Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - 90: Rich Roll, Vegan Ultra-Endurance Athlete

Episode Date: July 26, 2017

Shortly before his 40th birthday, Rich Roll was walking up a flight of stairs when he suddenly felt like he was about to have a heart attack. That terrifying moment led the former entertainment attorney, who had already been through rehab for alcohol abuse, to overhaul his lifestyle and now he is a dedicated vegan who has completed some of the world's most grueling and extreme endurance races. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It kind of blows my mind to consider the fact that we're up to nearly 600 episodes of this podcast, the 10% happier podcast. That's a lot of conversations. I like to think of it as a great compendium of, and I know this is a bit of a grandiose term, but wisdom. The only downside of having this vast library of audio is that it can be hard to know where to start. So we're launching a new feature here, playlists, just like you put together a playlist of your favorite songs.

Back in the day, we used to call those mix tapes. Just like you do that with music, you can do it with podcasts. So if you're looking for episodes about anxiety, we've got a playlist of all of our anxiety episodes. Or if you're looking for how to sleep better, we've got a playlist of all of our anxiety episodes, or if you're looking for how to sleep better, we've got a playlist for that. We've even put together a playlist of some of my personal favorite episodes. That was a hard list to make. Check out our playlists at 10%.com slash playlist. That's 10% all one word spelled out..com slash playlist singular.

Let us know what you think. We're always open to tweaking how we do things and maybe there's a playlist we haven't thought of. Hit me up on Twitter or submit a comment through the website. Hey y'all, it's your girl, Kiki Palmer. I'm an actress, singer, and entrepreneur. I'm a new podcast, baby, this is Kiki Palmer. I'm asking friends, family, and experts,

the questions that are in my head. Like, it's only fans only bad, where the memes come from. And where's Tom from MySpace? Listen to Baby, this is Kiki Palmer on Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcast. Before we start, if this is your first time, listening to the 10% Happier Podcast A, welcome.

And B, if you like the show, do me a solid, take a second and subscribe, rate the podcast, and if you really want to hook me up, tell some friends about how they too can find us. Go on your social medias and spread the word. Now here's today's show. [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ This is the 10% happier podcast. I'm Dan Harris.

[♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ My guest this week is a guy I met a of years ago, shortly after my book came out, it came to my office and it reminded me I had no idea it was such a big deal. But now I do. His name is Rich Roll and he is, you may have heard of him, he's got a very popular podcast, he's also an author and ultra endurance athlete, am I putting that correctly? That's fairly correct. What's the absolute correct way to say it?

Well, the big deal part, I don't know about that. Oh, the big deal part is, but Ultra Endurance athlete is correct. Yeah, that's correct. And also, you do all this while being plant based. In other words, you're a vegan. So a lot of people wonder how can you exert yourself the way in the ways in which you do while eating no meat, which

we'll get to. But I want to start with the question I always start with, which is, are you a meditator? And no meat, which we'll get to, but I wanna start with, the question I always start with, which is, are you a meditator, and if so, how'd you get there and why? I am a meditator. I've had an interesting kind of relationship with meditation and evolving relationship with meditation.

I think my first introduction to meditation was in rehab, where I lived for a hundred days when I was 31 years old. And it came through. What were you coming up of? Alcohol. Yeah, I had an interesting descent into the depths of alcoholism that took me to some pretty dark places throughout my 20s. Was lucky enough to hit that bottom and surrender to the problem that I was having and sought

out help and went to rehab in Oregon, where I lived for 100 days, and that was my first introduction to many things, a toolbox for how I live my life today, but one of them is meditation, which is part of the 12 steps. And I can't say that it really stuck. They listen. It was prayer or meditation.

Right, right, exactly. And so what did they teach you? They don't really teach you much of anything. They just sort of say this is part of it. And it kind of gets brushed over, I think, in my opinion, now with what I know about meditation and how impactful it has been in my life. It's certainly a component of sobriety in that construct.

But I would say that it's under emphasized. But that was the first introduction, and then after that I started going to yoga classes and was introduced to it a little bit more through that medium. But it never became a regular practice or a priority for me until recent years, and it really came through doing my podcast and interviewing meditation teachers and practitioners, friends of mine, and it just became very clear to me that this was a blind spot that I really needed to incorporate into my life, and since then it has incrementally grown

into a priority and something that I take pretty seriously now and have found to be extremely beneficial. Can you give me a sense of what your practice is? I keep it really simple. I don't get too dogmatic about it and I don't get too caught up in technique. I really just try to focus on the breath and stay out of sort of the self-judgment

that I think trips up a lot of people. How's that going for you? and stay out of sort of the self-judgment that I think trips up a lot of people. How's that going for you? Yeah, it's up and down, you know what I mean? Like I get two seconds of peace and then the mind intervenes once again, as it always does. But rather than beat myself up about that. Two seconds is good by the way.

Yeah, I know. Well, that's after years of doing this, right? And just try to continually release it, release it, release it, and bring it back to the breath and hopefully incrementally get a little bit better. And I've noticed the benefits in many ways in my life. And so, I believe in it strongly. And I think part of my evolution was for many years as an ultra endurance athlete, like I spend a lot of time in solitude training, like lots of hours on the bike, really long runs.

And there's certainly an active meditation component to that. And I've gotten a lot of benefit out of that. And for many years, I sort of said, well, that's my meditation. And I think a lot of athletes do that all the time. And my wife, who's a much more avid and experienced meditator than myself would constantly say, that all the time. And my wife who's a much more avid and experienced meditator than myself would constantly say, that's great, Rich, but like,

I think you really are missing the bigger picture here. There's something to a structured, formalized meditation practice that is qualitatively different from what you're experiencing when you're training. And I would tell her, yeah, but you don't know what I'm doing. Like, you know, you don't understand.

But when I actually committed to doing a formal meditation practice, I realized the difference. And so I'm always quick to point that out to the many athletes that I speak with. Yeah. Can I give my little stick on this? It's not for you, it's for anybody who's listening, because I've been mapping out with some colleagues of mine from the 10% happier app company like all the reasons that people give for not meditating and one of them is blank is my meditation or running is my meditation gardening is my meditation petting my dog is my meditation

I don't need to meditate because I'm already doing this thing and my answer to that is maybe depends how you're doing it Like if you run the way I run, which is that you're rehearsing all the stuff you're going to say to your boss or you're listening to a podcast or listening to music, that is not meditation. If you are running and your headphones are out and you're feeling your footfalls, you're feeling the wind on your face, you're feeling the motion of your body, and then every time you get distracted you start again Well, then you're meditating, right? I don't know many people who actually run like that or garden like that or pet their dog like that and if you do then great Then blank is your meditation, but if you don't then a formal seated practice might be something you want

Yeah, and and conversely if you're sitting in lotus position and your your fingers are in the right place And you have your mala beads in your hand, but you're rehearsing what you're going to say to your boss, that's probably not meditation either. Manifest not meditation, absolutely. However, I think it really on that one, just the only thing I'd say is because I don't want people to hear that and say, well, I sit and I, in whatever position you want, just for the record, you don't have to sit in a lotus position, you can sit in a chair.

But a lot of people sit and feel completely distracted. They do find themselves rehearsing arguments with their boss or planning lunch or whatever, as long as the only ingredient that needs to be added there is the intention to focus on your breath or whatever your object of meditation is and then every time you get lost, start again. So don't feel guilty, listeners, if you find yourself getting distracted a million times because that's the whole game, as you said, when you eloquently described your own practice. I would agree with that.

Thank you. Thank you. So this has been a couple of years of a really sustained, serious practice on your end. Yeah, I would say about three years, two and a half years. What kind of, I want to hear about the impacts in your life, I'm just going to pick one narrow area first, which is on your athletics. Has it had an impact on your performance? Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.

I think the biggest impact that it's had is the ability to anchor yourself in the present moment. So when, and to become the observer of your thinking mind, and I'm sure you talk about this all the time, but the thinking mind is very good at certain things, but it's probably most skilled at talking you out of whatever it is you're attempting to do. Or, you know, the self-defeating thoughts,

like I have a lot of insecurities and a lot of anxieties and those inevitably crop up. And when you're, whether you're training or you're racing, and I'm in these extended, you know, incredibly long races that I do, it's impossible to not have that moment where everything, everything in your mind and your body is telling you to stop. This gives you all the reasons why this is stupid. Why are you doing this? You could be at home with your kids. You could be eating a cheeseburger. Exactly. Well, not the cheeseburger for you. And to be able to distinguish that from your higher consciousness and to understand that this is just the chatter of the idle mind and that

you actually have the ability to discern the difference and make a decision, even if it's just that like extra little moment to understand that, so that you're not reactive and you can actually contemplate an appropriate response and anchor yourself back into the present moment and move forward. Bingo. How old do you know if you don't mind? I just turn 50. You look good.

How far can you know if you don't mind? I just turn 50. You look good. How far can you run at age 50? My knees blown out from running on a treadmill. I can run pretty far. I would say I haven't raced since 2011. So my training kind of was very intense from around 2007 to 2011. And then since then, it's been about podcasting and talking to people like you and writing books and travel and the like. But turning 50, I've now kind of refocused. I want to have a performance goal for this year. So I'm doing a big race in September. So I've actually just gotten back into some pretty structured, serious training and it's starting to ramp up because I want to see what I can do at 50.

What does that mean, a race? Like, when you say a race, is that like you're going to run 5k, what are you talking about? Well, the race, I'll set the stage by providing some context. The race that I've specialized in the past in is a race called Ultraman, which is a double Ironman distance triathlon. It's a three day 320 mile circumnavigation of the big island of Hawaii. That's ridiculous. Which is ridiculous. It is. And I've done very well in that race. I'm not an ultra man. I'm like, whatever the opposite of ultra man is.

Yeah. couch man. Well, you're ultra man in your own world. No, not in no world in my own. But anyway, I give you your proper. So, and that race is like the first day you swim 6.2 miles and then ride your bike 90 miles. The second day you ride your bike 171 miles and the third day you celebrate this whole ridiculous affair by running 52.4 miles, a double marathon. So that's pretty far.

I haven't done anything like that in a couple of years. The race that I'm doing in September is this really bizarre. Do people die doing this? I mean, people don't die. It's amazing. It's actually really inspiring to watch people do this race. And there's a lot of older people that do it. It's really cool. Do you count yourself now as older or do you mean even older than you? I guess there are people that are older than me that do it. I'm not making fun of you by the way, because I'm from 45, so we're almost the same age.

We're the same age. Yeah, basically. The race that I'm doing in September is called Otillo, and it's in Sweden, and it is a, it's the world championship, so something called swim run, which is a big deal in Europe. Nobody's ever heard of it in the United States, but it's a very long, like, a nine hour race

over the course of the day. You end up running about 40 miles and swimming about seven miles, but there's 52 transition. So you're in the kind of archipelago south of Stockholm and you're swimming across these waterways and then climbing up these rocks and running across these little islands and then jumping back in the water and swimming and And literally changing it up the whole time. So you're doing the whole thing and like this modified wetsuit with your running shoes on. Like you leave your running shoes on while you're swimming.

And you're tethered to a teammate. So you do it as a duo like in pairs. Are you blindfolded or in any, did you bring your hair together? Like what, anything else you can do to increase the degree of difficulty? Yeah, I don't know. Like, it's a new world for me.

I'm still learning about it and it scares me, which is why I'm excited to do it. But I'll let you know back in September after I do it. First person on this podcast to use the word archipelago. So that was awesome. I'll always have that. You will. So other areas of your life, I mean, you have, how many kids do you have three? Four kids. Four. Where are their ages? 22, 20, 13 and 9. So how

has meditation impacted your family life? I would say that it's similar to, it's the similar, it's similar to how it's improved my athletics. Really, I think it's about being able to be present in whatever you're doing, to be able to show up and actually be there as opposed to sort of being distracted all the time. So for example, you can be a stay-at-home mom or dad, but if you're sort of on your phone, the whole time that you're with your kids or you're reading the newspaper or you're anxious or caught up in your mind about other things

that are bugging you, then how present are you really? So for me, it's allowed me to flick that switch and really be where I'm at in whatever capacity that is as a parent, as a partner to my wife, et cetera. And also, to be able to not get caught up in the drama that inevitably occurs when siblings are not getting along or stuff your kids are doing that you're not happy with, so you're not being reactive to that and you're able to contemplate the appropriate

parenting response. Four kids is ambitious. I mean, I've got one. You ever see that movie, Jurassic World, where they make a dinosaur in the lab, we made him in the lab because he was an IVF baby, and then he turns out to be a complete jerk. The dinosaur destroys everything. That's a little bit like what's happened in my house. Well, it's been fun.

It's been a tribe. The two older ones are my wife's boys from a previous marriage. So I'm their stepdad, but they've lived with me since they were three and four years old, and their father has since passed away. And then two little girls that my wife and I had together. It's adorable.

So can you tell me a little bit, you've told me this offline, but and I know you give speeches about this, but tell us a little bit about your story of how you became this endurance athlete because you referenced it a little bit earlier, but you weren't living the healthiest lifestyle for much of your early years.

Right. So I had this struggle with drugs in alcohol throughout my 20s. I got sober at 31. And I was somebody that, as a young person, had a lot of problems. I graduated top of my class in high school. I got in every college I applied to. I went to Stanford. I was a world-ranked swimmer.

I competed on NCAA Division I Championship teams. I had the world-ranked swimmer. I competed on two NCAA division one championship teams. You know, I had the world by the tail at one point and I squandered a lot of those opportunities as a result of my you know issues with substance. And so when I got sober, I became very intent upon repairing all the records that I created as a result of my drinking and using. And I sort of threw all of my addictive tendencies and obsessive compulsive behavior patterns into my work, into my profession,

to try to prove to myself that I could repair this and also to the world and to society. And so I kind of chased this American dream. And I was a corporate lawyer on the partnership. I was successful in that regard. So by the time I was 39, successful attorney, partnership track, nice sports car in the driveway, I had met my wife building a family,

lived in a really nice home. And so, God. I'm just gonna interrupt, because there's a plot twist coming before we get to that. What do you think was undergirding the problems with drugs in alcohol and then the kind of diversionary addiction tactic that you took in your thirties of throwing all of that into your professional ambition? What was going on in your mind that made all of that happen?

It's kind of a $64,000 question. Why are you an alcoholic? And I try not to spend too much time trying to parse that because I don't know what benefit that avails me. Is it genetic? Is it something that happened to me when I was a kid? I don't know the answer to that. I do know that I was one of those kids who was insecure and kind of a loner,

had difficulty making friends, always felt like I was separate from. And I felt like everybody had the rule book for life and I didn't. Yeah, but I find that so surprising because to meet you now at 50, you're like, we're very cool. Yeah, I was not a cool kid.

No, I was a very nerdy kid. You know, I was very much different, I would say. And I think drugs and alcohol helped me. They helped give me social skills. Initially, it starts out as fun. It works in the beginning. It brought me out of my shell. Suddenly I could go to parties.

I could talk to girls. I could crack jokes. And it was like all good for a period of time. And that's why you do more. And you do more. But it turned dark for me. was like all good for a period of time. And that's why you do more and you do more. But it turned dark for me. It started to erode my ambitions

and it really broke my instincts and made me do things that I would not ordinarily do. And really, at the end, it was bad. I was around the clock drinker, a really balkatonic in the shower, sneaking drinks throughout the day. Wow. You know, it was bad, and I don't know when I was in rehab.

One of the counselors said, you know, after, like when I went to rehab, I finally told people what I was actually doing, because this was like my big secret, even though everybody knew I was now cal, I knew I was now cal, for a long time, before I got sober. They said, yeah, you know, rich, like you have a pretty progressed case of alcohol. Like you usually see this in 65 year old life long drinkers. Like this is a serious thing.

Like, because when I showed up in rehab, I thought I was going to do a spin dry and, you know, a couple of weeks and just get back to my job. And they were like, yeah, we think you should stick around. And that's why I ended up staying for such a long period of time, like I got it. Good for you for getting it. Yeah, and it hasn't been easy and it hasn't been a linear progression of growth either,

but it did save my life. And to this day, sobriety is my number one priority, and I'm very active in the recovery community. But to kind of get back to the story, I'm still in extreme personality. I was in my swimming career. I was academically, and that's just how I'm wired for better or worse. So throwing myself into that workaholism worked to the extent that it progressed my career. But I never took a beat to sort of consider what it was that I actually wanted to do.

I was so obsessed with just being viewed in the eyes of society as somebody who was successful and responsible. So I kind of chased this, you know, legal partnership thing without really taking a minute to decide whether that was actually something I really wanted. So by the time I was 39, and meanwhile, I stopped taking care of myself physically. So I became kind of a junk food addict. I put on 50 pounds. And on the inside, I was kind of depressed, like a couch potato, sort of sliding into middle

age on a crash course with chronic lifestyle illness. And so shortly before I turned 40, I had this moment where this kind of existential crisis that I was harboring crashed into a health scare where I was walking up a flight of stairs to go to sleep late one night and I had to pause. I was winded and out of breath and had tightness in my chest and you know sweat on my brow and really felt like I was on the precipice of having a heart attack It was a very frightening moment and it was very similar to the day that I decided I was finally going to get sober like a very crystallized moment in time where I realized like I'm

Having that experience again, and I have an opportunity to really change my life, and so I was able to like again and I have an opportunity to really change my life. So I was able to like, I had the cognizance to understand that this was a special moment and I really grabbed onto it and that was the beginning of trying to course correct how I was living. Raising kids can be one of the greatest rewards of a parent's life. But come on, someday parenting is unbearable. I love my kid, but is a new parenting podcast from Wondry that shares a refreshingly honest and insightful take on parenting.

Hosted by myself, Megan Galey, Chris Garcia, and Kurt Brown-Oller, we will be your resident not-so-expert experts. Each week we'll share a parenting story that'll have you laughing, nodding, and thinking, oh yeah, I have absolutely been there. We'll talk about what went right and wrong, what would we do differently? And the next time you step on yet another stray Lego in the middle of the night,

you'll feel less alone. So if you like to laugh with us as we talk about the hardest job in the world, listen to, I love my kid, but wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen ad-free on the Amazon Music or Wondery app. So did you quit the law firm? What happened? Not overnight. I started playing around with diet and nutrition to try to find a way of eating that would allow

my body to heal itself and feel better, And that was not overnight process either. I was trying everything. I did juice cleanse. I tried a bunch of different diets. And really stumbled into eating plant-based as a last resort after trying everything else and not finding success. And when I went completely 100% plant-based,

like no animal products, no processed foods, in a very short period of time, like a week to 10 days, I felt unbelievably better. I had more energy than I had since I was like a teenager, and I realized I had kind of backed into something that perhaps could be quite profound and started to educate myself about diet and nutrition. And with that, came a desire to sort of take care of myself physically again. And I had an impulse and a desire to get fit once again to exercise, which I hadn't

felt in many years. And that was a gradual process of just, you know, going outside and jogging a little bit. I didn't have aspirations to return to competitive athletics in my 40s. I really just wanted to lose the gut around my midsection and be able to enjoy my kids at their energy level. But with each kind of successive week that went by, I was enjoying it more and more, and the pounds got emelted away. And I was experiencing, you know, like this joy

that I hadn't felt since I was like a kid, you know, when I loved swimming. And I just wanted more and more of that. And I made a decision that I was going to follow that impulse. I was starting to unpack what it was about me that just made me happy in a very simple, primal way. And I decided to listen to that instead of repress that and just do what society expected me to do.

Meanwhile, I'm practicing lawn. I'm doing all that kind of stuff, but ultimately I ended up quitting the big law firm. I started a little practice with a couple friends and started to have a little bit more agency over my time. And in a very short period of time, I felt like I had, I was starting to morph into this different person, like a completely different person,

who was more comfortable in my own skin, living more kind of authentic to who I was. And it was so profound that it kind of led me to this question of human possibility and potential, because in a period of like maybe six months, I went from like this 50 pound overweight kind of couch potato guy into somebody who was really excited about being outdoors and going out on a trail at dawn

and feeling slim and in my body again. And I wanted to, it started, what it did was, it made me realize that I had all these blind spots about what I'm actually capable of. And I wanted to explore the outer perimeters of that. And when I found out about this world of ultra-indurance sports that just fascinated me and it seemed like a perfect template to kind of explore that for myself. So I think, I mean, there's a way in which your story as amazing as it is could be whittled

down to a bit of a cliche of just, you know, follow your dream. And I suspect that some people listening to this are like, well, you know, I don't have the luxury to do with this dude, dude. I can't, you know, quit my job and start running all over the world. But what do you say to people who have, who listen to your story and say, all right, well, that's for some other people, not me. Yeah, it's a great question. Um, and I actually, you know, went through kind of a financial

dismantling as we underwent this transformation actually as a family, really. So it wasn't easy. I would say to anybody who, who has that reaction that it's not about quitting your job and following, you know, it's not about like making these radical overnight changes. I think that we all have untapped reservoirs of potential and I think we have blind spots when it comes to things that make us happy. And I would encourage anybody who's listening to kind of conjure up or try to reminisce or remember things that gave them joy as a child.

And to the extent that those are things that one does not do anymore for whatever reason, that there's always a way to express those in your life. And it doesn't have to mean quitting your job. Like if you liked playing the banjo when you were 12 or you liked writing jokes then maybe there's a way to go and do an open mic night or to take a guitar lesson or do that thing. Find a way in your free time to explore that part of you that is under-expressed but ultimately a fundamental component of who you are and what brings you happiness. So how serious did you get about the athletics? How far did you go with it?

In the Ultra Endurance Hall? Yeah, I got pretty serious about it. Yeah, I got pretty serious about it. I hired a coach. I learned about this race, Ultraman, and I became obsessed. And I was like, I've got to find a way to do this race. Like a switch was Flick and this illogical impulse kind of took hold of me and I just knew I had to find a way to tow the line at that race for whatever reason it made no logical sense whatsoever

What your wife say about that and she was always really supportive. She's like go for it That's fantastic and she knew that I was struggling and suffering. And she saw that this was a way for me to, it was like a journey to wholeness. Like it really was, it really was a spiritual adventure for me of trying to reconnect with myself in a profound way. So she always had my back. And I could have never done any of the things that I've done without her support. But yeah, I got really intense. I mean, at its most intense, I was training upwards of 25 hours a week, so it almost became like a job. And I was juggling practice in law at the time. And so, I can remember being out on a long training rides and my phone would ring,

and I would pull over to the side of the road, and I would negotiate some deal with clients and other lawyers and I'd be like, if they could see what I'm actually doing right now, they wouldn't believe it. So it was a bit of a tightrope act for a little while until I kind of came out of the closet with what I was actually doing. But yeah, I took it very seriously because I wanted to be able to do it and say, I gave it everything I got to see what I was actually capable of doing. And so what is your professional portfolio

consistent of now? Now, I stopped practicing law in 2012 when my first book came out finding ultra and I just cut the cord completely. Because I had been weaning myself off of it for some time but it was always like this lifeline you know the phone would ring and I could do a deal or represent some client and and I knew that if I didn't completely cut that cord that I would always go back to it and I wanted to be able to just completely jump into the abyss so today my life

consists of doing my podcast and traveling for public speaking, writing books. I've got a few products on my site. I've got some online courses and the like. And just basically being an advocate at large for healthy living. Your job is to be rich role basically. It's a good job for me. Yeah. Nobody else can do that. That's right. Nobody could take it away from me. So let's talk about veganism or you prefer plant-based diet. That's another one that people hear and think,

I can't get there. I was being impersonally now because I, and I've talked about this on the show before, like I would like to do it on many levels. I mostly, mostly just to say, mostly because I'm animal cruelty. And that to me is the biggest motivator. I don't know that it would have some sort of, I've eaten very close to vegan on,

if not full on vegan, on lengthy meditation retreats, and I didn't notice any sort of major physical change, because I eat reasonably healthy as it is, but what's holding me back, I would have to, I really would have to get my wife on board. And I think she feels very strongly to about animal cruelty, and we just haven't been able to do it. And we have, I think the real issue is

we haven't made it a priority. Frankly, we've talked about it. We both agree on ethical grounds that the case is really strong. We just haven't made it a priority. Mm-hmm. Do you cook at home? I do. Not as much as I should.

I make at home smoothies, including smoothies from your cookbook and also a smoothie that you just, one day when you were in my office, told me I should have, which is spinach, kale, banana blueberry, and I add avocado and it's delicious even though it sounded disgusting to me at the time. I also make just you know peanut butter, almond milk, Greek yogurt, well you wouldn't like the Greek yogurt part and bananas for my kid and he loves it. So and I you know, yeah, I do a little bit of cooking in it. Right, all right, so what's holding you back sounds like it's prioritization, right?

Yeah, laziness and inertia. Right, right, right. It's interesting. Also, like my wife, I couldn't do it with, I don't think I could just start and understand it. Yeah, I understand it. You know, I think it's a leap of faith for people. Once you kind of make

that commitment though, and step over the line, living in New York City, it's so easy to do. You know, it's so easy to do. Not easy. It wouldn't be easy. I think you'd be surprised. Every dinner I have with friends would be a discussion. I'm sure when you go out to eat with friends, it's like, well, you're in LA and you move in wellness circles, so it's probably fine. Well, yeah, like, now I'm like, everybody knows you move in wellness circles so it's probably fine. Well yeah like now I'm like everybody knows it's the guy so it's not a big deal. Yeah but at first I'm sure it was a massive pain and the you know what? It can be there's a lot of mental projection about that though that ends up being not as challenging as you might imagine you know travel all over the world I've in restaurants all the time

I've never had an issue making it work where there there's a will, there's a way and there's there's there's certain social graces that you learn to navigate it because the last thing I want to be in a restaurant is the guy who's like you know making a stink and trying attention to himself and you know sometimes I'll just excuse myself from the dinner table and go find the waiter and say hey can you just like make me the biggest salad you've ever seen or just you know do throw together a bunch of vegetables on some rice and that way you go back to the table and you realize like people, you think everyone's judging you and looking at you, people are self-obsessed, they don't really care, they're

thinking about themselves. Absolutely. You know what I mean? A friend, this is just a somewhat of a tangent, but I think that's such a great point. A former boss of mine who had endured a few sort of tough public trials where, you know, he had to, there were, scandals would be too strong a word, but he had, he had to endure some stuff where things were written about him that he didn't like, and he said, going through that is like being seasick. To you, it feels like the world is ending.

To everybody else, it's like mildly amusing. And it's true. We're all in the stars of our own movie. We're only, we're only, like, sort of mildly interested in other people's stuff. So you're right. I guess there's some mental projection going on on my end on the social aspect of veganism.

But here's the thing. When you break it down and you really look at it, it's kind of an amazing lifestyle because right now we're in the midst of this insane healthcare crisis, you know, something like 70% of Americans are overweight or obese. One out of every three people are gonna die of heart disease. They're projecting that by 2030, 50% of Americans

are going to be diabetic or pre-diabetic. 75% of all health care costs are attributable to these chronic lifestyle illnesses. And the truth is, if you go plant-based, you can basically opt out of becoming one of those statistics. And it's an amazing way to not succumb to these diseases that are killing millions and millions of people.

Meanwhile, animal agriculture is basically the number one culprit when it comes to almost every single man-made environmental ill on the planet, more greenhouse gas emissions than all of transportation combined. It's wreaking havoc on our planet. So there's the environmental concern. There's the ethical considerations that are important to you and there's the health considerations. And I don't know of any other lifestyle

that can like check all of those boxes. It's really profound. It's really profound. It's a beautiful way to live more sustainably on this planet. And from kind of a meditation perspective, it's, you know, there's less sort of karmic toll. Yeah.

And it just feels good to live that way. It's not about being on a pulpit and judging anyone else for their lifestyle decisions. It's a personal choice. But I can tell you that, I got into it for personal health reasons. I just didn't want to be fat, I didn't want to be lazy. And now the environmental concerns

and the ethical concerns have taken the forefront and are of primary interest to me. I remember when we had, you came to my office to interview me for your podcast many years ago and I'm so I'm taking credit for you launching a podcast. Yes, you should actually it was really private. You came with these fancy little mics and I was like, wow this looks like fun. And now look at this. Yes, I'm in a weird, we're in a radio streaming. It's unbelievable. I work for Disney. So we have a few resources.

But when I remember when we turned the mic off, I asked you a bunch of questions about veganism because this is just something that I it's really been in the back of my head for a long time. And one of the questions I asked you a bunch of questions about veganism because this is just something that I've it's really been in the back of my head for a long time. One of the questions I asked was, how do you, I mean, are you getting enough protein to be able to perform at the level you need? And I just, could you repeat what you said to me? Yeah, there's so, so many misconceptions about protein. And a lot of it is driven by marketing forces. Because when you go to the grocery

store, it looks like every packaged food product in bold capital letters will tell you how much protein is in the product. And it's almost impossible from a consumer perspective to not kind of intuitively take away from that that, well, we must need tons of protein. Like, if I don't drink a protein shake within moments of waking up in the morning, how am I going to possibly breathe air in and out of my lungs? The truth of the matter is that we actually don't need that much protein, about 10% of calories. When you're talking about protein,

you're really talking about amino acids, the building blocks of protein. I wish the word protein didn't even exist, and we were just talking about amino acids. And what we really need are the nine essential amino acids, which are the ones that our bodies cannot synthesize on our own. We need to get them from foods, but turns out they're in copious amounts and all kinds of plant foods.

If you randomly graze on plants all day long, you'll be hard pressed to not meet your daily recommended allowance of protein. And I've been doing this for 10 years. I'm 50, like I said, I can still go out and kill it with the best of them. I've never had any problems building lean muscle mass or recovering in between workouts. So I think the whole thing is a big red herring.

And it's just not something that we need to really be concerned about or focused on. The truth is, is that no doctors are treating patients for a protein deficiency, although we all think we're not getting enough protein. What we really should be talking about is fiber. Most people are not getting enough fiber in their diet. And I just think that we need to really take a look at this obsession that we have with protein and understand

that it is misplaced. There are plenty of amazing accomplished plant-based athletes out there more and more every day. And it's easy for me to say skinny, long distance runner guide, but there are MMA fighters and boxers and body builders and power lifters and athletes wear speed and agility and force and strength are of paramount importance. And they're all telling you the same thing. The recovery is better, they're less prone to get injured. And as an athlete, recovery is like the holy grail, the faster

you can recover in between workouts, the harder you can train. And when you protract that out of a course of a season or a number of years, you see tremendous performance gains. Plus, we have these gigantic, large herbivore animals, like the rhino and the gorilla. These are herbivores, and they're able to build tremendous strength eating just plants. And I think there's something to be learned from that. If people want to learn more about you, how can they do so? Where should we go?

What should we read, et cetera, et cetera, if we want to know more about ritual? My website, ritual.com is the best place. My podcast is the ritual podcast. You can find it on iTunes or wherever you listen to this podcast. And I'm just at ritual on Twitter and Instagram. I'm pretty easy to find. And the books. My book is called Finding Ultra. It's my memoir and then the cookbook is

called the Plant Power Way. Plant Power Way, right? That's right. It's in our kitchen. Such a pleasure to have you on, man. Thanks for having me. I really appreciate it. It was really fun. How are we going to get you vegan? What do we need to do? I think every conversation like this, I had Matt here record on recently. Also got in my head about this. So it's in there. It's percolating. It's percolating in a very powerful way.

So this has been very useful. Cool. So I really appreciate it. Okay, that does it for another edition of the 10% happier podcast. If you liked it, please take a minute to subscribe, rate us. Also if you want to suggest topics, you think we should cover or guests that we should bring in, hit me up on Twitter at Dan B. Harris. Importantly, I want to thank the people who produced this podcast, Lauren Efron, Josh

Cohen, and the rest of the folks here at ABC who helped make this thing possible. We have tons of other podcasts. You can check them out at ABCnewspodcasts.com. I'll talk to you next Wednesday. Hey, hey, prime members. You can listen to 10% happier early and ad-free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today. Or you can listen early and ad-free with 1ondery Plus in Apple podcasts. Before you go, do us a solid and tell us all about yourself by completing a short survey at Wondery.com slash survey.