Whitney Cummings Is Doing The Work

Whitney Cummings is a stand-up comedian, writer, actor, producer, and podcaster. You may know her from one of her five hilarious stand-up specials, her sitcom 'Whitney', as the co-creator of the CBS show '2 Broke Girls', or as host of the 'Good For You' podcast. Whitney’s charm and wit is legendary. But underappreciated is her knowledge and experience with mental health and emotional well-being—qualities earned from working through anxiety and and codependency disorders. All of this and more is chronicled in her hilarious and vulnerable book, 'I’m Fine …And Other Lies.' This conversation centers on mental health. We discuss codependency at length—what it is and what it isn’t—building self-esteem, creating confidence, navigating relationships, and healing from childhood trauma. We also talk about animal welfare, equestrian therapy, 12 step recovery, empathy, the importance of forgiveness, and tons more. Whitney is a blast. This episode is epic. I hope you enjoy it! Show notes + MORE Watch on YouTube Newsletter Sign-Up 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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• 1:05Speaker 01

  It's taken me a long time to learn that when you put yourself first, you actually are putting everybody else first. That is so anathema to the way that I was wired, but when you're not taking care of yourself, you haven't, you know, we say in Al-Anon that if you're upset about something and you want to take an action that could possibly not be a great contribution to your future self, stop, halt. The reason we forgive people, forget about, but he owes me this, but he didn't. We forgive others not because they deserve forgiveness, but because we deserve peace. And also, I think that when we don't forgive our parents, forget molestation and, you know, actual crimes that were committed, but just this like, "I grew up in a way and I was never taught about this, and I never got love from my dad, and this and that."

• 1:49Speaker 01

  If you're not forgiving your parents, I think at this point, you're a bully. It's really soothing to just be able to believe everyone, to just believe whatever, like, no one's kissing your ass, no one, like, it's just great. Everything you guys just did, whether I liked it or not, is true, and that is like the best feeling in the world, but you also have to tell the truth.

• 2:24Rich Roll?

  Hey, everybody. Welcome to the podcast. My guest today needs very little introduction. Whitney Cummings is an uber-successful stand-up comedian, she's a writer, she's an actor, a producer, and host of the Good for You podcast. You most likely know her from one of her five hilarious stand-up specials, perhaps her sitcom entitled Whitney, or as the co-creator of Two Broke Girls, which ran on CBS for six seasons. But, underappreciated, under-recognized when it comes to Whitney, is her seemingly endless wisdom and endless passion when it comes to mental health. Earned through confronting and working through a past marked with anxiety and a codependency

• 3:09Rich Roll?

  disorder, both of which she chronicles with frank wit and humor in her book, I'm Fine and Other Lies. So, no surprise, this conversation, at times hilarious and perhaps somewhat a bit meandering in a good way, centers on mental health. We discuss codependency at length, what it is and what it isn't. We talk about building self-esteem and confidence. We discuss how to navigate relationships. We talk about healing from childhood trauma. And we also discuss animal welfare, equestrian therapy, and just tons more. Whitney is a blast. It was super fun having her here. Her energy and her humor are infectious.

• 3:53Rich Roll?

  And, in a surprising mid-episode revelation, it turns out that we actually have way more in common than I originally thought. So, before we get into it, a few words from the sponsors that make this show possible.

• 4:13Rich Roll?

  Okay, I truly hope you enjoy this exploration inside the life, inside the mind of the truly unique and singular Whitney Cummings.

• 4:28Rich Roll?

  Nice to have you here. It's nice to meet you. Thank you for doing this.

• 4:30Speaker 01

  Thanks for having me.

• 4:31Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I thought maybe it might not happen today.

• 4:33Speaker 01

  It did happen. I'm sorry.

• 4:36Rich Roll?

  It's don't apologize. No. Life happens.

• 4:39Speaker 01

  This will set. I figured if anyone would understand, it would be you. That, you know, when people show up to your podcast, you want them to be mentally 100%.

• 4:47Rich Roll?

  Sure.

• 4:48Speaker 01

  You're brilliant. I'm a fan of yours. I didn't want to bomb this and embarrass myself. And so I had a thing where I didn't sleep optimally. Do you want me to explain optimal sleep to you?

• 5:01Rich Roll?

  I'm interested in that subject matter.

• 5:04Speaker 01

  The reason I'm late for your podcast is because I listened to your podcast and I was told, you know, that, you know, getting quality of sleep in order to be optimal is huge for me because I realized the source of so many of the decisions I'm not proud of or the work I'm not proud of is I knew I was tired and I was like, I'll just white knuckle through it. When in reality, if I had just slept eight hours, I could have got.

• 5:26Rich Roll?

  Yeah, you're a big napper too. You can do that.

• 5:28Speaker 01

  Huge napper. I actually try to break my days up into two days because I perform at night and it's a way to trick myself into thinking that the career choice I made is actually somewhat healthy. So I try to sleep every day from like four to five and break my day up into two days.

• 5:43Rich Roll?

  And when you get up at five, how long does it take for you to shake off the grogginess and feel like you're yourself again? See, that's the problem with me. If I go down like that, when I wake up, I'm just like, whoa.

• 5:54Speaker 01

  I hear that a lot. Would you ever have like a little coffee or a little tea or something after?

• 6:00Rich Roll?

  Then I would be concerned that I wouldn't be able to sleep. When I got home at night, like I try to only drink coffee in the morning, although I'm having a little bit of coffee right now because I'm not used to doing podcasts this late in the day.

• 6:12Speaker 01

  Oh, okay.

• 6:13Rich Roll?

  Which is fine. It's good. But yeah, I try to limit, limit my caffeine intake to the morning.

• 6:18Speaker 01

  Interesting. Is there anything else that can perk you up? Like sometimes if I don't want to do tea or coffee or something that I think is gonna sabotage me for my night's sleep, I'll sometimes just inhale a little bit of pine oil, sometimes clove oil, and if you just, it really wakes you up.

• 6:34Rich Roll?

  Oh, wow. I've never heard of that.

• 6:36Speaker 01

  There's also, I was just on Joe Rogan, and of course, he's got the newest of the new. They're like smelling salts that are called ah.

• 6:42Rich Roll?

  For just like consumer use? Not for like waking somebody up who's like unconscious?

• 6:51Speaker 01

  I think that's what it's meant for, but this is meant for like, to get like a-

• 6:54Rich Roll?

  Medical grade smelling salts, just for like, if you need a little pick-me-up?

• 6:58Speaker 01

  Exactly. And there, I mean, it hurts. It's like, you, you feel like you're drowning for a second, and then you just have like a bunch of energy. I'm not sure if it's just the adrenaline that it naturally triggers, or the fear that you're about to die. I don't know what.

• 7:12Rich Roll?

  Right. Yeah, I don't know if that would be a high recommend.

• 7:15Speaker 01

  You could try it. You could try.

• 7:17Rich Roll?

  I'll try anything once.

• 7:18Speaker 01

  It's like, brought to you by the guys who made the five-hour energy drink shots that are in 7-Eleven. The packaging would need to, yeah, sort of get more sophisticated, I think.

• 7:29Rich Roll?

  What if we just both did that right now? This might go off the rails.

• 7:32Speaker 01

  I love it. Do you feel a sense of excitement or a sense of frustration because you are so routinized? Does this feel weird or annoying?

• 7:41Rich Roll?

  No, it's fine. I can, I can roll with it.

• 7:43Speaker 01

  Fine.

• 7:44Rich Roll?

  But, I mean, listen, in the, you know, kind of panoply of like dysfunctions, like a lot of mine line up with yours, so things like control or perfectionism, and this is the way it needs to hap, like all of that kind of stuff. Like, I've had a lot of growth around that, but still, it kind of like, it creeps up. Like, oh, it's supposed to go this way, it's not going this way. You know, but my ability to kind of snap back and, and, you know, deal with that kind of stuff is a lot better than it used to be.

• 8:11Speaker 01

  Totally, because I think that, um, it's taken me a long time to, and I've, you know, you know, been in a 12-step program called Al-Anon ACA, Coda as well. It's taken me a long time to learn that when you put yourself first, you actually are putting everybody else first. That is so anathema to the way that I was wired.

• 8:28Rich Roll?

  Yeah, me too.

• 8:29Speaker 01

  And I think most people are, but when- You know, you're not taking care of yourself. You haven't, you know, we say in Al-Anon that if you're upset about something and you want to take an action that could possibly not be a great contribution to your future self, stop, halt. Are you hungry? Are you angry? Are you lonely? Are you tired?

• 8:48Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 8:49Speaker 01

  And if you're any of those things, you're not going to be optimal. Your inner child's going to be running the show. And then you're going to have shame afterwards, you know, and it's going to corrode your self-esteem. So you go, "I didn't do that good of a job. Why didn't I just ask to reschedule? Why did I do that? He didn't want me to come on his podcast, brain dead? That's so disrespectful to him, you know?

• 9:07Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 9:08Speaker 01

  So for me, just know that

• 9:11Rich Roll?

  Well, there's a-

• 9:11Speaker 01

  It was out of respect for you that I-

• 9:13Rich Roll?

  No, I get, listen, I get it.

• 9:14Speaker 01

  That I inconvenienced you.

• 9:15Rich Roll?

  I totally, I totally get it. I'm just happy that you're here. I mean, the hungry, angry, lonely, tired thing is also a core tenet of AA as well. And I think about that a lot. But I think in the, in the sort of codependency parlance, there's a strain of like narcissism that runs through it. Like, the whole world revolves around like you and what you're doing. And it's like, oh, if I cancel, like, he'll be devastated. Or, you know, the, the world will stop spinning on its axis. Like, there's a weird outsized ego piece to that, that you get, that gets missed until you really start to deconstruct it.

• 9:48Speaker 01

  Well, because it also, you know, sometimes you just have to parse it out, you know? I think in metaphors a lot and visuals. That's just how my brain works. Because if I start talking too much about something, I start going, "Why are you using those big words? Like, why are you trying to impress them?" And then I get my ADD takes over a little bit. So something with that, you know, that has really helped me is a couple adages. Like, my brain really takes a corny aphorism and just, and does very well with it. And I think that because that's a big part of, you know, 12-step recovery programs, because our brains want to overcomplicate everything. So when someone just distills something down of, "It works if you work it and you're worth it," kind of rhymes, that stuff really works for me.

• 10:27Rich Roll?

  Yeah. It's annoying, but it does work.

• 10:29Speaker 01

  It's so annoying. And if you're trying to give someone a tool like that, who is not yet in the program, it just comes off dismissive.

• 10:36Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 10:36Speaker 01

  You know, and rude, and I'm better than you. But when you're sort of in it and really just need something to grab on to, like a refrain, to almost like you're singing a song in your head, whether it's like- The people that don't matter, don't mind, and the people that mind, that don't matter. That's true. And something that is an alliteration, I don't know, it just works better for me, for whatever reason. But in terms of the living out of obligation, I have to go to this thing, and then I have to go to this thing, and if I don't go to this party, this baby shower from someone I haven't even seen in 15 years. And then you also kind of hate yourself because you don't, you know, let's say you have low self-esteem. I have to go, or they'll be mad at me. That kind of, like, it sort of masquerades as low self-esteem, but what you're actually saying is like, if I don't go, they'll just cancel the party?

• 11:21Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 11:21Speaker 01

  You know? So which is it? Are you insecure, or are you a malignant narcissist?

• 11:25Rich Roll?

  Well, there's a weird thing, I've said this many times before, at least with alcoholics, I don't know how this shows up or presents in a codependent person, but this ability to simultaneously harbor this sense that you're a total piece of shit, and the most worthless person on earth, and you're just smarter and better than everybody else.

• 11:45Speaker 01

  Yes, superior.

• 11:46Rich Roll?

  And you can simultaneously harbor those two identities within you. So those both, like, kind of come into play in that thing. Like, I've had a huge issue with that. And that goes to, it really goes to boundaries as well, like, boundaries for yourself and boundaries for other people. But that idea, yeah, like, I have to say yes to everything, is a big indicator of low self-esteem, but also of, you know, huge aggrandizement of self.

• 12:11Speaker 01

  So, yes, so it helped me when I heard the sort of codependent 101 is I'm a piece of shit in the center of the universe.

• 12:19Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 12:19Speaker 01

  And I think that with, self-esteem is something people talk about a lot, and this is, this is something that nettles me quite a bit, because maybe it's just my comedian brain.

• 12:27Rich Roll?

  Nettles.

• 12:28Speaker 01

  Nettles me, what?

• 12:29Rich Roll?

  I like that word. Go ahead.

• 12:31Speaker 01

  And because, it doesn't make me angry, it just, it frustrates me when someone is so close to having the life they want, but there's just something that they, they are perseverating about or can't seem to solve, which, you know, to me, a big one is, how do you develop self-esteem? You know? And that's something that, you know, I don't describe myself as someone that has, or began my life with a tremendous amount of self-esteem. But I do have a tremendous amount of confidence. So sometimes that seems confusing to people. So when you look at someone who's really confident, it doesn't mean they have... You know, good self-esteem.

• 13:09Rich Roll?

  Healthy self-regard.

• 13:10Speaker 01

  Healthy self-regard at all, because you could have developed that confidence because you're so insecure that you're such a piece of garbage, that you had to, you know, develop the ability to perform, the ability to contain a room, the ability to beguile people and distract people, and you know, and brag about yourself and get good at something. So I had confidence for a long time, so I would conflate it with self-esteem. Because I'd be like, wait a second, how could I have low self-esteem? Like, I'm, you know, like, really aggressively, you know, I'm the captain of my basketball team, and I'm like, you know, performing, and I'm in acting classes, and I'm doing monologues. And like, I'm clearly not shy, but in my personal life, there was this very corroded soul, a very low self-worth. And if we want to talk about why we can.

• 13:54Speaker 01

  But something I have learned is that in the amount of time you complain about having low self-esteem, and the amount of time you complain about how low your self-worth is, you could have done something to build your own self-esteem or self-worth. It's about building your own self-esteem by engaging in esteemable actions. So if you've looked at 15 memes today about love yourself, self-worth, like, I mean, that, I think that there's like a big confusion about how it's actually a.

• 14:19Rich Roll?

  Well, because it's a verb. It only shows up through taking action. And, and, and really, those actions generally need to be on behalf of the self. So you can develop that unconditional level of healthy self-regard that isn't contingent upon how good of a performer you are, or you do it selflessly on behalf of another person. And through repetition of that type of behavior, where you get to a point where it's habitual, that's how you develop it over time. So I think the distinction between confidence and self-esteem lies in confidence can be, you know, a limited, specific, skill-based thing. Like, you have confidence as a performer. But how much of your, you know, decision to invest yourself

• 15:03Rich Roll?

  in being a performer is really compensating for your low self-esteem, so you can wear it like a mask and feel confident in that regard. But when your, when your head hits the pillow at night, you're like, yeah, I did that thing, but like, they probably could see through it. Or, you know, they know that I'm not worth anything. Or any of, like, all of that starts to.

• 15:21Speaker 01

  But that's not your voice. Whose voice is that? You know, it's, I think to me, and I was just listening to your podcast about the long path mindset, right?

• 15:29Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 15:30Speaker 01

  And. It just, it made me so, I was just so excited because I've been on this, you know, uncovering like family ancestry stuff, what I inherited, what guilt and shame isn't mine, what paranoia isn't mine, what anxiety is, is mine and isn't mine, and what did I inherit? That's actually secretly an incredible gift that made me a superhero that I should stop complaining about and just alchemize it into money or whatever. And I think that once I switch that mindset of I didn't get this, I didn't get this, I only focus on what I did get, because the other one didn't work for me very well. It did when I entered into a 12-step program and started doing the steps and writing out, I remember in the amends chapter where you write all the people you owe amends to. So in AA, it usually looks

• 16:15Speaker 01

  something like, I stole this guy's car, I gotta apologize. I stole this guy's drugs, I have to apologize. I cheated on this girlfriend, I gotta go to apologize. You know, ours are, you know, slightly different, our amends. You know, our amends are usually like, no one owes me any apologies. Here are the ones, the here, I don't owe anyone apologies. Here's who I think owes me an apology.

• 16:35Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 16:36Speaker 01

  That's how we go into it.

• 16:37Rich Roll?

  Well, alcoholics go into it with that mindset as well. The steps are a way of disabusing people of that idea, like,

• 16:45Speaker 01

  And we abuse ourselves.

• 16:46Rich Roll?

  You're a victim, like, I got wronged by all these people, and, you know, you have to like, go through the steps to understand and identify your, how you participated in all of those things that went wrong.

• 16:56Speaker 01

  I got wronged by all these people, so I did the obvious thing and started to just wrong myself.

• 17:02Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 17:03Speaker 01

  I just,

• 17:03Rich Roll?

  Codependency is different because you're looking towards family ancestry, and when you're a child, obviously you don't have culpability for, you know, however you were treated.

• 17:11Speaker 01

  Totally. And then the way that basically, a couple of things that I think might just be helpful in terms of like, people saying, what is codependence? Because I think a lot of people think of it as like, oh, people who just spend a lot of time together. The guy and the girl who just like, won't stop hanging out, you know. It's usually defined a couple of ways that really helped me. Number one, the inability to tolerate the discomfort of others, or perceived discomfort of others, right?

• 17:34Rich Roll?

  Check, check over here.

• 17:35Speaker 01

  Check, check.

• 17:36Rich Roll?

  I never thought of myself as a codependent, but the more I learn about it, I was like, oh, I'm completely diagnosable as this, but keep going.

• 17:43Speaker 01

  Anyone who's not a psychopath has some level of codependence. And I think that one of the most powerful things that I did was really study history. That's a really cool thing, but if you want to sort of get in touch with your understanding of what your addictions are, whether it's gambling, as we know, gambling doesn't always have to be with actual chips and money, shoplifting, what's that? And alcoholism also, it took me a second to understand, because I didn't see a lot of alcohol around me when I was a kid, because it was all secret, it was furtive, you know, it was in different, it was in a Diet Coke can, it was in a coffee cup. And that wasn't really my experience. I would see my mom drink glasses of wine, I just thought we were rich, you know? I didn't understand what was happening, I just thought like, oh, at eight o'clock, like, you make dinner and pour a glass of wine and make sure she gets in bed okay.

• 18:25Speaker 01

  Like, life was going fine, you know, in a lot of ways. But a couple other things is that, number one, in order for alcoholism to be present, alcohol doesn't have to be present. So alcoholism is, you know, defined by any, you know, engaging in something despite negative consequences, right? Whether it's over-organizing, you know, cheating, sex addiction, love addiction, obsession with things being clean and presents, there was a lot in my home, a lot of neuroses about gifts for other people. We're going to a party, you have to bring a gift, what can we wrap up from around the house? We can't use that tissue paper? You know I'm in recovery, because I gave you a gift today with no tissue paper. That is codependent recovery.

• 19:05Rich Roll?

  But I see the healthy aspect of that is like, you didn't have to be perfect about it.

• 19:11Speaker 01

  Oh, no.

• 19:12Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 19:12Speaker 01

  I thought that was perfect.

• 19:13Rich Roll?

  Right, it was perfect.

• 19:14Speaker 01

  See?

• 19:15Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 19:15Speaker 01

  I was like perfectly authentic in what it was, because the old way that my stinking thinking would be is to be like, I can't, I have to stop by the papyrus in store, and he likes to run and be outside, so let me get him a card with a runner on it, and then I'm gonna get the tissue paper, the green to match his chair, like, I was just, for what?

• 19:31Rich Roll?

  Insanity.

• 19:32Speaker 01

  Because I didn't think I was enough. I had to lead with something of value, because that's how little value I thought I had.

• 19:37Rich Roll?

  Right, because you just showing up without any of that would be inadequate.

• 19:41Speaker 01

  Or... This is getting even darker. I wanted you to like me. I wanted you to think I was a nice person and I was trying to manipulate one of the smartest people that I look up to. So a lot of it's that.

• 19:52Rich Roll?

  That was manipulative, though.

• 19:53Speaker 01

  Yes, totally. Can you just give me that back?

• 19:56Rich Roll?

  I'll take it. Thank you.

• 19:58Speaker 01

  So that's the other thing about codependence is that there's a little bit of a like, mm, those people just seem like depressed, whiny, boring nerds and whatever. So all the stuff that alcoholics do, and again, let's just say with substances or people and narcotics, whatever, and they share and they're like, I got in this car crash because I was drunk driving. Or I climbed into my girlfriend's window because I did meth and I thought she was cheating and then I fell off and I got arrested. And then alamants and codependents sit in the back of the room of like a double winners and we're like, we do that sober.

• 20:30Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 20:31Speaker 01

  Like, we do all the same insane behaviors.

• 20:34Rich Roll?

  And you can't get an out or point to the substance as the excuse.

• 20:38Speaker 01

  Well, for us, it's the internal drug cabinet. It's the adrenaline, the cortisol, and the hit that we get from chaos. So some of it, of course, is going to be epigenetic imprinting in utero. Whatever chemicals that your mother was emitting in utero was getting you addicted to those chemicals, you know, the same way you would be addicted to opioids and, you know, and Appalachia if you were, you know, in the tummy of a mother that was taking opiates. Thanks, Purdue. I have umbrella insurance, so I can say that. Do you have personal liability insurance?

• 21:06Rich Roll?

  I don't know.

• 21:08Speaker 01

  You might want to get it if you have me on your show. And so epigenetically, you can come out of the womb addicted to chaos and drama, like, right out of the gate, as if you were a crack baby, you know, mom was addicted to crack, whatever it is. So even as a child, I was like subconsciously always like trying to get on the moving escalator. I was just always trying to like getting in the knives, like whatever I could to get that adrenaline, because adrenaline turns into dopamine. So a lot of us don't even understand how addicted to adrenaline we are and how we put ourselves in situations that's going to get us that hit, whether it's that toxic relationship, that job we hate. It might even be being a, you know, fan of a football team that sometimes wins, sometimes doesn't. I love them because sometimes I'll be mad and sometimes I'll be happy, but like at least I know I'm going to get that hit of adrenaline.

• 21:51Rich Roll?

  Yeah, you feel alive.

• 21:51Speaker 01

  You feel alive.

• 21:52Rich Roll?

  That's the big thing when you get sober, you just think your life, because you're gonna, you're gonna crunch that curve down and you're not gonna have the high highs and the low lows. So you just think, well, life's gonna suck. And it really, you know, basically is like a mirror for how much we're captured by those swings.

• 22:10Speaker 01

  And this also might be something that was a train that left the station 200 years ago, and it really behooved your ancestors to behave like this. And now it just doesn't behoove you. So now you're just have a bunch of tools in your toolbox that you're using. Like, and I think it's just about updating your software. It's just about going from, you know, 1.0 to 2.0. Oh, I don't need these tools anymore. Wait, actually, even though I developed this tool to calm down my mom who was screaming, for example, like, that worked really well. It doesn't work, you know, but it might work well for this other thing if I just tweak it. Like, I think that when we look back at our childhood and go, that was trash. That was a nightmare. It broke me. I believe that anyone that's grown up in adversity, dysfunction,

• 22:53Speaker 01

  I maybe towards the end of the podcast can make my case of people that were raised in, quote, "perfect homes" are the craziest people I know. But I'll-

• 23:01Rich Roll?

  We'll put a pin on that to come back to it.

• 23:03Speaker 01

  Well, here's the thing, all my friends that grew up in these homes that I was so jealous of when I was a kid, I was like, this is like Mayberry. It's like their mom is here, their dad is here. They have like picnic blankets and stuff. 40 years later, they're like, oh, my dad had a secret wife in Pensacola. And I'm like, I told you there was a catch.

• 23:21Rich Roll?

  More often than not, yeah.

• 23:24Speaker 01

  But, or you get this other form of, quote, let's say, just say, trauma. I know it's a very trendy word right now, but that you saw a, quote, "perfect couple" that loved each other. And then so now you can't pair bomb with other people because you're comparing it to your, the parents that you saw. It was super copacetic. So I do see a lot of people who are just like, I don't know, I want what my parents have. It's like, that's not possible anymore. That was possible before phones and computers and Facebook.

• 23:47Rich Roll?

  Yeah. But this idea of really getting a broader picture of your heritage, like back to the long path idea, is a much healthier way of thinking about your parents. I mean, it's just, you gotta let go of the resentment, right? Like, you gotta have to, you have to, you have to forgive. You have to, you know, sort of- Step into a sensibility of grace with that. And, and you know, that's the kind of building block to what you just described, which is like regarding them as, you know, doing the best they can and giving you these superpowers that you have and understanding that they were playing out narratives and behavior patterns that they inherited and they were trying to do the best that they can.

• 24:28Rich Roll?

  And it allows you to just kind of breathe a little bit easier about the whole thing, rather than just grinding on a resentment over and over and over again, and then perpetuating the same unhealthy behavior pattern time and time again.

• 24:41Speaker 01

  And I think a lot of people don't understand, it took me a minute too, because it was like, you know, didn't really compute, that when you have a resentment against someone else, it's like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die.

• 24:53Rich Roll?

  You're harming yourself.

• 24:54Speaker 01

  You're harming yourself. It's actually selfish to forgive people. And the reason we forgive people, forget about it, but he owes me this, but he did. We forgive others, not because they deserve forgiveness, but because we deserve peace. And also, I think that when we don't forgive our parents, forget molestation and, you know, actual crimes that were committed, but just this like, I grew up in a way and I was never taught about this, and I never got love from my dad, and this and that, like, if you're not forgiving your parents, I think at this point, you're a bully. Because I used to really revolve my life around my bad childhood. It was my thing, it was my brand, I could trauma bond with people, I was able to kind

• 25:37Speaker 01

  of control people because they felt bad for me, I was able to blame that when I was making irresponsible selfish childish choices. And when I realized, like, you really got to call yourself out, you got to tell on yourself. And what I do in my program is a lot of like checking your motives, you know, like what you said before, like, I had to go, okay, I'm going to bring this gift, which is a re-gift, by the way, no secrets, no law, I can't like.

• 25:59Rich Roll?

  I appreciate the honesty.

• 26:00Speaker 01

  I can't, I can't carry secrets. I don't. It's, um, life gets so much better when you stop having secrets. You have so much more energy, you don't have to like remember what you said last time. And there's an exercise that an organization does, not Scientology, but it's sort of like a, kind of a 12-step like boot camp thing, that asks everybody in the audience on their first group meeting, they say like, how many of you are you mad at your parents? And everybody raises their hand.

• 26:26Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 26:26Speaker 01

  And then they go, what if I told you that your parents' only job was to keep you alive? How'd they do?

• 26:34Rich Roll?

  Hmm.

• 26:35Speaker 01

  And everyone's like, "Maybe that's too extreme, but it is just a different way to change your perception." So it's like, you know, in Al-Anon, you know, Koda, the same thing of it is a disease of perception, right? I have a disease where I see things in a way that really helped me stay calm as a child. You know, my dad didn't come home. Well, I'm an ugly, stupid idiot, and I gotta be on my report card. Of course he's gonna come home. That worked for me at the time. So because if we say, "Oh, well, my dad, you know, just doesn't like, is irresponsible." Like, a child can't handle that.

• 27:07Rich Roll?

  Sure.

• 27:07Speaker 01

  So you have to blame yourself because it's just kind of an easy... You can control it. Well, that was my fault. So if I just achieve more next time, he will come home. And we stay... And it's not true. It's doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. Insanity 101, you know? But there's a point where I think I realized that the more responsibility I took for my own bad choices, tricky thoughts, judgmental thoughts, instinct to gossip, just loving it, the more miserable my life was. Like, when I decided on this, like, radical accountability, zero blame, my life got so much better. And if you really study... If you're mad at your parents, you just don't know enough about history. Study the region they came from. Study their ancestors. Study where they came from.

• 27:52Speaker 01

  Study all of this, you know? It's like, and also look at your phobias, you know? When you see, like, people that are like, you know, histrionic about worms, or snakes, or bugs, or stuff like that, I'm kind of just like, something happened.

• 28:04Rich Roll?

  Sure.

• 28:05Speaker 01

  And you got that somewhere, you know? Whether it was your great-great-grandfather fell off a cliff, your family's clumsy, and you should know this, you know?

• 28:13Rich Roll?

  The more that I steep myself in all of these worlds, the more clear it is that almost everything tracks back to childhood trauma. Like, I had this guy, Paul Conti, in here recently. That episode hasn't gone up yet, but, like, oh, you would love this guy.

• 28:28Speaker 01

  Oh, thanks.

• 28:28Rich Roll?

  Like, he's like this, you know, world-leading expert on trauma, or like Gabor Maté, like, all of these things. Like, what gets imprinted on you at a very early age becomes the dictator of, basically, all of your, you know, strengths and weaknesses. And then developing an understanding of that... To untangle the behavior patterns that no longer serve you becomes like this life work.

• 28:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:56Rich Roll?

  That a lot of people never stumble upon because they never reach a pain point or an inflection point that is dramatic enough to get them to shift. So I think a lot of people are just operating in a low-grade level of semi-unawareness that's driving so many of the behavior patterns that are leading their lives astray or preventing them from optimizing who they are.

• 29:20Speaker 01

  I completely agree. And I also see a little bit of this self-obsession with people's trauma, where it's like, I just want to talk about it and re-embed it.

• 29:30Rich Roll?

  Well, it becomes an identity, and that's its own victimhood.

• 29:33Speaker 01

  And I want this to define me. I want everyone to know about it. I want to be viewed by the world as a victim because then I can control people. It's a way, it's a survival mechanism to stay safe. But for me, about five, six years ago, I stopped being overly sharing with the stuff that happened to me because I would go, and then this happened, and people go, oh, no. And then you get feedback from what is entertaining to other people or engaging about other people or makes them, in your mind, like you more. So I find myself really resisting sharing about that all the time because I also think there's a matter of, like, once you solve a problem, also, you can solve things privately, and then you can do, like, living events. You don't have to tell everyone about everything all the time. It's a way to ensure that in the future, you're going to have shame.

• 30:16Rich Roll?

  Or just making sure that when you're sharing about it, it's more about solution than the drama of the facts of the experience.

• 30:23Speaker 01

  Are you just sharing it with strangers?

• 30:25Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 30:26Speaker 01

  Or are you being of service to other people who you talking about it to them will help them?

• 30:30Rich Roll?

  Yeah, but it is empowering to talk about these things and give voice to it, which is, that's one of the main reasons I wanted to have you here, because you're so open about this. And I think it gives people who are watching or listening permission to be a little bit more reflective about their own histories and maybe realize there's something there that they weren't looking at, and that it's okay to explore that and hopefully, at some point, heal it.

• 30:54Speaker 01

  And have an understanding for me, there's some, like... You know, neurological hygiene, I think, that also has been really helpful to me of, you know, treating what you consume mentally the same way you treat what you consume food-wise. You know, there are certain things that I know, like if I watch this, then it's gonna kick, like I just, I know how this ends. And really, the miracle of doing the 12-step program work is about being able to make choices only that are a positive contribution to your future self. And the idea is every day, I'm like playing defense on future shame, because happiness is not a word that I just use. It doesn't work for me. It puts too much pressure on me. It's

• 31:37Speaker 01

  too vague. But I know that when I go to bed, when I'm doing my 10-step, if I feel pride in the way I behaved all day, I feel good. That's what happiness is to me, is pride. So I will engage in behavior and go like, am I gonna be proud of this in two days? Am I gonna be proud of this text? Am I gonna be proud of the way I behaved? And that's sort of my life hack of what I found that works.

• 31:58Rich Roll?

  But then do you find yourself rewarding yourself for that by then indulging in something maybe you might not be proud of? You know, like, I'm gonna binge this terrible show or whatever. You know, I'm talking about like relatively benign things, but stuff that you know, like, as they say, the road gets narrower, right? So it's like, well, I can't keep doing that thing anymore, or like I gave up all these other things. Like, do I really have to give up this thing too? Come on, like, let me have a little bit of fun over here.

• 32:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, I mean, that, I do somewhat, I really have my, I have a pretty like rigid, yet wildly flexible, sort of schedule of things that I do to make sure that my internal needs are met, because one of the first things I heard was happiness is an inside job, which was mind-blowing to me, that it wasn't everyone's job in the room to make sure I was okay at all times, even though I'm such a people pleaser. I was trying to make sure, you okay? Do you need anything? Like, you're waitress wherever you go, but you're not really, can I help you clean up? You don't really wanna clean up. Is that a real offer? Or are you just trying to make people like you? Like, what is this performance? You know, and I think that, you know, codependence, if I could just jump back a little, be super specific. Codependence are, you know, people who define themselves

• 33:07Speaker 01

  through their ability to be productive for others or useful to others. We basically grew up in a situation where we had to be precocious, probably very young. It's usually the, you know, the second child, third, fourth, fifth, someone that had to raise themselves, someone had to be, you know, too mature too early. So then they have an overdeveloped responsibility as adults to other people. So a lot of it is like, before you solve a problem, first make sure it's your problem. You know, that's a trick you want, you know? And then you look at your motives for whatever you're doing. I'm going to this bachelor party. I'm like, do I really want to go to this? Am I doing this out of obligation? If I'm doing this out of obligation, that's gross to do to the other person. Because anyone that is truly a friend of mine, and we have an authentic, actual intimate connection,

• 33:51Speaker 01

  you know, as friends, I'm lying. My behavior is showing up and lying. We really focus not on what we say. It's about the choices we make and the behavior we make. So I would never want someone that I'm friends with to come to something out of obligation and be like, "Oh, my God, why am I going to that?" Like, I would never want that. That would, you know, so that's gross. And that's all between you and your spirit, you know? Because I think that's what slowly breaks our spirit when we force ourselves to do things that we don't want to do because we assume that those people, we project onto them, you're going to be as punishing as my, this person, you're going to be as mean as this person, you're going to keep score like this other person. It has nothing to do with that person.

• 34:26Rich Roll?

  Right. And your worldview is that everything is conditional in your life.

• 34:29Speaker 01

  Everything has.

• 34:30Rich Roll?

  And everything is teetering on disaster at all times unless you like, sort of do that right behavior.

• 34:36Speaker 01

  But that's us. And that's, it's your job to heal yourself. I know that's, that, that, that is my, as soon as I started thinking that way and as soon as I started saying like, "Why doesn't someone just invent a time machine to change my childhood?" Like, what did I think was going to happen? You know? I think you get to a point where you're like, "I've tried all these things. Blame just doesn't work. Obsession doesn't work. Silently seething doesn't work. Complaining all day doesn't work. You know, let me just try this whole, you know, grant me the strength to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change and the wisdom to know the difference." So there's a lot of things I have power over, like the, but I remember early on in a, um, a meeting. A woman talked about how when she's not clear on what is and isn't her responsibility, you know, because codependents, we tend to be the people that are like, what do you need?

• 35:19Speaker 01

  I need a doctor, let's call Whitney. Oh, who's that dentist call? I like, love to be useful, want to entrench myself in your life because ultimately, you'll abandon me. So I have to find ways to put my hooks in you, you know, and being helpful and useful, it's like, I've got your insulin, where are you gonna go? You know, is kind of, all of it is fear of being abandoned. And it all came with a scorecard. You know, I dropped off flowers for your wife, and then I brought you this thing for your kids. You didn't ask for any of that. And then my birthday comes up and Rich doesn't come, I went, I dropped off-

• 35:49Rich Roll?

  You're the only one keeping score, though.

• 35:51Speaker 01

  But yeah, a hundred percent. And then I'm destroying my relationship with you. Because I did a bunch of nice, nice, people pleasing is a form of assholery. The nice thing that I did had strings attached, you know, but today I had no, you know, because I didn't pay for it or buy it for you. I don't, I did the least, you know, and that's sometimes how you keep a relationship strong and your connection to yourself, because you're also betraying yourself. You're lying to yourself and you're performing. And I found that I got to a point in my life where someone asked me, a sponsor I was working with said, um, when you look in the mirror, do you look in your eyes? And I was like, such a weird ass LA Scienta- what is, like, am I getting a pamphlet? Like, and I realized, I look in the mirror and I just,

• 36:36Speaker 01

  and the first, never, never, never, never, because I was so disconnected to myself because I was betraying myself, you know, all day long. And I'm lying to other people, myself with my actions, my behaviors, guilt-based decisions, mothering, martyring, micromanaging, which those are the three Ms, which is, you know, it could be fathering, micromanaging, martyring, whatever it is. It's just, basically, you're constantly trying to rescue people, help people, fix people, solve problems that aren't yours, with your overdeveloped sense of responsibility. And I remember- I just was like, yeah, I'm everyone's assistant. Or I'm, it's my job to fix everyone, save everyone, which is part of the reason that Al-Anons, you know, whereas an alcoholic might be addicted to alcohol, an Al-Anon might be addicted to the chaos created by that alcoholic.

• 37:20Rich Roll?

  I feel like we need new terminology, because when you say alcoholism, you immediately think of alcohol. You said earlier, like, you don't need alcohol present for alcoholic behavior. But to your point, like, it's not about alcohol. Like, it needs a new term. I mean, maybe just addiction in general, right?

• 37:37Speaker 01

  I, you know.

• 37:38Rich Roll?

  And like, Al-Anon and codependency is generally thought of in this reductive sense of enabling alcoholic behavior.

• 37:44Speaker 01

  Which is essentially when something stops being a choice. Right? Like, that's a, that's a definition that really works for me, whether it's you're masturbating at work in the bathroom, or you're working on your computer till 1:00 in the morning, and then it's 2:00, and you're, if you, or whatever, your behaviors, any of them, when it stops being a choice, is right, defined as an addiction. I think I'm just a little bit sensitive to, I would love to know what you think, because the addiction to the phone, and the addiction to the Snapchat, all this stuff, that's alcoholism, you know, on some level, but it is masquerading as something else. Because, and then, once you get, it's whack-a-mole, right? Once you get the drinking under control, the eating comes up. Once the eating comes up, the sex comes up. Once the sex goes out, the porn comes

• 38:24Speaker 01

  up, whatever. Addict, just, I guess, has been used for so long as a negative term, and I believe that addicts have superpowers that a lot of people don't, and are usually hyper vigilant, which is very smart. You can't get away with your alcoholic behavior if you're not wildly smart, you know.

• 38:42Rich Roll?

  You have to be crafty and cagey to perpetuate that behavior over a long period of time. But I think, yeah, I think that, that there's, it's certainly not a referendum on intelligence, like, it, it applies equally to everybody, no matter how you were brought up, or who you are. And my whole thing with addiction is that it lives on this massive spectrum. So, we think of it as alcoholism, or drug addiction, or gambling. We have these little buckets for it. But I think, you know, movies like The Social Dilemma, and... The relationship that the sort of fraught relationship that we all have with our phones now is making people realize like, oh, we're all captive on some level. And we all sit somewhere along this spectrum. And maybe it doesn't interfere with your life that much for a certain sector of the population.

• 39:24Rich Roll?

  And then way over here, you know, you're living on Skid Row and you can't, you know, like it's. But I think a lot of us sit somewhere, you know, in the middle. And, you know, whether it's, I can't put my phone down, I can't stop scrolling. Or, you know, as soon as I get activated by a text or an email, I have to respond immediately. Or I keep getting, I keep dating the same kind of person and having the same kind of result. Like, all of these things are, you know, alcoholic slash addictive behaviors. And the more that we can become self-aware of what's driving us and where it's leading us, I think we're in a better position to, you know, heal those wounds and find better strategies for life. So it's really, it's a very, you know, universal condition, I think.

• 40:09Rich Roll?

  And that's kind of the drum that I'm always banging with this.

• 40:11Speaker 01

  And maybe it's just me because I've spent so much time in, with family members in rehab and sponsoring people and stuff. And maybe this is just the people that decide to go to the meetings and reach out, you know. And I'm always like, I always start with, this person might just be too damn smart to get this. Which sounds crazy.

• 40:29Rich Roll?

  Intelligence does not serve you in recovery.

• 40:32Speaker 01

  And most of the addicts, if we're going to say that for now, I say superheroes. You know, whenever I meet them, I'm like, oh, you were just smarter than everyone. That's why you didn't feel understood. You're just more sensitive than ever. You just have all these superpowers and you wanted to dull yourself. You wanted to check out of your own brain, you know, is usually. So when I'm working with someone new, a sponsor or something, it's like, it's almost like you've been overdeveloped with, you know, certain things. And some people just, you know, the way that, I think it was Margaret Cho, was just on my podcast, and I was reading about her when she went into rehab. She said something so perfect that made me just fall in love and relate to anyone that's ever used substances to dull their brains. She's like, I just didn't want to care anymore. I just wanted to stop caring for like a day.

• 41:17Speaker 01

  You know, I just want to stop caring about what people thought about me.

• 41:20Rich Roll?

  Well, that's where the addictive behavior is the solution to the problem. It's not the problem, it's the solution. And it works, or we wouldn't do it, but then at some point it stops working, right? And we keep doing it. That's the problem.

• 41:32Speaker 01

  So in relationships, whether it's drug addiction, or codependence, or Al-Anon, it's tricky because, you know, your problem, your problem is you and the fact that you gravitated towards this, you know, situation and found it to, you thought this person was your soulmate because they were giving you all this chaos and drama, or this person is such a mess in their life that it makes me feel superior, even though I'm just less of a mess than the person in active addiction. You know, so it gives you like, you know, this arrogance of like, he doesn't even know his A.T. Oh, now I have to go learn Spanish to talk to the drug dealers? Okay, I guess I'm just a hero, angel.

• 42:06Rich Roll?

  Right, and that's what you needed to, you know, to kind of solve that wound that you have inside yourself.

• 42:12Speaker 01

  Well, yeah, I just got high off self-righteous indignation. Thank you, person in active addiction. I just used you to get my hit.

• 42:19Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 42:19Speaker 01

  You know, so it's just this really toxic, you know, surreptitious. It's, it's, Al-Anon is very insidious because a lot of it masquerades as kindness. You know, when I was in the throes of my codependent behavior, if someone asks you, "What's Wendy like?", they'll say, "She's the nicest, she drives everyone to the airport", that she doesn't even know, like, you would go, "That sounds sick", you know, but it's pathological kindness, we like to say. Pathological thoughtfulness as a way to let you know how thoughtful I am.

• 42:50Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 42:58Rich Roll?

  So what was your breaking point with all of this? Like, how did, how did you get ushered into the rooms?

• 43:04Speaker 01

  I had a family member go into rehab, because also, the, the wild thing, probably very similar to work addiction, is that codependence is incredibly rewarded. It is incredibly rewarded. You are so useful, I played sports really competitively. I was always the first person to get there, the last person to leave, like, I was...

• 43:23Rich Roll?

  Hello.

• 43:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, totally, just mostly because you guys organized this wrong.

• 43:29Speaker 01

  You know, we think we're right about everything because we...

• 43:31Rich Roll?

  I had an alcoholic coach who was less reliable to make it to mornings from practice, so I had the keys to the pool.

• 43:37Speaker 01

  And that is a form of trauma that most people wouldn't categorize under trauma, but it was like-

• 43:43Rich Roll?

  And I was proud. I was like, "Yeah, I'm reliable. I will be there. I will make sure that everybody gets in. We're gonna have mornings from practice."

• 43:50Speaker 01

  Which goes, "Oh, the authority figure isn't reliable. I'm on my own." You know, so as soon as-

• 43:57Rich Roll?

  And that drives the control issues and the perfectionism.

• 43:59Speaker 01

  Because you have great data that you should have the keys. You know, that's the tricky part, is when someone's like, "You're mothering, you're micromanaging." Well, you guys suck at this. I like, there's also a tricky one, because it's like, "Well, I am better at this than you are. Maybe not for the right reasons, but I am," you know? So then you get to a point where you just go, "It's not about that," you know? And then when you're leading 200 people, there's no time to act like that. And it turns out, when you think that you're helping someone or helping them save time, you're just patronizing them and you're like, telling them, "I don't trust that you can do this, so I'm gonna do it myself." But the guys, it's, "Oh, you know, I'll do it for you. Oh, I got it. No, no, I got it. No worries. You go home." But you're really just saying, "I don't like the way you do things. I'll just martyr myself and do it," and then start to hate you and not even give you a chance, frankly.

• 44:40Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 44:40Speaker 01

  You know, because we were proven wrong as a kid. It was very hard to trust other people to do things. I had a, um, a really brutal, a family member of mine went into rehab and I was, you know, there 24/7, did the intervention, bringing the Nutri-Green bars, bringing the, you know, Athletic Greens, you know, just there every single day. "What do you need? Can I get you a sweatshirt? Do you need new shoes? Do you need a comforter?" I mean, I was just there all day, every day, while I was doing two television shows simultaneously. And, um, someone pulled me aside, uh, my now therapist, who was the family therapist there, uh, she specializes in neuroscience of addiction, childhood trauma, et cetera, et cetera. And she, um, she's 30 years sober, she's amazing. And she came up to me and

• 45:25Speaker 01

  she was just like, "Hey, so, you know, you're just killing this person faster." And I was like, you know, but and of course I had guilt about what happened to both of us as kids. You know, what happened to her and I just wanted to fix it with my love. And that's not how neurology works. That's not how.

• 45:43Rich Roll?

  Younger than you?

• 45:44Speaker 01

  Older.

• 45:44Rich Roll?

  Older. Interesting.

• 45:46Speaker 01

  You know, and so we both have sexual abuse in our past, which is a very, once you really get a handle on that, a lot of behavior starts to make sense and you start to go, oh, wait a second. All these things I do, I could actually kind of like reroute to be incredible tools to give me a giant advantage. Like, I actually think I have a giant advantage because of all these things. Like, let me just perceive it that way. You know, so for the longest time I perceived my trauma as exactly what it was. The trauma I didn't block out, which we can talk about later, or repress or completely disassociate from. But I perceived it as trauma and as a liability. And I have two broken legs and a broken brain. And then as soon as I changed my perception on it, I was like, oh, my God, I was like gifted all these wild superpowers.

• 46:31Speaker 01

  I'm just using them wrong. You know, so once I was able to do that, I, my life got pretty awesome. But it took, you know, 14 years in Al-Anon and.

• 46:39Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 46:40Speaker 01

  Still sponsoring and still super involved.

• 46:42Rich Roll?

  So when that therapist was like, you're killing yourself or you're, you're, you're actually killing this person that you love more quickly.

• 46:49Speaker 01

  Because you're not giving them the dignity of their own experience and they can't grow if you do everything for them.

• 46:53Rich Roll?

  Well, and you're slowly killing yourself trying to solve a problem that's not your problem to solve, right?

• 46:58Speaker 01

  Correct.

• 46:59Rich Roll?

  But when that lands like a ton of bricks, like, does that ring a bell in you and say, I need to go to Al-Anon? Or like, how did you like walk into your first meeting?

• 47:07Speaker 01

  Well, because then the first thing I did was I went to the person. I was like, am I killing you? Like, is this bad? Should I not give you $100 every day for whatever you need for groceries?

• 47:16Rich Roll?

  Yeah, but you're, you're asking the unreliable narrator. Like, of course, they're going to say, keep doing that.

• 47:21Speaker 01

  Does the drug addict need cash in rehab? Yeah. So I did the, you know, cardinal mistake, which I went back to, to the person. And I was like, I just talked to her and she, she doesn't, she thinks it's fine when I'm doing, like, and she was like, okay, so.

• 47:41Rich Roll?

  That's hilarious.

• 47:42Speaker 01

  I'm like, I'm a hero and I get, I don't think you understand, okay? Like, I'm handling this, I've got it. And she said to me, she goes, you know, there's a program that, you know, is worth going to. I'd love to take you sometime and, you know. I was like, why? Why would I need a program? She's the one that won't stop drinking. Come from the same household, cut from the same cloth. Had the birth order been reversed, it would have just, you know. And she goes, well, I just watched you go to the problem for the solution.

• 48:11Speaker 01

  And I was like, yeah, that's how you get a solution. Like, I was like, you sober people are just, you don't get it. You know what I mean? I saved, I'm a very busy person. I don't, so her whole thing was like, no, if you have a, if your problem is someone else's behavior, you go to a program for the solution, because the solution might be do nothing. The solution might be do not a damn thing, because we're so addicted to taking an action.

• 48:32Rich Roll?

  But that doesn't compute.

• 48:33Speaker 01

  Does not compute. So then I was like, okay, I'm gonna go to this meeting so I can figure out how to get her sober.

• 48:41Rich Roll?

  Well, that's, that's, that's the equivalent of like, I'm gonna go to AA so I can figure out how to continue to drink without being an alcoholic.

• 48:49Speaker 01

  It's totally ridiculous. And so, no, or people that are like, I shoplift bad, but I'm just going to the gambling 12-step programs, because it's basically a gambling addiction at the base of it. It's like, well, you're not, okay. But yes, the lies we tell ourselves and the delusions. And look, I had a ton of proof that I was a super high function as a perfectionist, as a micromanager, and as a martyr. I had gotten a lot of-

• 49:12Rich Roll?

  Which makes it harder, because the world is smiling upon you and you're being wildly rewarded for these unhealthy behavior patterns that you're blithely unaware at some point are really gonna derail you at best and might actually kill you.

• 49:24Speaker 01

  Sometimes we're hurting people and ourselves and we don't even know it, because we're just zombies and it always worked for us before. And I went in to my first 12-step Al-Anon meeting, ACA, Adult Child of Alcoholics is the focus, which basically means you grew up in a home with addiction, let's say, to anything. And I went in and I was- So bored. I was like, these people, I now look back and I can say, oh my God, all these people actually had self-worth and self-care and that's why they were doing these things. But I was like, this guy's eating a salad. Like, why are you in pajamas? Like, I was just like, what is this? I was like, this is like a bunch of slobs complaining, you know? And then there were all the rules. And I was like, God, how dumb are these people? That you have to sit through all these rules every, like, can we just get to it?

• 50:08Speaker 01

  And then every time someone would speak where it didn't apply to me, I would just like tune out or like get on my phone.

• 50:14Rich Roll?

  Looking for the differences.

• 50:15Speaker 01

  Totally. I was, I was like, oh, no, if you guys aren't only talking about me, like I'm at, it was just, and then they, I was like, okay, I get it. I did get it in that meeting because someone said, people pleasing is a form of assholery. That clicked. And then the speaker that day opened with, I have good news and bad news. The good news is the war is over. The bad news is that you lost.

• 50:41Speaker 01

  So now it's just about picking up the pieces. Like, that's great news. The Damocles sword fell. Now let's just pick up the pieces, you know? And that, to me, was like, I know how to do that. Being in delusion about whether something is going well or bad, that is confusing to me because I can convince myself of anything. You know, I think that helps me as a comedian to be able to see both sides of everything and empathize with, you know, every facet of something. But I heard that and I was like, okay. And then I went to another meeting and also that-

• 51:07Rich Roll?

  That was enough to get you to go back.

• 51:08Speaker 01

  Well, also, you know, it was hilarious. And there were these deep belly laughs that I had never experienced.

• 51:17Rich Roll?

  Or were you thinking, like, I can get some good material here?

• 51:19Speaker 01

  It wasn't even that.

• 51:20Rich Roll?

  Like, in a very Hollywood way?

• 51:23Speaker 01

  I love that people think I'm so Hollywood. I live right down the street from you.

• 51:27Rich Roll?

  No, but I know, I know. But like, did you go, like, when I got sober, the, all the meetings I went to were-

• 51:32Speaker 01

  Sundowners?

• 51:33Rich Roll?

  Yeah, of course. Like, I've been to all of those.

• 51:35Speaker 01

  No, that's where I went to try and date musicians. They were vulnerable.

• 51:38Rich Roll?

  It's good for that, actually.

• 51:40Speaker 01

  Oh, I'm aware.

• 51:40Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Melrose and Mansfield.

• 51:42Speaker 01

  Yep. Lock Cabin.

• 51:44Rich Roll?

  Sure.

• 51:44Speaker 01

  Just gone now, I think.

• 51:45Rich Roll?

  That's where I got sober. And I was there every morning for years.

• 51:49Speaker 01

  I must say, you know, thank God this podcast exists so people can hear this everywhere. But Southern California is an incredible place for recovery, truly.

• 51:57Rich Roll?

  I'm so grateful, like, the community of people that I was able, I mean, I needed all new friends, right? And I was in a city where there were just tons of young, cool people who were sober and really into recovery and would, like, love going to meetings. And it was unbelievable, like, my first couple of years of just going from meeting to meeting to meeting and meeting all of these amazing people who've become like my closest friends to this day.

• 52:19Speaker 01

  By the way, amazing people. People are always like, "A meeting, like, in a church, abandoned church." I'm like, which a lot of people have God stuff, you know, of like, "God, what's this?" So I usually will go with people at their first meeting, because I'm like, "The God thing, just don't worry about it. Like, it's just not, God, just, all you need to believe in this is that you aren't God."

• 52:38Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 52:39Speaker 01

  Do you know what I'm saying? If you can't say that you're not God and you can't change people's-

• 52:42Rich Roll?

  Just not, don't, forget about the word "God" altogether and, you know, use higher power or whatever you want and just think, "Well, this group of people has more power than me because they figured out something that, like, I have trouble figuring out."

• 52:53Speaker 01

  And why are you looking so badly for an excuse to not do this?

• 52:57Rich Roll?

  That's the key.

• 52:58Speaker 01

  Just look at that. The God thing's weird. That's the thing that is your, you know what I mean? So, it's sort of-

• 53:04Rich Roll?

  That's the main thing for most people that prevents them from walking through the door. And everybody has all of these preconceived ideas about what it is and what it isn't, and a lot of that is driven by media, what they've seen in movies and television, or some family member that wasn't able to get sober through the program or whatever, which is why I have, like, I mean, I'm interested in your perspective on this, like, what is your relationship as a public person with respect to the tradition of anonymity and how you talk about this kind of stuff? Because we've been talking about this for an hour, right?

• 53:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, okay.

• 53:37Rich Roll?

  And like, I am always battling with that a little bit because had I known what I discovered when I came into the meeting- I might have come in earlier and I understand the importance of anonymity and I would never divulge, you know, the specifics of who was there or what was said, but I can still evangelize the benefits of it generally. And I, I think that that is a net positive, although I'm never sure kind of where that line is. Cause I want to encourage people who are struggling to check it out, right? And to do that, you have to, you know, sort of characterize it as, as something aspirational.

• 54:18Speaker 01

  I love this question. I love this question, especially because I just felt myself getting a little defensive. Which is, so obviously this is something I've been kind of grappling with in some way, even if I haven't talked about it much. Because there is, you know, in these programs and anon, the idea is you always keep the person anonymous. Always, always, always. Not only because it's no one's business who it is and doesn't matter, but also it could put the person that is in that program in a lot of danger. If you, you know, you're not allowed to call and leave messages or voicemails on someone else's voicemail machine and be like, "Hey, is your alcoholic husband still beating you?" Cause they could hear that and, you know, it could put the person in danger.

• 54:59Speaker 01

  So that is a lot of the anonymity stuff. Also, you know, clearly in public, you don't want people to know anything you're doing in private. That's not fair. So I would never out someone else's anonymity. But I think for me personally, and I think that the leaders of the day need to make sure that things that leaders from 50 years ago decided was a great rule, that we just like keep looking at them and go, "Is that still the case? Is that still the case?" Because, you know, we've got things like kids shooting up schools and we've got a real mental illness crisis. Should we still keep this secret? Is it still, for me, I'm a little bit reckless and I also, I just, I just don't lie. That's something that works for me and I think that. If anyone was struggling the way I was struggling,

• 55:44Speaker 01

  to not talk about this program, which is also free medicine, in a country where there's just not any free medicine.

• 55:52Rich Roll?

  And let's, you know, to be frank, like, it's kind of a fucking miracle that it exists and it thrives and it helps so many people, and it's free, and it's full of people. Like, where else in the world can you walk into a room totally broken and have a community of people come to your aid and help you and not want anything in return? It's fucking amazing.

• 56:12Speaker 01

  There's also nothing more healing in general. I encourage every, I mean, I'm not trying to tell everyone, like, hey, you're all, you all qualify for this. It's a self-diagnosed disease. But we all come from this. You know, we all come from, if you, again, read history books, you know, we're, 100 years behind us was prohibition. I mean, they had outlaw alcohol in this country. I know there's, the real sad story is so black people probably couldn't vote as much. You know, there's a lot of sketchy-

• 56:39Rich Roll?

  That's a different podcast.

• 56:40Speaker 01

  That's a different podcast that I'm not gonna weigh in on. But there's a lot of sketchy reasons that prohibition happened, obviously. But, you know, alcoholism in this country and, you know, in the countries we immigrated from, were just a very, I mean, my, I looked into my ancestry to try to solve some problems or unearth some sort of engines in me that I didn't, aren't relevant to my current life. And I have, half my ancestors died of cirrhosis, you know? I mean, this is not new, you know? So I think that to not talk about this is like, you're not talking about history, you're not talking about science, you're not talking about epigenetics. There's just no way to not, to try to be in the space in any capacity

• 57:22Speaker 01

  and not talk about it. And yes, it's, it's a bunch of people who want to be more mature. It's a bunch of people that wanna make right decisions. And I think that if you only look at the data from being on the internet, where everyone's an asshole and everyone wants to cancel everyone, you do need to make sure if you're gonna engage and consume that stuff online, what is your antidote to that? To make sure that you're seeing the world and human beings in a balanced way? I'm very lucky I have stand-up comedy because I get to go see, you know, 2,000 people in one- Room, they're all laughing at the same shit. No one knows who anyone voted. No one knows, you know, what team anyone roots for. I'm like, we have so, people are trying. There's, these people laughed at these jokes and they left and they want to vote. None of them are like,

• 58:03Speaker 01

  you're punching, like, most people aren't like that. And I think that if you want to be mentally healthy today, you have to take active contrary actions to make sure that you're getting data from, in interactions from most people, not just the like 10,000 people online who are probably very mentally ill.

• 58:22Rich Roll?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean, I think the argument in terms of anonymity, I mean, the, the kind of actual language is we're, we're anonymous at the level of press, radio, and film, right? That's kind of like in the, in the literature.

• 58:34Speaker 01

  Okay, you didn't put YouTube in there, Bill.

• 58:36Rich Roll?

  I know, but like, is this press? Is this, well, it's not technically radio.

• 58:41Speaker 01

  Kind of, but.

• 58:43Rich Roll?

  But I guess you could make the argument, I mean, the idea being like, you don't like, you know, promote this in the world. And, and part of that is if you're a public facing person and you do that, and then you relapse, it reflects poorly on the community. And I think there's some, I, I understand that.

• 58:59Speaker 01

  Look, you know, Bill, the big book doesn't include phones, cell phones. It doesn't include computers. It doesn't, that was written before like porn and vapes and weed being legal. There's a couple of things that need to be updated about it. And, you know, I'm happy to be wrong, but I usually feel like I'm going in the right direction when I'm able to stop and check my motives and go, okay, am I talking about this to try to get attention? Am I talking about this to try to make people feel sorry for me? Am I trying to make people like me? Am I trying to make people think I'm smart? What am I trying to do? And then if I'm like, no, I just, I am, I, if I had had this program when I was 20, a program to reparent myself, that's all it is. Our parents did the best they can with the tools they had.

• 59:42Speaker 01

  And then there's just, it's just college for how to behave in relationships, how to behave, how to treat yourself, how to treat other people. I just didn't, I got a bad blueprint for that. And it was no one's fault. I mean, my dad and mom worked a lot. They were really busy, you know, because they had to work for money. I interpreted it as neglect. But they were trying to keep me fed, you know, I was a perception issue. And so. There's so many magic tricks in this program. There's also just some of the most incredible people I've ever met, some of the most healing laughs I've ever had, because there is a levity within these programs. No one wants to have to do that three times a week. You know, until then, once you start doing it, you really want to do it because you know how great it is. It's like exercise or anything. It's going to suck for the first couple of weeks and then you'll get kind of addicted to it.

• 1:00:26Speaker 01

  And I think there's such a thing as positive addiction. So if you know your brain is, you know, doesn't hold dopamine the same way other people's hold dopamine, which is basically what ours is. There's biological basis for it, you know? But then when you start getting addicted to meetings and hanging out with friends and cool people and taking calls from sponsees, you know, you're like, wait, is this addictive the way? You're like, no, this is a good thing. Like, this is a positive addiction.

• 1:00:51Rich Roll?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I totally agree. I mean, I think that there's, you know, on the, on the subject of levity, like, there's nothing more healing than to go into that environment harboring some deep shame or some secret about some terrible thing that you did and hear somebody share a similar analogous version of that story and just own it with laughter. It's just unbelievably liberating to realize like, oh, A, I'm not alone. And B, like, there is hope to transcend this thing that I'm so deeply afraid of ever telling anybody that, that I did. And the fact that there's people around there who will, you know, welcome you without judgment and walk you through the process

• 1:01:36Rich Roll?

  of going from the newcomer to being the person up there sharing your story is just one of the coolest things I've ever participated in or been witness to.

• 1:01:45Speaker 01

  And in addition, when someone is helping you, you're helping them. So you don't have to feel guilt at, oh, this person's helping me, you know?

• 1:01:54Rich Roll?

  That's the mindfuck that like, took me a long time to figure out, but yeah.

• 1:01:58Speaker 01

  That's the mindfuck of codependence in general. Because normally codependence, I'm like, just call me every day.

• 1:02:03Rich Roll?

  Oh, you mean it's good for me to be of service to people? Like, I can selfishly be of service because it will help me? Like, that's probably not a great message for. An Al-Anon.

• 1:02:13Speaker 01

  Well, no, it's more that I'll go, "Okay, great. I'll sponsor you. Let's talk every morning for 10 minutes. Talk every night for 10 minutes. Send me this many voice memos a day. Anytime you do this or this, just check in with me about it. Let's make a scout, whatever." And it's a lot of like, "Well, I just, I don't want to bother you." Like, "I just don't want to, I know you're busy, and like, I just don't, I feel guilty calling twice a day." And I'm like, "So, this is the, you know, mindfuck of codependents." So, uh, let's play that scene out. I'm, you're the, uh, codependent. You're a newcomer, day one into Al-Anon. Um, Rich, I'm your sponsor. I want you to call me twice a day. Check in.

• 1:02:46Rich Roll?

  Yeah. I don't know. Like, I don't want to bug you. I don't, I don't know.

• 1:02:52Speaker 01

  So, you think-

• 1:02:52Rich Roll?

  I'm busy.

• 1:02:53Speaker 01

  You're busy?

• 1:02:54Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 1:02:59Speaker 01

  But if it was, if we stop before-

• 1:03:00Rich Roll?

  If I have time.

• 1:03:01Speaker 01

  It was this. But it's more like, "I don't want to bother you." So, I said, "Call me." You said, "I don't want to bother you." So now, you're calling me a liar.

• 1:03:08Rich Roll?

  Hmm.

• 1:03:08Speaker 01

  You're saying that I just said something insincere.

• 1:03:11Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:03:12Speaker 01

  That's rude. You know what I'm saying?

• 1:03:15Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:16Speaker 01

  So it's like, when we really get to the bottom of codependent, I'm so worried about you. You're saying a couple of things. Number one, that I'm bad at my own time management. That I say things that I don't mean, and that I'm trying to manipulate you. Like, you doing that was insulting to me.

• 1:03:28Rich Roll?

  Right. Well, the other piece, at least from the alcoholic perspective in that context, would be, "What's your angle?" Or, "What are you trying to get over on me?" Or, "You're trying to..." Like, there's a hitch here.

• 1:03:39Speaker 01

  Thirteen-stepping on ya.

• 1:03:40Rich Roll?

  I'm waiting for, yeah, like, for the, for, to find out, like, "Oh, you're actually trying to run a scam on me."

• 1:03:45Speaker 01

  What I would say is, "Good news, bad news. The shoe dropped." I'm not gonna fuck you over. You already fucked yourself over enough. You know what I mean? Like, what would I fuck you over for? Your three DUIs?

• 1:03:57Rich Roll?

  You don't have anything that I want, dude. That's the thing.

• 1:04:00Speaker 01

  Why would I, what? What do I get? Your studio apartment with the hooker?

• 1:04:03Rich Roll?

  That's the grandiosity of the newcomer, right?

• 1:04:06Speaker 01

  And then also, you can get information just, so I think a lot of what this is about is just like, slowing down the way that we talk and getting super granular with what your reaction is to something. So if I say to her, uh, and I sponsor, you know, female identifying people, I say, "Call me anytime." She says, "I can't. I feel guilty." And I go, "That's great information." That people were insincere with you growing up. Or they said one thing and meant another thing. Or there were strings attached. Or they overpromised and underdelivered. Or they offered something and then made you feel guilt when you actually took it.

• 1:04:42Rich Roll?

  Right, or they made you believe that their time was more valuable than yours.

• 1:04:45Speaker 01

  So let's start writing that up in your four step. You know, it is, what is the four step story about how? Because I think the key to all this is also knowing whether you do one meeting or do them all the time. Like, like I do, you on some level believe that you're terminally unique. Right? If you're like, I don't want to tell anyone that bad thing I did. Like, oh, you're the only person

• 1:05:07Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:05:07Speaker 01

  That stole a car. You think you're, what you did was, there's an arrogance to what I did was so bad. And then you get someone read your four step, which is you admitting all the, you know, crazy shit you've done. And you're, there's, there's a story that's like, yeah, and then I fucked this chicken. He's like, wasn't there a whole coop? You only fucked one of them? You know, it just was sort of like, we've all done that. And I think it was Barry Michaels and who is the other therapist that wrote The Tools? Phil Stutz. He talks about, he said it so elegantly.

• 1:05:39Rich Roll?

  Phil Stutz, he was, he was the big therapist psychologist guy in Hollywood, right?

• 1:05:44Speaker 01

  Yeah. Being a Hollywood psychologist.

• 1:05:48Rich Roll?

  He was the guy that everyone wanted to get with, though, right?

• 1:05:51Speaker 01

  Yep, he's like very hard to get in.

• 1:05:52Rich Roll?

  Is he still around?

• 1:05:53Speaker 01

  Him and Phil Stutz, who, I'm sorry, him and Barry Michaels, who is sort of his protege, wrote that book called The Tools. Which I highly recommend some, there's some like antidotes that I think your fan base would just find a little bit, you know, too simple for them. It's sort of, they already know it. But there is some exercises that are incredible that they put together. The deathbed exercise, where you picture yourself on your deathbed, like very vividly. It actually really helps put things in perspective.

• 1:06:21Rich Roll?

  Right, the idea like being that if you're, when you're going through a problem or you're having some kind of experience, fast forward to the deathbed and then real, like, then reflect on whatever you're going through right now is just really important.

• 1:06:32Speaker 01

  I had a, I mean, you know, I struggled with eating disorders for a very long time. I had a really profound experience when I was just was like, oh, my God. I would be so bummed if on my deathbed, I looked back and was like, you spent like years of your life, like, Counting calories and like driving around the city, buying sugar-free protein bars. Like, I just was like, my future self, I'm not gonna let that happen to my future self. Like, I will not go down like that, you know? And it just, something clicked. But when you're doing the work and you're asking for, you know, illuminating of your psyche and your inner monologue, I think that when something really simple hits you, it really can make a change in your brain real fast.

• 1:07:12Rich Roll?

  Yeah. So, control issues, people-pleasing, boundaries, disordered eating, codependency, like, it's a whole bag of tricks here. So, and you've done like so much work, right? But like, I'm interested in like, what's the, because the, on that idea of like, the road is always getting narrower, like, you never transcend all of this, so what's the thing that's coming up now?

• 1:07:36Speaker 01

  I love that.

• 1:07:37Rich Roll?

  What is the thing that you're, you're doing battle with?

• 1:07:40Speaker 01

  And can I just say really quick, just in terms of, because I, what happens in vagueness stays in vagueness? And I think that it might be worth saying, like, you know, in these programs, you say, admitted to God or power greater than yourself, that you are powerless over blank. Powerless over alcohol, powerless over cocaine, powerless over sex, powerless over porn, powerless over whatever the thing is that you're powerless over, where it's no longer a choice. And, and Al-Anon, for me, it changed. Like, in the beginning, it started with, I was powerless over other people's behavior. I would obsess over other people's behavior. I would try to, why did he do that? Why did he say that? He doesn't like me? But, hold on, does he like, wait, should I have said that? I shouldn't have said that. I mean, just constant, constant. Other, and then, I'm powerless over other people's perceptions of me. Then I was powerless over perfectionism.

• 1:08:24Speaker 01

  Then I was powerless over worrying and panic. Like, worrying gave me a high. I think that, that addiction to anxiety and panic is super real. An addiction to chaos, you know? I, I'm powerless over chaos. I love chaos, but it's all a choice. I'm the one getting in the car and driving to his house.

• 1:08:39Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:40Speaker 01

  I'm the one that drove over, I'm the one that drove to that Thanksgiving with my dad and his new wife. I have, I'm the one doing that.

• 1:08:46Rich Roll?

  So, did you have a bunch of boyfriends that were just chaos agents that would fill that need?

• 1:08:52Speaker 01

  It's wild because I've been very lucky. I believe that in your twenties, if you're in a bad, whatever that means, that's normal. You know, what you do in your twenties, experimentation, figuring things out, you know, we need contrast. You gotta be in a couple of bad relationships. So when the right person comes along, you're actually gonna be grateful and not be like, raya, raya, raya, maybe there's more, you know. So there are some that were just more childish than anything. But actually, because I was so precocious, I was actually able to do relationships pretty well with some healthy people until I started being successful in terms of my, you know, it took having the whole day free to be able to maintain those relationships,

• 1:09:34Speaker 01

  which is a red flag, because I used to think that proximity and intimacy went hand in hand. So when I was able to do, it was dysfunctional at the time. If he went out of town, I'd like, I'll come with you, you know, whatever. So afraid of being cheated on, abandoned, left, whatever. And then I started, I dated a couple addicts, we're saying, in active addiction. And there was one that was so bad, I was, you know, hiding crack pipes and driving downtown and fighting with drug dealers and that whole thing. And I really thought I was helping this person. You know, I really thought I could, if someone just loved him enough, he would be sober.

• 1:10:14Speaker 01

  That shows my lack of understanding of basic neuroscience, basic biology, you know. So one of the first things they say to do when you come into Al-Anon is study addiction. Learn about it. There's that book, Addicts and Addictive Thinking, I think. Study alcoholism. Study what happens to the brain, because you're gonna take their behavior personally and it has nothing to do with you. You know, so that relapse had nothing to do with you. In fact, you probably be like, where's the crack pipe? Is there anything? Who just called you? I mean, like, no one, that's not gonna help someone tolerate, you know, life without being anesthetized, if that's been their choice so far. And then, you know, I believe you've mentioned this before, a rule that kinda helped me, rule, whatever it is, aphorism,

• 1:10:57Speaker 01

  is that you are the age you are minus the amount of time you've been using drugs. So I was also in relationships with people that had, even if they were sober, they had been doing drugs since they were 14, now they're 30, and just emotionally, they haven't developed their coping mechanisms yet. They haven't had an opportunity to have the dignity of their own experience. Like, they're still catching up emotionally. And I was expecting them to run with a broken leg. I was expecting them to be in a relationship. With the emotional intelligence of a 14 year old.

• 1:11:23Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that's a big one. I think people have this assumption that when somebody gets sober and then maybe they have a year or something like that, like, oh, they're fine, like, everything's fine. They're back to, you know, being who they are, but they don't understand that, you know, they have to learn how to be in the world. Like, I couldn't tell you how many years it took for me to learn how to say no to like anything. Like, I had no ability to

• 1:11:48Speaker 01

  Tell me about that.

• 1:11:48Rich Roll?

  Be an adult, you know, meaning like

• 1:11:51Speaker 01

  Would you feel like they'd be mad at you?

• 1:11:53Rich Roll?

  Sure. Yeah. But that showed up for me mostly as avoidance. Like, I just, I'll respond to that email later, or I'll just like pretend I didn't get that text where they asked me that question. And then you're getting those situations where time passes and then the phone weighs a million pounds.

• 1:12:09Speaker 01

  Which is so unfair to you.

• 1:12:11Rich Roll?

  Cause I do that. I used to do that all the time. I still, you know, I'm challenged by that.

• 1:12:16Speaker 01

  Because to me, if I send you a text saying, hey, Rich, you want to come to my birthday? And you're like, oh, just let me just not. I like you so much. Like, it'd be my nightmare if I stressed you out with that, you know? But I would never think that it would be that much of a challenge for you, you know? So it's sort of like, we are, you know, it's on us to develop the coping mechanisms to be able to go, okay, I've got this. This is the tool I used, which is like, I have in my voice notes, in my notes app, I put in, I do a lot of voice memoing for my 10 step and stuff to like, listen back and see if I'm full of shit sometimes. But is I have like, three go to sayings for when someone asks me to do something, you know? Hey, so good to hear from you. I am at capacity

• 1:13:01Speaker 01

  right now, and I just, I can't commit to anything at the moment. Can I let you know in a couple of weeks? Or, hey, can you actually send this to, with someone on that's my scheduler? So they can send to a fake email, whatever it is. Hey, I just can't commit right now. Here's what, if anyone is unhappy with that response, they're Not integrated.

• 1:13:19Rich Roll?

  Sure.

• 1:13:19Speaker 01

  And then the sooner we start, you know, say what you mean, mean what you say, don't say it mean. Instead of, oh, hey, you're invited, you just invited me, it's next week. And with, if you don't put that shit on them, it's a great opportunity to, for both of you to practice maturity and to see as you evolve in your program and start reparenting yourself to be mature in your expectations of other people and not try to put your hooks in everyone, you get to see who they are.

• 1:13:47Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:13:47Speaker 01

  And then you also, you also get to get proof that, number one, no one cares if you say no.

• 1:13:51Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:13:52Speaker 01

  And no one cares when you cancel. You're doing them the biggest favor.

• 1:13:55Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:13:56Speaker 01

  You know?

• 1:13:56Rich Roll?

  The other response, unhealthy response, is the multiple paragraph one where you tell some long story about like, what you can't do.

• 1:14:05Speaker 01

  So, in my first six months, no emails longer than two sentences. Any email that is more than three sentences, you are either trying to manipulate, you're apologizing, you're trying to micromanage how they perceive you, you're trying to

• 1:14:20Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:21Speaker 01

  guilt them or shame them. Do they deserve, you know, same thing, oh, and then, I sent you that text today, I tried to be very succinct.

• 1:14:27Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:14:27Speaker 01

  But I had to go, no, he does not need to know that. That's me trying to make him think I'm not an asshole. You know? And then I'm going, oh, this guy is, that makes me go, oh, this guy is, has no ability to judge me when he meets me, or he's, if he thinks I'm an asshole based on that one extra sentence, there's probably something off with him.

• 1:14:46Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:14:46Speaker 01

  You know, but to really-

• 1:14:48Rich Roll?

  But it takes that recovery and that maturity to have that thought occur to you.

• 1:14:51Speaker 01

  Maturity is such a crazy word because I think we associate it with being kids, but as an ACA adult child, child of alcoholic, the whole reason it's called that is because we're still as adults behaving the way we did when we were children and using the tools that worked for us. Whether it was like performing for everyone, shape shifting for everyone, you know, it's sort of if you had alcoholism in your home, or you had any kind of neurodivergence, or borderline personality, which I think just very recently we even have any understanding of, and the zeitgeist, and it's all still pretty murky, or schizophrenia, or compulsive behaviors, you know, you adapted. That's the wonderful thing about us, is we can adapt so quickly, you know, and then

• 1:15:34Speaker 01

  I know how to keep everything we say at 70 degrees. So now, do you need anything, do you need anything, just to make sure? Everyone's like,

• 1:15:40Rich Roll?

  Right. The problem is that adaptation gets calcified. And when your environment changes, your adaptations don't change with it.

• 1:15:47Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:15:47Rich Roll?

  You continue to go back to those same strategies that you learned as a young person just to survive and get through the day. And now they're, they show up as very unhealthy behavior patterns that are ruining your life.

• 1:15:59Speaker 01

  And what programs do is they take your brain off of autodrive. They takes it off your default software. So we go, oh, this is my default software. I'm going to update it and so that I'm not operating on that same software. If that gets murky, it'll always default to that software. It'll always default to those thoughts, that blueprint. You know, if I'm hungry, angry, lonely, tired, if I've skipped some meetings, if I've skipped, you know, you know, doing any of my rituals that keep me clear. If I've skipped hanging out with my friends that think like this, like I'm going to start getting further and further away from that 2.0 and I'm going to start defaulting. You know, if I'm scared, if I'm in a high stress situation. So like, I gotta know that about myself. But what program does do for us is it gives us pause. I didn't know that. I had no idea what that meant. I was such a, I know we're not allowed to say spas,

• 1:16:43Speaker 01

  but I was such a manic person that was just always in a rush. Always in a rush because I had overbooked myself, overcommitted to stuff. Busyness was kind of an addiction of mine, not necessarily productivity, but just busyness. It was a way of being avoidant, it's a way of not having to be with my feelings and keep that victim mentality of like, I'm always, people want so much for me and I just am to, you know, that martyr complex, which by the way, um, so one of the first questions I ask sponsors and alans, I say, okay, if it, if you're going to the Rich Roll Podcast, if it takes 30 minutes to get to Rich Roll and you have to be there at 3 o'clock, what time do you leave?

• 1:17:18Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:17:20Speaker 01

  Takes 30 minutes.

• 1:17:21Rich Roll?

  What is the healthy response or what do your sponsors say?

• 1:17:24Speaker 01

  Well, what a sponsor's response is usually if they're just coming into program, like you leave at 3:30.

• 1:17:28Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:17:30Speaker 01

  Because it takes 30 minutes to get there.

• 1:17:31Rich Roll?

  But then you show, if anything intervenes, you're late.

• 1:17:34Speaker 01

  Magical thinking.

• 1:17:34Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:35Speaker 01

  What if you run into someone you know? What if there's traffic? What if you're stopping pee? What if you have, you know, getting out of the car? You can't find the building. Like, you're not setting yourself up for a positive result. You're not giving yourself cushion.

• 1:17:46Rich Roll?

  The more typical, they may say that, but then they'll still leave at 2:45 because there's a self-sabotage aspect of it. Like, even if they're not consciously aware that they're running late, they'll set themselves up so that they end up leaving late. And then that's a way to flog yourself or to create stress on the way there. So you can tell yourself you're a piece of shit or get the rush of hormones that come with like, I gotta get, you know, like.

• 1:18:10Speaker 01

  With making sure no one respects you.

• 1:18:14Speaker 01

  Because it's also like, like, you know, so to me, that is a form of insanity and a form of exactly making sure that you feel like shit later to, you know, be an engine to your shame addiction. And you're bringing other people into it, which is especially, you know, disrespectful. But, um, you know, I think that that's something that, you know, for me is a big one. It's a very small thing, you know? A lot of these big problems, I think, have really basic, um, solutions. So I have anxiety all day. Okay. Try just for a week, scheduling out your day in a way that gives you an hour between each thing. If it takes 30 minutes, and then just see what happens, you know?

• 1:18:50Rich Roll?

  But for the unhealthy person, it's like, yeah, but whatever. Like, I need the complicated solution because I'm special and my problems are special.

• 1:18:58Speaker 01

  I know, you're better than us.

• 1:18:59Rich Roll?

  You don't understand how terrible it is for me.

• 1:19:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, I know. Look, I get it.

• 1:19:03Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:03Speaker 01

  So you know what? Never mind then. You know what? I'm so sorry. Never mind. You're good. I think you're good. And look, with, I went away. The first year of Allen on ACA, I used it, I weaponized it. I mean, because I went in and I went, I get exactly what this is. I'm too busy for this. These, I don't have to do these steps. I got, like, I got it.

• 1:19:22Rich Roll?

  Right. The intellectualization of it.

• 1:19:24Speaker 01

  Oh, I got it.

• 1:19:25Rich Roll?

  I did that too. And then I just had to relapse a ton of times and end up in a treatment center.

• 1:19:29Speaker 01

  Yep. That'll do it.

• 1:19:31Rich Roll?

  That's where intelligence gets in the way.

• 1:19:33Speaker 01

  Sometimes a little bit of program can be horrible for you because you can use it, you know, to hover. Well, I'm in this program, so obviously I'm right. I mean, well, what they would tell, what they would say to do is this. And this is obviously, you know, you're like, well, I'm not gonna go.

• 1:19:46Rich Roll?

  That's called being a tourist in the program. Because you're not actually doing it.

• 1:19:50Speaker 01

  I'm not gonna go to the problem for the solution, and you're the problem. So I'm gonna go get a solution. Like, you can't, doing all that is you're just using it to bully and shame other people, and it just makes your self-righteous indignation addiction even worse.

• 1:20:01Rich Roll?

  Did you answer the question that I asked you about what you're, what's showing up for you right now?

• 1:20:05Speaker 01

  No, because I realize I owe you a couple answers. What, how is it showing up for me currently still with the whack-a-mole of all of this? You know, I do also think it's really important to update your software on yourself and on your recovery of going like, oh, yeah, I really needed this 10 years ago when I was in recovery. But now I don't know if I need that as much anymore. I think I need to be doing more of this. And also to go, you know, recheck in because that arrogant stuff will really, the ego will come right back up. I remember during the pandemic, I did a couple Zoom meetings. And, you know, I'm like, I've been doing this for so long. And I'm listening to people who are just in the problem, not in the solution, which to me comes off like complaining, but they're newcomers, you know? So, oh, my work right now is to be more patient with people, the

• 1:20:49Speaker 01

  way they were with me when I just came in, and I had no idea what I was doing. And I thought it was cool to just brag about how bad my childhood was.

• 1:20:55Rich Roll?

  Right. Or, or to approach the meeting from a perspective of how you can help these people as opposed to what am I extracting from this that's helpful to me?

• 1:21:05Speaker 01

  A hundred percent. Or, I'm just here to look them in the eyes and receive what they're saying. God forbid me not think about myself for three minutes. Like, take the wind, the respite from having to think about yourself, you know? But when I get, that's what I love about hearing other people share and just being like, okay, it's not just me. Oh, I'm not more special than anyone. Oh, it's not harder for me than it is for everyone. I'm just a worker bee. I'm just a worker bee. But when judgment comes in, that's when I know I'm getting a little rusty. When gossip comes in, especially at a time where there's just so much gossip. Gossip is a really big sort of no-no bottom line for a lot of Al-Anons because it's sort of how we feel self-righteous, it's how we judge, it's how we deal with fear, it's how

• 1:21:48Speaker 01

  we give ourselves a little superficial hit of self-esteem. Just because someone else made a mistake, that's not real self-esteem, you know? So it's like the McDonald's version of getting a little hit of self-esteem. Gossip is a big one, and then the way I handle gossip when it comes up, you know, and someone's like, "Oh my God, did you hear the Johnny Depp and Amber Heard thing?" And I'm like, "You know what? I'm just, I would love to participate in this conversation, I just can't because it's..."

• 1:22:13Rich Roll?

  But how does that work as, as a podcast host in the comedy kind of ecosystem? Because that's sort of part of it. Like, you guys go on each other's shows and you kind of talk about each other, and part of the comedy derives from, like, whether it's, you know, Johnny Depp and Amber Heard, or whatever's going on in the news.

• 1:22:30Speaker 01

  Right. Well, I, my podcast is really kind of just focused on me writing jokes about stuff and having, you know, incredible people on, but I tend to, you know, try to go personal. I don't want to ever take cheap shots at anybody. I don't, we end up cutting any of that out. If someone will, like, gossip about a celebrity or something, you have to bring it back to yourself. So Britney Spears, her conservatorship's over and she was barefoot in a thing, we're not gonna go, "Oh, she's a trash hillbilly," whatever, and go like, I did that a lot as a kid. Should we, like, should I be worried about hookworm? You know, take it back to yourself, you know, keep the focus on yourself. That's the sort of Al-Anon adage. So for me, there's definitely been some things that I'm like, "I need to sleep on it," you know? If you were, had trauma as a child, a rule that works for

• 1:23:15Speaker 01

  me is that anytime you want to make a decision, wait three days, and then see if that's still the decision you want to make.

• 1:23:22Rich Roll?

  Always a good rule.

• 1:23:23Speaker 01

  Feelings aren't facts, and I might be having a histrionic reaction, I might be in fight or flight mode, I might not have halted today, I might just be, like, wanting to get those likes because I know this will go viral, and I'm exploiting someone else, you know? So I'm a big, "Don't just do something, sit there" person. Almost two of, I've almost gone the other way, you know? When I first got into program, my big thing was saying yes to everything and being exhausted. I was sick all the time. I had coschicondritis, like my chest started ripping apart. I had pleurisy in my back. Like, I was just not sleeping. Going from party to a person I didn't really like that much, to hike with another person I didn't really even like that much. You know, running around doing, quote, "favors" to people by pretending to like them, psycho.

• 1:24:07Speaker 01

  And, um, so for me, it was, the answer to most things is just no.

• 1:24:13Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:13Speaker 01

  It starts as no.

• 1:24:21Rich Roll?

  I like how on your podcast, you have, I mean, you have a lot of comedians and entertainers, but then every once in a while, it's like, oh, it's David Sinclair. Like, you know, there's like a little overlap with what I do here.

• 1:24:34Speaker 01

  I know.

• 1:24:34Rich Roll?

  And I always get such a kick out of that. And then, and then sometimes they're like deer in headlights. They're like, what is going on here? Like, what is happening?

• 1:24:42Speaker 01

  Well, I really, I know. I remember one time, Robert Greene was on the podcast, and I was like, uh, I literally opened with, "I love all your books. I've read all your books." You know who else loves your books is Donald Trump. Like, he loves, and he's like, "Are you saying I'm Y?" He, and I was like, "Oh, no, no. I just didn't..."

• 1:25:02Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:25:02Speaker 01

  Sorry. Okay. Let me, let me like recalibrate to a professional adult that I'm talking to, you know? So I always try to ask questions that no one else would ask, um, you know? And it's, it's cool, because I get to watch your podcast and hit two birds with one stone, because I think the way people consume these now is someone will look up, you know, Rich Roll, and then, that's, well, if I had you on my podcast, and then it would be, the whole side of this thing would be other interviewers with you. So someone's in a wormhole on you, and then they watch my podcast, then they watch Tim Ferriss, and I've asked all the same questions. And then Huberman asks all the same questions. So I like to really watch everything and go, here are the questions nobody has asked this person, so that when they're in a wormhole, we're not just all boring ourselves to tears.

• 1:25:43Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:25:43Speaker 01

  And so usually the questions end up being a little wild.

• 1:25:46Rich Roll?

  Right. That's good. I like it. We have to talk about DC. Do you know I'm from DC?

• 1:25:51Speaker 01

  No!

• 1:25:52Rich Roll?

  Yes.

• 1:25:52Speaker 01

  What? Because what I was gonna say earlier is that I also had this weird tinge of luck, which I don't think we do this enough. I'm a big gratitudeless person. I don't like it, but I do it just because it works, not because I enjoy it. And one, I think a lot of times we don't look at our childhood and go, what was like advantageous? Like, let me, I can all day complain about the things that weren't. But in DC, when I was... 10, 11, 12, 13, the coolest people to hang out with and my boyfriend, my first boyfriend, was straight edge.

• 1:26:24Rich Roll?

  Hmm.

• 1:26:25Speaker 01

  And that was the cool thing. Discord, uh...

• 1:26:28Rich Roll?

  930 Club.

• 1:26:29Speaker 01

  930 Club, XXX everywhere, like that was my thing. Fugazi, like it was all about like being sober is cool. And I just happened to get that information. I'm sure that I gravitated towards it because it was complete opposite of what I would see at home. But I, I think I got a little bit lucky in going like the coolest people are the ones that don't do drugs.

• 1:26:51Rich Roll?

  Yeah. It's so funny because I have so many cool, straight edge friends now, like guys that came up in punk rock and were part of that world and still playing bands and stuff like that. But I grew up not, I did, I was not like going to the 930 Club.

• 1:27:05Speaker 01

  Am I allowed to ask? Because it's your, Wikipedia says you were born in Malibu. Or from Malibu.

• 1:27:10Rich Roll?

  That's wrong.

• 1:27:11Speaker 01

  I know. I gotta stop getting my news from Alex Jones.

• 1:27:13Rich Roll?

  I grew up in DC. My parents live in Georgetown now. They still live in Georgetown.

• 1:27:17Speaker 01

  Where I grew up.

• 1:27:18Rich Roll?

  Uh, I went to the Landon School for Boys. What high school did you go?

• 1:27:21Speaker 01

  You went to Landon?

• 1:27:23Rich Roll?

  I did.

• 1:27:24Speaker 01

  This is a trip. I went to St. Andrews.

• 1:27:26Rich Roll?

  Oh, you did?

• 1:27:27Speaker 01

  My mom was a teacher at Walt Whitman.

• 1:27:28Rich Roll?

  Get the fuck out. Really?

• 1:27:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:27:32Rich Roll?

  I mean, that was the public high school that I would have gone to if I didn't. I, I grew up in Bethesda.

• 1:27:35Speaker 01

  Where?

• 1:27:36Rich Roll?

  My parents moved to Georgetown when I went away to, went like, when I went away to college.

• 1:27:40Speaker 01

  So I lived on, out there on Precipentary Road and MacArthur Boulevard, right across the two, the one lane bridge.

• 1:27:46Rich Roll?

  Sure. I went to...

• 1:27:48Speaker 01

  The Cabin John 711.

• 1:27:50Rich Roll?

  For elementary school, I went to...

• 1:27:53Speaker 01

  Pyle?

• 1:27:54Rich Roll?

  No, no, no, no. I went to a private elementary school.

• 1:27:56Speaker 01

  Was it a Montessori school?

• 1:27:57Rich Roll?

  No, no, it was off MacArthur, like in DC.

• 1:28:00Speaker 01

  Uh, uh, Our Lady of Victory?

• 1:28:03Rich Roll?

  No, I want to say St. Stevens, but that wasn't it. St. Patrick's.

• 1:28:06Speaker 01

  That's where I went.

• 1:28:07Rich Roll?

  You went to St. Patrick's?

• 1:28:08Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:28:09Rich Roll?

  We went to the same elementary school.

• 1:28:15Speaker 01

  Is it all?

• 1:28:16Rich Roll?

  I mean, I'm way older than you, but like, that's crazy. And then I went to, and then I went, I went from there to Landon.

• 1:28:23Speaker 01

  You did the entire, you went all the way?

• 1:28:25Rich Roll?

  So I went, no, I went seventh, seventh to 12th at Landon. And my mom worked at, uh, your mom worked at Whitman?

• 1:28:36Speaker 01

  Well, my mom did public relations for

• 1:28:39Rich Roll?

  Neiman Marcus, right?

• 1:28:40Speaker 01

  Neiman Marcus, Masa Gallery, Bloomingdale's, and White Flint and Tyson's. My brother was a-

• 1:28:45Rich Roll?

  White Flint was my jam.

• 1:28:46Speaker 01

  My brother was a bouncer at Third Edition.

• 1:28:49Rich Roll?

  No way.

• 1:28:50Speaker 01

  You for sure met.

• 1:28:51Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:52Speaker 01

  He's 45.

• 1:28:53Rich Roll?

  I definitely was there. I mean, I would go there and I would go to Garrett's.

• 1:28:56Speaker 01

  Sure. I was a Toombs bitch. The Guards.

• 1:29:01Rich Roll?

  Toombs. The Georgetown Pub, too.

• 1:29:04Speaker 01

  Georgetown Club?

• 1:29:05Rich Roll?

  Georgetown Pub, like, in, on the campus, like-

• 1:29:08Speaker 01

  Oh, St. Martin's Tavern, oh.

• 1:29:09Rich Roll?

  I don't remember.

• 1:29:10Speaker 01

  You went to Georgetown?

• 1:29:11Rich Roll?

  No, I didn't. No, I don't know.

• 1:29:13Speaker 01

  Wait, you said, okay, you left-

• 1:29:14Rich Roll?

  My parents, yeah, like, I came to California for college, but grew up in DC. And then would go back and spent my summers in DC during college.

• 1:29:22Speaker 01

  Such a trip.

• 1:29:23Rich Roll?

  All right, we'll talk more about that later, but like-

• 1:29:25Speaker 01

  But I'm really into where you were born has a very big impact on the way you think.

• 1:29:30Rich Roll?

  Yeah, and one of the reasons I brought it up, not just because it's somewhat shared history, like, your dad was a lawyer, right? My dad was a lawyer. He was in, he was a government lawyer, and then when I was in high school, he went to a firm. And your dad was like at Aaron Fox, right?

• 1:29:45Speaker 01

  Are you like the new Nardwar?

• 1:29:48Rich Roll?

  That was on, that was on Wikipedia.

• 1:29:49Speaker 01

  How do you know this kind of stuff?

• 1:29:50Rich Roll?

  That was on Wikipedia.

• 1:29:51Speaker 01

  Oh, I don't think that's true. I think my dad on Wikipedia has also named the name that we named my dad in my television show. So a lot of people, like, he goes, that wasn't a documentary. There was a live studio audience, you know? So my dad, um, went to Cambridge for law. He was- So brilliant and so funny and looked exactly like Dan Aykroyd. Everyone thought he was Dan Aykroyd when I was a kid. He would sign autographs as Dan Aykroyd and I'd be like, you know, and then I'd see, like, I fully thought he was Dan Aykroyd.

• 1:30:21Rich Roll?

  One of the reasons I brought up DC is, you know, DC is a very unique place. There's a little bit of shared DNA with LA because they're company towns. You live in DC, it's all about politics. When you grow up as a kid and you're going to high school there, you're very well versed in everything that's going on.

• 1:30:36Speaker 01

  Mostly because it's like, what is, why can't we get to Maggiano's, like Janet Reno's barricade? Like you learn that way.

• 1:30:43Rich Roll?

  Right, oh, constantly, that kind of stuff. But it's also a town where it's not really like, like prestige doesn't derive from material wealth. It's about proximity to power and it's all, and it's also very much about academic excellence. Like it's all, like everybody's driving their Volvo with the stickers on the back where their kids go to school. And as a child, like this was the game that I was playing and, and what was reinforced in my house to be very achievement oriented. And I got very good at that game. Like that was my coping strategy for procuring love and acceptance and, and the like. And it's a longer story, but it's my version of what you shared where the world smiles

• 1:31:27Rich Roll?

  on you for all of these things until you kind of, you know, crash that car into a wall and realize like you need new strategies for long-term wellbeing.

• 1:31:37Speaker 01

  It's so interesting when you just said that, and this is how hard I've worked, even if you don't like me or think I'm funny or saw that I was on the podcast and I'm like, oh, you know, like this changed my life, like clearly. And the, you know, I look at recovery as like, you know, like train tracks, like there's this, these grooves, like you said, that have calcified or crystallized in our brain of this is how I treat this person. This is what I do in this situation. And it's about just like, like weakening those and opening new group, just new, making new neural pathways, you know? And so as soon as you just said, my dad valued academic excellence, because I had a very similar thing that I think is worth talking about. I just thought, oh my God, that is so cool that his dad. Just really wanted to set him up to win in life.

• 1:32:21Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:32:22Speaker 01

  His dad had obviously been through something that was like, you need to be able to do this and this, and you need to get As because I can't help you after this. Like, the only thing I do have control of is instilling a wild work ethic in you. And that's what happened to me. My dad used to always tell me, and this might not be like the going science on what's healthy for kids, fine, but it really worked for me. My dad always told me, life is not fair and you're always gonna have to work twice as hard to get half as much. And then even when you deserve something, you're not gonna get it a lot. So I would come home with a B+, but I studied all night and there's the bell curve and the thing, and I should be able to get an A. And he goes, life's not fair. You don't deserve an A. You gotta be plus.

• 1:32:57Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:32:58Speaker 01

  You know, and that was really helpful to me. I mean, this is gonna sound wild, but my dad used to wake me up at 2:00 in the morning. Who cares why that was the time he was available? That's another story. But would wake me up at 2:00 in the morning and like drill me with vocabulary words.

• 1:33:10Rich Roll?

  Wow.

• 1:33:11Speaker 01

  And the test for the next day and the whole thing, you know? And spell it backwards, spell it forwards. And the kicker of it is that figuring out the way your primary caretaker's thought is super helpful. You know? I think it's super healing as well, you know? So my dad, he always wanted to make sure that I was prepared for anything. Because the whole thing is like, you can be prepared for this, but you're not prepared for all the things that are gonna go wrong. So SAT prep, we couldn't afford that. You know, people say that the whole Rick Singer thing with college admissions. It's unfair even without someone taking tests for a rich kid. It's already unfair because at sophomore year, the rich kids start using SAT tutors. They say, you know, they already have an advantage. And he was very clear about like, yeah, you're gonna do all this, but then a boy you have a crush on is gonna come in holding hands with another girl.

• 1:33:56Speaker 01

  What's gonna happen? You're gonna forget to eat and this and that, you know? So he wanted me to be so good that I could do it like with my eyes closed, distracted, hungry, all of it.

• 1:34:05Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm. Yeah, a bit of a tiger dad. Served you well, though.

• 1:34:08Speaker 01

  It makes me, it makes me really emotional to think about it because I regret all the time that I... My ego needed to blame my parents for the bad choices I made or the bad instincts I had or the broken, you know, DNA or intuition because I look back and even, even if what your parents are doing is malicious, there's just no way. You cannot turn it into a superpower. There's just, there's no way unless they cut off your leg or, you know, but, you know, my mom worked three jobs and then she came home and then she worked, you know, that was a mom, cleaned the house, would rearrange the house, you know, maybe slightly pathologically, you know, because she didn't have control in other areas. But I always felt neglected.

• 1:34:50Speaker 01

  I spent most of my, uh, high school and years as a child in the White Flint Bloomingdale's, just walking around, you know, I just walking around, shoplifting, but I, but what I didn't realize I was doing at the time, my narrative was I'm a neglected child, I was talking to adults. I was talking to the cosmetics girl and then I was like, can I do the perfume? And then I would go up to a stranger and be like, excuse me, would you like to smell this perfume? You know, like I learned how to talk to adults. I learned how to speak publicly, you know, and it was kind of a weird, wild, brilliant gift that I got, that I take no credit for, you know? People are like, you work so hard. I'm like, I only work 12 hours a day. What do you mean? I still, and then I lived in Roanoke, Virginia and we lived on a farm. And as soon as, you know, you got home from work at seven o'clock,

• 1:35:34Speaker 01

  then the work started. Then you start cleaning out the stalls and you start getting the hay and, you know, so I got really, really lucky that I just inherited this work ethic and it's just normal to me.

• 1:35:46Rich Roll?

  Yeah, but it's so beautiful how you reflect back on your parents in that way. Like, that's actually really helpful to me.

• 1:35:52Speaker 01

  I just think also, you know, in program, we go, oh, take a contrary action. If you want to text your ex, just don't. If you think it's a good idea, just don't do it. Call me first. You know, sometimes that's just the, the deal in the beginning. But to me, I try to take contrary thoughts and I also don't take my thoughts that seriously. I look at my inner monologue as like a science fiction movie. It's like Star Wars or something, you know? It's just like, Rich doesn't like me. That was weird. That was weird. Whether you do or not, it doesn't matter, you know? And it's like, I just made that up in my head. Like, what was that? No one needed that. And then, uh, Argus Hamilton, comedian that's been around forever, legend, he, um...

• 1:36:30Rich Roll?

  Now Argus.

• 1:36:32Speaker 01

  He said once to me, "Give your character defects names and make them people that are trying to help you."

• 1:36:39Rich Roll?

  Hmm.

• 1:36:40Speaker 01

  And they're just trying to help you at the wrong time.

• 1:36:42Rich Roll?

  That's cool.

• 1:36:43Speaker 01

  That helped me have so much compassion, you know? So, girl will walk by, gorgeous, whatever, young, charming, dating a guy I used to have a crush on, I'm like, "Ugh, what's that?" Whoa, Jenny, what was that? Why are you trying to? I know this sounds crazy. I'm really encouraging schizophrenia. It doesn't, this isn't how it looks, by the way. I'm not this crazy. But I'll be like, "Okay, that wasn't me. That was my inner child. That was old programming. Why did that happen? Because she's probably lovely and I'm not meant to be with him, so why did my body want to do that? Oh, number one, a thousand years ago, my body would just like, "Be procreate at all costs." You know? That's some old shit that, you know, is unnecessary. I have an IUD. Why are you trying to procreate? It's not, that's not what we're doing here.

• 1:37:25Speaker 01

  Like, fast forward to the present and then, um, go like, "What was that? Oh, yeah, okay, I know what that was. That was just me. If I villainize her, then I, she's less pretty and less of a threat to me." Like, what am I doing?

• 1:37:39Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:37:40Speaker 01

  And then I can kind of just break it apart and go, "Oh, you know what? That was really helpful a long time ago when family members had secret families and were picking women over me that helped me take an action to then involve myself and charm them and try to get their attention back because I equated it as safety or whatever." And then I just like, kind of break it down and go like, "Nope, not mine, not mine, not mine." It's like the way you would go-

• 1:38:02Rich Roll?

  Or, "Thank you, Jenny, but maybe later, not now."

• 1:38:05Speaker 01

  Not her, this isn't the time. When the homeless meth addict breaks into my house, which will be any day now, that's when I need, I need Bill to get off the bench.

• 1:38:13Rich Roll?

  Maybe he's coming to return your computer.

• 1:38:15Speaker 01

  And they're also, and they're also, I look at them as, I look at thoughts as my inner child's pitches. You know what I mean? That person might be trying to steal from you. Be careful. No, he's not. Why? Why? Still what?

• 1:38:29Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that's not gonna make the slate.

• 1:38:30Speaker 01

  You know what I mean?

• 1:38:31Rich Roll?

  This one might go to pilot, but maybe no further.

• 1:38:33Speaker 01

  No, exactly. But like, you know what? Sit on the bench, I love you. You are only trying to protect me and you're only trying to keep me alive. So half of it is nature, whose our brain's only priority is to keep us alive.

• 1:38:46Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:38:47Speaker 01

  Not, I hate this, I'm not, I mean, it's like, how can you get your brain from surviving to thriving? And anytime I make a decision, I try to go, is this just me trying to survive? Or is this me actually thriving? Because why am I in survival mode?

• 1:39:03Rich Roll?

  Yeah, just that question alone, why am I in survival mode? Even if you try to steel man that, that argument, whatever comes up, it's gonna break down. Because there generally isn't a reason for you to be in survival mode or some kind of flight or fight response to a relatively benign interaction.

• 1:39:21Speaker 01

  And why do you hate your future self so much? That you're not willing to think this way? Mindlessly and consciously? Why are you not trying to make a positive contribution to your future self?

• 1:39:34Rich Roll?

  Because I don't deserve it, Whitney.

• 1:39:37Speaker 01

  Okay. How's that going? You know?

• 1:39:42Rich Roll?

  I don't know, I've been doing it my whole life.

• 1:39:44Speaker 01

  It's worked pretty well for you. That's the other thing. A lot of these things work well for people. You know, until they don't.

• 1:39:49Rich Roll?

  Right. I think the thing is, it's scary to change. And if you have, if that groove is dug so deep and you're telling somebody like, hey, listen, like this thing you've been doing your whole life, like you should probably discard it or think of a new way, like, how do you even begin to do that?

• 1:40:06Speaker 01

  And if it's something that's not tangible, you've been gambling your whole life, throw the cards away, you've been doing drugs your whole life, don't go to a bar and get rid of the drug, you know? But it's like, things like eating addictions and sex addictions and behavior addictions like this, these are things we move through the world, we have to do at least three times a day. You know, sorry, sex, I don't have sex three times a day. I don't have that kind of time.

• 1:40:26Rich Roll?

  Right, which is, you know, it's, it's something you have to have a lot more compassion for than the drug addict or whatever. Because, because you have to eat three times a day, like, you're confronted inevitably with this, you know.

• 1:40:41Speaker 01

  David Sinclair would not say you have to eat three times a day, though. So maybe-

• 1:40:44Rich Roll?

  He definitely would not. There's a lot of people right now, a lot of people who've been on this podcast who would say, you shouldn't have to worry about three times a day. Well, let's just say, once a day, minimum.

• 1:40:54Speaker 01

  See what works for you.

• 1:40:56Rich Roll?

  How about that?

• 1:40:57Speaker 01

  I am someone that has migraines. That did not work for me. So.

• 1:41:00Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:41:01Speaker 01

  But I also, you know, I know I'm kind of joking, but it's sort of like the, this is gonna get me into much trouble. So I'm not gonna set it up that way. But I will say that, you know, intermittent fasting, like, don't eat all, I'm like, we invented, I was anorexic for 20.

• 1:41:16Rich Roll?

  Right. I think there's a lot of people, and probably a lot of men, who are using intermittent fasting and fasting to hide their dysfunctional eating.

• 1:41:25Speaker 01

  Sure. Which is, you know, it is fascinating that you have brought all this to life, just in general. I also wanted to just bring up a couple of things, just that you just inspired me about, like, just little tools, you know, that I think we all sleep on, that are so basic and everyone has access to, which are, is music and animals.

• 1:41:44Rich Roll?

  That was my next thing. I wanted to get into the animals. So go.

• 1:41:48Speaker 01

  I just want to say, something that really helps me is that I'm very weird about, I need to over pathologize it, but I'm very intentional about the way I use music to help my life and help my equilibrium in my brain. So when I drive around, I don't listen to music. I'll listen to podcasts sometimes, but other times, I'm like, I need this time to just hang out with myself. Like, I need, we don't do a lot of processing. I was, you know, cheer, about Nivella Cheerleaders, it's a show on Netflix, about the best cheerleaders, you know, in the world. And I was talking to one of them, and athletes, there's so much to learn from great athletes, because just the concept of discipline and the concept of knowing what you need and not being able to fake it, you know? If you have an injury,

• 1:42:32Speaker 01

  you can't be like, I'm fine. Like, you can't be dishonest with yourself or other people, because you could get permanently hurt, or you could hurt someone else, especially in cheerleading, because if you're in the bottom of the pyramid, and you're like, oh, no, I'm fine, if you're people pleasing or being codependent, a lot of people could get hurt. So there's just no concept of not telling the truth about your limitations. Where I think, you know, non-athletes really, no, I'm fine, I'm good, like, I can, I can lift that. Like, there's a, you know, a respect for reality and a living, and a sort of radical realism. And so I was talking to Morgan, who's sort of a big star of the show. She's, she's just the. She's just the grittiest, most incredible. It's a very triumphant story of what she came from and you know, how she had overcome some obstacles.

• 1:43:14Speaker 01

  And you know, it's about, you know, it's not even about inches when it comes to cheerleading. I mean, it's about, you know, iotas, like the tiniest centimeter you miss and it's over. So it's about radical perfectionism. So you're like, oh, these people must be nuts, you know, and unrecovered. And I remember I went and saw it in, when I was in Austin and the live show. And I said to Morgan, because for the last two years, she's just gotten famous off this television show. And I was like, what are you gonna do like for the summer? And she's like, oh, I'm taking the entire summer off just to process.

• 1:43:45Speaker 01

  And I was like,

• 1:43:45Rich Roll?

  How old is she?

• 1:43:46Speaker 01

  Nineteen.

• 1:43:47Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:43:47Speaker 01

  Almost twenty.

• 1:43:48Rich Roll?

  That's definitely like a new thing.

• 1:43:50Speaker 01

  But like, it wasn't like to like, sit with my crystals. It wasn't like that. It was like to, I was like, what does it mean process? She's like, the last two years have just been a whirlwind. I'm just gonna like, write my journal and just process. I was like, what, I didn't even know that was an option.

• 1:44:06Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:44:07Speaker 01

  I go through life just like, well, that's over with, that's over with, that's over with. And we don't take time to just go,

• 1:44:11Rich Roll?

  Or like, this is the moment to double down and capitalize. Like, it's not gonna be like this forever. I have an opportunity, better make this work. Like, now's the time to hustle, overdrive.

• 1:44:21Speaker 01

  And then I'll process later, but you gotta schedule that processing time, you know? And we get it a little bit with our 10 step at night, when you know, the 10 step is anyone can do, even if you're not in program of just sit down, you know, before you go to bed and get a pen out and just go like, how did I do today? Like, okay, that, that wasn't great. I probably shouldn't have said that. Oh, I interrupted her in the meeting. I should probably tomorrow, just apologize right now. Hey, you might not even have noticed this, but I interrupted you earlier and I'm sorry, that was rude. You know, whatever. And then, huh, it is the best feeling in the world to apologize to people. That's what I'm addicted, I'm addicted to apologizing, but not in the way that every woman just moves through the world apologizing constantly. It's not, I'm the opposite on that, because my shit with that is so deep.

• 1:45:01Rich Roll?

  You're talking about owning your behavior.

• 1:45:02Speaker 01

  Owning your behavior, you know? It is just a way to, This is too gross of a metaphor. It's just like taking the best piss of your life, you know? Because you're just like removing all that guilt, all that shame. We say you can't stay clean on the shower you took yesterday. So it's basically a way of just clearing the slate of any resentment, guilt. Like, oh, you know what? I don't like the way I responded to that. That was, you know what? Next time I'm going to do it better. Great, living amends to myself. You know, just process, locking in the growth, I also call it. Because we hear so much brilliant stuff right now, you know? I'm going to listen to Rich Roll and then I'm like, I'm going to listen to Rich Roll and then I'm like, go for a walk and like process what he just said. Lock in that growth, you know? So many people are like, I heard this podcast and changed my life. I'm like, what did it say?

• 1:45:45Speaker 01

  Ah, something about like, you know what I mean? And you're like, the same way when we read books now, we're like, just, I can read five pages and go, I could not tell you what I just read.

• 1:45:55Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:45:55Speaker 01

  If I'm not going to be sort of mindful about it.

• 1:45:57Rich Roll?

  Well, there's also the weird dopamine inducing experience of reading that thing or maybe, you know, the inspirational quote that you see on Instagram and then, and then feeling accomplished when you actually haven't channeled any of that into any behavior modification.

• 1:46:12Speaker 01

  Nothing. It's nothing. Yeah, and the music thing is just something that I just kind of realized about myself because I said it out loud to people and they were like, what? Where I'm so emotionally reactive to music. You might not be, or your listeners, you know, may or may not be, but know what activates you, like know what is a natural form of Adderall or whatever people take today, like energy, coffee, whatever, where I won't listen to musical, I won't waste music. You know what I mean? I won't waste it.

• 1:46:44Rich Roll?

  Meaning it's not, it's not a background soundtrack. It's intentional to, you know, induce a state of being or awareness.

• 1:46:53Speaker 01

  Totally.

• 1:46:53Rich Roll?

  Elevate your experience.

• 1:46:55Speaker 01

  And I don't just like turn on the radio because I don't know what I'm going to get hit with. If I hear a Billie Eilish song, I'll be the whole, my whole day shot, you know? Because I'm like in my emotions and now I get, so I know.

• 1:47:05Rich Roll?

  Powerful Billie Eilish.

• 1:47:06Speaker 01

  I know you will just, you know, she's, I'll, you know, something emotional, sorry, Sinead O'Connor's Nothing Compares or something, you know? You never know what emotional landmine you're going to like fall into that's going to derail you. And conversely, you can really get a lot of energy from music. I mean, of course, power songs, you know, your gym mix, whatever, but I will be very mindful about what song I'm playing when and what I need to hear. And I'll go like, okay, I'm feeling kind of tired, I'm going to go to the gym, I'm going to have some coffee, but you know what? I'm not going to do that. I'm just going to. Put on Beyonce, CEO, whoever your person is, you know, MXPX or, you know, I can do this all day long, but I'm now like, oh, who's gonna think I'm corny if I mention DC? Henry Rollins? I don't know.

• 1:47:49Rich Roll?

  Henry Rollins.

• 1:47:50Speaker 01

  And it will, knowing the impact it has on me, I will use it to my advantage. And a lot of people are like, how'd you do that? I'm like, I just, how'd you write that book? How'd you write that script? I just blasted Rage Against the Machine for two hours. You know, so that's something I think we kind of sleep on sometimes.

• 1:48:08Rich Roll?

  Right. Let's talk about the animals.

• 1:48:11Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:48:13Rich Roll?

  I want to know how this deep relationship that you have with animals began. And I want to talk about the, the kind of healing modalities that you've explored with this. I mean, particularly equine therapy. I know you've talked about it a lot, but I think it's really powerful.

• 1:48:32Speaker 01

  Thank you. I'm gonna, I feel overwhelmed. I'm just gonna say that out loud and I'm gonna, I'm just got a little bit afraid of being boring. That's like one of my biggest fears and I just caught it and I'm just gonna slow down.

• 1:48:44Rich Roll?

  You're not being boring.

• 1:48:46Speaker 01

  What's that?

• 1:48:47Rich Roll?

  Anything, I'm, I'm like, it's getting warm in here. It's getting hot. It's freaking hot out. We have to turn the air conditioner off for this thing, so.

• 1:48:53Speaker 01

  I am in a swamp on your very expensive chair. So, growing up, again, this is a thing I got lucky for. I thought it was, you know, horrible abuse at the time because no one was around to raise me. And I spent most of my summers in Roanoke, Virginia and a couple of years of my teenage years, and I lived with my aunts. Things were just too chaotic at home. You know, I know this is something you don't hear a lot in like LA and New York, but in other, you know, there's more to America than just that, in the Midwest, sometimes in the South. It's not that unusual to go live with your aunts or your grandfather, you know, whatever. If things are getting a little bit hectic, which they were to say the least.

• 1:49:36Speaker 01

  So, but I always was with my whole, every summer, my whole childhood, I didn't go to camps, I didn't go to, I mean, I did do the Y MCA camp one. That left a mark. That was, I need to talk to my EMDR therapist about that camp.

• 1:49:51Rich Roll?

  But you'd go, you'd go to the country in the summertime.

• 1:49:54Speaker 01

  And I just spent time with animals and it was the safest I felt. So. You know, I had had, you know, sexual abuse as a child and adults were just kind of scary to me if they were around at all. So between those two things, you know, kind of auspicious, kind of not, but I, um, my aunt, uh, my aunt's Lisa and Kathy live right next to each other. Both people who are, uh, just animal people. I come from Appalachia.

• 1:50:17Rich Roll?

  So you had two aunts and they both lived in separate houses on the same like farm or something?

• 1:50:23Speaker 01

  Exactly. Same road that just sort of forked and one personality was sort of incredibly, um, you know, southern charm. Perfect china all the time. Houses perfect. Uh, Mary Chapin Carpenter, what's that song? Um, uh, he thinks he'll keep her. Um, just about everything was right in place. The perfect napkins and the perfect and the homemade everything and everything from scratch. And then my other aunt was just like the most punk rock animal bitch you can imagine. She had 15 cats. Something like 18 dogs and everyone in the neighborhood or surrounding area, if their dog had a medical problem, they couldn't afford to fix. You would just wake up and there would be like a basset hound tied to the tree. So we'd be taking new animals all the time.

• 1:51:05Speaker 01

  People would just leave puppies in bags, stuff like that. And then there were tons of horses and I just, they were the only people I could understand. I couldn't understand adults. There was just so, I mean, look, if getting into whatever neurodivergence I have, you guys feel free to diagnose me. I'm sure it's just as valid as whatever doctor told me this 20 years ago. Um, but horses I could understand, dogs I could understand, cats I could understand, adults I couldn't understand. Because they would act one way and then we would go to church on Sunday and it said, don't lie, don't cheat. And then they would lie or do, and I'm like, I don't understand this. Or they would be like, all right, I love you, love you. Totally indirect communication, totally sloppy communication. I'm fine. No, I'm fine.

• 1:51:51Speaker 01

  As a kid, you're like, I know you're not. But why would you lie to, so I must just be dumb? Or a piece of shit? Or I just have to doubt everyone all the time?

• 1:51:59Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it just, it erodes your ability to trust.

• 1:52:02Speaker 01

  And I just was like, I must just not, I felt very lonely around people. I felt very stressed out around them. I couldn't understand them. I didn't understand their value system. It was obviously an alcoholic home, so people were very distracted with lots of things. And horses, I understood. Horses are very direct communicators because they're prey animals. They don't lie. They don't try to charm you or beguile you. And they're very fair. They're very fair. And I do very well when something is clear and fair. There's nothing you can, it's not about what you're saying. It's about how you're saying it, you know? So if it's like, "I love you!", I'm like, that's scared, I'm scared of that. I'm scared of a dissonance between what someone's saying and how they're saying it. And that's a lot of the codependent, you know, a lot of us, you know, we've inherited it, you know, epigenetically.

• 1:52:45Speaker 01

  And, you know, religion probably didn't help, but you never say what you're actually thinking. And, but can you pass the, can you pass the, can you pass the pepper?

• 1:52:55Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:52:56Speaker 01

  Or not, or you're not, oh, okay. Well, can you do anything? Because you couldn't pass the ball in high school either.

• 1:53:01Rich Roll?

  Oh, you couldn't do that? And then there's an explosion.

• 1:53:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:53:03Rich Roll?

  And there's a huge fight over seemingly nothing. But everything is loaded.

• 1:53:07Speaker 01

  Always.

• 1:53:07Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:53:08Speaker 01

  With so much. And between each other, too. It's like, "Oh, look who decided to show up!".

• 1:53:16Speaker 01

  Something is little a "Hey, stranger!". I'm like, "That's not a stranger, that's our uncle. We just saw him", you know? So all that sort of like resentment-y, indirect communication. And then I'm around animals and I'm like, "I get it. If a horse kicks at you, you were too close. Got it."

• 1:53:31Rich Roll?

  And being a prey animal, the horses are very adept at, at reading behavior, right? So they understand, like, and so you can't have dissonance between what you're saying and how you actually feel, right?

• 1:53:45Speaker 01

  Not getting away with anything.

• 1:53:46Rich Roll?

  They root that out. So it's like a great... Like vehicle are almost a mirror exercise for integrating your emotions with your words. That's what you're saying, right?

• 1:53:56Speaker 01

  Want to be authentic.

• 1:53:56Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:53:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, and because sometimes you do have to tell this to people, like animals don't know what you do for a living, they don't know you're famous, they don't care. All they do is value serenity and tranquility. They also don't need you to beguile, they can't, like, you can't control an animal that is a horse or a prey animal with treats. Like, they have grass, they already have food. They need nothing from you. So the only motivation, a truly wild and not broken spirited horse, the only benefit of being around you would be tranquility, or that you have leadership qualities, and that you become the lead mare. And so what's so incredible about horses, other prey animals, but let's just talk about horses, is they want you to be regal. They want you to be powerful. They want you to be in charge.

• 1:54:40Speaker 01

  Whereas most people want you to be small, right? They want you to be humble, they don't want you to talk too much about your accomplishments, because then that makes me feel bad, I don't want you to be in charge, I don't want you to be the alpha, I'm the fucking alpha, man. Horses are just like, they want you to be in charge, because we're a herd, right? So you're only as strong as your weakest link. So it's like, if a horse doesn't respect you, it usually means you don't respect yourself. How are you carrying yourself? Do you find yourself apologizing to the horse? Are you being results oriented? Are you trying to take a selfie? The horse doesn't know what that is. All it feels is your desperation. All it feels is fear of this isn't going well, fear of not getting a photo, fear of not looking good, fear of, and it's just like, fear, and then it has to look around and go, are there any bobcats around? Are cougars that we need to worry about? So they want to get away from you.

• 1:55:23Rich Roll?

  Right, or does the horse like me? The horse doesn't like me.

• 1:55:26Speaker 01

  The fact that you're asking that question is the reason it doesn't like you. So it's basically like, it's just, horses are repelled by insecurity, micromanage, all the things that I'm trying to minimize in myself, characteristic wise, they're repelled by. So you really have to learn, if you want to spend time with a horse in a way that's not abusive, and that you're not gonna embarrass it, or degrade it, or exploit it, you have to be the kind of person that that horse would want to hang out with.

• 1:55:53Rich Roll?

  Right, so in an equine therapy context, like, explain that modality and how that works to, you know, help somebody who does come in with all of these, you know, sort of issues, how does the, how does working with the horse help heal that person?

• 1:56:07Speaker 01

  I think that before you even spend any time with a horse, it's already so educational. When I say, you're a horse person, probably.

• 1:56:16Rich Roll?

  I haven't spent a lot of time with horses.

• 1:56:17Speaker 01

  Interesting.

• 1:56:18Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:56:18Speaker 01

  So a lot of people are like, "The horse..."

• 1:56:20Rich Roll?

  But I'm super interested about this, and the more I learn about it, like, I want to know more about this.

• 1:56:24Speaker 01

  They are an actual mirror. But we are, of course, now talking about horses. I'm not talking horses that carriage horses that are abused, or horses that have been broken. So a lot of horses that have been trained to let anyone get on them, their spirit is broken.

• 1:56:37Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:56:38Speaker 01

  They're not a horse that you want to do equine therapy with, because they're gone. Like, they have surrendered to the fact that they are just prostitutes. They have nothing left. They have no connection with you. So the first thing is establishing a connection with a horse, where, you know, you're gonna want it to run up to you and hug, you know. The first thing we do when we see a horse, what do we do?

• 1:56:57Rich Roll?

  You want to pet his nose and see if he'll give him a carriage or something.

• 1:57:00Speaker 01

  Can you imagine if someone walked up to you and just started touching your face that you had never met?

• 1:57:06Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:57:06Speaker 01

  How disrespectful that is? It's just the most basic, it's the most basic thing. And I think that, for us as, as humans, we have just forgotten common sense. Like, can you imagine if I just jumped on your back and asked you to give me a piggyback on a hike?

• 1:57:25Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:57:25Speaker 01

  I mean, it's just, yes, horses were bred to do this, of course. Horses, like, I hear, I hear, I know everything that everyone's thinking as I say this, but if you want to get the medicinal benefits from this animal, you have to think this way, you know? And it helps train your brain to go, "That person was kind of a dick. Why was that guy such a dick?" And then you go, "Wait, why did I give him a hug before..." Wait, his wife was, I sort of said hi to his wife for, or whatever it is, whatever forensics you need to do, you get to take responsibility for what's going on around you and the way people react to you. And you get to get a very fair assessment of your energy and what you give off, you know? Are you giving off true alpha shit, or are you frazzled and scared? If a horse, if you need a horse's approval, that horse is like, "I can't, you're not safe."

• 1:58:11Speaker 01

  Around like you are a problem for this herd, you know, or something's wrong with you. They don't understand that when someone's behavior and thoughts are incongruous. Cause horses don't lie. They don't do shit like that, you know? And also horses, they resolve conflicts and it's over. They don't hold on to it. They just kick each other in the face and then it's over. Instead of just like, you know, I can't believe that happened and blah, blah, blah. They don't hold on to that because it's not auspicious for them because it can, it takes up too much energy. And they need to be energy conservation experts because you never know when you're gonna get that next patch of grass. You know, so vultures fascinate me too because of the way that they have to save energy. And that's something we don't think about as humans. It's like, why are you just wasting your energy on all this stuff, you know? I, they've taught me about energy conservation, you know?

• 1:58:56Speaker 01

  I now think about my life as every day of a hundred energy dollars. And by five o'clock, if I've spent sixty percent, you know, sixty dollars of my energy dollars. And then someone's like, do you wanna go to dinner? And I'm like, well, I still have to work out and I still have to read that script and I still have to write some jokes. So I'll be at ninety energy dollars and this person takes like forty energy dollars. I can't, cause then I'll be borrowing from the next day and then I'll be on a deficit. So that helps me and that's how horses operate also. So growing up, when I was around horses, I always felt safe because I all, their, their behavior was always fair. You know, their behavior was always fair and they only think to take care of themselves for the most part. And when you watch horse behavior a lot, when they do interact and quote, help each other,

• 1:59:41Speaker 01

  it's always an equal exchange and it's always to be of service. So they'll groom each other, you know, side by side, even if they've just gotten in a fight ten minutes ago. It's all of service. And so I was just, the only time I felt sane was around horses. The only time I truly understood what was going on was around horses. And I was obsessed with them. I was also obsessed with the discipline around it and putting the saddle away and cleaning the saddle. And, you know, I just loved the ritual of it. I loved the responsibility required. I loved how sensitive horses are because I'm really sensitive. So, you know, I have misophonia, which is when you just hear things just really loud. And horses have superhero hearing, so.

• 2:00:21Speaker 01

  He, you know, my horse hears bamboo from a mile away and I'm like, you heard that? I heard, okay, alright, I'm not crazy. Okay, good. This is probably an advantage, like a genetic advantage. And then it makes you think about like, oh, what was my purpose or my ancestors' purpose in tribal times? Cause I also have trouble sleeping. And then I learn about the night watcher theory, which is, you know, a lot of people that are insomniacs, their ancestors, ancestors, ancestors were the people in the tribes before streetlights and security guards that stayed up all night to look for threats and assess threats. They were the night watchers and the night watchers bred with the night watchers. And they, you know, basically have a circadian rhythm that's just off. They just inherited it, you know? It's a superpower, but not, you know, if you're trying to sleep 10 to 6.

• 2:01:03Speaker 01

  And, um, but it gets very empowering. I hate that word. Um, too many idiots use it. Sorry. Because horses take responsibility for themselves and you study their breed to know more about them. Dogs as well, you know? I only rescue dogs, obviously, but when you go, what? The first thing I can do to understand this dog is understand what it was bred to do and understand where it gets its dopamine and what it needs. Like, you know, so I was on the forward path mindset.

• 2:01:35Rich Roll?

  What is that?

• 2:01:36Speaker 01

  Path forward?

• 2:01:37Rich Roll?

  I don't even know what that is.

• 2:01:38Speaker 01

  It was the ancestral, um, the guy you just had on, whose dad was in.

• 2:01:42Rich Roll?

  Oh, long path.

• 2:01:43Speaker 01

  Long path, sorry. I'm so dyslexic. Long path. I said path, I don't know what I said. Forward path?

• 2:01:48Rich Roll?

  Forward path.

• 2:01:49Speaker 01

  Okay, well, I'm starting that.

• 2:01:50Rich Roll?

  That's a path.

• 2:01:50Speaker 01

  I'm starting that, okay? I just got my trademark.

• 2:01:53Rich Roll?

  Andrew Yang might already be doing that, but like.

• 2:01:58Speaker 01

  And, uh, so then you start going like, oh, well, this is a Australian shepherd. They're bred to herd. They cannot see the world in any other way. When humans are standing too far apart, an Australian shepherd needs to herd you. They need you two to get together or else they're gonna bark, they're gonna freak out, they're gonna tear up your shit. And we go, what's wrong with this dog? Why is it tearing up? It's not a dog. It's an Australian shepherd.

• 2:02:18Rich Roll?

  Doing what it's supposed to do.

• 2:02:19Speaker 01

  It's doing what it is wired to do. I know so many people in LA, they're like, I wanna get a husky. They have such pretty blue eyes. I'm like, okay, do you run 20? You're the only person that's got a husky 20 miles a day.

• 2:02:29Rich Roll?

  We have, uh, we have great pyrenees.

• 2:02:32Speaker 01

  Oh, wow.

• 2:02:33Rich Roll?

  Which are beautiful regal animals.

• 2:02:35Speaker 01

  Wow, wow, wow, wow. And then go like.

• 2:02:37Rich Roll?

  They need a lot of, you know, like they need a lot of exercise. And I think it's too hot for them here. I don't think it's great for them environmental wise, but.

• 2:02:45Speaker 01

  I mean, it's also, I, that's a different conversation for another day because also I think that all these animals are adaptable and resilient and there's always some kind of solution. So, you know, people's biggest thing is, I can't adopt a big dog, or I can't adopt a dog, I don't have a yard. I'm like, I don't have a big house. Dogs are dead animals. They like small. They like small places. The more territory that they believe they have to protect, the more stressed out they get. So, actually, you get a calmer dog when you have a smaller space, or, you know, keep them in more. So, that's not, that doesn't apply to that, but just in general. And, um, so, it made me start asking, like, oh, I was so reverent of the ancestry, what they were bred to do, yet completely oblivious that that would apply to humans. Like, and humans are animals. Like, just the idea of,

• 2:03:30Speaker 01

  like, oh, then why do I do this? Oh, my God, well, my ancestry's Appalachia. Why do I have this superhero hearing? And why am I so uncomfortable in small spaces and elevators? Oh, right, my grandfather was in coal mines.

• 2:03:42Rich Roll?

  Right. Why would we be any different?

• 2:03:45Speaker 01

  Why are we not all in nursing homes, asking our grandmothers, our great aunts, like, what was my grandfather? Like, what was my great great father? And then something very spooky happened, that I'll just tell you, and we'll get back to the medicinal qualities horses. Um, I did something called family constellation, which is what?

• 2:04:05Rich Roll?

  Dude, my wife's all about this. Go ahead.

• 2:04:08Speaker 01

  Am I your nightmare?

• 2:04:11Rich Roll?

  No, it's great.

• 2:04:12Speaker 01

  So, I'm, I will say it loud and proud, I believe it's a pseudoscience. Uh, I don't believe it's a science. Maybe I'm missing something, but I also believe that all humans, we know so much more than we think we know. Like, all knowledge has to be verbal, it all has to be written. We forget about our intuition. We forget how much information we already have. And I think that, I remember one time, um, there's this psychic that I went to, way, way back in the day, and, um, everything she said was right. And I was like, oh my- She's psychic. Uh, and then I was like, wait a second. Ask me about my relationships. You're the psychic.

• 2:04:49Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:04:49Speaker 01

  Uh, so I can't decide what to do between these two guys I'm dating.

• 2:04:54Rich Roll?

  Hmm.

• 2:04:54Speaker 01

  I can't decide which one. Like, like, there's this one guy. Uh, his name is Jim. And, um, you know, like, he's really, like, I really like him. You know, but like, I don't know. And then there's this guy Kevin, who is like, he's so normal, like, he's so supportive, like, he, I don't know, I just can't decide.

• 2:05:17Rich Roll?

  You're not gonna, you're not gonna end up with either of them.

• 2:05:20Speaker 01

  Well, that's true.

• 2:05:24Speaker 01

  And then I'm like, he's psychic. We have no idea how much information we are giving with the way we say things in our nonverbal cues.

• 2:05:31Rich Roll?

  Sure, and the more, the more one knows about how you're wired, it's easier to predict. You know, you, that person can see what you can't see, which is that you'll default to your behavior patterns, better or worse, and end up with the person that you kind of historically have always ended up with, despite your best intentions to be with somebody else.

• 2:05:51Speaker 01

  For sure, but what she said was like, Jim, Jim, Jim is not the right match right now. I'm like, oh my God, you're right. But I already knew that.

• 2:05:57Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 2:05:58Speaker 01

  I, I needed someone to say what I already knew. Jim is, I mean, he's like, he's really not, like, when we're, when we're-

• 2:06:05Rich Roll?

  But you're probably more likely to end up with Jim.

• 2:06:09Speaker 01

  That's the thing. Yes, for sure. But the way I was saying it, the way that I was apologizing for him, I was defending him, et cetera, you know, so to me-

• 2:06:18Rich Roll?

  You're telegraphing-

• 2:06:19Speaker 01

  You're already defending this person, you're already, but like, look, he doesn't, like, he doesn't do great at, like, movie theaters, you know? But like, when we're alone, it's like, you're, you already, everyone already knows, we're all so psychic, we just kind of are like, um, and so that is something that, you know, to think about, as I say, so Family Constellation, someone basically comes, and here's the other thing that it does that is a miracle, even if nothing else happens about this, they encourage you to just quite simply ask your living ancestors questions.

• 2:06:51Speaker 01

  We are sitting on the biggest wealth of information and insight on the planet, and it's old people. We think they're stupid, we put them in homes, we lock them away, and they're dumb, and they don't know how to use Facebook, and they don't know how to text, and they don't know how to use Giffy's, and da-da-da. Whereas like, half of the issues that, you know, my mom's in a nursing home, I'll just go down the hall to some woman named Rita, who no one will talk to anyway, and I'm like, "What do you think about marriage? Like, when's the best time?"

• 2:07:17Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 2:07:19Speaker 01

  Better than any therapy.

• 2:07:20Rich Roll?

  This treasure trove. We just had a guy in here who was 100.

• 2:07:22Speaker 01

  I saw that.

• 2:07:23Rich Roll?

  Did you see it? Yeah.

• 2:07:24Speaker 01

  Just, all the wisdom is right there. And then, one of the keys to unlocking radical compassion for my mom is, she had a stroke, and then, instead of asking, "What can I get? What can I get? What do you owe me? What should I, you know, trying to get credit for taking care of you after you had a stroke." Eventually, my therapist was like, "Maybe you can use this, well, my sponsor, it's an opportunity for a fact-finding mission. Why don't you, every time you see your mom, ask her three questions about herself? Like, before you came along." I literally, first thing I ask her, I'm like, "So when did you and dad, like, get engaged? Like, what was that like?" And he's like, she was, instantly, she was like, "We got engaged, started, you know, moved in together, planned the wedding, and two days before the wedding, he decided he didn't want to get married, and we had, like, you're just like, 'Wait, what?'"

• 2:08:09Rich Roll?

  You had no idea about any of this.

• 2:08:12Speaker 01

  "Wait, what? Like, you had bad things happen to you?"

• 2:08:18Rich Roll?

  That had nothing to do with you.

• 2:08:19Speaker 01

  But I'm the only victim, yeah, in the world, that's ever had anything bad happen to them, you know? So I started asking her questions, and then, you just get more and more information. And then I find out she's, her dad is Jewish. I'm like, "What? I didn't even know that. Like, I gotta dig in, where? What, like, let me get into this ancestral shit." You know, and then, um, the family constellation, provider, instructor?

• 2:08:43Rich Roll?

  Counselor.

• 2:08:44Speaker 01

  With someone when they do a thing?

• 2:08:45Rich Roll?

  Guide.

• 2:08:46Speaker 01

  Practitioner.

• 2:08:48Speaker 01

  Practitioner?

• 2:08:49Rich Roll?

  Sure.

• 2:08:50Speaker 01

  You have such a good vocabulary, I don't want to screw this up. So, the Family Constellation Practitioner comes in, asks you a bunch of questions, which by the way, if anyone answers, like, these questions honestly, you're gonna learn a lot about yourself. It's kinda my thing with ayahuasca. I did do ayahuasca, I have positive things to say about it, but that said, the first night, I didn't really feel anything, and I was like, "This is bullshit, this is all power of suggestion, this is ridiculous." Like, anyone sitting on a pillow for six hours without their phone is gonna have some epiphanies.

• 2:09:19Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:09:20Speaker 01

  You know what I mean? I think the key is just being alone for six hours, you know? And then the next night, you know, that was just my ego coming up, and whatever. And the next night, I was able to have, you know, some stuff happen, but it wasn't like my life changed, you know? Things just like, kinda got into focus. And so, uh, she comes over, and, I don't know if you guys know this or not, um, I try to hide it a little bit, 'cause it makes everyone think I'm crazy, you definitely can't do it when you have blue hair, which I did for quite a while. Which is the hor- um, the horse carriage business, all over this country, it, it is so upsetting to me, that it's like, if it's hysterical, it's historical.

• 2:09:53Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:09:54Speaker 01

  Like, I tried to live in New York, I can't do things in midtown, if I hear the carriages, like, I just have like a conniption, like, I go, I, I go off.

• 2:10:03Rich Roll?

  It's crazy that that still exists, but I feel like, that's gotta be dated at this point. Just that recent moment of that horse collapsing, and that horrible carriage driver that went crazy viral, like, it feels like, the world, or at least the internet, is united around the wrong-headedness of this antiquated horrible practice. I mean, history will not smile kindly on what goes on with all of that.

• 2:10:28Speaker 01

  Yeah. Who was it that said, um, "A culture will be defined by how it treated its animals"?

• 2:10:35Rich Roll?

  Uh, who was that?

• 2:10:36Speaker 01

  Someone?

• 2:10:37Rich Roll?

  I know, I know this one.

• 2:10:38Speaker 01

  Jamie?

• 2:10:39Rich Roll?

  I'm having a senior moment.

• 2:10:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:10:41Rich Roll?

  I don't know, Jamie. Jason, what that up?

• 2:10:42Speaker 01

  Jason, call Jamie.

• 2:10:44Rich Roll?

  No, some philosopher or writer.

• 2:10:46Speaker 01

  Well, what we don't realize is that when we abuse animals, we're injuring ourself and we're screwing up our kids. So, there's this psychiatrist that I used to talk to about this, of if you are putting your kids on a horse that it's never met, of putting your kid on an elephant at the circus, putting your kid, you know.

• 2:11:02Rich Roll?

  That's what, you always say this, and it's even on your website, right? Like, "Don't ride elephants."

• 2:11:06Speaker 01

  I do always say that. I rode an elephant when I was in my early twenties, and I didn't know. I think most people don't know. I think that's what's the worst part about it, that you are signing this contract, this karmic contract with the universe, and you abuse an animal, and everyone's worked so hard to convince you that it's not abuse, and you're just being a good dad, or you're just being a good mom. And so, you're doing something that is corroding to your own integrity. You know, on some level, it's wrong. When you see a bear in a cage the size of a dog crate, you know that's wrong. You know, seeing a dog on a bowling ball, or a beach ball, or playing basketball, is, you know, that's wrong, on some level, you know, if you were connected to your intuition. And I think a lot of us are just so disconnected from our intuition that we, that's wrong.

• 2:11:50Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 2:11:50Speaker 01

  You know, so, that is sort of like, just, it's a nice to be able to just go like, blameless, blameless to everyone, is like, we are moving through the world like zombies in many ways, and the animal stuff, even if you don't care about animals, or you don't have animals, like, this is how offline we are. This is how autopilot we are on, that we are seeing things that should be horrific to us, or should be like, "Oh, I should protect that thing, I should help that thing." And we're just like, "Here, take a photo." You know, that's how gone we are. That's how bad we need likes, or whatever it is. I mean, Instagram and social media's been a little bit, it's been a step forward for animal rights in a lot of ways, because it's made more visible, the way that we just saw what happened in New York to the carriage horse. But then, in another way, it's like, you get so many likes when you hold a baby tiger,

• 2:12:33Speaker 01

  and you get so many likes when you're holding it a baby bear, you know? But we go, "Okay, what is the thing that pisses off a female tiger the most?"

• 2:12:42Rich Roll?

  Getting in between it and its young one.

• 2:12:45Speaker 01

  We all know this. Yet, if you see someone holding a baby tiger, we're like, "Hmm." Like, what do you think had to happen to the mother?

• 2:12:52Rich Roll?

  Sure.

• 2:12:53Speaker 01

  For that to even, you know, we don't even do the math, you know, moving through the world. And I think the thing that is really tragic about it is this psychiatrist who was explaining to me that when we show our kids it is appropriate, normal, even even fun to exploit something else for our own benefit, another living thing, we're taught to abuse our power. We're taught that. We're taught, oh, if I'm stronger than this thing, or if this thing can't fight back, I can use it to my advantage.

• 2:13:19Rich Roll?

  It's my prerogative.

• 2:13:20Speaker 01

  That's what you're teaching.

• 2:13:22Rich Roll?

  And those examples have to do with the cuddly animals or the exotic animals, but the low hanging fruit here, like the big, the true elephant in the room is animal agriculture and what we do to animals for food.

• 2:13:34Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm. And even what we do to ourselves when we use animals primarily for food. You know, I'm working on this dog food that's half cricket protein because, you know, for every cow, it's 260,000 gallons of water. Like, our meat addiction is going to put us in a drought real fast, you know? So even if you're not like animals, whatever, I mean, the other thing to try to, you know, get people to think about it is like, you're just shortening your life as well if that's, you know, in terms of you're eating all these antibiotics. You know, my dad suffered from antibiotic resistance, something that I don't feel like is talked about that much because he had eaten so many, you know, so many foods with antibiotics jammed into them. By the time he actually needed antibiotics, they just didn't work that well.

• 2:14:11Rich Roll?

  Effective.

• 2:14:12Speaker 01

  So, back to the family constellation thing, not because I expect that you're gonna believe that this happens, but I think, you know, I'm as cynical as they come. I feel like I can tell the story just as a comedian. I'm always the one poking holes in things. I'm always, I mean, even when Dr. David Sinclair came on my podcast, I managed to just embarrass myself more than normal because he was like, oh, when these mice took the NAD, they ran faster and they were stronger. And, you know, and I'm like, well, how do you assess their performance? And he's like, well, we just look over in the cage. And I was like, well, how do you know they weren't running faster? Because they were scared of you, your shadow. I mean, it's pretty scary. I would run fast. And he was like... Like, it was just like, what? Well, how do you, is this how you move through the world? You know? So I'm always sort of questioning everything.

• 2:14:56Speaker 01

  And um, so for this experience to be this profound, um, I believe is, is worth sharing, which is that, um, so I am, I mean, debilitated by the noise of the horse carriages, seeing the horses, like, I always figured, oh, I'm projecting onto myself because I work too much and I carry too much on my back. And I'm probably just projecting onto this because I need to look to myself. And I want to save all these horses when I really just need to focus on myself and, uh, what's going on with me? And, um, I did the family constellation. I'm talking to this woman. She asks questions. If you just go in, because I went in like, okay, of course. Well, you Googled me, so of course you would know that. Well, of course you know me and of course, you know. And, um, she asked me about my third grandfather. So my grand, grand, grandfather. And she's like, what's going on there? And I was like, I don't know.

• 2:15:41Rich Roll?

  How would you, like, nobody knows what their grand, grand, grandfather was doing.

• 2:15:46Speaker 01

  No clue! Couldn't have been good. There's no way it was great. Um, and given, it was like, I know history books aren't totally to be trusted either, but like, I'm pretty sure that there's some guilt and shame that I'm carrying from that person. And, uh, she was like, well, how, how are we going to find out with this person? And I was like, well, I guess we'll never know. Already the fact that I wasn't like, pick up the phone, call your uncle, ask a question. What's, I'm already learning something. I'm already learning a lot about. And she also, uh, said that, um, this man's wife, my grand, uh, mother, used withholding love to punish him. And maybe that's a super common coping mechanism, but I was like, that's exactly what I do. Like, that is exactly, exactly what I do.

• 2:16:30Speaker 01

  Um, and, uh, sometimes I justify it as I'm just taking a break in a breather and I'm going to process something, you know, so that I can say what I mean, mean what I say, don't say it mean. But other times I'm just punishing. And I know that about myself and I really don't like it about myself. And the way she said it, it just was like, okay, I'm going to, I'm going to keep moving forward in this because that was so spot on. And then I call my uncle and I'm like, what's up with the great, great grandfather? The great, great grandfather, whatever? And then he's like, oh, he died of cirrhosis. I'm like, oh, there it is. You know, because she had said he did something unforgivable and it lives within you. You know, I'm like, oh yeah, he drank himself to death. He probably cheated on my great, great grandmother, which was probably pretty normal back then, but you know, whatever. She would punish him by withholding love. And then he went, oh yeah, this is super random,

• 2:17:14Speaker 01

  but he invented this hitch that kept horse carriages together.

• 2:17:18Rich Roll?

  No way.

• 2:17:19Speaker 01

  They would fall apart, they would fall apart, and he invented this little hook. And in classic Cummings horrible with money fashion, my grandfather, the big story was he, in our family, was he passed on investing in McDonald's because he said, who would ever want a dollar burger? So that's...

• 2:17:38Rich Roll?

  That's a good one. Whether apocryphal or not, like you can get a lot of mileage out of that.

• 2:17:43Speaker 01

  It was just like, that's our family. So this guy, great ancestor, he invented this thing, but never got credit for it, never patented it, nothing, you know, probably an unrecovered codependent. He was like, oh, no, just have it, take it, you know, whatever. And so that was wild. I mean, I just like burst into tears when I heard that because there was a, even if it's not true, I don't know how this all could have aligned to all feel true, but not be true, you know? I'm sure a lot of people worked in that because I said, I was like, I feel like a lot of people probably worked in horse carriages back then. That was like the main business, right? And he was like, no, but he invented like this, this thing that made everything else actually work and reduced injuries, deaths of people, you know? So in his mind, he was doing something great.

• 2:18:24Speaker 01

  And then I guess I have some, it's invisible, I don't know how to explain it, maybe Huberman can explain it, maybe Sinclair can explain, whoever, maybe, you know, the guy that does Long Path, maybe he can explain it. But it was such a relief to go, okay, yes, I'm just a good person that cares about animals, but also like this is bigger than me. What else that's bigger than me am I running around with all day, just being played like a puppet?

• 2:18:47Rich Roll?

  And also, if he figured out how to latch multiple carriages together for the horse to pull, he is responsible for increasing the burden on the horse, right? Which maybe...

• 2:18:59Speaker 01

  Which at the time...

• 2:19:00Rich Roll?

  informs your sensitivity around that burden.

• 2:19:03Speaker 01

  At the time, probably kept people fed, you know, probably did a lot of good things back then, you know? And now it's this, you know, disgraceful thing we do as humans that whether we know it or not, it's slowly corroding our self-worth and it's slowly corroding how we feel about other people. And at a time where we feel, quote, more divided than ever, and we are more suspicious than others than ever, and we see stuff like that, you're just like, what kind of person? You know, it takes a toll. On our ability to be around people, I think, kind of in general. And so I was like, OK, yeah, this is a responsibility that I've inherited. Like, I need to fix that thing my ancestors did. Like, I carried this with me. And what else am I carrying? You know, it's, you know, when people are like, we're in a simulation. I'm like, yeah, we're in a simulation. Like, we're being played by our ancestors.

• 2:19:46Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 2:19:46Speaker 01

  That's how I like to look at it.

• 2:19:47Rich Roll?

  Yeah, and your job is to disentangle all of that bullshit and create new, healthier pathways. Because if you don't, that's getting passed on to your kid. And that kid's kid. So these things will continue to play out unless you shoulder that responsibility for healing that and finding a better, you know, kind of way.

• 2:20:09Speaker 01

  And you got to do some recon, you know? And I think for me, in terms of the connection to animals, like, yes, a lot of people that carry, I don't, why, what, why do I have a problem with the word trauma? I feel like it's gotten, like, popular.

• 2:20:21Rich Roll?

  Well, it's sort of been, yeah, it is, it's, it's been played out a little bit, I think. But I don't know what's a better word for it.

• 2:20:28Speaker 01

  Because now I feel like when I say it, it seems like I'm exaggerating because so many people are like, they were out of oat milk. I am traumatized.

• 2:20:34Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 2:20:34Speaker 01

  So now I feel like I'm exaggerating, you know? But I'm talking about childhood sexual abuse. I think we can agree that's traumatic.

• 2:20:39Rich Roll?

  Yes. I think we're all on the same page about that.

• 2:20:42Speaker 01

  I think we can agree. Are we cool? OK.

• 2:20:44Rich Roll?

  But I also think trauma is appropriately, you know, defined as things outside of that as well. I think people think of trauma in a limited context, that it can only be, you know, sexual abuse or physical abuse, et cetera.

• 2:20:58Speaker 01

  But which is some of my most impactful traumas were not any of those. One of them was, I was in class one day and my tuition hadn't been paid and someone came and pulled me out of class, a teacher, and said, we need to talk to you. Your bill isn't paid. I mean, I was like six or seven or something. And I remember that deep embarrassment. I mean, at that age, you know, not understanding what was going on. And it was embarrassing. And I think that, moving forward, you know, they said that, I think it was Chris Rock that said, comedians become comedians to control how they're embarrassed. My biggest fear in life is being embarrassed. And there was a couple of things like that that happened, you know? Um, that I look back and I'm like, that's when it started.

• 2:21:42Speaker 01

  And, uh, you know, so the animal thing, um, you know, really was just, you know, as someone that from a very early age did not trust humans or was scared of humans, didn't understand what they wanted, because when someone hurts you in that way at that age, they're beguiling you with something kind or nice, they're confusing you and then they're hurting you. You know, and then as an adult, you grow up to see innocent, voiceless things being used for someone else's benefit, just ephemerally treating them like trash or treating them like something just to serve them, uh, that is voiceless, you know? Horses can't email, they can't make phone calls. And I have some kind of like thing where it's like, I go a little bit into a, um, what is it when you just like go offline? It's not fight, flight or freeze.

• 2:22:25Rich Roll?

  Like a fugue state?

• 2:22:26Speaker 01

  Maybe. I go into a rage, a dissociative rage, but I get very calm. Like I will smash someone's window with a dog in a hot car that's law- like it's no big deal, I have the hammer in my car, it's, it's, like, I'm not like, why are you-

• 2:22:40Rich Roll?

  Reflexive.

• 2:22:40Speaker 01

  It's very calm. It's just in that moment, I don't remember doing it. I don't know if you saw, or maybe because you were around for the Wolsey Fires. Remember the giraffe?

• 2:22:49Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:22:50Speaker 01

  So I was the girl, I was the maniac that went to get it out.

• 2:22:53Rich Roll?

  Oh, you did, wow.

• 2:22:54Speaker 01

  Remember that whole, like, the gir- it's giraffe?

• 2:22:56Rich Roll?

  Also, I remember all the horses went down to Zuma, right?

• 2:22:59Speaker 01

  On the beach, yeah.

• 2:22:59Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 2:23:00Speaker 01

  Yeah. And so it was just like, it, people were like, why? I was the only person driving that drive. I drove in a, an electric car, in a Tesla, over like five power lines that were down. I mean, I look back and I'm like, it's actually just a weird miracle that I survived that, but it's not a choice. It's just kind of like, I, I don't feel scared in a time of crisis. I'm not scared of animals.

• 2:23:20Rich Roll?

  So there's this deep programming inside of you that just takes over. The operating system functions with your, your conscious decision-making like offline.

• 2:23:29Speaker 01

  Because I know they're scared and I can't tolerate it. Like, I know they know. Like, and they're so, it's so wild that we just have decided that animals don't have any sentience at all, like, we look at monkeys and we think they're-

• 2:23:42Rich Roll?

  Because it's too painful to recognize the truth around that. So it's just a convenient rationalization to make us feel better about our behavior. I think.

• 2:23:52Speaker 01

  And I think that it's interesting because I, you know, can stop the bleeding sometimes, but kids are really the ones that are, the ones that haven't been programmed yet, that haven't been brainwashed yet. I mean, Blackfish happened because this girl was like, "I'm not going there. That's disgusting," and was crying.

• 2:24:07Rich Roll?

  Kids know.

• 2:24:08Speaker 01

  Kids know. They're like...

• 2:24:09Rich Roll?

  They know inherently. Then they get, they get programmed into, you know, a sort of socially acceptable way of thinking about this.

• 2:24:16Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm. And then that's how you think animals...

• 2:24:18Rich Roll?

  It's fucked up.

• 2:24:18Speaker 01

  It's very fucked up.

• 2:24:19Rich Roll?

  It's fucked up that, like, even after Blackfish, like, there's still, like, still, there hasn't been enough changes.

• 2:24:25Speaker 01

  Well, people have to stop going. And people have to stop patronizing it. Like, Chanel didn't stop selling fur because they loved animals. You know, people stopped buying it cruelty-free, same thing. It's just this capitalist, people have to stop buying it. Which brings me to something that the horse carriage thing is a big opportunity to practice a modicum of empathy that I don't know that I necessarily want this tool all the time, but I think it really helps because a lot of the people that are patronizing these businesses are not Americans, they're tourists. And they, they have a different belief system around animals, you know? And I was, you know, I'm very in deep with the Korean Dog Meat Festival, you know, and...

• 2:25:01Rich Roll?

  Yulin?

• 2:25:01Speaker 01

  The south one. The north, I, whatever's happening there, I can't...

• 2:25:06Rich Roll?

  Which one is Yulin?

• 2:25:08Speaker 01

  Yulin, yeah, that's Korea. That's South Korea.

• 2:25:10Rich Roll?

  Oh, Korea.

• 2:25:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. North Korea, there's, I don't, we don't even...

• 2:25:13Rich Roll?

  Yeah, who knows what's going on?

• 2:25:14Speaker 01

  No. Yes, ask Rogan. I don't know. But, uh, you go over there...

• 2:25:18Rich Roll?

  Does he have a news feed from North Korea that we don't have or something?

• 2:25:22Speaker 01

  Every time he texts me, I'm like, "Stop texting me. Someone's following your phone." But, uh, you know, I had to find empathy. Like, you have to find common ground with someone. So someone that is killing dogs, chopping off their feet, letting, you know, and then feeding them to other people that are ordering them and eating them, I have to understand your belief system. I have to empathize with you. I just have to. My dad, my uncle, you do, you know, criminal defense, turn, like, I have to find a way...

• 2:25:49Speaker 01

  To empathize with you. And I had to build that muscle because it boils down to anyone that's poaching elephants in Africa, anyone that's killing dogs, they need money to fit. Give me another job that gives me as much money and I will do it. But I had someone, actually this person was from China, from Hong Kong, where I was like, I just think it's egregious the way y'all treat animals. I mean, like you're pulling gall bladders out of baby bears because you think that it's going to be good for your skin. Like, what are we doing? You know, bears, you know? And he was like, okay, well, we're pretty disgusted at the way you guys treat old people.

• 2:26:25Rich Roll?

  Hmm.

• 2:26:26Speaker 01

  You know?

• 2:26:27Rich Roll?

  Fair point.

• 2:26:27Speaker 01

  And you're like, ah, okay. This is where the progress, let's get gnarly. Like, let's get gnarly. This is the way, this uncomfortable conversation that is my nightmare to have, we just made some leeway. So it's really a matter of, with these poachers and with the people to kill, you have to, these horse carriage guys, I can't take away their livelihood. You can't be pro animal and anti-human either, you know? So it's like, there is a little bit of this, like, trying to find a way where everybody wins. Because I don't think anyone wants to abuse animals, hurt animals. It means they don't have any other choices. And what's going on that this person, this was the only choice they had. And when people stand in line to ride the horse carriages in New York, I have to go, okay, they have a different value system.

• 2:27:10Speaker 01

  They see horses as cars, they see horses as property. You know, we put our, half my family's in nursing homes. They would find that disgraceful. You know, like, there's a lot of epigenetics here to unpack. There's a lot of ancestral trauma and, there's too much to unpack.

• 2:27:26Rich Roll?

  Hmm. Yeah, I mean, you can't, you can't solve the animal problem without compassion for the humans involved. And I think that's where a lot of advocacy, you know, kind of loses sight of the bigger picture and actually what would be productive in, in, in solving the problem as opposed to being outraged about the problem.

• 2:27:45Speaker 01

  And then also realizing that, like, a little bit of a problem that we have at the moment is not that, you know, trans people are mean and, you know, Gen Xers want everyone to be canceled and people that abuse animals, you know, shoot them in the head as soon as they have a broken arm. The problem is, we're only hearing from the extreme people that are not particularly sane. And by sane, I just mean like, don't have great bedside manner and aren't interested in solving the problem, or empathizing with you, or understanding why you dislike them, or why you said the thing you said, and try to understand. Because a lot of times, when you're going, "You shouldn't say that word, you're engaging in ageism." We never talk about that. You know, sexism, homophobic, we talk about all those, racism, but like, expecting, you

• 2:28:28Speaker 01

  know, someone who's 60 to know that the term is now non-binary, instead of, you know, gender creative, or whatever, that's ageist. Like, where would they have learned that? Like, that's not in the, you know, Pensacola Chronicle.

• 2:28:40Rich Roll?

  Starts to get really confusing.

• 2:28:41Speaker 01

  News, yeah, have some compassion, and go, "Oh my god, no one's, this person doesn't know any trans people, this is a person, let me, you know, help this person understand, I don't think this person wants to hurt me." So, there's also, we're not giving people the benefit of the doubt, when they, you know, because there's no nuance online, or whatever, but the same thing with animal, which is part of the reason I do feel the need to just kind of talk about it sometimes, not that I come off particularly well-adjusted, but a lot of animal rescue people are, have come from trauma, sexual trauma.

• 2:29:08Rich Roll?

  Sure, yeah, of course.

• 2:29:09Speaker 01

  Aren't healed, and it turns into, "Fuck you, you piece of shit, and you're fucking trash, and I'm gonna throw red paint on you on your way to work." And it's just sort of like, we haven't matured yet and healed our wounds, in order to, you know, engage in this in a mature way, where we're actually solution-oriented, and not just on the drug of adrenaline.

• 2:29:26Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I mean, the best way to problem-solve, and, like, the best comedians are the people who are willing to grapple with their wounds, and engage in the healing process, right? Like, I think there's this idea, particularly with addicts, that it's our brokenness that gives us our specialness, and that is our superpower that fuels that creative impulse, or makes us special, and unique, and different, and the prospect of sobriety, whether it be, you know, substance sobriety, or emotional sobriety, is perilous, because you have to break up with that friend that you were reliant upon, that you were convinced was the thing that was fueling your specialness, or your talent, or your comedy, or whatever it is.

• 2:30:09Speaker 01

  Yes, that was literally an award-winning segue.

• 2:30:15Rich Roll?

  It was good, right?

• 2:30:16Speaker 01

  I mean, that was like unbelievable. I don't think people understand how deftly like that is as a comedian, watching someone do a segue that's not, and speaking of carbohydrates, uh, you're just like, wait, what? That was masterful.

• 2:30:32Rich Roll?

  You're not manipulating me, are you?

• 2:30:34Speaker 01

  No, for what? I'm already here.

• 2:30:36Rich Roll?

  Yeah, okay. There's nothing else I can give you.

• 2:30:39Speaker 01

  And so, um, you know, horses, just real quick, you know, animals, prey animals, dogs, cats, all of it. Um, I believe we are as a species, sleeping on some of the most therapeutic tools that we have right here. Horses hold up mirrors to your behavior. Horses will tell you everything about yourself that you need to know. They will tell you how you come off at parties. They will tell you what your inner, how obvious you're.

• 2:31:04Rich Roll?

  Who is a good candidate for equine therapy?

• 2:31:07Speaker 01

  So a couple of things. Um, I also real quick, let me also talk about, um, wolf, wolf therapy for boys.

• 2:31:14Rich Roll?

  You've been to Wolf Connection, right?

• 2:31:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 2:31:16Rich Roll?

  My daughter, we, we had a birthday party for her at Wolf Connection.

• 2:31:19Speaker 01

  That is incredible. Was Bo there, the wolf Bo?

• 2:31:22Rich Roll?

  Uh, I'm sure he was. This was several years ago.

• 2:31:26Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, he was there.

• 2:31:26Rich Roll?

  So I don't know, I remember the way.

• 2:31:27Speaker 01

  He's dead now.

• 2:31:28Rich Roll?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:31:28Speaker 01

  Oh, that's okay.

• 2:31:30Rich Roll?

  But that was an incredible experience being there.

• 2:31:32Speaker 01

  So I don't know if they did this for you, but you know, what do we call like at risk use now? Like, what's that called?

• 2:31:40Rich Roll?

  I think it's what you just called it.

• 2:31:41Speaker 01

  Kids, is that what it is? I mean, aren't.

• 2:31:44Rich Roll?

  Is it, is there a new word for that?

• 2:31:46Speaker 01

  There's gotta be like a better word for that. I'm not like trying to get a new word. I'm not that guy, but I'm just saying like kids that, um, you know, were in and out of rehab, in rough homes, foster care kids, you know, kids that just didn't have a stable, consistent, um, environment, and this was just boys. Don't get into it with the gender thing. You do not want to do this with me. Um, and, uh, so it's just boys, um, at risk and they couldn't work with therapists. They couldn't work with, you know, juvie, you know, social workers, anything because it was like all about being tough and fucked up. And I don't have any feelings and like, no, man, I'm hard and I'm this. And you're like, okay, cool. There's no getting through to this. This guy has a. sealed up that nothing's gonna and the more I patronize and go like how are you feeling

• 2:32:29Speaker 01

  the more he's gonna just shut down and go inward and feel misunderstood so one of the most sort of magical exercises we do with at-risk youth and you know younger kids dealing with addiction having seen violence in the home and such and thinks violence is the best way to solve a problem which I feel like that might need to come back that's a different story just some just don't you feel like some people just need once like to be hit in the face just once

• 2:32:50Rich Roll?

  sure you gotta like it's it's it's like you know you gotta reboot the operating system when it starts to fragment or like this the little the little beach ball starts to spin around right

• 2:33:03Speaker 01

  when I was 11 my mom slapped me in the face I couldn't see for like 30 seconds I had called her a hooker

• 2:33:14Speaker 01

  I should have said sex worker I don't know but slapped me in the face changed my life changed my life I absolutely deserved it and I was like got it like that I I every day I look back on that and I'm like thank god she smacked me in the face like I I know how to bite my tongue now you know but just so you know um I think it was Mike Tyson who said um the problem with social media is people got used to talking trash and not getting punched in the face you know so it's just that's I say that half joking but

• 2:33:43Rich Roll?

  like everything you can have your plan and until you get punched in the face

• 2:33:47Speaker 01

  everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face yeah but I mean just people who are just like fuck you you're trash like you're and then it's like if you said that in person you would have been hit in the face you know so everyone's a little confused about how consequences work um so wolf connection you got these kids they're you know eight nine 10 11 12 14 they've been in rehab they've been drinking they're in you know juvie whatever and the you talk about the wolves so there's you know 10 some are crossed with german shepherds you know the whole story because people fight wolves

• 2:34:14Speaker 01

  I was gonna make a dig at Texas but I love you Texas my mom is from Texas but you guys really like to keep wolves in your basement um and so there's all these rescued wolves and each of them are in a different enclosure and it's you know you can see them all and every wolf is doing something different one of them is digging one of them is sort of like moving stuff around one of them is like sniffing under their blanket one of them is pissing One of them is howling, one of them is just like scratching on the fence at the other wolf. One of them is, you know, sleeping, one of them is, you know, tearing some shit up, one of them is, you know, hiding scared, and then you tell everyone, you know, what they're doing, explain their behavior, and then you ask all the kids, like, who's the alpha in this pack?

• 2:34:56Speaker 01

  And they're always like, the one barking, and you're like, no, the one howling, man, oh no, the one that's eating, obviously. You know, like, it's the one that's sleeping. Because when you have true power, you don't need to run around and show people how powerful you are. The best thing you can do is just take care of yourself. Like, if you want to fight someone, like, maybe just go take a nap. Like, that's the most gangster shit you can do.

• 2:35:15Rich Roll?

  Yeah, and the confidence that all your, all your guys are gonna watch out for you.

• 2:35:20Speaker 01

  Exactly, exactly, you know, and like, let people get, like, hold your space, like, be regal, you know? And, um, and so that's pretty cool, and then you go like, oh, this, you know, this guy Bo, like, you know, he was taken from his mom too young, and his dad was, you know, never around, so he's, you know, more feral, and this one had a brother that would beat up on him all the time, that's why he has half of an ear, and then you go through and you go like, which one's your favorite? And they'll be like, dude, I love Bo, man, that guy's, and you're like, okay, so dad stuff, like, they can talk through that.

• 2:35:49Rich Roll?

  You can identify what their core issue is through which wolf they gravitate to.

• 2:35:54Speaker 01

  As long as they get to be like a wolf, you know, so like, I think that we just go all wrong about trying to communicate with kids, because we don't talk about what they value, you know? We're just like, you're autistic, it's like, okay, can I get a metaphor? To let, you know what I mean, can I get a, like, can you put this in terms that I either, number one, understand, or number two, care about? You know, in terms of horses, um, there's a lot, there's so many incredible benefits from equine therapy, specifically egala, E-G-A-L, E-A-G-A-L-A, and liberty training, which is basically, what I do is I take horses that were abused and make them wild again. Horses whose spirits are broken, racehorses, horses that were abused, um, you know, dressage horses. A lot of times they use studded bits, so they put them through tunnels and scare them,

• 2:36:38Speaker 01

  and they're not allowed to roll, and they're, so the idea is-

• 2:36:40Rich Roll?

  You can bring them back? Wow.

• 2:36:43Speaker 01

  You just have to give them freedom and treat them with respect. And you can, you know, my first guy, it took a little bit of time, um, you know, because I was still learning, but horses are so patient because they know your motives. So they're so patient with you when you screw up. They're so patient when you try too hard. You know, you just, for me in the beginning, I just had to say my inner monologue out loud at all times, just to make sure. I'd be like, I'm insecure that you don't like me. And now you're walking away. Why would you walk away and smell poop? Like poop is better than me? Like, why do you like poop more than you like me? And then I'm kind of going like, what kind of maniac is trying to compete with animals' desire to smell poop? Like, that's just not me respecting this animal's nature and ancestry, which sometimes we do with human beings too, all the time. Men and women, kids, adults, whatever. So it was sort

• 2:37:24Speaker 01

  of like, oh God, I really need other people to behave a certain way in order to be comfortable. That's bad news. Cause 95% of the time, nobody acts the way I want them to. So I better figure out a way to feel comfortable without.

• 2:37:37Rich Roll?

  Really like hammers home that lesson.

• 2:37:39Speaker 01

  Inside job, dude. And, um, and also, you know, we do with like, young girls, guys need it too. But the whole deal with horses is they will test you constantly to see how much self-respect you have. They want to see, like, what you're made of. They want to see how much, because they want you to like yourself. They want you to be confident. They want you to be regal. So they'll test you and they'll test you. And then you'll see people going, stop, stop. You're like, okay, let's talk through why that was how you were going to solve that problem. Gen, gen, like, in general doesn't work. Why did that horse even think it could get that close to you? Like, why did you even allow it in your space at all? You know? Well, it's just up and then you start moving and then it, okay, great. I see who you are. I can, you know, so we take these energy extenders, they're not whips. And basically, girls learn, like, no, you have

• 2:38:23Speaker 01

  to say it the same, your energy has to match with it. You can't go, no. Your communication has to be congress.

• 2:38:30Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 2:38:30Speaker 01

  To get the result you want. And horses.

• 2:38:32Rich Roll?

  Clear, affirmative, and like flexing a healthy boundary.

• 2:38:37Rich Roll?

  With honesty that garners respect.

• 2:38:40Speaker 01

  Correct, but it starts here. And like you mentioned boundaries earlier and we never got to them, but just the idea, boundaries aren't for them, they're for you. And if someone violates your boundary, you don't set another boundary, you remove yourself from the situation. That's a personal boundary, you know? So if I say no to the horse, no to the horse, and I'm being clear, and it still is going to disrespect me, I just remove myself entirely. And then we can start again later because you got your consequence and let's see if we can coexist, you know? So it's like, because we don't realize how much, you know, isn't it 70% of communication is nonverbal? But we only focus on that 30% of just words, bullshit, bullshit, like words are just bullshit, you know? And so it's such a healing experience to be around animals and just go, oh, that's why

• 2:39:23Speaker 01

  that person I never got along, because I was like, how are you doing? How is everything? Like, I'm confusing, because I learned to be a confusing communicator. And horses only deal with like clarity. And then also just, you know, I mean, the things I've learned, just, I mean, you go on and on. I mean, even about your breath, you know, because they are attuned to breath. So if I'm like, they're gone, dude. Because that's how you breathe if you're scared, your amygdala's shut off. So when you're, I know humans, I'm sure, come on and done a billion times, you know, of like the energy. So a lot of people come into their office and they're like, why is, why is everyone in such a bad mood? You take responsible for your energy and how contagious it is, you know? Energy contagion is so real, and when watching a horse, when it's around ugly energy

• 2:40:06Speaker 01

  or energy that doesn't serve them, that's depleting or confusing, just removes itself. That was a tool that I didn't even know existed. Like, it didn't even occur to me, you could just like leave? If someone wasn't, you didn't have to keep talking, you know, just get up and go. You know, I didn't even know that was an option. I thought it was like you get on the dance floor and you're dancing until your partner gets off. Like, just go sit on the bench when in doubt. Get off the dance floor, what are you doing, you know? So, working with horses, there's, there's no more rewarding relationship than having a personal one with a horse because you really know your value, and you really, they keep you accountable on a daily basis. Can't stay clean on the shower you took yesterday, so it's like, yesterday we had the best time and he trusted me so much, and he invited me to get on his back and we ran around.

• 2:40:49Speaker 01

  And then you walk by the next day while he's eating, he looks up and is like, Hi. You're like, I thought we had.

• 2:40:55Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 2:40:56Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 2:40:56Rich Roll?

  Didn't we have a thing?

• 2:40:57Speaker 01

  Earn it again. I gotta earn it again.

• 2:40:59Rich Roll?

  How many, do you have, you have your own horses? Or do you go somewhere else? Like, are you actually teaching this? Or what is the situation?

• 2:41:05Speaker 01

  So, the teacher that I have is this wonderful girl, Genevieve Eyre. She's a Gala and Liberty instructor. She works with kids on the spectrum and such. You know, kids on the spectrum have incredible gifts when it comes to being able to communicate non-verbally with animals. It's so amazing to see and it's so amazing to watch a kid who people are always like, "What, what do you want? I can't understand what you want. What did you give it?" And the horse is just like, "Got it." And they're just simpatico and this, and they've found the person that understands them. It's the most incredible thing. Like, you're not broken. You're actually just, you're like, hyper-intuitive, you know? So, that's really cool to see. You know, I don't, I basically will rescue the horse. I'll do the Liberty training. There's also, this is getting, you know, very granular.

• 2:41:48Speaker 01

  There's a practice called Being with Horses. It's a German woman. It's, I can send you the Kindle link about how to have an equal relationship with horses, where you're basically have a 50/50 relationship that's based in respect. And you can have such, you can do such cooler things with a horse. Because horses, when they want to communicate with you, they start to mimic you. So, I'll like, jump over a jump and he'll jump over a jump. And I'll do this and he'll jump up in the air. You know, it's like, it's the coolest thing in the world to be able to get to that point. But rescuing them, getting new one, I mean, it's just my kink. I just, I'm like, I love it so much. It's just the best. There's, they're just, they have eternal wisdom. I mean, they have eternal, you know, they know when it's gonna rain. They, they, there's this famous story about a horse

• 2:42:32Speaker 01

  and I think it was Virginia that wouldn't go under a bridge. Wouldn't go under a bridge. They're beating it, they're beating it, wouldn't go under a bridge. And the next morning, it collapsed. I mean, they just have all this, and we're just sitting on all this wisdom. We're just like, running the other direction away from mirrors. Dog training, same thing. You know, people go, "If, oh, I rescued this dog and its behavior isn't what I want, I'm gonna return it." It's like, you're missing the opportunity to learn so much about yourself from training this dog. So, that's why I also love getting foster dogs and training them, because I always learn so much about my lack of patience, about my need. "I want to give you a treat, because I want to make you like me." Still, I'm still doing this!

• 2:43:10Speaker 01

  I'm still doing this. I had my ear bitten off by a dog. You know, I knew what to, I knew not to do that. But I conflated love and pity, which is a huge thing that codependents do. And I was like, oh my God, I'm gonna let him sleep in the bed with me, which is a dominant behavior. Letting a dog lick your face or be in the bed with you. And it had been taken from its mom too young, and their mouth is their hands. So I got down to play with it one day, and it just bit my ear off. Not out of aggression, just-

• 2:43:34Rich Roll?

  Nothing personal.

• 2:43:35Speaker 01

  Nothing, nothing personal. They're just made of knives. And that was my fault. And I think it's really cool to work with animals because they won't do or say anything that will make you so mad that it's easy to blame. So if you and I have like a rough conversation and we're both kinda wrong in the way we handled it, you know, because we went into our trauma response. I was like, well, if you hadn't have had an office all the way out here, and then all of a sudden we're both assholes, with horse, animals, you're always the asshole. And that's such a great opportunity. You can't, you have no one to blame.

• 2:44:07Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 2:44:08Speaker 01

  Which is like, kinda the best thing ever because you don't have to spend all this time wondering whose fault it was. It was yours.

• 2:44:14Rich Roll?

  Do you, how many animals do you keep in your house then? You rescue them and then get them to other places? Or you have like a menagerie running around?

• 2:44:22Speaker 01

  Depends on who's asking. If animal control, I have three. Um, but I have, um, I, I take-

• 2:44:29Rich Roll?

  No one's lis-

• 2:44:32Speaker 01

  If they saw that I'm on, they're definitely not listening. They're so sick of me.

• 2:44:35Rich Roll?

  We'll just beep it.

• 2:44:37Speaker 01

  No, I have, um, a revolving door, um, of animals. I have four dogs.

• 2:44:44Rich Roll?

  Four dogs?

• 2:44:45Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:44:45Rich Roll?

  Are you being honest? No.

• 2:44:47Speaker 01

  No, I do. I, this is, you know what? Because it's, it's just too boring. There's a lot of dogs that I've rescued. And I still pay for their medical care, but they live with other people and they have wonderful lives and stuff. So to me, rehabilitating an animal is always so therapeutic for me. You know, everyone's like, you're such a hero. I'm like, I get way more out of it than the animal does, you know? So I do these, you know, there have been a couple dodo videos where I've rescued dogs that were just-

• 2:45:10Rich Roll?

  Oh, cool.

• 2:45:10Speaker 01

  Really like, three broken legs and learned to, you know, they remind me how resilient we are. Cause dogs, when they have, you know, two broken legs or missing legs, they're just like, let's fucking party. Like, they don't let it stop them. And I'm like, what's my excuse?

• 2:45:25Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's always inspiring, those dodo videos of dogs that are, or all kinds of animals doing cool stuff.

• 2:45:31Speaker 01

  That girl was, from high school, was mean to me at the reunion, so I'm gonna just- Totally regress into a petty bitch like this is this dog had three legs and it's like let's go to the beach like what like why do you and they are so confused when you feel sorry for them they don't want to be pity you know so I think yeah and I think watching dodo videos I think that's also a tool like I think scheduling positive content is key you know watch one dodo video a day you know what people are awesome when you see a guy jump in a river to save a dog like it's it really helps balance out the twitter mob everyone's a psycho now

• 2:46:08Rich Roll?

  Yeah I love the dodo

• 2:46:10Speaker 01

  I have I think three dodo videos because I had a pig that I rescued um a Shar Pei that was uh it was in a like it was in a crime so it can't be adopted out so I sometimes take dogs that are evidence in a crime so that they can't be you know taken back like exotic animals so exotic and this is also part of the reason that I've learned so much about the exotic animal trade and it's I wish it my nightmares on no one but usually when there's you know lions tigers bears being trafficked there's also a lot of exotic dogs like this was an albino Shar Pei I got a Pharaoh dog um and then often this is the main main main main main reason that I have no compassion for animal abusers is because um anyone who's abusing an animal is almost always there's no chance that

• 2:46:55Speaker 01

  they don't go inside kick a dog not hit their kid or their wife or whatever so the dog or the animal is just a socially acceptable type of type of abuse like when you go in the door it's gonna you know continue and also when people um traffic exotic animals humans are always in the truck as well so it's like if you see a tiger in someone's backyard chances are there's

• 2:47:15Rich Roll?

  Other weird

• 2:47:16Speaker 01

  Something else going on yeah yeah

• 2:47:17Rich Roll?

  Yeah for sure

• 2:47:18Speaker 01

  So it's like just it's all the same stuff it's arms dealers uh traffickers psychopaths you know animals the whole deal so it's like

• 2:47:26Rich Roll?

  It's pretty it gets pretty dark pretty quick

• 2:47:28Speaker 01

  Yeah and I'm like it's kind of my dream to just like hunt these people Because there's something, but that's a superpower I have. I am not scared of the things most people are scared of. I'm scared of like eye contact.

• 2:47:40Rich Roll?

  Being like Damien Mandar? Do you know Damien Mandar?

• 2:47:43Speaker 01

  No.

• 2:47:43Rich Roll?

  We'll talk afterwards. But he was a special forces dude who had a lot of trauma from being in combat, etc. And basically became aware of what was going on with exotic animal trade in parts of Africa. And he was like, fuck these guys. And he basically went there with all of his skills and was like, I'm going to end this problem. And now he's created this militia that's all women. I think it's called the Akasha. There's a little documentary about it. I'll send it to you, to really kind of police poaching in their native territories. He did an unbelievable TED Talk. Do you know what I'm talking about?

• 2:48:22Speaker 01

  I know. And the tricky part about that is like, it's really is like, we can go stop the bleeding, stop the bleeding. But until we talk to the government-

• 2:48:29Rich Roll?

  You need to end the demand.

• 2:48:31Speaker 01

  And the demand, and also governments there actually give you, a lot of it is a nuisance. You know, there was an amazing article that a woman, an African woman wrote, I think it was about, remember when that guy shot that lion?

• 2:48:45Rich Roll?

  Which guy? Lots of guys shoot lions.

• 2:48:49Speaker 01

  Like, I mean, it was like famous. He was like a politician or something. He shot a lion and it kind of went viral. And people started talking about trophy hunting for two seconds. You know, and a lot of people, you know, don't understand that lions are a very real nuisance in Africa. And a woman wrote a piece that said, why we don't cry for lions. You know, because every time our kids leave the house, we worry about them. So I'm the first person. I have coyote dens all over my property. And, you know, I have a little water station for them. They have everything they need. But if they come for my animal, it's a wrap. You know, so if you're in America and you're like, who, what's the one animal that you'd kind of be fine with us? I'd be like, coyotes, dude. Fuck

• 2:49:30Speaker 01

  those things. You know, because they are not wired, they are, well, not wired to attune to us, to serve us, nothing. And I know if it's between me going, here little, and killing my dog, they'll kill it. You know, so they also see it as that. I'm not killing a lion. I'm just protecting my children and you can't get between that, you know? And so it's like, you know, it's really about changing laws, kind of the more boring stuff of going and going like, why are these poachers getting like a stipend for doing this? Why are they getting tax breaks for doing this? Oh, because it makes it easy for you guys to spend less taxes on cleaning up all the crop destruction or the police force we have to hire to deal with this or whatever, you know, it's solving a problem for them in some, in some way. And then also, why don't you have the kind of economy where these people can actually have jobs that doesn't include this?

• 2:50:11Rich Roll?

  Well, that's the big thing. If there was a better option for those people as well.

• 2:50:14Speaker 01

  They would take it. They would take it. So I'm always thinking, how do we, horse carriage people, it's like, these people have been doing this for 30 years, they own this horse. You're just take their, you know, like you're taking their livelihood from them. We have to replace the livelihood. So it's not now their only option in life. So that's like, the kind of activism that actually gets up done instead of just like, fuck you and then moving on with your day. Like, that just makes people think animal people are crazy. Thanks for that.

• 2:50:37Rich Roll?

  So I know you loved my, my, my segue, my transition, but then I don't feel like we, we segued into.

• 2:50:43Speaker 01

  Wait, what was it? I thought you wanted to talk about comedy.

• 2:50:47Rich Roll?

  No. So, because we gotta get out of here.

• 2:50:50Speaker 01

  I know.

• 2:50:51Rich Roll?

  But I don't wanna, I wanna end it.

• 2:50:52Speaker 01

  Is this your longest? I know.

• 2:50:54Rich Roll?

  I think it might be. No, I think we did, I did a four hour one once, but we're getting close to that.

• 2:50:58Speaker 01

  Because I think I was trying to go to like, horses really help you look in the mirror.

• 2:51:02Rich Roll?

  Well, I think the idea was, yeah, like, like just the journey of, of self-healing and like becoming an integrated whole person and how that actually allows you to flourish in a way that feels antithetical to what you might think it is. And to kind of like, maybe round this out with some thoughts on, on that, because I think people are really afraid, A, it's scary to tackle the things that you don't want to look at in yourself, and there is that fear that if you do that, then you're going to be this different person and you're going to lose whatever it is that you feel like makes you you and allows you to do you in the world.

• 2:51:44Speaker 01

  Like, I'm gonna lose what makes me a cocaine addict. And what would possibly, God forbid I change any of this precious programming. Just something real quick that you said about, you know, looking at yourself and then accepting it, et cetera, and something that is a miracle about 12-step programs that we'll get into comedy. 12-step programs really taught me, say the most disgusting thing you thought to do today. And you will destroy in this room. You know, so also that practice of telling someone your deepest darkest secret, telling someone, I just did cocaine 400, you know, grams of it last week or whatever, and they still hang out with you?

• 2:52:25Rich Roll?

  Right. Yeah.

• 2:52:27Speaker 01

  So you have the data of like, I can acknowledge all these parts of myself and people won't leave, they won't think I'm disgusting, they won't think I'm trash, you know, and then to go on stage and talk about it, have people laugh and then pay you is the ultimate way to sort of heal all that shame about your thoughts and the way, it's like, I can use this for something, you know, and that's how I took, God, sorry, like, my power back, you know, I was like, wait a second, maybe all of the worst things about me will like help other people, talking about it will like help other people, you know, and it forces me to tell the truth because I came from an environment where it was just like, everything was a lie, I'm, I'm five minutes out, you're not, you are an hour away, and we're jumping in the shower, no, you're not, little lies, big lies, all of it, and

• 2:53:10Speaker 01

  you can't lie to an audience whose reaction is involuntary, you know, you can perform for your own fans and get clapped or and stuff, but everyone knows what that is, you know, you get a, because as someone that was so obsessed with dishonest feedback, no, you look great, no, I'm fine, like, I only believe in involuntary reaction, so if someone laughs or doesn't laugh, they're right, you know, and that is, that is very-

• 2:53:31Rich Roll?

  And that's something you really can't fake.

• 2:53:33Speaker 01

  That makes me feel so, I can fake a couple of other things, but that's a different conversation, but uh, it's really soothing to just be able to believe everyone, to just believe whatever, like, no one's kissing your ass, no, like, it's just great, everything you guys just did, whether I liked it or not, is true, and that is like the best feeling in the world, but you also have to tell the truth, you know, and I think that after I spent time, you know, with animals my whole life, and learning like, truth is the most important way that you can maintain self-esteem, is just telling the truth, the absence of secrets, so we always say, you know, like, we're only as sick as the secrets we keep. It took me so long. To take that adage seriously. And I cannot believe how it changed my life.

• 2:54:17Speaker 01

  It was like taking steroids or something. It was just like I was twice as successful. I was twice as happy in my relationships. People liked me twice as much just because I was like telling the truth. And not trying to, not patronizing them with lies because they can't handle that I'm going to be late. They'll be fine. Look at their phone, whatever. And next time, leave 15 minutes earlier, you fucking selfish brat. And so it felt like kind of a natural sort of projection there. I think for me, however, being a stand-up comedian, I'm going to be really honest. I think that a lot of it was my wiring. And then some things that I guess you would maybe categorize as traumas in terms of, I was alone so much, you know?

• 2:54:59Speaker 01

  And when someone was around, you had to make them laugh right away to keep their attention. You know, if they're drinking, they're socializing, they're doing compulsive behaviors. Like you have a minute to get this person's attention or to get this laugh. Or this is your only opportunity to get some self-esteem today or be seen, you know? And you gotta move fast. Also, I think that, I'm not going to be the person to spearhead this, but our names are a big part of why we are who we are. What we're named, you know? I mean, your name is Rich.

• 2:55:27Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 2:55:29Speaker 01

  That worked out.

• 2:55:30Rich Roll?

  Yeah, Rich Roll, Rock and Roll, Dick Roll. You know, like, and then my mom's maiden name is Spindel and, and...

• 2:55:38Speaker 01

  Does she come from...

• 2:55:39Rich Roll?

  And her brother was Dick Spindel. What? Hello?

• 2:55:42Speaker 01

  Dick Spindel?

• 2:55:43Rich Roll?

  Yeah. How about that?

• 2:55:44Speaker 01

  Your uncle should have married Whitney Cummings.

• 2:55:46Rich Roll?

  Well, I could have, if we got married and I took your name, it would be Dick Cummings.

• 2:55:53Rich Roll?

  How about that?

• 2:55:54Speaker 01

  Well, do you want better? My parents, before they got married, my mom's last name was Cummings and his is Cummings. She was Patty Cummings Cummings.

• 2:56:05Rich Roll?

  No way.

• 2:56:06Speaker 01

  So had I taken her last name, you'd be Dick Cummings. Which is even better because it's the verb, not the noun.

• 2:56:12Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that's better.

• 2:56:13Speaker 01

  But this thing I was always so embarrassed about, I didn't realize, you know, that it was funny until much later, but I was made fun of constantly. I mean, it's just like the best way to bully someone, you know? Whitney Cummings, come on your face. I would get my like test papers back in school where my name, Whitney Cummings, someone scribbled it out, C U M, on your mouth, in your face. Like, it was just constant. So I had to find a way to joke about it. I had to find a way to embarrass myself first, to own the bullying, you know, to make fun of myself, because I know they're gonna make fun of this name. So I think that your name has a really big part of your character in a lot of ways. I think a lot of really successful people have really complicated names. Have you noticed that? Because they've had to constantly correct people. They've had to con- this is a theory I'm working on, please tell me if

• 2:56:58Speaker 01

  I'm wrong, but when you see those people that are like, "Hi, my name is Ardvark McMandeswan." And you're like, "Ardvark? No, it's Ardvark." Like, you have to claim your space. You have to stand up, you have to make sure, you know, you develop confidence that way, you know? And so, you know, I think my name definitely got me thinking in terms of, "You better be funny all the time, you better think fast."

• 2:57:20Rich Roll?

  Well, it sounds like your dad was funny and always was wanting to engage with you on that.

• 2:57:24Speaker 01

  My dad was so funny. He would pick me up from school and would usually be late, but didn't matter. Later, he would, I don't know if you ever saw Three Amigos?

• 2:57:37Rich Roll?

  I mean, forever ago.

• 2:57:38Speaker 01

  The movie?

• 2:57:39Rich Roll?

  I wouldn't remember.

• 2:57:39Speaker 01

  It's one of my-

• 2:57:40Rich Roll?

  I just have the visual image of those guys sitting around a campfire.

• 2:57:45Speaker 01

  "Night, Ned."

• 2:57:46Rich Roll?

  What?

• 2:57:47Speaker 01

  That's what he said. "Goodnight, Ned."

• 2:57:49Rich Roll?

  I don't even-

• 2:57:49Speaker 01

  The bat said it, yeah. But there was a moment where it was Steve Martin was up on a billboard and they were trying to do some furtive heist. And Martin Short and Chevy Chase were looking for him and couldn't find him. And Steve Martin goes, "Look up here! Look up here!" Like, he was trying to be discreet about it. And it's such a dumb moment. And he's like, "Look up here, look up here!" Trying to do bird sounds to get him to look. And then finally he goes, "Hey, guys!" Like, it's so stupid. But I knew my dad was there because I would just hear, "Look up-" And my dad, I didn't know where he was. He'd be like hiding behind a car, you know? He's just like, every moment was an opportunity to make people laugh. Every single moment. He just, he, he didn't understand the point of engaging with someone if you weren't asking them

• 2:58:32Speaker 01

  questions about themselves. Or, he always said to me, he's like, there's no point in ever disliking anyone. If you don't like someone, it just means you haven't asked them enough questions about themselves. You know, and he always, it was annoying when I was a kid, but now it's, it's served me so well. Anyone he would meet, where are you from, man? Oh, Cincinnati. Oh yeah, down on the, and then I, I don't even know if he'd been to all these places or not, but he would always be like, what's the best, what's that burrito place? And they'd be like, ah, Mama's Burritos. Yes. Like, he would just-

• 2:58:59Rich Roll?

  Always trying to connect.

• 2:59:00Speaker 01

  Always trying to make people's day. And it was always people that, you know, waitresses, janitors, whatever, you know? And, um, I didn't even realize what a gift that was, but something that he used to do to me, and I think that, I didn't realize this until very recently. The pandemic, I, I had a couple, you know, thank God, that was in total waste. That I had a couple breakthroughs in terms of going, I'm gonna radically forgive my parents, let me just turn everything into a positive. And I remember, this is the way we used to study. So, he would, um, have the textbook, I'm trying to really talk fast, uh, he would have a textbook and he would say, okay, say all the, the date of the Civil War, the date, uh, the American Indians, you know, came over. They were called that then, you know, the date of the Spanish-American War, the date of, da-da-da-da-da, and what, and then

• 2:59:44Speaker 01

  I would have, like have it. So I had to say it backwards and forwards. Spanish-American War, date, um, Civil War, Spanish-American War. You know, like he would throw me curveballs and stuff like that, and then he closed the book, and then he'd go, I mean, how do we know the book is right? I mean, there's no way this is all right. I mean, this was just some, like, hearsay, like, some guy was like, hey, I think the Civil War started, like, and then he would basically say, question everything. You need to learn it all to pass the test, but question all of this.

• 3:00:13Rich Roll?

  Wow.

• 3:00:14Speaker 01

  You know, and so I think that's part of what- Formed me in terms of being comedian.

• 3:00:18Rich Roll?

  Right, which is, which is really the comedian's mantra, right?

• 3:00:21Speaker 01

  Question everything and I.

• 3:00:23Rich Roll?

  And have this, you have this obsession with human psychology and human behavior and all of that, too.

• 3:00:29Speaker 01

  And we, we can't stop until something makes sense, you know, and I think it's very much like trying to figure out what people meant when we were young, we had to, we, everything had to add up. You know, Neil Brennan always says it's an obsession with justice, which I think is a great way to look at it. And I always like to say that comedians say something that isn't true and then they prove it.

• 3:00:52Rich Roll?

  Comedians say something that isn't true and then prove it.

• 3:00:55Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm, with jokes.

• 3:00:57Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 3:00:57Speaker 01

  So, you know, and then also it's like, like you're a lawyer, basically. You're defending a criminal idea, you know, you're like, we should, we should do rehab for pedophiles. Hear me out. You know what I mean? Joke, joke, joke, joke, joke, joke, joke. You know, I have a bit in my last special where it's like, I think we need to get rid of ballet. Ballet is bad. Hear me out. And then I gotta dig myself out of the hole with the jokes, the, the things you haven't heard of.

• 3:01:22Rich Roll?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 3:01:23Speaker 01

  You know, and then I have to defend my point, which is the most fun thing in the world, having someone go, that's a ridiculous idea, I'm never gonna side with you, and then just slowly like get them to change their minds. You know, I think that's what's so fun about stand-up is like, you get to get like someone to think critically about something that they maybe have never thought about before, you know? I think the great comedians do that. They get you to look at something that you take for granted completely differently.

• 3:01:47Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 3:01:47Speaker 01

  Question everything.

• 3:01:48Rich Roll?

  Yeah, question everything. Memorize the textbook first, then question everything.

• 3:01:53Speaker 01

  Do you think anything we learn in school is, I mean, I was with my niece, she's 15.

• 3:01:57Rich Roll?

  I don't know.

• 3:01:58Speaker 01

  She, we were doing her homework, I was like.

• 3:02:00Rich Roll?

  I don't remember any of it.

• 3:02:01Speaker 01

  I didn't know, oh, they erase, oh, they erased that. Okay, good. They realized that was, I mean, I'm like, when I was a kid, I learned the Native Americans and the pilgrims had a wonderful meal together.

• 3:02:09Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that was, that was the extent of it.

• 3:02:11Speaker 01

  They had a party, they wore the buckle shoes, like they had a great time. They had a plethora? What is it, panoply? Cornucopia?

• 3:02:19Rich Roll?

  Cornucopia. The plenty, the horn of plenty.

• 3:02:24Speaker 01

  Exactly. They just hung out. They traded blankets. It seemed like everything was fine, you know, so it's, you know, who knows, but I'm so grateful for that. And that's something, I remember people saying like, why is your dad make it like making you chat like it at the time I thought it was wrong. It was like, I'm the kid in school going like, yeah, but was that really true? But like, are you sure it happened that way? And I was seemed annoying and crazy, you know, but it was like, okay, this is the only profession I can really do. Cause I get so my OCD gets so intense. I think about something so intensely, you know, Louis CK always says, if you think about something more than three times a week, you gotta just write about it.

• 3:02:57Rich Roll?

  Right. Well, I want to get into like how the writing process works and how that all happens, but we're gonna have to, we're gonna have to do that on a different day.

• 3:03:04Speaker 01

  Have to stay tuned.

• 3:03:06Rich Roll?

  We're now, we're now like well into longest podcast ever.

• 3:03:09Speaker 01

  You're now a marathon podcaster.

• 3:03:11Rich Roll?

  Which I'm good with. I'm the ultra endurance athlete. I'm cool with all of it.

• 3:03:16Speaker 01

  I need a cold plunge.

• 3:03:18Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I know.

• 3:03:19Speaker 01

  Really quick, can I just ask you really quick, the supplements you take on a daily basis?

• 3:03:23Rich Roll?

  Oh geez. I mean, it varies. I mean, I take Athletic Greens. I take.

• 3:03:28Speaker 01

  Promo code Whitney.

• 3:03:29Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I take, I take vitamin D. I take B12.

• 3:03:33Speaker 01

  But if you're gonna be outside in the sun, do you still take vitamin D?

• 3:03:36Rich Roll?

  I do. My D levels are fine, but from what I understand, even being out in the sun a lot, you can still be deficient. Most people are vitamin D deficient.

• 3:03:44Speaker 01

  You gotta sun your butthole.

• 3:03:45Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Oh, right.

• 3:03:47Speaker 01

  What is it called?

• 3:03:48Rich Roll?

  I don't know.

• 3:03:48Speaker 01

  Perineum sunning? Perineum?

• 3:03:50Rich Roll?

  The perineum.

• 3:03:51Speaker 01

  Perineum sunning.

• 3:03:51Rich Roll?

  Are you into that?

• 3:03:52Speaker 01

  No.

• 3:03:54Rich Roll?

  All right, we're going off the rails. We gotta end it for today.

• 3:03:56Speaker 01

  I just was dying to know. Thank you for having me.

• 3:03:58Rich Roll?

  Thank you. Wonderful to finally meet you. That was super fun.

• 3:04:01Speaker 01

  What a pleasure. Sorry I kept you guys so long.

• 3:04:03Rich Roll?

  Come back and do it again sometime. Check out Whitney's podcast. Good for you. The new, the new special is called Jokes on Netflix.

• 3:04:12Speaker 01

  No politics.

• 3:04:13Rich Roll?

  No politics. Yes, appeals to everyone.

• 3:04:15Speaker 01

  I just, I, it's our job to bring people together.

• 3:04:17Rich Roll?

  Talk about your special or anything. I feel bad.

• 3:04:19Speaker 01

  Why? What happened here? Is this bad?

• 3:04:22Rich Roll?

  No.

• 3:04:22Speaker 01

  I feel like you're.

• 3:04:24Rich Roll?

  What do you mean?

• 3:04:24Speaker 01

  How we do it? You decide. Really?

• 3:04:27Rich Roll?

  Giselle. Giselle likes it. I'm really happy. I wanted to talk about mental health. That's what we talked about. How do you feel? Honestly? It's good.

• 3:04:36Speaker 01

  I don't have feelings.

• 3:04:36Rich Roll?

  You don't?

• 3:04:37Speaker 01

  I'm kidding. I'm gonna look to you to decide how I should feel. No, I feel like we were honest and not rushing to get to anything.

• 3:04:45Rich Roll?

  No.

• 3:04:45Speaker 01

  You know?

• 3:04:46Rich Roll?

  It was good. I think it was the best.

• 3:04:47Speaker 01

  Do people really care about comedy? People hate us now. I mean...

• 3:04:51Rich Roll?

  I don't think so. No, we need you. We need you more than ever.

• 3:04:56Speaker 01

  But we should get to that. Yeah, maybe next time, because I do think everyone should do stand-up at some point, even if they only do it once. Even if you just set up a little room at your office and do it with some coworkers, it will change your life.

• 3:05:05Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's very scary. If somebody said you can go skydiving or get up and do stand-up, that's a toss-up for me.

• 3:05:12Speaker 01

  No way.

• 3:05:12Rich Roll?

  Yeah, for sure.

• 3:05:15Speaker 01

  See, that is fascinating to me. That's why I think everyone should do it once. I think you'd be surprised. It's like a great thrill and you learn so much about yourself. And everyone needs to be public speaking now, whether you're giving presentations, any field you're in. It's a skill that I think if everyone had, they'd be a little less anxious all the time.

• 3:05:32Rich Roll?

  All right, well, we'll explore that more next time. Cheers. Thanks, Whitney.

• 3:05:35Speaker 01

  Unless you're a younger, prettier girl than me, please don't start stand-up.

• 3:05:40Rich Roll?

  No.

• 3:05:41Speaker 01

  Because I'm already terrified. Nip it in my heels.

• 3:05:50Rich Roll?

  That's it for today. Thank you for listening. I truly hope you enjoyed the conversation. To learn more about today's guests, including links and resources related to everything discussed today, visit the episode page at richroll.com, where you can find the entire podcast archive, as well as podcast merch, my books, Finding Ultra, Voicing Change, and The Plant Power Way, as well as the Plant Power Meal Planner at meals.richroll.com. If you'd like to support the podcast, the easiest and most impactful thing you can do is to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify. And on YouTube and leave a review and/or comment.

• 3:06:34Rich Roll?

  Supporting the sponsors who support the show is also important and appreciated. And sharing the show or your favorite episode with friends or on social media is of course awesome and very helpful. And finally, for podcast updates, special offers on books, the meal planner, and other subjects, please subscribe to our newsletter, which you can find on the footer of any page at richroll.com. Today's show was produced and engineered by Jason Camiolo with additional audio engineering by Cale Curtis. The video edition of the podcast was created by Blake Curtis with assistance by our creative director, Dan Drake. Portraits by Davy Greenberg and Grayson Wilder.

• 3:07:15Rich Roll?

  Graphic and social media assets courtesy of Jessica Miranda, Daniel Solis, Dan Drake, and A.J. Akpodiette. Thank you Georgia Whaley for copywriting and website management. And of course, our theme music was created by Tyler Pyatt, Trapper Pyatt, and Harry Mathis. Appreciate the love, love the support. See you back here soon. Peace. Plants.

• 3:07:39Speaker 01

  Namaste. [music]