Julie Piatt: Ruminations on Ultraman, Unlocking The Authentic Self & Navigating Relationships

Today Julie and I discuss the perils of cycling on Kauai, a few adventures from our experience at Ultraman 2009 and some strategies for unlocking your more authentic self, followed by some incredible insight from Julie on self-sovereignty and navigating relationships. The show closes with a live performance of Julie's song “In the Sun” with our son Tyler on guitar. We hope you enjoy the program. As of today, we are the #1 podcast on iTunes in the Health category (first 3 episodes all in the top 10) and the #22 podcast overall for all of iTunes. Showing up on a list that includes such tremendous talent — names like Ira Glass, Adam Carolla, Joe Rogan and Alec Baldwin — is beyond an honor. Even more astounding given that we just started this little show last week. So THANK YOU for your support. We will do our best to live up to the early hype and continue to provide helpful, informative, enlightening and entertaining content. If you haven't yet, you can subscribe on iTunes HERE. SHOW NOTES * The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron * Compton Rom Videos on YouTube * Ascended Health * “6 Ways to Experience Deeper Love & Intimacy in Your Relationship” by Julie Piatt on MindBodyGreen * Ultraman 2009 From the Spiritual perspective of Julie * SriMatiMusic on iTunes * Ultraman Website 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?

  It's kind of an amazing thing. For listeners of the show, all you special people, we're offering an exclusive $20 off an annual subscription right now. To get it, go to meals.richroll.com, take your quick personalization quiz, and enter promo code RICHROLL20 at checkout.

• 1:13Rich Roll?

  The Rich Roll Podcast. Episode four, the podcast. We're in our second week, I think. How many days ago did we start this?

• 1:23Julie Piatt?

  I don't know. Like, what do you think, five?

• 1:25Rich Roll?

  Four or five days ago.

• 1:27Julie Piatt?

  Six?

• 1:28Rich Roll?

  November 30th or something like that, I think.

• 1:29Julie Piatt?

  Something like that. What's the day today?

• 1:31Rich Roll?

  That's Julie Poyet over there.

• 1:33Julie Piatt?

  That's the fourth.

• 1:34Rich Roll?

  She's quickly solidifying herself as my permanent co-host.

• 1:37Julie Piatt?

  I'm so happy about that. Thank you so much.

• 1:39Rich Roll?

  I don't know if that was the original idea, but...

• 1:42Julie Piatt?

  It was not your original idea, for sure.

• 1:44Rich Roll?

  No, it was. Winning them over. I think, well, it's interesting. You know, I've been talking about doing a podcast for so long, but I never really did anything about it. And then we come out to a relatively deserted island and decide that we're going to start it here.

• 2:01Julie Piatt?

  That's a good thing, because I was your only guest.

• 2:04Rich Roll?

  And yeah, like if we were in LA, like we could book guests every single day. I could book solid through, you know, fascinating people every single day. But out here, it's a little bit trickier.

• 2:16Julie Piatt?

  Yeah, but this is the divine plan coming into play.

• 2:19Rich Roll?

  You think so?

• 2:20Julie Piatt?

  Setting the stage. I know so.

• 2:22Rich Roll?

  It's not my will.

• 2:23Julie Piatt?

  I actually know so.

• 2:23Rich Roll?

  Not my will. I keep thinking about all the people that I would have on if we were if we were at home.

• 2:27Julie Piatt?

  Yeah.

• 2:28Rich Roll?

  So.

• 2:29Julie Piatt?

  Well, it's not. It is a rich roll podcast, but it's actually not your show. It's God's show.

• 2:37Rich Roll?

  That's true, I suppose.

• 2:39Julie Piatt?

  That's what I meant by that.

• 2:41Rich Roll?

  I don't, yeah. Well, my self-will is never a good plan, right?

• 2:46Julie Piatt?

  Hmm. Sometimes.

• 2:49Rich Roll?

  Only when it's in proper alignment.

• 2:51Julie Piatt?

  Yeah, only when it's in, when it's in alignment.

• 2:53Rich Roll?

  Right. So, anyway, here we are. We're at episode four, and I'm back with Julie. We do have some interesting guests that live out here in Kauai. We're broadcasting from a warehouse on an organic farm on the north shore of Kauai in a little town called Kilauea. It's on the grounds of a, of a place called Common Ground, which is where we're living in a little village of yurts out behind the gar, out behind the garden and the fields. And we're living here through January, and it's an experiment in a sustainable lifestyle. We're working on some interesting things with Chris Jabe, who is a guest on, in our, in our second episode of the podcast. So if you haven't listened to that, and you're

• 3:35Rich Roll?

  just tuning in now for the first time to the podcast, check it out, and you'll get a better idea of why we are here in Hawaii as opposed to Los Angeles, which has been our permanent residence for the last two decades or whatever. And like I said, we do have some interesting guests coming up that are people that live around here that are all going to be coming in and speaking on, you know, relevant themes that are Pertinent to the issues that I want to talk about here, issues of increasing the sustainability of your lifestyle, improving your diet, nutrition, fitness, all that good stuff. But today, we have Julie Piot back again.

• 4:16Julie Piatt?

  Thanks for having me.

• 4:18Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's a pleasure to have you here.

• 4:21Julie Piatt?

  Thank you, sweetie.

• 4:22Rich Roll?

  This podcast is brought to you by Jai Lifestyle. What is Jai Lifestyle? What does the word Jai mean?

• 4:28Julie Piatt?

  Jai means victory or hail in Sanskrit, loose translation. It's a very upbeat, sort of celebratory saying.

• 4:38Rich Roll?

  It's a term of high praise and reverence, right?

• 4:43Julie Piatt?

  Yes.

• 4:43Rich Roll?

  So Jai Lifestyle is our company. It's our lifestyle company. We offer products and services. We have a plant-based protein product called Jai Repair. We have a downloadable e-cookbook called Jai Seed, 77 pages of awesomeness. We have a meditation program that Julie conceived and recorded called Jai Release, which is a 30-minute humming meditation. And we have some new stuff coming up. We have a B12 supplement product. B12 is a very important supplement to take if you're on a plant-based diet. It's really, really important. So it's not

• 5:24Rich Roll?

  live yet. The product is packaged, labeled, ready to ship, but we got to get it configured with the website and our shopping cart and all that kind of stuff. So that should be coming up in the next week or so. But you can find all this good stuff at jailifestyle.com, J-A-I lifestyle dot com. I think actually richroll.com also is configured for the products. You can check that out as well. And if you go to jailifestyle.com and subscribe to the email newsletter, you will get a free seven recipe download, recipes from the cookbook. So a little free incentive to check out the website. So that's that. Let's launch into what we're going to talk about today. What are we going to talk about today?

• 6:06Julie Piatt?

  I think we're going to talk about crashing and...

• 6:11Julie Piatt?

  Relationships. I don't know, what are we talking about?

• 6:14Rich Roll?

  That's a scary subject matter.

• 6:15Julie Piatt?

  Both very perilous.

• 6:17Rich Roll?

  Yeah, before we get into that, I just want to say, I wanted to thank everybody out there. Julie and I started this podcast last week. As we said, this is only our fourth episode. We honestly do not know really what we're doing. The only one who really knows what they're doing is Tyler, my stepson, who's 17 years old. He's sitting right here. He is the podcast producer, and he understands audio as a musician. So he's the only one with any level of expertise whatsoever. And yet, we were just listed as number 22 on iTunes of all podcasts.

• 6:55Julie Piatt?

  Unbelievable.

• 6:56Rich Roll?

  Like, in the rankings of iTunes podcasts. So that includes, like, This American Life, all the NPR programs, Alec Baldwin's podcast, Adam Carolla, Joe Rogan, Neil deGrasse Tyson, like, all these amazing, incredible people, these professional broadcasters and, you know, world-renowned pontificators, I suppose. So it's almost embarrassing, really. I'm like, what are we doing amongst all these people? Like, we just started this last week. We're just finding our legs. We're not even sure what this show is or what it's going to be. And to see it as number 22 on all of iTunes, and also to be the number one health podcast, like, right out of the gate, is ridiculous.

• 7:37Julie Piatt?

  Ridiculous.

• 7:38Rich Roll?

  It's ridiculous. So, what does that say?

• 7:41Julie Piatt?

  Thank you. We're gonna keep talking.

• 7:42Rich Roll?

  So, I really, yeah, we really, really appreciate your support. And the pressure is on now, I suppose. I mean, we gotta, I think for us, you know, we want to keep the quality level very high, the content and quality level very high, but we also want to treat this professionally, you know, give it the respect that it deserves, and treat it not so much as a hobby or something we do on the side, but to really... You know, take that initial, early positive feedback and understand that there's a desire, there's a need, there's a want for health information, for the kind of information that we've just started to provide and hopefully, you know, we'll continue to provide. So again,

• 8:26Rich Roll?

  thank you. And we will do our best to honor that early praise and feedback and all the great response that we've gotten by trying to bring you the best program that we can. And it's incumbent upon us to learn more about how to do this and do it right so that we can, you know, live up to the early hype and not just explode, right?

• 8:47Speaker 02

  Absolutely.

• 8:55Rich Roll?

  So, speaking about explosions, crashing, you want to talk about crashing? Today I crashed on my bike.

• 9:02Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 9:03Rich Roll?

  That was not fun.

• 9:05Speaker 02

  How are you feeling now?

• 9:06Rich Roll?

  Well, I took a good amount of time off from real training this past year to travel around with the book. And, you know, initially, I was going to try to train for Ultraman this past year, which just transpired over Thanksgiving weekend. I was going to try to do that and do everything that is involved with promoting the book and the travel and all that kind of stuff. And I quickly realized late spring that that was a preposterous idea, that there was no way I was going to be able to do both of the... I mean, I could try, but, you know, I think I would ultimately have ended up probably doing poorly at both. So I let go of the idea of trying to compete this past year and just focused on traveling

• 9:50Rich Roll?

  around with the book and kind of giving that my all. I mean, I had this amazing experience in honor of writing this book, Finding Ultra. If you're new to us and don't know, it's a memoir that I wrote this past year. You can find it on Amazon. We'll put up links and there's links on both of our websites and you can go to Amazon and check it out. But... But there was a lot of traveling around with the book, book signings and speaking at, you know, conferences and the like. And, yeah, I remained relatively fit. I would, I would, you know, go try to go do something every day. You know, when I was traveling, I would try to run every day. And I didn't do very much swimming, but, you know, I was hardly race fit. You know, I just was trying to stay in touch with being fit. And so now

• 10:35Rich Roll?

  that that's kind of that, that chapter isn't exactly closed. It's kind of ongoing, but things have mellowed out or whatever. Life is normalized. Well, not really normalized. We're living in a yurt. So how normal is that? But there's a little bit more free time. I've started to kind of get back to basics and get back into my training. And it's been great to be here in Hawaii with the warm weather and being able to get up and get out on my bike, you know, with it being warm out and not having to bundle up and all that kind of stuff, which is what would be happening if we were in L.A. And I've really been enjoying that. And I'm starting to already realize some good fitness gains. And I'm intent on trying to find something to compete in in 2013. And this morning, I went out on

• 11:17Rich Roll?

  my bike. And, and if you're familiar with Kauai, you know, it rains a lot. It's a very damp, it's a very damp, wet island. And, and also, not exactly as cycling friendly as Los Angeles, which Los Angeles isn't exactly the most cycling friendly place. But, but you really have to watch your Ps and Qs on the bike out here. The cars come real close to you. The shoulders are not as wide. There's a lot of debris on the road. And there's really only one main road that goes around the island. There's a couple offshoot roads that I try to take to get off the main road that circumnavigates the island. But for the most part, you spend most of your time riding on this one road. And this morning,

• 11:59Rich Roll?

  I was riding and I was kind of coming into the main town here of Lahui. And it was, it was a light drizzle, but the pavement was wet. And, you know, I don't even know what happened. It wasn't, nothing dramatic happened. The bike just slipped out from underneath me, like my tire just, you know, didn't catch its groove or whatever. And I just hit the pavement hard and interestingly hit, landed on my left side, which is the same side that I crashed on when I, when I crashed at Ultraman in 2009. I talk a lot, I talk about that story in the book. That's kind of how the book opens in the preface, actually. And I haven't crashed my bike or fallen off my bike since then, I don't think.

• 12:39Julie Piatt?

  I don't think you have.

• 12:39Rich Roll?

  Been pretty lucky, yeah.

• 12:40Julie Piatt?

  You crashed before then.

• 12:41Rich Roll?

  I have crashed.

• 12:43Julie Piatt?

  Which was pretty good.

• 12:44Rich Roll?

  I'm not the most coordinated guy, believe me. Like, I can't play baseball, I can't shoot a basketball or anything.

• 12:49Julie Piatt?

  Can't catch a ball.

• 12:50Rich Roll?

  And so, you know, it's actually amazing that I haven't crashed my bike in the last couple of years. But I think I've kept the rubber side down pretty consistently.

• 12:59Julie Piatt?

  Right.

• 12:59Rich Roll?

  Until today, and I landed, you know, I pretty much landed in the exact same places that I landed. Like, I have road rash all over me, and it's in the same places where I have the scars from when I crashed in 2009.

• 13:10Julie Piatt?

  No coincidence.

• 13:12Rich Roll?

  No, on Hawaii.

• 13:13Julie Piatt?

  No, it has to be like another layer of whatever healing you were doing the first time.

• 13:19Rich Roll?

  Thank God, it was like one tenth as bad as that other crash. Wasn't nearly as bad, but I've got, you know, I've got a big raspberry on my hip and my ankles all shredded up.

• 13:29Julie Piatt?

  It looks like it hurts.

• 13:30Rich Roll?

  And all that kind of stuff. And, you know, you go down and you have this amazing surge of adrenaline. Like, I didn't want to get hit by a car, and I'm, you know, I'm trying to get my bike off the road and get to the side. And my heart rate must have been like 180, like, I wasn't even riding that hard, and it just shoots up. And it took me a while to catch my breath and collect myself, and then realizing like, you know, oh my God, I'm really hurt. And I just immediately reflected on Ultraman 2009 and going, how did I get back on the bike and ride? Like, I didn't, you know, I literally just walked my bike and, you know, and got back on it and gingerly rode it down to Starbucks and called Julie to come and pick me up. I mean, technically, I suppose I could have gotten on my bike and ridden back to common ground, but, you know, that wouldn't have been a good idea.

• 14:13Rich Roll?

  But, but, you know, it hurt a lot, and I was like, wow, I actually raced that injured, so.

• 14:19Julie Piatt?

  That was a grueling day.

• 14:21Rich Roll?

  Anyway, further, the further, further irony is the fact that I just got a great care package the other day, yesterday, from Road ID. If you don't know what Road ID is, they're bracelets and ID tags that contain your name and a bunch of...

• 14:43Rich Roll?

  Biological information about you with a website. So if you get, you wear them around your wrist, or you can wear it around your neck. And if you, if you crash or in a cycling accident, or something happens to you, whoever discovers you can quickly identify you and, you know, find out all your information, your insurance information, who your doctor is, if you have any medical conditions, and all this kind of stuff. And I'm a huge advocate of making sure that, you know, you always wear your Road ID. And they're not, they don't sponsor me, they don't sponsor this show. I just think it's a, it's a great product. I recommend everybody who lives in an active lifestyle, or kind of, you know, even if you go out on a trail run, you know, maybe somebody doesn't know where you are, or there aren't that many people around, if something should happen to you,

• 15:24Rich Roll?

  you know, it's always just a great thing to have your Road ID on you in the event of an emergency. In any event, Edward from Road ID sent me a box with a bunch of schwag. It was a cycling kit, and some t-shirts, and a baseball hat. Super nice, and he included the Three Go magazine. I was profiled in Three Go magazine, which is a triathlon magazine. There were some pictures of me in there, and I was wearing my Road ID. So he wanted me to sign it and send it back to him for the office.

• 15:53Julie Piatt?

  That's great.

• 15:53Rich Roll?

  He asked me to log on, I was like, of course. I didn't expect that he'd send me all these goodies. But today was the first day that I put the Road ID kit on, the cycling jersey, to ride. And so, and that's the same, my first ride in this new kit, and it's all torn up now.

• 16:09Julie Piatt?

  Attracted to it.

• 16:10Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 16:11Julie Piatt?

  Just wanted to make sure.

• 16:12Rich Roll?

  Right, right. It's all about like caution, and all that kind of stuff. And there it is, I crashed for the first time in three years, or whatever. So anyway, I'm fine.

• 16:21Julie Piatt?

  I'm glad you're all right.

• 16:22Rich Roll?

  I've got some bruised ribs, I'm gonna be benched for a little bit here. But anyway, why are we talking about crashing?

• 16:30Julie Piatt?

  Just because it's a, it's a reality. I think if you're a cyclist, and you're out on the road a lot, it's, it's a, it's a real, it's a real opportunity that's, that's there for you.

• 16:42Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I mean, look, if you ride a bike a lot, you're gonna crash. You know, that's just the fact of the matter, and... You know, even if you are the most conscientious, responsible rider, you only have control over so many things. You can't control the other drivers, et cetera, et cetera. It's gonna happen. And, uh, you know, people die all the time. And, and since I've been on Kauai, people have been warning me, like, are you sure you want to ride your bike here?

• 17:07Julie Piatt?

  Yeah.

• 17:07Rich Roll?

  And I'm like, yeah, I'm fine. But, you know, enough people said it that I was like, well, what's the deal? And I think that there's, you know, it goes back to, it's, there's some argument to be made that it's not the most cycling-friendly place.

• 17:22Julie Piatt?

  Yeah.

• 17:22Rich Roll?

  I don't know if that's true. I haven't experienced anything bad, but, but, uh...

• 17:25Julie Piatt?

  Well, Trapper and I actually, uh, saw a cyclist get, uh, punched in the face a couple days ago.

• 17:32Rich Roll?

  Oh, that's right.

• 17:33Julie Piatt?

  He wasn't...

• 17:34Rich Roll?

  Yeah, what happened?

• 17:35Julie Piatt?

  Well, he was not, he was not a cyclist. I mean, he was on a bike, but he was not a cyclist. Like, he was just a, he was a local guy. And we were just, you know, driving down a small street in the neighborhood. And all of a sudden, the car in front of me, you know, just stopped. And a, a young, local kid jumped out of the car and just walked back five paces and just cocked this guy right in the face. It was on a bike.

• 17:58Rich Roll?

  What did the guy do to anger him?

• 17:59Julie Piatt?

  I didn't really see. I mean, I, uh, the guy sped off, sped off. And I stopped the car and just sort of held presence with the, I, I asked the guy if he was okay. I held his bike and just, just was with him. And he was breathing and trying to calm his heart rate down. And he said that he had made some hand signal to the driver, like, you were getting close to me, like, with the, with his two hands extended, you know, up like, um, like karate chop style. And, uh, apparently, the islander, uh, the island boy thought that he had flipped him off, or that seemed to be the communication. So...

• 18:35Rich Roll?

  He provoked him somehow.

• 18:36Julie Piatt?

  Yeah. So he punched him in the face. And he was all kind of intense.

• 18:41Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 18:41Julie Piatt?

  But, uh...

• 18:42Rich Roll?

  I don't know what to do with that information, though. Am I supposed to just not ride my bike?

• 18:45Julie Piatt?

  Well, it's not you. I mean, no, I don't, I mean, I think that, um, I mean, listen, watching you race that second day, when we crewed for you for Ultraman...

• 18:57Julie Piatt?

  Was probably the, one of the hardest days of my life, as well as Tyler's and Running Elk as well. I mean, to, to watch you suffer at that level with your, you know, skin sheared off. And it was such a hard day. The winds were so strong and it was raining and it was long. It was so long. But, you know, as you and I know, this is what you love to do. It's what speaks to your heart. And, you know, we can't live our life in fear and you can't live your life, you know, locked in a room because something may happen, you know. So...

• 19:36Rich Roll?

  Yeah. But there's something about that adage of, "Well, he died doing what he loved." You know, that I'm like, "Really?" You know, "Yeah, but he's dead," you know?

• 19:46Julie Piatt?

  Yeah, but, well...

• 19:47Rich Roll?

  "I don't want to die."

• 19:48Julie Piatt?

  Yeah, but let's go to, what about your, you wrote about it in your book, after the, after the big crash, you know, when you, when you crash on your face in Ojai. And, and I got you home from the hospital, you were in bad shape. There's photos in the book, if anybody hasn't seen it. It was not a pretty sight. And that was really scary. And it was really, really scary. But when you got home and you were in the tub, you know, you, I could barely recognize you. That's how swollen and cut you were.

• 20:20Rich Roll?

  Yeah, all that skin was sheared off my nose and my upper lip. It was all messed up.

• 20:24Julie Piatt?

  Yeah. It was intense. But, you know, I asked you that question. So if this is it, is this, is this what you want to be doing? I mean, to me, that's a big question.

• 20:35Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it is. And the answer was that...

• 20:38Julie Piatt?

  Yes.

• 20:39Rich Roll?

  It was and it is.

• 20:40Julie Piatt?

  And it is. That's, that's why you're writing.

• 20:42Rich Roll?

  Just be careful.

• 20:43Julie Piatt?

  Be careful.

• 20:44Rich Roll?

  That's all, I guess, you know. But I think that begs the question of kind of getting into something that...

• 20:54Rich Roll?

  I think has wide applicability and is of interest to the people that are tuning into this, which is, and I've gotten a lot of questions and comments and inquiries about this, which is, how do you train the way that you're training for these crazy races? And you're married and you have kids and are you an absentee dad? And, you know, how do you stay married? And what does your wife think when you're gone all the time? And there's a lot of projection and transference that goes with that and assumptions and judgments like, oh, I must be being selfish because, you know.

• 21:28Julie Piatt?

  You are so selfish.

• 21:30Rich Roll?

  I am.

• 21:33Julie Piatt?

  Now I get to say it.

• 21:36Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 21:37Julie Piatt?

  No.

• 21:38Rich Roll?

  To everybody.

• 21:39Julie Piatt?

  Yeah, I know. I mean, I got a lot of that in the beginning, like people sticking up for me online, like, you know, like I was getting the short end of the stick or something.

• 21:46Rich Roll?

  Yeah, they call it like the triathlon widow or something like that.

• 21:49Julie Piatt?

  Yeah, I've had people say that to me. Well, I'm not going to be that kind of widow and I doesn't, doesn't connect to me all that way.

• 21:56Rich Roll?

  So what do you, what do you say to that?

• 21:57Julie Piatt?

  Well, I mean, you know, I mean, you know that I'm a, I'm an extremely independent individual and I like my space and, you know, I don't like telling you where I'm going or what I'm doing all the time.

• 22:10Rich Roll?

  She'll be like leaving, getting into the car and I'm like, where are you going? And she'll say, I'm going to go see some people.

• 22:16Julie Piatt?

  Out.

• 22:17Rich Roll?

  I'm like, I'm going out. I'm going out. I'm like, oh, that's great.

• 22:20Julie Piatt?

  See some folks.

• 22:21Rich Roll?

  This healthy relationship that we're in.

• 22:23Julie Piatt?

  I'll let you know later.

• 22:24Rich Roll?

  Yeah. And I hope that works out for you.

• 22:27Julie Piatt?

  No, I just have this thing. It's just, I don't know, maybe because I'm just sort of a free spirit and it's, and, you know, I mean, a relationship has to be based in self sustainability first before you can really dance with somebody and really share that level of intimacy. And, you know, I, the truth of the matter is, I love the man and the spirit that you are when you're training. It's completely my gift that I get to be close to you when you're, you know, in that space. And for me, it's never been about quantity. Like I was, I'm never a person or a wife or a mother that needs you to be home every

• 23:10Julie Piatt?

  night at five to like sit, you know, next to me or next to the kids. I would rather have a quality of connection. Than a quantity.

• 23:22Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 23:23Julie Piatt?

  As a matter of fact, I find the quantity to be sort of boring sometimes.

• 23:29Rich Roll?

  Or maybe annoying.

• 23:30Julie Piatt?

  Annoying, boring, confining.

• 23:34Rich Roll?

  Well, I think that when, I mean, there's no getting around the fact that when I was, there's a difference between the kind of training that I'm doing right now, which is pretty light and modest and isn't really, doesn't really interfere that much with the daily flow of life, and in the sort of couple of months that precede Ultraman, where it gets super intense, I think that's not a long-term, sustainable way of living when you're, when you're one person in a family unit, married with kids and all that kind of stuff. It was a situation where I sucked it up for a short period of time and, you know, sacrificed a lot of other things in my life that I like to do, just for the purpose of this goal.

• 24:18Julie Piatt?

  Well, we were following that guiding light. We both felt that this was the truth of what we should be doing together.

• 24:23Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 24:24Julie Piatt?

  You know?

• 24:25Rich Roll?

  But it gets to this idea of organizing your life around a purpose and a goal or a dream, and what you're willing to sacrifice or not sacrifice for that, and, and the concessions that you make. I mean, I talk about this in the book, too. Like, in order for me, as a, you know, working entertainment lawyer in Los Angeles and a, and a happily married person and a father, for me to go out and take on this, this commitment of trying to, you know, prepare as best I could for Ultraman, and for those of you who kind of are stumbling on the podcast and don't know really that much about us, or, or whatever, Ultraman

• 25:08Rich Roll?

  was a race that I, that I've done a couple of times, and I talk about it in my book, but it is the, it is a, it's double the distance of an Ironman. It's a race that circumnavigates the entire big island of Hawaii. It's a three-day race. The first day is a 6.2-mile swim and a 90-mile bike. The second day is a 170-mile bike, and the third day is a 52.4-mile run. And in...

• 25:34Rich Roll?

  And I was, I remember preparing for this race in 2009 and really doing an inventory of my life and my lifestyle and actually doing a, an accounting, going through my day, how I spent every 15 minutes of every day and trying to identify where I was wasting time, whether it was cruising on the internet, you know, browsing Facebook or watching television late at night, or having lunch with friends, or even business lunches or business meetings and saying, you know, which, which of these items can I cut down or eliminate from my day so I can free up time to A, train, of course, because this is the goal that I was

• 26:16Rich Roll?

  working towards, but also, you know, still be a present husband and father, you know, I wasn't going to sacrifice this relationship that I'd worked so hard to achieve and this family life that I had, you know, that, that goal wouldn't have meant anything if that, if it came at the cost of that. So it was about how to Sure. balance those things and still, you know, be able to kind of make my way in the world and be a functional, responsible adult. And I realized that I waste a lot of time, you know, I would have lunch meetings that, that are technically business meetings and then I would look at, I would think about them or I would evaluate, all right, well, what did that lead to? Like what, did that generate any business or was, you know, and Was it meaningful?

• 27:00Rich Roll?

  Look, in Los Angeles, in Hollywood, in the entertainment business, breakfast and lunches and drinks and all that kind of stuff is just, is, that's how people do business. It's a way of life, but it's actually an incredibly inefficient way of doing business. And so what I did was I eliminated all of those lunches and I eliminated almost all of my business meetings and tried to push them to conference calls and, and a lot of the conference calls got pushed to email or whatever, any way that I could like free up 10 minutes here, free up a half an hour there. And that stuff starts to accumulate. And so when people say to me, I'm too busy to go to the gym or I don't have time and I've got to be at work, like, I'm empathetic, I'm sympathetic. I created a lifestyle where

• 27:44Rich Roll?

  I was self-employed that, that, that gives, that gave me and continues to give me and us choices and more latitude in how we spend our day, how we allocate our time, because I don't have to show up At 7:30 for a boss and sit in a cubicle. And for people that do have to do that, my heart goes out to you. I realize it's much more difficult. But I also know that no matter who you are, there's still wasted time during the day. So if there's something that you're trying to, there's something that you would like to do with your life, or there's some passion, some dream deferred, that you've set aside and just written off as being something that you don't have time to do, there's always a way.

• 28:27Julie Piatt?

  There's always a way.

• 28:28Rich Roll?

  There's always a way. And it starts with really being honest with yourself about how you're spending your time and being willing to sacrifice or let go of some pastimes that don't serve that goal. Or, you know, if they're let go of, will free up some time for you to pursue something else.

• 28:46Julie Piatt?

  That's right. Well, and I also feel like, you know, if, I would say like the constraints of the time that you had and the things that you were trying to accomplish, sort of informed an increased creativity and intensity for the time you did have with us. So I would say that, first of all, your ability to come in from training and still be energized so that you could, you know, do something with the girls, or, you know, be present for the boys, or whatever. I mean, it was really, really, really remarkable.

• 29:27Julie Piatt?

  And it showed that this was a goal that was in alignment with our hearts as a family. We sort of agreed as a family that we were going to support you through this endeavor.

• 29:38Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it wouldn't have worked otherwise.

• 29:41Julie Piatt?

  No, it wouldn't have worked. But I mean, you know, we did, we did crew for the race, but it was actually way before then that we became your crew, because everything was focused around supporting you to achieve this sort of shift in your life and this expression. And we all knew that, you know, our time was coming. It wasn't like, it wasn't like I've entered into a relationship where everything is about you and what you want to do, although it may have been for, largely for, a specific period of time.

• 30:12Rich Roll?

  There was an imbalance during that period of time where that focus was shifted in my direction.

• 30:18Julie Piatt?

  But there wasn't an imbalance. It was an agreement. It was fine.

• 30:21Rich Roll?

  Right. And then the pendulum. Would swing the other way.

• 30:25Julie Piatt?

  That's right.

• 30:25Rich Roll?

  When you were recording your album and I was supporting you throughout that and there was, you know, it's all about, with our family, the kind of marching orders are, you know, identify what you love and as a team, let's together, let's together figure out a way to pursue that and realize that.

• 30:41Julie Piatt?

  That's right.

• 30:42Rich Roll?

  And that's a really, it's a gift to be, you know, with you and with the kids who were all kind of sharing that together, which has been amazing. And it goes, you know, if you're, if you're an athlete and you're, you participate in an individual sport like triathlon or running, marathon running, or cycling, or whatever, there's this idea that it's just you and you alone that's doing it. But if you are achieving anything in that regard, in terms of performance, you're not doing it alone. You have a team behind you that supports you, whether that's your family or a group of like-minded individuals, or even, you know, all the people that, I mean, think

• 31:25Rich Roll?

  of all the people that were instrumental in helping me race Ultraman in 2009. I mean, you can't, or in 2011, too. I mean, you can't, you can't count on two hands, the number of people that really, you know, gave of themselves to help make that happen. And I think it's important as an athlete to be in touch with that and to realize that.

• 31:47Julie Piatt?

  That's right. It's beautiful.

• 31:50Rich Roll?

  So, so balanced, though.

• 31:53Julie Piatt?

  Well, balanced, I mean, I think, you know, that's something that we're constantly adjusting and, you know, time management for you is, I think, maybe your biggest challenge to figure out how to allocate the time and how to get in and out of things quickly.

• 32:11Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I mean, I think... You know, well, first of all, balance is like, you know, the thing that I'm worst at. Like, I'm prone to, you know, I'm prone to extremes, you know, whether it's

• 32:23Julie Piatt?

  Really?

• 32:23Rich Roll?

  Working or training or whatever it is, I want to go all the way in and like lose myself in that completely. That is my MO. That's like my default setting.

• 32:32Julie Piatt?

  That's right.

• 32:33Rich Roll?

  And so all the, you know, all the interpersonal work that, that I do is oriented around trying to not be like that. And it's challenging because I look at certain things that I've focused on and done well at. And I go, well, that's because I immersed myself in that and I wasn't balanced for a period of time in order to move forward in this category or whatever. So when somebody says, yeah, but you know, you need to be balanced or whatever. When I'm balanced, I don't feel like I'm moving the ball forward with anything. But I also recognize that, that if things are out of balance in my life, it doesn't function well in the long term. Like if I'm training too much, I may realize some performance goal athletically.

• 33:16Rich Roll?

  But if my family life or my marriage or my professional life is, is out of balance, that will not serve me and that will catch up to me and ultimately undermine everything that I'm trying to do. So my, my job, like every day, I'm like, okay, how can I keep things in better balance? What's out of balance today? What is, where is the pendulum swinging? And how can I bring it back a little bit more towards neutral? And I think that's a common thing. I mean, and it's hard. It's like I'm, I'm always moving these puzzle pieces around or I'm making this mixture, you know? And I, I'm always trying to get the ingredients right. And there's always one, there's always too much of one ingredient and not enough of another. And, and, uh, and yeah, I like to be very efficient in how I use my time.

• 34:00Rich Roll?

  Like, I'm not big on like hanging around and chit chatting and it's interesting. Because we're here at common ground and you know, when we're at home, we do whatever we want. It's our house. You know, we spend our time the way we want to. But here, we're living as part of a community. There are a lot of other people that, that work here and are around here. And so we're interacting in our living space, in our eating space, and in our professional space, much more so than we would be at home. And so I have to kind of socially navigate that. Whereas like, sometimes I want to just go into a cave and get my work done, or hey, I want to get this podcast up. Like, I want to get it up before it's too late tonight, so people can download it and listen to it tomorrow. But you know, I walk in the office and then, you know, I'll, you know, there are other

• 34:45Rich Roll?

  people there. There are other people who, you know, I need to convene with and converse with and interact with or whatever. And I'm not, I'm not used to that. That's a new, that's a new thing.

• 34:55Julie Piatt?

  You're definitely a soul rider in a lot of ways.

• 34:58Rich Roll?

  Yeah. I like to, I like to go lone wolf style. So.

• 35:02Julie Piatt?

  It's kind of like living on a, on a permanent yoga retreat. It's a good thing we have all that experience from.

• 35:09Rich Roll?

  It is kind of like that.

• 35:10Julie Piatt?

  Traveling in groups.

• 35:12Rich Roll?

  Look, it's been amazing. You know, it's been a really cool experience. But getting back to balance, you know, I think a lot of triathletes email me and they say, you know, oh, I'd love to, you know, train for a marathon, but you know, I have, I just, you know, I get up at five in the morning and I work till eight at night and.

• 35:32Julie Piatt?

  My wife wants me to go to Home Depot.

• 35:34Rich Roll?

  Yeah, right. I mean, real life stuff, right? So like, what do I do? Like, what's the answer to that? Like, what, how do I, how do I try to start doing, you know, working towards this thing that is, you know, important to me without disrupting my life? Like, how can I find the means to do that? And you know, is there, is there, you know, it's, and my response is like, I'm compassionate and I don't know you. I don't know your exact circumstances. I can't give you this perfect answer that you want. But what are some of the tools that you think that people could incorporate into their lives to? You know, I'm not talking just about triathletes. I'm talking about anybody who feels stuck in

• 36:15Rich Roll?

  life and has something that they wanted, that they want to do, or they want to uncover, or they're feeling unfulfilled, and they want to, you know, express themselves more authentically, whether it's, you know. Triathlon, or Ultraman, or running, or cycling. These are just examples. They're just metaphors for whatever it may be in that individual's case. Could be something completely different, non-athletic, whatever.

• 36:39Julie Piatt?

  I would say, first rule is, never go to Home Depot as a couple.

• 36:46Julie Piatt?

  Split up those activities that need to happen. We never go to Home Depot. That's my joke with Rich, because he gets really violently upset.

• 36:56Rich Roll?

  We don't go to Home Depot.

• 36:57Julie Piatt?

  If he ever has to go to any kind of...

• 36:59Rich Roll?

  Well, first of all, I never go to Home Depot, because that would be a pointless adventure. Because I don't know how to build anything, or do anything.

• 37:06Julie Piatt?

  But I mean, any like, any errands or chores for the house cannot be happening as a couple on the weekends. That's, that just doesn't happen with us.

• 37:16Rich Roll?

  Well, it's inefficient.

• 37:17Julie Piatt?

  It's very inefficient.

• 37:18Rich Roll?

  You have to divide the labor.

• 37:18Julie Piatt?

  That's right. Exactly. Just send one. One goes in, gets it done, the other one's doing whatever the creative endeavor is. And then it switches.

• 37:26Rich Roll?

  We divide it up.

• 37:27Julie Piatt?

  That's right. We just, and then, when I'm seeing you, I want like, a really amazing date. Like, that's what I want. So, I don't want to be walking next to you in Home Depot, arguing about what size screw we're gonna buy, or broom, or ladder, or something. So, that's kind of like, the death for us.

• 37:49Julie Piatt?

  It's one of our little pet things.

• 37:58Rich Roll?

  I think also, in terms of really addressing this question, you have to bifurcate it into the kind of external, real-life problems, like the job, and the commute, and the relationship, and the financial constraints, or what have you. And then there's the internal side of things. And I think that, if you're trying to make something happen externally, before you've really kind of done the internal work, it's a little bit backwards.

• 38:26Rich Roll?

  Right?

• 38:26Julie Piatt?

  Explain more about that.

• 38:27Rich Roll?

  Well, if somebody's feeling stuck in their life, right? And they're feeling under-expressed, or they don't even know...

• 38:37Rich Roll?

  Why they're not feeling as connected as they could be.

• 38:40Julie Piatt?

  Or who they are.

• 38:40Rich Roll?

  Or who, or, well, yeah, who they are. I mean, that's sort of a trite catchphrase. But let's just say, you know what, here I am, I don't even know how I got to this place in my career, in my life, and something's missing. I don't even know what it is, but I'm feeling like I need more, or, and I don't know what to do, and I don't, I don't know where to turn. What would be a way of beginning to kind of unlock yourself a little bit, to do, to be able to kind of discover a little bit more about yourself and where your energy should be directed?

• 39:14Julie Piatt?

  Well, it's two things for me, right off the, that's, that are very, very simple. And the first thing is, start eating plants. Increase your uptake of organic plant and living whole foods. And the best way to get that immediately in your system is in any, any number of versions of blends that include lots of dark leafy greens, and superfoods, and whole foods. That would be the first step that I would say. And then...

• 39:45Rich Roll?

  And why do you think that that's important?

• 39:47Julie Piatt?

  Well, I think that, in my experiences, it's what I've experienced in my life, I feel like, as we were talking about in the last podcast, you know, the body is a perfect divine organism that has perfect intelligence. And I think it gets sort of sidetracked or derailed by all the processed foods, different energies, toxins in the environment, all the processed foods. So, in a way, you're carrying a lot of density that's blocking your sight from feeling your body, feeling yourself operating at your, at your optimum

• 40:29Julie Piatt?

  frequency. So, like, for instance, when you were using cheeseburgers and fries, and just shoveling any food into your mouth... I could always see you in there, but there was a big layer of density around you. And that's the stuff that that just started to come off as you started to incorporate plants and you went through your detox and you started to touch and feel yourself in a different way than you had had ever before.

• 41:03Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's a weird thing. There is something to that. Something about, you know, well, it goes back to the very simple statement that food is medicine, you know, and you are what you eat and all that kind of dumb stuff, but it really is true. And when you start to treat your body properly and you respect it, you know, for the temple, the body temple or whatever, but you really take that to heart and you say, I am going to give my body the best nutrition that I can possibly give it. And that starts with eating organic, you know, organic plants. That there is something that occurs with that. I think it really is true. It's physical, it's mental, it's emotional,

• 41:45Rich Roll?

  it's spiritual, and you do sort of start to unlock, you know. And, and there is, I mean, look, there has never been, it's an incredible time right now in terms of this plant-based nutrition movement. I mean, five years ago, a couple of years ago, still, you know, still such a very marginal kind of thing to do. It was still, you know, stuck in kind of the world of hippies and, and all of that. And that's all changed because of books like The Engine 2 Diet, because of movies like Forks Over Knives, because of the work of T. Colin Campbell and the China Study and, you know, and mainstream authors like Cathy Freshton and even, you know, the amazing food critic Mark Bittman talking

• 42:29Rich Roll?

  about it. I mean, it is in the zeitgeist like never before, this idea of using plants to heal yourself and eating a plant-based diet to not only preserve your health, but to actually prevent congenital disease and in many cases, reverse it. If you read Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn's book, Reverse and Prevent Heart Disease, he shows these amazing before and after angiograms of heart patients. This guy's a surgeon at the Cleveland Clinic.

• 43:00Rich Roll?

  He's been treating patients, cardiac patients, since the 1970s with a plant-based diet, like decades and decades before anybody was interested in listening to what he had to say and realizing amazing results by changing the diet of his patients before cutting them open and operating on their hearts. But it's taken him 30 years of preaching this, of screaming down from the mountaintop that this is a good thing to do before anybody's listening. And now you have Dr. Sanjay Gupta on CNN doing his "The Last Heart Attack" special and interviewing President Clinton and how Clinton has really embraced this plant-based diet and believes

• 43:44Rich Roll?

  that it has saved his life. So my point being that what was formerly quite a marginal concept is really now very much mainstream. And yet, at the same time, it's couched in disease prevention and it's couched in weight loss, right? When in reality, I think there's a lot more going on. I really think that, when I get emails from people saying, "You changed my life. I've adopted a plant-based diet. I cannot believe how much better I feel." They'll talk about how much weight they lost, they'll talk about how much energy they have. But really, what's coming through between the lines is an awakening, is an emotional and a spiritual awakening.

• 44:27Rich Roll?

  And alongside with that is a connecting with the heart, like a deeper understanding of that person, by that person, of who they are.

• 44:36Julie Piatt?

  It is. It's like the first membrane to just sort of unlock that door, or it's the key to unlock the heart and to reveal what's really underneath there. And the one line that I always, that stands out for me in all the emails is the line, "You saved my life." I mean, that gets said a lot. And it's kind of like, you're like, "Wow, that's amazing. That's profound." But what they're saying is that it's almost like, "I found myself. Like, I found myself, finally."

• 45:13Rich Roll?

  That's what it really is. It's not like, "I lost 20 pounds," or "I ran a 5K." It's... I know who I am now, or I'm on a path towards better understanding who I am, or embracing who I am, or, you know, having reverence for myself, self-esteem, self-respect.

• 45:31Julie Piatt?

  And what a beautiful thing, what a beautiful, simple thing. And, and also, you know, it's, it's, it's not always completely easy, you know, and, and there's a lot of emotions that are, that are being suppressed by all the toxins and by all those foods that you eat. And so, you know, a lot of people have trauma, or they have things that they haven't dealt with in their life, that are basically being held into place by all that toxic energy. And, you know, very similarly, in my, in the last podcast that we did together, when we talked about, you know, the Ayurvedic program that I was on to heal this cyst in my neck, and I was taking these herbs and eating this specific plant-based diet, and I had, you

• 46:14Julie Piatt?

  know, three months of an extraordinary amount of pus in whiteheads coming out of my face. I mean, it's, and you know, it's just, it's just a face, I mean, it's just on your face.

• 46:24Rich Roll?

  But that's a physical thing. I mean, we're talking about emotional things, and I think that brings up an interesting point, which is, which is this suppression of emotions and using food to medicate. And, you know, I always analogize our relationships with food to, to the addiction paradigm, because that's what I come from, that's what I have experience with. And what you see in, in addiction and recovery, and, you know, what I've been told and what I've seen time and time again, is that when somebody, an addict, starts using drugs, which is usually at a very young age, when they're emotionally still developing, let's say you start using drugs, you know, when you're 13, 14 years old, and you do that

• 47:07Rich Roll?

  consistently for the next 20, 25 years, and then you find yourself in, in recovery all of a sudden, you take all the drugs away, and you're sort of cleaning up physically, but emotionally, you haven't developed much beyond where you were when you were 13 years old, because you've been repressing all of those emotions, you've been medicating yourself to deal with whatever trauma, you know, was going on in your life that led you to start using in that way to begin with. And so, you know, people that are newly sober are like live wires, you know, like they have all these crazy emotions coming up that they don't know how to handle and manage, and I experienced this myself. I still experience this. But then you have to, and there are no tools for how to deal with that.

• 47:51Rich Roll?

  And so recovery is a lot about, you know, sort of teaching the tools of how to manage this and how to then mature through that so that, you know, you're not interacting with the world as a 13-year-old when you're 40 years old.

• 48:06Julie Piatt?

  Exactly.

• 48:07Rich Roll?

  And I think extrapolating on that to the food dialogue, it's not dissimilar, really.

• 48:13Julie Piatt?

  No, it's the same.

• 48:14Rich Roll?

  I mean, if you've been eating, you know, if you've been eating the standard American diet, or you've been eating fast food consistently, regularly, for a protracted period of time, there is a, you know, there is an emotional link between food and how we sort of interact with the world, right? So, what am I trying to say? I'm not articulating it very well. But we use food to manage our emotions, and I think that that's a spectrum. Some people do it a lot, some people do it very little. But if you're really conscious about, you know, your eating patterns, or if you do an inventory of that, you know, you will see like, oh, wow, when I'm feeling like this, I gravitate towards eating this kind of food.

• 48:55Rich Roll?

  And there really is, it's a deeply ingrained connection that's very human, right? I mean, I do it, we all do it.

• 49:02Julie Piatt?

  Well, I mean, it's using food as suppression, to suppress the emotion, because you don't, the person doesn't want to feel what they're feeling. So they're taking food, you know, to sort of keep it all locked down and not let it out.

• 49:17Rich Roll?

  And so changing that is threatening and scary.

• 49:19Julie Piatt?

  Well, it's scary, yeah, because if you haven't looked under there, if you've had a whole lifetime of eating in this imbalance, maybe you don't want to look. But as you start to have courage, and you start to step on the path, and you start to embrace some of these living concepts and living foods, you know, that's why meditation and yoga is so key to this whole thing. That's why it goes right hand in hand.

• 49:49Rich Roll?

  It helps you navigate that transition.

• 49:52Julie Piatt?

  And I mean, you know, in the beginning, you and I both knew the experience that we've been through, and, you know, all of the...

• 50:01Julie Piatt?

  You know, all of the focus was just on that you were middle aged and you, you know, you were overweight, you lost some weight, and I used to laugh because it was just, it was just the beginning slice. It's just the, just the tip of the iceberg.

• 50:14Rich Roll?

  That's not really what it's about.

• 50:15Julie Piatt?

  No, at all.

• 50:16Rich Roll?

  And yeah, I was overweight, but I wasn't even that over, I mean, I was overweight. But I think people are like, they open up the book and they're like, he looks fine.

• 50:22Julie Piatt?

  Let me, let me tell you, as your wife, you were, you had a lot of dense, gnarly energy on you. And you did not, you were not well. You were not a vibrant being like you, like the beautiful man that you are today, that I'm sitting here looking at. So whether somebody thinks, you know, 300 pounds is really overweight, or, you know, 250, or whatever the number is, I can just tell you from our relationship, you were severely out of balance, in, in a bad way.

• 50:56Rich Roll?

  It's more about that than the actual weight. I mean, yeah, I was heavy, you know, but I mean, people who think that I wasn't that heavy, it's more a statement about, you know, what we perceive as normal now, you know, it's weird. You go to, you go to airports, and all the traveling, I did this last year, I see it all the times, you go, you go into, you know, airports across the country, and the, the number of people that are riding around in those carts, you know, like young, able-bodied people, and...

• 51:23Julie Piatt?

  Sometimes I'd like a ride in the cart.

• 51:25Rich Roll?

  And you look around and there's nothing but fast food, there's not, there's no...

• 51:28Julie Piatt?

  There's no option.

• 51:29Rich Roll?

  I mean, if you're in the San Francisco airport, they have a yoga room. Did you know that?

• 51:33Julie Piatt?

  No.

• 51:34Rich Roll?

  Yeah, like, there are some airports that are great.

• 51:35Julie Piatt?

  That's awesome.

• 51:36Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I know, but most of them, not so good. So, you know, you really get to see, um, you know, I, I remember, I can't remember what airport I was in, but, uh, there was one healthy place to get some food, and then next to it was McDonald's, and there was no one in line at the healthy place, and there was a huge line at McDonald's.

• 51:55Julie Piatt?

  Of course.

• 51:56Rich Roll?

  So, you know, it's, it's also easy to say, well, there's no options, you know, if there was a healthy option, I would do that. But sometimes there is a healthy option, and people are still, they'd rather go to McDonald's.

• 52:05Julie Piatt?

  That's right.

• 52:07Rich Roll?

  So, and I guess that goes back to what you were saying about, you know, being stuck in a pattern or not being ready or whatever.

• 52:13Julie Piatt?

  Yeah, or you just, yeah, patterns or not wanting to look at what's under there. And so if you have tools and you have, you know, that's one of the reasons why I offered and developed this meditation program is honestly, that meditation program transformed my life. It, it put me in touch with myself in such a deep way. And the humming part of it, it's actually more than just a humming, but the humming part of it is, is just a wonderful mechanism to clear fear and clear any residue in your system. So if you haven't tried it and you don't know how to meditate, it's just a perfect, it's a perfect, it's a perfect program. It really is.

• 52:52Rich Roll?

  The one thing about it though?

• 52:53Julie Piatt?

  What?

• 52:54Rich Roll?

  You actually have to do it.

• 52:55Julie Piatt?

  Oh, yeah. You have to do it. You have to actually want to do it.

• 52:58Rich Roll?

  It's not hard, but you actually have to do it.

• 53:00Julie Piatt?

  Yeah.

• 53:00Rich Roll?

  That's the thing.

• 53:01Julie Piatt?

  You can't just look at it.

• 53:02Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 53:03Julie Piatt?

  Or think about it.

• 53:04Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 53:04Julie Piatt?

  It's true.

• 53:05Rich Roll?

  I can't do that.

• 53:06Julie Piatt?

  No, I can't do that.

• 53:06Rich Roll?

  No, I can't do that.

• 53:07Julie Piatt?

  No, it's really good. And also, I mean, regarding the weight thing, cause, you know, it's different for, for each person, you know? Conceivably, there could be a being that was a frame that would be very healthy at, you know, 300 pounds.

• 53:23Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 53:23Julie Piatt?

  I don't know. I mean, I haven't met everybody.

• 53:24Rich Roll?

  There's ectomorphs and endomorphs and mesomorphs.

• 53:27Julie Piatt?

  Yeah.

• 53:27Rich Roll?

  And the different, uh, the, through Ayurveda, the different types that you were talking about the other day.

• 53:32Julie Piatt?

  Docious.

• 53:32Rich Roll?

  The, the Vada and the Piatt and...

• 53:34Julie Piatt?

  Different types.

• 53:35Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 53:36Julie Piatt?

  So the thing is, is too, is, is...

• 53:38Rich Roll?

  But I think the thing too is, you know, with this...

• 53:40Julie Piatt?

  Excuse me?

• 53:41Rich Roll?

  Oh, I'm sorry.

• 53:41Julie Piatt?

  The thing is too, is, uh...

• 53:44Rich Roll?

  I pushed your button.

• 53:45Julie Piatt?

  See how, see how he is? He just butts in.

• 53:48Rich Roll?

  I thought you were done talking.

• 53:49Julie Piatt?

  No, it's okay. I'm just kidding, obviously. No, um, the, I think the key is, is, is you, you yourself are the only person that can say whether you're completely in alignment and operating at your highest capacity.

• 54:05Rich Roll?

  How do you know that though? How do you know if you are or you're not?

• 54:09Julie Piatt?

  Well...

• 54:09Rich Roll?

  And if you're disconnected from yourself?

• 54:10Julie Piatt?

  But, you know, that's...

• 54:11Rich Roll?

  How do you have any barometer at all?

• 54:12Julie Piatt?

  Actually...

• 54:13Rich Roll?

  How can you trust your instincts or have any objective?

• 54:15Julie Piatt?

  You know what? That is actually a really good point that you're making. And it's one that we, you know, we've, we've spoken about in yoga over the years and we've sort of explored, um, is that, yeah, when, you know, cause some people go, well... I'm craving bacon, so I must need bacon, you know, or I'm craving milkshakes, so my body's telling me that I need milkshakes. And actually, you're right, because if you're out of balance, you can't know what you need. It's the, it's the, what would, what would Rom say? Compton Rom would say it's the, it's the microbe.

• 54:48Rich Roll?

  Well, it's, it's your, it's your emotional pathways that have been, you know, operating in a certain way forever and have been reinforced for so long that they are your default. That's on a sort of mental level. And I think on a very physical level, and this is another subject that I talk about in the book, which is fascinating, and I talked about this on Joe Rogan too, but this idea of the microbial ecology that exists in your body. In other words, you know, we believe we're sentient human beings, that we are ourselves, and that the cells of our body make up our, you know, organs, and the organs make up the systems, and all of that together makes us who we are, and that we kind of have control over our thoughts

• 55:33Rich Roll?

  and our emotions and our behaviors and actions, et cetera. But, you know, an interesting little factoid is that we're much more microbe than human. Like, if you look at the number of human cells versus the number of microbial, microorganisms that exist and thrive symbiotically within our bodies, it's like 10 to 1. So I think there's like 10 trillion microbial entities in our, in our GI tract alone.

• 56:01Julie Piatt?

  That's crazy.

• 56:02Rich Roll?

  Right, and so, and, and they're important for health, right? Like, they, it's a, it's a symbiotic relationship. You need these microbes in order to be a healthy person. But there are healthy microbial ecologies and not-so-healthy microbial ecologies. And when you're eating, you know, a nutrient-poor diet, or you're eating a fast-food diet, or eating a standard American diet, you're putting certain foods into your body that also have microorganisms in them, and then they take root and start to proliferate in your GI tract, and then sort of take over as the predominant ecology. And there are some very, very interesting studies to suggest that...

• 56:42Rich Roll?

  That the constitution of your microbial ecology has some sway over your nervous system and the impulses that are being sent to your brain that create the cravings for certain kinds of foods. Right? Wow. They did studies with chocolate and that were very similar to the way addicts crave cocaine. And they found a link between the microbial ecologies in the guts of people that were like chocolate addicts. Right? And so, but, and to illustrate this example, I always tell this story, and if you've heard this before, I apologize, but if you saw the documentary

• 57:25Rich Roll?

  "Supersize Me," where Morgan Spurlock decides he's gonna eat McDonald's every day for 30 days straight and see what happens. If you haven't seen it, it's fantastic. You gotta check it out. But basically, he goes from essentially a plant, a completely plant-based diet, because his girlfriend was a vegan chef, and decides he's gonna start eating McDonald's. So for the first couple of days, day one, fine. And then, a couple of days into it, he's starting to get sick. Like, he just can't believe he's gotta go back to McDonald's and eat. And there's one scene where he actually, like, vomits out of his car. Like, it's so not agreeing with his system. Right? His system is revolting against this. But then if you fast-forward a couple of days later, he actually starts to crave McDonald's. He wakes up with headaches.

• 58:08Rich Roll?

  He doesn't feel good until he goes to McDonald's and starts eating McDonald's food. And so, how can you explain that? Well, you know, there's probably, if you ask the scientist or a biologist, that maybe there's a couple of explanations. But one very interesting explanation, and Compton Rahm, our nutrition guru, would support this, is that he effectively replaced his microbial ecology in his gut with the healthy microbial ecology that sort of...

• 58:37Rich Roll?

  Thrives on a plant-based diet and helps your body operate optimally to a microbial ecology that exists on McDonald's food. And so that microbial ecology, when it starts to get hungry or whatever, because those organisms need to feed, they feed on the food that you eat.

• 58:55Julie Piatt?

  That's so crazy.

• 58:55Rich Roll?

  Triggers your nervous system and sends these impulses to your brain and say, go, go get more McDonald's.

• 58:59Julie Piatt?

  Sends you to the drive-thru.

• 59:00Rich Roll?

  So you're, in other words, what I'm saying is, your cravings are not, you know, you, you saying, this is what I need, or like, what is telling you what you need? Like, is your body saying, I need bacon? Or are the, is the microbial ecology somehow speaking to you to tell you, you know, please go get that food, because that's what we need to live inside your gut?

• 59:20Julie Piatt?

  Wow. That's profound.

• 59:22Rich Roll?

  Anyway, it's interesting.

• 59:23Julie Piatt?

  So that's Compton Rom from Ascended Health, by the way.

• 59:26Rich Roll?

  Yeah, he's definitely gonna be a guest on the podcast. We'll track him down. And also, as far as, as far as having guests on, from the beginning, I was sort of like, people, people said, well, you should just Skype people in and do these Skype interviews, like essentially phone interviews on the podcast. And initially, I was not, you know, I'm not into that, because there's something about sitting across from someone.

• 59:48Julie Piatt?

  The chemistry.

• 59:49Rich Roll?

  Relaxing into a chair.

• 59:50Julie Piatt?

  You should feel it.

• 59:51Rich Roll?

  And taking this conversation wherever it wants to go. And I think a lot of that gets lost, you know, when the person's not there. But if we run out of things to say, I'm gonna start bringing people in by Skype.

• 1:00:02Julie Piatt?

  I know.

• 1:00:03Rich Roll?

  I know there's tons of people we could get. We'll have some fascinating guests. I just prefer to be sitting with them. But maybe I'll start with people that don't live in Los Angeles that I know that would be interesting.

• 1:00:12Julie Piatt?

  Maybe somebody wants to come.

• 1:00:13Rich Roll?

  And I probably wouldn't be, you gonna fly them out?

• 1:00:15Julie Piatt?

  Maybe.

• 1:00:16Rich Roll?

  All right, we'll see. We'll look into that.

• 1:00:18Julie Piatt?

  Maybe we'll go to LA and do like a Jai House marathon podcast.

• 1:00:26Rich Roll?

  Like our version of a TED Talk, but it'll be Jai Talks.

• 1:00:28Julie Piatt?

  Jai Talk.

• 1:00:28Rich Roll?

  Yeah. That'd be good, actually. I like that.

• 1:00:31Julie Piatt?

  That'd be great.

• 1:00:32Rich Roll?

  We're also looking into, talking to Chris about looking into doing a TED Kawaii, TED Talks Kawaii, and getting something going out here.

• 1:00:41Julie Piatt?

  It's gonna be amazing.

• 1:00:42Rich Roll?

  Yeah. But more on that later. Anyway, getting back to kind of food and unlocking your heart and becoming more acquainted with yourself. And one of the things, one tool that I wanted to talk about. You know, beyond eating right and the meditation practice, which I think is critical, and exercise, you know, just moving your body and getting to know yourself physically, is the idea of journaling. And one of the things that I did, you know, a lot of you people have probably heard of this, or may have done it yourself, but I've done it a couple times, which is this program called The Artist's Way. It's based on a book by this woman, Julia Cameron, who's an amazing woman. She used to be married to James Cameron a long time

• 1:01:25Rich Roll?

  ago. I think I got divorced a long time ago. But she's written this amazing book called The Artist's Way. And essentially, it is a program to help you unlock, it's sort of positioned or marketed as a way of unlocking your creativity. But really, what it is, is it's a way of finding out more about yourself. And this sort of crucial tool that provides the foundation for doing this Artist's Way program is what's called the morning pages. So what you do is, when you wake up in the morning, every single day, it should be, you know, essentially first thing in the morning, but if you're going to do a meditation, whatever, I would suggest doing the meditation first, is writing three pages out. You get one of

• 1:02:09Rich Roll?

  those little notebooks, and you just write three pages. And it doesn't matter what you write, as long as you do it. So you just start writing, like, for example, you wake up, you sit down, "I'm tired, I don't want to write anything, I don't have anything going on right now, I don't have anything interesting to say, I really don't feel like doing the morning pages, I need to get to work," whatever it is, just write it out, and get those three pages done. And don't do it on the computer. You don't use the key, you don't use a laptop, you actually use a pen and a paper. And there is something that takes place with that, because I've done it a couple times, when you do it consistently, and you do it every day, stuff will start to be revealed to you. You'll start writing

• 1:02:53Rich Roll?

  about yourself in a different way. Ideas and things you want to pursue will start to come out, and you'll develop a relationship with yourself that you didn't know existed when you began. So, any of you out there who feel stuck, or, you know, maybe you're working on a creative project, and you're not getting any traction with it, or you just don't know what to do next, or, you know, where is life leading me, or whatever, super, super helpful tool. So, I would recommend that.

• 1:03:23Julie Piatt?

  It's great. You've had great success with that.

• 1:03:25Rich Roll?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:03:25Julie Piatt?

  You've enjoyed it a lot. You've done it a few times, haven't you?

• 1:03:27Rich Roll?

  I've done it a few times, yeah. And actually, I think she's got a couple of companion books now, and there are little groups that spring up in different areas, like support groups for people that are doing The Artist's Way, where they get together once a week. And there are other things associated with the program that you kind of do throughout the week to help you kind of, you know, unlock this, or whatever. But it's really, for me at least, it's all about The Morning Pages. And I know people that, you know, they've just done it ever since they did The Artist's Way. They never stopped. Like, ten years, they've been doing The Morning Pages every day. And these are, you know, successful, creative people, like, very well-known screenwriters, you know, creative professionals in Los Angeles that are, you know, you would look at them

• 1:04:09Rich Roll?

  and say, "That's an unbelievably actualized person, a very creative person who's very successful." So, anyway, check it out. I'll put a link to that in the show notes.

• 1:04:18Julie Piatt?

  Cool.

• 1:04:19Rich Roll?

  Yeah. So, what else? Balancing, are we still talking about balancing family life, training?

• 1:04:26Julie Piatt?

  Balancing, harmonizing.

• 1:04:28Rich Roll?

  Harmonizing.

• 1:04:29Julie Piatt?

  I'll be humming.

• 1:04:31Rich Roll?

  How do you do it?

• 1:04:31Julie Piatt?

  I'll be humming while you're doing The Morning Pages.

• 1:04:34Rich Roll?

  How do you do it? I remember, you know, in Training for Ultraman, on Saturdays, those would be the days that I'd do my really long ride. So, I'd leave really early in the morning, and that, like, Saturday ride would kind of get longer and longer and longer as we'd go throughout the season, and the closer we got to Ultraman, until, you know, in the last, like, two, three months before Ultraman, I mean, that Saturday ride would be, you know, an eight, nine-hour ride, or something like that.

• 1:05:03Julie Piatt?

  Twelve hours.

• 1:05:04Rich Roll?

  Did I do a twelve-hour? I don't remember.

• 1:05:05Julie Piatt?

  Very long.

• 1:05:06Rich Roll?

  I don't think I ever went like that.

• 1:05:07Julie Piatt?

  All day.

• 1:05:08Rich Roll?

  But then I would kind of walk in the door, completely depleted, you know, in my bib shorts, and Julie'd be like, "All right, see you later."

• 1:05:16Julie Piatt?

  Yeah, I'm out of here.

• 1:05:17Rich Roll?

  "It's my turn now." And then I would, you know, be with the kids, or, you know, Jaya was, she was three then, or something like that. You'd just hand me Jaya. And then I would be with the kids. And then I remember, like, I wouldn't even, I'd be in my, you'd come home several hours later, and I'd still, would not have showered. I'm still in, like, my bib shorts. Not recommended if you're trying to avoid...

• 1:05:38Julie Piatt?

  Well, I don't think, I don't think I ever really realized exactly what you were doing until I crewed for you, which was really extraordinary, because, you know, we're a couple, and... You know, I know that you're

• 1:05:49Rich Roll?

  But explain what crewing, like if somebody's listening to this and they don't know what Ultraman is or whatever.

• 1:05:53Julie Piatt?

  Yeah, so, um, so anyway, so, uh, I had the privilege and the honor and blessing to crew for Rich for Ultraman. What year was it?

• 1:06:05Rich Roll?

  In 2009.

• 1:06:06Julie Piatt?

  2009.

• 1:06:07Rich Roll?

  So, in this race that I described earlier in the show, it's a three-day race. You go all the way around the big island of Hawaii. There's only 35 people that are invited to do it every year. Um, and you, you know, if you've seen Iron Man on TV, you see, you know, 2,000 athletes and they have aid stations set up like every mile and all these volunteers and everybody's kind of helping these athletes, you know, get through the course in the day. Ultraman is the exact opposite. There are 35 athletes. They have to circumnavigate this landmass that's the size of Connecticut and there is zero, uh, aid stations. There's zero, you know, support. You have to bring your own support. So each athlete has their own, uh, crew. They bring their own crew.

• 1:06:50Rich Roll?

  The crew is in a van and each athlete has their own van with a crew in it. And that van is packed with all this food and gear and replacement parts and nutrition, et cetera. And as you go around this island over three days, you stay somewhere different every night. So you have to have all your stuff with you. And the people in that van are responsible for making sure that their athlete is, you know, getting the nutrition they need, the hydration that they need, is there to assist in, in the event anything goes wrong on the bike and to be a cheerleader and, and a, and a, basically a comprehensive support system for that athlete. And you cannot do this Ultraman race without a very good crew. And it seems like a simple thing, like, oh, you just ride in the van behind them, like, no big deal, right?

• 1:07:33Julie Piatt?

  That's what I thought.

• 1:07:34Rich Roll?

  I think you, you thought that and I had done the race in 2008.

• 1:07:36Julie Piatt?

  I was gonna listen to some new music.

• 1:07:38Rich Roll?

  I had done the race in 2008 and I knew how intensive it was gonna be and I was like, babe, you know, I don't think you have any idea what you're getting involved in here. She's like, how hard could it be?

• 1:07:47Julie Piatt?

  I'm like, how hard could it be?

• 1:07:48Rich Roll?

  We're gonna drive around the island.

• 1:07:49Julie Piatt?

  We made a movie together, like, we've done all kinds of things together. I was like, it's gonna be fine. It's gonna be great.

• 1:07:54Rich Roll?

  She's like, relax.

• 1:07:55Julie Piatt?

  It was literally the hardest thing I've ever done. It was two days of manic energy. I was so wrung out after that experience. It was so incredible in every way. And so what I was saying is, I didn't realize what you were doing, even though you were training that entire year and we had this whole thing as part of our life, because I just see you as you leave the door. So it's like, okay, this, I'm going out to train. So you leave on your bike, or go out running, or whatever it was. And all I knew is when you walked back in the door, what was on my schedule after that time, after that time passed.

• 1:08:35Julie Piatt?

  So because I wasn't out with you on the bike for a real-time experience, I didn't have any of those, any of that awareness, really. And I, it was impossible for me because I'm not an athlete and I've never done anything like that. So I remember one time, I think you came home and I had you ja, and I was on my way out to some meditation thing or something, and, you know, you reminded me that you had just run a marathon.

• 1:09:01Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:09:02Julie Piatt?

  But it was kind of just like in a day, it was just sort of in a course of the day. I was like, yeah, cool, marathon, awesome. Okay, see you later.

• 1:09:20Julie Piatt?

  And another sort of just amazing, you know, thumbs up to the plant-based diet. To your credit, you were not passed out on the couch after doing all that stuff. Somehow you were still energized to show up, you know, at a level where you could be with the kids when you got home, or you could show up for me. I mean, I remember us going out on our weekly date, or sometimes it would lapse to, two weeks would go by.

• 1:09:50Rich Roll?

  Bi-weekly.

• 1:09:51Julie Piatt?

  Bi-weekly date. And you would, you would come. I mean, it was, it was literally part of the deal. Like, what you could not have said, and you would not, and you never tried. You know what? I'm just too tired. I can't go. Like, you really were amazing.

• 1:10:05Rich Roll?

  I think that's attributable to a couple of things. I mean, yes, the diet is, I believe, wholeheartedly was instrumental in my ability to kind of absorb that training and bounce back, you know, recover and not be completely dragged out, you know, so that I could function, you know, beyond, you know, off the bike and out of the running shoes. Eating that type of diet, which is very alkaline-forming, and in future podcasts, we can get into the science of that or whatever. But essentially, eating this way, I found that my body would bounce back more quickly than it had in the past, eating differently in terms of recovering from workouts, which gave me a sort of a high-level, even-keeled energy throughout the day,

• 1:10:49Rich Roll?

  no matter what my, you know, training had been earlier that day, so that I could do other things in my life. And I think the second thing is learning how to train smart. And I think this is a big issue with a lot of, you know, sort of athletes out there, you know, a lot of middle-aged triathletes or, you know, kind of weekend warriors or whatever, who want to get fit. Maybe they want to do a 5K race, 10K race. Maybe they're training for a marathon or their first sprint triathlon or whatever. And I talk, like, this is another thing I talk about in the book, but it's this idea of learning how to not train in your gray zone and to understand what each workout is about. What is the purpose of this workout? And what am I trying to achieve?

• 1:11:34Rich Roll?

  And what am I teaching my body to do? And also being very aware of not overtraining. You know, like, what zone is this, is my effort going to be in for this workout? And each workout is a very specific target, you know, for what I'm trying to achieve. And if, and when you're following that and you're paying attention to your body and you're kind of writing it all down and monitoring it, then you should never be super exhausted. I mean, certainly, you're going to have those key workouts that are going to completely wipe you out. But if you're walking around exhausted all the time, then there's something wrong with your training. You're probably overtraining. And that's the way that I trained as a swimmer, like, my whole career as a high school and collegiate swimmer. I believe that I was overtrained the whole time.

• 1:12:19Rich Roll?

  Because I remember, all we would do is go to the pool. I would go as hard as I could every single day and every single set. I'd lay it all out there. You know, twice a day, every day, just completely fry myself.

• 1:12:32Julie Piatt?

  No recovery.

• 1:12:33Rich Roll?

  I would walk around like a zombie for six months and then hang it all on a two-week taper and see how I did at the big meet.

• 1:12:40Julie Piatt?

  Wow.

• 1:12:41Rich Roll?

  And sometimes it worked and sometimes I didn't. But, you know, this idea of building recovery days and recovery weeks and, you know, some days are aerobic days, some days are strength days, some days are speed days, and knowing how to rotate that and be smart about what you're doing and allow your body the time it needs to recover and bounce back and get stronger so that you can realize those performance gains and then take it to the next level. I mean, I never understood any of that until I started working with Chris Howth and getting ready for Ultraman. So Chris Howth is my coach, he is my coach, although I'm not training with him right now, but I plan on re-upping with him pretty soon, really taught that. He really taught me and helped me understand how that works.

• 1:13:24Rich Roll?

  So I think that's another reason why, you know, I wasn't tired all the time despite all this training.

• 1:13:29Julie Piatt?

  And without that, it probably wouldn't have worked. It probably would have, would have been very stressful.

• 1:13:33Rich Roll?

  If I had been training wrong and I was just tired all the time, it would have been a disaster.

• 1:13:37Julie Piatt?

  We would have altered the course early on.

• 1:13:40Rich Roll?

  Yeah, we wouldn't be getting along. I would have been, you know, a terrible mate, a terrible father. I wouldn't, I wouldn't have done well at Ultraman and I'd probably be too tired to work and all that kind of stuff. I mean, your life doesn't function if you're not doing that properly.

• 1:13:54Julie Piatt?

  It was incredible, incredible how it worked out. And so it wasn't until I got to Ultraman, so we, some of you know the story, but we, so no crew showed up. We kept waiting for a crew and, and nothing was materialized.

• 1:14:09Rich Roll?

  Well, I had a bunch of friends that, that, you know, had sort of expressed interest in being my crew and these are guys who kind of, you know, they understand cycling, they understand endurance sports and all this sort of, all this sort of stuff that I could rely on. Like if I got a flat tire or something went wrong with my bike, like they would know how to fix it. But the problem is Ultraman takes place over Thanksgiving weekend every year. And, you know, people have plans.

• 1:14:33Julie Piatt?

  People have families.

• 1:14:34Rich Roll?

  They can't just like come and help out their buddy over Thanksgiving weekend. So all those guys that I, that, that I thought I had lined up, like that all went away. And so I was up like four or five days before the race or was it about that? About a week before the race and I called Julie because I had, I'd gone to Hawaii early to get ready for the race and I said, I don't, I don't have any one need crew, like I don't know what to do. And you were like, We'll do it. And I'm like, no, you don't understand. You can't do it.

• 1:15:00Julie Piatt?

  You did not want me to crew for you at all.

• 1:15:01Rich Roll?

  No, I didn't. And a big, well, A, because I knew you didn't know what it involved.

• 1:15:07Julie Piatt?

  That's the big A.

• 1:15:08Rich Roll?

  Yeah. And well, and B, you know, you, you wouldn't, like, if something happened to the bike, you wouldn't be able to help me fix it or anything like that.

• 1:15:15Julie Piatt?

  Another large point.

• 1:15:17Rich Roll?

  Right. And C.

• 1:15:20Julie Piatt?

  You didn't want to yell at me on the course.

• 1:15:22Rich Roll?

  Well, yeah, it could damage our relationship because it gets intense. And especially when you're getting, you get exhausted and you want things to be a certain way or whatever. They say in endurance sports or in ultras, never, never have any one crew for you that you care about.

• 1:15:37Julie Piatt?

  Right.

• 1:15:38Rich Roll?

  Because when people get beyond exhausted, they start behaving badly. And I've done that. I did, that happened to me during Epic Five. I know what that's like. And I didn't want to expose you to that.

• 1:15:50Julie Piatt?

  Yes.

• 1:15:52Julie Piatt?

  But then.

• 1:15:52Rich Roll?

  Because you were like, it'll be fine.

• 1:15:53Julie Piatt?

  But then I'm, I'm who showed up. I was it. I was your crew, crew captain along with.

• 1:15:59Rich Roll?

  And you would say, and I would agree, that that was how it was supposed to be.

• 1:16:03Julie Piatt?

  It was supposed to be, yeah, absolutely. It was incredible. It was really incredible. And I had actually two, two friends that I had known for about two minutes each. And I'm not exaggerating. I met them.

• 1:16:15Rich Roll?

  If she calls me, she's like, I got these two people out here that I met that I think, you know, they'll, they're ready to come out and help. And I was like, well, who are they? And you know, ah, this guy Alan and Nicole, she seemed really nice. And I'm like.

• 1:16:27Julie Piatt?

  Well, I had met them, I had met them at a, I had met them at a spiritual meeting. And I literally had only talked to them for, we met kind of at the end on the way out the door. And just, it was one of those coincidental things. We had no crew and suddenly they called to check in, you know, as maybe the second or third phone call that I'd ever had with them. And, and they said, we want to come. We want to come and we want to help and we want to serve. And they actually did show up, almost complete strangers, in a complete energy of service, which was something that you and I had not really experienced before. I mean.

• 1:17:04Rich Roll?

  It was amazing.

• 1:17:04Julie Piatt?

  They never asked, wait, so where am I staying? Or how many hours am I going to have to work? Or they didn't ask anything. They just said, where, where do you need me? What do you need me to do?

• 1:17:16Rich Roll?

  It was incredible.

• 1:17:17Julie Piatt?

  That was magnificent, an amazing experience.

• 1:17:20Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it was a gift. And. It's like, it goes back to that, that sort of spiritual precept of, you know, you will be, you know, if you're sort of walking the path that you're supposed to be, like, the universe will provide. And it was like, I always use, I always use this example of the old Popeye cartoons. So I don't know if anybody out there used to watch those.

• 1:17:46Julie Piatt?

  They're really old.

• 1:17:47Rich Roll?

  It's a stretch now, but you remember Sweet Pea, the little baby?

• 1:17:50Julie Piatt?

  Yeah, I do.

• 1:17:51Rich Roll?

  In Popeye. So there's one, there's this one awesome Popeye cartoon where, where somehow they're like at a construction site. And Sweet Pea gets like loose in the construction site and climbs up some girder and like a crane hauls the girder up high, the scaffold of this, you know, skyscraper that they're building and just starts crawling, you know, without a care in the world, is crawling along these, these I-beams, these girders that are incredibly high up. And just as, as the baby's about to, you know, crawl off the end of a girder, another one swings around on a crane and, and the baby just goes right onto the next girder. And this keeps happening. And they're panicked, thinking the baby's gonna fall, you know, to its death. And, but it's just kind of like, right

• 1:18:36Rich Roll?

  at the exact, like, not beforehand, like, right, it looks like it's gonna be a disaster, like, that beam shows up and it, and it all works out. And like, in, in, in my life, in our life, I cannot tell you how many times that's happened. I mean, even being here at Common Ground is an example of that.

• 1:18:52Julie Piatt?

  Absolutely.

• 1:18:52Rich Roll?

  You know, I mean, sort of, well, we don't know what we're doing, or how this problem is gonna get solved, or, you know, we have this crisis and we need a resolution to it at this time. We don't know how it's gonna get worked out. And then, right when it looks like it's, the whole thing is gonna explode and it's over, like, this solution just shows up, you know?

• 1:19:10Julie Piatt?

  Absolutely.

• 1:19:11Rich Roll?

  And we've been okay.

• 1:19:12Julie Piatt?

  But that's living in the mystery of the moment, and living in the present moment. So, and that is...

• 1:19:18Rich Roll?

  It sounds irresponsible.

• 1:19:20Julie Piatt?

  Yeah, to the old paradigm it does. But you know, you have

• 1:19:24Rich Roll?

  It's not for, it's not for lack of, of trying to make things work out in a real 3D world kind of way. Be responsible. It's just, we've had some challenges. Like, like the crew thing is a perfect example. Like, I tried. You know, I did everything I could to try to make this thing happen and it didn't work out. And I go, well, what are we gonna do? We have no solution. And then at the last second, like, the solution, you know, shows up.

• 1:19:46Julie Piatt?

  And we arrived and you were not happy. And you were very, I, I, I still, I don't think I've ever seen you so intense, ever. It was absolutely off

• 1:19:59Rich Roll?

  I wasn't unhappy, but I was, I was intense and I was focused and concerned. Cause you, like, literally, the, the crews for the other competitors had arrived on the island several days before the race. They drive the course, they go shopping, they get all the stuff they need for the van, you know, they understand where all the turns are. There's a big meeting, you know, two days before the race where they, there, there's a slideshow and they take you through all the things to look out for on the course and all the, and it's all for the crews to understand what they're getting involved in. But you guys showed up the night before the race.

• 1:20:32Julie Piatt?

  You missed the meeting.

• 1:20:33Rich Roll?

  Yeah. You showed, no, you showed up at 4:00 PM and the race was the next morning.

• 1:20:37Julie Piatt?

  That's right.

• 1:20:38Rich Roll?

  So you didn't know anything.

• 1:20:39Julie Piatt?

  Nothing.

• 1:20:40Rich Roll?

  There was zero preparation. So I had, I was rightfully very concerned.

• 1:20:45Julie Piatt?

  Absolutely, absolutely. And it was at that moment when you had, you know, you had that meeting and we came in the night before and you were so intense, like, I couldn't even physically go close to you or anything. It was clear this was business. You were an athlete and it was like, we needed to show up in a certain way. And so, we came into the meeting and you had literally prepared maps and directions and charts and you had done all this amazing preparation so that we would have more tools that would help us to, you know, be a, be a good crew for you. And it was, it was very, very, very intense.

• 1:21:23Rich Roll?

  It all worked out.

• 1:21:24Julie Piatt?

  Well, and what happened the first day?

• 1:21:26Rich Roll?

  I don't think you ever even looked at those maps, though.

• 1:21:28Julie Piatt?

  Oh, no, we did. But we were, they, you know, everybody was telling us, it's okay, you know, if you need anything, let us know. We'll see you out on the course. And so, you know, you took off on the swim and then we knew we had some time to like, get some ice and, you know, eat a little breakfast or whatever. And then You know, it was so surreal because you were first out of the water and we were, we were out of our minds. We were just like on fire. The adrenaline was rushing and, and then you went for that, the first incline up that, up that hill. I don't know what road it is, but we had to do our first bottle handoff and, and Alan didn't even have like normal tennis shoes. He had like some kind of like black street shoes or something. And then he would get in a sprint position and start running, but he would be running

• 1:22:13Julie Piatt?

  faster.

• 1:22:14Rich Roll?

  I remember his first bottle handoff, the way it works is these crews, they can't hand you the water bottles out the window while they're driving. They have to pull up ahead and get out and then

• 1:22:23Julie Piatt?

  It's like leapfrog.

• 1:22:24Rich Roll?

  You ride by, yeah, you ride by and they hand you, you know, your hydration or whatever in this race. And Alan, it was hilarious because the first couple bottle handoffs, and you always park at the top of the hill because you want to do the handoff when the, when the, when the cyclist is climbing because they're going slower and there's less, you know, you don't want to do it at the bottom of the hill when they're racing by at 40 miles an hour, right? So, so I, I told you that and you understood that. And so I'm riding up the first hill and Alan starts running, you know, to do the handoff, but he's running, he's actually running a lot faster than I'm riding. And so he's getting further, further away from me up ahead. I was like, we're off to a great start here. It's gonna be amazing.

• 1:23:06Julie Piatt?

  So we turn the corner and we, and we set out and you're rocking it and we, we start to kind of get the, the flow and we understand all of a sudden that there's no way, you know, that there's going to be time for anything else but just watching you and seeing what you need and leapfrogging and preparing the nutrition and everything that we have to do. And then I think we, we pulled off to get gas and like grab a sandwich just to go, but then we got stuck behind some island traffic. And by the time we caught you, you were really mad and you were like, you were like, where were you? I needed you. I need that nutrition. Like get on it. And so after that, after that point, we never, we never left you ever for one second. And then all of a sudden, you know, the day keeps going and the day keeps going. I'm not seeing any other riders and I haven't seen any other

• 1:23:51Julie Piatt?

  crew vans and we don't really know the island. And Tyler's looking at the map, trying to figure out where we are. And, and we get a call from the From the race director, or whoever's, you know, the officials that are monitoring the race, and they're asking me, you know, "Where are you?" And I have no idea where we are, so we're trying to find landmarks to kind of say where we are, and they're shocked that we're this far ahead. They can't believe that we're where we say we are. And then you're riding by, and you're saying something like, "What's my gap?" Like that, as I just kind of hear it. And I'm like, so I asked the guy, I say, "What's a gap?"

• 1:24:32Julie Piatt?

  I asked the guy on the phone, and he says, "The gap." You were asking what your gap was.

• 1:24:37Rich Roll?

  Yeah, well, I kept riding, every time I rode by the van, I was like, "What's my gap?" Because I was in the lead, I didn't know if somebody was 30 seconds behind me, or 10 minutes behind me. I was like, "What's the gap? What's the gap?" But nobody knew, you know?

• 1:24:48Julie Piatt?

  They didn't know what gap was.

• 1:24:49Rich Roll?

  And then the photographer cars were driving by, and I kept getting, they're like, "Oh, you have, you know, oh, you're way ahead, you know, it's 15 minutes." And then it was, and then the next car said, "Oh, it's, you know, there's a guy about a minute back."

• 1:25:01Julie Piatt?

  Oh, wow.

• 1:25:02Rich Roll?

  I never got a straight story, so the whole time I'm panicked, looking behind my, you know, behind me going, "Who's gonna, who's gonna be catching me?"

• 1:25:08Julie Piatt?

  That was crazy.

• 1:25:09Rich Roll?

  But you know what? This is turning into like a race report, from a race four years ago. Let's talk about something else.

• 1:25:14Julie Piatt?

  All right.

• 1:25:15Rich Roll?

  So, I want to talk about things that, you know, takeaways for people, that can be helpful to them. You know, we were talking about balance, we were talking about how to, you know, kind of navigate priorities, to unlock things, you know, creative pursuits, or get to know yourself internally a little bit better, you know, through meditation, artist way, all these sorts of things. And then it begs the question of the relationship issue, and interacting with your mate, and finding a way to communicate, to do this together. I mean, what do you think, like, we've had our struggles with that.

• 1:25:53Julie Piatt?

  We have.

• 1:25:55Rich Roll?

  Nothing else to offer on that?

• 1:25:57Julie Piatt?

  No, well, I think for you and I, I mean, I would, we've, you know, we've had some experience in some relationships, you know, other relationships besides you and me. So I've been married actually twice before. This is my third marriage. And Jason from Mind Body Green called me a relationship expert. So I guess that does qualify me as a relationship expert.

• 1:26:24Rich Roll?

  Julie wrote a great article for Mind Body Green called, what was it, Seven Ways to Experience Deeper Intimacy in Your Relationship?

• 1:26:34Julie Piatt?

  That's pretty good, something like that. Yeah, I think it was six ways.

• 1:26:37Rich Roll?

  Six ways? You didn't have seven in you?

• 1:26:40Julie Piatt?

  I could come up with a seven.

• 1:26:41Rich Roll?

  You didn't have seven at the time?

• 1:26:42Julie Piatt?

  Yeah, I just threw six out.

• 1:26:43Rich Roll?

  I'll put a link up in the show notes. But yeah, it was really well received. A lot of people really got a lot out of that. And I think that you are very wise about relationships and you have a very different approach than, you know, the sort of more mainstream, maybe, you know, relationship people would approach these things.

• 1:27:02Julie Piatt?

  Well, I think it's, you know, I think it starts again. It starts again with being in touch with yourself. And it's like, you know, this kind of romantic fairy tale, you know, relationship paradigm where, you know, somebody goes, you complete me, you know, that's just so out of balance, you know? I mean, everyone, each being is complete within themselves. They come into the life, they're created by the great force with enough energy to sustain itself complete, right? So, I mean, that's in a divine way. And we're getting more to that, to that reality. But I think that it starts with knowing yourself. And

• 1:27:40Julie Piatt?

  I think that, in my experience, when you're depending on a relationship to fulfill you, you're already, you've already set it up where it's not, it's not going to, it's not going to provide. Because it's not about getting something that's outside of yourself. It's about tapping into...

• 1:28:04Julie Piatt?

  Yourself, your heart, your soul. And if you, a lot of times in relationships, I think, maybe why a lot of people projected onto us that, you know, there had to be this imbalance and I had to be suffering if you were training so much, or, you know, even the fact that you've had a lot of, a lot of the spotlight, really, a lot of energy directed at you in the last years, it's just recently that I started speaking out.

• 1:28:26Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:28:27Julie Piatt?

  But...

• 1:28:28Rich Roll?

  And taking over my podcast, inch by inch.

• 1:28:31Julie Piatt?

  Uh-oh.

• 1:28:32Rich Roll?

  Tomorrow it'll be the Julie podcast.

• 1:28:34Julie Piatt?

  I know, as the boys said, we get like, Team Julie, Team Rich, and then have Warring.

• 1:28:39Rich Roll?

  We're only on the fourth episode, and you've already, you're already dominating.

• 1:28:41Julie Piatt?

  No, I just, I mean, I love it, I love the medium, I just love being able to speak, and I, and, you know, I've been silent for a lot of years, I've got a lot of stuff to say.

• 1:28:48Rich Roll?

  You've never been silent. That's ridiculous.

• 1:28:52Julie Piatt?

  No, but the thing is, is that, I don't know, I mean, I think we're secure within ourselves, and it was my honor and privilege to support you in your unfoldment and as you found yourself, and that, to me, you know, to see you touch those parts of yourself, it, it gives me just tremendous joy, and it really does, and it, and that's your experience, this is, you know, your journey.

• 1:29:18Rich Roll?

  But I think that people, you know, I think the common thing is for people to project onto another person some sort of recipe for happiness, so they're approaching a relationship from this place of, you know, I don't, I'm not feeling good about myself, or I feel incomplete, or whatever, and if I can just get with this person, then everything is going to be fine, or my life will be better, or what have you, and so there's this, a lot of energy put out towards trying to, you know, get somebody, or whatever, or try to be in a relationship, and I think that...

• 1:29:59Rich Roll?

  You know, water rises to its own level. Like, when I've been in a not-so-good place in my life, the people that I attract into my life are of that caliber. You know what I mean? And when you've, you know, maybe done a little bit more work or whatever, and you're a different person, then you're putting, you're emitting a different signal, and you attract a different caliber of person into your life.

• 1:30:20Julie Piatt?

  Very true.

• 1:30:21Rich Roll?

  And so, instead of trying to chase that other person to, like you said, "complete me" or whatever, you know, if you do the, if you do the uncomfortable inner work to get happy and content with who you are, irrespective of your relationship status, then you're, it's almost like you're, the dimmer on your light switch gets turned up, you know, and it starts to shine brighter and brighter and brighter. And that, you know, when you stand in the light, then you attract, you know, you're, the level of the water in your glass rises, and then you are like a beacon, like a magnet, attracting those, those people who are on that frequency or on that wavelength into your life.

• 1:31:04Julie Piatt?

  That's absolutely true. Very powerful, very, very powerful. And after you, you know, after you're in a relationship with somebody, you know, then, then there comes all the, this is one of the things that I wrote about in the article. Um, it's actually a very honest account of my own experience with you. And, you know, it was, it's basically the, the experience of being a woman who, you know, I was a businessperson, a fashion designer, had my, you know, built a couple houses. Like, you know, I'm a very able person. And yet, uh, when I was in a relationship with you, um, I wanted you to be contributing at a certain level financially. Like, and I, and I kept going around and around and around with that.

• 1:31:47Julie Piatt?

  And, um, and that is looking to you to be my source, okay? Or to be the source of the family, or, um, and so, this was a huge key for us. It was actually the catalyst that changed everything in our life and all the dynamics in our relationship. And not that, I mean, you know, we loved each other right from the beginning, and we had this extraordinary wedding, and, you know, we, we've always been very well-suited with each other. But there was this kind of expectation. You know, I saw who you were, I could see who you were in the density, and I was reaching my hand out to you, saying, "Take my hand, I can help you." Like, "I know what you need."

• 1:32:30Julie Piatt?

  And somehow, by my reaching, you became more paralyzed. So it was after a lot of years, it took me probably seven years, I think, to actually get this awareness. And it came through studying with this Indian master that I studied with, named Nitya Nanda. And I was sitting with him, and he was talking about divine love, and how does a divine love? And, you know, the divine love's simply for your presence, simply as you are in this moment, without having achieved or done anything. And so I was looking at how I was loving you, and I was loving you with an expectation. If only you could bring in, you know, six figures.

• 1:33:15Julie Piatt?

  If only you could, you know, eat vegetarian. If only you could meditate. If only you could be different than who you are now.

• 1:33:23Rich Roll?

  Then what?

• 1:33:25Julie Piatt?

  Then drinking.

• 1:33:26Rich Roll?

  If this, then what?

• 1:33:27Julie Piatt?

  Exactly.

• 1:33:28Rich Roll?

  So, but what am I... So, on the other end of that expectation equation, what is the result? Like, if I would have done that, then what? In your mind at that time?

• 1:33:38Julie Piatt?

  Oh, in my mind, then I would have had this whole man as a partner that I knew existed inside.

• 1:33:48Rich Roll?

  And that would make you feel like, in a sense, that's saying, "Well, then my life will be better."

• 1:33:54Julie Piatt?

  Yeah, exactly. Then our relationship will be better. Then I'll feel better about myself. Then we'll be more in love. Then, you know, all of those things. So the point is, is that it's the energy, and it's very sneaky, because it's very hard to see, because I could find a lot of people to validate my argument. Like, "Well, yeah, absolutely. You have every right to expect that. You have every right to expect all those things." And then I just realized, I guess we had one moment, I think we, like, broke up for a day or something, and you left the house. And, you know, it was really sort of that moment where... Mathis was very young and I had to really look at who you were and I had to make the

• 1:34:37Julie Piatt?

  decision. It's kind of like you, I had to decide. I had to just decide and you had to decide too in that moment. Are we gonna be together? Are we gonna do this together? And I really realized, in our case, that I did want to be with you and I did want to have a family with you and have you in my life. And I made the decision to start loving you as the divine loves. And I made this energetic shift and it was really remarkable because you could feel it. It was like the minute that I stopped needing you to be other than you were, all of a sudden there was this relief and this...

• 1:35:22Rich Roll?

  A relief on my end or on your end?

• 1:35:25Julie Piatt?

  I think all over, you know, really on the planet, if you want to look at the... It's an energy, right? It's an energy that was pulling. It was...

• 1:35:36Rich Roll?

  Well, it's that same thing. Like you said the other day, you're like, you know, "I don't like to be told what to do and if you tell me what to do, I'm gonna do the opposite" or whatever. And so, I remember that time and it's like you were wanting me to do this and wanting me to do that and it's like, the reaction, the human reaction to that is like, "Back off, man."

• 1:35:53Julie Piatt?

  Right.

• 1:35:53Rich Roll?

  Like, you know, "Just leave me alone." Like, you know, like, "I'm no different than I was when you married me," or, you know, whatever. Like, "What is that, where is this coming from?" And that's, you know, and it's also a human thing, like, whatever. But, so I think my reaction was like, "Just, you know, leave me alone."

• 1:36:11Julie Piatt?

  But it literally...

• 1:36:12Rich Roll?

  But then, so then when you make this switch, right, and you say, "All right," you backed off and I... It was a weird, like, disorienting thing. Like, what do you mean? Like, you just really became incredibly neutral with me on all these different matters that used to be emotionally charged for you.

• 1:36:28Julie Piatt?

  Yes.

• 1:36:29Rich Roll?

  And so what that did...

• 1:36:32Rich Roll?

  And where the power in that energy shift was, was that suddenly there's no, you know, pressure on me to do this or the other, it's all on me. Like, so it made me look inside myself and say, well, you know, maybe I do want to do all that, or whatever, you know, like, I never really, it was always me just trying to push the pressure off. But then when the pressure's gone, then you're left with yourself. And you have to go, well, who do I want to be? Or, you know, what's not working right now? And, and it's that same thing with, with, you know, addiction and recovery. It's like, you only get better if you want to get better. You're not going to create any kind of sustainable recovery unless you want it inside of you, not because somebody's telling you, you need to do this, you need to do this, you need to do this.

• 1:37:17Julie Piatt?

  Well, and I think it's the allowing of the energy that allows your life process to unfold organically, the way it's supposed to, you know, without someone else putting anything, meddling, really. And it's like, goes back to, that's why I say, keep your hands to yourself, keep your energy to yourself, you know, it's very simple. If you just realize that, you know, I had to look at it, and I had to go, okay, I believe, I believe we're all divine. I believe this whole play, this whole creation, light and dark, the whole thing, the whole thing emanates from this amazing consciousness. So, if I, if I believe I'm God, you're God too. You're God drinking your venti Starbucks with three ad shots,

• 1:38:02Julie Piatt?

  shoving hamburgers down your, your throat. You're God too. God has a plan for you. And I don't, I don't mean a man with a wand, I mean, the force.

• 1:38:10Rich Roll?

  But when you say, just to back up for a second, when you say, I'm God, you're God, like, that's a, for a lot of people, I think they're gonna say, what does that mean? What do you mean, you're saying you're God?

• 1:38:19Julie Piatt?

  Yeah, and you are too.

• 1:38:22Rich Roll?

  All right, well, explain, like, elaborate on that a little bit, because I think that's gonna be confusing. I understand, I know where you're coming from with that statement, but that's a loaded thing to say, without explaining.

• 1:38:33Julie Piatt?

  All right. So, would you like me to explain?

• 1:38:35Rich Roll?

  Sure.

• 1:38:35Julie Piatt?

  Okay. I believe that we are all creations emanating from this divine

• 1:38:46Julie Piatt?

  Force.

• 1:38:47Rich Roll?

  And that, but that that exists within us.

• 1:38:49Julie Piatt?

  Within us, yeah.

• 1:38:50Rich Roll?

  As much as it exists outside of us, right? So it's not inside, it's not like, it's not like the divine force is outside of us, looking over us. It's inside of us.

• 1:39:00Julie Piatt?

  It's within us.

• 1:39:01Rich Roll?

  It's within all of us. That's essentially what you're saying.

• 1:39:03Julie Piatt?

  Exactly.

• 1:39:04Rich Roll?

  Right, okay.

• 1:39:04Julie Piatt?

  So, within everything. So, and a lot of people have a supercharge with the word God. So, you know, I use creation a lot, or I'll say force, or whatever, but, you know, that's what I mean.

• 1:39:15Rich Roll?

  It's not a dogmatic.

• 1:39:15Julie Piatt?

  It's not, no, it's not a religious thing. It's not a dogmatic thing. It's an energy thing, right? And so, so, and that was, that awareness is what allowed me to release this energy that I was projecting to you as my partner, to be one way or another. And so I just let go. I totally let go, and you could feel it. And I think you-

• 1:39:38Rich Roll?

  And that provided the space for me to do what I needed to do, to do what I was gonna do, right?

• 1:39:45Julie Piatt?

  Exactly.

• 1:39:46Rich Roll?

  Essentially, right?

• 1:39:47Julie Piatt?

  Exactly. And, and in our case, I mean, there's no, you know, you don't know the outcome. You don't get to have the outcome, but I mean, in my experience, the divine always creates something much more beautiful than you could ever have imagined for yourself.

• 1:40:01Rich Roll?

  Yeah, and extrapolating on that, it goes back to what you said about, you know, keep your hands to yourself. And, and when you look at that, I mean, really what you're saying is, don't get involved in other people's drama, even if it's for the right reasons, right? Like, when you get caught up in somebody else's drama, you're all, you're almost interfering with their trajectory in a way. It's that meddling, that may, even if it's well-intended, may not be for the better good of that individual's, like, path that they're walking.

• 1:40:33Julie Piatt?

  Yeah, and in my experience, I mean, the most powerful thing you can provide in any sort of situation is neutral, loving compassion.

• 1:40:43Julie Piatt?

  Neutral, loving compassion and just an awareness. And so when someone is having a hard time or a big life experience or something intense that you don't understand or, you know, any kind of challenges, any kind of dark night of the soul or, you know, just really anything that is out of the ordinary, that is out of the norm of society or expectations of family or whatever it is, the most powerful thing in my experience that one can offer is, "I believe in you to find your way. I believe in you as a divine being, that you know your path

• 1:41:26Julie Piatt?

  and that the path will unfold from you, from within you."

• 1:41:31Rich Roll?

  It sounds like such a simple thing, but if you actually try to practice that with other people, it's really, it's hard.

• 1:41:37Julie Piatt?

  Well, it took me...

• 1:41:38Rich Roll?

  That is a practice, you know what I mean?

• 1:41:40Julie Piatt?

  It's a practice, that's right. And so, and I came to this awareness and I really was there. And I think you called me a couple of times to try to, you know, say, you know, "Are you sure?", you know? And you told me, you said, "I can feel the difference." And I said, "No, no, no, I don't care anymore. I don't, I love you exactly as you are." And it wasn't just lip service, like I really was there. I really was in that place.

• 1:42:07Rich Roll?

  But it almost sounds like giving up, like, "Well, I gave up, so..."

• 1:42:12Julie Piatt?

  No, because it's neutral...

• 1:42:13Rich Roll?

  "I'm gonna leave you alone now."

• 1:42:14Julie Piatt?

  Okay, no, no, no, but see, you have to be careful and that's a good thing that you brought up, is it's not a distinction of going, "Okay, well, then I'm just not gonna talk to him anymore, you know, or I'm just not gonna say anything anymore." See, that's different. You're still, you still have the energy.

• 1:42:27Rich Roll?

  Because it's still charged.

• 1:42:28Julie Piatt?

  It's still charged.

• 1:42:29Rich Roll?

  The emotion is still there. You're just choosing not to articulate it, but it's written all over your body and your face, right?

• 1:42:33Julie Piatt?

  Right.

• 1:42:34Rich Roll?

  If you're in that place.

• 1:42:35Julie Piatt?

  Yeah, or in the air and you can feel it, yeah. So the, so the real thing is, is I really just made a decision to love you as God loves.

• 1:42:44Rich Roll?

  And how did you, how did you get from, how did you, you know, traverse that? You know what I mean?

• 1:42:49Julie Piatt?

  Well, I mean, I had a hard time.

• 1:42:51Rich Roll?

  Because there's, it's sort of like, you know, act and act, act as if until you actually believe it, but like, how did you go from a place of... You know, wanting me to be different to actually really letting go.

• 1:43:02Julie Piatt?

  I was.

• 1:43:03Rich Roll?

  And like feeling that in your heart.

• 1:43:04Julie Piatt?

  Well, I was, I was in a meditation practice. I was doing a humming meditation. And I also was listening to, you know, spiritual discourse and this one divine being that I had a connection with, that I, that had a great impact on me. And, and really, when I look at the whole trajectory, when I look at, back at our last five years, I mean, that, that's a key, key shift. And then all of a sudden, you know, I mean, you're vibrating and you're living as an emanation of like my perfect mate, right now.

• 1:43:43Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:43:44Julie Piatt?

  And I, you know.

• 1:43:45Rich Roll?

  Grab that drop, Tyler. Grab that drop. I'm gonna play that back to her later.

• 1:43:53Julie Piatt?

  No, you are, you know? And, and the amazing thing is, is I've always liked, kind of, like, from all, from a lot of different details, but I wanted you to be vibrant and connected and, and whole and, you know, eating healthy and spiritually connected. And also, just physically, your body type is much, you know, like, I like the, you know, more thin-framed, you know, not like the picture, not like the before picture. That was not my ultimate. But, um, but anyway, this is a key, key thing. And really, if you, if, I really, really believe that if, if one can drop this expectation,

• 1:44:37Julie Piatt?

  this energy of expectation that's between two people, a lot of marital problems will just go away. They just don't exist. Because then you're really autonomous.

• 1:44:52Rich Roll?

  Yeah, you're self-sovereign.

• 1:44:53Julie Piatt?

  Yeah, I'm my own being.

• 1:44:54Rich Roll?

  And you're not, you're not reliant on the other person for your sense of well-being or your sense of self.

• 1:44:59Julie Piatt?

  No. And at the same time, you can have a very intimate, beautiful dance with another individual, which I share with you. I share an amazing, amazing relationship with you that I never thought I would experience. And it's on every level. And I consider myself extremely blessed. And I know you feel the same.

• 1:45:23Rich Roll?

  No, it's been great. It's been good.

• 1:45:25Julie Piatt?

  That's it. No, it's been great. That's what you were gonna say.

• 1:45:29Rich Roll?

  Now I'm in trouble.

• 1:45:29Julie Piatt?

  Come on, give me a little more than that.

• 1:45:31Rich Roll?

  No, I was reflecting on what you were saying, like when we kinda had that, that, that fight when we were married and

• 1:45:36Julie Piatt?

  On the air, last podcast?

• 1:45:38Rich Roll?

  No, not that.

• 1:45:39Julie Piatt?

  Oh, okay.

• 1:45:39Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Not that fight. No, like, we had a big, kind of, like fallout before that shift and I, I remember I did leave for a day and that was a, that was like the darkest time in our marriage. And just to see, you know, kind of where we are now versus then.

• 1:45:55Julie Piatt?

  Yeah. It only lasted a day. I mean, we were, you know, we were very clear, we wanted to be together.

• 1:46:00Rich Roll?

  But anyway, um, no, that's great. I mean, you know, if somebody's trying to, if somebody's listening to this and they're trying to hold on to this idea and, and, you know, take those first couple steps towards this, I mean, what are some of the things you could tell them that might be helpful?

• 1:46:19Julie Piatt?

  Well, I would say, you know, of course, the plant, the, you know, start with the plants, of course. Uh, I would definitely start meditating, some, some form of meditation. Uh, you know, if you, if you like mine, great. If you don't, there's a lot of meditation practices. Uh, but meditate on this idea, you know, that the sun, just take the sun. So the sun is shining and the sun is always shining. It's even shining when it's night here, right? It's always shining. And it doesn't discriminate, you know, it doesn't say, "I'm gonna shine more on this tree than this squirrel," or, you know, it, it doesn't differentiate, it is just emanating.

• 1:47:01Julie Piatt?

  So, that's really sort of like a metaphor for divine consciousness, how it loves. And, and also, there's no value difference. Consciousness isn't more pleased with me because I chose a life of spiritual inquiry. You know what I mean? Like, it's, there's no value difference. It doesn't matter what it is, what your love is, or what you were designed to do. You're not, you're no better and you're no worse than anyone else.

• 1:47:32Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:47:32Julie Piatt?

  And, and that neutrality, that neutral loving compassion, if you really start to get there, because in a lot of couples, when we're in relationships, we can get attached to stories about, and, and also keep them alive, you know, uh, things that have happened, you know. Whatever it is, you know, affairs or, or, you know, any kind of, of hurt that is, you know, that has happened between two people.

• 1:48:03Rich Roll?

  Right, you know, he said, can you believe that he did this?

• 1:48:05Julie Piatt?

  Right.

• 1:48:05Rich Roll?

  And you tell a bunch of people, and then you tell it again, and you tell it again.

• 1:48:08Julie Piatt?

  You tell it again.

• 1:48:09Rich Roll?

  And it starts to take on this life and this energy that maybe it didn't even have to begin with.

• 1:48:14Julie Piatt?

  Exactly, and that's why-

• 1:48:14Rich Roll?

  And it becomes a thing, and it, and it's like a shiv that, you know, starts to divide.

• 1:48:18Julie Piatt?

  Right, and this is why, you know, I mean, I have experience in couples therapy, not with you, but I have experience with other relationships and couples therapy, and I always, I find it hilarious because we always left madder and in worse shape than when we went in. Because, and I know, you know, some therapists are gonna get mad at me or whatever, but I'm, I'm sorry, I just, I really think it's a solo job, you know, not that therapy can't be helpful, it definitely can, but I really think you have to turn the magnifying glass on yourself. That's, that's the only place you can affect change, because if you're gonna go in a room with a third person and then tattle, like if I went in and was like, well, he did this,

• 1:48:59Julie Piatt?

  and then she did this, and it just, in my experience, it just has not been helpful, was not helpful at all.

• 1:49:05Rich Roll?

  Well, turning the magnifying glass on yourself is, is really kind of the, the first step towards a, a solution in basically everything.

• 1:49:13Julie Piatt?

  Everything, right?

• 1:49:14Rich Roll?

  Yeah, you know, really.

• 1:49:16Julie Piatt?

  It's huge, but, but you, but you'd be surprised, I mean, you wouldn't be surprised, it's very easy for human beings to create an entire history, and then the, the person is more, you know, we're more interested in being right, even if being right is a really horrible outcome.

• 1:49:34Rich Roll?

  Right, so, yeah, the question, yeah, is, do you wanna be right, or do you wanna be happy?

• 1:49:39Julie Piatt?

  Or you wanna be happy, exactly, and that's true, and then, you know, you can also go sort of a different- You know, if you want to talk about holding a high consciousness for somebody, or holding a healing energy for somebody, you know, you can in fact raise somebody up by seeing their best, seeing the best in them always. Like, instead of letting the negativity or the darkness of some situation, you might see it, okay? You know, you might see it. Like, I might look at you and I might see the, you know, the big wound on your leg from the crash today. Or I can look at your eyes and I can choose to focus on that.

• 1:50:22Julie Piatt?

  And by focusing on the light in your eyes, I can, in fact, assist the energy in lifting you higher. So if you want someone to, you know, rise up and to be more than who they are, then see them in that light and speak of them as if they are, as if that's all that you see.

• 1:50:46Rich Roll?

  Another profound statement to wrap up this episode of the Rich Roll Podcast, episode four. Julie always gets the last word in. She knows how to nail it. So, again, I can't do better than that. I think what we're gonna do is, we're gonna end today with a song, yeah?

• 1:51:08Julie Piatt?

  I think, should we do that?

• 1:51:09Rich Roll?

  You wanna play and sing a song?

• 1:51:11Julie Piatt?

  Okay, I think I'll...

• 1:51:13Rich Roll?

  Can you handle that?

• 1:51:14Julie Piatt?

  I think I might be able to. I'm gonna do my best.

• 1:51:17Rich Roll?

  All right, cool. But before that, just a couple of show notes.

• 1:51:20Julie Piatt?

  So, let me tell them a little bit about the song, should I?

• 1:51:23Rich Roll?

  Well, why don't I do the show notes first? And then we'll segue into the song and then you can play.

• 1:51:28Julie Piatt?

  All right.

• 1:51:29Rich Roll?

  So, again, thank you so much for supporting the show. We're over the moon with the early response and support. We love to hear your comments and your feedback, what you'd like to hear on the show, what's working for you, what's not. You can do that. Please leave the comments at richroll.com underneath this podcast episode in the comments section there, so I know where to look, so they're not spread out over Facebook or what have you. And I'll take a look at that. Again... You want to learn more about what we're doing, go to Jai Lifestyle. And again, you can get that seven recipe download there if you just subscribe with your email. And richroll.com.

• 1:52:09Rich Roll?

  Julie's website is sri-mati-music, S-R-I-M-A-T-I-music.com. That's where she has all her music stuff. And where can we find you on Twitter?

• 1:52:19Julie Piatt?

  @Jaiseed, J-A-I-S-E-E-D.

• 1:52:24Rich Roll?

  Okay, she's got mad wisdom, obviously. She needs more followers.

• 1:52:28Julie Piatt?

  I'm way under him.

• 1:52:30Rich Roll?

  Let's expand her podium, people, alright? On Twitter, I'm @Richroll on Twitter. And we're both on Facebook, you can find it. But my personal page is filled up, I can't do that anymore. So, there's a fan page there. If you want to follow me on Facebook, you can do that. And I'm loving Instagram right now. I'm super into the photos and I've been loving taking pictures around Kauai. So if you're into that kind of thing, you can follow me on Instagram, it's the same name, @Richroll. Alright, so, not show notes, music notes. You want to tell us a little bit about what you're going to do here?

• 1:53:07Julie Piatt?

  So, the song that I'm going to sing on this podcast is a song called "In the Sun." It's been a song that's been multi-dimensional in the ways and the meaning and the connections to our life. It's a song that I was writing when Rich was training for the second Ultraman race. And he was very, very, very torn about not making money and about a lot of hardship that we went through as a result of this decision that we embarked on. And it started writing in the house before I was leaving to come to Kauai, actually,

• 1:53:52Julie Piatt?

  to come to Secret Beach. I was gifted a trip along with my two youngest daughters by my dear friend Deborah Garland, who is a healer. And she just called me one day and said, "I want to take you to Secret Beach because I feel like you need to go there." And at the time, I was so incredibly grateful and so longing to be here. So, I actually came on that trip. And "In the Sun" wrote during that time. And I wrote it for Rich. And so, I'm going to give it a shot here tonight, so I hope you enjoy it. All right, here we go.

• 1:54:34Speaker 02

  It's been a long, hard road down the line.

• 1:54:45Speaker 02

  I've lost the truest part of who I am.

• 1:55:00Speaker 02

  How much can one man take? Nothing seems to stick. I've got to find my way to be the man for you.

• 1:55:26Speaker 02

  You, in the sun, in the morning. You are more than you know.

• 1:55:58Speaker 02

  Be still, my love.

• 1:56:03Speaker 02

  I believe in you.

• 1:56:09Speaker 02

  Your heart will find a way to bring you home.

• 1:56:24Speaker 02

  Have faith, my love.

• 1:56:29Speaker 02

  I know it's hard.

• 1:56:35Speaker 02

  But the truth of who you are

• 1:56:42Speaker 02

  can't not be torn from you. You in the sun,

• 1:57:01Speaker 02

  in the morning. You are more than you know. You in the sun,

• 1:57:27Speaker 02

  in the morning. You are more than you know, than you know.

• 1:57:46Speaker 02

  Sometimes you gotta lay it down to get inside.

• 1:57:59Speaker 02

  Even when it's coming down, the way still knows the way.

• 1:58:14Speaker 02

  Fly,

• 1:58:19Speaker 02

  daddy fly,

• 1:58:25Speaker 02

  daddy fly.

• 1:58:39Speaker 02

  You

• 1:58:44Speaker 02

  In the sun

• 1:58:51Speaker 02

  In the morning You are more than you know

• 1:59:05Speaker 02

  You In the sun In the morning You are more, so much more than You know

• 1:59:44Rich Roll?

  Ladies and gentlemen, the amazing Julie Piatt and Tyler Piatt. Thanks so much, you guys. That was rocking. That was awesome. Alright, cool. We're outta here. That's the end of episode four. Peace, plants.