The One You Feed - Bonus Re-Issue: Rich Roll from March 2014

Episode Date: April 30, 2015

Bonus Re-Issue from March 2014This week on The One You Feed we have Rich Roll.Rich Roll  is a 47-year old, accomplished vegan ultra-endurance athlete and former entertainment attorney turned full-time wellness & plant-based nutrition advocate, motivational speaker, husband, father of 4 and inspiration to people worldwide as a transformative example of courageous and healthy living.In 2012, Rich became a #1 bestselling author with the publication of his inspirational memoir Finding Ultra: Rejecting Middle Age, Becoming One of the World’s Fittest Men, and Discovering Myself.  Taking up where the book leaves off, in 2013 Rich launched the wildly popular Rich Roll Podcast, which persistently sits atop the iTunes top-10 lists.In May 2010, Rich and his ultra-colleague Jason Lester accomplished an unprecedented feat of staggering endurance many said was not possible. Something they call the EPIC5 CHALLENGE – a odyssey that entailed completing 5 ironman-distance triathlons on 5 islands of Hawaii in under a week. Commencing on Kauai, they travelled to Oahu, Molokai and Maui before finishing on the Big Island, following the course of the Ironman World Championships on the Kona coast. In This Interview Rich and I Discuss...The One You Feed parable.His experience feeding the bad wolf.His battle with alcoholism.How his sobriety wasn't all he needed for happiness.His moment of clarity at 40 that made him change his life again.The value of a plant based diet.How important it is to be ourselves and be vulnerable in telling our story.How nervous he was about sharing his innermost thoughts in his book.How he followed his heart and it led to a new life for himWhy you should stop lifehacking and invest in the journey.How to push through discomfort.The difference between the thinking mind and your higher consciousness.Eric taking on a 30 day plant power challenge.Rich Roll LinksRich Roll homepageThe Rich Roll podcastRich Roll on MediumWhy You Should Stop Lifehacking and Invest in the Journey@RichRoll on TwitterSome of our most popular interviews you might also enjoy:Mike Scott of the WaterboysTodd Henry- author of Die EmptyRandy Scott HydeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey everybody, it's Eric from The One You Feed, and this is a special bonus reissue of our earlier episode with Rich Roll. Rich is the first guest we've had on twice, and so in honor of that, we're re-releasing the episode we did with him back in March of last year. And also, you can hear the new episode with Rich and his wife Julie available also. As always, thanks for listening and talk to you soon. Bye. Sometimes you just have to start. You don't need to know where it's leading you. Welcome to The One You Feed. Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes like, garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think, ring true.

And yet, for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self-pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't have instead of what we do. We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their good wolf. I'm Jason Alexander.

And I'm Peter Tilden. And together, our mission on the Really Know Really podcast is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why the bathroom door doesn't go all the way to the floor, what's in the museum of failure, and does your dog truly love you we have the answer go to really no really dot com and register to win 500 a guest spot on our podcast or a limited edition sign jason bobblehead the really no really podcast follow us on the iheart radio app apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts rich is a 47-year-old accomplished ultra-endurance athlete and former entertainment attorney turned full-time wellness and plant-based nutrition advocate. He's a motivational speaker,

a husband, father of four, and inspiration to people worldwide as a transformative example of courageous and healthy living. In 2012, Rich became a number one best-selling author with the publication of his inspirational memoir, Finding Ultra, Rejecting Middle Age, Becoming One of the World's Fittest Men, and Discovering Myself. In 2013, picking up where the book leaves off, Rich launched the Rich Roll podcast. Be sure to stick around for the end of the interview where Eric promises Rich to try his plant-powered diet for the next 30 days. And good luck with that, Zimmer. Hey, Rich. welcome to the show.

Great to be here. Thanks for having me. Yeah, our pleasure. We're really excited to have you on today. Our podcast is based on the parable of the two wolves, where there is a grandfather, and he's talking with his grandson. And he says, in life, there are two wolves inside of us that are always at battle with each other. One is a good wolf and represents things like kindness and love and bravery. And the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And the grandson stops and he thinks and he says, well, grandfather, which one wins? And the grandfather says, the one you feed. So I'd like to start the podcast off by just asking you what

that parable means to you in your life and in the work that you do. Well, I think that's a great question to orient a podcast around. And I will tell you that I feel very qualified to speak on this subject because I know what it's like to feed, uh, feed both at different times. Uh, I, you know, I think that, that, that in a general sense, that's extremely true. And I'm a guy who spent many years feeding the, feeding the bad wolf, if you will. And, uh, it wasn't until, um, I was in, for me, in my experience, if left to to my own devices i'm probably going to feed that bad wolf uh and it's not until i'm in sufficient amount amount of pain that i uh am catalyzed to look in the mirror and kind of perceive myself the way that i really am and and get into a place

where i'm actually going to implement any kind of changes, i.e. start feeding the good wolf or, I suppose, trying to starve the bad wolf. Right. And maybe for our listeners, you could just spend a minute or two and could you give us the condensed version of your journey? I know you do it a lot, but I think it'd be helpful for anybody who's not familiar with you. I'm 47 years old. I grew up in a middle-class household and all my needs were met. I had parents that loved me and took care of me and looked after me and sent me to good schools. I was a good boy as a youngster, but I was one of those kids who always felt different than

everyone else. Everyone else had the rule book to life that I lacked. I was very awkward. I was very insecure and self-conscious and it probably wasn't helped by kind of wearing a head, head gear, you know, or the doncha and a patch over my eye. Cause I'm congenital. I was always sort of a loner. And that changed when I, around the age of 10 or 12, when I discovered the sport of swimming, which was like the first thing that I was ever good at in my life. Over to that sport throughout high school. And as a result of that, that gave structure and purpose to my life and allowed me to kind of learn about goals and achievement and the importance of hard work. And so by the time I was a senior in high school, I was a pretty successful swimmer. I was one of the fastest high school swimmers in the country, and I got recruited at colleges all over the place. And that introduced me to the miracle wonders of alcohol.

And, you know, I'm one of those guys who was an alcoholic from the very first drink. You know, I remember exactly the first time I got drunk and, you know, how it made me feel. And for many years, it was the sort of solution to every problem I didn't know that I had in my life. You know, it made me comfortable in my own skin. It allowed me to go to a party and talk to girls. You know, but like every alcoholic will tell you, it works until it doesn't work. And it wasn't long before it stopped working for me. And it started to erode my life. And it started with killing my swimming career. And then I didn't really care about what I was doing with my life. Everything aspirational in my life kind of became eroded and replaced by this idea of just trying to find a way to numb out from the world. alcoholic, but I was living a secret, you know, double life, I suppose. And, you know, as the disease progressed, that secret life was no longer so secret. And I got into all kinds of trouble and,

you know, jails and institutions. And at the end, about 16, a little over 16 years ago, I was sleeping on a bare mattress on the floor in an otherwise unfurnished apartment. I was unemployable. I was untrustworthy. I had alienated all my friends. My family didn't want anything to do with me. And that was really kind of my first moment of truly wrestling with the bad wolf, I suppose. I ended up going to rehab and I stayed in rehab for 100 days. Like I literally was in a mental institution for 100 days to kind of sort myself out. And as a result of really devoting myself to the process of getting sober and creating a foundation of sobriety,

when I reentered the world, I really had a new perspective on life and what was important and what wasn't. But at the same time, I was intent upon getting back all those things that I'd lost, you know, repairing all the wreckage of my past. And I sort of doubled down professionally to try to get back where I was. You know, I was on the partnership track at a very prestigious law firm. I'd met my wife. We were building the house of our dreams in Malibu Canyon. I had a Porsche in the driveway and everything looked pretty darn good from the outside. Like it really looked like, you know, I'd finally made it. I'd overcome this disease and life was grand. But on the inside, I have to say that I was dying. You

know, I was depressed. I was uninterested in my life and really just didn't have any motivation for anything. I was burned out at work. I didn't aspire to be any of the people that, you know, that were the higher ups, the partners in the law firm. I didn't want their lives. And I felt trapped in this life that I wasn't sure that I ever chose because I had never once asked myself, what is it that you want out of life? What is it that brings you joy or what do you have to offer? You know, those questions were really never part of my life equation. And so I guess you could say on some level, I was kind of having this midlife existential crisis. And at the same time,

I was medicating all of these confusing emotions with terrible foods. You know, I had sort of transferred all of these addictive tendencies onto what a friend calls the window diet. You know, if you can roll down your window and they hand you food through the window, you eat it, you know, and that's how I was living. You know, Burger King, McDonald's, Jack in the Box, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, nachos, cheeseburgers. And when you're young, you can get away with that. But, you know, it was catching up to me. So I'm 39 years old. I'm really confused about my life. And I'm fat, you know, I'm 50 pounds overweight and have no energy or enthusiasm about what I'm doing. And it all kind of came into crystal focus one evening shortly before I turned 40 when I was up late having worked late that

night. And as I made my way up the staircase to go to bed, my family was asleep. I had to pause halfway up a staircase like I was winded, you know, out of breath, buckled over, sweat on my brow, tightness in my chest. And, you know, it was sort of like this feeling like I was, if I wasn't having a heart attack, I was headed for one soon. And I knew that I needed to make a change in how I was living on every level from diet and exercise to career and everything, because what I was doing, which I thought was what I was supposed to be doing, was simply not working for me. And my body was rebelling against it. And it was powerful. It was a powerful moment. And the reason I bring up kind of that

morning that I woke up and decided to get sober is because this moment of being on the staircase was a similar moment. And I realized how powerful these little events can be, that when these things occur, and I think we all experience them in our lives, that we have that moment where we can, where this sort of door opens, right, for a temporary period of time, and you can either act swiftly and decisively, and that will change the trajectory of your life forever, or you can kind of not give it the respect that it deserves, and the moment will pass, and you'll be back to doing whatever you were doing, and I knew that, you know, making that decision that morning when I realized I needed to go to rehab changed my life forever.

And this seemed to be very – it felt very similar. Like I knew that I needed to do something pretty drastic. And so the idea of just – I could have woken up and said, you know what? I really need to eat better. I need to go to the gym a little more often. But I'm kind of an extreme guy, and I knew that wasn't going to work for me because it's vague and it's unspecific. And it didn't hold me accountable to anything. So instead, you know, I set about changing my diet almost overnight, you know, wholesale, starting out with a seven-day fruit

and vegetable juice cleanse and playing around with a vegetarian diet. And ultimately, after about six months of experimentation, falling into a 100% plant-based diet. And that discovery, that single discovery, really changed everything for me. I lost the weight, but more importantly, my energy levels went through the roof. They were so, it was so extraordinary and so dramatic that it really led me to this question of how resilient the human body is. Because I abused myself horribly for many, many years with poor lifestyle and diet and lack of exercise and drugs and alcohol. And then in such a short period of time, it could rebound

and I could feel so good, despite the fact that I was 40 years old, really kind of is the driver that led me on this path towards some of these athletic feats and goals that I've experienced over the last couple of years. But when it first started out, I started exercising again, simply because I had so much energy, I couldn't sit still, and I just needed to move my body. And my goals were really simple. They were just, you know, lose a little bit of weight and feel good and be able to enjoy my children at their energy level. So let me ask you a question about that period where you had the sort of the second awakening and you realized, you know, you weren't really happy in your life and you weren't eating

well. How active had you remained in your recovery from alcoholism at that point? Very active. And I remain active in it. You know, I've always gone to meetings and, you know, work with newcomers and do all the kind of stuff that you're supposed to do. So, you know, and that goes in it. You know, I've always gone to meetings and, you know, work with newcomers and do all the kind of stuff that you're supposed to do. So, you know, and that goes in waves. Sometimes I'm more active than others, but I'm always very, you know, cognizant that I need to stay on top of my

recovery and that has to be my first priority. But I think I was unaware, you know, I was sort of unaware of the extent to which these kind of addictive tendencies can spill over into other behavior patterns, or, or at least I wasn't really willing to kind of deal with those, you know, and in my case, it was food. Right. And I'm always I always think I'm a recovering, recovering alcoholic and addict myself. And I'm always, always curious about, because there seems to be two sort of perspectives in recovery. One is like everything you need is found right here in these rooms. And if you just do this and do it by the book, you'll have everything you need.

And then there's another school that sort of says, yes, all that stuff is important. But there's a lot of growth that happens outside of there, which is kind of what led me to that question. Because it seems for you there was a wholeher area of life that still needed explored. Well, sure. I mean, certainly, you know, I think being in recovery was my first experience with the notion of premising your life on spiritual principles, because before that, that was just anathema to me. And I remember being in rehab and being asked the question, that, that was just anathema to me. And I remember being in rehab and being asked the question, are you a spiritual being having a human experience or are you a human being having a spiritual experience? And I didn't even know what that question meant, let alone how to answer it.

And, you know, it was so new to me. But recovery has introduced me to spiritual principles that have then, in turn, led me to explore all kinds of different kinds of ideas. And I think for me, in terms of staying sober, like I'm, you know, I'm a believer that Alcoholics Anonymous and the program of recovery works, it works for me. And the minute I start to try to replace that with other things, whether, you know, for me, a lot of people say, well, you know, you just ultra running is just another addiction. And that's a whole other conversation I can have. But, you know, I have to, I have to, you know, going out and exercising and doing the training and all of that is certainly an active meditation. And that's an aspect of

recovery, but it is not the cure to my disease. And my mind wants to tell me that if I just do that, that I'll be fine. And the minute I start thinking that I get into trouble. So recovery, you know, I'd like to tell you that I always put it first. I don't, but when I don't, that's when I start to, you know, regress emotionally, mentally and spiritually. Right. And you put it first enough so that you remain sober, which is a balancing act for a lot of us, I think, as we integrate a lot more things into our life. Yeah. And there's good days and bad days, as you know. Sometimes you're the teacher and sometimes you're the student. More often than not, I'm the student. So another question. I heard you on the James Altucher show recently,

and you were talking about, you were writing your first book, or your only book right now, Finding Ultra, and... I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together on the Really No Really podcast, And... Is this the answer? We talk with the scientist who figured out if your dog truly loves you and the one bringing back the woolly mammoth. Plus, does Tom Cruise really do his own stunts?

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Bobblehead. It's called Really, No Really, and you can find it on the iHeartRadio app, on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can find it on the iHeartRadio app, on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. You heard then that one of the most famous Ultraman out there was writing his memoirs, and that really sort of made you nervous. And I'm curious if you could tell us a little bit about how you felt, and then more importantly, kind of what got you through that to go on and continue to do your own thing. Because I think that comparison can be a real problem for a lot of people. Yeah, sure. Of course. Yeah, I mean, to kind of set the stage for your listeners, we only got into the first part of the story. So ultimately, I ended up going off and racing in these crazy ultra endurance races and doing really well. And that

ultimately got me a bunch of media attention, etc. And that led to a book deal. So I had a great opportunity to write a book for Crown, which is like a top notch publisher, which was this amazing dream come true for me. And very early on, shortly after I kind of inked this book deal, I found out that Scott Jurek, who's one of the most accomplished ultra runners on the planet, the guy who's won every imaginable prestigious ultra race out there, had also just signed a book deal. athlete than I am because quite honestly, I've never even won an ultra endurance race, which confused me about how I even got a book deal to begin with, because it's not the story of some kind of world champion. But also, he's a vegan, right? So here you have these two things that I'm going to be writing about that are going to be written about, that are also going to be being written about by a guy who is better suited to do so than

I am it's sort of like in Hollywood when you you know two volcano movies come out at the same time it just seems like the that's the way the universe works right something in the air whatever and and uh it was interesting I mean I know Scott I don't hold anything against him at all I was like I can you I can't believe it. Really? He's going to write a book at the same time. So it forced me to really think about why I was writing this book. You know, was I doing it just to pad my ego? You know, what is the purpose of all of this? But I knew that in order for my book to work, because here I am, you know, for the most part, just kind of an average guy who went out and tackled some adventures and did really well, but certainly can't be considered

a world champion. The only way that my book would work or make sense or be helpful or interesting to anybody was going to be the extent to which I was willing to be vulnerable enough to really talk about my struggles and my failures in an honest and authentic way. And that's to say that, you know, I needed to be able to tap into an emotional through line that people could connect with, right, and identify with, and maybe see some of that in their own lives. And that was really the goal from the beginning of the book anyway, but it just made it a lot more challenging personally because I really had to dig deep and probe my emotions and try to understand what led me to some of the decisions

that I've made in my life that have led me astray and be able to paint that picture in total transparency, which is frightening. You know, essentially, I had to write the book like I was writing a private in a private journal that nobody was ever going to see. And there would be moments when I was writing it where I would just think this is insane. Like I can't. First of all, who cares? And second of all, the moment I started to think about the book being on a shelf in a store, I would absolutely panic and, and, you know, that anybody else would, would, would, you know, have the opportunity to read about my interior life in, in such detail. So it may, but, but ultimately I think that's why my book works. And I think

that's why my book continues to strike a chord and sell. It's because people read it, and they know that I'm not trying to BS them, that I'm just telling a human story. And this sort of overall humanity of it is the thing that is something that we can all connect with. I really like that story because it does show that it's easy for us to compare ourselves to what somebody else is doing, but that the path forward is almost always just to be truly ourselves. That's where something special happens. And in your case, it certainly did. Yeah. And I think that on the surface level, you look at my book and it's like, oh, here's the story of a guy who was kind of overweight, realized he needed to change his life, adopted a vegan diet and went off and ran these crazy races. to express was really much more of a spiritual journey towards authenticity, you know, a process of trying to understand what it was that I wanted to do with my life and how I could express that.

And that journey really being one based on faith and not knowing where this adventure would lead me, but embracing what my heart was telling me to do. Yeah, I think that's a really interesting part of the story. And you wrote something online recently about it too. And the lines that strike me are you talking about you're out on a bicycle for hours and hours and you can't come up with a rational reason why you should be doing that versus spending more time at work or doing these other things, except that that's what your heart told you you should do. And ultimately, it really led to a new life for you.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I couldn't have predicted at the time that it would. And I had many moments of great weakness and tremendous fear and wondering whether my instincts or my heart were leading me astray as opposed to, you know, towards a healthier kind of trajectory for myself. So there was a lot of doubt that went into that. And and yeah, I mean, to be sitting here talking to you, you know, on the other side of that is amazing to me you know the idea that that that uh simply by kind of doing the interior work such that i could get to a place where i felt like i could trust my instincts even if they were sending me these sort of crazy irrational signals about how i should be spending

my time and then to follow that thread no matter what the relationship to rationality was, and come out the other side, I feel very, I mean, vindicated is not the right word. But I feel very satisfied that I chose the right path, that I had the courage to take the risks that I took, because I took a lot. I have four kids. I have to be responsible to them. And I have a big life with lots of other people involved that, that are relying on me. So it's, you know, it'd be different if I was living in a cabin in the woods by myself, but that's not the reality of my life. So, so it was a scary time for sure. What I like about it also though, is that, that you didn't up and just say, well, I've decided I'm going to go do this thing

and walk off and leave everybody behind. You found a way to start where you were. You did have a law career, and you found a way to make those things coexist. And the balance is always hard to strike, but you didn't let those things be excuses. And yet you didn't abdicate responsibility, on the other hand. And that's always such a tricky balance. People tend to think they either need to just throw off their old life and start a brand new one completely, or they don't do anything. And what I like about your story is you sort of started where you were and made your way through it. And then on the other side, life looked very, very different. Yeah, for sure. You know, I'm putting together this sort of online course right now on how to set and achieve a goal. And so I've been doing a lot of thinking about

goal setting and life transformation and, you know, not just sort of tools for how you can do that or do that better, but also what holds people back. And it's an interesting thing. And it's kind of somewhat contradictory, because on the one hand, I think it's really important to have a big goal. Like, for example, I set a goal for myself of racing Ultraman, which was this huge athletic goal, right? And I had to create a lot of structure around that goal and how to work towards it in a responsible way where each day I had certain things that I had to do that were going to move me forward and as long as I stuck to that program I knew that come race day I would be as ready as I could given me a lot of time right but at the same time I think a lot of people sit around and they wait they wait they want to wait

until they have it all figured out before they even start. Although I set this goal of training for Ultraman, I didn't wait until I had that goal before I ever started running. I started running because I found joy in that. Because I just wanted to be outside. I wanted to feel connected to my body the way that I did when I was a kid and I was swimming. It wasn't because I had an objective other than to kind of tap into a more childlike experience that I had cast aside as an adult. And so I think in terms of, you know, kind of motivating people or catalyzing change, sometimes you just have to start. You don't, you don't need to know where it's leading you. When I first started riding my bike and I didn't

know where this was leading me. I was just doing it, you know, and, and, and, and it's getting comfortable in not knowing and getting comfortable with just being present in what you're doing for the sole purpose of doing it and not for any other kind of objective outside of that. Yep. And that leads really well into the next, uh, next piece I wanted to talk about, purpose of doing it and not for any other kind of objective outside of that. Yeah. And that leads really well into the next piece I wanted to talk about, which was an article you recently wrote called Why You Should Stop Life Hacking and Invest in the Journey. Can you tell us a little bit about, I loved that article and I think there's a lot of good stuff in it. Can you tell us a little bit about what you were getting at there? You know, right now, because of the Internet and Twitter and all these sorts of things, it's very easy for these, you know, quote unquote memes to generate a lot of momentum.

And those memes create trends. And right now, one of the most popular trends, particularly in sort of health and in business, is the idea of the life hack or the biohack. And essentially what those are are tips and tools and shortcuts to create efficiencies in your life. improve, you know, brain function or kind of ways to create additional, you know, cut things out of your professional life that aren't serving you. And I think all of those things are great. You know, any kind of tip or trick or tool that you can use that's going to streamline your life is something worthy of, you know, looking into, of course. But that article really is about how there's a whole culture now that has grown out of and around this idea of life hacking. And my objection to it really is that it seems to have become the destination rather than the device. You know,

I think it was popularized by Tim Ferriss and all his amazing best-selling books, For Our Work Week, For Our Body. He really kind of put it into mainstream consciousness. And now there's this obsession with life hacks where it's all about the hack rather than why you're implementing the hack or, more importantly, what you're going to do with the time that gets freed up

as a result of using the hack. And I think in the article, I used an example like, I used an analogy, I think it was something like, it's like being obsessed with a table saw rather than the process of building a beautiful piece of furniture. And it was really a call to action to embrace the journey of life, which is kind of what we're talking about here today. And to understand that anything really valuable in your life or worthy of your time and energy is hard, and it's going to be a long road. And that maybe we should reframe this whole inquiry and start to think, start to embrace the idea that uh that you know we should invest all of who we are and something that we're passionate about and we should invest less time

in how we can shortcut that because at the end of the day and in my experience everything uh in my life that has value that i've been successful at has been extremely difficult. And I wouldn't have, you know, I wouldn't want to have earned it more cheaply than I did, you know. And when I look back over those experiences, the memories that come up have nothing to do with finish lines or, you know, how I felt when I finally succeeded. And they have everything to do with how I felt during the toil and during hard times and what I learned about myself when I had to overcome a challenge. So it's, it's also about like, you know, you know, it's not about being a hater of the life hack as much as it is being a lover of, of the journey. And, and what I was trying to do in that piece is really encourage people to, um people to not try to shy away from that.

We're hardwired to kind of avoid hard things, to be comfortable. And in my life, the times that I feel most alive are when I'm most uncomfortable or when I'm really putting myself out there in a frightening way. Yeah, I really liked the article. We say on this show sometimes there's no shortcuts to a life worth living. And what I liked about the article was you gave a little example of like, okay, you implement this little hack and you get this little thing done and then ask yourself, how do you feel? And that really hit home for me because it's so easy to make these goals and find a way to get to them. But a lot of times it feels empty on the other side. And what you're talking about is really embracing the process and being all in.

And that has a really different feeling to it. We referenced a little bit there talking about being uncomfortable and pushing through discomfort. I was wondering if you could share with us a little bit because you've clearly got a ton of experience in pushing through discomfort in your endurance training. Kind of what is happening in your mind? What are the things that you're telling yourself that allow you to push through that? Because I think it doesn't need to be on nearly that grand a scale. It can be on getting up and doing the thing I need to do today, whatever small thing that is. People get stuck all along the line. And so I'm curious how you talk yourself through it. Yeah, there's a couple of things. I mean, the first thing I would say is that

feelings are just feelings, man. And we, they're, they're, and we talk about this in recovery all the time. Right. And, you know, we, we're always trying to avoid uncomfortable feelings. Um, and, and that doesn't really work. You know, the only way to kind of navigate a challenging emotional situation that you're in is to allow yourself to feel those feelings and understand that they will pass, but you have to kind of accept them and understand that they're not going to kill you. So temporary discomfort, whether it's emotionally or whether it's physically when I'm out training, I know that it's temporary and I know that it will pass and I know that it's not going to kill me. So that's helpful to me. And the second thing

that's maybe the bigger issue is understanding the distinction between the thinking mind and kind of your higher consciousness. In the sense that your thinking mind is the idle chatter in your head that's always trying to talk you out of stuff. It's always negative, you know, impulsing you with these negative thoughts. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together on the Really No Really podcast, our mission is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why they refuse to make the bathroom door go all the way to the floor.

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Oh, you're not, you know, you shouldn't be doing this. This is not good for you. Or, you know, maybe it's okay to go to Burger King and all these kinds of things. That is not your higher self. That is not the good wolf talking to you. That's the bad wolf or that's the thinking mind. And to be able to

draw that distinction between consciousness and thinking and to become an observer of your thoughts and to develop control over the thinking mind, to be able to observe those thoughts and go, well, that's interesting that you're telling me that I should stop running right now because I'm uncomfortable, but I don't have to listen to that message. You know, it doesn't have to control me. I can control it. And that's hard work to develop mastery over that. Certainly something I'm not, you know, the better off you're going to be. Sometimes getting through difficult, painful situations in training, it's about breaking it down into smaller chunks too. If I'm running and I try not to think about the finish line or how much longer I have to go, I just focus on what I'm doing in the moment.

I bring my consciousness or my awareness back to the breath or I just focus on what I'm doing in the moment. I bring my consciousness or my awareness back to the breath, or I just look at the lamppost ahead and say, I'm just going to get to there. I'm not going to worry about anything else other than getting to there. And then I'll think about, you know, the next lamppost. And the more I can kind of consistently take myself out of the future and the past and root myself in the present, that's really helpful to me in kind of acclimating to the temporary pain and getting through those situations. Excellent. I like that, breaking it down into small time segments, sort of one day at a time, divided by as many divisions as you need to get it to a manageable size. So I think we are at the end of

the questions I had. You and I talked briefly before this, and one of the things that I'm going to do is I think I'm going to embark on, I'm going to take you up on the offer in your book of try the entirely plant-based diet for 30 days. So similar to you, I don't do very good with vague plans, like I'm going to try and eat better. I need a very clear goal and objective. So that's what I'm setting for myself. So any tips to get out of the gate for me? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, first of all, I'm thrilled that you're going to try this. I'm so excited for you. And I can't wait to hear how it goes. And hopefully we will have some chatting back and forth because I want to help you. I want to help you through it. So I'm pretty excited about it. And I think one of the things that

helps me, I mean, I think it actually is going to be helpful to you to rely on some of the principles of recovery with respect to your diet. And I use them quite a bit with respect to food. And plant-based eating, you can kind of think of it, well, the first thing I would say is focus on it being a fun adventure and not some kind of deprivation. You know, focus on all the fun, new, exciting kind of things you're going to do with food and these new foods you're going to explore and bring into your life rather than what you're not eating. Oh, I can't eat this. I can't eat that. You know, what am I going to do without cheese?

And just place your mind ahead of yourself and think about all these cool new things you're going to do. That's the first thing. The second thing is, is, you know, being being in recovery. You know how to set rules around habits. Right. So you're either using or you're sober. There's no gray area. Right. You can't like use once in a while and say that you're a sober person. It doesn't work that way. And with eating a plant-based diet, you can just say, all right, well, you know, meat and dairy and, you know, processed foods, most processed foods, those are like, that's my drug of choice. And I'm not going to do that. You know, I'm going to eat all these other foods. I'm not going to starve. I'm actually going to feel better. But those are just verboten. They're

not even negotiable in the same way that alcohol is not negotiable. And I think if you kind of rely on the tools that you've developed personally for yourself around drugs and alcohol and kind of apply them to those particular food groups that are not serving you. I think that's a great kind of way to look at it. All right. Well, thanks so much, Rich, for joining. It's been a great talk. And I look forward to keeping in touch with you as I go through this next 30 days. Yeah, absolutely. So keep me posted, man. I'm here for you. Thanks for having me on. take care all right bye-bye you can learn more about rich roll and this podcast in our show notes at oneufeed.net slash richroll.

Oh, and by the way, we've been getting a lot of great letters and comments and reviews, and we'd love you to keep that up if you could. If you haven't reviewed us on iTunes, please get out there and do that, and definitely email Eric or I if you have anything to say. And thanks. See you next time.