Lewis Howes: Living A Passionate Life

Life should be lived passionately. So says today's guest Lewis Howes, and I couldn't agree more. If you are immersed in the online marketing world, you've probably heard of Lewis — a former professional football player & renown pioneer lifestyle entrepreneur. But in case you haven't, let me introduce you to his universe. Lewis is a former two-sport All-American (football & decathlon) and current world record holding athlete (most yards received in a single football game), has graced lists such as Details Magazine’s “5 Internet Gurus Who Can Make You Rich” and Incomediary.com’s “50 Most Influential People in Blogging.” Most recently, Lewis was ranked as one of Genjuice.com’s top “100 Most Desirable Mentors” along with the likes of Barack Obama, Russell Simmons and the Queen of Jordan. In just three years, my man went from a depressed and aimless former professional Arena-league football player who's career was cut short due to injury sleeping on his sister’s couch to running a seven figure business. He began his entrepreneurial career by hosting LinkedIn meetups around the country, and co-authoring the successful book LinkedWorking. He has hosted over 400 webinars, spoken to thousands at conferences and events, and educated career professionals and business owners around the world on the power of LinkedIn. Not enough? He's also a member of the U. S. National Team Handball squad. He loves CrossFit too. Don't worry, we get into all of it. Oh yeah, he's also the host of The School of Greatness Podcast, currently blowing up charts on iTunes. I was honored to be a guest on his show a couple weeks back and am pleased that he joined me for an enlightening and inspiring chat about discovering, unlocking, and unleashing your best, most authentic self – my favorite subject. I hope you dig the show and end up as inspired as I was sitting down with him in person. Enjoying the podcast and want to support the show? Make sure you subscribe on iTunes and leave a comment on the iTunes page for the show. Thanks for listening and enjoy the program! 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. Welcome to the Rich Roll Podcast, episode 23 with lifestyle entrepreneur Lewis Howes.

• 1:23Speaker 01

  The Rich Roll Podcast.

• 1:25Rich Roll?

  Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the podcast. My name is Rich Roll, and this is the Rich Roll Podcast. If you're new to the show, who am I? Well, I am an ultra-distance triathlete. I am the bestselling author of the book Finding Ultra, which came out last year, which, by the way, the paperback is coming out at the end of May. So if you've been waiting, and waiting, and waiting until the cheaper version of the book comes out, wait no further. You can preorder it on Amazon. It drops May 21st, and they're taking pre-orders now, so check that out. I'm also a plant-based nutrition advocate. That's a long way of saying that I'm a vegan.

• 2:09Rich Roll?

  I subsist on a whole-food, plant-based diet to... Energize my body and fuel my training. I'm a public speaker, motivational speaker. I guess you could call me a holistic lifestyle entrepreneur. Whatever that means. I'm a recovering attorney and a family guy. I've got four kids and have been married coming up on 10 years now. I started this podcast back in December with a simple goal. To share with you many of the people and personalities that I've come across along this fantastic journey that I've been on. And to share with you the inspiring voices who have helped me along the path.

• 2:54Rich Roll?

  The forward thinkers in health and wellness and fitness. And personal lifestyle maximization, I guess you could, you could call it. My guests have been doctors, nutritionists, world-class athletes. Entrepreneurs like our guest today. Trainers and a whole plethora of very interesting, like I said, forward-thinking, sort of paradigm-busting minds and personalities. I'm bringing them to you with the simple goal of trying to empower you to achieve your best, most authentic self.

• 3:37Rich Roll?

  So that you can unleash your own personal power on the world. And become more fully actualized as a human being. Because when I talk about health, people always tend to say, well, you know, they want to know about the diet and what I eat. And I always look at food as sort of a shared communal experience. And it's the starting point. It's the starting point to health. What you put down your throat, what you eat is a portal into everything else that you do. But it's also just a starting point. Once you clean up your diet and you're eating healthy and you're feeling good. Well, what do you do with that energy? And in my case, I tend to perceive it as a means of embarking on your own journey

• 4:21Rich Roll?

  to achieve your very personal destiny. And so I like to bring all sorts of different guests on that aren't specifically going to talk about food. But all sorts of facets of life. That I consider to be encompassed under the umbrella of wellness. And by wellness, I mean a holistic balance of mind, body, and spirit. So, thanks for joining me. What can I tell you? It's been an interesting past couple of weeks. I just got back recently from Charleston, South Carolina, which is a fantastic town. I was only there like a day. I wish I could have been there longer. It's such a cool city.

• 5:06Rich Roll?

  I was able to get out on a morning run and explore the city. And it was quite magnificent. I can't wait to go back there. But what I wanted to tell you is that I had the opportunity to visit the College of Charleston, where I got to speak with the students. It was my first experience speaking at a college. And the remarkable thing is that my book, Finding Ultra, is on the syllabus for a required freshman class called the Freshman Experience, which is mind blowing to me. The fact that a college is requiring students to read my book as part of their curriculum

• 5:46Rich Roll?

  is really, to me, not just mind blowing, but kind of affirmation of this journey that I've been on. Affirmation that people, and also young people, are looking for sustainable health and lifestyle solutions. It's an amazing time in this health and wellness revolution that we're on. And it was a privilege and an honor to go speak with the students and to the general public about the subjects that I'm passionate about, that I'm trying to convey to you by way of this podcast. So, it was really great. I'd really love to do more college speaking, so I'm looking into trying to do that. So, any of you out there who have anything to do with the college, who'd be interested

• 6:30Rich Roll?

  in having me come and speak, get in touch with me, man, because I would absolutely love to do that. And I'm getting ready to go out on the road again. I'm going to be hitting the Worcester, Massachusetts Veg Fest on April 14th. I'm going to be in New York City for a couple of days, and I'm going to grab some excellent podcast interviews when I'm in New York with some folks that I know there. And then I'm going to be in Ottawa, Canada, that following weekend for Plant Powered Ottawa. Dr. Michael Greger and I are going to be speaking and hanging out with people. So if you're in Ontario, Toronto, Ottawa vicinity, check it out. I think the website is plantpoweredottawa.com.

• 7:13Rich Roll?

  It might be sold out, I'm not sure, but there might be still a few spaces available if you're inclined to come and hang out with me and Dr. Greger. And if you don't know who Dr. Greger is, you should check him out. His website is nutritionfacts.org, and he was a guest on the podcast. He was one of my early guests, and I think might still be one of my most popular podcast episodes to date. What else? If you are enjoying the show, we put up a donation button on richroll.com on the podcast page, and I want to thank everybody out there who have donated to the podcast.

• 7:54Rich Roll?

  It's kind of amazing to me, because I'm just here to provide a service and bring it to you for free. And so many people have, I suppose, gotten so much value out of it that they felt inclined to throw us a few bucks to keep the pirate ship going, and that means more to me than you can imagine. I'll always, this show will always be free. I'll always continue to bring it to you for free. But if you want to support, that's a great way to support the show. Couple bucks, you can do a monthly subscription, throw us a couple bucks, it'll charge your PayPal or your credit card a couple bucks a month, you don't have to sweat it anymore, and no big deal.

• 8:33Rich Roll?

  Also, we have the Amazon banner ad up on richroll.com on the podcast page and on the blog page. So if you're going to buy something on Amazon, hey, do us a favor and just click on my Amazon banner first to take you to Amazon. Buy whatever you're going to buy, and it won't cost you anything extra, but Amazon will throw us a few quarters. And it will keep us going. A cool idea, actually, that somebody suggested is to just, if you have a little icon on your browser for Amazon, because you buy stuff on Amazon

• 9:14Rich Roll?

  all the time, just swap that out with the link that my banner ad forwards you to and put that up in your browser. So then you don't have to think about it anymore. You don't have to go to ritual.com. You'll just have that link right up in your browser as an easy way to click to Amazon. And that way, you make it even easier for yourself, and it continues to help us out. So let's get to today's episode. Today, I am very excited to have lifestyle entrepreneur Lewis Howes. And Lewis is a guy who I was introduced to by a mutual podcasting friend. He's kind of a remarkable guy, actually. He's done

• 9:57Rich Roll?

  quite a bit in his young life. He, I guess you would, he would call himself a lifestyle entrepreneur, but he's much more than that. He's a former professional arena football player. He was a standout college football player. And he's kind of one of those jocks that can play every single sport. He's strong, he's fast. His dream was always to be in the NFL. He didn't quite make it there, but he did play professional football in the Arena League. And he's currently a member of the US National Handball Team. So he's going to tell us all about handball, which I find fascinating. But in the wake of his

• 10:38Rich Roll?

  professional football career getting cut short due to an injury, he had kind of a line in the sand moment. And if you know me, I love line in the sand moments. I love these sort of midlife epiphanies that occur. He was depressed and on the couch, and I can certainly identify with that. That's a big thematic through line in my story, confused about what he wanted to do with his life and what to do next. And, you know, as somebody who had spent his entire life pursuing athleticism, to find himself unable to continue to pursue that is kind of a scary thing. But through some of the tools

• 11:19Rich Roll?

  that he's going to talk about today, he was able to sort of identify what his passion was and put that into motion. And Sort of smash cut to now, he's become an extremely successful online entrepreneur. He's figured out how to leverage his knowledge base through the internet to create a very successful online business and allow him to pursue the lifestyle that he enjoys, which is a pretty cool lifestyle. So he's going to tell us all about that. I did his podcast a couple of weeks ago, which is blowing up on iTunes. It's called The School of Greatness on iTunes, and you should check it out. He has some really awesome guests

• 12:01Rich Roll?

  on his show, and I was really honored and proud to be a guest on his show the other week. People seemed to enjoy it. I really got along with Lewis really well. I think he's a great guy and thought that he would be a great fit for this show and to kind of tell us a little bit about his story and how he kind of navigates life. And like I said, you know, for me, health extends beyond just, you know, hey, what do you have for breakfast? It's sort of, how do you unlock that personal power and unleash it on the world? How do you become the most authentic version of yourself? How do you, I guess, what it boils down to is how do you maximize your happiness? How do you design

• 12:44Rich Roll?

  the lifestyle that you want that will make you happy and fulfilled? That is in alignment with what you feel your legacy is and what you want to leave behind, you know, on this earth in this short life? Without further ado, let's get to it. Ladies and gentlemen, Lewis Bowles. Thanks for taking the time to chat with me.

• 13:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, I gotta come out to your place soon.

• 13:18Rich Roll?

  You do, man. I try to make that happen, but you know, I live out in the boonies. It's hard. In LA, you end up driving so much that...

• 13:28Rich Roll?

  It's hard to get people to come out to our neck of the woods. Like, they think we live in like Santa Barbara or something like that. It's far, for sure.

• 13:34Speaker 01

  It's really far.

• 13:35Rich Roll?

  I'm so used to it now that I don't think about it. And for me to drive into town is no big deal. But yeah, we want to have you out, man. We'll cook you a big vegan meal and, you know, you're my new project, dude. I'm gonna get you vegan by the end of the year.

• 13:45Speaker 01

  Man, it's, we'll see. I'm getting closer and closer, so we'll see.

• 13:49Rich Roll?

  All right. Well, we had such a good time on your show. That was really cool. So I thought it would be great to, you know, spread the love around a little bit.

• 13:57Speaker 01

  I appreciate it.

• 13:57Rich Roll?

  Have you on the show, too. So.

• 13:58Speaker 01

  Appreciate it. Everyone loved your content, so.

• 14:01Rich Roll?

  Cool. Yeah. I mean, you're rocking it. You know, like, let's just talk about podcasting for, for a minute, so we can, you know, alien everybody and lose subscribers quickly.

• 14:10Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 14:12Rich Roll?

  It's been really fun for me. I mean, and you just started yours shortly after, after mine, and your gangbusters are showing your podcast on the homepage of iTunes and you're getting featured and you got great guests. So anybody who's just tuning in and we'll get into who Lewis is and all that kind of stuff in a minute. But, you know, stop what you're doing and go subscribe to his podcast because it's, it's great stuff.

• 14:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:33Rich Roll?

  Why don't you tell me a little bit about what your kind of goal is with it?

• 14:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, this podcast is called The School of Greatness, and my goal is to help as many people find out how to become great in their own lives. So it's a couple of goals. One, the goal for me is to connect with some really inspiring people, business minds, athletes, celebrities. So it's like a social capital thing for me to like build those relationships and have a platform to share their content. And then the second thing is to share amazing information with an audience. You know, when I moved here to LA, I was like really tired of this driving stuff. And I was like, how can I?

• 15:10Rich Roll?

  No wonder you wouldn't drive out to my house.

• 15:11Speaker 01

  Exactly. I was like, I don't even like driving a couple of miles away. But I was like, how can I leverage? People in the car for hours and hours like because I lived in New York for a year and a half. And I didn't have a car in Ohio when I was living downtown in Columbus and yeah, I was like, I've got to figure out a way to build an audience doing this. So.

• 15:28Rich Roll?

  I mean, was that the idea because you're, I mean, you're somebody who's in, you know, in some respects has really mastered the internet. Like you figured out how to really, uh, you know, create a lifestyle and a brand and a way and a very good living off essentially your laptop. Right. And, uh, and you have lots of avenues that, you know, you pursue to that end. You use LinkedIn, you've got these webinars, you've got these online products, you've got, you have a membership site now.

• 15:57Speaker 01

  Couple of membership sites.

• 15:58Rich Roll?

  You got a lot, you're, you're, you got, you got it all going on. Like, I want to learn how to do this.

• 16:01Speaker 01

  I'm trying to monetize.

• 16:02Rich Roll?

  What I'm doing, but I'm so I'm interested in, you know, so then you wake up one day and say, well, I'm going to do a podcast too. Like, how does that fit into kind of the spectrum of all the other internet things that you're doing?

• 16:13Speaker 01

  You know, as for the last few years, I've been doing a lot of different things online and specifically webinars, creating products, information products, doing this membership site stuff. Coaching, you know, teaching people, creating content and I like to keep things fresh and do some things that are new. And I've never done podcasting and I was always kind of weird. It was like, it seemed like it was cool, like four or five years ago or something. When people started really doing it, but it was like, I don't know, I just never knew what I would say then, I guess. Or what type of stuff I would talk about. And then like, I didn't want to talk about LinkedIn on a podcast every time.

• 16:48Rich Roll?

  And then. Now there's all these like online marketing podcasts and stuff like that. That's its own like subcategory.

• 16:54Speaker 01

  There's a lot of them. And then it like, seemed like podcasting was dead for a few years, like last couple of years, it was like, no one was doing it. Or it wasn't more mainstream yet. And now like Joe Rogan's making millions off of his and Adam Carolla.

• 17:07Rich Roll?

  Is he making millions, you think?

• 17:08Speaker 01

  I think he's. Making a good amount.

• 17:12Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 17:12Speaker 01

  I don't know specifically. I know he's making with a couple of his sponsors and making some really good money off of affiliate sales plus just getting cash for having a sponsorship. But I think what he's doing, he's built such an amazing audience that he sells out everything that he goes and does.

• 17:27Rich Roll?

  Right. I mean, it helps. There's so many comedians with podcasts now and it really helps them sell out their standup shows and it becomes a more direct to consumer kind of thing. So people who, you know, are interested in comedy, they don't just show up at a comedy show and not, you get what you get or whatever, like putting a record on you've never heard before where they're actually going to see that person. They're familiar with them. They know what their humor is and that helps them.

• 17:49Speaker 01

  And if they've been following him for six months or a year, then it's like, it's so much more intimate and they're willing to spend more and they're willing to buy more merchandise and.

• 17:56Rich Roll?

  Right. I think it's just, it's just another tool to use for people that are providing content to develop a deeper relationship with their audience.

• 18:05Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 18:05Rich Roll?

  You know, and I think it's, you know, people, more and more people. I mean, I discovered podcasting. I say it all the time, so I don't want to repeat myself too much, but I discovered it when I started training a lot and I need something to listen to on long rides.

• 18:16Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 18:17Rich Roll?

  And that was back in 2008, like early 2008, when it was, it was really kind of brand new. And I think Corolla was, was really the first kind of mover and shaker to move into it and try to turn it into a business and a lot of people have followed suit. There's still a lot of people that don't really understand podcasting. I mean, I, I mean, basically I'm, I'm in my car driving around LA all the time and I just programmed my own radio station of all the stuff I like to listen to and try to expand my mind a little bit rather than just turning the radio on and you get what you get.

• 18:46Speaker 01

  Right, right. No, I'm loving it. It's been a lot of fun. I think I'm about to hit 100,000 downloads like in the next day or two.

• 18:52Rich Roll?

  Awesome, man.

• 18:52Speaker 01

  So for me, in the first three months doing that, I feel like that's a decent.

• 18:56Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that's a lot of people and you say, you know, and these, and I think people, you know, they hear you and then there's a, an emotional connection and a loyalty ensues and, and the sense of knowing you and kind of who you are and, you know, the long format conversation has just gone the way of the dodo. And, and now podcasting has brought it back and I think people enjoy that and they like that because you just don't get it in any other media resource available to us.

• 19:20Speaker 01

  Right, unless you're listening to like NPR or something, I guess, right? Yeah.

• 19:24Rich Roll?

  Of course. And so my thing is. You know, when my book came out, I made a decision to shut my law practice down and really give it a go in this kind of health and wellness space. And all I know, like, it was a huge leap of faith. And I want to get into kind of, you know, your story and how you made this leap into what you're doing now. But for me, you know, I just got so much great feedback about the message I was putting out. And I just felt like I need to make a go of this and see if I can try to turn this into some kind of professional, more professional kind of vocation. You know, I've got a family, I've got kids, I've got to be responsible.

• 20:02Speaker 01

  Got a house.

• 20:02Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I've got a lot of responsibility. And yet, I also know that, you know, I don't know that the world needs another lawyer. And, and, and you just don't get, you know, practicing law, I don't get the feeling that I get when I know that I've helped somebody else out. And I get emails every day from people that are responding to it. And so I'm trying to figure out how I can, you know, all I know is that I love creating the content. Like, I'll do the podcast for free forever. I don't care. You know, because I just like it. You know, I'll make videos, I'll blog, I'll do all that stuff. I don't think about how that's going to translate into making a living. I just, I do it for the love. And I do it for just pure service, really. And I enjoy putting that message out there. But it's, you know, because I have all these responsibilities, I've got to figure out a way to make all of this work, or I'm going to be back in the law office soon.

• 20:47Speaker 01

  Right.

• 20:47Rich Roll?

  So, anyway, I hope you can help me out a little bit.

• 20:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, there's definitely ways to monetize anything you're doing. And I mean, I spent a year and a half, two years not making any money when I was starting out, just trying to figure out this stuff as well, and discovering what people were doing, and trying different things. But I think it really starts with being a credible expert on something, having some type of passion and expertise that you know more than 99% of the people, or, you know, half the people, right? Because if you can teach 50% of people something, then they'll pay you for it. So.

• 21:16Rich Roll?

  I feel like I've got that part figured out.

• 21:18Speaker 01

  You've got it figured out. Yeah, you took the leap of faith.

• 21:19Rich Roll?

  I don't have the payment part figured out.

• 21:21Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 21:21Rich Roll?

  I feel, you know, part of it is psychological for me, too, because, you know, I spent some time studying how all this online marketing stuff works. And I watched a bunch of webinars, and went to a bunch of membership sites, and tried to see what people were doing. And quite honestly, I got turned off by the whole thing. I felt very pitched to you.

• 21:40Speaker 01

  A little spam-y, right?

• 21:40Rich Roll?

  I felt, it felt like it was spam. I felt like, a lot of them are people saying, "Yeah, I made a million dollars online, and you can too. You know, pay $99, and you'll, you'll get access to all of my secret information." And I was like, I just felt like this is a big, I don't know. And for me, At the end of the day, the most important thing is being authentic and being real and and just being a human being, being about the whole thing and being willing to talk about when I made a mistake or failure and trying to share what has worked for me. And when I started looking at all that stuff, I was like, this doesn't feel good to me. It doesn't feel like that's not, if I was to start doing that, I think I would undermine the entire audience that I've worked hard to kind of cultivate that I'm trying to help.

• 22:25Speaker 01

  Right. I think a lot, you know, a lot of the messaging and like the design and the copy out there online, people like promising different things. If you're just getting into it and that's all you see, and then you start teaching people the same thing, you just kind of follow that pattern. So a lot of people just like follow along the spammy ways of marketing, I guess, stuff. But I think the authentic people build the true audience that stays with them for life. So you're doing it the right way.

• 22:49Rich Roll?

  Right. I'd rather build it slowly and organically and just, you know, make 99% of it free and hopefully valuable to people out there. And, you know, once in a while, like, you know, maybe throw me a couple pennies. And that's why, you know, I put up the donation thing for the podcast and I put up the Amazon banner ad. And if people feel good or inclined to support the show, then they can. But, you know, they don't have to.

• 23:11Speaker 01

  Right.

• 23:12Rich Roll?

  You know what I mean? Like, it's up to you.

• 23:14Speaker 01

  But your audience is mostly what now? Do you know?

• 23:16Rich Roll?

  The demographics of the audience?

• 23:18Speaker 01

  Who are they? Are they like people trying to do what you did, which is like leave their, you know, lose some weight, get more active and fit and like.

• 23:25Rich Roll?

  I mean, I don't have like exact Google Analytics on it, but I think that it, you know, just based on the emails that I get or the comments or whatever, I think it's pretty, it's pretty broad, you know? It's not just triathletes and marathon runners. It's, it's middle-aged guys who are trying to sort of recapture their health and their fitness, who are frustrated or maybe feel trapped in their jobs. It's actually a lot of, you know, a lot of women too. Like, I remember when my book was. You know, when we were working on, when I was working with my editor on my book and my editor in New York at the publishing house, and he was like, "Your audience is, you know, middle-aged guys that watch SportsCenter." And I was like, "I don't think so, man." You know, there's like a huge passionate vegan market out there, and there's a lot of,

• 24:10Rich Roll?

  that's predominantly women.

• 24:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:12Rich Roll?

  And, you know, I think that there's a bigger audience out there, and that's, you know, that's what, I think it ranges, you know, it's a lot of people that are just into wellness, health and fitness in general, who aren't runners and aren't triathletes, and it's yoga people, and people that are into meditation, people that are into spirituality, a lot of women that are just into vegan food, and, you know, I don't know.

• 24:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:32Rich Roll?

  So it's broad, it's, you know, it's, it's not one very segmented sector for people.

• 24:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, there's definitely lots of ways you can monetize it, in my opinion. There's coaching, which you said you don't want to do, but there's a high-level coaching that you could do. There's a membership, you know, aspect where, okay, we're doing this podcast and the content on the blog for free, but I'm gonna give you guys like exactly what I break down for the eating, for my training every day, I'm gonna give you my training workouts every day and every week, so there's some type of element to that.

• 25:00Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I'm thinking, I'm thinking hard about a membership site, and I actually put it out there a couple of weeks ago and asked people to, you know, send me comments or whatever on what they would like to, like if they'd be interested in that, like I want to just do it, make it, you know, I don't know, 25 bucks a month or something really cheap, and, and then just create a four-wall community where I can enter, like, because now it's come, it's gotten to the point where I get so many emails, I just can't respond to them. And, but I want, I want to be communicating with the audience, and if I could create a community where I can really interact and be helpful, rather than just, you know, not have the time to respond to an email, or just give a short response that isn't that helpful, like, I think it would be a good way to do it, so.

• 25:40Speaker 01

  And the simplest, and the simplest way that you could do it is have a private Facebook group, because everyone's on Facebook, and that could be your forum, say, "Hey, it's 20 bucks a month," and it's just a Facebook group.

• 25:49Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 25:50Speaker 01

  Stop paying or remove you from the group.

• 25:52Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 25:52Speaker 01

  You know, that's like the easiest way you could do it.

• 25:55Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 25:55Speaker 01

  As opposed to building a site and having a forum and positive every week or whatever. But something like that.

• 26:00Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's interesting. And, you know, one of the things I know that you, you, you always say, one of your guiding principles is, is you're not afraid to fail and you're not afraid to succeed.

• 26:09Speaker 01

  Right.

• 26:09Rich Roll?

  You know, and I think that's powerful and potent. And, you know, I, I'm not afraid of failing, but I think I still have some kind of weird psychological residue that, that is afraid of succeeding, you know, or, or feeling like I don't deserve it, or, you know, I can't, you know, I'm not in a position to ask people for money. What do I know?

• 26:26Speaker 01

  Right. I mean, I think, I think I feel fear of failure and success. I think I like, you know, when I do something, I feel a little bit of fear, like, is this gonna work out or is it not, you know? But I don't let it hold me back, like.

• 26:39Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I think people think, uh, you know, courage doesn't mean you're not afraid. Everybody experiences fear. It's what is your behavior in the face of something that's frightening?

• 26:48Speaker 01

  Right.

• 26:48Rich Roll?

  Are you gonna push through it? Are you gonna let it, you know, make you shy away from meeting a challenge head on?

• 26:53Speaker 01

  Yeah. And for me, I'm always willing to take it on head on, no matter how afraid or how stupid it's gonna make me look if I do fail or succeed.

• 27:00Rich Roll?

  Uh huh. Where do you think that comes from?

• 27:03Speaker 01

  You know, probably a lot from my childhood of being the youngest of four, never feeling accepted, uh, kind of like a goofy tall kid all through elementary school, always getting made fun of, not having friends, and really being, I think, angry a lot as a kid that I didn't have that acceptance or acknowledgement. And then, uh, you know, I remember there was a pivotal moment in third grade where I was picked last for a dodgeball game for our class. There was two popular kids, guys, who picked the teams, so they go one at a time. And they picked all the guys and they started picking all the girls and I was the last person to pick. And I remember it wasn't even like, okay, Lewis, you're on this team. It was like, I was the default last person. And so I just went on the other person's team, whatever.

• 27:45Speaker 01

  And I remember just being so mad in this dodgeball game, just like slamming the ball on people's faces, catching everything to try to prove them wrong that I was good. And after that, I just spent like all my nights in the basketball gym, just like playing with older kids to try to get better as an athlete. And once I started to win and kind of develop into my body and, you know, my skill sets and athleticism.

• 28:07Speaker 01

  You know, these older kids would acknowledge me and be like, they'd want me on their team. So it was like, okay, and now I'm being accepted. And I think, uh,

• 28:13Rich Roll?

  When you make that, that link in your mind, like that mental equation of, oh, I actually worked hard at this and tried to get better. And now I'm better and look at how I'm being received differently than I was before.

• 28:23Speaker 01

  Everyone accepts me now.

• 28:25Rich Roll?

  I think life, you know, oftentimes, and I talk about this a lot and I talked about it in my book, but you know, we all have these sort of definitive moments in our life that change things or set us on a different trajectory. And I'd, I'd read about that third grade episode and, you know, my, my youth was very similar. I was, you know, we're different kinds of athletes and you developed into somebody who's got a lot of, you know, sort of eye hand coordination skill and, and strength and power. You know, I'm the endurance guy, but I was always the last guy for dodgeball, handball, softball, baseball, basketball. And I'm still terrible at any kind of ball sport. Like I'm, I'm awful at that.

• 29:02Speaker 01

  Well, it's like Michael Phelps, he's bad too at everything, right?

• 29:04Rich Roll?

  You know, like the pool was the one place where I could go and, and, and do well because I couldn't do any of those other things. But I think that that motivated me to find something that would work for me, you know, instead of like, I just, I tried, I tried to play basketball. Like it wasn't happening.

• 29:18Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 29:19Rich Roll?

  I went in another direction, but it did motivate me to work hard in the pool and get good at that. Like I realized I had some potential there and, and to double down on that. And, you know, the, the sort of aptitude to be able to identify that moment and understand the kind of importance of, you know, of what it is, even, you know, even if you're reflecting back on it now to go, wow, that, that's what that happened. And now I've had a couple of moments like that in my life so that when it happens again, you can go, oh, this is another one of these moments. Like I have a choice right now. What choice am I going to make? Am I going to make the courageous choice or am I going to make the fear based choice?

• 29:54Speaker 01

  Right, right. Yeah. And I feel like, you know, I feel I've got lots of friends. I feel, you know, family is very loved by my family.

• 30:04Speaker 01

  Obviously they've got a, you know, decent sized audience and they appreciate the content I give them. So I feel like I'm accepted now, but I still have this drive to like, And then you're getting better, reaching a larger audience. And now it's just inspiring people to be the best version of themselves, I guess.

• 30:19Rich Roll?

  Right. And I think that that is, that's the key. And that's definitely the kind of underlying theme of this podcast. I mean, it's a fitness and health nutrition oriented show, of course, but, but for me, it's more about what's behind that, or what is that, you know, where does that lead you? And, and for me, it's all about getting in touch with who you are and unlocking that best, most authentic version of yourself.

• 30:46Speaker 01

  Right.

• 30:47Rich Roll?

  Being able to be acquainted with yourself enough to know, this is the thing that gives me a heartbeat. This is what I'm passionate about. I mean, if you're, look, a lot of people are walking around completely disconnected. They don't even know what they want. They don't, they don't know, you know, if you said, what is your dream? Maybe it might be like getting a fancy car. That's not an answer to me. It's like, well, what is it? What is it that you're passionate about? What do you want? What do you want your life to be about? And, you know, I didn't ask myself those questions until much later in life. And I wish I'd been in a place where I was doing it sooner. But I think we all have something inside of ourselves, some passion, some dreams, some, you know, something that we want to express more fully.

• 31:27Speaker 01

  Right.

• 31:27Rich Roll?

  And, and true health in a holistic sense, you know, really is bringing that to the surface.

• 31:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:34Rich Roll?

  To a point where it can become, you know, a defining aspect of your life. And that's what you're sharing. That's your legacy. That's, that's who you are. And I think that, you know, you're, you're a great example of somebody who has stepped into that. And you're, you know, you're a very actualized human being. And, you know, if somebody were to say to you, you know, on the heels of your injury in football and not being able to play anymore, that you'd be sitting here now doing what you're doing. I mean, you're an unlikely candidate for that, right?

• 32:02Speaker 01

  I would have never thought, yeah.

• 32:04Rich Roll?

  So how does that journey unfold? And, you know, in the introduction, I'll tell everybody what that is. We don't have to.

• 32:09Speaker 01

  Yeah. Um, I don't know, man. I mean, we're talking about after my injury, like how did it all unfold? Right. Well, why don't we recap? So, so, uh, so you know, you're a college football star. Your dream is to be in the NFL, right? That's what it was all about for you. Yep. Right? So everything in college was just about getting ready to be an NFL football player. No backup plan. Uh huh. And, uh, yeah, and I made the arena football league. Well, in high school though, was it your like now I'm gonna play you. So even when you're in high school, it's like, I'm gonna be in the NFL. In high school, it was like, I wanted to be in the NBA first because I was like a six, four freshman. And I thought I was gonna keep growing. And I was like, starting on varsity as a sophomore and I was like, you know, doing really well. And this is in Ohio?

• 32:51Speaker 01

  This is in St. Louis. I went to a private boarding school and it was, uh, so I was like, I want to be a professional, professional athlete. It was like basketball. Then I realized as I started playing football and that I was really talented. And I was the prototypical NFL, like wide receiver, height and weight. Uh, going into college, I was like, this is probably the better sport for me. I was a decathlete as well in college and, uh, I was an all American in that sport, but I didn't want to wait four years until the Olympics to like, maybe have the chance against like the best athletes in the world. Right. Um, you like Brian Clay? Exactly. And You just, did you just have him on your podcast? I did. Yeah. He's a, he's a mutant. That guy's amazing. And, um, so I took on, I took on football. I had some NFL tryouts, didn't make them.

• 33:34Speaker 01

  Cause I went to a smaller school and it's just kind of hard to make it in a small school, especially if you're not like the speed prototype. And I was running a 4.640 and I needed to run about a 4.4 for them to like, give me a good luck. Mm hmm. And I, uh, so I went and played arena football for a year, year and a half, really. Started like the end of the season on one team. And then my rookie season, I went and, uh, played in a team in Alabama. And I got injured in the second game and it was, uh, I played the rest of the season with a broken wrist. Cause I was kind of in denial. I was like, I'm not gonna sit on my rookie year. I'm just gonna play it through. That's all I wanted to do. I didn't care about anything else. Right. And I knew I needed to get some good reps and some like game film in to show it to the NFL teams to give myself a chance.

• 34:18Speaker 01

  Had surgery at the end of the year and, uh, was in a cast for six months, a full arm cast. And then I was, you know, sleeping on my sister's couch for about a year while I was recovering because I didn't have any money. I didn't have, you know, any savings and, uh, didn't have a place to go. Luckily my sister brought me under a wing and I ate all of her macaroni and cheese leftover and whatever she had and. I was struggling to try to figure out what am I going to do next? It was like a depressing state.

• 34:44Rich Roll?

  But back just to, just to add a little color back to the, the arena football days. I mean, is that, what is, you know, that's a, that's a bizarre world. It's not the NFL.

• 34:53Speaker 01

  Man.

• 34:54Rich Roll?

  And it, I mean, what is that culture like? Is everyone there just trying to get to the NFL?

• 34:58Speaker 01

  That's it. And it's, I mean, I was in Alabama in a small town called Huntsville, Alabama, which is like another country in my mind. It was like so southern and like different than what I was used to in Ohio that, you know, I was one of, you know, three white guys on the team. I was friends with everyone, but it was just like the cultural differences and just the things that these guys were doing on like the bus ride. We'd have like 15 hour bus rides to Florida or whatever.

• 35:25Rich Roll?

  The glamorous life of a professional athlete.

• 35:27Speaker 01

  We're bunk three, three high end bunks in these buses and like 350 pound dudes like above me, you know, two feet away. And it's just like, it's a whole nother world. You're in a football world.

• 35:40Rich Roll?

  I mean, how many, and how many people show up to those games?

• 35:43Speaker 01

  You know, it depends on like the city and how good you guys are, but anywhere between 5,000 and 20,000.

• 35:49Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 35:50Speaker 01

  So it just depends on like how good the team is, but uh.

• 35:53Rich Roll?

  And is it sort of cutthroat in the sense of, you know, hey, you, you know, I'm trying, everybody's trying to get to the NFL. So.

• 36:00Speaker 01

  Everyone's.

• 36:00Rich Roll?

  It's a zero sum game. Like you may, you know, if you're doing well, then I'm not doing well. Or, I mean, are there NFL scouts that are coming to these games? I mean, how does that work?

• 36:07Speaker 01

  Yeah. They're picking up guys, you know, mid-season, end of the season, stuff like that. It's usually in the off-season. It's like during the winter time because it's indoor, but they're, you know, having guys come to training camp and whatnot. The thing is every week you never feel comfortable because they're always bringing in about five to eight new players at different positions, just to have them like fresh legs to try them out to see if they're going to make the team. So if you have a bad week, they can cut you at any time.

• 36:31Rich Roll?

  So there's no job security there?

• 36:33Speaker 01

  No job security. And it's just like bush league, like the coaching, you know, you're hit or miss on the coaches. They don't care about you. It's not fun anymore. There's, you know, fun moments, but it's not like college where you're like having fun with your buddies. These are like almost your enemies because you're fighting against each other every day in practice. If you get, if you mess up too much, then you could be gone the next week.

• 36:56Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 36:57Speaker 01

  Another person's in the locker. So it's, uh, I don't know. It's just, and you're not getting paid much. You're getting like a thousand bucks a month.

• 37:04Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 37:04Speaker 01

  And if you make scores, if you can score a touchdown, you get like a $50 bonus. And if you win, you get a $50.

• 37:09Rich Roll?

  And you could potentially just completely destroy your brain and your body.

• 37:13Speaker 01

  Everything, man. I mean, I broke my wrist and I crumbled it for the rest of the season just because I was like, I need to play or else I'm not going to get paid. And, uh,

• 37:21Rich Roll?

  So you just played that one season and then that was it?

• 37:24Speaker 01

  That was it. Yeah. I mean, I had surgery and then I, I wasn't ready to come back and a year later. And so I had to take a whole another year off, basically two years off in order to come back if I wanted to. And then the arena football league actually went under for the year. It like folded because of the economy. So they just kind of shut down the league and then they came back a year later. So I'd missed two years of football. And I was just like, I still wanted to come back, but I was like, I can't go to the arena league and then try to make it to the NFL. I'm going to be 27 then. Like they don't take 27 year old rookies who, you know, aren't blazing fast in the first place.

• 38:00Rich Roll?

  Except in the movies.

• 38:01Speaker 01

  Exactly. Unless you're Kurt Warner, you know, it's like if you're a quarterback and this and that. So I just needed to find something else. I didn't have a choice. I had to figure out what I was going to do next.

• 38:10Rich Roll?

  And it's a, it's a weird thing, uh, when your whole life has been about being a great athlete or, or you're funneling towards becoming a professional athlete.

• 38:20Speaker 01

  Your identity.

• 38:21Rich Roll?

  Kind of put all your chips on the table for that. And it's, that's all you think about. That's all you do all day is train. And then literally overnight it's over with.

• 38:29Speaker 01

  Done.

• 38:30Rich Roll?

  There's a sense of, I mean, I experienced this on a very low, low, I mean, you know, swimming, no one's making a career. I mean, Michael Phelps does now, but in like the eighties, like nobody, you know, and I mean, I was essentially a bench warmer at Stanford, but I was surrounded by Olympic champions, you know, and NCAA record holders, American record holders and, you know, gold medalists and the like. And it was interesting to kind of observe at an arm's length, like how everyone kind of managed integration into regular life after that. Like some did very well and some struggled with it. And even, even me being a bench warmer, like when my swimming career was over, like I was in free fall. Like I was like, I never thought about what I wanted to do with my life. I didn't

• 39:12Speaker 01

  Just train all day.

• 39:13Rich Roll?

  I didn't think that far ahead, even though I was at this great college and had all these resources and the like. I was so focused on being, being a good swimmer that when that was over, it was very disorienting for me and I, and I struggled with it. So I can't imagine somebody who's, you know, performing, you know, in a, in a major sport where they're getting paid and all of that. And then, and then that's over. I mean, that must be, you know, it's, it's gotta be crushing for a lot of people. And you think, well, you have all these, you know, the skills that you develop as an athlete, the ability to focus, the ability to kind of follow through and be task oriented and show up on time, you know, apply yourself and all of that is seemingly very translatable into the, into the real

• 39:56Rich Roll?

  world. But, but you know, I had trouble translating those skills and you know, I think, I think a lot of people do. So, you know, for you, you talk about, you know, having a depression for a while and, and what that was like.

• 40:08Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, I think all these skills are very translatable and I wouldn't be where I am today without being an athlete and having that mindset. But a lot of guys can't translate it over because they're not passionate about anything else. They haven't figured out what they're passionate about. So they're, they love football or basketball, whatever. But then it's like, when it's done.

• 40:25Rich Roll?

  Yeah. All those tools, all those resources are applicable because they care about what they're doing. But if they're gonna go work at a used car lot, like.

• 40:32Speaker 01

  They have no, they have no passion to get on time and like follow through and work together as a team. So.

• 40:37Rich Roll?

  And it's not exciting. You, there's that, you know, the energy and all of that is gone.

• 40:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. So for me, yeah, I spent, you know, a year and a half trying to figure out what I was gonna do next. And my family was super supportive. They never really like made me feel bad about like recovering and kind of losing this dream. They were like so supportive. My like aunt gave me a little part-time job at her pharmacy. My brother, I was doing some like MySpace marketing for his music stuff. I was doing some little things here and there, just to like make, you know, a hundred bucks a week or whatever. So I could pay my gas or something. And.

• 41:11Speaker 01

  I remember my sister, it was about, almost a year I'd been living there and I hadn't paid her any rent. I hadn't really, you know, for the first seven months, I pretty much moped around, I didn't clean, didn't help out because I was just like depressed and she put up with it. And then she started to be like, okay, you know, I get to start paying some rent or you're gonna find a job soon or something like this because it was a year. And I started looking for jobs. I was like, maybe I'll get into like sports marketing because I have a sports management like background and I'm interested in sports. So I applied to like some of these jobs on in Columbus, Ohio. I remember getting a couple of interviews. The first one, it seemed like a cool company, but it was like a thirty-five, forty thousand dollar paying job. And for me at the time, I was like, I'd be rich, you know, because

• 41:52Speaker 01

  I was broke. But I was like, the day of the interview and I just couldn't go in. I just like, I didn't even email them and to cancel. I didn't do anything. I just couldn't go. I couldn't give myself to go because I knew if I went in there, I could, I could get the job, I felt like. And I was like, I don't want it. I don't want to go somewhere every day and like be building someone else's dream. I want to like do what I love.

• 42:13Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Whereas most people, well, first of all, it's amazing you have that support because most people would, most dads or whatever, hey, man, you know, get a job, you know, welcome to the real world.

• 42:22Speaker 01

  Right, exactly.

• 42:22Rich Roll?

  And then secondarily, you know, to have the self-awareness to say, this is not right for me. I mean, I would have just said, hey, man, I gotta get a job, you know, just take it. This is, this is the way of the world and.

• 42:34Speaker 01

  I think when I had a taste of like the lifestyle that I wanted, which was like, you wake up around nine or 10, you go to practice for two hours, you lift in the gym for an hour, you get like, you know, go to the pool, do some rehab stuff, rehab stuff.

• 42:47Rich Roll?

  Sounds good. Like who's gonna, how am I gonna get paid to do this?

• 42:50Speaker 01

  Exactly. And then at like one o'clock, you're done for the rest of the day to go play video games or like watch TV or hang out with your friends. I was like, and then you play in front of fifteen thousand people in the weekends. It was like, why would I want to do something different than, you know, than that feeling? I had the taste, even though it wasn't the NFL, it was like a taste of this cool lifestyle. And I knew that I could figure out a way to like experience that feeling, whether or not I was doing the same things. I could create that environment for myself. That's what I wanted to do. And so for the next couple of years, I was kind of on that journey of like, how can I create my lifestyle? I don't need a lot of money, but how can I like afford the things that are going to give me this kind of flexible lifestyle?

• 43:29Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 43:31Speaker 01

  And that's what happened.

• 43:32Rich Roll?

  Kind of on a Tim Ferriss four hour work week model.

• 43:34Speaker 01

  It's funny because I read, my brother gave me that book when I was injured. I got that book for Christmas when I still had my cast on and it was like, I'd never even thought of those possibilities of like building a business online and having like a passive income and all these things because I didn't know anything about business. And so, reading that for me was really at the time, mind blowing because I was just like this athlete focused person and had no clue you could make money online. And I think not having any experience or like working in a business before, anything like that, it allowed me to just be so open to the possibilities that anything is available to me if I just take action and just follow a proven plan and just like go after it.

• 44:17Speaker 01

  So when I was doing this and I was kind of like growing an audience and started selling and making products, people would ask me, but people who I knew who were doing this online for like five or 10 years, I started to surpass them. And I was like early on reaching out to them for advice and kind of following what they're doing. But then I started surpassing some of these mentors of mine who I felt like were, you know, kind of online marketing geniuses. And they started coming to me and be like, how are you doing this? And I think a lot of it's just because I wasn't like so messed up in the head of what I could or couldn't do.

• 44:52Rich Roll?

  You didn't have to break up pre-existing paradigm for how to.

• 44:55Speaker 01

  I was just like, anything is possible. This is the lifestyle I want and I'm going to do it and want to find the people who can help me.

• 45:08Rich Roll?

  And really what, it started when you, you started creating a LinkedIn group, right? For sports entrepreneurs and then having meetups in various cities and then kind of compiling this group of people that spread across the United States and then, and then, you know, showing up in person to meet them. And then how does, but how does that turn into a business? Like, how is that, how's that supporting you?

• 45:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I was doing like, I did like 20 local events in different cities around the country in, was it 2009, I believe? And so I was, started doing them for free and then I started to charge like five bucks at the door, then $10 and $20. And I started to get sponsors, I started to get admission from the food and bar sales if it was a restaurant. And then I wrote a book about LinkedIn, so I was selling books. So I was trying to figure out any way I could monetize these like little events where I was getting 300 to 500 people to show up. It just got so exhausting, like being there and building relationships like one by one and shaking everyone's hand. Like I was so tired for a few days afterwards. And I was just like, man, it's a lot of work and I'm only making like two or $3,000, you know, doing these.

• 46:13Speaker 01

  Like it was nice cash, but it was just like, it's not worth it. And it's like all my time and energy to like promote these things. There's gotta be a better way to like, help people. Cause I was trying to help people come together from offline to offline. Um, to build their business. I was like, there's gotta be a better way to serve these people. And then also make a better living from it. And it was the moment I did my first webinar, which is basically an online seminar where we had like 600 people on. Uh, where I made, I talked about LinkedIn marketing. I talked about like how to grow your business using LinkedIn. And at the end I offered like a $150 training that teaches people more about the advanced strategies. We made $6,300 in that hour.

• 46:56Speaker 01

  And it was at that moment, I was like, oh my God, I'm sitting here, you know, in the comfort of my living room. I was actually at my brother's place renting a room for him at that time. But I was like, I'm sitting at the comfort of a living room. I'm not like speaking to everyone one by one and shaking their hands. In your underwear. I was in my underwear. Exactly. It was like super hot. It was in the summer. And I was just like, I can make $6,300 and I don't have to travel to go like host an event. And I made double that I made like doing the whole of work for an event. And I was like, this is, you know, something new that I, and I was just like, I'm gonna do a webinar every, I could do this every day for the rest of my life. I was gonna make, you know, $6,000. So you weren't charging for the webinar, it was just a free hour, like, you know, online, like, video or just audio?

• 47:38Speaker 01

  It was, it was audio, it was audio, but you could see like my screen. So I put up a slideshow and like share some content and slides. Oh, I gotcha. And, um, yeah. And over the last few years, I've probably done over 700 live webinars and a number of automated webinars since then. Just learning. So I was like, okay, I'm gonna learn everything I can about webinars, maximize this thing. So I can make the most amount of sales off these webinars and. Serve the most amount of people at the same time and become a better presenter, share better content, create products around this. Each day it was just like setting up webinars, building relationships with people to promote webinars, learning how to speak better, learning how to present, like everything to maximize what I was given or what I'd figured out.

• 48:23Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 48:24Speaker 01

  Webinars.

• 48:25Rich Roll?

  And behind it all really is this, I mean, you know, I get, what I get from you, which what I don't get from a lot of these other people is just a sense of, you know, enthusiasm and authenticity, like you're really having fun doing this, you're enjoying helping people.

• 48:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:40Rich Roll?

  And I think that's, that's really the defining principle to long-term success and what you're doing. I mean, you know, people can tell, like we talked about earlier, you know, whether it's pitchy or what have you, but you know, you just seem like a, you seem like a good dude.

• 48:54Speaker 01

  Right. Appreciate it. Appreciate it. I think when you're, uh, when you're excited about like, for me, I was always excited about my lifestyle and the possibilities of building something awesome, like this community and these products and things like that, and learning and just connecting with awesome people. And so that excitement, I was able to always have great energy around it. Like if you're not excited about what you're doing, you're going to have low energy. For me, that's why I was able to have like this high energy all the time because I was just like, this is so much fun and I'm learning so much and I'm helping so many people and...

• 49:27Rich Roll?

  Right. And it's such an interesting time because really every single person has this sort of distribution access to

• 49:35Speaker 01

  Right.

• 49:36Rich Roll?

  self-create what they want their profession to be in certain ways.

• 49:41Speaker 01

  Right.

• 49:41Rich Roll?

  If you have a message, then you have a microphone and, and you can build your own audience around that. If you have something to share that's of value and you're of service to people, then, and, uh, you know, it's cool to see, you know, look, there's a lot of people that feel stuck, you know, they feel stuck in their life. They're in a cubicle every day, they hate it and they can't see their way out. And so if you were to say to them, hey, you know, you can take control of your life. I mean, they don't, where do you even start with that? You know, I mean, it's, it's tough and I have compassion for that and I've been there. You know what I mean? I know what that, I know what that feels like.

• 50:18Rich Roll?

  So, you know, what is something that you could offer to somebody who's in that position who's like, you know, I need, I need to find a way to live my life and, and, you know, make a living, but find more enjoyment in what I'm doing and, and, you know, find another way.

• 50:35Speaker 01

  Right. I mean, part of me would, it's tough because if you have responsibilities and kids and bills and stuff, it's tough to just like say, okay, I'm going to quit everything I'm doing and go do this full time because you might be screwed for a year or two. It is going to take some time to develop new skills and.

• 50:49Rich Roll?

  Everybody has free time though. People will tell you they don't have free time, but.

• 50:52Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 50:52Rich Roll?

  You know, if you're, if it's important enough to you, you can cut other stuff out of your life and, and make the time to start taking baby steps in a new direction.

• 51:00Speaker 01

  I mean, you could go to bed at 10 and get up at 6 a.m. and work for two hours before you have to go do work or whatever, or get up for your, you know, kids or something. So, uh, I definitely think that you can start anytime. You just got to figure out what it is that excites you. Cause if you figure out what it is that really excites you, then you're never going to get bored of doing that if you've been excited about it for your whole life. Um, so I don't know how you got into, I guess swimming you were excited about.

• 51:25Rich Roll?

  Well, I was always, you know, I, I, yeah, I loved swimming from the, as a kid, you know, and part of my journey was kind of, you know, re, sort of reconnecting with that.

• 51:33Speaker 01

  Right.

• 51:33Rich Roll?

  Part of my life. Um, but if you're so disconnected that you don't even, don't even know, and I, I know people like that. And I think that.

• 51:40Speaker 01

  They have no clue what their passion is.

• 51:41Rich Roll?

  It's like, what do you say to somebody like that? But, and for me, I would say, well, first of all, for me, it all, it always starts with food. Like what are you putting into your system every day? You know, let's clean that up first.

• 51:51Speaker 01

  That's true.

• 51:52Rich Roll?

  Let's ungunk the engine a little bit because if you're eating like crap, like I know when I'm eating like crap, I'm not thinking clearly. I don't feel aspirational about anything.

• 52:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, of course.

• 52:01Rich Roll?

  And I'm disconnected from the better version of myself. So I would say that. And then it's an inside job, man. You know, no one can answer that question for you. Only you can answer that for you. And that takes work.

• 52:12Speaker 01

  Right.

• 52:13Rich Roll?

  So for some people, that means going to therapy. For other people, that might mean, you know, starting to exercise and feel yourself and your body again. And for others, that might mean meditation or some combination of all of those things. But you have to kind of, you know, it's, it's, it's work, you know, just like anything else. But the, the gift and the value of. Kind of, you know, having some sort of realization about what your life, we all have it inside of ourselves. It's an unlocking process.

• 52:41Speaker 01

  And I would say the, the second, well, maybe if not the first important thing after what you're putting in your body is really what thoughts you're listening to and what, what you're accepting from other people telling you. Because if your spouse is always saying, no, you can't do this, you can't get that, you can't do your own thing, you've got to make sure that we're secure and have this and this, then you're never going to be able to like break free from that.

• 53:03Rich Roll?

  Or if you're telling yourself that.

• 53:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, if you're telling yourself.

• 53:06Rich Roll?

  I've had to work really hard to kind of overcome negative thought patterns. And my wife catches me all the time. She's like, why are you saying those things? Like, you're just, you're going to create that reality. If you're like, like I said something, like, my car's starting to break down all the time, right?

• 53:19Speaker 01

  It's always gonna break down.

• 53:20Rich Roll?

  And then my buddy dumped a green, a green smoothie on my laptop, like, you know, the same day. I was, and I was frustrated. It wasn't his fault. It was an honest mistake. And the guy's so awesome. He made, you know, he made sure he got me all set up again and whatever. It's all fine. But it was one of those moments where I was like, everything's breaking, you know?

• 53:39Speaker 01

  And then it all kept breaking.

• 53:40Rich Roll?

  She's like, it's gonna keep breaking if that's what you're saying, because that's what you're putting out into the universe, you know? And if, instead you said, wow, isn't it awesome that Greg is being so cool and he's gonna make sure that you get another laptop right away? So you don't even miss a day of work? Like, what a great friend. You know, like, that's a different way of looking at that scenario. And she's right. And, and it's hard, you know, I have, I have a whole lifetime of, you know, negative thought patterns that I'm constantly working on. And it's like hard work. Cause my default is like, the, the other shoe's gonna drop and it's all gonna fall apart. And, you know, you gotta like overcome that stuff.

• 54:16Speaker 01

  I don't know what, like, my default is always like towards gratitude.

• 54:20Rich Roll?

  That's the key. That's the key to everything, I think. Gratitude and service, man.

• 54:24Speaker 01

  I think it all started to change like in high school. Because I was really like angry and upset. Like, as a kid growing up and like, not accepted like I talked about. But then like, in high school, like, I just felt like so accepted. Just with everything I was doing. I was friends with everyone. I didn't have like one sports clique. I was like friends with everyone my junior and senior year. And I started to like just really be grateful for my experience, my opportunities, like my first 18 years and like how far I'd come. And I don't know why, but I just started, you know, the people I was surrounding myself were so positive. But I just started to being more and more positive. And I think it's all about the people you surround yourself with.

• 55:03Rich Roll?

  That well, and then, you know, water rises to its own level. So when you're putting that out to the world, then those are the kind of people that you're going to bring into your orbit. You know, and I think I read something that you wrote, maybe it was in the Forbes piece where you said. You were depressed, you know, when the football career was over and you're on the couch and you're depressed and not seeing a way out. That, you know, one of the choices was, you know, I can be depressed, I can, I can feel bad for myself. I never made it to the NFL. You know, I played one season of arena and I broke my wrist like this is, oh, this is terrible. But instead you can flick the switch and say, you know what? How awesome was it that I always wanted to be a professional athlete and I got that opportunity? And I made that happen like that's, that's fucking awesome.

• 55:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, there was definitely doubts in my head because, you know, there was better athletes than me at my school. Who could have played arena or the NFL, I thought. And but they never went for it. They were like too scared or they just like didn't want to or something. But I think it was really because of fear of like not making it. And so I was like, I'm going to make it no matter what, at least be a pro athlete, even though it wasn't in the fell. And after I got injured, I was still kind of like a little fearful. I was like, oh, my friends aren't going to accept me because they're going to say I didn't make it or whatever, this and that. But I really started to, after a few months, I was depressed for a few months. And I wouldn't say like serious depression, but I was just like moping around and didn't know what to do with my life. I was just like, I've got to find people who can support me and help me take it like, figure out what I'm going to do next.

• 56:27Speaker 01

  I reached out to a few mentors who gave me great advice. I was like, okay, here's an opportunity. I've got all this free time on my hands. I can go back and finish school now. I, I've always wanted to learn how to overcome my fear of becoming a public speaker. So I went to Toastmasters every single week and learned about public speaking. I met with a famous inventor who became a great mentor and friend of mine now. Who taught me all about product development, inventing, licensing, like manufacturing, everything there is to know about. How to get a product to market in retail stores. And so I was just learning about like marketing and everything else as well, like working with him like every day for a year or two. And, uh, you know, I was just learning all these new skills and I wouldn't have if I was

• 57:10Speaker 01

  still playing football. I would have just been stuck in football mode all day long. Nothing else matters. Heroes developing relationship building skills, public speaking skills, business skills and everything else. And it was, uh, I mean, it was like the biggest blessing to learn these skills and have these opportunities. And I wouldn't have that if I was in the NFL, you know, a lot of guys get stuck in the NFL and then when they're done, they go broke two years after their Yeah, that's, that's a huge problem. They're like having serious

• 57:39Speaker 01

  mental issues or people, you know, people recently are committing suicide a couple of years after they retire. And it's just like, they don't know what to do next. They, even though they were a superstar, that's like, that's their identity and they, they're 30 something years old and now what do they do?

• 57:52Rich Roll?

  Right. Yeah, it's a big challenge. It's what we were talking about earlier about, you know, when your whole life is about that and you're, you're, you've invested so much in a particular identity, you're attached to that identity. And when that identity is no longer like overnight, literally, you know, what do you do? Like it's, it's, it's scary and disorienting and it goes into, you know, how we attach, you know, like attachment to things, like whether it's your car or your job or your house or, you know, anything. It doesn't matter what it is, but we always wanna, we all wanna create an identity around something and we all kind of mentally hold on to things and, and associate them with who we are. And I think a lot of the kind of, you know, mental and spiritual work and where meditation has helped me is in, is in, you know, detaching, you know, uncoupling

• 58:37Rich Roll?

  those attachments, saying, you know, yeah, I have, these are, these are things in my life, but this isn't who I am. You know, I'm not defined by any one of these things. You know, I'm, I'm more than that and I'm different from that. And I'm, I'm all of these things and none of these things.

• 58:50Speaker 01

  And I think you can always reinvent yourself if you choose to.

• 58:53Rich Roll?

  But if you're, if you're so attached to a certain identity, you're not going to, or you're gonna have, you're gonna struggle with that more, I think.

• 58:59Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 58:59Rich Roll?

  Um, but then, you know, going, and going back to gratitude and, and service. I mean, for me, just in my experience, I mean, those are kind of like two, two of the defining principles of recovery and And it's a practice, like you have to practice gratitude and you have to practice service. And when I'm feeling down or I'm feeling like my life isn't working the way I want it to, it's like I'm all up in my head, you know, and most of that is not real anyway. It's just these thoughts and saying that these thoughts are not real. I can choose to believe them or not. The best way for me to shift the way that I'm thinking is to pick up the phone and help somebody else who's kind of having a harder time than me.

• 59:36Speaker 01

  Right.

• 59:37Rich Roll?

  You know, and when I do that, then suddenly my problems go away. I feel better, you know, even if it's Machiavellian, even if it's like, you know what? I feel lousy, like I want to feel better. I'm going to help someone solely for the selfish purpose of.

• 59:48Speaker 01

  Feeling better, you gotta fake it till you make it.

• 59:50Rich Roll?

  Yeah, yeah. And then being, and then just like practicing gratitude for me, that's, that's, it's hard for me sometimes, you know, I'm not always in gratitude, but when I am like my life's better and, and those problems that I think I have sort of miraculously solve themselves. And then, you know, I, and sort of the riffraff in my life goes away and, and a higher quality, higher vibrating, you know, people come into my life and my life is enriched and hopefully I'm enriching theirs.

• 1:00:15Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:00:15Rich Roll?

  So service gratitude, people.

• 1:00:19Speaker 01

  That's it.

• 1:00:19Rich Roll?

  Inside job.

• 1:00:20Speaker 01

  That's it.

• 1:00:21Rich Roll?

  I mean, you're a really positive guy.

• 1:00:23Speaker 01

  I try to be.

• 1:00:23Rich Roll?

  You know?

• 1:00:24Speaker 01

  I try to.

• 1:00:24Rich Roll?

  I mean, just out of the womb like that or like?

• 1:00:26Speaker 01

  No, again, I mean, I was, I wasn't positive when I was a kid and I used to fight so much, like especially in sports, I would just get, take things so personally. If someone like said something wrong to me or did something I felt was intentional, I would just like react and take it so much offense.

• 1:00:42Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:00:43Speaker 01

  And it was, I remember freshman year, I was so mad that I did not make the senior basketball my freshman year because I was better than a lot of these guys who were playing and I made JV and I was like the starter and, you know, scored a ton of points and the coach really helped me stop being so angry. Like I was so mad, but I didn't make it, the varsity in my freshman year and I was so mad, like just in practice and games and he would guard me actually in practice and he would like talk to me in my ear, like get in my head and also just like physically get in my, in my head. And he was like, and I couldn't react to him. So I was like, I had to learn how to not

• 1:01:27Speaker 01

  react and just be like, learn how to play when people are going to just be dirty with me constantly and just like learn how to overcome it and accept it. And once I started like, that was like the best lesson for me of like overcoming a lot of anger issues and just like not being grateful and thinking everyone's out to get me was that basketball season with him just like really teaching me how to become a man and not be like this little boy who's just upset all the time. Right. Yeah. The importance of mentors again. Man, so powerful. You know? And mentors you just really appreciate and look up to and like respect. So who are your mentors now? Um, well, I've got a few that I work with, that I've been working with for the last

• 1:02:09Speaker 01

  few years. And I really consider them just more good friends that I just like lean on every now and then now. But a guy named Stuart Jenkins, who is the vice president of innovation at Deckers, which is a big shoe brand, actually in Santa Barbara, a billion dollar brand up there. He's always been a very big supporter of mine and helped me with just making sure I follow my heart and making good decisions, very ethical moral decisions in every part of my life. And he's also very smart and just business in general. So I've leaned on him for that. Another mentor of mine early on, this guy named Frank Egan, who I co-wrote my LinkedIn book with, who was a really smart public speaker, really talented, amazing

• 1:02:54Speaker 01

  relationship building expert and networker. And it just taught me all about how to build quality relationships with people. And then Chris Hawker, who is this famous inventor, who was one of the most brilliant minds I've ever met, just like coming up with an idea and then like actually making it real and then also making a business out of it. So there's a lot of inventors who are like, I have this idea and I can create it, but then they don't know how to like market it or brand it or build the relationships with the right companies to license it. He can do all that. So it's a, it's pretty impressive. They're all still great friends of mine and great mentors. I would say that I just have a lot of quality like friendships with people who I respect now in very different aspects of life.

• 1:03:36Rich Roll?

  Right, right, right, right. And it seems like your approach to, you know, everything that you do, I mean, I guess lifestyle entrepreneur, is that like, what do you, if somebody said, what do you do, what is your?

• 1:03:46Speaker 01

  That's just what I've been saying more in the last like six months because I don't know what to say to people. You know, it depends if it's, if it's another author or writer that I know, and I'm like, yeah, I'm a writer as well. I'm an author or whatever. If it's an online marketing person, I'll just say I'm online marketing. But for people in general, I'm just saying lifestyle entrepreneur. And then they ask, what's that?

• 1:04:05Rich Roll?

  And they're like, oh, you don't have a job.

• 1:04:07Speaker 01

  Right, exactly. Or you're, well, I say entrepreneur, I used to say entrepreneur, and then people would be like, you don't have a job. And then I'd be like, yeah, that's fine if you want to believe that.

• 1:04:14Rich Roll?

  You should just hand them the, the magazine that you're on the cover of now.

• 1:04:17Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 1:04:17Rich Roll?

  What is that? What's the magazine?

• 1:04:19Speaker 01

  It's called Aspire Magazine. It's like a magazine for entrepreneurs.

• 1:04:21Rich Roll?

  I just saw your Instagram with that. That's pretty cool.

• 1:04:24Speaker 01

  Thanks, thanks.

• 1:04:24Rich Roll?

  Is that out on newsstands now?

• 1:04:26Speaker 01

  It's just on iTunes. It's just an online magazine, yeah. But I'm telling people lifestyle entrepreneur now because it's easy for me to say, when they ask, what's that? Does that mean you just don't have a job? And I say, no, I build my lifestyle around my business as opposed to like, excuse me, I build my business around my lifestyle as opposed to my lifestyle around my business.

• 1:04:46Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:04:47Speaker 01

  I'm just focusing more on my, myself and building passive income so I can fund my life.

• 1:04:52Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:04:53Speaker 01

  So.

• 1:04:54Rich Roll?

  And it's a very, you know, creative, unique approach to business and life. And it's cool to see you making it work. And it begs the question of something that's really interesting to me, which is this sort of connection between athleticism and creativity or artistry. Because growing up, I always thought you're, you know, either you're an athlete, you know, the athletes and the artists, they don't mix. They're two different crowds of people, you know what I mean? You're a jock or you're the guy who's drawing in the corner or reading comic books.

• 1:05:28Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:05:28Rich Roll?

  And I was always, you know, I was a different kind of athlete because swimming wasn't a mainstream sport. And, you know, I was always into kind of more artistic kind of stuff. Like I acted in the plays and I liked to read books and I was a loner, awkward kid. And I always tried to, how do I reconcile this? Like I have to choose one of these things or the other. Like you can't, I can't be both and, and, you know, I've. Only in recent years am I realizing, no, you can be both. You can leverage the best things of both of those things to live like a more creative existence. Like, maybe you're not a painter, so you're not an artist in that definition. But if you take a broader definition of what an artist is or a creative person is,

• 1:06:07Rich Roll?

  how do you express what you do with your fitness or your athleticism into sort of your own personal kind of imprimatur on that, that in many ways I think can be qualified as art? Right. You know, I mean, I just read, I just am thinking about this a lot because of Seth Godin's new book, The Icarus Effect. Have you read that book yet? I haven't read it yet, no. I mean, essentially what he's saying is, you know, the American workforce is suffering because everybody in corporate, in the corporate world is kind of a drone. And we don't value or reward creative thinking in our workforce. Whereas, you know, the one kind of outlier who has a different take on maybe how something should be done

• 1:06:49Rich Roll?

  within the sort of infrastructure of a big company, that should be the person who should be listened to. And the company should not be afraid to fail, and they should try new things and be more nimble and facile. And we kind of crush the spirit of that, like, get on board. And he's sort of saying, you know, we're all artists, like, whether you're working in a cubicle at an insurance company, or, you know, you're Picasso, whatever. We all have an artistry inside of ourselves that we should be expressing more. And that as a culture, as a society, and in business and what have you, we should be rewarding and celebrating more than we do. Right. I agree. And I think that you're somebody who's navigated or, you know, managing kind of both ends of that spectrum. Like, you're an athlete, and you're still an athlete, and I want to get into that in a minute.

• 1:07:34Rich Roll?

  But, you know, you're very creative in your business endeavors, and you're, you know, doing lots of different things. You can't say, "Oh, I do this one thing." There's no term for what you do. And that in and of itself, I think, is, that is artistic in and of itself. That is creative. That's like, how can you... Your life is, your profession is a creative expression of your lifestyle and how you want to live your life, right? Exactly. And I think, yeah, I mean, if you're going to try to make a living...

• 1:07:58Speaker 01

  Off of like all these different things, you gotta be creative in how you're gonna do it. And like, you know, not just a paycheck from one place. You gotta figure out how you're gonna like.

• 1:08:06Rich Roll?

  Right. And you figured out, you were the first person to kind of figure out LinkedIn, really. I mean, I mean, I don't know if you were the first, well, you were, you were, you wrote a book about it. So, you know, you, no one else had written a book about how to like, create a career off of leveraging relationships on LinkedIn. So, you know, that was a sort of thinking outside the box thing, right?

• 1:08:24Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. And again, I wasn't tied down to any like beliefs of what I could or couldn't do. And I think, I can give that, you know, my dad would always push us to like, try all these different things. Like I was in the choir my whole life and played guitar, still play guitar today. And, you know, was in the musical as well. And.

• 1:08:42Rich Roll?

  And your brother, right? Like you were telling me about your brother?

• 1:08:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:08:44Rich Roll?

  Tell us, tell the audience about that, cause that's crazy.

• 1:08:47Speaker 01

  My brother's the number one jazz violinist in the world. And he was, he was, uh, you know, a top classical violinist when he was in high school in the country. It was like one of the top.

• 1:08:58Rich Roll?

  How's that happen? Like.

• 1:08:59Speaker 01

  Since he was five, my parents put him in violin lessons and were like so strict with him. Like every day for two hours and he just had a gift and he picked it up very quickly. But he trained really hard and he was, uh, he was a machine. And then he, he actually went to prison in 19 because he sold drugs to an undercover cop.

• 1:09:18Rich Roll?

  Wow.

• 1:09:19Speaker 01

  Was sentenced for seven to 25 years, prison for selling a couple of sheets of LSD. Cause they wanted to make an example out of him. He was 19 at Ohio State and he, uh, he only, he only was there for four years. He got out on good behavior, but, um, when he was there, I mean, this shows to his character when he was there. He took every opportunity to like, go to school there. He was boxing every day, learned chess, reading all the time. And he joined the prison band and it was an all black band. So they're playing mostly like rap and hip hop and gospel and soul and blues. So he went from learning classical violin to like playing these, all these different genres. And then after he got out on good behavior, he just became a jazz violinist and took it over by storm,

• 1:10:02Speaker 01

  transformed his life and now is opening up for Elton John, played for Les Paul for 10 years in New York City.

• 1:10:09Rich Roll?

  And that is, that's an insane story.

• 1:10:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:10:12Rich Roll?

  Oh my God. And he's playing Lincoln Center in New York in a couple of weeks, right?

• 1:10:15Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. A whole for like five days. Yeah.

• 1:10:17Rich Roll?

  That is, that's amazing.

• 1:10:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:10:19Rich Roll?

  So that's, he's your, he's a younger brother?

• 1:10:21Speaker 01

  Older, 11 years older.

• 1:10:22Rich Roll?

  11 years older. And then you have two other siblings.

• 1:10:24Speaker 01

  Two older sisters. Yeah. So my dad always, you know. Wanted us to be very well-rounded and pushed us in all these different areas. We all played sports. We all did music. We had to. And he always gave us the mindset of like, anything is possible. And that's why I think it allowed me to be like, okay, I can do whatever I want, because that's just what I was told by my dad, you know?

• 1:10:43Rich Roll?

  Wow, that's cool. I mean, that's amazing support, you know? I mean, and to have, you know, your older, I mean, I can't imagine what your parents going through when your brother was in jail.

• 1:10:53Speaker 01

  It was rough, man. I mean, every week.

• 1:10:54Rich Roll?

  How old were you? So you were in high school?

• 1:10:57Speaker 01

  I was eight years old.

• 1:10:57Rich Roll?

  Well, you were, yeah, that's right.

• 1:10:58Speaker 01

  Eight years old. And for me, it was even more of an angry time because I couldn't have friends then because all my friends' parents knew that my brother was, and we're in a small town in Ohio. So like, having a relative go to prison.

• 1:11:12Rich Roll?

  Bad kid, bad family.

• 1:11:12Speaker 01

  Is like, you know, no one is in prison that we know, you know, it's like, we're in the suburbs. So it was just like, I wasn't able to have friends. I wasn't, you know, when he got out, I couldn't have my friends come around. If he was there, it was like, you know?

• 1:11:24Rich Roll?

  So as a kid, were you pissed at him?

• 1:11:26Speaker 01

  I wasn't pissed at him. I was just like, upset that people didn't understand because I was like, this doesn't represent me, you know, whatever. I mean, I love my brother. I still love him. It's not like it ever affected me. We went to go visit him every week in the visitors' room at the prison. And it was like, the best time of the week for me to like, hang out with my brother.

• 1:11:42Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:11:42Speaker 01

  I wasn't like, mad at him ever. We were like, happy when he got out. And because he made a mistake. It's like.

• 1:11:49Rich Roll?

  Scary, though.

• 1:11:50Speaker 01

  He made a mistake.

• 1:11:51Rich Roll?

  Like that movie, isn't there a movie out right now with The Rock where like, his kid, it's a similar situation. His kid makes a bad decision, but it's like, you know, he gets some insane, you know, 25-year sentence. And so The Rock goes on a journey to like, he's got to provide names to the district attorney to get his kid out.

• 1:12:08Speaker 01

  Crazy. It's crazy. Yeah.

• 1:12:11Rich Roll?

  Wow.

• 1:12:12Speaker 01

  So it is what it is. But it's all builds character, you know?

• 1:12:16Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Interesting. And now he's at Lincoln Center. That's quite, that's quite an arc.

• 1:12:20Speaker 01

  It's amazing. He plays all over the world, and you know, the top places in the world. So.

• 1:12:24Rich Roll?

  Wow. And so just getting back to your kind of, you have this lifestyle now as an entrepreneur, which frees you up and you have, you know? Time on your hands to pursue other things that you're interested in. And you found yourself, I know you're an avid CrossFit guy, I don't want to talk about that. But also, what I'm really interested in is hearing about handball.

• 1:12:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:12:45Rich Roll?

  So you're on the US national handball team.

• 1:12:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, and handball, for people listening, there's two different handballs. There's a handball where you hit a ball against a wall, like the New York style.

• 1:12:53Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:12:54Speaker 01

  And then there's the one.

• 1:12:54Rich Roll?

  Team handball.

• 1:12:55Speaker 01

  Team handball, which I play, which is very popular in Europe, not popular at all here in the US. Sometimes you play it in middle school for like gym class. But it's, it's an Olympic sport. It's basically water polo on a basketball court, if you can visualize that. And it's a team sport.

• 1:13:11Rich Roll?

  So how does that happen? Like, where does this, how does this come into your life?

• 1:13:15Speaker 01

  So I'm depressed on the couch at my sister's place in 2008, when the Olympics are happening, the Summer Olympics. I'd just gotten off my, my cast was off me, so I was like kind of rehabbing my wrist. And I was like, I want to go, I was like thinking, am I going to go play football or not? Like, can I do this? I want to do something, but I don't, I want to, I want to do something at a high level, not just like play flag football. Or like basketball, pick up basketball for fun. My dream really was always to make the Olympics. I wanted to be a pro athlete, but I was always like the most inspired every four years during the two week Summer Olympics. And that was like, it would like get me through the next four years.

• 1:13:51Rich Roll?

  Yeah, me too.

• 1:13:52Speaker 01

  It was just like.

• 1:13:52Rich Roll?

  There's nothing like it.

• 1:13:53Speaker 01

  I mean, maybe it's just the production value that NBC does, like it makes you want to cry, like all the stories and just like the hard work. Just like, oh my God, this is inspiring. And so I remember watching it, like late at night, it came on and it was the first time I'd ever seen team handball. I'd never seen this sport before. And I was excited and mad at the same time, excited that I would found this sport that I felt like was perfect from who I was as an athlete. You had to jump.

• 1:14:17Rich Roll?

  Like part of basketball, kind of football.

• 1:14:19Speaker 01

  Exactly. And I was like, I had a great arm strength, like I could throw a football 60 yards and you know. 85 mile an hour fastball in high school. So I was like, this is what I can do. And you got to jump, run, be tall. Like this is my sport. I was like, how did I never find this?

• 1:14:34Rich Roll?

  Well, how would anyone find it in the US? Like where, who, who even plays it? Like, where do you even go?

• 1:14:39Speaker 01

  No one. There's, it's an amateur level in the US. So there are club teams in pretty much every major city, but I was in Columbus, Ohio, there was not a team there. And so I tried to do research to find information about it. There was nothing in Ohio. It was like, I had to be in New York City or LA or something. Even then, it was so hard to find information about it. Like in the USA national team site, there was like no information. I called people, I emailed people, no one would get back to me. Until eventually, a few years later, I moved to New York to learn handball. My whole goal was to like-

• 1:15:11Rich Roll?

  That was why you moved to New York?

• 1:15:13Speaker 01

  For literally, yeah. So for like three years, basically, I was just like, always come back my, in my mind, it would always come back to handball. I'm like, I don't want to learn handball. I want to learn this. Like a month would go by, but I'd just be like, I'm missing something in my life, which is like this competitive drive. And I think handball, because it's like, okay, what can I do competitively at a high level here in the US? And I was just like, I'm going to regret it if I don't go and learn this sport and see if I at least have the potential to be like on the US national team. Because I heard that the team wasn't that good because, you know, we just don't have a pro league here. So it's just like-

• 1:15:49Rich Roll?

  I mean, did they get their ass handed in them at the Olympics?

• 1:15:52Speaker 01

  They didn't make the Olympics.

• 1:15:53Rich Roll?

  Oh, they don't even make the-

• 1:15:54Speaker 01

  They didn't make-

• 1:15:54Rich Roll?

  What is the selection process for-

• 1:15:56Speaker 01

  So every four years, right before the Olympics, is the Pan American Games, which is North and South America, for all the different Olympic sports, you compete. And for handball, they only take one country in North and South America. Whoever wins the Pan American Games, they go. So I think there's only 12 or 16 countries total.

• 1:16:16Rich Roll?

  Doesn't seem, that seems weird. Why can't they, I mean, the Olympics is about having, I mean, even in swimming, you have like the guy from some obscure country who can barely swim.

• 1:16:24Speaker 01

  Who like the highest, the best high school player can be, right? It's, that's the thing that's really frustrates me. And I think it's something about the like international federation of handball and chooses, we're only going to have this many teams or whatever. So I don't know if that's going to change in the future, but for now it's it's not. And so that means only one country and right now Argentina and Brazil have professional leagues. So they're playing all year round together. They're playing international competition. They've got the funding. They've got a, you know, youth programs with people who are trained, so they know what they're doing. So the challenge is to like, how are we going to beat one of these teams? You know, we could get to the top there. But unless we're playing together every day and playing against top competition internationally, it's going to be really tough.

• 1:17:08Rich Roll?

  So they take one from North America and one from South America or just one from the whole continent?

• 1:17:12Speaker 01

  One from the whole continent.

• 1:17:13Rich Roll?

  Oh, wow.

• 1:17:13Speaker 01

  It's, yeah, but they'll take two, I believe, in Rio in 2016 because the home country gets an automatic bid.

• 1:17:21Rich Roll?

  Oh, I see.

• 1:17:22Speaker 01

  So they'll take one more. So it's like, gives us a better chance, but it's, we got to really practice and come together. And right now it's like the Olympic committee for the, you know, the USA handball. We don't get any funding. We don't have like any structure. It's just so much in the air. And it's just kind of like, we got to make it on our own.

• 1:17:48Rich Roll?

  But how does it? So tell me how it, how it happened though. So you just decided you were going to learn this sport? And how did you seek out, you know, how did, how did it all come to be that you actually did learn and ended up on the national team?

• 1:17:58Speaker 01

  So I moved to New York City and I, which is a whole nother podcast about how this happened. But to keep it short, I moved to New York City. The guys kind of laughed at me. I'm the only American who comes to this practice. And it was the last practice of the year. They kind of laughed at me because I was like, here, I'm learning. I just moved here from Ohio, learned to learn handball and I want to make the US national team. They all laughed because they're all like European. We're like, you don't know what you're talking about. So they say, come back.

• 1:18:24Rich Roll?

  They're all doing it for, for fun. They're like expats or whatever, just living in New York.

• 1:18:28Speaker 01

  They all live in New York. They've moved there. They're all, you know, they all used to play professionally. Some guys on the national team and like different, different countries. So these are the top players from like five, seven years ago.

• 1:18:39Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:18:39Speaker 01

  A little out of shape, but they're like still really good. And they're like, come back in a few months if you want to learn and you can practice with us.

• 1:18:45Rich Roll?

  Where do you guys play in New York?

• 1:18:47Speaker 01

  It's like a high school gym. So it's not even a regulation court. It's like a smaller court, but it's like something. And so I come back in a few months and I show up and I, you know, long story short, I practiced twice, we only practiced twice a week, but I practiced twice a week with them for the whole year. And in less than a year, I, US national team emailed me and said, you're selected to go compete with the USA team.

• 1:19:10Rich Roll?

  So do they send you to tournaments around and like, how does that work?

• 1:19:13Speaker 01

  We've only had one tournament in the last like six months and that was in Argentina. And they sent us there, but it's like, basically we sleep in.

• 1:19:22Rich Roll?

  There's no money.

• 1:19:23Speaker 01

  It's like you're sleeping in an outdoor tents, basically is how bad it is.

• 1:19:26Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:19:27Speaker 01

  I mean, it's no money. It's like.

• 1:19:30Rich Roll?

  And when are, when's Pan Am Games?

• 1:19:33Speaker 01

  It's the, it's like, it's like four months, I think before the Olympics.

• 1:19:36Rich Roll?

  And where is it? Where is it? You know?

• 1:19:38Speaker 01

  I'm not sure where this one's going to be. It might be in Canada.

• 1:19:41Rich Roll?

  Right. But that's cool. I mean, that's a cool event. You'll get to go and compete internationally.

• 1:19:46Speaker 01

  It's like a mini Olympics. It's huge. Yeah.

• 1:19:48Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:49Speaker 01

  So.

• 1:19:49Rich Roll?

  It's pretty cool. I mean, I, you know, and is there a club that you can play with here in LA?

• 1:19:53Speaker 01

  There's a club here that I practice with every now and then, but again, it's like an hour and a half away and it's only Sunday nights. And it's like, if I'm out of town, then you miss, you know, one practice a week. So that's why I picked up CrossFit. There's just like train every day or something and just try to be in great shape. So at least I can run up and down the court and have the energy as opposed to like having the skills. So I'm learning more of the skills now. I'm just trying to stay in great shape and be prepared whenever we're, we're going. But the national championships is coming up in May. So I'm practicing with the New York team, flying out there to practice with them.

• 1:20:24Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:20:25Speaker 01

  And just getting ready for the national championships, trying to win.

• 1:20:27Rich Roll?

  It's cool. It seems like a natural kind of, you know, place for somebody, you know, who's, who was a great kind of multi-sport athlete, you know, in the traditional sports to go, you know, it seems like ripe for, it's kind of like Lolo Jones doing the, doing the bobsled, you know, there's a, there's a definite crossover skillset there that, that. That would seem to work.

• 1:20:49Speaker 01

  Right, exactly.

• 1:20:49Rich Roll?

  And it's cool to watch. I mean, I've watched it during the Olympics, you know, and I've thought, who does this? You know, I don't know how to do it. But I, the other thing that's cool about it is that, you know, when you pick an obscure sport like that, you have this enhanced ability to distinguish yourself. I mean, the fact that you just kind of picked it up and then you're on the national team. I mean, obviously, you're a great athlete and, and disciplined and all of that, but to go, you know, to be able to do that so quickly. And, and I, and there's something that I relate to with that. Like, I remember when I was, when I was swimming, I wasn't the most gifted swimmer as a kid, but I knew how to work really hard. And I would pick the events that no one else would swim in. I picked the 200 fly. No one wanted to swim the 200 fly. So I was like, ah, if I do the 200 fly, and I really focus on that, like, I'm in a better position to like, get, you know, get a medal or get a blue ribbon or whatever.

• 1:21:33Speaker 01

  That's what I've done.

• 1:21:34Rich Roll?

  And that became my event. And then when I was doing triathlon, I was like, well, I can go to, if I do, you know, if I go to Ironman, there'll be, you know, 2,500 people racing, but I can do this Ultraman thing. There's only 35 people doing it. It's really long and hard, and that's why no one wants to do it. But I have a better chance of like, doing well by picking the thing that other people aren't doing.

• 1:21:53Speaker 01

  Exactly. And that's, that's why I was like, I can't play any of the major sports, like baseball, basketball. I'm not, you know, I'm a good athlete, but it's like, I'm not at that level. I would never be able to make that. But I was like, yeah, what obscure sport that no one plays can I be the best at in the US? And that's, handball seemed to be a good fit.

• 1:22:11Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's cool, man. So handball and then, and then CrossFit, man, which, you know, I've had a couple of CrossFitters on the podcast. I've never done it myself. I've no, like, I think it's, you know, people have this weird, like, at least on Twitter or whatever, they think I'm anti-CrossFit or something, but I'm, I'm not at all. Like, I'm curious, you know, I think it's, I think strength and conditioning training is, is great. But what interests me is how it's become like this religion, you know, it's become a sport in and of itself. It's a, it's not a, it's not a pursuit to make you better, to make you a better handball player. Or it's, it's like, no, you're, you're, you're, you're there to be a better CrossFitter. And there's an allegiance to that. And they've created this whole industry around it, which I think is, is fascinating.

• 1:22:55Speaker 01

  Right. Exactly. It's a

• 1:22:57Rich Roll?

  I mean, what is this whole thing? Like, I see tweets and stuff online, uh, 13.2 today. And, you know, I was like, I don't even know what that means. I just see, you know,

• 1:23:05Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:23:05Rich Roll?

  I assume that's sort of, there's a hierarchy or a scale of workouts that you work your way up.

• 1:23:10Speaker 01

  This is like, uh, right now, it's called the open workout. So for five weeks, they have the same workout that everyone does all around the world. And you try to like,

• 1:23:20Rich Roll?

  Every CrossFit gym is doing.

• 1:23:21Speaker 01

  Every CrossFit gym is doing it. And you see if you, where you rank in the world for that specific workout in this specific week. And this is leading up into the regionals, which you would get, you know, if you're in a certain category in your region, you'll go to the regionals. Um, and then regionals, they pick people to go to the nationals, like CrossFit Games. And that's, so that's why this is like the beginning of the CrossFit Games journey, which will happen this summer, which is where they coin the fittest man on earth or first woman on earth, whoever wins.

• 1:23:51Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's cool. So how long have you been doing it?

• 1:23:53Speaker 01

  We've been doing it almost two years now. And,

• 1:23:55Rich Roll?

  That's a long time.

• 1:23:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm not that good at it. Like, there's some, there's some event, there's some like workouts that I'm really good at. But this is really built, it's built for like a five foot eight, 175 pound, 180 pound guy.

• 1:24:09Rich Roll?

  Like a guy who can just do pull ups all day long.

• 1:24:11Speaker 01

  Pull ups all day long, just like, you know, or do snatches or squat cleans. It's like, I've got too long to go for these lifts. And with my knees and jumping so much, it's like, I've got more distance to, to cover.

• 1:24:23Rich Roll?

  You think it's helped with your power and your speed? I mean, how, what do you, what are the, what is the impact of that program been on, on your overall athleticism or your handball playing?

• 1:24:31Speaker 01

  You know, it's helped in a lot of ways. I think maybe if I did like a specific strength training program and had like a coach who was just like helping me on like lifting and stuff, I might be a little stronger. But to be flexible, to be have endurance, to have, keep up my agility, my quickness and jumping, everything. This is the best thing for me with my lifestyle as well, where I can just go show up and I know for an hour, I'm gonna like, get a great workout and don't have to think. So for my lifestyle to like, keep me in shape for handball and everything else I'm doing, it's been great. I feel, I still can, you know, dunk a basketball. I can still jump pretty high. Like, maybe I'd be a little bit stronger if I was working on specific lifts and had like a program. You know, I'm sure I could get my lifts up a little bit, but.

• 1:25:16Speaker 01

  To be flexible and an athlete and not like be stuck in the gym all day and be, you know, doing all that. This is a, it's really great for me.

• 1:25:23Rich Roll?

  And you get to go and have Bob Harper yell at you.

• 1:25:25Speaker 01

  Exactly. Yeah. Bob's in our gym and he's awesome. He's, you know, he's always there and.

• 1:25:29Rich Roll?

  Bob Harper, for those who don't know, the Biggest Loser trainer, does CrossFit at Lewis's Gym. You're always posting pictures of him.

• 1:25:36Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. I try to, we have a running competition to see who beats each other in the, in the workout of the day. So.

• 1:25:41Rich Roll?

  How's he, how does he measure up?

• 1:25:43Speaker 01

  About 50 50. He's actually like a beast in the gym, like.

• 1:25:46Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:25:46Speaker 01

  Super endurance and he's strong and he's almost like 50, he's like 48.

• 1:25:50Rich Roll?

  I know. And he's, it's an interesting story too, cause he was always kind of an endurance guy, but he's really embraced this CrossFit thing.

• 1:25:56Speaker 01

  He was a spinning.

• 1:25:57Rich Roll?

  He's probably getting K'd. I mean, I don't know what that is, but, but yeah, he's, he's a, he's super fit and.

• 1:26:05Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:26:06Rich Roll?

  He inspires a lot of people.

• 1:26:07Speaker 01

  Super fit. He was vegan for a while, for a year.

• 1:26:10Rich Roll?

  I know. Yeah. I don't know what happened there, but you know, maybe I'll get him on the podcast and sort that out with him. It's funny, I've told this story, I don't think I've told it on the podcast though, but Bob, I think when he was vegan,

• 1:26:24Rich Roll?

  at some point along the way, I don't know how it happened, but he started following me on Twitter, like a long time ago, like maybe in 2009 or something like that. It's been a while. And the last time I checked, I think he still does. But I'd never met him. I don't know him. Even though the, actually the Biggest Loser Ranch where they filmed the TV show is just down the street from my house.

• 1:26:45Rich Roll?

  And I always see them filming there and, and, and on occasion I'd see him at the Starbucks that's closest by there. I'm sure he's like on his way to shoot or whatever. And so one day I saw him there and I was like, God, it's Bob Harper. You know, I should say hi. Like, you know, he's, he follows me on Twitter. He only follows 280 people or something like that. Like he obviously like, he must know who I am, I guess, you know? So I was like, hey, Bob. I'm rich. He just looked at me with a blank stare, like no idea who I was. And I just moped away, feeling sorry for myself.

• 1:27:15Speaker 01

  Oh, wow.

• 1:27:16Rich Roll?

  But anyway, so what do you think it is about CrossFit though, that makes people so passionate about it? Like, is it the, is it the community of it? Like the, the sort of mutual support of people doing it together? Like, is this experience?

• 1:27:29Speaker 01

  Definitely part of it because like whenever I'm out of town, I miss like. Just going to the gym and like just seeing friendly faces of people that have gone through the same pain that I've gone through. So I think it's like other people who have the similar mindset as you, you're building a cool community of people who are going through this type of pain and experience. You're also seeing tremendous gains for yourself. So every like week or two, you see like a PR for something, you're like excited to try it again and get better.

• 1:27:55Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:27:55Speaker 01

  So it gives you that kind of addictive feel of like hitting results and getting stronger and you can see it and feel it. Um, just a combination of all those things. And also it's like,

• 1:28:07Speaker 01

  it's one of the hardest workouts where you just have to show up and for an hour you're in and out. So you're not at the gym, just like for a couple hours. You don't know what to do. It's like you've got coaches who are coaching you. Some of the gyms are better than others, obviously. So you've got to be aware of that. But um, I don't know, it's just a combination of everything. It's just, it's never the same workout. It's like always interesting and different.

• 1:28:25Rich Roll?

  Yeah. On your toes.

• 1:28:27Speaker 01

  All that stuff.

• 1:28:28Rich Roll?

  I'd be terrible at it.

• 1:28:29Speaker 01

  You never know. I think you're endurance wise, you'd crush.

• 1:28:32Rich Roll?

  Yeah, but I'm like, I don't have the, you know, I need to, I need to get a little bit more stable sort of overall body fitness before I hit the gym. I haven't been in the gym in a while.

• 1:28:41Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:28:41Rich Roll?

  Maybe I'll, I'll check it out. I'm open minded about it. I don't have an opinion. I can't have an opinion on it. I've never done it.

• 1:28:46Speaker 01

  You do. Well, some of the, some of the workouts are like, okay, go run three miles and then do a, you know, a mile row. It's like you would crush some of those probably.

• 1:28:53Rich Roll?

  Yeah, we'll see. Yeah. I don't know. One of these days I'll get over there.

• 1:28:57Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 1:28:57Rich Roll?

  Well, cool. Well, um, we've been going for a while, but so I want to wrap this up pretty soon. But um, you know, I wanted to be able to, you know, I always want to leave the listener with some good kind of takeaways that they could implement into their life and just kind of looking at your experience and the decisions that you've made in your life to kind of build what you've, you've built. I mean, what are some of the things that, that somebody who's out there listening who's struggling, you know, maybe career wise or, you know, feeling adrift with their, with their life. You know, maybe fitness oriented, but not necessarily just, just in general, like not knowing where to turn next to kind of get things back on track and, and engage life more passionately. I mean, what are some things you could share?

• 1:29:40Speaker 01

  I think first is, um, even if you don't know what you want to do is hanging out with positive people who you really admire. So.

• 1:29:50Speaker 01

  I think we can all relate to people that we respect and we admire. And if at least you want to like be like them because you respect them, then start spending time with those type of people.

• 1:30:00Rich Roll?

  A lot of people are intimidated by that. I know that you are, you're like, you got over that. You're just like, I'm reaching out to these people, man. I need this in my life and I'm gonna, if they say no, whatever, but I'm gonna ask.

• 1:30:09Speaker 01

  I had nothing to lose though, right? Maybe that's why I had that to my advantage. People have more to lose. I was already at the bottom and I was like, can't make me feel worse. I don't know, maybe start baby steps. Maybe don't go for the biggest person that you admire, but someone who you like respect in your community or like in your family or whatever it may be. And start spending more quality time with someone that you really respect. Their like judgments and their decisions, their actions. And start just asking for advice from them first. But for me, it was always like, I knew I wanted to be like certain people. So I just started following what they were doing and kind of like reverse engineering, how they were doing it and applying it to how I wanted to do it.

• 1:30:49Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:30:50Speaker 01

  And listening to their messages, if it was someone I couldn't connect with, if it was like Tim Ferriss or whatever, I'd just like watch all of his videos and read all his articles and be like, okay, I understand it. And I, you know, I feel better about what I'm working on and I just need to keep working on it. Those people I could talk to than just trying to meet with people. I would try to meet, I would do breakfast with so many different people in like Columbus, Ohio, that I respected. Every week I was just trying to meet new people that I really respected and admired. Successful like millionaires and lifestyle people and athletes, just like anyone that I really respected, I would just hang out with them. And I think just building that community of like an inner circle of your personal advisory board, I guess if you want to call it.

• 1:31:26Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:31:26Speaker 01

  Is, uh, is step one. Because I don't know, you know, people say, or is this in a book somewhere that you're, your net worth, you basically are who your five closest friends are. Like your value, your finances, your, everything you're doing is about like what they are. So if you're hanging out with negative people and negative thoughts, then you're probably going to be negative.

• 1:31:46Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:46Speaker 01

  So that's the first thing.

• 1:31:49Speaker 01

  And after that, you know, a lot of it is just taking a leap, I think, and just saying, I'm gonna do it and making the decision. I mean, the willingness to sacrifice something because you have to give up something to get something. If you're sick and tired of the stuff you're doing, then you just gotta get to the point where you say, I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired and just like take action doing something.

• 1:32:11Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I mean, it's, I say this all the time, but you know, pain is the ultimate motivator. Yeah. And like, and in my life, that's really been really the only thing that's gotten me to change my errant ways. Like, my eating was a health crisis and, you know, hitting a bottom with drugs and alcohol precipitated sobriety. But it's like, it wasn't because I, everything was going great that I decided to change things. Things were lousy, you know, and I was suffering and I made that change. And you were depressed on the couch and you were, that, that motivated you to make a change. But I also, you know, you don't have to suffer in order to change your life. You, you have, everybody has the power within them at any given moment to implement change. You don't have to suffer or be in pain to

• 1:32:53Rich Roll?

  do that. It's just that as human beings, we're kind of wired to not, you know, people say people don't change. Well, I believe people do change. People change when they're in pain, but you don't have to be in pain to change. So it's just harder, I guess.

• 1:33:05Speaker 01

  It's harder when you're not in pain and yeah, the bigger the pain, the easier the change for sure. But again, if you get to the point where you're just like, give yourself a deadline. If you're like, if I'm not happy within a year with my-

• 1:33:16Rich Roll?

  That's huge.

• 1:33:17Speaker 01

  It's like, then make a change after that. It's like, okay, I'm gonna see how I feel in six months or a month or a year. It's like, nothing changes then.

• 1:33:25Rich Roll?

  And accountability, you know, use that, you know, that, that circle of friends that you create to hold you accountable and, you know, tell them what it is that you're working on. And, and, and then you know that these people that you respect are watching you.

• 1:33:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:33:37Rich Roll?

  And that's kind of a negative reinforcement. Like, I don't want to fail because I don't want to look bad at these people that I respect. But that's, that is motivating.

• 1:33:44Speaker 01

  And also have some other stakes for yourself. Like, if that's not motivating enough, like put money on the table. Like, if I do not achieve this by a certain time, then I'm gonna donate a thousand dollars to the opposite political campaign or, you know, something that you-

• 1:33:57Rich Roll?

  That's, that's another Tim Ferriss thing, I think. I heard him talking about that.

• 1:34:00Speaker 01

  Yeah. Doll killers association of America or whatever, you know, like-

• 1:34:03Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:34:05Speaker 01

  Supporting whatever, you know?

• 1:34:08Speaker 01

  Or to the meat eaters you should support to the meat eaters of America, you know, the bacon association.

• 1:34:13Rich Roll?

  Bacon association, oh god, you know, don't get me in trouble here. No, I think that's wise advice, you know, you want the positive reinforcement of your community, but you also want that kind of, you know, sort of looming negative pressure too, to keep you on track and honest.

• 1:34:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly.

• 1:34:31Rich Roll?

  Yeah, what else, anything else?

• 1:34:35Speaker 01

  That's pretty much what I got, I think.

• 1:34:37Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I think, you know, again, it goes back to, nobody can tell you what you should or you shouldn't do, man, it's gotta come from inside.

• 1:34:45Speaker 01

  You gotta have the willingness.

• 1:34:47Rich Roll?

  You can't, you can't make somebody be willing.

• 1:34:49Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:34:50Rich Roll?

  Willingness is self-driven.

• 1:34:51Speaker 01

  It is.

• 1:34:52Rich Roll?

  And you gotta have it within you, you know, and you can't manufacture it either, you've gotta want it, and change isn't for people that need it, it's for people that want it.

• 1:35:00Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 1:35:01Rich Roll?

  And so, you have to gut check and figure out whether you really do want to change, and if you do, what are you willing to sacrifice for it?

• 1:35:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, because a lot of people that say, oh, I want to have like a million dollars or whatever, I want to get a raise or I want to do this, but if you're not willing to do something to get it, then you're never gonna get it.

• 1:35:17Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:35:18Speaker 01

  So, you gotta be willing, make some sacrifice somewhere.

• 1:35:20Rich Roll?

  Absolutely. All right, well, I know that you end your podcast with a particular question, and I don't have anything as cool as that, but I'm gonna throw your question at you.

• 1:35:31Speaker 01

  Oh, snap.

• 1:35:32Rich Roll?

  Which is, what is your definition of greatness? Hey, man, I had to answer it for you.

• 1:35:36Speaker 01

  I haven't even, yeah, I never think about it.

• 1:35:38Rich Roll?

  Your podcast is called School of Greatness, so...

• 1:35:41Speaker 01

  I think my definition, it probably evolves all the time, but I think right now, my definition is going after exactly what you want in life with full engagement and positive intentions for it. Whether or not you've achieved that does not matter, but I think going after it with full engagement and working on becoming the best version of yourself constantly, of course, we're gonna make mistakes and fail at that, but working on it constantly while serving and being... A good Samaritan to others. I think that's

• 1:36:19Rich Roll?

  All right.

• 1:36:20Speaker 01

  my current definition of greatness.

• 1:36:21Rich Roll?

  I like that. That's pretty good.

• 1:36:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, cool.

• 1:36:24Rich Roll?

  All right, man. Well, thanks for being on the show. So Lewis Howes, you're an inspiration.

• 1:36:28Speaker 01

  Thanks, man.

• 1:36:29Rich Roll?

  Thanks for being here.

• 1:36:30Speaker 01

  Appreciate it.

• 1:36:31Rich Roll?

  People that want to hook up with Lewis and get down with his program and learn more about what he's up to, they should go to LewisHowes.com, L-E-W-I-S-H-O-W-E-S.

• 1:36:41Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:36:41Rich Roll?

  And where else, where else do you want people to find you?

• 1:36:45Speaker 01

  You can go to, there you can go to SchoolofGreatness.com for the podcast and Twitter, it's all my name online, so at Lewis Howes.

• 1:36:52Rich Roll?

  At Lewis Howes on Instagram and on Twitter.

• 1:36:54Speaker 01

  Facebook.

• 1:36:55Rich Roll?

  Facebook and all that kind of stuff.

• 1:36:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm a promotional whore, so.

• 1:36:58Rich Roll?

  Yeah, you are. Self branding. It's good though, man. It's good stuff. I'm digging your podcast. Everyone should definitely check out School of Greatness.

• 1:37:06Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 1:37:07Rich Roll?

  Blowing up.

• 1:37:08Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 1:37:08Rich Roll?

  Blowing up iTunes.

• 1:37:09Speaker 01

  The world, baby.

• 1:37:10Rich Roll?

  Yeah. And that's it, man.

• 1:37:12Speaker 01

  Awesome.

• 1:37:13Rich Roll?

  How do you feel?

• 1:37:14Speaker 01

  Feel great. You know what? I really like these mics, man.

• 1:37:16Rich Roll?

  They're good, right?

• 1:37:17Speaker 01

  Listening to it on the headphone.

• 1:37:18Rich Roll?

  I don't want you to get any more shit about your production value.

• 1:37:20Speaker 01

  I know. I hope it's better now.

• 1:37:22Rich Roll?

  You got it dialed in.

• 1:37:23Speaker 01

  Listening with the headset is great, though.

• 1:37:25Rich Roll?

  You like it? Some people don't like it.

• 1:37:27Speaker 01

  I like it now. I like this format, just like looking across the table from you.

• 1:37:30Rich Roll?

  Yeah, you gotta move it off the desk and move it over here.

• 1:37:32Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 1:37:34Rich Roll?

  No, it's good because it was the, when you're hosting yours, you want to know whether someone's too far away from the mic or whatever.

• 1:37:39Speaker 01

  Because you're like leaning forward sometimes.

• 1:37:41Rich Roll?

  Yeah, these mics, people don't realize we're actually like chewing on them. You gotta be right up on top of it. So, nobody cares about this stuff. We're done.

• 1:37:51Speaker 01

  Thanks, brother.

• 1:37:51Rich Roll?

  Cool.

• 1:37:52Speaker 01

  I appreciate it.

• 1:37:53Rich Roll?

  All right. Peace.

• 1:37:55Speaker 01

  Peace.

• 1:40:36Rich Roll?

  The.

• 1:42:46Rich Roll?

  The.