybody at the Olympics would be dying, you know, because they're all doing everything they possibly can to exert themselves to the absolute max.

• 1:49:01Speaker 13

  And yeah, that's one of Tim Noakes's favorite, favorite, like at presentations, he'll put up a picture from 1996 where there was the winner of the marathon was South African and the, the him and the second place finisher from South Korea jogging around the track just after the marathon finished. And I'll say, look, look at that guy. Look at the silver medalist. He, he just finished three seconds behind the Olympic gold medalist. Uh, you know, nobody is more motivated than if you enter the Olympic stadium three seconds short of, you know, immortality. He, he was trying as hard as he could, but you notice he's not dead. Like, so clearly.

• 1:49:33Rich Roll?

  And like kind of jogging around the track.

• 1:49:35Speaker 13

  Yeah. He, he finished and he's like, hey, look at me.

• 1:49:37Rich Roll?

  He can still move his legs.

• 1:49:39Speaker 13

  Like, so something, you know, his legs were clearly capable of moving. And this sort of other way of putting it is like, man, if you, if you unleashed a bunch of, you know, lions at mile 20 of a big city marathon, you'd see that everyone can still run. They, they, they can still sprint. And so what's holding them back is not pure muscular limits.

• 1:49:59Rich Roll?

  Okay. Next up is none other than high performance psychologist, three time RRP guest, host of the Finding Mastery podcast, my good friend, Dr. Michael Gervais. This is a guy who works with the elite of the elite, the world's most prolific Olympic professional and extreme athletes, as well as high level military, internationally acclaimed artists and musicians and Fortune 100 CEOs. He's one of my very favorite people. And in this clip excerpted from episode 366, Michael shares some insights on how he helps his elite clientele achieve peak performance, as well as some really great thoughts on the illusion, the quote unquote illusion of achieving balance in life.

• 1:50:46Speaker 14

  So I've been asking this question to people lately, and I don't know if it's a fair question, and I'd like to get your thoughts on it. Love to win or hate to lose? And if there was space to choose a third option, would you choose a third option? And/or would you just say, oh yeah, it's this one out of those two?

• 1:51:04Rich Roll?

  I would choose a third option. For me, it's never about winning or not losing. It's just a function of whether I lived up to what I believe to be my potential. Like, did I do my best? Did I put everything into trying to achieve a certain result?

• 1:51:22Speaker 14

  And then, so that's, that's why I think it's not a fair question. And that being said, is the process to better understand what is possible for anybody, for oneself, or for somebody else, is difficult. Like, that takes discernment. That takes deep thinking. To think about, like, and this, I think this might be one of the most loving thing we can do for another human, is to think deeply about what is possible. Have a conversation with that person. Calibrate that conversation. Knot our heads to it. Once we get the fabric and the texture of that, that thought aligned, and then commit to helping, supporting and challenging that person through. And if we're left alone to do it, it's, it's really hard.

• 1:52:06Speaker 14

  That's why I don't, I haven't seen anyone that does it alone. Right? But back to the thought, hate to lose, hate to lose, love to win. Almost 95% of people that I ask that question to, they, whether they think that they are on the right path or not, no, no, let me not say it that way. That sounds almost crude. 95% are saying hate to lose. And then, given a little bit more space-

• 1:52:30Rich Roll?

  Is that true, really?

• 1:52:31Speaker 14

  Yeah. Yes, but because, but that, what spurred me on that is your thought, which is, I had to come from pain. So the, the pain of losing, which, if we map it on the brain, there's no loss center of the brain. There's grief. There's like, you know, there's, there's no, the redundancies in the brain are minimized because it's this amazing superpower computer that we don't even know really how it works. But the thought that there's a center for losing a Super Bowl, or losing a, an ultra event, there's no center in the brain for that.

• 1:53:06Speaker 14

  It is mapped over grief.

• 1:53:07Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:53:08Speaker 14

  So, most people, grief is so hard for people. And then when they, so that when they go put their butt on the line and go for it in a competitive environment, or a vulnerable environment, and they come up short, it feels like grief, and that's hard. And so, hating to feel grief is the response, that's how I decode that thought.

• 1:53:30Rich Roll?

  Like an avoidant strategy?

• 1:53:32Speaker 14

  Yeah, like, I hate it so much, I'll do whatever it takes to relieve myself from it. And I'm not sure that that's a beautiful way to do, you know, the process.

• 1:53:40Rich Roll?

  Yeah, no, I don't think so. I don't think so. So, when you sit down with, you know, somebody that you're working with, like, how do you begin to, to figure this out and find a different through line to connect with that person to perhaps provide a foundation for a healthier motivation?

• 1:54:00Speaker 14

  Well, we try to get clear, the first part is that, not first part, but just value to discovery process. Now, let's just nod our head that the initial part, you're asking me, like, when I'm doing my craft, is that right?

• 1:54:15Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:54:15Speaker 14

  Like, as a sports psychologist or performance psychologist. So, the initial, so the way I've structured it is that we spend eight hours together. That's a long day.

• 1:54:25Speaker 14

  By the end of the day, we're exhausted. We're, we're, we both are tired because we're working relentlessly towards insight. And then, at the end of those eight hours, if we are so fortunate to have some insight about what makes this, the person that I'm working with, who are they and what makes them work, if you will, what are they driven by and driven toward? And then, if we can get a handful of insights together, then we can set up and design a way to train one's mind and organize one's life. For optimizing.

• 1:54:58Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:54:58Speaker 14

  Okay, so that deep, deep work is really like, who are you? What are you driven by? What are you driven toward? And then what do you imagine is possible?

• 1:55:08Rich Roll?

  And when you're, when you're doing that like probing process, I mean, part of that I would imagine has to do with finding a way in, like, how can I, like, what are the, what's, what are the levers here that I can play with to motivate this person to, you know, unleash, you know, perhaps potential that's hidden within them? And I would imagine you're going to come across some levers that would work, but are unhealthy. Like, oh, this guy, you know, I don't know, you know, he hates his dad. So I can play with that and I could get him to, you know, really, you know,

• 1:55:45Rich Roll?

  I could perhaps get him to a new level in his, whatever his expertise is. But that's ultimately not a sustainable methodology, right?

• 1:55:54Speaker 14

  I love it. You know, okay, so one of the thoughts is there's an assumption that I'm making is that you hold all of your insights. You, you are the container of wisdom as well. So you, there's nothing I'm going to say that is going to provide wisdom. Like, it's already inside you. We just need to figure it out. Everything you need is already inside you is the basic assumption. And you said, like, to help motivate people. I don't think so. I don't think that that's, I'm not in the right business to help motivate people because the folks that I spend time with are highly driven, like the half percenters in the world driven. And so I think that part of the process is to create more space

• 1:56:39Speaker 14

  for the fire to burn more brightly, right? And then how do you do that? Well, each thought, this is a hypothesis, right? Thoughts lead to thought patterns, thought patterns leads to thought habits. Once they become habits or habitual, they move below the surface for, that's what I'm looking for, like, efficiency, sorry, yeah. So that, that's just like physiological patterns, right? So from thoughts to thought patterns to habits, and then once they're habit, they're below surface. So part of it is reminding them of the habits that they've already built. They've already had great success. Every human has. They've already figured out how to get out of jams. You know, people have done. So let's use what's already below the

• 1:57:19Speaker 14

  surface and above the surface to figure it out. Now, if we reverse engineer that, each thought either creates space or tension. I'm going to oversimplify it, right? But if that, just with that thought alone, if you can become more aware of your thoughts, and then is this particular thought that you're having right now rich? Because you're having thoughts, I'm having thoughts, and we're having a conversation. And the better this conversation goes is a direct relationship to the amount of thoughts that are not present.

• 1:57:50Rich Roll?

  Right, right.

• 1:57:52Speaker 14

  Okay. So every thought that we have is either creating constriction or expansion. And I learned that from Judson Brewer, who's a beautiful mind in the contemplative mindfulness research space. And it's like, yes, that's it. That's exactly it. And so that, that simple little insight, I think, really is how the process works.

• 1:58:16Rich Roll?

  Let's talk about balance. Can we do that?

• 1:58:19Speaker 14

  The mythical ridgeline of balance.

• 1:58:21Rich Roll?

  Yeah. What's your, what's your, what's your perspective on the conversation that swirls around the primacy or irrelevance of balance in the context of living authentically and performing at your potential?

• 1:58:37Speaker 14

  I think balance is so overrated. You know, this concept, like, like the mythical ridgeline that one day I'll have balance. I don't know anyone that has balance. I don't have balance. And so I think it's way overrated. And the thought that you're supposed to have balance, or that I'm supposed to have balance, created incredible stress for me.

• 1:58:55Rich Roll?

  A lot of self judgment.

• 1:58:56Speaker 14

  Yeah. So I say, forget about it. That's what I say. I say, forget about this idea of balance and work on being present. Well, you know what balance conjures up is like, I've got the right balance in my life between work, between family life, between hobbies, between whatever. I don't know anyone that has that. I really don't. And so I think the way to inoculate that thought is to, one, just kind of square it up and say, is that really what I want?

• 1:59:24Speaker 15

  For me, that's not what I want. What I want is I want to be fully immersed in wherever I am with this incredible passion that feels right to me, like an inner fire that's alive in the moment. And you know how I know that that's what I want, or one of the things I want, is because when I'm tired, so when I'm fatigued, or when I'm fearful, it doesn't come out.

• 1:59:46Rich Roll?

  And finally, last but not least, we're going to close the house down today with none other than plant-based nutrition, science, and lifestyle medicine power couple Dean and Anne Ornish. Together, they have co-authored a brand-new book entitled Undo It. It hits bookstores everywhere, January 8. You can preorder it now. It's great. And this clip was excerpted from episode 410, which was just last week. And in it, we discuss the importance of love, the importance of community, and the importance of why you should want longevity, the desire to live longer, and to live better. So with that, I give you Dean and Anne Ornish.

• 2:00:29Speaker 16

  What is the meaning, the sense of purpose, that's driving you to get up every day? And I just think that's so core, because, again, it's not something outside of ourselves. It's not your doctor or your spouse telling you, "You should do this. This is the good thing to, you know, this would be good for your health." That only works for so long. It really has to come from the inside, and we have to identify with what that is for us personally. And then we need to kind of re-up with that and amplify that throughout our days with every choice that we make.

• 2:01:01Speaker 15

  Yeah, let me just build on that real quickly, because earlier, we were talking about how I could take all the meaning out of everything when I was so depressed. But later, I learned we can actually put meaning into our lives. We can imbue our choices with meaning. And one way is by choosing not to eat certain foods, for example. I think that's why all religions, all spiritual paths, almost all of them have dietary guidelines, and they're often in conflict with each other. One religion, you can eat this, but not that, or certain days of the week, or certain times of day, or certain months of the year, whatever. Is God confused? I don't know. But whatever intrinsic benefit there is in making diet and lifestyle changes, just the act of choosing not to eat something that you otherwise could do, or the act of saying, "I'm going to be in a monogamous relationship," or whatever, is that deprivation? Well, it can be. That's often how it's portrayed. Or is it, first of all, what I gain is so much more than what I give up.

• 2:01:46Speaker 15

  But beyond that, because these underlying biological mechanisms are so dynamic. But beyond that, it's like, just the act of choosing not to do something, like not to eat certain foods, makes them, imbues those choices with meaning and makes those choices sacred. Not sacred in the boring sense, but the most special, the most fun, the most erotic, the most pleasurable, the most meaningful. You know, Viktor Frankl wrote this book years ago called Man's Search for Meaning. And he interviewed concentration camp survivors in the most dire circumstances. And he found that the ones who lived weren't necessarily the strongest or the healthiest. They were the ones who had the strongest sense of meaning and purpose. Like, I have to survive so that I can, you know, be reunited with my loved ones, or bear witness, whatever it happened to be, just like Anna is talking about.

• 2:02:28Speaker 15

  So, when people enter our program, one of the first questions we ask them is, why do you want to live longer? And people go, oh, no one's ever asked me that before.

• 2:02:35Rich Roll?

  Right. Yeah, I think that, that, uh, that goes directly to the crux of so much of what ails us as a society, as a culture. And systemically, we're not raised or taught to think in those terms.

• 2:02:50Speaker 15

  No, just the opposite.

• 2:02:51Rich Roll?

  And I think it led us to a grand crisis of consciousness that is really fueling this epidemic of depression and suicide. You can clean up your diet and eat a plant, have the most pristine plant-based diet, and that will, I believe, catalyze other changes in your life. It will have this effect that will spill over into, hopefully, leading you to a more purposeful direction in your life. But if you get stuck on the food and think that's going to solve all your problems, you're missing the big picture. And I really, I'm so glad to hear you say that, because I really think that that is, you know, more important than any of the, you know, epidemiological studies or meta-analyses.

• 2:03:32Rich Roll?

  It's like, if you can't find purpose and fulfillment in your life, then

• 2:03:37Speaker 15

  Nothing else matters.

• 2:03:38Rich Roll?

  What else matters?

• 2:03:39Speaker 15

  Well, that's the point. And so much of what we see now is You know, and I ask people in our studies, because we would live together for a month at a time in our earlier studies, or meet regularly for years at a time. I say, you know, teach me something. Why do you smoke? Why do you overeat? Why do you drink too much? Why do you abuse opioids? Why do you work too hard? Why do you play so many video games? These behaviors seem so maladaptive to me. They kind of look at me, they go, you don't get it, do you? These behaviors aren't maladaptive. They're very adaptive, because they help us deal with our pain, our loneliness, our depression. You know, there's been a radical disruption in our, in our culture in the last 50 years with the disruption of the social networks that used to give people that sense of connection and community. Most people don't have a neighborhood that feels, you know, with three, three generations

• 2:04:20Speaker 15

  of people, or a job that feels secure where you've been there for 10 years, or a, you know, an extended family you see regularly, or a church or synagogue. And what we're learning is that people say things like, I've got 20 friends and this pack of cigarettes, and they're always there for me. You're gonna take away my 20 friends? What are you gonna give me? Or, you know.

• 2:04:37Speaker 16

  Well, and just to build on that, is, you know, not only why do you want to live longer, but the compass of that is self-reflection and self-awareness. And if we have that as much throughout the day, so that we can connect the dots between what we're feeling, what we're thinking, and what we're doing, and then that feedback loop of how that makes us feel. So, you know, for somebody who's crutching along with their 20 friends and their pack of cigarettes, or the video games, or whatever it is, it's numbing them, and really, the next level for them is like, that's just kind of my getting by standpoint. But if you really look what's

• 2:05:22Speaker 16

  below the numbing, which is what's, you know, what's really where the locus of control is, and where the transformation takes place, really, is that if you can connect the dots, that those things aren't actually moving the needle of you feeling any better, or you growing in any way. And so the moment that you identify, or that, you know, I identify, you know, what my kind of personal roadmap of meaning is. What are my values? Who are the people that I want to be spending my time with? How do we spend quality time? Well, I have to feel good in order to spend quality time with the people I love and to do things with them. So it comes from that place of self-awareness.

• 2:06:07Speaker 16

  Because if you realize that underneath whatever numbing mechanism has allowed you to cope, that you're actually not feeling well enough to do the things that are most enlivening to you, then the way to re-pattern that is just a... It happens in the mind, which just really happens even deeper in the heart. So it's...

• 2:06:27Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's difficult for people to grasp that, though. It's a very ephemeral concept. Like, if you tell somebody, "Look, you gotta cut out the cheeseburgers," or "You gotta quit smoking," like, they can wrap their head around that. It's a very tactile, you know, tangible thing that they can execute on. But when you're like, "Look, you gotta go on this inward journey." You know, like, "Look, I'm just trying to, you know, get my kids home from school, get through the day." And, you know, as somebody who's been in recovery for many years, you know, one of the things that you learn very early is that the drugs and the alcohol aren't the problem, they're the solution to the problem. You can take away the drugs and the alcohol, but then you gotta deal with the underlying condition

• 2:07:10Rich Roll?

  that compelled you to numb yourself out in that way. So you could tell somebody, "You gotta quit smoking." But yeah, that's their best friend that you're removing from them. And if that person doesn't have the support or the tools to then address the underlying condition that was driving them to, you know, check out, whether it's a video game, or your phone, or gambling, or sex, or whatever it is, then that person is gonna lapse back into that behavior, or they're gonna be very unhappy.

• 2:07:40Speaker 15

  Yeah, that's why... That's why we've learned it's not enough to give people information alone. If it were, nobody would smoke. It's not like I say.

• 2:07:48Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's not an intellectual thing.

• 2:07:50Speaker 15

  Rich, I want you to quit smoking. It's bad for you. You go, oh, I didn't know smoking is bad for you. Everybody knows it's bad for you. It's on every pack of cigarettes. You have to say, why do you smoke? And it's not enough to focus on the behavior. We need to work at a deeper level. And so in our program, we have support groups. And the support groups are not like helping people stay on the diet or exchanging recipes or types of running shoes. It's really creating a safe environment to replicate what people had when they grew up. You know, when you grew up in an extended family or a neighborhood with through generations of people, they know you. They don't just know your Facebook profile or your bioshadow or all your awards or whatever. They know where you messed up. And you know that they know, and they know that you know that they know. And there's just something profound. It's like in James Cameron's wonderful film Avatar. It's like, I see you. You know, it's like, I don't just see you, which is really from

• 2:08:34Speaker 15

  an African proverb. It's not, I just see your bioshadow. I see where you messed up. And I'm still there for you. And there's something really primal about that need for really authentic intimacy. In fact, there's a study that came out a few months ago that the more time you spend on Facebook, the more depressed you are. Why is that? Because it's not authentic. It's like, it looks like everybody has this perfect life but you, you know, because people don't post, oh, my kid's on drugs, or, oh, I'm having problems in my marriage, or, oh, whatever. But in our support groups, that's what people talk about. We encourage people to say, what are you really feeling? Express it as a feeling, because it's our feelings that connect us. And it's so easy to make fun of that. Oh, it sounds so touchy feely. It is touchy feely. We are touchy feely creatures. We're creatures of community. That's how we've survived as a species. And so for someone to say, gosh,

• 2:09:19Speaker 15

  you know, I may look like the perfect father, but my kid's on drugs or heroin or whatever. And someone else say, gosh, what am I feeling when I hear that? Oh, that sounds terrible. I'm so sorry to hear that. I used to have a drug problem, they might say, or, gosh, my kid has another problem. It doesn't solve the issue, but it's suddenly you don't feel so isolated. And study after study have shown that people who are lonely and depressed are three to 10 times more likely to get sick and die prematurely from pretty much all causes when compared to those who have a sense of love and connection to community. And I don't know anything, even diet, that has that big an impact or smoking. And now, they all interrelate because you're much more likely, as you both have said, to choose those behaviors, to numb it out, just to kind of deal with that pain. But if you numb out

• 2:10:01Speaker 15

  pain, you also numb out pleasure. So you kind of have this kind of gray life. And if people don't remember anything else about this wonderful podcast that we're having today, is to say that The point of our program is not to help people live longer. It's to live better, as Anne was saying, because, you know, there's no point in giving up something that you enjoy unless you get something back that's better and quickly. And because these underlying biological mechanisms are so dynamic, when you change your lifestyle, and ironically, it's sometimes easier to get people to make big changes all at once, because when you make big changes in your lifestyle, you feel so much better so quickly. It reframes the reason for making those changes from fear of dying, or fear of something bad happening, or just numbing to get through the day, to joy and pleasure and feeling good. And, you

• 2:10:45Speaker 15

  know, and it gets into a virtuous cycle where you start to feel better and better.

• 2:10:50Rich Roll?

  All right, you guys, I hope you enjoyed that look in the rearview, part two, with a bunch more awesome excerpted conversations. We'll be up later this week, Thursday night, December 27th. So Merry Christmas to those who celebrate that holiday. And a reminder that you can watch a version of this recap on YouTube at youtube.com/ritual. It's a little bit different, because not all the guests were recorded on video, so it's a variation on this theme, but I think you guys will enjoy it. Final reminder that our new gift cards for the Plant Power Meal Planner make a great stocking stuffer, so check those out at meals.ritual.com. And if you would like to support our work here on the show, there are a couple ways to do just that. You can tell your friends about

• 2:11:34Rich Roll?

  the show, about your favorite episode. You could share the show on social media. Subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, Google Podcasts. Leave a review on Apple Podcasts. And you can support the show on Patreon at ritual.com/donate. I want to thank everybody who helped put on the show today. Jason Camiello for audio engineering, production, show notes, interstitial music. Blake Curtis and Margot Lubin for videoing the podcast, for editing it, for graphics, along with Jessica Miranda. Reese Robinson for some portraits along the way. And David Kahn for advertiser relationships, of course, very important. And theme music, as always, by Anna Lima. Thanks a lot, love you guys. See you back here in a couple days, as our recap of 2018 continues with the best of

• 2:12:19Rich Roll?

  the RRP. Part Two, 2018, Thursday night. Until then, peace plants, happy holidays, namaste. (Music)