Idea Architect Douglas Abrams: Cultivating Joy, Collaborating With Spiritual Masters & Elevating Consciousness

Nobel Peace Prize Laureates His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu have both survived more than fifty years of exile. Both have endured the soul-crushing violence of oppression. And yet despite their hardships—or, as they would say, because of them—they are two of the most joyful people on the planet. How is this possible? And what can we learn from their example to cultivate more joy in the face of life's inevitable suffering? To answer this question, in 2015 Douglas Abrams united the two spiritual giants in Dharamsala, India on the occasion of the Dalai Lama's 80th birthday. During the course of what became a rare, five-day conversation on the nature of human happiness and suffering, the two Nobel Peace Prize recipients traded intimate stories, teased each other continually, and shared their spiritual practices. By the end of a week filled with laughter and punctuated with tears, these two global heroes had stared into the abyss and despair of our time and revealed how to live a life brimming with joy. A beautiful synthesis of this transcendent union, it's no surprise that Abrams' The Book of Joy* became an instant New York Times bestseller. It's a book that deeply humanizes an Archbishop who has never claimed sainthood and a Dalai Lama who considers himself a simple monk. It's a book that transports you deep within the intimate friendship that binds these two incredible souls. And it's a book that vividly probes the very nature of joy itself — the illusions that eclipse it, the obstacles that obscure it, the practices that cultivate it, and the pillars that sustain it. In addition to being a celebrated author, editor and literary agent, Doug is the founder and president of the creative book and media agency Idea Architects, where he works with true visionaries to create a wiser, healthier, and more just world. He is also the co-founder with Pam Omidyar and Bishop Desmond Tutu of HumanJourney.com, a public benefit company working to share life-changing and world-changing ideas. Doug has worked with Desmond Tutu as his co-writer and editor for over a decade, and before founding his own literary agency, he was a senior editor at HarperCollins and also served for nine years as the religion editor at the University of California Press. I wanted to know more about what my Stanford classmate learned spending so much intimate time with two of the planet's most conscious and revered spiritual leaders. What was his biggest takeaway? How did he synthesize their wisdom into such an extraordinary book? And what impact has the experience had on how he lives his life today? This conversation is the result. It's everything I was hoping for, and then some. I sincerely hope you enjoy the exchange. Peace + Plants, Rich Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:00Rich Roll?

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• 1:05Speaker 01

  I think we so often feel like life happens to us and that we're victims of life. And I think one of the things that the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu talk about in the Book of Joy, one of the pillars of joy is perspective. The ways in which we actually determine how we see our life. And that is one of our great freedoms. We often think of joy as a kind of fleeting emotional state, that it's something that kind of flitters and lands on your shoulder like a butterfly, and then it's gone when the meal is over or the song ends and you're out of joy. And suddenly, you're back into

• 1:48Speaker 01

  the other human emotions in some way. But we really wanted to try to ask them, how do we turn... It from a state into a trait, you know? How do we take it from an emotional state that comes and goes into a character trait? Which is, I think, what you're talking about. These men exude this, they live this, you know? Which is not to say that they don't experience fear, anger, or sadness. It's just to say that they are able to cultivate through their joy practices and through this way of life that they articulate in the book, a way of being in joy more of their lives.

• 2:24Rich Roll?

  That's Doug Abrams, and this is the Rich Roll Podcast.

• 2:38Rich Roll?

  The Rich Roll Podcast. Hey, everybody. What's going on? How are you? What is happening? My name is Rich Roll. I am your host. Welcome or welcome back to my podcast, the show where I have the good fortune, the privilege, the honor of going deep and going long form with some of the world's most compelling, most intriguing, most inspiring, positive paradigm-breaking changemakers all across the globe. I really appreciate you guys tuning in today. It means so much to me, and I've got an amazing show for you today. So you guys remember the podcast I did two weeks ago with Dr. Rachel Abrams, the integrative medicine doctor? That was a really good one, right? Amazing.

• 3:20Rich Roll?

  Well, she is just one half of quite the interesting, compelling power couple. And this week, you're gonna discover why, because today I share my conversation with Rachel's husband, who also happens to be, along with Rachel, my former Stanford classmate, the author, editor, and literary agent Douglas Abrams. So who is Doug? Well, Doug is the founder and president of Idea Architects, ideaarchitects.com, which is a creative book and media agency where he works with true visionaries to create not only this incredibly impressive roster of New York Times bestselling books, but really, and more importantly, a wiser, healthier, and more just world.

• 4:02Rich Roll?

  And he does that by leveraging the power of books, the power of media. To catalyze the next stage of global evolutionary culture. He's also the co-founder with Pam Omidyar and Bishop Desmond Tutu of HumanJourney.com, which is a public benefit company working to share life-changing and world-changing ideas. So you can check that out online, HumanJourney.com. But perhaps Doug is most well-known, at least lately, for his most recent massively bestselling book entitled The Book of Joy, which is this, how do I describe it? It's a beautiful distillation, synthesis, and meditation on how to better cultivate

• 4:45Rich Roll?

  joy in our lives. And it came out of this rare five-day conversation in 2015 that Doug created, he produced, he hosted, he curated between the Dalai Lama and his friend Bishop Desmond Tutu on the occasion of the Dalai Lama's 80th birthday at the Dalai Lama's residence in exile in Dharamsala, India. I've got a lot more I want to say about Doug and the Book of Joy and cultivating joy, but...

• 5:22Rich Roll?

  Okay. Honestly, I can't say enough good things about Doug. This is a conversation that took place a few weeks ago, but ironically, as of the moment of recording this, which is Sunday morning, February 19th, Julie and I got to spend some time with Doug and Rachel yesterday because Rachel and Doug, who live in Santa Cruz, were down in Los Angeles for a book event for Rachel's new book, Bodywise. And that was the first time that Julie had the opportunity to meet them, and it was beautiful. And that experience just reaffirmed to me what a remarkable human, a truly good human that Doug is, a guy who is just devoted to positively impacting the world with

• 6:05Rich Roll?

  everything that he does and who he is, to raise consciousness with the work that he does, and somebody who has created something really powerful and transcendent with this new book, The Book of Joy. We had a great conversation about all of these things, so this is me talking with Doug Abrams.

• 6:27Rich Roll?

  So good to be sitting down with you.

• 6:30Speaker 01

  So great to be here.

• 6:30Rich Roll?

  I had a twofer today because I spent time with your wife earlier today. She told me all the secrets about you.

• 6:36Speaker 01

  It's all true. And I guess I'll be sloppy seconds here for you.

• 6:42Rich Roll?

  No, man, this is awesome. And it was really great. It was really great to run into you at that wedding. As I said to Rachel, like, it's odd that at our age, like, I don't go to that many weddings anymore. Nobody's getting married anymore. You know what I mean? Like, all our friends are getting divorced, let alone a wedding of somebody that we went to college with, you know, that I went to school with. So that was really cool. And to reconnect with you was really neat. And as I said to you at the wedding, your book had been sitting on my desk for quite some time because we have the same publisher.

• 7:13Speaker 01

  Right.

• 7:13Rich Roll?

  And I had spoken to Anne at Avery, and she's like, you got to interview Doug. And I was like, yeah, this book's right up my alley. I can't wait to unpack this and get into it. And then I ran into you. But I didn't put the two together. I didn't realize that Douglas Abrams on the cover of the book was the same guy that I went to school with. And so that was a revelation. And it got me thinking about, like, we, it's not like we were buds in college. Like, I knew you kind of at arm's length. And our social circles kind of butted up against each other. But I remember you. I remember you as a, because you're very tall. So it's like, yeah, you always see you coming into a room. But I remembered you as being somebody who is always very

• 7:58Rich Roll?

  intellectually and artistically inclined. And if memory serves me, I remember that you were like writing plays. Is that true? You were like a playwright, like, even as like a freshman, I think.

• 8:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:11Rich Roll?

  So you start, because I know you came from like a literary family.

• 8:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:14Rich Roll?

  Right? And so I thought, this guy's going to be a writer. How badass is that? Everyone else wants to be doctors and lawyers and software engineers. But you had that idea of being a creative early on.

• 8:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think I was cursed from a young age that, growing up in a publishing family and there was, you know, my, my parents, like, you know, kind of felt like anything in a book was holy. And so they would, you know, give me copies of The Bhagavad Gita or The Zohar or Science or anything, you know. It was really, and I think I just realized that there's something about...

• 8:55Speaker 01

  A book that can transport us to into another person's consciousness in a very powerful way. And I wanted to do that, too.

• 9:04Rich Roll?

  That's pretty cool, because you could have easily just rebelled against your parents and gone in a completely different direction, right? So there was something about how you were brought up, you know, in that literary sensibility that stuck with you.

• 9:16Speaker 01

  Well, it's interesting, because I actually had dyslexia growing up. So, you know, and actually, to this day, when I step into a bookstore, I break out into a cold sweat. And so it was not an easy direction to take. It was kind of my north face of Half Dome. And I think there was a real desire to rebel against it. And I think I did, after we graduated from college, I think I did about 100 informational interviews to see what else I could do besides go into books and writing. I think I always had the desire to write. And actually, I had a teacher in the eighth grade who said to me, you know, you can never be a writer, you're dyslexic. And there was a

• 9:59Rich Roll?

  Oh, my God.

• 9:59Speaker 01

  I know. It's like, you know, kind of out of some kind of

• 10:02Rich Roll?

  At least you were diagnosed.

• 10:03Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, it's like out of some Roald Dahl movie, you know, or Buck, you know, some kind of evil teacher who I don't think meant to be evil, but and I just felt like, you know, I was going to show him. And so there was some of that, kind of, I'll show him. And then there was like, God, I can't really do what my parents are doing, you know, like, I gotta try something else. And then I just fell back in love with books, and I fell back in. And I'd say, and more than just the books, I think it's, you know, as we were saying, I think it's the ideas that books unleash. And ultimately, I don't see myself as just being in the book business. I see myself as being in the idea and story business. And it's about sharing with people.

• 10:46Speaker 01

  You know, life-changing, world-changing ideas and stories.

• 10:50Rich Roll?

  Right. We were talking a little bit before the podcast about the mission statement behind Idea Architects and how that transcends just books, or being a book agent, or being a writer, and really utilizing that as just one medium to sort of propagate culture-shifting, you know, positive paradigm-shifting ideas that can influence the trajectory of our planet.

• 11:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, it's elbowing the planet in the right direction. The vision of the company is creating a wiser, healthier, more just world. And I get to work with extraordinary visionaries like Desmond Tutu and the Dalai Lama, as well as amazing scientists, as well as, you know, triathletes like Mark Allen, and, you know, people who are pushing the envelope of human possibility in some way. And there, we do books that are kind of extraordinary ideas or extraordinary stories that somehow unleash our potential in some way, in the hope that we can help shift the culture in some positive ways.

• 11:54Rich Roll?

  Right. And I think what's cool, too, is, and we talked about this a little bit at the wedding, is that it's so much more than you being a book agent, right? Like, you're really, like, when I walked in here, you're sitting down with one of your writers, there's a whiteboard up there with all kinds of notes on it. Like, you really roll up your sleeves and get into working with these creative types to try to help them hone their ideas and make them great, as opposed to, all right, well, send me the manuscript and I'll see if I can sell it.

• 12:26Speaker 01

  Right. I mean, really, what turns us on, I think, is the kind of being culture workers, you know, taking ideas that are in the lab, or in spiritual traditions, or, you know, that people are, and stories of extraordinary stories, and helping to take that and think about, how do we take the messenger? And align that with the message and the culture. So how do we take that powerful idea or that extraordinary story? And how do we help it get to the culture in the most authentic, the most fascinating and the most powerful way?

• 13:06Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's a beautiful thing, right?

• 13:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:09Rich Roll?

  And so here you are, sitting, uh, sitting on top of this magical book that has done, you know, what only the rarest of books is able to do, like really penetrate culture at the deepest level. I mean, this book has exploded.

• 13:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:23Rich Roll?

  Could you have foreseen this? Like, I mean, this is like a phenomenon.

• 13:27Speaker 01

  Well, uh, it's, it's, it's really unbelievably, uh, moving actually to hear how the book has impacted people. I mean, it's selling very well, which is very cool. As you know, as a book author, it's nice to know that people want to read it.

• 13:42Speaker 01

  And, you know, I just heard this incredible story yesterday about a woman who was dying and she was kind of deliberate about when she was dying and when she was leaving. And as her final gesture to all of her friends and family, she sent them a copy of The Book of Joy with an inscription in it.

• 14:00Rich Roll?

  Wow.

• 14:01Speaker 01

  And it's just.

• 14:01Rich Roll?

  Doesn't get better than that.

• 14:02Speaker 01

  It's like, wow, like the, the, the impact that it seems to be having on people. And, um, you know, I mean, it was just an incredible privilege and opportunity to bring the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu together, to bring these extraordinary traditions together, this, these amazing human beings together, this, to see this incredible friendship and, you know, that's kind of like a comedy duo, you know, the incredible laughter and joy. And to have people get to experience that too. And I mean, one of the most wonderful things we hear about the book is that, you know, it's not just inspiring, it's like entertaining, like they're laughing and crying their way through the book. And that ultimately was, you know, that it was such a moving experience to be with them

• 14:47Speaker 01

  for that week. And it was like my, my responsibility, my dream and my challenge to try to help share that with everybody else.

• 14:57Rich Roll?

  Well, what's really, I think, striking and what makes the book kind of stand out initially, at least for me, is that you go into it thinking, here are these two luminaries, these two, you know, literally holier-than-thou people, right? And you're used to, you know, books on spirituality, or books that are coming from a spiritual sensibility, to kind of be, preaching is the wrong word, but coming from a place of, you know, I know and now I'm going to tell you.

• 15:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:29Rich Roll?

  There's a lack of relatability there, I think, because there's that barrier between the way that we lead our lives and the way that these others lead their lives. But what kind of spills out on every page of this book is the utter humanity of these two people who are "human" in quotes, you know, "human beings," right?

• 15:47Speaker 01

  Right.

• 15:48Rich Roll?

  And you see that humanity, and I think that allows you to emotionally connect with them through their friendship and the way that they interact with each other, which gives you, the reader, you know, a sense that you're in that room with them and you can feel them as, you know, not as an other, but like yourself.

• 16:04Speaker 01

  That's right. I love hearing you say that, because that was really our, at the core of what we were trying to do was not just to get their wisdom, but their humanity, for humanity, for history, for posterity. And, you know, I think they're both so, you know, part of their spirituality and who they are is their amazing humility and that they're not holier-than-thou. And I think at the same time, you know, when you are a spiritual leader like the Dalai Lama or Desmond Tutu, and you're kind of in a pulpit, or you're giving a Dharma talk, and, you know, your job is to, you know, bring it and, you know, to, you know, give the truth.

• 16:46Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 16:47Speaker 01

  And what was so fantastic about the dialogue and the week that we got to spend in Dharamsala is that in the presence of their friendship... And each other, they were able to kind of, you know, open the kimono, so to speak, you know, and just be human with each other and be friends and laugh and tease each other mercilessly and just, you know, be, you know, buddies. And, you know, you know, I think the, the amazing thing, you know, we were talking about us being, you know, friends from college. And I think that, you know, world leaders don't get a lot of time to just hang out with their, with their friends, right? They're being, you know, having to be great religious moral leaders. And so this was this amazing opportunity where they just got to, to be friends and to tease each other and have fun.

• 17:31Rich Roll?

  And through that intimacy, you, you get a lens into their interior life that is rare. And I think probably has not been, you know, that adequately exposed in the past. Like, you really see these people as who they are. And they get to talk about things because they're not on that pulpit. They can talk about their fears and their anxieties and their joys and their pleasures and their anger, you know, and all these things that we all share as human beings, which I think is, was just such a beautiful gift to be able to, you know, tap into that and to see that. So let's, you know, before we kind of unpack the book, it would be interesting to kind of hear how this whole thing came together. I mean, I know that your relationship with Desmond Tutu, you

• 18:13Rich Roll?

  call him Arch, right? Because you guys are bros. How that like came together? First of all, like, how did you get to know him? Like, how did this whole project?

• 18:23Speaker 01

  Come about? Yeah, great question. So I have had the privilege of working with Archbishop Tutu and his, you know, the folks in his life call him Arch or Father. He's, again, really unpretentious and, you know, he doesn't want any genuflecting. He's just such an incredibly loving and wonderful human being. But, you know, my, I mean, to go back to our time in college, you know, the story actually begins from, you know, when we were in college and Playing some small role in the anti-apartheid struggle and kind of protests of divestment that we're taking on.

• 19:03Rich Roll?

  I remember that.

• 19:04Speaker 01

  And just he came to speak and he was this incredible towering kind of moral figure. And then when I left Harper Collins, where I was a book editor, I made this list of the people I most wanted to work with in the world. And he was on the top of that list. And I mean, there's a kind of fun story about how the universe conspired to put us together. But long story short, I've been able to work with him for over a decade and help him with all of his various book projects and to become his literary agent. And so we were actually, when we were at his 80th birthday, five years ago, the Dalai Lama was supposed to come as the guest of honor.

• 19:46Speaker 01

  But because of China's buying minerals from South Africa, they leaned on South Africa, they wouldn't give the Dalai Lama a visa. So we really wanted to bring Arch to Dharamsala. And kind of when the Dalai Lama was turning 80, you know, that was kind of a reciprocal gesture, if you will. But we were actually, the project itself hatched when we were at Archbishop Tutu's wife's birthday party. I was there with another great friend of mine, Jim Doty, and a client who was the chairman of the Dalai Lama Foundation. And he was the one who actually said, what do you think about these two guys writing a book together? And I said, wow, that's a cool idea. That would be awesome. They were both on my list, by the way. But, you know, and I said,

• 20:30Rich Roll?

  Where do you keep that list?

• 20:33Speaker 01

  It's actually in my laptop. And, and so I, you know, I said, this is a great idea, but you know, what would it be on? And we both paused for a second. We looked at each other. We said, joy. And it was really, you know, here are two of the most joyous people on the planet who have gone through extraordinary hardship, but still are these kind of luminous, you know, ebullient people. And so we were having sandwiches at Arch's office and I, you know, kind of turned over to Arch and said, hey, you want to write a book with the Dalai Lama? And he said, I'd do anything with that man. And so then we were kind of off and running to create the book.

• 21:14Rich Roll?

  It's beautiful. In their exchanges in the book, you get the sense that these guys must have spent, you know, so much time together because the intimacy is so real and so deep, right? And then you realize like they'd only actually been physically in each other's presence like a handful of times, right?

• 21:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:33Rich Roll?

  So how does that, how does that, that strong of a bond transpire? Is it just because they're, they're, they're really the only two people like each other on the planet? That they just know each other that well intuitively?

• 21:46Speaker 01

  Well, it's a great question, too. I think, you know, what Arch said was, you know, when, when we were quiet, we realized that our, our spirits were kindred, you know? So there's this way in which I think they just recognized in each other this, you know, both the, the depth that they have, but also this incredible playfulness and misery. They call each other their mischievous spiritual brother. And, you know, the first time they were together, they were kind of, you know, in a line, ready to be paraded in the way that Nobel laureates are paraded. And because it was by age, I think. And so the Dalai Lama was behind Archbishop Tutu and he started to strangle him, you know, like playfully.

• 22:28Speaker 01

  And Arch turns around and wags a finger in at him and says, act like a holy man. The cameras are upon us. And I mean, it was just that, I think there is that playful, you know, they both have this incredible depth and moral courage and this incredible playfulness and lifefulness and humor.

• 22:50Rich Roll?

  Right. Taking a step back, you know, what is it in your sort of personal journey that drew you towards these figures? Like, what is it in your kind of personal mission? Or what is it that you were or are wrestling with that attracts you to these individuals?

• 23:09Speaker 01

  Well, so I think my kind of, you know, the book of joy for me in my life kind of originated growing up in a household that was kind of shadowed by the black dog of depression. And, you know, recognizing both in my own life and those I loved, how, you know, how so much of our suffering occurs between our own ears, you know, and it happens in our own mind, and really wanting to know, you know, what is that? Why does that happen? How do we wrestle with that? How do we grapple with that? How do we deal with that? You know, there's poverty, there's violence, there are objective things that cause enormous suffering in our world.

• 23:48Speaker 01

  And then so much of our experience of life is how we respond to our life. And here is, you know, a man from South Africa who's faced unbelievable oppression and cruelty and violence and heartbreak, and another from Tibet who has experienced exile, and as Arch said, you know, one of the worst things that could ever happen to somebody being turfed out of their country. And here they're able to, between their ears, manage to stay in this place that is not about depression and anxiety and despair, but really about a place of joy and generativity.

• 24:29Speaker 01

  So I think, you know, my, one way to kind of read my own experience and my own life and, you know, kind of, you know, one of my experiences as a young person growing up in Manhattan, in New York City, was actually being kind of one leg over the balcony on the 20th floor of our apartment, and really, I think I was in the second grade, and basically saying like, wow, do I really want to stay? You know, do I really want to? And I think that experience of just kind of recognizing that my, like, I didn't have to, like, I got to choose something, I got to decide whether I lived or did not live,

• 25:12Speaker 01

  or, and ultimately, in retrospect, I think it's also about deciding, like, that we get to choose how we live. So I think that journey to understand

• 25:22Speaker 01

  You know, what happens in the human mind and the human heart and has been a kind of lifelong journey. I mean, it was very much what I was doing at our alma mater, trying to take every kind of paradigm exploding class I could find to understand, you know, where truth lay and then my work in publishing has been about working with these extraordinary visionaries, whether they're spiritual leaders or scientists, who are giving us some insight into our experience of being human.

• 25:52Rich Roll?

  Right, trying to find ways of having more agency, I suppose, over our health and our well-being and our sense of, you know, identity and purpose.

• 26:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think we so often feel like life happens to us and that we're victims of life. And I think one of the things that the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu talk about in the Book of Joy, one of the pillars of joy is perspective, you know, the ways in which we actually determine, you know, how we see our life. And that is one of our great freedoms, you know, the amazing psychologist Viktor Frankl, who wrote Man's Search for Meaning, who talks about, you know, our ultimate freedom is our choice, is how we choose to see the perspective we take on our life, you know, how we, our attitude toward our life.

• 26:45Rich Roll?

  And there's like an embedded irony in this because you're taking these two individuals who have suffered tremendously, who have, you know, undergone unbelievably, you know, painful journeys to be where they're at, and yet they exude more joy than we seem capable of cultivating in our own life. And it's this perfect template to explore the subject of joy and to come to an understanding that That suffering is actually a perfect crucible or a mechanism for cultivating greater joy. As opposed to something to to avoid, it's it's a way of of actually accessing greater empathy

• 27:30Rich Roll?

  and and finding a vehicle to be more expressive of that.

• 27:35Speaker 01

  As really well said, I I think I went into the project thinking that joy and sorrow were these two separate things. And the goal of my life was to spend as much time in joy and to avoid sorrow as much as possible. And this book and their kind of understanding of life, which is so complimentary of the two of them, is really that you, you know, you can't actually have joy without the sorrow, that the two are kind of entwined and that this adversity that we experience in our life and that causes us so much sorrow and suffering is actually, as you said, this crucible through which we grow and learn

• 28:19Speaker 01

  and actually experience more joy. So it was a really profound transformation. And my understanding, I think it's a profound corrective to our don't worry, be happy kind of mentality of what happiness is. I think there's something so profoundly human in the message of the Book of Joy, which is about understanding that that we don't have to deny what are often called the negative emotions, you know, the fear, anger and sadness that we experience in order to experience the fourth and only other human emotion, which is joy. And that those are all kind of entwined together in in our experience of being human.

• 29:01Rich Roll?

  And that it's a choice, much in the way that it was a choice when you were, you know, one leg over the balcony, the choice to, you know, pull the leg back over and go back inside. It's a choice to to to, you know, walk the path of forgiveness and empathy and joy just as much as it is a choice to be the victim. Right? And I and I feel like it's it's perhaps additionally resonant in our current times, given that, you know, I think we do live in a bit of a victim culture right now and we kind of celebrate victimhood in a certain respect, in perhaps an unhealthy way. And to see these two people who no one would chagrin them for being victims of

• 29:45Rich Roll?

  the circumstances that they've weathered.

• 29:47Speaker 01

  Right.

• 29:48Rich Roll?

  But to be quite the opposite.

• 29:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, there's an important distinction. One of the amazing psychologists I work with, Edie Eger, who survived Auschwitz and became this extraordinary clinical psychologist who works a lot with PTSD in the military. And one of the things she talks about is the distinction between victimization, which happens to all of us in various ways in our lives, and victimhood, which is kind of like setting up shop in that victimization.

• 30:17Rich Roll?

  Creating an identity around something, external circumstances.

• 30:21Speaker 01

  She tells this amazing story about these two soldiers that she saw back to back in this hospital, and they had both become paraplegics. And, you know, one was sitting, lying in his bed cursing God and country, rightly, no doubt, and justifiably, in many ways, for what had happened to him and the suffering that he was experiencing. And the other, her next patient in the same hospital was also had lost his legs, but was in his, sitting in his wheelchair, telling her, I feel like I've been given a new lease on

• 31:02Speaker 01

  life. I never realized that now I can look right into my children's eyes. I didn't realize now how close I am to the flowers. And, you know, it's just, that is what happens in our mind. The reality and the facts may be the same, but this is that first pillar of joy which determines which perspective we take.

• 31:26Rich Roll?

  And the idea that joy isn't something that happens to you or that you arrive at, it's actually a practice, right? You actually have, and in the book you have, like, here are ways of cultivating it, and they're all like action steps, right? It's something that you can bring into your life by undertaking certain things to cultivate it.

• 31:46Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 31:46Rich Roll?

  Don't have anything to do with your external circumstances.

• 31:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, one of the things that I think these two extraordinary people demonstrate, and what we wanted to try to do in the book, is that joy, we often think of joy as a kind of fleeting emotional state, that it's something that kind of flitters and lands on your shoulder like a butterfly, and then it's gone when the meal is over, or the song ends, you know, and you're out of joy, and suddenly you're back into the other human emotions in some way. But we really wanted to try to ask them, how do we turn it from a state into a trait? You know, how do we take it from an emotional state that comes and goes into a character

• 32:32Speaker 01

  trait, which is, I think, what you're talking about. These men exude this, they live this, you know, which is not to say that they don't experience fear, anger, or sadness. It's just to say that they are able to cultivate, through their joy practices and through this way of life that they articulate in the book, a way of being in joy more of their lives.

• 33:01Rich Roll?

  And so how would you define joy? And has that definition changed as a result of, like, did your definition of joy change from the beginning of the book to where it is now?

• 33:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's, so, you know, they wanted to have a lot of science in the book. I mean, they wanted, which was really interesting, that they felt like, this cannot be a Buddhist book. The Dalai Lama said to me very clearly when we were together before the book, this can't be a Buddhist book, this can't be a Christian book, this needs to be a universal human book. And they wanted me to bring this, you know, kind of science from the scientists that I work with on kind of the science of happiness and well-being. And, you know, one of the fascinating things that we heard from the scientists, like the kind of cutting-edge emotions science, is that there are just four human emotions, from which all other

• 33:50Speaker 01

  emotions come, and those are fear, anger, sadness, and joy. And so, you know, three of those are what we often call negative emotions. And...

• 34:02Speaker 01

  You know, obviously, you know, as we were talking about there not to be denigrated, they're part of, but they often cause us a great deal of pain and suffering. And joy is really kind of all we got, you know, from which to create a life of meaning, purpose, happiness, kind of, you know, contribution and to understand. And so joy, you know, as a fundamental human emotion, it has this very wide range, right? So it's everything from kind of enjoyment and the joy of the five senses. So, you know, having that good meal, what, you know, the Dalai Lama calls, you know, physical happiness, right?

• 34:40Speaker 01

  You know, exactly, pleasure, all the way through to a kind of spiritual radiance of, you know, and generosity that these gentlemen have. So there's this very kind of wide range, you know, and, you know, along that terrain is kind of, you know, are different waypoints in terms of kinds of things that we experience as joyful. But there's this kind of spectrum from whether that's more of a kind of physical enjoyment or whether, in which we often, as you said, call more pleasure, and we talked a lot about the distinction there, to something that's more, you know, mental, emotional, spiritually

• 35:25Speaker 01

  enduring and rich.

• 35:26Rich Roll?

  Right. I think when you said, when you named the primary emotions, I almost feel, you said fear, anger, sadness, and joy.

• 35:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:37Rich Roll?

  Right? But I feel like anger is almost a subset of fear. Like, I feel like anger can fold into fear, because most, anger comes from fear.

• 35:44Speaker 01

  Well, so a lot of psychologists do call anger a secondary emotion, which they think comes out of fear. It's a kind of result, you know, that all of our supposed, you know, so-called negative emotions evolved out of a need to activate us in some way. So fear and anger are really kind of fight or flight, right? So the anger part is the fight and the fear part is the flight. So they're kind of, you know, which is more primary, whether, you know, they're, they're kind of, and I agree with you that I think oftentimes when we are experiencing anger, it's very useful to kind of say, what am I afraid of, you know, and what am I concerned

• 36:27Speaker 01

  about? So to kind of get under that emotion of anger. But I'm, you know, at least in terms of this, this research comes from the, the universal facial emotion, you know, expressions is how they kind of track these emotions. And they distinguish them from each other. And we seem to have developed an ability to not only feel, but also communicate those four fundamental emotions.

• 36:51Rich Roll?

  And you describe the book as sort of this multi-layered cake, right? It's like part travelogue, part, you know, sort of exploration of this amazing friendship. And then there's the, the wisdom that comes out of this, these universal truths. And then you have the science component of it.

• 37:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:09Rich Roll?

  So I would imagine, you know, the science component from, involves some heavy lifting on your part to like, dig into the research and how that research is applicable to the way these gentlemen like live their life.

• 37:21Speaker 01

  Yeah. So we tried, obviously not to make it too heavy going in terms of the science, because the goal is obviously was to write a very accessible, popular book. But my, one of my jobs was to kind of bring the kind of cutting edge of, you know, wellbeing research and happiness research. And to see, I mean, what they really said was, they don't want this, anybody to take what they have to say as an article of faith or belief. They want people to, they want to have, see what the science supports or contradicts, or, and they want people to try it in their own life and, and see what's true for themselves. And so the science, I mean, it was really fascinating to see how much of what they

• 38:03Speaker 01

  said that kind of science was corroborating, you know, like three of the eight pillars that they presented, the eight pillars of joy, were things that the happiness research really emphasized as well as being extremely important. So there was a lot of overlap in terms of the things that they were We're saying, and you know, a lot of, I'm fortunate in that through the work I do with visionaries, I've worked with a lot of the amazing, you know, amazing and leading scientists in this arena. So it wasn't, I didn't have to totally dig it all up.

• 38:38Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 38:38Speaker 01

  You know, and I could turn to them also and ask them. And, you know, I, you know, had a wonderful lunch with Richie Davidson, who's this amazing, um, brain researcher at Wisconsin, who's studied meditation, for example. And he told me this incredible story as we were eating, you know, Vietnamese spring rolls, vegetarian spring rolls. And, uh, and, uh, you know, as his kind of boyish curly locks are blowing in this endless San Francisco wind, he says, you know, well, the Dalai Lama said to me that, you know, knowing the brain research really helps him motivate him to get out of bed and to meditate. I said, yeah. I was like, wow, if the Dalai Lama needs the science to motivate him to

• 39:22Speaker 01

  get out of bed, then we really need the science.

• 39:25Rich Roll?

  What's beneath that is like just the tiny sliver of doubt. Like, is this doing any good?

• 39:30Speaker 01

  You know, so, I mean, it's just, you know, I think, I mean, again, it's a wonderful human expression of, you know, like, we all wonder, you know, whether our practices or what we're doing, how it's helping, or whether it's better to hit the snooze button, you know, and sleeps more. And, um, so we really, you know, Archbishop Tutu talks about this thing that he calls self corroborating truth, which is when, then, when many different traditions or disciplines or sciences point to the same thing. And so I think this book is really, in many ways, you know, kind of looking at where the finger is all pointing in terms of what does it mean to live a more happier, more joyful life.

• 40:13Rich Roll?

  Right. So when you, when you greet these individuals, there's an overwhelming sense of joy that is exuding from their beings. But the way I kind of see it is, and tell me what you think of this, like, behind the joy is this tremendous capacity for forgiveness, right? They both had to.

• 40:34Rich Roll?

  Forgive in a tremendous way.

• 40:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:36Rich Roll?

  Things that have occurred to them and to their people. And behind that is empathy.

• 40:42Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 40:43Rich Roll?

  Right? So it starts with empathy. So how do you go from anger and fear to cultivating that empathy? To sort of seeing humanity, you know, from 10,000 feet? That allows you to then forgive and then live more joyfully. Is that like a thread that makes sense?

• 41:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, it's interesting. You know, we also had the privilege of helping Archbishop Tutu with the Book of Forgiving. And so, and obviously Archbishop Tutu is in many ways the kind of the global icon of forgiveness, having been the chairman of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa. So forgiveness is a huge part of it for sure. It's one of the eight pillars. So, and one of the eight pillars of joy. So I'd say that it's not the be all and end all unto itself, but it is very hard to be joyful when you're holding on to bitterness and anger and not being forgiving.

• 41:44Speaker 01

  And maybe it would be helpful to kind of map out the book and the pillars a little bit for people. So, you know, the book is kind of divided into three parts. It's the, you know, the nature of true joy, which is what we were talking about before of what is joy? And how, you know, kind of how is it different from pleasure? And, you know, how is it different from happiness? Those kinds of questions. And then the second part is the obstacles to joy, which is everything from fear and stress and anxiety, all the way through adversity, illness, and even death. And so we really wanted the book to kind of live where people live, you know, not to kind of be up in this abstract realm of, you know, kind of lofty realm of ideals,

• 42:26Speaker 01

  but really kind of where the rubber hits the road in a morning commute. And so the third part is the eight pillars of joy, which is the kind of values, principles that they believe are most important for experiencing more joy. And, you know, one of the things that.

• 42:47Speaker 01

  I think they talk about, for example, so there are eight of those pillars. Four pillars of the mind, four pillars of the heart. And so the pillars are perspective, humility, humor, and acceptance. Those are the four pillars of the mind, which we can talk about. And the four pillars of the heart are forgiveness, gratitude, compassion, and generosity. So one of the things they said was, you know, if you try to run after happiness, you know, that is the fastest way to missing the bus, is how the Archbishop said it. You know, you can't actually get happiness by grasping after happiness.

• 43:29Speaker 01

  You actually have to cultivate these qualities in your life. And then the more you cultivate those lives, those qualities, you're kind of surprised by joy. And suddenly you're like, wow, I'm so much more joyful as a result of that.

• 43:41Rich Roll?

  Right, joy being the byproduct of these action steps.

• 43:44Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 43:44Rich Roll?

  Right, like practicing gratitude and exercising humility and the like, right?

• 43:51Speaker 01

  Right, exactly.

• 43:52Rich Roll?

  Being of service to other people, setting your ego aside.

• 43:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, one of the wonderful phrases that Archbishop Tutu used was, you know, "You will be surprised by the joy when you go beyond your own self-regard." You know, so that was, you know, both relates to humility and compassion and many of these themes. But it's also this, one of the other themes in the book is just this sense that it is really, we are such a social species that when we go beyond ourselves, that is our greatest joy. And one of the other kind of, you know, powerful, you know, lessons or understandings for me as we're writing this book was that the fastest way to joy is bringing it to others.

• 44:37Speaker 01

  You know, and so also when you talk about empathy, you know, that is, I think, a profound, you know, going outside of, you know, empathy and compassion takes us beyond our own experience and helps us see and relate to others.

• 44:52Rich Roll?

  Right, there's an exchange, I can't remember who said what, but there's an exchange in the book where the example is something like, you know, you're in traffic and somebody's making you late and it's easy to get aggro and upset, but, but to understand like, maybe that person is, you know, on their way to the hospital. Like, you don't know what's going on with everybody. So to, to be able to have that, you know, 10,000 foot view on humanity, to expand your scope a little bit, allows, you know, that empathy to creep in in a way that we, we too often like close it down.

• 45:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's true. I mean, it's funny you tell that story because that was actually one of the, the first times I was with Archbishop Tutu that

• 45:31Rich Roll?

  You were in traffic.

• 45:32Speaker 01

  You were in traffic. And I was kind of like, you know, I really, part of what I wanted to, you know, why I wanted to work with Archbishop Tutu was to really understand, you know, how does a man of this moral stature and this extraordinary spiritual development drive in traffic? You know, like, you know, like, how does that rubber hit that road? You know, and we were driving in Florida, you know, and we were, you know, kind of, somebody cut up in front of us and cut us off. And, you know, he, he kind of said, there are some amazing drivers here. You know, aren't there? And then he was like, you know, and I said to him, you know, so what's going through your head? You know, like, what are you thinking when that, when that happens?

• 46:17Speaker 01

  And he said to me, you know, like, well, you know, it's, you know, he obviously had a response like we all do of fear or anger or something that kind of boiled up in him when he was surprised and, and afraid that he was going to get into an accident. But then he said, well, I, I, I think to myself that maybe this person is rushing to the hospital because their wife is sick. You know, and then, and then like suddenly like it just shifts it totally, right?

• 46:45Rich Roll?

  Diffuses the entire thing.

• 46:46Speaker 01

  Completely. And that kind of perspective taking, that perspective shift from this person is cutting me off, that bastard, you know, they're doing this to me to, you know, maybe this isn't actually about me, you know? And, um, you know, you were coming into the office today and I was just working with this amazing neuroscience, Ethan, neuroscientist Ethan Cross. And a lot of, some of his work is on what's called self distancing, which is this ability to actually Take ourselves and move our perspective outside of ourselves, right? So, and it's incredibly powerful in the, what they find in the lab, that it really shifts the way our brains work.

• 47:30Speaker 01

  I mean, even actually, instead of saying, you know, I am doing this, it's just saying, Doug is doing this. Even that little linguistic shift lights up totally different parts of the brain. And so, when we take that kind of more objective, third-person, separate perspective and not like, this guy is running me off the road, but I wonder what's happening for this person? You know, it's shifting the way our, our brain is firing and it shifts our emotional response.

• 48:01Rich Roll?

  Right, like decentralizing your consciousness.

• 48:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:04Rich Roll?

  Into the, more of the hive mind.

• 48:05Speaker 01

  Well, certainly there's that, which is just, you know, also, I mean, obviously, self distancing, another practice of self distancing that these two are masters of, is, is going beyond your own self-interest and your own limited self-perspective. And one of the big, the first pillar of perspective is about developing in this wider perspective and being able to see life from this wider perspective and not just kind of, you know, we're kind of the stars of our own movie all the time. And, you know, like, we just can't help that. That's just the way human consciousness evolved. But when we're able to shift the camera angle and see a wider perspective outside of, you

• 48:47Speaker 01

  know, kind of what we're feeling and what's happening to us and, you know, that is kind of the beginning of joy and wisdom.

• 48:55Rich Roll?

  We all know intellectually that the road to cultivating more joy or being a more contented, purposeful, mission-driven person involves getting outside ourselves and being of service to others, right? The happiest people are the people that really have devoted themselves to a cause greater than themselves, or, or people who give of themselves freely and selflessly. But there's that gap between that understanding and the practice of that, right? Like, we kind of know that, even though we're inundated with marketing messages all day long, that the road to happiness is the new car or the... Comfy or couch, or the bigger television, or what have you.

• 49:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:37Rich Roll?

  So, you know, I'm interested in how we, how like, coming into an understanding of this isn't the same as doing it, right? So how do we bridge the gap between the knowing and the acting?

• 49:52Speaker 01

  Well, I think it's, um, it's not trying to take an, you know, a leap, an Olympic long jump leap. It's about incremental steps. And so one of the things that was so powerful for, uh, I think in the book is that they kind of break it down into kind of here's, here's the, the shift of mind when your spouse says something to you then, you know, like, um, here's the, you know, here's how we kind of think about, you know, here's how gratitude works in our life. Here's how humility works in our life. Here's how humor works in our life. You know, here's how acceptance, I mean, I, I was really powerful to, you know, the,

• 50:33Speaker 01

  the chapter on acceptance is called acceptance, you know, the only place from where real uh, change can occur. And it's this kind of fascinating distinction between acceptance and acquiescence, you know, and the distinction between, you know, how do you accept reality and still as these two incredible social activists work for something greater, as you said, or something, some change.

• 50:57Rich Roll?

  Right, yeah, you talked about, um, or it, it talks about just because you are in forgiveness doesn't mean that you are obviating the, the quest for justice.

• 51:07Speaker 01

  Right.

• 51:08Rich Roll?

  Those are two different things.

• 51:09Speaker 01

  Right, exactly.

• 51:10Rich Roll?

  And then, and, and then Archbishop Tutu talks about, he, he tells this amazing story about forgiveness that I intuit from the story, although he didn't use any names, is, was really the story of, of Amy Beal, right? And her family, who was a classmate of ours.

• 51:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:27Rich Roll?

  Can you talk about that a little bit?

• 51:29Speaker 01

  Sure, this is this incredible story of of forgiveness and a story that came to him when Amy Beal's mother came to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. And Amy Beal was a classmate of ours in college and

• 51:45Rich Roll?

  Were you were you friends with her in school?

• 51:47Speaker 01

  I knew her. You know, I would, you know, I wouldn't say that we were close. But she, after college, went off to South Africa, I think it was on a Fulbright or some kind of scholarship, that she went to work in the townships in South Africa. This was during the bad old days of apartheid. And when she was dropping off some colleagues at a township, you know, the this crowd that was incensed or angry about some injustice that they were suffering, saw her as a white woman and attacked the car and killed her. And, you know, you can only imagine the devastation and suffering of her parents. And but her parents, when

• 52:32Speaker 01

  they came to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, said that they didn't actually want, they wanted to accept the amnesty of the people who had killed, there were two guys in particular who had been responsible for her death. And they actually set up a nonprofit to help the people of the township where her daughter had been killed, and actually employed the two men who had who had killed Amy, who had been involved in the killing of Amy. So, I mean, it was this extraordinary ability to go beyond what is a very natural human instinct for revenge. And one of the fascinating things of is, understanding at

• 53:17Speaker 01

  the fundamental level, what forgiveness is, is simply giving up your justified right to revenge. Right? So, you know, kind of in all the cultures that we looked at practically, or all the cultures that the scientists have studied, they all have some form of revenge, and they all have some form of forgiveness in their culture. It's just, it seems to be this ubiquitous Human choice that we are either going to try to revenge the wrong that has been done to us, or we're going to forgive. Now, as we said, forgiving doesn't mean that you don't seek justice, right? But it does mean you don't continue that cycle of harm, right? Instead of killing the person who killed someone you love,

• 54:03Speaker 01

  you choose a different form of punishment or restorative justice, something that is, but you, you know, and so that was the story that he told of.

• 54:15Rich Roll?

  Yeah, not to mention the harm that you perpetrate on yourself by harboring that, that, you know, quest for vengeance and that resentment and that anger that gets all packed into that. For them, I would imagine that that is, that was the road to freedom for them. Like, this is the only way they're going to be able to make sense of and, and find peace with what happened with their daughter.

• 54:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, it's an extraordinary story and a kind of heroic example of forgiveness that it's hard for many people to even imagine. And, and, you know, the, you know, one thing about trauma is that it doesn't necessarily mean you forget the trauma or it goes away, or, you know, you lose someone you love, that suddenly you're gone, it's gone. But to be kind of trapped in a cycle of bitterness or anger or hatred really is, you know, that kind of statement of, you know, it's, you know, unforgiveness is kind of like, you know, drinking poison and hoping it's going to harm somebody else.

• 55:19Rich Roll?

  Right, it's a self-created prison that will permanently impede your ability to access the joy that you seek.

• 55:27Speaker 01

  Exactly, and it definitely is, you know, that unforgiveness, actually, the scientists tell us, has enormous physiological impact on our health. So it's like, we literally are poisoning ourselves at a kind of cellular, you know, hormonal, biological level when we kind of harbor that bitterness.

• 55:52Rich Roll?

  And there's so much fear. That would crop up around the idea of letting that go, right? I think it takes a tremendous act of heroism, of courage, to be able to face that and really come to a place where you want to relinquish it. But it's so powerful. I mean, that example has stood the test of time of one of the great stories in that era of truth and reconciliation.

• 56:17Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, and, you know, there, I mean, Archbishop Tutu told this incredibly moving story about having to forgive his own father when we were together in Dharamsala. And, you know, it was quite moving to hear the world's icon of forgiveness talk about his own struggles with forgiveness. Because his father would get drunk and although he was quite wonderful in other ways, would beat his mother when he was drunk. And he just, you know, told this amazing story, which I can share.

• 56:54Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I mean, it's, it's pretty, it is pretty amazing. The ending is quite poignant.

• 56:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, he was, he was talking about how he was on his way to drive his children, the many hours that they had to go to go be enrolled in school because of Bantu education and the kind of educational limitations that were put on blacks in South Africa. And he stopped off at his parents' house to see his parents. And his father wanted to talk to him and really seemed quite moved to try to connect with him. But he was just, you know, drop dead tired and just said, you know, Dad, can we, you know, can we talk tomorrow? We're on our way to Leia, his wife's house, to sleep.

• 57:42Speaker 01

  And so he just, you know, wasn't able to engage his dad. And then the next morning, he woke up and as he said, as sometimes only happens in books and movies, I got a call from my cousin who said, "Your father is dead."

• 58:01Speaker 01

  And, you know, he just, he sat there as he was telling this story, you know, as, I mean, many, you know, this story from across the decades that was so clearly still with him and this deep feeling of regret that he had not given his father that opportunity to ask for forgiveness, which is what he intuited he wanted.

• 58:24Speaker 01

  And he just, you know, he, he got quiet and we all just stopped the interviews. We just, you know, those in the film crew and everyone who's there, you know, there listening, we all just got really quiet and just were with him for like five minutes, just honoring the grief that he still felt around the loss that he still felt of having not been able to extend that forgiveness to his father.

• 58:57Rich Roll?

  And so what do you extrapolate out of that as like a teachable moment?

• 59:02Speaker 01

  Well, I think, you know, what he was suggesting is don't give up those moments of forgiveness. We don't know how many we'll have, you know, and, you know, here, this extraordinary person who's obviously been so extraordinarily forgiving in his life, and yet, you know, when we miss those opportunities, they don't often come back.

• 59:34Rich Roll?

  So this project comes together and you're vested with the responsibility of like having to kind of, you know, idea architect this whole extravaganza between these two amazing human beings. You go to Darnsala and you're kind of going to be moderating, right? Like, how do you wrap your head around approaching that responsibility?

• 59:59Speaker 01

  It was pretty daunting. There were quite a few dark nights of the soul and dark mornings of the soul.

• 1:00:07Rich Roll?

  What have I got myself into? First of all, there would be the logistical aspects of it, right? Like, I would imagine the planning of this was pretty extensive.

• 1:00:16Speaker 01

  Was huge. I mean, just, you know, incredible just to try to align these two extraordinary men's lives and calendars and get them there. And Archbishop was dealing again with his prostate cancer and, you know, had illness. We didn't actually know if he was going to be well enough to go. And, you know, so there was just a ton of logistical things. And fortunately, I was incredibly well supported and helped by amazing collaborators and colleagues who were involved in that. But I will tell you, you know, the night before the interviews

• 1:00:55Speaker 01

  began, there was definitely like, you know, that, like, when is Oprah Winfrey and Anderson Cooper gonna step in and take over?

• 1:01:04Rich Roll?

  The people that really know how to do this?

• 1:01:05Speaker 01

  And, you know, like, and there was this kind of, like, I was kind of up in the middle of the night, you know, as sometimes we are, kind of. And I, you know, really kind of heard this voice almost that said, you know, like, it's not about you. It's not about your limitations or your skills. You're here, and as Archbishop Tzu Tzu has said at other times to me, you know, sometimes you're the one who happens to be there at a moment in history. And you are called upon to do something, whether you feel capable

• 1:01:45Speaker 01

  of doing it or not. And certainly, it felt like when I was able to let go of my own, you know, ego and, you know, my own self preoccupation.

• 1:01:55Rich Roll?

  To practice a little humility.

• 1:01:56Speaker 01

  Practice a little humility and just say, you know, I'm here to ask, to be the people's ambassador, to ask these questions on behalf of people who want to know the answers. And I happened to be the person, you know, kind of in the seat, but it doesn't happen to depend, its success doesn't happen to hinge on, you know, on my limitations. And then, you know, the week just was transcendent after that. I mean, it was amazing. It just kind of flowed in this amazingly magical way. You know, I definitely, they both speak very long and we had, you know, they're used to giving sermons and darjeeling and we had a whole lot to write and I had to, you know, kind of have the fool's errand of trying to interrupt the Dalai Lama sometimes

• 1:02:41Speaker 01

  when he was on a roll. But we were, you know, we were able to just, I think, because in some ways, it wasn't just an interview, it was this kind of collaborative inquiry and dialogue. And so they were really almost asking each other questions, you know, there was, you know, this amazing moment, you know, when the, you know, we write at the beginning of the dialogue, when the Dalai Lama was, we were talking about, you know, about joy and the Dalai Lama was speaking and Arshita Tutu turns to him and he says, "Why are you not morose?" And the Dalai Lama was like, "Morse? What is morose?" So

• 1:03:22Speaker 01

  he turns to his translator to get it explained and Arshita Tutu says, "Sad. Why, you know, here you are, you've been turfed out of your country, one of the most heartbreaking, horrible things that can happen to anyone. You and your people have suffered all of this tragedy. Why are you not sad and heartbroken?" And the Dalai Lama responded by saying, "You know, I, I think about my life and I realize that actually my exile has been enriching, that it has brought me closer to truth. And if I had stayed in the gilded cage in Dharamsala,

• 1:04:07Speaker 01

  my life would have been much smaller." And it was just this amazing, talk about perspective shift of the ability, which is not to deny all the suffering that he or his people have been through, but to be able to see that even in that unbelievable adversity were gifts and... Opportunities that had allowed him to grow and become, you know, the human being that he is.

• 1:04:33Rich Roll?

  Yeah, and has given him a global platform and podium that perhaps would not have transpired had he remained in the gilded cage, you know, protected in his homeland.

• 1:04:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's funny, they were joking about their Nobel prizes and Archbishop Tutu was giggling, he said, "Yes, it's kind of perverse, isn't it? You probably wouldn't have won, you know, the Nobel Prize now, would you?" And it was just so funny to like, you have them kind of joking about these, you know, like these vaunted prizes as if they were kind of these funny little, you know, trinkets that they had gotten along the way.

• 1:05:12Rich Roll?

  And the mutual respect that they have for each other's versions of faith, right?

• 1:05:18Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:05:18Rich Roll?

  They could joke about it, but they could also be inquisitive about it, and there's a respect there, even though the form of their face, you know, differ.

• 1:05:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, that was really a wonderful part of the week together and a wonderful part of the Book of Joy, I think, is this kind of weaving together of their two traditions and the sharing of Christianity and Buddhism and the recognition that kind of at the mountaintop, you know, where, you know, all these faiths meet, you know, the vista is the same. And they, they did this extraordinary sharing of their traditions with each other, you know, the Dalai Lama taught Archbishop Tutu how he meditates.

• 1:05:59Rich Roll?

  I know, it's hilarious.

• 1:06:00Speaker 01

  Amazing. And Archbishop Tutu was, you know, giving the Dalai Lama communion, you know, but they were teasing each other and joking about it, you know, the whole time, you know, and then they were also joking about who was going to go to heaven, who was going to go to hell. And the Dalai Lama, you know, joking about being an unbeliever, so he's going to hell, but maybe Archbishop Tutu, you know, would, you know, get him in.

• 1:06:22Rich Roll?

  Incarnated or something?

• 1:06:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, would get him in. Well, there was the whole conversation of death too, which where they were joking about, you know, The, you know, when I think we were talking about death and Archbishop Tutu said, "Well, he doesn't care. He's going to be reincarnated. You know, why does he care about death?" And, you know, the Dalai Lama said, "Well, actually, with reincarnation, there's much uncertainty. You know you're going to heaven. So, you know, you're the one who's, you know, who doesn't have to worry." And so they were just teasing each other back and forth. And at one moment, at the end of our time together, when we were kind of on the last day, talking about death, you know, the Dalai Lama turned to

• 1:07:01Speaker 01

  Archbishop Tutu and he said, "You know, I have decided I'd rather go to hell." We were like, "Whoa." And he said, "There are more people there I can help."

• 1:07:15Rich Roll?

  That's a, that's a very revealing comment to his character.

• 1:07:22Speaker 01

  Yeah. And it was, you know, also this wonderful expression of everything they were saying about how that's where, you know, rather than, you know, my own happiness, my own, you know, I'm going to heaven, it's all going to be wonderful.

• 1:07:36Rich Roll?

  Me, I'm the star of my own movie, going to heaven.

• 1:07:40Speaker 01

  I'd rather actually, the greater joy would actually be, you know, even enduring hell to help others.

• 1:07:48Rich Roll?

  Right. Because if you go to heaven, then how are you going to be of service to everybody who's living happily there?

• 1:07:52Speaker 01

  Right, exactly.

• 1:07:54Rich Roll?

  That's really incredible. So, what do you, like, what is the, you know, what is the grand takeaway for you from this experience? Like, how has this experience shaped your trajectory or changed how you sort of lead your life on a daily basis? How could you not be impacted by this?

• 1:08:15Speaker 01

  Oh, well, and you already spoke to my wife. So you can, you can, you know, whether I become a better man.

• 1:08:24Rich Roll?

  She said, well, I'll tell you this, she, at the end of our pockets, I go, "So what should I, what should I talk to Doug about? What should I ask him about?" Ask him about how amazing his wife is.

• 1:08:33Speaker 01

  Well, that's easy for me to talk about. You know, smart men marry great wives. What is a happy wife, happy life? But, you know, I think what she might say and what I would say is that it has, there's just no way that you can be involved in this kind of project. And even whether it's staring into their eyes for seven days, or whether it's writing the book, or whether it's reading the book. But it's such powerful expression of such deep understandings of our lives. And so, you know, they present it in such a way that is both,

• 1:09:14Speaker 01

  as you said, simple and accessible, but so unbelievably profound and kind of transformational. That it's, you know, I mean, what it's done for me, I think I was alluding to before a little bit about how it's changed that understanding of what I'm here to do, you know, or how I'm here, what I'm up to in my life, that it's not just about kind of racking up joys and kind of avoiding sorrows. But that actually shifted my framework about, you know, it's been interesting, actually, as these amazing, the amazing joy of publishing this book and sharing it with the world, there have been some real hardships in my own life that have been going on at the same time.

• 1:09:56Speaker 01

  And, you know, I think it's allowed me to recognize that those two will end. It has allowed me to recognize that those are part of, you know, what sculpt me and the ones that I love. And that that adversity is not something, you know, to, it's not, you know, like we chase after adversity or create it purposefully. But to see it in a different framework and to understand that it is, you know, a necessary part of the human journey. You know, Archbishop Tutu talked about it as, you know, there's this strange way that in our universe, it seems. Then it's like, you know, when you're, you're an ultra runner, right?

• 1:10:41Speaker 01

  You're not going to build those muscles lying on the couch. And there's a way in which our characters and our souls work the same way. That if they're not exercised, if they're not, there's no tension, no stress, no adversity, they don't seem to grow. And actually, when I went to this incredible pediatric epidemiologist who studies in utero development, and one of the things he said when I was sharing this with him was, actually, our cells do not differentiate in utero unless there's enough biological stress. So fundamentally, we don't become who we are.

• 1:11:23Speaker 01

  We don't become the complex beings at the most cellular level without that stress and opposition. And it seems like in this universe, that and in this, you know, evolution of our species, that that seems to be the case as well, that without that adversity, without that tension, we don't grow and become who we are.

• 1:11:44Rich Roll?

  We all have adversity. We all have suffering. We don't escape the human experiment without it. And, you know, as somebody who is steeped in story and the power of storytelling, you know, I take from it the power of, the power of story, the power of owning your story and your suffering and your pain and using that as a vehicle to kind of own who you are and use that, you know, to use that and come from a place of strength to help transmute other people's pain and suffering.

• 1:12:18Speaker 01

  Well, you, you raise a very powerful point, which is the difference between whether our suffering ennobles us or embitters us. And this is this very powerful distinction that Archbishop Tutu makes, that the difference is finding meaning in that suffering. So if we don't, if our suffering seems meaningless to us, then it becomes embittering. If it become, if we can make that suffering meaningful, and one of the major ways we make that meaningful, as you just said, is taking that. Personal suffering and hardship and using it for to benefit others or to transform the suffering so that others don't have to experience it. And when we're able to do

• 1:13:02Speaker 01

  that, then the suffering becomes a nobling.

• 1:13:05Rich Roll?

  Do you think that all suffering, that that meaning can be found in all suffering?

• 1:13:09Speaker 01

  Well, I think that fundamentally, we are meaning making creatures. I think that as Ethan Cross, who was just talking about, you know, the workings of our conscious mind, we need that meaning. We go crazy without that meaning. And so we, whether it's the meaning or whether it's a meaning, we make that meaning. We interpret those events and we make a meaning out of it that is, you know, a sufficient meaning for it to work its magic on us and for us to be able to use it for the benefit of others.

• 1:13:47Rich Roll?

  Yeah, and I think it's about taking that that suffering and and understanding that there is opportunity in that.

• 1:13:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, right.

• 1:13:56Rich Roll?

  That it doesn't have to be a vehicle for victimhood or victimization self or creating a narrative around that, but as an opportunity to begin to tell a new story.

• 1:14:07Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:14:07Rich Roll?

  And create a new path.

• 1:14:09Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 1:14:10Rich Roll?

  Right. Which has been, I mean, that's a big part of my story. I think it's a part of everybody's story, honestly, to reframe it as a means for growth, which is, you know, that's what we're here to do.

• 1:14:22Speaker 01

  Right. And, you know, and I think, as you said, it's a means for our own growth. It's a mean for means for our contribution. You know, one of the deepest, you know, I was I was talking to this high school class last week, and they were having this fascinating conversation about grade inflation and, you know, and, you know, then the teacher had wanted me to speak to them a little bit about, you know, my own, this is a newspaper class. I was telling them about my own experience. But what I was moved to say was, yeah, the grades are all necessary, you know, to get where you want to go.

• 1:15:00Speaker 01

  But there is no grade for the meaning that and satisfaction that we get from feeling like we are contributing in a way that uses and we are being well-used. And I think that's what we so often lose and forget in the, you know, kind of quest for career and money and all the things that we need to support ourselves, but that ultimately it's really about being able to, as you said, take our own story, take our own, you know, experience and use that for making some contribution that is valuable to the, you know, that that brings joy to others and that is the greatest joy.

• 1:15:42Rich Roll?

  And so in taking this five-day experience with these people, not only were you vested with the responsibility of, you know, like sort of orchestrating it and moderating it, you then have to come home and synthesize it and distill it down into a book that is digestible. I mean, one of the things you did an amazing job with this book is it's incredibly readable and it's enjoyable and it's entertaining. It's not, you know, it's like, I think I went into it thinking this is going to be, you know, one of those books that you're going to have to tackle, you know, but it's like, it's a fun read. So how do you take all of this and put it in a form where people actually not only want

• 1:16:23Rich Roll?

  to read it, but are able to read it, they're able to absorb this powerful information in a very digestible way?

• 1:16:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, that was, that was the task, you know, when we were talking about being well-used by the universe, then there's, there's whether you can match up and make the grade and there's no great inflation.

• 1:16:43Rich Roll?

  Dolly Long is caught on the phone. How's the book coming? What page are you on?

• 1:16:48Speaker 01

  So, I mean, it was, you know, it did feel like an incredible privilege and a huge responsibility.

• 1:16:55Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:56Speaker 01

  And I will say, there were many times where I wondered like, am I going to be able to, I mean, transmute what was so powerful as a lived experience and bring it to life on a, on the page? And I do think that this project took every ounce of my, of whatever writing talents I may have, but also my own suffering, my own experience, every little piece, it's like, was there on the page in some way or necessary to realize this? And, you know, it's an amazing thing when you realize. You could not be who you are and doing this amazing work that you're doing in the

• 1:17:35Speaker 01

  kind of interviewing and gifting of stories and insights to people if you hadn't had the journey and the adversity that you had gone through. And then similarly, to feel like that it took everything, every ounce of crap and light and shadows of it all was necessary to make this book come to life. And it was, there's this really wild thing when you're writing, which is you're constantly trying to get to the ver similarity of life, right? You're trying to get closer and closer to what, with words, with these kind of two-dimensional

• 1:18:20Speaker 01

  things with the experience of being human. And inevitably, you could do 100 drafts and you could always get closer to true life and real life. So it was trying within the timeframe that I had to try to do my best to bring those experiences to life. Unfortunately, they're so damn funny and they are just such extraordinarily kind of radiant people that I had to really screw it up to have it not be fun to write.

• 1:18:52Rich Roll?

  You did an amazing job. Were these guys, did they give you notes? Like, how involved in the process of creating the book were they?

• 1:19:01Speaker 01

  So one of the things, I was very much helped enormously by the Dalai Lama's translator, Thapin Jhimpah, amazing former monk and Buddhist scholar and translator with the Dalai Lama. And he was enormously helpful to make sure every word was accurate and correct.

• 1:19:22Speaker 01

  You know, the Dalai Lama doesn't have the English reading skills to be able to kind of go through it and kind of word by word and, you know, in the way that Archbishop Tutu did. But Archbishop Tutu kind of went through every, you know, word of it and, you know, I was...

• 1:19:38Rich Roll?

  The hat's on the other head, right? Like, it's like they've switched your roles.

• 1:19:42Speaker 01

  Right, and, you know, he, you know, he actually was an English teacher before he became a priest, an Anglican priest. And so, you know, he would even like, give me spelling corrections and grammar corrections. And so, it was awesome. It was just, it felt, you know, just like an enchanted opportunity to be able to kind of both engage with them and also, as you were saying, to get to share this with the world. You know, it wasn't easy to get to share, you know, to figure out how to share it with the world, but that opportunity to be able to say like, here's this unbelievable historic

• 1:20:24Speaker 01

  experience that will never happen again, and to be able to share that with the world, that was incredibly joyful.

• 1:20:32Rich Roll?

  Right, and they have to be very happy with the result, I would imagine, right?

• 1:20:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I think it's, you know, been published in like 30 countries around the world and has been, you know, an international bestseller, which is really exciting. And, you know, it's really impacting people in the way I think that they had hoped. And, you know, the goal was to come for the Dalai Lama's 80th birthday and create a birthday present for the world. And I feel like they're, they feel gratified that they were able to do that.

• 1:21:07Rich Roll?

  And I know you guys filmed all of this, right? So what, where is that? Like, is that being turned into a documentary?

• 1:21:14Speaker 01

  So, we're working on creating, turning that into a documentary. We've been able to take some brief clips and share some kind of marvelous moments and that people, a lot of, over 20 million people have seen these video clips of, from Dharamsala, which are...

• 1:21:33Rich Roll?

  Are those up on, are they on YouTube? Where can you see those?

• 1:21:36Speaker 01

  So, yeah, they're, probably the easiest way is to go to Archbishop Tutu's webpage, Facebook page, and look at the videos.

• 1:21:44Rich Roll?

  I'll link it in the show notes.

• 1:21:46Speaker 01

  That'd be great, yeah. And there are just these wonderful, marvelous exchanges and you really get to see, as you said, the incredible love and the incredible mischievousness and playfulness that they have with each other.

• 1:21:59Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's really something to behold. It's really quite beautiful. And in the writing of the, I'm gonna let you go in a minute, but a couple, this is like a selfish question, but as somebody who, you have three daughters, you're married, you're running this amazingly dynamic business here, like, how are you finding time to write a book also on top of all of that? Like, how do you make all of that work?

• 1:22:22Speaker 01

  So, it did feel a little like having, you know, three jobs at the time I was writing the book, so that was definitely challenging. You know, my sense, what I would say is, having written all my life now, and, you know, it's this kind of craft that you do, obviously, and kind of on a regular basis, and then, you know, a lot of it was just, you know, kind of setting aside those times, like, writing retreats, or, you know, kind of weekends, and just saying, "I'm gonna be uninterrupted." It's, I mean, I think the most challenging thing about creativity is when it's, when we get fragmented, you know, you really have to kind of...

• 1:23:06Rich Roll?

  You need that quiet, quiet, large swathes of time, uninterrupted time.

• 1:23:11Speaker 01

  It's really, you know, you kind of go into that altered state and that experience. I also think, you know, one of the scientists I work with is the, John Barge, is the world's leading expert on the unconscious brain, and one of the things he talks about is that you can actually prime your brain to give you kind of creative, kind of guidance. And, you know, so, I wish I had known that at the time.

• 1:23:36Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I was like, "Do you have that guy's phone number? I wanna call that guy."

• 1:23:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's really amazing. He talks about how Norman Mailer would do this and would be, you know, basically say, okay, I need chapter three, Unconscious Brain, I need chapter three tomorrow, 7 a.m., you know, and, but you have to actually hold to it because if you betray your unconscious, then it won't.

• 1:23:57Rich Roll?

  You're breaking that contract.

• 1:23:59Speaker 01

  Exactly. So, so there was a lot of just, you know, just really trying to get, you know, into it and focus. And, you know, I had an amazing editor, Caroline Sutton at Avery, and that helped me enormously with the writing. I think, you know, we often think about writing as this kind of solitary craft, but actually, I think, you know, it's obviously this relational, you know, art, because you're trying to communicate something to other people. And, you know, even though we kind of imagine that somebody goes into a cabin and suddenly it's, you know, like springs out of their head, like the, you know, Athena from the head of Zeus or something, or Aphrodite or something, don't know which one it was.

• 1:24:42Speaker 01

  But, you know, you, you just assume that it's going to be there wholly baked. And in reality, it's, you know, it's a dialogue, you know, writing is a dialogue in which you're kind of trying to get closer and closer to the truth and trying to, you know, describe things more and more closely to the reality of what you want to reveal.

• 1:25:02Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that's, that seems like that's kind of a foundational core precept of your business, right?

• 1:25:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:25:07Rich Roll?

  Like that, this idea that creativity or genius is a collaborative process.

• 1:25:11Speaker 01

  Exactly. Yeah, that is the motto of our company, is that genius is a collaborative process. And I had amazing colleagues here as well, and Laura Love, and Andrew Mum, and others who were kind of, who actually were there helping with the, with the shoot and, and able to kind of give me feedback and kind of share their own perspective and their own lens on it. You know, it's like that first pillar of perspective. It's like ultimately, like, how do we get our perspective, but also get these other perspectives so we can dimensionalize it and make it 360?

• 1:25:43Rich Roll?

  So what's next? The Book of Blank. You know, he's like, I see a series coming.

• 1:25:49Speaker 01

  Well.

• 1:25:50Rich Roll?

  It'd be hard to top this one.

• 1:25:51Speaker 01

  I know, it's, you know.

• 1:25:52Rich Roll?

  What other two people are you gonna get in a room?

• 1:25:54Speaker 01

  Right, exactly. It's like, people said, you know, who are you gonna work with next? God? You know, it's like, it's harder to get that email, I think, you know, to the divine. Yeah, it's, this really did feel like a culminating experience in, in a mountaintop experience for, you know, a journey that I was on. And now I think it's a question, I think there are lots of other amazing and fascinating people who, you know, in dialogue, there's something about that dialogue together like this, you know, that, that makes something greater than each of the monologues. And, you know, it's unusual in books to experience that, you know, because usually a book is one person's expression.

• 1:26:39Speaker 01

  So that, I'm excited about doing more of that after a big breather.

• 1:26:45Rich Roll?

  Yeah, you deserve a break. Well, the book is, is wonderful. It really is a birthday gift to the world. And I appreciate the fact that you invested your heart and soul in birthing it. And it's wonderful. Everybody should check it out. It is a true gift and I commend you for writing it and bringing it to all of us, man. And it's awesome to talk to you.

• 1:27:08Speaker 01

  That's great. Well, when your old friends and classmates are proud of you, that's, that's a big joy.

• 1:27:16Rich Roll?

  So if people want to connect with you, ideaarchitects.com, is that the best way?

• 1:27:22Speaker 01

  That's my business, bookofjoy.org is the website for the book. And yeah, for, at idea architects, you know, this genius is a collaborative process. We're actually going to be. Kind of open sourcing our work in a way to share it with the world more directly. So if people are interested in hearing about these projects early on or getting early access to it, we crowdsourced a thousand questions for the Dalai Lama and Tutu. So we'll be doing more kinds of activities like that where people get to actually be engaged with the visionaries that we get to work with.

• 1:27:56Rich Roll?

  Cool. And are you doing public speaking? You taking the show on the road a little bit?

• 1:28:01Speaker 01

  I have been called on, just because the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Tutu are so busy and because of the arch's help, to kind of step into their very big shoes to kind of talk about the book. But I think it's back to the grindstone now. It's creating more, hopefully, works that create a wiser, healthier, more just world.

• 1:28:27Rich Roll?

  Awesome, man. Great talking to you.

• 1:28:29Speaker 01

  You too, Rich.

• 1:28:30Rich Roll?

  All right. Take care.

• 1:28:32Speaker 01

  Peace.

• 1:28:33Rich Roll?

  Lads.

• 1:28:45Rich Roll?

  All right, we did it. Beautiful. Really beautiful. Hope you guys enjoyed that. I thought it was amazing. You know what's really cool? Doug is actually thinking about starting his own podcast. We talked about it right after we wrapped this conversation. I actually talked to him about it a little bit more yesterday, and I really hope he does. He has the great fortune of coming across some truly remarkable people with whom he is in contact over books and stuff like that. And I just think it would be a gift to the world if he could find a way to capture those conversations and share them. So if you are digging on Doug and you think that him doing a podcast is something you would be interested in, go to his website, ideaarchitects.com, maybe shoot him a message and let him know.

• 1:29:28Rich Roll?

  And if you're crushing on Doug beyond that and you want to cultivate a little bit more joy in your life, of course, pick up the Book of Joy. And again, you can learn more about Doug at ideaarchitects.com as well as by checking out the show notes on the episode page at richroll.com. We put together a pretty lengthy, comprehensive list of resources and hyperlinks to kind of more fully flesh out what we talked about today and kind of complete the edification cycle of this podcast experience. If you would like to receive a free weekly email from me, I send something out every Thursday called Roll Call. It's basically an itemization of five or six things that I came across over the course of the week that intrigued me that I

• 1:30:13Rich Roll?

  thought were interesting that I felt, I don't know, compelled to share with you guys. So it's generally like a documentary I watched, an article I read, a book that I'm reading, a podcast that I listen to, a new product that I'm enjoying. Every week it's a little bit different. I'm never going to spam you. This is not about affiliate links. I'm not even allowed to use affiliate links. I don't do that. I'm not trying to make any money here. Just sharing some good content. No spam whatsoever. Quite often, some of these things are not things I share on Facebook or social media. So if you want in, you can subscribe on my website. There's plenty of places to just input your email address and join the tribe. And I look forward to communicating with you

• 1:30:53Rich Roll?

  guys that way as well. If you want to support my work, there's a couple easy ways to do it. Perhaps the most impactful, powerful way is just to share it with your friends. Word of mouth around the water cooler, on social media, all that good stuff. Thank you so much to everybody who has done that. And beyond that, you can leave a review on iTunes. That helps us out a lot. While you're at it, click that subscribe button on iTunes. And next time you are going to buy something on Amazon, click through the banner ad on my website and Amazon commissions us. Doesn't cost you anything extra, but that is a huge benefit to us. And also, mad love to everybody who has gone the extra mile to support my work on Patreon. Just warms my heart. And I'm

• 1:31:36Rich Roll?

  trying to think of new and interesting ways to cultivate additional community with the Patreon. People, perhaps a monthly video call or something like that. I don't know. I'm thinking about it. If you have ideas, you can ping me on Twitter or Facebook, because I really would like to honor you guys a little bit more than I have to date. For all your Plant Power merch and schwag needs, go to richroll.com. Got signed copies of my memoir, Finding Ultra. If you guys read my memoir, Finding Ultra, it's always weird to me that there are people that listen to the podcast who haven't read my book, but I know there's plenty of you out there, so check it out. It's in paperback now. It's cheap. I'm really proud of that book. It tells my whole story. So you can find that on my website. You can get a signed

• 1:32:21Rich Roll?

  copy. I'll sign it with not just my name, but I'll write on it, you know, your name and a personal note, all that good stuff. We also do this with the Plant Power Way. And also, we have cool t-shirts and tech tees and all kinds of other fun stuff on my website. I want to thank today's sponsors, harrys.com, a superior shave at an affordable price. Friends of the Rich Roll Podcast can visit harrys.com/roll to redeem your free trial set, which comes with a razor, five-blade cartridge, shaving gel, and post-shave gel. All you gotta do is pay shipping. It's an incredible deal. And Bowlin Branch, the first honest and transparent bedding company that only uses sustainable and responsible methods

• 1:33:01Rich Roll?

  of sourcing and manufacturing. Go to bowlinbranch.com today for $50 off your first set of sheets by typing in the promo code RICHROLL. And I want to thank everybody who helped put on the show today. Jason Camiolo, my trusted audio engineer and sort of audio producer who compiles the whole show, edits it all together, does a beautiful job. Shawn Patterson for all his wizardry on graphics. We're really stepping up our graphics game. He's creating really cool motion graphics for Instagram. Follow me on Instagram, at Rich Roll, and you can see some of that good stuff in the stories that we're doing, which is really fun. Chris Swan for additional production assistance and all the hard work that he puts into helping compile the show notes and creating kind of the architecture and

• 1:33:46Rich Roll?

  structure on the website for the episode. And theme music by Analema. That's it, you guys. Thanks for the love. Have a great week, everybody. And I think I'm going to do a midweek AMA with Julie this week, so look forward to that in a couple of days, and I'll see you guys soon. Peace.