#561: Rich Roll From Alcoholic to Ultra-Endurance Star, Rebooting Life at 40, the Trap of Lower Companions, and How to Reinvent Yourself in the New Year

I just want to encourage people to find a way to transcend the predominant media narrative that seems hell-bent on pitting us against each other ... Be more conscious about not just your media choices but how you carry that sensibility into the world in the manner in which you interact with other people ... When you go out into the world, it doesn't feel like what we're seeing on social media and on the national news. People are fundamentally good, and we share so much more than what appears to divide us right now.

Addiction lives on this incredibly broad spectrum. And it’s a spectrum so broad that almost anybody can find themselves somewhere along the line.

You can't think your way into the mood that you seek or the state of mind that you aspire to inhabit. Action is the only thing that can trigger that change state.

I'm early to bed, early to rise. I go to bed around 9 and generally get up around 5, between 5 and 6. And the early hours are really protected as my own time. So, morning meditation, journaling, writing, creative projects, no meetings, no phone calls.

You have to live your life if you're going to have anything worthy to say about the human experience. If you're just constantly engaging in your profession and focused on what it is that you do, and you're missing out on the other experiences in the richness of life, then you're not really going to be carrying a meaningful resonance or vibration that's going to be helpful to other people.

None of us are static. In every moment, we are shifting and we are changing. And every decision that we make, every interaction that we have, every word that comes out of our mouth, is either moving us towards a better, more authentic version of ourselves or away from it.

That compulsion to want to know all the answers and how it's going to play out and all the steps you're going to need to take to get there can prevent us from moving forward in our lives.

I was a guy who would drink alone in my apartment or wake up in the morning before work and have a vodka tonic in the shower ... I was only 31 at the time, but my disease had progressed to such a state where there was really only a couple things that were going to happen: Either I was going to kill myself, kill another person, or end up in jail or some kind of institution.

If you Google my name, there's a lot of misguided narratives out there that me adopting a vegan diet is what got me sober or that ultra-endurance training is what got me sober or keeps me sober, and those are all wildly inaccurate. I mean, I was sober for almost 10 years before I made these lifestyle shifts.

I knew I had a problem very early on in my drinking career, but that's very different from the willingness to do anything about it. I harbored this notion that this was a problem for me, but you're also protecting it because you want to be able to keep doing it.