Mindfulness, Meditation & Performance: Manoj Dias Live At The Rivian Performance House

Manoj Dias is a meditation teacher, author of "Still Together," and co-founder of the mindfulness studio Open. Recorded live in New York at Rivian's Performance House, we get into wellness as a secular religion, mindfulness as a choose-your-own-adventure, and what's underneath the language of optimization. He also explains what an NBA team practices before the shot. Then it opens up to a Q&A with the room. Manoj also guides everyone through a practice. A few rounds of five breaths in and five out, then gratitude. Follow along. Enjoy! Show notes + MORE Watch on YouTube Newsletter Sign-Up Today’s Sponsors: Airbnb: Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much👉🏼https://www.airbnb.com/host Gusto: Get three months free when you run your first payroll👉🏼https://www.gusto.com/RICHROLL Momentous: Get up to 35% off your first order👉🏼https://www.livemomentous.com/richroll Freaks of Nature: Save 20% with code RICHROLL👉🏼https://www.freaksofnature.com Rivian: Electric vehicles that keep the world adventurous forever👉🏼⁠https://stories.rivian.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.

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• 1:04Speaker 01

  Mindfulness doesn't mean just being calm. It means being really available to the present moment.

• 1:10Rich Roll?

  Manoj Diaz.

• 1:10Speaker 02

  Sri Lankan meditation teacher. Founder of the Open App.

• 1:14Rich Roll?

  He is an animated speaker, humble teacher, and thought leader in the mindfulness space.

• 1:19Speaker 01

  You are not your thoughts. When I heard that, I think that was the first moment I'd experienced conscious mindfulness. Like, I heard my thoughts for the first time.

• 1:28Rich Roll?

  All we have is our attention. And where we decide to place it ends up dictating the trajectory of our lives.

• 1:35Speaker 01

  Loneliness is continuing to rise. Mental health rates are continuing to get worse. You don't meditate to get good at meditation. You meditate to get good at life. We're really good at being anywhere but here. The moment we have to just be with ourself, it's very hard.

• 1:53Rich Roll?

  If we're not our thoughts, then who are we?

• 1:57Speaker 01

  And she's, how long do we have?

• 1:58Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 2:09Rich Roll?

  Look at this. Thanks for coming out, everybody. Nice to see so many happy faces. Very excited for this conversation. Manoj, I think the best place to start is with you making the case for mindfulness. Why should we care about this instead of just yada-yadaing it?

• 2:30Speaker 01

  We've all heard for the longest time this word mindfulness. You know, it had like a real moment, I think around the 90s, when everyone was practicing mindfulness a way to work with stress. You know, John Kabat-Zinn really introduced mindfulness-based stress reduction, and that became the prevailing connection to that word. Over time, it's becoming so many different things. Like, you know, I've worked in different industries where mindfulness can be how you perform at work, for example. It can be mindful cooking. I once saw a workshop for mindful sex. And I'm like, this is cool, but what does this word mean these days? Right? And so, I'm kind of a little flexible on what it means.

• 3:13Speaker 01

  But for me, I come from the Buddhist system. So that was how I was born and raised. So for me, mindfulness is a way to really free myself from suffering, for me to overcome the patterns that keep on happening in my life, my own neuroses. And so, if that is interesting to people, I think you should care about mindfulness. But I also think it's interesting in a place like, you know, New York, which is kind of wild. I've been living here for a year and a half, and it's kind of insane. And I'm like, if I didn't have a mindfulness practice, would I be okay? And I'm like, I don't know.

• 3:46Rich Roll?

  Share a little bit about your entry point to this, because you're Sri Lankan. You were sort of raised in this tradition, but it took you a while to realize you had to develop your own relationship with it.

• 4:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think people assume, because when they look at me, I've got a shaved head, I'm brown. I'm like, he probably meditates. I didn't. Like, this was never... It was never a part of my life. Like, in Sri Lanka, mindfulness and Buddhism is more of a religion, whereas in the West, it's becoming more of a philosophical practice. And so, for me, I came to it through suffering. Like, that was my entry point. I was in marketing and advertising. And if anyone's worked in marketing and advertising, you probably know this story. I had like an anxiety attack one day, was trying to figure out what that was, because I'd never experienced anxiety or even a panic attack. Went through all these different ways to try and fix myself. You know, went and saw psychologists,

• 4:45Speaker 01

  psychotherapists, took medication, took time off. And nothing really helps me unless... Until a friend told me one day, "Come to a yoga class." And I... No shit. This is actually what I said. I said, "I don't know any Lululemon, I can't."

• 5:01Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 5:01Speaker 01

  Like, he's like, "No, no, come. There's lots of hot girls there." It's also what he said. And that got me. So I was like, "Okay, I'll come." And there was no hot girls there. And no Lululemon, but there was like five guys over the age of 70. It was an ex-Buddhist meditation teacher, and he was really talking about mindfulness. He was talking about meditation and developing awareness. And I think that moment was the first time in that class, when he was saying, "You are not your thoughts." He kept on repeating that. "You are not your thoughts." When I heard that, I think that was the first moment I'd experienced conscious mindfulness. Like, I heard my thoughts for the first time. You know, "You're never gonna be anything,"

• 5:46Speaker 01

  or, "You're always gonna be sick," or, "What are you gonna have for lunch?" And I was actually just able to see it without having to embody every single thought that popped into my mind.

• 5:56Rich Roll?

  Why is it that the Western mind and the Western way of life is so resistant to mindfulness? Is it our self-identification with our thoughts as being the definition of ourselves? What is the source code that makes it more difficult for our culture to kind of cotton on to the benefits of the lifestyle that you espouse?

• 6:23Speaker 01

  I don't know if it's necessarily Western culture in general, but I think it's definitely in places that are very metropolitan, where there's a lot of industry. I mean, I can feel like at times, like I'm... I wake up in the morning to work, to produce, so I have to perform, so I have to be optimized, so I have to have this 30-minute morning routine just so I can get to my day and get to sleep at night at a certain time and wake up and do it again. So I think there's this prevailing belief that slowness is almost antithetical to our way of being. And the interesting thing is, mindfulness doesn't mean just being calm. It actually doesn't mean just being slow. It means being really available to the present moment. And I think when we're available to the present moment,

• 7:08Speaker 01

  we're much more attuned to what's here versus the anxieties, the stress, the worry, and the future thinking, which I think culturally, maybe in the West, we're really good at. We're really good at being anywhere but here. And maybe people in the East have figured it out. But then, you know, I see people in Scotland. They're pretty mindful and present.

• 7:31Rich Roll?

  Yeah. It is insane that the only thing that's actually real is the present moment, which is constantly fleeting. And yet, we live our lives persistently, rehashing things that happened in the past or tripping out on what's gonna happen in the future. And we're so rarely actually available, to use your word, in the present moment, which is reality.

• 7:57Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, and that's hard, though, right? The reality for a lot of us is hard to be with, because the moment... Actually, has anyone gone on holiday recently? In the moment you go on holiday, you get like sick, or you just get tired. Right? And it's because we're operating under this level of intensity that the moment we have to just be with ourself, it's very hard.

• 8:20Rich Roll?

  Or we're restless, and we're immediately looking for the activity to distract ourselves from.

• 8:25Speaker 01

  Everything that we've been running away from just is like, "Hello."

• 8:27Rich Roll?

  We bring it with us.

• 8:28Speaker 01

  We bring it with us. Exactly.

• 8:30Rich Roll?

  Yeah. One of the things that you're known for is making these practices, ancient practices, accessible to Western audiences. And I'm interested in the tension there, because the way to appeal to the modern person who is living in the three-dimensional world is to say, "This is the way to reduce your anxiety. This is the way to improve your relationships. This is how to be more productive at work." This is all kind of wrapped in this language of optimization. You know, that's how you get people to pay attention and go, "Oh, I need that." It's an entryway, but it's not really what this is about.

• 9:13Speaker 01

  I mean, I think it can be, to be honest. I just think that's a very superficial layer to this experience. I think we have looked for ways to integrate mindfulness in a way that feels appeasing to society and culture. And, you know, John Kabat-Zinn, like, he's the one that everyone talks about as being the one that really was able to integrate mindfulness into contemporary culture. And he did it through the lens of the medical system. He said, you know, "If you're stressed, do these techniques." What he didn't add was like, "Okay, look at your mind as you're experiencing life. Look at the way you're behaving. Look at the morality. Look at the ethics around it." Which is not as cool as saying, "Do the techniques and you'll feel better." Right? If you tell someone to live more ethically,

• 9:56Speaker 01

  to not lie, to not steal, to not harm someone else, that's a lot more confronting.

• 10:01Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 10:02Speaker 01

  So I think that's how we got it into society, into culture. But then, I use the example of kind of eating an avocado with the skin on. It's kind of like, it's okay, but it's not great. But then you peel the skin, you eat the avocado, maybe add a little salt and lemon. I don't know. It tastes way better. And I feel like when you go a little deeper into mindfulness and meditation, that's where the real taste and the real essence of the practice really begins to show itself.

• 10:28Rich Roll?

  Yeah, maybe leading with the existential crisis of like, "If I'm not my thoughts, who am I?" Might not be the way to bring people in the doghouse, is what you're saying. But... If we're not our thoughts, then who are we?

• 10:44Speaker 01

  Jeez, how long have we have here?

• 10:45Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 10:46Speaker 01

  I mean, I think that's a contemplation. And for me, I think the easiest way to explain it to secular audiences is that it's not so much a question of if we're not our thoughts, who are we? It's that can we feel this essence of interdependence with each other? I think we focus too much on our individual selves. That's why hyper individualism is so venerated in today's society and culture. But for me, it's less about me, actually. It's more about how am I in relationship to my wife, to my new friend, to the people that I'm meeting every day? How can I move through the world in a way that doesn't cause any harm,

• 11:29Speaker 01

  but actually does the opposite, cultivates presence, creativity, compassion? I think they're much more interesting to me now than really trying to figure out my own individual life path and spirituality.

• 11:43Rich Roll?

  Yeah. I don't know the exact quote, but the Dalai Lama said something like, obviously a different tradition, but he said something like,

• 11:53Rich Roll?

  "The point of meditation isn't to, certainly not to optimize, it's not to reduce your anxiety and improve your sleep. It's not even necessarily to make you a better person. It's to make other people better."

• 12:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:07Rich Roll?

  It's a really beautiful sentiment. And it gets to that idea that you're referencing around venerating individualism and understanding that the happiness we lack is in the service we have yet to avail ourselves of for others.

• 12:21Speaker 01

  Beautiful way to say it. Yeah, but I think if you tell people, "Do this," you're not going to get any benefit out of it.

• 12:27Rich Roll?

  You're going to be able to serve people better if you do this? Like, I don't know. But like optimization?

• 12:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:34Rich Roll?

  I'm in the door. And speaking of which, there's nothing wrong with that. Like, I'm into optimization. I'm an athlete. I know you've worked with athletes, you've worked with NBA players. What has that experience been like? And what are the benefits that you've seen in an athletic context with the people that you've worked with?

• 12:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think it's interesting when I get the opportunity to work with athletes, whether it's professional football players. I'm from Australia, so I call them football players, not soccer players, or NBA players.

• 13:01Rich Roll?

  It's okay, the World Cup's going on right now. You have more liberal bandwidth to get away with that.

• 13:07Speaker 01

  Great. It's interesting, sometimes what comes up for me is, "Oh, I have to present this stuff in a way that's palatable to them." And sometimes it's true, like they have high performance teams and I have to be very careful around the language that I use. But ultimately, one lesson I've learned is that whether they're athletes or whether they're just individual people, old or young, we're all kind of searching for the same things. We want to be more available to the present moment at its essence. And I think the context and the relationship to athletes is when they're more available to the present moment, they're able to access their training. They're able to access more creativity on the pitch or on the court. They're able to let go of errors much quickly.

• 13:51Speaker 01

  So their response time is just more elevated. And so that same context can apply outside of that, right? If you are just present and engaged in this moment, you're not overthinking about what you did before or what's going to happen afterwards. You're just here and there's a natural flow to the experience when that happens.

• 14:13Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I think athletes are pretty good when it comes to the mind-body integration. They understand that this is one thing and they're familiar with the flow state and the no thought that is part and parcel of their best performances. And trying to be in that place more consistently is going to unlock better performance more consistently. At the same time, I think athletes are also pretty good at turning off the communication that their body is trying to, when their body is trying to tell them something because they can compartmentalize their pain or they can block things out. And I'm curious if that's ever come up. Like, that can be ultimately a block. Like, I can't deal with any of that because I have to do this right now,

• 14:58Rich Roll?

  shutting down that communication.

• 15:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely. It's funny, one of my favorite, I'm a big Rich Roll fan, by the way. So it was like a big moment for me when Rich said he wants to talk to me. One of my favorite conversations of yours, I think it's with Dr. Ellen Langer. And she talks about, one of the many conversations I think you've had with her. But one of the conversations is around decision-making and how so much of it is like a mindset. And I'm not going to do any service to her by quoting what she said, but I think there's two schools of thought, to be completely honest, because interoceptive awareness is important. I think it's important in the context of athletics, but it's also important outside of that. And I think it's interesting how we respond to that.

• 15:45Speaker 01

  So Ellen Langer's, am I saying her name right?

• 15:49Rich Roll?

  Yeah, Dr. Ellen Langer.

• 15:51Speaker 01

  Dr. Ellen Langer.

• 15:53Rich Roll?

  She's the best, by the way.

• 15:54Speaker 01

  Yeah. She kind of says it's simply a decision. Like, we're capable of doing so much more than we think we're capable of. And I think there's moments when we have to really listen to the body and be intelligent in how we respond to that. Maybe slowing down to speed up is an option versus just going so hard out like David Goggins style and just being able to do incredible things. But for the average person, I think it's the average athlete, and I consider myself like a very average athlete. I think it's important that I listen to my body because there have been times, I used to play semi-professional cricket back in Australia.

• 16:31Rich Roll?

  Oh, wow.

• 16:31Speaker 01

  I don't know if you know what cricket is, but that was my area of expertise. And then there were so many times I just wouldn't listen to my body and I would get injured.

• 16:41Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Her quote, her most famous quote, Dr. Ellen Langer, is, "Stop worrying about making the right decision and make the decision right." And I think what she's saying in between the lines there is, your intuition, your heart intelligence knows what's right. And when you make that decision quickly, it's really coming from that heart place of knowing what's right for you. But in our culture, we over-index on the mind. And so we want to run circles and circles and all the risk assessments. And, you know, "Well, if I do this, then this is going to happen." And her whole thing is like, you actually don't, like, we're terrible prediction animals. We actually don't know what's going to happen. And you're better off trusting this. And this is a big piece in your work.

• 17:23Rich Roll?

  Like, this integration of mind and body is so much in our culture about really turning this off so that we can hear this more and learn how to trust it and value it equally, I suppose.

• 17:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, I think it is. For me, it's not turning it off necessarily, but knowing how to use it more sharply, use it more intelligently.

• 17:43Rich Roll?

  Well put, yeah.

• 17:44Speaker 01

  And I think we don't listen to our body and we don't know how to interpret those signals. And then often what we do is we react, we don't respond, right? Like, to Ellen Langer's point, like, we have a very strong negativity bias. So if we think things, it's usually the worst. Like, we're always predicting the worst possible outcome. So if we just leave it up to the mind, then we're just a fear-based animals. But for me, it's more like listening to the cues. It's being able to be with any discomfort, which I know you're very familiar with as an endurance athlete, like be in the mud, per se, and not be overcome by that. And then use the mind to know that, okay, this is an impermanent experience.

• 18:28Speaker 01

  I've done this before, I've trained for this, I can go beyond. So I think it's more, what I'm advocating for is this balanced relationality between the mind and body.

• 18:39Rich Roll?

  You mentioned earlier that your tradition of mindfulness, coming from Sri Lanka, is rooted in religion. We're in a secular culture. I'm curious around your thoughts on the explosion of the wellness movement, the explosion of mindfulness centers and programs and meditation apps and run clubs. To my mind, these are all things to celebrate. People are caring about these things in a way that historically we haven't, and that's a good thing. But it's also a replacement for religion on some level. It's a secular religion, this wellness. And it's become sort of a choose-your-own-adventure.

• 19:24Rich Roll?

  Like, I'll take this from this and this from this when it suits me. How do you think about that in terms of your teaching and trying to orient people around these principles?

• 19:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, such a great question. I mean, for the longest time, I've been teaching for around 20 years. You know, when I first started teaching, everyone thought I was really weird. And like, "Oh, that's that meditation guy." And they said, "In Australia." My parents had a heart attack because I left my marketing job to be a meditation teacher. And so it would be this thing that I wouldn't tell people. I'm like, "Oh, I teach." But I think what's happening now, sorry, what I've learned over those years is that I've had to alter my language in order to make it accessible. You know, in previous organizations that I've started, like, we weren't able to use the word spirituality because we thought that had connotations and then people would freak out and then, you know, no one would come.

• 20:15Speaker 01

  And so it was very much around performance, optimization, protocols. Like, that was the language that we used to use. But, you know, in the last few years, I started to grow an internal discontent with the industry that I was in. Because I was seeing the industry itself grow. $6.8 trillion is, I think, what the wellness industry is valued at right now. And yet loneliness is continuing to rise. Mental health rates are continuing to get worse. And I feel like we're at this moment in time where there's like a real crisis of consciousness.

• 20:49Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 20:49Speaker 01

  Like, what is real? Like, what is true? What is ethical and moral? And all of those things combined with the rise of AI, the fact that algorithms kind of run our life right now, wars ravaging us, there's almost this perfect storm for something like religion to come back, right? And there's a good and a bad side to this. I think over the last 40 years, religion has been declining. And interestingly enough, as religion declines, more people are identifying as spiritual but not religious. Interestingly, in the last six or seven years, that number has started to plateau. And in the last, I think, two years, we're seeing a slight uptick in people going back to religion, which is fascinating to me.

• 21:32Speaker 01

  And I think it comes back to this crisis of consciousness. But what we've replaced religion with, because we still want the things that religion gave us, right? We want to gather in communion. We want to look towards certain people. So I think podcasts has actually kind of replaced, you know... Pastors and stuff, because people want to believe in something. People want to follow like a protocol because it gives them this sense of safety and direction, similar to like the Ten Commandments or the Eightfold Path in Buddhism, all these different things. And we want to feel safe around people that have a similar view to us. So that's why run clubs are kind of going crazy.

• 22:12Speaker 01

  Like last year, in particular, Strava said that run clubs quadrupled just in one year. And we're seeing this with, I think it was sort of on TikTok recently, how people are going back to church to meet their boyfriend or girlfriend. I'm like, that's cool. Like, why not? Like, try everything else. But people are looking for that because of this moment in time, I think.

• 22:35Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

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• 26:54Rich Roll?

  At the same time, it's the death of the monoculture. And I'm seeing this mimicked in all of these wellness subcultures. Maybe I go to this church for communion, but I go here for my breathwork and I go here to do my yoga class and I have my run club. And then, you know, I go to Manoj for mindfulness. One of the interesting things about you is that you've consolidated like meditation, mindfulness and breathwork. Like, how are these things different? How do they work together? How are these of a piece with each other? And why should they be kind of practiced as a one, as opposed to segmented in the way that we think about them? Like, you know, we want to put things in boxes, you know, and separate everything,

• 27:38Rich Roll?

  just like our social media feeds, I guess.

• 27:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's such a great question. I think, you know, for me, what I've really tried to own in the last 18 months is that I think everything is spiritual. And like, I used to be really shy in saying that. I'm like, oh, I don't want to use the word spiritual. I'll use mindfulness instead. And what I mean by spiritual is that I feel this interdependence with everyone, like I do, even with all my algorithms pointing me towards this division. Like, I'm trying to, as best as I can, open up my field of awareness, my heart to an extent, to everything that's happening here. And so if I think of everything as being spiritual, I think there are many ways to cultivate that level of spirituality. So I don't need to just sit and meditate as a way of connecting to my body. I can dance.

• 28:26Speaker 01

  So dance has been a huge part of my life the last three, four years. And that's now a practice that I lead and I teach. I think music is universally spiritual. And I think now we're seeing the power of sound and how it affects brainwave states and HRV and all that kind of stuff. So music has the ability to connect us to something much deeper. And then there are other things, like just genuine moments of connection with another person. Like, they inherently feel spiritual to me because they're rare. And I feel like there's no me in this other person certain times. I feel like, oh, like, I'm so in, I'm so in this moment. Like, I get, you know, like what Rich is saying, because I've had that experience.

• 29:09Speaker 01

  And there's this symbiotic sort of dance in that moment that feels to me like it's a very spiritual moment. So for me, it's all, it's all that. It's all a meditation, basically.

• 29:23Rich Roll?

  There's also this, on this idea of segmentation. It's like, I do my mindfulness practice, or I do my meditation, or I do my breathwork. I have my like morning routine and then I have my, and then I go live my life. Whereas mindfulness really is about how you are carrying all of this awareness throughout the day. It's not something you do and stop doing and then live in the same way. Your body and your mind aren't two different things. This is an integrated, the idea is so that you are mindful more of the time.

• 29:54Speaker 01

  Yes. Yeah, I mean, like Sharon Salzberg, one of the great mindfulness teachers would often say, you don't meditate to get good at meditation, you meditate to get good at life. And I think all these techniques, they're just techniques unless they point us towards something. Like, I don't do breathwork to get good at breathwork. I don't meditate to just be a better meditator. I want to know myself deeper. I want to feel more connected in this life. And all those are expressions that we can cultivate through these moments. So another friend of mine once said, yeah, I meditate for an hour every day, but then I'm a jerk for the rest of my, the rest of my day. Like, something's not happening here.

• 30:34Speaker 01

  So I think hopefully we're moving into a time where we're moving beyond just the techniques. Because the techniques can be packaged and sold, right? What's harder to sell is a way of looking at the world. And I think hopefully we'll get to that place.

• 30:50Rich Roll?

  Yeah, speaking of techniques, Manoj is going to take us through a practice in a moment. Before we do that, what is the most common misconception that people have about mindfulness or breathwork or meditation that you encounter in your teaching?

• 31:10Speaker 01

  That it's a new experience.

• 31:13Speaker 01

  And I'll explain that. So when people say to me, hey, I've tried, I've tried meditation. I can't do it. I'm like, but you already are mindful. And they're like, no, I'm not. I've never sat, I've never meditated. I'm like, well, do you like to cook? And they're like, yeah, I love to cook. Okay, tell me how you cook. It's like, well, chop up the things, blah, blah. Okay. Well, as you're chopping up those things, you're using your hands, right? I'm like, yeah, like, okay, so you're feeling the texture of the food and the produce. Do you smell the food before you serve it to someone? They're like, yeah. I go, okay, so your senses are engaged in this experience. And so that's a mindful experience. Like when you run, it's the same thing, right? You're running, you're feeling all the sensorial inputs that are happening at the moment, whether it's the foot on the

• 31:57Speaker 01

  pavement, the breath, whether you're noticing your thoughts telling you to stop, like all of that is mindfulness. But it's then if you want to take it into meditation, you kind of evolve that slightly. But if you don't, if you're not into meditation, then just cultivate those same qualities when you're talking to someone, or you're about to go to sleep, when you're trying to do work, and then a thought pops up and you're like, okay, my attention is here. Can I come back to my senses? And can I just be here in this moment?

• 32:25Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it took me a long time to realize, like, there is no wrong way to do it. Because when you become aware that your mind is racing, you have become aware of that, and you are paying attention. And the longer that I've done it, the more I have come to appreciate the value of attention. Like, all we have is our attention, and where we decide to place it, ends up dictating the trajectory of our lives. And, and we don't really consider that or value that in the way that I think that we should. And the more that I've done this, the more conscious I am of where I'm placing my attention and why.

• 33:03Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, I'd love to hear, like, from all of your experience and the people you've spoken to, like, what's something you've learned about mindfulness and meditation?

• 33:12Rich Roll?

  That everything that I, that I don't think I have and I aspire to have is available to me in the present moment. Because when you are present, there is no lack, like, everything's fine. And even if that's a very fleeting experience, to be able to return to that, and the more consistently I'm able to return to that, like, you realize, like, it's okay, you know, like, life's, life's pretty good.

• 33:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:38Rich Roll?

  You know?

• 33:39Speaker 01

  But then you go on your phone, and it's like, oh, shit, new shirt.

• 33:42Rich Roll?

  I know, I know. Why does that guy have that?

• 33:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:46Rich Roll?

  Let's open it to questions.

• 33:49Speaker 03

  No, thank you so much for that conversation. I was wondering, since both of you have an athletic background, and you know so much context, I was wondering what you could say about the whole obsession around peak performance and mindfulness, but also, especially for you, Rich, like, since you, you, you are kind of an optimizer, to maybe like, touch on what's, what is beneficial about peak performance?

• 34:11Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 34:11Speaker 03

  Especially now, as we're now.

• 34:13Rich Roll?

  Well, my, my definition of peak performance has evolved, I guess I would say. I mean, I've, I've certainly gone through many seasons of life where I had a narrow definition of peak performance in an athletic context, or a professional context. Like, I know how to hone in on a goal and blot everything out and just barrel forward towards it, to try to get the most out of my body in a physical context, or my mind in a professional or intellectual context. And I'm now in a season of life where peak performance to me means, how can I be more available? How can I actually enjoy this incredible life that I've built

• 34:56Rich Roll?

  for myself, rather than walk around stamping my feet, resentful, and, you know, like, caught up in the past, or future tripping? These things don't come easy for me, you know, I have a certain program that's running in my mind, and that creates intractable patterns of behavior that don't serve me. And I've been on this journey to, like, untie those knots and see what's beneath them. And meditation and mindfulness and some other practices have been critical in that. And, and what I've discovered is that there's so much more to life than my very narrow vision of, you know, what it means to be, not just like a quote unquote, like, successful person, but what does it mean to

• 35:41Rich Roll?

  live a joyous life? You know, that's a foreign concept, and ideas like happiness have always seemed like indulgent to me, or something that is fine for other people, and that I want for other people, but isn't necessarily important to me. And now these things are important to me. Like, what is the point of all of these things that I've done, and all the hard work that I've done, and, and the service that I've done on behalf of other people, if I can't enjoy this life, if I'm not available to give and receive as much unconditional love as possible. And so for me, peak performance is really a measure of my capacity to love. And it's taken me a long time to get there, and I'm not very

• 36:21Rich Roll?

  good at any of this. I have a lot of growth and learning ahead of me. But that's been, it's been a really kind of beautiful

• 36:31Rich Roll?

  unfoldment that I'm kind of in the midst of right now.

• 36:35Speaker 01

  You should have a podcast. It's, wow.

• 36:38Rich Roll?

  So.

• 36:38Speaker 01

  Beautiful. Yeah. I mean, I wouldn't add anything else to that, but I think, um, peak performance is usually how people find things like mindfulness, because it's one of those things where you're, you're trying to get somewhere, right? You're trying to get to the optimal place. And I think everyone gets to a point where you're like, oh, I'm never gonna get there.

• 37:00Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 37:00Speaker 01

  Like, there's nothing more to optimize, there's nowhere else to go. But it's just like, never ending hamster wheel. We're just, we're chasing our tails. So I think it's a great entry point for people like us. But it's not, I don't know, maybe for me, I don't think it's a destination.

• 37:15Rich Roll?

  Yeah. I mean, you need those entry points, you need those portals. I came into a yoga class shortly after I got sober, back in like, 1998, because this is where the hot girls were. And I ended up meeting my wife there, so I achieved that goal. And I got interested in meditation and mindfulness, so that I could reduce my anxiety, so that I could unleash a, you know, a higher tier of performance in myself. And everything was very goal driven, and I needed it then. And the trust in the person that you're working with is like, okay, let's get you in the door. And then, once you begin to do this, you'll go on your own journey with it. And if you continue along that journey, at some point, you'll realize that, uh, you know, there's, there's something to this idea of

• 38:00Rich Roll?

  transcending goals altogether, and just trying to, uh, you know, catch these fleeting glimpses of true presence. But until you experience those moments, they're, they're just ephemeral. You know, it's very diff, you can't explain to something, to somebody that, like, this is something you should aspire to have more of in your life, until you've experienced it yourself.

• 38:26Rich Roll?

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• 39:07Rich Roll?

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• 39:47Rich Roll?

  The first time I saw an R2 in person, I got it immediately. This is the Rivian that a lot of people are going to be able to enjoy. Driving it with RJ only confirmed that. All right. So first impressions in my first.

• 40:00Speaker 04

  In your first.

• 40:01Rich Roll?

  Experience in the R2.

• 40:07Rich Roll?

  Nice. All right. Now I'm getting the feel.

• 40:09Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 40:10Rich Roll?

  It feels really tight.

• 40:12Speaker 04

  It feels nice, right?

• 40:13Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Interestingly, like, from a first impression point of view, when you see it from a distance, proportionally, it looks very similar to the R1, you know, like, the way that it is designed, it looks kind of integral with the original.

• 40:29Speaker 04

  It's quite a bit smaller. And so when you look, you look at them separately, sometimes people will be like, is that an R1 or an R2? And they have a lot of similarities. But I actually think R2 ended up with a better set of proportions. And it's that kind of thinking that just exists across everything, to try to deliver an experience that still feels really Rivian-like, but at a fraction of the cost of R1.

• 40:51Rich Roll?

  First impressions aside, there's a lot more to the R2 than what you see at first glance. To learn all about the R2, watch the rest of our conversation and book a demo drive at stories.rivian.com/richroll.

• 41:08Speaker 05

  Thanks Manoj and Rich, this has been great. I was really curious about what you're talking about with the interoception piece and the bridge between performance and mindfulness. Because I see two different camps. From a performance-based lens, there can be the squashing of that interoception because the show must go on. And especially from a younger age, if you learn that you need to suppress these parts in order to perform and do what you need to do under that pressure, that's one thing. And then the other end with the mindfulness. And even if you're coming at it from looking at symptoms as messengers and trusting yourself, whether that's anxiety, depression, pain. I feel like interoception in the felt sense is a very critical way to feel into things,

• 41:53Speaker 05

  to actually regulate and to tune into where you're at to heal, especially from a trauma-based approach. And so I'm curious between those two, the performance and the mindfulness, that intersection with interoception and how, maybe if you're an athlete, learning to feel again and to trust yourself in that way when maybe years there was all about suppression and numbing and kind of pushing through.

• 42:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's such a great, great question. And we kind of touched on it before, but you know, the funny thing is all my years, the number one profession, the people that I see are dancers, ex-dancers, people that have had dance careers because they've had to work with their bodies for so long. And then when they quit or they retire, then it's a different relationship to their bodies that they're trying to develop. And so I think from a performance lens, you definitely have to have a quality of interoception, but then have the mindset to be able to choose how you respond in that moment. So for example, I work with an NBA team. And with the NBA team, it was like, okay, notice when your heart rate is starting to go really quickly.

• 42:57Speaker 01

  So have that interoceptive awareness of what's happening. And then apply a breathing technique that can bring it down. All right, so then, okay, similar breath actually to what we practice. Okay, so my heart is going quickly before I take this free throw. Let me take a few moments to regulate. Sometimes we have to have that awareness and be like, okay, I just have to take the shot anyway, right? We don't have the ability to regulate in that moment. But that's really what peak performance teams at some of these large organizations really do, to help people develop this awareness and then find methodologies to be able to meet them. And I think from a trauma lens, it's slightly different. I think it's, you can't even almost compare the two when you're working with trauma.

• 43:41Speaker 01

  Because a lot of the literature, the recent literature around trauma is being able to really meet trauma and actually to let it arise and titrate between what we feel and what we don't feel. And so it's almost a completely different thing, but I think somewhat related.

• 43:58Rich Roll?

  Yeah, ultimately, the place you want to get to is not having to suppress anything, being able to have an awareness of those past experiences, but to maintain your equanimity because you've healed it or you've made peace with it or you've changed your story about it, right? Like, so you're not like, I have to push this down so I can be really good over here. Like you're just playing a shell game with a kind of a short fuse. Because that stuff's going to come up and show its face in a not so good way, otherwise.

• 44:38Speaker 01

  I mean, I've never run a marathon. I've never run more than three Ks. But I'm curious, when you run and you get those stories and those internal cues around like stopping and like what, how do you deal with that? Do you just keep going or do you just?

• 44:53Rich Roll?

  I mean, the easy answer to that is that you just break it down into the shortest like, okay, I just need to get to the next land post or whatever, which is a shorthand for saying, the more present you are in your experience, then the less you have to worry about, you're not worried about like, I have this far to go. Like, okay, I can handle the pain in this moment. Now it's a new moment. I can handle it now and I can handle it in this moment as well. And that's how you do anything. Like, you know, you don't change your life, make any change short of the tiny little things, these little adjustments that you're constantly making. And I think we think of change and transformation or I want to change my life as these broad strokes and like bold proclamations.

• 45:37Rich Roll?

  But the real arithmetic is in these tiny little adjustments that are micro and are being performed anonymously. And they're not sexy or romantic or even all that noteworthy. And that's all about being present and being aware of like what's happening to you in the moment. What is the next thing that you're going to do? It's not about what you're going to do when you wake up tomorrow. It's like, what are you doing right now? Where is your attention? What is your behavior? How can you show up better in this moment? How can I be more present for this experience? How can I not be caught up in like, am I like, is this working? Are they happy? But just like knowing like, oh, the value of whatever is happening here

• 46:19Rich Roll?

  is truly a function of how present I'm able to be with you right now.

• 46:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, thank you.

• 46:26Speaker 06

  For each of you, whether you're training for a marathon or just maintaining your regular mindfulness practice, when or if you reach a point where you no longer get that reward or value or output from that action, but it's something you want to maintain and kind of need to push forward with, how do each of you approach getting back to a point where you get the reward or get the feeling that brought you or to that practice in the first place? Or is the reason why you maintained it?

• 47:03Speaker 01

  Meditating is not fun, first of all. Like no one meditates because they enjoy it. Like I don't meditate because I enjoy it. What I enjoy is like how I change as a person, how I can be more present in my life to the people that I love and care about. Ultimately, that's for me the reward. And even now, like 22, 23 years of practicing later, I still don't want to meditate when I wake up in the morning. It's like a, it's like a struggle. I'm like, ah, maybe I just want to see what's on Instagram just today, just today. And then, yeah, that fucks me a little. Oh, sorry. Can I swear? I guess so.

• 47:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I'm kind of, I see it as like maintenance and health, like brushing my teeth. That's how I reconcile it in my mind. I don't wake up and debate with myself if I'm going to brush my teeth. I just know everyone will appreciate it a lot more. And so the same way I think of meditation as being one of those things where the world will appreciate this a lot more, even if it sucks.

• 48:09Rich Roll?

  I wish I could say it's a non-negotiable. I negotiate with it far too often.

• 48:14Speaker 01

  Totally.

• 48:15Speaker 07

  I'm going to double down on the spiritual part and ask you, can you really know your true self absent a spiritual practice? What have you learned about that through your journey?

• 48:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, I love this. I can talk for hours about this. No, I mean, I think the self is constantly evolving, right? Like diversion, I think this is where in my education, I've started to really understand and learn and embrace the fact that who I am is constantly evolving. And so I'm super curious about that version of me always. And so it's never like I've discovered who I am. It's like right now, this is who I am. I'm showing compassion to the parts of me that I don't like, I don't love. I'm really embracing these things that are happening and I'm not running away from life. I think that's really an important part of my spiritual practice is not running away from it

• 49:11Speaker 01

  and meeting each moment just as it is and not really how I want it to be. Because for a lot of my life, my suffering came from things just not going the way I wanted it to go. And so then I tried to change myself in order to meet those things versus just being able to meet it just how it is and find curiosity and openness and compassion for those parts. And I think that deepens. Directly in correlation to how I practice. And so like right now, I'm about to have a baby, not me, my wife. And so I was like, oh, I, how, how do I meditate? And that's giving me a lot of anxiety right now. And maybe you can give me some pointers on that, actually.

• 49:54Speaker 01

  But no, it's, it's just continuously being curious about this version of me. And, and that version of me meeting how I want to live ethically and morally. I think that's, I'm learning over time. That is almost as important as my meditation practice.

• 50:10Speaker 08

  Thank you both so much. This has been great and thank you for the breath work. Rich, I followed you for a while and like, it seems like you started off with more ultras and endurance. And as you've aged, I mean, you pivot when you need to or feel it seems. And you've like from hearing journaling to meditation and still doing swim runs and everything. It just seems like there's always another place to move. And I feel so many people get stuck in, I'm going to do a marathon and I'm going to do a marathon and a marathon and marathon. But like you've opened my eyes to so much more and the guests you've had on have done so many amazing things. And it's just so inspiring to see that there's so much more out there.

• 50:55Speaker 08

  So thank you. And as you age, I love that you still bring more to the table. And there's so much like every year. So thank you for showing that longevity is like there and open. And my parents are both Ironmans and I'm like, oh geez, I have to keep up with them. But like I follow you and there's always something else to do. So is there something that you think is most helpful? Or is it like mindset where you don't close off a door or you just open other doors? That is most helpful when you keep going? Or is it your support system? I just find that you, you seem to have the key.

• 51:36Speaker 08

  And I know you always like, it seems like you bring it back like, no, it's not me. But you have a key to something that helps others. So thank you.

• 51:46Rich Roll?

  Well, thank you for the kind words. I promise you, I don't have the key. I definitely don't have the skeleton key. But I think the best way to answer that question is related to the previous question. And it has to do with knowing thyself. Like I got into endurance sports, not because I wanted to stand on a podium or distinguish myself. Like I used it as a spiritual journey to better understand myself. I was very confused about my life and that capaciousness, like that time alone on the trail, like I used to confuse it with meditation. I think there it's now it's sort of an active meditation, but that quiet and that connection

• 52:30Rich Roll?

  with my body, I desperately needed to kind of sort out like, who, who am I? And what, you know, who, what do I want to be? And what do I want to, what's important to me? Like I was asking myself questions I'd never asked myself before. And it just so happened that endurance was like a vehicle for me to go on that exploration. And then when I kind of welded that with my like very goal oriented intellectual mind, I was able to do some interesting things that other people seemed interested in. But that was the real goal there. It was a, a journey to know myself better. And what I've discovered, having gone through that experience and the other various experiences that I've, that I've, that I've weathered in my life, is that in the Buddhist context,

• 53:15Rich Roll?

  to know thyself is to alleviate suffering. It's like, what is causing our suffering? It's our attachment to our identities. Like the notion of self is really just an illusion. It's a construct. It's a story we tell ourselves and other people about who we are that makes us feel grounded and certain in a universe of uncertainty. Otherwise we would, you know, spin off our axis and we wouldn't know what to do with ourselves, like we wouldn't be able to operate. So there's an evolutionary rationale for it, but fundamentally it's an illusion. And being aware that the self or who you are or how you define your identity is nothing more than a story.

• 53:58Rich Roll?

  And it's a story over which you hold agency. It's a story you can rewrite at your own convenience. And the more you can detach from that attachment from who you are, well, I'm this person, you know, like I have a silver medallion status in my delta. You know, it's like all these things that we do to make us feel comfortable. And like we belong, like we want to belong to the village. We don't want to be outcasts. Like all of these things have, you know, important functionality in our lives, but they also serve to create a lot of suffering. And if you can detach a little bit and realize like, this story is just a story I'm telling, like I'm going to go tell this story.

• 54:38Rich Roll?

  You're liberated from the constraints of your identity that's holding you hostage. And it allows you to grow and explore and be curious about who else you could be without feeling the burden of like, well, that's a, that threatens like this notion of who I am. And that's allowed me to kind of walk a little bit more lightly and say, well, you know, all right, well, I just, I had spinal fusion surgery. Like, I don't know if I'm ever going to be an endurance athlete anymore. Oh my God, like who am I going to be if I'm not an athlete? Like, well, God, the universe, my higher power. Clearly they're like, dude, you need to stop. Like you, like I've been trying to tell you, you need to be more still. You can't sit still with yourself for a minute.

• 55:22Rich Roll?

  You're always running away from your emotional discomfort. So I'm going to break your back and force you to lay down. And instead of begrudging that or being resentful, like, oh my God, like I'm not, I can't blah, blah, blah. Like what a brilliant, beautiful opportunity of discovery. Like what if I leaned into this and didn't treat it like a burden or a setback, but rather this amazing gift? How many people get to hit pause on their life and just stop and say, what happens when I just am here and I can't run away? What can I learn about myself? And by leaning into these new opportunities and not considering them as threats, it doesn't matter whether I ever do anything in the endurance context again.

• 56:05Rich Roll?

  It doesn't matter whether I decide tomorrow, I'm not going to be a podcaster. I think that people get caught up in these identity silos. And what I see time and time again, and I see this in Ironman and in marathons, like people change their life. They discover they've run their first marathon or they do an Ironman. And it's, it's like the lights go on. They have an epiphany and they are forever transformed in a very good way. As a result of these experiences, they become evangelists. Now everybody has to do an Ironman because look at like what it did for me. Isn't this amazing? But ultimately they end up stuck and they just, okay, like I'm just, I gotta do more Ironmans, I gotta run more marathons.

• 56:46Rich Roll?

  And, and, and they're short circuiting their growth, like their growth plateaus there. And they don't realize like, oh, I've learned 95% of what I'm going to learn through this experience. And there's a universe of other experiences available to me if I am willing to let go of this and grab on to this. And understanding that change and transformation isn't a one time deal. Like, oh, I changed and now I'm changed. It's a relationship that we're in. It's a lifelong relationship and embracing that, like what's the next change I need to make? And, you know, it never gets easier and change and transformation and, you know, taking contrary action and getting out of your comfort zone. Like these are always uncomfortable, you know?

• 57:29Rich Roll?

  But by moving towards that, rather than recoiling from it and, and kind of siloing ourselves in our like identity, like I do this and this is who I am and I vote for this person, has been very liberating for me. And so I spent a lot of time thinking about that. And I think that is why I've been able to just be like, okay, I'm doing this and now I'm doing this. And, you know, when I started doing this, I was really interested in this and now I really don't care about that. And I'm talking to Manoj and I want to know about the nature of consciousness and like, what is reality? Like I, that's much more interesting than, you know, like what do you eat for dinner?

• 58:06Speaker 08

  Thank you.

• 58:07Speaker 09

  Thank you very much for, for the conversation, guys. And I wanted to say thank you, especially to Rich, whose book and podcast has been a source of inspiration for me along the time. I came to the US in 2020 to the city. I didn't have a job. My wife was working and I was running like crazy. And after reading your book and, you know, getting into your podcast, I ended up running a few ultras. So it really helped me. And it ignited on me a journey that it was, as you were saying,

• 58:49Speaker 09

  it was self-discovering myself and the potential of not only my body, but also my mind. But now I'm in a situation in which, I mean, it may happen to many people who get into endurance sports, I got two babies. So I'm finding it challenging right now to continue, you know, meditating and finding those specific, you know, or those spaces during my day to meditate, to continue pushing myself into, you know, endurance sports. So life changes when you have kids. I have two toddlers. And it has definitely, I don't know, challenged my life

• 59:34Speaker 09

  and my endurance experience a lot. So I was wondering if you guys have a few tips for new dads that would like to continue finding those spaces and continue.

• 59:48Rich Roll?

  This is good timing for you.

• 59:50Speaker 01

  I'm listening. I'm taking notes.

• 59:52Rich Roll?

  Oh, you are. I'm no parenting authority, trust me. In my experience, your children become your greatest teachers. And the more that you are in present awareness of that, the more beautiful the parenting experience is. And they are mirrors for all of your character defects and foibles and frailties. And so you can't get away with anything, you know, when you have children. And that's beautiful and also challenging. But God or the universe doesn't give you what you're not prepared for. And I wouldn't trade being a parent for anything.

• 1:00:37Rich Roll?

  You know, it's just been the most beautiful experience I could possibly imagine that continues to give and continues to be challenging. So embrace it rather than look at, oh, well, when I'm a parent and now I'm not going to be able to do this thing or it's going to really compromise this. The world is abundant and the experience of being a parent will just bring more abundance into your life. And so don't look at it as an encroachment on your like favorite hobbies or whatever. Look at it as this gift of abundance that's going to take you on a journey you can't possibly imagine. I think that's all the time we have. I think I want to end it by just saying, thank you to Rivian and the Rivian House for hosting this.

• 1:01:22Rich Roll?

  I can think of no other brand that is more on-brand for the conversation that we just had. Because Rivian's all about connecting us to nature and connecting human beings to each other by removing the obstacles that get in the way of adventure and living life to the fullest. And the more I get steeped in mindfulness and meditation, I realize that's what it's about. Like, life is this journey and this adventure. And I just want to experience it to the fullest. And the things that Manoj teaches and preaches are really the path towards that. So if Manoj is new to you or these ideas that he's talking about,

• 1:02:07Rich Roll?

  this is your first touch point for them. I implore you to do a deep dive into his world and check out his offerings. So you have Open, that the app? Or like, is that anymore? Or where should people learn more about you? Is that over with?

• 1:02:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:02:24Rich Roll?

  Oh, it is?

• 1:02:24Speaker 01

  That's old news. But yeah, you should definitely look them up. They're great. I don't know. I'm really bad at this part of the conversation, but I'm launching an editorial platform. It's called Gentle Noise. It's for people that are curious about spirituality and contemporary culture. So if that's you, it's a non-dogmatic sort of editorial podcast, all that sort of stuff. So tune into that.

• 1:02:48Rich Roll?

  Should we have you take us through a practice?

• 1:02:51Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 1:02:51Rich Roll?

  Get there.

• 1:02:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, is that cool? Would you like to practice? So a really important practice, I think, is our ability to... And people get really hung up on this when we talk about HRV, like heart rate variability. And people turn it into this big thing that I don't think is really all that important, to be completely honest with you. But there is a breathing technique that you can do five minutes a day that, A, I found personally to also help with sleep. So if you struggle with sleep, it'll give you really good sleep scores on ordering, talking about optimization. But it's also a really great practice that helps us predict our ability to really weather stress, right, over the course of our life. And it's sometimes used to predict our general health.

• 1:03:36Speaker 01

  So really simple practice, it's called coherent breathing. You breathe in for five, you breathe out for five. I like to add a little pause in between, just feel like it's nice. I don't know. So maybe we'll do a few rounds of that. Yeah. And so for this, with functional breath work, which this technique is, you should generally use your nose to breathe. When you're doing other kinds of breath work, you know, you can use your mouth. But with functional breath work practice, use your nose.

• 1:04:05Rich Roll?

  Why is that?

• 1:04:06Speaker 01

  It's generally healthier. It's a better way to breathe. It filters out, especially when you're breathing in a lot of smoke from Canada. Thank you, Canada. It helps filter out some of that stuff. But also there's other flow and benefits. Like, if you breathe through your mouth a lot, it can make you more tired. It tends to be a lot more depleting as well over time. And there's some emerging research around how it changes face shape. So if you care about that.

• 1:04:31Rich Roll?

  For the looks maxers out there.

• 1:04:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, for the looks maxers out there. So really simple technique. I'll guide you through it. So first, just relax into whatever position you're in. Yeah, just shake your body, actually. Do that. That feels good. Everyone been sitting down, listening to us for a little while. Just shake. Actually, shake your hands, too. Yeah. No one's watching it. They're all watching me and Rich. Just shake. Good. And then just shake your shoulders. Maybe shake your legs. Maybe turn the outer edges of your mouth up a little. It's actually very beneficial to your jaw. Yeah, do one of those. Do it again. Yeah, good. I love that. And then just relax your body.

• 1:05:17Speaker 01

  And if you feel comfortable doing so, you can close your eyes. If not, just allow them to soften gently. And I want you to begin by taking a slow, deep breath in through your nose. And then as you open your mouth, as an exhale, let something go. Whatever that is. And then through your nose, please breathe in for five, four, three, two, one. Exhale, five, four, three, two, one.

• 1:06:01Speaker 01

  Pause. Breathing in, four, three, two, one. Breathing out, four, three, two, one. In, four, three, two, one. Out, four, three, two, one. In. Out. In.

• 1:06:42Speaker 01

  Out. One more, just like that. And out. And then keeping your eyes closed, I want you to bring to mind someone in your life that you're grateful for.

• 1:07:21Speaker 01

  Visualize that person as if they are here with you now. As you visualize that person, I want you to reflect on why you're grateful for them. What have they shown you?

• 1:08:00Speaker 01

  What have they taught you? And then take a moment and reflect on something about your life that you're grateful for. Maybe the safety of your home,

• 1:08:39Speaker 01

  the clean water that you drink, or what you do in the world. What's something that makes your life easier, better? And then finally, please bring to mind

• 1:09:18Speaker 01

  something about yourself that you're grateful for. What have you overcome? What have you given? This part is often the hardest part. So take this one brief moment and

• 1:09:59Speaker 01

  just reflect, what am I grateful for about myself? And take a big, deep breath in. And then open your mouth, let something go. Whenever you're ready, you can very slowly bring your attention back.

• 1:10:38Speaker 01

  And whenever you're ready, you can open your eyes.

• 1:10:45Rich Roll?

  Is there anyone who doesn't feel better? Right on. Awesome, man. Thank you so much. Thanks, Rivian. Thanks to all of you for showing up today. Appreciate you.