10 Rich Roll: From Fast Food King to the Vegan Ultra-Athlete

My guest this week is the amazing Rich Roll. His new book is called Finding Ultra: Rejecting Middle Age, Becoming One of the World's Fittest Men, and Discovering Myself. I had a chance to spend the afternoon with Rich and learn all about how he overcame working 80 hours a week eating fast food everyday, […] Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy! Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX

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

• 0:00Lewis Howes?

  Welcome to episode number 10 with Rich Roll on the School of Greatness.

• 0:09Lewis Howes?

  Hello everyone and welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes. I'm an author, lifestyle entrepreneur, former pro athlete and world record holder in football. My goal with the School of Greatness is to share with you stories from the most inspiring business minds, world-class athletes and influential celebrities on the planet to find out what makes great people great. So please leave us a review on iTunes and join us on the web at schoolofgreatness.com to be notified of each episode when it comes out. Now let's get after it.

• 0:54Lewis Howes?

  What is up, greats? Thanks so much for hanging out with me today. I've got some exciting news. This guest that I've got on today, his name is Rich Roll and I'm going to introduce him in just a second, but with that, our next guest is Rich Roll. His new book is called Finding Ultra: Rejecting Middle Age, Becoming One of the World's Fittest Men and Discovering Myself. It's kind of a memoir plus a lot of great nutritional and supplement things that he talks about on how he transformed his life when he was just about when he turned 40. He was 50 pounds overweight and he had a moment where he was eating fast food every day, realized that

• 1:38Lewis Howes?

  he was extremely out of shape and needed to make a change. And he talks about that in this interview. It's extremely inspiring what he's done. I urge you to check out the book. This guy is an ultra iron man competitor, ultra athlete. Basically, he does some of the craziest things in the world, running like 50 miles a day and biking 150 miles a day and swimming 10 plus miles a day and doing it every day of the year, right? He's insane, but it's an amazing, inspiring story and I'm very excited to introduce you to the man, Rich Roll.

• 2:16Lewis Howes?

  I don't really know anything about endurance training at all and I'm built for speed. That's really what I'm built for.

• 2:22Rich Roll?

  Power and strength.

• 2:23Lewis Howes?

  Power and strength. I have a mentor that I run with every now and then in Santa Barbara and he is a marathoner, like a long distance guy and I can barely keep up after two miles. I'm like, I need a break, I need to stretch. So I'm excited to learn more about this topic, but thanks so much for coming on today. I appreciate it.

• 2:43Rich Roll?

  Yeah, man. Thanks for having me. It's great to be here.

• 2:45Lewis Howes?

  We just had lunch here in LA, near West Hollywood, at a little spot that has some vegan options because Rich is vegan. I've got a good friend of mine who's actually been vegan for 15 years and he looks like he's, you know, my age and he's probably about 15 years older than me. It's amazing. The power of vegans, it's awesome what you guys can do.

• 3:05Rich Roll?

  Yeah, but do you ask him where he gets his protein? Must be something wrong.

• 3:08Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I don't ask him. No, but there's a lot of vegan options here in LA.

• 3:13Rich Roll?

  It's super easy in LA. I mean, you throw a rock and you hit a vegan restaurant or a juice bar or something like that.

• 3:19Lewis Howes?

  Exactly.

• 3:20Rich Roll?

  Yeah, they make it easy here in town. I realize it's not so easy in other states.

• 3:25Lewis Howes?

  The Midwest is like impossible.

• 3:27Rich Roll?

  Yeah. I mean, even if you go to a normal restaurant here, there's plenty of.

• 3:30Lewis Howes?

  There's usually a separate like gluten-free or vegan option menu, right?

• 3:34Rich Roll?

  But you see it more and more. I just got back from Charleston, South Carolina and I thought, there's not going to be any place where I'm going to be able to eat here. And everywhere I went, even like the pizza places had like cheeseless vegan pizzas with gluten-free crust and everything like that. So you're seeing it more and more.

• 3:50Lewis Howes?

  Exactly. Now, Rich, we got introduced through a mutual friend recently. We both got podcasts that came out around the same time. And what's your podcast title? Is it just your name?

• 3:59Rich Roll?

  It's The Rich Roll Podcast.

• 4:01Lewis Howes?

  The Rich Roll Podcast. It's smart. Just like the Joe Rogan Experience. It's a way to brand yourself. I love it. And Rich has an interesting story. I want to have him share his story here for a second before we get into some more awesome questions. But you used to be an entertainment lawyer, right? For a number of years.

• 4:19Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 4:20Lewis Howes?

  That was kind of your main thing.

• 4:21Rich Roll?

  It's my main thing. Yeah, recovering lawyer now.

• 4:23Lewis Howes?

  Recovering lawyer. You remind me of Jonathan Fields. I wonder if you've heard of Jonathan Fields?

• 4:27Rich Roll?

  I do know him. I've had a couple of emails with him over the last year and I'm going to New York in April. I was hoping to connect with him.

• 4:34Lewis Howes?

  I'll introduce you guys. I'll connect that for sure. So you were.

• 4:40Lewis Howes?

  In 2006, you had an interesting moment, right? There was a moment in your life where you were an entertainment lawyer, a little bit out of shape, not really happy or satisfied with what was happening in your life, your career. You're kind of like a stale moment, right? Is that?

• 4:54Rich Roll?

  Yeah, pretty much. I mean, in many ways, you could look at my life at that time and say, you know, I was the very model of the American dream. My wife and I built a beautiful house in Malibu Canyon, you know, happy marriage, having kids, successful entertainment law practice. And I'm also a recovering alcoholic and had been able to accumulate a number of years of sobriety and, you know, built my life back up from a pretty destitute state into, you know, something to be proud of. But at the same time, there was like this hole in my spirit, you know? Like, I felt like my whole, my whole life, I chased the kind of carrot, you know? Like, I would go to the best school. Like, I got in all the Ivy League schools. I studied hard, yeah.

• 5:39Rich Roll?

  And I was a good athlete and I played, you know, I was a swimmer at Stanford and I won two, two NCAA championships.

• 5:45Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 5:46Rich Roll?

  I was a bench warmer on the team. I can't take responsibility for winning those rings. But, uh, but yeah. And, uh, and, you know, took a, took a left turn and went down a dark alley with alcoholism, but was able to kind of address that and get my life back on track. And I worked super hard to kind of climb the corporate ladder and was on the partnership track at a big law firm. And, you know, to the outside observer, like I said, it looked like I had everything going on and, and I just was unhappy, you know? I was like, is this it? Is this like everything that I worked for? Like, why am I not? I felt ripped off, you know? I felt like cheated, like I'd done everything right. And yet, you know, and, and this was the point in, in life where I was supposed to be celebrating, you know, everything that I, that I'd built. And there was like a hole in my spirit.

• 6:31Rich Roll?

  And that kind of was exacerbated by a health crisis because during that period of time where I was working so hard, I really had overlooked my health and my fitness. And I'd put on 50 pounds. Um, and I'm a, I'm a slim guy, so I weighed about, I was 39 years old at the time, 46 now. So I weighed about 210 pounds.

• 6:53Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 6:53Rich Roll?

  Which, you know, I weigh, I weigh like 165 now. Um, almost six feet.

• 6:58Lewis Howes?

  Okay, yeah.

• 6:59Rich Roll?

  Six feet, so.

• 6:59Lewis Howes?

  You're slim.

• 7:00Rich Roll?

  If you see like, it wasn't like I was a candidate for the Biggest Loser, not like this huge obese guy, you know, but we're so used to seeing incredibly fat people all the time. I was like a guy who you expect to see, working 80 hour weeks in a law firm.

• 7:13Lewis Howes?

  Little gut.

• 7:14Rich Roll?

  Filled out, a little gut, you know, the round head, the whole thing.

• 7:18Lewis Howes?

  Chubby cheeks.

• 7:19Rich Roll?

  And I probably would have continued along that path, but what happened was shortly before I turned 40, I'd been working late, I came home late, and my eating habits were horrible. My friend, I have a friend named Asher Gunsberg, and he calls it the window diet. If I can roll down my window and they hand it, they hand it to me through a window, and I eat it, you know. So I was all about, you know, Domino's Pizza, Jack in the Box, McDonald's, Pizza Hut, you know, all the kind of fast, cheap food, because I didn't want to be bothered with cooking.

• 7:51Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 7:52Rich Roll?

  I worked late, so I wasn't home for dinner a lot. And, and I just developed a habit for those foods. And I think those habits were formed when I was a swimmer, because I was training four hours a day, and calories are king, you can just eat what you want when you're young. And I'm burning up, you know, you heard of the Michael Phelps diet.

• 8:07Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 8:07Rich Roll?

  I was on that diet, and I know what that's like. But when swimming's over, you know, those habits stay with you, and they're hard to break. So you continue to eat that way. And, you know, I think denial is a very powerful thing, too. So for years and years, I would look in the mirror, and I would still think that I was that fit collegiate swimmer. You know, I wasn't really seeing myself objectively or accurately. And so what happened was, um, yeah, I was up late, eating fast food on the couch, watching late night TV, my family was asleep, went to go up the stairs to go to sleep, one or two in the morning. And like halfway up a simple flight of stairs, I like had to stop. Like I was out of breath.

• 8:48Rich Roll?

  I had bent over, sweat on my forehead, tightness in my chest. And I, you know, I thought like, you know, I didn't have a heart attack, but it was scary enough to think, you know, I'm 39, like I had to like take a break, walking up a simple flight of stairs, like something is really not right. And, you know, I need to make some changes. So that's kind of like where it all began for me.

• 9:10Lewis Howes?

  So what happened next? Were you just like, okay, I'm gonna be drastic about the changes, or am I gonna ease into training again, or?

• 9:17Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I had to be.

• 9:18Lewis Howes?

  Run marathons, what?

• 9:20Rich Roll?

  Well, what hap- I'm a very extreme personality, and as all good alcoholics are.

• 9:27Rich Roll?

  And so for me, you know, easing into something has never really worked. And I kind of tend to see things, perceive the world through this prism of recovery and addiction. And that's kind of my programming. And, you know, when it came time for me, I struggled with alcoholism for a long time. And when it came time for me to get sober and when that denial, you know, snapped and I was ready to do something, I had to act very decisively and very drastically.

• 9:54Lewis Howes?

  Rip the band-aid.

• 9:55Rich Roll?

  And very immediately, yeah, ripped the band-aid, got on a plane, went to rehab and was in rehab for a hundred days.

• 10:01Lewis Howes?

  Is that thirty-nine?

• 10:02Rich Roll?

  Pulled out, no, that was.

• 10:03Lewis Howes?

  Before.

• 10:03Rich Roll?

  That was several years prior to that, like nineteen ninety-seven.

• 10:06Lewis Howes?

  Got you.

• 10:07Rich Roll?

  But the point is that I understood how important those little cracks in the door are, like when you have, like when you're able to kind of snap that denial and see yourself more clearly or recognize the need for a change. I understood the importance of acting decisively and immediately because I reflected back on that moment where I decided to get sober. Had I just not acted on that in that moment, I might have stayed drunk for the next several years and maybe gotten into an accident and died or killed somebody, you know what I mean? So those moments, I think, in life are really, really powerful. And because I had had one prior, I was able to recognize how important it was and I knew that I needed to act quickly and decisively.

• 10:47Rich Roll?

  Because I think, and I think the other thing is, is the thing to bear in mind is specificity. Because for me to say, "Well, you know what, I really ought to eat better and I should probably go to the gym a little bit more." Like, what does that mean? That doesn't mean anything. To me, to me at least it doesn't. That might work for other people, but that's too vague, you know? So I needed to like do something that I could, that was in accordance with a program, that I could hold myself accountable to.

• 11:12Lewis Howes?

  Yep.

• 11:13Rich Roll?

  That would start right away before that kind of motivation and immediacy wanes. And then you're just back to doing whatever it is you're doing.

• 11:21Lewis Howes?

  I think this is something that a lot of elite athletes have in common is there's, you can get focused on like a plan and a goal. And it's not just like, "Okay, I need to do this, I'm gonna do a little bit of it," and then it just fades away. But we're like a different breed in the fact that we can just like take so much action on something and become so committed to the result.

• 11:40Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 11:41Lewis Howes?

  Like end goal or whatever it is. I think that gives us an advantage in just in life in general and business, having that athletic background. You competing at a division one school, you understand what it means to like reach a goal and train four hours a day and do whatever it takes to like

• 11:54Rich Roll?

  Well, you see the, you see the, the cause and effect.

• 11:57Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 11:57Rich Roll?

  And I know, and you're probably the same way. When I have a schedule and I know what I'm doing and my time is regimented, then I'm, you know, exponentially more productive. And my wife doesn't work that way. She's kind of likes to be all over the place and not be so planned ahead and, and that works for her. And when I try to do it her way, like my whole life just falls apart. Like I need, I'm like, I need structure. I need structure. I operate well within the constraints of that.

• 12:24Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 12:25Rich Roll?

  So, you know, as, as, as it applies to diet, you know, so that's kind of what led me into this new phase. And I started it off with a seven day juice cleanse. And I, I know you had your guest the other week talking about the benefits of that. And I, I can speak to that because that changed everything for me. And being a junk food junkie, uh, I was sort of the last guy in the world to like sort of jump on the juice fast bandwagon. Like that was very out of character for me. Um, but what happened was my wife in like 2004, she had had, she developed a cyst on her neck, a thyroglossal cyst, which was like, she had like a tennis ball sized growth on her neck.

• 13:04Lewis Howes?

  What?

• 13:05Rich Roll?

  And all the doctors went to Cedar Sinai, we went to UCLA, and they all said the same thing, which was, uh, it's not malignant, it's a benign growth, but it's also never going to go away and it'll probably just continue to grow a little bit and you're going to have to have it surgically removed. And she had had a botched tonsillectomy several years prior that she, that had her in bed, like on bed rest for weeks and weeks. So she was not in a hurry to have anyone cut her neck open again to deal with this. And it was also sort of a, um, not a, not the most serious surgery, but there was, it's attached to the vertebrae and there's some nerves around there. And she was like, no way. So she decided she was going to heal this thing, uh, herself. And she went to an Ayurvedic doctor

• 13:49Rich Roll?

  and he put her on this crazy regimen of plant-based foods and bizarre teas and the grossest smelling, foulous smelling paste and weird stuff I'd ever seen in my life. Uh, she would rub this stuff on her neck at night and put a bandage on, bandage on it. And it did not, uh, it was not a, it was not a quick process. It took maybe nine months, but she healed herself and it went away and it has never come back. So I knew, uh, that was powerful because I, it was the first time. It went all the way, it's gone. Yeah.

• 14:20Lewis Howes?

  It's amazing.

• 14:20Rich Roll?

  It's never come back. And, you know, maybe there's a, a Western doctor out there who could come up with some explanation. But it's irrelevant to me because what I saw was somebody who was able to heal themselves with food. And so then I was like, all right, I need to kind of get on this program. And so that's, you know, for me to say, I'm going to do a juice cleanse. When I said that to my wife, she was like.

• 14:42Lewis Howes?

  She was shocked.

• 14:43Rich Roll?

  What she heard was, you know, that dress and, and the high heels in the closet? Like, I think I'm going to wear that to the party. Like, that's how out of character it was for me.

• 14:51Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 14:51Rich Roll?

  Um, but.

• 14:52Lewis Howes?

  This is back in 2006?

• 14:53Rich Roll?

  This is 2006.

• 14:55Lewis Howes?

  So it wasn't really, juice cleanse weren't really still like mainstream or more popular then?

• 14:59Rich Roll?

  Not as mainstream as they are now. I mean, in LA, you know, everyone's doing it, you know? And it wasn't like the, the cayenne pepper one. It was a little, there was more nutrients in it to that.

• 15:09Lewis Howes?

  Now, have you seen the documentary Food Matters?

• 15:12Rich Roll?

  Yes.

• 15:13Lewis Howes?

  And I watched that probably about six months ago on Netflix. And I remember seeing how they're healing themselves through supplements and for, through juice, things like that. And so this reminds me a lot of Chris Carr's story.

• 15:25Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 15:25Lewis Howes?

  And, uh, Food Matters, which your wife went through.

• 15:28Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 15:28Lewis Howes?

  So it's pretty interesting. And I also watched, I don't know if you watched this, but Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead.

• 15:32Rich Roll?

  Of course.

• 15:32Lewis Howes?

  The juice. I started watching, I watched that and then I got into juice after that. And now it's like almost every day I, I juice. And I see, I have a very similar story with you where I was 35 pounds heavier than I am now. And I remember feeling tired walking up hills and stairs. But I also felt like I looked okay. I had a gut. It was like.

• 15:51Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 15:51Lewis Howes?

  Still feel like you're an athlete, but.

• 15:53Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 15:54Lewis Howes?

  You gotta really pay attention to what you're eating, I think.

• 15:56Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 15:57Lewis Howes?

  At all times.

• 15:57Rich Roll?

  All the time. And it's, it's hard to convey that message to young people. You know, I was the last person who wanted to hear that, you know? You're, you're more willing to pay attention when you're older and you experience what that kind of lethargy is like. And that low-grade depression and the impact of a poor diet on, you know, every aspect of your life. Not just your waistline, but literally, literally your emotional state, your mental state, your spiritual state.

• 16:21Lewis Howes?

  Everything. Everything. So you're 39, you go through the juice cleanse, then. Do you have a vision of being in an ultra marathon, Iron Man machine? Or is it just like, okay, I want to start swimming again and see how it feels?

• 16:35Rich Roll?

  More the latter. You know, the juice cleanse was an interesting experience because the first couple of days, I was buckled over, sweating like I was in rehab. You know, I felt like detoxing off heroin or something like that. It was terrible. But by the last couple of days of it, and I don't know if you've had this experience, I felt incredible. You know, like, like better than I'd felt in 20 years or maybe ever.

• 16:59Rich Roll?

  And so that told me just how resilient the human body is. That in a, in a matter of a week, after treating my body so horribly with terrible diet and drug and alcohol abuse for so long, then in a mere week of doing this, it could feel this good? Like, it's amazing, right? So then I thought, well, I gotta start eating food. You know, I've wiped this slate clean. I gotta start on a new trajectory here. And I made an ill-fated kind of attempt to eat a vegetarian diet. And I didn't read the books. I didn't, I didn't, I didn't know what I was doing. And, you know, it wasn't long before I'm eating Domino's pizza with cheese. You know, like, I'm looking for the loophole. You know, well, this is vegetarian. And the reason I chose vegetarian diet is like, like I said, I, I have this prism of

• 17:44Rich Roll?

  recovery that I see the world. And, and in recovery, it's, it's like you're either drinking or you're not, you're sober or you're using drugs or you're not. And vegetarian diet was easy for my mind to approach because it's like you're eating meat or you're not. And I think there's like that line in the sand. But that didn't work. And I was ready to just bag it, quite honestly, and say, well, I tried and, you know, I'm gonna go back and do, do what I was gonna do. But I thought, well, I'm halfway there. I wonder what would happen if I got rid of the dairy and I got rid of the processed foods? And I did it as almost a way to prove that it wouldn't work. To myself and to my wife.

• 18:18Lewis Howes?

  Just to make sure that you.

• 18:19Rich Roll?

  Yeah, just, well, I'll explore this, but you know, this isn't going to work either. And, and what happened was I ended up, again, a week later, I felt as good as I felt during that juice cleanse. And that's when I thought, wow, something's really going on here.

• 18:31Lewis Howes?

  Were you gluten and dairy free during that time as well?

• 18:33Rich Roll?

  Um, yeah, I wouldn't say I was a hundred percent gluten free. Like, I tried to eat gluten free, um, and that's still a battle for me, you know. I went, you know, usually at home I do, but you know, every once in a while, some bread or wheat finds its way to my diet. I know that I feel a lot better when I'm eating gluten free, for sure.

• 18:49Lewis Howes?

  Especially if you're vegan, it's hard to be gluten free and vegan, I think.

• 18:52Rich Roll?

  Yeah, you're, you're, you're cutting, you're cutting the bone.

• 18:54Lewis Howes?

  What can you eat?

• 18:55Rich Roll?

  Cutting it close to the bone. Yeah, I know.

• 18:56Lewis Howes?

  What can you eat?

• 18:56Rich Roll?

  Well, there's a lot you can eat, but, but to get, to sort of wrap up the long-winded answer to your question, um, you know, I started exercising again, which is something I hadn't really done regularly in a very long time, just to burn off all the extra energy I had. Like, I was bouncing off the walls, like, I couldn't sit still, like, I needed to get out and, and do something with my body. So I didn't have.

• 19:18Lewis Howes?

  The nutrients were giving you all this energy.

• 19:19Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I was jacked, like, all the time, which is not what I expected on a vegan diet, you know. Uh, but I didn't have some big, grand design to return to being a competitive athlete. I just wanted to, I wanted to lose my gut, and I wanted to be able to enjoy my children at their energy level. I mean, that was really my goal at the time.

• 19:39Lewis Howes?

  Hmm. So tell me the difference between a triathlon, an Ironman, and an ultra-Ironman, I guess.

• 19:48Rich Roll?

  Ultra, an ultra-distance Ironman. Yeah, so.

• 19:50Lewis Howes?

  Is it called ultra-Ironman?

• 19:52Rich Roll?

  Well, Ultraman is one race, but I guess ultra-distance triathlon, yeah. Well, a triathlon is, is any race that involves the disciplines of swimming, cycling, and running, and they come in all shapes and sizes.

• 20:06Lewis Howes?

  There's like a sprinter's form, an Olympic.

• 20:08Rich Roll?

  Right. Sometimes the course dictates the various distances and the disciplines, but some of them, you know, can take, you know, half an hour to do, or an hour, and they range, um, they range in, in, uh, in scope. An Ironman is, uh, sort of the, the crown jewel of triathlon, at least in America. Um, and that's a very long race in which in one day you do a 2.4 mile swim, followed by 112 miles on the bike, and then a marathon after that. You do that all at once.

• 20:40Lewis Howes?

  And then?

• 20:41Rich Roll?

  And then Ultraman.

• 20:44Rich Roll?

  Which is what, we're jumping ahead a little bit because this is the race that I've done a couple of times. The Ultraman is a race, the Ultraman World Championships is a race that's held every year, Thanksgiving weekend, on the big island of Hawaii. And it's essentially double the distance of an Ironman, and it's held as a stage race, during which, over the course of three days, you circumnavigate the entire big island, you do a loop around the entire island. It's a big island, it's like the size of Connecticut.

• 21:12Lewis Howes?

  It's big.

• 21:13Rich Roll?

  And that entails, well, day one, you do a 6.2 mile ocean swim, followed by a 90 mile bike, the last 20 miles of which are up this mountain of Volcano National Park. The second day, you do 170 miles on the bike, and then the third day, you do a 52.4 mile run, a double marathon run.

• 21:36Lewis Howes?

  That just sounds exhausting.

• 21:39Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's long.

• 21:40Lewis Howes?

  Now, what do you do to prepare, both physically and mentally, for probably one of the most challenging things that your body can go through?

• 21:48Rich Roll?

  You quit your job, and you say goodbye to all your friends, and, no. Well, for me, I did this race for the first time in 2008, and when I had it in, got it into my insane brain that I wanted to try this, I only had about six months of real preparation time to do it. I hired a coach, so I know that's a big message in your podcast, of surrounding yourself with experts and people that know more about things than you do. So that was the first thing I did.

• 22:18Lewis Howes?

  Do you think you could have done as well as you've done without a coach?

• 22:20Rich Roll?

  No question, but there's no way.

• 22:22Lewis Howes?

  No way.

• 22:23Rich Roll?

  I wouldn't have even finished it, you know, there's no, there's no way. There's no way. And I don't know whether he believed that I was going to be able to do it, but he led me to believe that he could take me across the finish line, and that was enough for me to believe in him and in the program that he constructed for me, to which I adhered to, to a T, because I was terrified. Because I'm coming off the couch, and, and, you know, at this point... I started exercise, my wife bought me a bike for my 40th birthday. I'd never, I'd never ridden, really ridden a bike and I'd never been a runner. I'd been a swimmer in college, but we're talking about a good 20 years of relative inactivity and trying to get ready for this race. Wow. In a, in a pretty short period of time. How many months do you have?

• 23:06Rich Roll?

  So, well, I'd been kind of biking and running and sort of getting fit, like I, you know, like I said, as a result of this added energy boost and that'd been going on for, you know, like a year, but very unstructured and not like focused on, it wasn't training, it was sort of like enjoying being outdoors with friends and just getting a little bit more fit and having some of the weight come off. But when I, when it was time to get serious, I had about six and a half months to actually focus and get prepared. So, you know, it was imperative that I not miss any workouts and do as I was told and show up and suit up. And I, and I did that. And, and, you know, it, endurance sports, you know, a lot of people get injured running. And, and a big reason, there's many reasons for

• 23:48Rich Roll?

  that, but one of the biggest reasons is people ramp up their volume too quickly. So. They're like, oh, I'm up to run a marathon, so I'm gonna start running 10 miles a day. Yeah, they start, they run every day and, you know, they go out and they run hard every time and, and there's not enough, you know, every workout needs to have a purpose. And that purpose is different on different days. And, and one of the big things that I learned in preparing for this, as a swimmer, back in the late 1980s, we would just show up for a workout and go hard. And I'd jump in the pool after a brief warm-up, then every set, I just went as hard as I could. And that was it. There was no recovery days, there were no rest weeks, there was no, we would just train like that for eight months and then do a two-week taper and see how it would go. And I thought that that's how you would

• 24:31Rich Roll?

  prepare for a race like this too. And what I learned, what my coach was able to teach me, and he was a guest on my podcast a couple of weeks ago, for people that want to hear more about my specific training philosophy, because it's too long-winded to get into here, but, but it's about.

• 24:49Rich Roll?

  Building your volume very gradually and very incrementally to not overstress your body too soon because you'll just overtrain or make yourself tired and then you'll get sick and then you'll get injured and then you'll end up missing more training than you would otherwise. So being very cautious and responsible about how you build that pyramid and creating a really strong broad foundation and stepping up from there. But you know, so it started off gradual, but at the end, you know, I was putting in 25 hour training weeks. I mean, it became like a second job to me.

• 25:21Lewis Howes?

  25 hours a week. How many a day?

• 25:24Rich Roll?

  Most days, there'd be two training sessions in a day. I never ran, I never ran two days in a row, but Tuesdays were double run days. Saturdays were really long bike rides that gradually ramped up from a couple hours up to eight or nine hours there at the end. And then Sundays were really long run days. And I did some simulation weekends in that kind of eight or 10 weeks leading up to the race where I would approximate the Ultraman distance over a Friday, Saturday and Sunday. So in training before the race, I actually did a 40 mile run and a 45 mile run.

• 26:00Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 26:01Rich Roll?

  So I knew I was going to be able to finish it. Knew I was going to be able to finish it. And just the fact that I was able to do those training runs was like, at the time that I accomplished that, I was like, this is the greatest thing I've ever done as an athlete in my life. I can't even believe I just ran that.

• 26:13Lewis Howes?

  Just training.

• 26:14Rich Roll?

  In training. Yeah. And at the end of a long week where I, I kicked my butt all week and had ridden my bike like nine hours the day before. So.

• 26:23Lewis Howes?

  That's impressive.

• 26:24Rich Roll?

  Yeah. But I mean, again, it goes back to my coach and creating a program.

• 26:27Lewis Howes?

  Hmm. Now, did you know when you said, when you set out to wanting to achieve the Ultraman? Ultraman is what you call it?

• 26:35Rich Roll?

  The Ultraman.

• 26:36Lewis Howes?

  Ultraman. Did you know when you said, okay, I'm going to go do this race, that you could complete it? Did you say, do you think to yourself, I'm going to try this race, but? I'm just gonna do it and see how I do, or I am gonna complete it. Did you like visualize that when you like set out to do it? Where you're like, there's no matter what, I'm gonna finish this race?

• 26:55Rich Roll?

  Uh, well, first of all, visualization is very important, um, and I do a lot of positive visualization in, in everything that I do, and I find that critical. So when I lined up to, to, uh, tackle that race, I knew that I was gonna finish it. There was no question in my mind that I was gonna finish it. And also, that's a result of having done those simulation weekends where I'd done ninety percent of the race in training when I was tired. So I knew that when I showed up to actually do it, rested, that I was gonna be able to do it. That being said, in two thousand eight, the first time I did it, I didn't, I wasn't there to race it. I was there to, my goal was, don't die.

• 27:31Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 27:32Rich Roll?

  And finish.

• 27:33Lewis Howes?

  Don't get injured.

• 27:33Rich Roll?

  And I was doing it to celebrate this life change that I made. I mean, two years prior, I couldn't make it up a staircase, and here I was, you know, I'd never done an Ironman. I, it wasn't like I was a seasoned triathlete.

• 27:45Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 27:45Rich Roll?

  Like, I'm a complete newbie. Like, I really didn't know.

• 27:47Lewis Howes?

  So you've never done a triathlon?

• 27:48Rich Roll?

  What I was getting involved in. Well, I'd done, I did like the Malibu triathlon and short, like, I knew I could do short ones and stuff like that, but it wasn't like I was off, you know, do, I'd done ten Ironmans and how I'd experienced. Like, I was very inexperienced at this. And I had humility, you know? Like, I went into this race, I was, I had a level of confidence that I could complete it, but I also had a responsible level of humility about what I was about to do. And I, I wasn't there to win or anything like that. I was there to like celebrate.

• 28:15Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 28:15Rich Roll?

  The fact that I was sober, the fact that I had lost this weight and changed my life, and, and, and that was really, that was really it. It wasn't to compete.

• 28:23Lewis Howes?

  So you went, so you never did an Ironman, you went right to ultra?

• 28:25Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 28:26Lewis Howes?

  Which is two Ironmans.

• 28:27Rich Roll?

  I told you I was a, a, a sort of an obsessive, extreme person.

• 28:30Lewis Howes?

  I can't, I can't even, I can't even see myself doing a marathon. It's like, it just seems like so far.

• 28:35Rich Roll?

  I'll, I'll get you there. When you said you have trail running more than two miles, you don't spend enough time with me.

• 28:39Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. I feel like maybe in like ten years, when I'm like done being a, a, built for speed, then I'll just do the long distance thing.

• 28:46Rich Roll?

  You'd be surprised.

• 28:47Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 28:47Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 28:47Lewis Howes?

  I feel like I'll get slower, though, if I do like training long distance. No?

• 28:50Rich Roll?

  No, I'll help you out.

• 28:52Lewis Howes?

  Alright, cool. We'll do a run sometime. Maybe you can help me with my form, maybe that's what it is. Um, so what did you do? Then and now, what do you do like when you're training mentally? So you go out every day, I'm assuming for a couple hours every day or something for your training now. What do you do mentally during these long painful workouts? Cause it's like, it's a lot of one-on-one time with yourself.

• 29:18Rich Roll?

  It's a lot of long time.

• 29:19Lewis Howes?

  Your own like doubts like, oh, I just wanna go back and relax today or I've got other stuff to do. I wanna hang out with my kids. I wanna go in the pool.

• 29:26Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 29:28Lewis Howes?

  How do you stay committed to being mentally tough every day, every workout for years? To compete at this level and stay fit and stay in shape?

• 29:37Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's, it's a challenge. Um, you know, I have four kids and I'm married and I have other things in my life. Uh, so it's, and my life is more complicated now than it was in two thousand eight, two thousand nine when I was doing, when I did these races that I talk about in the book. Um, but I'm a better person when I'm taking care of myself in this way. And there's a certain part of me that feels like that's what I'm supposed to be doing. Like I'm, you know, I'm, I'm wired for it and I'm happier, I'm more productive. I'm a better husband and I'm a better father when I am, when I am training and taking care of myself in that way. And that doesn't mean that when I'm out on a Saturday and I have a really long ride to do, that I don't,

• 30:22Rich Roll?

  I don't have certain thoughts of feeling guilty like I should be with my kids right now. And you know, I work from home. I'm around my kids a lot. You know, I'm there, I'm there all the time. So I'm not, by no means am I an absentee dad or anything like that.

• 30:35Lewis Howes?

  You're not working eighty hours a weekend in office and then coming home and training three hours a day and then spending.

• 30:39Rich Roll?

  Exactly. But I'm also human where I think, you know, is this, I question, I'm always, I think it's important to always be questioning what you're doing. You know, rather than just blindly saying this is what I'm supposed to be doing. Um, but I approach. The training, every training session has an active meditation. And it's an opportunity to be present in what you're doing and connect with a higher version of yourself, a more aspirational version of yourself, uh, and to kind of the environment at large. And I find that I learn a lot about myself, particularly in the last few hours of a long session or the last hour when it's starting to become very difficult and painful and you're overly fatigued and all of that.

• 31:24Rich Roll?

  That's where the magic happens and that's, and that's where the beauty happens. And it's like,

• 31:31Rich Roll?

  have you ever driven across country? In a car like by yourself or anything like that?

• 31:35Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I've driven from, well, Ohio to the top of Maine, which is probably like a fourteen, fifteen hour trip, so.

• 31:41Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 31:42Lewis Howes?

  By myself with no A C in the middle of the summer and no radio.

• 31:45Rich Roll?

  Right, right, right.

• 31:46Lewis Howes?

  Like a beat up junker.

• 31:47Rich Roll?

  So that's similar, it's a similar thing because, and I've done that too. The first couple of hours are the hardest hours because you're not used to sitting still. You're not used to being alone. You're not used to all these things. You're antsy and you're like, I'm never gonna make it. And then, you know, nine hours into the drive, you'll kind of come to and go, oh, what was I thinking about the last hour? And where about then? You go into your zone, right? And that happens a lot, you know, and it's a similar kind of thing.

• 32:13Lewis Howes?

  Interesting. So you look at it as active meditation. Do you actually do non-active meditation as well then? Where you're just completely silent, no movement?

• 32:22Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 32:22Lewis Howes?

  You do a lot of that as well?

• 32:23Rich Roll?

  Yeah, absolutely. I think that, I think that that is the final frontier, uh, for performance in life, whether you're a businessman or you're an athlete or, or whatever it is. I mean, athletes will train their bodies, but I think that they under train their mind.

• 32:40Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 32:41Rich Roll?

  And that's probably true in business as well.

• 32:43Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 32:43Rich Roll?

  Um, and I know, and I've gone in and out of having a consistent meditation practice. So I'm not perfect at it by any means. Um, but I know that when I am actively meditating on a consistent basis, uh, that, that, uh, I'm definitely sharper and more focused. I'm a better athlete and I have better follow through in the things that I'm doing during the day. And it has this weird, there's this weird inverse relationship where you think, well, I don't have time to do that because I got all these other things to do. I gotta call that guy and I gotta drive to this place and I gotta do that thing.

• 33:15Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 33:16Rich Roll?

  Um, but when I take the time and I do it. Then all that stuff gets done somehow. It all gets done and then some, you know, like I actually advanced the ball more than seems logical.

• 33:28Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 33:28Rich Roll?

  For some reason.

• 33:29Lewis Howes?

  It's like every time I go on a flight, I always remember to take care of myself because they say, you know, make sure to put your own mask on first before assisting others. And I think, you know, I'm all about helping people and I'm a big giver and wanna help the world and I'm sure you do as well with your message. But we all, in my opinion, need to be extremely selfish for at least a few hours every day for ourselves and make sure we're getting all of our needs met, all of our wants, desires, we're like going after them so that we're not just like resenting ourselves for just giving all the time.

• 34:01Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 34:01Lewis Howes?

  We're really taking care of our bodies physically, mentally, emotionally. Wouldn't you agree?

• 34:06Rich Roll?

  Yeah. You, uh, you can't help someone else if you're not taking care of yourself. And you can't give something away that you haven't got. So you cannot put a message out there about health, fitness, you know, spirituality, you know, business, whatever it is, if you're not practicing that.

• 34:25Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 34:26Rich Roll?

  You can, but people are more perceptive than you think and they will be able to tell whether that's an authentic message or not. And if you're not doing what you're saying, people will know.

• 34:38Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 34:38Rich Roll?

  You know, and then it will fall flat.

• 34:41Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 34:41Rich Roll?

  And water rises to its own level. You know what I mean? So you have to walk your walk and for the kind of message that you're putting out and the kind of message that I'm putting out, like I have to do those things in order to be able to talk about them.

• 34:53Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 34:54Rich Roll?

  And you can look at it like selfishness, but you know, it's, it's really, it's really not because you're of maximum service to other people when you're as fit as you can be.

• 35:04Lewis Howes?

  Hmm, that's true.

• 35:05Rich Roll?

  And by fit, I don't just mean physically.

• 35:06Lewis Howes?

  Emotionally.

• 35:07Rich Roll?

  Yeah, in a holistic wellness sense.

• 35:10Lewis Howes?

  So you should be selfish in becoming very healthy, in my opinion. And I'm becoming more and more selfish every day with my health.

• 35:19Lewis Howes?

  Trying to be at least, you know, I'm not perfect. I, I still have like-

• 35:22Rich Roll?

  Nobody is. And I think, I think that's an important thing to talk about though, because it is this notion of perfection, or like, holding on to this idea of perfection, that I think prevents a lot of people from moving forward. And I come across this because I eat a plant-based diet. And people say, well, that's, I can never do that. That's too, it's too hard, you know? And so they don't even try. And I'm like, you don't have to do it perfect. Just start. Like, if all you did was have a green juice every day, and that's all you did, that would change your life.

• 35:50Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 35:50Rich Roll?

  So, let go of being perfect. You know, you're not going to be perfect in CrossFit. You know, you're not going to be perfect in whatever it is that you're trying. But you, if you can give yourself permission to fail, or to be imperfect, that creates a safe place that allows people to move into, move in a new direction, and blossom in a way that maybe they, uh, didn't expect.

• 36:12Lewis Howes?

  I think when, when we beat ourselves up over the mistakes we think we're making. So it's like, we're eating really healthy, but then we have a box of cookies or something.

• 36:20Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 36:20Lewis Howes?

  And then we're like, ah, then we beat ourselves up over it. That does more damage-

• 36:24Rich Roll?

  It takes you out of the game.

• 36:25Lewis Howes?

  Takes you out of the game. So not to beat ourselves up over it. Like, I had a half a box of uh, Girl Scout cookies last night, I'm not gonna lie. But I don't feel bad. I don't feel bad. I used to feel bad. But now it's like, you know what? I've been eating clean all week. I've been eating really well. You know, I have juice every day. I have a smoothie every morning, everything. So what if I have a half a box of cookies once a week?

• 36:46Rich Roll?

  Right. We just go, well, that's interesting that I did that. I wonder why I behave that way? Like, am I depressed? Like, let me look at that. But in the meantime, I'm gonna do the next right thing.

• 36:54Lewis Howes?

  Right. And I had a green juice today, a smoothie and healthy meal, you know, it's like-

• 36:59Rich Roll?

  We feel good.

• 37:00Lewis Howes?

  I feel good, man.

• 37:01Rich Roll?

  We're gonna keep this podcast going for the next five hours.

• 37:04Lewis Howes?

  Ultra podcast. Um, so what's, what was the most difficult-

• 37:10Lewis Howes?

  Race you've had to date.

• 37:12Rich Roll?

  Uh.

• 37:13Lewis Howes?

  What's been the most challenging for you?

• 37:15Rich Roll?

  Um, well, after I did, I did that. So I did that Ultraman in 2008. I did finish. And again, my goal wasn't a race, but I ended up 11th in that race.

• 37:24Lewis Howes?

  Out of how many? 12?

• 37:25Rich Roll?

  There were only 35, actually. It's a small race, but it's invitation only from athletes all over the world. So it was a, it was a triumph just to be able to.

• 37:32Lewis Howes?

  This is your first one?

• 37:33Rich Roll?

  That was my first one.

• 37:33Lewis Howes?

  2008?

• 37:34Rich Roll?

  2008. So then I thought, well, I wonder what would happen if I actually trained for a whole year and took it seriously and went back not just to complete it, but to actually race it and see what I could do. So that's what I did. So I went back in 2009. Um, uh, after the 6.2 mile swim, I got out of the water 10 minutes ahead of the next guy. And I held that lead that whole day one through that 90 miles on the bike and finished that day with it. I held that 10 minute lead the whole day. So I finished day one with a 10 minute lead on everybody.

• 38:02Lewis Howes?

  It's amazing.

• 38:03Rich Roll?

  And I'm like, this is awesome. Eating a vegan diet is working, you know? Uh, but, uh, what happened was 35 miles into the next day's ride, the 171 mile ride, I crashed my bike. Uh, bike slipped out from underneath me on wet pavement. Um, I went down hard. My knee was bleeding, my left shoulder, all the skin was sheared off it, and I broke a pedal.

• 38:28Lewis Howes?

  Oh.

• 38:29Rich Roll?

  And it was on one section of the road where they don't allow any crew support. Um, so I had to, because every athlete has to bring their own crew. So you have this van with your crew support that's following every, every, yeah, exactly. All your equipment, all your food, because you stay in a different place every night and they go around with you. Um, no crew van, so I had to pedal my bike with one foot for a full mile to get to the end of this segment and meet up with my crew. And, you know, without a pedal, like, it's done, right? You know, like, I don't care, you know, like, I don't care who you are, you're not going to finish the race. So during that one mile, I had an opportunity to, you know, when you sort of like, you've probably experienced this in football, where you take your mind out of it, like, you're, you're, you're totally engaged in what you're doing

• 39:14Rich Roll?

  and then something happens that throws you off and then you just check out. You're out. You're out. It's done, right? So I'm like, start to think, this is awesome. Like, I don't have to finish this race. I just got a exit pass out of all this pain. No one's going to say anything because obviously I have a broken pedal. I crashed, like, it's over with. And I start thinking about, ah, I'm going to sleep in a nice bed tonight. I'm going to take my kids to the beach the next day. And what happened was I get to the end of the road. I held my wife. She's there. And I got blood all over me. My knee's all swollen and a guy who was crewing for another athlete comes up to me and he's like, what kind of pedal do you need? I showed him the make and model of the fractured, broken pedal. He disappears. He comes back with a brand new pedal.

• 39:57Rich Roll?

  The exact model of the one that I had on my bike that was still on the box. It was brand new. And he's like, give me your bike. He took my bike. He like, put, got the new pedal on it and he's like, you're getting back on your bike. Were you thinking to him like, uh, don't worry about it? I was like, you don't understand, you know, I'm done, you know, like, I'm not doing this race anymore. Cause and he's like, no, you're getting on your bike. Wow. And so I think the hardest thing that I've ever experienced was, was getting back on that bike and then with the, you know, with blood all over my knee and my shoulder and riding the rest of those 150 miles injured. Um, but it wasn't the injuries as much as it was trying to mentally get back into it after you've checked out. I can only imagine. And I suffered through that day and it was miserable.

• 40:42Rich Roll?

  And I lost, you know, all the whole lead that I had and the whole thing. Cause you're just thinking, I don't want to be doing this for another hundred miles. Yeah, exactly. Every pedal stroke was miserable. No focus, no like desire. Absolutely not. And then even after finishing that, being in so much pain, thinking, well, I'm not going to run tomorrow, you know, like I got through that. Um, you know, my knee, I had all this ice on my knee. It was all swollen. I was like, there's no way I'm running tomorrow. But I thought, well, I'll just show up and I'll just, I'll run a half mile, see how it feels, you know, I'll just gauge it. If it, if it really isn't, if I really don't think it's going to hold up, I'll just, I'll run until I think it's going to give out on me and then I'll pull out. And so I showed up to run and I just, you know, with every half mile, it started to loosen up. How many, 50 miles?

• 41:27Rich Roll?

  52 miles. So I ended up running that whole thing on a, on a wounded knee. And uh, kind of worked my way back up the field a little bit. Uh, and ended up sixth overall in that race. Did you see yourself getting like a second win where you're like, okay, it's feeling okay. I'm going to like, kick it in like the tiger music. I definitely got back in the game a little bit on it. Um, and so people say to me, well, aren't you bummed that you crashed? And do you think you could have won the race or do you think you could have been on the podium? And my answer is always the same, which is no, like it was the perfect race because I didn't. My attraction to even doing this race in the beginning in 2008 was never to like see

• 42:08Rich Roll?

  how many people I could beat or how fast I could go. It was, I wanted to have a spiritual experience. I wanted to have a growth experience. I wanted to learn more about who I was and I wanted to see how hard I could push this body that I had abused for so long. And what I got was exactly what I asked for, you know? And so when everything goes right, it's like this in football, right? If you have a perfect game, what did you learn about yourself? It's like you learn the most when the chips are down and they're stacked against you and like, what are you gonna do in that moment?

• 42:38Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 42:39Rich Roll?

  You know, and I learned something about myself. So that was the hardest thing that's ever, that I've ever endured athletically, but also the greatest and most valuable.

• 42:48Lewis Howes?

  Hmm. Now, did you ever go back and win that race?

• 42:51Rich Roll?

  I didn't. I went back in 2011, um, ready to give it a go again. And I, and on day two, I started spitting blood on day two.

• 42:59Lewis Howes?

  Oh geez.

• 43:00Rich Roll?

  And I made a, I made a decision to pull out.

• 43:02Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 43:03Rich Roll?

  Um, so I still have unfinished business.

• 43:06Lewis Howes?

  There you go.

• 43:06Rich Roll?

  At that race.

• 43:07Lewis Howes?

  2014, here we come.

• 43:09Rich Roll?

  I know. I'll be 50.

• 43:10Lewis Howes?

  Now, so you used to eat a lot of meat, right?

• 43:16Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 43:16Lewis Howes?

  You used to eat pretty much anything you wanted. Fast food, window diet.

• 43:20Rich Roll?

  The garbage disposal.

• 43:21Lewis Howes?

  Everything.

• 43:22Rich Roll?

  Window diet.

• 43:23Lewis Howes?

  Now, you changed to vegan at what age?

• 43:27Rich Roll?

  When I was 40, yeah, 40.

• 43:30Lewis Howes?

  You fully changed, you haven't had meat since then?

• 43:32Rich Roll?

  So I'm 46 now. Yeah, I've been on a plant-based diet for six years.

• 43:36Lewis Howes?

  Six years. Now, what's the diff, I mean, what's the main difference and what's the main benefit to being on a plant-based diet at 40 to 46 from eating meat and junk from zero to 40?

• 43:49Rich Roll?

  Well, the biggest difference is, is my energy levels. I have really good, high energy throughout the day and I don't have the peaks and valleys. I don't get the food coma after lunch. Um, I don't get this, you know, I don't get the sugar highs, but I don't get the sugar crashes either. Um, I don't worry about my ratio of carbs to fat to protein so much. So I'm not like, it's, you know, my kitchen is not like a lab where I'm measuring everything. I don't worry about that. I just eat

• 44:22Lewis Howes?

  Whatever you want.

• 44:22Rich Roll?

  Really clean foods, close to their natural state. And, uh, and you know, I've been able to, I dropped those 50 pounds and they've never come back.

• 44:31Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 44:31Rich Roll?

  So I'm not on any kind of yo-yo program. It's very sustainable and doable and, um, you know, people say to me, well, you've, you did all these athletic things despite being on a vegan diet. Like what if you were on a paleo diet? Or what if you were on this diet? And I can only speak to the diet that I'm on, but I actually, I believe that, that, uh, that it is responsible for everything that I have achieved as an athlete. I think it's a huge contributor to it. I think there's a lot of misinformation, uh, and misguided direction about protein particularly and what our protein needs are. And, you know, when you go into the grocery store and every packaged food tells you how much protein it is, and you're kind of bombarded with this message of protein and how much protein you need,

• 45:16Rich Roll?

  you have to ask yourself, well, who is pushing this message on you and why? And, and, you know, I did a lot of research on it and I realized that most people eat upwards of twice the amount of protein that they actually should. There haven't been any studies to establish that additional protein beyond what your body actually needs, which is less than most people believe, um, expedites muscle recovery or makes you stronger or a better athlete. And I can personally say that in the six years of doing this, I continue to get leaner, faster, stronger, and have never had a problem with this. Um, but I think above and beyond that, uh, well, two points I want to make. Uh, but the first is above and beyond that, eating a plant-based diet is very alkaline-forming.

• 45:59Rich Roll?

  And most people, uh, are eating a much more acid-forming diet and leading sort of lives that contribute to, uh, to a state of, of metabolic acidosis. Stress, the toxins we breathe, the, uh, meat and dairy products all contribute to this. And that, that's sort of, when you're in this, when you're eating acid-forming foods and, and, you know, breathing these toxins and, and stress and the like, um, This is pushing your pH toward a more acidic state, which makes your body have to ramp up into overtime to neutralize that pH. And that causes inflammation. It leaches minerals from your bones and contributes to things like osteoporosis.

• 46:43Rich Roll?

  And inflammation is really a huge contributor to a lot of the western diseases that we suffer from. And it is like a huge impediment to recovering in between workouts. So if you have all this inflammation, you're not going to recover very quickly. So when you're eating a more alkaline-forming diet, you are going to expedite your recovery. You're less likely to get sick. You're less likely to get rundown and overtrained. And all of these things, one in of themselves, day to day, don't necessarily make you a better athlete. But if you protract that out over a course of a season or a number of years, you're going to realize performance gains and results.

• 47:23Lewis Howes?

  Right. The consistency of it.

• 47:25Rich Roll?

  Exactly. And then the second point, real quickly, is just, you know, I adopted a plant-based diet not for performance reasons, but for health reasons. I didn't want to suffer a heart attack. I didn't want to get diabetes. You know, I don't want to have cancer. I don't want to have any of these western diseases that are huge epidemics in our country. And when 935,000 Americans suffer a heart attack every year, and 385,000 of them are fatal.

• 47:53Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 47:54Rich Roll?

  It's insane. And 42% of Americans are obese, and that obesity is leading us to die prematurely and have strokes. And, you know, with the rates of diabetes going through the roof, and we have a huge problem here. So in all the studies that I've done, and I could, you know, name a million books, I've become very, very convinced that the best way to make yourself bulletproof to western disease, and feel great, and maintain your weight, is to eat a plant-based diet.

• 48:25Lewis Howes?

  Interesting. Yeah, my buddy swears by it. And I'm seeing more and more... Athletes coming out talking about how having a vegan diet is helping them perform longer, faster, stronger.

• 48:39Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 48:40Lewis Howes?

  Feel better, recover faster, and all these different things. You see athletes talk about it now.

• 48:44Rich Roll?

  Yeah, they are, and it's it's an amazing time. Five years ago, nobody was talking about, particularly athletes, and now, like, particularly in the MMA, a lot of MMA fighters are doing it and and kicking ass.

• 48:55Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 48:56Rich Roll?

  You know, it's one thing for like a crazy ultra runner like myself, or there's other people out there, Scott Jurk, who's a legend, ultra marathoner, or triathletes, they're kind of very unthreatening athletes.

• 49:07Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 49:08Rich Roll?

  But when

• 49:09Lewis Howes?

  Physicality.

• 49:10Rich Roll?

  But the MMA guys are doing it, and they're they're talking about how good they feel.

• 49:13Lewis Howes?

  It's amazing.

• 49:14Rich Roll?

  And Timothy Bradley, who beats Manny Pacquiao, arguably, I don't know that he really won that fight.

• 49:19Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 49:20Rich Roll?

  But, you know, for him to even be in the ring with Pacquiao, and, you know, on a plant-based diet, the guy's on a plant-based diet.

• 49:26Lewis Howes?

  It's impressive.

• 49:27Rich Roll?

  He's a boxer, you know, so, you know, regardless of where you are, and I'm certainly not here to tell anybody how they should live their life, or eat, or anything like that, I'm just sharing my experience.

• 49:36Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 49:37Rich Roll?

  But when all these athletes are talking about it, you know, maybe check it out, or look into it and do your own research.

• 49:43Lewis Howes?

  It's interesting. Wasn't Carl Lewis a vegan?

• 49:46Rich Roll?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 49:47Lewis Howes?

  Back in the day in the Olympics, when he got like five gold medals?

• 49:49Rich Roll?

  No one was talking about that.

• 49:51Lewis Howes?

  No one.

• 49:52Rich Roll?

  I know.

• 49:53Lewis Howes?

  But he was like above and beyond everyone.

• 49:54Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 49:55Lewis Howes?

  It's pretty interesting. And I think the more that I'm learning and educating myself about foods and nutrition, I'm still a long way away from it, but the last two years, I've come, I've kind of come to the middle.

• 50:05Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 50:06Lewis Howes?

  I'm thinking from between vegan to just like the window diet.

• 50:09Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 50:10Lewis Howes?

  And for me, that's a big improvement, and I'm seeing that in my daily activity, in my mental performance, and everything that I do.

• 50:15Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 50:16Lewis Howes?

  So I think it's interesting to definitely take a look at and experiment with different things for what works for your body.

• 50:21Rich Roll?

  Do your own research, you know?

• 50:22Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 50:23Rich Roll?

  I didn't, I didn't, I didn't adopt it because I read a bunch of books.

• 50:26Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 50:27Rich Roll?

  You know, watched Forks Over Knives, which, have you seen that documentary?

• 50:30Lewis Howes?

  I haven't seen it yet.

• 50:31Rich Roll?

  All right, well, that's first, that should be next in your Netflix queue.

• 50:35Lewis Howes?

  I'll watch it next.

• 50:36Rich Roll?

  Uh, um, you know, it happened to me accidentally, and I was just paying attention to how I felt, and I realized that when I started doing this, I felt really good.

• 50:43Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 50:44Rich Roll?

  And so it's it's personal experience and and learning to be in tune with your body.

• 50:49Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 50:50Rich Roll?

  I think, which most of us aren't.

• 50:51Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 50:52Rich Roll?

  You know, and when you're eating crappy foods, you can't be.

• 50:53Lewis Howes?

  It's tough.

• 50:54Rich Roll?

  You get disconnected from who you are.

• 50:57Lewis Howes?

  It's tough. So what are people going to learn in finding ultra?

• 51:01Rich Roll?

  What are they not going to learn with this? So Finding Ultra is primarily memoir. It's my personal story about all the kind of things that we've been talking about today.

• 51:11Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 51:12Rich Roll?

  You know, my history with addiction and kind of recovery and then what was going on with me health-wise when I turned 40 and how I made this switch and where it led me and throughout all the races that I've done and the kind of endurance performance endeavors. And then there's about 60 pages in the appendices with resources on the real specifics of how I eat and why and a day in the life of how I eat and

• 51:39Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 51:40Rich Roll?

  Resources to other books and websites where you can learn more about it.

• 51:44Lewis Howes?

  Very cool.

• 51:45Rich Roll?

  It reads, you know, it's a page-turner.

• 51:48Lewis Howes?

  It's pretty quick.

• 51:48Rich Roll?

  Memoir.

• 51:49Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 51:50Rich Roll?

  And

• 51:50Lewis Howes?

  I haven't read it yet, but I'm excited to check this out. I rarely read books, but I'm actually excited to read this one.

• 51:57Rich Roll?

  No pressure, man. You're a busy guy.

• 51:59Lewis Howes?

  No, I'm excited. When I get the signed autograph.

• 52:01Rich Roll?

  You can get it in audiobook. You can hear me drone on.

• 52:04Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 52:04Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 52:05Lewis Howes?

  Now, do you have this at a, is this in Barnes & Noble right now also?

• 52:08Rich Roll?

  Barnes & Noble, Amazon, barnesandnoble.com. You can get it on Kindle, you can get it on iTunes, you can get the audiobook on Audible or iTunes or Amazon.

• 52:17Lewis Howes?

  Very cool.

• 52:18Rich Roll?

  It's all over the place.

• 52:19Lewis Howes?

  Now, you have your own supplement company as well, right? With plant-based proteins and things like that?

• 52:23Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I do. I have a company called Jai Lifestyle and I know Onnit is your sponsor, so I don't want to step on that.

• 52:30Lewis Howes?

  That's all right.

• 52:30Rich Roll?

  Because some of the stuff that I make is similar to what they make.

• 52:33Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 52:34Rich Roll?

  But yeah, I have a athletic recovery supplement called Jai Repair, which, you know, I talked earlier about how I think there's too much emphasis on protein.

• 52:44Lewis Howes?

  Uh huh.

• 52:45Rich Roll?

  And a lot of people are scared of a plant-based diet because they're worried about not getting enough protein.

• 52:50Lewis Howes?

  But you can get a lot of protein.

• 52:51Rich Roll?

  You can. Plants have a lot of protein. I talk about that in the book and I list all the plants that are high in protein and the kind of things that I eat. And I'm not a guy who is putting protein powders in my Vitamix blends on a daily basis. I found that I don't need it. But when I'm training really hard, like when I'm doing those 25 hour weeks that I was telling you about earlier, I'm hitting it really hard, or I feel like I haven't eaten the right foods that day, I will definitely, I believe in supplements and I will use a plant-based protein supplement. And I started experimenting when I was training with what worked for me and I was making all these crazy, I was getting, I was buying all sorts of different stuff and playing around with it.

• 53:31Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 53:32Rich Roll?

  And when I decided I wanted to launch my own formula, I sort of took the best of what worked for me and combined it into one. So it's a combination of three plant-based proteins, hemp, sprouted brown rice, and pea, which have always worked the best for me, are very bioavailable. It's a complete amino acid profile. I've got L-glutamine, I've got vitamin B12, and it has cordyceps mushroom extracts in it, which is the same as the shrimp type product.

• 54:00Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, that stuff's amazing.

• 54:01Rich Roll?

  And I know, you know, Joe and those guys talk about how great it is, and you've experienced what it's like to be eating cordyceps. And I started using cordyceps in 2008 and noticed a very dramatic change in how I felt. And you talked about it the other day on your podcast, like not feeling winded, feeling like you have an extra gear, like you can keep going. And so that's why I included in this product as well. And I've got a vitamin B12 supplement, I've got a cookbook, a jelly lifestyle, I've got a bunch, a meditation program, all sorts of stuff.

• 54:30Lewis Howes?

  Mel Stewart's a friend of mine, too.

• 54:32Rich Roll?

  No way.

• 54:33Lewis Howes?

  Down in Austin? Or is he down in Texas?

• 54:34Rich Roll?

  You know Mel?

• 54:35Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I've known him for a few years.

• 54:36Rich Roll?

  Mel's my man. He's my boy.

• 54:37Lewis Howes?

  I just saw this on the back of your book.

• 54:39Rich Roll?

  Dude, Mel, I've known Mel forever.

• 54:41Lewis Howes?

  Swimmer, two-time, he won two golds, right?

• 54:43Rich Roll?

  He did. Uh huh. No, butterfly.

• 54:45Lewis Howes?

  Butterfly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Interesting. He does a lot of videos online and stuff, right?

• 54:49Rich Roll?

  He does. Well, we'll talk after the show. Yeah, Mel, I love Mel.

• 54:53Lewis Howes?

  That's cool. So what's the best place for people to find you?

• 54:56Rich Roll?

  So my website is richroll.com, R-I-C-H-R-O-L-L, it's like rock and roll. I've got a blog there and I host my podcast there, too, the Rich Roll Podcast, which you can find on iTunes, probably right next to Lewis's.

• 55:12Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, we've been up in the top 10.

• 55:14Rich Roll?

  And you gotta come on my show, dude.

• 55:15Lewis Howes?

  I'm down.

• 55:16Rich Roll?

  I'm gonna make you commit right now.

• 55:17Lewis Howes?

  I'm in, I'm in.

• 55:18Rich Roll?

  All right, cool. Schedule that. And I'm on, I'm active on Twitter at @RichRoll.

• 55:23Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, you got a great audience there as well.

• 55:25Rich Roll?

  And you know, Facebook and all the normal stuff. But my website, richroll.com and Twitter and the podcast are the best ways to find me.

• 55:31Lewis Howes?

  Okay, cool. And last question is... What's your definition of greatness?

• 55:37Rich Roll?

  That's a great question.

• 55:39Lewis Howes?

  Yeah?

• 55:40Rich Roll?

  Um, it's an interesting question. I think it begs, it begs the question of what is greatness? And what does greatness mean to me and to you? I mean, I think it means different things to different people. For me personally, I think being great means being the most actualized version of yourself, the best version of yourself. And that's what my book is about. Like, it's about me going on these crazy endurance adventures, but really the subtext is unlocking a more authentic, better version of myself and providing a roadmap for other people to do the same. And for me, it's endurance sports. For you, it might be playing the banjo or becoming a stand-up comic, or it doesn't matter. So for me, greatness is, is having the balls and the courage

• 56:24Rich Roll?

  to look inside yourself and do the work to figure out what gives you a heartbeat and what gives you purpose, to find that passion inside of you. And then set in motion a series of actions that lead to a plan to help you more fully actualize that and live that. Because that is what being great is, and that is what's gonna make you happy. And that's what the world needs more of, people that are doing that. And again, it doesn't matter what that is. It's different and individualized for every single person. But the more people that can tap into that and unlock it and make it happen, we're a better place. And that doesn't mean that it's easy. It is a warrior's path, man.

• 57:05Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 57:05Rich Roll?

  And it is fraught with landmines. And it will be hard. And you will question yourself, and it will take you to the mat. But if you can do, if you can, if you can take that on and make that your mantra, then you will be a happy person and the world will be a better place.

• 57:22Lewis Howes?

  There you go. Make sure to check out richroll.com. Thanks, brother.

• 57:25Rich Roll?

  All right, man. Thank you.

• 57:34Lewis Howes?

  And there you have it. I hope you enjoyed this episode number 10 with Rich Roll. Super inspiring guy. Make sure to go check him out at richroll.com. He is doing some cool things over there. Subscribe to his podcast. He's just an awesome dude. I'm glad I got to spend half the day with him today in Los Angeles and have lunch with him and just learn more about his story, his theories on fitness and life. Very cool, inspiring guy. And make sure to check out the book, Finding Ultra. Check it out on Amazon or in Barnes and Noble and all that good stuff. So before I let you guys go today, I would love it. I'm getting all these great reviews and ratings from you guys over on iTunes. I'm currently, the show, School of Greatness is currently on the homepage of iTunes,

• 58:17Lewis Howes?

  the podcast section, and it was on the homepage of Stitcher.com. So a big shout out to the crew over at Stitcher for posting this up there. And with your help, we can keep getting more people and build this audience and share this message with more people. So I'd love it if you guys would leave me a five star review over at, or five star rating over at iTunes and then leave a review. Let the other people who are coming to learn more about this podcast, let them know what you like about it. If you don't like stuff about it, you can write that as well. I mean, I'm not being too picky here, but I would just love for you to mention something. Leave a review, leave a five star rating. I just got a cool one in today.

• 58:58Lewis Howes?

  And from David Birch Designs and the headline says, "Teaching Wisdom in Every Episode." And he gave it five stars and said, "Finally, a show that shares the wisdom of successful businessmen and athletes, how they made it and what obstacles they faced along the way. Amazing stories from some killer guests about how to overcome limiting beliefs and truly succeed in life. Lewis, you have inspired me to be great. Keep them coming." So thanks, David, for that. And there's a ton of other great reviews on there. I would love it for you guys to check it out. Also, go to schoolofgreatness.com. Leave us a comment over on the blog. Share these podcasts, these episodes with your friends.

• 59:40Lewis Howes?

  Get the word out there. It'll make me love you even more. Just kidding, but not really. Anyways, guys, thanks so much. Hope you have an amazing day and make it great.