Turia Pitt Unmasked – How Choosing Gratitude Turned This Burn Victim Into A Global Inspiration

Close your eyes and imagine yourself running a trail ultramarathon in the beautiful Australian outback. You're enjoying the experience when suddenly you find yourself trapped in a gorge, surrounded by a raging brushfire. The flames quickly close in until you're surrounded on all sides. No escape. This is how it ends, you think. Then darkness. Against all odds, death is averted. Instead, you lie comatose. Months pass in dormancy. Finally your eyes open, awakening to discover you're miraculously alive, yet somehow less than whole. A glance at your left hand reveals several fingers missing. On the right? No thumb. And the reason you can't move? 65% of your body is covered in life threatening burns. Overwhelmed, you allow your eyes once again close, welcoming the comfort of darkness. 200 operations follow. Over the next two years, you will die three times during surgery. Miraculously, you somehow survive. Not as a victim, but as a hero. This is the powerful story of Turia Pitt – humanitarian, athlete, and beacon of inspiration and female empowerment to millions across the world. One of Australia’s most admired and widely recognized people, Turia has been profiled everywhere from 60 Minutes to Women's Weekly. She has scaled the Great Wall of China, competed in the Ironman World Championships and walked the Kokoda Track. A sought-after public speaker, Turia has mentored thousands through her online programs, raised funds and awareness for a variety of philanthropic concerns and authored two books — the recently released Unmasked* (available in the US in audiobook format* only) and Everything To Live For*. This is a conversation about turning tragedy into opportunity. Adversity into advocacy. And experience into service. It's a conversation about the importance of putting others before yourself and serving those less fortunate. But most of all, this is a powerful conversation about facing life head on — about taking risks, facing your fears and believing in yourself. It was an honor to spend a couple hours with Turia and her fiancé Michael during my recent visit to Sydney. My hope is that our exchange will leave you feeling inspired, empowered and grateful. Or as Turia says, no whinging! Peace + Plants, Rich Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:00Rich Roll?

  Eating well rarely falls apart because of one big failure. It's the daily question that wears you down, like, what am I actually gonna 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.

• 1:04Speaker 01

  Actually, two years after the fire, I was playing my life pretty safe. And one of the guys from the fire was riding his bike, he was training for an adventure race, and he got hit by a truck and passed away. And that, for me, just really reinforced that there's no benefit to playing your life really safe, because I thought because I'd been through that fire, I'd be immune to further tragedy. But now I think if you don't live your life big, live it on your terms, take risks, bet big, believe in yourself, I don't really know if that's much of a life. It's not much of a life, for me, anyway.

• 1:43Rich Roll?

  That's Turia Pitt, this week, on the Rich Roll Podcast.

• 1:57Rich Roll?

  The Rich Roll Podcast. I want you to imagine yourself running a trail ultra marathon in the beautiful Australian outback. Maybe close your eyes and try to really visualize the experience, unless of course, you're driving a car, running on a treadmill, but you're doing your thing. You're enjoying the experience. You're just running along when suddenly, completely out of the blue, you find yourself surrounded by a raging brush fire, completely out of the blue. No notice whatsoever, no escape. You're surrounded by flames on all sides. It's all closing in on you. And this is it, you think. This is how it's all going to end.

• 2:38Rich Roll?

  The irony, the fear, until darkness descends upon you. But you don't die. Instead, you come out of months in a coma to discover seven fingers missing and you can't move because 65% of your body is covered in life-threatening burns. You suffer through 200 operations. You die three times on the operating table. You spend two years in recovery. This is the incredible story of this week's guest, Turia Pitt. And she's an extraordinary woman, a woman who didn't just survive this brush fire against overwhelming odds.

• 3:19Rich Roll?

  She has gone on to defy all expectations to become one of the most admirable, one of the most inspirational people you're ever going to come across, certainly that I've ever come across. Turia's struggle has been long, it's been heart rot, but today she finds herself in the role of humanitarian, of athlete, of motivationalist. She's one of Australia's most admired and widely recognized people. And amongst many of her amazing accomplishments, in 2016, she completed two Ironmans, including the Ironman World Championships in Kona. She has mentored over 6,000 people through her online programs. She is widely sought after for public speaking. She's active in fundraising and philanthropy. And she just released her second book. It's called Unmasked.

• 4:04Rich Roll?

  I think it's only available in Australia. I'm not positive about that, but pretty sure. But her first book, which is called Everything to Live For, that's available in the US and I would assume most places.

• 4:24Rich Roll?

  All right, Turia. Turia, I think I'm saying it right. Yeah, it's Turia. She was just great. We had gone back and forth for a while at this point, I think almost a year, trying to schedule this interview. I started following her story from afar, maybe a year and a half ago. And we've been trying to get together for a long, long time. I was trying to figure out when she would be in the United States. So when I headed to Australia several months ago, she reached out again. I'm glad she did. And it was great to get together. She and her fiance, Michael, came over to our Airbnb in Bondi Beach. And we spent, you know, I don't know, a couple hours together. She was just super warm, funny, self-effacing, completely at ease with herself and like

• 5:09Rich Roll?

  who she is and what she represents. And that, you know, that I think was the most compelling and inspirational thing about her for me, just that she is standing up, you know, with a smile on her face, engaged in her life. It was just really, really cool. Anyway, we get into all of it today in this conversation. Her story, of course, her extraordinary relationship with Michael, who has stood by her throughout this entire ordeal. He comes on the mic a few times with his perspective, which is great. So this is really about turning tragedy and adversity into opportunity. It's about personal daily choices we all make every

• 5:50Rich Roll?

  day about how we want to live our lives. And it's about the importance of putting others before yourself and serving those less fortunate. But mostly, this is a conversation about facing life head on. It's about taking risks. It's about facing your fears. And it's about believing in yourself. Turia is extraordinary. She's a beacon of hope and strength for millions of people all over the world. And it was just amazing to spend a couple hours with her. And at the very least, I think this is going to leave you feeling grateful for your own life and with perhaps a different perspective on the personal problems that you face that we all face in our own lives. So without further ado, please enjoy my conversation. Turia Pitt.

• 6:34Rich Roll?

  So nice to talk to you. Thank you for coming over. It's uh, this has been a long time coming and I'm just super psyched to talk to you.

• 6:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm pretty excited too. Michael and I were going before. Oh, we get to meet Rich Roll soon. So we're pretty pumped. So thank you for having us.

• 6:50Rich Roll?

  Of course. I, we were talking before the podcast and you know, we've been going back and forth now for, I don't know, six or nine months. You came on my radar around like a couple of months before Kona.

• 7:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:02Rich Roll?

  And a bunch of people texted me or emailed me and said, hey, you gotta check out this story. It's unbelievable. And then I got in touch with you and we were trying to figure out like if we were ever gonna be in the same city.

• 7:12Speaker 01

  Cause I was in the States. I was in the States where you would know of our Christmas. But you weren't there.

• 7:19Rich Roll?

  You were, but you were, you were on the East Coast?

• 7:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, New York. Yeah, New York. Yeah. You're on the other side of the country.

• 7:26Rich Roll?

  Right. Yeah. Yeah. It's still 3,000 miles away. So we couldn't make that work. And then when I was coming here, I thought about getting in touch with you, but I knew that you didn't live in Sydney or Melbourne. I knew you lived somewhere else. So you just happened to be here. So here we are.

• 7:38Speaker 01

  Well, I saw on your Instagram that you were here. So I just thought I'd hit you up.

• 7:41Rich Roll?

  I appreciate that. And now we're talking. So what are you doing here in Sydney?

• 7:46Speaker 01

  Well, I'm, I do a lot of speeches. I'm a motivational speaker, online programs and all of that. So I'm just up in Sydney for work.

• 7:54Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 7:55Speaker 01

  My work is mainly Sydney or Melbourne or Brisbane. But we live kind of in the country on the coast, about four hours south.

• 8:04Rich Roll?

  Right. So it's like, it's like farmland. Like what is it like there?

• 8:08Speaker 01

  It's kind of like farmland. It's, it's got really good surf, really good fishing, really good diving. And it's a real, like if you think Bondi is relaxed, like my town is so relaxed, you would fall asleep sort of thing. Yeah.

• 8:22Rich Roll?

  Bondi is pretty relaxed, but I'm pretty into it. I'm really happy to be here.

• 8:26Speaker 01

  My hometown is next level relaxed.

• 8:28Rich Roll?

  Right. So you gotta come up here for a little energy.

• 8:32Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, I come up, when I'm up in Sydney, I'm working and then when I'm home, I'm just cruising, relaxing. Yeah.

• 8:39Rich Roll?

  So tell me a little bit about what that work looks like. Like you get up in front of audiences and you tell your story, I would imagine.

• 8:46Speaker 01

  Yep. So I get up in front of audiences. I share my story. I don't really talk much about uh, the fire. So I was burned during an ultra marathon and I.

• 8:55Rich Roll?

  We're gonna get into that. Don't worry.

• 8:57Speaker 01

  Yeah. I just. I think when I I get asked questions about,

• 9:04Speaker 01

  you know, maybe journalists say, oh, you know, tell me about what, tell me about that day and tell me what it was like. And it's not that I'm uncomfortable with answering those questions. I just feel I've I've covered most of it.

• 9:17Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 9:18Speaker 01

  And I feel that it's not that interesting because anyone can have a really bad accident, which turns their life upside down. But I think what I've done with it, how I've reinvented myself, how I've rebuilt my life, I think that's the fascinating part.

• 9:33Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 9:33Speaker 01

  So that's the stuff I talk about in my speeches about challenging yourself, getting outside of your comfort zone. That's how we grow. And because you can only speak to so many people doing speeches, I've started doing online programs too.

• 9:47Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 9:47Speaker 01

  It's kind of the same thing I talk about in my speeches.

• 9:50Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 9:50Speaker 01

  But.

• 9:51Rich Roll?

  Well, I think you're you're correct in pointing out that there's certainly no shortage of people that suffer accidents and

• 9:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:58Rich Roll?

  tragedies in their life. I mean, those

• 10:00Speaker 01

  Happens to everyone, Rich.

• 10:02Rich Roll?

  Yeah, they're they're everywhere, but it is the rare individual who can take that experience and channel it into a, not just a message, but a life work that can be positively transformative for others.

• 10:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:16Rich Roll?

  And that's certainly what you've done. And there's a lot to be respected and admired about that. But what do you think it is about you that allowed you to, you know, create a different kind of experience than perhaps what most people might have expected in the wake of what occurred?

• 10:34Speaker 01

  I think it all starts with a choice. And I mean, I kind of make that choice every morning, you know, is that you can choose to have a bad day. You can choose to be in a bad mood. You can choose to look at things in a really positive way, be upbeat, be optimistic, be happy, have a lot of energy. And I really think it all starts just with that choice.

• 10:55Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 10:56Speaker 01

  And I think I think a lot of people don't understand that as well. Does that make sense?

• 11:01Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it does. But I'm also like, I'm just thinking of myself, right? Like, I understand that intellectually.

• 11:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:07Rich Roll?

  And I know that I can make that choice.

• 11:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:09Rich Roll?

  But I don't always make that choice. And in fact, quite often, I don't make that choice.

• 11:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, me too.

• 11:14Rich Roll?

  Right. So like, there's that gap between the understanding and the implementation.

• 11:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. Like this morning I woke up and I was in I was in the worst mood ever.

• 11:23Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 11:24Speaker 01

  But I think. I just said to myself, look, you can change this if you really wanted to. But obviously, I didn't want to change it that much. Sometimes it's kind of nice to be in a bad mood.

• 11:36Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 11:37Speaker 01

  Does that make-

• 11:37Rich Roll?

  Well, it's, you're a human being. You know, I think it's, I'm, I don't trust people that, you know, are always telling you they're super duper all the time.

• 11:45Speaker 01

  Oh, that's a lot of crap.

• 11:45Rich Roll?

  It doesn't feel, yeah, it doesn't feel real or authentic. I feel like I'm being put upon. So of course, yes, you should feel lousy once in a while, or you're not, you're, you can't like look in the mirror and do that every, and pretend to be something that you're not. But I would imagine for you, and you know, people in Australia know you, and when you, you know, when you walk outside that, you know, people are gonna notice you. And that there's, there's a certain kind of thing that you probably have to like carry with you because people are like, oh, that's her. And this is who she is. And you have to like be that person, right?

• 12:19Speaker 01

  But I, I also remind myself that I've chosen this life. So sometimes if I get frustrated that people recognize me, I say to myself, well, you've actually chosen to live a public life. You chose to be a motivational speaker. You've chosen to write books about your experiences. And if you, if you didn't want people to know who you were, then change your job, change what you do for a living. Because after 10 years, people are gonna forget as well. So I think just, I think when we say I, I didn't have a choice and I was forced to do it and I.

• 12:55Speaker 01

  When we talk like that, I feel it's really disempowering. I think it's, it's worth. It's good for us to remind ourselves that, yeah, we're in control and we make the choice. And ultimately it comes down to our decisions.

• 13:11Rich Roll?

  And so what do you do? Like, are there practices in your, when you give talks or in your programs? Like, what are the actual like-

• 13:18Speaker 01

  What are the strategies?

• 13:19Rich Roll?

  Steps and strategies that you employ to, you know, shift that mindset?

• 13:23Speaker 01

  Okay. I mean, so one of my strategies is reframing. So I get my students to. When they're struggling with a situation, I get them to write down um what the very worst thing that could happen would be. And then I get them to write down what the very best thing that could happen could be. And then I just ask them to choose between the two.

• 13:42Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 13:43Speaker 01

  It sounds really simple as well. When I explain it, people are like, oh, is that your secret? Is that is that it? But I think that's where the beauty is as well. And I think we try to make things more complicated, more complex than they really are.

• 13:58Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I think that goes back to also that that distinction between the understanding and the doing, because there's something about actually getting a pen out and writing it down and then just saying, well, I get that. So I've already done it. No, you actually haven't done it.

• 14:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, you do the work. That's what I say, too.

• 14:12Rich Roll?

  I think so. And I think also, when you write down, like, what's the worst thing that could happen? And you realize, like, well, actually, that's not that bad.

• 14:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's that's what people say.

• 14:20Rich Roll?

  It takes the fear away from it and makes you more kind of empowered to like, maybe take something that seemed like a bigger risk than it actually is.

• 14:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's what, you know, when you just think, oh, this could happen, and that could happen, and this could happen. And you kind of go around and around and around in circles in your head. And I think that might confuse you.

• 14:40Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 14:41Speaker 01

  And so I think if you just get pen and paper, write it down, make two lists. I'm a list maker, by the way. I love I love writing lists. And then you look at it, and it's it's not that scary once you've done that.

• 14:51Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 14:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:52Rich Roll?

  And then so then beyond that, then what? Like, what's the next? What's this? What's the step after that?

• 14:58Speaker 01

  Well, they choose.

• 14:59Rich Roll?

  You choose. All right. So does anybody choose like the worst case scenario?

• 15:03Speaker 01

  No, hey, hey, I would love to see the day when that happened. No one has yet.

• 15:09Rich Roll?

  It might.

• 15:10Speaker 01

  Hey, they might.

• 15:11Rich Roll?

  You gotta be ready for that person.

• 15:12Speaker 01

  And I'll be like, well, hey, if you choose that, go for it. Own it. Be the most miserable person on the planet. Like, just as long as you're aware that you're choosing that.

• 15:22Rich Roll?

  I think people, there's a lot of people that that subliminally are making that choice. They may tell you, like, oh, I'm choosing like the goal that I want. But actually, their actions belie that. And the choice they're actually making is the worst case scenario or the victim, you know, the victim identity, or, you know, what have you?

• 15:40Speaker 01

  And that's why I talk a lot about, um, you know, getting rid. Of your excuses, because I think I've probably got one of the better excuses going around.

• 15:49Rich Roll?

  Yeah, your excuse is pretty good.

• 15:50Speaker 01

  Uh, look, I don't wanna get into a competition here, but I think mine is pretty good. And I could use that. I could say, no, I can't do that because I've been burnt and I I don't have all my fingers. And people would say, oh, I didn't realize. I'm so sorry. Yeah, of course. You can't do that.

• 16:05Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 16:06Speaker 01

  And I thought about it and I thought, I don't wanna live a life where people just allow me to cop out just because of what happened to me.

• 16:14Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 16:15Speaker 01

  And so I I try not to make excuses. And I think that's a really good example for others, because I think if Turia doesn't make excuses, my excuse about not having enough time doesn't really compare.

• 16:27Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 16:28Speaker 01

  Uh, and that's what I really love about, I do these fundraising adventures for Interplast every year. We're doing base camp in two months.

• 16:35Rich Roll?

  Explain what Interplast is.

• 16:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, I probably should have done that.

• 16:38Rich Roll?

  It's okay.

• 16:38Speaker 01

  So Interplast, they provide free surgery to people who need it in developing countries.

• 16:44Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 16:45Speaker 01

  So kids who are born with cleft lip, cleft palate, women who've had acid thrown on them, pretty much everything and anything that can be remediated with surgery.

• 16:55Rich Roll?

  It's like plastic surgery for its best, most intended.

• 16:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I mean, I don't like to say plastic surgery because people think, oh, you're fixing like chicks' breasts overseas. So that's why I never call it plastic surgery. Um, but yeah, like for people who actually legitimately desperately need it and they live in a country where there is no medical system.

• 17:15Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 17:16Speaker 01

  So I fundraised for Interplast. I've helped raise over a million dollars so far. And, you know, that helps a team go to a developing country like Bangladesh, perform surgeries on people who need it for two weeks straight. And those doctors work bloody hard. You know, and they're not doing it for the accolades or for people to give them a pat on the back or anything.

• 17:38Rich Roll?

  Yeah, and they're they're they have a skill set that that could, they could easily be in Beverly Hills doing exactly what you just mentioned.

• 17:46Speaker 01

  I I found I found out about it because my surgeon actually volunteers for them.

• 17:50Rich Roll?

  Hmm.

• 17:51Speaker 01

  And in hospital, he used to disappear for two weeks on end and I'd ask him where he went. And he he told me all about Interplast. And I just thought, you know, this guy is so busy, so insanely skilled, could make a mozza.

• 18:06Speaker 01

  Giving people plastic surgery, but instead he chooses to volunteer. I always says, and I think that was a really good lesson for me in terms of giving back as well.

• 18:16Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I think in kind of researching your story, you know, giving back and the service component of what you do

• 18:23Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 18:24Rich Roll?

  is very much, you know, first and foremost and in the present. So it actually even written down like, what does that mean to you? And how important is that in terms of keeping you kind of in the mindset and, you know, frame of mind to like, continue to do what you do?

• 18:39Speaker 01

  I think when you, we can get in, we can become too introspective. And we can always think about what's happening to me and what's happening in my life and what about my problems and what's going on with, with my personal life? And when you, you can get into a pattern where you're, you're just thinking about yourself. And when it's all about me, me, me, you don't think about others. I think that doesn't help you at all. And it's only when you help others and you help others who aren't as fortunate as you. I think that gives you a lot of perspective. So I went on these interplast trips. And I saw people who had these horrific injuries. I just didn't get any medical attention.

• 19:23Speaker 01

  And it really reinforced to me how lucky I was to live in a country like Australia where I've had access to

• 19:31Speaker 01

  literally the best medical care that money can buy. So I think helping others definitely gives you perspective because when we're too introspective, we, we can't see the forest from the trees.

• 19:41Rich Roll?

  Yeah. I mean, you, when you, it just gets you outside of yourself and your ego and your own little world and gives you a more expansive, you know, perspective.

• 19:50Speaker 01

  And it's, it's so easy for us to be all about me, me, me.

• 19:53Rich Roll?

  Of course.

• 19:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:54Rich Roll?

  I'm the, I'm the champion of that.

• 19:56Speaker 01

  So am I.

• 19:57Rich Roll?

  I'm the biggest expert on me and it's not a path to happiness, you know, and it's not a path to humility and all these things that actually will make you happy. Yeah. Doing the, doing the opposite of what your mind is telling you.

• 20:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, so for example, with this base camp trip, my thought pattern is I'm so busy, like I've got so much on and I'm doing this and it's, I don't know, like I don't know why I'm fitting it all in and, but as soon as I go and I meet some of the patients that we've raised money for and I see the shit that they have to go through.

• 20:28Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 20:29Speaker 01

  I'll just think, man, I'm, it'll just put things in perspective for me and I'll be really grateful.

• 20:34Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 20:34Speaker 01

  For that experience.

• 20:35Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I saw, I watched the sixty minutes.

• 20:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, you saw.

• 20:39Rich Roll?

  Story on you. Yeah, so you're, there's all this amazing footage of you with these patients and

• 20:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:43Rich Roll?

  It's just, it's heartbreaking to see these kids and.

• 20:45Speaker 01

  But this is the thing about patients in developing countries, they're so grateful.

• 20:50Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 20:50Speaker 01

  For any type of medical attention at all. So the doctors are putting them under the worst amounts of pain and they've just got a huge smile ear to ear the day after because they know they've been fixed.

• 21:02Rich Roll?

  Beautiful.

• 21:03Speaker 01

  It's, that's what I mean. I've got a big smile on my face just thinking about it. It's so beautiful.

• 21:08Rich Roll?

  I think to put all of this in proper context, it, I hope that you will indulge me and we can go back and, and kind of tell the story a little bit. I know you've told it a million times and maybe you think it's not relevant, but I think there's a lot of people listening who, who haven't heard of you and don't know.

• 21:21Speaker 01

  For sure.

• 21:22Rich Roll?

  And so I think it would be great if we could do that.

• 21:23Speaker 01

  So in two thousand and eleven, I was running an ultra marathon. So an ultra, probably your listeners would know what an ultra is, but it's.

• 21:32Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's very, well, I'll explain.

• 21:33Speaker 01

  It's larger than a marathon. So a marathon is forty two kilometers, twenty six miles, is that?

• 21:38Rich Roll?

  Twenty six point two.

• 21:39Speaker 01

  Okay, twenty six point two miles.

• 21:41Rich Roll?

  We're not on the metric system yet. Still, when I was a kid, they kept telling us we're going to be on the metric system. Here I am, I'm fifty years old, we're still on the.

• 21:49Speaker 01

  The metric system.

• 21:50Rich Roll?

  Because we're all messed up in the US. You guys have it right.

• 21:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:53Rich Roll?

  Anyway, keep going.

• 21:54Speaker 01

  Um, and so I was a quarter of the way through the ultra marathon.

• 21:57Rich Roll?

  How old were you at the time?

• 21:58Speaker 01

  I was twenty four.

• 22:00Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm. And was this your first ultra?

• 22:02Speaker 01

  That was my first ultra marathon, yeah.

• 22:03Rich Roll?

  But had you run marathons like?

• 22:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, so.

• 22:06Rich Roll?

  And this was like in the bush, right?

• 22:08Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, it's, it's been portrayed in the media as being like an outback desert. Ultra marathon, it was kind of like that, like it was a pretty remote area.

• 22:18Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 22:19Speaker 01

  Um, so I was a quarter of the way through the ultra marathon, there was no phone reception. Um, on a, on a trail. And I heard what I thought were trucks coming down the highway because I knew that the next checkpoint was really close to the highway. So I actually started running a little bit faster because I just wanted to get to the checkpoint, have water, some food and, you know, cool down a bit, it's pretty hot in the Kimberley's that's in Western Australia. It's pretty hot at the time of year when the ultra marathon was on. And I was stuck in a, I came into a little gorge, there was six people in the gorge. And we could see a fire quickly approaching. Now that was the sound of the trucks.

• 23:02Rich Roll?

  Hmm.

• 23:03Speaker 01

  That was what I.

• 23:03Rich Roll?

  The fire trucks.

• 23:04Speaker 01

  That, that was, that was what I thought. I'll, I'll go back. When I say I thought I heard trucks, it was actually the rumbling of the fire.

• 23:13Rich Roll?

  Hmm.

• 23:14Speaker 01

  Now, I don't know if you know of the venturi effect.

• 23:17Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 23:18Speaker 01

  So when hot air is funneled into a smaller space like the gorge, it actually sucks the fire through, it increases the, the speed of the fire.

• 23:31Rich Roll?

  Hmm. So it's like sucking the air into it, right?

• 23:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, so we're at the, we're at the start of the gorge and we saw the fire. We were like, oh shit, like, what do we do? And so we all tried to run, um.

• 23:45Rich Roll?

  So you just run back the where, where you, the way you came from?

• 23:48Speaker 01

  So this is the thing, so.

• 23:49Rich Roll?

  Cause it's weird, it's like trying to understand, like, how do you get caught up in this thing without being able to run away from it?

• 23:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, well, so don't forget that a fire can move at around a hundred kilometers an hour.

• 23:58Rich Roll?

  Hmm.

• 23:58Speaker 01

  So I don't think that even you'd be able to.

• 24:01Rich Roll?

  No.

• 24:02Speaker 01

  Run away from it. And it's also weird because it's, it's a day in my life, close to six years ago. So my memory is a little bit patchy, but we were running through shoulder high grass, dry spinifex, so I thought that would be perfect fuel for the flames. Or the side of the gorge, it was really rocky, there was less vegetation. But I also knew that the speed of fire accelerates going up a hill.

• 24:32Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm. So you had to make a decision like in the moment, like which way are we gonna go?

• 24:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. So I chose to run up the hill, run up the side of the gorge.

• 24:41Rich Roll?

  And you, there were six other people there? And so did they go with you or?

• 24:45Speaker 01

  Well, we, so two of them ran back the way we came from and they didn't get burnt.

• 24:53Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 24:53Speaker 01

  Uh, two guys jumped through the fire. Yeah, and uh.

• 25:00Rich Roll?

  And how, what happened to those guys?

• 25:01Speaker 01

  They got burnt. They weren't as badly burnt and Kate and I, Kate was the other woman who was badly injured. We got burnt to sixty five percent of our body.

• 25:09Rich Roll?

  Wow. And so you're running up this gorge, right?

• 25:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:12Rich Roll?

  And what it encapsulates you, it just surrounds you all of a sudden or how's it?

• 25:15Speaker 01

  Surrounds me and I just remember looking down at my hands and arms, I was both ablaze. I just thought, this is it. I'm never gonna see Michael again.

• 25:26Speaker 01

  Now, once the fire had passed, I was.

• 25:28Rich Roll?

  So how long, but for how long did that go on for?

• 25:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, I, I think a couple of seconds, five seconds.

• 25:33Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 25:34Speaker 01

  I'm not sure.

• 25:35Rich Roll?

  And do you pass out or do you, how do you, how do you get the, you roll on around or?

• 25:40Speaker 01

  How, how did I get the flames out?

• 25:42Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 25:42Speaker 01

  I don't know.

• 25:43Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 25:43Speaker 01

  Don't know.

• 25:44Rich Roll?

  You go into like a fugue state, right? Like some kind of crazy.

• 25:46Speaker 01

  Total shock. Like, did that, is this a dream? Did that really just happen? You know, and then I actually got this sense of elation because I was like, I've survived. Like, I'm gonna be all right. I'm gonna go to hospital. They'll bandage me up. I'll be back at work on Monday. I was in that semi-delusional

• 26:06Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 26:07Speaker 01

  state of mind, which is probably just my body's reaction to try and save my life.

• 26:12Rich Roll?

  Well, yeah, like the adrenaline rush probably.

• 26:14Speaker 01

  Adrenaline and I was just off my head. I had no

• 26:20Speaker 01

  um, grasp on time or, or space.

• 26:24Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 26:25Speaker 01

  So we actually were stuck on that hillside for four hours.

• 26:29Rich Roll?

  Wow.

• 26:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, and that.

• 26:30Rich Roll?

  We, like all six of you?

• 26:32Speaker 01

  All six of us and there were some other competitors as well.

• 26:36Rich Roll?

  Because people coming up from behind are discovering you, right?

• 26:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So we ended up waiting for four hours. A helicopter comes. The helicopter has to balance on one skid. First I take Kate and I was like, hello.

• 26:51Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 26:51Speaker 01

  I'm here, like, why, why aren't you taking? Hello?

• 26:55Rich Roll?

  Four hours?

• 26:56Speaker 01

  That whole ego thing.

• 26:57Rich Roll?

  Why did it take so long? They didn't have, they didn't know what was going on or?

• 27:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think just due to the location, you know, there was no, not very good communication. Um, like I said, there was no mobile phone reception, that type of thing. So.

• 27:11Rich Roll?

  How many people were in this ultra?

• 27:13Speaker 01

  There was, I think around fifty people. Yeah, so it wasn't huge.

• 27:17Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 27:17Speaker 01

  Wasn't huge. So. When I got picked up in the helicopter, I went to hospital. I said to the doctors.

• 27:24Rich Roll?

  For those, hold on a second though, for those four hours, do you remember, like, what were you doing? Like, were you alert? Or were you passed out? Or you remember, like, I mean, that's a long time.

• 27:33Speaker 01

  It is, but when you don't have a firm grasp on reality. Four hours could have been four minutes, it could have been forty minutes, it could have been. Well, wouldn't, it couldn't have been four days, but, you know, I didn't, I had no idea.

• 27:48Rich Roll?

  I mean, the survival, you know, instinct must have kicked in pretty powerfully, but there's only so long you can keep that adrenaline coursing through your veins before you kind of.

• 27:57Speaker 01

  So I think towards that end of the four hours, I was.

• 28:02Speaker 01

  Like. Starting to pass out. And the people who I was with was, were like, no, Trill, wake up. They would talk to me about work or. Just something really mundane and.

• 28:13Rich Roll?

  Just to keep you.

• 28:14Speaker 01

  Just to keep me lucid, yeah. And I think though, if we. If the helicopter wasn't able.

• 28:23Speaker 01

  To extricate Kate and myself, I don't think we would be here.

• 28:27Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 28:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, because we were starting to swell quite badly. We didn't have any water. No pain medication. I, I think. The helicopter got there just on dark too. Hmm. And I mean, full credit to that helicopter pilot though, he wasn't. A medical helicopter, he was just a normal.

• 28:47Rich Roll?

  Just like a average helicopter dude, right?

• 28:50Speaker 01

  Well, not, not that helicopter pilots, you know, of average, but he was just.

• 28:54Rich Roll?

  He's not a paramedic though.

• 28:55Speaker 01

  He wasn't a paramedic, cause he was a regular bloke. He had a wife at home, he had a six week old baby. They're not supposed to balance on one skid.

• 29:05Rich Roll?

  Hmm.

• 29:05Speaker 01

  You know?

• 29:06Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 29:07Speaker 01

  So he, he risked his life to save me.

• 29:10Rich Roll?

  Wow. So it gets you in.

• 29:12Speaker 01

  Again, another example of someone doing something completely selfless.

• 29:17Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 29:18Speaker 01

  And, you know, even when I was trapped by the fire, I was really scared. And I said to one of the blokes who I literally just met in that life and death situation, he had his son there. And he saw that I was upset and he took precious seconds to comfort me. You know, again, another act of total selflessness.

• 29:38Rich Roll?

  Right. That makes, made a huge difference. I mean, I would imagine your life is very much in the balance. I mean, four hours with the extensive, you know, the extent to which you were burned.

• 29:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, totally. So we, the helicopter landed in the little town of Kanaara. I walked from the helicopter into hospital.

• 29:54Rich Roll?

  You walked?

• 29:55Speaker 01

  I walked. Well, they were, they were kind of like stuffing around, like trying to get the ambulance around and. In the end, I just thought, stuff this.

• 30:04Rich Roll?

  Alright, you know?

• 30:05Speaker 01

  I like hopped out of the helicopter and started like walking into the hospital. Cause in my head, I was fine.

• 30:10Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 30:11Speaker 01

  I was gonna be back at work in a couple of days.

• 30:13Rich Roll?

  Wow, that's crazy. The power of denial.

• 30:16Speaker 01

  Bandaged me up and, you know, I wanna go, you know, I wanna go home.

• 30:19Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 30:20Speaker 01

  And in, in the hospital, they weren't really taking my, taking me seriously. I was like, can someone call Michael? Like, I need to get out of here. I wanna get going.

• 30:30Rich Roll?

  You were really not tapped into what was actually happening.

• 30:34Speaker 01

  That I was out of there, like.

• 30:37Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 30:37Speaker 01

  And then.

• 30:38Rich Roll?

  Did they have a burnt, like a burn unit in this hospital?

• 30:41Speaker 01

  So the town is really small, Kanaara, there's probably about five thousand people who live there. So they put a needle in me and I woke up a month later in a hospital in Sydney.

• 30:53Rich Roll?

  They induce a coma?

• 30:55Speaker 01

  They induced coma, yeah. Induced coma, yeah. So behind the scenes, I'd been flown to Darwin, been flown to Sydney. Michael had literally flown all over the country to, to make sure he was with me. They flew in skin from America.

• 31:13Rich Roll?

  Wow.

• 31:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:14Rich Roll?

  How does that work?

• 31:15Speaker 01

  So with burnt patients, because you are such such a large proportion of me was burnt.

• 31:22Rich Roll?

  They couldn't graft you, they couldn't graft from somewhere on your body.

• 31:24Speaker 01

  No, so what they normally do is if you get burnt, they take a, you know, a skin graft from your back and they put it on your arm.

• 31:29Rich Roll?

  Hmm.

• 31:30Speaker 01

  But because I'd been burnt to the majority of my body, they didn't have it, they didn't have enough skin to take from anywhere. And so what they did is they got donor skin from the US and that skin flew to to Australia.

• 31:46Rich Roll?

  And does the, does it, is it have to be like a, is there like a matching process like with an organ?

• 31:50Speaker 01

  No, no, no, because the skin is only used as a temporary bandage.

• 31:55Rich Roll?

  I see.

• 31:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, so they did.

• 31:58Rich Roll?

  Just to prevent infection until your own skin can grow over it.

• 31:59Speaker 01

  Exactly, exactly. So the thing is that when the skin landed in Australia, customs wouldn't let it through because that was the first time skin had ever been imported to Australia.

• 32:12Rich Roll?

  What is this?

• 32:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, and so my surgeons were on the phone saying, look, if we don't get this skin by this afternoon, this patient will be dead.

• 32:23Rich Roll?

  How much skin was it? Like?

• 32:25Speaker 01

  I don't know, but.

• 32:26Rich Roll?

  Cover a large portion of your?

• 32:27Speaker 01

  Well, it was about sixty five percent of my body, so I don't know, like half of me.

• 32:32Rich Roll?

  Hmm.

• 32:33Speaker 01

  Um, but the interesting thing was it was all different colors.

• 32:37Rich Roll?

  Wow.

• 32:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:38Rich Roll?

  So it was from multiple donors?

• 32:39Speaker 01

  Multiple donors, yeah. Actually, when I went to the US, I found out that there was actually sixteen different donors.

• 32:46Rich Roll?

  Oh, my God.

• 32:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:48Rich Roll?

  And how does, how does somebody contribute that? Is it because they've, they've perished and they've contributed their organs?

• 32:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I guess this is why it's really important for people to be registered.

• 32:59Rich Roll?

  As an organ donor.

• 32:59Speaker 01

  As an organ and tissue donor, yeah.

• 33:01Rich Roll?

  Uh huh. So sixteen people. And so explain to me, basically, the.

• 33:09Rich Roll?

  Situation that yourself and somebody who, you know, has suffered like you have is in when you're in an induced coma and what you're like a couple of weeks, you know, or maybe even a week or two out of this burn event. I mean, what, you know, your, your, your, you know, your tissue is exposed. Obviously infection is, you know, huge. That's a major thing, right? But like, what exactly is going on?

• 33:33Speaker 01

  In my mind?

• 33:34Rich Roll?

  No, just like physically.

• 33:35Speaker 01

  Oh, physically?

• 33:36Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Uh. You weren't awake yet, so there's nothing going on in your mind, right?

• 33:40Speaker 01

  I was thinking, I was having a lot of crazy dreams.

• 33:43Rich Roll?

  Uh huh, yeah.

• 33:44Speaker 01

  When I was on morphine.

• 33:45Rich Roll?

  They're probably really crazy drugs, right?

• 33:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. I was on a crazy amount of drugs. Um, like what's going on behind the scenes?

• 33:52Rich Roll?

  Yeah, like I just want to understand like how, you know, the, the, the sort of situation of somebody who's been burned so extensively, like what they're actually looking at.

• 34:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm not quite sure about that because I was asleep and I haven't really investigated it thoroughly. But, you know, I know I had multiple operations, you know, they would graft skin areas. Sometimes it didn't take, so I'd have to go back in for another operation. I think I've had over 200 operations now.

• 34:26Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 34:27Speaker 01

  Um, you know, that to.

• 34:28Rich Roll?

  Two hundred?

• 34:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:29Rich Roll?

  Since, and this was 2011, like fall 2011?

• 34:32Speaker 01

  2011 and I'd, so when you get put under anesthetic, they could do maybe five things on you. So maybe like 50 general anesthetics.

• 34:45Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 34:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:46Rich Roll?

  So they just, they can't overdo it or they put your life in peril, right? So they have to space these out?

• 34:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, actually I passed away three times. I actually did die three times on the operating table.

• 34:56Rich Roll?

  Wow. Is that while you were in the induced coma or?

• 35:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, that was, that was in the early stages. And so, you know, for Michael and my, my family, that would have been tremendously hard because.

• 35:11Speaker 01

  You know, my, my family, they're, they're realist, but they're also pretty positive as well. And to hear the doctor say, well, I don't know, she might not make it like, I can't really tell you anything more than that. That would have been pretty heartbreaking.

• 35:23Rich Roll?

  Yeah. And, and flatlining for how long, do you know?

• 35:26Speaker 01

  I don't know. I don't know. Probably, what's flatlining like?

• 35:30Rich Roll?

  Like when your heart stops beating?

• 35:32Speaker 01

  Ah, yeah, I don't know. That's, I might find that out. That is a good question.

• 35:35Rich Roll?

  Ask your doctor.

• 35:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'll ask my doctors.

• 35:37Rich Roll?

  But just to kind of, for people that are listening, um, who aren't familiar with the story. So what's 65% of your body is third, is it third degree burns? Or how do you describe it? And you've lost some, some digits, some fingers. Um, it's across your arms, your face, your legs, your torso.

• 35:54Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 35:54Rich Roll?

  That's essentially it. Yeah. Um, and so skin grafting and the healing process and all the surgeries that go into like trying to, you know,

• 36:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:03Rich Roll?

  put Turia back together.

• 36:05Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I guess, I think the hardest thing about being in hospital was, you know, recovering from a burns injury, it's, it's really long. So a lot of people go to hospital, they get fixed up, they leave and they're all better. But when you have a really big burn like mine,

• 36:27Speaker 01

  it's a really long, long process. So, you know, years, not months. And it's also really painful. It's out of this world, excruciating, all encompassing. Takes over your mind and body.

• 36:40Rich Roll?

  Like you can't move at all, right? Without pain?

• 36:43Speaker 01

  Well, you can't move at all. And then they have to, they have to change your bandages every day.

• 36:47Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 36:47Speaker 01

  And that's like a, a torture ritual that would be inflicted on me every day.

• 36:53Rich Roll?

  So you're in the induced coma for, did you say a month?

• 36:57Speaker 01

  About a month.

• 36:57Rich Roll?

  About a month. So when you come to what, you know, and you come into an awareness of what had actually happened, like what's going on with you mentally at that point?

• 37:07Speaker 01

  I think.

• 37:09Speaker 01

  Uh, probably uh, there's an aspect of denial there too.

• 37:14Rich Roll?

  Like, why am I still in the hospital?

• 37:15Speaker 01

  Well, I remember, you know, the nurses were saying, oh, it'd be good for you and Michael to plan a holiday after this is all over. And my accident happened in September. So I would just harass Michael every day. I'd say, I want to go to Antarctica. Like, book that trip. We've got to go on that holiday. And he'd be like, ah, yeah. Yeah, like, you're not, he was thinking, you're not gonna be out of here by Christmas time. But I was just so adamant that.

• 37:44Rich Roll?

  So you just weren't, it's almost like the defense mechanism in you was so strong, like you weren't able to hear what the doctors and everybody was telling you?

• 37:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I guess I'm not, I'm not putting, putting blame on my doctors or the medical staff because they are phenomenal. They're amazing. They've put me back together. But I also think it's not in their interests to be positive. Cause they don't want to tell someone, yeah, you'll be running again. You'll be active again. You'll be able to do everything that you used to do. Cause maybe sometimes that won't happen. And the patient could get really angry. So they said.

• 38:19Rich Roll?

  What were they telling you?

• 38:20Speaker 01

  You won't be able to run again. You'll need a care for the rest of your life. You'll have to readjust your expectations. But then they'd say, oh, on the bright side, you know, you might get a job again. You might drive again. You might get married. And I'm not blitting, belittling those things, but it pissed me off. Cause I'd always been such a high achiever and a go getter. And I felt because I'd had this accident.

• 38:51Speaker 01

  Everyone's expectations of me had just plummeted. So no one expected anything from me anymore.

• 38:57Rich Roll?

  So was that your reaction immediately upon hearing that news? Like a refusal to accept that that would be your fate? Or did you have like a period of like?

• 39:05Speaker 01

  Yo-yos, up and down. So some days I think, you don't know what you're talking about. I'm going to prove everyone wrong. I'm going to rebuild myself. I'm going to be the biggest, baddest. Person on the planet. And then the next day I'd say, oh, nah, this is too hard. I can't do it. So it was just-

• 39:22Rich Roll?

  I would imagine you had to have moments of like,

• 39:24Speaker 01

  For sure.

• 39:24Rich Roll?

  Why me? How is this happening?

• 39:25Speaker 01

  For sure, totally.

• 39:26Rich Roll?

  I can't believe this. Like, my life is over.

• 39:28Speaker 01

  And people always wanna know like what the pivotal moment was. But there was no pivotal moment. It's not like one morning I woke up and I said, oh, I'm gonna be super strong for the rest of my life. It was just day in, day out, working towards walking fifty meters, working towards being able to do a flight of stairs. Just, I think it was really about, and you would know this with all your training, and the same thing with training for Ironman, it's about consistency. So you're just doing something every day. Some days you feel like you're going good, some days you don't know if you're making any progress at all. But over the long term, you see results.

• 40:12Rich Roll?

  Yeah, true in sport and truer in life.

• 40:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I think, I guess I was,

• 40:18Speaker 01

  I was blessed in some ways because the people around me, Michael, my mom, my dad, my brothers, they were all believers. So when I said to them, I'm gonna do an Ironman one day, they didn't say, well, come on, Turi, I've been really sick. The doctor said you won't be able to run again, and you'll need a care for the rest of your life. They just said, oh, cool.

• 40:46Rich Roll?

  How long after the burn did you announce that you wanted to do an Ironman?

• 40:51Speaker 01

  This is about, I think about maybe two months. I had no idea what an Ironman was. I had no idea.

• 40:57Rich Roll?

  You've run an ultra, you must have, and you're Australian, you must know what an Ironman is.

• 41:01Speaker 01

  No, I didn't, because I wasn't really, and I remember a couple of guys at work used to do Ironman events, and I'd think in my head, why would you wanna do that? That sounds really boring. That's what, this is coming from someone who does ultras, but anyway.

• 41:15Rich Roll?

  Well, they are, they can be really boring.

• 41:18Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, I found the Ironman really, I found it really boring, yeah. So I just, I think-

• 41:26Speaker 01

  Obviously, I had, I've got, I'm very determined. I had a lot of self-belief. And I'm quite a resilient person, but.

• 41:33Rich Roll?

  Where does that come from?

• 41:36Speaker 01

  I think, I think it's just my mindset.

• 41:41Rich Roll?

  Is it, is it the way you were raised?

• 41:43Speaker 01

  Definitely, definitely.

• 41:45Rich Roll?

  You came out of the womb like this?

• 41:46Speaker 01

  No, I don't think anyone is just naturally.

• 41:48Rich Roll?

  So how did your parents raise you so that you can view the world in this positive way?

• 41:52Speaker 01

  Okay, so for example, my mom had four kids at home. She had a full-time job. And she wrote novels. And every night when I'd go to sleep, I could hear her typing away on her keyboard. And then her first book got rejected fourteen times. And as you do when you get rejected fourteen times, you write another book. And her second book became a commercial success. It was published all over the world, translated in.

• 42:18Rich Roll?

  Wow.

• 42:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, around ten different languages. So that lesson to me, it showed me that if you work hard for something. And you're persistent and you persevere and you believe in yourself, you see results.

• 42:30Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 42:31Speaker 01

  My dad was really old school. He had a really tough love approach. So he had two rules when we were kids. The first rule was no whinging.

• 42:41Rich Roll?

  What does that mean?

• 42:42Speaker 01

  No whinging, oh, like.

• 42:43Rich Roll?

  That's like an Australian.

• 42:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's Australian. It's like, uh, no, no complaining.

• 42:47Rich Roll?

  Uh-huh.

• 42:47Speaker 01

  And his second rule was no bloody whinging. That's a really, that's a really Australian saying, too.

• 42:52Rich Roll?

  Hard to please, dude.

• 42:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, but it was just like, if you're not.

• 42:57Speaker 01

  You are the change of circumstances, and if you're not willing to do that, I don't want to hear about it. I don't want to hear you whinge or complain. So when I was a kid, my brother and I, we missed the bus to school. So we wagged school. Do not wag.

• 43:12Rich Roll?

  No, what does that mean?

• 43:13Speaker 01

  We skipped school. We didn't go to school.

• 43:14Rich Roll?

  Australians have a nickname for everything.

• 43:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, we do, don't we? We're unique like that. And then, uh, dad found out. And he was furious. He dug a trench in the backyard. My brother and I had to run from our house ten minutes down to the beach. Grab a handful of sand, run the ten minutes home, put it in the trench.

• 43:32Rich Roll?

  Uh-huh.

• 43:32Speaker 01

  And we weren't allowed to finish until that.

• 43:34Rich Roll?

  Till the trench was full?

• 43:35Speaker 01

  Till the trench was full.

• 43:36Rich Roll?

  That's intense.

• 43:37Speaker 01

  That's intense, but like. Yeah, his style of parenting was really intense, but I'm grateful for that because it's it's part of what makes me who I am. You know, it's why I don't whinge, it's why I don't complain, it's why I've got a, well, you know, you've got to get up and go and proactive approach to things.

• 43:56Rich Roll?

  Persistence and no complaining, that's a, you know, that's a pretty powerful combination to combat what you were facing.

• 44:02Speaker 01

  Exactly, yeah.

• 44:03Rich Roll?

  But I would also, did he ever say, all right, you can complain a little bit, like, it's okay for you, even in the wake of all of this?

• 44:10Speaker 01

  Oh, sorry.

• 44:10Rich Roll?

  He never gave you a minute where he said, it's okay, you can complain for five minutes?

• 44:15Speaker 01

  After my accident, no, well, that was sort of more mom's job.

• 44:17Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 44:18Speaker 01

  You know, my mom's from Tahiti, she's a beautiful woman, she's very loving. Everyone who meets her falls in love with her and they say, oh, your mom is so awesome. So I would, I would, you know, cry to mom. When dad came to the hospital, it was like very serious.

• 44:35Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 44:35Speaker 01

  We've got to go get you doing squats or whatever and my-

• 44:39Rich Roll?

  Moving forward, looking forward.

• 44:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, we can't do anything about it, you've been burnt, so what, what else can we do? And Michael, my partner, was probably the best out of all of them. He was amazing.

• 44:52Rich Roll?

  Michael, can you, he's sitting over here, can you come over here? Yeah, I should have set up a third mic for you.

• 44:57Speaker 01

  He was there, he was there with me every day.

• 44:59Rich Roll?

  Pull up a chair for a second, because I'm, I, I want to know, like, what it was like, you know, here, hand him the mic for, for a second, like, I want to know what this, this was like for you, you know, I mean, it's a, it's an extraordinary thing that you were able to show up for Turia and, and be by her side, you know, throughout the entire thing and, and then, you know, you guys are, you're married now or you're engaged?

• 45:21Speaker 02

  No, we're engaged.

• 45:21Rich Roll?

  You're engaged, right? Congrats on that, that's awesome, yeah. But it had to be, you know, traumatic and terrifying.

• 45:28Speaker 02

  It was, everything you said, like, it was, it's heartbreaking and, but the thing is, like, with something like this, and I realize it's not only Turia and I that go through accidents, like, you know, accidents happen every day and every family experiences them, so you just have to sort of step up to the plate and the way we did it, you know, we just sort of believed in each other and, you know, I, I was such a realist and I was like, you know, this has happened and there's no point. Crying about it, but what we can do is we can help Tere to walk and hold her hand while she walks up a flight of stairs. And every day you'd see a little bit of improvement and that would make you and your heart feel like you're actually doing a job and you're achieving something. So it was a team effort. But yeah, it was very bloody hard. And a lot of, like

• 46:10Speaker 02

  I said, a lot of families go through it. And they obviously don't get the recognition that Tere and I have because the media in Australia found it a fascinating incident. And they were really positive towards us. And they've shone a beautiful light upon Tere, which was amazing. So I do thank them for that. But also, the media can be terrible, as you know.

• 46:32Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Well, like the paparazzi side of it, right? Like being too sort of up in your business about everything that's going on?

• 46:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, they just shone a light for everybody to see what had happened. But I mean, if it didn't happen as an ultra marathon out in the desert, nobody would know about Tere being burnt. So, you know, what I'm trying to say is these things happen. And we've just had a positive feedback, a spotlight from the media, which, you know, it's helped Tere to sort of keep moving forward.

• 47:01Rich Roll?

  And so you and Tere, you were in the hospital for how long? Six months. Six months. And so during that period, Michael, I would imagine your life had to be put on hold completely, right? Because you were in Sydney during that. Yeah? Or no? Conanara. Oh, okay. All right. Also wanting to need. I see. Yeah. Uh huh. And so you and so you and you were like a police officer?

• 47:24Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 47:25Rich Roll?

  Right. And so did you have to take like extensive time off of work?

• 47:29Speaker 02

  I resigned. And then the accident happened. And then I just dropped everything. And I thought, you know, if she could get through the rehabilitation and the physiotherapy that was asked upon her, it was quite easy for me to be alongside her every day and help her. Like, I mean, all I had to do was be there. So the doctors were quite ruthless. They said, you know, she's going to be here for six months and it's two years of rehabilitation. And then in five years' time, she won't know herself. She'll be, you know, going great. So I was, I just believed in them and, you know. I just put myself there for her to rebound off and, you know, to be honest, looking from the outside, I can see it might be sort of a big thing, but it was quite easy at the, at the time that it happened, yeah.

• 48:14Rich Roll?

  What was the, what was the hardest part for you?

• 48:16Speaker 02

  The hardest part was when I saw her walk for the first time, uh, because before that, I remember her running long distances. I used to go running with her twenty Ks of an afternoon and then to see her in hospital and the nurses get her up and she can't even walk three steps and she's just howling in pain. I mean, that that broke me as a man and I had to walk away and actually had a few tears in the corner at that, at that stage and that, that really hurt me.

• 48:41Rich Roll?

  And so what, what did you have to do like for yourself to be able to kind of deal with this on a daily basis, like, you know, just to be the support that you know that she needed you to be?

• 48:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, it's, I mean, everybody's got their own sort of therapy and remedy in situations like this. And for me, it was the ocean. Like I would go down for swims and jump in there and I, you know, I could scream underwater and sometimes I would just catch a wave and that would be a relief for me to get in there and have the salt on my skin and the wind in my hair. And so that, that was my remedy. Some people get counselling, some people, um, they do exercise. My remedy was the ocean and that was very therapeutic throughout the whole process and it did help me.

• 49:22Rich Roll?

  Is there, was there any aspect of this where there, you know, sometimes there, they create like community where there's other people that are going through the same thing, like, hey, talk to this guy, he's going through it or like, I mean, they have, like, cancer survivors have that, there's all, you know.

• 49:36Speaker 02

  Look, I think the rehabilitation for anybody that's bad here in Australia, it's pretty, it's it's unfortunate that it's pretty poor. There's not that many services that support and there was a chaplain that came around and tried to talk to me, but to be honest, I didn't have any interest in speaking to him. I could speak to my family and my friends and that was my way of a release and, you know, like, I, I'd go for runs as well and that was really good, the exercise and to keep my mind healthy. And swimming, that swimming was probably the best exercise I could do because you know, you go for an hour swim, as you know, you get out and you feel invincible and you, you start fresh again.

• 50:09Rich Roll?

  Absolutely. Well, I think you, you know, it would be. No surprise to you, and I'm sure you've now you have worked with all these other people that are experiencing things similar to what you you guys have endured collectively as a couple. And I would imagine you've seen relationships dissolve or break up over this sort of thing, right? So it's either gonna it's gonna go one of two ways, either gonna bring you closer, or it's gonna blow you apart, right? So how do you why do you and I'm interested in both of your perspectives on this, like, how do you what did what did you why do you think you guys it brought you guys closer together? Like, what did you do that allowed you to kind of weather this and get to this place where you have this great relationship and you're getting married, whereas you've seen other people like splitting up?

• 50:52Speaker 02

  That's I can't really speak for anyone else. I can just sort of say that, you know, it was tough. And like, it's I know people have seen us to be happy and smiling all the time, but there is downtime down, you know, times when you're sad. And, you know, you do you do sort of fight with one another. But I think that's generally a healthy relationship. If I mean, I'm sure you and you have arguments.

• 51:18Rich Roll?

  Fight all the time, you know, anybody who says they don't fight, that's not that's not a good sign. They're either lying, or they're not being honest. They're not like being honest with each other, right? So

• 51:29Speaker 01

  I I'm very honest with Michael.

• 51:31Speaker 02

  And so it did involve all that, like, you know, there was arguments, there was times I wanted to walk away. And, you know, there was times Tere wanted to walk away from me. And it was tough. And, you know, I think sometimes people always say to me, you know, bad things sometimes happen to people who, you know, have to be tested. And I think, you know, for some reason, this unfortunate accident happened to Tere, and it tested her, and it tested our relationship immensely. And, you know, we've come out shining at the end of the of the journey. And we're pretty stoked where we are at the moment. And we're pretty proud of how we've sort of kept our relationship together through such a traumatic event.

• 52:11Rich Roll?

  Yeah, and it's given you an opportunity to be able to be of service to other people in a really profound and meaningful way. So when you look at, when you look upon this, you know, sort of like the universe puts this in front of you and you can be a victim, or you can, uh, yeah, he's standing around. No, I might want you back. Sit down. Uh, you know, you can shrink from it and be the victim, or you can rise to the challenge and understand that perhaps there is, you know, there is a, there is a silver lining in this and something to be learned that can be shared. When you look on it now, do you, are you able to like access that kind of gratitude for it? Like, do you wish it, if you could do it all over again, do you wish, I wish that never happened? Or do

• 52:55Rich Roll?

  you look at it and say, this is a gift because now I get to do this thing that I didn't think I was going to be able to do with my life? Like, how do you perceive it?

• 53:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, I think that comes back to that reframing technique that I was talking about earlier. I could look at it and say, I wish it never happened. It changed my whole life. Or I could say, this traumatic thing happened to me, but it's given me so much. It's made my relationship with Michael way more profound and deeper. It's given me a new appreciation for my family and friends and community. They're all so awesome. I'm able to travel all around the world now and do what I love to do. I can compete in crazy events such as Iron Man Kona. I've got a profile on a platform. So if I talk about Interplas, I'm able to galvanize people to raise money for that. And when you look at those two options, I know which one I would choose.

• 53:47Rich Roll?

  What was the plan before? Like, what was the career path?

• 53:51Speaker 01

  I was a mining engineer. Engineering is a very male-dominated industry, and mining engineering even more so. So in my class, there was 80 blokes and four girls.

• 54:02Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 54:03Speaker 01

  Uh, and I really loved it. I really, because you got to work in cool places in Australia, in the middle of nowhere, with nothing around you. I love places like that. And I was really happy with my career. I wanted to be, um, a mining manager or move, move my way up through the company. But at the same time, it wasn't emotionally fulfilling either. And I recognized that after only working, I was only working as an engineer for about a year. I studied at uni for about five years. And even after a year, I became a little disillusioned with it. Because I thought I've started my ass off to get here. I don't really know if here is where I want to be.

• 54:46Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 54:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:47Rich Roll?

  Right. But the connection that you get with what you do now in in terms of like, you know, how it impacts people.

• 54:53Speaker 01

  I feel like everything's magnified.

• 54:56Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 54:56Speaker 01

  Does that make sense?

• 54:57Rich Roll?

  Yeah, of course.

• 54:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:58Rich Roll?

  Do you also, I I would assume that you presume that you feel like a, you know, a responsibility because this happened and because you have this experience and because you've been able to kind of um, uh, transcend it, you know, with the accomplishments that you that you have you have done that that packed into that is this sort of call to action to be this beacon of, you know, strength for other people that are struggling. Do you feel that?

• 55:25Speaker 01

  I guess I do feel a little bit of responsibility. But I also don't take myself too seriously. And if you if you follow me on Instagram or whatever, I've got a pretty wicked sense of humor and do you have that expression, take the piss?

• 55:41Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I know what that means.

• 55:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:42Rich Roll?

  That's the one thing I do.

• 55:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. So like I like to take the piss and, you know, pay myself out. Because I think as well, we can get into the habit of taking everything so serious and we're all so busy and we're all so important. And I think we need to just have a laugh with your mates and relax and remember that we only get one life and we've got to enjoy it as well as making a difference. We've also got to enjoy.

• 56:08Rich Roll?

  But I think that's that's important also in terms, I think, of of disarming people when you first meet them, like because people don't know how to act or they're like, you know, right, you know?

• 56:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, people might be a little um awkward, maybe. And so I just probably do crack a few jokes just to let them know that I'm

• 56:28Rich Roll?

  It's okay.

• 56:29Speaker 01

  I'm still a human. It's okay. You can relax. Yeah. And, you know, people always ask if I've had such a good sense of humor. And I reckon I have. It's just that perhaps it's developed more because of what I've been through, because I realized that if I need want to disarm people and I want to break through to them, I need to get them a bit, you know, relaxed. Does that make sense?

• 56:53Rich Roll?

  It does. But when you say that, I can't help but think, you know, that's.

• 56:59Rich Roll?

  I think I see an amazing person in that because a lot of people would just become bitter and angry and resentful.

• 57:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, but I chose not to be.

• 57:08Rich Roll?

  But again, it goes back to that, like, how do you make that choice?

• 57:11Speaker 01

  I make that choice every day, every morning or throughout the day.

• 57:16Rich Roll?

  But they're saying that you're gonna do it and then actually like, like feeling it, like embodying that and practicing that.

• 57:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, there is a difference.

• 57:24Rich Roll?

  Is there an act as if, like you do it until you feel it or do you honestly feel it?

• 57:28Speaker 01

  No, I say it out loud because, you know, it's easy to think, yeah, okay, I'm gonna be grateful. I'm gonna be happy, but there's a huge difference in actually verbalizing it, saying it out loud and saying it like you mean it.

• 57:42Speaker 01

  So I say to myself, is today gonna be a good day or a bad day, Tariq? Like, it's your choice, your call.

• 57:48Speaker 01

  You choose.

• 57:49Rich Roll?

  And do you ever say, yeah, it's gonna be a bad day?

• 57:51Speaker 01

  Yes, sometimes I do. And then I say to myself, well, if you want it to be a bad day or a bad morning, we'll just go with it. Be in a bad mood.

• 57:59Rich Roll?

  But then don't complain about being in a bad mood.

• 58:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, don't complain to me that you're in such a bad mood and why can't you fix me? Because I'm in a bad mood and I need you to cheer me up.

• 58:09Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 58:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:10Rich Roll?

  All right, so, so back to the rehabilitation, you're, you know, you're trying to, as, as Michael explained, like the painful, you know, first steps of trying to learn how to walk again and all of that, like, is that the skin is just so taut and, and damaged or is the muscles atrophy?

• 58:26Speaker 01

  The muscles are atrophied, the skin is damaged, it's a skill that I haven't practiced in a month. So if you're lying flat for a month, your muscles and just that skill, that balance, that sense of balance, it's gonna be lost. And so when I, I was in this state of delusion, I'm gonna be fine, everything's gonna be okay. Then when I stood up to walk, I was like, no, things aren't gonna be fine. Things are actually gonna be really, really bloody long and really bloody tough. And what people have been saying to me, they might actually be on the right track.

• 59:04Rich Roll?

  Do you think that your experience as an ultra marathoner played into your ability to kind of approach the rehabilitation?

• 59:11Speaker 01

  I think for sure because I've always loved sports and loved challenging myself. So I think if you don't, if you're not someone who's involved with sports, you might never have experienced that sensation when you're uncomfortable, you want to quit, but you just keep going. So I think a hundred percent it played a huge role.

• 59:33Rich Roll?

  And when you were, when you were doing that, were you thinking like someday I'm gonna run a marathon again, or I'm gonna run like I used to run, like you had that, you held that vision for yourself?

• 59:42Speaker 01

  I would be walking like a grandma, saying to myself, yeah, one day you're gonna, you're gonna be running a marathon, you're gonna be doing this, you're gonna be doing that.

• 59:50Rich Roll?

  And are you, are you somebody who, sorry to interrupt, but like I want to get to kind of behind the, the, you know, pull the, pull the covers back a little bit more on this, like, are you somebody who lets everyone in on that goal? Or are you somebody who kind of covets that quietly and says, I'll show them, but you know, I'm gonna keep, that's my secret and that's, you know, I hope that's why it's powerful for me. Or do you, you just tell everyone and then it just becomes real because everyone has been notified?

• 1:00:17Speaker 01

  I like to tell everyone. So like even my first Ironman in Australia, I literally told every single person that I came across that I was doing it. And then I was like, shit, I actually have to.

• 1:00:28Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:00:28Speaker 01

  I actually.

• 1:00:29Rich Roll?

  Because it creates an external accountability.

• 1:00:30Speaker 01

  Exactly, yeah. And for me, the fear of being embarrassed or looking like a goose, do you have that ex?

• 1:00:38Rich Roll?

  No.

• 1:00:39Speaker 01

  Okay, well, you're looking like a bit of a kook, you know, you say you're gonna do something, then you don't do it. I don't like being that person. So I like to say I'm doing something and then follow through. Yeah. But for sure, a lot of people like to hold it internally and, and stew on it and they make it happen that way.

• 1:00:55Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:00:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:56Rich Roll?

  So, all right, so this rehabilitation is going on for two years?

• 1:01:00Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:01:01Rich Roll?

  Two years, right? Do you have moments where you just feel like, okay, like I broke through? Or is it just a gradual progression?

• 1:01:08Speaker 01

  Some days I think, yes, I've overcome everything, I've broken through and then the next day I'd feel really crap and I'd go, okay, maybe I haven't broken through. And I always thought I would get to a stage where I'd be over it. And actually, two years after the flyer.

• 1:01:29Speaker 01

  I was, I was playing my life pretty safe and one of the guys from the fire was riding his bike, he was training for an adventure race and he got hit by a truck.

• 1:01:37Rich Roll?

  Hmm.

• 1:01:38Speaker 01

  And passed away. And that, that for me just really reinforced that there's no benefit to playing your life really safe because I thought because I'd been through that fire, I'd be immune to further tragedy.

• 1:01:55Rich Roll?

  Hmm.

• 1:01:55Speaker 01

  But now I think if you don't live your life big, live it on your terms, take risks, bet big, believe in yourself. I don't really know if that's much of a life. It's not much of a life.

• 1:02:08Rich Roll?

  Hmm.

• 1:02:08Speaker 01

  For me, anyway.

• 1:02:10Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I mean, you could, you know, you could cower and stay at home and watch daytime television and everyone would say, oh, that's fine. Like, nobody is gonna.

• 1:02:20Speaker 01

  No one would pull me up. Everyone would say, well, she's been really badly burnt in a fire. That's why. She's like that and she's really fragile and you have to be sensitive. And I hated that, how people would walk around on their tippy toes around me and it just, it really frustrated me. Cause I felt, you know, I was like, I'm a grown woman. I, I'm an independent person. I know what's going on.

• 1:02:42Rich Roll?

  And so when do you decide you're gonna do this? The first Ironman you did was Ironman Australia, right?

• 1:02:48Speaker 01

  Australia, yeah. Yeah, so I decided that in hos- I decided that in hospital.

• 1:02:51Rich Roll?

  You did? You fill out, did you like, sign up for it and stuff?

• 1:02:54Speaker 01

  No, I decided that in hospital and I said, oh, so I did a cycle in Australia. I walked to the Great Wall of China.

• 1:03:01Rich Roll?

  Oh, so the, the Great Wall was before the Ironman?

• 1:03:03Speaker 01

  That was before the Ironman and I thought that would build up my legs.

• 1:03:06Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:03:07Speaker 01

  For the marathon. And then.

• 1:03:08Rich Roll?

  And you did that as a fundraiser?

• 1:03:10Speaker 01

  That was a fundraiser for Interplast. And I did a swim in Kananara, which is where the fire happened.

• 1:03:15Rich Roll?

  Right. Yeah, I saw some video of that, of that as well. That was like a 20 kilometer swim?

• 1:03:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, but I.

• 1:03:21Rich Roll?

  I wasn't sure which came first in the timeline, so.

• 1:03:23Speaker 01

  No, that was, that was earlier on.

• 1:03:25Rich Roll?

  I see.

• 1:03:26Speaker 01

  And I did it in a team.

• 1:03:27Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 1:03:28Speaker 01

  So I didn't swim 20 kilometers.

• 1:03:29Rich Roll?

  Right, but you did it with the other burn victims, right?

• 1:03:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:03:31Rich Roll?

  That's amazing.

• 1:03:32Speaker 01

  So it was cool. We came dead last. Like, literally.

• 1:03:35Rich Roll?

  Yeah, but it's like, in the, in the class of, of people that have been devastatingly burned in a fire, you came in first.

• 1:03:42Speaker 01

  So like, two of, two of the guys weren't, didn't get burnt. Sorry, one of the guys didn't get burnt and he was the worst.

• 1:03:49Rich Roll?

  He was the worst.

• 1:03:49Speaker 01

  He was so bad.

• 1:03:51Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 1:03:52Speaker 01

  He told me he couldn't swim, but I.

• 1:03:54Rich Roll?

  That's unacceptable.

• 1:03:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was really annoyed. I was like, we're gonna come last because of you.

• 1:03:57Rich Roll?

  Uh huh, that's so funny.

• 1:03:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:03:59Rich Roll?

  So you must be really close with those people though after.

• 1:04:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I guess it's a strange closeness because we don't, we love extreme events and that's why we're in the ultra marathon, but we're not that similar in other aspects, but.

• 1:04:13Rich Roll?

  But you were in, it's like being in battle, like you were, you survived this crazy thing.

• 1:04:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:04:18Rich Roll?

  Only you guys know what that was like.

• 1:04:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. So we are really close. Um, and then.

• 1:04:24Rich Roll?

  So those built up some confidence that.

• 1:04:26Speaker 01

  That was really our confidence. So in my mind, I thought that's preparing me for the Ironman. And then I texted one of the blokes from the fire because he'd done about 10 Ironman events. And I said, who was your coach? He put me onto the coach. I saw the coach, I sort of walked in there like acting like I was way fitter than what I was. And Mike was like, Drew, just gonna be really honest. Like your furthest you can run at the moment is four kilometers and you know, you can probably swim a kilometer without stopping and

• 1:05:01Speaker 01

  you can't even ride a bike without cleats. So just be really honest. So I was. And then he gave me a program.

• 1:05:09Rich Roll?

  And how long, what, how long was the time period leading up to the race?

• 1:05:13Speaker 01

  Like fif- fifteen months.

• 1:05:14Rich Roll?

  Fifteen months. Okay. So yeah, but like still to go from not being able to run more than four kilometers to being able to do an Ironman, that's a, that's a mountain to climb.

• 1:05:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it was, I felt it was a really cathartic process for me. Cause I've written books and people have asked if they've been cathartic and they haven't really been that cathartic.

• 1:05:37Rich Roll?

  Hmm.

• 1:05:38Speaker 01

  But I think the process of training for something, when you get up every morning and you just do it and there's, there's an internal battle that goes on every day with your training and.

• 1:05:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think the Ironman did a lot for me.

• 1:05:55Rich Roll?

  It's interesting that you found catharsis in the training and not in the sort of divulging through the books and the writing.

• 1:06:01Speaker 01

  Cause the book was all looking backwards.

• 1:06:06Speaker 01

  And I was thinking, I don't want to go through it again, like.

• 1:06:10Rich Roll?

  So the catharsis is in kind of shedding, you know, to like

• 1:06:14Speaker 01

  It was like saying.

• 1:06:14Rich Roll?

  coined a terrible metaphor to shed another skin, right?

• 1:06:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, and it was like, who are you? Like, like, this is your chance to prove yourself. This is where you have to step up, you know? People think you're just a burns victim and this is your opportunity to show no.

• 1:06:36Rich Roll?

  Did you have a sense that you're getting a lot of press, right? So you had this idea like people are paying attention and you have an opportunity to like be this inspirational figure. So how much of it is oriented around that versus for yourself?

• 1:06:51Speaker 01

  All of it was for myself. Yeah, the whole, the whole journey, it was, it's a self, it's, I was gonna say it's a selfish sport. It was a selfish sport for me because it was all consuming. It took over everything.

• 1:07:06Rich Roll?

  And Michael, how was that when she was training all the time for? Were you like supportive or you like, she's insane or?

• 1:07:14Speaker 01

  It was amazing.

• 1:07:14Speaker 02

  I was supportive because it was good to see her rehabilitating and body back to where she was before. So that was a beautiful thing.

• 1:07:20Rich Roll?

  And looking forward.

• 1:07:21Speaker 02

  And looking forward. So I mean, she, like I said, that she, I would have way rather watched her do, be rehabilitated and trained for the Ironman than sit in a corner and cry. So it was beautiful.

• 1:07:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, but man, we had some huge blowups.

• 1:07:35Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:36Speaker 01

  You know, cause some days my bike wouldn't be working properly and I'd be like, you've got to fix it. I've got to, I have to train. I need to do this and yeah, well, you get, you get kind of stressed and anxious and I'd get annoyed if there wasn't.

• 1:07:49Rich Roll?

  Michael's gotta take care of this for me, right? But like you, like during the rehabilitation process, like you like literally had to like dress her, right? Like there's it was very, it's not like it was very hands on, like full blown, full blown job situation.

• 1:08:04Speaker 01

  I remember once he was getting my clothes ready for the morning and I was like, no, I don't want to wear that. Don't want to wear that. Don't want to wear that. I was being a real.

• 1:08:12Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:12Speaker 02

  God damn it, just get dressed.

• 1:08:13Speaker 01

  I was being really difficult and finally he just snapped, he like pulled all of my clothes out of the closet, threw them down on the bed and said, you do it. I'm out of here.

• 1:08:23Rich Roll?

  Well, at some point you gotta like learn how to do it.

• 1:08:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, I thought catering, probably you've probably taken things a little too far this time.

• 1:08:30Rich Roll?

  Good. Well, I'm, I'm actually glad to hear stories like that.

• 1:08:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, it's, it's real, isn't it?

• 1:08:35Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:08:37Rich Roll?

  Yeah. So she's so, so you're, you're having to like sort of be her.

• 1:08:42Speaker 02

  I was her carer and like, but

• 1:08:45Speaker 02

  there was a stage though where, you know, I didn't have to do a toiletries for her and that did help in a big way. But, you know, I was a carer and I was, I was comfortable doing that. And I took that upon myself. We could have got nurses and physiotherapists and that around to the house, but we didn't need to. I was more than happy to do that because every day I would see an increase in her rehabilitation, you know, she would be able to do something. She'd put a bra on for instance, and I'd be like, oh, you couldn't do that yesterday. And before I knew it, she was dressing herself and I was, I walked away from that position.

• 1:09:16Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:09:16Speaker 01

  And I mean, it's the cool thing about, I don't know, actually, I don't know if it's cool, but even five years on, there's still things that I'm learning to do all over again. So even using hair scrunchies, like I just figured out how to do that a couple of months ago. And I was like, Michael, like, look what I can do now. How awesome is this? It's weird because it's so simple, but

• 1:09:41Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:09:42Speaker 01

  I think we're always reminded not to take those things for granted. Yeah.

• 1:09:46Rich Roll?

  Well, beyond the, the kind of dexterity with your hands and, and the, you know, kind of atrophy of the muscles that you had to combat and the, you know, sort of tensile strength of your skin and all of that. Is there like internal organ damage that you have to deal with or all of that is like all?

• 1:10:01Speaker 01

  No, it's all fine internally. The one thing about. Being burnt is you can't regulate your body temperature.

• 1:10:08Rich Roll?

  Oh, that's interesting.

• 1:10:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:10:10Rich Roll?

  Well, that's a big deal in Ironman, especially in Kona.

• 1:10:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:10:13Rich Roll?

  Oh, my god.

• 1:10:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Kona was so hard.

• 1:10:15Rich Roll?

  Right, because you're sweat, you're not, you don't sweat the same way, right?

• 1:10:18Speaker 01

  And that, that's what the main, one of the functions of your skin is, you know, if you're, if you're hot, you sweat to cool yourself down.

• 1:10:25Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:10:25Speaker 01

  I don't sweat on sixty-five percent of my body. So I get-

• 1:10:29Rich Roll?

  That's a problem.

• 1:10:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, that is a problem.

• 1:10:31Rich Roll?

  As an endurance athlete, as any kind of athlete.

• 1:10:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:10:34Rich Roll?

  Wow.

• 1:10:35Speaker 01

  But all, like, this is how I looked at it too. Yeah, it's a problem, but I had to be creative enough and imaginative enough to think of solutions.

• 1:10:46Rich Roll?

  So what are the solutions to that?

• 1:10:47Speaker 01

  So, for example, in Ironman, it was really simple. Each aid station, I'd stop, pour water over myself, douse myself with cold water.

• 1:10:55Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:10:56Speaker 01

  And that took, made, made the race take longer.

• 1:10:59Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:11:00Speaker 01

  Because I had to continually stop. I wore a heart rate monitor. So I could monitor my heart rate and if there was a, if it started going too high, I would know that I'd just have to slow down and back off the pace.

• 1:11:12Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:11:13Speaker 01

  So those things compromise my athletic abilities, but it still does mean that I can do them.

• 1:11:20Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:11:20Speaker 01

  So instead of saying, well, I can't do endurance events, I've been burnt, can't do it. I just saw it as my, I guess, my job to, you know,

• 1:11:30Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:31Speaker 01

  try and think of solutions and-

• 1:11:32Rich Roll?

  That's one I would have not thought of, but that's probably the biggest limiter.

• 1:11:36Speaker 01

  That was a bit, well, the swim was really hard.

• 1:11:38Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:38Speaker 01

  Because, you know, your, your hand is your paddle.

• 1:11:40Rich Roll?

  Uh-huh.

• 1:11:41Speaker 01

  My hands are a lot smaller.

• 1:11:44Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:11:44Speaker 01

  So that was, it's like, you know, when you do swimming drills with fists?

• 1:11:47Rich Roll?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:11:48Speaker 01

  A bit like that.

• 1:11:49Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:49Speaker 01

  So that was hard. The bike was hard because, you know, going up a hill, I, I can't get out of my saddle.

• 1:11:55Rich Roll?

  Uh-huh.

• 1:11:57Speaker 01

  So that-

• 1:11:57Rich Roll?

  And also you have a very tenuous grip on the handlebars, right?

• 1:12:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:12:01Rich Roll?

  It's gonna be dangerous.

• 1:12:01Speaker 01

  So if I go too fast, I'm like, okay, just slow down to rear. You're not trying to break the land speed record.

• 1:12:07Rich Roll?

  Right, like that descent from Harvey.

• 1:12:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:12:10Rich Roll?

  Into Kuaaihai with the winds, the sideways winds had to be really scary.

• 1:12:15Speaker 01

  But I thought, like, I did the exercise, what's the worst thing that can happen? I wrote it down, like, the worst thing that could happen on that descent was that I got picked up by the wind and thrown into the, the rock cutting. Might have meant that I would maybe break a bone. Maybe not be able to finish the race.

• 1:12:36Speaker 01

  It's not much of a disincentive.

• 1:12:38Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:12:39Speaker 01

  To not try. Yeah.

• 1:12:42Rich Roll?

  And you didn't fall.

• 1:12:43Speaker 01

  No, I didn't fall, but I was, I was riding like a grandma.

• 1:12:46Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:46Speaker 01

  Like I was pretty cautious.

• 1:12:47Rich Roll?

  You would have to. I mean, it's, it's even for the most experienced riders, it's hair raising.

• 1:12:52Speaker 01

  Well, also as well, I'm not a cyclist. I haven't, I haven't touched my bike.

• 1:12:55Rich Roll?

  Well, actually you are a cyclist because you, you've done two Ironmans, so you can, you can own that.

• 1:13:01Speaker 01

  I haven't touched my bike since Kona.

• 1:13:03Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 1:13:04Speaker 01

  It's like still in the garage with the number on it and everything.

• 1:13:07Rich Roll?

  That's all right. So did you have, were, did you have doctors that were supportive or telling you like this is dangerous? Or did, were they constructively trying to help you come up with these solutions or were you just doing your?

• 1:13:18Speaker 01

  Not really my doctors because they're, they're pretty busy. They've got burns patients coming, coming out of it.

• 1:13:24Rich Roll?

  You can't be bothered with your Ironman.

• 1:13:25Speaker 01

  There is, they're like, look, if you wanna go do something stupid and crazy, knock yourself out.

• 1:13:30Rich Roll?

  We can't stop you.

• 1:13:30Speaker 01

  Knock yourself out, Turia. We know we can't stop you. One of my doctors was so annoying. He was always on me to put on weight.

• 1:13:38Speaker 01

  And I was, you know, I was arguing with him because I was like, I'm in, I'm training for an Ironman, like I can't actually put on weight at the moment.

• 1:13:49Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:13:49Speaker 01

  So he was a little bit annoying. Yeah. You know the one I'm talking about. Um. But also they didn't, they didn't really care at hospital. They were just like, whatever.

• 1:14:01Rich Roll?

  So fifteen months and you go to Ironman Australia.

• 1:14:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:14:05Rich Roll?

  And you, you toe the starting line.

• 1:14:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was freaking out.

• 1:14:08Rich Roll?

  Make it through. Like what's, what's the hardest part that you had? Yeah. Like it had to be.

• 1:14:13Speaker 01

  Oh, the hardest part of that whole day was waiting to start.

• 1:14:15Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:16Speaker 01

  It's like with anything, you know, like when you're nervous or anxious before you do a presentation or.

• 1:14:23Speaker 01

  Whatever that that period before you're actually about to start is the worst.

• 1:14:27Rich Roll?

  Uh huh. But you put the training in. Did you go in confident that you were gonna be able to?

• 1:14:31Speaker 01

  Look, my, my coach was there on the day he came with me and he's a really, really beautiful man. Um, he was really helpful for me throughout the whole process. And he just said, look, you've done the work. You're not trying to break any record. Just go out and enjoy it. Yeah.

• 1:14:49Rich Roll?

  You got all day.

• 1:14:51Speaker 01

  You got all day. Yeah. And like five hundred meters into the swim. I just thought, oh, you've got this in the bag. Like, you'll be able to do this, which was not my experience in Kona.

• 1:15:00Rich Roll?

  Hmm. So, so, all right. Well, I want to get to that. So, but so you, you basically cruised through this Ironman?

• 1:15:06Speaker 01

  Well, no, I say cruise, like it's a walk in the park.

• 1:15:09Rich Roll?

  You had it in the bag?

• 1:15:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, like there was some tough points for sure. But the whole day I was just frothing out because I was finally doing something which I'd trained.

• 1:15:18Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:19Speaker 01

  So hard for.

• 1:15:20Rich Roll?

  And you got it done. You did like thirteen, fourteen hours, thirteen and a half hours. Yeah, it's amazing.

• 1:15:26Speaker 01

  Yeah. So I was pretty proud of myself.

• 1:15:28Rich Roll?

  That's incredible. And so Kona, how does Kona come into the picture after that? Did you, were you always thinking like, if I do this, I'm, I'm gonna find, figure out how to get to Kona?

• 1:15:36Speaker 01

  I tell people that I wasn't and I'm like, oh, I got invited to Kona. What a big surprise. But

• 1:15:42Rich Roll?

  That was the plan all along.

• 1:15:43Speaker 01

  I was telling my team, I was like, I want to get to Kona. Like you have to, you have to make this happen. Like I want to, you know, I really want to do Kona. So we get to Hawaii. It's out of this, out of the, out of this world hot. You know, the temperatures over there are insane. It was like, we landed.

• 1:16:01Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:02Speaker 01

  It was like being in a microwave.

• 1:16:05Speaker 01

  And I straight away started to think, okay, you've probably bitten off more than you can chew here. Just because of the, the heat and the conditions, it's so windy. Um, Michael came on a few training rides with me.

• 1:16:20Speaker 01

  Not, don't wanna say anything.

• 1:16:21Rich Roll?

  Yeah. But you're starting to second guess like whether this might be a little bit too much.

• 1:16:27Speaker 01

  Second guess myself, yeah.

• 1:16:28Rich Roll?

  Yeah, and just knowing that even like, you know, when you hear Chris McCormick talk about how he could not figure out how to get his hydration sorted out, you know, because of the heat, like it fails even the best of the best.

• 1:16:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, and so that whole day from about halfway through the swim, you know, halfway through the swim, I was throwing up on my bike. I couldn't keep any of my fluids down or any of my food. And as I was riding back into town, I was just in a really delirious, incoherent state. On the run course, halfway through the run, I was asking volunteers to take off my helmet.

• 1:17:12Rich Roll?

  Did you, wow, so, so you were super out of it?

• 1:17:15Speaker 01

  I was out of it, yeah.

• 1:17:16Rich Roll?

  You weren't able to keep anything down throughout?

• 1:17:19Speaker 01

  I was, I was able to.

• 1:17:21Rich Roll?

  But you're still having stomach issues the entire time?

• 1:17:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, I kept throwing up. I think that was because of the heat.

• 1:17:25Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:17:27Rich Roll?

  Yeah, your body's ability to absorb those things is completely different. And if you're not able to, you know, cool your body temp down through through perspiration, like you're just getting hotter and hotter and hotter.

• 1:17:37Speaker 01

  That was another thing. When I came back from that descent, they actually ran out of water at the aid stations. And that was part of my heat.

• 1:17:47Rich Roll?

  Oh, my God.

• 1:17:47Speaker 01

  Management plan, yeah.

• 1:17:48Rich Roll?

  And all the wind like from that descent is you're not getting the relief of the cooling.

• 1:17:53Speaker 01

  No, of the cold.

• 1:17:54Rich Roll?

  Cause you're not, you don't have the sweat.

• 1:17:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, the air against the sweat, that's what cools you down.

• 1:17:59Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:17:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:18:00Rich Roll?

  And you don't, you don't get to have that experience.

• 1:18:02Speaker 01

  No. And then I get to an aid station, I ask for water and they're like, oh man, we don't have it.

• 1:18:07Rich Roll?

  How do they not have water? It's Ironman World Championships.

• 1:18:09Speaker 01

  Okay, well, look, I was probably a lot slower than most of the people on the course.

• 1:18:12Rich Roll?

  That much, listen, there are people coming in at, you know, midnight all the time, so.

• 1:18:16Speaker 01

  I think for most competitors, they'd say, okay, no worries, I'll have a Gatorade or whatever.

• 1:18:22Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:18:22Speaker 01

  But I was using the water to cool myself down, which. Was a lot, you know, largely different to train me and the other competitors. And so when we got to the bottom of the descent, I saw a police officer. And I stopped him and I said, man, I need water. And he ran to his car. He gave me like three bottles of super cold water.

• 1:18:43Rich Roll?

  That's cool.

• 1:18:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:18:44Rich Roll?

  But you had to find a cop to do that. Wow, that's amazing. Well, the other thing I think people that have not been to Kona don't, don't realize is.

• 1:18:53Speaker 01

  People think it's just like Hawaii, like it's, people say I've been to Hawaii, it's not that hot.

• 1:18:58Rich Roll?

  And they watch the Ironman World Championships on television and it all looks super fun and awesome and beautiful and all that. And, and that Queen K just goes on forever. Like it is the least, like after a while, like you're like, I get it. The scenery doesn't change, you know, for hours and hours and hours.

• 1:19:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, and there's no support. The majority of the day you're by yourself.

• 1:19:17Rich Roll?

  That I didn't know. Is that true? Wow.

• 1:19:19Speaker 01

  Yeah. And when you're running out to the energy lab, it's just you. There is no one on the, there is no one on the sidelines screaming. That was the thing about Australia. There were so many supporters and there were so many people screaming my name and I felt like, you know, I was, I was doing it for everyone. There was no one.

• 1:19:38Rich Roll?

  You're just on your own.

• 1:19:39Speaker 01

  On my own in the dark.

• 1:19:39Rich Roll?

  And you're asking people to take your helmet off when you're running.

• 1:19:42Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I was running in the dark thinking, you're an idiot, Tereya. Why do you do these things to yourself? Just berating myself.

• 1:19:48Rich Roll?

  So how did you, how did you get it done? How did you overcome all that?

• 1:19:52Speaker 01

  Being in that mindset definitely did not help me. So being in that really negative state of you're an idiot, this is stupid. That didn't help me. I tried to use gratitude to think of things that I was grateful for and that didn't work. Cause I was like, well, why should, why would I be grateful? I'm on this stupid course and this bloody hard and I'm all by myself. And so I just mentally broke it up. I just took it. Um, on the run, aid station by aid station, sorry, it's two kilometers.

• 1:20:22Rich Roll?

  Just break it down into its tiniest.

• 1:20:24Speaker 01

  Tiniest, yeah, yeah.

• 1:20:26Rich Roll?

  Hmm. Yeah, I think also it helps to, in my experience, to understand like when you're entertaining those thoughts, that they're just.

• 1:20:36Speaker 01

  They're just thoughts.

• 1:20:37Rich Roll?

  Thoughts, like you can disassociate with your thinking mind and understand that you could become, if you could become the observer of those thoughts, then you have a choice to entertain them and allow them to impact you.

• 1:20:46Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 1:20:47Rich Roll?

  Or to try to get the upper hand and dismiss them.

• 1:20:51Speaker 01

  So I probably should have done more mental training. Cause when you're hard, it's when you're, sorry, when you're tired, it's really hard to think those sorts of things. And, you know, you train so much that you just, you're on autopilot.

• 1:21:07Speaker 01

  But I didn't do as much training for my brain.

• 1:21:10Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:21:10Speaker 01

  Which if I ever did Kona again, I would definitely do.

• 1:21:14Rich Roll?

  Uh huh. So you're not making an official announcement about that?

• 1:21:17Speaker 01

  I don't want to, I don't want to do Kona again.

• 1:21:19Rich Roll?

  You don't, that was it?

• 1:21:20Speaker 01

  No, I don't want to do it again.

• 1:21:21Rich Roll?

  So, but you ended up finishing in like fourteen plus, right? So you weren't even that much slower than you were in, in for the, your first one.

• 1:21:29Speaker 01

  Hour slower.

• 1:21:30Rich Roll?

  All right. But you know, when you consider the wind and the heat and all of that, like.

• 1:21:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean,

• 1:21:37Speaker 01

  I was way more proud of myself after Kona. Because throughout the whole day, I just wanted to quit. Throughout the whole day, I was so uncomfortable. I just thought, I just, I want someone to run me over with a car. So I don't have to do this race. I don't want to be here. And I, I just found it in me to keep taking that next step.

• 1:21:58Rich Roll?

  Did you, were you still doing it for yourself? Or were you able to kind of tap into the strength of understanding like, I'm carrying a message for other people? And I can allow that to like, you know.

• 1:22:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, for sure. There was a lot of reflection there. Like I thought a lot about the donors who ultimately saved my life. And I thought, uh, a lot about Interplas and all the work that they do. And thought a lot about Michael, my family and my mom. And I thought, this is.

• 1:22:28Speaker 01

  I want my mom to know that I'm okay, that she doesn't need to worry about me anymore.

• 1:22:33Rich Roll?

  Hmm.

• 1:22:34Speaker 01

  So.

• 1:22:35Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I think it's, it's, you know, it's easy to, for someone like myself, or somebody who comes across your story, to just imagine it's about you and you're the one who's had to endure and suffer this. But everybody that is in your life has had to

• 1:22:51Speaker 01

  For sure.

• 1:22:51Rich Roll?

  participate

• 1:22:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:22:52Rich Roll?

  in this with you. It's very much a group kind of

• 1:22:56Speaker 01

  And I think in some parts, it's been almost harder for them. Because, you know, being the person who's injured, you get all of the the sympathy and the, the attention and everything's about you. And it's really traumatic for us to see people that we love in pain.

• 1:23:16Rich Roll?

  Hmm.

• 1:23:17Speaker 01

  You know, you'd give your, you'd give anything not to have someone that you love in pain.

• 1:23:22Rich Roll?

  And so when you reflect on your story and the things that you've been able to achieve, you know, in light of being told you, you know, may never walk again. You know, what is the, what is the message that you want people to hear from you? Like, what is it that you want people to get from you and your story?

• 1:23:39Speaker 01

  I think it's just that if they understand their mindset and they use it to their advantage, they can do absolutely anything. But the one thing that I'm most proud of is that

• 1:23:54Speaker 01

  I'm way, my relationships with Michael and my family and friends are so much deeper and so much closer.

• 1:24:02Rich Roll?

  Hmm.

• 1:24:03Speaker 01

  I think that's really beautiful.

• 1:24:04Rich Roll?

  And Michael, what, what has, you know, what has been the impact of you seeing Turia conquer these events? Like, what is the impact of that on how you kind of perceive your own, you know, goals for your life and how you live on a daily basis? Or maybe it hasn't at all. I don't know. I don't want to put words in your mouth, but.

• 1:24:23Speaker 02

  It has. Um, it's obviously made me a lot more empathetic for people who go through, um, accidents, whereas before I didn't really, I thought we were invincible and, you know, it doesn't ever happen to you and it has and we've lived through it. And so, yeah, I'm a lot more passionate about seeing people recover and sort of.

• 1:24:44Speaker 02

  Seeing them be happy again. So to see Tereha happy and that makes me happy. And it's very simple. Like it's, it's hard to sort of talk about, but when you see someone that you love in such despair and you know, on their deathbed and then you see them happy and laughing again, that's just, that melts your heart. It makes you really happy and you know, you feel invincible again and life, you know, is there to be lived again. So that's what we're doing. And sometimes I get a bit of a kick up the arse from Tereha because of all the things she's doing, I feel a bit lazy, but you know, we're both fit and healthy and that's all I could ask for. And you know, we're, we're, we're living life to its, to the full at the moment.

• 1:25:19Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that's beautiful. So Tereha, you know, a lot of people look, you know, derive strength from your story. They look at you and they say, look at what she's done. If she's done that, then I need to rethink this, or I can look at this thing differently. So who do you look to for that kind of inspiration? Like, do you have mentors or people that have inspired you in that kind of way?

• 1:25:44Speaker 01

  I think if you're using the, just one person as your entire source of inspiration, you might be a little disappointed. Um, so during my recovery, I read a book by Sam Bailey. He's a farmer who had a car crash and became a quadriplegic and now he flies helicopters. And when I read that book, I thought this guy has, hasn't let what happened to him define him. So I found that really inspirational. Um, and I, I really love TED Talks. So whenever I feel a bit flat, I watch like a quick 10 minute TED Talk.

• 1:26:20Rich Roll?

  What's your favorite TED Talk?

• 1:26:21Speaker 01

  Um, my favorite one, have you watched the one about orgasms?

• 1:26:27Rich Roll?

  I don't think so. No, I think I would remember that one.

• 1:26:31Speaker 01

  It's pretty good. Oh yeah. It's really, really good. And there was a TED Talk, I forgot who it's by, but he doesn't speak for like 10 years.

• 1:26:40Rich Roll?

  Oh, wow.

• 1:26:40Speaker 01

  Yeah. So there's just crazy.

• 1:26:43Rich Roll?

  People that have done interesting things, outside the box.

• 1:26:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, outside the box. Yeah.

• 1:26:46Rich Roll?

  Right. And you did, uh, we were talking before the podcast, you did, uh, Tony Robbins Date with Destiny, right?

• 1:26:52Speaker 01

  I did Tony Robbins, so.

• 1:26:53Rich Roll?

  And Julie was like, did you walk on the coals?

• 1:26:55Speaker 01

  Well, look, a lot, a lot of people bag out Tony Robbins, especially here in Australia.

• 1:27:01Rich Roll?

  Really?

• 1:27:02Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:27:02Rich Roll?

  They make fun of him. He's amazing. Changes a lot of lives.

• 1:27:06Speaker 01

  Like.

• 1:27:09Speaker 01

  Australians aren't really comfortable with a big American bloke saying, you know, you can change your life.

• 1:27:14Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:27:15Speaker 01

  It doesn't sit well with a lot of shows for sure. He has so many Australian fans because his, his seminars always sell out. So I love Tony Robbins. He's extremely, I wouldn't say inspiring, but whenever I go to one of his conferences, I get a real kick up the ass.

• 1:27:32Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:27:33Speaker 01

  To, to become more.

• 1:27:35Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:27:36Speaker 01

  And so, yeah, I did the, I went to his UPW. The organizers were like, oh, we want you to walk on fire so we can get photos or whatever. And I was like, nah, man, I'm not.

• 1:27:48Rich Roll?

  I'm not doing that.

• 1:27:48Speaker 01

  I'm not doing that. That's stupid. And then as the conference went on, I started, you know how when you're really scared of something, you also know that it would be really good for you at the same time?

• 1:27:59Rich Roll?

  Yeah, a way of revisiting it to perhaps ultimately overcome and like transcend the, you know, the post-traumatic stress that has to be associated with.

• 1:28:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, for sure.

• 1:28:08Rich Roll?

  You enduring that experience.

• 1:28:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, for sure. So that's why I did, I went straight after Tony. So he did his like, you know, make your move.

• 1:28:15Rich Roll?

  Right. Like it perhaps most of anybody there, like it was most important that you of anybody do it. Like I would look at it like that. Like you're the one person, everybody here who's a date with destiny, don't worry about walking on coals, but Turia, like, that's perhaps maybe a really important thing for you to do so that you can do that and be on the other side of it. Like, do you see it that way or?

• 1:28:37Speaker 01

  Well, I also, I think sometimes we can build things up in our mind to be scarier than what they are. So Tony Robbins, have you been to UPW?

• 1:28:47Rich Roll?

  No, Julie has though.

• 1:28:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, she's a fan, hey?

• 1:28:50Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:50Speaker 01

  So like he's got the, the coals on the screen. He's got the crackle of the fire. It was all really sadistic, sadistic stuff, man. And I was, I was so uncomfortable. I, you know, I was like, I don't know why I'm here. This is, I don't think this is for me. But then I followed Tony, we went outside. There was a huge fire pit full of coals. It was about 10 meters long. And I thought that was what we did the fire walk over.

• 1:29:16Rich Roll?

  Hmm.

• 1:29:18Speaker 01

  And then we went around the corner. There was this tiny little.

• 1:29:22Speaker 01

  Two meter long, sparsely covered.

• 1:29:25Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:29:26Speaker 01

  Walkways of course, and I thought, yeah, I can do that.

• 1:29:28Rich Roll?

  I could do.

• 1:29:28Speaker 01

  I could do that, yeah.

• 1:29:31Rich Roll?

  And you did it.

• 1:29:31Speaker 01

  I did it.

• 1:29:33Rich Roll?

  So when you look back on this whole experience now and, you know, what you endured and kind of where you're sitting now. Like, what is the, you know, how do you, how do you like conceptualize it? Like, how do you bring words to like what it means to you and how it informs how you, you know, do what you do and work with the people that you work with?

• 1:29:55Speaker 01

  I think it's really taught me that life is too short not to take risks and try new things and believe in ourselves and just have a crack. Have a go. I was like that before the fire, but I reckon even more so now. And just, you know, that life is so precious and so we also have to enjoy it. You know, we've got to spend time with our family and friends and do what makes us happy and mess around with our mates as well. I don't know if that's a deep insight that you were hoping for.

• 1:30:30Rich Roll?

  No, I mean, I, I get it, you know, I think it's, I think it's honest, you know? I think that, that, um.

• 1:30:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, I don't, I don't have any like amazing.

• 1:30:39Rich Roll?

  No, but I think I'm trying to, it's sort of like you're living your life. This thing happened and, you know, you have to reckon with it. Um, but now you're sitting here with me and you have the opportunity to go and get in front of groups of people and share, share your story. And story is very powerful, right?

• 1:30:57Speaker 01

  Storytelling is the most basic, yeah.

• 1:30:59Rich Roll?

  And there are a lot of people that have suffered things akin to what you have suffered. But there's a lot more people that suffer a much kind of like lower grade.

• 1:31:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:31:10Rich Roll?

  Continual version of suffering where they're just sort of dissatisfied with their lives and they feel trapped or they feel unfulfilled. Or they're in relationships that aren't serving them or they're in careers that they feel unfulfilled in or what have you. So how do you connect with that person?

• 1:31:29Speaker 01

  I think the only way you can make a difference to someone's life, cause I can get out there on the stage, I can pump everyone up, I can do my motivation, whatever. But if someone isn't willing to, to make the change in their life and do the work.

• 1:31:45Rich Roll?

  Doesn't matter.

• 1:31:45Speaker 01

  I can't help them, yeah. They've got to be willing, they've got to A, recognize that they're in control of their own lives. And B, say, yeah, I wanna put in the yards and I wanna, I wanna improve my life and I wanna have more fulfillment and I wanna better relationship and I want,

• 1:32:01Speaker 01

  you know, but I also think it comes back to reflecting on what we do have in our lives. Cause it's very easy for us to become dissatisfied that we don't have X or Y or someone's been mean and this isn't working out in my life, isn't how it's supposed to be. And I think everyone's got problems. We all do. And I think if you wanna live without problems, what's that saying? If you wanna live without problems, go to the cemetery.

• 1:32:25Rich Roll?

  Oh, is that what it is?

• 1:32:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, there's a, there's a saying like, I think we've all got problems, we've all got minor little dramas throughout the day. And I think if you just accept that as part of the journey that is life, instead of thinking that there's something wrong with your life and you shouldn't have any problems or suffering at all.

• 1:32:44Rich Roll?

  And if, and if there's something amiss in your life, awry, like you have to take responsibility for it and take the actions to change it, as opposed to putting that on somebody else and then giving them excuses as to why that's not gonna work.

• 1:32:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, use my dad's advice.

• 1:32:58Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:32:59Speaker 01

  No whinging.

• 1:33:01Rich Roll?

  I think I just found the, uh, the title to this podcast episode, no whinging. How do you spell that?

• 1:33:06Speaker 01

  Whinging, uh, W H I N G, I N G.

• 1:33:10Rich Roll?

  I gotcha.

• 1:33:11Speaker 01

  Sure, yeah.

• 1:33:12Rich Roll?

  Cool.

• 1:33:12Speaker 01

  It's a colloquialism.

• 1:33:15Rich Roll?

  I think that's a good place to, uh, to wrap it up.

• 1:33:17Speaker 01

  Awesome.

• 1:33:18Rich Roll?

  I appreciate it.

• 1:33:19Speaker 01

  Thanks, man.

• 1:33:20Rich Roll?

  You are, uh, an inspiration and a beautiful example of, um, empowerment, especially in a culture, um, that, uh, is too quick to celebrate women who, um, perhaps I would not be so keen for my daughters to aspire to. You know, and, and I say this all the time, but I think it, it's worth repeating that.

• 1:33:45Rich Roll?

  You know, people say, where are all the female role models? Where are all the inspirational women? And, and I always say they're all around us, but we just don't do a good enough job of shining a light on them and celebrating them. And so I appreciate what you're doing and it's an honor and a privilege to put a microphone in front of you to help share your message. And I wish you all the best in your impending wedding and marriage and all the amazing things that you are, uh, no doubt going to be doing. Do you have a, another challenge or what is, what's on the horizon for you other than tying the knot?

• 1:34:17Speaker 01

  Look, we want to have a family so that I'll be, I don't know what that would be like, actually.

• 1:34:24Rich Roll?

  You'll know when it happens.

• 1:34:25Speaker 01

  Maybe I'll have kids and I'll think, oh shit, I don't want, probably not. Um, and just, I've been really busy with Ironman and everything and I just want to take some time to obviously work and do seminars and coaching, but also to spend time with my family and friends.

• 1:34:43Rich Roll?

  Yeah, awesome.

• 1:34:44Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:34:45Rich Roll?

  So if you're digging on Tereya, the best place to connect with her, tereypitt.com and at Tereya Pitt on all the social media places that we all go to, right? And, uh, are you giving any talks coming up soon or is that's all on your website? I would presume.

• 1:35:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's all on my website.

• 1:35:02Rich Roll?

  See you in person.

• 1:35:03Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:35:04Rich Roll?

  Cool.

• 1:35:04Speaker 01

  Oh, actually I've got an ebook, Mindset Magic.

• 1:35:07Rich Roll?

  Okay.

• 1:35:07Speaker 01

  People can get, it's really good. It's got some of the strategies that we talked about today, such as reframing and things like that.

• 1:35:13Rich Roll?

  Awesome. And you can get that on your website.

• 1:35:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, get that on my website.

• 1:35:16Rich Roll?

  All right. Thank you.

• 1:35:17Speaker 01

  No worries.

• 1:35:17Rich Roll?

  That was delightful.

• 1:35:19Speaker 01

  Legend.

• 1:35:19Rich Roll?

  Peace, Lance.

• 1:35:21Speaker 01

  Very good interview, honestly.

• 1:35:22Rich Roll?

  Thanks.

• 1:35:25Rich Roll?

  All right, we did it. What'd you guys think? Are you feeling grateful? Did you dig it? I hope you dug it. I really enjoyed her, uh, and Michael as well. They're just, they're, they're very genuine and really, really cool people.

• 1:35:37Rich Roll?

  And thanks for listening. Please share your thoughts with me and with Turia. You can find her on Twitter at Turia Pitt, two Ts. Pick up her new book, Unmasked, which again, I think is only on sale in Australia, but you can also find her other book, her first book, Everything to Live For. And that's on Amazon. Use the Amazon banner at ritual.com to do that. I'd appreciate that. A couple of quick announcements. Plant Power Ireland is coming up soon, July 24th through 31st, 24th through 31st. It's at this beautiful manor home called Ballyvallane. It's like this James Bond-like setting on 90 acres in the Irish countryside. Just imagine in your mind what an Irish manor looks like.

• 1:36:19Rich Roll?

  And this is like right out of like a textbook version of that. Complete with the couple that owns it and runs it. You know, the guy's got the tweed jacket and the vintage Land Rover and the Labrador. Anyway, it's going to be amazing. Seven Days of Transformation with Julie and I, as well as special appearances by the Happy Pair Lads, which I'm really excited about. We're going to cook, we're going to eat, we're going to run, we're going to meditate, we're going to do tea ceremony, we're going to do intensive workshops on everything from creativity to relationships. We have Ayurvedic treatments, we have glamping tents. It's going to be intense, but it's also going to be super fun. The whole thing is designed to really help you unlock your best, most authentic self and to really transform your life wholesale.

• 1:37:03Rich Roll?

  So if that sounds cool to you, this sounds like something you would be into. You can find out more information at ourplantpowerworld.com. Ourplantpowerworld.com. If you'd like to support this show and my work, there's a couple of simple ways to do it. The first way is to share it with your friends and on social media. Simple dimple, right? Leave a review on iTunes. I put the call out the other day. I was at 1,999 reviews and I was like, I just need one more to get 2,000. Put it out on social media and now I have like almost 2,100. So I appreciate everybody who finally pulled the trigger and did that. It means a lot to me. Thank you so much. While you're at it, subscribe on iTunes, very important. And when you're going to buy something on Amazon, please make a habit of using the Amazon banner.

• 1:37:46Rich Roll?

  Add at richroll.com or just typing in richroll.com/Amazon which will take you to the same place. Buy whatever you're gonna buy, doesn't cost you anything extra, but Amazon supports our show with some commissions on your purchases, which is really great, because you don't have to go out of pocket, but you are supporting what we're doing, and everybody wins through that. Also, we have a Patreon set up for people that want to sponsor the show financially, and I just want to thank everybody who has done that. I really appreciate that. If you would like to receive a free, short, weekly email from me, I send one out every Thursday, it's called Roll Call. Five or six tips, tools, resources, things I've stumbled across, come across over the course of the week, usually

• 1:38:27Rich Roll?

  a couple articles, maybe a podcast I listened to, a documentary I watched, a product I'm enjoying. No spam, no affiliate links. It's really just my way of sharing with you guys things that have been beneficial in my life that I think might be beneficial in yours. That's it. So you can subscribe, you can subscribe to that in multiple locations on my website, wherever you put in your email. Also, while you're there, we've got signed copies of Finding Ultra and Plant Power Way, we've got cool t-shirts. Also, I want to tease you guys with this one thing. We're building out some additional functionality on the website that is going to be a huge value add for you guys, who are working really

• 1:39:08Rich Roll?

  hard behind the scenes on a very exciting new project that we're going to be launching on the website, coming up in, I don't know exactly the date, next couple of weeks. I'm just gonna leave it at that right now, but I'm just chomping at the bit to tell you guys about it, because it is super exciting, and I think you guys are gonna really benefit from it. It's gonna make the site a lot more robust, and with a lot, a lot of just additional depth to help you guys take your life to the next level. Okay, so I want to thank today's sponsors, Bowlin Branch, the first honest and transparent bedding company that only uses sustainable and responsible methods of sourcing and manufacturing. Go to bowlinbranch.com today for $50 off your first set of sheets by typing in the promo code RICHROLL. And

• 1:39:53Rich Roll?

  also Casper, the number one online retailer of premium mattresses at a fraction of the price. Get $50 towards any mattress purchased today by visiting casper.com/roll and using promo code ROLL. At checkout. Thanks to everybody who helped put on the show today. Jason Camiolo, audio engineering and production and show notes and behind the scenes help on the WordPress page, all that kind of stuff. Shawn Patterson for his genius work on all the graphics and the motion graphics that we're sharing on Instagram and theme music by Analemma. Thanks for the love, you guys. Appreciate you listening. I know that there is a lot of competition out there for your attention and to kind of ask you guys to spend, you know, 90 minutes, two hours with me every week.

• 1:40:37Rich Roll?

  That's a huge ask and the fact that you guys are tuning in, are listening, are subscribing and listening all the way to the end like this, that's amazing. So I love you guys. I appreciate you. I do not take you for granted. And every week I try my best to bring you the very best content that I possibly can. So just know that and I will see you guys back here soon. Peace. Plants.