Feel Better, Live More with Dr Rangan Chatterjee - #28 Rich Roll on How to Find Your Purpose

Episode Date: September 19, 2018

“Put yourself in an unbelievably uncomfortable frightening situation that you don’t have to and you’ll soon find out what you’re about.” Have you figured out what your ‘why’ is?  Are you struggling to find the time to discover what you want from life? My guest on this week’s podcast is inspirational plant-powered wellness advocate, best-selling author and podcast host, Rich Roll.  He shares his incredible story of complete transformation from unhealthy, overweight alcoholic lawyer to ultra-endurance athlete, who has been hailed “fittest vegan on the planet”. We talk about how finding out who you are and what your purpose is, has a positive impact on every aspect of your life. Rich gives some brilliant tips on how to achieve this.  This is an honest, deep and enthralling conversation – I hope you enjoy it! My upcoming book, ‘The Stress Solution’ covers purpose in great detail.  You can pre-order it on Amazon. Show notes available at drchatterjee.com/richroll Follow me on instagram.com/drchatterjee/ Follow me on facebook.com/DrChatterjee/ Follow me on twitter.com/drchatterjeeuk Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

If you really want to know what you're made of and who you are, put yourself in an unbelievably uncomfortable, frightening situation that you don't have to, and you will soon find out what you're about. And your flaws will come out, your character defects will come out, you will meet and confront yourself in a very profound way. Hi, my name is Dr. Rangan Chatterjee, medical doctor, author of The Four Pillar Plan, and confront yourself in a very profound way. this podcast, I aim to simplify it. I'm going to be having conversations with some of the most interesting and exciting people both within as well as outside the health space to hopefully inspire you as well as empower you with simple tips that you can put into practice immediately

to transform the way that you feel. I believe that when we are healthier, we are happier because when we feel better, we live more. Welcome to season two of my Feel Better Live More podcast. I've got a fantastic guest for you today to open up this new season of the podcast. This opening episode was actually recorded a few months back when I was in America. I was adding some promotion around my first book, The Four Pillar Plan. I feel incredibly lucky and humbled that my first book has become a best seller all over the world. And back in May, it was released in the US and Canada with a brand new title, How to Make Disease Disappear. So wherever you are listening to this podcast,

if you're looking for a book that helps you to simplify health and gives you real actionable tools to help you make change, you can pick up a copy at all the usual outlets. My guest today is none other than Rich Roll. Many of you will no doubt know who Rich is, but for those of you who don't, I think you are in for a treat. Rich has one of the most popular podcasts in the world, which I have to say I'm a huge fan of and was lucky enough to be invited onto his show myself a few months back. As well as his podcast, Rich is a best-selling author and is best known for being an accomplished 51-year-old vegan ultra endurance athlete and former entertainment lawyer who was really

struggling with life. He had alcohol addiction and was struggling with some health problems, yet he managed to turn his life around and has now turned into a full-time wellness and nutrition advocate, a very popular public speaker. He's a husband, he's a father of four, and he is an inspiration to people all over the world as a transformative example of courageous and healthy living. In this conversation, you will hear a story of real transformation, addiction, and change. He has recently been called by Men's Health Magazine, one of the fittest men on the planet. I, like hundreds of thousands around the globe, find Rich's story inspirational. I think you will too.

So Rich, welcome to the Feel Better Live More podcast. Delighted to be here. So Rich, it's slightly odd. We're here not in London. We're here in your beautiful home studio here in California, which is a real honour for me to see where you live. As someone who's been a huge fan of what you've done over the last five, six years, you know, you've got one of the world's most popular podcasts. You've got a very successful book out. But I think you've got a very, very powerful story that I think a lot of my listeners will resonate with.

So I wonder if you could share how you got into all of this wellness and lifestyle world. Yeah, sure. So first of all, you're always welcome in my home. We have a bedroom here if you want to stay anytime you're in Los Angeles. Careful what you offer. Yeah, and it's fun to talk to you. We should let everyone know we just completed

you being a guest on my podcast, which was excellent. So we're all warmed up and ready to talk. We're all warmed up, yeah. As far on my podcast, which was excellent. So we're all warmed up and ready to talk. Yeah. As far as my story, I, depends on how far you want to go back, but I guess I would start at my mid to late thirties. At the time I was a corporate lawyer. I was doing the typical 60 to 80 hour work weeks and really very focused on my career. And I was coming off of a rehab stint at age 31. I'm a recovering alcoholic. And when I kind of emerged from that, I was very intent on repairing all the wreckage

that I had created as a result of my drinking and drug abuse. I was a pretty broken human being at that period of time. And I was somebody who earlier in life had a lot of promise and I'd squandered a lot of my opportunities. And so being sober, the two things that were most important to me were building a solid foundation of sobriety based on principles that I'd learned in rehab and in the recovery community. And then also kind of repairing my reputation as a human being, becoming a responsible member of society and, you know, sort of showing up when you say you're going to show up and being true to your word and all of those kinds of things that had eluded me during my period of drinking and using. And I was successful in that regard. By the time I was 39 years old, I was on the partnership track at a prestigious law firm here in Los Angeles.

I was driving a really fancy sports car. I'd met my wife. We were building a family. We built this home that you're in right now. And so from the outside looking in on my life, it looked like I had certain things figured out, you know. I had sort of chased this idea of the American dream and was winning at that game, so to speak. But on the inside, I was really suffering. You know, I was very unhappy with my chosen profession. I'd never really taken the time to, to think about what it was that, that, that I wanted or what it was that I wanted to express. And this is something that we talked about, you know, in, in your story. Um, I just sort of did what I was, what I thought I was supposed to do, that a person of means, you know, like sort of chasing these career goals and it was catching up to me. I, it's a, it's a long way of saying I, on level, I was having a little bit of an existential crisis about my life.

Meanwhile, I hadn't been taking care of myself. I was 50 pounds overweight, subsisting on essentially a junk food diet, which is how I'd been eating throughout my adult life. You're off alcohol at this point. Yeah, I got sober at 31, 39, I'm eight, nine years sober. But a lot of those obsessive compulsive alcoholic tendencies started to manifest in my food choices. What I didn't realize at the time was the extent to which I was medicating my emotional state through food, which is another thing that we had talked about earlier, like, I think I was really suffering emotionally. And I wasn't conscious of that. But I was using unhealthy foods to kind of self medicate. And I was also a workaholic. And that was another way to kind of self medicate my emotional, you

know, dis ease. And this sort of poor health collided with my existential crisis shortly before my 40th birthday when I was walking up the flight of stairs just over there to go to bed one night and I had to pause halfway up the flight. Like I literally couldn't walk up a whole flight of stairs without taking a break. And I'd been, you know, a world-ranked swimmer in college. Like I was an athlete my whole life and kind of had been walking around still thinking that I was a fit, you know, swimmer. That's how denial works. And it was really a scary moment. I had tightness in my chest. I, you know, sweat on my brow and like kind of hunched over. And it was a very scary moment. And my mom had told me my whole life that heart disease runs in our family. Her father who, her father,

who I'm named after had died very young of heart disease. And she would always say, you got to watch what you eat. You know, you got to be really careful. This is part of our genetic makeup. But when you're in your twenties and early, it's like, you know, it's like Charlie Brown, wah, wah, wah. You know, like you don't hear that because you can get away with stuff when you're, when you're young. And so all of this was really catching up to me. And it really hit me in that moment. Like I had this epiphany where I realized like I can't live this way any longer. And not only did I understand that I needed to change my lifestyle habits, but I had the willingness.

Like I wanted to change. That was the biggest difference. And it was very similar to the day that I woke up broken, you know, eight, nine years earlier and said, you know, I got to go to rehab. Like I can't handle this problem anymore. I need help. I was willing to accept help. And that decision that day had changed my life so dramatically that I think I understood the power of these moments that I think we all have at certain times if we're paying attention, these kind of pivotal moments where if we make a certain decision and act on it in a swift and decisive way can change our life in dramatic ways. And that was really the beginning. That was the beginning of me exploring how to

better take care of myself. It was the beginning of my exploration into nutrition, which ultimately led me to adopting a plant-based diet that rejuvenated my health, restored my vitality. And it got me interested in being fit again. Like I had all this energy, all of a sudden I literally couldn't sit still. I had to go out and burn it off because I was like bouncing off the walls. My wife was like, will you please leave me alone and go outside? So it wasn't that I had a desire to return to becoming a competitive athlete in my forties. It just started out with me reconnecting with my physical wellbeing in a very basic way. But what I sort of evolved into was I kind of grew into this understanding,

I started thinking a lot about potential, because in a very short period of time, like in a matter of four or five months, I'd lost those 50 pounds, I felt years younger, I had this incredible resurgence in vitality, like I mentioned. And it was really the result of just making some pretty basic decisions about how I was living. And I thought, if I could change this much in this short a period of time by just doing like literally like two things, where are the other areas that I've been blind to where I'm sitting on top of untapped potential? And that's what ultimately led me into the world of ultra endurance sports and really exploring my own potential in that realm. Wow. I mean, such a powerful story, Rich. And

I think there's just so many elements of that, which people will resonate with. People listening right now will be resonating, whether it's, you know, using food to soothe some sort of emotional discomforts, working extra hard to, you know, so you don't have to maybe think about things that you don't want to think about, you know, having a crisis of some sorts. So for you, it was going up those stairs, feeling tightness and thinking, Whoa, you know know i used to be an athlete and i've you know it's incredible when you said that i was thinking of so many of my male patients but also a lot of my friends right a lot of my friends from college and university and now

you know they used to be sporty at school right they used to be sporty when they went to university and now they're sort of bogged down with mortgage and jobs and children. And suddenly they're no longer doing that, but in their head, they're still sporty. You know, I still play, right? That's the thing, right? Yeah. And even when you look in the mirror, you still think you look like you did when you were 22. Yeah. So you think you're getting away with it, right? And this is, you know, this is why I talk about thresholds with people, which is we can deal with things. We've got that personal threshold.

We can deal with multiple insults and our human bodies are very resilient up to a point that suddenly something will tip you over the top and then that's when you get sick. And, you know, arguably, well, not arguably, without question, you know, you having chest tightness on that day when you're, what, 40, 41 or something? Yeah, 30, almost 40.

Yeah, nearly 40. That wasn't just because of the choices you had made for the previous two weeks, right? This had been building up for years. It was like 20 years. Yeah, 20 years. I mean, you know, as you well know, those plaques in your arteries start building up when you're a young person. Yeah. So you think you're okay. You think you can keep it, keep stress levels high, keep working it, keep killing it at work. You know, from the outside, everyone thinks, hey, Rich is doing great. He drives a nice car. He's got a nice house. He's got a nice job.

But on the inside, you probably knew, well, you have a knowledge, you knew there wasn't something right. So what's interesting for me is that to change your diet, you needed that moment of chest pain on the stairs. What was it that forced you to, well, not forced you, what was that moment that, or was there that particular moment that made you think, right, I need to get sober now? But was there that particular moment that made you think, right, I need to get sober now? You know, what was that? Was there a rock bottom moment where you thought, right, I got to change this? Yeah. I mean, I had been aware that I was an alcoholic for many years. Like my, you know, I just never had a normal relationship with alcohol from the very beginning.

When did you first start drinking? When I was in high school and I started going on recruiting trips to colleges when I was being recruited for swimming. And, you know, you show up and they want to show you a good time. Suddenly you're at all these parties. Because I was a goody two-shoes in high school. Like I studied hard and I trained hard. I woke up every morning at 4.45, went to swim practice, swam for an hour and a half, went to school. Swim practice again after school, studied, crashed at nine. Like I was too exhausted

to get in trouble. Then I start going on these trips and you know, it's like, hey, there's girls and then we're at parties. And that was my first experience. And I vividly recall what it was like to feel drunk for the first time. And I describe it as like this warm blanket, like enveloping me and the evaporation of, of every problem that I ever thought that I had. It was almost like suddenly the lights went on and I was like, Oh, this is how it feels to be normal. Cause I was a very insecure kid. I had trouble making friends.

I was socially awkward and suddenly alcohol like solved all of that for me. And it worked, friends. I was socially awkward. And suddenly alcohol like solved all of that for me. And it worked. It worked for a long time. I had a lot of fun. You know, I had a lot of good times. Like you don't keep doing it, but it's not working. But as they say, it works until it stops working. And then it was a progressive scenario of my life just slowly denigrating over the years. you know, suddenly, um, the goals that I'd set for myself, weren't that important. I was pre-med in college, like I blew that off. And, you know, like things that were important to me suddenly weren't important to me. And my focus narrowed on to just, where's my next good time. Um, and then it just, you know,

it just slowly gets worse and worse and worse. You're like a frog in water that's slowly being boiled, you know? And I knew all along, like in my heart of hearts, like I'm an alcoholic. This is, I can't, there's no way I'm going to be able to do this forever. And it wasn't, you know, I had the day that I decided to go to rehab wasn't like that. I was hung over that day, but that wasn't the bottom. The bottom really was about nine months prior to that, where I had a wedding. I was attended by everybody in the world that I cared about. And a woman that I was getting married to who decided that she didn't want the marriage certificate signed. And the

whole thing collapsed like a house of cards. It's a super long story, but it was very demoralizing and emotionally destabilizing event in my life. And I had to drink after that for nine months because I was in so much pain. But ultimately that was really the precipitating incident that led me to ultimately end up in a rehab facility in Oregon where I lived for a hundred days, which is a pretty long time to be in rehab yeah wow i just i just wonder this so so far two pivotal moments obviously what happened at that wedding

um then what happened on the stairs when you got this chest pain it makes me think that do people need to get that low first before they make change is that one of the problems in society today when we've got a lot of addiction a lot of ill health a lot of people making poor lifestyle choices even though some of them many of us know what those choices should be or what we should be doing why is it we're not doing them and do we need to hit rock bottom to make that change yeah that's the uh that's the question right i mean speaking from my own experience pain is the only thing that's ever truly motivated me to change any of my errant ways but certainly you don't have to hit rock bottom and you don't have to be in pain to change. It's

just easier, right? If you're suffering, you're more likely and more willing to make those adjustments. More motivation, right? Yeah, of course, more motivation. But that choice is always available to you. You don't have to suffer. If that elevator is going down, it doesn't have to go down any further. And when people say hitting rock bottom, there's always another, you can, you can always go deeper. Like there's always another rung, you know what I mean? So it's like how, if you know, if you, if you know that trajectory is headed in the wrong direction, at what point do you become willing to course correct? And I think that that's different for everybody. But I think to sort of answer your question on a more macro scale with respect to addiction, I've been thinking a lot about addiction, we think of, you know, the guy in

the gutter who can't get the, you know, who's holding onto the bottle or the person who can't pull the needle out of their arm. But ultimately, I think that on some, like addiction is a spectrum, and on some level, we're all victims of addiction to some behavior or substance or thought pattern. Whether you think you're undeserving of good things in your life, or you're addicted to believing that you're a victim, or you can't put your cell phone down, or you can't keep chocolate out of your mouth. On some level, these are all addictions.

There's a spectrum. Some addictions are worse than others. Well, are they worse, or is it that society judges them as differently? Does society look down on some addictions and go, that addiction, your addiction to chocolate is actually okay. But your addiction to that harmful substance or booze, for example, or whatever it might be, or coffee, right?

Let's say, right? That's okay. That's an acceptable addiction we certainly have an elastic you know sort of ruler for how we culturally judge these situations but i'll do you one better what's worse the acute addiction the heroin addict or the person that can't put their phone down like on some level if the heroin addict gets sober and then leads a clean life and has a greater understanding of what addiction is and goes on a spiritual journey to grow, that might be better than the person who's on this like slightly less acute form of compulsive

behavior that they can persist in engaging with for the rest of their life and never really address it. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think it's something we all need to think about, something I'm thinking about a lot these days as well. I think a lot about, you know, on a personal level, why I've made the choices I've made in my life. And once you start creating a bit of space in your life to start going into these things you start to things start to make sense you go oh that's why I did that that's why I did that what you said about alcohol what it what it that warm fuzzy feeling that it gave you I had a guest on recently a friend of mine Matt Willis who you're a very well-known singer he's been in a one of the UK's biggest bands in the past and

he had a problem also with booze and And he said something very, very similar, that that's what booze did for him. And that's how it made him feel. Suddenly everything went away and everything was just great. Do you think that you made a decision, you had an addictive behavior? So I think just to broaden this out, many of us, as you've said, and I agree,

have these addictive behaviors. Some are judged better or worse, depending on our morals and what we think about things. But you were compensating for something with booze. Is that fair to say? Sure. So you made a decision that this is not working. This is socially not great. This is, you know, I need to kick this thing. Do you think that you dealt with any of the underlying reasons for needing the booze when you quit the booze? Or did you transfer your addiction from booze to poor food? It's a little bit of both. Um, I'll take it in equal parts. So when you get sober, you are confronted with yourself for the very first time without your best friend to mute those emotional signals. the drugs, they're not the problem. They're the solution and the symptom. When you remove them, now you have to confront the problem. And the problem is your lack of emotional well-being,

whether it's childhood trauma, whether there's some other sort of emotional distress that you have to look at, dis-ease, not, you know, a dis-ease, a sense of not feeling at ease with yourself, with who you are as a human being. And that's when the real work begins. So, you know, I've been in Alcoholics Anonymous for 20 years, and I'm still an active, that's still the most important thing in my life. And that journey of self-exploration, of trying to treat this disease that I have will, you know, I'll be doing that for the rest of my life. And there's no destination point on that because personal growth can always continue and expand. So in terms of have I looked into that? Yeah. Like I'm all about that. Like I'm on a spiritual journey to um to become a more self-actualized human being to

redress the emotional trauma to to look at to like you know sort of basically deal with all of the emotional personality character um characteristics that contributed to that type of behavior right at the start of our conversation, you said you're a recovering alcoholic. I'm interested in your choice of words there. This is 20 years on. This is 20 years on now from being sober. Do you still feel that you are recovering or do you feel that you have, feel that you are recovering or do you feel that you have you've beat that now you're not going back to booze or you know i'd love to understand that more why you use the word recovering yeah i am recovering i am not recovered i have not beat it all i have is today and my goal today is to make sure that my head hits the pillow without drinking or using i don't know what's going to

happen tomorrow i do know that if i were to pick up a drink, maybe I could have a drink, maybe I could have two drinks or three drinks and be fine, but it would not take long before I would be out of control. And if I pick up a drink, all bets are off and my life will quickly spiral out of control. I promise you that. I have a disease called alcoholism and I will always have that disease. I'm just hardwired for it for whatever reason. And I can spend a tremendous amount of time trying to figure out why that is. But ultimately, I don't know how helpful that is because I have a treatment for it and I can deal with it. I will never be free of it. Like in other words, I will never be able to like return and have a healthy relationship with alcohol right so i suffer from alcoholism it is a uh it is an allergy of the body and it's a

it's a spiritual disease as well that requires a spiritual treatment at least for me when there's two things that come to mind there one is if we draw this analogy of addiction to maybe somebody who can't resist chocolate and always uses sugar to soothe their emotional pain, let's say, if we looked at it through the same lens, you say that as many people who've had a, you know, let's say an unhealthy relationship with alcohol, many people feel that, you know, as you've just said that you can't go back you know you've you'll never be able to have that healthy relationship again you'll always have to avoid it so therefore i wonder if people who feel that way about sugar and chocolate let's say do they also potentially need to take some lessons from the way you know we we help alcoholics to

recover you know it feels very extreme to socially culturally it feels very way you know we we help alcoholics to recover you know it feels very extreme to socially culturally it feels very extreme you know would you say there's a difference there yeah there's i think there's a difference i think alcoholism is a very specific thing i mean there are people that maybe are problem drinkers and are not alcoholics and they can you know sort of pop in and out of having a healthy relationship with alcohol. And I'm not in a position to diagnose anybody else other than myself. I'm not that person. I know that I can't do that. But I will say, and again, this is just for me, the way that I look at food, like I look at how I use food to medicate and modulate my emotional state. And so for me, it's best to avoid altogether certain things that, um,

that impinge upon that. Right. So for example, uh, if I, if you told me I could have like a cheat day, one day a week, like one day a week, this popular diet. So they allow you a cheat day. Like if I was to do that like literally i would spend six days obsessing on what i was going to eat on cheat day okay you know i would just be like thinking about in and out burgers and bacon and all kinds of stuff that i wouldn't be able to focus on my life and then it wouldn't take long before one day became one day of cheat day became two days of cheat day like that's just me that. That's how I'm wired. Now, not everybody's like that. So some people can have a little bit of this here and there. And for whatever reason, like I just, I can't do that in my life. So I have to set rules around behaviors

and foods and substances, et cetera, to kind of keep me in check. But like I said, like that doesn't, I'm not speaking for everybody. I'm only speaking for myself. So I think, you know, other people can like give and take and have cheat days and dabble a little bit here and there and they're just fine. But that's the key to all of this, right? No matter what we're talking about,

whether it's an approach to your particular chronic disease or your health complaints or your relationship with alcohol, it's all got to be personalized, right? It's all got to work for that individual. And's incredible about you i think is that you have figured out what works for you you know you seem to have that self-empowerment to know actually what do what does rich role need to do to keep rich role on his track right right and i'm not sure somebody else could have given that to you you know someone else could have told you what they think you should do and i'm always you know this is something I reflect on a lot as a doctor

you know people often come in and ask me what they should do yeah I've always wanted that partnership with a patient I've always felt that my job really isn't to tell someone what to do it's to help advise them it's to help guide. But ultimately I get my best results when I have that partnership with the person in front of me. And, you know, I think for people listening who may feel that they don't have a problem with alcohol, but they're struggling with their own health issues or they want, you know, they're trying to see what other people are doing. You know, listen to other people, listen to what other people find useful, you know, try it. But if something is not deeply resonating with you, you think this approach doesn't work for me, just because you have read a great blog on this by a doctor or someone else

that you respect, if that doesn't resonate with you on some level, I would say, you know, even if you try and follow it, you're not going to be able to sustain it for more than a few weeks, because you don't have that connection with it and uh i i think personalizing approach is very very important it seems as though you have a sort of addictive personality would that be fair to say yeah i think that's fair to say yeah okay yeah so could it be that you have transferred some of that addiction as it were? Let me put this another way. Are you addicted to endurance running? Yeah, I used to bristle at this question and I get this question a lot.

I used to bristle at it. But I think if I'm being totally honest, I have to say yes. You know, I have an addictive personality by nature. And so for me to say, oh, no, you know, my relationship with like doing these crazy ultras, which are extreme by their very nature, is completely healthy. No, I don't think that that's being completely honest. I think that I've figured out a way to channel these tendencies into avenues that are productive and healthier than what I was doing. And I've done them as a means to explore myself spiritually, mentally, emotionally.

The races that I've done, like it's not about podiums or beating people. It's about trying to figure out who I am as a human being and what I'm here to express. Because there's so much time alone and because the training is so rigorous, it forces you to confront yourself, to meet yourself with everything else stripped away in a very real and fundamental way that we just don't get in our normal lives. And so it's been a teachable experience for me that has enhanced my life in countless ways. But I was drawn to it, probably because of some innate, you know, the extreme, you know, the extreme is an allure for me. So I can try to deny that in myself and repress it, or I can find outlets for that that are productive, if that makes sense. And I will say this, I'll say one more thing. And I have to give credit to my friend Mishka Shubali because he came up with this.

The drink was always the easy choice. It was the way out. But putting on the running shoes, that's the hard choice. So I think that's the differentiation between substance abuse and something like ultra endurance sports. Like it's hard, you know, it's not that fun most of the time. It requires discipline.

It requires everything that goes out the window when you start to indulge your alcoholic tendencies you say it's the hard choice to do that the easy choice was to pick up a drink and drink some more and almost numb everything and get that warm fuzzy feeling and get away from everything you know as i reflect on that and i think about what you said about that almost what i'm getting for you is that the running is a form of therapy it helps you understand yourself better you know when you're struggling you know how do you cope with that what what what have you got when everything all the external layers are stripped away when it's just you and you're running shoes and you're out somewhere.

You know, what have you got? And I remember seeing a talk that you did about life hacks and about, again, I don't want to paraphrase you. So what I took from that talk from recollection, it was a while ago when I saw this, but it was about, we're all searching for the hack. We're all searching for the quick fix, right? But that's not what life is about. I wonder if you could sort of expand on that a little bit. Yeah, I mean, everybody wants the shortcut. They want what they want when they want it now more than ever.

They want every episode of every Netflix show on demand. They want their pizza delivery by drone. You know, people, we're in this instant gratification culture and we're all looking for the end run around the work to achieve our goals. And what we're missing and what we fail to appreciate is that what really gives our lives a sense of fulfillment and purpose is embracing the obstacles and the challenges that life and the pursuit of any goal or dream inevitably present us with. So let's stop trying to end run around that and just embrace it completely. And I think when you do that,

And just embrace it completely. And I think when you do that, suddenly you have this sense of coming alive. And I think, you know, to your earlier point, like when I'm out, like if you really want to know what you're made of and who you are, put yourself in an unbelievably uncomfortable, frightening situation that you don't have to. And you will soon find out what you're about. And your flaws will come out, your character defects will come out. You will meet and confront yourself in a very profound way. That's what I'm seeking in my life. And I think when you forget about the life hacks and the shortcuts and the 80-20 rule and you commit yourself to mastery in whatever it is that moves you, whatever it is you figure out is your life purpose. In my experience, that's when you become a fully actualized version of yourself. I wholeheartedly agree. And for me, as you know, Rich, I talk about these four pillars a lot, you know, these four pillars of health, I think are very important for all of us to think about. But that's really the starting point. It's the starting point to actually get to know yourself better. Because once you start making those choices, you know, this podcast is called Feel Better, Live More. And you've just illustrated very beautifully that you made some changes. You were feeling better and now you're living more.

You're getting more out of life. You're understanding yourself. You know, for people who are listening, who think, who are going, yeah, that all sounds great. I don't have time for that. You know, I'm busy. I've, you know, I've got two jobs. I've got kids.

I've got elderly parents I need to look after. I don't have time for all this stuff, right? You know, what have you learned, you know, from this experience that you've been on plus from doing your podcast where you've gone deep with so many profound people from all over the world? What can somebody who's listening to this right now who feels, I can't resonate with it, I can't, that doesn't fit with my life, what would you say to them? You mean eating a 100% plant-based diet and doing multiple day endurance races doesn't fit within the construct of the average person's life? I don't know what you're talking about. Of course, you know, I can go out and do these, be out, you know, on the edge of the envelope.

And I do that because I feel it's my authentic blueprint, but also to serve as sort of a benchmark. So if I can go out and like do these things, then perhaps people will rethink the limits that they're placing on their own lives. So it's not about racing an Ultraman or doing five Ironmans on five Hawaiian islands in five days. It's about taking control and responsibility for your choices, for your wellbeing. Regardless of how busy you are, you have time for self-care. It may not be hours a day, but you certainly have minutes. And if you tell me you don't, I challenge you to get out a journal and write down what you do every 15 minutes of every day for a seven-day period. And I will guarantee you that you will identify giant swaths of time that are wasted on BS that is not moving you forward in the direction that you seek for your life. It's not a question of time as much as it is about priorities. How important is it to you? And what

I'm telling you is that you cannot be of maximum service to others, to your family members, to your kids, to your partner. To yourself. Unless you take care of yourself. And so as selfish as that may sound, it's actually the most selfless thing that you can do. It's why when you get on an airplane, they tell you if you're an adult, you put the oxygen mask on before you put it on the child. You have got to tend to yourself before you can tend to others. tend to others. And when you develop healthy habits around that self-care, you become a better example to those in your life that you care about, and you become a more productive example. And I think that process of investing in yourself contributes to greater self-esteem that has a ripple effect that will positively impact you in every aspect of your life. So my call to action is to make a commitment to yourself. Maybe it's two minutes a day to meditate like you always

talk about. Maybe it's just doing those glute exercises in your kitchen in the morning while you're brewing your coffee. It doesn't have to be some massive thing that you're going to post on instagram it's simple tiny actions that you build into your daily routine that you do anonymously that are going to move the needle consistency is the most important thing finding a habit as small as it is and doing it until it is r wrote and part of who you are. Yeah. Well, inspirational, which it really is. I mean, I hope people listening to that actually really take that on board and just think about what he said about a journal, you know, do it.

You know, it's what have you got to lose in so many ways? I would like what you said about, you know, do it and don't post it on Instagram. And I think there's really something in that, which is, you know, we've just spoken a lot on your podcast about technology, right? And again, I'm not anti-technology. I think it's fantastic, but I think we need to figure out as a human race, how we use that technology. And I would almost argue this habit that you start should be something you don't post on social media because often we post things for that,

you know, we're feeding that and we're looking for that emotional nourishment. We're looking for that external validation that what I'm doing. Yeah. Yeah. People, everyone's saying, yeah, that's great. I got, I got 200 likes because everyone else thinks this is good. Now, look, I'm not saying that's a bad thing necessarily necessarily but if you're doing this habit that or if you're doing this uh daily practice that we hope is going to become a habit but if you're doing it for that external validation i would argue that you're really probably not doing it for the right long-term reasons no it's got to intrinsically motivate you it's got to be something that you feel good about yourself sure if you want to post about it

now and again fine but you don't really want to post about it now and again, fine, but you don't really want to be doing it for that reason. You know, how much of a problem do you think that inauthenticity, you've just spoken about being authentic, but the inauthenticity that often exists on social media, the highly curated images, the perfectionist presentation, you know, how much of a problem do you think that is causing society?

It's a huge problem. It's a huge problem. I think it's contributing to a lot of mental health disorders and depression in a lot of people. It's almost impossible the way that we're wired as human beings that when we're scrolling, when we're caught up in that like compulsive scrolling to not, when we see a beautiful image, compare that to the quality of our own lives. And when somebody's, as most people, or as a lot of people do present this, you know, polished veneer of what their existence looks like, it makes us feel like crap about our own lives.

And so it's not healthy i would say i would say one one thing i've always researched about you is i don't think you present a highly manicured veneer of your life certainly that what i've seen of you on social media i don't think you do that i try i try not to although like for me aesthetics are important so if i post a photo i always want it to be like a cool photo. Yeah, so that's the balance, right? You also want to have some good odds up there, which it looks good. But I think, you know, look, this word authenticity has been so co-opted and commercialized and drained of its meaning. It's true.

Like authenticity is super important. It's super important to like what I do and how I kind of navigate the Internet. But now it's been, you know, it's like everybody's talking about authenticity. important. It's super important to like what I do and how I kind of navigate the internet. But now it's been, you know, it's like everybody's talking about authenticity. So it feels weird to talk about it. But in truth, like, I think it's really important to, you know, develop a relationship with social media where you're comfortable being who you are rather than feeling like you're in a race or in a game to you know measure yourself up against somebody else's life experience yeah which you live in what can only be regarded as paradise um you know it's fantastic house fantastic view here you know the sun is shining here in california

i would bet that even you know i come here and, wow, wouldn't it be amazing to live here? Okay. I bet even someone like you, or instead of me putting words in your mouth, do you ever suffer from FOMO? Do you ever get fear of missing out when you go on social media? Yeah, of course. Because there's always somebody who's doing something, who's living a cooler life or has something that you don't have, like, you know. Or you perceive that they are. Yeah, of course. So I have to like gauge that for myself. But, you know, honestly, like my life is an embarrassment of riches.

Like I can't even believe that I get to do the things that I get to do. And I say that as somebody who, and I shared this at an AA meeting last night, like 20 years ago, I was a completely broken human being sleeping on the floor, on a mattress on the floor of an otherwise unfurnished apartment. I had alienated every single person in my life. My family didn't want to talk to me. I had two DUIs. I was facing jail time. I had that wedding that fell apart. I was on the verge of unemployment. And all my friends had fled for the hills. Like I, I didn't have a lot of options.

Like I was a truly broken, spiritually bankrupt human being. And the fact that I get to do what I get to do today and live in this house, like I wake up and every day is a bonus day for me, because quite frankly, like I should be dead every day is a bonus day for me, because quite frankly, like I should be dead or I should be institutionalized. And so it's important for me to never disconnect with that perspective. And it's, I forget, like I get caught up in my day and I, you know, I'll go on social media and see somebody else who's living a better life. And that's nonsense because my life is insane. And it's truly, it's been a very difficult journey, even as short as five or six years ago, we almost lost the house. Like I didn't know how I was going to earn money. Like it's been very, very difficult.

It has not been easy. And it's truly a function of the extent to which, like yourself, I made this decision to invest in my heart song, to really follow my instincts and figure out how to make my way doing the things that I love and sharing what I've learned. And it's been incredible. Yeah, Rich, I mean, you say you feel incredibly lucky to be here and live the life that you do but you know you put in the hard work to get here right you did the hard things that many of us don't want to do and you know whatever the reasons were you know maybe you hit rock bottom or you close and it forced you but you've gone on that journey and that's you you've eschewed what you had you know the the great corporate job the partnership the, you know, all that kind of stuff that a lot of people are striving for.

There'll be many people out here, many people listening, I'm sure, who at some point in their life, or maybe they still do, are striving for that. And again, I'm not necessarily criticizing people who are striving for that because everyone's got different reasons for wanting to do what they do. for that because everyone's got different reasons for wanting to do what they do but i think at some point we've got to start figuring out why why do we make why do we why do we make the choices we do make um you know i i shared with you off you know off recording you know that i i cared for my dad for years you know it was a huge my whole adult life revolved around caring for my father you know i at university i didn't every summer my my buddies my close buddies are all going around Bali for six weeks of traveling they're having you know I'm coming home from university and I'm helping my mother care for my dad's um again I don't regret any of that but I look back now and think a lot of the choices I

made I think were a result of the circumstance around me. And I, I don't feel I really knew myself until the last few years, actually. I think I'm only starting to, it was actually after my dad died that I created some time in my life. I didn't fill up every moment with work because when you, when you're, you know, I was working as well, so I wouldn't call myself a full-time carer, but it felt like that. You know, I'd wake up at five in the morning, I'd go around, I'd give my dad a shower, then I'd come and see my wife, and then I'd go to work.

Sometimes at lunchtime, I'd nip out, go and help him out, come back after the day. Constantly, my phone would never be off. I was always expecting the next call from my mother saying, you know, he's falling, can you come and help or whatever, you know? And after dad died, suddenly I had all this relative to that. I had some time, time to reflect.

And, you know, I didn't know where that was going, but that was the start for me. That was the start of a huge, huge process, which is still going on today. But I really feel I understand myself better and why I make certain choices. And, you know, I get it that for many people, they don't feel they have time to do that. But I think, as you say, it starts with, you know, even that journaling practice, I think it's a great way of starting. Journaling is huge. I think if you don't know what your why is, then you need to start figuring it out for yourself. Because if you don't know your why, why are you doing the things that you're doing,

then you're probably not living your life intentionally or as mindfully as you could be. And I know what that's like because I lived that way for a long time. And I will say that when I was newly sober, journaling was a very huge part and continues to be a huge part of, of that connection process. So it began for me with getting a book called Artist's Way by Julia Cameron, which is an amazing program for unlocking. It's, it's technically for unlocking creativity for people that are like writers, but it's really about creating a greater connection with yourself and what makes you tick. And one of the practices in that program is something called morning pages, which entails just getting a journal out every morning. First thing in the morning, you write three pages,

whatever comes to your mind. You could just write, I hate journaling. I hate journaling. Why am I doing this? This is stupid. Whatever it is, just get out and start writing in this free form kind of way. And what it does is over time, it starts to unlock aspects of your unconscious mind that really start to put the pieces together that help you answer that question about your why. And I think when you begin to do that, the skies start to clear and you get a better sense of the best direction for you. Yeah, that's incredible, Rich. And, you know, to find that why, to find out a little bit more about yourself, you need to create time. If we're filling up every spare moment we've got

with incoming noise, i.e. I'm looking at our smartphones when I say that, I'm, you know, if you've got five, 10 minutes of downtime and your initial reaction, like many for like, you know, including me, sometimes I will do this as well. You, you know, you've got a bit of downtime, right? Let's go on social media. Let's, but what we're doing is that we're, we're not allowing our own minds to think we're just, you know, we're letting that external noise keep, you know, keep infiltrating our brains and our minds. And we're never getting that space to think for ourselves. And again, look, it's not about saying this, you know, never go on social media. You know, I love social media. I think it's fantastic. But I think having a practice like journaling is just, it's creating that five minutes, maybe that 10 minutes of space where

actually you're alone with your own thoughts, not someone else's thoughts, not someone else's life. It's just you, your pen and the paper. And, you know, guys, if you're listening to this and you don't know where to start, I'd say start there. Try it for seven days. Just see what happens. See how you feel. If you don't like it, right, fine. But you've at least tried it. And I bet you, you know, we've got five minutes to try it. Yeah. I mean, we, it's, it's crucial to carve out time for self-reflection. And in the, you know, we were talking about this earlier, like there's no reason to ever

be bored ever again. Every time you're in a line, you pull out the phone. Anytime you're in a, in a betwixt, in between one thing and the next pull out the phone. And, and it's become so reflexive that it's actually become, it requires diligence and intention to go, okay, I'm just going to be by myself right now. We used to find ourselves by ourselves all the time, driving the car, whatever it is. Now, it's very difficult. You have to really, like, make a decision that that's what you're going to do. But if you don't do that,

your life, your quality of your life will begin to erode and you're, you start to detach from what it is that makes us human. Yeah, absolutely. And a tip I'd give on that for people is, you know, if this journaling practice appeals to you and I'd highly recommend you give it a go, cause I have done it and it is transformative. Um. It's, you know, try and have that golden hour in the morning without your phone. Okay. I think it's such a great way to start the day is with your own thoughts, not with incoming noise. You know, I know some of you were thinking, yeah, but I, you know, you told me to meditate and I use that meditation hour. Okay, fine.

Keep it on airplane. Now the morning routine is like two hours long. Yeah, I get it. Right. So maybe if you do need to put it on, do you know, keep it on airplane mode. One of my early podcasts was with Michael Acton Smith, who founded the calm meditation. Yeah. Yeah. He's fantastic. And you know, he first hour, I think maybe two hours a day, he stays in airplane mode. So yes, he does his calm meditation, but he doesn't, he insulates himself. He protects himself from the noise of the outside world. And guys, I would highly recommend you think about that. You know, jumping on your emails first

thing in the morning, you're just setting yourself on this vicious treadmill, which is very hard to get off for the rest of the day. Do you want to live intentionally or reactively? If you wake up and you grab your phone and you start responding to things you are living your life reactively and that is not a good default mode setting yeah so we're not telling you know anyone what to do we're just suggesting that this is something you might want to consider you know because people will say yeah but you know my work needs me to find you look Look, I get it. Look, the point is many of us can actually find that time. We can create that time. And I think at some point, you know, we just got to suck it and see, see how we go. I'm like, get up earlier, go to bed earlier. Don't watch that TV show, like get off Facebook, you know, whatever. Like you

can, if it's important enough to you, if you're willing to make that commitment to yourself, you can find the time. Hey, Rich, you're absolutely right man you're absolutely right i'm trying to soften it i know i'm trying to soften it um it was really good cop bad cop here yeah exactly well we're coming towards the end but i really i think you're such an inspirational figure what you do i think um you know you're inspiring people including, all around the world by sharing your story and your journey. And you're an absolute prime example of somebody who has felt better and now is living more, which is just perfect for this podcast. I wonder, in your life experience, you know, with alcohol, before you revolutionized your diets, all this kind of stuff, before you went on this journey of self-discovery, what would you say is the single biggest truth

that you have learned along the way? That we are spiritual beings having a human experience and not the other way around. Wow. That's incredible, actually, just to sit on that and reflect about that. Can you elaborate a touch on that? material lives. And like I said earlier, I think most of us are living reactively. We're not taking the time to really reflect on what's most important. And in my experience, and again, this is just my experience, when I prioritize

my connection with something greater than myself, which can be of your own definition, my life takes on greater meaning. When I ensure that I am prioritizing service to others, when I am connecting through meditation and mindfulness practices, through meditation and mindfulness practices, this weird equation takes place where everything in my life starts to make sense and work more freely. So that doesn't necessarily make sense in a logical, rational way. There's a weird inverse relationship with time that takes place There's a weird inverse relationship with time that takes place where the more I invest in meditation, mindfulness, service, you can call it prayer. I don't really call it prayer, but engaging with a relationship with a power greater than myself. relationship with a power greater than myself, the more time I spend doing that, the less time I need for everything else. And everything seems to get done better and things work out the way that they should. I was somebody who always believed that everything that I had accomplished in my life was

a result of my ability to outwork my fellow classmates or teammates. I was never the most talented student or athlete, but I have this incredible capacity to suffer and to go the extra mile. And I always thought that was my secret weapon. And it wasn't until that couldn't resolve my alcoholism that I was forced to confront a greater truth, which is that the solution isn't in that kind of forcefulness, but in surrender, in acceptance. And that's been the greatest teacher for me. And it's an ephemeral concept, but in truth, by letting go, I allow the space for what is meant to be to move into my life. Just incredible, Rich.

So I don't know if that makes any sense, but. Yeah, to me, perfect sense. And I think a lot of people will resonate with that. So thank you. You released a book a few years ago, Finding Ultra, which you've recently re-released all over the world. I know people in the UK can get the new version. What are people, you know, people who've maybe come across you for the first time today, listening to you talk to me and interested in learning more about

you, what are they going to find in your book? What can they get out of that? So Finding Ultra is sort of a combination of three different books. It's sort of an addiction recovery memoir. It's also an athletic autobiography. It's my adventures in ultra endurance and the races that I competed in. And it's also sort of a nutrition primer. I talk a lot about plant-based nutrition and the hows and whys behind that and how I make it work. But essentially it's a story. It's the story of my life. Yeah. Guys, if you're listening, I think you're really going to enjoy the book, really engage with Richard's story. Because no matter what your preferences are around lifestyle, I think there's such a lot in there that we can all

apply in our own life. You know, we can learn from certain aspects of that. We can resonate with certain aspects and use that story to help us make changes. So guys, there's going to be a link to everything we've spoken about today, including a link to Rich's book. It's going to be drchastity.com forward slash Rich Roll. You get all the show notes, all the links, everything. So, you know, if something inspired you in this conversation, please do go to my website, go to that page and you can check it all out. Which final question for you is something I'm starting to ask a lot more of my guests. You know, as you well know, I talk about these four key pillars of health, you know, food, movement,

sleep and relaxation. I personally struggle with the relaxation pillar. That's what I'm working a lot on at the moment. And I always like to ask, you know, out of those four pillars, you, you seem to have a lot of things dialed in, in your life. Which pillar do you struggle the most with? Same one relaxation. You know, I, I, uh, I just, I run and gun, I go hard, you know, I work out hard. I, I, I placed giant demands on my, on my body physically through the training that I do, but also professionally. I'm traveling all the time like yourself, and I love what I do. There is a blurring between play and work.

So it's like I guess we're working right now. I don't know if this is work. That's pretty good because it doesn't feel like work. And we're lucky. And we're lucky to be able to do this. Super, super lucky. This is a high- quality problem to have. But sometimes I don't know when to just stop and slow down.

So that is my greatest challenge amongst your pillars. Great. Well, thanks for sharing that, Rich. Look, I really thank you for your time today. I really, genuinely, that was one of my funnest conversations, you know, to really go deep. And I think a lot of people are going to resonate with that. Rich, where else can people sort of stay in touch with you, find out what you're doing? You know, where can they find you?

Best place is my website, richroll.com. That's where you can find the podcast and all the books, et cetera. And then the podcast is everywhere you listen to podcasts, the Rich Roll podcast and Finding Ultra. We've got two cookbooks as well, The Plant Power Way and The Plant Power Way Italia, same place you buy books, and at Rich Roll on Twitter and Instagram. And if you'll indulge me, can I leave your listeners with one last thought? Please.

So if you're listening to this and you're in pain or you're struggling and you can't see your way through, you can't see the path forward, people say that people don't change and that is bullshit. Change is always available to you. It is a choice. If you're struggling with drugs and alcohol, you never have to drink or use again. Please seek help. If you are looking to change your diet or a lifestyle habit, figure out one small habit that you can master, just like Dr. Chatterjee always talks about, and master that. Be gentle on yourself and understand that this is a journey. This is a journey for the rest of your lifetime. It's not a hack or an overnight thing, but that change that you seek in your life

isn't just possible. It is what you are here to do. Rich, thank you. Thanks for your time. Thanks, Matt. What a moving and profound ending to the podcast today. I really hope you enjoyed listening to the conversation as much as I enjoyed recording it. I hope you found the content engaging and that you feel inspired to make some changes in your

own life. Do let me and Rich know on social media what you thought of our conversation, any questions you may have, or if you simply want to let us know what changes you were going to make based on what you heard, we would absolutely love to hear from you. Many of the ideas discussed during the conversation are detailed in my book, The Four Pillar Plan, which is out in the US and Canada with a brand new title, which is How to Make Disease Disappear, which also spoke a lot about meaning and purpose, which is a big part of my upcoming book, The Stress Solution, which comes out very shortly. It is available to pre-order right now. And I want to thank every single one of you who has already pre-ordered the book. You will be getting the book the very day that it

comes out. I would really appreciate any help that you can give me to help spread awareness of this podcast, such as leaving a five-star review on whichever platform you are listening to this on. The very best way is to tell your friends about it. In fact, why not take a screenshot right now and share it on your social media channels. Tell your friends what you learned, why it might be relevant for them, and the name of the show, which of course is Feel Better Live More. I can assure you that anything you do to help me spread the word is very much appreciated. That is it for today.

I hope you have a fabulous week. Make sure you have pressed subscribe and I will see you again very shortly. Remember, you are the architect of your own health. Making lifestyle change is always worth it because when you feel better, you live more. I'll see you next time. Thank you.