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this altitude. I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking another question. Now, we're just living tissue over metal endoskeleton.
Hello boys and girls, ladies and germs, this is Tim Ferriss and welcome to another episode of the Tim Ferriss show. I'm so excited to have my guest today is name is Rich Roll, and I'm going to start in an unorthodox way. And that is by reading a tweet. I don't really do this. I don't know if I've ever done this, but this is a tweet from October 2018. And I think rich is probably going to see where this is going. Just before his 52nd birthday. Here's the tweet. I didn't reach my athletic.
Till I was 43, I didn't write my first book until I was 44. I didn't start my podcast until I was 45 at 30. I thought my life was over at 52. I know, it's just beginning, keep running. Never give up and watch your kites, or then there's actually another tweet within context. I've retweeted this for people who want to see it. They can also find it. Of course, at Rich. Roll rol, L. Want to mention one more thing before we get to more of the Bayou. And that is related to
To your first half Ironman. So, this is an outside magazine and here's the quote in my first half Ironman. I barfed during the swim. By the time I got off my bike. My legs were so cramped up that I ran 100 meters for you Yanks. Like me, that's about 300 feet and just stopped. It was dnf. That means he did not finish my beginnings and Triathlon were very humble, but I loved it. All right, so I'm gonna give this in drips and drabs, but let's start with paragraph.
So now zooming out to present-day, a little bit of retrospective at age. 40 Rich role. As I mentioned, a troll on Twitter, made the decision to overhaul the sedan tree throes of overweight. Middle-aged and I might I may or may not be in that place. Just right now walking away from a career in law. He reinvented himself as a globally recognized ultra distance, endurance athlete, best-selling author and host of the wildly popular ritual podcast, which I highly recommend one of the world's most
Just listen to podcast with more than 200 million downloads and I'm going to modify the next paragraph. A little bit. Rich has been named one of the 25 fittest man in the world by men's fitness and the guru of reinvention by outside magazine. He's written a best-selling Memoir, Finding Ultra, and has co-authored the cookbooks / life style guides, the plant power way and the plant power way. Ay Talia with his wife. Julie is at piatt Pyatt. Damn it. I knew I had a 50/50 chance.
There is a comment, comment saying you're not alone. This is showing where the and how the sausage is made because a professional would have asked. And in fact, I highlighted her last name to ask you before we started recording. But, you know, we live in Oregon and just to get a few things mention and will mention them again at the very end Rich world.com. You can find all things Rich related, Rich, Roll on all social, including Twitter, Instagram, YouTube except for Facebook, which is Rich Roll.
Fans, Rich, welcome to the show. Thanks so much for having me. Tim. It's really an honor to be able to join you for this, and I'm really looking forward to the conversation to come. So thanks for having me. Yeah, absolutely. Me too. And for those of you who can't see video at some point, maybe you should check it out because we have the perfect yin. Yang color template. Here. You have a rather disheveled Tim Ferriss in tan with white background and Rich looking like a handsome devil.
Black clothing, black background. It's actually very striking. I should request that guests do this in the future, that will help viewers to keep them separate. So let's really dive in here and I want to establish just a bit of background for folks, and we're going to go all over the place.
So at age 40, right? So you make the decision to overhaul dot dot dot. But let's get granular. And maybe we could focus on one piece of this life puzzle, which is alcohol. And could you speak to the role that alcohol has played in your life when it entered your life? When you really realized that you had a problem. Let's begin there. If you're up to it, it entered my life near the end of high school and the beginning.
Inge of college prior to that, I was a very studious, highly motivated, person who was very goal-driven, and that grew out of, I think in retrospect, looking back on my life, on a deep insecurity that I had because as a young person I was very much an introvert. I had a lot of difficulty connecting with other people and making friends. I certainly hadn't demonstrated any kind of ass.
Let Italian tour ability. I was the typical like prototypical kid who gets picked last for kickball and was very awkward and self-conscious and at some point along the way I discovered those sport of swimming and we can talk about that if you like, but that was the one thing where I kind of felt comfortable and showed some level of Acumen at an early stage and when you're a young person and you experience just a little bit of encouragement or success, you're going to kind of
Double down on that and that's what I did. And I think there was something about being underwater in almost a metaphysical sense or a psychological sense where I felt protected. Like it was almost like this womb where I was insulated from all of the confusing emotions that I had as a young person. And so swimming really became my focus. And I realized early that I wasn't the most talented kid, but I had this capacity to suffer and to work hard and a willingness to go the extra mile. And
And with that sensibility, I was able to bridge the talent. Deficit Gap, to some extent to the point where, by the time I was a senior in high school. I was one of the better swimmers in the Washington DC area where I grew up and the discipline that I learned in the swimming pool trickled into my academic Pursuits. So, I was able to go from a kid who really had trouble learning and was sort of a sit in the back of the class, kind of guy to being a good student and ultimately getting into a bunch of
Psychologist. So at 18, I really was in a situation a very privileged situation where the world was very much. My oyster and anything was possible. I ended up going to Stanford University. You know, I went to the opposite coast and I'm sure there's some psychological reasons why, you know, I flew 3,000 miles away to go to college and it was you know, the reason to go there was twofold. I mean first of all Stanford is Stanford and it's this amazing academic institution, but at the time in the mid and late 1980s, it also
so had the number one in situ a division, 1 men's swimming program. They were like the most incredible team, the most insane assemblage of Olympic Champions and world and American record holders and the like and the opportunity to be a member of that team was like a dream that I couldn't even imagine for myself. So, here I am in this incredibly privileged situation where anything truly is possible, but enter alcohol and
Alcohol was something that I first was introduced to when I was doing recruiting trips and traveling to colleges, which is what you do when you're, you know, an athlete and trying to consider where to go to school. And I had some experiences there that really Anchored In Me from moment one that this was going to be a thing for me. Like, I had that Sensation that you hear about, with recovering alcoholics. We're from the very first drink. It was like, this warm blanket that I could.
Wrap myself in, and all my troubles and insecurities, and fears, and, and insecurities just sort of vanished. And for the first time, I felt comfortable in my own skin, and I just remember thinking this is the way that I want to feel all the time. Like, I could go to a party and I could strike up a conversation or crack a joke or talk to a girl, which were all things that were terrifying to me at the time. And so I just felt like I had found this solution that I had been looking for my whole life.
This young person who felt like everybody else had a perfect road map for how to live. And suddenly, you know, those answers that eluded me were being provided in the form of this substance. And so when I got to Stanford very quickly, well, quickly and gradually but I would say that I got more and more progressively, more interested in like, where's my next good time? Then how am I going to create a foundation for a happy successful life? And a lot of those aspirations that
I had about Athletics and academic Excellence soon, became secondary to, you know, where's the, where's the party tonight? And it was just a situation where over an extended period of time, like, my, my life began to degrade. So it wasn't a situation in which I created cataclysms out of the gate, that derailed me because I could function and your it's easier to do that when you're younger, but I could function, I could comport myself in a way where I could still.
Get good grades show up for class. Still, you know go out partying until two or three in the morning and show up for 6 a.m. Swim practice. But over time like this is not a good recipe for for living and and you know, I lived that way for a very long time until ultimately things got really dark and scary and not hit that bottom that you hear about with people in recovery. What did any of the bottoms or dark moments look like if we could paint a picture of any example that comes to mind?
First of all, I would say that there is, there was nothing like cool or rock and roll about any of it. Like, it's just lonely, sad and, and kind of pathetic and deeply embarrassing, you know, just, you know, I would, I would drive drunk and like, wouldn't remember where I parked my car and what have to wake up the next morning and try to figure out where my car was when I was living in San Francisco. When I was fresh out of law school, one time. I woke up one day didn't want to go to my Law Firm job and like flew to Las Vegas and lost my wallet and woke up not remembering.
Anything that had happened and try to figure out how I'm going to get home, you know, stuff like that. That's just, you know, I was the guy who who, you know, was the last to leave the party. And when you're in college, you know, maybe it's cute. But when you're twenty five, twenty six, twenty eight, you know, nobody's living that way anymore. And you have to find other people to do that with what they call lower companions, in the problems of recovery. Until ultimately there's no one laughed and you're just alone. And 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. Like it was all very Leaving, Las Vegas. And 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 we're going to happen either. I was going to kill myself kill another person or end up in jail or some kind of institution and that's really kind of what, you know, ultimately led me to getting getting sober and would you say kill?
You mean via alcohol poisoning or a car accident or via some deliberate suicide? What do you mean by that? I was never suicidal. I didn't have suicidal ideation. But my life was getting smaller and smaller and more lonely. So if I was able to kind of maintain that lifestyle over an extended period of time, I'm certain that I would have reached a level of desperation, where that would have seemed like a good idea. Why did you choose law? Why did he choose to pursue law?
All right out of college. I moved to New York City and got a job as a paralegal, in a big law firm in New York, called Skadden, Arps usual. And that was a situation that should have told me immediately that maybe this wasn't the right path for me, you know, but I think that that I chose it not out of some kind of deliberate idea that it would be something I would be interested in or show some Proficiency in but more as a reaction to
Social and familial pressure. So this idea of not really knowing what I wanted to do, but hey, I can always go to law school and Society will smile upon that and I can put a nice suit on and have nice lunches and have interesting conversations with people and you know, make a good living. I mean my self-inquiry really didn't go any further than that and there was nothing about like my interest. That would have indicated that law was a good path for me, but I was so disconnected from myself that even asking
Myself that question at the time, was anathema to who I was, but I'm a good student and I actually enjoyed law school. I enjoy the intellectual Pursuit and and all of that. But the practice of law is very different, at least in the corporate law firm context, very different than the law school experience. Yes, very knowing many people who went to law
school and I can
through secondhand stories, say that that seems to universally be the perspective that people. Yeah, but if you
You love it, if that's your thing then, more power to you. But I just remember Walking, The Halls of, you know, the various law firms that I worked at being confused that there seem to be certain people that enjoyed it because I was just gridding my way through it thinking. I'll just apply these tools that I learned in the swimming pool about suffering and pain tolerance, and I just thought everybody was having that internal experience. I'm sure many were but there seems to be some people that seem to enjoy but I just know that the more that I kind of looked around.
And certainly with respect to the partners that it was clear to me that I didn't really want that life and yet I felt very stuck in that career path and unsure about how I could ever get out of it and do anything else. We're going to spend just people listening and also for you rich. So you don't think that we're going to spend too much time in these Waters. We're going to spend a lot of time talking about turnarounds.
Technics pattern-matching all sorts of things. But I do want to spend a little bit more time on this chapter, or maybe the chapters shortly. After this point in time. What was the straw? Or what were the straws that broke the camel's back with respect to alcohol and seeking help. Well, there were a couple important inflection points, one of, which was getting two DUIs, essentially, in a row with ridiculously high blood alcohol. Contents.
Looking at jail time, my boss finding out at the law firm and being on the precipice of getting fired. That's a whole Rabbit Hole, you know, sort of chaotic disaster that I weathered. Another one was a marriage or I should say, like, a wedding that went. Awry. Yeah. I got married and that relationship ended on the honeymoon, which is a whole crazy story. That is inextricably linked to. I mean, I was sober at the time, but it's very much linked to my
Is on. So there's big events like that, but I think those situations created such a deep level of Shame inside of me that I wasn't able to shake alcohol in the wake of those experiences because I didn't have the emotional tools to process them. So I continued to drink for a while. I mean, the the wedding was really, you know, the nadir of the whole thing and a reasonable person would have woken up and gotten sober at that time, but I needed to medicate myself through that.
An emotional shitstorm until one day I basically woke up and I was hungover, but it wasn't like I had reaped any kind of chaos the night before but it's just that moment of realizing. Like, I've had enough, like, I can't live this way anymore. It's just so lonely and desperate. And it only leads in One Direction, and I think that's what it takes for anybody who has experience with addiction particularly substance addiction. You have this sense. Like you asked me earlier on, Tim like, when
I know I had a problem. Like, 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. Like, 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. And that's what leads to, you know, this sort of double life, where you're hiding your behavior from other people and deluding yourself into thinking that they don't know what's going on. But ultimately, you realize, like everybody knows what's going on.
And on some level, it's a process of stripping away. Those layers of denial until you can really face the objective truth of what you're doing. And that's a very terrifying thing. And so that's kind of what was going on inside of me until this day 1998, where I was like, okay, I've had it like I'm ready to really take this seriously and do something about it. How old were you roughly? Then my meth is going to feel you at this moment, but 1998. Yeah. I was 31.
Anyone, all right, and because it struck me as a curveball, if you don't want to get into it, that's totally fine. But in my mind, I envisioned this honeymoon. Just going down as a fireball, due to some catastrophe, those alcohol-induced. But you said, you were sober. Yeah, are you willing to expand on that at all? And if not, that's fine. Yeah. No, it's so hard to describe this and have it make sense. But essentially what happened was.
I had been drinking quite a bit. I got engaged to this woman. I was living in San Francisco at the time. She was living in Palo Alto and is from Palo Alto, but in the kind of lead up to this wedding because we had gotten engaged. I had taken a job in Los Angeles. So we were living in separate cities and I think during that interim period. When she got distance between me, she realized like maybe this isn't the guy I want to marry and I had come clean with her about the DUIs and I think that was very scary to her. So even though
Had been sober for a number of months and told her that I was committed to this path to sobriety. I think in her heart of hearts. She really wanted to get out of this relationship, but she was unable to muster the strength, to break it off herself. And I think that she wanted me to break it off. And so, there was so much energy behind this impending wedding. That was happening, that it just kind of transpired without anybody hitting the brakes. And I was trying to be conciliatory and say, because I knew she was off and not present in.
I was wrong and I would say, are you okay? Like what's going on? How can I make you feel comfortable with all of this? And it's a much longer story. I go into detail about it in my book. But essentially, she permitted the wedding to go through but then didn't want to sign the marriage certificate. That's a red flag, right?
Cause for Paws. Yeah,
and you know, the night of the wedding, when we went back to the honeymoon suite that did not go. Well. I'm surprised that we even went on the
Remember, I think in my mind I was thinking, I'm going to try to make this right? And it's all going to work out that was its own level of delusion. And while we were on this honeymoon, on a Caribbean Island, it was clear that this relationship had no future and ultimately, we were able to have a conversation about it and she ended up leaving early. And at that moment, I was left with myself with no tools and having been sober for six months, but unable to really process the emotions.
Anal devastation of having just basically had everybody that I cared about in the world would like 12 groomsmen in this wedding wedding in Palo Alto bear witness to a marriage that clearly wasn't going to work out and it was really devastating to me. So I ended up getting drunk on that island and really struggled to get sober again for quite some time after that.
And then, so thank you for sharing that 1998. 31, I've had enough. How do you seek help? What are your next actions after that? So prior to that, I had been court order to Alcoholics Anonymous. So I had been to meetings but I wasn't doing it because I wanted to get sober. I was doing it because I was compelled to do it and I think that's an important distinction especially for people who are struggling or have people in their lives.
Is that are struggling with a substance issue? You want to help them, you want to intervene? You can create, you know, interventions and things like that to get people into treatment. But ultimately if that person is resistant to it or isn't interested in getting sober, that's going to be a very tough Hill to climb. So, willingness is like crucial. So when I was attending, those AA meetings, I lack that level of willingness. It was more. Like I just need to get people off my back so I can go back to living.
The way that I want to live and why is everybody bugging me? But in the wake of that wedding experience, when my drinking got more and more dire, my parents had reached the level of their tolerance threshold with me. And basically, my dad said, listen, we love you, but we just can't continue to watch. You destroy yourself like this and we can't have anything to do with you. But if you're ready to get sober were, of course you're from you. But until
Then we're not available to you. However.
Because they were so terrified of all of this. They had found an addiction medicine psychiatrist in Los Angeles. They said, we have this guy. It might be great if you go and see him, so I started seeing this addiction medicine specialist and, you know, he just rang my bell immediately and was like, here's the deal, dude, you're an alcoholic and you need to go to treatment until you do that. Like nothing's going to change in your life is going to continue to be terrible and I would try to negotiate with him and
Well, I think I can do it in a a so I was kind of in and out and of AA doing my own self experimentation, with trying to get sober, but every time I would crawl back into his office. And I was honest with him. I said, yeah, I relapsed again or this happened but at some point, I made a deal with him because he was like, are you ready to go to treatment? I was like, let me try one more time. And he said okay and to his credit. I think that's a really interesting approach. Like you have to back off a little bit and allow people to have their process. It's like Inception they have to
Come into this Awareness on their own. You cannot compel somebody to see themselves as they really are. And of course, I relapsed crawled back into his office. And because I was considered myself such a man of my word. I said, well, I made a deal with you. So. Okay now I'll go to treatment, you know, I called him after this one bender and I said, I'm ready. And he got a bed for me and I immediately go online and I'm researching treatment centers and I'm looking for the, the spa resort one, you know, that has really
Nice accommodations. He's like, no. No, here's where we're going. This place in Oregon. I got a bed for you. Get on the plane today and that's basically how it began. What do you think people?
Tend to miss about this story, whether they hear you telling this story or they read about it. Are there things that
our important that people gloss over or that elements of this story, whether we've heard them today or not that stand out to you is particularly important sort of on the road to recovery initiating recovery. I think about this type of question a lot. What do people tend to glom onto as the really important parts. What do they tend to maybe neglect to their detriment if they're aiming for Recovery themselves? Say anything come to mind.
And when I say all that you're talking more broadly about addiction in general, not my personal story. I think I'm talking about, I'm weaving into it through your personal story. So it could be your personal story, but it could also be Addiction in a broader sense because part of what is so interesting to me about you and your story is you've not only had the experiences that you've had, but you have no doubt witnessed.
Many people try to emulate the turnarounds of various types. And you've seen some people succeed spectacularly, you seen some people fail spectacularly, and then there's a whole Spectrum in between right so that I think is
Extremely interesting and potentially instructive. Yeah, so you could answer this in any way, you like, it could be from your personal story. It could be from what you've seen or learnt more. Broadly, speaking about addiction and Recovery. There's a lot that I can say about this. I mean, first with respect to my personal story. 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 guy had a whole chapter in between where I created a foundation of sobriety. So sobriety and addiction stand outside of those things. And those other things have a role in my life, but addiction and Recovery are a very separate thing. And that's the way that I kind of think about.
And I think in terms of addiction and Recovery more, broadly.
I think it's important for people to understand that for somebody who is addicted and who's, you know, behaving poorly or all the stuff that addicts do, it's not a referendum on moral character. It's like they're suffering from an illness that wants to kill them and when they get sober, we think of drugs and alcohol or gambling or whatever behavioral addiction, that someone might have as the problem that has been eradicated.
It. But in truth the behavior or the substance is the solution to the problem. There's a level of psychic pain within a human being and they search out a substance or a behavior that gives them some level of Solace, like the substance, or the behavior is the solution to the problem because it allows them to feel, okay? So that they can function in the world and it works for a while if it didn't work people.
Wouldn't do it. But what they miss is that it is solving a problem for them, of course, it progresses. And then things go sideways and it's no longer the solution, but that's how it begins. And when you remove those behaviors and substances from those people, they don't know what to do with themselves. They're like a live emotional wire without any kind of tools for addressing the underlying problem that has fueled The Addictive Behavior for
Long. And the process of recovery is really about providing tools, some tactical, some strategic, some practical, and some very ephemeral spiritual that can be guideposts in helping people, create new neural Pathways and emotional relationships with how they engage with the world. And that's a very slow.
Whoa, nonlinear process and that's why so many addicts and alcoholics have. A lot of relapse has in their story and relapse has are always treated as failures, but ultimately their learning experiences because you're trying to reorganize your entire life. In accordance with new ways of living that are very foreign to somebody who has been engaging in a behavior or addicted to a substance for so long. So there's a saying, in recovery, like,
Your emotional development gets stunted from the moment that you begin to use. And when you remove the substance, you're left with that young person at that stage of life, and you have to treat that person with that in mind because they lack the tools that other people normal people take for granted. And I think the more that we kind of understand this it allows us to have a little bit more compassion for the people that suffer.
And a way to kind of hold them in our hearts and a little bit more lightly when they slip up and do the thing because for people that don't have direct experience with this, it defies logic, like how could you do that? Like, after everything that's happened. He went and did that thing again, like, it's so difficult to understand. So I think to the extent that we can peel back the layers of the onion and really understand what's fueling that behavior to begin with allows.
To kind of be more compassionate to those people is really well put and it brings to mind for me. Something that's a doctor named Gabor. Mate said, in a conversation I had with him which was I'm paraphrasing here, but he said don't ask why the addiction ask why the pain very much in line with what you just said. What is the addiction being used for and makes me imagine? And I'm going to take a leap here, but
I'll go in this direction. I imagine that a lot of the questions you get about addiction, or, how did you stop, right? How did you stop? How did you stop? How did you quit? How did you, how did you negate subtract something? But if that's subtraction, leaves a void of sorts or it leaves and unaddressed need or unhealed wound, few questions related to that. If that resonates with you, what was it that you
Ended up needing to address and what were some of the tools or resources or realizations that you found particularly helpful for that sort of additive piece, first on the subject of Gab, or like I had him on my podcast and he, you know, he he flips the table on you and and suddenly it becomes a therapy session which is like, amazing, you know, like it's like, that's exactly what you want. Right? And he was very helpful to me in addressing that.
Underlying trauma. Peace, and my resistance to really go there because I love my parents and I don't want to blame them and he was helpful in helping me understand this idea that it's not their fault. They're good people, they parented you with the tools that they had, but that doesn't mean just because you weren't homeless and impoverished or abused in any particular way, doesn't mean that you didn't suffer some kind of trauma that ultimately is related to, you know, the behavior that you pursued later.
Lies and I think to your other point of tools. Certainly. Yeah. I mean I wasn't able to stay sober when I was a tourist in Alcoholics Anonymous because I was sitting in the back, just waiting to get my court card checked. That's very different from engaging with the true process of recovery. And you know, I'm a 12-step guy and the whole Alcoholics. Anonymous thing is shrouded in anonymity for reasons. I don't want to get too specific about that other than to say that.
That the steps are steps for reason and it really is this incredible roadmap for unpacking. A lot of that underlying pain and providing you with tools to redress it in a meaningful practical way that alleviate that burden and that shame and allow you to mature into somebody who can look somebody in the eye and show up. When you say you're going to show up etcetera and a big piece in that is
There's lots of pieces, but one of the crucial pieces is doing an inventory, which is the fourth step where you literally go through your life and you itemize out all of your resentments towards people institutions, Etc. So that you do, your resentment inventory, you do a fear inventory, where you itemize everything that you're scared of and you do a sexual inventory, where you hold yourself accountable for how your sexual energy has.
Created havoc in your relationships. And I think the more comprehensive that inventory, the more clear. The picture is of how you have conducted your life. And from that themes emerge, where you see these recurrences of like, oh, when I'm in this situation, I always behave this way, or this type of person always makes me feel resentful and you can kind of go behind that and you get a better understanding of your fundamental blueprint, which is
Revelatory frankly, but that inventory is only helpful to the extent that it then allows you to itemize all of the people to whom you owe a men's because you're carrying around with that shame. This psychic burden of knowing that you have wronged people or screwed up situations or create a chaos. In other people's lives and Reckoning with that and then addressing it by going to these people and figuring out how
How to make those wrongs, right? Is a huge relief that is like a pressure valve release on a lot of that shame. And the more that you engage, in this process, you kind of emerge from it, where you can make peace with your past and it no longer holds all of that power over you. And you can talk about it freely, without it, creating all of those challenging emotions that are so inextricably related to the errant Behavior itself. So that's
A huge piece and that's something that I continue to practice all the time. It's something that you return to constantly including the tenth step which is basically doing like a daily 10 step where you do, it daily inventory of how you've conducted yourself where you might have gone wrong. If you have to make any kind of like minor amends or adjustments in your life, and then on top of that meditation is a step in the 12-step. So daily meditation, super important as well.
There's a lot more in there, but I would say those are kind of like the fundamental tools.
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I am so endlessly, fascinated by 12 step programs and I guess multi-step programs a. A specifically, the story of Bill Wilson. I find all of it. Just incredible. Also the sort of decentralized nature of a itself. Are you aware? And I'll be honest that I did. It just a very cursory search. I didn't do a really dedicated search for. Are you aware of any good books?
Documentaries that dig into the history, the tools of AA. Are you aware of anything that comes to mind? Yeah. I'm sure. There are those things that exist. I don't know. Any offhand. I know that was that movie that James Woods did a while back where he played Bill Wilson, but I don't know that. I would recommend that one. I'm sure there are and there's plenty of kind of
Ancillary books around recovery. Like there's a book called a new pair of glasses, that sort of practical applications of the 12 steps for for people that are that are suffering. I don't know that there's the definitive history of of Alcoholics Anonymous or the definitive documentary, but I think your point on decentralization is so fascinating, like it was blockchain before blockchain, you know, like the way that the way that it's structured is truly remarkable.
These guys like Bill Wilson and dr. Bob knew that they had to decentralize it in order to immunize it for any kind of external corruption or power Dynamic that could capsize the whole thing. And the fact that it has not only sustained itself, but grown over the many, many years that it's been around is truly miraculous and I think a case a case study. Yeah. It's amazing. It's really incredible.
It's a case study for how to structure an organization. That's trying to do something good and not fall. Prey to the lowest common denominator of human power dynamics. That tend to fell even the best intentioned people who are trying to create something good and it's interesting that it hasn't been replicated to my knowledge in any other scenarios. Because I think there's so much to be learned about how it was formed and how its continued to not only
Five. But Thrive, the primary reason I ask is that it just seems like this very obvious Jewel, in plain sight, if that makes sense. And maybe it's the decentralized nature that makes it invisible to a lot of potentially direct study. I don't know the reasons for it, but it's just that knowing a lot of people who are part or have been part of AA.
And just being introduced through casual conversation to some of the facets of how it works. I am really really fascinated by it and also for people listening were thinking themselves God we're spending a lot of time talking about addiction and Recovery. What does this have to do with me? I would just take a moment and say
You know, people ask me what do you do? I always kind of flubbed and don't really know how to answer it. But I view myself, I guess, first and foremost is a student not necessarily expert but student of Behavioral change and if you look at alcoholism, if you look at other types of substance use slash abuse, if you look at workaholism, if you look at Eating Disorders, I mean, certainly now being over the last several years involved, in a lot of scientific study related.
Dated two different conditions nicotine addiction that want to say this to glibly, but they're very overlapping. So it's studying behavioral change in the context of something like addiction.
To alcohol, I think transcends that and applies to many things in the same way that the training and discipline and pain tolerance that you cultivated through swimming then was applicable to your studying. Right? So let's talk about the the physical turn around because as you mentioned people tend to, if I could just interrupt, you, can I just interrupt you sorry to do that, but I think there's one on a final important point that I want.
Wanted to make about addiction. I think you're correct. Like, a lot of people might be listening saying, well, I'm not an alcoholic or a drug addict and I don't know anyone in my life. That is either. How is this relevant? But as somebody who's been kind of steeped in this world for many, many years and like yourself, I've had many guests on my podcast, to discuss this subject, matter. I become increasingly more and more convinced that we are both very Cavalier and how we Define addiction. Like I'm a
Alcoholic or I'm a shopaholic. It's a throwaway phrase. But at the same time we're also very rigid and how we defined it in that addiction is like heroin addiction or opioid addiction and alcoholism, but I think
I'm becoming convinced that that addiction lives on this incredibly broad spectrum and it's a spectrum. So broad that almost anybody can find themselves somewhere along the line. So on the one hand, you have, you know, the guy who can't pull the needle out of his arm, but on the very far, other side of the spectrum, you have people who find themselves repeating the same, you know, tired, self-defeating narrative about their life and can't get outside of themselves to see an objective truth.
Themselves or the person who is repeatedly in the same bad relationship time and time again, or the person who is addicted to, you know, whatever. It is, like video games or social media scrolling. I mean, the social dilemma has really foisted this conversation on to mainstream audiences. In a way that I think is is is allowing us to really think about addiction more. Broadly, because of the devices that we all have in our
Our pockets. And so with that, I think it's helpful to people to understand that there are tools available to help you decouple from whatever that thing is that is holding you hostage or creating that obsessive compulsive behavior, that you can't seem to transcend despite your best efforts and the 12 Steps. Yes, like they are crucial and instrumental and helping people get off drugs and alcohol, but they are very helpful, too.
Anybody, you know, just to be able to do an inventory of your life and to see yourself more objectively and understand that you can redress these shameful incidents in your life because we all have them on some level I think is really profound and to the extent that we are talking about addiction in this broader context right now, I think is super helpful because you know, this is an era in which you know, more people have been become addicted then ever before.
With substances and behaviors. And so to have a conversation about this. I think it's super important.
Yeah, I'm really happy. We're doing this and also the broad applicability of Concepts from the 12-step programs or a in this case, like for instance, I'd never heard this term but I wrote it down lower companions. Yeah, I mean, it's just such a perfect Frazee that perfect phrasing for what we all kind of into it on some level, but having a simple label for it. It makes it much.
Easier to wield kind of conceptually, right? And thinking, about about your life. We're going to get to the the physical piece because I have just selfishly many questions about that and I'm sure a lot of listeners will be interested in that. And it's related. Let me throw out another mnemonic of sorts, but it's a very short phrase that I'd love to hear you speak to in any way. That makes sense. Mood follows action. Yeah. I love that one that
It was something that my first sponsor said to me very early on, in sobriety. I think I was complaining to him about some commitment. I had made to sweep the floors or make coffee or something along those lines or something that had happened to me. That day that I was annoyed with. And I couldn't see my way through. And, you know, he just said, mood follows action and what he meant by that is, 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, and I literally think about this every single day, and it was validated recently in a podcast that I do with Andrew huberman. Who I know has been on your show where he studied the neurochemistry of this and realized that behavior has to come first and thoughts. Perceptions emotions. Follow
From that. And when you think about that, in the context of our daily lives, like let's just use running, for example, like if you wake up in the morning and you're supposed to do a run because you're training for some race and you don't feel like doing it. We all resort to that state where we think. Well, I don't want to do it right now. I'll just wait until I feel like doing it and then I'll do it then. And when we engage that way, we end up never doing it, right? Like if you're waiting until you feel like doing something chances are
Probably never going to get to it. But to take the action despite how you feel about it is the thing that catalyzes, the state change, and in my case, or anybody, who's a runner, they'll tell you when they finish the Run, they're always glad that they did it. They don't generally regret it and then they feel better. And I think that, that example is applicable to, you know, all areas of life. So when did you turn?
Made us course. In the bio says at age. 40. Why did you decide to turn the ship around physically?
so,
After getting sober, 31 and emerging from that Treatment Center where I lived for 100 days, which is pretty long time to be in a treatment center and being told by the counselors that you have a very serious case of alcoholism. The kind of case that we typically only see in lifelong drinkers like guys in their 60s. It was impressed upon me that I really needed to get this, right? Or I was going to die that point was made to me very clearly and I was able to hear it and take it seriously. And so,
I was super dedicated to creating this Foundation of sobriety because my life truly did hang in the balance. And so that became my main priority for many years after that experience. So I returned to Los Angeles. I was going to multiple meetings a day. I was doing like, all this stuff and building a new community of friends because I needed, I needed new people that need. I just I couldn't hang out or go to the places that I had been going to before.
And with that was also unpacking the shame that I had about being this person who had all of this potential and all of these opportunities that I had squandered and I felt compelled to repair all of that and get back to becoming that person that I was before. I started drinking. And I did that with blinders on, in my mind, the best way to do that was to go back to the law firm and you know work my ass off and become a
Partner and get all the stuff so that the world would smile upon me. And my parents would think that I was safe Alcoholics. Anonymous is spiritual program and I was developing spiritually, but I had not yet reached the level of maturity where I could really look Inward and ask myself. Those fundamental questions about what it is that I actually want it to do. Rather than thinking, what is society expecting me to do, but what is unique to me? What gets me excited in the morning. What?
Do you think that you're here to express that is uniquely? You like that? Just was not part of my mental process in anyway, and so a lot of those addictive personality traits, although I was not using substances anymore or channeled into workaholism and in turn some pretty unhealthy lifestyle habits. So basically 80 hour weeks working as a lawyer and, you know, hitting the fast-food drive-throughs on the way home and Chinese.
Check out for late nights at work. And and the like and really despite the fact that I'd been this warmer in college, not exercising, just not really attending to or taking care of myself. Physically. And so, over a 10-year period that accumulates such that. By the time I was 39, I was about 50 pounds overweight. You never like an obese person or anything like that, but just kind of like a heavy guy who looks like, you know, he works works too much in a law firm and subsisting on junk food and just feeling
Lovely worse and worse, lazier, not energized, not enthusiastic about my life. And I think in the back of my awareness, was this percolating existential crisis. Because I knew that this career path that I chosen was really not for me and I could will myself into doing it. But ultimately, it was not only not making me happy. It was making me more, and more miserable like this square peg in a round hole kind of thing, but I was too afraid to really
Get that or think about how I could change that trajectory. I guess what I'm saying is there was a Confluence of poor health on the one side and this spiritual existential crisis that I was harboring on the other hand and they essentially collided with each other shortly. Before I turned 40, when I had this specific moment of walking up a flight of stairs to my bedroom after a late night at the office. And I had to like stop halfway.
A up a flight of stairs. Like I was too winded to just walk all the way to the top and I had tightness in my chest and like I was had that sweaty pallor on my face from a flight of stairs and thinking, I'm like this person who had swam in Stanford and would look in the mirror and see that person reflected back to me. I realized I was harboring a whole other level of denial that I needed to look at. And it was a scary moment because heart disease runs in my family. My mother's father had been a champion swimmer and captain of the University of
Can swim team in the late, 1920s and early 30s. And a guy who had an American record and somebody who he's a guy that I'm named after and in many ways like My Doppelganger, but he had died of heart disease at a young age and I had this flash where I realized if I didn't course correct. How I was living that I was likely headed in his Direction and would meet my demise, probably sooner than he had because there was no McDonald's in Jack in the Box when he was kicking around.
And it was sort of like a second bottom that was very reminiscent of the day. I decided to get sober like this very crystallized moment in time where it's almost like a window of opportunity presents itself, like a crack in the door or a Line in the Sand and you have this opportunity to harness. It take advantage of it and take contrary action or not. Right? And because I was so aware.
Of how that simple decision of going to that Treatment Center had changed my life. So dramatically that I was being once again visited by just such a moment. I realized that I needed to take action swiftly because if I didn't kind of grab onto it immediately, I knew it would just pass and become ephemera. And so that was really the moment that catalyzed kind of everything that followed. And even the fact that I'm talking to you today. It all tracks back to that very specific incident.
Aunt, what year are we talking more or less? Do you recall? So yeah, this would have been. Let's see 2000. I was just about to turn 40. So 2006, okay.
Did this coincide with something? I've read you described as complete Financial dismantlement, which sounds brutal doesn't sound Pleasant? Was that around the same time before or coinciding? That started a little bit later. It was sort of precipitated by the crash in 2008 and it continued through years after publishing Finding Ultra like it was a very extended.
Read of time of being challenged to even put food on the table.
We I've always cheats in front of me, of course and you know, one of the, one of the questions I like to ask as you well, know, you know, what is the best or most worthwhile investment you've ever made? Could be time, money energy, Etc. And I give various examples of this, but it could be Warren Buffett talking about his best investment being investing in Dale. Carnegie. Speaking classes or anything at all. You have a couple here.
Three decision to train for 2008 Ultraman, stepping back from the law to write finding Altra and then starting your podcast wend and so we could focus on the first one. I want to. If it's okay with you and feel free to redirect look at the second one stepping back from the law to write Finding Ultra. When was that that you step back to do them. I started writing it in late 2010 or early 2011. Okay. So the reason the reason is
Ask there seem to be these inflection points and right inflection. Could go multiple directions. Not only up, but there seem to be certain decisions that in retrospect just really make a lot of difference in Direction. How did you decide to step back from the law to write this book? Given the complete financial dismantlement, and all of these various things going on at the time. And was it an easy or hard decision?
I think it was a little bit of both. At that time. I had already been scaling back on my law practice. I was balancing training for these crazy races, which we can talk about, and becoming less, and less interested in being a lawyer. And at that time, I was self-employed as a lawyer. I had made the step of getting out of the big corporate law. Firm hustle. And had it a couple different incarnations of my practice being solo, being with a couple of Partners Etc.
So I had flexibility over how I was allocating my time and the 4-Hour, workweek was actually really helpful at that time and helping me wrap my head around how I could straddle these Both Worlds and still get things done. So, the truth is, I had already begun to take my foot, off the gas, a little bit on the law practice, but the opportunity to write this book was such a remarkable occurrence that I could have never predicted happening in my life and I just felt so
So grateful to even have the opportunity that was an inbound email or Outreach of sometime. It's actually a really interesting story. So, what happened was, I had been doing these races and getting some notoriety for it and some press and an article came out in the Stanford alumni magazine and it had mentioned what I was doing. It had also mentioned that I had had this struggle with alcoholism and have been sober for a while and
Somebody, who I only knew very tangentially. Sent me an email and said, hey, I read that article. I'm recently out of a treatment center. Like he was an alumni. I'm recently out of treatment center. And I'm the CEO of this company. My board doesn't know. Like I need somebody to talk to like, can we just talk? And so I struck up a phone relationship with this person and was just trying to help him and, you know, guide him to make good decisions about how to conduct himself in early.
Sobriety. And at some point he said, hey, I know this book agent. Like you have such an amazing story. Let me introduce you to this person. And at that time, I hadn't thought of writing a book. It wasn't on my list of things that I was thinking of doing and that conversation with that book agent, basically made me feel comfortable, giving it a stab and it was kind of a charm thing where I wrote a proposal. I worked really hard on it because I recognize the
Unique and amazing opportunity of presented and that led to getting a book deal really quickly. And so suddenly my life priorities change because I was able to recognize that this could be a lever that would Propel me into an entirely new universe of opportunities and trajectories with my career. So prioritizing the writing of that book was like the most important professional commitment that I made at that.
Time and and and really created the foundation for me being able to do, kind of all the things that I do now.
You do quite a few things and quite well, I will add. You're welcome. I should say. Can I just say, like, really quickly. Sorry, to interrupt you. But like, you have no idea how much that means to me to like. It really is Meaningful that you said that because I Look to You in the example that you set and all the things that you have done in the world in such a remarkable fashion, and I aspire to your level of impact and influence. And I just also
So I wanted to thank you for that. And thank you also, for being a support to me. Like when the book came out, you let me do a guest blog post for your site. I think I pestered you and you do until you finally relented, but that was a huge. You know, that was extremely helpful to me at the time and you have no idea how much I appreciate that. Thank you Rich. Well, it was my, it was my pleasure and I will say that a compelling story is a compelling story.
So, I really appreciate.
The kind words and you're doing a hell of a job in. I mean, I really admire the work that you're doing in the world and it's fun for me to be sitting here asking you for very
thinly, veiled advice. But I've been very indirect so far,
but but thank you for that. And I figured just as a way of and we can go anywhere. We want to go, of course, but we're recording this around the turn of the new year.
I am in the next year going to turn 45 and I've realized just in the last few years, really that I would say used to not at your level with within this kind of dynastic famed team at Stanford for swimming, which we might come back to at some point, but head competed in his as an athlete. And when I competed, I found
It very easy to motivate for a lot of reasons, right? I mean, but there's a lot of positive and negative reinforcement involved when you compete and then in the last let's just call it for five years have continued to train but in a pretty lacks a day's, a goal ad hoc way. Lots of travel going to Jim's kind of figuring out what I'm going to do when I get to the gym. No real programming to speak of and what I've realized in the last few years is
What I was able to pull off for let's just say 10 years of decent mediocre to high mediocre training is just not going to cut it. Moving forward metabolically or otherwise and I've trained before.
And having competed before, and I have found a lot of Shame around and and judgment around having, let it slip. If that makes any sense. And nonetheless, right? Have really decided. Alright, 2022. This is the year that I want to make some significant changes. Given the book, given your podcast. You have no doubt, observed, many people try to emulate what you've done to differing.
Degrees of success. What advice would you give to someone in my shoes could be advice to me? But someone who is considering this sort of doing a reboot?
Given the sort of the sample set that you've observed over time or just from your direct experience. Yeah. Well, I mean, I guess, the first thing I would ask you Tim is like, why, what is going on? What's beneath the kind of surface level aspect of this that you just share. What is it that you feel is?
Lacking that would be fulfilled by you pursuing. Some kind of Fitness goal. Is it just like I'm starting to feel lazy or I've slipped off or I don't feel the way that I like to feel right now or like I always like to ask that first because people are very casual and Cavalier about saying, I want to do this go like I want to do this race or whatever. And I'm always like why like, why is that important? Why is that important to you? Right? So that would be the first thing I would ask you. Yeah, I have answers. So the first I
Overarching answer is mood follows action, right? So I know that when I am training, consistently with a purpose of some type, not just going to yoga few times a week. I can do that. I can lift weights, two or three times a week, but training with a purpose. I find just leads me to a better. Mental psycho emotional state more often than not. It is the most reliable intervention so to speak, so that would be part one.
Part two and we'll see where this goes. But I really, really miss the camaraderie of being on a team or striving towards a similar goal. Probably. It doesn't have to. I've never had that experience in a co-ed capacity. So it doesn't necessarily have to be all men. But that experience which I've found challenging to replicate.
Outside of sports would be another reason, you know, I stopped doing Judo and Jiu-Jitsu and so, on quite a while ago, just because of the number of injuries. I'm okay with intermittent injuries. I did. They just take a lot longer to heal from now than they did when I was yeah, 16:22 or whatever. So those would be top of the list and I think that
Related to the first answer. This like mood follows action. I think that self and we could probably pick this apart. I'm sure but like self-image, also follows action. Like I just have I feel better about myself when I am training with some degree of
Focus and a goal of some type, you know, especially if it's time-bound. I just do very well with that and I haven't, you know, over covid and everything else not to make excuses, but I have I have been very bad at doing that and still like I'm training a couple times a week, but I've realized I'm barely skating by kind of like look fit with clothing on fit which is not enough for me at this point. I enjoy I should also say I just, I really I do enjoy.
Pushing myself physically ROM, you didn't maybe not to the point. Like when I was much younger, I would like go for training runs for or Sports Sprint, workouts for wrestling or whatever. And I would run until like, the blood vessels would burst in corners of my eyes. Like I don't need to do that anymore. I think that's kind of kind of silly for me at this point, but that's that's a long-winded answer to your question. Yeah. Well, I think that's a great answer and and just knowing enough about you to know how important
Sure, is to you like setting really measurable tangible goals and benchmarks. Like that's kind of how you operate and that's the easy part for you. But I think the harder part is figuring out. What is the character of the actual Pursuit? Right? And I would start with curiosity. Like what is it? That is something you're interested in learning or exploring. That might be something new that sits a little bit outside of your comfort zone, but is intriguing enough for
Are you two want to explore it? It's easy to say. Well you should do this razor. You should try this or you should join a team but I think curiosity is really the most important piece like because if you're not interested in it, if you're not, if it's not something that's going to get you excited and have some ability to retain your attention and enthusiasm chances are like you're going to get bored or you're just going to you're going to drop off. So starting with that I think is important because I could tell you you should do this, but
Only you know what that might look like? But I would suggest that spending time with that Curiosity and then figuring out how you can pursue that learning curve in a challenging Fitness contacts that also involves Community or team building on some level because that's the other piece that you feel like you're missing. An I get that like I miss that too, you know, and I do most of my training alone and when I do group runs, I'm like, I should do this more. Like, this is so fun and yet, I don't do it. So I relate to that.
Deeply, but I think those would be good starting places, like things that come to mind for me, is some kind of Adventure Race, you know, or something, where it involves other people and lots of different types of skill sets that come into play. That is kind of scary, but also experiential and potentially very fun. Yeah, orienteering. Something like that. And I should also say that the, the team or the team piece is also a key.
Could be a partner piece and I think fundamentally for me. What that is is an accountability piece, right? Because at and I'm sure you experience this quite a bit too. It's like it's not the pursuit of bad ideas made. It could be, but it's not the pursuit of bad ideas or worthless.
Tasks that will drown you. It's like saying yes to too many cool ish things, not a handful or one truly great thing. Does that make sense? Right? So this is like, this is like my major malfunction these days. Like, like I am dying Death By A Thousand Cuts these days because of like cool stuff that I want to do and say yes do too, you know, too frequently. Yeah, so you can just drown in that stuff and if I don't have, this is going to sound really bad.
A lot of anchor. You need an anchor. I need an anchor. There needs to be a consequence to me being like yeah. I'm doing this bullshit, on my laptop at 4 p.m. And I'm going to push off this workout than scheduled for 4:30. I want there to be a consequence to that and you know, there a lot of ways to set up stakes and consequences, but very easy way to do. It is just train with somebody part of the reason why one of the most consistent forms of exercise, have been able to get in the last say, six months.
It's is rock climbing because I'm going with a belay partner and if they show up and I'm not there. It's just right. It's a real dick move. So it venture Racing. I was thinking orienteering possibly although I say that really knowing very little about it. Are there any other characteristics that you've been able to spot amongst just patterns of people making attempts at this over and over again? The other thing I would point out is is the
Tendency to indulge in a little bit of analysis paralysis. You could spend the next year, trying to figure out what mountain it is that you want to climb or how you're going to get there. And I have a sense that, you know, maybe this might be a thing for you, and I think there's a lot of value in not overthinking things and just saying, this is something that's interesting to me. I'm just going to decide right now. I'm going to do this thing and it's like six months from now and it's in the calendar and I have no idea how I'm going to get there, but it's there and I think
That 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. And I think these situations in my experience are rigged, such that you're not supposed to know all of those answers because you're rewarded for actually getting into action. Like, it's tangential to mood follows action. Like the bricks get laid, you know, only two steps in front of you and you're not allowed.
See the whole thing. Right? Like if you're like, use Iron, Man, for example, or Triathlon, like, what bike should I get? Well, you can go around that. Merry-Go-Round forever. But ultimately, the best bike is the one. That's sitting Gathering dust in your garage. Just do go do a race with that and you'll figure out all that stuff as you go and it becomes the more you do it, the more emotionally engage you get with it and then it these things tend to develop a life of Their Own.
All right. I have a very specific question for you came up before we started recording. And I think you know, this is something I know very little about. So you can you can safely assume that I can be a very effective stand-in for anyone in the audience. Who doesn't know what this is Zone 2 training. Could you share your thoughts recommendations cautionary, tales anything related to Zone, 2 training, perhaps beginning with a definition because this is something that
As you know, dr. Peter Tia has his spoken quite widely about what is Zone, 2 training. First of all, like your conversation with Peter on the subject matter and then Peter I know has done like amas where he's do very deeply into this. Topic are fantastic listens and everybody should check that out. If they're interested in the subject matter because my version of explaining this will be a very laypersons experiential version of it compared to Peter's very scientific and eloquent, you know. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
I'm a huge, huge, proponent of Zone, 2 training, and I believe that my fidelity and Adoration of the zone to philosophy is a Cornerstone and how I was able to be successful in ultra-endurance Triathlon in my mid-40s ozone to basically is a gauge of energy output.
In aerobic exercise. That essentially is the state in which you are exerting yourself at essentially a conversational level. You are in your aerobic Zone, where your body can make use of one of two sources of energy glucose or fat, and it is the level of exertion that lives in Breeze, just beneath where you cross a certain threshold and go into a more anaerobic state.
Eight, which is dependent more or exclusively on glycogen stores for energy endurance training Zone to, I think is absolutely crucial for Success because it is the best way or the methodology that you leveraged to create efficiency, which is something that Peter is talked about. So, most people, when they go out for a run, let's say they go on a run, a 45-minute.
Run like three or four times a week or something like that. Most people will go out and they will exert themselves so that they feel like they had a vigorous, right? Like the run as fast as they can for that period of time. So that when they're finished, they feel like oh I got something out of that zone. 2 is a level of output that is quite a bit beneath that level of exertion. Because when you're doing that kind of mindlessly, like I'm just going out for a vigorous run most. Typically you are in what is called the Great?
As own, you're going too hard and too fast to really develop that aerobic capacity and engine and efficiency, but you're not going hard enough to develop speed and the anaerobic kind of capacity that you're looking for. For those really fast shorter bursts. And in that Gray Zone, which is where most average people live and breathe. You can get to a certain point, but you will very quickly plateau.
Really never go beyond that zone. 2 is a certain kind of discipline because it's asking you to hold back. Sewn to is the level of output where basically you can get up and do it every day and quite often you complete the workout and you feel like you didn't do anything and you you have this impulse to want to go faster. So you have to hold back from doing that. But essentially what it does is it as Peter talks about developed helps you develop a greater mitochondrial.
Density in your muscles and in ultra-endurance. This is absolutely crucial because there's nothing about ultra-endurance. That is fast. It has nothing to do with threshold power or speed or any of that. It's truly the ability to efficiently persist. So the prize doesn't go to the fastest guy goes to the person who slows down the least and when you live in this Zone to place where your training for long.
He's of time. Developing this capacity. What you're doing is you're building this Foundation of endurance from the ground up and the way that you kind of calculate your Zone. I mean Peter talks about this. I go in for proper lactate testing. I'm on a bike and I get my finger pricked as the W go up and you get this heart rate zone in this W Zone, wherein you understand. Like this is the level of exertion required to like be right in The Sweet Spot of all of this. When I began training,
For these races, my zone to Pace when I was running was like 10 minutes a mile or 10:30 or something like that. But by rigorously adhering to this without doing any interval training or any Tempo work over a two-year period, I got to the point where I could run seven minute miles at the same heart rate. So the same amount of energy output but that level of increase in speed not by doing any speed work, but by literally creating efficiencies
And developing that mitochondrial density and ultimately what you're also doing is training the body to metabolize fat for fuel, which is your, you know, all day source of energy like you literally will never run out of it. So in my experience,
Training the body to metabolize fat for fuel is really been. It's an N of 1 and experiential experience that I've had, but it's really much more about how your training, then what it is that you're eating or when you're eating it. Like I've just found this training to be the best way to get into that. Place of the body learning how to metabolize fuel in that way so that you can literally continue to go for as long as you want.
And there are in certainly, I'll link in the show notes to the conversations with Peter Atia, that that go
Mobley deeper than
so. I think it's technically, that's great. That's great. It does get technical but Peter knows his stuff. I'll provide some links to that for people who want to dig in. I would you chopped it out and then put it at the end. And I went immediately to the
end like listen to. All
right. So for people who have it our this episode basically the first
The name is the first question and we launched into the cellular metabolism involved with Zone to training and mitochondrial density. And I thought, you know, maybe that 20-minute appendix should be put at the end as an appendix just so that we can get people in the door. So we're not having people do in calculus on their way into the club, maybe on the way out, but it is great. It is a great section. So, we'll link to that in the show notes at teamed up blog, / podcast, question for you, and this may be a dead end, but I'm just curious.
Yes, have you explored using Ketone meters?
As you have adapted and increased your mitochondrial density, through Zone 2 training. And the reason I'm asking is, I'm wondering if you've noticed for instance. This is something I track, but without the zone to training, in the case of say, a two or three day fast, how quickly my body will go to will shift over to say, you know, 0.7 millimolar is or something like that. Get to the point where I feel like I am in ketosis, just subjectively through cognitive sharpness.
It's mental acuity. Generally, have you played around with that or at all or seen a faster switch over now. I've now, I haven't, I haven't, yeah. Yeah, I don't have it would burn. It would make sense though. That would make a lot of sense. How frequently is it necessary to do Zone 2 training. I'm sure. It's highly individual but just painting with a broad brush to begin to accrue some of the benefits that were talking about. Yeah. I think Peter answered this question and I believe he gave a window of something like
Three months or something like 36 months. I would say that this is not like the way to hack yourself to success because it requires a significant investment in time. Like you have to play the long game, to really reap the huge benefits of this type of training. It's not an overnight kind of thing. I started to realize gains, maybe I started realized gains maybe around six months into it, but I didn't really Garner the full.
Buffet of what? It was availing me for. Like, it took two years like basically is what I'm saying, like, the longer you do it, the more efficient you become and then the longer you can go the further. You can sustain a certain level of effort and he's at adaptations are like not overnight. But I think it's like when you're looking at. Like, it's not like, what are you going to do this year, but like three years if you're on like a three-year plan, I think really doubling down on this philosophy.
See, there's so much benefit to it. But it depends on what your goal, is to open, the presents figuring that out. I have to have to have to dig into that Curiosity, were talking about earlier. And certainly part of that will be know thyself. Still working on that. I think I've been in the gray Zone side note for like two years, which is probably has some explanatory power. So, there are three things at least three things, but three things, I would love to hear you speak to and I'll let you you mention Buffet, so,
So I'll throw out three and then you can pick whichever one you want to tackle first. So one is sleeping in a tent to is taking a full month off the grid every year. And then number three is your daily architecture. So, not committing to certain things or focusing on certain things up to 12 noon, which one of those would you like?
Dig into our week ago. Any direction you want. I mean we can start with the tent. Let's start with the tip. Yeah. So I've been sleeping outside in a tent for a couple years. At this point. I think a little over two years and I absolutely love it. It's really been beneficial to my sleep and it's something that started from a frustration over my increasing inability to get restful slumber.
And the impetus like kind of original impetus was my wife likes the bedroom warm. I like the bedroom cold. I'm sure a lot of people can relate to this relationship Dynamic and no matter how much we would try to compromise to make it good for both of us. Julie would always be bundled up under a ton of covers and I'm sleeping on top of the covers like sweating and then neither of us sleeps and we get up and we're not happy. We have a flat, you've been in my house. I have a
Roof on my house and one summer evening. We did a sleepover on the roof with the kids and we have a flat wall where we would project movies and we're like eating popcorn, and we all just kind of slept on the roof that night and sleeping bags. And I woke up the next day just feeling amazing like from the outdoor air and the cool like desert are of Los Angeles, ice. Like I can't remember the last time I slept so well, so I told Julie I was like, I'm just going to sleep on the roof again tonight and it really began from there and
I just fell in love with being out there. Something about being outdoors that just agrees with me and the kind of cool evening air, but I would wake up, covered in condensation, like completely wet. So I was like, all right, I got to get a tent. So then I got a tent, the tent was on the Roof, then it got windy. I move the tent to the ground, but I've really just enjoyed it. And as I get older, like, I'm so protective of my sleep. And it's so important to me that I get those eight hours because I know what,
Feels like not to get them and I sit still eludes me quite often. Like I really struggle with this, but it's been a huge benefit in the quality of my sleep and I enjoy it. People always ask like, well, you know, they think I'm having like some kind of fight with my wife or something like that. Like we have our quality time. I promise you like everything is fine in my marriage. We've been together for a very long time. It's all good. And I also think it's been a cool.
cool, kind of stoic practice because I live in a really nice house and I have nice things, but I actually prefer to sleep in the tent, and there's something about that where
It gives me Comfort like if everything went terribly wrong and I lost everything like I know that I'm happy sleeping in a tent and I don't really need that much. Ultimately and that that's been really kind of nice in cultivating. A little bit of a minimalist sensibility about how I live.
See decided being blown off the roof. While you're
sleeping. Probably
not a good idea. I second that, do you have mountain lions around those parts? We do. And I go running and all the trails all around. You know, where I live in the Santa Monica Mountains. I know they're there. I've never seen one but they're definitely there where our property is fan. So I feel okay being Innocent, but they're, they're they're real, but you don't know. We'll see, I remember this experience.
An early California, a pineapple. I went on this hiking trip and everybody at the same time got the feeling that they were being watched and I was like, yeah, we should
probably pay attention to that mountain lions everywhere,
forgive me, but a I want to know be my listeners will be annoyed if I don't ask so you you did a lot of trial and error with tent and set up and everything else. What is your gear look like currently after two years of trying it out? Yeah, it's well, I'm
I'm actually at a turning point with all of this. I've been sleeping in like a North Face tent that I've had for a while but the these tents tend to only last maybe four or five months at most because this son just beats them up and then they turn into like tissue paper. So I'm constantly getting new tents. And finally I was like, this is ridiculous. So I just bought like a proper canvas like glamping tent and we haven't constructed it yet. I'm having a deck built. I'm going to make it like kind of like a cool outdoor structure so that
What's the next chapter in all of this? But for the last two years, it's been a series of, you know, basically, you know, small tents in the backyard. I have a mattress in there. So I'm not sleeping on the ground and tons of blankets, which is part of the appeal. Like there was Frost, when I woke up this morning, it was great. I slept antastic last night, but a key thing that at that, I have been using for a couple of years, is gravity blanket, which I absolutely love. I don't know if you've had any have. Yeah, I have. What is it? I have upstairs. So why?
What is the gravity blanket? And why do you find it helpful? Gravity blanket is a weighted blanket, there's different types of them. But essentially, they're quilted with, like, I don't know sand in them or different types of heavy materials. So and they come in different weights. So I think mine is like a 25-pound blanket. So, imagine that experience of being at the dentist and you're getting an x-ray and they put that like lead Matt on your chest and think is that a
Experience for you or unpleasant experience for you. And when I think about that, I kind of like it. Like, there's something about it.
SWAT and close. Yeah, it's like
being protected. You know, it's like telling my sympathetic nervous system that I'm safe and I believe, I could be wrong, but I believe that that was the original use case for the gravity blanket to treat people with Autism who have trouble calming down and it had this impact.
Act of like soothing them and that's certainly, you know, been my experience, using it and I love it. He use it at night. Yeah, but that on top of your blankets. Hmm. All right, sit tent. Check any other modifications that you've made to your tenting experience it come to mind. No, I mean, I wear an eye of an eye mask, but just what type of eye mask. Of course, the Tim Ferriss, I forgot what, I guess, my mom. I gotta ask.
The Mind fold, I like the mine fault. Mine folder. Great. Yeah. All right, check. All right now. Thank you for indulging that inquiring minds want to know, of course. And, you know, for people who want another example of this type of stuff, practice different type of time frame, but Kevin Kelly who's been on the podcast at least two times, arguably, the world's most interesting, man. He will sleep in his living room.
Room in a sleeping bag and a surviving on as I recall instant oatmeal and instant coffee for maybe like a week a year, two weeks a year, just as a little reminder that all is well. Everything's fine. But I like the idea of sleeping. I'm sleeping outside. Oh, a lot more personal Isa daily architecture or weekly architecture, just schedule-wise. Hmm, seems like you rarely schedule certain types of things.
Before noon, your time. Could you speak to speak to that? And perhaps just tell the Genesis story, like, how and when did you begin doing that? Because that's quite a that is contraindicated, if you're doing 80 hour weeks, right? So there's a, there's a transition. Yeah, of course. Yeah, that that didn't really become a possibility until I was self-employed and I think I start started practicing it originally when I was writing, finding.
Because I need it. I need quiet hours before work began to just be focused on that important thing, and I've just built upon it from there. So, essentially I'm early to bed, early, to rise, I go to bed, like around 9 and generally get up around 55, 25 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, like certainly. Like we're doing this podcast this morning. So I'll make exceptions like we're doing this in the morning, but as a general rule, I try not to commit to anything outside of those practices for that initial phase of the day. And so after I finish those practices, then I do my training in the morning and I tried to get that done before I go into the workday.
How frequently would you say, you succeed, if you end and not to ever expect it to be 100%, I'm just curious what you would say. It looks like and when you get something, because we were talking about the death, by a Thousand Cuts earlier, when you get really tempting stuff. What do you do right, like, sometimes you make exceptions, but if you if you made all the exceptions in the schedule wouldn't work, right? Because I'm sure you have people priced off earlier in the day. So so what's your what would you say? Your hit rate is
And how do you contend with the The Temptations? I would say outside of situations where I'm traveling my hit rates about 85 percent. So it's not pretty, I'm pretty good. Yeah, and also, the people that I generally work with like all know this now. So it's less often that I'm asked to do things during those hours because they know and I've gotten much better at just not agreeing to do stuff conference call Zoom calls and stuff like that during that period of time. But if somebody's in
The UK or in a, you know, a very erratically, different time zone, like there are situations where it's like, okay. Am I going to be the huge pain in the ass? Or am I gonna just make an exception, you know,
so make them do the zoom call. It 11 p.m. Yeah. Yeah,
like too much of a people pleaser for that. And that's the war that I'm always waging, like, a healthy boundary versus like the desire to be liked is like the Battleground in my head. And so I'm pretty good about that. The death by a Thousand Cuts shows up in
Other areas of my life, particularly like, regarding stuff that isn't do or isn't going to happen for a long period of time. Like if it's far enough out on the calendar, I'll pretty much agree to anything and then and then that day arrives in your like, what am I doing? I'm never doing this again. And then the following week, your, you know, reaping the same thing. So that's like my Mount Everest right now. And listen, these are problems of abundance. They're the result of
You know, working very hard to create something that is interesting to people and so you get offered cool stuff and I want to take advantage of all the cool stuff. Like I know what it's like to not have people interested in, you know, having me involved in cool stuff. But at what cost, right. And it's really hard to do that. It's like, do you want to go do this amazing thing? You're like 100% I do. But what are you really trying to accomplish? Where is your focus vested and
Calibrating those opportunities against the things that are most important in your life. And you know, I for kids like I have, you know, I have other responsibilities outside, my professional responsibilities, that are important to me. So I'm not always great at making those decisions, but I think I'd like to think I'm getting a little bit better, but 85% hit rates really good for the pre. Pre noon thing that's not for like fielding all incoming, you know, stuff still, that's a good protected Zone.
That's good protected Zone. You know, I've, I'm no surprise to anyone just fascinated by how people think about scheduling and time. I know that you've been doing some workouts at Laird Hamilton. And Gabby Reece is place in the pool xpt, and all that, which is
Side note on sleep. I have probably never slept better than after a really long workout with weights in the pool. My God, it's incredible. That's just amazing. And they have such unique lives and the way that they live, their lives, fiercely independently and they came to mind also because I was thinking about Rick Rubin. The legendary music producer has been on this podcast who also not sure where
He is now but often spends time with them. And has his little corner in the pool, where he does his work out. But Rick, as far as I can tell, basically doesn't schedule back 99% of life is unscheduled. It's kind of like, yeah, like Ping me and if it works it'll work and I really admire his ability to do that. I haven't been able to Ace that at this point. So hence the questions about all of this a month off the grid. Every year is this. Let's go to
Genesis story for this how and why?
This is a priority. So you mentioned earlier on this extended period of financial dismantlement that we endured as a family and it was a very painful extended period of time where I really struggled to figure out how to provide for my family in a meaningful way and it's now all solved and everything's great. But I think there was a significant amount of PTSD that I experienced from that because it was very emasculating and scary for me.
You know, once things started functioning properly and working a lot of my workaholism Tendencies kind of came to the Forefront, and I became so focused on building this thing and protecting it and making sure that it was providing for my family that I started to kind of Overlook the principles that put me in the position to create it in the first place. The adage of like all this.
Is making me sick. Like I was so,
you know, you know, like
I was just working my ass off, right? And as you know, doing this show and doing other things in your life, like it's a lot more work than people think. Like, it's a, it's a grind and you can lose yourself in it. And a couple years ago. I started tiptoeing up to burn out and instead of being excited to have conversations with my guess. I wouldn't say I was dreading it but I was I was moving in that direction and that's not a relationship that I wanted to have.
Have with this thing that you and I both do that, we obviously really care about. It should be a joyful experience. And, you know, I hadn't taken a single vacation in like, five years, like no break. It was insane. So, I was due for it. And so, I ended up taking a month off and I went to Australia and it was incredibly nourishing and I was able to come back from that experience with a renewed and refreshed perspective, and
Chef with what I do and I just decided that this was going to be an annual thing. So I'm getting ready to do, I'm taking January off this year, and I'm really looking forward to it. I need it and I think it, you know, it's important to
Understand in a performance context that you have 2. Eyes, your life, just like you would period eyes, you're training. Like you need those fallow periods to recharge the battery and 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 than
You're not really going to be carrying a meaningful, resonance or vibration. That's going to be helpful to other people. Let's go to priya's Australia for a moment, because no, vacation and five years, and then I took a month off and it was great. I feel like we're skipping a few steps. What did the preparation /? Self-talk Logistics anything look like leading up to Australia. And if you want to mention this first, we can mention
In this part first, which is what did off really mean off? Didn't mean, like completely like leave the phone at home. I wish I could tell you that. That's what I did. I didn't do that. That is an ambition for this experience though, which is terrifying. I'm excited about. So, what are you asking? Specifically, like the, the what type of what type of preparation is required? Now, if this current example, meaning January coming up is a better case study.
To take a look at, I'm just wondering what the preparation looks like. Right? So you have all of these various plates that you're spinning different types, and I literally just got back a few days ago from about three weeks off the grid. So I'm fresh. Wow, having just returned where I was in Antarctica. So I literally wow, 0 cell or Wi-Fi signal which was great because the possibility of backsliding is basically hmm.
Removed entirely, unless you want to like, sit in a tent by yourself with a satellite phone and try to make that work, which some people did but I did not. So I'm wondering what prep is going into taking a month off.
I'm much more interested in your experience in Antarctica. But
yeah, well we talked about it. We do
not amazing. Like what were you? Why did you decide to go there? And what was that about? I've a friend, Matt mullenweg who very close friend. He's been on the podcast once or twice. He runs a company. This makes it all the more impressive. So he runs a company called automatic m, 8e, t IC, which has something like 2,000 employees. At the moment. He had gone to Antarctica. I want to say,
Say, I might be getting the numbers off, but five or six years ago and had heard that a trip was being planned, which would put a small group in Antarctica for the totality of the solar eclipse at the Empire penguin colony, which had never been observed before in this year. So end of 2021 and that was the purpose of this trip. He grabbed a number of seats.
I made a reservation for handful of seats five or six seeds and then invited me some time ago and asked me if I wanted to go and I said, yeah, absolutely want to get me. One of my next going to have such an invite and ended up Landing in Chile spending, a decent amount of time in Chile. They're very very very strict with covid. So you're getting daily covid tests or being true install an app and you're legally required to identify your location and
Answer surveys. Every day. You carry a Mobility pass which is a QR code to go into any establishment then interfaces with the database to indicate, whether you are green or red. So very, very involved, which it has to be because if you have an outbreak in Antarctica, the whole operation is done, right? And then off we went it had been a while, been a couple of years since while. Certainly, since covid hit that, I had spent multiple weeks completely off.
Grid, which I try to spend at least two to three weeks per year, one hundred percent off the grid. Meaning if there's an emergency. Someone can contact someone who contacts, someone who can find a way to reach me, but there's really no contact with the outside world otherwise and so, in my case, I'd love these experiments because and hence, my interest in what you're up to also, because you're forced to look at all of your systems, right? Like if you're gone for a week, you can come
Back and firefight, you can kind of allow things to go towards entropy and balls to get dropped and then fix it when you get back, but with the amount that is going on. I imagine in your life, certainly in my life. If you try to do that with three or four weeks. It's just going to be a catastrophe. So you have to set up systems and policies and update things, and take a really close look at like, okay. Well, how are wires being approved? How are these following things being?
Oh, they're being handled in this really labor-intensive ad. Hoc. One-off way. Let's make a policy for that which the policy be. And all of those are many of those things out live, the vacation. That's an additional argument in addition to the period izing of life. Right? The fact that you are a biological system that does not have infinite amounts of neurotransmitters and course Hall. And saw, like you really. It's good idea. It's got a phase in and phase out.
You know the other argument for me and they're many others, of course, I mean enjoying your goddamn vacation would be a great one to but is it in the case of someone who's self-employed or maybe even if you are employed you develop and refine systems that then have durability and persist once you get back, so I'm just getting back in the saddle after multiple weeks. Literally I have only been in the US for a handful of days. So wow. What an amazing experience. Yeah, so I'm on the other side. Yeah.
Cool. Yeah, I think. Now I get where you're coming from. I mean, it's certainly been a situation of putting systems in place and stress testing them. I mean, I have this amazing team right now. When I went to Australia, the team looked a little bit different, it wasn't as mature as it is at this point, but now, I've really invested a lot of time and energy in creating structure, which was not easy for me, as a sort of control freak, who wants to do everything and be the bottleneck in.
Every decision and every problem, like I've lived in that hit that was big. A big part of what was leading me towards this burnout was my refusal to kind of loosen the reins and Empower people around me. And that's been an education that I'm happy to say. I'm now very much more on the other side of which feels really liberating and having systems in place so that I can go away. And I've got these people here who have there.
Eyes on the prize and can take care of a lot of that stuff, but it took many years to get to this place. I had to learn a lot of Rocky, you know, lessons along the way. Yeah. Yes, and you definitely will make mistakes. I think part of the calculus for me has been also expecting that. You're going to allow a small bad things to happen. Like if you can survive without being okay with it, right? Because you're never going to get like a hundred percent risk. Mitigation, like shits gonna happen, so,
Being okay with that. He just sort of the The Art of Letting small things. Small. Bad things happen to get the the big good things done. Yeah. Let me ask just a few more questions because we're coming up on 12 hours shortly, and certainly we can go.
Anywhere, we'd like and I'm not in any rush. I wanted to mention one thing. Also, when we're talking about or when you mentioned committing to things that are five, six nine months out and then having the the Day of Reckoning when you look at your next month and you're like, oh for fuck's sake, what did I do to myself? I want to say, it's Esther Dyson, his well-known investor. She is. I thought I want to say did Cosmonaut training also later in her life in Russia. She uses this
Heuristic, I think I'm getting the attribution right where she'll ask herself If This Were next Tuesday. What I want to do this thing
and if the answer is
no, don't commit to it, six months from now either. Yeah, I think Kevin Kelly actually borrowed that from her as well. So question. This is one that that you've heard before. No, I asked a lot. If you could have one billboard anywhere with anything on it, what my tits say? Well, might you put on, it could be image, quote.
Question line. Just metaphorically getting something out, too.
Many, many many millions or billions of people. I've been thinking about this because I know that you asked this question and my original thought was
Who are you? But I've modified that I think a better question is who are you becoming?
And that's a question that I resisted asking myself for too long. And as a result led me down some dark Pathways or distracted me from actualizing and a healthy way and I think our culture is set up to distract us from that kind of self-inquiry. And the reason that I add the word becoming is I think that it speaks to the fact that none of us are static like in every moment we
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. In the same way, that that process is as an alcoholic either. Moving me towards a drink or away from a drink. So, I think in the context of becoming we're always on our, on our way to becoming something. Are you becoming a better version of yourself?
Or are you becoming somebody who is moving away from, you know, what I would characterize as as your true Essence. And I think the more that we can inhabit that sensibility if we're in the habit of like thinking about these things. I think it anchors us more in the present moment and allows for more conscious decisions about how we're investing our energy and how we're conducting ourselves or relating to the world or responding or reacting to the world around.
Us.
I love that. Can you repeat it one more time? It was not. I who am I becoming? Or is it? What type of person am? I becoming? Who are you becoming? Yeah, who are you becoming? That's a really good modification. And I mean, it's sort of leads you to telescope outright looking at whatever the current decisions and behaviors are it's like what does this look like in a year? What does this look like in three years? This is look like in 10 years, good time for me.
We all put that on my mirror as my wake-up. Reminder. Have a good one to add.
What are you most excited about for?
The next year or what are you excited about? It doesn't have to be the most, but is there anything that comes to mind or looking forward to in the next year? I mean, I'm looking forward to my I'm looking forward to my break for sure. We have another edition of voicing change coming out in the new year. So it makes it. There's practical things that I'm excited about. But I think what I'm most excited about is this evolving shifting relationship that I have with the work that I do.
and this is something you've talked about a lot Tim, which is overcoming or transcending this disposition to like, make everything hard, like, you asked this question, like what if it was easy and that's a very
Bitter pill for me to swallow because my whole life has been premised on this idea that if I haven't suffered to create this thing that I haven't worked hard enough or that, it doesn't hold value and I'm in this journey of trying to let go and I've done that through systems and people here at the podcast. But in other areas of my life to hold the things that I care about more Loosely and to approach them from that perspective of what if it,
Easy, like I don't have to suffer to create that is an illusion or a construct that I have created in my mind and affirmed over many years. But deconstructing it. I realize the fallacy of it. And so trying to recalibrate my relationship to the world in which I am able to navigate it more from a perspective of like, Grace and joy, and allowing rather than
An gripping on really tightly is so counterintuitive yet. Also, so liberating while also being terrifying. So I haven't emerged from the woods on this yet. Like this is definitely like a hill I might die on but this is what I'm committed to and this is part of the intention that I'm bringing into this month and I'm taking off. And I hope to emerge from that a little bit more Consolidated around that idea and in a place where I'm ready.
Practice it. And in a way that's more meaningful than what I have been able to do. Historically, that is a good intention. There's a book that I've been revisiting, my Kindle highlights of which is effortless by Greg McKeown, which is the second book following essentialism. Also by Greg McKeown, but it's a very nice reminder.
Along the lines of what you're describing because certainly my I shouldn't say defaults. It's probably conditioned but my sort of out of the box programming is very similar to yours. It's like if I'm not suffering, if I'm not redlining, then clearly. I'm not applying myself enough to whatever X happens to be which is just like so. So yeah, eating and so many ways, so it's a constant challenge. However, I have found
That to be very helpful book. So I have a tab open, actually, on this browser right now. Top left to my to, my Kindle highlights of that book. This is speaking of books. Your books include your best-selling Memoir, Finding Ultra, the cookbooks, and life style guides, the plant power way, and the plant power way. Ay, Talia, which you co-authored with your wife, Julie Pia, Pia Triad over.
Were to Pyatt. So, yes, good Lord. I'm sorry. Julie, forgive me. People can find all things Rich role at Rich world.com on Twitter at Rich. Roll. You most active on Twitter, Instagram. Do you have a preferred social media? Probably more active on on Instagram and Twitter, but I'm on both. Yeah, at ritual on Instagram as well. We'll link to all of those YouTube, Facebook Etc, in the show notes to it up lock / podcast.
Is there anything else that you would like to to say any closing comments asks or requests of this audience for wrap up? I mean, first of all, thank you for having me. It really is a privilege and I've been doing a lot of thinking around, how divided the world feels right now and how broken it can feel. There's just so much contention out there, but when I think about kind of what
We do like having these long-form conversations. It just feels to me like there's never been a better opportunity to contribute in a positive way. And, you know, I just want to encourage people to find a way to kind of transcend. The predominant media narrative that seems hell-bent on pitting us against each other and to 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.
Because in my experience, and I'm sure this is shared by most people. Like when you go out into the world, it doesn't feel like what we're seeing on social media, and on the national news, like, people are fundamentally good, and we share so much more than what appears to divide us right now, and I don't know, you know, I just spare of the way that I hear these narratives being spawn online. And so to me, it's almost a reminder to myself, too.
Remember that what you see there isn't necessarily a reflection of the worlds, objective reality.
Here here so true. And that is also, at least for me over the last few weeks that has been. One of the best medications is the abstaining from
These inputs that are very much designed to polarize very much designed to upset. So that's an incredibly good, reminder. And I really appreciate you taking the time. And I've been looking forward to this. It's Landing. This conversation is landing at the perfect time for me. Having just come back from this time off the grid with pages and pages of notes on what I hope to be big picture changes or additions or subtractions that.
Course are great in theory. Fantastic. Well done chap, you put it all down on paper, but he got to translate it somehow. So this I think will be a nice, a nice push for me. You have a very inspiring story. You also have a very human story and you have
Not just the highlights, but you have the low lights and the difficult times as we all do and you've been very vulnerable and forthcoming in sharing that full picture with the world that I think it's such a service. It's such a gift that you do that. So thank you very much for doing what you do, rich. I really appreciate it. Thanks Matt. I appreciate that. And I you know, I think vulnerability is something that
Can all use a little bit more of in this world. And when I hear other people being vulnerable, it gives me permission to be vulnerable. And I think there's real strength in that. So I appreciate that. And I am happy to be somebody to hold you accountable for this next chapter. I'm excited to see where, you know, how this is going to manifest, but I would encourage you to just figure out something to latch onto so that you can, you know, so that you can get into action and not just ruminate and make more notes. And if you
Need somebody to, you know, hold your hand to the flame on that. I'm happy to be that guy. Right? So don't spend the next year, deciding which bike to ride. I
Won't Let You.
Well, I will do my best. So, getting something on the calendar for me. If it's not on the calendar, it's an end. If somebody else doesn't know about it. It's probably made up. So I will, I will, I will get something on the calendar and I'm looking forward to it. I'm really looking forward to because I know, I know, it can be done, right? It's not it's not the first.
First time out of the gate actually putting something together. I'm just out of practice and, and hot. Damn in a stakes and consequences if people prefer the term incentives. Great. They really do work wonders. So I'm looking forward to it and I've really enjoyed this conversation. So thank you very much Rich to everybody listening. We will have links to everything we've discussed in the show notes at tim.berentsen.
Blogs / podcast, you can just search Rich Roll and it'll pop right up. You can find him again at Rich Roll.com. And until next time be safe out there experiment often be kinder than you think. Necessary? And thanks for tuning in.
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