Rich Roll - Ultra-Endurance Athlete On How to Be Healthy

On today’s episode, Ryan talks with athlete and wellness advocate Rich Roll about how our leadership has reacted to the coronavirus pandemic, the modern wellness community, the pros and cons of psychedelic therapy, and more. Rich Roll is an author, wellness advocate, athlete, and podcast host. Roll was previously an entertainment lawyer, but after becoming sober and losing 50 lbs, Roll transformed into an ultra endurance athlete with a vegan diet. He has written a memoir, Finding Ultra, and hosts The Rich Roll Podcast. This episode is brought to you by Neuro. Neuro makes mints and gums that help you retain focus and clarity wherever you go. Made with a proprietary blend of caffeine, L-theanine, and other focus-building compounds, Neuro’s products are great for anyone who needs help focusing in these trying times. Try out Neuro’s gums and mints at getneuro.com—and use discount code STOIC at checkout to save 15% on your order. This episode is also brought to you by LinkedIn Jobs. LinkedIn Jobs is the best platform for finding the right candidate to join your business this fall. It’s the largest marketplace for job seekers in the world, and it has great search features so that you can find candidates with any hard or soft skills that you need. Visit http://linkedin.com/stoic to get fifty dollars off your first job post. This episode is also brought to you by HelloFresh, the meal-kit subscription that gets you healthy and delicious home-cooked meals, right to your doorstep. HelloFresh sends you meal kits in a way that fits in with your schedule and dietary preferences. Meals are seasonal and delicious, and save you and your family time and money on grocery shopping. Visit HelloFresh.com/stoic90 and use code STOIC90 to get $90 off, including free shipping.***If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we can invest into it and make it even better. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/signupFollow @DailyStoic:Twitter: https://twitter.com/dailystoicInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/dailystoic/Facebook: http://facebook.com/dailystoicYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/dailystoicFollow Rich Roll:Homepage: https://www.richroll.com/Twitter: https://twitter.com/richrollInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/richrollYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/richroll66See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. 📢 Share | ⚙️ Manage Subscription

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

• 0:03Ryan Holiday?

  Welcome to the Weekend Edition of the Daily Stoic. Each weekday, we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stoics, something that can help you live up to those four Stoic virtues of courage, justice, wisdom, and temperance. And here on the weekend, we take a deeper dive into those same topics. We interview Stoic philosophers, we reflect, we prepare, we think deeply about the challenging issues of our time, and we work through this philosophy in a way that's more possible here when we're not rushing to work or to get the kids to school, when we have the time to think, to go for a walk,

• 0:45Ryan Holiday?

  to sit with our journals, and to prepare for what the future will bring.

• 0:53Ryan Holiday?

  Hey, it's Ryan Holiday. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast. My guest today is one of my favorite people in the whole world, Rich Roll, endurance athlete, vegan, bestselling author, amazing podcaster. I've had an amazing time. Some of the longest, best conversations I've ever had in my life with Rich Roll over the years at his amazing house in California. Unfortunately, we didn't get to do that one at his place. We had to do it remotely, which you're seeing right now or you're listening right now. But Rich has a new book out called Voicing Change, and it's sort of a best of greatest hits book, a coffee table book built around the podcast. I contributed a special essay to it. A bunch of awesome people I know did as well.

• 1:37Ryan Holiday?

  Anytime Rich does something, you know it's going to be thoughtful, you know it's going to be wise, you know it's going to give you a different perspective on things. And I think most of all, it's going to be really inspiring. A couple of years ago, I was teasing Rich on Instagram. Like, I worked out early, and I said, "Take that, Rich Roll." And then he proceeded to, I think, swim 3,600 yards, three times further than I had swum, just to rub it in my face. Rich Roll is a machine. He was the first person to do an Ironman on consecutive days of every single one of the Hawaiian Islands. And he did it as a vegan, which is just incredible. If you know anything about endurance athletes, he's really thoughtful. He's always compassionate. Always makes me think his father,

• 2:20Ryan Holiday?

  as it happens, is also an amazing writer. He wrote a brilliant book about George Marshall, which I've recommended on the reading list newsletter. So check that out as well. Rich Roll's first book, Finding Ultra, is a longtime favorite of mine as well. Took a bunch of notes on it. He's a great guy. So Rich and I talk about creating change, not so much in the political sense, but in oneself, in one's own life, as, as the Stoics say. Epictetus quotes Socrates, he says, "Some people delight in improving their farm. I delight in improving myself." And I think that's really where change comes from. And that's where I think Rich is coming from in this new book. So you can check out that new book at richroll.com. You can check out the podcast there or anywhere you get your podcasts. And you can also check out this on

• 3:04Ryan Holiday?

  YouTube. You can check out our interviews on YouTube as well, which is awesome. And I'm going to have another episode with Rich either before or after this. I'm not sure on the order. Rich was nice enough to interview me for LA Live Talks. And so that will be coming soon. We did an event for Lives of the Stoics, which was supposed to be in person, but again, was remote. So that's awesome and coming up as well. And I can't wait for you to listen to this, my interview with Rich Roll, and coming soon, Rich Roll interviewing me. And enjoy. So how are you holding up? How's, how's it been?

• 3:38Rich Roll?

  Overall, I would say that I'm better than most. You know, I get hit with waves of, you know, mild despair from time to time. I don't like not being able to travel. I don't like not being able to plan adventures, the uncertainty of all of it. And then trying to parent two teenage daughters through all of this has definitely challenged my dad toolkit.

• 4:08Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah. And I feel like I have two sort of warning signs that, that friends may be going off the deep end. Number one is, is I hear they've started writing fiction. That's always something.

• 4:19Rich Roll?

  It's really getting bad if that's happening.

• 4:22Ryan Holiday?

  And then, and then the other is, are they growing a beard? And so I just thought I'd check in.

• 4:27Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I started growing this beard the day that the NBA canceled its season.

• 4:35Ryan Holiday?

  In protest?

• 4:37Rich Roll?

  Well, basically like, all right, well, I'm at home now. Here's a moment. So let's do this. I'm now entering Jack Dorsey, Rasputin territory, or David Letterman territory. I don't know how much longer I can hang with this, but it's been kind of a fun little thing.

• 4:54Ryan Holiday?

  It actually hit me this morning that my son, my youngest son, has now been a lot, half of his life has been spent in some sort of quarantine pandemic.

• 5:08Rich Roll?

  That's so crazy. What is his awareness around all of it?

• 5:12Ryan Holiday?

  I mean, I mean, obviously, the good news, bad news there is like, it's half his life, but that means he's only, you know, 18 months old. But like, he wasn't walking at the beginning, and now he's walking. So, you know, it's just, it's sort of, it's, it's so weird how long eight months is, and then also how short it is, and how much can happen within eight months.

• 5:37Rich Roll?

  And when you're young, time, your relationship with time is different. Weeks and months can feel like years. I have a 13 year old daughter, and I think all the time about how this is impacting her. I check in with her, you know, constantly. But I can't help but wonder, five years from now, 10 years from now, how this experience is gonna impact an entire generation of young people and how they interface with the world.

• 6:04Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, my wife was saying something. She was like, they can't tell us that they're having a hard time, because they're four and two, you know, they don't actually know that they're having a hard time, even though they obviously are.

• 6:18Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Yeah, well, my teenage daughters have figured that part out. Yeah, they're not afraid to let me know how they're doing.

• 6:26Ryan Holiday?

  Although I was talking to a college basketball coach and he was saying, like, he was like, you know, how do I get them to understand what the, you know, whatever, we're going back and forth about it. And I was like, you gotta understand, like, I think it had only been like three, four months of it in this point, at this point, but it was like, even this, like, three or four months was like 2% of their entire life. Like, if you're a college basketball player right now, to take like, like, four months off, or whatever it had been at that time. That's to, to, as you get older, you get more and more comfortable dealing with large amounts of time.

• 7:02Ryan Holiday?

  Because you have large amounts of time. Like, it wasn't, now that I have a four-year-old, like, other than college, I really haven't done very many things that lasted four years. You know, like you, but as you get older, you have a better understanding of time, but the younger you are, the harder it is to wrap your head around how long this has gone on.

• 7:24Rich Roll?

  Yeah, 100%, 100%. I mean, I can't fathom the experience of the college athlete where their whole life is, you know, in this funnel to this moment, and then it gets pulled out from underneath them. And, and there's just nothing you can do about it. Like, the sense of powerlessness and the lack of control over your own personal destiny is, you know, unprecedented in our, in our lifetimes. And I think the repercussions of this are going to be felt for decades to come. In what way, you know, we're not sure right now, but certainly it's profound for so many people.

• 8:02Ryan Holiday?

  It's like, we always underestimate the consequences of things in a long, in the long term. I feel like what we're gonna really have trouble wrapping our heads around as we go forward is like, how, how does a generation go through the world having been so utterly and completely failed?

• 8:20Ryan Holiday?

  From a leadership standpoint, right? So like, let's say you're a college athlete. And, and college athletics, as you know, are already morally complex, ethically fraught. It's a complicated, messed up world that you're lucky to get out of alive. And then how do you add to that? Like something like the Big Ten, looking at the data cancelling, then seeing other people do it, and then getting pressure, and then deciding to reverse course. And then obviously, it's, I mean, look at all the kids who've gotten sick. And it's like, how are those kids going to understand what leadership looks like going forward?

• 9:00Ryan Holiday?

  When they've been so, they've seen such a lack of leadership in all facets of life in the last eight months.

• 9:07Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I mean, I think that's a great point. I think that we've never seen this level of distrust in our institutions and disappointment in the leadership. And what does that mean going forward with a whole generation of people that don't have the kind of relationship to democratic institutionalism that we do? And how does that then play out in terms of not only government, but corporate structure and just culture at large? I think it's, it's massive. It would be interesting to look back into the historical record and track what the generation

• 9:47Rich Roll?

  of young people who survived the 1918 pandemic ended up doing and how, you know, how that kind of informed how they lived their lives.

• 9:57Ryan Holiday?

  Although I was thinking about the history too, as I remember I listened to your episode with your dad, and he was talking about how it was the aftermath of Watergate that sent him to Washington and sort of shaped his understanding of the law. And so maybe, maybe the, the potential silver lining in all this is that from this colossal failure of leadership and moral leadership and just incompetence across the board, and I think you can say that apolitically, what will come out of it is a strong sense of like, hey, nobody's coming to save us. Uh, this is gonna be. Like a real, like I was looking at the, um, the super spreader event at the White

• 10:42Ryan Holiday?

  House. And again, I think you can look at this non-politically. One of the things that bothered me the most about it was actually not just the lack of masks and the lack of precautions and the arrogance and all of that, but it was how old everyone was. Do you know what I mean? It was just like, well, like it was dangerous. And then you add on top of this that most of these people should have retired a very long time ago. And, and so maybe one of the upsides of, of, of all this is that a new generation of, of leaders steps forward into the breach.

• 11:13Rich Roll?

  Well, certainly, I've never seen this level of activism in young people. You know, I was too young in the sixties to have any relationship with what that must have been like. But, you know, I can just speak from personal experience, having a 13 year old daughter and how plugged in she is to the issues of the day. And I think we're seeing that, you know, across the board. Social media has been a tool in that regard as much as it is, you know, a distraction and, you know, kind of a dumpster fire. But, you know, we are seeing a level of engagement with young people at levels I've never seen before in my life. And I do think that that is, that is a good thing. There's a sense of

• 11:55Rich Roll?

  it's our time now. You know, we're frustrated. This has been, you know, screwed up to, you know, an extent that is completely unfair. And, you know, we're gonna now step in and take the reins. And I think that that is, that's what history is. And I think that that's a good thing and that we should welcome that.

• 12:16Ryan Holiday?

  And so I was curious with the new book, when you're talking about change, are you thinking that kind of change? Are you thinking internal change? Or is it both?

• 12:27Rich Roll?

  It's both, but I think all change begins with the self, you know, kind of hearkening to, you know, traditions eastern, that, you know, the change you want to see in the world begins with your relationship with yourself. And I think when we start from that place and try to, you know, perfect that so that we can become the best version of who we are and, and, you know, the most fully expressed, authentic, grounded, capable individual, then we are able to see the world more clearly through, you know, a more objective lens. And we we become better, you know, better partners, better neighbors, better servants, and better citizens.

• 13:06Ryan Holiday?

  I was curious, what do you, it's been a weird thing, like, because you and I both know so many people in the health and wellness space, or the sort of self-improvement space. Has it been interesting for you to sort of watch, either from afar, your conversations with them, like, sort of how they've dealt with the last eight months? Because I've sort of seen people go in a couple of different directions.

• 13:28Rich Roll?

  Yeah, we've talked about this a little bit. I find this to be utterly fascinating. You know, the health and wellness space is something that I think germinated out of a more feminine sensibility, kind of taking care of yourself and your kids. And it's also born out of, you know, an alternative perspective on healthcare, like a nod to, you know, traditions ancient from Ayurveda to yoga to, you know, all of these, you know, breathing practices that Wim Hof talks about. They all date back quite a long time. And the wellness space has been about kind of reconnecting with a lot of those traditions, which is interesting. And I think there's a lot to be gleaned, you know, from how those

• 14:12Rich Roll?

  work in our modern culture. But what we've seen over the last year has been really interesting because there's a fracture within the community. And a certain contingent of this community has gone full conspiracy mode. And I think that you could track that back, like, the antecedent of that, I think, is is the anti-vax movement, like, this distrust of institutions that is part and parcel of an aspect of the health and wellness space, has been kind of blown up and exacerbated, mushroom clouding into, you know, all kinds of spurious theories about, you know, everything from Dr. Fauci's relationship to Bill Gates, to 5G, to you

• 14:57Rich Roll?

  name it. And to see a lot of, you know, friends of mine and seemingly intelligent, grounded individuals embrace ideas that really aren't based in fact, because of this predisposition or this kind of distrust of institutions in general, has been

• 15:19Rich Roll?

  Something I would have never predicted, but now seems to make sense and I find utterly fascinating. You know, to also say as a blanket statement, most of the health and wellness space tends to lean left. But some of these ideas that are now kind of percolating up are ideas that are more sort of endemic to the alt-right movement and to see that health and wellness space move towards the alt-right and be embraced by the alt-right and be amplified by the alt-right is really kind of an interesting cultural experiment that's unfolding.

• 15:57Ryan Holiday?

  So what do you think it is? Because it struck me, it's sort of maybe three possibilities or more or some combination therein, but it's one, hey, maybe these people aren't as smart as you think they are. Two, these people are a lot more mercenary than you think you are. Like they're, they're looking at it algorithmically and going, hey, you know, this will be better for my audience. And then the other, it struck me, this is probably the more sympathetic view, is that, hey, these people are under a lot of stress. Their business is suffering, their life is suffering, maybe they've lost someone and they're just sort of disoriented and confused and have been, I don't know, manipulated or, or broken in some way. And that's what's led

• 16:41Ryan Holiday?

  them astray. What, what's your read on it?

• 16:44Rich Roll?

  I mean, I think that there's a combination of all of those things and it's, it's, you know, it's based on the individual and their experience. I mean, to be certain, you know, there's a contingent of the health and wellness universe that understands that, you know, when they post something about, you know, the new cure to disease X or the new supplement that's going to help you lose belly fat or, you know, increase your athletic performance, that those types of social posts are going to perform better. And we're in a world where the algorithm, you know, favors stuff that is exclamatory in that regard. And they're going to get more traffic and they're going to get more business and they're going to get more attention in our attention economy. So there's a built in.

• 17:30Rich Roll?

  Incentive for people to spread that kind of information. I also think that to your more cynical point, you know, I think there's certain individuals that have that perhaps aren't as mentally balanced as they could be. And there's a glee when they get the kind of attention that they know they're going to get when they post something controversial. And then I think there's very well intentioned people who believe that what they're saying is correct because it's being supported by their their new silo. And I think, you know, it bears repeating that, you know, we believe that we're less manipulatable than than we actually are.

• 18:12Rich Roll?

  And, you know, if you watch The Social Dilemma, I'm sure you have, and you're well versed in all the things that Tristan Harris talks about, you know, these these tools have been weaponized to such an extent. And we have an algorithm that, you know, is favoring pushing messages that lean towards that kind of outrageous material. And this isn't, this is, this is, you know, this is a virus much more potent and dangerous in many ways than the coronavirus because it's poisoning our minds. It's making us incapable of finding common ground with each other. And it's causing an utter and complete breakdown in our ability to communicate with each other.

• 18:54Rich Roll?

  And I think about that a lot, and I'm deeply, deeply concerned about it.

• 18:58Ryan Holiday?

  I was thinking about that, too. There's a great Marcus Aurelius quote, which he wrote during a plague, where he says, there's two kinds of plagues. There's a plague that can affect your character and a plague that can affect your life. Being that, you know, the plague of his time could could kill you, but what was really dangerous was what it could do to you as a person. And and I feel like we almost have these sort of three viruses going on right now. We have, what, four? So you have the actual COVID-19 virus, which thankfully, although it's killed an ungodly amount of people, is is has a relatively low death rate and seems mercifully to have spared young people most of all. The exact Of the 1918 pandemic.

• 19:42Ryan Holiday?

  But the three I've been thinking about, I've been thinking about writing it, I've been writing about it. I've been curious what your thoughts are. So I'd say the number one virus is conspiratorial thinking. So this is plandemic, this is Bill Gates, you know, this is all this nonsense. This is, you know, a genetic weapon unleashed on us by the Chinese. But there seems to be this also this like sort of indifference, right? Like you'd think if you were someone who was like, hey, this is a virus given to us by the Chinese. Also, you'd be taking it very seriously. But somehow those, those are not the same, right? It's like the anti-maskers also believe it's a biological weapon, right?

• 20:23Ryan Holiday?

  It's like, those are, but, but you have the, you have this sort of the callous indifference, right? That's like a different virus, like, oh, I don't want this to affect my life. I have a wedding that I have, you know, I have a, I have a gender reveal that I want to give. So obviously I shouldn't be affected. So, so, so first we have conspiratorial, then we have this sort of callous indifference. And then third, and I think I've seen this more commonly in good people that I know is more of a sort of a magical thinking. They're like, oh, this will just magically go away by the summer. Or, oh, well, it's important that, it's important to me that my kids go to school. So I'm gonna send them to school and obviously will be exempted because it's important to me. You know what I like?

• 21:06Ryan Holiday?

  And again, I'm not making a statement on whether you should or shouldn't send your kids to school. But there seems to be a sort of fantasy world that some people live in where they're like, oh, this is true and real. It just affects everybody but me and the, the, the party I'm throwing on a private island with my friends. Or the, the, the event I'm hosting on the lawn of the White House.

• 21:27Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Well, I think a couple of things. I mean, first of all, there's something uniquely American about all of this that, that perhaps we can trace back to our tradition of rugged individualism and, you know, don't tread on me and all of that kind of stuff. This idea that, you know, we're solely responsible for our future in this manifest. Destiny sort of way and government's role is to get out of the way so I can do what I want to do. And built into that is a lack of, you know, kind of communitarianism or sense of social responsibility to think about how our actions are impacting our neighbors.

• 22:10Rich Roll?

  That, you know, I think is probably more endemic to a European culture. So that's one thing. And I think on top of that, you know, it's important to say that people are really afraid and people really are hurting and institutions have let us down and people with power have lied to us and tried to manipulate us. And I think all of that, you know, goes into our psyche. And when we're in that panic state and we're not sure how to move forward, or how we're going to pay the bills, or if I'm going to have a job, you know, unless you have, you know, a copious set of tools or some experience with personal

• 22:51Rich Roll?

  development, or, you know, a lifetime immersed in Stoicism, chances are you're going to lash out and you're going to look for an enemy or somebody to be a receivership for your for your bile and your frustration. And a virus doesn't really fit the bill. We can't see it. It's invisible. So we need an individual. So who's going to be the bad guy here? And I think that creates an environment that, you know, gets played out in the way that we're seeing it now.

• 23:21Ryan Holiday?

  Hey, I think that's maybe what struck me as the most disappointing about some of the people that you and I know, or some of the people in this space. It's like, oh, you don't, you don't actually mean any of this, right? Or that you have talked about it, but you haven't actually internalized it. Because if you really understood what you're saying right now, you would be aghast at the horrifying implications of either the remark or the decisions that you're making. It sort of struck me as like, what's the point of all of this reading and writing and watching these videos and working on this, this self-improvement stuff if when you are subjected to something like this, it makes you worse and not better?

• 24:07Rich Roll?

  That's the thing, right? I mean, that's, that's part of my, my whole thing with the whole self-help industry at large. And as somebody who's been, you know, hosting a podcast for many years, I'm now on these lists with the publishing houses. So I get all the galleys in the mail. And it's just unbelievable. Like, every week, I'll get like, a dozen self-help books. And it makes you kind of callous to all of it. You're like, this is all bullshit. It's all nonsense. Of course, that's not true. Every single one of these books, I'm sure has wisdom in it, that if applied, is going to make your life better. But there is this gap between the information and the application of the information. And I think there's this

• 24:48Rich Roll?

  sense that if you're reading these books, that it's making you better. And you're unconscious of the fact that you're not actually practicing any of the tools in the literature that you're consuming. It's the same thing when you scroll through Instagram or Twitter, and you see a quote that inspires you, and you get this little rush, and then you feel like you've actually done something, when you actually haven't done anything.

• 25:13Ryan Holiday?

  So how have you been thinking about this in your own life? I'm just sort of curious, like, how have you felt like you've gotten better over the interim period? And where do you feel like you've maybe fallen short?

• 25:25Rich Roll?

  That's a great question. I mean, I think I entered into this, thinking I was incredibly well-equipped to navigate all of it, being, you know, fundamentally, a pretty introverted individual, whose life-

• 25:37Ryan Holiday?

  That has been the nice part about it.

• 25:39Rich Roll?

  It's like, my dream is just to be left alone, and like, not have anyone bother me. So, you know, the quieting down of, you know, all the travel, and the emails, and the obligations, and the phone calls. I was like, this is gonna be great. I can sit in this container studio, and I can write, and I can do my thing. And no one's gonna bug me, and I don't have to go to dinner parties and stuff. But what I've realized, you know, what are we, month seven or eight of this whole thing? Is that, is that even though that is my, you know, my character, I miss human interaction, you know, I really do. And, and, and it's made me appreciate that, no matter how much you feel like you're an island, that, that it's important, you know, as a human being, to have-

• 26:26Rich Roll?

  Connection with other people in the three dimensional world. So that's been sort of a, you know, a sobering revelation. Like actually I need people in my life. But I think I've, I've done a pretty good job of, you know, practicing a principle that I think is fundamental to Stoicism, but also to the 12 steps. This idea of, you know, trying to control the controllables and letting go of, of, of the rest, like detaching from outcomes, divorcing, emotionally divorcing myself from expectations around how things are going to turn out. And, you know, I think that that, that principle is absolutely key in keeping you grounded in an era in which, you know, we can't make plans and we don't know what's going to happen.

• 27:10Rich Roll?

  So I feel quite fit in that regard. Like all of my, you know, training over the years is, is working out well. But, you know, I have been thrown curveballs as a parent. You know, I, I help parent. I have two stepsons who are now 25 and 24. They're amazing kids, you know, and they've moved back home at the beginning of quarantine and they've just been a dream. And, and, and, you know, helping to parent them into adulthood was a learning experience, but it went pretty smoothly. It did not prepare me for the strange foreign genus of human being called the teenage girl. That's been, that's been, you know, very destabilizing. Trying to sort of surf the emotional vicissitudes

• 27:55Rich Roll?

  and the kind of hormonal pangs of, of my daughters has been an incredible teacher because I will get triggered and then I'll react and we'll end up in, you know, some arguments. And it's, you know, just everything goes off the rails. And then I have to regroup and assess and try to do better the next time. And so that's why Mathis, my 16 year old, she, she really is my guru right now because she's pushing me and testing me in ways that, you know, I've never been tested before.

• 28:25Ryan Holiday?

  You said, "No man is an island," or whatever. Have you actually read that poem recently?

• 28:29Rich Roll?

  No, I haven't.

• 28:30Ryan Holiday?

  I'm gonna read it to you, because I read it last night to my son. I've been reading poems to my son before bed. And I honestly, I feel like there's no better poem for this moment. It's only like one stanza, so I'll do it. It says, "No man is an island entire of himself. Every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less. As well as if a promontory were, as well as any manner of thy friends or of thine own were, any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee." Isn't that incredible?

• 29:13Rich Roll?

  That is. I think, I think our culture could use a heavy dose of that right now. I feel like we're, we're proceeding in a way that is completely contradictory to that idea right now.

• 29:24Ryan Holiday?

  I would totally agree. I mean, I, I think that, that line that hit me, it's like, if any clod washes away, the, the, the whole is less. I think nothing has saddened me more, and saddened me more when I've seen people who are fans of my stuff, so let's call it self-identified Stoics, expressing it. But some idea of like, "Most of these people would have died anyway. They were also, they were already old." You know, they had pre-existing conditions of some ki-- you know, any attempt to rationalize the immense tragedy of what's happened. I think of all the things that have caused me to lose my cool, it's not been not being able to travel, it's not been the money that I've lost,

• 30:07Ryan Holiday?

  it's not been the opportunities that I missed out on, it's watching regular human beings say something so shitty.

• 30:15Rich Roll?

  I think, I think it's fear. You know, I think people are afraid, and they're worried about how they're gonna get theirs, right? And that's what's so disappointing. It's like, you know, we're all in this together, we're all suffering to some extent, some more than others. But that lashing out-- You know, comes from this idea that we live in a zero sum game and the pie is limited and somebody else is going to get my slice and I need to, you know, do something about that, but because they're afraid, you know, and I think the only way, it is upsetting and I share that with you, but my practice has been to try to go behind the, you know,

• 31:00Rich Roll?

  what is the layer behind that? Like, what's motivating that statement? What is going on with that individual that has put them in that frame of mind? And the more I can listen more and talk less and understand that, you know, every man is right from his point of view, I'm able to connect with a little bit of compassion and I do that selfishly because I just don't want to walk around angry, frustrated and resentful because that's, you know, denigrating the quality of my day.

• 31:31Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, I think even your idea that that's coming from a place of fear and worried about how they're going to get theirs is itself somewhat of a compassionate act. And I mean, I get it, right? It's like, it's very easy to say, you know, somebody shouldn't be doing X, Y, or Z. And then, then you get a speaking offer or you get a really cool opportunity to go do something with someone. And now, now all of a sudden, you're having to sacrifice something in a way that, you know, it's very easy for you to say, other people should sacrifice. But it's hard to go, I'm going to miss out. I was, I was telling you about a gig I got offered and it was like, I was like, look, I'll do it if there's rapid testing

• 32:14Ryan Holiday?

  at the door, if everyone wears masks, you know, these things. And they were like, they came back and they said, well, we're not going to do like the testing, but we'll pay you more money. And it was like, okay, so it's good for me. It's better for me, but I have to, it has to do the exact opposite of what you're saying. We, we can very naturally go through the world zero sum and it's much harder to think.

• 32:40Ryan Holiday?

  Okay, I'm, I'm gonna actually sacrifice, I'm not gonna get something that's good for me, because I think it would be bad for other people. And there's a, there's a line from James Stockton, it says, "The flip side of what's in it for me has to be, I am my brother's keeper." And so you have to be able to think like, hey, if I do that, what if everyone did what I'm about to do? What would the implications of that be?

• 33:04Rich Roll?

  Hmm. Yeah, it's a perfect test case, right? For you to practice all these things that you talk about. And are you going to be able to fulfill your promise to yourself and live that life, right? It's easy when it's academic, it's difficult when they're dangling a big paycheck in front of you.

• 33:23Ryan Holiday?

  I was thinking more about this health and wellness thing. And I think you and I have talked about it offline, but I thought it might be interesting to talk about, especially if your book is about change. I feel like the other thing that I've seen become really common in our community, among people who are, we are mutual friends with as well. And I'm not talking about anyone specific, it's a, it's a trend that I'm talking about. But there also seems to be this idea of sort of meditation and wisdom and learning and all of that. It, that almost seems to have become a bit passe with people. And now the magical way to insight is with this psychedelic, or that psychedelic, or this psychedelic enhanced therapy, or that one.

• 34:06Ryan Holiday?

  Curious what you think as a, as a sober guy, what's your reaction to that? Because it, it tends to be much more, I think, in your world of the sort of eastern stuff, more than, than my world as well.

• 34:19Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's fascinating. You know, I would say first and foremost, as somebody who's been in recovery for a very long time, I'm a recovering alcoholic. When somebody tells me the, you know, my spiritual evolution can be achieved through...

• 34:38Rich Roll?

  A mind altering substance, my immediate response is I'm all in on that. Like, that's exactly what my alcoholism wants to feed itself, right? So there's a huge part of me that just wants to go explore that to the hilt. But I know well enough that that is not in my best interest. At the same time, I acknowledge that there's amazing science being performed right now in the world of psychedelics. They're seeing positive impacts on people's depression and PTSD, et cetera. So there is, you know, I, I'm not going to dismiss it. I'm just not sure it's correct for me.

• 35:21Rich Roll?

  And I think it's important for myself and for anybody who, who's listening to understand that that journey towards self-connection, that path to self-actualization, your own personal evolution, is not something that can be shortcut. And you shouldn't be looking for shortcuts. It's only through weathering obstacles and grappling with difficulties and, you know, making mistakes that we truly learn who we are and as a consequence, grow. But it's tricky. Like, I've got a very good friend, somebody who's also been sober a very long time,

• 36:05Rich Roll?

  who recently went to one of these labs and did a psilocybin experiment with like the top scientist in this field. And he basically said, there was before and now there's after. And I can't put in words how profound it was and you've got to do this, right? And so that rents a lot of space in my mind because this is, this isn't somebody who's, you know, you know, flying down to South America all the time to sit with shamans. Like, this is a, you know, this is a guy who's been in like 12-step for decades. So that messes me up. And I'm still, you know, I wanna, I wanna approach it from, from a perspective of first

• 36:50Rich Roll?

  principles with a learner's mind. So I haven't said absolutely no to it, but you know, I'm not the guy who's gonna go on ayahuasca trips. Like, I'm on my own journey and I just don't think that that would be in service to me. And I also think, not to, you know, spin things too mystically, but when you're taking in a really powerful mind-altering substance, you've gotta be really careful. Like, if you're not, if you're not emotionally fit, that can really mess you up. And I've seen it mess up a lot of other people. And even though it's not, you know, technically an addictive substance, I also have friends that are doing it all the time. Like, I know one guy who, who does an ayahuasca trip like

• 37:34Rich Roll?

  almost every week. He did like 50 ayahuasca trips in a year. And I'm like, you're not enlightened yet, right? So what is this doing for you? He calls it the work, right? And I'm like, well, I'm, I'm gonna pursue the work in a different, in a different manner.

• 37:50Ryan Holiday?

  I think it's a very human tendency to think that enlightenment or wisdom is a place that you arrive at. And so that you can do a shortcut, or that you can get it, you know what I mean? Like, the idea that there's this kind of work and there's that kind of work. And, and this is just a, you know, more technologically advanced form of it or something. It strikes me as maybe missing the point a little bit as well. Like, it's, it's supposed to take a long time and be a lifelong process because it's not a thing that you get.

• 38:24Rich Roll?

  Right. The idea that it can be purchased is anathema to the very idea itself. And was it Buddha who said something like, you know, what he was asked, you know, what happens if and when you become enlightened? Like chop wood, you know, carry water, then you become enlightened, then what? You chop wood and you carry water. Like, this is, it's not, you don't arrive at the Bodhi tree, you continue to live your life.

• 38:47Ryan Holiday?

  And maybe, maybe this is my, your point about sort of being leery from a sober perspective. I think also my, my sort of cynicism kicks in where it's like, whenever I see something become very trendy with a group of people who have also been on different bandwagons that didn't work out, I'm very suspicious. You know what I mean? It's like, a few months ago, these were the same people telling us polyamory was the future, and then this was the future, and then this was the future. And it's, it reminds me of this thing, Seneca talks about sort of people who flee from place to place, looking for enlightenment or happiness. He says, it's like, the person who thinks that flipping

• 39:28Ryan Holiday?

  over their pillow is going to finally make them comfortable and let them sleep. And so I'm suspicious too, that like, the people who are shouting that this is the next big thing, a couple of months ago or years ago, were convinced some other thing was the next big thing.

• 39:45Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm. In AA, it's called pulling a geographic. And the geographic can be emotional or mental as, you know, as well as physical. The idea that, you know, I'm going to find solace, or the answers that I seek, or, you know, peace of mind if I go to this place, or I adopt this habit. And what it overlooks is that you're bringing yourself with you, and all of your baggage and your problems. So it's not your geographic location, or this new, you know, bio hack that's going to do the trick. Fundamentally, it's, you know, the heavy lifting of really facing yourself in the most objective way possible, and grappling with your character defects, taking inventory, you know, doing all the,

• 40:28Rich Roll?

  all the work that's required so that you can look people in the eye and, you know, live a life of, of integrity and purpose.

• 40:36Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, I think Epicurus said, thus every man flees himself. And I think that, you know, you can do it mentally, figuratively, or you can do it literally, but it's all some form of the same escape.

• 40:49Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I mean, isn't that, isn't that what, you know, drug addiction is in, in certain respects? Like, you're running away from yourself because you're so uncomfortable with who you are. But it's also a bit of a spiritual seeking thing because you're trying to find answers. You're trying to find comfort. You're doing it in a very unhealthy way. But there is that component of like, trying to get out of yourself to find a solution to what ails you.

• 41:19Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, it's like I empathize with it and then I'm suspicious of it at the same time.

• 41:24Rich Roll?

  Hmm. The older you get, you can, you, you have more of a 10,000 foot view on all of these trends because you've weathered, you know, a lot of them and you've seen them come and go. And you've seen the people who have stayed true to what their core philosophy is. And then you see the people that blow in the wind and, and align themselves whatever the, with whatever the new thing is. And it goes back to what we were talking about originally, which is the difference between somebody who's really carrying, you know, a message that is meaningful versus the person who's trying to get the clicks or, you know, trying to play the, you know, the attention game.

• 42:02Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, it's like, I, I think, and maybe this is a silly way to think about it, but I sort of go, when in all of history has someone come back and said, I have the medical solution to this spiritual or psychological issue and it not blown up horribly in our faces?

• 42:25Rich Roll?

  Hmm. Yeah, never, right? But the human mind is wired to desire that. There's something about that that's so compelling and appealing. And I think it, it's also important to point out that all of these things that are happening right now are happening against a backdrop in which we've lost appreciation for nuance, right? Like we're in a black and white. Clickbait world, everybody has to align their views with one particular tribe. And it's not okay to have complex ideas that span the spectrum.

• 43:04Rich Roll?

  And so the simpler solutions are the ones that people are going to gravitate towards. Because not only can they understand that, but ultimately they're easier to communicate. And that's why they're getting traction.

• 43:24Ryan Holiday?

  Well, and to go to your point earlier about that sort of health and wellness space. It's like if you built your brand, your identity on going, hey, everyone is telling, like in your case, it's you know, veganism, it's like, hey, everything, you know, the food industries are telling you about health is totally wrong. And you're right in that case, like you have a lot of evidence that, hey, we are being deceived. You know, the truth is being kept from us. It makes you a lot more susceptible to think that you found a magical solution or a hidden truth or uncovered a secret that, you know, is being kept.

• 44:03Ryan Holiday?

  It's like when leaders, when leadership in science and in politics and in culture and in spirituality have so grievously failed us, it drives people to search underground solutions to these problems. And I think that that's part of where we are right now as well.

• 44:20Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I mean, I think you just, you just nailed it because there have been, you know, lies propagated. And when you, if you have a personal experience where you have somewhat of an epiphany about that, does that not make you more susceptible to, you know, the next piece of information being untruthful? Right? And that's why it's complicated. It's not black or white because there, you know, there are vested interests that profit from you being confused about whether it's health and fitness or politics or what have you. But the trick is trying to remain grounded and objective enough

• 45:02Rich Roll?

  so that you still become a reliable, you know, barometer of things that are true versus partisan versus complete outright unbased conspiracy theory.

• 45:13Ryan Holiday?

  I wanted to talk to you about the new book a little bit. One, what was, walk me through the decision to self-publish. That's fascinating and interesting and something I've been kicking around a little bit myself, too.

• 45:27Rich Roll?

  So this new book is called Voicing Change and it's basically wisdom and inspiration from the podcast. This podcast that I've been doing for over eight years now. I've interviewed 550 plus people at this point, spent thousands of hours talking to people. You've been on four times, I think.

• 45:44Ryan Holiday?

  No, and I was just thinking, I was just doing the math as you were saying that if you have 500 guests, I think each one of the episodes I've done is almost two or three hours. It really is thousands of hours that you spend in these conversations.

• 45:56Rich Roll?

  I mean, an unbelievable amount of time spent in deep reflective conversation with people that I respect, people that I want to learn from, and I wanted to be able to canonize that a little bit. To, out of, you know, basically to respect all these amazing individuals and the time that they've gifted me, but also as a thank you to the audience as well, to have kind of a keepsake. And that's why it's in kind of a coffee book form. You can put it out on a table, it looks beautiful, we have amazing photographs. Your display is wonderful and you contributed an essay, so thank you for that. So that you can, you know, not everybody listens to every episode.

• 46:37Rich Roll?

  They can discover new people or share it with their friends. And I wanted to package it in a really aesthetically pleasing way. With that, of course, it becomes an expensive book, right? It's tons of photographs and I just thought, this is not the kind of book that a publisher is going to be able to justify giving me the kind of advance that I would demand for something like this. Like financially, it doesn't make a lot of sense for them. Also, this is something that could turn into a series. Like I could put one of these out every single year and I just thought it would be a cool experiment to try to do this ourselves and control it soup to nuts.

• 47:20Rich Roll?

  So we're doing that, we created the whole thing in-house. It is, you know, really, I'm super proud of it. It's, it really is a beautiful book and we're selling it exclusively through our website. And now we're starting to. You know, figure out what the challenges with that are because we want to ship globally. But of course, shipping is crazy expensive. And if we're not going to put it on Amazon, who takes 40% of the revenue, then you know, we're basically placing that burden on the consumer who's so acclimated to free shipping or you know, significantly reduced shipping costs. So now it becomes a customer service thing. Like people are like, you gotta be kidding me. It costs $30 to ship this book. And it's like, well, it is what it is. Like you're glad that we're not on Amazon, but this is the true, you know,

• 48:04Rich Roll?

  financial picture of what it means to create a product and control it yourself. So we're in the early stages of it so far. I'm, you know, I'm super thrilled and the idea of, you know, having a book out in the world where there isn't any kind of, you know, middleman involved is pretty cool. But you do have to take responsibility for all the little things. And you become aware of all the things that the publisher handles for you. Um, but ultimately there is a different sense of satisfaction with it. We haven't even, we start shipping on November 10th, but we've already broken even on our first printing. And the idea that like, you know, years from now, you're not going to be making $1 on your book, but you're actually going to be making, you know, what you should be getting paid for your book

• 48:49Rich Roll?

  that you created is, is a cool thing. So I'll keep you posted, but.

• 48:53Ryan Holiday?

  It is really interesting because I've been sort of experimenting with some of that stuff with Daily Stoic. And it's like, one, I think there's, there's something really important and powerful about like actually figuring out how the whole process works. Like you said, from soup to nuts, like actually understanding like, oh, these are all the different phases of it. I think that's really interesting. And then, yeah, the economics are fascinating too. You're like, so I was, it's like, okay, so I've sold roughly three million books. Let's say that's $15 a book. Like somebody made $45 million, but it wasn't me, you know?

• 49:29Rich Roll?

  Right, right.

• 49:30Ryan Holiday?

  I, I mean, not even close, right? And you're like, oh, I see why. Penguin Random House has a building in Manhattan, you know?

• 49:39Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 49:39Ryan Holiday?

  And, and, and, but you also realize, as you said, it's like, oh, there's a lot, there was a lot of people taking care of stuff for me that I was not aware of. Customer service being the most significant of, of those obstacles.

• 49:57Rich Roll?

  And of course, your book is actually underwriting a lot of other books at Penguin Random House, because it's the rare book that breaks out in that kind of way. Most books don't earn out their advances or are not profitable. So for every, you know, Obstacle is the Way or Daily Stoic, there's 30 books that they have to, you know, pay for. So you're paying for those people.

• 50:23Ryan Holiday?

  When I think anytime you have a direct connection with your audience, that's really powerful, too. Like the idea even that it's like, you sort of realize it's like, oh, I like, and I, I wrote the book, then I sold it to a publisher. And then that publisher sold it to, in some cases, a sub publisher, or who then sold it to a bookstore, who then sold it to a customer. You're like, whoa, there's a lot of intermediaries between me and the customer. And, and that's not to say, that's the problem with that is not just that each one of those people is taking a piece of it. It's just you realize you're very alienated from the people that you're actually making stuff for.

• 51:04Ryan Holiday?

  And, and I think the more connected you are, and that's what's so great about podcasts, is that like, it's like you and I are recording this, and sure, it'll be edited by someone, but then it goes like directly to the people who are hearing it, you know, as these words are coming out of my mouth. And that's like a really special thing.

• 51:22Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's super cool and powerful. And for somebody like yourself, who has such a vast audience and people that are, you know, so loyal to the things that you talk about, it would be interesting for you to take a stab at a self-published book, to see what that looks like. Like how, I think when you're actually asking somebody to buy something, that's the true test of just how engaged that community is. And we're learning that we have a super engaged community. And it's making me rethink, like, Well, we can just do this ourselves. Do we really need anybody else involved here? And that's not to say that this was, you know, this book was a massive undertaking.

• 52:04Rich Roll?

  It was a team of people like I I'm able at this point to create some infrastructure around this because you're really running a side business. It's almost like a whole new thing that, you know, requires a lot of time and attention. And for somebody like yourself, you have to balance that against your sensibility, which is like, I just want to write books and move on to the next book. And I'll let all these other people handle that and I'll and I'll happily, you know, take that bargain. So I'm not making 45 million, but I'm making, you know, a good amount and I can just focus on doing the thing that I do best.

• 52:35Ryan Holiday?

  Although when you express it that way, it doesn't sound like a great bargain. You make the 45 million.

• 52:43Ryan Holiday?

  No, but you probably won't like hearing this as much, but I did a leather bound edition of The Daily Stoic. So I went to my publisher and said, hey, should we do like a premium edition? And they were like, like you said, they were like, well, that math doesn't really make sense to us. We don't want to do an addition that's going to sell a few thousand copies a year. You know, and I said, well, can I just buy the rights back to this edition of my own book? And they said, sure. And we did it. It's like, it's, it was incredible to go like, I made this and I sold it directly to people who wanted it. I didn't have to sell it for half price to someone else who then marked it up 2X. It's like, that's so inefficient. And, and there's just something I think special about making something.

• 53:25Ryan Holiday?

  That's why platforms like Etsy are powerful. That's why co-ops are cool. Anytime you're like directly going to the, the audience, it's cool.

• 53:35Rich Roll?

  And I think we're really still in the infancy of all of this, right? Like we're, you know, both making a living, you know, essentially in certain respects, like by dint of, of the internet, but. We're at the starting gate of all of this. Like, what does this look like in 10 years, in 15 years, in 20 years? And I think we're just going to see more and more people realizing, you know, to kind of, you know, coin what James Altucher talks about all the time, like this choose yourself economy where a lot of these gatekeepers and middle people were starting to realize like, hey, maybe we don't need them as much as we thought that we did. And I think psychologically, that shifts your perspective to the creation process

• 54:17Rich Roll?

  because you're no longer seeking permission. You're just more in that creative place of purity.

• 54:26Ryan Holiday?

  But I think this goes to the idea in the book, which is like, that requires some change. It requires one to undergo a certain change to be in a position to do that, especially if up until this point, your entire career has been getting permission, working with gatekeepers, you know, doing it through the traditional system. Like, you have to go, no, I'm gonna do it a totally different way.

• 54:55Rich Roll?

  Yeah, and there is no right or wrong, I should say. Like, I've done it the other way also. And with our first cookbook, The Plant Power Way, like, we created that in-house as well. And the idea was we were gonna self-publish it. But at the last minute, after it was essentially done, I was like, I gotta, you know, I have to see, you know, how the marketplace is gonna value this. And they valued it highly. And we made the decision to do it the traditional way. Also because it was my, you know, it was the first time my wife's name was gonna end up on a book. And I just thought it would be better to help legitimize her to go that route initially, rather than try to do it the other way around. And I'm glad we did it that way. We would have made more money if we had self-published it.

• 55:39Rich Roll?

  But that book would not have made its way into the hands of as many people, which was much more important to me at that time.

• 55:47Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, I like the idea too. I think it's a little bit more ancient. You know, it's like part of what... Our sort of mass culture has become is like that you have to have a huge audience, that you have to reach so many, many, many people. And like, the, the, the economy of scale is, is, it, it works, but it actually doesn't work that well for the individual, right? Cause it's sort of a winner take all kind of a thing. The idea of like, hey, we broke even on this book selling probably, probably only had to sell a few hundred copies to break even on it. I think that's what's been cool about Daily Stoic and some of the products we've done is, is you're playing at a smaller scale.

• 56:29Ryan Holiday?

  So you're able to make something much more niche, but therefore much more valuable in some ways, because it doesn't have to please everyone and it doesn't have to be palatable for a mass audience.

• 56:41Rich Roll?

  Yeah. I mean, that's been the really refreshing aspect of, of this latest book. I mean, I think when you put a book out and you know this as well as anyone, there's a sort of perversion that occurs, like it, it has to, you know, the, the preorder campaign has to, you know, you gotta sell all these books in the preorder window because that's what dictates bookseller, you know, orders and all of these lists that we put all this, you know, importance on. And so much of it is bullshit and that system is gamed so often by people who have means that it's, that it's become meaningless. And with this book, to opt out of all of that is so refreshing. It's like, I don't care preorder, order, like, I don't care.

• 57:25Rich Roll?

  Like, and I'm not trying to sell this book to a billion people. Like, I just wanna get it to the people who care about what I'm doing and I'm super awesome with that. It doesn't have to be anything beyond that. And to kind of let go of those expectations, or that, I should say, the pressure that you place upon yourself as an author and how, you know, the book is gonna be not only received, but perceived by, you know, the ecosystem that cares about publishing, to just opt out of that completely, has been, you know, really nice.

• 57:57Ryan Holiday?

  Well, you brought up the social dilemma earlier. I thought it was, you know, a couple of months ago, Instagram made that decision to take away likes from, from posts, although weirdly for us, like people with the blue check, they didn't do it. So we're still, we're still suffering for the, under the tyranny of the numbers. But I think one of the things that I found about like doing the leather bound edition or doing the other products that we've sold is that. Because you're handling the business side of it and it's not public, a lot of the vanity comes away because you're like, it's like when you, when I put this up on YouTube, I'm going to see how many views it does. And because I can see how many views it does, naturally you want it to be as many as possible.

• 58:39Ryan Holiday?

  But if it was a private video or somehow a site that didn't track views, that thought would never occur to you and you would only think, is this good? Have the people that I showed it to said that they appreciated it, yes or no? And in a weird way, podcasts are the same way, although there are download numbers for podcasts. I wonder if one of the reasons the medium has thrived is that nobody really knows how anyone else is doing. And, and the numbers are so delayed and not public, you're not like tracking it. You're just like, was it a good episode or not?

• 59:13Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that's been really refreshing. I mean, there are algorithms and like, you know, rankings and all that kind of stuff, but they can't even agree upon, you know, what a listen is. You know, it's like, there's this whole war going on in podcasting about, you know, what constitutes a download or a stream. So there isn't even any agreement, which is kind of nice too, because it's like, I don't want to, I don't want to care about that. All I want to do is try to have a present, authentic experience, make it as good as I can, and then I put it on the internet. But I put mine up on YouTube too. So not only are you seeing that and you then, you know, want it to, you know, be a certain way, or you want it to have, you know, you want it to get traction. Everybody else can see it, right? So then they're making that decision

• 59:58Rich Roll?

  about your inherent value based upon the amount of attention that you're getting. And I think that that's, you know, it's, it's really damaging to culture.

• 1:00:08Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, it's inherently corruptive. It's like you put a number on it and it suddenly becomes less good. Like I just imagine, because this is where I thought we'd wrap up, is I was thinking about your idea of like a sort of a book about these conversations. It's like the greatest conversationalist in history is Socrates. Imagine what Socrates' conversations would have been if you also had this other eye towards how they're performing.

• 1:00:33Rich Roll?

  Well, that would require application of the Stoic principles to divorce yourself from caring about that kind of stuff, right? But we're all human beings and you know, it's, it's almost refreshing to hear you say that you, you know, struggle, you know, with how to interact with this attention economy and do it in a healthy way. Cause it's hard.

• 1:00:54Ryan Holiday?

  I kind of have just an abstinence policy about it where it's like, most of the numbers are just kept from me in one form or another. And so I don't know. And then I think it's like, whenever you make the habit of checking, it's when you get into trouble. There used to be a website called Novel Rank and you would put in the ISBN of your book and it would tell you not just how it's doing in the U.S., but all the different translations on all the different Amazons at the same time. And maybe like five years ago, it closed, like the guy who made the website closed. And I swear this guy gave me like cumulatively hours, days of my life back because now that it doesn't exist, that energy goes somewhere else. I can't check it anymore.

• 1:01:37Rich Roll?

  Right. Yeah, you're much better off, right? It's difficult, man. You know, I, I think that I have found myself, I wouldn't say editing myself, but more self-conscious in podcasts over maybe the last six months than I ever remember in the past. And I don't know whether that's a function of this hair trigger climate that we're in right now, this fear of like, I don't want, you know, I don't want to say the thing that's going to make people mad. And I think it tracks back to this fear around audience reaction.

• 1:02:19Rich Roll?

  And so the work, you know, the work that I'm doing right now is to completely divorce myself from all comments. Like I don't want any of that interfering with my thought process. Like I want to be able to speak authentically. I want to be able to speak with conviction and I can't, the minute I start thinking about like, how is this going to land with a certain individual? Your history, right? Like, the whole value of what I'm trying to do becomes denigrated as a result of that process. And I think it's because of this infection of vitriol and acrimony that is making nuanced conversations so difficult right now. Like, all you have to do is look at your comment section, or what people say in response to whatever Sam

• 1:03:04Rich Roll?

  Harris decides to tweet that day, or anything like that. And you realize, like, it's really a sewer out there, and that stuff will mess with you psychologically if you're not really careful and create healthy boundaries around it.

• 1:03:18Ryan Holiday?

  No, I think you've got to put up boundaries there. For me, the boundary I have to work on more, I'd be curious what you think, is it's like, if I, like, let's say I do look at the numbers for something, usually I'm just pretty pleased. I'm like, oh, wow, people care. This is great. It's when you, it's when those numbers are relative to someone else, that's when you get in trouble. So it's like, if you look and you're like, oh, hey, 200,000 people listened to this interview, you're like, that's amazing. I would have killed for that five years ago. The problem is, then you, then you see in the rankings, somebody else did 201,001, and now, all of a sudden, it's not good enough, right? And so I think, I think, as a competitive person, one of the things you almost have to do

• 1:04:03Ryan Holiday?

  in creative pursuits is almost put those like horse blinders on, so you don't actually know who and what you're competing with, because it doesn't take you to a good place.

• 1:04:14Rich Roll?

  No, it never does. And it never ends either. And it doesn't matter how well you do, because somebody else is out there doing better, and you will continually be measuring yourself up against that individual on this habit trail. Like, I think I've heard you talk about this, maybe it was with James Altucher, about the, like, the Forbes list, right? Like, these billionaires who just couldn't possibly spend all the money that they have, get irate when one individual is above them in the top 10 richest people in the world. Like, it's utter insanity. And it's, that makes for an easy example to illustrate how preposterous the whole thing is. But then we have to reflect back on ourselves and realize that we're all doing some version of that every single day.

• 1:04:57Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, right. It doesn't matter if you're in the 1% or the .01% or the 10%, you're judging yourself compared to the other people. And there's that there's that Theodore Roosevelt quote, that comparison is the thief of joy, which I think is about as beautifully as it could possibly be expressed.

• 1:05:14Rich Roll?

  Yeah. And also, the enemy of creative expression. Because if you're doing it from a place of trying to measure up against someone else other than from, you know, a purity of heart, it's not going to be good anyway.

• 1:05:30Ryan Holiday?

  Right. It's, I think about it, is, are you doing it from a place of still a fullness or a place of emptiness? And, uh, and the fullness is where you want to be coming from, the sense of enough.

• 1:05:43Rich Roll?

  And in order to do that, you have to live your life, which means you got to put the phone down and go outside and interact with the world.

• 1:05:50Ryan Holiday?

  Exactly. Rich, thanks so much. This was amazing.

• 1:05:54Rich Roll?

  Thank you. I appreciate it. Thanks, Ryan.

• 1:05:56Ryan Holiday?

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