Best of 2025 (Part Two): The Year’s Most Enduring Insights

The finale is here. Let's close this thing out. Part 2 explores courage, honesty, creativity, relationships, and balance. Bravery. Addiction. Love. Mastery. And why fulfillment doesn't require sacrifice. It's been fun putting this auditory yearbook together. I hope you found these two episodes uplifting and inspiring. Thanks for the love and support. This podcast has been an amazing journey. I'm grateful you're on it with me. Here's to 2026. Show notes + MORE Watch on YouTube Newsletter Sign-Up Today’s Sponsors: Go Brewing: Use the code Rich Roll for 15% OFF👉🏼https://www.gobrewing.com On: High-performance shoes & apparel crafted for comfort and style👉🏼https://www.on.com/richroll AG1: Get their best offer ever – Welcome Kit, Omega 3's, D3+K2, Flavor Sampler, plus AGZ sleep supplement FREE ($126 in gifts)👉🏼https://www.drinkAG1.com/richroll Whoop: The all-new WHOOP 5.0 is here! Get your first month FREE👉🏼https://www.join.whoop.com/Roll LMNT: Get a free LMNT Sample Pack with any purchase👉🏼https://www.drinklmnt.com/richroll Birch: For 27% off ALL mattresses👉🏼BirchLiving.com/richroll Check out all of the amazing discounts from our Sponsors👉🏼https://www.richroll.com/sponsors Find out more about Voicing Change Media at https://www.voicingchange.media and follow us @voicingchange Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:00Rich Roll?

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• 0:44Rich Roll?

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• 1:04Speaker 01

  I have always used people the way other people use substances. What that has made me into is somebody who can be extremely manipulative.

• 1:11Speaker 02

  A lot of people are in relationships and they don't even know what the other person needs.

• 1:17Speaker 03

  I think if you want to undertake the act of creation, there will always be a price that you pay.

• 1:28Rich Roll?

  Hey, everybody. Welcome back to Part Two of the annual RRP Best of festivities. I hope everyone is enjoying the holidays. I must say, it really has been fun revisiting these conversations and putting together this special audio yearbook for all of you guys. And Part Two does not disappoint. But before we get into it, I want to take a quick moment and share a little gratitude for my amazing team who made this show possible, who actually worked double time over the course of this past year to make up for me being out of pocket for extended periods of time due to my back surgery and my book writing. Thank you also to all my guests who delivered us with just so much hard-earned wisdom and experience.

• 2:10Rich Roll?

  Most importantly, I want to thank you, everyone who watched, who listened, who shared a conversation with a loved one or a friend, and put this wisdom to use in your own lives. If you've been with us for a while, then you know that your support really is the lifeblood of what we do here, and your attention is never something that we take for granted. If you're new, it's great to have you here. We've got amazing things planned for 2026. But first, let's end the year with a bang. This is part two of the best of 2025, and we begin with the incomparable Elizabeth Gilbert.

• 2:49Rich Roll?

  Sex and love addiction isn't really all that well understood, and it's still attached to a lot of like taboos and fears, and I think maybe that's what keeps it a little bit more in the dark. So maybe talk a little bit more about what it is, and maybe how even someone could self-diagnose themselves.

• 3:11Speaker 01

  I think the best way to do it is to do this like a qualification and just tell my story. And I think that people may recognize parts of themselves in it. I would be loathe to start giving tools of diagnosis for something that can be so subtle, but I can say this about me. I can say that what it manifests as in me is a sincere belief that there's somebody out there who I can meet who's going to make me feel okay, lastingly, and that my job is to find that person. And it's a difficult thing, because of course, culture

• 3:53Speaker 01

  teaches us exactly to do that. And especially if you're a woman, you're very much taught that. That's a story that's, you know, as old as the hills, that girls and women are taught. There's an incompletion in me, and I'm going to go find the person who's going to, who's going to complete me. That's the sort of soft way to describe it. The way that I would describe how I experience it is that I have always used people the way other people use substances. So there are people who I have used as sedatives, and there are people who I've used as stimulants. And what I want to take complete ownership over, as I tell my story, is what that has made me into over time is somebody who can be extremely manipulative. And that's the sort of side effect of this.

• 4:37Speaker 01

  It's like, if I don't feel okay, and I need to find somebody who's going to make me feel okay, then in order to get that need met, I'm going to have to figure out how to be an operator in terms of how do I have to present? Like, what do I have to become in order to get what we call in some of these rooms, lava, which is love, attention, validation, and acceptance? Right? So that's what I'm longing for, because I can't generate that within myself. Right? So I need to go get this lava. Like, somebody else has this. Somebody's the plug. Like, somebody's got this stuff. I don't have it. And so what do I have to do? Like, what ends, like any addict, it's like, what manipulations do I have to do? What lies do I have to tell?

• 5:20Speaker 01

  What tricks do I have to turn in order to get your eye contact on me? And the words that I need you to say? I need to make you say those words? I need to make you make these promises to me? I need to completely abandon myself in order to get you to do this thing for me? And if I don't get the thing that I need, I'll go get it somewhere else, regardless of what commitment I've made to somebody. And so when I look at my particular history with this, what I see is for 35 uninterrupted years, tiny little interruption, when I wrote Wit and Roadie, Pray Love, there was like a nine-month period where I wasn't doing this, but, which was actually the healthiest time of my life until now.

• 6:00Speaker 01

  I was just going between sedative-stimulant, sedative-stimulant. This person is extremely exciting. This person is extremely calming. You know, like, okay, now I'm so calm that I can't bear the restlessness and the irritability and the discontent, so now I have to go find somebody who's absolutely thrilling, who's going to like, light me up until they withhold, and then I go insane, and now I need another sedative, and now I need another stimulant. And this is, this is what I did to great cost. You know, to great cost to me, to great cost to other people. It involved cheating on people, allowing myself to be cheated on, breaking up other people's families and relationships. There's a ruthlessness.

• 6:44Speaker 01

  That any addict has, which is what I have to do to get this, I will do, no matter what it costs me or anybody else. And I knew my entire life that there was something wrong with me because I could see that other people weren't doing this. You know, like, I think that's something that every addict kind of knows from an earlier age than we can admit, which is like, other people aren't doing this. Like somehow, other people are just going and having a Tuesday while I'm out here playing this like high stakes roulette with my life and with my body and with my heart and with my spirit, bringing other people into danger with me, like putting myself at risk and not being able to stop.

• 7:20Rich Roll?

  And that low level of self-awareness drives shame and isolation and loneliness. And you start to compartmentalize it and create this secret life because deep down, even though, you know, you're not ready to confront it, you know that you need to hide and shroud it from everybody else.

• 7:38Speaker 01

  There's a line I quote in the book from Gabriel Garcia Marquez, who said, "Everybody has three lives, a public life, a private life, and a secret life. And the private life is the life you share with your family and your friends, but the secret life is the life you share with no one." And addicts' secret lives are dark, you know, and the reason you hide your secret life is because it would destroy, if people knew it, it would destroy both your private and your public life. Like if people knew what you were up to, you don't even approve of what you're up to.

• 8:08Rich Roll?

  Next up is inner excellence author and high performance coach Jim Murphy.

• 8:14Rich Roll?

  We're storytelling animals. We're all walking around with a story in our head that we believe to be true and are blind to the fact that it was unconsciously crafted based upon the experiences that we've had. And whether it's positive or negative, it's still a fantasy and it's detached from reality. And in most cases, with most people, to your point, it prevents us from having a more expansive understanding of what we're capable of or what's possible. But like unraveling that and figuring out how to tell a new story is a very difficult challenge. And you know, what happened to you is you had to come to the edge of yourself

• 8:57Rich Roll?

  to be able to write a new story, to create a new narrative in your, in your life, right? These new neural pathways.

• 9:04Speaker 04

  Is that right?

• 9:05Rich Roll?

  Yeah, but it was it was a function of being backed into a corner like pain is the ultimate like lever for these sorts of things like short of of suffering some form of crisis, whether it's physical or existential, you know, would I have made those changes? It's interesting because and I say this all the time, like we have the choice to make these changes at any given moment. It's just that it's very difficult to do unless you're pressured into it in some way. And the way I generally think about it is the moment of change is when the pain of your circumstances exceeds the fear of doing something different. Right? You have to confront that fear or these fears are in tension with each other and which

• 9:49Rich Roll?

  one is whitting out is kind of going to dictate how you behave on some level. It's this discomfort with uncertainty that we have like we don't like it and we delude ourselves into believing that we're in control of things. And if something goes wrong, like we didn't do something right. And I think disabusing ourselves of that illusion of control and and acknowledging that uncertainty is just that's that's just the landscape. Everything is uncertain. It's never going to change in that regard so that you can detach a little bit and and free yourself from self judgment or all of the unnecessary pain that comes with things not working out the way you would like them to.

• 10:32Speaker 04

  Yeah, exactly. You know what? One of the things that's that's such an important topic, I think now with in America, there's so much and around the world, anxiety and fear and tension and so much out of our control. And there's a lot of people that are watching to this now. And and I think that are that have this anxiety and these unknown what's going to happen. And I think there's some really powerful things that they can do when you're afraid of the future or you could whether you're a pro athlete or anyone. And there's some questions, you want me to share those with you?

• 11:02Rich Roll?

  Yeah, please.

• 11:03Speaker 04

  Well, the first question is, are you willing to face your fears? And we can get into also, because I went through a very traumatic moment as well. And I've kind of prayed a lot that that myself and people that I love don't have to get to the point where we get to that major trauma to fully surrender, which is the power, right? And A, the power that you talk about and the power that I talk about, this surrender to a power greater than yourself. And so. First asking yourself, am I willing to face my fears? And, and then, am I willing to face any feeling? This is a big one. Because most people are not willing to face any feeling. They're willing to physically do a lot of hard things and,

• 11:48Speaker 04

  but there's some feelings that we're like, no, I'm not gonna, if that comes, that's the worst, I'm not gonna be there, I'm gonna run from it, whatever. And, but if you're willing to face any feeling, now you've got some control, some power.

• 12:05Rich Roll?

  Hmm. So what is the process of doing that? Like summoning the courage to face that? Is there like something that you have learned or divined that is a practice to cultivating that disposition?

• 12:20Speaker 04

  Well, I can tell you about this, this experience I had with, with some pro athletes had a mental block. So when you have a mental block, then you're constantly thinking about it all day long, and it could have ended their careers. And so I worked with, with these, these pro athletes and when you have this fear, it's the, starts with a feeling. It's like a panic attack, starts with a feeling and then it goes into out of control, right? And so the feeling is what we wanna, we're gonna go look for that feeling. And I got that from Conor McGregor. He talked about when he was first a new pro athlete and how he got into the ring or the octagon and he had all these nerves. He's like, what is this feeling? This is so uncomfortable.

• 13:05Speaker 04

  And then he started to go and look for it. He's like, now I go into Madison Square Garden and you know, I kick butt. And so I was like, yeah, we need to go look for the feel, we can't run from them. We gotta look for those feelings that we're afraid of. Or because that's our teacher. Cause when you come to the edge of your feelings where you're most uncomfortable, that's where you can grow and that's where you can become someone you've never been before.

• 13:28Rich Roll?

  Now we hear from my favorite authority on productivity, Oliver Berkman.

• 13:34Rich Roll?

  One of the tools towards that end is this idea you have of asking yourself, like, what if it were easy? I think I first heard Tim Ferriss talking about that, maybe it was with you, I don't remember. And I just remember thinking, that's just an outlandish proposition. It's just like, I can't imagine, you know, like, just take any project or whatever, like in my example, like, writing a book or whatever, if I'm not, like, if I'm not just, you know, bleeding out at the end of it, then, you know, I just didn't work hard enough on it. And it's not going to be as good. Like, creative projects don't work that way. But the notion that I could, it could be a different experience is deeply confronting

• 14:19Rich Roll?

  to me, because it brings up all of those presets around, you know, effort and achievement and striving, et cetera. And there is this indelible equation in my mind that my best work is inextricably tied to, you know, my capacity for suffering.

• 14:40Speaker 05

  And in like in the people pleasing, I mean, me too, right? But like in the people pleasing, it's so weirdly self-centered in a way, right? It centers you instead of the work. It says like, what really matters at the end of this process is that I've totally like, dragged myself over the coals and feel awful and exhausted, as opposed to-

• 14:57Rich Roll?

  Because I won't feel satisfied, or like, I really gave it my all unless I do that.

• 15:02Speaker 05

  Right, as opposed to-

• 15:03Rich Roll?

  Even if it doesn't matter, that if it's making it better.

• 15:06Speaker 05

  Right, right. Whereas, I think ultimately, when most of us are doing these kind of things, if we stopped and thought about it, we would want to produce the best work that we could produce. And if it happened to be not grueling to produce it, then that ought to be-

• 15:22Rich Roll?

  How is that possible?

• 15:23Speaker 05

  That ought to be great. Well, this is why-

• 15:25Rich Roll?

  Were you able to accomplish that in the writing of this book?

• 15:27Speaker 05

  Well, I'll tell you what, it certainly got more, more of it got produced, the more that I remembered and understood the value of this, allowing it to be easy. So the Tim Ferriss version of this question is something like, yeah, what would this look like if it were easy? Elizabeth Gilbert has a really lovely, like, idea of allow, of sort of having the courage to allow something to be easy. And that- To what you're saying, right? It sounds like it's on some level scary to think like, you know, what if it doesn't involve like drawing blood?

• 16:03Speaker 05

  And that doesn't mean that there aren't difficulties, right? It doesn't mean, it's not like some form of positive thinking where you're going into it saying like, I insist that this is going to be incredibly simple or incredibly straightforward. It's more like you're like, I'm not going to start from the mental posture that this has got to be a fight. This is where I get a bit sort of impatient sometimes with approaches to creativity that are all about like, you know, battling your way through resistance and just showing up and getting your ass in the chair and all this stuff. Like, I think it can have a role, but you know, the metaphor that I've used somewhere, I think is like,

• 16:45Speaker 05

  if you, if you like barrel up to somebody in a bar looking for a fight, who, who wasn't planning to have a fight, like you'll, you'll turn it into a fight, right? You'll, you'll get a fight by sort of approaching reality and that kind of, okay, like let's, let's do combat.

• 17:03Speaker 05

  And, and in fact, things just go more easily if you allow the possibility that they might go more easily. And, you know, it's, I'm not sure it quite,

• 17:17Speaker 05

  I'm not sure that the semantics are quite clear here, but you can almost, even difficult things, you can approach with a spirit of ease, right? Nobody's suggesting that a really difficult conversation in a business setting or a relationship setting, or nobody's suggesting that like bad things happening to people you love

• 17:38Speaker 05

  is, is going to be easy in the sense of fun or anything.

• 17:42Speaker 05

  But you can sort of not go into it like muscularily braced for it to be horrible and find that actually that's the way to, to make it go more smoothly, even if it's sad or stressful or awkward or, you know, unpleasant in some way. It doesn't need to be like combat.

• 18:03Rich Roll?

  Meditation has been very helpful to me with respect to that issue because it helps you notice how insane you are.

• 18:13Rich Roll?

  Yeah, right.

• 18:14Speaker 05

  Totally.

• 18:14Rich Roll?

  And you're and and when you begin to like realize like you're just running all kinds of crazy bullshit in your head all the time like then you're able to see with a little bit more clarity that quite often, you know, I'll just speak for myself, like I'm my own worst enemy, you know, because I'm running some tape without conscious awareness that I'm running it. And if I could just either stop the tape or get out of my own way.

• 18:42Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 18:42Rich Roll?

  And be in that state of allowing like then stuff comes forth like especially with anything creative like, you know, I'm usually like, you know, the I'm like stopping the flow through like my conscious urges. And if I can just relax into it and be in that space of allowing like it percolates to the surface naturally.

• 19:05Speaker 05

  Yeah, I think.

• 19:05Rich Roll?

  That's very uncomfortable.

• 19:07Speaker 05

  Right. No, totally. And definitely my the hardest part of this for me, and I write about this in like the third week primarily of the four week structure, but like the degree to which meaningful action is a question of getting out of the way of letting the action happen as opposed to needing to stand behind it and like push it forward is yeah, for a certain kind of person. Anyway, it's like much harder that part because it involves, you know, it's really where not trying to control everything becomes so salient.

• 19:40Rich Roll?

  We continue our best of series with author and columnist for The Atlantic, Olga Kazan.

• 19:46Speaker 06

  Basically, nothing is predestined. So I will say that so 40 to 60%, let's call it half of your personality is inherited or like or genetic, right? It's influenced by your genes. However, like no one is exactly like their parents, right? Because you Get those genes and then they combine in unpredictable ways. Like you can't always, you know, no kid looks exactly like their parents or acts exactly like their parents. You can't always place like, oh, this is from mom and this is from dad. Our genes kind of combine in unpredictable ways. And then they kind of interact in unpredictable ways with the environment.

• 20:28Speaker 06

  And the environment is really what exerts a powerful influence on your personality. So if you're, you know, a kid who is a little bit introverted and you spend a ton of time reading and then you, you know, become this like professor and you end up giving a lot of talks and like, you know, these are all, these things are all going to influence your personality kind of as you go along in life. If you happen to smile a lot and you attract a lot of people to you and you make a lot of friends, you know, those friends will kind of influence your personality as well. So I wouldn't say that anything is like, oh, my dad had depression, so I'm going to have depression. And there's literally nothing I can do. It's more like, okay, you might have a, you know, proclivity toward that, or you might have it,

• 21:11Speaker 06

  be kind of drawn toward that to some extent, but you still have a fair amount of wiggle room, depending on choices that are made for you by your parents in childhood and then choices that you make yourself, you know, in your early adulthood and throughout adulthood.

• 21:25Rich Roll?

  I mean, that alone is so empowering to know. Like it's a, it's a very hopeful message, you know, in which we have quite a bit more agency than, than perhaps we, we really understand.

• 21:38Speaker 06

  Yeah. And I mean, you see this with anyone who's ever, you know, quit drinking or, or completely changed their friend group, or changed their job, or gone back to school. You know, sometimes people just have these like bursts where they're like, I'm going to do something completely different. And then that, or, or, you know, either their personality changes and it leads them into a new situation, or they're placed in a new situation and it then changes their personality.

• 22:03Rich Roll?

  I often think though, in those contexts, I wonder, Is it, is it a desire to change your

• 22:13Rich Roll?

  personality that motivates like a major life change, like a career change or something like that? Or is it a betrayal of your personality? Like you're walking around like acting in a certain way, but you're like, I'm not happy. I feel like I'm living someone else's life, or this is not for me. I can feel it. To me, it feels like that's almost like a costume that you're wearing. Like you've betrayed your personality and your personality is like you're like, the authentic version of you is, has been muted and repressed and is, has had enough, right? And is like, come on, like, we, we need to like, go over here.

• 22:51Speaker 06

  Yeah. Um, yeah. So my therapist, one of the things she would always tell me is like, that I have a, like a true self and an anxious self. And that my anxious self is always like undermining the things that I want. Um, so I do think some people do that, like they end up in a situation that they assumed was right, or that they assumed was what they should be doing. And then, um, you know, sometimes it's because we don't believe that we can change, that we continue doing things that are counterproductive, or, um, just not a good fit for us, or not a good fit anymore. Like you also change over time and what was fun when you were 22 is not maybe fun when you're 42.

• 23:30Rich Roll?

  Have you, uh, are you familiar with, uh, internal family systems like IFS?

• 23:34Speaker 06

  Oh, yeah.

• 23:36Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I had him in here. Like, from his perspective, like there's, you have all of these person, like voices and personalities, and all of them are, are, are trying to, you know, perform on your behalf and, and all these various ways. And they're competing, you know, but, but recognizing them and honoring them like, oh, like, hey, you know, my neurotic five-year-old self, like, I know that you're doing that because you feel like you need to, to protect me. And I'm so thankful for that. But like, it's cool. Like, we're good. Like, you can, you can like chill out, you know?

• 24:10Speaker 06

  Yeah, I think, yeah. And there is like, um, Yeah, there's an element of personality change to that is like, is like, which side of yourself do you want to present in a certain situation? I talked to one, another podcaster who has this like alter ego that she kind of like puts on when she has to do some like business transaction, like when she has to talk to her agent or something. She's like, and now I'm a like successful businesswoman. And she kind of trots out that side of herself, which is, you know, not who she is day to day.

• 24:44Rich Roll?

  Everything that you talk about in the book and you go through is, is very action based. You know, it's, you have to do things, you have to get out of your comfort zone. And it reminds me of, of what Susan David, you know, Susan David, like this, she's this amazing professor of psychology. And her whole thing is like discomfort is the price of admission to a meaningful life. And, and I think, who was it who said in your book, uh, something around confusing, for being like a, a, basically like, I can't remember exactly what it was, but basically like being a betrayal of your personality. Like if it feels uncomfortable, like you shouldn't, you shouldn't do it because I'm not, you know, I'm not the kind of person that does that kind of thing.

• 25:27Rich Roll?

  And disabusing people of that, like if you want to grow, change, evolve and engender your life with like more fulfillment and meaning, like it demands that you get out of your comfort zone. So don't confuse that with, um, something else.

• 25:44Speaker 06

  Yeah. I mean, look, everything that you do that's new is going to feel uncomfortable the first time you do it. I mean, nobody, you know, who, uh, has a baby, like goes home from the hospital that first day and is like, I feel totally at ease with this. I feel confident. I know exactly what to do with this baby. I feel like a natural born parent. Like everyone is like a total nervous wreck, can't believe like they were allowed to leave the hospital with a baby. Uh, you know, is like Googling how many ounces at what time, you know? It's anything you do initially is going to feel very, very uncomfortable. You know, the first, like I said, 10, 15 times I did improv, it was extremely uncomfortable. And I think part of it is just like if you have a value or a goal that's on the

• 26:29Speaker 06

  other side of that discomfort, you can't let the discomfort stop you. You have to just kind of persevere a little bit until it becomes more comfortable. You know, we see this like most explicitly and literally with exercise where like the first time you run, it's like super uncomfortable. And you're like, why do people do this? And then you get good at running and suddenly it's like glorious and euphoric. That happens with, you know, mental things, attitudinal things, too.

• 26:56Rich Roll?

  I found it in my notes. It was, it was Sonia. She said, just because it doesn't feel natural or comfortable, doesn't mean it's not authentic.

• 27:04Speaker 06

  Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And authenticity, like the way we think, like, people think of authenticity is just what feels good to me. Right? And so I would caution against letting that be your guide to everything you do, because not everything that feels good to you is the best thing to be doing at the time. And not everything that's, you know, healthy or interesting, or that's going to help you grow, is going to feel good at first.

• 27:31Rich Roll?

  This is Mark Brackett, psychologist and expert on emotional intelligence.

• 27:39Speaker 07

  Let's think about this for a minute. Ideally, we have ultimate control over everything that happens in our lives, and we don't need to regulate. Like, everything is exactly the way Mark wants it to be. That doesn't happen. Like, we will have this election, and we'll have, I got this job, and this person will work for me, and this will happen, and everything just works out. Not going to happen. Okay. So I can't control the world. I can control some of the situations. I can, I cannot go, you know, into the, you know, office of this person who really is mean.

• 28:14Rich Roll?

  All you can control is your behavior, your relationship with your behavior.

• 28:18Speaker 07

  Yes. But ultimately, think about it, like, our, we would be in kind of this emotionally great place if everything just happened the way we want it to happen. Right?

• 28:32Speaker 07

  Can't rely on that. All right. So then, just to backtrack a little bit. We've given ourselves permission to feel and everyone else too, whether we love them or not. We've clearly labeled our feelings and there's a whole lessons in there to do that. We have recognized that we need to deactivate our systems and have more mindfulness and be more present. We have cognitive strategies. We can be kinder to ourselves and our brains and reframe and engage in that spatial and temporal distancing. And then we do need social support. Sometimes, you know, you just need a good friend to talk through things with.

• 29:14Speaker 07

  And I have a few people in my life that they're like my go to people to problem solve with. And it really makes a difference because they're the emotional allies, you know, out there. And we have to find those in our lives because no one. I have an expression, it's not my expression, but I use it. Especially for kids, but all of us. No one should worry alone. Never worry alone. And then comes those cognitive strategies that we just talked about. Then I'm sitting by myself. I mean, how many times have we traveled to gift? I did this one presentation recently. I was, I had to get there. I was in Spokane, Washington, and I was coming from New York. I was in Denver for 12 hours. Yeah.

• 29:58Speaker 07

  And I just said, by nine o'clock at night, I had to call the people and say like, it's not happening. I'm just not getting there. And I want to go home and they're like, well, maybe I said, there's no morning flight. It's just, I have to let you know, it's not going to happen. I'm very happy to do this through technology. I'm very good with my Zoom presentations and I, you know, but I was, and then I was in line with a person trying to change my flight. And she was not helpful. And like, you have to call United. I'm like, I don't like calling United. Like you're right here. Like, yeah, you just, no, I can't switch it because you're trying to go back to a place you didn't start from. I was out of my mind and I didn't, I couldn't control it. I had no one to talk to. I sat in my seat. I did a few breathing exercises.

• 30:40Speaker 07

  I'm like, Mark, you know, this feeling is impermanent. Like this is a really rough moment. You want to be a lunatic right now? Don't go there. How is the best version of yourself?

• 30:53Speaker 07

  Gonna respond. And I just sat there and I paused and I'm very proud of myself because I actually got what I wanted. I knew that everything wasn't going to work out. They said you couldn't get in this flight. This wasn't going to work out. I'm like, I'm gonna figure this out. I'm gonna figure this out. I just sat, took a few deep breaths. I looked at the monitor. There was one flight going back to LaGuardia. I came out of Newark. I went to the LaGuardia turn, you know, the whatever that's called by the gate. And I looked at this person that was there and I said, I've had a really, really long day. And I know that it's really difficult to do the change, but I my hunch is that it's my it might be possible. I just I've been here for 12 hours. I would love to get home tonight. There's that last flight. Can you make it happen?

• 31:38Speaker 07

  And then went, she put me on the flight. And so my point of that of sharing that story is that like emotion regulation really matters. Like it helped me like take a really crappy day and kind of get the outcome that I was hoping for. If I were my old self, I would have been like, Adam, I would have been like, you gotta be kidding me. I'm a million miler. You know, let's just go. And that would not have got me. You know, she would have been triggered. I would have been triggered. She would have been like, I'm not helping this guy. He's a jerk. Instead, I went to my little corner, did my breathing exercise, engage in my positive self-talk, envision the best version of myself and had and thought about what that person could do in that moment to get the outcome. I don't know. It doesn't feel like magic to me.

• 32:19Rich Roll?

  But the solution presents itself because you have the clarity of mind and the the grounding

• 32:25Speaker 07

  Exactly.

• 32:25Rich Roll?

  to not be reactive in that moment.

• 32:28Speaker 07

  I no longer cared about the person who wasn't helping me. I cared about a that I am a that, you know, I always joke, I am the director of the Center for Emotional Intelligence. I do want to have like

• 32:39Rich Roll?

  Yeah, the pressure's on, right?

• 32:41Speaker 07

  So I do want to like be the person that I'm supposed to be, which I'm not always. And in that moment, I took that meta moment, which is I said, I'm going to build that space between stimulus and response. I'm going to go here and I want to deactivate and find my solution. And I have I can tell you that I have trained millions of people at this point on this technique. And it really works. But you have to practice it. And I'll say one thing about this just before you ask another question, which is,

• 33:17Speaker 07

  It can be a prevention technique, too. So in that moment, it was very reactive. I'm like, Mark's freaking out. Mark's gonna go breathe and do his metamoment. But when my mother-in-law was living with us, and I knew it was gonna be rough in the mornings, because she wasn't going home, and I wanted some freedom. When I'd come down the stairs to have coffee, I would envision the best version of myself before meeting with her for coffee. So it can be forward-looking, is my point, as opposed to always in the moment.

• 33:49Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 33:53Rich Roll?

  We've got a lot more to come, but first.

• 34:04Rich Roll?

  All right, let's get back into the show with a clip from author James Fry, which I have to say was an absolute firecracker of an episode. If you missed it, check it out.

• 34:18Speaker 03

  I now think about moving forward, like, okay, shorter books, right? You don't have the endurance. Refine that process. Fifty-seven days. Okay, the next one, I'm gonna try to do 45, right? Can I refine it more? Can I prepare better going in? Can I come out of it better? One of the things I really learned with this book, and it's interesting thing about Taoism and ancient texts, is after the experience of how I wrote this, it also fundamentally changed how I believe I can live with the Tao and how I can exist in it. And so whereas before, the idea of being in an almost permanent state of wu wei wu, or thinking not thinking,

• 35:03Speaker 03

  was some delirious dream, that I now believe I can get to that and live in the Tao much more. I told you on my way out here, you know, I meditated for 30 minutes before I left the hotel, and then for the entire hour, I drove out here. And the meditation out here was a different kind than the morning one, right? The morning one was this. Absolute silence.

• 35:31Speaker 03

  The one coming out here, I talked about how the music I use to manipulate. I now believe I can use manipulate music to take me straight into the Tao, right? There's certain musics that reacts to me emotionally that puts me into that state. And so as I was riding out here, I had headphones on and the Uber driver must have thought I was crazy because I'm essentially like, I'm meditating.

• 35:56Rich Roll?

  Trans dancing in the backseat.

• 35:57Speaker 03

  And I'm moving, but what I'm really doing is just allowing all the gates to open, just to be as free and as non-thinking and to let my body and my mind and my soul go to wherever they want to go, to someplace where I, all that exists is the moment of hearing music and know that I'm moving and knowing that the world is alive.

• 36:22Rich Roll?

  I suppose the next level of this, as it applies to

• 36:27Rich Roll?

  how you write books, is to inhabit that state and be able to create without it, without the exhaustion part, you know what I mean? Like, can it, can it be, you know, can it be a joyous, you know, state of, of, of freedom in which it's flowing naturally, but not paying this toll?

• 36:49Speaker 03

  Yeah, I don't think.

• 36:50Rich Roll?

  Do you think that's possible?

• 36:51Speaker 03

  I don't.

• 36:51Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I don't think it is either.

• 36:53Speaker 03

  I think I always, I think if you want to undertake the act of creation, there will always be a price that you, you pay, that your soul pays, that your heart pays, that, that your consciousness pays, your, your bank account with the Tao pays, right? But I think there are ways, and as I've said, I've spent a lot of my life trying to figure it out, ways to do it differently or live in it differently or manage it differently. And, you know, earlier you asked, like, what, what, what is my day to day life like in terms of managing my mental and physical health? And it's all, it's been a, a long process of trying to find my way into this permanent state of being, not being, right?

• 37:38Speaker 03

  Of focused, disciplined happiness, if that, if that makes any sense, of, of, of utter acceptance of everything, right? One of the reasons I can deal with the press.

• 37:50Speaker 03

  And I don't care is because I just accept it. People, I don't, why should I care what some guy says about me? Why does that matter in any way? It's his, it's his right and his job to say mean things about me. So why should I expect anything else? And why should it bother me?

• 38:06Rich Roll?

  Also, you know, your job is to create things for people to talk about. And there are other people who have, their job is to, you know, comment on it. And usually that's going to include some negative stuff like that's, that just goes with the job.

• 38:22Speaker 03

  One of the things that's been fun about this one, and this will get kind of weird is the inside baseball fights of it, right? Like, and, and, and so when the New Yorker wrote that article about me, it was the seven page take down.

• 38:35Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 38:35Speaker 03

  And it had a picture of me at a country club, wearing a big platinum rope, standing in front of a Ferrari.

• 38:40Rich Roll?

  Fancy car. Yeah.

• 38:43Speaker 03

  So the Times of London, which published an article two days later about my event in New York, which had an entirely different polar opposite position to it, used a picture from the same event, except it was pictures of me going like this, right? And so when, and, and in a way, that was also a statement from the Times of London to the New Yorker, those places. And so when you know you're doing that, when you know you're getting them to fight with each other over you without doing anything, like, then I'm doing my job, right?

• 39:23Rich Roll?

  Next up is Joanne Molinaro, creator and plant-based cookbook author.

• 39:29Speaker 08

  I think the way that I did it was actually not bad, which is I cultivated a hobby. You know, I was in a job that in retrospect was sucking my soul, you know, it, the amount of anxiety that I had walking into work every day was so toxic and so unhealthy. But I just kind of was like, oh, that's just everyday life. That's just normal, right? That's being an adult. But I stayed in that job for nearly 18 years. But during that time, I cultivated a hobby that gave me some respite that allowed me to invest pennies sometimes into my creativity, pennies into creative Joanne, artistic Joanne, and perhaps even entrepreneurial Joanne.

• 40:14Speaker 08

  I mean, sometimes I couldn't do edit at all, you know, two, three weeks at a time where I was on trial. I couldn't do anything, right? But I think let's do a hobby first because sometimes people know that they're creative and know that they're artistic, but don't actually know how best to manifest that creativity. Is it, you know, by being an artist? Is it by being a photographer? Is it by being a sculptor? Is it by being a cookbook author? They don't know. They just know that they want to do something. So hobby is such a non-committal, non-intimidating way to figure that out about yourself. How do you feel most fulfilled when it comes to self-expression?

• 40:58Speaker 08

  And while you're doing that, you're also saving some money, putting some money aside because that is an integral component to dream chasing. We live in a capitalistic world, whether you like it or not. It is very hard to chase dreams if they are not capitalized, if they are not funded. I'm not saying you need a lot of money, some. And that is the way that I did it, which was I had a hobby and I socked money away little by little by little to make sure that if ever the day came where I would be given the runway to really chase that dream, that that runway would be fully funded for as long as possible.

• 41:37Rich Roll?

  I think underscoring the hobby aspect of it is really important. Like at the outset of this and perhaps even in its early full-blown states, it still wasn't like, oh, this is my path out of this career.

• 41:50Speaker 08

  No way.

• 41:50Rich Roll?

  It was just something you enjoyed doing. And I think, you know, when you mentioned that, you know, people don't even know what their creativity looks like. I think that translates translates also into like not even knowing what their hobby would be. So I think it begins with. Just indulging your curiosity or first even paying attention to your curiosity.

• 42:12Speaker 08

  Yes.

• 42:12Rich Roll?

  Like, where does it naturally gravitate towards? Where do your eyes kind of like wander? And just drawing some kind of present awareness to that and honoring, like noting it. Oh, that's interesting. Like, you know, when I open up the newspaper, why do I always pull the style section out first? You know, when I, when I should be reading the business section or whatever, like instead of saying, well, I should read the bit. You're like, oh, well, there's something there. Like, why do I, you know, why, why do I always kind of like do these things? And if you pull that thread, you know, maybe there's a hobby if you continue to pull. But I think it's just making this conscious decision to honor your curiosity and say like, this is valid. And, and if you continue to do that, there's always meaning on the other end of that. Whether that looks like a full blown career change is a different question.

• 42:56Rich Roll?

  But I think to the extent that if you're in a certain situation in your life, where things like meaning and fulfillment seem elusive, that might be a path towards a little bit more of it.

• 43:10Speaker 08

  I think the other big thing is to just do it. I mean, I think people sometimes are so enamored with the perfect manifestation of their hobby or their dream or their creative enterprise, that it actually prevents them from taking that very first step of doing it. You know, and it doesn't have to be pretty. It is, it can be extremely ugly.

• 43:32Rich Roll?

  It's not going to be.

• 43:33Speaker 08

  No, exactly.

• 43:34Rich Roll?

  Like, it's not, like, you can't get caught up in that. Like, the first thing you write, that they, all these things are going to be terrible.

• 43:40Speaker 08

  They are going to be so cringey. You're going to look back and you're going to hate them and you're going to be, you're going to hate the person who created it. But if you don't do it, you'll never grow. You'll never see what you could have become. And the thing is, if you put the word, I'm chasing my dream. On this project, if you label it as

• 44:03Rich Roll?

  It's too pressurized.

• 44:04Speaker 08

  Exactly. If you label as this is my future. This is my next big thing. This is my next career. This is the first step towards transitioning out of this job I hate. If you do that, you will almost certainly never start because there is so much anxiety that you have just injected into it. Whereas if it's, you know what, this style thing is actually kind of interesting. I wonder, you know, maybe the next time I go shopping, I should try pulling out a couple of pieces that I wouldn't normally and see what happens. Maybe I'll take a picture of it, you know? If you just do it that way and cultivate it as just a hobby, all the pressure sort of disappears from it. And the more you enjoy it, the more you're naturally going to invest in it.

• 44:45Rich Roll?

  And the more you do that, the more, you know, stuff shows up to point you what the next thing is to do. But again, you don't get to know any of those things in advance.

• 44:55Speaker 08

  You don't, you don't. You do have to take a leap of faith in yourself.

• 45:00Rich Roll?

  Now we hear from the amazing relationship expert, Gillian Turecki.

• 45:07Speaker 02

  You know, it's the question I get the most, like the top three questions I get the most. How do I know if it's time to go?

• 45:14Speaker 02

  So low hanging fruit first, because I think it's important. If there's any abuse, any violence of any kind, you get out. There is no plan B. You don't give them a second chance. It's done and you get help. Aside from that, and let's say you're invested. This is not someone you've been dating. So I think, I think I should answer it like if you've just been seeing this person for like three months and you're not sure if this is it. Or like you're married or you're, you know, in full partnership. Let's start with the full partnership.

• 45:45Speaker 02

  Often when we are thinking about if we should stay or go, we're thinking about one person and one person only, ourselves. We're thinking about what we're not getting, the needs that are not being met. And we're not thinking, how am I, how have I been as a partner?

• 46:06Speaker 02

  Am I meeting their needs? Do I even know what their needs are? You know, it's like remarkable to me, and maybe this is, you know, I don't know if you and your wife have done this, or maybe this will be a fun thing for you guys to do later tonight. But a lot of people are in relationships and they don't even know what their partner needs to feel loved and important, cherished, to feel like they are important to them, to feel like they're growing together, like they just don't know what the other person needs.

• 46:35Rich Roll?

  The needs are unstated.

• 46:36Speaker 02

  They're unstated.

• 46:38Rich Roll?

  Yeah, you said this amazing thing.

• 46:39Speaker 02

  And uninvestigated.

• 46:40Rich Roll?

  I love this phrase that you, that you use, which is, unspoken expectations are premeditated resentments.

• 46:47Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 46:48Rich Roll?

  Which kind of gets at the heart of that.

• 46:50Speaker 02

  That's it.

• 46:50Rich Roll?

  If you don't bring your voice to what those needs are, you can't expect them to get met. And when they're not met, you simmer with all sorts of resentment that, you know, just sours everything.

• 47:02Speaker 02

  Yes. So before you leave, you have to ask yourself,

• 47:09Speaker 02

  first of all, do I know what, if there were three things that my partner can do differently,

• 47:16Speaker 02

  and they were to do it, would that be enough? Cause I've spoken to people and I said, okay, let's say they made all these changes. They did A, B, C, and D. They did all the things that have been missing.

• 47:29Speaker 02

  And I've had people say, you know what?

• 47:32Speaker 02

  I still wouldn't want to be with them. And then you kind of have your answer.

• 47:35Rich Roll?

  Then you know.

• 47:35Speaker 02

  Then you know. But oftentimes it's like, can you, if there were two things that they could change, would that be enough? And a lot of times people are like, yeah, I just need these two things. Okay, so now we can work with that. Then there's, do you know what they need? And how would you rate yourself as a partner?

• 47:55Speaker 02

  And can you try meeting their needs for about 30 days? Can you try just being, you know, thinking about meeting their needs and being the partner that you want to be and seeing if something magical happens? Because often it does, believe it or not.

• 48:10Rich Roll?

  If you pull the ripcord before performing that experiment,

• 48:13Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 48:13Rich Roll?

  you're, you're, you're jumping ship too soon.

• 48:15Speaker 02

  You're jumping ship too soon.

• 48:17Rich Roll?

  In the context of a newer relationship, though, like, how is it different?

• 48:22Speaker 02

  I think it's different because, you know, if you're like seeing someone for three months and you're not sure if you want to really build with this person. I think values are so important. I wish I'd learned this at a much younger age. Like, what's, most people don't really take the time to figure out what's really important to them.

• 48:43Speaker 02

  And I think that having, you don't want to be the same thing, same as your partner. That would be so incredibly boring. But you want to have some core values that are the same. You know, you want to have, you don't have to, I mean, preferences are one thing. You know, yeah, sure, it'd be nice if you both ate the same way or went to bed at the same time. These things help, but you can have all those things on point. But if you don't share like core values and how you, and what you believe a life well lived is, it's never going to work. So you got to ask yourself, does this person, do you feel like you can build a life with this person?

• 49:27Speaker 02

  Do you feel like this is someone who you could really trust? Do you respect them and do you feel respected by them?

• 49:36Rich Roll?

  We continue with another icon, none other than legendary broadcaster Katie Couric.

• 49:43Rich Roll?

  We're not exactly in the best moment when it comes to funding medical research.

• 49:50Speaker 02

  Oh, my God.

• 49:52Speaker 09

  I know. We're gonna have to talk about something fun eventually because this is such a bummer. But no, I'm glad you brought it up because it's super important for people listening. Yeah. So, yes, the NIH funding is being cut, I think, by 40%. And, you know, much of my adult life, after I lost my husband to colon cancer and my sister to pancreatic cancer, has been spent really focused on cancer, raising money for cancer research, getting to know a lot of scientists, increasing awareness. And, you know, I started Stand Up to Cancer with some other pissed off women who were just very frustrated at the pace of progress. So I have been in this world, you know, not like scientists have, but I have gotten such

• 50:37Speaker 09

  a deep, profound appreciation for what these people do and how tirelessly, how tirelessly they work, day in and day out, and how hard it is and how complicated these diseases are, not just cancer, which is like a million diseases and a million different biologies, but all these neurodegenerative diseases and heart disease, anyway. And the fact there's so much wrong with cutting medical research in this way. Not only are we in a huge inflection point with AI, you know, merging with basic biology

• 51:17Speaker 09

  and other, you know, immunotherapeutic approaches and, you know, I know you are interested in medicine and I want to talk to you about this, actually, but I'll talk to you in a minute. To pull the rug out from under these scientists, to stop, and patients, stop clinical trials. It is such a disservice to our country. And we're also already witnessing a significant brain drain. Scientists aren't going to stay here if their projects aren't funded. They're, you know, France is saying, come to France. Other countries are saying, we will fund your research. It is so foolhardy and disgusting, but there is a move on Capitol Hill with, I think it's pretty bipartisan to try to reinstate some of the funding into NIH.

• 52:01Rich Roll?

  That's, that's good to know. I mean, that's the other thing. When you grow up in DC, you grow up around kids whose parents were scientists at NIH.

• 52:10Speaker 09

  Right.

• 52:10Rich Roll?

  Like, a lot of my friends' parents were researchers at NIH. And, you know, listen, that was a long time ago. And there, there, I'm sure there's, you know, some bureaucratic bloat and all of that. But the idea that these people are somehow, you know, co-opted by Big Pharma and are, you know, working at the behest of these corporate interests for, for their own personal enrichment is kind of insane. Like, these people have devoted their lives to science, and they are immersed in these research projects that are expensive and complicated and take many, many years. And, and a lot of this has been interrupted

• 52:50Rich Roll?

  and disrupted. And so a lot of that science is lost. And it's quite tragic for anyone who is depending upon, you know, cures and therapies for, you know, whatever they're suffering from right now.

• 53:03Speaker 09

  It's a travesty. Honestly, it's, it's, it's a travesty. And some of these clinical trials have been either shut down or delayed. And, you know, when you're sick, I know very well from my husband and my sister, and when you're sick, you know, every day matters, and you're just praying. I remember when Jay was sick, and he was diagnosed with stage four colon cancer, and it was bleak. The prognosis was very bleak. But I was just every day perusing the internet like praying, is there something going on? I would call, like, these pharmaceutical companies in Israel. I called Burt Vogelstein, who's discovered

• 53:44Speaker 09

  the Ashkenazi Jew gene at Johns Hopkins. He was not very encouraging, but I do love you, Burt, now, but you weren't that nice back then. But anyway, you know, just desperate. And I know what it's like. I know what it's like just saying, you know, anything, please, just do anything that will extend my life. You don't even have to cure me, extend it so I can go to my daughter's wedding, or I can be at my child's fifth grade, you know, kindergarten graduation, I don't know. And, or that can help me until something better comes along. But

• 54:22Speaker 09

  You know, how can something better come along when they've just aren't funding the the science? It's so, it's maddening to me.

• 54:33Rich Roll?

  Next up are two of the most popular people on the entire internet, Rhett and Link.

• 54:41Rich Roll?

  These behemoths are sort of collapsing under their own weight. And in that collapse, there is this emergent, you know, kind of thing happening right now that I see you guys, you know, as sort of the tip of the spear of.

• 54:53Speaker 10

  Yeah, over 3,000 episodes of the show, the thing that has remained consistent was our connection with each other and our connection with that one viewer on the other side of the lens. So it was, it's always been intimate in that way. The production value would increase. And, you know, we'd add writers and producers in order to free up our time off camera to pursue other projects. But when we sit down behind that desk, it's two friends who have known each other for 30, now over 40 years. And it's real. And we created an environment where we're

• 55:31Speaker 10

  comfortable being increasingly more of ourselves over the years and valuing that connection. And that's, that's irreplaceable. So I think that the instinct that we needed to create something that was a touch point, we underestimated the power of that connection. And so, yeah, it has turned into this bustling studio in Burbank where people wear many hats and express themselves and pursue their own dreams. It's a fun, very challenging thing to run.

• 56:08Speaker 10

  But we work hard to not lose sight of that. The heart of it is this friendship and

• 56:14Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's all contingent upon you guys maintaining a very real friendship.

• 56:20Speaker 10

  Yeah, it is.

• 56:21Rich Roll?

  Because it will collapse under its own weight without that, right? And so 40 years, you guys have been friends since you were little kids and made this blood oath, you know, and had to

• 56:32Speaker 10

  Literally, we did.

• 56:33Rich Roll?

  draw mythical creatures when you were in, you know, time out at school or whatever. Like, walk us back to the, you know, humble beginnings of, you know, it's like, you know, rock bands, how have you sustained this? Like, most bands can't, you know, like, people

• 56:49Speaker 10

  Uh, you know, the human condition is to, you know, not be able to sustain something like this.

• 56:56Speaker 11

  Yeah. Well, it all goes back to 1984 in Miss Locklear's first grade class in Buys Creek, North Carolina, where we were both held in from recess for writing profanity on our desks. We don't really remember what we wrote, but in the mythology of our creation myth, it has become damn in hell, damn misspelled as D A M, because that's funny.

• 57:17Speaker 10

  Right.

• 57:18Speaker 11

  And we immediately connected and we're in a really small town where there's, uh, you know, when Campbell University is in session, there's a thousand people, I think, in the, in the entire town. And we are essentially side by side from first grade to 12th grade as best friends. And there's people who rotate in and out of the friend group, but the two of us become, you know, inseparable. And then when we start in middle school, getting attention for doing things together, either just in front of friends or better yet, you get up in front of the whole class. And or you, oh, there's a video project where you get to go and you get to do something on video to show to the, your eighth grade class.

• 58:01Speaker 11

  Or the talent show, oh, the talent show, that's where the, that's the opportunity we've been waiting for for years.

• 58:06Speaker 10

  Right before summer, if you were in seventh and eighth grade, you could submit a talent and then like friends and family, everyone show up, fill the auditorium and.

• 58:15Speaker 11

  And they'll be thinking about you all summer.

• 58:17Speaker 10

  Oh, yeah.

• 58:17Speaker 11

  Unless you blow it. But.

• 58:19Speaker 10

  We lived for that.

• 58:20Speaker 11

  But if you perform, if you take, I'm down with OPP during the fall festival and you change it to, I'm down with Halloween.

• 58:28Speaker 10

  Yeah.

• 58:28Speaker 11

  And change the lyrics, they'll be thinking about you all year. So we started getting this positive feedback, this attention that we craved. And eventually, yes, it when we were about 14, it's sort of heading into high school. That was when we were out in a cow pasture that we would go out to, to chase cows as one of our, our main pastimes. And there were two rocks out in this field. There was a big rock and a little rock. And we developed this system where if you're sitting on the big rock, you could talk. But if you're sitting on the little rock, you can only ask clarifying questions. And so we would.

• 59:04Speaker 10

  Just like a training ground for a good podcast.

• 59:07Speaker 11

  Creating a show.

• 59:09Speaker 11

  And that's how we learned how to communicate and listen. And we started just talking about dreams and they were very nebulous dreams of essentially, we want to do something big together. We don't know what that's going to be like our form of entertainment, like what an entertainer was to a couple of boys in Buies Creek back then, was the guy who would come to our school dances and he was a DJ, but he was also a magician. It's like that was a full time entertainer to us. We had no concept of going to California and being in media. We didn't even, we couldn't tell you what media was. I wanted to be a weatherman. You get to be on TV.

• 59:45Speaker 10

  You're on TV.

• 59:50Rich Roll?

  We've got a lot more to come, but first.

• 1:00:00Rich Roll?

  All right, let's get back into the show with somebody who burst onto the scene in 2025, and that is public health expert Jessica Nurek.

• 1:00:14Speaker 12

  A lot of people will ask me, well, what do you think the Maha movement is getting right? And, and what I always say is the Maha movement, they largely get the problem right. Right? And that's, that's why it's so effective. They really have tapped into something in a very bipartisan way across the board that we all feel. Cause you know, maybe we can talk a little bit about how this like this left to right change in wellness has happened. But many of us in public health have been talking about these same problems that Maha is talking about, right? We do have a lifestyle related chronic disease issue. That's why I got into this field and started studying chronic disease prevention, you know, a decade and a half ago. We do have a food environment that is nearly by best estimates, 70% ultra processed food. Right? And, and there's a reason for that. And, and we do have, you know, systems that are not built for us to be healthier. They're, they're

• 1:00:58Speaker 12

  really built for corporate profit and for the profitability of them. And so those truths are there and they really latched on to those. The issue is, is that they got the causes of those issues largely wrong. And when you get the causes wrong, you're going to get the solutions wrong and you're going to miss the mark on the solutions and your solutions either will be kind of benign. And not make any impact or they'll be harmful in some cases. So right now we see things like, you know, fluoride bans in certain states. We see mostly, I think Maha's solutions are really largely around like getting food dyes out of foods and getting these like ingredients out of foods. While we're focused very much on that and we can all agree, like it, maybe we won't all agree,

• 1:01:40Speaker 12

  but I would say that the vast majority of us would be completely fine with getting synthetic food dyes out of our food. Like no one's really advocating for synthetic food dyes, right? They're largely a marketing tool for these food corporations to sell more foods, particularly to children. So there may actually be some place there where, you know, you remove the synthetic food dyes, the food is not as bright and kids eat less of it. We don't have data to suggest that's the case, but I could see a scenario where that could happen. Like I'd love to, I'd love to see that happen. But the problem is, is that let's be honest about why we're removing the food dyes. It's not because, for example, the United States regulatory system is allowing them in our food and all of the other regulatory systems are banning them around the world because that's just not accurate. And it's not, it's not done for safety reasons.

• 1:02:23Speaker 12

  And that might be surprising to some people who are listening that if those food dyes aren't banned in places like the EU or Canada or Australia, like they're completely allowed there. Where I say the Trojan horse aspect of it is because we're, we're very focused on this issue, right? There's food dyes or the seed oils and french fries in fast food restaurants. Meanwhile, you know, the foundation of our public health institutions are being gutted and we're rolling back environmental protections and we're cutting billions of dollars from healthcare access and food nutrition access. And all of these things that are the foundation of ensuring a healthy public in the United States are really being eroded because we're so focused on some things that really,

• 1:03:06Speaker 12

  there's not a lot of evidence to suggest are going to make a measurable impact on our health.

• 1:03:09Rich Roll?

  Yeah, there's a dissonance between rhetoric and reality. Like all of the energy is going towards the discussion around food dyes and, you know, beef tallow at, you know, Shake Shack or whatever, Shake and Steak. And what's interesting or curious about that to me, beyond the obvious, is the fact that, I mean, first of all, like, To your point, like, no one's in favor of these dyes. Like, I'm, yeah, get rid of them or whatever. But it's a distraction because ultimately, whether that dye is in the food or not, it's still a bad food that you shouldn't eat. You know, like, it's not part of the healthy diet at all.

• 1:03:45Speaker 12

  We're talking like Skittles and Fruit Loops.

• 1:03:45Rich Roll?

  So it's like, oh, let's get super excited about, you know, the fact that M&M's doesn't use this red dye. Or what, they're still M&M's. Like, you know, so why are we even talking about this? It's such a, you know, 0.001% of what's important to talk about when it comes to these issues. And the misdirection aspect of it is that it distracts us from focusing on what's really important, which are these initiatives, these policies, what research is being funded that's really going to drive these public outcomes in a positive way. Like, on the one hand, you know, it's almost like we're in favor of regulation because we want these dyes. It's like, the only way you do that is by passing regulations that regulate food and pharma.

• 1:04:30Rich Roll?

  But at the same time, behind the scenes, it's all about deregulation so that these big corporate entities can do what they want to do, which is basically, you know, double down on their corporate interests and not be impeded in doing so.

• 1:04:47Rich Roll?

  Next up is the queen of clean beauty, Gregg Renfrew, founder and entrepreneur. On the subject of consumer, the consumer lack of awareness or ignorance about these things, what is it that you want, you know, the consumer to know?

• 1:05:06Speaker 13

  Well, I think with respect to my industry, the beauty and personal care industry, I want people to know that beauty secrets are bullshit. I mean, it's all bullshit. I mean, just think about this. I mean, you and I are both, you know, getting older, right? I have wrinkles on my face, right? I just do. Wrinkles aren't a problem. They're just a thing that the beauty industry is telling you is a problem so they can sell you product. I mean, let's just start there. I mean, really.

• 1:05:30Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:31Speaker 13

  There's like a wrinkle is just part of the aging process and every single person in the world will get a wrinkle at some point and it is not a process. It is just part of life. The entire industry of like building things like, oh, if you, you know, use this, you're going to have the fountain of youth. It's, I mean, it's all bullshit. So I think that, you know, one, I want people to understand that like, there's no cream that's going to get rid of your wrinkles. They might improve the moisture in your skin. They might, you might feel a little bit more radiant. That, that stuff is true, but nothing's going to change things. That's one thing. Two, that don't be, don't believe what you see on a label. Like you've got to do your research. You may not choose to want to do the work and that's fair. But if someone says it's all natural or clean or

• 1:06:14Speaker 13

  aloe based, or you know, it's got made with pomegranate seed or whatever, like.

• 1:06:19Rich Roll?

  There's always, it's just insane how creative these things get like, oh, infused with this and like especially it's like they, there's all kinds of crazy descriptors, you know, to make you think that there's some scientific breakthrough happening.

• 1:06:32Speaker 13

  Of course not. Of course. And they'll say things like preservative free. Okay. Well, that's, there's no way that if you buy a product and it's sitting on the shelf for a year or two without having to be refrigerated and doesn't expire in a couple of weeks, like that's not preservative free. That means that that person went in and pre-preserved the raw materials, extracted them and because of, because of sort of loopholes, like they can claim that to be preservative free.

• 1:06:57Rich Roll?

  Because they didn't, they, they weren't like the actively preserved. It was preserved before they put it in the bottle or whatever.

• 1:07:04Speaker 13

  It's that kind of thing that people just don't realize and it's the same with, with, you know, with the food industry. And I always say that the beauty industry drafts off the food industry. So what is happening there, we're going to get next. And so I always just say to people, if there's like one thing you can do, shop fragrance free, because at least you know, you're removing a lot of the chemicals of concern that don't have to be listed, no matter which brand it is. We will, we always list the ingredients, but people don't list it. But just, just know that. You know, what you see on the label isn't necessarily what you get. And that's okay if you're, if you're not trying to buy clean or natural product. But if you are, you need to do your homework.

• 1:07:39Rich Roll?

  And what are the common chemicals of concern? And why are they concerning?

• 1:07:45Speaker 13

  You know, I think there are a whole bunch, but a couple that you will see often on labels are some of the parabens, the methyl or ethyl parabens. And you'll see things like EDTA, the pegs. And obviously formaldehyde, but it never shows up as formaldehyde on the label. But those things and, and they're, they are, you know, I talked earlier about phthalates. And I think that anything that mimics your endocrine system and disrupts it can be really harmful in terms of your reproductive health or, um, you know, your neurological health. So I think that what I always say to people is like, look, I'm never, I'm not a scientist and I don't have all the answers or understand half of these chemicals, um, most of these chemicals.

• 1:08:27Speaker 13

  But what you should know first and foremost is that many, many tens of thousands of chemicals have been introduced into commerce in everything from electronics to food to beauty. And less than 10% of them have ever been tested for safety on human health. And so you're dealing with the wild, wild west. And so when you're making decisions about things you're putting in your body and on your body, just err on the side of being cautious. Like you'll put a seatbelt on when you get in the car, but you'll just put anything, any lotion or potion all over your body and your skin's your largest organ. So if you're thinking about, you know, your longevity and your long-term health, know that it, while it may not react in that moment, you might not see a huge rash breakout, it may have a long-term impact. And we may not know that, and maybe that one ingredient's okay in isolation, but how

• 1:09:11Speaker 13

  many products are you putting on your body every day when you brush your teeth and you shave and you put deodorant on and sunscreen and makeup? And how do those chemicals interact with one another with your body?

• 1:09:19Rich Roll?

  Yeah, there's a, there's an interesting irony in that, in that amidst all of this institutional distrust that's occurring right now, uh, we have almost a reflexive unconscious trust when it comes to all of these products, assuming that. Smart people at the company have tested all of these things and that the FDA is overseeing all of this and it wouldn't be on the shelf and available to buy unless it has been vetted and tested and approved for human health and safety.

• 1:09:52Speaker 13

  Yeah, that's it. It actually surprises me. It even with my own friends when I mean, sometimes they'll they'll say something they're like, this is clean. I'm like, have you been listening to me for the last 10 years? Like, are you kidding me? This is not clean. This is not even remotely clean. But somehow you think it is because it has like a leaf on the packaging or something and you think it's like this thing. I think that

• 1:10:12Rich Roll?

  But the the burden of proof, like the presumption is upside down, right? It has to be proven harmful. It's assumed. It's assumed safe until proven harmful rather than having to be proven proven safe prior to being able to be available as a commercial product.

• 1:10:27Speaker 13

  That's that is true.

• 1:10:30Rich Roll?

  This is Andy Galpin, my very favorite performance scientist.

• 1:10:36Speaker 14

  I changed this probably 10 years ago. I remember I was, you know, Brian McKenzie?

• 1:10:41Rich Roll?

  I do.

• 1:10:41Speaker 14

  So I was at Brian's house and he was talking about that exact thing. And I was like, oh, that's really interesting. His endurance programming was all based failure was defined as technical breakdown, right? Not volume, not time, not anything else. It was that when you break down technically, like, that's your number.

• 1:10:57Rich Roll?

  There's no point in continuing to run further or whatever at that point.

• 1:11:00Speaker 14

  And then like two days later, I was in Colorado with Lauren Landau, strength and conditioning coach. Tremendous guy. He was with the Broncos for a long time. Now he's at Notre Dame. And he said the exact same thing, but not from the endurance perspective. And he was going through different drills he was doing. And I was like, how am I not doing this? Like, immediately was like, oh, this is the most ridiculous thing ever. And so we've pretty much used that almost exclusively since then is we will always define, not always, most of the time, we define fatigue or endurance or failure as that point of diminished technical breakdown, right? You're gonna like, your posture will break and like, you'll come back.

• 1:11:43Speaker 14

  But when we see whatever we're defining as a major technical breakdown, then that's the limit. And so, in fact, I got a text on the way here. One of our guys is preparing for a fight in China. And he told me last night he had a PR in our endurance work and this is an erudite piece that we do for rounds and those rounds are cut off with technical breakdowns. So this is a posture when he's leaning forward and the head starts flopping back and forth and his elbows start flying up. That's when we like cut him and he doesn't know this, by the way. Like he's like, he just gets arbitrarily told he's done. He has no idea why, right? We can't because then he'll just hijack the system and he won't listen to this.

• 1:12:22Rich Roll?

  What are you doing? Why are you?

• 1:12:23Speaker 14

  Yeah, he's like, no, we're done. He's just like, okay. But we got an extra round out of our stuff last night, which is now the third week in a row we've added around. And I'm like, great. So what this showing me is he's holding position better at the same or higher levels of fatigue intuitively. He's subconsciously holding this and then when he gets really tired, he breaks. Phenomenal. And then we see that in his actual skill training. So that, yeah, that's a very big part of our stuff, especially when we are pushing close to competitions where volume and intensity are high, calories are low, stress is high. You're just like, you're asking for a recipe there and you're looking for any excuse to dial something in. And that for him, for some of our other athletes, it's honestly not as big of a deal.

• 1:13:08Rich Roll?

  But the really practical application of this for the everyday person is next time you're in the gym and you're thinking, I'm going to go to failure on this lift. Failure isn't, you know, when you can no longer get the bar all the way up by doing whatever you have to do, you know, moving your body around to do it. It's as soon as you can't hold perfect form that you're done, right? And I think the other gem within that is that the most important thing in advancing your fitness goals is consistency. Like you talk about this consistency over intensity and everybody loves to, you know, talk about their, their, their monster workout or their massive lift or their incredibly long, you

• 1:13:48Rich Roll?

  know, weekend run or whatever. And that's all fine, but it's only as important as, you know, as the rest of your program and how it fits into that, right? So quality, like volume being limited by the extent to which you can express it with quality.

• 1:14:07Speaker 14

  Hundred percent.

• 1:14:08Rich Roll?

  And my rule is always. If I'm being consistent, like less is always more because you're you're not just training for the day, you're training for the week and the month and and the idea is to be able to get up and do it again the next day and the next day and the next day. And the minute you start, you know, kind of inappropriately stepping over the line and doing a little bit too much because you feel good that day, like just because you feel good that day and you want to go for it, doesn't mean that you should if you have a greater goal that you're working towards because that can come at a cost that's going to undermine your ability to express yourself physically the day after when that was the day when you really were supposed to, you know, do that other kind of workout to advance that.

• 1:14:50Speaker 14

  With our athletes and our non-athletes, because by numbers, I coach more non-athletes, general population people than professional athletes. With all of them, we have very specific, you can set this up however you want, but red days, days that you're going to like go after, right? And it doesn't always work like that, especially for non-athletes. It's like I'm running a company and I've got a family like this thing. Okay, great. But we will have that plotted for the month and ideally at least for the quarter as well. And so when we get to a spot where that person goes, I'm feeling great today, I want to go after it. Well, we know what's coming up next week and we know what came up came the week before. And so we can look at it and go, yeah, if you want, go ahead. Or we

• 1:15:35Speaker 14

  can go, no chance. Why? Because either we did a ton last week, or we got a whole huge set coming up next week or next month or whatever. And so we're trying to really make an intelligent decision about like when to fly and when to not go. All that is orchestrated, whether this is just on subjective, high, you know, hard day, medium day, light day, or we have direct measures with a bunch of physiological variables and other stuff. We have a combination of super high technology and no technology sort of people. So you have some plan there.

• 1:16:11Rich Roll?

  We continue with the soulful, two-time world champion surfer, John John Florence. So if I was Mike Gervais, I would, I would ask you, like, what does mastery look like for you? Like, how would you define mastery?

• 1:16:26Speaker 15

  I don't think, yeah.

• 1:16:27Rich Roll?

  Do you think in that context?

• 1:16:29Speaker 15

  I kind of do, but I kind of don't. Like, I don't think there's, you can ever really become a master of anything. I feel like it's just endless. And I feel like mastery for me is like,

• 1:16:39Speaker 15

  I'm really in to the internal thinking in the mind, you know? Because I feel like, once you get a handle on that, you'll never have it perfectly, but you'll be able to apply it to anything that you do. And so I think that's mastery within itself. It's just being able to get a handle on your internal self.

• 1:16:55Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm. Mastering the self is the key to mastering any, anything else.

• 1:17:00Speaker 15

  Anything you apply yourself to.

• 1:17:01Rich Roll?

  Well, you're not going to master anything if you're not a master of, of your own mind.

• 1:17:05Speaker 15

  Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. If you're just kind of completely acting at random, then I feel like the things you do are going to be at random.

• 1:17:12Rich Roll?

  How do you define success? Has that evolved over time?

• 1:17:17Speaker 15

  Yeah, definitely. Like, it's funny, when I was competing and going for my first world title, I was like, okay, world title, that's it. That's what I want. That's like the, once I do that, that's, I've done it, you know? Like, I'll feel good. And then it's, it's just the craziest thing, because you hear it from other athletes and stuff, they accomplish these huge goals. But when you, like, I accomplished that, and then I finished, and you wake up the next day and everything resets.

• 1:17:44Rich Roll?

  You're like, why am I the same guy?

• 1:17:46Speaker 15

  You're like, I'm the same, nothing's changed. Like, and so you kind of just keep going on about your day. And that actually was like, pretty hard for me, because I was like, I just chased this whole life thing, thinking that this would like, I guess, like, solve all my issues. And then you win, and then you finish it, and you're like, everything's exactly the same. Okay, now how do I cope with that? And so like, figuring out how to cope with that, and then like, come back again, and maybe like, okay, now why am I competing? What's the point? You know? Because you could go into that mode of just like, I accomplished it, I'm done, like. There's no, there's no reason for me to do this anymore. And I think that's where I really started getting into that mode of like, oh no, I'm kind of going on this bigger picture, longer, full life.

• 1:18:27Speaker 15

  It'll take my, my whole life and I'll probably never accomplish like really getting to know myself and master myself and the decisions that I make.

• 1:18:35Rich Roll?

  So success then is a commitment to self mastery.

• 1:18:39Speaker 15

  Yeah, I guess so. Yeah, commitment. I guess it's a commitment. I think that's a really good way of saying it.

• 1:18:45Rich Roll?

  What's really funny is every single person who's achieved some, you know, audacious goal has the same story. Like, you know, this is like the, because you have to be sort of insane, you know, to chase these things and to achieve them. And, and driven in part by thinking that this is going to fix whatever broken part you have, you know what I mean? And every single person will say, and then I did it and then I was the same guy and it was so disappointing, you know, it's like, I don't, you could listen to a thousand versions of that story on a thousand podcasts and read a million books, but, but we all sort of think that we're going to be the exception. Like, yeah, but not for me. Like, you don't understand, it's going to be different. It's like, this really will fix me or, or then, but it sounds like

• 1:19:27Rich Roll?

  where the maturity is and what you learned was you learned from that and thought, well, winning a second one isn't going to fix it. Like, a lot of people just get on that hedonic treadmill, like, oh, well, it didn't fix me, but that's because there's this other thing.

• 1:19:40Speaker 15

  Yeah, yeah. Maybe if I do this time.

• 1:19:42Rich Roll?

  And use your whole life, you know, but to like learn at a young age, like that's not the solution. It's an inside job and there's another focus of my attention and energy that's going to be required if I want to solve that dilemma.

• 1:19:56Speaker 15

  Yeah. And, and I think that's where it really helps me through like, you know, bringing up the injuries, because I just felt like that was such a big part of my road to this last world championship. But like, it allowed me to go into those and be like, okay, like, like I said before, like, I'm just kind of changing what I'm doing, but I'm still going after my same like life goal, you know, and it allowed me to do that really well. And then I healed and then I'm like, okay, now I'm competing again and I'm going to put my mindset back into this again. And you're always building this one thing, no matter what you're doing in your life.

• 1:20:26Rich Roll?

  Right. Process over outcome.

• 1:20:29Speaker 15

  Yeah.

• 1:20:29Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Well, it's good that you love surfing.

• 1:20:31Speaker 15

  Yeah.

• 1:20:32Rich Roll?

  Right?

• 1:20:33Speaker 15

  Yeah.

• 1:20:33Rich Roll?

  It makes the process part a lot easier.

• 1:20:35Speaker 15

  Yeah, it does.

• 1:20:35Rich Roll?

  You know?

• 1:20:39Rich Roll?

  Next up is Jungian psychotherapist John W. Price.

• 1:20:45Speaker 16

  I was told by Jungian analyst that I worked with years ago, she was a professor of mine. When we were speaking in one of our classes, she mentioned a young woman who was sexually abused through much of her early life. So by the age of nine or 10, she had a pretty significant alcohol dependence.

• 1:21:07Rich Roll?

  Nine or 10, hardcore.

• 1:21:10Speaker 16

  So this was a horrible sexual abuse.

• 1:21:14Speaker 16

  The way that Priscilla spoke about it, she said that she was drinking anywhere from half a bottle to a bottle of vodka a day, I'm sure supported by some of the adults in her life. So this is as bad as it can get.

• 1:21:25Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:26Speaker 16

  And so at 16, the abuser was no longer in the home, and yet she still had the alcohol problem. The alcohol dependence, I should say.

• 1:21:40Speaker 16

  Okay, so I would argue that's not wrong. That was based in her need to do everything that she could to numb out from the catastrophic mistreatment that was happening.

• 1:21:59Rich Roll?

  An almost appropriate adaptation.

• 1:22:02Speaker 16

  Absolutely.

• 1:22:02Rich Roll?

  To survive.

• 1:22:04Speaker 16

  Absolutely.

• 1:22:04Rich Roll?

  You know, just an absolutely overwhelming trauma.

• 1:22:07Speaker 16

  Yeah, yeah. So then how do you take somebody who, for the formative years of their life, has connected with this substance, and it has helped them navigate their development? And how do you then... Because now the alcohol is killing her.

• 1:22:29Speaker 16

  And that's an extreme image of what happens to us all. That we have these early adaptations about, think about when you were in a relationship and you got your heart broken and you determined that you will never love again. Or you were sexually violated and you made a proclamation about others in the world. This belief becomes ingrained, "I will never do that," or "They will never hurt me again," or "I will never have this happen." We have these agreements, it's a contract with reality.

• 1:23:07Speaker 16

  So the sacred refusal is when we eventually recognize that we have to go through a process of grief and begin to unravel our connection with whatever that adaptation is. And oftentimes, it's done so in a trauma or a crisis. You know, that this is what in AA would be referred to as a rock bottom. That you have to hit that and eventually say, "This is no longer tenable. I have to consider something else. I don't know what it is, so I will surrender over to a process that I can't possibly fathom, but I'll trust you enough, hopefully, that you will guide me through that process,"

• 1:23:49Speaker 16

  saying it to the community, or to the sponsor, to the therapist, or whomever it may be. So sacred refusal is an opportunity for us to ritualize that process where we can honor the adaptation.

• 1:24:07Speaker 16

  We can commune with it in a way that recognizes its value in our lives, that it served a great and holy purpose in a lot of ways. But now we need to, on some level, kill it off and surrender it to the forces and the powers that be. And I think that process takes time, and in the best of times, it would be done with a ritual.

• 1:24:37Speaker 16

  But again, if you're not surrounded by elders who've gone through this experience and can find ways to ritualize that process, you're kind of left going at it alone. And that can be a scary and terrifying experience. And that's why in therapy, one of the things I help folks do is try to recognize that the both end of the dance. Thank you, thank you, and I set you free. And now I go through a stage of disor- what I call disorientation. Where my favorite example here is a hermit crab. And I thought about the hermit crab early on and come to find out they actually do this. The hermit crab outgrows its shell and it has to go looking for a new shell.

• 1:25:22Speaker 16

  And of course, the moment of transition from the old shell to the new shell is the most vulnerable time of its life.

• 1:25:30Rich Roll?

  They're exposed.

• 1:25:31Speaker 16

  Yeah. And the second thing that I thought was really fascinating when I started looking this up is that it also goes through a phase of adjusting to the new shell because it doesn't quite fit right. And so it's got to take time to grow into that shell. So this is a stage of liminality, the in-between. And we, and our ego's need for control, for clarity, for certainty, we suffer the burdens of ambiguity, anxiety, and ambivalence. And during that stage, just not intellectually necessarily, but just our bodies are shaking and needing ground, you know? I need my familiarity.

• 1:26:16Speaker 16

  We're in the uncomfortable transitional phase of the unknown. And so disorientation is a stage that really needs a kind of midwifing. And you need somebody to sit along and reflect for you where you are in your journey. Or else you will regress into patterns that existed and were very effective before. Hence the nature of our entire addiction treatment process.

• 1:26:42Rich Roll?

  Next up is another icon you know her as Malala. Yes, that Malala, the activist and Nobel Peace Prize laureate.

• 1:26:52Speaker 17

  When I had anxiety and panic attacks and flashbacks of the attack, I was introduced to therapy. That changed everything for me. So I was hoping that, you know, that through sharing my story, I can help somebody out there who might feel lost, who might not know that, you know, they could ask for help. I wish I had heard a story like this. And I wish I I knew that, you know, therapy is okay and you should ask for help sooner. So I'm hoping that this can help somebody out there.

• 1:27:27Rich Roll?

  The mental health journey that's that's baked into the story. I mean, you didn't have to be as open and honest about how that unfurled as you as you were. Like, your first panic attack was in the aftermath of doing your first bong hit, you know, it's like, and that's, I'm sure, you know, when people read that, they're going to be like, oh, my God, you know, just envisioning you doing that.

• 1:27:50Speaker 17

  I know, like, I thought that was going to be the beginning of my, you know, journey, exploring and experimenting things. But that became my first and last bong experience because it just didn't turn out how I expected it to be. I remember that night because, you know, it became a scary night. I was initially like with my friends. We were just chatting about college life and we were in the college gardens. And they showed me bong and I said, oh, like, what is this? They said, you know, it's sort of weed, you try it. And like, first attempt, I coughed. On the second attempt, when I inhaled it, I felt it just went all inside my body.

• 1:28:33Speaker 17

  And that's when it took a sharp turn because my body froze. I could not even move. And immediately, I thought I was reliving the Taliban attack.

• 1:28:48Speaker 17

  And I felt that I was, you know, I was, I was going to die. And you know, it's, it's that time in this induced coma that I experienced uh after the Taliban attack where I could not understand what was happening if I was awake or, or asleep, if I was alive or dead. Um, and in, in that whole night after this long experience, I was sweating, shaking, terrified, I wanted to scream. It was like truly, truly a nightmare. And I, I could not sleep, I could not sleep because I thought if I closed my eyes, like I would die. Um, and it took me actually months um to, to seek therapy.

• 1:29:31Speaker 17

  So for like uh this, this flashback and then panic attacks started. I was not being myself anymore. Uh, but my college friends actually saw uh that something was not okay. And then one of my friends said that I should see a therapist and she told me that it's okay. Like a lot of students see therapists. Um, yeah, so it's like seven years later after the attack was when I uh started therapy again.

• 1:29:57Rich Roll?

  And you had to overcome whatever narrative you had in your mind about what therapy meant in order to

• 1:30:04Speaker 17

  I thought it would be like useless. You know, they ask you, how was, you know, how are you feeling today? And, and you know, and what does that make you feel? I just thought they would never understand my experiences. So when I went to my first therapy session, I thought I would be given all the medication that would make all of these problems go away. And I was like waiting for some treatment for it to be fixed. Um, but you know, I learned that it was actually a process. Um, you know, learning how your thoughts and emotions are different from the actions and uh, and just understanding that, you know, this is actually PTSD and anxiety.

• 1:30:46Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:30:46Speaker 17

  Um, that's what my therapist told me that, you know, um, it, it can happen. Uh, I think for me, the most like disappointing or

• 1:30:59Speaker 17

  Painful part was that it was happening after such a long time. I thought that I had overcome the attack. It was a story of the past. And somehow it all came back like as if it just happened all over again. That was really painful to process and and I just hated that. I I was like, you know, I I wish it's I wish it's not PTSD. I just did not want to have PTSD. But these things can affect you, and I think it's important to raise awareness about it.

• 1:31:28Rich Roll?

  Because you thought that that would mean that you were weak or because it was going to be so much work to get to the other side of it?

• 1:31:38Speaker 17

  I think it was both. I actually felt that I was not living up to the expectation of being brave and courageous. I thought I had somehow failed how I was supposed to be. And I was like really proud of myself before that. Look, survived a bullet. Look where I am, I'm fighting for all girls. And suddenly, seven years later, I am shaking, I'm getting scared and frightened.

• 1:32:09Speaker 17

  You know, when I cannot even figure out what is it that's making me scared?

• 1:32:16Speaker 17

  Am I failing if I feel scared? And I redefine bravery now. I think it is when you still stand up despite the anxiety, the panic attacks, the doubts, the trauma.

• 1:32:39Speaker 17

  I call it true courage now, true bravery.

• 1:32:44Rich Roll?

  We continue with the historian and author Rutger Bregman.

• 1:32:50Rich Roll?

  There's no place like the United States when it comes to ambition and entrepreneurialism and that sense of possibility, right? This is where you come to build things and people encourage you to do that and celebrate that spirit. But it's also this place where my feeling is our very precious relationship with quote unquote liberty, like our personal liberties feels a little out of balance. Essentially, we only get those liberties because we share this collective responsibility. And we don't really talk a lot about the responsibility piece, but we spend a lot of time talking about like our liberty to do what we want to do, whenever we want to

• 1:33:34Rich Roll?

  do it, you know, in an unbridled way, right? And so, how do you look at all of that and make sense of it?

• 1:33:42Speaker 18

  I think that if you look at American history, there's this continuous fight between two notions of what liberty is. There is indeed the shallow view of freedom that is very common today, which is just the freedom of leave me alone, let me do whatever I want, you know, let me just follow my own passion, you know, fulfill my own desires. It's the Gordon Gekko greed is good kind of freedom. And I wouldn't say that that is entirely bad. I think you need a decent amount of that in a healthy liberal society. But I think we've moved way too far in that direction. And now we gotta go back to an older, more deeper conception of what freedom is actually like. And that's the freedom to bind yourself.

• 1:34:26Speaker 18

  That's the freedom to make sacrifices. Today, we often say that we're living through the second Gilded Age, right? The first Gilded Age was the late 19th century, and indeed, the similarities are so striking. There's a fantastic book by Robert Putnam about this. And in that book, he pulls a great trick where he, you know, gives a whole description about, you know, the corruption, the immorality of elites, you know, people dodging their taxes, you know, basically the decadence of that time. And you think like, he's talking about today, right? He's talking about 2025. And then he's like, no, this is actually the late 19th century that I'm talking about. You also had these big robber barons, you know, that made massive amounts of money on their monopolies. Back then it was trains, today it's AI, but again, the similarities are striking.

• 1:35:10Rich Roll?

  What we're experiencing now is not new.

• 1:35:12Speaker 18

  Yeah, yeah. So that was also the shallow conception of freedom that was dominating in the US. But that, what came after that was the progressive era led by people like Louis Brandeis, the people's lawyer who ended up on the Supreme Court. But most famously, one of my great heroes in history, Theodore Roosevelt, the historian, the president, who set things like, and I'm paraphrasing here,

• 1:35:39Speaker 18

  to complain about a problem and not propose a solution, that's called whining. He has this famous quote about, it's not the critic who counts, but it's the man in the arena. You know, the person who actually tries, who falls down and stands up again, who just keeps going and who's not one of those whiners who always stands on the sidelines, but never, you know, can say like, I actually tried, I actually did something.

• 1:36:01Rich Roll?

  And America's original conservationist.

• 1:36:03Speaker 18

  Yep, yeah. And the Boy Scouts got started in the, in the early 20th century, also as a reaction to that era of decadence. It's so interesting, the similarities are everywhere. And I feel that we're now at a crossroads where we can go further down this really dark path. And I think it could be way darker than it is right now. I think we can really move into an authoritarian era. I've spent quite some time studying revolutions like the Russian Revolution. What you see when you study 1917 is not people who are super excited about the communists taking over. No, not at all. People thought Lenin was an idiot. They really didn't like him.

• 1:36:47Speaker 18

  But they were just utterly apathetic. They were like, you know, we hate the Tsar, we hate the royal family, we hate the incompetent liberals who replaced them, we hate everyone. You know what? We'll plug out. And sure, Lenin, you take over, you won't last for six weeks either. But six weeks became 70 years. And I really worry that that could happen in the US as well. Like, people are increasingly apathetic and...

• 1:37:12Speaker 18

  Yeah, there are some.

• 1:37:13Rich Roll?

  People weren't as distracted then as they are now.

• 1:37:15Speaker 18

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. We've got, we've got like.

• 1:37:17Rich Roll?

  High design.

• 1:37:18Speaker 18

  Big tech is the new big alcohol industry, basically.

• 1:37:21Rich Roll?

  So the problems are real and.

• 1:37:23Speaker 18

  Yeah.

• 1:37:24Rich Roll?

  As are, as are the threats and yet you're able to, uh, hold on to hopefulness.

• 1:37:30Speaker 18

  Well, and that, that's like, history gives me hope here because after the Gilded Age, we got the progressive era. So it was a double movement. It was a bottom up movement of people joining unions, political parties, saying enough is enough. But it was also a top down movement of elites who were like, hey, let's not just check our privilege, let's use it to make a massive difference. And I think that's what we desperately need right now. Like across the West, we have been betrayed by elites from the left to the right. I mean, that's the one thing that I, in my view, MAGA and Trump is absolutely correct about is that we've been betrayed on a pretty massive scale by people who should have known better. And what we now need is what I'd like to call a kind of skin in the game elite.

• 1:38:15Speaker 18

  Like people who don't just whine and moan, but who actually practice what they preach. And instead of just pointing fingers, they're like, okay, this is a problem and this is what I'm doing. Now, do you want to join me?

• 1:38:29Rich Roll?

  We're almost done, but not before putting a pin in things. And we're going to do it with Tig, the comedian Tig Notaro.

• 1:38:38Rich Roll?

  What is going on with mental health more broadly, like within the comedy community? Like, do you have to have some kind of mental health situation going on to be an effective comic?

• 1:38:52Speaker 19

  See, I don't believe that.

• 1:38:54Rich Roll?

  You seem pretty balanced and grounded.

• 1:38:57Speaker 19

  Well, I've been working at that. I, I, like I said, I wasn't, and I don't know who I was before 2012, but, um, I've never believed that you have to be miserable or struggling to be funny. I think you have.

• 1:39:19Rich Roll?

  Depressed or neurotic.

• 1:39:21Speaker 19

  No.

• 1:39:22Rich Roll?

  All of those tropes.

• 1:39:23Speaker 19

  I really don't. I think that when people like to put that on comedians or musicians or artists or whatever, I really, all I can think about is.

• 1:39:40Speaker 19

  Everybody's dealing with that stuff. Everybody's got cuckoo parents or anxiety or depression. We're the ones with the microphone. And so it's easy to blame us like, oh, they're going through a lot and they're, you know, people can look at artists and, and, and just kind of be like, wow, they're miserable, they're depressed, they're struggling.

• 1:40:08Rich Roll?

  They're just wearing it on their sleeve.

• 1:40:09Speaker 19

  Right, right. And, um, cause if you go next door or you talk to your mail carrier or the pilot of your plane, you're gonna find cancer, alcoholism, depression. It's everywhere. We just have the microphone. And I feel like it's not that you have to be miserable and depressed. It's you have to be living a real life, I think, in order to get material. And I'm not like, living a real life to get material, but you have to.

• 1:40:46Rich Roll?

  Be in the world.

• 1:40:47Speaker 19

  You have to be in the world. But I just, I don't believe that you have to be a miserable person.

• 1:40:54Rich Roll?

  What is your writing process? How do you know when something is funny?

• 1:40:59Speaker 19

  I think it's just an extra sense. It's, it's, it's funny going to dinners or parties where it's not entertainment or comedy people and they're like, a comedian's here. Oh, I better watch what I'm saying. Oh, I'm gonna end up in their set. And, and I'm like, no, you're not. Like, chances are you're, you're not gonna end up in my set. It's so.

• 1:41:26Rich Roll?

  Cause you're not that interesting and you're not that funny.

• 1:41:29Speaker 19

  Well, it's not even that. It's just, it's so. Rare for me, I mean, maybe, and there probably are comedians that everything strikes them, or they are looking for bits, but I'm just hanging out with people and if something happens, that extra sense, I'm like, oh, that could be, that's funny, you know, and it's, it's never necessarily the obvious thing, and I'll just make a little note on a napkin and revisit it, but I don't.

• 1:42:03Rich Roll?

  A napkin, that's your, that's your process in napkin?

• 1:42:06Speaker 19

  Yeah.

• 1:42:06Rich Roll?

  Like I had Burbiglia in here and he like brought a notebook and it's sitting here and he's like, oh, I don't go anywhere without this, you know, he's like all like making

• 1:42:13Speaker 19

  He went to Georgetown, you know, I've got a seventh grade education, so I've got a paper napkin.

• 1:42:19Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 1:42:19Speaker 19

  Burbiglia's got, you know.

• 1:42:24Speaker 19

  But yeah, I don't, I don't sit down and I always say if, not if, but when I die, you're not going to find the lost writings of Tig Notaro.

• 1:42:33Rich Roll?

  The papers.

• 1:42:35Speaker 19

  The dirty crumpled.

• 1:42:36Rich Roll?

  In some library, the papers of Tig Notaro.

• 1:42:39Speaker 19

  Yeah.

• 1:42:40Rich Roll?

  A bunch of napkins, like what are you assembling these napkins, like how does it find its way from the napkin onto a page, onto, you know, some kind of set that gets worked on?

• 1:42:54Speaker 19

  I wish I knew, Rich, I don't know.

• 1:42:57Rich Roll?

  You don't know, there's no method.

• 1:42:59Speaker 19

  No, I, sometimes I find a napkin and I'm like, tube sock, what was that about? And I'll be like, Stephanie, did I say something about a tube sock? And she's like, I have no idea. I'm like, wow, okay. But I also have that faith that if something is really funny, it's gonna, it'll come back

• 1:43:19Rich Roll?

  It sticks around.

• 1:43:20Speaker 19

  Yeah, it'll pop back up because whatever it was about that tube sock will. It'll, it'll, it'll happen again. But um, yeah, I just, I'll just try different things out. And if it sticks and I remember it, then it feels worth continuing to work on.

• 1:43:41Rich Roll?

  And are you somebody who is regimented? Like, okay, you know, this is the time of day where I sit down and work. Like, how does that work?

• 1:43:50Speaker 19

  I do all my writing.

• 1:43:52Rich Roll?

  Which is like, let's just dispel that illusion right now. There is, this is, you know, this is, I think it's a violence on people. We're all walking around trying to like be balanced. It's, nobody's balanced.

• 1:44:02Speaker 19

  No, no, but I'll, I'll tell you what, I have way more balance. That's what I'm saying is like.

• 1:44:09Rich Roll?

  I don't think it's balance. It's, it's groundedness and presence in what you're doing and making sure that you're, because you're never going to be able to show up and, and have all of these things in proper order every single day, especially when you have kids and you're married and.

• 1:44:25Speaker 19

  No, my son got sick this morning.

• 1:44:27Rich Roll?

  Life like, yeah, so we hold ourselves to that standard and then we feel bad about ourselves. Where I think the solution is really like, okay, well, this is what I'm doing right now. And I can't control the external world and I'm just going to be focused on this and okay with the fact that, you know, these other things are not getting attended to right now.

• 1:44:47Speaker 19

  For sure, but all of the things that I can control of like, you know, whether it's what I'm eating or how much work, how much time I'm spending away from home working, I do have control over that. And, um, and, you know, my cancer could return.

• 1:45:07Rich Roll?

  But you don't have control over that.

• 1:45:09Speaker 19

  I don't, but what I do have control over is investing the, the, the time and energy into, I exercise every day. I, um, I believe I'm eating a healthy diet. Certainly throw some cupcakes and cookies in there, but, um, um, yeah, I, that,

• 1:45:34Speaker 19

  I'm sure there's no.

• 1:45:38Speaker 19

  Peak balance, like you're saying, but the place that I've gotten to now, I'm, I would say I'm happier and more fulfilled than ever on a very genuine, real level and in a present way.

• 1:45:54Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:45:58Rich Roll?

  I mean, come on, you guys, what an incredible year. I really hope you enjoyed this reflection in the rearview and found these last two episodes uplifting and inspiring. This podcast has been an amazing journey for me and I'm just, I'm so grateful that you're on it with me. I look forward to growing and learning together in the new year ahead and can't wait to see what we have in store. The full list of guests featured and links to the full episodes can be found in the show notes on the episode page at ritual.com. And that's it, we did it. Thank you again for all the love and support and I will see you in 2026.

• 1:46:39Rich Roll?

  All right, everybody, that's it for today. Thank you so much for listening. I really do hope that you enjoyed the conversation. To learn more about today's guests, including links and resources related to everything discussed today, visit today's episode page at ritual.com where you will find the entire podcast archive, as well as my books, Finding Ultra, The Voicing Change Series, and The Plant Power Way. If you'd like to support the podcast, the easiest and most impactful thing you can do is free, actually, all you got to do is subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify, and on YouTube and leave a review or drop a comment. Sharing your show or your favorite episode with friends or on social media is of course awesome as well and extremely helpful, so thank you in advance for that.

• 1:47:23Rich Roll?

  In addition, I'd like to thank all of our amazing sponsors, without whom this show just would not be possible, or at least, you know, not free. To check out all their amazing product offerings and listener discounts, head to ritual.com/sponsors. And finally, for podcast updates, special offers on books and other subjects, please subscribe to our newsletter, which you can find on the footer of any page at ritual.com. Today's show was produced and engineered ... by Jason Camiolo, along with associate producer Desmond Lowe. The video edition of the podcast was created by Blake Curtis and Morgan McRae, with assistance from our creative director, Dan Drake. Content management by Shana Savoy, copywriting by Ben Pryor. And of course, our theme music, as always, was created all the way back in 2012 by my

• 1:48:07Rich Roll?

  stepsons Tyler and Trapper Pyatt, along with our cousin, Harry Mathis. Appreciate the love, love the support, and I'll see you back here soon. Peace. Plants.