How To Be A Little Bit Better Tomorrow Than You Are Today — Sydney Q&A

This mid-week episode of the podcast is a fun, dynamic Q&A session from our recent Plantpower Way event at Paddington Town Hall in Sydney, Australia. Some of the topics covered include: * raising vegan kids * incorporating podcast guest wisdom into your life * becoming your own self-sustaining ecosystem * carving a career out of your passion * pushing through when discipline wavers * the benefits of mutual partner support * effective advocacy methods I hope you enjoy the offering. #StayJedi! 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?

  Eating well rarely falls apart because of one big failure. It's the daily question that wears you down, like, what am I actually going to make tonight? What's in the fridge? And it's exactly why we built the Plant Power Meal Planner. It's a personalized, plant-based meal planning program that matches you with recipes based on your taste, your allergies, your cooking skills, and how much time you actually have. You build, through this program, a balanced, nutrient-dense plan for your entire household in a few minutes. Then it generates a grocery list for you with one click that plugs right into our delivery partners. All the recipes in the program are built by dietitians with culinary training. Plus, you get your own food coach to help you problem-solve along the way.

• 0:44Rich Roll?

  It's kind of an amazing thing. For listeners of the show, all you special people, we're offering an exclusive $20 off an annual subscription right now. To get it, go to meals.richroll.com, take your quick personalization quiz, and enter promo code RICHROLL20 at checkout. We're aspiring to be better, and that has to come with incremental behavioral change. So whether that applies to the food that's on your plate, or the consumer products that you choose to put your dollar towards, the idea is to be more mindful, to do a little bit better tomorrow than you did today, to be that agent of change, with the understanding

• 1:26Rich Roll?

  that I'm not perfect, and ultimately, I have to be okay with that. But you have to take care of yourself first, because you can't tend to others or to the world unless you're taking care of yourself first.

• 1:51Rich Roll?

  Hey everybody. How you guys doing? What's happening? My name is Rich Roll. I am your host. Welcome to my podcast. Happy to be coming at you with another special midweek edition of the show. I'm here in New York City right now. What am I doing here? Well, I spoke at Goldman Sachs yesterday in front of a bunch of hedge fund managers. That was really quite interesting and kind of amazing. It was a different crowd for me, of course, but it was a fantastic opportunity to share my story and talk about food systems and the impact of animal agriculture on our environment and on personal health and on global health. It went well. It was really well received and I consider it to be an honor anytime I'm asked to get up and talk in front of people.

• 2:36Rich Roll?

  The opportunity to disrupt from within, right? I also did a phenomenal podcast with Bruce Friedrich from the Good Food Institute, all about the future of food. That's going to be coming to you guys soon. I was a guest today on Dan Harris's podcast, 10% Happier. I love that guy. We had a really good time, so I'll share that with you guys when that goes live. I had dinner with podcast favorite John Joseph. Can't come to New York City without seeing that guy. He's coming to LA next week, so I'm going to do another podcast with him. I know there's a lot of anticipation about hearing the two of us get together again. And what can I say? A bunch of meetings. It's been really great. I love the energy here. It's freezing, though. I came here straight from Australia.

• 3:18Rich Roll?

  I didn't bring any cold weather clothes, so that's been interesting, but it's been great. I love coming here. And speaking of Australia, as many of you guys know, we were recently down under over the last two weeks. And when we were there, we did two amazing events, both in Sydney and Melbourne. We had great audiences of about 500 each in attendance, and it was really wonderful. And during the Sydney event, Julie and I had a really dynamic, fun Q and A session. And I just thought that it was something that would be worthy of sharing on the podcast with you guys. So that's what this episode is all about. I'm going to share that Q and A session with you. But before we get into that, a couple of quick announcements.

• 4:03Rich Roll?

  If you'd like to support this show and my work, there's a couple of ways to do that. The most effective and easiest way to do it is to just share it with your friends or on social media, around the water cooler, at the dinner table, what have you. You can leave a review on iTunes and while you're at it, click that subscribe button. If you're going to buy something on Amazon, click through the Amazon banner ad at ritual.com or just type in ritual.com/Amazon. It doesn't cost you anything extra, but they kick us some commission change and that really does support us tremendously. And you can also support my work on Patreon and I just want to thank everybody who has taken that extra step to support what I do financially. That means a tremendous amount to me.

• 4:46Rich Roll?

  Okay, everybody, we'll be back in a couple of secs, but first. Okay, so let's just get into it. This is Julie and I, live on stage from Paddington Town Hall in Sydney, Australia. And followed by, at the very end, a live rendition by Julie, backed by McClay Harriet, who is our friend and the photographer responsible for all the amazing lifestyle images in our cookbook, The Plant Power Way, of Julie's song, "In the Sun." So, I hope you guys enjoy it.

• 5:21Speaker 01

  You in the sun, in the morning.

• 5:34Rich Roll?

  Thanks you guys for coming out. I appreciate it very much. Yeah. What? Come closer? It's too far away. I do what she tells me. That's... All right, so we thought that we would open it up to questions and we have a roving microphone around here, so... We hear? Oh. No, hello? Yeah, he's back there though. She's raising her hand.

• 6:02Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 6:02Rich Roll?

  Ah, oh, there we are, right here. Yes, please. What's your name?

• 6:06Speaker 02

  Carrie.

• 6:06Rich Roll?

  Hi, Carrie.

• 6:08Speaker 02

  You can blame my friend for bringing me here. Um, I've really enjoyed tonight. I have a two-part question. Are your children on a plant-based diet? And how do you deal with other people's constant curiosity if they are on a plant-based diet?

• 6:28Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm. Do you want to start with that? Or would you want me to take it?

• 6:32Speaker 03

  Yeah, I didn't understand the second part of the question. How do we deal with?

• 6:35Speaker 02

  Well, with people's...

• 6:36Speaker 03

  You mean being weird?

• 6:38Speaker 02

  I'll be straight. How do you deal with people's... No, not weird at all, but how do you deal with people's negativity? Why aren't you giving your children meat? You're killing them and blah, blah, blah.

• 6:47Speaker 03

  Okay. Uh, yes.

• 6:48Rich Roll?

  The baby killer thing.

• 6:50Speaker 03

  The baby killer.

• 6:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 6:51Speaker 03

  The cartoon. All of our children are vegan, yes. Um, and, uh, it's been a... You know, it's been a journey for all of us. We didn't start off... We weren't born... We didn't give birth to a vegan family. Like, that's not exactly how it happened. So, just a, you know, quick summary is I was raised on game meat in Alaska. My dad was a hunter, so I had that experience. And then, um, I... As you guys heard in Rich's talk, I healed myself of a cyst in my neck using Ayurveda, which is primarily a plant-based diet and some very potent herbs that were very aromatic. Um, but I was, you know, I was a very healthy vegetarian.

• 7:33Speaker 03

  Rich was eating very unhealthy processed foods. One of our sons has always been naturally vegetarian, and the other son was eating what we used to call clean meat. And, um, then our little girls, which, you know, my boys are a different dad. It's a different marriage. So, they used to go halftime with their dad, and he would try to shove meat in them, and then I would get them back. So, we had that thing. And then Rich and I had... Have two little girls, um, that I... That we had together, and they have always been vegetarian. Um, and they became vegan later, after Rich went vegan. And really, the way that we did it is we've allowed each family member their own journey.

• 8:15Speaker 03

  And we really are careful to be respectful and, uh, to cultivate unconditional love in our kitchen. I think if you brought violence into your kitchen, you've... You've missed. And we have to be very careful as parents that we don't start creating eating disorders in our children because we're so freaked out about everything they're eating. So we're kind of loose, we kind of flow, but I make a lot of amazing vegan meals. We let everybody have their own journey. As early as a month ago, my nine-year-old wanted to try an egg, and I said, "Fine, order the egg." She tried it, she didn't like it, but it's her experience. She owns that experience. So if we go to a birthday party and our kids want to have a piece of pizza, we let them

• 9:00Speaker 03

  have that autonomous decision, what they do. And then later, when they don't feel good, or they have a stomach ache, or they remember the environmental consequences and they talk about it, we can retrace that and give them that experience so that they imbibe it.

• 9:17Rich Roll?

  So in other words, we try to not create rigidity around rules about what you can and can't do, because when you do that, you plant a seed for a later rebellion, especially with a young child who then becomes a teenager and there's something to resist against, right? So instead of that, like Julie said, it's about autonomy, but it's also about trying to create and foster and cultivate a meaningful emotional connection to not just food, but where food comes from, why we're eating certain foods and not other foods. So everything is sort of an evolving, organic, to use a pun, food homeschooling experience,

• 10:01Rich Roll?

  from going to the supermarket, to the farmer's market, to why we're choosing this food and not that food. We bring the kids into every aspect of that equation, and then when we get home, the kids unpack the groceries. We involve them at a very young age in the preparation, especially of the evening meal. So early on, they're learning how to make recipes. And when a young child knows how to make a healthy recipe, there is a sense of agency that comes with that, that creates that bond and that emotional connection. Then they want to make it, they're proud of it, there's a self-esteem that comes with that. My feeling is that, and Julie's feeling is that, that creates patterning for long-term success. So it's not about what they're doing in the short term.

• 10:46Rich Roll?

  They want to experiment with an egg or try the chocolate cake at the birthday party. It's what are they doing 20 years from now? Right? What is the long-term goal? And trying to set them up for that kind of success and understanding that progress, in order to progress appropriately and responsibly, you have to forsake this idea of perfection. Like, you're gonna have this perfect child that's gonna like eat vegan 100% of the time. I don't know if that exists in Planet Earth. Maybe it does, but it hasn't been our experience. So that's kind of in a nutshell how we do it. And then, how do you address the baby killer thing?

• 11:21Speaker 03

  Well, I just wanna, I wanna wrap that up also. The other thing that I think is really powerful, and it's been kind of my process, is I don't get emotionally involved in my children's likes and dislikes. Like, if my child shows up and I've, you know, I've prepared some Brussels sprouts and she says, "Mom, I hate Brussels sprouts." I look at her and I go, "Yeah, I get it." Like, "Okay, I hear you." And then the next day, there'll be Brussels sprouts on the table. I don't, and I'm not being disrespectful, but I just, I'm listening to her, but I'm not gonna change the way that I'm cooking in the kitchen because she doesn't like something. So what I do is I keep making lots of varieties of whole foods, whole plant-based foods.

• 12:04Speaker 03

  And so what happens is the tribe is just around the experience and they're all grabbing whatever, and then in a month, she has a full plate of Brussels sprouts and she's eating it. So, again, we have a lot of this emotional battle around food, and if you just, you just remain neutral and don't get involved in it, it can be very, very powerful. And I just feel, again, you know, we have to allow people their own experience, including our children, and finding their own way. And all of our kids are vegan by choice. They all cook. My 13-year-old, who is very sassy and 13-ish, much to my really shock, she chose as her

• 12:44Speaker 03

  semester project, plant-based Italian cuisine, and she created some pretty amazing recipes. So even if you think they're rebelling or they're not seeing, you know, it's a whole lifestyle. So how do we address the negative people? Hmm.

• 13:00Rich Roll?

  I would say that... That experience is an opportunity for you to reflect on your commitment to your own personal instinct and mission, right? It's like a mirror for how strongly you feel about what you're doing. It's like a gut check on that, because if somebody's expressing displeasure or judgment at some choice that you're making, that really speaks to them rather than you, right? So, how you take that, I think, is a reflection upon where you're at with yourself, with the behaviors that you're engaging in. And, you know, like I said in my talk, I was on the receiving end of a fair amount of that throughout my journey.

• 13:42Rich Roll?

  And then Julie kind of alluded to some struggles and challenges that we had as a family, and we were on the receiving end of a lot of judgment from external circumstances. And I think that that ultimately brought us closer together as a couple and as a family, because we were so committed to this vision and this journey that we were on. But because we shared that, we were able to have that experience. If you're not certain, it could tear you apart, just as equally, I think. So it's a very powerful, it's a very powerful thing. And I think in order to properly weather it, you have to really know what you're doing and believe in what you're doing and be in a place where you've done enough internal work that you can really trust your instincts about this journey that you're on.

• 14:26Speaker 03

  Yeah, and I think--

• 14:27Rich Roll?

  I don't know if that answers the question.

• 14:29Speaker 03

  I think, just to add to Rich, I think, again, we have to remember that our power as beings is in neutral loving compassion. And everybody has their moment. You know, it's not a battle, and it's, for me, it's not an ism. You know, once you've made it an ism, you've created a set of rules that leave someone on the outside. So this is your process of your life, and you can listen to other people's experience, just like I listen to my daughter tell me she hates Brussels sprouts, and not get involved emotionally and scream back at her, "Yes, Brussels sprouts are awesome." So just be in your own process, create a lot of healthy, you know, choices, and shine. Be a shining example.

• 15:12Speaker 03

  Show up at your friends with amazing dishes that you make. Blow their minds. And don't get caught up if they're still eating meat, or if they eat something that you don't eat. You know, you just navigate your way around it. Respectfully and, you know, honor everybody in their own journey.

• 15:29Rich Roll?

  Imagine if you were only eating potatoes.

• 15:31Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 15:32Rich Roll?

  What kind of judgment would you be receiving?

• 15:34Speaker 03

  What kind of flack does he get?

• 15:37Speaker 02

  In a Greek family, not good. Thank you, you did answer it, thank you.

• 15:42Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 15:43Speaker 04

  Hey, hey guys, how's it going?

• 15:44Speaker 02

  Hi.

• 15:45Rich Roll?

  Here we are, there we go.

• 15:46Speaker 04

  And my question is also in two parts, and it's to Rich primarily. And I listen to your podcast, and obviously back when you were a lawyer and you were quite overweight before you got into exercise. Who is the, who's kind of the one person that you never thought you'd have on the podcast? Is the first one. And then the second part is, where do you get your protein? No, it's not. And the second part is, when was the kind of tipping point? Obviously, you've built the podcast up over three or four years. When was the kind of tipping point when you went, oh, this is kind of like a big thing, it's a big deal?

• 16:18Rich Roll?

  Cool, thanks for your question. Well, who did I never think that I would ever be able to have on the podcast? That answer is obvious, Spud Fit, of course, right?

• 16:32Rich Roll?

  I don't know, it's a good question. I've had the opportunity to interview and spend time with some pretty remarkable people. I've joked about this before, but the podcast is like the ultimate scam, because it gives you this excuse to call up and pester amazing people and convince them to sit down in front of you and you can hold them hostage for a long period of time and ask them questions, and they willingly oblige, it's unbelievable. So yeah, I've had the opportunity to interview like Arianna Huffington and Steve Case, the founder of AOL, and like Biz Stone, the co-founder of Twitter, like people that have really shaped culture in a very profound way. And those are meaningful experiences to me,

• 17:14Rich Roll?

  but perhaps not the most meaningful of all the guests that I've had. You know, I really, the people that I resonate with the most and have meant the most to me to have on are... The anonymous people that are doing amazing things, you know, not necessarily in the public eye. You know, people like Josh LaJohnnie, who I've had on, and David Carter, who have, you know, basically overcome incredible obstacles to do interesting things for no other reason that they made a commitment to themselves. And I take a lot of joy in being able to put a microphone in front of somebody like

• 17:50Rich Roll?

  that and allow them to share their, you know, their personal story with a broader audience. So hopefully that answers your question. In terms of the second part, there was no tipping point, really. It was really just a very slow, organic growth curve. There wasn't like one interview that I had that like blew it out and put it on the map in any big way. And I think it's kind of a beautiful example of the same approach that I've applied to everything from training for the races that I've done, or, you know, whatever I've tried to achieve in my life. It's like just consistently showing up and putting in the work, you know, and divorcing

• 18:32Rich Roll?

  yourself or removing your emotional attachment to the result and just continuing to show up, to show up, to show up. Consistency carries the day. And, you know, I'm very proud of the fact that over four and a half years of doing the podcast, like I've never missed a week. Like I've always been able to put up a show. They're not always going to be the best shows or whatever. Sometimes it's all over the map, but like continuing to show up, to show up, to show up. And I really believe that that is a huge aspect of the success equation for the program. So, yes. Who's got the mic? There we are.

• 19:06Speaker 05

  Firstly, thanks a lot, both of you, for just like, you know, opening up the door to your lives. And I know I'm probably speaking for everyone in the room, when truly inspiring to just stand here and like listen to the story. And obviously the podcasts are amazing, so please never stop.

• 19:26Rich Roll?

  I'm gonna have to stop at some point.

• 19:27Speaker 05

  Nah, man, keep it going. My question is, you know, with the topics that you raise, Rich, in your podcasts, you know, some of them are pretty hard hitting on a global standpoint, as well as when you touch on, I guess, specifically in the US. How do you, you know, and you've obviously done your homework when, before each podcast because your line of questioning is quite, you know, you take them on a journey. How do you not get severely emotionally attached to the content that you deliver? Because, you know, the last one, what the hell? These guys are doing some amazing things. How do you just not drop everything and say, I gotta do something more than what I'm doing because these are serious issues?

• 20:09Speaker 05

  Or, you know, the clothing industry and just all these things that are like global massive issues. How do you, how's that not get to you? And then, second question, sorry for the two-parters, but what's the, what's the next step for both of you? Because like, you have so many arms of your kind of like progression, you know, with the retreats and the books and the podcasts, what's next?

• 20:33Rich Roll?

  Yeah, thanks for your question. I do get emotionally involved and attached to the guests that I have on. That's like my criteria for having them on in the first place. Like, I'm not interested in having somebody come on and share some amazing message and being immunized emotionally from that or behaviorally. Like, I want, I'm doing it because I want to grow and I'm interested in what they have to say and I want to change and I want to be an agent of that change. So, when I'm looking for guests to have on the show, I, I need to, they need to like emotionally, you know, I need to be able to emotionally connect with that. Otherwise, it doesn't work for me and it's not going to be a good show anyway. But I think what you're getting at is that... There has to be a level of self-care.

• 21:18Rich Roll?

  You know, you can't just, "Oh, my God, you know, what are you gonna do? Throw up your hands like, 'I can't wear these clothes anymore, and I can't eat this food, and I can't do this, and I can't do that.'" And there's a paralysis that can, like, descend upon you, where you feel like everything's fucked and like, "What's the use?" So I always kind of think to something Gene Bauer said to me, Gene Bauer being the founder of Farm Sanctuary. He said, you know, he was talking about veganism, but he was saying it's aspirational. And I think that's applicable to any kind of lifestyle change that you're trying to make. Like, we're aspiring to be better, and that has to come with incremental behavioral change. So whether that applies to the food that's on your plate

• 22:00Rich Roll?

  or the, you know, the consumer products that you choose to, you know, put your dollar towards, the idea is to be more mindful, to do a little bit better tomorrow than you did today, to be that agent of change. And I try to incorporate those ideas and practices into my life and use the podcast to activate as many people as I can, with the understanding that I'm not perfect and, you know, I'm not gonna be able to, you know, just live like a monk in the world and that the podcast is going to reach however many people it's gonna reach and it's gonna activate however many people that it's gonna activate. And ultimately, I have to be okay with that, right? You have to take care of yourself first

• 22:44Rich Roll?

  because you can't tend to others or to the world unless you're taking care of yourself first. So that's the first part of the question. The second part, where are we headed? What are we doing? I don't know, we're here today, man. That's what's happening, that's what's up, you know? You know, I don't have like a five-year plan or a 10-year plan. I certainly have ideas that I would like to see fully expressed. I'm working on a new book, and there's things like that. But whether it's public speaking or the podcast or, you know, whatever it is, books, cookbooks, music, they're all just different distribution platforms and mechanisms to try to put a healthy message out into the world.

• 23:26Rich Roll?

  So my only interest is being able to continue to do what we do and to be of maximum service to the frequency of people like yourselves that show up and are vibrating on this wavelength.

• 23:40Speaker 03

  Yeah, and if I can just add, I have a plant-based cheese book that's being released in June. It comes out on June 13th. I'm extremely proud of it. It's called This Cheese Is Nuts. And it was named by our friends, filmmakers Zoe Lister-Jones and Daryl Ween. Daryl actually named it. He actually came to my house and was tasting my cheese and he was like, Julie, do you have a title? He's like, this cheese is nuts. So, anyway, I'm super excited about that. We did a really cool shoot at Farm Sanctuary. McClay shot some incredible shots with me with Gene Bowers' rescue cows, the dairy cows. And so I hope you guys will check that out. And then I'm also very pleased to announce that we also created the follow-up

• 24:23Speaker 03

  to the Plant Power Way, which is coming out in April 2018. It's Plant Power Italia, and it's an extraordinary collection of amazing food. So, still trying to create really great, easy recipes to support all of us in making this very needed transformation. And actually, this is a moment, we had books that are stuck in customs, unfortunately, the Plant Power Way. And Andrew wanted me to mention that The New Normal is actually going to sell them through their website, so they'll be here in Australia. So, he'll help you figure that out if you guys would like to get a book and don't have it. We apologize if that happened. All right.

• 25:06Speaker 06

  You've actually just answered one of my questions I was going to ask. But firstly, I'd like to say it's a privilege to have you guys here tonight. And if you'd love to stay, I'm sure everyone in the room would be happy for you to. But Rich, two-part question. Why? It seems like it's the theme. What's up with the two-part?

• 25:21Speaker 03

  I like how you guys are so efficient.

• 25:23Speaker 06

  I'm going to wrap this up tightly. You've obviously shared your experience along your journey and the challenges around the financial hardship you faced as a family. What was the turning point that you realized that you could make this into a business to, obviously, provide for your family? But more importantly, after that, when was the actual turning point that you realized it was more than that and was a community?

• 25:47Rich Roll?

  Great question. I don't know how to answer that, or whether I have a satisfying answer for that. I think the turning point in terms of knowing that, like, we could make a living doing this? Is that, yeah?

• 26:03Speaker 03

  That we weren't completely crazy?

• 26:04Rich Roll?

  Yeah. I remember, they're kind of one in the same. I remember after doing, it was after Ultraman 2009, I think, and Sanjay Gupta from CNN had taken an interest in my story. And he was like, reading my blog, and I found out about this, which was like, blowing my mind. And the United States is like, a major, like, news correspondent guy on television. And he wanted to come out to our house and interview, and interview me, which was just shocking and astounding to me. So, we're weathering this crazy, sort of, financial meltdown that we were dealing with. And we were having trouble, like, paying our utility bills.

• 26:47Rich Roll?

  And I remember Julie wanted to make this beautiful lunch for him, like, she wanted him to like our food and all this sort of stuff. And he was coming out, and she tells this story where she was like, ready to turn the burner on, on the stove, and like, praying that the gas was gonna work. Like, this is, like, we're gonna, it was like, this crazy moment of walking the razor's edge, where we were either gonna, like, realize all our dreams, and like, what's happening tonight could be a possibility for us, or we were just gonna wither on the vine and die. Like, it was gonna go either way. Luckily, the gas worked. We were able to make this lunch for Sanjay Gupta, and we had this beautiful experience. But, in the moment after that happened, and before it aired, we thought, you know, we're

• 27:29Rich Roll?

  gonna be on CNN, like, we should be able to, probably gonna be a lot of people coming to our website, so maybe we should have, like, something we can offer people. So, I literally didn't sleep for two days, and created this, like, PDF cookbook with Julie's recipes. I'm like, a hack on Photoshop, but I knew enough to, like, get in trouble and put something together that we could at least make available to people. And we put up this little PDF cookbook for $9, and it was live on the site when the thing aired. And we got inundated with... Traffic and emails. And I remember getting so many emails in the wake of that story airing. It was like, they actually, CNN let me write a guest blog post for CNN. And it was also, it was on the homepage of CNN that day because it was getting so much traffic.

• 28:12Rich Roll?

  And so, our whole world like kind of exploded. And I was getting so many emails from people sharing the intimate details of their own personal struggles and stories. And I remember being in the car with Julie and we were driving down the street and I was on my phone and I was reading her some of these and I just started crying. Like, I couldn't believe that this sort of journey that we were on had suddenly become public and that it was connecting with people in a certain way. And it was, it was very overwhelming. But it was a moment in which I realized like, maybe there's a way for us to, you know, carry this message and, and find a way to do it where we can sustain our family at the same time. And that little PDF that we created ended up like paying our bills for two years or something like that.

• 28:56Rich Roll?

  So, those kind of two things happened at the same time.

• 29:07Speaker 03

  Yeah, and also, on that same subject is, I mean, we had many moments and I want to say that it seemed like when we were in our darkest moment, because it, you know, was a trickle. It didn't like solve everything, but it would be a trickle, right? And then we were still in our complete destruction. So, what would happen is we would be like breakdown in Starbucks crying, like in public from the pressure. And then, one of you guys would email us and you would be like, "You changed my life. Like, you helped me." And, and you guys don't know it, but at that moment, like God sent you to keep us going. Because it was so hard. And we didn't know.

• 29:52Speaker 03

  We were right on this razor's edge. We were like, "We're either going to realize all our dreams or we're going to be completely annihilated." And it was right down the middle. There was no, there was no clear either way. And it was beautiful because PETA was one of the first organizations around this time to take interest in Rich. And they invited him to give an award away at their like Academy Awards in LA. And he was going to share the stage with Alec Baldwin. We had no money and richest, none of richest suits from when he was a lawyer fit him. They were like three sizes too big. And I tried, I called a friend of mine, Ling, who owns Planet Blue in California,

• 30:34Speaker 03

  and I convinced her to like loan me a dress from the store that I would return. And I tried to fake like I was a stylist to get him a suit and no one would give me a suit. And we got a check for 650 bucks from Vitamix or something like that. And we spent the entire 650 bucks to get him a proper suit to stand on the stage. It was just these kind of crazy, you know, completely illogical things going on. It was the juxtaposition of having no gas, you know, no utilities and seeing CNN cameras walking up. You know, like most of the time we were just like, shit.

• 31:20Rich Roll?

  We sound so irresponsible.

• 31:25Rich Roll?

  Let's see.

• 31:26Speaker 07

  Hi, thank you for your openness and honesty, especially today as well. Two parts.

• 31:35Speaker 07

  Firstly is, especially on the vegan diet, you find that sometimes you'll have a hell of a lot of energy and you can do whatever you want to do. And sometimes you find as though maybe it's pulling back a little bit or you don't quite have that same pull towards everything which you need to get through to. So the first part of it is how do you push through those times and keep, keep on a particular regimen or keep yourself active when it's, when it slows down? Because naturally you've had to have done that as an endurance athlete. And the second aspect is with regards to doing exercise together, because obviously you're at two very different fitness levels. How do you keep encouraging each other to, to sort of push each other to where your

• 32:18Speaker 07

  own limits are as to, as opposed to where the higher one is, so to speak? Thank you.

• 32:26Rich Roll?

  Thank you for your question. So the first part, I'm trying to wrap my head around it. So the idea that, well, first of all, you're presupposing that there are moments where the plant-based diet doesn't work for me and I'm having to find a way through it.

• 32:39Speaker 07

  Not so much for you, but for myself.

• 32:41Rich Roll?

  Oh, for yourself. I see. So you're having issues where you're feeling like it's not working for you? Or it's not, you're not getting the right energy from it?

• 32:50Speaker 07

  Not necessarily. But from, whether it's from the plant-based diet, or if it's from, if it's from sleep patterns, or if it's from the type of exercise I'm doing, whatever it is. Have you run into those same type of, same type of roadblocks? Or what have you tried to amend? Or what have you tried to adjust for yourself?

• 33:08Rich Roll?

  Okay. Yeah, so, well, first, no, I'm super duper all the time. 100% of the time. It's awesome. 24 hours a day.

• 33:16Speaker 07

  Thanks. Thanks, Paul.

• 33:19Rich Roll?

  Julie calls those people super dupers. You know, when you, like, you go to a conference, "Hi, I'm Jake. I'm good. I'm great. How are you?" You know? I don't trust those people.

• 33:30Rich Roll?

  They're hiding something.

• 33:33Rich Roll?

  Yeah, of course, I have up and down days. I'm very human. I have cravings. I'm, you know, a recovering alcoholic. That makes me difficult to live with. Ask her.

• 33:45Rich Roll?

  You know, my... But word that... What kind of face? Yeah, I struggle with irritability and discontentment and resentment and fatigue and, you know, all the anxiety, like, all the kinds of things that, you know, I think we all share as, as human beings. For me, a lot of it is rooted in, in 12-step, things I've learned in recovery. When I'm not taking care of myself, you know, spiritually, mentally, emotionally, or physically, I get restless, irritable, and discontent. I'm prone to snap at people and make improper decisions and be reactive. And amazingly, the cure for most of that is eating a decent meal, or getting a good night's sleep, or, you know, picking up the phone and getting out of your own head and

• 34:30Rich Roll?

  your own problem and being of service to somebody else, practicing gratitude in some respect. Or another, it's annoying that the cure for these is always the same. I keep looking for the velvet rope in the VIP room that I can walk into and graduate from my humanity, but it always, I always go back to those things. And, and you know, I don't do any of that perfectly by any stretch of the imagination. Do you have anything to add to that?

• 34:58Speaker 03

  That was very well said.

• 35:00Rich Roll?

  Was it? The part about me being difficult to live with?

• 35:03Speaker 03

  Yes. I guess you were asking, how do we, how do we train together? Or how do we, oh, okay, so we don't train together at all? Ever.

• 35:13Rich Roll?

  Disaster.

• 35:14Speaker 03

  I am a completely different being. We have two completely opposite.

• 35:18Rich Roll?

  I can't even imagine you running.

• 35:19Speaker 03

  No, I, actually.

• 35:21Rich Roll?

  What would that look like?

• 35:22Speaker 03

  I threatened once. I was like, I think I'm gonna start riding my bike. And he was like, cause you know, if there's two cyclists in one family, that can be problematic. But, no, I only practice yoga, asana practice and different kinds of yoga practices. That's just my, that's my physical movement of choice. And Rich is beautifully supported in extreme athletics. It's just really, really good for him. Some of my friends will say to me, you know, you must be like a, you know, athletic widow or something, cause he trains so much. But I get this really beautiful quality of human being when he's completely done all of that.

• 36:05Speaker 03

  And so, yeah, we never, ever exercise together.

• 36:08Rich Roll?

  And we never fight, ever.

• 36:12Speaker 03

  And we totally fight. But we always make up, more importantly.

• 36:19Speaker 07

  So, so just, just quickly to, to expand on it, sorry. So you naturally don't expect you to train together, but how do you continue to encourage each other to be pushing forward and to push each other to newer heights, so to speak?

• 36:36Speaker 03

  Well, I'll answer that. I don't push him at all. We're both extremely independent and the focus of our transformation or our life path is completely inner one. So I think we respect each other and we have a very deep commitment between each other. And within that, there's an extreme amount of freedom. So I think that's...

• 37:02Rich Roll?

  But you have my back and I have your back and we understand that. So that support is there. Yeah. Thank you.

• 37:11Speaker 08

  How are you guys doing?

• 37:12Speaker 03

  Good. Great.

• 37:14Speaker 08

  So I turned vegan just over a year ago and then I researched it and I obviously found your podcast which gave me loads of tools and I really found it really, really great. But on a, like a deeper sort of level, I was kind of a vegan that was still kind of heavily drinking and partying a lot, which is kind of a bit of a weird scenario to be in. So yeah, I just wanted to personally thank you both because I've listened to your podcast, especially the one with Mishka Shabali. And I kind of felt that I didn't need to kind of live my life to reach a real kind of bottom and I could just kind of learn from what you guys spoke about and just to kind of try and improve my life that way. So thanks for that.

• 37:55Rich Roll?

  Beautiful. Yeah, thank you. Mishka will be thrilled.

• 37:58Speaker 03

  Tell Mishka.

• 38:00Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that's great.

• 38:06Speaker 09

  Hi.

• 38:07Rich Roll?

  Where are we looking?

• 38:09Speaker 09

  Ah. How are you going?

• 38:10Rich Roll?

  Yes.

• 38:11Speaker 09

  I have a one-part question.

• 38:16Rich Roll?

  Rebel.

• 38:17Speaker 03

  It has to be two.

• 38:20Speaker 09

  So I was on my, on the phone to my wife, who's in Adelaide, I'm from Adelaide, tonight, and she said, "Say hello to your mate Rich, she doesn't like you very much." Because two years ago, you inspired me to change my life and become vegan and I have gone from being the unhealthiest person in my house to the healthiest person in my house.

• 38:42Rich Roll?

  Beautiful. Thank you.

• 38:47Speaker 09

  So once upon a time, you know, salad was the garnish on the plate, in my opinion, and meat was what it was all about. This is really a question for you, Julie. So I am now, you know, looking at my wife, who's a relatively healthy eater by normal standards, but wishing she was, you know, where I am today. And I imagine you must have gone through that journey with Rich. How did you not become preachy about why he needed to change? And how did you remain strong through those years?

• 39:26Speaker 03

  Thank you, really great question. And, okay, so this is actually a very key part of our journey together. And that was that I was very preachy. I actually wasn't that preachy, but I had a lot of awareness in the early days when he was eating the window diet and he was using coffee as a drug, literally, like a venti coffee with three add shots. And he was suffering too. He also wasn't happy. He wasn't like, "Yeah, this is awesome." He was like, you know, the alcoholism was clearly activated. He was unhappy. So for many years, I felt that I knew how to help him and I would try to reach to him.

• 40:07Speaker 03

  And I would say, "Here," you know, or I was always reading books or going through transformation or I would leave something on his pillow or I would just, you know, offer something. And it was the craziest thing because it seemed like the more that I extended myself, the more paralyzed he became. He just would recoil and like just become even worse. And so it was a tricky thing that eluded me for many years. I wasn't that fast of a learner because I think it took like seven years of me banging my head against the wall. And I had a lot of conversations with a lot of girlfriends who told me how right I was because clearly I was right because I was healthy and I healed myself of this cyst.

• 40:47Speaker 03

  And I wasn't, you know, I was advocating sort of higher concepts of living. And it wasn't until I did a meditation program with this one Indian master, one of my many Indian masters that I've worked with in my life.

• 41:02Speaker 09

  So many Indian masters.

• 41:04Speaker 03

  So many. Like our house is like...

• 41:07Speaker 09

  Revolving door of Indian masters.

• 41:09Speaker 03

  They say...

• 41:11Speaker 03

  They say about me, "She left no rock unturned." So if you have any spiritual questions, just come ask me. But anyway, he proposed to me the concept of human love versus divine love. And he said, "Human love is simply a business relationship, right? We say, 'I love you if you do these things. And then if you don't do these things, then I'm leaving you, basically." So in contrast to divine love, it's like the sun. It simply shines on every part of creation, non-discriminatory, just because. So basically, we can say that we are loved simply for our existence, simply for the fact that we exist, before any diets have been conquered,

• 41:56Speaker 03

  any body types, any titles earned, or any goals achieved. And you know when you learn how to ski, or snow ski, or surf, or whatever, and you have that one tenth instructor that finally says that thing to you, and you finally can grab it? This was like this for me. And it was at that moment that I released Rich to his life. But I released him to his life in love. I didn't release him to his life in retaliation. And I called him and I said, "I realized that I had had my energy in his space, that I had had an attachment that hit. He realized spiritually the way that I was in my lifetime." And instead, I took the perspective that he was my husband,

• 42:40Speaker 03

  and we were married, and we were in love, and that he also was divine, even while eating In-N-Out Burger, even while drinking coffee with three ad shots. And that act of love, I really did, I embodied it. It was true, like it was a clear change. But that act of love is in fact what catalyzed his awakening and this entire scenario.

• 43:09Rich Roll?

  So what should he do about his wife?

• 43:12Speaker 03

  I'm just sharing the perspective. So he can see, you should love your wife unconditionally the way she is right now. And keep living the life that you are living. And really understand that there is a greater play. And just like, people change when they are loved. When they are loved unconditionally. We all want that acceptance and want to be seen that way. And so, in my experience from the story that I just shared with you, it's the most powerful thing that you can do. Now, does that mean she's gonna start eating the way that you are? Or you guys are gonna be, you know, get on the circuit? Like, I don't know that. It's within your life plan.

• 43:57Speaker 03

  But I will tell you that there is a great power in holding somebody in that light. And then you can allow life to kind of have its way with you and produce something beautiful in your relationship.

• 44:12Speaker 09

  Thank you.

• 44:20Speaker 10

  I found out about your books from Amazon. And I've got probably too many questions. I'm vegan curious. So, B12, vitamin B12 supplementation. Do you need to take any supplements to have a satisfactory diet? Second question is, when you're on holidays, how do you try to stay vegan or keep to a plant-based diet? While you're in a place where you don't know where all the shops are or things like that? You look like you have a lovely family from your books. And also wanted to say, what else?

• 45:04Speaker 10

  Sorry.

• 45:06Rich Roll?

  A three-parter.

• 45:07Speaker 10

  A three-parter. Better leave. Will you have the time to sign your books tonight?

• 45:13Rich Roll?

  We would love to sign books tonight, although our books got held up in customs.

• 45:17Speaker 10

  Oh, if you brought some tea.

• 45:19Rich Roll?

  Oh, you brought your books.

• 45:20Speaker 10

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 45:21Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I think when we're done here, I'm sure we can make that arrangement. Thank you for your question. B12, most doctors would recommend that you supplement with B12 if you're on a plant-based diet. It seems to be the one vitamin that is missing from this nutritional regimen, and that's a whole conversation I'm happy to have with anybody. It has to do with soil, et cetera, and it's kind of boring. But, yeah, B12. But I think everybody needs to, should, or I would recommend, everybody get a proper blood test and evaluate what your various deficiencies may or may not be, and sort of act, you know, from there. There's a lot of people that are vitamin D deficient, et cetera, et cetera.

• 46:06Rich Roll?

  Andrew would be a much better person to answer all of those questions than I. The second question was, remaining vegan while you travel. It's easy to future trip about that, like, oh, my God, I have to go to a wedding in a year. What am I going to eat? You know? I can't go vegan now. I've traveled all over. I've been to crazy places. I've been to Pakistan. I've been to Lebanon a couple of times. I've been to three cities in Saudi Arabia. I've been to Morocco. I've been to a lot of places, and I've always been able to maintain a plant-based diet, no matter where I go. Now, that doesn't mean that I'm going to get it exactly the way that I want it, and

• 46:48Rich Roll?

  I'm certainly not going to get the kind of food that Julie makes at home. But I've always been able to make it work. And, you know, there's a couple of practices that are helpful with that. I try to stay in hotel rooms that have little kitchenettes, which makes it a little bit easier. If you're flying somewhere, maybe, once you land, go directly, you know, search on your phone. We have these supercomputers in our pockets. They're very powerful. They answer a lot of questions. You can find out where the natural food market is. Go there before you even check into the hotel. Get what you need. You know, always have healthy options, like, within arm's reach. Make sure you bring A lot of snacks on your long flight. There's an app called Happy Cow. It will tell you where all the vegan restaurants are, no matter where you travel throughout the world.

• 47:32Rich Roll?

  And when you're in restaurants that perhaps don't seem like they're going to be vegan friendly, you can approach the waitstaff and pleasantly inquire what they might be able to make for you that might be off the menu. I've always had good experiences with that and have been able to make it work. So, a lot of that I've learned is sort of imagined projection, that we think it's going to be a lot harder than it actually turns out to be.

• 47:59Rich Roll?

  Do you have anything to add on that?

• 48:00Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly. And then a couple of things are, in the early days, we used to travel with our Vitamix. If you're driving somewhere, we just bring the Vitamix with. So, that's another thing. And then if you're going out to dinner and you don't know if there's going to be vegan options, we get in the habit of just eating before we go. So if there's only a side salad, or there's a potato, but that's not really travel as much, but...

• 48:27Rich Roll?

  Potatoes?

• 48:28Speaker 11

  I gotta be a bit of a party pooper up here. I've been told that we've kind of got to wrap up the show. Is that going to be all right?

• 48:37Speaker 01

  One little question down here.

• 48:38Speaker 12

  Please.

• 48:39Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Alright, from the beginning.

• 48:42Speaker 12

  Okay, thank you. A year ago, I would not have expected myself to stand here and talking to you guys. One of the points you mentioned was you can reinvent yourself, and I've done that pretty much throughout my life, a couple of times. And just recently, I started the Make Revolution to bring people of dairy, and ultimately, into plant-based diet. And I'm really excited about, how nuts is this cheese? Can't wait. And also, to Rich, I just would love to know, what do I have to do to, at one stage, be at your podcast, and can I just keep you updated about our process? And one last question at the end. Can I have a selfie at the end?

• 49:25Rich Roll?

  Yeah, we will do as many selfies as people want. That was a two-parter. Yes, anybody who asks to be on the podcast gets to be on the podcast. Right? That was a joke. No, I don't know. You're welcome to email me. We'll see. But be extraordinary. Be your best, most authentic selves.

• 49:48Speaker 12

  I will.

• 49:49Rich Roll?

  All right. Cool. All right. Thank you. Yeah, thanks for coming. We gotta wrap it up. Thank you so much, you guys. Thank you. We love you, Sydney. Really appreciate you guys showing up. Thank you so much. Appreciate it.

• 50:17Speaker 01

  It's been a long, hard road down the line.

• 50:25Speaker 01

  I've lost the truest part of who I am.

• 50:35Speaker 01

  How much can one man take? Nothing seems to stick. I've got to find my way to be the one for you. And you in the sun, in the morning. You are more than you know. Be still, my love. I believe in you.

• 51:20Speaker 01

  Your heart will find a way to bring you home.

• 51:31Speaker 01

  Have faith, my love, I know it's hard. But the truth of who you are cannot be torn from you. And you in the sun, in the morning. You are more than you know.

• 52:06Speaker 01

  And you in the sun, in the morning. You are more than you know, than you know.

• 52:29Speaker 01

  Sometimes you gotta lay it down to get inside.

• 52:38Speaker 01

  Even when it's coming down, the wind still knows the way. So fly, daddy fly, daddy fly.

• 53:06Speaker 01

  You in the sun, in the morning. You are more than you know. You in the sun, in the morning. You are more, so much more than you know.

• 53:53Rich Roll?

  Thank you.

• 54:22Speaker 03

  Thank you.