The Best of 2016 – Part I

This is the time of year to pause. It's the time of year for reflection. For gratitude. And for giving back. So let's do all those things. Welcome to the fourth annual Best of the RRP Anthology — our way of taking a moment to reflect on the year, express gratitude and give thanks for taking this journey with us. I pride myself on bringing a wide variety of personalities, opinions and attitudes to the show. When I look back over 2016, it's amazing how many incredibly dynamic conversations and perspectives I was honored to share. Second listens brought new insights. Another reminder that this show is a gift that just keeps giving. For long-time listeners, this two-part episode is intended to inform and inspire your new year's trajectory. If you're new to the show, my hope is that this anthology will stir you to peruse the back catalog and/or check out episodes you may have missed. Links to the full episodes excerpted in this anthology are enumerated below. What a stunning year. Thank you. I appreciate you. Here's to an extraordinary 2017 — the year we manifest our greatest dreams into reality. Join me, and let's do this thing together. Peace + Plants, Rich Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:00Rich Roll?

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• 0:44Rich Roll?

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• 1:05Speaker 01

  If you really want to search for more, to break through the conditioning, to find out how beautiful this planet is and the energies and the nature of yourself, then you're ready. And it's already inside. And we just need to apply it to this consciously. Then the neurology changes, and then we are able not only to increase our performances and because we master and control the physiological depth of ourselves, but we also get a sense of spirituality and beginning to understand the real purpose of life.

• 1:44Rich Roll?

  That's the gift. That's the real thing, right?

• 1:47Speaker 01

  It is. Yes, the purpose of our being is really making the soul ascend, to expand consciousness.

• 1:56Rich Roll?

  That's the Iceman, Wim Hof. And this is part one of a very special Best of 2016 edition of the Rich Roll Podcast.

• 2:15Rich Roll?

  The Rich Roll Podcast. Hey everybody, happy holidays. How you guys doing? Welcome or welcome back to the podcast where I, Rich Roll, your host, do my best, my very, very best, to have the most probing, meaningful conversations that I possibly can with the world's best and brightest across all categories of positive, paradigm-breaking, culture change. I appreciate you guys tuning in, for listening, for subscribing, for spreading the word to your friends and on social media, for subscribing to my free weekly newsletter, Roll Call, and of course, for always clicking through the Amazon banner ad at richroll.com for all your Amazon purchases, especially throughout this holiday season.

• 2:58Rich Roll?

  You can also go to richroll.com/Amazon for that same purpose. And thank you very much. Before we get into what I feel is a very compelling and exciting episode, let's take care of a little business.

• 3:18Rich Roll?

  All right, you guys, so it's that time of year again. It's the time of year for gratitude, for giving back, for celebration, and of course, for reflection. And this week on the show, I'm doing all of these things. I'm giving thanks to you guys, I'm expressing my gratitude, and reflecting back on this journey that we've all taken together over the course of 2016. It's been an absolutely amazing year. I've had extraordinary guests. The audience continues to grow and get more and more engaged with this podcast. And I'm just so grateful for your support, for everything that I have experienced. And I hope that you guys have gotten a lot out of this program as well. It's just been an amazing ride that shaped and shifted my life in countless amazing ways.

• 4:03Rich Roll?

  And I hope that it has had a positive impact on you as well. So. Over 2016, we have conversed on an incredibly wide range of topics and subject matters. So many incredible guests and as kind of a broad lifestyle wellness podcast, I pride myself on trying to embrace and contemplate a wide range of important subject matters and varying perspectives and opinions and attitudes. And I feel like we accomplished that in 2016. When I look back, even I'm surprised at everything that we covered, all the different people that I've had the opportunity to talk to and share with you guys, the diversity of guests, how many interesting and unique people and perspectives we have entertained.

• 4:45Rich Roll?

  And so these next two episodes are all about canvassing that, excerpting some of those insights, giving you guys a snapshot of the year, sort of a refresher course, if you will, a little inspiration capsule to catapult you into January, not only informed, but motivated and inspired to take your health and your wellbeing and your life to the next level. So if you've been with me all along from the beginning, or at least throughout this past year, then this will hopefully help bring some of these insights back into the forefront of your mind as you contemplate your trajectory, your hopes, your dreams heading into the new year. And if you're new, then this window into the world of my guests

• 5:27Rich Roll?

  should hopefully inspire you to go back and listen to the full episodes or visit some of the shows that you might have missed earlier in the year. Of course, as always, I've provided links to all the individual specific episodes in the show notes, which you can find on the episode page at richroll.com. So I gotta tell you, it's really, really hard to choose amongst my babies. I love all of my guests. I wish that I can include, you know, an excerpt from every single person that I've talked to this year. All of them have been a gift and it's almost impossible to choose who to include in this best of. Every time I look at somebody and then think, well, that person can't fit in, then it's just, it breaks

• 6:08Rich Roll?

  my heart. So we did the best we could. So please know that if I left out one of your favorites, I get it. It breaks my heart to leave anyone out. So. This is just where we're at. Anyway, these next two shows are just, they're sort of like my love letter to you guys, a way of saying thank you, that I recognize you, I appreciate you, that I believe in positive change. I believe in you, and I believe in the power that we all have to do and be better, to step into our best, most authentic selves. So, happy holidays to all of you guys, and let's just dive in. Our first guest is none other than the Iceman himself, Wim Hof, who is @iceman_hof on Twitter. He's the guy

• 6:52Rich Roll?

  who opened up this episode with the quote. For those that don't know, Wim is a Dutch-born world record holder. He is an adventurer, a daredevil, and a human guinea pig, best known for his preternatural ability to withstand extreme cold, and for his experimentation with some really interesting breathing techniques that he submits allow him to consciously control his autonomic immune system response, and which have propelled him through such superhuman feats as scaling above the death zone on Mount Everest in nothing but shorts, swimming 66 meters under a meter of ice above the polar circle. You get the idea, right? So, here's.

• 7:36Rich Roll?

  You have this deep knowingness, this awareness, this not just self-awareness, but like cosmic awareness of the impact of these practices on your health. And you may not have had the scientific background or the vocabulary to articulate what is actually going on, but because of these feats that you've accomplished and the attention that you've attracted, you have these scientists studying you now, and now you have, you're able to explain what you've known all along, right?

• 8:06Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 8:07Rich Roll?

  And so, what is it that's happening?

• 8:10Speaker 01

  What now is happening is that I want to go from science to sense.

• 8:16Speaker 01

  From science to, you know, caring and sharing. We should love each other. And but the love is constituted now scientifically by hormonal control, immune system control, and once again, energy management.

• 8:34Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 8:34Speaker 01

  And we got it analyzed now. So if every mother would be able to guarantee health, happiness, strength for her kids, then there would be no war anymore because there is no power for positioning and and all this crazy stuff going on anymore. It's out because what is the most wealthiest person? That what you cannot buy but be. And that's healthy, strong, and happy. So we bring it down by analysis, saying that's a hormonal control and the control over the immune system. Anybody can do it.

• 9:16Rich Roll?

  And what comes first, the cold or the breathing? Like, what is the most paramount practice? Like, how do these two worlds, you know, fit together?

• 9:25Speaker 01

  The cold brought me this deeper connection because I had to reconnect consciously into my physiology to endure the cold. But it made me change my breathing pattern. Later on, I saw that the breathing, what we do, is too shallow. It's too shallow every moment. So if you miss out on every moment or 10, 15% of the right chemistry brought in by a wrong intake of oxygen, bringing in wrong pH levels, then the body is confused. And so the breathing.

• 10:09Speaker 01

  I say the breathing plus consciousness.

• 10:11Rich Roll?

  The cold is what brought you to the breathing, though?

• 10:13Speaker 01

  Yes. It could also have been the heat. Could also have been oxygen-depravative states like, situations like Mount Everest or Kilimanjaro. Anything that triggers the deepest part, the survival part. The fight, flight, food, eh, the fuck in the freeze.

• 10:35Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 10:35Speaker 01

  That motive, a motive.

• 10:36Rich Roll?

  It wakes you up.

• 10:37Speaker 01

  Eh, eh, they say the big five, I say there are six, the spirituality is also there.

• 10:43Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 10:43Speaker 01

  Eh, that's the consciousness.

• 10:45Rich Roll?

  So let's break down the, the biochemistry of what's happening. You're talking about um raising the pH, becoming more alkaline, your system becoming more alkaline. And I think that's super interesting. There's a whole school of thought that, that, you know, most people in Western culture are in a state of chronic acidosis. The food that we're eating is very acidic, meat and dairy products. Uh, we're breathing toxic air, we're not getting enough sleep, stress, all of these things contribute to us being in a state of acidosis most of the time, right? And, and our systems have to, we buffer that, like, we maintain a relatively neutral pH, but we're, we have to leach minerals out of our bones to maintain all

• 11:28Rich Roll?

  of that. But the more alkaline foods that we can eat and the better care we can take of ourselves and the sleep and all of that, reducing stress, it pushes us towards that more alkaline state. And what they're realizing, and I'm interested in your perspective on this, is this state of chronic acidosis causes the inflammation and it's the inflammation that is leading to all of these chronic illnesses from obesity to diabetes, et cetera, that are just killing millions of people every year.

• 11:55Speaker 01

  It does.

• 11:56Rich Roll?

  So it's, it begins with the alkalinity.

• 12:00Speaker 01

  It does, and that's chemistry. We have to become alchemists. Everybody. Everybody is now.

• 12:07Rich Roll?

  But we don't always, but you, but we just have to do the right breathing technique, right?

• 12:11Speaker 01

  That's it.

• 12:11Rich Roll?

  So we don't actually have to be alchemists.

• 12:13Speaker 01

  No, no, no. Eh, eh, it's not a school or something, you know?

• 12:16Rich Roll?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 12:17Speaker 01

  Eh, and there is no, eh, you know, it's not four dollar breath and a three dollar breath and a, a bargain here of seventy-five cents. It's for free.

• 12:27Speaker 01

  Anybody can do this and take it in and do it consciously. Our consciousness, once it begins to get into our system, it gets into the cells. We have memory cells and all that, but there is a new element, which is the consciousness. And finally, it's becoming neurological.

• 12:48Rich Roll?

  What do you mean by that?

• 12:49Speaker 01

  The neurological patterns that enables us to get in the right way into our, into the depth of our system, enabling us to control whatever makes our mood happy and condition, you know, healthy and the energy management in cell, on cell level, we can influence, which is strength. So we are able to do that, but we have to change the neurology. And it begins with better breathing. And then it takes a little time to readapt to the, to this new neurology,

• 13:33Speaker 01

  enabling us to control ourselves a lot better, and that's done by consciousness. I'm charging right now, eh?

• 13:39Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 13:40Speaker 01

  But mostly, I always follow my feeling. Feeling is understanding. This is what I feel here, right now, right now, that it is a new insight. I am into ongoing scientific research because I don't like speculation. I like to philosopher, I don't like speculation. And I believe that we have the sense to see what is right and what is wrong.

• 14:08Rich Roll?

  It's so crazy, because we sort of walk around thinking that our, you know, our job is to, you know, get married and have kids and have a house. We don't, we just don't look, we're very myopic in what our abilities are, what our purpose is here on earth. And to hear somebody talk about how expansive, you know, our mental capacity truly is, it calls into question so many other sort of tried and true facts that we've been And taught our whole life, like what else are we capable of? What, what other untapped areas of our, you know, mental capacity are just sitting there dormant, waiting to be discovered? Because you're just, you, you, you happened into this by virtue of experience.

• 14:52Rich Roll?

  It wasn't like you read it in a book or you were a scientist doing studies in a lab. So who, you know, who's the next Wim Hof? Who's doing something totally crazy in a different way? Who's going to discover that we have something else that we're just not aware of? That we've been told our whole lives is outside of the realm of possibility.

• 15:10Speaker 01

  Yes, the purpose of our being is really making the soul ascend, to expand consciousness. And that's our true one. If we follow that path, then there is no tension. You just live like a kid, open, and it's all simple. It's beautiful and the energy is clean. And we should, we are children of mother nature. So the nature is there and it's beautiful, but we do not experience that anymore because our consciousness got narrowed. And nobody understands this. They say, ah, you're religious or you're happy or you're this or that. And that is the thing, we are not open to nature.

• 15:55Rich Roll?

  What's the right motivation, you think?

• 15:57Speaker 01

  The right motivation is if you really want to search for more, to break through the conditioning, to find out how beautiful this planet is and the energies and the nature of yourself, then, then you're ready. And it's already inside. And we just need to apply it to this consciously. Then the neurology changes and then we are able not only to increase our performances and because we master and control the physiological depth of ourselves, but we also get a sense of spirituality and beginning to understand the real purpose of life.

• 16:39Rich Roll?

  That's the gift. That's the real thing, right?

• 16:42Speaker 01

  It is, it is. Yes, the purpose of our being is really making the soul ascend, to expand consciousness.

• 16:57Rich Roll?

  Next up is Ryan Holiday, @RyanHoliday on Twitter. Ryan is a media strategist, keen observer of business and culture, and the author of four acclaimed books, including "The Obstacle is the Way" and "Ego is the Enemy," both of which are steeped in the principles of Stoic philosophy and constitute this amazing historical exploration of overcoming adversity and navigating our own internal barriers. Ryan is truly one of my favorite people, as well as a really, really good runner, so enjoy. Beyond your personal experiences with American Apparel, etc., you know, a big

• 17:39Rich Roll?

  part of what has informed this for you is just, you know, culturally what's going on around us with social media. Yeah. And we're all like, sort of encouraged to, you know, sort of be the best version, you know, this glossy version of ourselves online. Right. And, you know, it's a culture of, you know, countless sort of inspirational guru people telling you that you can do anything, that merges into, you know, a sense of entitlement for young people, that all of these things can kind of create this perfect storm of ego out of control, and yet, we are, we're looking to examples of this in our culture, successful people, that appear to be, you know, exuding this kind of unhealthy ego.

• 18:24Rich Roll?

  So how do you, like, what is, how do you look at that? How do you wrestle with that and reconcile it with the message that you're trying to convey? Well, I think there's two really important cognitive biases there, right? So, one's not a cognitive bias, but in academia, they have that concept of a publication bias, right? Like, a scientist sits down and does an experiment, and the experiment doesn't generate any conclusive results, or perhaps it, the results are not interesting. That doesn't get published in an academic journal, because no one's like, "Here, read this exciting new study that gives you nothing," right? So, so the shadowy bias in science is that it's always going towards...

• 19:04Speaker 02

  Proving something versus proving how little we know about things. And I think social media has created a similar effect, right? I don't publish the boring parts of my reality online and neither do anyone that I know. And so you start to, you're looking around as humans do, comparing yourself to other people. But you're not comparing yourself against, to what's real. You're comparing yourself to the illusions or the images that people want to project. So I think that, that, that's really interesting. And then the, historically, we, we often confuse causation and correlation, right? Like, is Kanye West, uh, successful because he has a huge ego?

• 19:47Speaker 02

  Or, and this is, this is my experience at somewhere like American Apparel. The people are successful in spite of this ego that is constantly causing problems.

• 19:57Rich Roll?

  Or does the ego grow in proportion to the success?

• 20:00Speaker 02

  I think it's both. Dr. Drew did this study a few years ago on narcissism. And they found that, um, of all the celebrities, the most narcissistic were reality stars. Um, and that the more talented the person was, like, the more technical their profession was. Like, the drummer of a band would have the least, uh, amount of narcissistic traits. But he was like, the, the response is like, oh yeah, that's because this, you know, being famous for nothing makes you narcissistic. And he's like, actually, what I think it is, and I think he had some data that backs this up. It's that only a narcissistic person would think they deserve to be famous just for being who they are.

• 20:42Rich Roll?

  Right. And the fame that goes along with it fuels that narcissism.

• 20:46Speaker 02

  It's a loop, yeah.

• 20:47Rich Roll?

  It grows into this huge monster.

• 20:49Speaker 02

  Right. Like, Kim Kardashian is not, uh, is narcissistic for, it was narcissistic. And that's why she thought we should watch a reality show about her life. And then now a world that encourages her to publish books about, of selfies of herself is also fueling those same negative impulses. So it's, it's a, that's why it's so, it's not just you learn this one time. It's something you have to work on constantly. And the more, the more successful you are. The more people are asking about how you became successful. So now you have more opportunities to tell that fake story about yourself. The more successful you are, the more you're interacting

• 21:31Speaker 02

  with people who are dependent on you. And so you can feel like you're better than them.

• 21:36Rich Roll?

  Gets reinforced and entrenched and what began as, on some level, fiction, becomes reality by virtue of sheer self-will.

• 21:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, the weird thing, and I don't talk about this a lot in the book, but I am fascinated by it, is, so I've known a number of very egotistical and I would say delusional people, but what impresses me about them is the sheer willpower. I guess they call it self-will in the addiction community.

• 22:05Rich Roll?

  Self-will run riot.

• 22:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, where they can actually, to a certain degree, create reality that matches the fictions about themselves. And so it drives them to absurd heights, right? Like, Donald Trump is not even close to one of the world's richest men, but in thinking so and in acting so, he has made himself quite wealthy, right? Like, so that's really interesting. It's like these people, they thought they were a superstar and they made themselves famous as a result. And so that's one of the worst things that can happen to a human being, because now, like, if someone told you, "You shouldn't do something," like, "That's a huge mistake." Like, I think about this with college. Most of the people in

• 22:50Speaker 02

  my life said, "Don't drop out of college. My parents thought it was this huge mistake." Well, I ended up being right. But I was really only right in that specific instance. I'm not right every time that everyone in my life says that I'm wrong and I shouldn't do this. And so that, you have to have the self-awareness and the objectivity to look at every situation fresh and not bring to it this overconfidence that you know better than everyone else all the time.

• 23:17Rich Roll?

  Right, and surround yourself with sycophants that are gonna, you know, support that.

• 23:21Speaker 02

  Right. Like, I think about that with American Apparel. The company is insane, if you think about it, right? It's like, "We're gonna manufacture our own clothes." We're not going to put any logos on them. We're going to do all our own advertisements. We're not going to use professional models. We're going to own our own stores and we're going to sell these T-shirts for like $25, $30. Like, that's nuts, right? And a lot of entrepreneurial ideas are crazy. Like, because they're projections of what might be possible in the future. And they're, but they're crazy. Like, Amazon is an insane concept in 1995 or whenever it's made. So there has to be that, there is that element of craziness.

• 24:03Speaker 02

  But when that craziness is confirmed, like you make that craziness uncrazy, you have a very dangerous precedent that if you apply widely throughout your own life will get you in very serious trouble.

• 24:20Rich Roll?

  Russell Simmons, Uncle Rush on Twitter. He's next up. Russell is an entrepreneur, a yogi, a meditator, a vegan activist, perhaps best known for co-founding Def Jam Records with Rick Rubin back in 1984, which really pioneered the hip-hop movement. There's nobody quite like Russell. He is definitely one of a kind. So please enjoy this clip from the singular Uncle Rush.

• 24:47Rich Roll?

  And if you had to encapsulate the benefits of meditation in your life, like, how do you, how would you articulate that?

• 24:54Speaker 03

  My name is Rush. I like my quiet time every day. Love it.

• 25:01Speaker 03

  Love it. It's self-reflection. It's personal.

• 25:08Speaker 03

  You get a chance to watch your life. If you were to be in moving meditation at all times, or if you were to find a second of pure stillness in meditation,

• 25:20Speaker 03

  it's just, it's such an enlightening thing. A joke would happen. Everything goes away but the giggle if you get the future in the past. Meditation is to get hundreds of thoughts out of your mind, slow them down to four, or five, or eight, or 10, or 12, or whatever it is. Or maybe one thought, your mantra. This idea of quieting the mind, or rebooting the mind, has so many benefits, it's unbelievable. It's like now, it's not just, you know, the Buddhists and scriptures, and it's not just be still and know. It's not just a bunch of rigmarole from all the prophets all the time. It's not just that crap. It's Science Journal. It backs up what they've been doing for thousands of years. It changes the way the brain functions.

• 26:03Speaker 03

  It grows the gray matter in the brain. It connects the left and the right side of the brain. And it, you know, and that leads to better immune system, better memory, better, you know, able to, you know, function and live longer. And it does all these things for you. So now you know through science that what they've been promising you is good is really good. So that's like, how could you not want to do that?

• 26:32Rich Roll?

  Right. And I feel like, I feel like meditation is having a big moment right now. Like it's really kind of burst onto the mainstream because of all these scientific studies that are coming up with all of this information that you just spoke to. And I think that people intellectually understand all of this and yet they can't get over that hump or they just say, you know, I'm just too busy. Like I get it, but it's just never going to happen. And

• 26:55Speaker 03

  Nama Rishi had a great quote.

• 26:56Rich Roll?

  Very few people are as busy as you are, so.

• 26:58Speaker 03

  I think I do more and I do less. I meditate every single day. I don't give a fuck if I was negotiating between Putin and Obama, some great deal that had to get done and I was the mediator. If my last class of yoga today was going to close, I like to be with people. I like to do it. If that class wasn't going to happen because I'm stuck with these two niggas, I would leave them and say, y'all fix it yourself. I would not miss my yoga class at any time and I would not miss my morning meditation. So first chakra first, and I think I'm a better servant because of it. And I don't make exceptions if I can help it. I mean, I've been on planes.

• 27:35Rich Roll?

  This is priority.

• 27:35Speaker 03

  It's stuck on planes and miss yoga. It's happened, but not possible. If it's possible to get there in any city, no matter where I travel, I find yoga. And no matter where I travel, I sit in the space. I don't think you need to go anywhere to meditate. I don't need to go to an ashram. I sit in my bed. I sit up straight. I meditate. But the point I make is that I don't miss taking care of myself and those two things are part of my You know, taking care of myself.

• 28:03Rich Roll?

  I think it's really interesting that you're able to have these friendships with people that are on, you know, a very different side of the fence from Roger Ailes and this kind of famous relationship that you have with Donald Trump and that kind of...

• 28:15Speaker 03

  Head.

• 28:16Rich Roll?

  Well, yeah, the viral moment of writing the letter.

• 28:18Speaker 03

  I'm not sure. I haven't talked to him.

• 28:19Rich Roll?

  Oh, there's...

• 28:19Speaker 03

  I've said a lot of shit, so, yeah.

• 28:20Rich Roll?

  Everybody wanted me to ask you if you've talked to him since the letter.

• 28:22Speaker 03

  I have not spoken to him.

• 28:23Rich Roll?

  You haven't, uh-huh.

• 28:24Speaker 03

  And, um, I don't know if he's gonna call me until he wins the nomination. No, until he wins the presidency. He said I'm gonna get 100% of the black vote. That's the best lie I've ever heard. What are you talking about? The blacks, they love me.

• 28:36Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 28:36Speaker 03

  He said that.

• 28:37Rich Roll?

  It's interesting. But, I mean, that aside, the fact that you can be friends with people that share a very different point of view, I think is a really kind of powerful thing. And I think it's unusual. People have difficulty understanding how that could possibly be.

• 28:51Speaker 03

  They said I'm an asshole for having had a friendship. To me and Reverend Jackson, there's a story in New York Times about our opinions about his statements, and both of them said that's a different Trump than we know. You know, we both said things that were not so bad about him, attacked his words, but not him. And he said we were both sellouts. Like, if I had been a civil rights activist, I'd have been paid...

• 29:14Rich Roll?

  Wait, who said that?

• 29:15Speaker 03

  There was a big story on an important black blog. And I say important, like, one of the ones that... Where, you know, it's not a blog, like, gossip. It was like, you know, a news blog. And it was this editorial written about how, it's a perfect example of what sellouts look like and sound like. And it comes from that New York Times article. But I find it's okay. I mean, because a Republican governor was the one that... The most important thing I've ever done is changed the Rockefeller drug laws. Thousands of people came home from jail. It was a Republican governor who signed the bill and gave me the pen because I was friendly with Governor Pataki.

• 29:53Speaker 03

  And that's that helped to build a bridge. And I negotiated between Senator Bruno and Shelley Silva, the deal. I got in trouble with a lobbyist, too. It cost me a lot of money, but that's another subject. But it it's OK to get along with people you disagree with. In fact, it's critical that we all try to put ourselves in other people's shoes because I believe that we all have the same hopes, desires. You know, we're all inspired by the same kinds of things. We want to love and be loved. And I know that there are some small differences that really exist in us. And that's from socialization or whatever.

• 30:33Speaker 03

  And and we have to get over those and find the sameness and work on, you know, operating from that space on. And that's and that's an important kind of that's a premise to operate from, you know, I think. It's easy.

• 30:48Rich Roll?

  Right, right.

• 30:49Speaker 03

  Easier. Life is easier if you decide to love people rather than judge them.

• 30:53Rich Roll?

  It's it's a it comes from empathy. Like, once you you develop a capacity or a reservoir for empathy, then you're able to kind of see somebody else's point of view, even if you don't share it, you can understand it in a certain way that I think, like, allows you to build a bridge.

• 31:06Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 31:07Rich Roll?

  Yeah. A self avowed queen of sweat, swagger, and urban fitness culture, Robyn Arzon, at @robinNYC on Twitter and Instagram, has appeared on the podcast three times. That's because she's amazing. She really knows how to bring the heat. She's just awesome. A powerful and empowering female role model who just exudes inspiration from every sport. This was a really great conversation. If you haven't already, please pick up her book, Shut Up and Run. It's pretty great. And listen up.

• 31:39Speaker 04

  When I was first becoming a runner, I was so intimidated by

• 31:45Speaker 04

  All of the, I mean, the running bibles and the like, the compendium of, of, of information available. Yeah, it's like, why so serious? Yeah, I think, and I, I was thinking about this earlier as I'm sort of going through my own training plan with a fine tooth comb and geeking out on technology and, and going super like, the pendulum has, has definitely swung in the other direction. But when I was writing this book, I really wanted to take it back to how I fell in love with running, which was lacing up in probably ill-fitting shoes at 10:00 PM at night, running with my friends who are a motley crew of like downtown LES New York City.

• 32:30Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's like. Mischraids. Warriors. Like, it was very simple. Warriors, come out and play. Literally. It's the, it's the Warriors movie with, with running, but not running from the cops, just running. Less violent. Less violent, you know, God willing, less violent, yeah. Um, so yeah, shut up and run. It has training plans, it has substance, it has, you know, really my genuine approach to training and how I have trained for, you know, dozens of ultra marathons and upwards of 20 marathons and now my 100 miler. But I kind of feel like there is just a lot of bullshit, like, honestly, you don't need like a $700 Garmin watch for your 5K, like chill, brah.

• 33:14Speaker 04

  Like, I just, I just think that there's a lot of noise that intimidates people unnecessarily. Mm-hmm. And I also think that people, people feel like they need to apologize for being newer, slower, bigger, smaller, whatever, whatever adjective you want to apply to it that is making you feel lesser than. People have this need to apologize, and I think my entire approach to running is like, shut up and run, be unapologetic about who you are. Yeah, we can get better, faster, stronger, but I don't necessarily think that's the goal. Um, if you're not enjoying the experience and the training miles, and I don't think

• 33:57Speaker 04

  it really matters what the finish line looks like. We live in such a culture, at least Westerners live in such a culture, where we're seeking shortcuts and hacks and apps and like multitasking, time-saving genie machines. And I'm like, y'all are twisted. Like, we need to get a little more centered, a little more grounded, and a little bit more intentional with where we're putting our energy. Like, if somebody, if somebody reaches out to me, a lot of times, my first response, when I choose to respond, is, "How badly do you want it?" Like, really, how badly do you want it? Because, same thing with training, same thing with anything like worth having.

• 34:39Speaker 04

  Do you want it more than, you know, going out until 2:00 in the morning? Do you want it more than potentially like, you know, nurturing a romantic relationship? Because those are sacrifices that I definitely have made to be sitting with you right now.

• 34:53Rich Roll?

  Yeah, this came up when I was talking to Gary Vee, and he's like, you know, "You have to do an inventory of your life." And he's like, "Once you kind of do that, you know, most people, you know, eight out of 10 people are, are gonna realize like, 'Hey, the life I have right now, I kind of like.' Like, I like going out with my buddies and getting drunk on Thursday night."

• 35:11Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 35:11Rich Roll?

  You know, "I like watching House of Cards and all that kind of stuff." That if you, if you really want to shake things up and like, you know, jump into the void and take on this mantle of blazing the warrior's path and trying to, you know, create some kind of entrepreneurial self-styled lifestyle that you've been able to accomplish, it ain't gonna be easy. And you're not gonna know all the answers and have it all figured out, you know? And it's almost analogous to this example that I always use, like, and, and this kind of comes up in your book, Shut Up and Run, like, people who, they want to know, like, what kind of running shoe they should get or what kind of garment, you know, to get. And, and they don't, they don't really want the answer to that. They want that conversation to continue because

• 35:56Rich Roll?

  that masks the fear of just going out and doing it.

• 35:59Speaker 04

  Of course.

• 36:00Rich Roll?

  Like, as long as I don't know exactly what kind of shoe is best for me, then I don't have to go out and run.

• 36:05Speaker 04

  Of course. It's like, how many issues of Runner's World are you gonna go through before you actually lace up and get the fuck out?

• 36:12Rich Roll?

  The same magazine every month.

• 36:14Speaker 04

  Real talk. I mean, honestly, guys, I think, I mean, I think, that's why I wrote my book. It's like, shut up and run. Like, stop overcomplicating the situation. Like, of course, you're going to evolve and progress and like, realize that X running shoe is better than Y running shoe, and then get to a point where maybe you really should be investing in technology that's pricey. But it doesn't start there. It starts with literally the drive. How badly do you want it? Are you going to get out the door? Are you going to sacrifice watching the House of Cards marathon? Are you going to sacrifice, you know, going out for a late dinner? Like, I mean, it's, it's those things that our entire lives are made up of micro decisions and micro moments. And like, if we're simultaneously celebrating tiny victories and pursuing the next one, we're going to be fine.

• 37:11Rich Roll?

  Next up, we have Ray Cronice, at Ray Cronice on Twitter, C R O N I S E. Ray is a passionate innovator. He's a disruptor. He's a former NASA material scientist, a TED Med speaker, an entrepreneur, and a self-experimenter, perhaps best known for his pioneering work with cold stress therapy. But in recent years, Ray has turned his attention, his prodigious mind, to diet and nutrition, arriving at the conclusion that a whole food, plant-based diet is optimal for long-term health and wellness. He's the guy who helped Pengelet lose over 100 pounds and keep it off. And this is the most downloaded podcast I have

• 37:52Rich Roll?

  ever done. Ray is the most popular guest ever in the history of this show. So if you did miss it the first time, please make a point of going back and listening to the entire conversation. It's an extraordinary, mind-bending, three hours that I promise you will change your life. In the interim, here's a little taste.

• 38:15Rich Roll?

  When you get asked, as I'm sure you do every day, what about protein? You already elaborated on it at length earlier on the podcast, but when you only have a moment, right? Like somebody's like, well, what about protein? But you're, you know, you know, you're only going to be talking to this guy for maybe two minutes. Like, what is the, how do you manage that inquiry?

• 38:35Speaker 05

  So why don't you ask me?

• 38:36Rich Roll?

  So, so where am I going to get my protein?

• 38:38Speaker 05

  I don't know.

• 38:40Rich Roll?

  What do you mean you don't know? You're the guy, you're the nutrition guy.

• 38:43Speaker 05

  I don't know.

• 38:45Rich Roll?

  How can you not know?

• 38:46Speaker 05

  I mean, beef has protein.

• 38:49Rich Roll?

  Yeah. So you're eating beef, right?

• 38:50Speaker 05

  No. Well, cows, where do they get it?

• 38:54Rich Roll?

  Uh, grass?

• 38:55Speaker 05

  They eat grass and hippopotamuses and drafts.

• 38:58Rich Roll?

  Grass, you can't digest grass.

• 39:00Speaker 05

  The answer is they all, all these things get protein. I have no idea where they get it, but somehow it works. And I don't worry about it either. And I haven't seen any deficiencies. So I just don't worry about it.

• 39:12Rich Roll?

  So this is a page out of the Doug Lyle playbook?

• 39:14Speaker 05

  This is a Doug Lyle playbook.

• 39:15Rich Roll?

  It's a little manipulative.

• 39:16Speaker 05

  It is, but the point-

• 39:18Rich Roll?

  You talked about it on, on the other podcast with, with-

• 39:21Speaker 05

  The answer is, yeah, the answer is, the answer is, is that the question isn't really meant to be answered. It's meant to start a debate. And really what they really want is reassurance that what they're doing, what they believe to be correct there. And so-

• 39:35Rich Roll?

  Cause it's not a genuine, it's not like they're asking because they genuinely want to know. They want to, they want to dig in on their side to prove that what, or establish to themselves that what they're doing is okay.

• 39:47Speaker 05

  Yeah, exactly. And, and so it's not a real question. So I, I just, I just don't worry about it. I give not a real answer.

• 39:56Rich Roll?

  Uh huh. How does that go usually?

• 39:58Speaker 05

  It always goes there really, wait a minute, how do cows get protein? They, they, everybody gets, everybody doesn't think about that. That really messes them up. And then, you know, obviously you can do the same thing with gorillas. You know, a lot of people use the gorilla example, you know, where in the hell does a gorilla get protein? I mean, they're way more muscular, they don't go to the gym and they don't eat protein shakes. But I'm not going to get in a fight with a chimpanzee. I'm not even going to get in a fight with a little bitty monkey. It'll kick my ass, right? So I'm not going to do that. So I just don't, I just, I know what- Their heart, I don't think they're trying to be this way. But I just think the word just needs to be eradicated from diet. I think we just need to not even consider it. And that's what, and I know that's preposterous and I know that's disruptive, but that's what the food triangle does.

• 40:42Speaker 05

  We don't even include it as part of it because, again, from a longevity perspective, we need to eat less of it.

• 40:50Rich Roll?

  Right. All right, final question. I know you're not a medical doctor, but if, if the universe converged to make you surgeon general of the United States, what would be the first thing that you would do?

• 41:03Speaker 05

  Fund whole food research. So I would say, let's throw out the rulebooks on protein, carbs and fat. Let's throw out the typical randomized control trials. It's all, all designed for testing drugs where placebo really matters. How do you double blind control banana unless it's going in the other end? You know, you know, you're eating a banana. What I would do is I would let people self-select. And I would bring people together and say, look, I want you to eat this way for a year and we want to just track you. If you have an exception, take a picture of it. If I see a picture, I can pretty much know what I need to know from a science perspective. And I would start at a very massive, high level scale of trying to get a granularity to get rid of the debate.

• 41:45Speaker 05

  And I think that I could design that right now, that we could start making some pretty good assumptions right now. The very final bit of that would be hard to tease out, but we would rapidly get to something that we could eat, we would rapidly get to something that we could say is, you know, 80, 70, whatever percent effective in mitigating chronic disease within a few years versus right now that we'll never get there because, you know, we're chipping away and chipping away and chipping away and we're down in the minutia. And now that language is out on the blogs and I have all these people out there, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk. They really don't understand. I didn't understand what a protein was and I did protein synthesis at NASA. I mean, we were doing protein crystal course. I didn't know what a protein was.

• 42:27Speaker 05

  And what I mean by that is I didn't really understand what it meant from a dietary. Perspective. And what was really interesting is at one of my daughter's Erin's swim meets that we were sitting at, one of my biochemistry professors from college happened to be there and happened to hear me talking to somebody else about my new diet. And he really called the bullshit flag on me. And I'm thinking to yourself, look, you're fat. And I said it, you're fat. You obviously don't get it. So I know you know the, I know you understand, but if you're going to assault me and say, I don't know what I'm talking about as a biochemistry professor, I'm going to say, you obviously don't know what you're talking about because you're fat. And of course, I get, got this- What did that guy say to you? Oh, he was pissed. I mean, he, that's not a way to win friends, but at the same time, you know, people did it to me too.

• 43:10Speaker 05

  You know, I, I don't have the chiseled abs. And so a lot of people like when they see my TED Med talk where I had just lost 50 pounds and I was still at 180 and I hadn't done the last 20 because I, I was still doing research and I gained and lost a couple of times on purpose. I mean, I can show you on the whitting scale afterwards, you know, each time I did them, except because I know I don't cheat. I know I could document what I was doing. But even now, I don't, I don't, I'm not as ripped as you are. I'm not in that shape, but I don't think you have to get to that level to, to understand a lot more about what it's doing at a medical level. Okay. And I think that's the problem. If you set the goal too far, if you set it way out there, the bar so far out that you

• 43:51Speaker 05

  have to be a fitness model to have an opinion. People who are fitness models hang out in gyms, not in libraries. Yeah. And so, you know, people can say what they want, you know, I, I see it all the time. I ignore those like, Tim, you know, you ignore the trolls, you just ignore them. You know, I used to engage and I realize you got to starve them of oxygen. And, you know, it's not that. And the converse is true too. If you see a guy who's constantly putting up his ketogenic thing and every other picture is him, you know, in his bathing suit with his abs and he's 20 years old or whatever, you know, these people, these people, they're trying, but they're, they're just going for the, the low hanging fruit.

• 44:32Speaker 05

  That's the protein on, you know, 7-Up when we were young, had a great commercial. Never had it, never will. Do you remember that? I'm trying to remember. That was caffeine. So it was one of the first things. And they made a whole avocotizing campaign around nothing.

• 44:50Speaker 05

  And of course, we saw this in the low fat, the fat-free foods, you know, of the of the 80s. I love Jeff Novick's talk of those fat-free and how they just made this whole campaign over nothing. They didn't change the soups, they just added water. And the same amount of fat was in there. So all the people said, yeah, we reduced the fat and and look what happened. We got fat or whatever. No, we didn't. We just added sugar to it, right? And then the sugar-free. So right now, we're seeing all this. And this is all this advertisement over nothing. And I see a lot of fitness models that's the same thing. When you're young, etc., having that is relatively easy to do. And the things that you're doing may in fact make you look amazing, but also may at the same time be aging you early.

• 45:34Speaker 05

  And the same that when I'm when I'm taking you on, when I'm saying, you know, where do we make the soft landing for exercise? This is a hard thing to say to a guy that's made your, you know, your mark on that. But I think you take it in the right way, then I mean it. Yeah, of course. So what I'm saying is, is that is, you know, essentially, we've got to take these labels, these arbitrary labels. And so protein, carbs, fat, metabolism, starvation mode, these are all things I'm going to be dealing with in the book, in Our Broken Plate. And I think it's this language. I think it's this, you know, constant obsession with this minutia, where I was looking at proteins, I was synthesizing them,

• 46:15Speaker 05

  and I still didn't really recognize what they meant at the level you and I know today. Because every time you talk about the protein discussion, everybody would wind up tweeting, saying, you need to talk to Ray and vice versa. You know, we got, we talked about that, you know, they all would do us because we both talk about it. Same with Matt, you know, it always, everybody, it's popular to talk about that because that question comes up and everything. Right now, they have marketing studies. If you put the label word protein on a package, it just sells. Right. And the food industry shouldn't be lambasted because they're selling more. The exercise industry shouldn't be lambasted because they're getting more supplements. They're selling more memberships. The, you know, the restaurant shouldn't be lambasted because they're putting food that's selling more.

• 46:59Speaker 05

  You know, no one tells you that you have to swallow that stuff. No one tells you you have to go participate. No one tells you, when you enter into this. And you start going at it halfway and start believing everything, and that's the problem. Um, especially when it's a complex molecular biology or physiology where the words are being used out of context, like insulin, like glycemic index, like insulin resistance, like, you know, the, these kinds of terms that are just being thrown around and everybody has this story they can tell. But have they really put a glucose monitor on? Do they really know what's going on? Have they really measured their insulin response to stuff? Are they really doing oral

• 47:41Speaker 05

  glucose tolerance tests like I was doing when I was fasting and, and looking at how it changes? The answer is no, they're not. And I wasn't either. I was just as guilty. So I'm not throwing rocks. I did the same thing. I think we need, it's time to change this. I think we need to, you would talk to Penn, I never talked about technical stuff when these people are losing weight. And we never talked about that. It's like, we don't need, it doesn't matter. Where do you get your protein? I don't know. I don't care. When we figure out we're deficient of it. What is a protein deficiency disease? What are we looking for? I know what happens when I don't have vitamin C. I know about scurvy. I know about rickets with vitamin. I know what those things are. We know what every nutritional deficiency disease is. And no one's dying of

• 48:21Speaker 05

  that stuff. So my point is, why don't we stop talking about it a little bit? Leave it in the lab where it needs to be studied. Back to your question that you asked me, because I didn't forget, which is, what would I do if I was surgical general? Well, like the last one, I wouldn't be a fat surgeon general. You know, and that's hard to say. And I'm not personally attacking this person, but I watched a TED Med as a fat surgeon general gave us a lecture about health. That is a severe cognitive dissidence, a society cognitive dissidence. And I'm, again, this is not, being overweight, I'm not talking about social things. I'm saying that fat, and I love how Michael Clapper says it, is a large hormonally active, you know,

• 49:05Speaker 05

  it's an endocrine organ, and it's hormonally active. So it's not just hanging out there and making you wear a bigger size. It's actively excreting hormones in your body that causes all kinds of other dysfunctions. And so when we look at it from a strictly medical perspective, you know, I think, you know, PE teachers at school, you know, need to be In good shape. I, you know, I live in the Bible Belt in Huntsville, Alabama. And yet, the Bible Belt happens to be the fattest states in the nation. And clearly, gluttony is not on any religion's, you know, things to do list, right? So, the point I'm making is, is that we have these contradictions that are all out there.

• 49:45Speaker 05

  And if we could get rid of the social dogma and get our discussion back and say, wait a minute, what can we do to bring this back into discussion? I don't think we need terms of molecular biology or biochemistry to go shopping. And I think the labels, you and I have the advantage. What do we do? We buy stuff without labels. You know, and even the organic versus inorganic, whatever that means, you know? I mean, even that, I would rather people eat vegetables, whatever they are, frozen, whatever, than I would have them worry about the last thing. Does organic matter in some sense? Well, what does the word really mean? I mean, if rice is organically grown with chicken feces contaminated with arsenic, that's organically unhealthy.

• 50:30Speaker 05

  And of course, hemlock, you know, tea is organ, is natural, and it will naturally kill you. And poison ivy, skin cream is probably not the best natural selection for there. So, this appeal to nature fallacy is everywhere. Paleo is appeal to nature. Now, some of the plant-based people do the same. We're designed to eat plants. We're designed to eat lots of stuff. And we survive, and we've spread to all corners of a sphere. We've spread to all corners of the earth because we can eat a lot of things. But just because we can, doesn't mean we should. And so, what I would say is, you know, what we have to do is get back to talking about food. And I think the best food, in my opinion, is the food that doesn't need labels.

• 51:16Rich Roll?

  Swimmer Anthony Irvin is next up. @AnthonyIrvin on Twitter and Instagram. Anthony is a three-time Olympian who won gold in the 50-meter freestyle in Rio this past summer. At 35 years of age, 35 years old, 16 years after his first Olympic gold in Sydney. And in so doing, Anthony really solidified his place in sports history, in the history books, by becoming the oldest individual swimming gold medalist in Olympic history. Think about that for a minute. And that's really just... The very, very beginning of what I think is one of the most remarkable stories and personalities in all of sports. I'm really hoping to get him back in 2017 to share his Olympic experience.

• 52:01Rich Roll?

  Until then, enjoy this brief clip from our conversation that actually took place before he even made the Rio team.

• 52:11Speaker 06

  So, we march out and you know, they announce the US and there's a few cheers and they announce Australia and like the place just roared. And being that I was so inexperienced, I'd never been to an international meet before. I didn't even have a passport before I made the Olympic team. That, you know, as soon as it got quiet, I stood up on the blocks. Sit up on the blocks, getting ready to start and I hear, hear a referee go, "Lane floor four, please step down." And at that point, I actually look around, you know, instead of just the lane in front of me and know it's like there's nobody else ready. Everybody else is just standing at the side. And, you know, it turns out this is where you have to wait for this long whistle before you stand up. So I, I'm like a goon up there.

• 52:57Speaker 06

  And I stepped down and then they call us back up. We take our mark and they set us off and I dive in, you know, and I'm pumping my underwaters just like as fast as I can. And I, you know, I couldn't help it. I squeeze a look next to me, you know? Sometimes you just have to look. And I see Michael Klim, one kick after another, just surging ahead of me to the point where we actually break to the surface of the water. He's got a full body length. I'm crushed. And I lose sight of my game plan and I spin my wheels to catch him. And I catch him at the turn, the halfway point, but I'd used too much. So on the way

• 53:38Speaker 06

  back, I started fading. And gradually, I'm falling further and further back until I met his feet and even a little bit before. I touched a wall for the exchange and, you know, Australia has a formidable lead. Michael Klim had broken the world record, leading off the relay. And, you know, I'm just like completely wrung out. And I climb out, just the lactic acid pouring through, you know, every single muscle. And I watched just like a broken record as every American. Sprints to catch the Australian and pass him only to fade right at the end as for the next exchange. Neil Walker did the same thing, then Jason Lezak, and then it was Gary

• 54:19Speaker 06

  Hall Jr. and Ian Thorpe. And Gary has the lead on him. He takes the lead early. Coming back, Ian's catching him inch by inch, or as it were centimeter by centimeter since we're in Australia.

• 54:31Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 54:32Speaker 06

  And so with five meters to go, with two more strokes, he overtakes him and touches. The Australians win. 12, 15,000 people roar in triumph. You know, the Australian swimmers stand up on their blocks and start playing air guitars.

• 54:50Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that image of them playing air guitar.

• 54:53Speaker 06

  You can still find that one, right?

• 54:54Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 54:55Speaker 06

  Yeah. And we were just, I was just devastated because I thought that was, that was what was going to get me to the podium.

• 55:05Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm. And so in the wake of that, how do you get it together to get ready for the 50?

• 55:11Speaker 06

  Well, I isolated myself a ton. You know, even going by media at that point, I didn't trust myself to say anything. So I kind of just stood back of my teammates quietly, just breathing in and breathing out. And, you know, knowing that having not done it there and being a little too immature to understand, you know, that I was still part of a great thing, that I had one more opportunity. So the blinders went on and I really felt that I had let what somebody else had done get to me. I had let somebody else's performance

• 55:55Speaker 06

  in a sport where you don't need to, it's not like boxing or tennis where you need to figure out a way past your opponent, you know, mono a mono. This is just a race. You know, what you do is all you. And if somebody else gets in that, that's your failure, not their success.

• 56:13Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 56:14Speaker 06

  So I just started going through it in my head, you know, hour by hour, day by day for a handful of days, just of what could go wrong, what could go right, and every possible permutation of what could happen. And so by the time I actually got to my individual event.

• 56:34Speaker 06

  And I stood up on those blocks. I don't even like remember the race.

• 56:39Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 56:40Speaker 06

  No, it just, I stood up, I took my mark. The race happened, which was just an execution of everything that I was ready for. And I opened myself up to just swimming free.

• 56:51Rich Roll?

  Do you, do you do, do you have some kind of specific like visioning preparation that you do? Like, what's the ritual?

• 56:59Speaker 06

  Like ready room ritual?

• 57:00Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 57:01Speaker 06

  Uh, it's really just, it's attunement and control the body, you know, with, with a shave and a taper. You know, there's a, your nervous system is just like on fire. It wants to go. And it's about being like, just for me, it was always about trying to just be aware of it. But not, don't let it out. Don't let it out yet. So you feel every heartbeat. You know, you feel, you know, if you're sitting, your forearms against your legs, if your heels are touching, you feel that. You know, if the air conditioner is blowing on your head, you feel that too. And you feel it all at once. Um, and you're just being in that state. Just moment to moment to moment to moment.

• 57:41Speaker 06

  And it's very, you know, and then it's this idiosyncratic of how you proceed from that room to behind the blocks, to on the blocks, to taking your marks.

• 57:50Rich Roll?

  And when you're behind the blocks, right before the 50, are you looking around at the other guys or you're just staring down the end of the lane?

• 57:56Speaker 06

  Staring down the lane.

• 57:57Rich Roll?

  And is Gary like wearing his, his like, you know, Muhammad, doing his Muhammad Ali routine in the boxing shorts and all of that?

• 58:03Speaker 06

  Uh, I, uh, I, I know he did it.

• 58:06Rich Roll?

  Uh huh. But you didn't see it.

• 58:07Speaker 06

  But I didn't see it.

• 58:08Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 58:09Speaker 06

  Didn't see it. There was no space for anybody else at that point.

• 58:12Rich Roll?

  Everything's shut out.

• 58:13Speaker 06

  Everything's shut out.

• 58:14Rich Roll?

  Uh huh. And then you just, I mean, it's almost like a fugue state, like the, you know, you're just, you're, you're so programmed to go that you're just expressing what's already happened inside of you.

• 58:28Speaker 06

  Right.

• 58:28Rich Roll?

  Right? And you touch, how long before you know what had happened?

• 58:33Speaker 06

  Um, as long as it took me to squint my near sighted eyes and make out the one next to my name. And then I saw simultaneously another one, uh, next to Gary's.

• 58:43Rich Roll?

  And it's funny because you guys had joked about tying at the Olympics, right?

• 58:47Speaker 06

  It was one of those situations I had actually imagined. I was like, well, what if we tied?

• 58:50Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 58:51Speaker 06

  You know, and other teammates that were there for other countries, I'd, I'd done the same for them.

• 58:55Rich Roll?

  It's so crazy. So what is it, what's the, you know, what do you, what do you feel like when you've won an Olympic gold medal? Like, what is that like?

• 59:03Speaker 06

  Well, you know, you, you have a fist pump, you're stoked and you're, you're super happy. And, you know, Gary was there and Bart was there. And, you know, it was just being able to hug over the ley lines, you know, it was just, it was great. You know, that was, that was the best part of that.

• 59:24Rich Roll?

  Dr. Melanie Joy is a Harvard educated social psychologist, a celebrated speaker and author, as well as the founder of the nonprofit organization Beyond Carnism. This was a really fascinating conversation that centered around something called specieism and the psychological defense mechanisms that we employ to rationalize our food choices. So please enjoy this clip from Dr. Joy. So we only have an hour today and, and so I want to kind of get right into the heart of, you know, the work that you do. It's super interesting. You're somebody who has thought, you know, deeply about these issues of animal rights and the vegan movement and, and have

• 1:00:07Rich Roll?

  a lot, you have a lot of interesting ideas and theories and concepts about it. So perhaps the best way to kind of launch right into it is just talk about this concept of carnism, which you are sort of famously have coined, you know, what that means and how that shapes and forms, how you think about these issues.

• 1:00:27Speaker 07

  Sure. Well, I came to the concept of carnism through my own personal journey. I, like many people, grew up with a dog who I loved like a family member. I certainly grew up as a person who cared about animals and didn't want them to suffer. And I also grew up eating meat, eggs and dairy on a regular basis. And for a lot of my life, I just never made the connection between the meat on my plate and the living being it once was and the suffering inherent in that meat, eggs and dairy. It wasn't until I stopped eating animals, I had become sick from eating a hamburger.

• 1:01:02Rich Roll?

  And um. When did that happen?

• 1:01:03Speaker 07

  It was, that was in nineteen eighty-nine. It was before there was, you know, anywhere near the level of vegan consciousness that there is today. Um, I, I kind of became a vegetarian by accident. I just became disgusted by meat and I stopped eating it and I became curious about my new diet and started, you know, wanting to learn about vegetarianism. At the time, it was before I had become completely vegan. And, um, and what I learned shocked and horrified me. And, um, but what, about animal agriculture and the suffering inherent in it. Um, and, uh, but what shocked me in some ways even more was that nobody I talked to was willing to hear what I had to say. These were people just like myself who were fundamentally compassionate and concerned about justice.

• 1:01:47Speaker 07

  And I realized that there was something much more going on. And, um, that led me to study psychology, the psychosociology of violence and non-violence, which led me to discover what I came to name carnism, which is the invisible belief system or ideology that conditions us to eat certain animals. Carnism essentially blocks our awareness and blocks our natural empathy for those species we've learned to classify as edible.

• 1:02:15Rich Roll?

  And it's very complicated psychologically, right? Like, it's such a bizarre, I mean, like, our, our journeys and our, our paths and our experiences are very different, but one point of similarity is that, you know, I got into this not, not out of a sense of injustice or, you know, an ethical or moral reason. It was a health-oriented reason. And when you say you got sick, I mean, you can get a stomach ache, like you were hospitalized, right?

• 1:02:39Speaker 07

  I was hospitalized, right.

• 1:02:40Rich Roll?

  So it was a kind of a serious condition. Mine was different, but, but that's what brought me into this. And then it became a journey of kind of opening up my eyes and starting to learn about everything else that was going on, that was, and, and realizing the extent to which I had been living in so much cognitive dissonance. And when you have that kind of epiphany, you start to talk about it. It's not a very popular subject, right? And, and, and so what are the roots of that kind of psychological cognitive dissonance? You know, we sort of are inherently compassionate, and yet throughout our day, we're, uh, we're acting in ways that are at odds with perhaps a set of core values that we would articulate to our friends at a cocktail party.

• 1:03:22Speaker 07

  Yeah, exactly. I mean, carnism is a, it's actually a simple concept to understand. If you understand the way belief systems generally work, carnism, it's a dominant belief system. That means that it is, it's embraced and maintained by all of the major, major social institutions, from the family to the state. So it's really like woven into this belief that certain animals are meant to be eaten, is, you know, really woven through the very fabric of society. And it therefore becomes internalized. When we're born into a carnistic culture or society, we learn to look at the world through the lens of carnism.

• 1:04:01Speaker 07

  And as you rightly point out, we, humans are naturally empathic. We know today that empathy is our natural state. We're hardwired to feel empathy for others. And what carnism does is it uses a set of defense mechanisms, these are psychological defense mechanisms, that distort our perceptions and numb our feelings, so that we act against our core values of compassion and justice, that we disconnect from our natural empathy when we eat animals. And, I mean, the, the beauty of understanding carnism, or of carnism awareness, is that once we name it, once we recognize these defenses for what they are, they lose

• 1:04:42Speaker 07

  a tremendous amount of their power over us. And when we free ourselves of this carnistic mentality that we've all been indoctrinated into, we can make food choices that reflect what we authentically think and feel, rather than what we've been taught to think and feel. So it's tremendously liberating for us as individuals, as well as obviously for, you know, the animals and the planet.

• 1:05:07Rich Roll?

  Named one of 2011's 100 Most Influential People in the World by Time Magazine, Rob Bell, @RealRobBell on Twitter, is a pastor who has presided over mega congregations, toured with Oprah, and been profiled in The New Yorker. iTunes named his podcast, The Robcast, one of the best of 2015, and he has penned more than a handful of New York Times bestsellers, including Love Wins, the Oprah Book of the Month, What We Talk About When We Talk About God, and his most recent book, How to Be Here: A Guide to Creating a Life Worth Living. Rob is just amazing, truly one of my new favorite

• 1:05:47Rich Roll?

  people, and this is definitely one of my favorite conversations this year. So enjoy this slice of the pie.

• 1:05:56Speaker 08

  Yeah, so giving sermons wasn't a normal thing, but I got up to give this sermon and was like, I was wearing Birkenstocks, I took off the sandals, because I was like, this sense of holiness, like this sense of sacred, like, oh, this is what you're here to do. It was like that. It was that sort of strong.

• 1:06:16Rich Roll?

  You knew immediately.

• 1:06:17Speaker 08

  Yeah.

• 1:06:18Rich Roll?

  Was it like, was it, it was in a church?

• 1:06:20Speaker 08

  No, it was out in a woods.

• 1:06:22Rich Roll?

  Oh, wow.

• 1:06:22Speaker 08

  It was like a bunch of logs that somebody had arranged in the round, like you could sit on these logs and somebody could stand in the middle of these bench log things and talk.

• 1:06:32Rich Roll?

  So did you prepare something, or did you just get up there?

• 1:06:34Speaker 08

  Yeah, I did prepare something.

• 1:06:35Rich Roll?

  Channel, channel, channel the Lord.

• 1:06:37Speaker 08

  The first, no, I remember walking around that week, I remember walking around that week, thinking, what do you say? Like, I guess, do you want to inspire people? You want to give them? And my opening story was about a kid whose counselor had gotten so angry with him, he'd hung him in a tree by his underwear. That was like the opening story. So that was like, the bar had been set. But, you know, actually, I talked about rhythm of life. I have the notes, I found the notes, I've kept them for 25 years. I talked about a rhythm of life, and that there are these rhythms, in the ancient Hebrew tradition, they have Sabbath, a six and one rhythm of life, but it was, if you violate, if you don't care for yourself, you'll probably lose your mind in some way. If you just work

• 1:07:22Speaker 08

  every day, all day, you'll burn out. And it was, there was some sense like this was an art form. I felt like I was tapping into an art form that I'd never seen somebody treat as an art form. I'd seen people do sermons that were basically, "Here's who you should vote for." I had seen sermons that were basically, "Here's what you're supposed to believe, and if you don't believe, something horrible's gonna happen to you when you die." I had seen sermons which were, "Here's how you raise money to build a bigger building," at a fist complex. I had seen sermons that were doing these other things.

• 1:07:55Rich Roll?

  These templates that are kind of

• 1:07:56Speaker 08

  Right.

• 1:07:57Rich Roll?

  culled from a tradition of, you know, political campaign speeches.

• 1:08:01Speaker 08

  Yeah, exactly. "Here's how we're gonna take back America." We're always taking back something. We're taking back the Constitution, we're taking back something. And I'd seen the sermon as a belief affirmation device, which is, just tell people what they've heard every Sunday all their life, and then all of you have a great warm feeling that you're in and everybody else is out, that you're right and everybody else is wrong. I'd seen this, but I had some sense, like, I was like, "No, this is an art form." And it's actually... When you think about Martin Luther King, "I have a dream," that's a sermon. But nobody heard that and then said, "I don't know, he was funnier last week." You know what I mean? Like, that wasn't like a, "You sit there and just sort of..." That was an event, it was a happening, it was somewhere between performance art and guerrilla theater. It

• 1:08:44Speaker 08

  was a vision of a new kind of world, but it was provocative and comforting and healing, and you learned something, but it also shook you up. And I had this sense, I was probably 21 or 22, "Oh, this is an art form. I'm gonna reclaim this as the art form that it actually is." And not just how you build a particular religion, this is about what it means to be human.

• 1:09:05Rich Roll?

  So, maybe before we even go any further, we could sort of, you could just canvas, like, your basic, you know, perspective on all of this, so people understand where you're coming from.

• 1:09:16Speaker 08

  Oh, man, I begin by celebrating and affirming movement wherever you see it. And the idea... That there would be truth, or truth with a capital T, and only these people over here in the corner would have access to it is completely absurd to me. And if there is a God source, a bean, glue, energy, thread that holds it all together, that would have to be accessible to everybody. Or you're not talking about love. So I begin there. And that you begin with inclusion. And that we all, at some level, we are all searching for the same things. And I just keep saying God has all sorts of kids. I just start there.

• 1:10:02Speaker 08

  And that you will find, if your eyes are open, you'll find brothers and sisters all across the spectrum. And you'll find resonance with people who would seemingly come from all sorts of different backgrounds, but you'll start talking, and when you love your neighbor, you'll discover all these threads and commonalities. And so I celebrate all that.

• 1:10:24Rich Roll?

  How does the traditional Christian community perceive you and what you do?

• 1:10:32Speaker 08

  Um, oh my goodness, I'm...

• 1:10:35Rich Roll?

  I mean, you're a controversial, polarizing figure, I would imagine.

• 1:10:39Speaker 08

  Sometimes when I go to speak places, there are protesters out front. That happens pretty regularly.

• 1:10:42Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:44Rich Roll?

  I mean, you're challenging a pretty entrenched status quo.

• 1:10:47Speaker 08

  I think a lot of people, they just know that the Jesus message hasn't... He's had terrible PR. So lots of people, like at an airport or wherever, will just say, "Thank you." People are very, very kind and grateful. And the Episcopal's are like, "Hey, we all think you're Episcopal." And the Anglicans are like, "Hey, we all think you're Anglican." And the Eastern Orthodox is like, "Hey, we actually think you're Eastern Orthodox." And the Pentecostals are like, "Hey, we actually think you're Pentecostal." That's what actually happens among religious people.

• 1:11:15Rich Roll?

  But you don't have a term for who you are.

• 1:11:19Speaker 08

  And actually, to also answer your question...

• 1:11:22Speaker 08

  Like, oh, like when I'm on tour. It's a regular thing for people to say, hey, hey, can I, can we take a picture together? And then they'll post it on Instagram. And I just want you to know that when I post this, I'll probably get fired. My family may not speak to me. And then they'll stand there. And I always laugh, but lately I realized, oh, that person is actually saying something really significant.

• 1:11:43Rich Roll?

  That's a pretty bold thing to do.

• 1:11:45Speaker 08

  They're saying, they're saying, I'm growing and expanding and the world is getting bigger and better than it was. And that means I may be at odds with my tribe, but I'd rather be alive and growing than back there. Because once you taste, you can't untaste. Once you see, you can't unsee.

• 1:12:22Rich Roll?

  Arianna Huffington, at Arianna Huff on Twitter, with two N's, is the co-founder of The Huffington Post and a newly launched wellness endeavor called Thrive Global, thriveglobal.com, as well as a multiple New York Times bestselling author, including her most recent release, The Sleep Revolution, which unpacks the importance of sleep to optimize performance in every aspect of life. So obviously, this conversation with Arianna was really focused on sleep. It was a very popular episode, and I hope you enjoy this little clip.

• 1:12:55Rich Roll?

  What is your routine in terms of, you know, preparing for that optimal night of sleep?

• 1:12:59Speaker 09

  Well, for me, it starts with how you wake up. That's why I don't like waking up with an alarm. And I definitely do not go to my phone first thing. Even if I take just one minute to set my intention for the day, remember what I'm grateful for, it sets kind of a different quality to my day. Otherwise, it's as though I'm saying, the most important thing happening in my world right now is what the world demands of me, as opposed to what, what do I want to create this day? And I think the most creative people do not run their lives based on their inbox.

• 1:13:42Speaker 09

  And if you are at the mercy of your inbox, you're going to be very transactional. If you're going to be creative.

• 1:13:51Rich Roll?

  But so many people are.

• 1:13:53Speaker 09

  Yes.

• 1:13:53Rich Roll?

  It's so difficult to break out of that.

• 1:13:55Speaker 09

  And we pay a big price for that.

• 1:13:56Rich Roll?

  Yes.

• 1:13:57Speaker 09

  So you need times when you're not going to be on your phone during the day, times when you can work on the things that really matter, and little breaks for recharging throughout the day. I mean, I like to start my day with meditation and my workout, even if it's a 30-minute workout. And then I like during the day to sort of stay connected with my body and how am I feeling, rather than operate completely from my head and allow the stress to become cumulative. Because that becomes the obstacle to sleep. We are all going to be dealing with stress. You know, nobody lives a life which is stress-free.

• 1:14:41Speaker 09

  The question is, how quickly do we course correct? And how much do we allow that stress to build?

• 1:14:48Rich Roll?

  Right. I think that's the difference between holding on and letting go. And you have this sort of beautiful quote by Ray Bradbury in the book, which is that we should all be learning to let go before we learn to get, right?

• 1:15:02Speaker 09

  I love that.

• 1:15:03Rich Roll?

  And it's beautiful, right? The idea of letting go is so difficult for us in this era. Like, I think a lot of people don't even understand what that means, or they equate it to some form of surrender or weakness. So, you know, what does letting go mean to you? And how does that apply to sleep?

• 1:15:23Speaker 09

  It's so central to sleep. And a phrase that I use is, "Life is a dance between making it happen and letting it happen." And it's the same thing. It's like, I think we have the illusion that we make everything happen in our lives. And yet, if we look back, if I look back on my life, some of the best things that happened, I didn't make happen. And some of the worst things that happened, I made happen.

• 1:15:51Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:15:52Speaker 09

  So I think the Ray Bradbury thing of letting go and...

• 1:16:00Speaker 09

  For me, it means connecting with something deeper in ourselves. And that's really the key. It's like recognizing that however magnificent our job may be, there is something in us that's more magnificent.

• 1:16:13Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:16:13Speaker 09

  And if we don't get in touch with that, we're missing out.

• 1:16:17Rich Roll?

  If you had discovered these truths about sleep, you know, 20 years ago, how do you think that would have impacted your career?

• 1:16:26Speaker 09

  Oh, I think that there's nothing I have done that I couldn't have done and done it even better and done it with less damage to my health or my relationships or my joy and my sense of gratitude about my life, absolutely. I mean, when I look back, there is no question that falling into this delusion, this collective delusion that burnout and sleep deprivation are essential for success was nothing but damaging.

• 1:17:05Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:17:06Speaker 09

  Getting enough sleep doesn't mean that you're giving up your goals or your desire to achieve and succeed. On the contrary, it makes you more effective. It's a performance enhancer.

• 1:17:21Rich Roll?

  Next up, we have Doug Evans. At IamDougEvans on Twitter and Instagram. Doug is the founder and chairman of Juicero, the new Silicon Valley-backed technology company that is really redefining cold-pressed organic juice for the home and for business. Doug is a good friend. He's an amazing entrepreneur and an incredibly gregarious, charismatic, dynamic personality, an extraordinary storyteller and conversationalist. So please enjoy this clip from our talk back in.

• 1:17:57Rich Roll?

  So Entrepreneurship 101 is what is the problem you're trying to solve? Right? And as you explained to me the other day so eloquently, when you want to buy juice, you have three options, right? You can go to the store and you have these pasteurized juice options there, a variety of, you know, quality level at price, etc. Secondarily, you can go to the juice bar where, as we mentioned, you don't know if it's organic, you don't know how long it's been sitting around, there's no accountability. Or third, you can make it at home and create a big amount of mess and waste and it's very time consuming. So here's the problem. The solution that you're looking for and that Juicero hopes to solve for consumers is the ability to create the freshest, healthiest

• 1:18:42Rich Roll?

  juice possible in the most facile and sort of time-saving and mess-free way possible.

• 1:18:50Speaker 10

  Yeah, exactly.

• 1:18:51Rich Roll?

  Is that accurate?

• 1:18:52Speaker 10

  And I think the insight, which is now like obvious, like I predict everybody will be doing this in the future. Like this is just changing the rules that as opposed to making juice, like we sell a juice press and we sell fresh produce that's washed and chopped and diced. And then we allow the consumer to press the juice at home at their convenience. And then we use software to be able to track the produce from the supply chain. So we know like every pack of Juicero, Juicero pack of produce contains a little QR code on it.

• 1:19:34Speaker 10

  And that QR code can be read by a smartphone, Android or iPhone. And when you scan it, it actually says what ingredients are inside. When it was packed and what are the nutrients? And what farm each ingredient came from? So it's like total visibility transparency in the in the supply chain. So that you you can have that. And then we put a scanner in the press itself. So when you put the pack of produce in the Juicero press, it's reading it. So it's processing all this information so that A it can determine how to best press it to get the most yield.

• 1:20:18Speaker 10

  And it's making sure that it's not expired because you don't want to be pressing old produce. And then B, it's sending back to your smartphone on the app, you know, what you just consumed from nutrition and calories and ingredients.

• 1:20:33Rich Roll?

  Right, a couple of observations. The first is it's a closed ecosystem in the way that Apple sort of has created a closed ecosystem with its hardware and its software, right? Like this very easy to use, beautiful consumer experience that's completely contained. But my second observation is I'm not sure it's totally clear for the listeners. So it's just to like really paint the clear picture. The Juicero is a juicing machine that sits on on your countertop in your kitchen. It doesn't look anything like what you would expect a juicing machine to look like. It looks like a beautiful piece of technology. It looks like it could be an Apple computer. You're not quite sure what it is. But essentially it has a door that opens up. It's a very heavy metal door, like brushed stainless steel with only one button on it.

• 1:21:18Rich Roll?

  It opens up and there's, you know, this orange interface with two pins. And that's where you stick in this packet of fresh produce that you guys produce and ship also. And you close the door and it presses the juice fresh. It reads the barcode on the packet, so you know it's fresh. And then you can dispose of that packet. And I guess the idea in the future is that it's going to be completely compostable, right?

• 1:21:45Speaker 10

  But right now.

• 1:21:45Rich Roll?

  But it presses all the liquid out of it and there's zero mess. So there's no cleanup whatsoever.

• 1:21:51Speaker 10

  When you're done pressing, you're done. You could go on to your next activity. The other observation I want to say is that. When you're normally juicing, using any juicer, you're doing the work. In this case with Juicera, you set it and let it. And the Juicera press does the work. So you could be, like, I can take a sh- I could like run, check my email, I can get dressed, I can do other things while the press is actually going through its two-minute cycle.

• 1:22:18Rich Roll?

  Uh, and, and if it reads the barcode and realizes that the produce is expired, it will not make the juice.

• 1:22:24Speaker 10

  That's correct. And it'll send you a notification saying, hey, but we'll also let you know that, hey, Rich, you've got a pack that's going to expire tomorrow. I suggest you drink it today.

• 1:22:36Rich Roll?

  Okay. Uh, it's crazy, you know. First of all, the thing is like a work of art. You, you did an incredible job with the aesthetics and the simplicity of it. It really is beautiful. Um, and it's gonna be, I really think it has the potential to change this industry completely. I mean, that is the big idea that, you know, the Kleiner Perkins of the world are, are sort of anticipating and banking on.

• 1:23:01Speaker 10

  Yeah, well, look, I, I think, um, for, for me, it makes it easier to consume more servings of fresh fruits and vegetables. I think what we did was we made green juice taste good, like, really good. And so people, like, we have, um, a green, you know, recipe that has literally no sweet, um, fruit in it at all. And it's 25 calories, 2 grams of sugar. Not that I watch calories or that I watch sugar, but the fact that those metrics are so carefully viewed, we decided to see, you know, could we work within these parameters? And we did.

• 1:23:44Speaker 10

  And, um, unequivocally, um, people just go bananas when they taste that green juice. And literally, if you were to press it and then, you know, let it sit or wait... Like it doesn't taste good over time. Like it tastes amazing when you press it. Like that was the insight of not like selling juice, but selling produce and selling a press and the system so that you can make the juice and, and drink it.

• 1:24:14Rich Roll?

  Right. And this barcode will tell you, does it tell you the farm where it was?

• 1:24:18Speaker 10

  Tells you the farm.

• 1:24:20Rich Roll?

  Where it was picked and the date that it was picked. Right. All the, you have all this, all these metrics and every nutrient, like the nutrient breakdown.

• 1:24:28Speaker 10

  It's very complex, um, complete nutrition panel. So you could see the percentage of vitamin A, C, B6, K, um, magnesium, um, potassium.

• 1:24:41Rich Roll?

  And the other really interesting thing was this problem that you had to solve about how to create the, the packaging membrane? Because you're putting live produce into these, into the, into this packaging, right? It's alive. It's, there is respiration occurring. It's going to create these gases.

• 1:24:57Speaker 10

  And it consumes oxygen.

• 1:24:59Rich Roll?

  Right. So how do you prevent them from exploding? Right. How do you like, that, that must've been in engineering and you know, sort of feat to figure that out.

• 1:25:07Speaker 10

  I mean, we have seven food scientists and 12 PhDs who work in the company. So this was literally, you know, it's one of the reasons why we had to raise capital. Because we needed to be able to bring on the, the, the team. And that's what, you know, Kleiner Perkins and the other investors helped structure was, what does this organization really need to look like? And then what are the job descriptions of these people? And how do we fill these roles?

• 1:25:35Rich Roll?

  Right. It's fascinating. So here we are on the eve of the public announcement. I feel so privileged to talk to you. Uh, you know, cause as of right now, the public is unaware of, of what this product is. But tomorrow morning. Yeah.

• 1:25:50Speaker 10

  And I'm gonna

• 1:25:51Rich Roll?

  People are gonna know.

• 1:25:52Speaker 10

  And I'm gonna give you like a link to a video that you can, you know, share with, share with the viewers that will actually let them see it. And it's a little comical, but

• 1:26:01Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:26:02Speaker 10

  It'll, it'll show the process.

• 1:26:03Rich Roll?

  And, and how does it feel to kind of be carrying, you know, the, the, this whole thing on your shoulders? Right? This is a massive organization. I mean, you're a juice guy. You were making your graffiti artist making, you know, juice in Denise's apartment. And here you are now, the CEO of what by all accounts is, um, you know, a massive undertaking and there's, the expectations are very high. Like, how do you, you know, what's your daily routine? Like, how are you navigating this? Like, what's your emotional state right now?

• 1:26:32Speaker 10

  I mean, I feel extremely, um, like blessed wouldn't be like a strong enough word. I feel it's, it's surreal, but I feel I've been, um, given an incredible opportunity. I've worked hard to get the opportunity, but, um, I think I'm humble and hungry. Right? My, uh, my new friend, uh, Chip Adams from Under Armour said that in Under Armour, they've got a cafe and they called humble and hungry. And that, you know, you gotta be humble and you gotta be hungry. So I think for me, there's a lot of stuff to do.

• 1:27:12Speaker 10

  You know, I, I keep my life really simple. Um, and it's all about like having mission and purpose. And, you know, when I look at how important it is for people to consume, you know, fruits and vegetables and organic fruits and vegetables and raw fruits and vegetables. Like that was my mission and it really drives me.

• 1:27:40Rich Roll?

  Now let's visit with my good friend Khalil Rafati. Khalil is the founder of Sun Life Organics, which is a growing chain of organic juice bar cafes. Uh, he's also a recovering addict and alcoholic. And Khalil's story, his story of redemption and change is just super powerful. Uh, and it's trumped really only by his ability to tell it. So please check this out. And if you missed the full conversation, which is RRP 206 from last January, I strongly urge you go back and listen to the entire thing. It's really just amazing. So here you go.

• 1:28:18Speaker 11

  I don't even think it's so much about writing a book. I mean, I really, in my heart, hope and believe that this book is going to help people and that's definitely the motivation behind it. I wanted to get my story out there because I think it's a powerful testament to the grace of God and to what recovery can do for people. But just the catharsis that took place, just to get all of those stories out of my head. When I did the second and the final read through of that book, I cried. I cried. I was like, my God, I can't believe that happened. I cannot like, I can't believe like, I was reading today and I was

• 1:29:01Speaker 11

  getting all choked up. One of my, not one of my, my best friend in the world, Teddy Pappenhagen, I write about him in the book. His mother, you know, my, my parents didn't want me when I was a kid, or they didn't love me, or whatever the story, however the story goes. And his mom, she let me stay the whole summer over there, every summer, and she let me stay every weekend over there during the school year. And she just was the most incredible woman ever. And I was reading the book this morning. There's a story about Teddy, me and Teddy in there getting drunk. Teddy's like a great guy and I was like the bad guy. He went to college and I went to jail. But anyway, so I was reading about the, the, the country club where we grew up at and, and some of the

• 1:29:41Speaker 11

  stuff that happened. And he texts me, she's gone. And he meant his mom had passed because he had texted me last night that she was real sick and she wasn't responding. And, and man, I just, I, I just started crying. I just thought, my God, like here, you know, here is this woman who, who took this strange kid and just like, let him essentially move in and she raised me like I was one of her own. And she's just, Dolores was the most amazing woman ever. And, and thank God she was there for me. Thank God I got some love and some nurturing as a child growing up. And, and there was a lot of other people like that who, it wasn't all bad. There was other people that, you know, kind of helped

• 1:30:23Speaker 11

  me along the way. This woman Debbie who took me in later, another guy named Gus who was like a father figure to me. And I talk a lot about that in the book, but. The point is this, I wanted people to know that, because I would read these books about these super successful people and they had done these really cool things. And I'm like, "Yeah, but what about people like me that are like, for the most part, they're just, you know, not, not smart, not educated, and really kind of born to lose? I mean, I had everything against me. And, uh, and no type of, nothing really real to communicate, to, to, to contribute. So what do you do?

• 1:31:04Speaker 11

  And I want people out there to know that no matter where you are in your life, that you can change. That was the whole point. That was the inspiration behind this book. You can change. And you can do amazing things. And, you know, I, I'm unemployable. You give me a job, I'm fired within 90 days. I can't keep my mouth shut. I'm inappropriate. I, I swear, I say stuff I'm not supposed to say. I have no filter. I, I cannot, you cannot give me a job that I won't mess up. However, I employ over 150 kids today. And they love it. They love their job. You go into my place, you've seen, you've seen how happy they are.

• 1:31:48Rich Roll?

  It's like an Abercrombie and Fitch catalog, you know, like the most beautiful, you know, teenagers you're ever gonna see, you know, making smoothies. And they're all happy to be there, you know, they're all having a good time.

• 1:31:59Speaker 11

  They're happy, they're fit, and I think, you know, I mean, look, we're, we're talking about Malibu, California, Calabasas, I mean, this is where all the beautiful people live. So they have beautiful children and, you know, the beautiful children end up getting a job at a smoothie bar instead of, I don't know, working at a clothing store or whatever, because it's a little bit more rewarding, I think, to, you know, to be around the energy of the fruits and the vegetables and all that. Uh, they, and they are beautiful, and I don't want to take anything away from that, but more importantly, they're happy. They're happy to serve. These kids are brilliant and beautiful and happy. And I provide jobs for 150 of them. And... I take care of my mom financially. I did some cool stuff for my dad, you know, a few years ago as well, but for the most part, like I take care of my mom financially.

• 1:32:44Speaker 11

  And that's the most incredible thing ever.

• 1:32:46Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 1:32:47Speaker 11

  Ten, eleven, eleven years ago, I was newly sober and I was at Marmalade Cafe and I got a phone call from my mom. She sounded terrible. I'd never heard her sound so bad. And she said, um, that she had cancer. And I didn't have money to go visit her and I didn't have money to help her. And my mother was living in this place called Kenwood Gardens, which is, you and I would consider it a housing project. It's like sort of one step below a housing project. And, um, and what was I gonna do? Today, to, to know that she is living in a beautiful house and there's nothing in

• 1:33:28Speaker 11

  the world that she wants that I won't buy her, um, it's the most incredible thing ever. So for people who are struggling with weight, for people who are struggling with depression, for people who are struggling from addiction, alcoholism, whatever you want to call it, whatever it is that you're suffering from, you can change. And you can change in such a profound way that within a short period of time, you won't even recognize yourself anymore. And that really, as we're talking and I'm looking at you and I keep glancing down at the cover of that book of me with scabs on my face and a hundred and nine pounds, and I, I, I feel the, the, the power and the strength inside of me now from sobriety, from

• 1:34:10Speaker 11

  health, from wellness, from good deeds, from esteemable acts. Um, if I can do it, anybody can do it.

• 1:34:18Rich Roll?

  All right. How you guys doing? Are you still with me? I hope so. Good, cuz this next guest, Chris Guillebeau, I think you guys are really gonna like. At Chris Guillebeau on Twitter, G U I L L E B E A U. Uh, is a global traveler. He visited all 193 countries before his 35th birthday. He's a New York Times bestselling author of several books, including The $100 Startup, The Art of Nonconformity, The Happiness of Pursuit, and his most recent work, Born For This. Uh, when Chris isn't planning the World Domination Summit, which is his annual gathering, he founded six years ago, that brings- Thousands of creative remarkable people together each year in Portland.

• 1:35:00Rich Roll?

  He is either traveling or writing about living a creative, non-conformist life on his blog. Chris is really great. I genuinely enjoyed getting to know him through this conversation. And he does have enough really did this clip.

• 1:35:16Rich Roll?

  What was the initial drive to visit all these countries? You're laughing because you've probably had to answer this question a million times, but I'm interested in, you know, what sparked that and what you were looking to get out of that experience? And perhaps in retrospect, you know, how that, how, what you actually got out of it may be different.

• 1:35:36Speaker 12

  Well, I smiled because I want to not give you a rote answer. I want to respect your listeners. Right? I don't want to give you like, oh, well, here's what I've said a hundred times. No, I really want to kind of consider it. I mean, the first part was I loved travel, just travel by itself, exploration, discovery, probably like many people who are listening. But then for me, where it became something greater was when I connected it to this structure of the quest. And that's when I got really excited because it seemed, it seemed not quite impossible, but whatever is right below that, you know? And it seemed like I can do this. It's going to take a lot. There's going to be a lot of costs, you know, time costs, money costs, you know, sacrificing other projects, other things.

• 1:36:20Speaker 12

  But I guess I just couldn't get it out of my head. And that's another thing that I have written about a couple of times. Like if you have this idea and you can't stop thinking about it, there's probably something to it. Like we all have crazy ideas, you know, they go away. We kind of realize like, oh, not going to do that. But if it stays with you over time, then ultimately I think what led me to say, okay, yes, I'm going to go for it was this fear, healthy or otherwise, of regret. And this fear of like looking back and saying like, I remember when I had this idea. And I went to a bunch of countries.

• 1:36:52Rich Roll?

  Why didn't I do that?

• 1:36:52Speaker 12

  Yeah, but I never tried, you know, I never tried to do it. And I have, I have thought about that a lot because like there was no guarantee of success, obviously. And if I had failed, that would have been disappointing. But I think it would have been far more disappointing to just have never tried it. Right?

• 1:37:10Rich Roll?

  You know, what I'd like to know is in retrospect and now having, you know, I know you still travel extensively, like what were you in Doha?

• 1:37:18Speaker 12

  Doha, Cairo, Bangkok.

• 1:37:20Rich Roll?

  So you're still continuing this, you know, love of travel. But having put a little bit of time between yourself and the completion of the quest, what is your, you know, how has that colored your perspective of, you know, how we live in America? And in general, you know, how you conduct yourself throughout your life, having immersed yourself in so many, you know, basically every culture across the world?

• 1:37:46Speaker 12

  Right. You know, in some ways, we talked about blogging being different than it was. I feel like the world is even different than it was a few years ago when I was doing this more actively because I am still traveling, you know, now, but I'm not going to Pakistan all the time. I'm not, you know, crossing Saudi Arabia into Yemen. I think for me, I mean, some of the lessons sound kind of superficial. I'm trying to think about, not to, you know, say them in the usual trite, "Well, before I, you know, didn't know about the world and then I went and saw that there were people that were different than me." But in a lot of ways, that is kind of what it comes down to is just an awareness and a respect of, you know, different perspectives and not just in terms of like geopolitical things or religious things, but ways of life and culture and, you know, body language

• 1:38:31Speaker 12

  and how people communicate and how life is lived. And I'm kind of set in my ways, you know? Like I think there's this perception about me that I'm like this big risk taker and did all this stuff, but I actually have a pretty, you know, kind of standard routine life and those things can be disorienting when you go and, but you have to, as you said, right? And so for me, it was, you know, first of all, the part of the quest, like embracing that discomfort, embracing that disorientation and saying, okay, what can I learn about this? Not just about the world, what are my big lessons of the world, but what, how is this affecting me? As you said, like what do I carry, you know, with that? And then like what's different now? You know, what's different now? When I had that focus of going to everywhere, it was great.

• 1:39:14Speaker 12

  I loved the focus, but now I, you know, have something different.

• 1:39:19Rich Roll?

  Shalane Flanagan, @ShalaneFlanagan on Twitter, is a four-time Olympian, an American record holder, and one of the world's most premier distance runners. Her diversity as a runner is absolutely unparalleled. On dirt, she's won collegiate national championships and cross country. On the track, she set American records at both the 3,000 and 5,000 meter distances. And on the road, she's broken American records in both the 10K and 15K, and achieved two Olympic marathon berths, including her recent sixth place showing in Rio. Unbelievable, right? In addition to Rio, this past year, Shalane and her husband became foster parents to twin teenage girls.

• 1:40:01Rich Roll?

  And Shalane, along with her co-writer and BFF, Elise Kopecchi, released their New York Times bestselling cookbook, Eat Fast, Run Slow. No, that's not what it is. Run fast, eat slow, right? Here's Shalane and Elise. Well, there's a lot of people that listen to this podcast who are avid multi-sport athletes and it ranges from professional down to people that are looking at doing their very first 5K. So I thought it would be cool if maybe you could perhaps impart a little wisdom to those out there who are tackling their first running adventure,

• 1:40:42Rich Roll?

  or maybe kind of address some of the most common mistakes that you see people make.

• 1:40:47Speaker 13

  Hmm. When people say if they want to like, improve their running, or enjoy, or not just running, but just want to improve their experience and be motivated to keep working at it, I always say that, and this is very biased, but I think that the, one of the greatest things you can do is find someone to do it with. It's just my belief. I feel that if you really want to enjoy it, it's you find a buddy and you have the accountability, and you're going to push yourself harder than you thought you could, and you're going to get more out of yourself. And it's going to be, it's not going to feel like a chore. It's going to feel fun, and it's just a better experience, so.

• 1:41:27Rich Roll?

  Community, accountability, and the fun factor.

• 1:41:30Speaker 13

  And sharing, so. That may be kind of a lame answer, but.

• 1:41:34Rich Roll?

  What about in all these, you know, marathoning is very interesting because it's the one, other than triathlon, it's like the one kind of event where the pros are amongst the mere mortals. So you've seen a lot of people, a lot of mere mortals running marathons. Like in your observation, you know, you're, when you watch that and you go, ah, why is that guy doing that? Doesn't he know that if he did this, he could be so much better without having to really change anything?

• 1:41:59Speaker 13

  I don't know if I've seen that. Have you ever seen, I don't know.

• 1:42:02Rich Roll?

  Elise is shaking, she's nodding, yeah.

• 1:42:05Speaker 14

  We joke about like people like slamming stuff down right before they eat.

• 1:42:10Speaker 13

  Yeah, yeah. Well, the, they'll get, people get so excited. They get to these big marathons and they get to these expos and they are enamored and they want to try out every new gadget that there is out there and they haven't trained with it the entire time.

• 1:42:23Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:42:24Speaker 13

  And they're there.

• 1:42:24Rich Roll?

  They're doing everything new on race day.

• 1:42:26Speaker 13

  And they are literally doing everything new on race day. And I'm, that, that's true. That's good, Elise. I would have never thought of that. They do everything completely different than what they did in training. And I'm always shaking my head like, what are you doing?

• 1:42:39Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Never do anything new on race day.

• 1:42:41Speaker 14

  We were at the Boston Expo together and just like couldn't believe the number of free samples that people were like gathering in bagfuls as if they were trick or treating.

• 1:42:48Speaker 13

  Yeah.

• 1:42:48Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Well, that's, that's what the expo is all about, right? Do you, uh, do you run with a heart, heart rate monitor? Is heart rate monitor like a part of what you do?

• 1:42:58Speaker 13

  It's not part of my training now. It was when I was more self-coached. So that's a great point. I would definitely recommend if you're being self-coached and you just need to monitor yourself, the heart rate monitor is a great asset and tool. It told me a lot when I didn't have a coach around. It would tell me the efforts and, you know, accountability of running harder or easier that I, what I need to do that day. So yeah, heart rate monitor is a great, great tool, but I don't currently use it. But I can see where in certain circumstances, it's, it's a great.

• 1:43:27Rich Roll?

  What do you, what are some of your race day rituals?

• 1:43:30Speaker 13

  Race day rituals.

• 1:43:32Rich Roll?

  You you eat your oatmeal.

• 1:43:33Speaker 13

  I have my race day oatmeal for sure. I'm a little bit superstitious. I always like to have the number eight for some reason, whether it's on the my hotel room number or my bib number. I have to like see it's like a omen to me if I see the number eight. It's really good luck in Chinese. It's what the infinity sign and.

• 1:43:55Rich Roll?

  Yeah, symmetry.

• 1:43:56Speaker 13

  Yeah, and for some reason, whenever I've had the number eight.

• 1:44:00Rich Roll?

  But you can't control that.

• 1:44:01Speaker 13

  No, I know, but that's great. It's like this, whether it's meant to be or not. But that is one of my little superstitions, but.

• 1:44:08Rich Roll?

  Have you ever gotten the number eight and then had a bad race?

• 1:44:12Speaker 13

  No.

• 1:44:12Rich Roll?

  No, never?

• 1:44:13Speaker 13

  No.

• 1:44:14Rich Roll?

  Ah, interesting.

• 1:44:16Speaker 13

  Uh, but race day rituals, no, I mean, I'm I'm pretty normal. I would think I would wake up about four hours before I compete. Um, I'll hop in the shower just to kind of like wake myself up and grab my food, my breakfast, and then just kind of stretch out and get focused. I'm pretty, I know that a lot of things could could go wrong. So I try not to be too rigid, like or not go wrong, but things can always change and you have to be adaptable. So I try not to get too rigid about my schedule.

• 1:44:45Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm. And always eating the same thing, never doing anything new. Hopefully getting number eight. Right. So maybe walk us through a day in the life of food.

• 1:44:58Speaker 13

  Um.

• 1:44:59Rich Roll?

  I feel bad that Elise is sitting there quietly, so I want to bring her back in.

• 1:45:02Speaker 13

  Here, Elise can tell you what I eat on a day to day basis.

• 1:45:05Speaker 14

  You want me to tell you?

• 1:45:06Speaker 13

  Yeah, no. Well, you know what I eat, basically. Um, because we outline it in the cookbook.

• 1:45:11Speaker 14

  Right.

• 1:45:12Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:45:12Speaker 14

  So Shalane's typical day, like if if she's getting out for an early training session, she'll typically have a lighter breakfast. A go to is um, our can't beat me smoothie. And it has, Shalane is a big fan of beets. They're really great.

• 1:45:25Rich Roll?

  Of course, it's the best pre-workout.

• 1:45:28Speaker 14

  Yeah, for athletes, like who eats beets before a workout?

• 1:45:30Rich Roll?

  Just don't freak out when you go to the bathroom.

• 1:45:32Speaker 14

  Yeah. Um, but this smoothie is is really satisfying. It has almond butter in it and coconut water and frozen blueberries, frozen banana beets. Um, so it gives you a really good energy boost. Ginger. And the ginger is great for digestion and great for fighting inflammation. Um, it's really hydrating and the fat in there from the almond butter, um, really keeps keeps you satisfied longer. So that's a good, quick, right before, um, heading out the door for a workout, she has that. Or, um, her famous race day oatmeal bowl, which is oats with, mixed with, um, banana and almond butter and any variation of toppings, honey or cinnamon or or nuts, um, dried fruit.

• 1:46:14Speaker 14

  And then typically like a heartier, um, breakfast or brunch or lunch when when she gets back from training, depending on what time of day that is. So, um, a go to is definitely a big grain salad because you can make it in advance and have it ready to go when you walk in the door. As an athlete, there's nothing worse than walking in the door and being hangry and having to, um, cook something. You're, that's when you're likely gonna grab a bag of chips and inhale it as fast as possible. Um, so having, um, I've taught Shalane to to cook in big quantities and have it ready to go when you walk back in the door from a workout. So, um, a big hearty grain salad or a quinoa salad. One of Shalane's favorites from the book is the Wild West Rice Salad, which has, um,

• 1:46:56Speaker 14

  rice and edamame, which is a great combination because then you get a complete protein. And all of our, um, salads and the salad sounds like light and you would think like as an athlete, like that's not going to satisfy me after a run. But when you're using, uh, like a homemade, rich salad dressing with olive oil, um, you're getting a lot of really great nourishing fats in there. Mm hmm. Um, and that helps. A lot of people don't think of fat. They think of protein, protein, protein for recovery, but fat is just as important. So that's, that's a good, um, good lunch. And then Shalane always has a snack before, um, her second run of the day. And it's, um, we have a, uh, we have a big section in the book called wholesome treats because that was Shalane's, like, that's her chapter. Um, she gets a craving for for a sweet treat,

• 1:47:41Speaker 14

  but we, we want to make sure that we're providing. Foods that are easy to digest, so all of our wholesome treats are free of refined sugar and refined flour, which is just empty calories. And instead, we use a lot of almond flour. We use whole grain flours and we sneak veggies into our wholesome treats and they're really satisfying. And we use a lot of coconut oil and coconut flakes and things in our treats.

• 1:48:07Rich Roll?

  For sweetening, like what do you use? Like dates and honey?

• 1:48:11Speaker 14

  Um, yeah. So Shalane loves the giddy up energy bars, which are made with dates. Our other baked goods, we use either, we have an amazing granola recipe in the book that's vegan and it's made with coconut oil and molasses. And molasses are an incredible sweetener for athletes because they're really high in iron. And when you're, especially for Shalane training at high altitude, she needs a lot of iron in her diet. And then honey and maple syrup are less refined. So you're getting good minerals in there and it's not going to give you the sugar high and the crash. It's going to stay with you longer and have more sustained energy.

• 1:48:49Rich Roll?

  All right. Finally, to round out part one of the best of 2016, we got none other than Steve-O. Steve-O himself. But that's not it. Not just Steve-O. Steve-O and his dad. Right? Think about that for a minute. At Steve-O on Twitter. How to describe this person? Let's see. Well, I guess it's fair to say, I think you can call Steve like our modern day Court Jester. He is one of the stars of the Jackass movie franchise. And in those movies, you might have seen him setting his head on fire, back flipping off buildings, snorting wasabi, leaping off bridges, removing cars. This is a guy who even stuck a fish hook through his cheek. He's put fireworks where they should never go. And really, let's

• 1:49:34Rich Roll?

  just not talk about what he did with the stapler. But this conversation goes beyond all that. It's really an effort, an attempt to transcend, quote unquote, Steve-O the character, to go behind the clown, the comedian, the stuntman, the provocateur, to connect with Stephen Glover, the real dude. Right? So in the words of Steve-O, yeah, dude.

• 1:50:01Rich Roll?

  That predisposition at all? Like, did you go through that thing of like, I'm getting sober, I don't know if I can do these stunts anymore? Or has it changed your relationship with that desire for attention?

• 1:50:10Speaker 15

  Uh, I think that before sobriety, I think I just genuinely didn't believe that I was gonna live for very long, you know, like one way or another, I just thought that I just wasn't gonna, like, that I was gonna die fairly young. So I was never really driven to try to like, hoard money and I just wasn't like particularly motivated by money. I've wanted like to have a legacy like forever. And so the video camera, for me, it was like all the video, all the, every project, like, man, it's like my message in a bottle. And when I'm dead, this is gonna, I'm gonna live forever. And so I was really hyper focused on that.

• 1:50:48Rich Roll?

  But has your relationship to like what you do shifted as you've gotten more sober?

• 1:50:53Speaker 15

  I think that, you know, as a function, like of being an artist, like, I guess, like, I don't know, I just say, like, I kind of say it a lot. Like, I think that there's the artist and then like there's this whole new kind of arena of like, the person, which I never made room for before, you know, it was just constant, 100%, never turn off, you know, it was just always on and always like the persona of Steve-O. And now I think that, you know, there's like a really, like, there's been like, you know, like a concerted effort

• 1:51:32Speaker 15

  to, to find separation between the persona and, and like the person. And it's a struggle, man, you know, it's a struggle because like I'm still the attention whore, like I'm still like, like, ah, I gotta do this, gotta do that. Like, I still like, just, you know, I just have aching desire to matter, you know, like to matter and to be known and to be revered and it's really hard for me to back off of that. But so, but progress is being made, you know?

• 1:52:04Rich Roll?

  Is that where the meditation comes in?

• 1:52:07Speaker 15

  Yeah, like,

• 1:52:08Rich Roll?

  Do you like TM, right?

• 1:52:09Speaker 15

  I do, yeah. Uh huh. And I struggle with that, you know, I mean, I do it, I stick with it and then, you know, like, like, I'm fairly diligent about it, but it doesn't come easily to me, you know? I don't, I don't know. I think alcoholic and meditation is a tough mix.

• 1:52:29Rich Roll?

  I think it's, I think it's hard for everyone. Yeah, I think it's particularly hard for somebody who's got, who's prone to like, you know, the obsessive mind. But you're like hardly somebody, you know, eight years ago that somebody would have said Steve O's gonna be doing T, you know, TM.

• 1:52:42Speaker 15

  Right, I get it, man, I get it. And, and I'm so glad that, that I do and still like, even, even when meditating is terribly difficult and when I'm like, oh my god, I'm like, I'm just so glad I'm doing it.

• 1:52:56Speaker 16

  Let me get back to this thing about the persona. I mean, Steve Glover is a totally different person from Steve O.

• 1:53:04Speaker 16

  And those boundaries are pretty clear. What I think you're wrestling with now is that in between those two boundaries, there's kind of a gray zone. And Steve Glover never invades the turf of Steve O, but Steve O can slip across the lines into Steve Glover. And to me, that's more a fine tuning thing than a fundamental change. I think the fundamental change has taken place. I think it's trying to maintain the boundaries that is.

• 1:53:34Speaker 15

  Yeah, I don't, I don't, I see it as such a, such a gnarly uphill battle and, and I really do because,

• 1:53:45Speaker 15

  you know, like it's, it's the, and, and I would compare like, like you, like you, you've always emphasized how important it is to have hobbies and, and interests.

• 1:53:55Speaker 16

  Yep.

• 1:53:55Speaker 15

  Because like you, you, you know, you refer to countless people that you've known in, in the, the business world who had job titles, who were very prestigious in their careers. And then from the moment that they retired or lost their job, whatever the case may be, as soon as they didn't have that prestigious job title anymore, out, out the window went their, their whole identity, all of their self-esteem and like, and, and without hobbies and interests, they were just depressing, like depressed lumps who just like, had lost everything.

• 1:54:33Speaker 16

  Putting it into a one liner, sound bites are good. There's two kinds of retirees, those who are enjoying life and those who are waiting to die.

• 1:54:41Speaker 15

  Well, right, sure. But, but now like, that's what, what I relate to is.

• 1:54:48Speaker 15

  Is really that. What you're talking about is the guy who had the prestigious job title who no longer has it and now is depressed and his life is miserable. Like, I think of that because when your identity, when your happiness, when your fulfillment in life comes from the validation of, you know, of external sources, be it people for the prestige you carry, like, that's, that's an issue. And we call it, in our terminology, we call it emotional sobriety.

• 1:55:27Speaker 15

  Like, you can't be emotionally sober so long as you derive your fulfillment, your happiness, your serenity from external validation. Okay. And by the virtue of being an entertainer, whose career is in the entertainment industry, it's really difficult to juggle that. Because like, because my livelihood is in the validation of external sources, yet like, that's not where the... So that the happiness needs to come from within. Like, we're very clear on that. And for me, like, the happiness, it's like, the flow of happiness and fulfillment needs

• 1:56:08Speaker 15

  to cease to come from the value of Steve-O, the commodity in the entertainment industry, and really needs to begin to come from, from inside Stephen Glover and without external validation.

• 1:56:23Rich Roll?

  All right, you guys, we did it. I hope you guys enjoyed this look in the rearview, part two of the Best of 2016, with a bunch more awesome excerpted conversations will be up later in the week, late Wednesday night, December 28th, to be exact. In the interim, please make a point checking out the show notes on the episode page at richroll.com. I've got hyperlinks to all the full, unedited conversations that were excerpted here today. And in the meantime, I just want to say thank you. Thank you for sharing the show with your friends and on social media. Thank you for leaving a review on iTunes. Thank you for subscribing to the show. Thank you for using the Amazon banner

• 1:57:03Rich Roll?

  ad for all your holiday purchases, or by going to richroll.com/Amazon. We really appreciate that. And mad love to everybody who has contributed to this show, to this mission, to the work that I do on our Patreon page, patreon.com/richroll. If you'd like to receive a free, short, weekly email from me, that includes tips, tools, resources, things that I've enjoyed over the course of the week, it's called Roll Call. It goes out every Thursday. And it's basically just a compendium of books, documentaries, articles, products, things I've come across that I think would be helpful and that you might enjoy. You can subscribe to that anywhere on my website. If you want signed copies

• 1:57:47Rich Roll?

  of our books, my books, you want some t-shirts, some schwag, some plant power, cool stuff, go to richroll.com. We've got lots of that stuff. Big love to everybody who helped produce this show today. Jason Camiello for audio engineering and production, Sean Patterson for help on graphics, Chris Swan for amazing production assistance. This was a really big job putting together, pulling together all of these clips and trying to decide what to include here. Chris put a ton of work into this, so thank you very much for that. And theme music by Anna Levman. Thanks for the love, you guys. I'll catch you in a few days. Until then, seasons greetings, happy holidays, merry, merry, peace and plans.