BigDeal - #14 From Broke Alcoholic to Multi-Millionaire | Rich Roll

Starting point is 00:00:00 You basically had a guide who kind of said, Hey, I really think you should go to rehab. And you said something along the lines up, I think I can handle it without rehab. If I relapse again, I'll go. And the guy said, last time I heard that excuse, the guy died chimping on his own vomit. Are you sure you want to risk it?

Starting point is 00:00:17 And you say, yes. Alcohol works until it stops working. Suffering was the ultimate teacher for me. Let's say 20 billionaires I've met. Half of them have gone through bankruptcy and almost been broke. The prize never goes to the fastest. fastest guy. It goes to the guy who slows down the least. If you guys are struggling, I want you to sit in this episode because this guest has been through it and I think can teach us a few things.

Starting point is 00:00:43 Now, some people think about Rich Roll and they think hair so good, he probably is a pantine commercial. They think crazy abs. They think top podcaster. They think ultramarathoners. But also crippling alcoholism. Also, huge pain, suffering, change of career. And he's 57 plus on a long marathon of life. And so I hope you guys, if you are feeling a little lost, if things are just hard right now, if you're wondering what to do next, if you don't know how to have a difficult conversation with somebody who is struggling with addiction that you love, but you need your boundaries too, if you are struggling with addiction, if you're just struggling with not being the exact person you want to be, I think this episode might be for you. I really liked it. I think it might be one of my favorite ones I've done yet. So without a further ado, ritual. I want to share a quick business tip that I've been thinking a lot about lately. It's eliminate, automate, delegate. So if you do tasks in that order in your business, it runs more smoothly. I'm always looking for tools to help eliminate tasks, then automate them, and then finally delegate those that are absolutely necessary. One of those tools is Riverside. Not only can I record

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Starting point is 00:02:28 potential to get traction online. That saves hours of listening to your podcast for the fifth time to the perfect clip. Riversides, got you covered. We're always trying to remove, automate, not add, and complicate. But don't waste your time doing what Riverside can do for you. I got you guys a deal. If you want to try it for yourself, get the Riverside link in the description and use the code Cody for an exclusive discount, just for y'all. So this week's interesting, Rich, having you here because I was in what I call the pancake this week, which was just a, it's a brutal week. Like, you know, multiple things going wrong in two of my businesses. I was sick last week. I had a friend going to hospital, and it felt really heavy. And typically, maybe like a lot of people,

Starting point is 00:03:16 I don't share all that stuff. I'm like, it's part of the game. We just keep going. No big deal. But for whatever reason, I shared it this week. And I had a bunch of people sort of, you know, commiserate and say, like, it does feel tough right now. And then you and I were at this conference this last week where we both spoke. When I brought that up to the audience, they all felt it. And then when you spoke, I heard from a bunch of them afterwards, that they really resonated with you sharing sort of the pain, not just all the gains that you've had. Because if people look at the outside and they don't know your story, they see rich role, sort of famous podcaster, multi-time bestselling author, cover of men's fitness, you know, like 62 pack. Great hair also. And, you know, post 50, you got kids, you got a wife. Like, you got the whole thing. And yet what I found most fascinating about you. in some ways is that most people who come online, they do it by sharing all their games. And you didn't. You came online basically sharing a bunch of your pain. And so when I was reading your book and a lot of your background, it wasn't so much just the fact that you have gone through pain, addiction,

Starting point is 00:04:27 changed your life, completely redefined your life, then launched like, you know, a podcast platform company now called Boys. It changes what we're going to talk about. But that you say things like, I loved the pain and the pain loved me back. I wanted to start off by asking you, what do you mean by that? And when did you start turning pain into your actual teacher as opposed to your tormentor? That's a great question. I mean, first of all, thank you for having me. It's delightful to meet you and I'm very happy to be here. I think pain became my teacher very early in my life. I was a pretty awkward adolescent kid who struggled to make friends, was unsure about how to connect and always felt constitutionally different from my peers, which made me introverted and shy and

Starting point is 00:05:22 reluctant to place myself in social situations. And I also was somebody like a young kid who showed zero promise in terms of athletic prowess. Like I can't hit a ball. I can't, you know, kick a soccer. Like anything with eye hand coordination, I've always been a disaster. So I was the last kid picked for kickball. I was bullied at the bus stop, like all the kind of, you know, stuff that is visited upon an awkward young child. But the one thing that I did have a little bit of innate talent and prowess in was in the swimming pool. as a young kid, like I loved being on the summer swim team. And I was actually quite good at that.

Starting point is 00:06:07 And there was a decision that I made around 13, 14 years old that I wanted to really invest in that. And I found myself as part of a club team in Washington, D.C., where suddenly I was surrounded by very talented young athletes who had national age group records or had qualified for the Olympic trials. and I realized immediately that the talent that I thought I had wasn't really what I thought it was. But I also discovered pretty quickly that I had a capacity to suffer and to work hard. And in a pretty short period of time, that started to pay dividends. And I was able to basically narrow the talent deficit gap through sheer volume and effort. And that was a powerful math equation for a young mind. And so suffering became a pathway for me to success and achievement that worked very well throughout junior high school and high school, such that by the time I was a senior in high school, still awkward, still insecure, still felt like I didn't know how to make friends or connect with other people.

Starting point is 00:07:21 but I was able to rise to prominence as a swimmer and get recruited at all the colleges and was nationally ranked. And that skill set of focus and determination paid off in the classroom as well because I'd always struggled as a student, but suddenly I was able to figure that out as well. And so I graduated near the top of my class and had all of these opportunities when I was 18 years old. I had the pick of the letter in terms of colleges. I was being lauded as this athlete, and the world was really my oyster. So suffering, to your point, to your question, suffering as a teacher, suffering was the ultimate teacher for me. Not only was it a teacher, it was like the solution to finding my way in the world.

Starting point is 00:08:09 But it was very much premised on self-will. Like, I'm in charge. I have control over this thing. It's up to me. And if I'm willing to outwork everybody else, then I will be able to achieve any goal at least up for myself. Do you think that bullying and getting picked last for kickball and whether that's as a kid even or the same sort of parallels as an adult, do you think that was actually good for you in some ways? You know, at the conference the other night, they asked me if I could give advice to a younger version of myself, what would it be? And, you know, the joke that I always tell is I get asked that question a lot is like, just stop drinking, first of all.

Starting point is 00:08:52 Like, this is not working for you. But the truth of the matter is that I don't know that I would change anything because all of those experiences were formative and have produced the individual that I am today. And I live this amazing life. And I'm incredibly grateful and privileged. but it's a result of having to weather obstacles and, you know, go to war with myself and learn how to develop a level of equanimity in the face of crisis or, you know, financial dismantling and all these other kind of things that I've experienced from the low lows and being a gutter alcoholic to being the head of a household with four kids in a mortgage and being unable to pay my bills.

Starting point is 00:09:40 I've gone through a lot and I've made various transformations along the way, but I don't know what life would look like had I been spared those. Yeah. One of my favorite mentors said to me that I wish for you nothing except to live the full spectrum of the human experience. And I always loved that line in theory until I started understanding in quasi-practice, right? That, you know, if your life is rosy and sunshine all the way, you're really getting just one end of the color spectrum,

Starting point is 00:10:11 let's say, of humanity. But you have not had that. You have had a very big spectrum. It's been really wide. You know, when we were talking earlier, you were telling me a little bit about the time where maybe for most of your life, you felt like you had no control over money.

Starting point is 00:10:27 You felt financially inept. And, you know, you lived in it for much longer than you wished you had, I think is how you put it. You talk about that period because we'll get to the end about winning,

Starting point is 00:10:39 and strength and endurance and the hero's journey at the end. But I don't think a lot of people know that, I mean, I've met, I don't know, of the let's say 20 billionaires I've met, I think probably about half of them have gone through bankruptcy and almost been broke many, many times. And so it would be interesting to share that side. Yeah, I mean, I grew up in a household where all my needs were met. My parents are still married. They took care of me. I, you know, had the privilege of going to nice schools.

Starting point is 00:11:09 a fancy college and law school and the like. But what happened with me was around 18, 19 years old, I discovered alcohol. And it wasn't long before alcohol became my primary driver. You know, like all of my ambitions and my goals and my aspirations and my dream suddenly became secondary to the search for where my next good time was going to be. That was the most important thing. And look, I was a functional alcoholic for a long time, but, you know, alcohol works until it stops working. And in the case of people who suffer from alcoholism, like myself, it ultimately took me to some really dark and desperate places. There's nothing romantic or rock and roll about it. And my drunk along really isn't all that spectacular. It's pretty mundane, actually, and boring.

Starting point is 00:12:02 But along the way, I just became retroabate in like all of my ethical. and my morals and my values. And that included any kind of financial responsibility. So I lived in New York City. I had a job as a paralegal in a law firm. I wasn't making very much money, but it was a time in which you could get credit cards easily and it didn't take me long before I was racking up credit card debt. And even throughout law school and after law school, when I got a job at a decent law firm and then another law firm and was being paid a pretty good salary. My drinking was out of control, and I was completely irresponsible. I could never make ends meet. I was always in the red and overdrawn by the time, you know, for a couple days before I was going to get my next paycheck.

Starting point is 00:12:53 And I think over time, over many, many years of just that level of your responsibility, I became convinced that I was constitutionally incapable of understanding money. or managing it in any kind of responsible way. I very much had a poverty mindset and just believed to my core that I would never be able to be viable financially. Like I just didn't think I had the capacity to make money, save money and be responsible with it. And to reflect back on that now, because now I am financially stable and I have built businesses that are viable and successful. it's actually a miracle that I've been able to overcome that. And we were sharing before the podcast that I still have a residue of that, though.

Starting point is 00:13:40 I can still detect where I feel a sense of unworthiness around money and my relationship to it. Like, am I responsible? I have a business partner now. And he has been fundamental in helping me overcome this and creating stability and infrastructure around what I do because I'm very much an unlikely entrepreneur. door. And I needed him to be a mentor and to teach me and to hold my hand and to, you know, create something and show me along the way, like how to do this. And I'm incredibly grateful for that. It's been, you know, an amazing relationship with this individual. But yeah, I mean, I suffered from that terribly. And even in sobriety, I got sober at 31. In the

Starting point is 00:14:26 aftermath of that, I still couldn't square the equation. Like, it just took me a really long time. And then when I decided to leave the law and venture into the unknown and incur risk, because I was grown up, I grew up in a very risk adverse household. We went through many years of financial uncertainty and dismantlement and I've had cars repossessed and, you know, we weren't able to pay our mortgage. Like all of this like, you know, seeps into my consciousness and is evidence of like my lack of maturity or my irresponsibility. or my incapacity to not master, but just fundamentally, like, steward with any level of responsibility, the dollar. Okay.

Starting point is 00:15:12 When I sell my business, I want the best tax and investment advice. I want to help my kids, and I want to give back to the community. Ooh. Then it's the vacation of a lifetime. I wonder if my head of office has a forever setting. An IG private wealth advisor creates the clarity you need with plans that hard. harmonize your business, your family, and your dreams. Get financial advice that puts you at the center. Find your advisor at IGPrivatewealth.com. When a country's productivity cycle is broken,

Starting point is 00:15:44 people feel it in their paychecks, their communities, their futures. What does this mean for individuals, communities, and businesses across the country? Join business leaders, policymakers, and influencers for CG's national series on the Canadian Standard of Living, productivity, and innovation. Learn what's driving Canada's productivity decline and discover actionable solutions to reverse it. Well, I mean, it was interesting as I remember I was speaking at an event and the woman in front of me did this really interesting thing. It was a women's conference. And she said, everybody close your eyes, all the women in the audience, all pretty like business women. I don't know about their financial situation, but business women's relatively successful in some way, shape, or form.

Starting point is 00:16:29 Close your eyes. and I want you to make a physical representation of what money means to you. So, like, you know, if you're happy, you're going to make your body move in a way that makes you feel happy. Like, what do you feel when you say the word money? What does that feel for you and like make your body move? And I was sitting in sort of backstage. I was kind of watching the audience while everybody else had their eyes blessed. And it was interesting as she goes, okay, nobody move, but open your eyes.

Starting point is 00:16:54 And basically what you saw across the 80 or 90% of the audience is I, you know, when I think about money, Now, if somebody was to tell me, give me a physical representation of money, I'd be like, money. You know, I'd be like, yes, give it to be great. And in the audience, it was like, they were like this. They were like this. They were like, you know, money or like money. It was like very small type movements. And it made me realize how pervasive this idea is.

Starting point is 00:17:21 That like actually for some reason, most of us have this relationship with money, which makes sense because, you know, most Americans die, you know, overweight alone and it kind of maybe makes sense that we feel that way. But what I think is also really interesting about your story in particular is this thing about credit cards, one is real, also fascinating how the U.S. system has like 3x, the interest rates of credit cards of the European system. So like some things are set up against you already and you have to overcome them just in the way you do with food.

Starting point is 00:17:53 But the other thing that's interesting about that situation, I think, is, you know, when you were going through this, you not only had... money issues, but some health issues, obviously some sobriety issues, you've talked about something that I really liked, which was the contagious nature of discipline and how discipline's contagious and it can kind of trickle through multiple aspects of your life. If at this time you kind of had lots of things going wrong, or if somebody's listening and they have lots of things going wrong, how do you figure out what to fix first? Yeah, that's a great. That's a great question. You know, discipline is contagious. And I think you have to start first with understanding what you have

Starting point is 00:18:35 control over and what you don't. You know, when I began this journey that I've been on, it began with what am I putting in my mouth? You know, I have control over that. I don't have control over how people respond to me, how people react to me, whether I'm going to get this gig or that gig or this thing is going to work out. All of those things that produce so much anxiety for us are very much out of our control. And so there is a surrender that you have to undergo, like a releasing of your attachment to outcomes and a reconfiguration of your focus on the very small things that you have control over. We don't have control over a lot. We have control over how we respond to react to situations and how we treat ourselves and other people. And that's

Starting point is 00:19:23 kind of it, right? So when you drill it down to these tiny things and begin the process of honoring yourself by making a better choice in the most micro way possible, those things compound. Self-esteem is the product of performing esteemable acts on behalf of yourself and others. But when you do something that's honoring yourself, like, I'm going to not eat that French Brian, I'm going to have this salad. Pick your example. They seem like tiny little things, but when you begin to aggregate those things and understand that how you do anything is how you do everything, these things built. And I'm somebody who is the furthest thing from an overnight success.

Starting point is 00:20:12 I am an ultra endurance athlete in sport, but also in life. Like, I'm 57 now and I feel like I'm only starting to connect the dots and feel comfortable with who I am and what I share with the world. And, you know, things didn't even really begin for me until my mid-40s. And I think I shared this at the event the other night. I'm pretty sure I am the oldest, I'm 57. I'm the oldest person to have like a big, like, multi-million dollar. shoe contract. So as somebody who is, who their whole life aspired to be a professional athlete,

Starting point is 00:20:56 you know, and like a big shoe deal is sort of like an emblem of like being a successful, being a successful professional athlete, I'm here to tell you that I accomplished that at 57. So these things, my point being like, everything takes a lot of time and I'm not in a hurry and I'm patient. and I understand that it is those tiny little things that you're doing every day in that kind of James Clear Atomic Habits way that move the mountain. And they're the easiest things to brush aside or ignore or dismiss. And yet for me, I'm fully aware in cognizant that those are the important things that you have to do. And I think to your earlier point, when I reflect, you were making me kind of reflect back on this journey.

Starting point is 00:21:47 me. There's something at the cost of being a little woo-woo and spiritual. We're lost. There is something curiously mystical about the fact that I spent decades trying to fulfill the expectations of society by pursuing the traditional path of wealth and success. I went to a nice private boy school in Washington, D.C. I got into all the I E.E. Lake colleges and went to Stanford. I went to Cornell Law School. And I got the job at the law firm. So I was very much on this traditional track towards what we deem success to be. And no matter how much I began to scale that ladder upwards, it was not solving that crisis of happiness that I was having. And I wasn't able to make the money work. either. So it didn't matter what my salary was. I couldn't save money because I was so deeply unhappy that the only way I could solve that discomfort was to spend the money I had on things that I thought would fill that hole. And it wasn't until I got to such a place of existential angst over this that I was willing to walk away from it and let it go and really do the inside work.

Starting point is 00:23:14 of trying to understand what it was that I wanted to do and what I wanted to express and what I wanted to stand for and what I wanted to pursue, that the birth of what I do today began. And anybody and everybody would have said and did say to me at that time that I was insane, that this didn't make any sense that this was, you know, a path to poverty, that I began to put something together that was not only personally meaningful, but became more financially successful than anything I could have done had I stayed on that traditional track. And so I think there is an energy piece to this as well. Like, why are you pursuing the path that you're on? What is your motivation? Is it internally driven? Is it based on your sense of meaning and purpose and value? Or is it the echo of

Starting point is 00:24:09 your parents and your community or however you've been raised to believe that this is what you need to do? So are you doing it for external reasons or internal reasons? And I had to go on a very long fraught road to figure that out for myself. So good. Yeah, it reminds me of something else that was in your book about, you know, the prize never goes to the fastest guy. It goes to the guy who slows down the least, true in endurance sports and possibly even truer in life, which I love that line. It's very true. I mean, if you look at the average age of millionaires in the U.S., it's actually late 40s, and if you look at the average age of billionaires in the U.S., it's late 60s. And so we have these people on Instagram that are driving Ferraris at 20, doing drop shipping

Starting point is 00:24:58 courses and selling this dream that is just statistically and numerically not true. And I think we need more examples of people who look differently sharing the real. So is the fake. And, you know, it's interesting about the credentializing that you went through or the credentialing from Stanford and, you know, your sort of upper end high school is, I was talking to this small business owner of the other day here who owns a dry cleaners, like family-owned business in the business for decades, Latino dude. And I was asking him, you know, what he's got, what, he's, what is he going to do with the business when he moves on next? And it's kind of interesting because they bought the real estate for the small business. They own it. You can tell they've like sort of cobbled

Starting point is 00:25:36 together different parts of the building over the years. He's a picture of his dad who started the business behind him. And I said, you know, he's like, well, I'm going to run it until I die. And then I'm like, how old are you? And he's like, well, I'm 72. I'm like, man, not that far away. Right. Like, we need a better plan than that. And I'm like, you get it. Your kid's going to take it over. And he said, no, no, you know, I worked hard so my kids didn't have to. I thought, interesting. okay, what are your kids do? And he goes, well, I sent them to school, right? And, you know, one is an accountant and one is a consultant. And I kind of had a chuckle for a moment inside, because that's such a thing that I'm Latino, my Latino parents would have done. And yet,

Starting point is 00:26:14 when did we decide that we would find more joy pursuing credentials and employment in other people's professions that have some sort of, you know, Ph.D., J.D., whatever, at the end of it, instead of maybe having some of our own bizarre skin-of-the-game path, which is what you have. And so one thing we could skip to a little bit that I thought was super interesting is you went like a wild path kind of, which was, you know, you were an entertainment lawyer, right? Entertainment? Yeah, started as a litigator and then became a transactional entertainment lawyer later. Yeah. In the later phases of my legal career.

Starting point is 00:26:52 Slightly maybe more entertaining, although not a ton. And you have this other thing that I loved, which was a quote from Joseph Campbell, I believe, about one can spend one's whole life climbing the ladder only to realize it's been placed against the wrong wall. And I think you kind of realized that you were on the wrong wall. But when did you realize that? And how hard was that to change? Really hard. I think my realization of it was always there. on a low level and it just was brewing until it got to a point.

Starting point is 00:27:30 Like you felt it again, you got. Boiling over. Yeah, I mean, because I have this facility for suffering and working hard, I can force my way through anything. And so whether it's law school, like, I actually enjoyed law school. I enjoyed the academic pursuit of that. That's very different from the practice of law. And I knew pretty quickly, once I arrived at the first law firm that hired me, that this

Starting point is 00:27:55 was not for me, but I can put my nose to the grindstone and like, do the work. I'm smart enough to do the work. And like, you know, I can, I can like make it work. But I would, I began to notice around me like some of these people like this. Like I actually really don't like this. Like I have to summon so much will in order to like focus and like get this stuff done. And I know that I'm not made for it. Like it doesn't come easy. But, you know, I'll figure it out. And I think in the back of my mind, I thought, well, everybody's. having this experience with this. And I didn't realize that it came easier for other people. And there were other people who actually liked it. Like, I'm very conflict-averse. I don't really enjoy being in the middle of conflict. And here I am, a litigation associate at a law firm. That's all it is. And I'd be like in a deposition or, you know, at a hearing. I'm like, can't you guys just get over this? Like, what's a big deal? Like, life is short. You know? And then, and real, the other lawyers like thrive on conflict. They just love it. They can't wait. You know, they come armed with their arguments. And I was really good at writing briefs, but not so great in

Starting point is 00:29:05 the oral argument department. And I was like, what am I doing? Like I literally am in a, I've invested all this time in energy and I'm in a career that is completely at odds with my natural disposition, which is like, I just want to, I want to be with people who are building something in a collaborative way. and I'm in an environment that is the opposite of that. And if you resolve a conflict through trial or a settlement agreement, you're rewarded with another conflict to work on. This started to like grade on my soul. So by the time I was, so I got sober at 31 and the experience of spending 100 days in treatment provided enough clarity for me to realize like I'm in the wrong career. I know that. But like I said, like so much time and energy and money had gone into, you know, becoming this person, it then becomes very hard to let go of it. And if you Google my name and you get some kind of abbreviated version of my story, it looks like all of these decisions and transformations took place in a very compressed period of time, but it couldn't be further from the case. Like I remained a lawyer for many, many years in different incarnations after that before I finally would.

Starting point is 00:30:21 was ready to completely release. And I slid out of it very slowly. But I would say by the time I was 39, that's where the existential crisis was like a full-blown thing that needed, you know, needed to be addressed. And that just happened to coincide with a health scare. I've been stuffing my emotions with fast food and trying to medicate myself with unhealthy lifestyle habits. And And those two things in tandem created a situation in which I was walking up a flight. I've told the story many times and said my book, but I was walking up a flight of stairs to my bedroom late one night and had pause. I was this former world-ranked Stanford swimmer and still would look in the mirror and think that I was still that guy.

Starting point is 00:31:07 And here I couldn't walk up a simple flight of stairs without being winded tightness in my chest. And it just opened a portal. It was just one of those moments, like a line in the sand moment. where I can't live this way anymore. I need to make changes. And that's where controlling the controllables came in. Like, what can I do? Well, I don't know that I can walk away from my job or just like reinvent myself wholesale

Starting point is 00:31:30 overnight. I'm going to start with food. And food led to fitness and fitness led to becoming this ultra-endurance athlete. Like all of these things kind of unfolded organically out of making one choice in a very heightened moment to change my. relationship with myself. And so the podcast, the books, like all the stuff that I do now can all be traced back to that one moment and the compound interest of making a different decision and then building upon that. Yeah. I'm still trying to picture you litigated at flip-flops.

Starting point is 00:32:06 Like the whole image is just, you're right. You're not a fit. There's no, no yarn bracelets it's allowed, no flip-flops. But I actually think it's beautiful because when people are struggling, and there's, I would say, like, something like 65% of Americans don't like their jobs. So, like, if you don't like what you're doing right now, you're a good company, because that's most people. And so, of course, you didn't think that it was normal for you to, or of course, you thought it was normal, for you to kind of not like what you did. That's what people say, it's work, the legs work, right? Right. And then they say, and that, so that's one hand. But then on the other hand, they go, well, if you don't like it, just jump. Take the jump. Take the jump. Take the leap.

Starting point is 00:32:42 Well, is the only way to move from point A to point B leaping or jumping off a cliff? Absolutely not. But there's not enough people that went through the corporate grind, I think, that are public now that talk about, hey, I was like you. I mean, most people work in a company for somebody else. And I didn't just take a big leap and sleep on a basement and do this crazy startup and, you know, have it skyrocket. It took me 10 years to get out. I was the same in finance, you know. And I think that reality.

Starting point is 00:33:12 like that truth makes it all the more problematic or pernicious when you scroll on Instagram or TikTok and you see all these people talking about like, you know, quit your job and reinvent, you know, like if you're not happy, then you owe it to yourself to leave. Like, I don't think any of that is helpful or responsible. And I think for people who are in a job that is, you know, kind of soul-sucking on some level, but really don't know how to make a change or how to, reinvent, like, leap to what? Right? Like, so all those, all those messages, all they do is make people feel bad about their lives and the lack of agency that they have. I don't think they're in service

Starting point is 00:33:56 to, or empowering in any way. I think it's, it's very insensitive to, you know, this massive population of people who are in kind of jobs that they can, you know, like, you can keep doing it. Like, it's a low grade kind of dissatisfaction. the sense that maybe there's something better out there, but no clarity on what that might be. And to say you should just quit your job or like go, you know, create a business, I think lands on most people like, you don't understand my life or you don't understand the difficulties or the predicaments of my life because I have bills and I have kids. And, you know, I can't just do that.

Starting point is 00:34:36 Which is totally real. Yeah. Yeah. And I think it's the difference between sort of like you said, it's like low-grade, consistent irritation or you could say pain versus acute asymmetric pain, right? And a lot of times our lives are filled with the low-braided pain that you either have to realize you're slowly simmering or make some change. And one thing that I thought was really interesting is you have another tweet that I loved,

Starting point is 00:35:04 which was it's a little long, but the magic you are looking for is in the work you were attempting to avoid perfectionism and paralysis. by analysis has killed more goals than failure ever could. So to, you know, to prethesize a little bit, do the damn thing, imperfect as you are, do it because someday it will eventually become never. And what I thought was interesting about this is then you go on to have different ways that you speak about, about taking the small bite, about doing the next thing that's in your control. But do you remember, was there a day or a moment where, this eventually clicked for you?

Starting point is 00:35:44 Was there one moment? Or is this a series? What clicks for that? I have to do something that I can't just, I have to make some sort of change in my life. I mean, there was that moment on the staircase, for sure. It was the moment. Did you literally the next day?

Starting point is 00:35:59 Yeah, I did. Yeah, I did. Interesting. I did. Yeah. I did. And the reason that I was able to do that is because I had been visited with another line in the sand moment,

Starting point is 00:36:10 the day that I decided, like, I need to get sober and go to a treatment center. Yeah. And that decision, which was made one hungover morning that wasn't really all that different from many other hungover mornings that I experienced changed my life permanently and saved my life. And so I knew the power of a single decision in a particular heightened moment. I knew the power, the potential energy that something like that holds. And so when I was on that staircase and having those emotions, it felt like that other day. And I was able to recall and remember, like, I made that decision and look how much my life changed.

Starting point is 00:36:53 This feels kind of like that. What change or decision can I make right now that could be a version of that that could change my life in a new and interesting way? And so what I did the next day was begin this like seven-day juice. lens, not because I felt like I needed to detoxify my body, but what I needed to do was do something hard that was out of my comfort zone. When I went to the treatment center, I had to detox off drugs and alcohol. In the wake of that staircase episode, I needed like a detox for life. And so I needed to, you know, create my own version of that to go through a transformative experience where I felt like I could reboot my operating system and shift my perspective.

Starting point is 00:37:43 And I think if you want to draw any actionable insight from that, it's that I think that we are all visited by moments throughout our life that are sort of sliding doors into a different life. And unless we're fully present and have done enough self-reflection or we're in enough pain, a lot of those moments kind of pass us by. There are very short time windows in which you can take an action that could shift you and put you on a different perspective, but it requires a level of cognizance when they're visited upon us. And so my call to action always to people is like, we all have these moments. Can you be present enough to honor it when it arrives and make that different decision in that heightened moment?

Starting point is 00:38:36 It's really beautiful. I love the analogy of the sliding door. there's something like very obvious. I'm especially like an airport. You know, they have all the sliding doors on those trains that come by. It's true.

Starting point is 00:38:48 You're going to have so many of them through life, but so often we don't take them. You know, one thing I wanted to talk to you a little bit about is you talk a lot about addiction. And, you know, our country's wild right now with, you know, 46 million Americans dealing with drug

Starting point is 00:39:02 and alcohol addiction. I can't even imagine if you layer workaholicism. What's that word? Workalism. workaholism, there we go, what porn and, you know, social media addiction. So, you know, you have to imagine, like, we all know somebody who's been addicted. And I kind of want to start first from the perspective of, you know, my, I had a family member who struggled with a drug

Starting point is 00:39:26 addiction that I'm very, very close with. And if I'm honest, I had no fucking idea how to be there, how to help. I had some resentments about it. I, I was like, just get it together. Like, what are we doing? You know, I really didn't know how to be supportive and probably was not that supportive during it. And you had some really incredible things that you mentioned about what it's like to stand with people who are struggling with a severe addiction. Maybe one thing I want to start with is you said addiction solved a problem for people. So remember that.

Starting point is 00:40:08 What do you mean by that? When we think about addiction, we think about the substance or the behavior, whether it's gambling, fentanyl, alcohol, cocaine, heroin, choose your poison. We contemplate addiction in the context of the substance being the enemy. And I think it's important to understand that the substance or the behavior is actually the solution to the problem. The problem resides within the individual. It is a sense of dis-ease with oneself, a sense that your emotions and your sort of disposition is so uncomfortable that you are literally willing to go to the ends of the earth to feel differently. And the path to feeling differently can be found in one of these substances. It can be found in shopping, in relationships, in gambling, in porn, in sex, you name it.

Starting point is 00:41:14 Like anything to take you out of your state and allow you to numb that emotional dis-ease with something external is the very nature of addiction. And I think when you are struggling to feel compassionate towards someone who suffers, it's important to disassociate the behavior from the individual. Because this compulsion and this obsession is so powerful, it overrides every instinct within that person around self-preservation or ethical behavior, right? And they're acting in opposite to who they are because that craving, that demand, that discomfort is so powerful that it's driving that unhealthy behavior pattern. And it's very difficult to help somebody who is in that state. You know, you can drag them off to rehab. You can do interventions. You can talk to them.

Starting point is 00:42:14 You can do all that stuff. And it's heartbreaking because unless it's self-generated, unless there is an innate. willingness within that person to address the problem and get sober or overcome the addiction or get into some form of recovery. When you compel it and impose it on them, it generally doesn't stick. So it becomes incredibly heartbreaking for so many people when you have a loved one who is suffering because there's a powerlessness to it. Like you can only help so much. And your role is to help them to understand that you love them and that you are available if and when they're ready to be helped, but that you cannot stand by and co-sign the behavior. And so you have to let go.

Starting point is 00:43:03 And that's very scary because you have to reflect on what happens if, you know, something really bad happens to that person. And I didn't step in and try to prevent that. You know, there's no easy answer to that. And it's different. You know, it's very much a case by case basis with that individual. But, you know, standing by when someone you care about is in the throes of it is a very challenging situation. And that's the, that's the situation my parents found themselves in, you know, dealing with me back during that time. I think that's really helpful for somebody listening who's going through it. I think I needed somebody to tell me that, to tell me, hey, you're not actually not helping him by not engaging and allowing that behavior,

Starting point is 00:43:49 but saying, I'm here for you. I love you. You know, when you are ready, I didn't have that vernacular. When you're ready, you know, I will pay for the rehab. I will do, you know, I will stand by you. I will do whatever it is that you need at that point when you're ready. Right. But I'm not available for your bullshit and lying and your manipulation. Right. And I didn't, it was too hard for me to say that really or I didn't have the word. So I think that's really useful. And you had one where, if I'm not right, wrong, you basically had a guide who kind of said, you know, hey, I really think you should go to rehab. And he said, and you said something along the lines of, I think I can handle it without rehab. One more chance. If I relapse again, I'll go. You have my word. And the guy

Starting point is 00:44:37 said, last time I heard that excuse, the guy died choking on his own vomit. Are you sure you want to risk it? And you've said, yes. But you credit that guy with being with you and holding you lightly on the road to recovery. What was that scenario? And what happened? Yeah, I was seeing a therapist. My parents had had enough of me and they were done.

Starting point is 00:44:59 But they said, listen, we found this therapist. And it's up to you. But like, we think that it would be good if you would go and see this guy. And I agreed to do that. even though my parents were like receding into the background and really didn't want anything to do with me at this period of time. And this guy was in recovery himself. So he could speak my language and he was very good at being compassionate while also deploying X-ray vision and being able to see through any other like nonsense or bullshit that I would throw at him. And he put that challenge to me.

Starting point is 00:45:39 What's I think instructive about the story that you just told is that I was convinced that I could solve this problem on my own. And the reason that I was convinced was because in every other area of my life in which I was able to become successful, it was a result of my ability to work hard, to suffer, to force the result that I wanted. In other words, this capacity to suffer is, equates. to a tremendous capacity for self-will. It's up to me. I have control over this. I could go from not being a good swimmer to being world-ranked. I could go from not being a good student to getting into Stanford. There's no reason why if I apply this capacity for self-will to this problem that I can't solve it, what I had to learn was that the more I applied my self-will to the problem,

Starting point is 00:46:35 the deeper the whole got. And that was very confusing. Like, why can't, I figured this out. Like I am so determined to not drink and to, you know, be sober. And then Friday night rolls around and this sense of powerlessness and, you know, one drink. And then that leads to, you know, a blackout and, you know, a car accident or, you know, all the chaos. Like, tons of chaos. I could not figure out why I couldn't fix this. And so when he said, look, you need to go to treatment. What he was basically saying is you need to give it up. and let go and surrender and not only ask for help, but be in a position of humility to receive help. And I was like, no, I got this.

Starting point is 00:47:19 And I think anybody who's a striver or achievement oriented or anybody who has, nobody's self-made, but, you know, somebody who has like kind of crawled their way out of one situation to a better situation understands how powerful that call-the-self will can be. And this was the first instance in my life where that capacity was failing me. And I had to get to a point where I was in so much pain that that pain exceeded my fear of letting go and doing something different. And by doing something different, it meant relinquishing my need to try to control this, to say, I can't control this. I'm powerless. I need help.

Starting point is 00:48:03 Please help me. And that's a very humbling thing that requires letting go, like the letting go of control over your own life, which was scary. And I think we associate words like surrender and letting go with weakness. But in truth, I think they're a pathway to incredible strength. You know, humility, vulnerability, openness, and honesty, these are not weaknesses. These are very powerful emotions that when channeled in the appropriate context lead to tremendous fortitude and not just strength, but ultimately a sense of self and a comfort with oneself that overcomes that sense of detachment and confusion that is the

Starting point is 00:48:56 defining characteristic of what it feels like to be an addict or not at all. So you went into AA, and you talked about that quite a bit. The part that I thought what might be interesting is I had never heard about inventory in particular. And I have quite a few friends who I told, you know, who have been through AA or in AA, I don't know what I would say it, and are sober now, but big fans of yours. And so I asked, what would you, what do you want to know? What would you ask Rich? And one of them said, ask him about inventory, what it is? but maybe even more than that today, do you think people who are not traditionally addicted could use or should use inventory in their day-to-day lives in some way?

Starting point is 00:49:41 Because you still do it to the stick, right? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, part and parcel of like any 12-step program are the 12-steps. And these programs are shrouded in mystery. You know, they're anonymous for a reason. But the blueprint and the tools and the steps, I think are increasingly. incredibly powerful for up-leveling your life and for self-understanding that anybody can benefit from doing. And one of the fundamental tools, which is step four, is doing a fearless moral

Starting point is 00:50:14 inventory. And the process of doing that is basically going through your life and writing down every single person, institution that you have a resentment towards. It's like, who are, who are all, go through your entire life. Who are the people? people you resent. And then go do a fear inventory. What are all the things you're afraid of? And then do a sexual inventory. Go through all of your relationships and sexual encounters and try to identify where you were selfish, self-seeking, and not compassionate, right? And if you're morally rigorous and completely honest in doing this, what you will discover is that patterns emerge. And those patterns reveal in an objective sense where your character defects lie.

Starting point is 00:51:00 And so you will see like, oh, my goodness, all these people that I resent, like, my side of the street is that I did this. Like, how did you contribute to that resentment? And what can you, um, when I look at the relationships that I've had and you realize like, oh, yeah, I don't know that I've, I navigated those relationships with the utmost of, you know, ethics, right? I was selfish here. Whatever. Like, you'll see patterns emerge and then those give you some.

Starting point is 00:51:30 clarity on the things that you need to work on. So I think it's a really powerful and revealing kind of a bird's eye view of the things that we're blind to because we can't, we can't, we don't have perspective on our own lives. And we need outside influence in order to kind of hold us to account. And this tool is a way of doing that for yourself. And then of course, you do it like within the context of 12 steps, you're doing this with another human being. so there's an accountability piece. But when you work through them and then you like, and then you identify all these people that you have to go and make amends to,

Starting point is 00:52:09 which is not an apology. Like you have to make it right. You have to find a way to make it right with these people. Sometimes that means you just have to move forward in your life and not do that again because you don't want to perpetrate further harm by going to these people who don't want anything to do with you. And in other cases, like they're simple ones like you need to repay of debt or whatnot. But you're cleaning house, right?

Starting point is 00:52:30 We're robbing ourselves of the peace and happiness that's available in the present moment by looping and ruminating on, you know, past encounters and how they're going to impact us in a future that hasn't yet occurred. It's so true. Well, I think a lot of times when business people listen to stuff like this and they're in their sort of pain the situation, the immediate thought is, well, I want to, I want to go and take the next action that I think I need to fix it, which is what you did. Like, I'm just not going to drink this Friday. Or I'm just not going to. I'm just going to make one more phone call. But it's a beautiful idea that what if the thing that actually compounds is what I can control, the things I could put in my body, the ways that I move my body, the ability I have to make amends and make things lighter for me.

Starting point is 00:53:19 Maybe that's an easier place for people to stop so that their movement can be more big hands open, what's next, as opposed to sort of shrinking, protecting, et cetera. So I had never thought about it that way. I want to talk just slightly now about, let's call it the next sprint of your life. So, you know, I do think that part of life and success that's real is really that the successful people have just had the ability to do two things, which is endure for a long time and iterate until they're, maybe in your words, against the right wall. And you read this thing about, you know, it's seven days on five separate islands.

Starting point is 00:54:03 You and Jason Lester had done 12 miles of swimming, 560 miles of cycling, 131 miles of running, 703 miles at total. At first when I heard 560 miles of cycling, I read it as crying for some reason, which why it tells you how I feel about that. But I was wondering, you know, what is the voice inside of your head sound like? when you are in that sort of chosen pain, cave. Is it very different? And how do you keep going for that long?

Starting point is 00:54:33 Different from what? Different from just walking around, voice in my head? Yeah. There's an honesty to it. I mean, that particular challenge, we did an Iron Man. We did five Iron Man's on five of Ones Islands in like six days. So an Iron Man a day. And, you know, then flying to the next island,

Starting point is 00:54:53 do it and and uh that's a very hard challenge but um but i've spent many hours training for races like that a lot of solitary time and i think the kind of pain cave or low-grade suffering that comes with endurance sports and particularly early ultra endurance sports is is that there is there is no escape from the self and i think that this is kind of how we open the conversation Like, that is an incredible teacher. When you have to sit with your discomfort for many, many, many hours, there's nowhere to run and there's nowhere to hide. There's a quieting of the chatter of your mind, like you're not looping and ruminating on the things that you might be if you were just walking around and not in that level of discomfort. And there's an honesty and a truth to it where you're confronted with the truth of who you are, your flaws, your limitations.

Starting point is 00:55:52 it's a very emotional, like a lot of emotions come up because you're kind of so fatigued and run down. And I think you meet yourself in a very honest place and you have to grapple with that. And I think when I was going through all of that existential angst about who I was and what I wanted to do with my life, endurance sports, the training was my way of kind of going into the key. cave and trying to figure out who I was. Like, I needed to leverage this capacity that I had for suffering to learn about myself and to figure out who I was. Because I'll be honest with you, Cody, like, I never asked myself what I wanted to do. I was like on a program, you know, this is what you do. I never questioned that. So there was no self-reflection on like,

Starting point is 00:56:46 what do I enjoy? Like, what makes me happy? What is it that you, would like to leave as a legacy for your like I never thought about those things and I needed time and I needed space and I needed a solitary experience to really wrestle with that. So as much as you know my book Finding Ultra is about all of this endurance stuff, it's really kind of this spiritual odyssey that I went on in an attempt to figure out who I was. It's like it was a journey of self-discovery, you know, and and it was a burning in the fire like I had. I had to kind of go through all of these experiences and hardships and all the financial stuff in order to, you know, kind of burn away whoever I was and emerge on the other side of it

Starting point is 00:57:35 stronger and more worthy of, you know, the kind of work that I'm in service of today. Like those experiences were absolutely critical and crucial. Like I couldn't have, I can't short circuit that. I can't, there's no shortcut to that. Like, you know, it's just, it's part personal and necessary to be worthy of like the work that you aspire to do, I think. Do you think that being by yourself is the best way to learn who you are, instead of like taking more in, asking more questions, getting advice going to mentors, do you learn more? Do you think more people learn more by just looking at inwards? I can only answer for myself. I think that's probably a very individual thing.

Starting point is 00:58:20 I did what I needed to do. And I probably could have used some good mentors. I went through many years of not really having mentors. And actually the mentors that I had throughout my 20s and 30s were bad mentors. We're good mentors. And so I needed to go deep within myself, I think, in order to figure a few things out. So it's not for me to say that that's how any – everybody else should do it. And one of the things you've learned in recovery is like,

Starting point is 00:58:55 you don't give advice, you share your experience. And so I'm very reticent to ever be directly looking to camera and telling people what they should or they shouldn't do. Like, I'm not here to take your inventory or tell you to do this and not this. Like, I'm here to share my experience. This episode is brought to you by Tell us Online Security. Oh, tag season is the worst. You mean hack season? Sorry, what? Yeah, cybercriminals love tax forms, but I've got TELUS online security. It helps protect against identity theft and financial fraud so I can stress less during tax season or any season.

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Starting point is 01:00:08 I could be a little bossy, so that's kind of good. It's a good reminder. I mean, I try to not be in real life. I'll always ask, like, do you want me to just listen or do you want an opinion or do you want ideas? But on the internet, I have found that like one of the words that people like the most is you. I thought that people could learn almost exclusively by case study or by experiential storytelling. But at least when it comes to business and money, I think a lot of people are like, I need steps through one through 12. And then you have to caveat them and go, listen, these are the steps one through 12 that I did or this person did or that has worked. And you can try them. And they work in this context. And they might not work in that context. So you're going to have to change. But I think it's actually really refreshing in people, probably while you're followed by millions of people. You don't do that a lot. You're not like, well, you should. In fact, I don't know if I've ever heard you say those words. Yeah, I'm not comfortable doing that. I certainly have opinions about what I think people should do, but I'm always reticent to kind of voice in that way. And I just don't think I'm constitutionally worried for that. And I'm not here to say, like, people shouldn't do that.

Starting point is 01:01:20 It's just like, this is kind of how I do it. And I've often thought, actually, like, I think I would, if I made videos where I just look to camera and I was, here's what you need to do. Like, here's your protocol. I'd probably like grow, you know, there would be like, that's what people want to hear. That's what they like hearing. Yeah. But in my experience, life is messy. It's complicated. Everything is context dependent. And when you're talking to a broad audience and you're saying, do this, don't do this, is that helpful? And are people actually taking that and putting it into

Starting point is 01:01:49 action? I don't know. Maybe they are. Maybe they are. I just know for myself, like, that that doesn't feel right or comfortable for me with like kind of my wiring disposition. Yeah. Well, I think it's Especially with respect to, like, substances and, like, diet and nutrition and fitness, like, you know, these are all individual choices that people have to make. And it's like, here's what I did and here's what happened to me, you know, make your inference. But I'm not here to say, don't do that, do this, do it my way. Yeah, I couldn't really picture, like, rich rule, like, vegan or die shirts, you know? I don't know. No, no, no, no.

Starting point is 01:02:29 I don't think that's all brand for you. So one thing that I want to kind of like round out now. So you've you've shared a lot, I think, with humans that are struggling at a moment, with humans that are surrounded by people that are struggling about how to how at least you course corrected and maybe some ideas to get them thinking about their path and finding the right ladder again. You know, you've interviewed some of the greats of our generation. Rick Rubin, who is like, I hope I almost never meet him because I like his books and his ideas too much now. And Rayne Wilson, same thing, you just signed to your network. which is incredible. For people who don't know that, that's Dwight from the office, which I'm sure he loves that comparison. But every time I've listened to that man on a podcast, I'm like blown away by the philosophical nature

Starting point is 01:03:12 and how he could take something esoteric, simplify it, and also make it entertained. You know, Matthew McConaughey. Also, maybe I hope I never meet him because I really like him. Was you live in Austin? Oh, no. I know. Oh, gosh, just huge fan.

Starting point is 01:03:27 But was there ever a moment in an event? interview with some of these grades, or maybe somebody unexpected, or something you learned on your podcast completely changed your life? It's such a hard question to answer. And I've been asked this before. And I always struggle to answer it. For me, you know, I've been doing this 11 years, like 800, however many episodes. And it's all like just this soup of osmosis. But when people pin me down and they're like, well, when that person said that, you know, it's like, I don't know, my brain doesn't process it that way. I think more in terms of broader themes that recur. And I think if I could answer the question in that context, the broad takeaways that I've been able to extract from all of these

Starting point is 01:04:17 amazing people that I've had the great privilege of meeting and speaking to is that doing anything well is hard. And as much as we want to look at these people and idolize them and think that they're just gifted with talent that is beyond our ability to conceptualize. That's almost never the case that even in the most brilliant careers like these people had hardship and worked harder than you would suspect and they're more human than you might imagine. But beneath it, the message is always that we're all so much more capable than we allow ourselves to believe. And we're all tiptoeing and dancing on top of hidden reservoirs of potential that are just waiting to be tapped into. And I believe that every single person has the ability

Starting point is 01:05:10 to tap into those reservoirs of potential and make them more manifest in their life. What that looks like for that person is very specific to that person. And there's no one way to do it. But I think in each and every case, it begins with looking inward. So as much as we want to outsource the solution and be told, here are the five steps, here's the protocol in truth, life is just too messy for that. And if you want the real honest answer, that answer already exists within you, you have to excavate it, which means you need to develop a deeper, more honest relationship with yourself. I did it through these 12 steps. There are many modalities for self-discovery, therapy, etc. But it can begin with that question, which is, what are you hiding from? Where is the change

Starting point is 01:06:14 or the growth? Where does that reside? What is the most, what is the, what is the, what is the growth or the change that you are most reluctant or resistant to engaging with. I would suggest that everybody begin there. And usually that's something embarrassing or something shameful. But I think that excavation is where the juice is. That's where the gym is. And I think with respect to, you were talking about, you know, it's hard out there right now, like there's a lot of hardship, the obstacles that you're facing and the mountain that you're trying to climb or the difficulty that you're facing with the setback that you just endured. These things are all teachers. My wife calls them your divine moments.

Starting point is 01:07:03 So rather than resent them or recoil from them, how can you engage them from a different perspective? Everything is neutral until you bring your perspective to it. So how can you shift your default attitude towards? these hardships and instead approach them as opportunities, as vehicles for your growth and evolution. And I think if you can do that, then you're putting yourself in a position to reap the rewards of that self-discovery. And that's the foundation upon which you can build a more meaningful and fulfilling life. The problem is it's very esoteric. It's hard to put your hands. Like, what did you just say? Like, how don't we even do that? Like, I get all of that. But honestly, like, if you're

Starting point is 01:07:51 trying to build something meaningful that is going to fulfill you, that's going to give you a sense that your life is being driven by purpose and is on a path towards some level of satisfaction and happiness. And ultimately, you know, financially viable, I think that is the way to do it. And that way's hard. It's not a five-step plan. You know, It's not like, do this, do that. But in my experience, that is the engine that has, that has, you know, created the thing that I get to, you know, do and be today. You have four kids? Mm-hmm.

Starting point is 01:08:31 And you've been married for how long? Been married, 11 years. I've been with my wife since 2000. So we've been together like 23, 23 years at some point, yeah. Wow. Do your kids listen to the podcast? No. do they don't care do they don't care do they know that millions of follow you people follow you alive

Starting point is 01:08:54 yeah they know well it's funny now like so uh my oldest daughter is 20 and she's in college in chicago and and and so she'll have friends that like see my instagram i don't know if they listen to podcast but they're like occasionally yeah like that's like a thing you know which is kind of hilarious Stere cool. Yeah, they do and they don't. But like, you always think, like, I'm going to be the cool dad, you know? And, like, it doesn't, it's rig. Like, it doesn't matter what you do or how cool you are, you're still laying to your kids.

Starting point is 01:09:26 And it should be that way. But then I'm like, do you realize, like, I'm pretty cool. Look at your friend's dads. Like, come on, right? And they're not going to give it to you. Oh, my husband always says that. Or should they? Yeah, he's like, we're going to be the cool parents.

Starting point is 01:09:41 I mean, we are not. We are already barely cool. So you just proved it. It just you can't be cool enough to your kids. But you at least feel like the lessons that you learn, you can apart on them in a different way from talking about it as much as you have and working on it as much as you have. Or you just try to do the, hey, no you shoulds to my kids either. No, it's a little different when you're parenting. I mean, there's moments where you have to be like this is not okay.

Starting point is 01:10:09 And, you know, we need you to be more like this. I'm a pretty soft dad. I'm not a big disciplinarian. Really? I'm the feeling, dad. For me, it's all about, like, communication. So it's less like, I'm not like, I'm not like, you need to do, you know, like, I'm not like that. Like I, and my wife is an insane parent, like, she's so good.

Starting point is 01:10:32 And all our kids are like artists in some form or another. And I've all picked, like, really kind of interesting pursuits. none of them are real, I mean yoga and stuff like that, but like nobody's interested in like the athletic stuff. No ultramar. I'm on my own. Nobody's arguing with you. Okay. I don't believe him.

Starting point is 01:10:50 No. No. Painter, sculptor, and then filmmaker and then two musicians. Oh, that's incredible. Well, my husband and my joke is he always says, I think he adapted it from a comedian, so I should say that. But his adaptation of the joke is for his parents, like, thank you for giving me enough trauma to become a Navy SEAL, but not enough trauma to become a stripper. And so, no, it's from it to them. It's like enough trauma.

Starting point is 01:11:23 Yeah, it's good. We've all had our pains and our traumas. And how can we be grateful for them instead of grinding our team and being resentful, you know? And these experiences make us who we are. And so can you leverage your pain to set up a trajectory for growth and evolution, or are you just going to be a victim of it? And that's a narrative. Like, we're all a product of the stories we tell ourselves about who we are, what we're capable of, and what we're not capable of. But they're just stories.

Starting point is 01:11:52 So what is the story that you're telling yourself and what might be a better story? And I think if you look at your story and it's not serving you or you keep running into dead ends, deconstruct with you. story and try to look at what the the kind of rest stops along the way on that story are and see if those are actually true or not or pick other rest stops that are more in service to the person you aspire to be and start telling that story instead because the we are we are like you talked about like oh when you when you make a video or a podcast and it's like there's ways of teaching like you can say here's the list or or you can do it through storytelling.

Starting point is 01:12:35 And I think human beings learn best through story. I think you can tell somebody here are the steps, but if those steps are elucidated in the context of a powerful story, that's going to take up residence in the human mind and be a much more powerful thing. My point being that story is fundamentally, perhaps one of the most powerful things about being human. And when you think about the story you tell yourself about who you,

Starting point is 01:13:03 you are, maybe reflect a little bit on how that's producing outcomes for better or worse in your life. Beautiful. Is that why you started voicing changes? Yeah, so we started building this media company about a year ago, and we made an announcement recently. And that's really a function of understanding that as powerful as my podcast has become and as many lives as it has impact, I'm just one voice. And because we've been doing this for a long time and have built an incredible team and understand best practices in terms of how you manage the sponsorship landscape and how you produce shows of high caliber with great production value,

Starting point is 01:13:52 I wanted to be able to leverage that expertise and scale it with other voices out there that I think are incredibly valuable and deserving and worthy of amplification. and support. So that's kind of the fundamental premise behind it. And it's exciting to be involved in supporting other voices because for so long, everything I do is like my voice, which is fine. But also it's like, I want to now like take this thing and make it in service of other people. Because also at some point, like I'm going to be like, I mean, the minute I stop talking and doing like everything growing through a halt, right? So at some point, I'm going to be like, maybe I need to step back or, you know, do something else. I want to be able to have this thing where it can last beyond, like, however long I decide to keep doing what I'm doing.

Starting point is 01:14:47 It's brilliant. I mean, I think the universe, of course, is a vacuum. And no shame on any of these individuals. But, you know, when I look at some of the voices out there now that are loud, man, no wonder, you know, kids are confused these days. is it no wonder it feels kind of tough for a lot of us because, you know, the podcast, the top-performing podcasts for women are about which dudes have you fucked lately and or what beauty products have you put on your face and, you know, why you shouldn't be in a relationship and all the downsides of it and or, you know, do I want to go buy this next new fancy thing? And so I think it's really

Starting point is 01:15:26 important what you said, which is, you know, anybody who has a story that comes from a deeper why, I want clicks, and I want to be, because quickly you'll run down the rabbit hole of shame there. But that you share it and that I think it's really cool that there are more media companies that come from the spiritual background, not a religious background necessarily, but with something a little bit deeper. So I'm excited to see how that shakes out. I mean, thank you. You know, all we have is our mind. Yeah. And, you know, when you reflect on the relationship between consciousness,

Starting point is 01:16:01 and real world events occurring across the globe. And then you think, well, if you can be in service to elevating consciousness, what is the downstream impact of that? And I think to your point, there's not enough women in podcasting. And you're right. It's crazy that, especially in the kind of self-improvement, self-help space, it's just a brosphere. Like, what is going on?

Starting point is 01:16:27 Especially when you think about like the origins of this. whole kind of self-improvement world and you realize like Oprah Winfrey was like the most powerful one right? That's true. Like where are there like I'm really glad that you're doing this because I do think we need more powerful, strong female voices that are putting, you know, great helpful information out in the world. I think there's a real need for that right now.

Starting point is 01:16:55 And and the podcast rule is in need of a breath of fresh air with all these bros. Well, thank you. I am, you know, I'm pretty big on the fact, like, I mean, man, without you and like, you know, Tim Ferriss who's become, you know, somebody that I now get to chat with and get to know, like, there's so much back in, I mean, imagine, well, you know, you're a little bit older than I am. Like, I can't believe people share these secrets, you know, even when I was younger in finance, nobody was telling you how to get there. You know, nobody was sharing, I'm having tough situations. And so I'm really thankful to all the bros and all the dudes and everybody podcast. podcasting who's doing it from this place that they even shared. Like, thank God, you guys were willing to throw it out there because otherwise these were conversations that are hard to have. You know, in my family, this is not like a normal thing to do even. And talking about addiction was like, we basically still don't do it with the family member that has it. We might not even label it that way. And so I think it's really special. And I'm so thankful. Like I try to not go like men versus women thing because Lord, we both got part of them in here. I needed a boy and a girl to get together to create the two of us and simultaneously we're a little different, you know? And so, like, there's Gabriel Lyon who helps me a lot with like some health things because I used to think all the stuff that men did was that was the loudest, you know, voice health-wise, were like, I should do the same thing. Like, oh, yes, I should do intermittent fasting. And in fact, like, that's not great if you're trying

Starting point is 01:18:21 to get pregnant, actually, turns out. And so anyway, I think it's cool that there's all these different voices coming together. And I've appreciated for what you guys have done. And I'm side for the next venture and I think it's going to be really cool. I'm going to make sure to subscribe. The last thing I wanted to leave us with today basically was you now have a relationship for a really long time, a couple of kids, you know, success, the podcast, everything. Do you, do you think you've found happiness? It's so interesting that you ask me that right now. I am happy that there are many barriers to my happiness that remain, and I think that it could be happier.

Starting point is 01:19:06 I still fall prey to workaholism. I still delude myself that the happiness that I lack is on the other side of the next accomplishment or milestone in my career, despite all evidence to the contrary and a million guests on my podcast, disabusing me of that notion, it's amazing how persistent that is in the mind. With this phase of my career, I am really intent upon doing the things that I know will drive greater happiness in my life. And those things are my relationship with my wife, my relationship with my kids, and rekindling or reinvesting in my friendships that get shoved to the side because we're so busy and on deadline and too many things are happening.

Starting point is 01:20:02 And I can tell you, the older you get, you know, the phone gets heavier when the prospect of calling up that buddy that you haven't talked to in 15 or 20 years. And then investing in more experiences, you know, trying to basically what I'm saying. saying is trying to cultivate greater connection with other human beings. Because I like to be left alone. I'm an introvert. I want to just create in a dark room and not have anybody bother me. And I'm perfectly content until I'm not. Right. And recognizing that I need those people and then I'm happier when I'm in community is inconvenient because don't you know all these things that I have to do and how important I am. So the call to action for me is to really put that into motion. And I just got back from India, Darnshola. I was invited by Arthur Brooks. So for those that don't know,

Starting point is 01:21:04 Arthur Brooks used to run AEI, that is now a professor at Harvard Business School and the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, where he teaches leadership and happiness and runs a lab called the Happiness Lab. And he invited any, and then he's written amazing books, but his latest book, he co-wrote with Oprah Winfrey. It's about happiness. And he invited me and a small group of people to travel to Darm Shala to spend two days with the Dalai Lama. He's been going to see the Dalai Lama for the last 11 years. The Dalai Lama is now 89 years old. So I knew this is like, I'm trying to say no, you know, stuff because I got, but this is a yes. This is like a, a, a, I have, Yeah, like once in a lifetime opportunity. So my wife and I joined this group. And I was sitting as close as I'm sitting to you to the Dalai Lama like two days in a row. And Arthur kind of hosted this series of talks and came armed with all of his questions and this journey and this part that he wanted to take everyone on. But also understanding that no matter what he asked the Dalai Lama, the Dalai Lama is going to tell you what he thinks everybody needs to hear. And the hilarious.

Starting point is 01:22:17 thing was that that was the truth. Like, no matter what question was posed to the Dalai Lama, his answer was essentially some variation on the idea that everything goes back to love. Or there always talks about how love is not emotion. It's a decision. And that's something he'd learned from the Dalai Lama. And so the happiness that you lack, the connection that you lack, the thing that eludes you, or or deprives you of feeling very fulfilled in your life. Like all of these things will all be found by cultivating more love in your life. Giving more love is a way to receive more love. So if you are in lack, love is always the answer.

Starting point is 01:23:03 And it sounds so cheesy and reductive, but it's incredibly profound. And what he said, which has stayed with me, and I have this little red bracelet on my wrist to prove it and to remind me, if you're struggling to connect with what that means for you or how to feel that sense of love, reflect on a mother's love for a child. And if that's too difficult, look at animals and look at, you know, a mammal mother and how that mother interacts with its baby and try to embody that sensibility and share that, which I thought was a really beautiful way into thinking about and practicing love. So that's like the call to action for me, you know, like I have a lot of work. I think I still need to do around that because I'm on the

Starting point is 01:24:00 grind and I like have goals and ambitions and the like. So it was a really powerful reminder and and also a way into this book that I'm in the middle of writing right now that's around change and a means of like one of the things I'm struggling with is in order to be a worthy steward of this message that I want in one part I too have to sit in the seat of the reader or the audience and reflect on the change that I'm still too resistant to make and do I have the courage to face that because it's easy to sit on my laurels and go on podcasts and talk about all these changes I've made and transformation and how I'm this expert on how to go from A to C when I still have a lot of work to do myself.

Starting point is 01:24:47 And so committing to confronting what I'm most reluctant to change about myself, I think, begins with what the Dalai Lama had to share, which is my relationship to love to other people and to, you know, cultivating the relationships that are necessary in order to live a full and happy life. Yeah, I remember once I saw Arthur Spears. at ABI to like a group of, you know, the world leaders, but, you know, they're, they're tough and a little crotchety and they want to talk about nuclear arms, you know, arms, really intense things. And Arthur comes on the stage and gives a talk on love to like the most grizzled Republican you could meet, right? And so you can imagine just the suits in the audience and then he's kind of talking about love. And then he plays this like orchestral music with, you know, It's just glorious. And I look over.

Starting point is 01:25:47 I'm probably not if I get kicked out of the grill for this. We'll see if I put it in a podcast. But I see 10 crews with like a single, like a little. And I just thought this man is really special. And Arthur is a gift. He's such a beautiful human being. And somebody I look up to tremendously and has been a mentor to me. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:26:06 I can't say enough good things. And one other thing is I always, he said something and I'm not going to remember it perfectly. I'm not going to say it, but he talked about childlike wonder. I'm like, don't you sometimes, if you think about it, like, think about that for a second. You just met with the Dalai Lama, like the holiest of the holies, plus Arthur Brooks, you know, plus who else was on that trip, I'm sure. And then the other people like, do you ever just sit and think, what the fuck's going on? Like, this is wild. 100%.

Starting point is 01:26:34 I'm like, what happened to my life? Right. Like, I reflect back on all these moments of confusion where I couldn't see my way forward. and didn't think I was going to get to the next day. And like, here I am and this is happening. Like, this is not the product of some whiteboard, you know, strategy session. Like, this is mystical and magical and beyond anything I could have ever imagined for myself in a way that I can't possibly make sense of.

Starting point is 01:27:05 Which brings me back to, like, the mystical spirituality of all of it and how it begins with that deep inside work of trying to. to connect with your heart and what is unique about you. We're all unique individuals that came here for, in my opinion, one sole purpose, which is to learn to know who we are and to share our gifts with the world and to grow and evolve along the way. Beautiful. It's front with them. You're the man. Thank you, Richel. I just want to say thank you guys for being here. If you haven't left a review yet for the Big Deal podcast, I want you to know you are a big deal to me, and so is every single review from you guys. This is a huge commitment

Starting point is 01:27:47 from us this year. I want to try to put it all out on the field with this podcast, because if you guys get to have any sort of the feeling like I had sitting here listening to this guy, being on this couch right here next to us, I think we might be able to do something special together, guys. All right. See you next week. You're a big deal.

BigDeal - #14 From Broke Alcoholic to Multi-Millionaire | Rich Roll

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