Unschooling Homeschool Method

The lovely and powerful Julie Piatt– my sometime co-host and all-time wife — returns to the show today to share some interesting perspectives on children's education — more specifically, homeschooling. And even more specifically, the Unschooling method of homeschooling. I know. It's controversial. I get it. But the subject also brings to mind one of my favorite quotes from one of the brightest minds of Victorian England – scientist, philosopher and theologian Herbert Spencer. It appears in the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, and goes like this: “There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance — that principle is contempt prior to investigation.” Translation – listen with an open mind. Because growth, change and expansion cannot occur without doing so. Other topics on today's episode agenda include: My recent speaking engagements in Toronto and Tucson ; My increased involvement in an exciting new documentary project entitled Game Changers about plant-based athletes, currently in production — produced by former podcast guest James Wilks ( Episode 16 ) and some of the people that brought you Forks Over Knives ; Witnessing Patrik Baboumian's world record-setting strongman lift & carry in Toronto; My impending visits to Karachi, Bahrain and Casablanca to spread the PlantPower message; Creating a PlantPower Halloween Movement; and Beyond Meat's quest to disrupt Big Food with its perfect plant-based chicken and beef alternatives. During our conversation, Julie references Sir Ken Robinson and his opinions about our education system. I can't urge you strongly enough to take a few minutes to watch his powerful TED Talk on how schools kill creativity. There is a reason it's the most watched TED Talk of all time (almost 18 million views), so please take the time to open your mind to this: And here's my view through my trusty GoPro of Vegan Strongman Patrik Baboumian carrying 1216 pounds for 10 meters, breaking a Guinness Book of World Record for most weight ever lifted by a human being – ever. Enjoy! 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?

  Eating well rarely falls apart because of one big failure. It's the daily question that wears you down. Like, what am I actually going to make tonight? What's in the fridge? And it's exactly why we built the Plant Power Meal Planner. It's a personalized, plant-based meal planning program that matches you with recipes based on your taste, your allergies, your cooking skills, and how much time you actually have. You build, through this program, a balanced, nutrient-dense plan for your entire household in a few minutes. Then it generates a grocery list for you with one click that plugs right into our delivery partners. All the recipes in the program are built by dietitians with culinary training. Plus, you get your own food coach to help you problem-solve along the way.

• 0:44Rich Roll?

  It's kind of an amazing thing. For listeners of the show, all you special people, we're offering an exclusive $20 off an annual subscription right now. To get it, go to meals.richroll.com, take your quick personalization quiz, and enter promo code RICHROLL20 at checkout. Welcome to episode 51 of the Rich Roll Podcast with Julie Pyatt. Hey, everybody. It's Rich Roll here. Welcome back to the Rich Roll Podcast.

• 1:27Rich Roll?

  Today, we have Julie Pyatt back in the studio.

• 1:31Julie Piatt?

  Hi, Rich.

• 1:32Rich Roll?

  Is this a studio? I guess the garage is the studio.

• 1:35Julie Piatt?

  This is a studio.

• 1:36Rich Roll?

  Our garage studio.

• 1:37Julie Piatt?

  It's not the studio.

• 1:38Rich Roll?

  No, we're going to move into the real, real, the real, real soon, right?

• 1:44Julie Piatt?

  Yeah, we actually have a real studio.

• 1:46Rich Roll?

  I know, it's all built up, but we have yet to record a podcast in there yet. But we're in the garage today. If you're new to the show, thanks for checking in. What do we do here? Well, I am an ultra-endurance athlete. I'm an author, a public speaker, I'm a health advocate, I'm a plant-based nutrition person, I guess, a lifestyle entrepreneur, a health entrepreneur. Is that accurate?

• 2:12Julie Piatt?

  That's all accurate, accurate, yes.

• 2:14Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I think so, right.

• 2:14Julie Piatt?

  And you're also the husband of Julie Pye.

• 2:17Rich Roll?

  I am. You're my wife, sitting over there, for the new people. Together, we have four kids. And we're coming to you from our garage in beautiful Malibu Canyon. And this is episode 51 of the podcast. I can't believe, 51 episodes. I mean, I guess, you know, most of the shows are about two hours. Probably on average, I mean, some have gone really long. The one I did with, who was it that I did the really long? Was it, I think Mac Danzig was the longest one. We went almost three hours, but on average, they're about two hours. So, so at 51 episodes, that's over 100 hours of like, content.

• 2:55Julie Piatt?

  That's a lot of hours.

• 2:57Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 2:57Julie Piatt?

  It's amazing.

• 2:58Rich Roll?

  There's probably a lot of fat on that bone, though.

• 2:59Julie Piatt?

  No, it's great.

• 3:00Rich Roll?

  There's like valuable content, but yeah, it's amazing. We started it in December when we were habitating on the north shore of Kauai.

• 3:10Julie Piatt?

  We were living in yurk.

• 3:11Rich Roll?

  And I was feeling the need to express myself beyond the perimeter of the very small island that we were living on.

• 3:18Julie Piatt?

  You were starved.

• 3:19Rich Roll?

  For?

• 3:19Julie Piatt?

  For communication.

• 3:20Rich Roll?

  Yeah, for, I think that, it is funny, because I'd been wanting to do a podcast for so long, and when my book came out, I did a bunch of other people's podcasts. And I certainly listen to a lot, especially when I'm training. And I always thought, that'd be cool. I want to, you know, I should do a podcast. I could do a podcast. But I never did anything about it. And it's funny that it finally happened when we were in Hawaii. And I never really thought about it, but I think it does have something to do with the fact that I was feeling disconnected, or a little bit. I mean, it was great, not, it was all good, but I think that maybe part of me was like, wanting to, I don't know, be a little more connected than we were on the island. It's pretty remote there, so.

• 3:56Julie Piatt?

  We were feeling pretty, like you were on a deserted island, like you were trapped there, a little.

• 4:02Rich Roll?

  I don't know. Definitely I was happy to come home. It was a great experience. I wouldn't trade it for anything.

• 4:07Julie Piatt?

  No, and what a blessing. And so the podcast has done amazing and it's rocking and moving to the next level. And we're moving into a real podcast studio next week, I think, tomorrow, maybe.

• 4:19Rich Roll?

  I know, but don't worry, we're gonna keep it authentic and grounded. We're not gonna suddenly move into a studio and then adopt like radio voice.

• 4:28Julie Piatt?

  You're not.

• 4:29Rich Roll?

  No, you don't want, should I do that?

• 4:31Julie Piatt?

  No, please don't.

• 4:32Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the show.

• 4:35Julie Piatt?

  And the thing is, is that this will always be sweet, this space, because, well, the warehouse in on Hawaii, first of all, but you know, you've done almost all of those 50 episodes right here in our garage. And so it will always be, it'll be here. You'll do occasional shows here.

• 4:55Rich Roll?

  You'll always be my garage guest, girl.

• 4:57Julie Piatt?

  Thank you. That's awesome.

• 4:59Rich Roll?

  Yeah, so episode 51, crazy. And the idea here is to bring you the best and the brightest in health and fitness and wellness. A lot of forward-thinking paradigm busting minds. I've had doctors on, nutritionists, health professionals, world-class athletes, entrepreneurs, chefs, cooks, recipe makers, nutritionists, musicians we've had. And, and yeah, it doesn't, you know, certainly I have my, my bent on what I think is the ultimate human diet. But that doesn't mean that those are the only kind of people that we have on the show. We have lots of different,

• 5:42Rich Roll?

  lots of different perspectives and the idea is that we can sit down and have a long adult conversation, whether we disagree or agree.

• 5:49Julie Piatt?

  That's right. And we're always looking for the place where we can connect with someone.

• 5:53Rich Roll?

  Right. Which brings me to an interesting thing that actually happened today. I just, I just flew back from Tucson and I'll tell you a little bit more about that in a minute. But on the flight back, I plopped down on my seat and the guy sitting next to me is reading Rob Wolf's book, The Paleo Solution. And I'm like,

• 6:12Julie Piatt?

  Perfect.

• 6:13Rich Roll?

  First of all, I can't stand talking to people on airplanes. Like, that's like the last thing that I want to do. I bought the Sunday New York Times. That was my plan. I was gonna read the newspaper. And, and he's sitting there and I go,

• 6:26Rich Roll?

  I'm gonna have to talk to this guy, right? Not because like I disagree with what he's doing, just like, oh, here's the universe is providing me an opening to communicate with somebody. Obviously, this guy's interested in health or he wouldn't be reading this book, right? So I go, oh, how you liking Rob's book? And he's like, oh, it's really great and it's, you know, it's changing my life. And I said, oh, that's, that's great. I, I know Rob a little bit. I mean, I've never met him in person, but we've kind of gone back and forth on email and, you know, and I respect what, what Rob is doing and our goals are the same. And, and so I just took it as an opportunity to talk to this guy about health and like, we ended up talking the whole flight. He told me like his whole story of his extended family and how his son got him interested in health and fitness and his son who was living in Austin and working in a French

• 7:10Rich Roll?

  restaurant is super fanatical about nutrition and health and reads tons of books and got him and his wife interested in this stuff and how his brother is struggling with his weight and health and how they can't get him to change. I mean, it was just, I mean, the guy didn't, I'm not gonna say his name. You know, I'm not sure how he would feel about me talking publicly about his family, but, but in the most general sense, like we ended up having an amazing conversation, you know? And, and I think it's about bridging that gap, you know? I could have said, oh, why are you reading that book? Like you should be on the, the plant-based, you know, routine and come at him from a very hard perspective. You mean, you didn't convert him to plant power by the end of the flight? Well, he was telling me how, well, he was telling me how his wife, um, you know,

• 7:52Rich Roll?

  really is worried about his protein and, and needs, and makes sure that he has eggs for breakfast at least a couple of days a week because she's worried about protein. So then we had the whole protein conversation. But if I'd come at him hardcore and said, why are you reading the paleo book? You know, you should be, you know, doing it this way and here's what I think and blah, blah, blah. The guy would have emotionally shut down, you know? So not that I would, the, not that the purpose of the conversation was for me to convert him, I just wanted to have a conversation with him. And by being a little bit, by like kind of sort of being more, um, open-minded to where other people are at or whatever, we, we had a, it was an awesome conversation. It was really cool. That's great. Anyway, yeah, it's a, you know, I don't know.

• 8:35Rich Roll?

  I think it's trying to find common ground is important. Absolutely. So. That's it. But, uh, you know, on that note, uh, our last, most recent guest, Dr. Garth Davis. That's a, turning out to be quite the popular episode. Yeah, actually, there was an article about it on examiner.com, like basically saying, you know, oh, he was on this podcast and here's what he said. And, you know, he's very outspoken about paleo and his opinions about paleo and low carb and all this sort of thing. And it was cool and just interesting to see that the podcast would be covered, you know, in some sort of online publication outside the four walls of my website.

• 9:13Julie Piatt?

  Yeah, it's fantastic. No, that's great.

• 9:16Rich Roll?

  So, yeah, so I was in Tucson and I spoke yesterday as part of the Healthy You Network, which is a new nonprofit organization out there. I went and spoke out there in March, and it was at a small little venue, and I think maybe 80 people came or something like that. And they asked me to come back and speak again. And I figured it would be about the same. And instead, it was at the historic Fox Theater, which was packed. I mean, I think there were, there were at least 700 people there. Somebody said they thought there were a thousand people there. I don't know if there were that many, but I think there were.

• 9:50Julie Piatt?

  And it went from 80 to 1,000 in a few months?

• 9:52Rich Roll?

  Yeah, well, they had another event after me where they had Rip Esselstyn came out and Scott Jurek came out and James Wilks was there. So, and they might have even had another one after that. So they've been doing periodic events.

• 10:06Julie Piatt?

  So they're building.

• 10:06Rich Roll?

  And they're building their momentum. And it was great. It was really cool.

• 10:10Julie Piatt?

  How'd it go?

• 10:11Rich Roll?

  It was good.

• 10:11Julie Piatt?

  It was good?

• 10:12Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 10:13Julie Piatt?

  Yeah.

• 10:13Rich Roll?

  Did the PowerPoint up on the stage. And I don't know, you know, every time I do my thing, you know, everybody afterwards is like, oh, that was great. I signed books and talked to everybody and, you know, hug people and stuff. And people are like, that was inspiring or whatever. But all I can do is like, oh, I shouldn't have said that. And why did I say that? And I need to change this. And, you know, I'm very self critical that way.

• 10:35Julie Piatt?

  Well, it's like a live performance. So every time, every time the audience is different and the energy is different. So you have an opportunity every time that you do it, even though it's basically the same speech in, you know, generally, it's the same program. But, you know, it's going to be different every single time. So, you know, you're, you're gonna have to, you know, just enjoy it in the moment as you do. And, you know, you spoke the night before in Malibu. At a private home, which was an unusual circumstance.

• 11:03Rich Roll?

  I know, that was more like a, like some kind of Algonquin table, round table, like kind of private home thing. It was cool. It was, it was an event that our friends put on at their house. And there was, I don't know, how many people came? Forty or fifty?

• 11:18Julie Piatt?

  No, no, no. There was eighty people there.

• 11:20Rich Roll?

  Oh, eighty people were there.

• 11:21Julie Piatt?

  Eighty people.

• 11:22Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it was fun.

• 11:23Julie Piatt?

  It was nice. It was great.

• 11:24Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it was really, it was really cool. And, and I was telling you after that, that for me, it's actually a lot easier to get up on, on a stage in front of seven hundred people where there's like bright lights in your face. So you can't really see anybody.

• 11:36Julie Piatt?

  Right.

• 11:37Rich Roll?

  And it's all just very anonymous. And then I can like do my thing. It's, that's, that, that doesn't cause me any consternation or stage fright whatsoever. But like sitting in front of eighty people that, and a lot of the people that I know personally, that's more.

• 11:51Julie Piatt?

  It is.

• 11:52Rich Roll?

  Challenging for me.

• 11:53Julie Piatt?

  It's like that for us when we're, when we're singing, playing music. And the same thing. The smaller the crowd, it's almost harder. So.

• 12:00Rich Roll?

  Right. So I did Malibu and then I was in, I wanted to talk about being in Toronto the week before that.

• 12:06Julie Piatt?

  So you've just been on a, on a, on a fast track here.

• 12:10Rich Roll?

  It's a lot of travel. So I was in Toronto and I did, I spoke in Toronto at the Toronto Veg Fest, which is a huge Veg Fest. I think it's like the biggest one in the world, or at least North America. Like thousands of people come to this thing. And it was, it was great. Did my deal there. It was fantastic. But more importantly, I got to participate in this documentary project. And if you've been listening to the podcast, then you probably heard James Lightning Wilks, who came on the show. He's the Ultimate Fighter, UFC, MMA guy. He won the season six of the Ultimate Fighter, or season nine. I'm not sure which season it was. But MMA guy turned plant power warrior. And about a year ago, he set about

• 12:52Rich Roll?

  putting together this documentary project. He really wanted to do a documentary about plant-based athletes and kind of take a hard look at our cultural mores and attitudes about meat and masculinity, what it means to be a man, you know, what is, you know, all these sorts of issues that come up and kind of pivot and revolve around the idea of eating meat. And.

• 13:17Rich Roll?

  And I was one of the first people that he interviewed last year when he had like no juice. Like there was just his idea, he wanted to do this, but he didn't really, he'd never made a movie before. And he was just paying for it out of his own pocket and didn't know that much about the filmmaking process. And I've sort of been helping him along the way because as an entertainment lawyer, I've worked with a lot of documentary filmmakers. I've done production legal and a lot of stuff and I kind of know my way around it. And then more recently, uh, he has a lot of momentum. His partner in the project, Joseph Pace and him worked diligently over the last nine months and put together a proposal. And they've raised a, you know, they've raised a significant portion of their budget to fully complete this movie.

• 14:00Rich Roll?

  And they have the interest of the Forks Over Knives people and have been working with

• 14:05Rich Roll?

  the producer slash director who, um, produced slash directed Forks Over Knives. And it's, um, so there's a lot of kind of good people coming into the fold of this project. And, uh, and so when we were in Toronto, James and Joseph were there to do a lot of filming. And there were a couple of other plant-based athletes there. So, uh, I got to meet and spend a little bit of time with this guy, Patrick Babumian, who is a German strong man, you know, he's one of those guys that does the, the like, you know, I don't even, you know, you see they have these competitions on TV where they like lift a huge amount of weight and run with it and do this crazy kind of like, I mean, talk about paleo, it's like they're lifting logs and throwing them and all this kind of stuff.

• 14:49Rich Roll?

  And he's a, I'd never met him before, I'd heard of him. He is a, I think he's of Armenian slash Iranian descent. I think he might've been born in Iran, uh, but lives in Germany. And, uh, he came out to be part of the documentary, but also to attempt this Guinness Book of World Records, which these guys wanted to film the attempt. So, and in Toronto, right at the waterfront, there's this huge outdoor stage. It's like an outdoor amphitheater called the WestJet stage. And, uh, he was gonna attempt something nobody had ever done, which is to Lift the most amount of weight any human being has ever lifted and carry it 10 meters.

• 15:32Rich Roll?

  And when you want to set a Guinness Book of World Record, there's all these procedures that you have to follow, like it all has to be above board and documented. And I guess if you want like the Guinness Book of World Records people to actually come out and verify it in person, you have to spend a tremendous amount of money. It's something like, there's a fee like 7,000 euros in order for them to come out and see it.

• 15:59Rich Roll?

  And they weren't going to spend that kind of money. So in lieu of that, they had to be extra careful about their documentation. So they had all these guys build this special scale where they had to weigh everything that he was going to lift. And they built this yoke and it was all measured and they had a notary there and all these photographers and people like documenting everything. And I saw the guy put 1,216 pounds on his back and carry it for 10 meters on this stage in front of like a thousand people that were there watching. It was insane.

• 16:28Julie Piatt?

  Crazy.

• 16:29Rich Roll?

  And I had no idea what that would be like, you know, and I was standing on the stage kind of helping them set up and stuff like that. And luckily I had my GoPro camera, so I just whipped it out to film it. I wasn't planning on filming it, but it was, there were so much, so many people were screaming and yelling and I was like, oh my God, like this is insane. So I filmed it and I'll put a link to the YouTube that I uploaded for it if you haven't seen it. But you know, here you have this guy who looks like the real world Wolverine and who's a vegan. And like he's really like hardcore about his ethical issues too. Like he's really in it for the animals. That's really important to him and and it just makes you really rethink everything you ever thought about nutrition and protein and all this kind of stuff.

• 17:13Rich Roll?

  Because if this guy as a vegan can put more weight on his back and carry it than any human being ever had, I mean, it's insane, right?

• 17:22Julie Piatt?

  Yeah. And how many people were there? It looked like a rock concert.

• 17:25Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I mean, there were a lot of people, they were, people were loud too. They were screaming. I don't know if that comes across in the video, but people were screaming loud. And like when he did it, the cheering was off the hook.

• 17:35Julie Piatt?

  That's crazy.

• 17:36Rich Roll?

  I mean, I think there were, there were at least, I don't know, there had, I'm terrible with estimating numbers, but.

• 17:41Julie Piatt?

  That looked like there was a lot of people, thousands of people there.

• 17:44Rich Roll?

  I don't know if there were that many, maybe a thousand. So. So that was really cool. So we were filming, so they got that all on film for the documentary.

• 17:52Julie Piatt?

  And you're in the documentary.

• 17:53Rich Roll?

  And I'm in, yeah, I'm one of the athletes that they're following. And then there was this guy, George LaRocque, who's an NHL player, former NHL player, who's now a politician in Montreal.

• 18:02Julie Piatt?

  Right.

• 18:04Rich Roll?

  And I got to meet and hang out with him, which was really cool. And then those guys went down the East Coast doing tons of interviews, and they're still on the road right now from that, and meeting all kinds of crazy, amazing, interesting people. And so I'm getting more involved in that documentary project, and I think it's gonna be powerful.

• 18:21Julie Piatt?

  That's great.

• 18:21Rich Roll?

  I think there's a real need and an interest for kind of what these athletes are doing, and the fact that they're doing it in a different way than is conventional wisdom is compelling.

• 18:32Julie Piatt?

  It's compelling, definitely.

• 18:33Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I mean, it'll be, for the people listening out there, at least another year before this is out. I mean, we're just in the middle of making it and putting it together right now. But it's exciting, and it's exciting to be part of the project.

• 18:45Julie Piatt?

  Really exciting. That's great. And you're happy. You're happy on a film set.

• 18:51Rich Roll?

  Well, you know, it's just a, it's a powerful medium for getting the message out, you know? I mean, Forks Over Knives, I think, is still one of the most streamed documentaries on Netflix.

• 19:00Julie Piatt?

  That's great.

• 19:00Rich Roll?

  Which is insane. I mean, how long has it, how long has that movie been out?

• 19:03Julie Piatt?

  It's been two years now?

• 19:04Rich Roll?

  No, I think longer than that, yeah.

• 19:06Julie Piatt?

  Maybe, maybe three.

• 19:07Rich Roll?

  Four years, maybe?

• 19:09Julie Piatt?

  I don't think four.

• 19:10Rich Roll?

  I don't know. So anyway, yeah, the doc, the working title for this documentary is The Game Changers.

• 19:15Julie Piatt?

  That's cool.

• 19:16Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 19:16Julie Piatt?

  All right.

• 19:17Rich Roll?

  So I'm gonna have to have, so I'm gonna have Patrick on the podcast, I think in, I scheduled him, it's gonna be two weeks.

• 19:25Julie Piatt?

  Right.

• 19:25Rich Roll?

  Something like that.

• 19:26Julie Piatt?

  So coming up soon.

• 19:27Rich Roll?

  Coming up soon, yeah.

• 19:27Julie Piatt?

  That's great.

• 19:28Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 19:28Julie Piatt?

  And anyway, you love it up there.

• 19:30Rich Roll?

  Toronto's great.

• 19:31Julie Piatt?

  Yeah.

• 19:31Rich Roll?

  They're passionate, plant-powered people there.

• 19:34Julie Piatt?

  Absolutely.

• 19:37Rich Roll?

  And yeah, we may be going back up there to speak, right?

• 19:39Julie Piatt?

  Yeah, in April, maybe, looks like.

• 19:41Rich Roll?

  Yeah, we're trying to work that out.

• 19:42Julie Piatt?

  That's great.

• 19:43Rich Roll?

  And then, so yeah, the travel, there's been a lot of travel, but then I'm getting ready to go to...

• 19:50Julie Piatt?

  Where are you going next?

• 19:51Rich Roll?

  Karachi. I'm going to DC.

• 19:53Julie Piatt?

  No, DC first.

• 19:54Rich Roll?

  Going to DC next weekend, so DC Veg Fest, I'm speaking, excuse me.

• 20:00Rich Roll?

  Saturday afternoon, nine twenty eight, September twenty eighth. I don't know what time exactly, but go to DC Veg Fest dot com and you can find out more about that. So I'm looking forward to going home and doing that. And then I come back here and then literally a day later, I leave and I'm going to Karachi, Pakistan.

• 20:19Julie Piatt?

  That's awesome.

• 20:20Rich Roll?

  Is it? I don't know. So I got asked to speak. It's a YPO event, Young Presidents Organization, which is a global affiliation of young CEOs and they host speakers for events. And I got asked to come out and speak at an event, a YPO event in Karachi. And I can't say no to that. I don't know if I'll ever get asked to go to Pakistan.

• 20:42Julie Piatt?

  It's definitely a lifetime opportunity.

• 20:45Rich Roll?

  Yeah. And so that's going to be compelling also because I'm going, I'm going to fly. I'm literally only going to be there like 24 hours. I'm going there, I'm going to speak and then I come back.

• 20:55Julie Piatt?

  Yes.

• 20:55Rich Roll?

  But I'll be gone like four days. So, but it should be exciting and I'm really interested to see a part of the world that I know very little about and to speak to people in that part of the world who are interested in plant-based nutrition is pretty cool, right?

• 21:15Julie Piatt?

  Yeah.

• 21:15Rich Roll?

  So.

• 21:16Julie Piatt?

  It's powerful.

• 21:25Julie Piatt?

  What else is up, Rich Roll?

• 21:28Rich Roll?

  I had, I had a really interesting lunch last week with the guys from Beyond Meat.

• 21:36Julie Piatt?

  Oh, yeah, that's right.

• 21:37Rich Roll?

  So Beyond Meat is a, I don't know what the proper terminology is, but they've scientifically devised these plant protein foods that are meat substitutes. I hate to call it fake meat because it sort of sounds derogatory because this stuff is so delicious and amazing. But they're figuring out a way to make this plant-based food taste and feel exactly like chicken with the same amount of protein, except without the saturated fat and the toxins and the animal proteins and all of that. And I can tell you, like this stuff, it's unbelievable. I mean,

• 22:18Rich Roll?

  I've tried a lot of fake meats and they just, you know, you're kind of, you kind of tolerate them, right? And most of them are like giant gluten bombs and they're full of tons of GMO soy and they're really just not very good for you.

• 22:29Julie Piatt?

  No, they're not at all.

• 22:30Rich Roll?

  Like they're good, like if somebody's interested in changing from the standard American diet to a plant-based diet, it's a good bridge because if you're just not, like if you've been eating bacon for breakfast your whole life and you're, it's too crazy to go cold turkey, like, okay, you get the garden bacon, fake bacon strips or whatever.

• 22:49Julie Piatt?

  And it just helps.

• 22:50Rich Roll?

  It helps. It helps with the transition, but it's not a permanent solution, I don't think. But these guys are really creating food products and they're devising new, new food products that are in development right now that are plant-based, but they're also healthy.

• 23:06Julie Piatt?

  Really? That's exciting.

• 23:07Rich Roll?

  And, and they taste so much like the real thing.

• 23:10Julie Piatt?

  Like meat.

• 23:11Rich Roll?

  So, so the audience isn't people like you and I. The audience is for the hardcore meat eater who needs to get healthier, right? And if you can give that person something that feels and tastes exactly like chicken, that's nutritious for you, like it becomes like a no-brainer thing.

• 23:26Julie Piatt?

  Right.

• 23:27Rich Roll?

  And these guys are really kind of disrupting this market and they're coming at it more from a technology company point of view as opposed to a big food company developing a fake meat product. They're backed by the founders of Twitter, Biz Stone and Ev Williams. And they have really smart venture capital money behind them and they're doing some amazing work. So I went and they're, they're, they're like where they do their manufacturing and, and their R and D is all at a facility in Missouri, but their corporate headquarters is in Los Angeles. So I went down there and met the CEO, Ethan Brown, and the COO, Tony Brudhomme, and their staff and had lunch with them and met all the people.

• 24:09Rich Roll?

  And I was just inspired with what they're doing. I mean, it's like, it's that kind of thing that, that can really help.

• 24:16Julie Piatt?

  Really shift.

• 24:17Rich Roll?

  Change a lot of people, you know what I mean? And Their heart's in the right place, too. And it's funny, because Ethan, he's a couple of years younger than me, but we both grew up in the DC area. And we knew a bunch of the same people growing up. We went to like rival high schools, so. Really? That was like a weird, small world thing. That's good. And then today, when I was flying back from Tucson, I picked up Wired Magazine at the newsstand to read on the airplane. And there is a whole article in there about Beyond Meat. An article, the article's called Taste Like Chicken. And it's a, it's an article written by Alton Brown, who's a bestselling author. And the host, and he's a host on the Food Network. He's basically a celebrated chef.

• 24:58Rich Roll?

  And he kind of, the whole article is him evaluating this chicken product from Beyond Meat. Right. From the perspective of like. A chef. A chef, like somebody who's a foodie with like a very mature palate, you know? And he basically walks away from it saying, I can't believe how good this is. Taste just like chicken. Taste just like chicken, like I can't believe it. And it was, and it's cool that the article isn't in, you know, it's not in Gourmet Magazine. It's in Wired Magazine, you know? This is about technology and this is about disrupting marketplaces and forward thinking and all of that. That's great. Anyway, that was cool. It's exciting. Yeah, Beyond Meat. So I think they're in, in California, I know they're in Whole Foods.

• 25:40Rich Roll?

  And I believe that they're expanding into all the different grocery chains. So they're, they're creating like these grocery store products for the consumer. But they're also looking at restaurant contracts, you know? Because if they can get, you know, let's say, just for the sake of argument, McDonald's to create a veggie burger with a patty that they're making and have that be available. That's like a Trojan horse, you know what I mean? That's like you have to change the system from within. You know what I mean? Because McDonald's isn't going away, you know what I mean? And we can all point our finger at it and say it's terrible and bad and avoid it. But the truth is, a lot of people eat there on a regular basis. It's gone away in my world.

• 26:25Rich Roll?

  Well, of course, and it has in mine, and it has for a lot of people. But, you know, there's a lot of people that are still. Still in every country on the planet. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so I don't know. Anyway, more will be revealed about that. But I was really impressed with what they're doing. It's exciting. So, so yeah, so that was going on and that was cool. Um, I want to talk about what's going on here at home.

• 26:48Julie Piatt?

  You do?

• 26:49Rich Roll?

  Yeah. What is going on here?

• 26:51Julie Piatt?

  What is going on here at home?

• 26:52Rich Roll?

  I've been traveling. You tell me what's happening here.

• 26:54Julie Piatt?

  Well, um, let's see, uh, lots, lots, lots of stuff is going on here. I guess the one thing that I did want to, I did want to mention, um, the kind of a family plant, uh, inspired event that's going on is we're going to put on our first plant-powered Halloween event.

• 27:10Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 27:11Julie Piatt?

  And this came out of actually an earlier podcast with Juliana Hever. Um, we kind of mentioned it. I don't know if we mentioned it on the air. It might've been off. I don't know. But we were talking, we were talking as mothers about how to provide, you know, good, high vibrational nutrition to our children, which is always a challenge because, you know, most of us are in the school system or just even out in the community. You know, the amount of processed sugar and GMO foods and just really just junk is it's horrible what's out there. So then we come to the, you know, the holiday times and a lot of time, you know, in, in the children's calendar, you know, lifetime, it's like, it's just one holiday after another holiday after another holiday. You know, sandwiched between, you know, birthdays every weekend. And when you really start to add up all those events,

• 27:54Julie Piatt?

  it's just, it's most of the eating time of the children. So anyway, Juliana Hever and I were talking and I was telling her that I had this, um, inspirational idea about actually starting like a plant-powered, you know, Halloween, you know, uh, um, track, you know, like, like a map situation where you could have, um, organic gluten-free, dairy-free, you know, uh, processed sugar-free homes actually sign up on some database where you could figure it out. And of course, that's like everything else that I envision.

• 28:26Rich Roll?

  You're always like, yeah.

• 28:27Julie Piatt?

  I'm always like way too big.

• 28:28Rich Roll?

  I'm like, let's just start with like what we're going to give the kid who knocks on our door. And you're like, no, we need the iPhone app.

• 28:35Julie Piatt?

  That's right. I know.

• 28:37Rich Roll?

  But it would be cool, like, just to entertain that idea. Like, let's say you had an iPhone app, and you could pull it up, and it would be called, you know, the plant-powered app, or whatever. And then, and you could click on, yeah, and then you could pull up, people would volunteer their house.

• 28:54Julie Piatt?

  Right.

• 28:54Rich Roll?

  And you could look up in your neighborhood, like, here are all the places where I can go on Halloween, where my kid can get something healthy.

• 29:01Julie Piatt?

  And just get something good to eat and enjoy the day. And the other thing is that we're, our golden retriever just joined us here in the podcast studio. He found the open garage door. Come on in, Bodhi. No, but the other thing is, is, you know, Halloween is a really fun holiday, and kids really love it. And, you know,

• 29:22Rich Roll?

  I love it.

• 29:22Julie Piatt?

  I love it. I mean, we're not like crazy Halloween people, but, you know.

• 29:26Rich Roll?

  Yeah, but I have the most awesome costumes.

• 29:28Julie Piatt?

  You actually do. You actually do. The kids will always remember your very, very original and surprising costumes.

• 29:38Rich Roll?

  Which one did I do? Which ones?

• 29:39Julie Piatt?

  I just remember, you know, you never tell us.

• 29:41Rich Roll?

  Well, I don't tell, I never tell the kids ahead of time what I'm gonna be, and they always bug me. What are you gonna be? What are you gonna be? And I always say it's a secret. And then I always join you wherever you are for, excuse me, I have something in my throat.

• 29:53Julie Piatt?

  Yeah, you just show up. So, we already go out, we're already on, sort of on our way. And I just remember, I don't remember who you were, but you were some, some really dorky-looking athlete or something.

• 30:05Rich Roll?

  You were in a neighborhood, and I showed up on a skateboard with, like, knee socks and, like, OP corduroy shorts.

• 30:11Julie Piatt?

  And like short shorts or something.

• 30:12Rich Roll?

  Yeah, and a handlebar mustache and a visor. And I was Dirk, your friendly neighborhood pot dealer.

• 30:18Julie Piatt?

  And we didn't even know it was you at the beginning. Like, we just saw you sort of whip eye, and then, you know, anyway. It's always very funny. You're very original, honey.

• 30:26Rich Roll?

  Well, my best, I think my best costume ever, though, was when I went as Kurt Rambis from the Lakers.

• 30:31Julie Piatt?

  That was good.

• 30:32Rich Roll?

  So, if you don't know who that is, maybe I'll put a photograph of him on the website.

• 30:36Julie Piatt?

  You should post some of your other costumes.

• 30:38Rich Roll?

  Side by side.

• 30:38Julie Piatt?

  I know, that's so funny. Well, anyway, so, well, okay, so, a couple, a couple of years ago, or maybe, was it last year? Anyway, Mathis. Our nine year old now, she announced to us that she wanted to be a centaur, a male centaur for her Halloween costume, which of course, you can't just go buy that somewhere. That really sort of required us.

• 30:59Rich Roll?

  Mr. Tomnus?

• 31:00Julie Piatt?

  Mr.

• 31:00Rich Roll?

  What is that movie?

• 31:01Julie Piatt?

  But he's not a, I don't think he's a centaur. He's the other kind.

• 31:06Rich Roll?

  He's the other one?

• 31:07Julie Piatt?

  He's the other one.

• 31:07Rich Roll?

  What are those ones called?

• 31:08Julie Piatt?

  I don't know. But anyway, so Mathis wanted to be this and so Rich and I both had to support her in creating, you know, this.

• 31:16Rich Roll?

  A satyr.

• 31:17Julie Piatt?

  That he's a satyr. Mr. Tomnus is a satyr.

• 31:19Rich Roll?

  What's the difference between a satyr and a centaur?

• 31:21Julie Piatt?

  I don't know right now. One's a goat, I think.

• 31:24Rich Roll?

  And one's a horse on the back or something?

• 31:26Julie Piatt?

  I think, I don't know. I don't know. Anyway, so, so we had to create this costume and it took, you know, Rich worked on it some days and I worked on it some days and we actually, you know, arrived at this, at this costume that we made with her. And she just looked extraordinary. It was genius beyond and maybe we can post that. But it was really the process of creating the costume with her. And of course I was making her understand like this is only one Halloween. Like, don't expect this every year.

• 31:55Rich Roll?

  Right. It was a huge project. We made an entire like rear section of her body out of

• 32:01Julie Piatt?

  On wheels.

• 32:02Rich Roll?

  And then with the limbs and then we put wheels on the feet of the rear legs. And we created this harness so that it would go, it would be attached to her.

• 32:10Julie Piatt?

  It could roll behind her.

• 32:11Rich Roll?

  It would roll behind her as she.

• 32:13Julie Piatt?

  But she was really genius and she really embodied it and it really affected her on a deep level. And I really feel like, you know, as a mother and a parent who's advocating that we sort of bring the kids back home and we sort of start to embrace some of these, you know, more simple and hometown, you know, experiences that used to be a normal part of childhood. And we've all gotten very modernized and every, you know, we're too busy. We don't have time to do these kind of things.

• 32:40Rich Roll?

  It's just too easy to go to the drugstore, whatever it is, and buy the stupid costume that costs 10 bucks that you put the hood on and you're done.

• 32:47Julie Piatt?

  That's right. And, and you can kind of slide it by the kids and the kids are just happy and they don't, you know, they're like, okay, that's okay. And they sort of, you know, that's what they, that's what they're used to. So anyway, so what I've compromised to, because obviously I didn't have the wherewithal to get an entire infrastructure up and an app designed in this short time. But we are going to have a plant powered Halloween event and it's a no trash, no dairy, gluten free, processed sugar free event and we are encouraging parents.

• 33:18Rich Roll?

  What's left?

• 33:19Julie Piatt?

  Lots.

• 33:20Rich Roll?

  So tell people, I mean, a lot of people might listen to that and go, well, you know, that doesn't sound so fun.

• 33:25Julie Piatt?

  Well, I mean, you can make, it's not about not sweet. You can sweeten with, you know, natural substances, you know, like honey or maple syrup or agave or stevia or fruit. And really it was sort of just, you know, do you remember the story when when we were kids, you know, we were, we were enjoying Halloween and then you heard that story about that evil man who put a razor blade inside of an apple, remember? And it just, like, does anybody know exactly?

• 33:54Rich Roll?

  The same guy that had something to do with Richard Gere and a gerbil?

• 33:57Julie Piatt?

  I don't know. But I mean, was it in one city? Was it in, does anybody know what city it was in?

• 34:02Rich Roll?

  It was, it was this pre-internet age where these wives tale, like these urban myths would crop up. Like, who knows whether that actually happened or not? It's sort of like the guy from the Pop Rocks commercial that died. You remember that one?

• 34:14Julie Piatt?

  No.

• 34:15Rich Roll?

  Yeah, remember Pop Rocks?

• 34:17Julie Piatt?

  Yes.

• 34:18Rich Roll?

  So there was the kid in the ad who did the Pop Rocks. Or no, it was like Mikey from the Life commercial, Life cereal.

• 34:24Julie Piatt?

  Right, okay, remember him?

• 34:25Rich Roll?

  Remember Mikey likes it?

• 34:26Julie Piatt?

  Yes.

• 34:27Rich Roll?

  So he OD'd on Pop Rocks and died. That was the urban myth. I don't think that's true, but like, that was another one that like when I was in sixth grade or whatever.

• 34:35Julie Piatt?

  Right. So I mean, the thing is, is, is we heard this story once and then it was all of a sudden like, okay, don't, you can't trust.

• 34:41Rich Roll?

  We skipped over the story though. The story is.

• 34:44Julie Piatt?

  The story is that a man or somebody put a razor blade inside of an apple and when somebody gave an apple out at Halloween, the child. Bit into the apple and cut their teeth, cut their face or their lips, right?

• 34:56Rich Roll?

  I heard, I remember that story.

• 34:58Julie Piatt?

  You remember that story?

• 34:59Rich Roll?

  I don't know if I remember that story, but I just remember saying, or hearing, oh yeah, you know, that, that's bad people do that.

• 35:07Julie Piatt?

  Right. And suddenly it's not, it's not safe anymore. Halloween is not safe anymore. So everything has to be packaged. So in my experience, um, most mothers who are conscious or parents who are conscious or, or concerned about, you know, sugar intake. Usually everybody goes and spends all the money with, with the big chocolate companies with Nestle or Hershey's or whatever it is. And they buy all this stuff and then the kids-

• 35:30Rich Roll?

  There's no alternative.

• 35:30Julie Piatt?

  Yeah, there's no alternative. There's no healthy alternative.

• 35:32Rich Roll?

  What are you gonna do? Tell your kid that you're not, you know?

• 35:34Julie Piatt?

  And also, even if there are alternatives, there's nothing that's individually packaged. Like that's for a pinata, for instance. Like if you want to do like a organic, like holistic candy, you can't. Because there's no, because you can get maybe some in a bag, but they're, they're not in plastic. So they'll fall out on the floor. So that doesn't work.

• 35:54Rich Roll?

  Probably like Justin's nut butter, those like, those Justin's nut butter peanut butter cups are probably be the closest thing.

• 36:02Julie Piatt?

  Yeah, that's, that's one option. So, so anyway, um, so, uh, usually what a lot of parents do is the kids go out and they trick or treat because they want to do that. And of course that's fun and amazing. And they get all the candy and then the parents basically cringe while the kids eat four, five, six, 10, 15 pieces of candy. And then the next morning, um, they either just throw the candy out or hide the candy. And then there's some exchange like, okay, I'll give you 20 bucks, but you know, or the, the candy fairy came and left you a present and took the candy. Like this is a very common practice. Yeah. So I'm sitting here thinking like-

• 36:41Rich Roll?

  I never did that when I was a kid. I would hide, I'd hoard my, my pillowcase full of candy and hide it in my closet.

• 36:47Julie Piatt?

  Yeah, well, of course, because no one had any awareness. But now these, these are what, this is what's happening in, in our community. I mean, I'm not making this up. This is, this is what the moms do, like to make a compromise. So I'm just saying, I'm meeting these nutritionists, you know, you've had, you had Natasha Fett, is that her name? Natasha on here and then Juliana Hever, we had Lisa on here. So these are all nutritionists that are in the community and instead of complaining about it, why don't we start to shift it and start to create something that actually supports, you know, something that works for us. So we're going to have an event. It's a private event. Of course, it's not, it's not an open, open event, but it's a private event.

• 37:27Julie Piatt?

  We're inviting, inviting, you know, families that sort of share our like-minded desire. And everybody's bringing homemade, handcrafted treats to offer. It's a no trash event, so we're using reusable bags. Everybody's bringing their own water bottles, their own plates. We're going to have a green blend bar courtesy of Rich Roll Podcast. And, and I'm encouraging people to contribute. So not only is it a, this isn't like a party where we're throwing the party and we're inviting people. We're hosting a community event and so we're asking, what are you bringing? What are you bringing to make the Plant Power event amazing?

• 38:09Julie Piatt?

  So so far we've got some people bringing a pig there.

• 38:14Rich Roll?

  Who's bringing a pig? Maybe you don't want to say it, but uh. Really?

• 38:17Julie Piatt?

  I can't say.

• 38:18Rich Roll?

  I didn't know that, you didn't tell me that.

• 38:19Julie Piatt?

  Well, it's like if you think.

• 38:20Rich Roll?

  I don't even know what's going on at my own house.

• 38:22Julie Piatt?

  You've been very gone.

• 38:22Rich Roll?

  I've been gone. I'll be in Karachi.

• 38:24Julie Piatt?

  No, so the idea is, is we're allowing the kids to create a haunted house inside the house. We're having two meeting times for the event so that we can assist in creative creation of, you know, costumes. So we'll have, you know, teams of people. It's not like.

• 38:44Rich Roll?

  Right, so no store bought costumes. You gotta make your own costume.

• 38:47Julie Piatt?

  Make your own costume, you know, bring some vegan cupcakes or some plant-based, you know, homemade chocolate. I just made some amazing energy bars for you for your training that are great.

• 38:56Rich Roll?

  Those were amazing. For your first pass at making like a, a healthy energy, plant-based energy bar. Those things were delicious.

• 39:05Julie Piatt?

  Oh, I'm so glad.

• 39:06Rich Roll?

  Fantastic.

• 39:07Julie Piatt?

  And it was just in the moment.

• 39:08Rich Roll?

  I know, I can't believe that was like, it was really good.

• 39:11Julie Piatt?

  Good, awesome. So you know, so you've got the energy balls, we'll probably do some caramel apples. Some friends of ours, Lisa and Greg, are bringing their bowling, bowling with pumpkins. So they've got little pumpkins and like bowling pins. So the idea is to come here, you know, we have enough land here and that families can put up a pop out, pop up table and sort of have their own little station. So we're still going to trick or treat. We're just going to contain it here and it's going to be plant powered and high vibrational and really celebrating the creativity and really the connection between the families and actually doing this event. And I did have pushback from even my own kids about, you know, no, but I want a trick or treat.

• 39:54Julie Piatt?

  And does it have to be on Halloween? And, you know, I really thought about it and yeah, it has to be on Halloween because one of the things about these holidays is that in my experience, it's just, it starts to just be overload. Like you start celebrating the Halloween at the beginning of October and then there's, you know, four things at school and then two friends have something. And then by the time the holiday is here, it's like, it's not even precious anymore.

• 40:23Rich Roll?

  Like with the birthdays, you have the birthday at the school and then you have the birthday. And it's like, how many birthdays are you going to have? Like when I was a kid, you got your one birthday. And it is weird how these, no, I was not. It's weird how we have like perverted a lot of these holidays. Like, for example, Thanksgiving, like, you know, Thanksgiving is supposed to be an expression of gratitude, right? But what, but what it is really is just an excuse to be unbelievably gluttonous. And then, and the whole point is to overeat and lay on the couch and groan while you watch football.

• 40:58Julie Piatt?

  Gratefully.

• 41:00Rich Roll?

  Yeah, well, I don't know if gratitude, I mean, the gratitude thing is like an afterthought. It's like, oh, let's just eat a ton and watch the Detroit Lions or, you know what I mean? Like, so where did that start to go left on us? And Halloween is just, you know, it's insane. The candy that the kids get and listen, you know, I did it like I don't, you know, it's fun. It's super fun, but I love the fact that you're trying to think of a way to continue to celebrate it. Not in that kind of like sort of way that is punishing the kids, but is but is but is actually turning the volume up on the fun part like let's make it more fun. But we're gonna do it in a healthy way.

• 41:42Julie Piatt?

  No. And so and part of this also was, you know, is dictated by our schedule. We're teaching our first co-workshop actually in Mexico. On between the 12th and the 19th, I think.

• 41:53Rich Roll?

  So we're going, yeah, we're going to Rancho La Puerta.

• 41:56Julie Piatt?

  That's right.

• 41:57Rich Roll?

  And that is, hold on, I'm pulling up.

• 41:58Julie Piatt?

  I think it's the 12th to the 19th.

• 42:01Rich Roll?

  Yes.

• 42:01Julie Piatt?

  Of October.

• 42:02Rich Roll?

  In Mexico. That's like only like a week after I get back from Karachi.

• 42:08Julie Piatt?

  I know, I know. It's gonna be great.

• 42:10Rich Roll?

  And then you're going to play music in Austin.

• 42:14Julie Piatt?

  Yes.

• 42:14Rich Roll?

  Right after we get back from that.

• 42:16Julie Piatt?

  Yeah. So we've got a really busy October.

• 42:18Rich Roll?

  MeowCon?

• 42:19Julie Piatt?

  MeowCon.

• 42:20Rich Roll?

  What is that MeowCon?

• 42:22Julie Piatt?

  It's a women's music conference celebrating women artists in music. And I'm very honored to be invited to showcase there with the boys and also very excited because I want to show them Austin. So

• 42:36Rich Roll?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 42:37Julie Piatt?

  We're gonna have a little band road trip with me and Tyler and Trapper and check out Austin.

• 42:43Rich Roll?

  And I'm not invited to that, am I?

• 42:45Julie Piatt?

  Well, it just doesn't really work so well.

• 42:48Rich Roll?

  Come on, I'm the Ruben Kincaid manager.

• 42:50Julie Piatt?

  I have to be free to, you know, be the artist that I am.

• 42:53Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 42:53Julie Piatt?

  You know, when I'm playing, when I'm playing my gigs, I just, I have to be on my own.

• 42:58Rich Roll?

  That's so funny. I'm gonna remember that and use that on you.

• 43:01Julie Piatt?

  What do you mean?

• 43:02Rich Roll?

  I wanna go away.

• 43:02Julie Piatt?

  You're gone all the time anyway.

• 43:04Rich Roll?

  Yeah, but it's always like, I wish you could come instead of like, no, babe, you know, like, I really need to, I need to be alone.

• 43:10Julie Piatt?

  I need to be on my own.

• 43:11Rich Roll?

  I gotta ramble on, man.

• 43:13Julie Piatt?

  I'm a rambling man. No, sweetie, I would love for you to come and, you know, it'd be really cool if we could wrap in some, you know, plant powered situation there. So I'm open to it. If something comes up and you can come, that's great. And we'll have to get someone to to hang with the girls.

• 43:28Rich Roll?

  I'm probably still gonna be trying to deal with jet lag from Karachi like three weeks earlier.

• 43:34Julie Piatt?

  I know, I know. But anyway, so getting back to plant power, I mean, in the in the holidays. No. So. It's just for me, I would rather really plan the event and really work towards, you know, celebrating it that night and let it be one time, not let it be five times before the one time and then it's not new anymore. It's not fun. It's not unique. So, so anyway, I'm really excited. I've mentioned it to a few of the people that I'm inviting. They're also very inspired and I really believe that as a community, we can put something on that will be so extraordinary that the kids won't want to go trick or treat in a normal way anymore.

• 44:17Rich Roll?

  So, what, what day is Halloween?

• 44:20Julie Piatt?

  It's on a Thursday.

• 44:21Rich Roll?

  End of October, right?

• 44:21Julie Piatt?

  Yeah, 31st.

• 44:23Rich Roll?

  So I think it would be cool if people that are listening out there.

• 44:28Julie Piatt?

  Do it in your own town.

• 44:29Rich Roll?

  Yeah, maybe they want to do it.

• 44:31Julie Piatt?

  No, it would be great. And that's why I wanted to talk about it. And, and even though I couldn't get the whole infrastructure up, if you are inspired by this and you're in a place, and you know, we got to remember we're, we're broadcasting in countries all over the planet. So maybe there's some countries that don't celebrate Halloween. But if you're, you know, if you're in a place where, where you celebrate Halloween and you're inspired by this, I really, really encourage you to, you know, reach out to a few friends and see if you can create this a little bit different and take a lot of pictures and videos and let's share and let's start to connect a little bit over forming this.

• 45:08Rich Roll?

  Right. We should create a hashtag for it and people can Instagram their plant-powered Halloween photos.

• 45:15Julie Piatt?

  Okay, let's do it.

• 45:16Rich Roll?

  But, you know, there might be some people that might need a little guidance from you.

• 45:22Julie Piatt?

  Yeah, absolutely. How do I, how do I do that?

• 45:23Rich Roll?

  If there's people out there that are interested in doing something similar, because this will be the first year that we're doing it too. So it's not like we have all the answers. We're doing this as an experiment to see if we could do something really fun. That's a little bit different than what we're all used to. It's so easy to go on autopilot and like, oh, it's Valentine's Day. So I get the flowers and I get the, I get the chocolate and I get the car. I do the thing that I'm supposed to do that everybody else does and we're just like sheep. And you're great because you're always like, wait a minute, like. We don't have to do it that way. Nobody made a law. Like, let's look at this. Like, what do we do? Yeah, like, how can we make this cooler than what it is? And you're always like pushing the envelope and pushing and saying, I don't want to do that.

• 46:05Rich Roll?

  Like, let's move in this direction. So, but that's foreign for a lot of people. And it's uncomfortable and maybe even scary because it's like, well, my kids won't like that. Or they don't want to. So, anyway, I think that it would be good if people are interested in hosting something like that or doing something like that at their home or in their town or in their local park that night. You could use a, you know, community park, I suppose, or anything. Just find Julie on Twitter.

• 46:30Julie Piatt?

  Yeah.

• 46:31Rich Roll?

  At Chi Seed. Right.

• 46:33Julie Piatt?

  Yeah.

• 46:34Rich Roll?

  Or maybe you could write a blog post about how you are going to do it. And then people can put comments there and that could create a good little community forum for

• 46:42Julie Piatt?

  Okay.

• 46:42Rich Roll?

  some discussion about that.

• 46:44Julie Piatt?

  That's a great idea.

• 46:45Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 46:46Julie Piatt?

  I can commit to do that.

• 46:47Rich Roll?

  All right.

• 46:48Julie Piatt?

  I'll put that on my list.

• 46:49Rich Roll?

  But you better write that right now.

• 46:51Julie Piatt?

  Of 9,000 things to do, but I will. That's really cool. Well, it's kind of, you know, it's a little, it's a lot selfish of me and it's very personal to me. You know, it's something that I care deeply about, but it's kind of also my first sort of experiment in my belief that the community could, can really bring it, can really come together around the kids and really do something amazing. And so, this is something that I'm writing about in my book that I'm working on right now. And it has to do with what I believe is a, is a perfect solution to the need for a shift in education and community in our world. And that's based a lot in community and in families coming together.

• 47:36Julie Piatt?

  And instead of asking the question, well, what are you going to give me? You know, I paid this money. I looked at who you are and, you know, what am I getting? That you, you shift that whole way of perspective and you instead ask, what can I give? What could I bring to this? You know?

• 47:56Rich Roll?

  Service.

• 47:57Julie Piatt?

  Service, yeah. And, you know, we're all so talented and everybody's so amazing and every single person that you meet has so much to offer. And so I just know, like in my book, I talk, one of the models, one of the chapters is, you know, I just say for an experiment, you know, if you just took six or five of your children's friends, just five families that are friends of any of your kids or you, and you just listed the talents of both of those parents and the resources that that family have and what they could contribute to forming some kind of new shift, new paradigm education around

• 48:36Julie Piatt?

  a group of children, I guarantee you, it would be so inspiring and so life-changing for everyone.

• 48:44Rich Roll?

  I mean, assuming each kid has two parents, then to say, you have 10 people, let's, let's where, let's like figure out what everybody has that they can uniquely contribute to this equation, and then you have 10 people offering what they have to offer, and collectively together, your argument is that that will be, that will be more than what

• 49:05Julie Piatt?

  They can get in the educational system. Oh, it's without a doubt, and it's actually 12 people because my, you know, my golden number is six, so it's based around a hexagon structure for a reason, for the, the energy that that brings to a project, and also that that keeps enough momentum going so that if you have a family that's sick, or you have someone who travels, or someone, you know, kind of has to go out for a little bit, you still have enough momentum within the families that it keeps it all going. So I'm talking about starting a small community, I'm not talking about, you know, the hippie ashram where, you know, you lived together and everybody

• 49:42Rich Roll?

  Yeah, are you talking about people living together?

• 49:44Julie Piatt?

  No, no, no, no.

• 49:44Rich Roll?

  Why don't you back it up and like, kind of, just in really general terms, explain

• 49:48Julie Piatt?

  Yeah, I'm just talking, one of the chapters in my book is, you know, I'm, I'm a homeschooling mom, and I've been very passionate and very vocal about talking about how I feel like it's not happening in the standardized educational system, and I'm a huge Fan of Sir Ken Robinson, as you can imagine, and if you haven't watched his TED Talks, please do watch his TED Talks. I think his are the most downloaded TED Talks to date. And he talks about the need for creativity and creativity in education, preserving creativity within our children, within ourselves, and how this is actually going to be what is

• 50:30Julie Piatt?

  the catalyst that gives us, you know, information that will lift us out of some very, very severe problems that we're all facing right now. And being a homeschooling mom, and I'm really, I'm really an unschooling mom, and you know, I've really pushed the boundaries with you in our marriage and our family because you come from a very amazing, you know, Ivy League education. But, you know, the girls that we had together, they didn't fit in the educational system. And so when they arrived, I had to throw out everything that I thought I knew as a mother, and I had to begin again, and I had to start looking for other ways. And

• 51:10Julie Piatt?

  in my experience, leaving them to their own cadence and their own sort of rhythm in finding out who they are and supporting them and really preserving their self-esteem has been my really primary focus up until this point.

• 51:33Rich Roll?

  Right. And so when you say, just when you say like, these girls just didn't work within the current school system, I mean, what are you saying?

• 51:40Julie Piatt?

  I just feel-

• 51:41Rich Roll?

  I mean, I can round the corners out, but I wanted you to articulate where you're coming from with that.

• 51:46Julie Piatt?

  Well, I mean, it's a, it's a large, it's a, it's a very, very profound, large story, and it's in my book, and I don't want to go into the detail here. But I mean, I would just say that, you know, when Mathis was born, you know, her, she just doesn't fit into anybody's mold. It was like, you know, I had never seen anything like her or experienced anything like her. So she's not somebody that's going to sit in a chair all day. She stayed up to mid, you know, late, late, like midnight as a toddler.

• 52:17Rich Roll?

  The girl just won't go to bed. And that, I mean, that started from day one of her being alive. And we tried everything to get her to go to sleep at a reasonable hour our entire life. And I can't tell you how many times I had to get in the car at- Midnight after trying to get her to go to sleep for four hours when she's two years old and her just not going to bed and having to get in the car and drive, go to the freeway and drive on the freeway to get the vibration of the car to like get her to fall asleep. And, and being, and literally sometimes I would drive for like an hour and a half.

• 52:52Julie Piatt?

  Each way.

• 52:53Rich Roll?

  To get her to go to bed. And I was like, no matter what we did, we couldn't get her to go to sleep before 1 a.m. At one point, you were starting the process of getting her to try to get ready for bed like around 5.

• 53:04Julie Piatt?

  I tried, well, I tried.

• 53:05Rich Roll?

  With like the bath. And then you had like 20 things that you were trying to do to like get her into a space where she would be able to go to bed by 9 o'clock or something?

• 53:13Julie Piatt?

  Yeah, she's very, very, very, um, very sensitive and she has a lot of energy and a lot of, um, channels going on simultaneously. And so this made her extremely sensitive in crowds, sensitive to individuals even stopping by our house to like visit and even more just really, really problematic for her to be in a room of 30 kids, you know, for, at, at a certain time, sitting at a desk, doing a certain activity. And, um, you know, she just processes energy very differently than most people. And so for her, um, she needed to be in, around me a lot and also in nature and also the diet really affected her moods

• 53:57Julie Piatt?

  and how she was. And so at one point, you know, I was like, all right, well, you know, I can handle this. And I, you know, got some, uh, you know, essential oils for calming. I got some music and I got like a waterfall and I like re outfitted her room. I re outfitted different rooms in the house a bunch of times, like probably eight different scenarios, you know, going, this is going to be the time that she gets settled. And I think I finally, she was going to bed at like 11:45 or something like that. And so.

• 54:25Rich Roll?

  And our whole family is being held hostage, like especially like I'm trying to train for Ultraman. And it's like, I need to go to bed at like nine. And I'm like, I can't go to bed until like 11:30 or midnight because we can't get Mathis to go to bed.

• 54:37Julie Piatt?

  We'll just leave our two-year-old up. I was like, okay, we're going to bed.

• 54:40Rich Roll?

  Yeah, three, four. I mean, it just kept going on. But like, she was holding us hostage, like, I have to stay awake because our daughter won't go to bed. Like, it's supposed to be, what? I was like, can't we just be those parents whose kids go to bed at eight? And then they go, oh, the kids are down. Now we can watch a movie. And I'm like, that never, ever happened.

• 54:57Julie Piatt?

  Yeah, but, and, and so, uh, what I found is if I started at five, and if I did all these processes with her, and you know, after 14 books and just, you know, really like getting, I could get her to fall asleep at 10:45. But I was like, it's exhausting.

• 55:13Rich Roll?

  Six hours every, every afternoon to get her to go to sleep? Yeah. So, so essentially what we're talking about is trying to jam a square peg into a round hole. And, and extrapolating that out to the school system, we had had her in a variety of schools. And, and every time, you know, within a matter of days to weeks, and in some cases, months, it became clear that this was not like, and it wasn't working for her. Not because the institution was bad, or there was anything wrong with the teacher, or the other kids, or anything like that. It was just, this is not fitting for her. This is not, it's not in our best interest. It's not in her best interest for us to keep her there. And it wasn't like, you're this person who wanted to be a homeschooler her whole life, or an educator.

• 55:55Rich Roll?

  It was that, it was sort of this exasperated moment of going, I think we're gonna have to homeschool this child. Like, what else are we gonna do? We've tried everything.

• 56:04Julie Piatt?

  No, she required it of me. And, you know, I say in my book, and, you know, always, Mathis has required more of me than any single individual that I've ever met in my entire life.

• 56:14Rich Roll?

  And we have four kids. If you're new to the show, it's like, this is our, this is our nine-year-old. She's our second youngest. And the two older boys who are 18 and 16 now, very, you know, function very well in the sort of paradigm school system. And they're doing something different now. They're doing a hybrid homeschool program. But they, their earlier years, they were in the traditional school system.

• 56:35Julie Piatt?

  But I mean, this is-

• 56:35Rich Roll?

  So it wasn't until Mathis that it really pushed all these buttons and made us look at this system. Look at what's broken about it, what's working, what's not working in, in, uh- You know, in the context of this particular individual.

• 56:51Julie Piatt?

  Yeah, but the thing is, is I find increasingly, um, almost everywhere I go, I meet a mother or a family or a parent who has one family member, one child, who is not plugging into the system and they're completely, you know, strung out. Like they're, they don't know why, they don't know what to do, they're trying this, they're trying that, they're trying all these things. So again, it's like-

• 57:13Rich Roll?

  And people are, you know, a lot, they're two, you know, mother and father both are, you know, parents working and it's like, we don't have time to homeschool. Like, you know, yeah, we're not, like, I don't know if this is working, but what else, what are our options?

• 57:25Julie Piatt?

  Yeah. And so, anyway, so this is a, a, a model that I'm passionate about. I've been successful, um, homeschooling with two other families. I had three families for a one-year period and it was the most support I've ever had in 18 years of being a mother. It was extraordinary. So we had seven kids, ages four to 13, and a rescue puppy. And, um, you know, a lot of stuff's done online as well at home, but you, you know, you have this community and the kids were very bonded and they'd have, you know, whole school sleepovers and all this kind of stuff. So, anyway, I really feel that we are the ones we've been waiting for. The answer, um, lies within us, within our families, within the parents. And I have great faith and trust in mothers and fathers and families

• 58:09Julie Piatt?

  to be able to come up with a new system that sort of fits everybody. And at one point, um, you know, I have a lot of friends who have autistic children, or I would say diagnosed autistic children at different levels on the spectrum. And I think probably many of you now know somebody who has some child who's been diagnosed with one of these ADHD or autistic, you know, uh, diagnoses. But, um, uh, at the beginning, I have a great capacity to understand these energies and these children. Um, and at the beginning, I was thinking, well, maybe I'm gonna do a, like a school for autistic kids. Um, but when I looked at it more closely,

• 58:53Julie Piatt?

  um, what we're looking for is a full-spectrum community experience. So we're, we're accepting and embracing the whole, um-

• 59:03Julie Piatt?

  Sort of the whole diversity of that, all ages, all spectrums, all varieties, to actually come together and share in creating something that works for everybody.

• 59:14Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm. And when you say, uh, when you say, uh, this system, like, what is the protocol? You know what I mean? Like, you, you, you mentioned unschooling earlier. And, uh, you, you know, you said, like, with this system that we have set up. So, explain a little bit more about what that is.

• 59:35Julie Piatt?

  So, the system that we're, that we're aspiring to create, or that we're in the process of creating, or the one that exists that we're not participating in?

• 59:41Rich Roll?

  Well, wherever you would like to begin.

• 59:43Julie Piatt?

  Well, I mean, it's really, for me, again, the only, um, sort of goal or, or, um, calling that I really have at the core is to preserve the self-esteem of every individual. So, I am, I am coming to the table saying that I don't know. And I believe that some of these children that are wired differently are coming in with new information for us. And if we're not careful, we, we're going to miss the gift. We're gonna miss that message because we're gonna try to shove them into a system because we were told, it's just the norm, that's what we were doing. And I mean, Sir Ken Robinson talks about it as that the school system's set up for, like, the industrialized age. And, you know, it's in a, like, factory mentality.

• 1:00:28Julie Piatt?

  And basically, the system is serving, it's, um, producing educators, you know? But no one asks the children, "Do you want to be an educator?" And now, we're going farther, like, out of high school and into college. And, you know, we don't even know if that's even a prudent choice. Like, should a child be, should we be expecting a child to go into college to take on hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of debt when we don't have a job for them, you know, by the time they get out?

• 1:00:55Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:00:56Julie Piatt?

  What we're saying is, what I'm saying is, let's become more involved. Let's bring our children close. And of course, that's impossible if you're trying to work in this world that we live in and doing it all on your own. But if you had five other families that were doing this together with you, you would have that support. So, you know, families of autistic kids, you know, it's hard enough to get anybody to help you out to watch any child. But think about a family with an autistic child. You know, do you think they ever get help from anybody? They say, hey, I'll take, you know, I'll take your son, I'll take your daughter. No, they won't do that.

• 1:01:35Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:01:36Julie Piatt?

  But in this community, because it's natural and it's spontaneous, it's not, it's, it's no problem. It's all easy to, to, to support.

• 1:01:45Rich Roll?

  Well, not to mention the fact that with technology, the way that it is now, the resources, the educational resources that are readily available to everybody is extraordinary. I mean, you can like take Stanford University courses, you know, you can listen to them, you can listen to Stanford lectures on your iPad or iPod, you know, through iTunes, through iTunes U. And with all the, you know, video content that's available, it's pretty remarkable. And I think in terms of the paradigm of, of education and higher education being a product of the industrialized age, you know, our economy is so different now. And not to say that there isn't tremendous value

• 1:02:26Rich Roll?

  in a liberal arts education, of which I am, you know, somebody, I have that. You know, we are becoming increasingly specialized and technology focused in terms of how our economy functions, right? So, you know, somebody who really understands how to use Final Cut Pro software, you know, is somebody who can make a living, you know, if they're good at it. And And somebody who has a degree in English from a college might not be able to find a job. You know what I mean? And, and the debt thing is really the big thing. It's like you're, you know, you're going to go undertake four years of study and, and put yourself

• 1:03:07Rich Roll?

  in this unbelievable financial hole in a time of great economic uncertainty. And a lot of people, myself included, you go to college, you don't know what you want to be. So it's not like you go in very directed. Like, this is what I'm going to be. I mean, some people have that and I'm jealous of those people, but most people don't. And you kind of get the higher education and then you start to figure out what you want. And yet you're faced with having to repay this enormous amount of debt, which forces you to take a job you probably don't want and, and really kind of shackle yourself to some kind of indentured servitude for the next 10 years where your freedom is being impaired because you can't pursue what it is that you would actually really like to do.

• 1:03:49Julie Piatt?

  Right, and that negative energy of that debt.

• 1:03:51Rich Roll?

  Or just holding that. Yeah, just having that, having that.

• 1:03:54Julie Piatt?

  In your life.

• 1:03:54Rich Roll?

  Hangover you is, you know, is that really what, what, you know, a young person should have to deal with?

• 1:04:02Julie Piatt?

  That's right. And I mean, I would also ask the question, why do you?

• 1:04:05Rich Roll?

  And I'm asking the question, I'm not saying I have the answer. I'm posing the question.

• 1:04:08Julie Piatt?

  Of course, yeah.

• 1:04:18Julie Piatt?

  The other question is, that I have is, why do you think it is that so many people don't know what they want to do by the time they get out of, how many years of education? 12 years or something?

• 1:04:27Rich Roll?

  Yeah, well, that's the ultimate question. Yeah, because nobody, because they're never, they're never, they're never put in a position where that's a priority to ask of themselves. And school never asks you to ask yourself that question.

• 1:04:39Julie Piatt?

  Right.

• 1:04:39Rich Roll?

  You go to school and they say, sit down and we're going to tell you what to do. Open your book, here's what we're doing. Not once do they say, hey, what do you think that you'd be interested in doing? Oh, really that? Well, let's, let's figure out how we can support that. Let's create some curriculum around what it is that you're naturally gravitating towards and support that. And that's what homeschooling is about. And in particular, that's what the unschooling method of homeschooling is. So for somebody who's not familiar with that, why don't you? Elaborate a little bit on the unschooling method.

• 1:05:12Julie Piatt?

  Well, unschooling, you know, unschooling for me, I mean, in just a phrase is just going with the flow. It's living life instead of preparing to live life or talking about living life. It's living life. It's actually being in the moment. And so you, with a shift in awareness, you can take every single thing you're doing and use that as an opportunity to dig a little bit deeper or learn or, you know, expand in different ways. So for me, I mean, you know, it's very, it's very natural. It's very zen and it's very, probably really frightening to, you know, someone who hasn't considered that they possibly have a choice of not, of

• 1:05:52Julie Piatt?

  not subscribing to the standardized school, you know, protocol. But I think one of the amazing things recently is that you came across that blog by Leo.

• 1:06:03Rich Roll?

  Right. Well, yeah, let me back up. I want to talk about that in a second, but just to back up, like, I'm a product of America's finest education, right? I went to a private boys' school in Washington DC where I had to wear a coat and tie from seventh grade to 12th grade. Then I went to Stanford University and then I went to Cornell Law School. So I am a product of that type of schooling. And that has, you know, I have mixed feelings about it. In one regard, like, I'm very proud of that. And I feel like I learned a tremendous amount. Like, I certainly wouldn't have been able to write the book that I wrote without having the sort of education about how to write that I learned in college and law school.

• 1:06:46Rich Roll?

  So, you know, like, it was very, in certain respects, very valuable to me. And it was also very unhealthy for me. You know what I mean? And I think that's a function of not having a good relationship with myself, never asking myself the question, what do I want out of life? Or what do I want to be? And just kind of doing what I was supposed to do to, you know, get ahead in the world, you know, go to the best school and all that kind of stuff. But-

• 1:07:15Rich Roll?

  You know, we gravitate towards what we know and that's what I know. And so anything outside of that is very scary for me.

• 1:07:24Julie Piatt?

  Right.

• 1:07:24Rich Roll?

  So when you start, when you started to talk to me.

• 1:07:28Julie Piatt?

  Are you scared right now?

• 1:07:29Rich Roll?

  Well, no, but I'm, I'm, I want to share honestly about my process with this because I think it's something that people who are interested in this might be able to identify with. And it's this. So when you first said, you know, we're, I really want to consider homeschooling as an option. Like my immediate reaction to that was like abject terror. I'm like, absolutely not. Like, I'm not going to be the dad who screws up the kid because I had, you know, a hair up my ass and wanted to do something different, you know? And I, I would flash to the idea of the child in the therapist's chair 20 years from now saying, my dad ruined my life because he pulled me out of school or whatever it is.

• 1:08:09Rich Roll?

  And, uh, but slowly the idea started to grow on me as we, you know, kept pulling Mathis out of this school and putting her into that school. And, you know, Mathis was, is sort of this, you know, unique child and she would dress up in a costume every morning. She's sort of like this Betty Johnson crazy, you know, fashion designer outfit. And, and then she'd go to school and she'd get made fun of and she'd come home and every day her spirits would sink a little bit further. And it was like that, that gumption and that kind of creativity and that like spirit, like a, like an untamed wild horse that she is. Like there's something really precious and beautiful about that, that you want to foster

• 1:08:53Rich Roll?

  in your child and you want to support and you, and you want to say, you go girl. Like, you know, you have a spine and you have a perspective and you have a spirit inside of you and I want to, I, my job as a parent is to fertilize that soil and let that flower blossom, right? And, and as we would see her come home from school and it was like. You know, another dead leaf on the vine and it's, it was very painful. And that was a big thing for me to see because that was my experience in junior high school and in high school. I did not have a good experience socially and it made me withdraw socially. And I think maybe, you know, like, I don't know why I became an alcoholic, but it wouldn't surprise

• 1:09:34Rich Roll?

  me if that was a contributing factor of me feeling like out of place and disconnected and all of that. And it was seeing that that made me go, we have to do something different to be of service to this child. And that opened up my eyes to the possibility of doing something different. Now, it's still scary for me, like, are, you know, and especially the, the unschooling method because it's, I function very well with structure. I want to know what my schedule is. I want to know what I'm doing every hour of the day. And when I know that, it creates a sense of safety for me. And, you know, maybe that's my own insecurities or whatever it is, but, but that's just how I'm wired and you're not wired that way. You're like, we're doing whatever, you know? I'm like, that doesn't work for me.

• 1:10:16Rich Roll?

  And so the unschooling method is kind of more in your. It's natural. Yeah, it's very like, well, we're going to see what happens today. And I'm like, what is that about? Like, how does that work? You know, like, I don't understand. And, and, but, but really, I think the fundamental principle that underlies it, that gives me a sense of peace and comfort and, and is actually exciting is this idea that we're letting the child see what they're interested in. And so when the child says, you know what, like, I'm really into like King Tut or, you know, I want to learn about the Greek gods or whatever, when they are the ones making the decision and then you jump in as the homeschooling parent and say, all right, let's, let's get into action on that. And you go to the library and you get all the books and you get documentaries and, you

• 1:11:01Rich Roll?

  know, maybe you even get fun stuff like comic books or you schedule a trip to a museum where they're having an exhibit on that. And you just take it to the nth degree, all the way to the wall in terms of what they're able to handle at their age and aptitude level, until you've explored it as fully as you possibly can, which is an absolute abject direct.

• 1:11:24Rich Roll?

  Opposition to standard education, which is, which is basically skim the surface, take a test and move on because we've got to get on to the next thing.

• 1:11:32Julie Piatt?

  Memorize.

• 1:11:33Rich Roll?

  And you never go deep into anything and then, and then you don't remember any of it because you didn't spend enough time really pondering any of it or thinking about it. You just read the book until you kind of understood it, you memorized what you needed to memorize, you took the test and then that's history and you're on to the next thing.

• 1:11:51Julie Piatt?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:11:52Rich Roll?

  Right? And so this is, let's ruminate in this for a while. Now, you know, in a typical school system, like one thing leads to the next.

• 1:12:02Julie Piatt?

  Right.

• 1:12:02Rich Roll?

  And this is much more disjointed.

• 1:12:04Julie Piatt?

  Yes.

• 1:12:04Rich Roll?

  And I'm like, well, are we missing something? You know what I mean? Like, you know, for me, it's like, well, we still have to make, you know, you don't just naturally learn how to read and learn grammar and learn math. Like you, you have to be, you have to have instruction on that and you have to, you know, apply, you have to, you have to do the problem sets and you have to, you know, practice your grammar in order to be able to turn that into something that's rote. Right?

• 1:12:29Julie Piatt?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:12:29Rich Roll?

  So I still want to, you know, it's like my thing is I want to make sure that we're doing all of that.

• 1:12:34Julie Piatt?

  Right.

• 1:12:35Rich Roll?

  But I love the idea of letting the child have more domain over the direction of their education and that not only fosters the self-confidence, but it creates a sense of personal direction that I think will lead to answering that question, like what, what do I want my life to be about? Like it'll give a child a strong sense of where they're headed in their life and that's something that I think is missing in the other system.

• 1:13:05Julie Piatt?

  Right. And well, what I think is also inherent in this process is it teaches the children or allows the children to be self-regulating, self-responsible and they become, they take ownership of that much quicker. And I also think it preserves self-esteem, you know, because it's just, it's all about supporting and because I'm.

• 1:13:29Rich Roll?

  Give an example of the self-regulating thing though, a little bit.

• 1:13:32Julie Piatt?

  Can you, you know what I mean? Well, I mean, you know, it's funny, you're sitting, you're talking about Greek mythologies. Like Mathis has been on this like already for like months and months. Like she just keeps going to deeper levels and deeper levels and deeper levels. And sometimes I have like the inclination to go, no, like you already studied that. But she's not done with it and you know, Greek mythology is like huge. Like you could go, you could go forever. And then she was studying Joan of Arc, maybe, I don't know, six months ago or something. And we were also learning French. We got some audio French tapes and it started in on Kauai when we were all driving around and everybody was kind of learning French together. And I lived in France in college and speak French. And anyway, so it was really, it was really fun.

• 1:14:16Julie Piatt?

  And then she wanted to learn about Joan of Arc, but she came, she went to the library and she came to me with probably six texts that were all at different levels. And one of them was like a, like a, you know, a scholarly, you know, Right, written by a PhD. Yeah. And I, and again, I started to go into a pattern and go, well, Mathis, this isn't. And she wanted all those books. So you know what we did? We took all those books and we read, we didn't read them all cover to cover, but we read as much as she wanted to within each one, compared information between all of them. You know, and then, you know, she was pretty complete with it for a, for a little bit. But you know, I guess I just, I don't really worry about it because if she wants to pick it back up, she can and she can go deeper into that.

• 1:15:00Julie Piatt?

  And then, you know, the spontaneity of life provides all kinds of other, other, you know, opportunities. Right. And so, you know, we found a barn owl, you know, who had died on the side of the road. And, you know, we actually harvested it and took it back to the house and, you know, studied it. So that was like very, you know, science oriented. Right. So anyway, there's just a lot of, there's a lot of opportunities in life every single day, everywhere you look. Mm hmm. You know, I think it's also important for the listeners to understand that I also am a college graduate.

• 1:15:38Rich Roll?

  Yes.

• 1:15:39Julie Piatt?

  So we only talk about your Ivy League education as if my education-

• 1:15:43Rich Roll?

  But you're the, but you, you are very directed in this, like you don't question anything that we're doing. And so I'm the one who like is the one going, wait a minute.

• 1:15:51Julie Piatt?

  I know, but let's just, let's just say, so I have a degree in marketing, international marketing with a minor in French. And then I also have a degree in fashion design.

• 1:16:01Rich Roll?

  Yes, you texted me your, your magna cum laude diploma the other day, just in case I forgot.

• 1:16:06Julie Piatt?

  No.

• 1:16:07Rich Roll?

  You're a magna cum laude graduate of Fidem.

• 1:16:10Julie Piatt?

  I don't even, I don't even, don't make, don't make fun of it. Look at you're there on your high Ivy League course.

• 1:16:16Rich Roll?

  I know, you're right. Yeah.

• 1:16:16Julie Piatt?

  Like you're, like suddenly you're better.

• 1:16:18Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:16:18Julie Piatt?

  It's, it's, it's all ego driven. I mean, I was a professional. I was working in the garment business.

• 1:16:23Rich Roll?

  Yeah, you had a fashion line.

• 1:16:24Julie Piatt?

  No, I, I took that program. Okay. I was so psyched because I knew everything I wanted out of any one of those professors and all the kids would leave and I would stay after and I would ask them every single thing. Found out very shortly, they didn't know all that much. I knew a lot more than they knew. Cause I was a sales manager in selling wholesale clothes and I literally came out of that. I went, I rented a studio for 300 bucks and I cut and sewed my first fashion line, 11 pieces, went to I. Magnin and sold my first order, like in, in a snap of a finger. So I'm not like, I'm not like this hippie chick that has never worked or that never had a business.

• 1:17:06Rich Roll?

  I know that, but tell people on the podcast.

• 1:17:09Julie Piatt?

  Tell people, people on the podcast.

• 1:17:10Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:11Julie Piatt?

  No. So, no.

• 1:17:12Rich Roll?

  You had a big fashion line, right? Julie Pike Collections. You were in all the stores, right?

• 1:17:17Julie Piatt?

  I was in, I was in-

• 1:17:17Rich Roll?

  You were in Bloomingdale's.

• 1:17:18Julie Piatt?

  Barney's, Macy's, Fred Segal, Nordstrom, Neiman Marcus, like every, every single store. I had a, I was in Women's Wear Daily. I had fashion shows. I had a hundred piece collection. And I, you know, was very, very involved. I mean, I was a, I was a fashion designer, was working 24/7 and gave birth to my two boys during this whole period of my life. And, and, you know, it was crazy and great and I loved it and it was creative and it almost killed me. It was like literally so much energy. So then I went from that to I built two homes. I built a very large home in Malibu before this home and then I built this, this home.

• 1:17:59Julie Piatt?

  And when I say built, it means I managed the construction and I did every like design detail. And for me, it was a very calm existence because I was used to having thousands of garments that were being sewn. And then like if you got the left sleeve sewn to the right, like that's a big problem.

• 1:18:17Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:18:17Julie Piatt?

  Or if you get fabric in and there's a damage and you have a deadline and the stores don't extend, like you can literally go out of business in one, you know, one snap of the finger. So it's a very, very high pressure business. So for me, building homes was very mellow. It was like, oh, it's just one truck. It's one concrete pour. It's one house. You know, it was actually a little boring for me after I had been through that. So anyway, what I mean to say is it's not like, you know, I am a very active person. I'm very involved and very entrepreneurial and I expect a lot of myself. And I, I wouldn't say I expect a lot of my kids, but I, I celebrate a lot in them. And so when my perspective

• 1:19:02Julie Piatt?

  is, you know, when you say you want to schedule because you want to know what you're doing, and I get that. And sometimes schedule is really important because you have to show up to certain things on time. Or, you know, if you have a deadline, you have a deadline. But from a maybe more expanded place, which has been our experience into Plant Power and into you becoming Ultraman. None of these things that you've achieved in your life, which give me so much joy to see you, you realize yourself at this level, you didn't have any of this written down on your schedule.

• 1:19:37Rich Roll?

  No.

• 1:19:37Julie Piatt?

  Not a one thing. You never dreamed this.

• 1:19:39Rich Roll?

  No, there's no, you know, sitting here doing this right now would have meant something I could have never logically predicted in a million years, you know, five years ago. And it wasn't because I followed a program or a plan. I mean, my performance at Ultraman was a result of adhering to a schedule.

• 1:19:56Julie Piatt?

  Of course.

• 1:19:56Rich Roll?

  That was directing me towards a goal that I had. But I think in the bigger picture of, you know, where's your life going? I think you have to be malleable and flexible to the unpredictable magnificent. Because, you know, certainly my life is, I mean, I would have never imagined that this is what our, my life would be like.

• 1:20:18Julie Piatt?

  No.

• 1:20:19Rich Roll?

  And yet, I couldn't be happier. It's amazing. But it was a result of being open and, and sort of.

• 1:20:26Julie Piatt?

  Following your heart.

• 1:20:26Rich Roll?

  Yeah, like sort of developing a greater relationship with myself and learning how to trust my instincts and, and, you know, follow those breadcrumbs when there was nothing to go on other than blind faith.

• 1:20:39Julie Piatt?

  Taking risks.

• 1:20:40Rich Roll?

  That it would lead me somewhere, I don't know where, and taking a tremendous amount of risk, right? But that only happens when you really do have a grounded sense of who you are and what's driving you, right?

• 1:20:53Julie Piatt?

  But I think.

• 1:20:53Rich Roll?

  And so the unschooling method is about developing that at a young age.

• 1:20:56Julie Piatt?

  It is, but I would say, I wouldn't, I would go one step, sort of one click beyond that. And I would say that you, you didn't really have a full sense of who you were. You had some inklings and you had some pointers around that. But it was when you committed to your heart and you committed to pursue the breadcrumbs with abandon, with courage, and taking a lot of risks, that the universe then provided you with the authentic design of yourself. And it far surpassed anything you would have written for yourself.

• 1:21:34Julie Piatt?

  So what I'm saying is, unschooling is about not making the schedule so rigid that you miss the miracle and the gift that is waiting there for you.

• 1:21:47Rich Roll?

  I'm with you for that.

• 1:21:48Julie Piatt?

  So.

• 1:21:49Rich Roll?

  There you go.

• 1:21:50Julie Piatt?

  It's amazing.

• 1:21:52Rich Roll?

  Yeah, just to hearken back to what you said earlier, you had mentioned that I was getting comfort from a new website. So, and that's true. There's a guy called Leo Babauta. I don't know how you sell his-

• 1:22:07Julie Piatt?

  I know, it's a little hard to pronounce.

• 1:22:08Rich Roll?

  I don't know how you sell, pronounce his last name. I think it's Babauta or Babauta. But he has a wildly popular blog on the internet called Zen Habits, and maybe you're familiar with it, maybe you're not. But it's a very high-traffic blog, very popular, in which he dispenses incredible wisdom. And I've been a fan of his site for some time. He's also a, he's a vegan, and he's a runner, and he has six kids. And he's been homeschooling those children. I can't remember how many, not, not all of them-

• 1:22:43Julie Piatt?

  I think he has four kids.

• 1:22:44Rich Roll?

  Four kids, but I thought-

• 1:22:45Julie Piatt?

  Not all, it's kind of similar to us.

• 1:22:46Rich Roll?

  Two, yeah, two of them are older and gone, I think, and in college or something like that.

• 1:22:50Julie Piatt?

  And then two are the younger, yeah.

• 1:22:51Rich Roll?

  I don't know, I don't know the specifics of it.

• 1:22:52Julie Piatt?

  It's a blended family.

• 1:22:54Rich Roll?

  Yeah, so, and, and he's teaching these children. They're, they're homeschooling, him and his wife are homeschooling these kids on the unschooling method. And, and I was aware of that, but then recently, he'd launched a new blog called Unschoolery. Unschoolery, E-R-Y.

• 1:23:10Julie Piatt?

  Thanks, Leo.

• 1:23:11Rich Roll?

  Yeah, thank you very much. And, and this site, and on this site, it's a very, like Zen Habits, it's very minimal. There's no ads. It's all just, it's a white page with text. That's it. There's nothing distracting on it. And he posts his insights and experience from unschooling his kids. And he encourages others to do the same. So it's really, I mean, he's sort of setting the stage and leading the charge. He's like the team captain. But the whole idea is that other people that are doing this, or experimenting with this, or who are interested in this, can also post. And a community kind of is starting to crop

• 1:23:54Rich Roll?

  up around this. And, and I have like my, the preferences set up for this site that every time he posts a new thing, I get an email, and I can, I can just read it wherever I am. And, and it's been very helpful to me to know that somebody- Who I find to be a very evolved human being and who is very intelligent and insightful to be committed to this and to be willing to share his experiences and it's made me feel a lot better about

• 1:24:22Julie Piatt?

  Yeah, really.

• 1:24:23Rich Roll?

  This choice. It's been a huge comfort to me. So, thank you, Leo.

• 1:24:26Julie Piatt?

  And almost, it seems like the questions that were coming up for you and we were sort of in some critical points with the older boys deciding things and it would seem like, and not only that, sometimes he posts like twice a day.

• 1:24:36Rich Roll?

  Right, yeah, it's quite a bit of, you know, quite a bit of new content going up on this all the time.

• 1:24:40Julie Piatt?

  So, we would inevitably get something from him and, you know, it's like, it's like the words are coming out of my mouth. It's, he's, he's very, very mind.

• 1:24:48Rich Roll?

  I think you're happy because he's, he's parroting like what you're thinking and you know that if I read it from him, that I'm more likely to believe it than if you say it to me, right?

• 1:24:57Julie Piatt?

  I'm like, "Look, look what Leo said, Rich."

• 1:25:00Rich Roll?

  Right. So, anyway, so this is not to say that we have it all figured out and we have the ultimate answers. We are figuring this out as we go.

• 1:25:07Julie Piatt?

  Absolutely.

• 1:25:08Rich Roll?

  And, you know, we're making mistakes and we're succeeding and we're doing all of this and it's, it's, you know, it's a big mishmash kind of thing, but it's a wonderful experience and I can say that I have seen the difference in our kids and I see a certain, you know, light in them that makes me feel like, maybe I'm not a horrible dad.

• 1:25:34Julie Piatt?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:34Rich Roll?

  You know what I mean?

• 1:25:35Julie Piatt?

  Maybe you're not.

• 1:25:36Rich Roll?

  Maybe, just maybe.

• 1:25:38Julie Piatt?

  Just maybe.

• 1:25:38Rich Roll?

  I'm not the worst dad.

• 1:25:40Julie Piatt?

  Oh, you need to like reformat that. I need to like

• 1:25:43Rich Roll?

  Well, no, what I was gonna say was, well, I didn't, I don't want to be self-congratulatory and I don't want to say that our kids are any better than any other kids. I just wanted to say that it made me feel good, like I feel like I can see positive results of this happening, which, which is putting my mind at ease that maybe I'm not, you know, committing some

• 1:26:03Julie Piatt?

  Thank you.

• 1:26:04Rich Roll?

  Error. That's all.

• 1:26:05Julie Piatt?

  Well, you know, it's all

• 1:26:07Rich Roll?

  But it's, it is still, it's so different from my experience that it's, it's, listen, we're wired from the day we're born, like this is what you do. You go up and you go to preschool and you go to kindergarten, then you go to this school and then you go to that school and it's like I didn't know anyone in my whole life that said, "Yeah, you know what? I'm not gonna do that. I'm gonna go over here and do this." Like, what? Like, I've never heard that in my life. So forgive me if I, if I say, "Hey, wait a second. Let's really talk about and think about this. This is like scary. This is like so uncharted. This is so off the reservation." And these are our children's lives we're talking about. Is there anything more important?

• 1:26:41Julie Piatt?

  No.

• 1:26:42Rich Roll?

  And I know your response is, "No, there is nothing more important. That's why I'm doing this." So.

• 1:26:48Julie Piatt?

  And you know, I mean, right now, so, so just a sort of update. So Mathis is extremely well and happy and doing amazingly, brilliantly in her life. And now she really is in need of some structure, you know? And now, you know, she's, you know, has some, some teachers coming in to show her, you know, some technique and stuff like that. But as an artist, I'm just really glad that, I really feel strongly after just seeing my, my own experience with my girls, is that the longer you can leave them kind of free when they're younger is really valuable.

• 1:27:30Julie Piatt?

  And then at maybe age nine, depending on the child, maybe 10, maybe eight, maybe seven for some, then come in with, you know, tools to support and, you know, give them some structure for their energy. But I am proud and happy for Mathis that she has so much courage and a real sense of who she is. And I think that that will serve her beyond any course or any class that she ever takes.

• 1:28:09Rich Roll?

  And I think that it's important. To kind of have a dialogue about this idea of letting kids be kids and giving them like a wider berth to, you know, have fun and play, you know, and I think that, you know, now it's, it's, it's like kids, especially in like these private schools and things like, I mean, in Los Angeles, it's so competitive with the private schools. I know it's like that in a lot of places. It certainly was in Washington DC where I grew up and I'm sure it is all over the place, but you know, these kids that are in like first grade and second grade and they're coming home and then they're having like an hour or two of homework. And you know, when you're at that age and you go to school from nine to three or whatever

• 1:28:53Rich Roll?

  it is, like that's enough, you know, that's enough classroom stuff, like let the kid be a kid, you know, why are we trying to deprive them of that already at that age? And I think that allowing them, yeah, the kind of, you know, that doesn't mean, I'm not talking about playing video games. I mean, you know, letting children engage their imagination, whether it's outdoors or painting or whatever it is, even if they're playing alone with their, you know, matchbooks, matchbox cars or something like that to just be, you know, and, and, and let them have that experience of wonderment that we're all,

• 1:29:35Rich Roll?

  we're all sort of robbed of too early as it is, you know what I mean? Like we could all use a little more childlike behavior in our lives. Like, why are we trying to get rid of that so young?

• 1:29:45Julie Piatt?

  Well, and also is something that I write about in my book and, and, you know, we've had the profound experience of, of having experienced, you know, death and passing of loved ones and friends and families at different ages in our life, you know, some very young and some older, but very close relationships. And, you know, we have this sort of future oriented view with our kids, like, you know, we're going to make our kids do this and then they're going to, then they're going to finish school and then they're going to go to college and then they're, you know, then in the future, they're going to be able to live the life that they want to live. And that assumes that we know what

• 1:30:28Julie Piatt?

  the timeline lifespan is of that individual. So.

• 1:30:33Julie Piatt?

  You know, you gotta understand that your kids deserve to be living their life today. Not, you know, in some trajectory that's not even self-designed to be somebody they don't even know if they want to be in the future. And we have to ask ourselves if we found out, like if one of my children wanted to do something and I didn't allow them to do it, and I forced them to go a different path, and let's just say that they didn't live to be old, or they, you know, didn't live past college, I would not be okay with that. I want my children to be, I want everybody to be experiencing some joy in their life and some connection in their life today,

• 1:31:16Julie Piatt?

  like at whatever age they're at. It's not that a four-year-old is less valid than a 30-year-old. And so this is, you know, something that was brought to my attention actually from one of my sons, Trapper, our son. And, you know, he shared with me that he was kind of, he was kind of angry that he was made to go to school in this certain way for all these years. And when he really thought about it, his personal opinion is that most of it was a waste of time. It wasn't even focused in something that he wanted to be doing.

• 1:31:47Rich Roll?

  Right. To be fair also though, you know, or to play devil's advocate, I suppose, you know, your job as a parent is to, is to, you know, create structure and guidelines that are in your child's best interest that are, you know, not about immediate gratification. And I know that, because I've experienced it many times in my life, that when I want to achieve something, that generally I have to work extremely hard to do so. And I have to be future-oriented about that. Like I have to say no to doing something fun right now because I have this other thing that I want to achieve in my life,

• 1:32:26Rich Roll?

  and it's going to require me to be focused and not always get to do the things that I want to do because I want to have this thing. And that's an important lesson, and it's a lesson that's served me. And so I think as a parent, it's also important to instill that in a child as well.

• 1:32:42Julie Piatt?

  The question is, is do you know if what your child wants to be doing? Like, has anybody, have, have you taken the time to find out and to really pay attention to what are those natural, you know, abilities or talents or whatever?

• 1:32:55Rich Roll?

  Right, but I mean, what it, what it requires is a divining rod between the important thing that your kid wants to do versus the superfluous thing that he wants to do. Like, let's say, he's like, I don't wanna, you know, I don't wanna, you know, go, I don't wanna follow through on that commitment I had because I wanna go to this party tonight. That's different from, you know what, like, I spent all this time in school when all I really wanted to do was, you know, be a graphic designer, and I don't know how like my junior high school was supportive of it. You know what I mean? Like, those are two different things.

• 1:33:29Julie Piatt?

  They're completely different things. I mean, I'm obviously speaking about, you know, following an education track that is leading nowhere. That's what I'm talking, speaking to.

• 1:33:37Rich Roll?

  I understand.

• 1:33:38Julie Piatt?

  Or leading somewhere we don't know. And, you know, as Ben said, that we don't even know what's happening in the whole landscape in two months, much less five years.

• 1:33:47Rich Roll?

  Right, but you can't use that as an excuse to, like, not, you know, still live your life responsibly.

• 1:33:54Julie Piatt?

  Who said?

• 1:33:55Rich Roll?

  You know what I mean? Like, I'm just gonna watch Oprah because I don't know what's gonna happen tomorrow.

• 1:33:58Julie Piatt?

  No, no, no, no, but you're, but you're taking, you're assuming that someone who says they don't wanna study math is gonna watch Oprah. You're, you're not, you're not really...

• 1:34:07Rich Roll?

  I'm just using an extreme example to illustrate a point.

• 1:34:11Julie Piatt?

  I get the point, but the point could be that instead of, instead of maybe going into chemistry, the individual could be studying science or could be going into something that they enjoy. Well, another, another arm. It's not literally in every aspect. So I'm just saying that... You know, children are people today, not when they're 18.

• 1:34:36Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:34:36Julie Piatt?

  Not when they're 30. They're valid right now.

• 1:34:38Rich Roll?

  I'm with you on that. I'm with you on that. I'm not disagreeing with you on that.

• 1:34:41Julie Piatt?

  Yes.

• 1:34:42Rich Roll?

  You know, I think, I think also, you know, I think you have to balance the listening to the kid also with, you know, another sort of function of the parent is to make sure that you're exposing your kid to lots of different things. So that they can, so that, how do they know if they're gonna like something or not unless they've been introduced to it? Right? So you kind of have to do that, too.

• 1:35:00Julie Piatt?

  Yeah, absolutely. So.

• 1:35:03Rich Roll?

  You're looking at me like I'm disagreeing with you, but I'm actually not. It's, for me, like, it's, it's a, it's a good way to illustrate a point by taking a counterpoint. And then it makes us like really crystallize what we're talking about.

• 1:35:14Julie Piatt?

  Right.

• 1:35:15Rich Roll?

  So.

• 1:35:16Julie Piatt?

  I get it. No, I mean, you know, listen, it obviously, you know, everything that you've accomplished in your life, it, it requires action and structure and applying, you know, uh, energy and doing things you don't want to do. I mean, when I was a garment manufacturer, I worked seven days a week, 14 hours a day. It wasn't like I wanted to do that.

• 1:35:34Rich Roll?

  You wanted to succeed in your business.

• 1:35:35Julie Piatt?

  I had to. Well, I had to. I was committed.

• 1:35:37Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:35:38Julie Piatt?

  So, you know, it's not, it's not about being, but we have to be careful that when you're talking about, um, opting out of what has been, um, uh, given to you of, of your one option, you know, that that doesn't mean that you suddenly become a lazy hippie. So that's not, that's not the other.

• 1:35:56Rich Roll?

  Well, that's what, that's the point I'm trying to make.

• 1:35:58Julie Piatt?

  Okay.

• 1:35:59Rich Roll?

  Like, that's the point I want to make sure that is coming across. But it's not like, hey, man, you know, like, I'm not doing your trip. I'm gonna go over here and like lay in my yurt and like do bong hits all day.

• 1:36:10Julie Piatt?

  But we lived in yurts. It sounds like.

• 1:36:12Rich Roll?

  I know, which is why I'm saying like, the person who's listening to this go, is gonna go, yeah, well, that's, yeah, they're just like yurt dwelling, you know, Topanga hippies or something like that. So I'm trying to.

• 1:36:23Julie Piatt?

  Not that there's anything wrong with that.

• 1:36:25Rich Roll?

  No, there's, there, that's, you know. It's probably a pretty good lifestyle, actually, but that's not what we're doing.

• 1:36:31Julie Piatt?

  No, no, I'm just, I really, really advocate again, and I'm just, I believe in divine creation and the original blueprint of each individual. And so I subscribe to that. There is some genius that, that lives in every single one of us. And I would just like to support that and just say that I support you and I see you and I'll hold space for you.

• 1:36:58Rich Roll?

  What you're saying is your job as a mother or as an educator of your children is to foster the development of that, to help bring that out and to support that. And like I said earlier, fertilize that so that it can blossom and grow and be fully expressed.

• 1:37:15Julie Piatt?

  And really, in, in, and as a community, and, and in my community, I see that as well. And I saw that in you. And that's what we've experienced in our relationship. And one of my greatest joys of this whole process is that you are so not the guy that we're supposed to do this. There's nobody that knew you in your school, you know, is you with the Coke bottle glasses. And, you know, you were the ultimate underdog in a lot of ways socially. And not in your swimming prowess, not in, you know, not in your grades, but in your social connection and spiritual connection. And to see you experience this in your life, it just is awesome.

• 1:37:59Julie Piatt?

  It's really, really inspiring and uplifting and it gives me great pleasure.

• 1:38:04Rich Roll?

  Well, thank you for helping me figure it out.

• 1:38:07Julie Piatt?

  Absolutely. I'm here.

• 1:38:10Rich Roll?

  I think that's a good place to wrap it up for today.

• 1:38:12Julie Piatt?

  Okay.

• 1:38:13Rich Roll?

  What do you think?

• 1:38:14Julie Piatt?

  I think it's great.

• 1:38:15Rich Roll?

  Feel good?

• 1:38:15Julie Piatt?

  I feel great. Thanks so much. Thanks for having me on your show.

• 1:38:18Rich Roll?

  Yeah, sure. Why don't you take us out with a little bit about our Mind Body Green

• 1:38:24Julie Piatt?

  Oh, cool.

• 1:38:25Rich Roll?

  Plant-based nutrition course for people who might be new to the podcast.

• 1:38:28Julie Piatt?

  Okay, great. So Rich and I had the amazing opportunity of partnering with Mind Body Green, this amazing online magazine, to present a plant-powered video online course, which is over three and a half hours of information, support, cooking videos, recipes, nutrition information, training information, lifestyle information, on how to bring more plants into your lifestyle. So if you're anywhere on the spectrum, if you're plant-based, if you are vegetarian, if you're a meat eater, if you're trying to get healthy or thinking about starting to embrace some of this lifestyle,

• 1:39:11Julie Piatt?

  we've created this online program for you and we're very proud of it. It was a lot of work. We did, it was three 12-hour days of shooting and something that we created together.

• 1:39:23Rich Roll?

  Right, so it's streaming online video content. It's three and a half hours of video content, broken up into five to 10-minute chunks. And each little piece is specific to a certain subject or theme relating to plant-based nutrition, right?

• 1:39:38Julie Piatt?

  That's right. And you can download it there. It's $99, I believe. And you can get it at mindbodygreen.com.

• 1:39:46Rich Roll?

  And it's awesome. And there's an online community, too. You can ask questions. We chime in. Which reminds me, I need to go in there and answer a bunch of questions. But it's great. We're really proud of it. Production quality is really high. The information is great. And we're getting great feedback. So if you go to mindbodygreen.com, right on the homepage, scroll down, you'll see a little, you'll see a banner for it. You can click that and learn more. And I think you can watch a couple, like, preview clips to check out, to see if it suits you or not. But anyway, do that. And I also wanted to mention that Just in the past week, two former podcast guests have launched their own podcast. So exciting.

• 1:40:30Rich Roll?

  So Sid Garza-Hillman, the author of Approaching the Natural, who was a guest on the show a couple of months ago, several months ago, I guess, at this point. Great guy. Really cool guy who wrote a really, really cool little manifesto book, Approaching the Natural. You can check out, I don't know what episode number it was, but he was on quite a while ago. But if you just search on my website. Just look for the hat. Yeah, he wears a cowboy hat. It's a large hat. So anyway, he just launched his podcast called Approaching the Natural, and you can find that on iTunes. And then Usher Gunsberg, who's been on the podcast, he interviewed me when the paperback came out. Finding Ultra.

• 1:41:08Rich Roll?

  Yeah, and he's a plant-based runner and Australian television host and personality. He's most recently can be seen hosting The Bachelor in Australia. He's the host of The Bachelor in Australia. So anyway, his podcast just went live, I think, today, or maybe yesterday. It's the Usher Gunsberg podcast. With two dots over the U. Yeah, two dots over the U, like Motley Crue, right? And you can check out his interview of me on this podcast show, and hopefully he's going to ask me to be on his show. So that's cool. So I'm glad that people who have come on this podcast have then thought, I'm going to do my own podcast, right? This like trickle-down effect.

• 1:41:53Rich Roll?

  That's great. So that's cool. And that's it. We have a few products on our website, richroll.com. We have a plant-based nutrition cookbook called Jai Seed, 77 pages of awesome recipes. Good stuff. Jai Release, Julie's meditation program, which is a series of MP3s. It's a humming meditation, which is great for beginners interested in meditation, or even if you're a seasoned, practiced meditator. It's a different technique that might shift your awareness. It's been helpful to me. And we have Jai Repair, my all-in-one, plant-based, athletic recovery supplement. And we have Jai B12, B12 supplement.

• 1:42:37Rich Roll?

  And we're, a lot of questions about the T-shirts.

• 1:42:40Julie Piatt?

  That's right, T-shirts coming.

• 1:42:41Rich Roll?

  Plant Power T-shirts, they are coming soon. The only delay has been in configuring the website shopping cart and we had to get a new bank account up and all this kind of like bureaucratic nonsense or whatever, that's made it take longer than it should have, but my hope is that within the next two weeks, we're going to have that up and running and functional. We have a couple of cool T-shirt designs that we're going to offer and then we're going to start rolling out a lot more products and we're really going to expand what we're offering and that's exciting too.

• 1:43:08Julie Piatt?

  That's right. And I think it'd be great, would it be okay if, if you took us out with "The New Earth," a track from my upcoming album?

• 1:43:18Rich Roll?

  "The New Earth"? Are you gonna just sing it?

• 1:43:19Julie Piatt?

  No, I'm not.

• 1:43:20Rich Roll?

  I think you should just sing it.

• 1:43:21Julie Piatt?

  No, I'm not gonna sing it.

• 1:43:22Rich Roll?

  You grab the guitar back there and just strum it.

• 1:43:24Julie Piatt?

  No, I'm not going to. No, because this song has like a lot of harmonies on it. And specifically, I actually wanted to request that we included in this show because it's actually funny because it's one of, one of the early songs that I channeled as a result of Jai Release Meditation, it just sort of came to me and I said to Rich, "Oh no, I think I'm a folk singer." And it was one of those moments.

• 1:43:45Rich Roll?

  Yeah, you are. Now you're gonna go sing folk at the Meow Conference.

• 1:43:49Julie Piatt?

  At the Meow Conference. But anyway.

• 1:43:51Rich Roll?

  Just accept it.

• 1:43:52Julie Piatt?

  It's just, it's, yeah, I had to be just totally unattached to it because it just came out that way. But this particular song called "The New Earth" is a great sort of campfire sing-along type of song and it really reminds me of families and community and bringing, bringing the families together. And also, I had the beautiful pleasure of not only was it produced, arranged, and all the instrumentation played by my beautiful sons Tyler and Trapper, but my brother Stuart recorded "My Father," who will be 90 on

• 1:44:30Julie Piatt?

  the 3rd of October this year, and he graces me with a little harmonica accompaniment in the bridge.

• 1:44:39Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:44:39Julie Piatt?

  And I wanted to release that and at least play it for you before he turns 90 on the 3rd. So, anyway, it's called "The New Earth" and you'll be the first to hear it. It will be on an upcoming album, released in, I don't know, a couple of months, maybe.

• 1:44:55Rich Roll?

  Right on. Right on, thanks. So, that's it. It'll take us out. Okay. Ready? Thanks. Thanks, Julie. Thanks, honey. Peace. Peace. Plants. Namaste. Mew.

• 1:45:07Speaker 03

  Being is the place to be, let it happen in you.

• 1:45:16Speaker 03

  Feel the cool breeze. Kiss the sun. Tree in warm embrace. Know that you will exist in everyone.

• 1:45:40Speaker 03

  Every laugh, every scream, every cry, every joy and beyond it all. Pure bliss.

• 1:45:54Speaker 03

  Pure bliss.

• 1:45:59Speaker 03

  Pure bliss.

• 1:46:03Speaker 03

  Are you ready for the new birth? Stand up, get ready to shine. Being is the place to be, let it happen in you.

• 1:46:23Speaker 03

  Breathe it all in. Just let go. It all happens in the now. It's happening now.

• 1:46:41Speaker 03

  It's happening now.

• 1:47:24Speaker 03

  Are you ready for the new birth? Stand up, get ready to shine. Being is the place to be, let it happen in you. Breathe it all in. Just let go. It all happens in the now, now, now, now, now, now, now, now, now. It's happening now.

• 1:48:07Speaker 03

  Are you ready for the new birth? Stand up, get ready to shine. Get ready to shine. Get ready to shine. Get ready to shine.

• 1:49:14Speaker 03

  The.

• 1:51:24Speaker 03

  I'm sorry, I can't assist with that request.