The Rich Roll Podcast - Balance, Surrender, Faith & Risking It All To Live Your Best Life

Episode Date: July 21, 2014

Finding balance in life. Developing trust in something bigger than yourself. Surrendering your self-will. Relying on faith to guide you. And the courage to risk it all for the sake of living your best, most authentic life. Today marks the return of my erstwhile co–host, mother of my children and my wife of 11 years. Julie Piatt. Last week we celebrated our anniversary by renewing our vows. A small little ceremony with just the kids, it was a meaningful way to pay tribute to this journey we've taken. Bringing the kids into the equation, all six of us took the opportunity to share our own “vows” by expressing gratitude for what each member of the family brings to our communal band. It's important to create ceremony around seminal moments. To pause. And take the time to honor each other. It was profound. An event that brought us all closer to each other. And more connected to the journey ahead. After being married for many years its easy to fall into cruise control – my across the board default mode. Whether its fitness, diet, profession, relationships, or (in my case) sobriety, it doesn't take much to convince ourselves that everything is cool, then ease off the gas. Personally, taking things for granted is my pastime. Avoiding this pitfall is a daily practice that demands a level of focused consciousness around all aspects of my life to help me understand that there is always improvement to be had. That growth requires constant work and pressure and focus. But a crucial truism I learned very early on in recovery is that there is no stasis. In every given moment you are either growing or regressing. Moving towards a drink or away from a drink. Heading towards something better or lapsing backwards into bad habits, behaviors, addictions, assumptions, modalities, whatever. Without attention, my life can quickly spiral out of balance. Prone to obsessiveness, it's my nature to lose myself. To become so immersed in what I am doing, whatever it is – training, writing, podcasting – that I lose sight of the bigger picture. Other aspects of my busy life that require my attention. And more often than not, these aspects are the most important aspects. Balance — the primary topic of today's conversation — is the fickle lover I am always courting yet struggle mightily to master. It's like squeezing a water ballon. Just when you think you've got it compressed, something pops out. Squeeze the bulge down and it pops up somewhere else. Always see-sawing from over focusing on one aspect of my life at the distress of another. Story of my life. The more work I do on myself, the better and bigger my life gets. With this comes more opportunities to get out of balance. Which means even more work to keep all the plates spinning at the same speed. The irony. Of course we all struggle with balancing our busy lives. It’s not easy. So today is all about trying to better understand the mechanics behind maintaining proper life balance to avoid the common pitfalls. And keep us on track, moving in the right direction. Julie — a much more innately balanced person than I – is perfectly suited for this conversation, always helping me see the objective truth of how I am acting and helping me bring things into focus. She is bursting with wisdom on the subject so I though this would make for a very dynamic and hopefully helpful conversation for you. Enjoy! Rich

Welcome to the Rich Roll Podcast, Episode 96 with Julie Pyatt. The Rich Roll Podcast. The Rich Roll Podcast. Greetings, audience. How's it going? My name is Rich Roll, and this is my podcast. I want to thank you for tuning in. I want to thank you for telling a friend. I want to thank you for spreading the word and for using the Amazon banner ad at richroll.com for all your Amazon purchases. We appreciate all the support. It helps keep us going. Thank you for all the emails, the messages, the social media posts, and for just buttressing what we are trying to do here. You guys are everything. And we thank you. If you're new, this is how it goes down. On a weekly

basis, and for free, always for free, I do my best to bring you the best, most forward-thinking paradigm-busting minds in wellness, fitness, athleticism, creativity, diet, nutrition, art, entrepreneurship, personal growth, and spirituality. Those people who are out there killing it, rocking the tools, the knowledge, the experience, the wherewithal, the inspiration, the motivation that you need to help you discover, unlock, and unleash your best, most authentic self. That's my goal for this show. That's why I'm doing it. That's why I'm here.

So today marks the return of my erstwhile co-host, the mother of my children, and my wife, Julie Pyatt. Julie and I just celebrated 11 years of marriage. We've been together like 15, 16 years, something like that, long time. But 11 years officially married and we decided to renew our vows last week. You can check me on Instagram.

I posted a picture of the little ceremony we had just with the kids. We didn't even invite anybody else. It was just Julie and I and the kids, we did it together at our house and it was a great time. I have to say it was really special and super special for the kids too, just to have them participate in it as kind of a family unit. We each got to say some words, even the kids like did vows, which was really great and just really special. So I don't know, I can't recommend it enough for the married folks out there, especially if you have kids. It really brought us together as a family to create some ceremony around not only the marriage, but the family unit and allow everybody to kind of participate

and feel special and to recognize and articulate what each person in the unit brings to the equation. So I loved it and I had a great time. And then Julie and I, we went on a second honeymoon, which is also something I highly recommend if you can do it. I've been traveling a lot. As you know, if you follow the podcast or you follow me online, I've been on the road quite a bit. But the truth is that Julie and I hadn't gotten away alone for a very, very long time, years probably. So it was really fantastic to just escape for a little bit, kind of unplug from everything and really focus on our relationship and enhance our intimacy, which was super great because after being married for a long time, it's easy to get into cruise

control. It's definitely my default mode, whether it's fitness or diet or profession or my marriage or anything, even sobriety, of course. It's very easy to convince yourself that everything's cool. You can ease off the gas. You can just kind of cruise and everything's fine. But one really important thing that I've learned, I've learned very early on in recovery is that there really is no stasis. That's an illusion. You're either in every moment with every decision that you make, every action that you take, or even every thought that you conjure, you're either growing or you're regressing. You're either moving towards something better or you're lapsing back towards something maybe not so good, back into bad habits or assumptions or

modalities or whatever, you know, certain things that might not serve you so well. And it takes a lot of focus and concentration and energy to not take things for granted. And for me, it requires a daily practice because I forget, you know, I wake up, everything's good, you know, everything's sorted. I can just move on throughout my day. And I have to really stop and remind myself, okay, what am I doing? Am I moving forward? Am I moving backwards? Where are the things that I need to focus my attention and work and try to grow and be better? And creating ceremony around certain important aspects of your everyday life can be really helpful. I mean, that's kind of what the marriage

vow thing was about. So whether it's relationships or whatever, it really helps me understand that there's always improvement to be had and that it takes constant work and pressure and focus and concerted consciousness. In any event, we're back. I'm back. We got back last night and I'm energized. I'm rested. I'm refocused. And today, the topic of discussion is one of great importance, I think. Certainly great importance to me, and that is balance. So I don't know about you guys, but on a personal level, without quite a bit of focus and attention, my life really quickly can spiral out of balance. bit of focus and attention, my life really quickly can spiral out of balance. I'm very prone to obsessiveness, hence my alcoholic condition or my training for ultras or what have you. My nature is to really lose myself, immerse myself in what I'm doing, whatever it is, training, writing,

podcasting, and lose sight of the bigger picture or the other aspects of my busy life that really need attention, constant attention. And sometimes these are the most important things that tend to get overlooked because we do take them for granted. We're kind of hardwired that way. So balance for me is the fickle lover I'm always courting, but always really struggling to master. It's kind of like the analogy I use is it's like a water balloon. You're squeezing it. If you squeeze it, you know, something bulges out, right? And then you kind of push that back in and try to create a round little sphere

and then something else bulges out. And you're always trying to get this perfect mix. You're always seesawing, or at least I'm always seesawing, from over-focusing or obsessing on one aspect of my life at the distress of another. And for this, this can cause me issues, especially as a recovering addict alcoholic. I mean, whether it's work or training or whatever, keeping things in check can be really tough. And now for me, it's more than ever because my life has gotten really big. I'm juggling many, many things as my experience continues to grow and expand. And it's almost ironic because the more work I do on myself, the better my life gets, the bigger my life gets, which means more work to keep everything together, moving in the right direction, you know, travel, books, training, speaking gigs, parenting four kids, maintaining my marriage, trying to grow this wellness revolution. It can be overwhelming. And it's all awesome,

of course. And I'm extraordinarily grateful for all the opportunities that I've been given. It's been an amazing journey. But, you know, it comes with a sometimes overwhelming sense of responsibility, and it can be difficult to manage everything in the best way possible, to stay grounded, to stay grateful and right-headed with an attitude of service. So it's not easy. And I struggle, I'm far from perfect at this. And it got me thinking, you know, I'm not alone in this. I know that. I'm sure a lot of us out there do. I think most of us struggle with balance. I mean, even just juggling a job with family, with trying to be and stay healthy, that's

a huge challenge for most people. And, you know, I include myself in that equation. And it always seems like something gets cast aside or it slips no matter what. I'm too busy to do this or I can't get to that today. And as a result of not being perfect or kind of aspiring to perfect your balance equation and falling short, what happens next? Well, the self-judgment. And if this is unchecked, it can lead to defeatism. It can lead to, you know, in the worst case scenario, a shame spiral and even giving up on the trying altogether. And that's not good.

So today is all about trying to better understand the dynamics and the mechanics of balance so that we can avoid the pitfalls and keep us on track, moving in the right direction, the direction of growth. And Julie is highly qualified to pontificate on this subject. She's much more innately balanced person than I am. And she's a great mirror for me. She's always helping me see the objective truth of how I'm acting and behaving and helping me bring things kind of into perspective and into focus. So there's a lot of wisdom on this subject coming from her. And I thought that this would make for a dynamic and hopefully helpful conversation for you guys. So let's get into it. But real quick, before we do, I wanted to let you know, I wanted to let you guys know that we have a new t-shirt for the RRP fans out there. It is the Run RRP t-shirt, an homage to the Run DMC shirt, you know, the black shirt with the two red bars and the big

white text. Um, it's super awesome. So now you can rock your, uh, your, uh, affiliation with the podcast and help spread the word by, by sporting this shirt. It's really cool. And we're working on a tech T version of it that we'll be coming out with soon that you can wear at the gym or running or whatever right now. It's just like, it's a cotton t-shirt um but it's great i think it might be my favorite one of the shirts that we've done so far so you can check that out at richroll.com also i just started uh i've just discovered the wonderful wonderful world of snapchat and that is a app that i thought was for teenagers to sort of share disappearing text messages with each other. But they've added a new functionality to it. It's a kind of a recent

functionality in this app, which is called My Stories. And what it allows you to do is upload little video stories that stay up for 25 hours or 24 hours before disappearing. And this has become my new obsession, which is kind of ironic given that this podcast episode is all about balance. But for the uninitiated, it's kind of like a constantly disappearing vlog. So I am striving to post a daily Snapchat story, a little video of something I'm doing each day. I'm going to be doing them on food, like what I eat, nutrition, meals, training. And sometimes it's just the banality of everyday life. I posted one the other week where I took my little girls shopping because I had to buy a shirt, a new shirt to renew our vows in. And that

was a really fun video to make. So again, they only stay up for 25, 24 hours and then they're gone. Uh, so there's no pressure for these to be super polished or perfect videos that you would put up on YouTube. They're just a fun, easy way to kind of take you guys behind the scenes of, of what's going on in my life. And, uh, it might be fun for you guys doing it as well. Uh, I'm just learning how to use it. So the videos are rough, but I'll get better at it. And so if you're into it, if you're already on Snapchat, you can add me at I am rich role, I am rich role. And if you're brand new, just you can download the app for your mobile phone. And you can find me there. And you guys can send me messages as well. You can follow me and send me your videos or your messages.

Some of you guys have already been doing that. It's super cool and it's a fun way to kind of further connect with all of you guys out there. So check it out. All right, that's it. Let's get into it. Let's dive down this balance cave. We're brought to you today by recovery.com. I've been in recovery for a long time. It's not hyperbolic to say that I owe everything good in my life to sobriety. And it all began with treatment and experience that I had that quite literally saved my life. And in the many years since, I've in turn helped many suffering addicts and their loved ones find treatment.

And with that, I know all too well just how confusing and how overwhelming and how challenging it can be to find the right place and the right level of care, especially because unfortunately, not all treatment resources adhere to ethical practices. It's a real problem. A problem I'm now happy and proud to share has been solved by the people at recovery.com who created an online

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decide. Whether you're a busy exec, a parent of a struggling teen, or battling addiction yourself, I feel you. I empathize with you. I really do. And they have treatment options for you. Life in recovery is wonderful, and recovery.com is your partner in starting that journey. When you or a loved one need help, go to recovery.com and take the first step towards recovery. To find the best treatment option for you or a loved one, again, go to recovery.com. The last time we did a podcast, what was the subject last time? I think it was gratitude. Oh, gratitude, right.

I was saying it was relationships. Are you grateful? Did it change your experience of life? My gratitude is on a sliding scale. Have you been living a grateful existence? Some of the listeners have been. They've been commenting. I think I'm doing okay.

I vacillate. Although I've been on a pretty good meditation streak and that's been helpful. Um, my, uh, my, um, sleep has been up and down and that's challenging and tricky for me. That definitely impacts my gratitude level, whether I sleep well or not. I'm very affected by that. But, uh, but yeah, I've been doing 20 minutes every morning of meditation for the last six weeks, I think it's been now, and that's definitely been helpful. Uh, and it's nice to have momentum with that. When you have momentum, it's always easier to perpetuate or continue a practice. The hard part is,

is creating the momentum, I think. So today when we left off in that gratitude podcast, the idea of that podcast was we were going to do two subjects and the second one was balance, but we spent the whole time on gratitude. So we said at the end, I believe, I don't recall exactly, but I believe at the end we said, we'll pick it up next time and we'll focus on balance. So that's what we're doing today. And, uh, Julie is pretty good at pontificating on this subject matter. And it's a, it's a, it's a subject of particular interest to me because it's something that I definitely struggle with and need help and guidance with. And we were talking about this the other day, you know, your thing is always like, you need to get in balance, like you need to have things, then my life is the anxiety level in my life is reduced and things are smoother and I'm happier and I sleep better and all these sorts of things.

But what I struggle with is this idea that, uh, the things that I've accomplished in my life have always been the result of being temporarily out of balance, you know, whether it's extremely, yeah. Like whether it's training for Ultraman, I mean, your life has to be out of balance. It has to be tipped towards training, you know, in order for that to happen. And to write a book, you have to be sort of out of balance and obsessive or obsessed about that. I don't know. Maybe some people can write books without, you know, going into the kind of writer black hole, but I don't know how that works. Cause I definitely feel like I have to do that. Um, and, and so when I, when I loop on that idea, that thought of like, well, when I want to achieve something, I really need to like shove aside other things in my life and really focus

and immerse myself in a certain world that is by definition, not balanced, but that is how I've always been able to move the needle in the direction that, that I want it to go. And I've been successful in that. So when somebody says to me, or if you say to me, like, you need to be more balanced, you know, kind of in the back of my mind, I'm going, no, actually I need to be out of balance. So how do I reconcile these two worlds? How do I make this work in a long-term sustainable lifestyle manner? You're asking me that question. That's the question. So I'm expecting an answer. Oh my goodness. Well, it's, uh, it's certainly, uh, interesting. That's for sure. Cause, um, you have accomplished amazing things by being out of balance. Um, you've also experienced some really destructive things from being out of balance. Yeah. That's

the, you know, it's the yin and the yang. It's sort of like the addictive nature that I have that pulls me, you know, into the dark closet is also the thing that's allowed me to succeed in certain areas. And so, you know, it's like the, the, the devil and the angel on the separate shoulders pulling at you in different directions. Yeah. And I remember, I mean, early in the early days when we were forging this path and, you know, you were training like, you know, a crazy endurance athlete and, you know, the naysayers are people that, you know, couldn't find a way to be supportive while we were doing it because it just seems so extreme at the time. make a big sort of announcement or proclamation that you had in fact just shifted your addiction or your obsession into another avenue as, as if that was news to us. Right. Exactly. Like, Oh, I never thought of that. Yeah. As if we didn't, we didn't get that.

Never occurred to me. Yeah. Right. But you know, it's certainly obviously more productive to channel it into a positive, you know, way of, of being in the world positive, you know, way, uh, of, of being in the world where, you know, you can help transform people's lives and share experience. Well, I mean, just to be, just to be clear on that point, I think that, you know, if somebody says, well, you just transferred your addictions onto training or to whatever else it is, I can't say, oh, that's ridiculous. Like I have to take that in and go, yeah, there's truth to that. Of course there's truth truth to that. When I when I when the pendulum swings from, you know, being being drunk to training all the time, there's a relationship there.

And it you know, you have to bear witness to that and objectively kind of grapple with what that means. And I think the litmus test for me is and I talked to I've talked about this with Mishka and other people on the podcast, but it's a question of whether that activity that you're maybe slightly out of balance with or slightly obsessive compulsive about, is that improving your life or is that having a negative impact on your life? Like, is it moving your life forward in a positive way or is it destructive? Well, and I mean, this is just such a complex subject, but I think that any time that I said, you know, you need to be more in balance are times when you're suffering terribly. So you're in crisis.

It's not like you're just happy. Everything's happening right for you. And then I'm like, you need to be in balance. It's when you seriously suffer as a consequence of some of these patterns and these things that run sort of run themselves in what you do so that's when I offer that right right I mean that makes sense and and what happens with me is that I'll just I'll run it into the wall you know whether it's like I'm working on a new book project so I'll I'll like, I'll run it into the wall, you know, whether it's like, Oh, I'm working on a new book project. So I'll, I'll like get obsessed with it. And then I'll stay up till three in the morning and then I can't get up in the morning. Or when I go to bed that late, I don't sleep that

well. And then I'm grumpy the next day. And then, you know, then I don't want to train because I don't have any energy. And then it, so then you go into this cycle, right? That takes you down until I become unbearable. And then we have the conversation where you're like, you need to get in balance. And then I find that balance and I find a nice rhythm with that. But then, you know, something in me is like, this, this doesn't, I'm not comfortable with this balance. I need to shake it up. I need to get,

I need to get out of balance again in order to make a like an exponential leap forward in something that I want to do or achieve. And that's, what's always like kicking in the back of my mind. So are you saying you're a drama queen? Yeah, probably. Yeah. Um, okay. So this is, this is some awareness that I have actually that just sort of dropped in, in the last couple of days. And I've been, um, the last couple of days and I've been, um, I've been reflecting on it. I've been reflecting on how, how thin that razor's edge is between having everything figured out and having nothing figured out or being completely, um, balanced in a relationship and then being completely out of balance and almost being near destruction. I mean, I find, I think we are all very, it's a very small move in either direction a lot of the time.

Meaning, what do you mean by that? I mean that states of, these states that we access or that we're in are very fragile or temporary or easily manipulated or changed by our perceptions or by our actions. And so I just find that, you know, it's a razor's edge. Like life is a razor's edge. And we're living in this life of polarity. We're living in a planet where polarity exists. Light and dark exist. And what's so fascinating to me

and what I've been sort of reflecting on and watching very closely in the last few weeks is, and I think I might've talked about it last time, but it's the power of our perceptions on what is occurring in our life. Like, what are we applying to it? And what are we projecting onto it? So what would be an example of that? Well, anything.

It's, you know, it's seeing the glass half empty or half full. it's seeing the glass half empty or half full or, you know, viewing, you know, you and I were having a conversation, you know, on the car yesterday about, you know, my string of gurus and people that I've studied with and how, you know, they've all turned up, not all, but save two, have turned up extreme human imbalances and things that I've, you know, that I've weathered over the years. And your perception was maybe more like, look at what's happened in the past. And you know, that was a bad thing. And my perception that I apply to them is that those are my gifts of life experience. And I wouldn't trade one of them. I wouldn't trade any of them because I transformed through the process and I didn't lose myself. So I was able to grab the nugget of wisdom and apply it for me as it

was relevant and still see that there was an imbalance in this person. And we were, you know, we're talking about how there's imbalances in all of us and every single human who is, who is walking around. And so to me, it's like life is about perception. It's about what you apply, how you choose to view your life experience. And for me, it's been, you know, through devotion and through this divinity of, of every single act in my life is one that comes from, you know, God consciousness, whether they're light or whether they're dark. So, but there is this big, there, there's a pendulum swing that's happening all the time. And some people more extreme than others. And you, you happen to be an extreme endurance athlete. That

is your makeup. That's what you do. Um, right. So my, so, so my balance point is different, you know, maybe for me to be training, you know, quite rigorously, that's, that is, that's part of my balance equation. Whereas for somebody else that might be out of balance or for me to be, even to take it a step even further backwards, maybe, you know, my balance point is relatively imbalanced. You know what I mean? Like in order for me to be balanced, I need to be, I need to have a pendulum swinging back and forth where I go in and out of extreme moments of imbalance.

Maybe. Maybe it's your divine design the way you are. Of course, the great irony in all of this is that I'm a Libra. Yeah. And you know, the sort of horoscope scale is the scales, right? And you're supposed to be this balanced person.

And I'm like the least balanced person I know. Like I strive for it. You're always tipping those scales. I'm striving for it. But like this, yeah, it's just a, it's a constant seesaw. You know, the fulcrum on my seesaw is solid, but like I'm never in the middle straddling the fulcrum. I'm always walking back and forth through the two ends, and they're tipping in either direction. And then I find that moment in the middle where it's like,

oh, I can breathe. I'm meditating. Everything's cool. My sleep is great. But everything's just on a low simmer. And then I feel like, I've got to shake this up. This is not comfortable to me. I can't.

What's going on? Nothing's happening. I've got to make something happen. It's really interesting that you're in touch with that at this point in your life because I've never heard you really speak about it in those terms. So I think you're discovering something that's key.

The thing about balance is that, yeah, you happen to be extremely balanced when you're training 30 hours a week. Maybe not 30. Well, if I'm training 30 hours a week, I'm exhausted. No, you're not. You're conscious. I mean, 30 is a lot.

It's a lot. Maybe 20. I don't know my number. Maybe 15 to 20. But anything more than 20 and I start to get really tired all the time. Before that, you're actually really good. So for me, that would be my preference would be for you to train. Please train 20 hours a week. That would be great.

Well, if I train 20 hours a week, like what I would be doing, my preference, no, we could, but then scheduling becomes crucial. You know what I mean? Like if it was up to me, I would do the podcast. I would work on my next book. I would blog and, you know, put up an Instagram now and again, and that would be it. But the problem is when you're writing a book or doing a podcast, there's all these other things that come around that. There's a million emails every day. There's all kinds of interference.

And then there's, of course, being a dad and being, you know, all the other things that come. A husband. That, like, shake up my, you know, once in a while husband. Every so often. Well, only when we're podcasting that's right right uh you know all that other stuff that makes me because i'm a control freak too i want to control my environment and i can't you know it's like so you know my fantasy when i have when i like i don't i don't fantasize tell us your fantasy yeah well like whereas like maybe many

men would like fantasize of like oh i want to go have a young girlfriend or i want to go i want to hear it. I mean, it's sort of like peace and quiet and to isolate. And that is the nature. Yeah, like a Unabomber lifestyle. You know what I mean? You could rock the beard for sure. Well, when life gets really crazy and there's a lot of noise, you know, I'm like, oh, that would be good. You know, but that's also alcoholism. You know, the default nature of the alcoholic is to be lonely, you know, the state, the, the, the, the default nature of the alcoholic is to be lonely, you know, to be isolated. And so I have to keep myself in check because I do, I like isolating, like I like, and I can use, I can create artifice around that, like,

oh, I'm writing, you know, I need to be left alone. So don't bug me. But part of that I have to be in touch with is the alcoholic nature of isolating yourself from other people and like cutting yourself off from the world, which is not a healthy thing for me to do. But it's also how I get stuff done when I want to write. So I have these things that are always pushing up against each other that are butting up. And, you know, getting back to that idea of like when things are in balance for me and they're smooth and then I get that like nagging in the back of my head, like I got to shake it up to move things forward. There's also a certain level of alcoholism that comes to play into that because, you know, for example, an alcoholic who comes from, and this is not my personal story, but you know, a lot of alcoholics come from a crazy upbringing,

right? There's a lot of drama in their house, maybe some abuse or something like that. And that's what they're used to. And so that's what, that's what that person, they don't have to be an alcoholic. Anybody who would grow up in that kind of a chaotic household will, will, will subconsciously seek out that kind of environment later in life, unconsciously, they'll end up in relationships with people that, you know, remind them of their dad or their mom or whatever, you know, and then they perpetuate that cycle. So part of growth and part of transcending that is creating an awareness around that, recognizing when those patterns are arising and making a different choice.

And so what are the choices you would make then? You would be social, you would... Well, so in my example, it would be, you would be social you would well So in my example it would be you know Using the example that we started off with that idea of when things are in balance and then being uncomfortable with that Like that's uncomfortable for me. Like what's comfortable for me is really immersing myself in something and And there's good things that come from that too Like I can create all kinds of arguments around why that's what I should be doing you you know, whether it's writing a book or training for a race or, you know, just, you know, I don't know, scheduling a million podcast interviews or whatever it is, whatever

creative endeavor, whatever like sort of content creation situation that I'm in, I can, I like the feeling of losing myself in that and becoming really like sort of obsessed with it to make it the best that it can be. That's true. And you also, in my experience of being your partner for many years, is you make it, you set it up to be an extremely huge undertaking that's going to be so much work and take so much more time than anybody else can understand. Well, because anything good requires that no matter how small the task is, if you want it to be great, then it requires that kind of focus. Maybe I'm convinced that it does. I mean, you can do it like, for example, with a podcast, right? It would be easy to half bake it. You know, I could put up, we could just do, you know, I could just do all Skype interviews for 45 minutes, find random people and like bang out

10 in a day and do the standard Q and a ask, you know, whoever's new book is coming out, get them on the Skype, ask them the same questions everyone else asked them and put that up and just stick it up on my website without a well-considered thought out post, you know, blog post that goes along with it. Like there are ways and I could outsource it. I could find some kid in Thailand to do it for no money and put it up on my site so I don't have to worry about it. And then I can just go do other things. But, but that would, that doesn't work for me, you know, cause I know that I'm capable of creating a better show if I lean into it and put my best foot forward. So when I write those blog posts that go along with each show, the show notes and all that kind

of stuff, and like, I don't even know how many people read those, but that's really important to me. I put a lot of thought and time into what I write and that makes me feel good. Like I know each week, you know, look, not every guest is going to be, you know, a super rock star guest. When you're doing one every single week, they're not all going to be, you know, it's, you can't, they can't all be superstars, but how can I make this the best show that it can be? Well, and you're doing a great job. And so, right. So, but what I'm saying is that, you know, I probably spend way more time on it than another podcast host might, you know, but there's a sense of pride and satisfaction that comes with that. But then when you have other things in your life that

you want to do and you want to immerse yourself in, and life is getting bigger and that's great. There's all these opportunities and cool stuff going on. And I want to say yes to everything. And so life becomes, it becomes a lot more important to become discerning about things that you decide you involve yourself with and learning how to say no and create healthy boundaries, which is a big part of kind of recovery from alcoholism to like learning boundaries is something that like was very difficult for me to learn initially and is still like a process for me, you know, as a people pleaser, like I want everyone to like me. So I have to say yes to everybody because if I'd say no, then maybe they won't ask me again or they won't like me,

or that's the last opportunity that will ever come my way. You know, I better take it. Right. Right. Right. Right. That's true. So I get it. Well, so what's my, what's my solution? I mean, I just want to say that on a human level, I hear you and you're, you know, you're completely in tune with yourself and with what's going on. And, and yes, you know, we all struggle with all of those things. And yes, you are an unusual, unique individual as is every single one of us. There's, there's not one of us that is the same as another human in existence. So we all, every single human has something unique that's specific. So good for you that you're in touch with it and you know who you are. And then I would also say that there's a

whole nother realm of information, you could call it maybe supreme intelligence or divine intelligence that you are missing, that you are not acknowledging. So you are very in your humanness of what, you know, Rich is doing and how Rich is operating throughout this whole thing. And there's this big pendulum for all of us, which is, you know, extreme this way or extreme the other way. So a lot of highs, a lot of lows, a lot of moving around. And the truth of the matter is, is that you have a connection and a lot of highs, a lot of lows, a lot of moving around. And the truth of the matter is,

is that you have a connection and are part of existence, which is the consciousness that holds that entire play. And it is never changing, eternal, and always there, always radiating. So what I would say is when you say that everything good takes a lot of hard work, that's your experience in your human self. But the truth of the matter is, is you can tap into divine intelligence. And I've seen masters and I've seen teachers actually just grab the information and download it in the instance, no matter what the subject is. And that's available to all of us at some level

of evolution. So how do I do that? Well, it's, it's, it's meditating. It's starting, you've begun meditating. So it's starting to connect in and it's not, it's not meditating in itself. That is the answer. It's getting to a point where you're in touch with that frequency where you can drop in and you have, you'll have just whole concepts that just download right into you. And it's not hard at all. See, I don't work the way you work. Nothing's hard for me. I don't, I get in the flow. And then at some point in the process, my soul will just download the information. So what is your version of getting into the flow? Like, how do you do that? Well, through a practice of yoga, meditation, diet.

I'm very big on Ayurvedic herbs. Obviously, that's how I healed myself of a cyst in my neck, which a lot of people know that story. And that was kind of my first experience with food and plants as healing herbs. But one of the things that you and I've been experimenting with is when you've been in extreme duress, you know, over this non-sleep issue is getting these Ayurvedic herbs inside of you. Um, and you know, I don't think in your human personality, you really think that they do much, but suddenly after a couple of weeks,

you'll start to feel the balance and you'll come into that balanced place, at least until you want to shake it up again. Yeah, it won't take long for that. It won't take long. But yeah, so I mean, you know, you can't assume that, you know, that's not like a universal truth that all good things are so, you know, so hard and, you know and comes with so much toil. That's your story. That's your experience. It's a self-will, God's will kind of thing. When I'm thinking in that way, then I'm very much in my own ego and my own self-will. This isn't going to happen unless I'm the only one who can do it. When you say we're all unique beings, right? Of course we all were, we all have something particular and

unique to offer. Um, everybody has a different experience, but also when I hear that, when it goes through my filter and I hear, oh, well, yeah, I'm, so I'm the only one who can actually, you know, do the thing that I'm trying to do the way that I want to do it. And that, that plays into my control issues. Like, Oh, like I can't outsource, you know, anybody to have me help with the podcast or I can't outsource or I can, you know, like I got to do it myself. It's all on me. I'm the only one who's going to be able to do it the way that I think it should be done. And that's, that's just my ego, you know, and, and my ego also saying that it's only going to be good if you suffer for it, you know, and that's part of the ultra endurance

training, you know, swimmer idea of, you know, the sort of Protestant work ethic, like, you know, blood, sweat, and tears, and, and just, you know, keep at it. And that's how you move forward. And that has worked for me in many ways, but it's also, like you said, it's, it's my undoing. It's what takes me out of balance. And so to be able to tap into a different way of doing that, that's exciting, but also terrifying. And it's a different way instead of like applying yourself in a willful way, it's a surrender, it's a letting go and it's an allowing, and that's a very, very difficult, uncomfortable thing to do. And it is an allowing and it's a letting go, but it's not a sitting in a cave. No, it's not a do nothing thing. It's a very, it's a very subtle click. It's a subtle

shift of the way that you do things. And this is what I've been talking to you and some of the athletes that I've met through you about, about finding that place where you're training for the love of it, simply for the love of it. Like, where is that without the competition, without the, you know, without the numbers, without all that stuff. So, I mean, you were asking a minute ago, how do I, how do I get in the zone or how do I flow? I mean, for instance, I will have experiences of that. I'm going to teach or I'm going to speak or I'm going to share something. And I don't over prepare. Like I don't necessarily know, but I have an ability to connect with myself, with my heart, with my soul.

And a lot of times the fun for me is to be in the moment and listen to what is given to me and trust it at that level. And that's crazy because, and it is, it can be scary and it can be terrifying, but. See, I can't imagine doing that. Yeah. But, you know, you, but you could maybe at some point, you know, it's like you, you start to, you can start to, um, to enjoy the process. And once you see that you're supported time and time and time again, if you will release your grasping onto your idea, it's really a mental setup that you have in your mind about, you know, this is what this takes and, you know, you have to bleed for it and this

is how it is. And it's just understanding that all of the information exists at some level, some dimensional level. And if you can tap into it, you can be given any information at any moment. But you have to be willing to let it come in. So I would say, if you hold on too loosely, you'll miss the miracles. You're going to miss the gifts because you tried to grab it too hard. But if you have, how I do it is I have a vision and I make very concrete steps towards that vision, but I don't hold on so tight that I, I'm so specific that I've created my own prison cell. And so, cause my little human mind can never imagine the beauty that consciousness can deliver.

It could never, ever imagine. And, you know, we've look at our own lives. We didn't have, you know, a lot of this stuff, they were not on our vision list. And look at how things have unfolded through a lot of faith, a lot of extreme faith. And you've had a lot of extreme faith as well. You forget because now you're in the function of what happened. But if you didn't have that faith, we never would have experienced what we experienced together.

Right, and I couldn't have predicted what we're doing now. There's no way. And I wouldn't have imagined that we'd be sitting where we're sitting. And I also wouldn't have, you know, even before it began, I couldn't have fathomed that this is how I would be. This is the life that I would be pursuing even. No, but it's bizarre. So what I'm saying is, you know, I'm in agreement with that idea that, that, uh, you know, if you hold, hold on too hard to where you think things should go, then you might just miss the miracle right in front of you letting things unfold. And that, you know, that alcoholic extreme mind or whatever, never imagined that you would have a life. It couldn't, it didn't have enough expansion in it because it

would have told me and you every reason why none of this could have happened. And you would have had every reason in the book, you would have had it all figured out. There's no way. And, but the interesting thing to me is, is that if you crawled inside your heart and someone did an inventory and like took pictures of what, what was existing inside the heart of your dreams, you're living that life right now. And that's because we had faith and we took risks and we kept dropping the external things and we risked everything. We risked our annihilation. Yeah, that's true. We risked our annihilation.

Yeah, that's true. I mean, for people that are listening out there who, if you're struggling with these concepts, a really fundamental, like simple way of conceptualizing it is really just, you know, if you like you're, you're out on a jog, right. And, and, and that's really kind of a form of quieting the mind. There's an active meditation aspect of that that that occurs, you know, without you trying to make it happen. It just happens because of the blood pumping through your heart and all that kind of stuff. And maybe when you started the run, you are experiencing a problem in your day and you don't know how to solve it. And then you're running. And then the last 10 minutes of

the run, it dawns on you like, oh, I should do this. This would be a good thing. You know, like how that idea just kind of comes in that seems to, you know, seamlessly present you with the answer. So that's kind of like a little bit of what you're talking about, right? By doing this meditation work, by being in devotion, by being in faith, by being in surrender and letting go. By eating an amazing diet. Right. faith by being in surrender and letting go and like an amazing diet, right? Surrounding yourself with, you know, high vibrating people and eating high, high vibrating foods and taking care of

yourself and all these kinds of things that come into play with being balanced, um, that you provide space for more of that kind of thing to come into your life, which, you know, people use different words to describe flow states or, or, uh, just, you know, mindfulness or it doesn't matter what the label is that you put on it. Right. Or, or watching the breath. But I mean, I think the, I think the other thing is, I mean, for me, it's, it's understanding that, uh, everything in life is, is, you know, being offered by a force higher than humans and that everything is devotional, like everything is from that state. If you, you know, I hate to see us as humans suffering on the levels that we do.

It's like if you think you have to handle everything, right, and you have to solve everything, and, you know, what do you do when life deals you really, really difficult stuff, like, you know, deaths, divorces, you know, tragedies, you know, and you're sitting there and you've got it all in your hands and you're trying to carry this huge boulder up the mountain. And so the ability to lay it down at the feet of something greater than you are, and it doesn't matter. It's not, it's not religious. It's just a force. It's consciousness. It's creation to understand that we're only here by the grace of that force. We only exist because of the grace of that force. So at the end of the night, when I go to bed, I give it all to mother.

I just give it to her. And I say, here, take it, take all the triumphs and all the tragedies and everything that happened. My life is yours. So here you go. I give it, I lived the best that I live today. And if I'm suffering, I can give my suffering. And if I'm elated, I can give that as well. Yeah. I mean, in recovery, they call it turning over, turning it over. It's the same idea. I mean, the idea of doing the steps, a lot of that, like taking your inventory and then writing it down and then, and then really like releasing it is, is a process of surrender as a process of turning it over to a power greater than yourself, right? The idea being that you don't have to carry this burden, that there is greater forces at work

that can shoulder this for you. And your job is to get up every day, be grateful, express that gratitude throughout your day and be of service to other people, right? And when you're in that mode of service, it gets you out of your ego, out of yourself, out of your problems. And when you're in that mode of service, it gets you out of your ego, out of yourself, out of your problems. And when you invest yourself in the betterment of another human being who maybe is less fortunate than you, it shuts off that ego switch or that obsession of the mind that has you looping on your own issues and problems.

And the more that I can do that, the happier you become. Certainly, you know, service is really the key to long-term satisfaction. I'm convinced. And the people that are the happiest are the ones that really have devoted their lives to helping other people. You know, it's just, it's indisputable. That's very true. I mean, I do want to talk about this other thing about the balance because, you know, if you, if one wants to live a long life and if you're looking for longevity, you want, you don't want to spike your insulin levels or have your cortisol levels go through the roof up and down all the time like that like you're that's stress right that's

extremely stressful obviously i like that you're not going to be enjoying too much longevity then no matter how many plants you're eating it's not a wellness equation it's not a wellness equation so and now just got to get the Snapchat in for me. No, I'm not Snapchat. Oh, yeah. So real quick as a digression. So I've gotten really into Snapchat. I'm not really into it.

I just I'm just trying to figure out what it's all about. But it's pretty fun. You can kind of create these little video stories. And so so just before the podcast started, I tweeted that I was going to Snapchat. I was going to live Snapchat the podcast. So I've been putting up little videos. And I was thinking that, of course, like, what do I need, right? I need to get all obsessed about a new social network, right?

Because I'm not like, you know what I mean? Like, oh, it's over with Instagram. But I thought it would be cool to Snapchat is a great way because it's not precious. Like, you could just create these crappy little videos that disappear in 24 hours, but they say I could like, they really don't disappear. Well, whatever. I'm not like trying to hide anything, you know, it's like, it's weird. Like I didn't even know what Snapchat was until Casey Neistat started using it. And cause I thought it was like, Oh, this is just for like sexting or something like that. But you can actually use it to like do cool stuff. So I thought, oh, you know, maybe I can Snapchat my workout every day.

Like, here's what I did. Here's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna do this swim workout. Here's the sets that I'm gonna do. Here's how I felt. You know, here's what maybe you could do. And that could be helpful to other people. So anyway, if you're into Snapchat

or even if you've never heard of it, you can join Snapchat and you can follow me. I'm IamRichRoll. Rich Roll was taken. So I had to get I am Rich Roll. I like that though. It's so. I am Rich Roll.

It's so. I am. It's so expanded. And it's actually, it shows your meditation is working. Right. So that's so funny. So I can't say that I'm fully committing myself to it because it's just another. We'll see.

Thing. You know what I mean? Like how many things. You might have to choose your wife. It starts to get like, oh, I got to put up a new Instagram every day. And I, now I got to do a Snapchat and now I got to do a podcast, you know, and it's, you become a walking, you know, media channel, which is cool. That's what I want to do. No, I mean, if it was up to me, I would spend my whole day just creating stuff, making stuff, like just creating content, whether it's a blog post

that I put up on medium or our site or a podcast or a photograph on Instagram or Snapchat or whatever, like that's what I love doing. And I think that that's what is creating, you know, the community and serving this movement of, you know, the, the plant power lifestyle. I can't wait to start creating videos because you're very good at it. Well, I would love, I would love to have a, you know, like I have a YouTube channel and I don't really do anything with it except I put a preview videos for the podcast. I would love to be putting up amazing videos all the time, but I don't have time to sit and, and you know, I need somebody to come and shoot with me and then edit it and, or I'm editing it.

And it's just a whole, like if I, if you're going to do it, I think you got to do it really well. You got to work really hard. I don't want to just have like a blog. You got to take like five years. Well, I mean, I need like a full-time like director, editor guy to come and help me with it, right?

So who's willing to just follow me around and do all the work and do what I say. Lots of guys, lots of people. I don't know. But the point is- If there's anyone out there who wants that job, yeah, like we can talk, but- But the real question is, do you want them around you all day?

Yeah, see that, that butts right up against my, like I want to be like, leave me alone. Like who is this person like around me all the time? I know. You know? I know. So let's get back to balance. I know we got off subject. Sorry.

So, so the reason, I mean, may, you know, maybe it doesn't matter because maybe in your life trajectory, this is who you are and this is what you're going to do. But I would say, um, because of, you know, the fact that it does bring you a significant amount of suffering and stuff that you're trying to balance out. I mean, it's not fun for you when you're not sleeping for days on end. That's not a great experience, you know? So, um, you know, I think the, I think the meditation and the finding that spot that's never changing, accessing that, if even for a split second, you know, at some point during your meditation practice, it may take months, it may take weeks, it may take years, I don't know. But I am seeing already a shift in you from just, you know, a few weeks that you've been committed and the fact that you're, I am rich. I think that's amazing. I like that.

You can join Snapchat. Yeah, I am. I totally, but, um, no, but so, so, I mean, you can say on the one hand, you can say, well, that's who I am and I'm extreme and I've, you know, I'm accomplished all that stuff in those States. And that's true. But I will say that you are much more than, you know, you're much more than, you know, and you have an ability to tap into a divine intelligent. That's ever constant, ever expanding, always there for you. And that would never be hard.

It would only be like a blessing or a kiss. Our, um, our garden tower just fell over. Our tower garden just tipped over. It's all right. All right, anyway. Yeah, well, the thing about that though that's tricky for me is, and it plays into the blog post that I wrote about stop hacking your life and invest in the journey

and kind of like signing up for the journey and embracing like all the obstacles and the toil and all the kind of stuff that comes with that, um, is that part of me isn't interested in easy. Like I don't want that ease. Like I enjoy in, you know, maybe some of that is perverse, but like, I kind of enjoy like grappling with, you know, like, Oh, it's, you know, it's hard. And then getting to the other side of that, like, it's not fun. It's not comfortable when it's happening, but when you're on the other side of it and you're like, I got through that, you know, like, I didn't think I was going to be able to do that thing. I was right up against it where I was ready to quit or it just was too

hard. And somehow I got to the other side and, and that gives you a sense of deep satisfaction that if everything's just in ease, then you're not getting that. But you're missing the point. You're missing, I didn't make my point clear if that's what you thought I was saying. I mean, when you're living a life of devotion and connected to that, there's a greater force beside you. It doesn't mean that, you know, birds are singing and everything's good and everything's easy all the time. Life is a struggle. Life are, you know, birds are singing and everything's good and everything's easy all the time. Life is struggle. Life are, you know, experiences and challenges and things you go through to transform.

All I'm saying is don't fool yourself and think that you know everything, that you're running theify your mind or your mental concept as being who you are because it's not who you are it's just a mental concept that i am rich role i am rich role you should drop the rich role and it should just be i am so yeah no i think that that's, no. So the, so the thing is, is it's like, it's not, uh, I mean, you know, our, our own life is a demonstration of this journey of what we've been through and, you know, the amount of faith that required. And I think, you know, many times you held onto my faith, like you were like, well, she believes, so I'm going to believe I'm going to hold onto her and let her believe. I'm going to hold on to her and let her believe. Right. Because it was so different from any other way that I've ever, you know, I'm coming from a very logic, you know, kind of rational world, worldview and experience. And you were coming from a very different place. And when we were in super crisis and we didn't know, you know, what was coming next, whether

we were going to be able to stay in our house or whatever, like, yeah, I was like, okay, she believes that we're going to see this through. And like, that was the only way that I was able to get through that was by looking to your faith and piggybacking onto that because left to my own devices, you know, I've just been an anxious wreck probably. Right. And so, but the thing is, is so i think that that's the practice of us that that's why there was a practice of meditation there's a practice of living a conscious life a yogic life a plant-based lifestyle it's a practice it's almost it's a spiritual path because as humans we can forget it in an instant and so you know i was talking to somebody in the last couple days about okay so we're you know, I was talking to somebody in the last couple of days

about, okay, so we're, you know, many of us in the wellness field or you, you and I certainly, you more than me right now, but I'm coming up with coming out with my own stuff and we're sharing on the internet and we're reaching so many people and we're transforming lives and we're doing all this stuff. And we have to be very careful that we don't forget to build the tribe at home, to be living this lifestyle that we're sharing actually in our own backyard. And this, this, you know, expands to, you know, educating our children, enjoying our life with our children, growing food, you know, bonding, forming bonds with community of like-minded people.

I mean, who knows how long the internet is going to last on a trajectory on a long-term, like forever, like for all time. And, you know, certainly you can't, you, you've got to, you've got to walk the talk. Like you can't. And so that's what happens with me when I start to get out of balance, like, okay, I have this social media presence that's all about wellness and balance and plant-based nutrition and fitness and sustainable health and all this sort of stuff. And, and then, you know, life becomes so busy with all of these great things that are happening. Like, Hey, I get to go interview. I get to drive down to San Diego and

go spend the afternoon with slow-mo and interview them for the podcast. Like how amazing, but then, oh, you know, that part of the cookbook that I was supposed to write doesn't get done. And like, and then anxiety starts to creep in and stress creeps in. And it's like, oh, I didn't get to exercise that day either because I was so busy doing this other thing. And then you blink and then, oh, you're out of balance. You're actually not living true to these principles that you're getting on the microphone and professing. And so it's a constant process of like checking yourself and like bringing it back and going, hey, this is a long term thing. Like, OK, so that's not going to get done today. But you've got to take care of yourself because you have to be in alignment with, you know, the frequency that you're putting out there. Otherwise it's just bullshit.

Exactly. Well, and just like anybody, somebody who just began a plant-based diet, like just, just started taking care of their health. It's like, they're making those choices moment by moment by moment, that's shifting their reality, shifting the truth of what they're living. And it's the same for us. It's just in a different way. It's like suddenly now we're looking at all the, at all the offers, you know, now there's, you know, now we're actually saying, okay, is that, is that the highest divine alignment for the use of time for the unit, for the family, for our company, for what we're doing. And now we have to look at it with more discernment, but yes, we're making those choices in every single moment of the day. The beautiful thing is, is that you can make, you can shift your reality and you can be reborn in each choice. So we don't have to hold on to the fact that, you know, you ate a Twinkie an hour

ago. You can just eat the kale or eat the spinach or eat the whole fruit. I didn't eat it. No, I was, no, I mean, I was just saying, you know, for someone who's, who's starting out, you know, what I'm saying is, is we don't have to hold on to the fact that, you know, we were completely out of balance, you know, in our marriage, uh, you know, yesterday we can correct it, make the healthy choice and move forward. And that's past. It's gone. It's literally gone. So the power is in each moment, we all have the ability to shift our trajectory and to really shift our, more of our reality. But how do you do that? I mean, it's one thing to say that, and then to actually be able to accomplish that, like what are the steps that somebody could take to, you know, hit that

pause button and reset and really recalibrate? Well, I mean, if you're out of balance, I mean, we talked about it the other, the other episode that we did, but, you know, definitely getting in, getting in touch with gratitude, you know, taking an inventory of what's working in your life, what, you know, what you have to be grateful for, obviously making healthy food choices, you know, continuing to, you know, for us, it's, it's literally eliminating the wheat, you know, the refined sugar, you know, we all, we're, we're almost, almost never eat out anymore. I mean, it's almost impossible. And even when we try, it's not really working. Um, so it's making healthy food choices. Um, it's also also meditation it's giving yourself that time which

you've been doing you know to actually sit and not rush out the door and not make this big you know dialogue in your head that you have to get somewhere you have to be somewhere right now and giving yourself the space you know I mean for me, for me, it's a, it's an intense yoga practice. It's meditation. You know, I go and study with, you know, a realized saint. Um, and I'm going actually after the podcast, I'll be deep in meditation at his feet. Yeah. And I mean, you know, it's, it's, it's, you know, two hour drive. I'm, you know, away from the kids. I get home late. I'm kind of out of balance then on Friday, but you know, I'm, I'm, you know, I'm, you know, away from the kids. I get home late. I'm kind of out of balance then on Friday, but you know, I'm, I'm, you know, I'm honing my skills and my technique and I'm taking these blessings as I, as they're being given to me. And the other thing is, you know, doing things that are only in alignment with your life mission. It's like, you have to cut out all the other

peripheral stuff. And with some of that comes relationships with some of that comes, you know, high maintenance, you know, high maintenance, you know, family members or things like that. It's like, you have to realize that you only have, you know, this is your life and you're creating your life and, you know, your choices make a difference. But if somebody is like, we were talking about that idea of hitting that you can, you know, be reborn in an instant, right? Like that you can make that choice to say, oh, this has been my habit for the last 20 years of doing whatever behavior it is. And I have the power innately within me right now to change that. I don't have to, you know,

hit some huge rock bottom with it or anything. I can just make that decision and, and shift. Yeah. So when you're saying that can happen in an instant and then, you know, the question comes up, well, how do you do that? Like, is it a, I mean, the sort of things that you laid out are really things that take time to kind of develop and hone before they kick in and have an impact on your lifestyle. Well, maybe, maybe not. I mean, it doesn't take an instant to choose, you know, to order a, uh, you know, a kale salad instead of, you know, a greasy hamburger. That doesn't take two years to cultivate. What I've been thinking a lot about is, you know, especially as I'm starting to think about, you know, what a next book would be.

especially as I'm starting to think about what a next book would be, I'm really fascinated by and befuddled and confused and mystified and amazed by the difference between somebody who, for example, take two people that are really overweight, right? One person, rubber bands up and down, they can't get it. They just can't get it. They just can't figure out how to implement a healthy lifestyle, you know, set of behavior patterns that can shift their life. And then on the other side of that, you have a guy like Josh Lajani, right? Who just, you know, sort of like makes it. Yeah, he's incredible. Like he makes a decision.

Beautiful guy. He sticks to it. He follows through. He loses 200 pounds. And now he's like he makes a decision. Beautiful guy. He sticks to it. He follows through. He loses 200 pounds. And now he's like an advocate for this kind of lifestyle. So what is the difference between a guy like Josh and the person who is struggling? put them side by side and really make an analysis of what somebody's doing and what somebody isn't doing and create principles that would be translatable and helpful to that person who is stuck and in that perpetual kind of vicious cycle of being unable to transcend whatever it is that's holding them back. Well, I don't know. I mean, that's like a huge question. I'm not saying that you should have the answer to that.

I'm just saying this is what I'm thinking of putting a lot of time into thinking about. Well, I mean, you know, I think that obviously we all have to be willing, you know, the difference is, is Josh is ready. Yeah, he was ready. It's a readiness. Bring it on. Right. It's like on some kind of conscious slash unconscious level,

some people reach that point where they develop a willingness and other people just can't get to that willingness. And we chalk it up to willpower or weakness, but I think it's something more fundamental than that. It's deeper than that. Well, I think it's a moment of truth that comes from beyond, which is something that you describe in your book, like with that sacred run in the mountains where you ran and ran and ran and ran, or that moment where you were walking up the stairs and then suddenly it hit you, you know,

like, why was it that moment? Or even in, in recovery, you know, just to hear stories of lives transformed or to participate in people's lives and see them, you know, over the course of a year or a number of years, change their lives completely by getting sober and making good decisions. It's just, it's incredible. It's such a gift to be able to be involved with people's lives that are, that are making that switch. And then you can see, you can, you know, in your, in front of your very eyes, you can

see the light go on and you can see their lives improve and the way they talk and everything changes, right? It's absolutely fucking phenomenal. And then you have, but then there's all the people that break your heart because they just can't get it and they're in and out and they just can't get sober. And, you know, some of them die. And I've had friends that have died and I've seen, you know, I've seen people just, you know, not be able to get it and destroy their lives. Or some people get it really, really, really amazingly, and then they don't get it and they lose it. Right. And so this is going back to, you know, what I was trying to express earlier. And that is that it's a practice because

it has to be practiced in each and every moment. It's in every decision that you're making that choice again and again and again and again. So it's not like, oh, I'm, you know, I'm, I'm completely healthy and I'm amazing. And there I am. It's not a fixed position. Right, right, right. You know, it's always moving. And so that's what I'm saying is it's like within our own life or our own relationship and our own family. You know, I was reflecting today as I was driving. You know, there is some just amazing deep sacredness to very,

very big adversity and the, the, the kind of adversity that puts you on your knees that completely removes any personality profiles or programs or ideas that you have about who you are. And suddenly all the bullshit is gone. And there is a, there is a deep beauty that comes in the, in those moments. If

you're available to it, if you can receive it, if you can let it in your life and you know, there's a meaning to life when you're, when you're living like that. And I think another key challenge of balance, which I think is the most important one, is how not to lose that sacred connection. Once the physical starts moving and everything's moving so quickly and you're flying here and I'm flying there and this is happening, that's happening, there's no time to break.

There's no time to take a breath. So, you know, the challenge is how do we keep, we have to keep our connection to that, into that experience, into that force that led us here in the first place. And keep reminding ourselves that we go here by the grace of God, simply. Well, yeah, a couple thoughts on that. I mean, first of all, that brings up this temporal idea of time. You know, it's when you think, oh, I'm a healthy person.

you think, oh, I'm a healthy person. You're, you're really just creating a judgment based upon the past and a perception of what you're going to do in the future. Neither of which are real, you know, and you're not in the now of what you're doing in that moment. So, um, and you know, this is, these ideas are swimming around in my head because I spent the day with slow-mo the other day. I want to hear it. I want to we talked about. I want to hear it. Which we'll, well, that podcast will post before this one, so people listening will have already heard it. But yeah, it was very Eckhart Tolle in that regard, talking about sort of the fluidity of time and our concept of time and all that sort of thing.

But it also brings up this idea that's very helpful to me that I learned when I was in rehab. And it's something I have to remind myself every day because I forget, you know, you're talking about how we forget, we lose touch or, you know, life gets busy and we're just, we get on to our, we're just on our program. And the idea is this, I've probably said it on the podcast before, but it's this idea that you're never static. Nothing is static. You're either in every given moment or micro moment, you're making a million decisions, you're having a million thoughts. And each one of those is either moving you forward in your evolution, whether it's spiritual, physical, mental, emotional, or it's regressive. It's moving you towards, in the case of recovery, it's like, oh, you're either moving away from your next drink or you're moving towards your next drink, right?

But in just personal evolution, it's, you know, are you growing or are you regressing? And that's not a fixed concept. Like, oh, I'm a, you know, I went to, you know, I'm sober now and I've solved that problem. I want to convince myself that that's in the past and I don't really have to deal with that anymore. And that's not the truth. And it's not the truth that our relationship, our marriage is just sort of solid forever. It requires work.

Anybody who's married or in a relationship knows that. And that idea of like resting on your laurels. And there's no such thing as cruise control. You can't cruise in sobriety. You can't cruise in your emotional, physical, mental, spiritual development. You're either making conscious decisions and actions every day that are expanding you or you're regressing. And if you think you're on cruise control, you're regressing, right? Because think you're on cruise control, you're regressing. Right. Right. Because cruise control is an illusion because it means you've taken your foot off the gas and you're not, you're not consciously working to better yourself or, you know, keep yourself at a minimum out of, you know, the wrong side of the fence or what have

you. Right. And I mean, well, but AA provides a whole spiritual program. It is a spiritual program. Yeah. You know, so, you know, it's, it's keeping that practice at the forefront instead of in illusion, like you said, you know, like, right. Well, the idea like, Oh, I'm sober. Yeah. That's not, that's an illusion. You know what I mean? Because every moment presents an opportunity to, to, oh, I'm sober. I've arrived. Yeah, that's an illusion. You know what I mean? Because every moment presents an opportunity to sort of engage my alcoholic nature or disengage, right? And each one of those little micro decisions is moving me in a good direction or a bad direction. It doesn't mean that like, you know, today I'm going to drink.

But is that really expanding you or is that, or are you contracting spiritually? Sri Ramana Maharshi, one of the greatest realized saints to ever exist on the planet. He was realized when he was like 14 years old or something and was just, you know, radiating massive amounts of Shakti on the planet for his lifetime. And, you know, he used to chant, you know, Ram, you know, Ram, Ram, Ram constantly. And somebody asked him, you know, why are you doing that? And he was like, cause in a moment you can forget. So if like, if he, if he was doing that, then, you know, I'm going to make sure I'm doing that for sure. Right. Right. Right. Like, yeah, even somebody who's so dialed up

spiritually has to be constant and continual reminder of, you know, the idea that there's more going on than the ego. Then what does that say about the average person who's, you know, driving on the four Oh five to work. Exactly. But I mean, and it comes back to that. This was kind of the concept that I was talking about when I was just

reflecting on how we're all just on that razor's edge, you know, like what's the difference between an insane person or a homeless person walking around the streets and, you know, and your banker or your, you know, it's just, there's not that much difference. There's a couple things, you know, a couple events, a couple things that happen in a person's life. It's also the, how you define insanity,

which also because of my experience with slow-mo. Yeah. Well, it's like, cause you know, most people would look at slow-mo and say that guy's crazy, you know, and it's like, cause you know, most people would look at Sloan and say that guy's crazy, you know, and he's gliding up and down the boardwalk and his, and his like warrior three motion with his eyes bugged out and like, you know, and so if you didn't know anything about him, you're like, that's a homeless guy or some, you know, guy who escaped from the VA hospital. And, you know, maybe he, maybe he is crazy or maybe he's the sanest person. And I'm looking over to the left over there and there's that picture of John Lennon on the wall that you got me for my birthday, a beautiful photograph. And I'm drafting, I'm in the middle of drafting the blog post for the slow-mo episode and I'm opening it with a quote from John Lennon that basically is like, you know, people accusing him of being insane and him saying, I think, I think all of society is insane. I think the way that we run our society is insane. I think the way that, you know, our system is set up and

the politician, everybody is insane and I'm insane. I'm considered insane for saying that. And I might get locked up for, you know, and that's, what's insane about the whole thing, you know, that, that we have this inverted sense of what it means to be sane and what it means to be sane is really to kind of do as you're told, you know, be a good consumer and, you know, kind of, you know, watch the today show in the morning and go to Starbucks and go to work and like, you know, work hard and go home and watch dancing with the stars and barbecue on the weekend or, you know, and anything left of center of that or right of center, whether you're, you know, some super hardcore, you know, tea party guy who's going off grid and

prepping and, you know, stocking, you know, firearms and growing your own food, or you're a guy way on the left who's doing, you know, a liberal version of something similar or you're slow-mo, you know, who is the insane person? You know, is it the guy in Congress who's been completely bought by special interests and beholden to them, who is not serving, you know, the people or his constituency at all, but his own ego, or is it slow-mo gliding up and down, you know, the boardwalk with a big smile on his face, talking about flow states. You know, I don't know.

It's not for me to judge one or the other. These are all different states of existence and being. And, you know, we had that experience when we went to the MindBodyGreen retreat, the revitalized retreat, which was 150 really kind of thought leaders and wellness pioneers and people of, you know, of all different kinds of expertise and entrepreneurs, et cetera. And, you know, lots of doctors and everybody has their own thing, you know, they have their own lens. Right. And we talked about this, like everyone's just having their own experience. Everyone is viewing the world through their own lens. They're filtering information differently. You know, I went out for, we did a group hike in the morning and I'm hiking with Chris Kresser, who's a big paleo guy.

He's one of the leading guys in the paleo movement. And Chris and I have a lot in common, but we also have differences in how we view, you know, nutrition. And I thought he was a super pleasant guy. I enjoyed chatting with him. You know what I mean? And he's looking at the world through his lens and I'm looking at the world through my lens. And we had an enjoyable hike in the morning. You know what I mean? And, and Mark Hyman and Joel Kahn and, uh, you know,

who else was there? Uh, Dr. Frank Lipman, you know, all these, there's three doctors up there on the panel. They all have their own differences about how people should eat and live. You know, it's like these guys who are all leaders and kind of quote unquote celebrity doctors, and they have disagreements among themselves over certain things. And so who's sane, who's insane? Is it a spectrum? Is there such thing as, um, right and wrong? Yeah. I mean, so, so I don't know where I was going with that. I don't know. You went off on a slow-mo. You were gone. I was wondering where you were going.

Slow-mo has me. He's got me on a different wavelength today. I think slow-mo may be your guru, actually. That's awesome. No. Yeah, it's all perception. I mean, it's all perception. So, I mean, all I was saying is I just know from our own experience and, you know, more than a few times, you know, you can get into a really scary place or a really place where you feel like you're going to be annihilated, whether it's in our relationship or whether it's in, you know, the life we've chosen to lead.

It's it's funny. It's kind of amazing just how fragile it is, just how, how quickly it can flip one way or the other. And, um, I think that, uh, uh, the, the way to, um, support a balanced experience in that is to understand that you can shift anything in the moment. You can stop and you can take a deep breath, which is, I think what we talked about in the last podcast that You can stop and you can take a deep breath, which is I think what we talked about in the last podcast that I was on. You can just connect to your breath. You can go work out, you can go to yoga class, you can choose to meditate, you can talk it through, which is usually what we do. And you can suddenly stop looking at the, uh, at what was lacking and you can look at what is working and you can shift that focus.

And in my experience, in the energy that's available right now is you can literally shift everything in a very, very short amount of time. And that's in anything in your life. I think the key to making that work in your life is developing habits and practices around those kind of wellness techniques, you know, whether it's meditation or paying attention to the breath or, you know, learning how to control anxiety, all these sorts of things. Because what happens is, how do I articulate this? If I'm not doing those things to take care of myself, when I'm in a situation of sudden,

you know, kind of unpredictable, high anxiety or pressure, then I'm ill equipped to, uh, respond in the most conscious manner. What happens is I get triggered and I have built in, you know, I have a built in sort of response mechanism to every scenario that arises. I think we all do. So something happens, the button gets pushed and boom, I react and I react in the way that I've been programmed to react like my whole life. And generally that reaction is not productive. It's generally emotional and it's sort of hardwired into me, but it's something I almost have no control over, right? It just happens. It's like a reflex. By contrast, if you are consciously working on your meditation, if you are, you know, working on mindfulness and stillness, if you're raising the vibration of the people around you and the food you're eating and you're taking care of yourself with sleep and exercise,

then when that button gets pushed, you have the ability to pause, breathe, and consciously gauge how you are going to respond instead of reflexively, impulsively reacting. Right. And who was it? Oh, it was Charlie that was talking about in the meditation class at the retreat. He was saying. Charlie Knowles. Yeah, Charlie Knowles was saying, oh, if your button gets pushed and you have that anger response, that's actually like sort of weak because you didn't choose the anger. The anger chose you.

Whereas if you can enter a stressful situation with calmness and mindfulness and be able to pause and reflect and consciously respond, that's incredibly empowering because then you're, you're consciously choosing how you want to respond to a certain individual on a certain context. And that way you actually have the upper hand to kind of control how, how you are going to behave. And in some ways, how that whole scenario is going to play out. Well, you're the master of your emotions, right? So your mind isn't running you or your emotions aren't running you. Right. So, so sort of to draw an analogy again, to kind of recovery, the example in that context would be if you're not working your programs, you're not going to meetings. If you're not calling, you know, your buddies in the program and telling them what's going on, if you're not doing all these things that you need to do to take care of yourself and stay sober, when you're in that heightened, you know, sort of situation that, that, uh, you know, is a trigger point for you

to drink or use, then you don't have, you are, you are, um, devoid of the tools that you need to say no to that opportunity, right? Like you are, you're, you're naked in that situation and you're probably going to make the wrong choice. Whereas if you're doing all those things all along, maybe while you're doing them, you don't know how this is serving you. But what you're doing is you're banking up all of this experience. And you're basically putting deposits in the bank so that when you are in that situation, that you're not in jeopardy in the same kind of way. That's true. And so that's applicable outside of the recovery context to any heightened emotional situation. So when you're doing these mindfulness practices, if you're meditating, if you're exercising,

if you're eating right and all those sorts of things, when you then enter that, that trigger point situation, you're going to be better prepared to navigate it in a more mindful, conscious way that actually is going to serve you, serve you in your life. Well, and everyone, everyone around you and the other person and the, you know, sort of the eventual outcome of that, of course. Yes. Right. Well said. All right. Mm-hmm. What else? I don't know. What else? Balance. Balance. Yeah. Balancing. So balance is still, you know, I don't know.

I'm always striving for it. I aspire to it and I touch it and the pendulum swings. And a part of it is also not being too hard on yourself, I think. That's a big part of it. Like you're never going to have everything in balance. Like if you're a control freak about balance, especially if you, if you're living, if you're living a full life, it's sort of like, all right, well, what are the boxes you have to check? You know, marriage, kids, profession, physical, emotional, mental, spiritual friends, whatever

it is, it's never going to all be like all those crank arms are going to be spinning, you know, perfectly oiled in unison. This is not, it's not possible. So, I mean, for me, it's more, it's more being again, able to flow. So it's like, you know, I, I shared this on a podcast I was on recently about, you know, how do I manage everything in my life? How do I, how do I show up as a mother, a wife, um, you know, how do I manage everything in my life? How do I, how do I show up as a mother, a wife, um, you know, a chef, a book author, a musician, um, you know, how do I do all of that stuff and, and still be balanced? You keep talking. I'm getting like snapchatted like during my thing.

Yeah, there you go. Keep going. But anyway, so I just think that it's being, it's the reason, the way that I can do it is by being fluid. So I'm completely different being than you are. Completely. I don't, you know, like we couldn't be wired more differently. We were actually just talking about how that's why we think we make such a strong team because we're so different. Well, we butt up against each other. Can I interject or you want to finish my thought?

All right. It goes to the subject of what I'm going to talk about. So anyway, so no, so how I do it is, is, uh, I kind of, uh, I'm, I'm, I have grand visions. I, I do have a lot of visions. I'm not just someone who, you know, wants to sit and watch the birds fly around. So I do have things that I want to express in my life. I do feel like they're part of my life purpose. I have a deep yearning and a deep, um, calling to do my best to express them. Um, and they are for the purpose of service service and also to fulfill and realize myself. The way that I'm able to do everything that I do is by not having too much structure. So my structure in my, yeah, but see my structure within my inner being is more like a sphere.

So it's a moving ball and massive energy, right? And I know that I am all of it and I'm within it and without it. So what I do is I kind of lay out like I'm, I'll make lists, like I'll get like some legal paper or whatever. And I'll kind of make a global sort of mass, you know, um, layout of all the different things that I have, like a one page for music. Just so people know when you write a list, it looks more like you're drawing like a tree. It doesn't look anything like what people normally think of. What do you think? Well, no, you'll get like a huge

piece of paper and you'll start drawing this bizarre design on it. You're like, Oh, this is my list. I'm like, what is that? That's funny. I have been known to make some, I have had some energy downloads as Chris Jade from common ground would say. Um, no, so I, I, I have been known to make some, I have had some energy downloads as Chris Jade from common ground would say. Um, no, so I, I, I have a very, I have a very clear, I'm not, um, I'm not an illusion about what needs to be accomplished, but it's all kind of laid out. And then I, uh, I kind of prioritize in the moment and I'm very, very fluid. So like, if I go about my day, if I think, let's say, I think I'm going to, um, uh, just like, let's say, I think I'm going to copyright my tracks. I'm going to work with my web designer and I'm going to, uh, you know, uh, workshop a couple

recipes. So I, I will get up kind of with that intention, but it's a very loose intention. And then I will respond to the events around me and shift that in the moment, literally. Like if my phone rings and it's my engineer and suddenly something from the bottom of the list came, you know, something that I was going to do, let's say tomorrow comes up, I will meet that flow and I will embrace that flow. And I'll say, yes, that, that time's open. Now I'm doing that. And then I'll just shift it all around.

It doesn't stress me at all. Yeah. That, that causes me a lot of stress. Everything, everything gets done. And, you know, I do execute things. I mean, I will say that I'm a late bloomer for a lot of things that I've wanted to express. I'm still waiting, but I have expressed a lot of stuff in my life. And, you know, I'm not, it works for me.

So again, it's like I hold on loosely. And the other thing that I do is I practice almost absolute non-judgment of myself within the process. Like I don't have this big judgment about myself when I'm writing that I have to hit some bar or that I'm not, I don't have the technique or the training to pull out what I need to say. I have absolutely an open, um, an open energy so that I can receive what I need in the

moment. And I do not believe that someone has to be technically trained in order to execute something in excellence or in divinity or in wonder or in a miracle. Like, I just don't believe that. No, I mean, I think that the most important thing is having something to say that's of importance or interest and the technique around that and all of that, that can be learned or other people can come in to help with that. So the important thing is, is the drive and the willingness and the, and, and what it is that you actually have to express and everything else around that can be figured out. Yeah. But see, you're, I mean, I'm not, I'm not even saying that it's lacking within

me. I'm not saying that I don't have it and I need someone else to figure out for me. I'm saying that I have the ability to tap in to divine mind and it'll be downloaded into me. That's, that's a very different distinction. I understand what you're saying. No. And, and, and having that, um, non-judgment that I was born with, it's part of my makeup, how God made me. I'm not judgmental about myself and I'm not judgmental about other people. And I've really been feeling this truth lately in the last month in a very, very deep way. And that is that I just feel that every single being deserves to be fully realized and fully expressed in themselves. I mean, what a beautiful thing for every single life form to be expressed in, in the way that they were created. And so I'm getting just immense amount of inspiration and, and great feeling when I'm

looking around the world and I'm seeing so many people doing so many beautiful things and really living their authentic heart. And it, it makes me very, very happy and it makes me pleased to be able to see it. And what is your reaction when you go somewhere and you're exposed to a large number of people who are kind of in the opposite situation? When in opposite, in what way? They're not realizing themselves. Well, yeah, people that are just, you can tell like, these are not happy people. These are people that are, that are stuck in a system and they're not, they're, they're disconnected from themselves or they're not happy or they're struggling or, you know what I mean? Like,

because I think we've had the great blessing to suddenly sort of be introduced to, you know, a community and groups of people that really are kind of amazing. But that's not the typical experience. Well, the masses on the planet, I mean, there's massive suffering on this planet. And it's, you know, I have great compassion and, you know, deep, deep compassion for everybody. and in deep, deep compassion for everybody. And the only thing I can say is what I feel or what I think when I see that is that they don't know themselves. They simply don't know themselves.

They're no less talented or no less spiritual or no less special than any single person, certainly than I am, than you are. They simply don't know themselves. They haven't had the opportunity to become aware of themselves, to become self-aware. And that's why I, you know, always talk about the meditation program and specifically my meditation program, a humming meditation program that has a ceiling technique. It also has mantra in it to Ganesh. Um, and it's a 30 minute program that, you know, I really feel is designed for the modern person that can't sit

still or that doesn't know where to start or, you know, can't begin, but it doesn't only have to be meditation. It could be finding yourself through all different kinds of ways. Creation is vast. But it's simply because they haven't found their heart. And that's why I've come to know how important the plant-based movement is because it's the beginning of allowing people to clear the density of the processed foods, to clear emotional residue so that they can start to know themselves. And everyone's going to be different. You know, I'm not, I'm not trying to get everybody to be like me, you know, there's no, that won't happen. And I'm not trying to get you to be like me either. I'm just trying to exist with you and harmoniously, that's all. Sometimes that's hard. Sometimes it's a challenge.

Yeah, I'm not easy to live with. And getting back to that idea, you were talking about how, you know, sort of you have your flow state kind of way of going through your day. And my approach to the day is generally a lot more regimented. Like I work really well within the confines of structure when I know what I'm going to be doing every day. And I can focus and, you know, I can tune it. Like I don't, I'm not a multi, I cannot multitask. I have to just be immersed in one thing. And then a distraction pulls me out of that. It's very difficult for me to get back into it. I like to just be really into one thing. And that's how I've always kind of been made for better or worse. Right. So, which brings us to, um, what's going on right now, which is we're in the middle

of writing this cookbook together. Right. And, uh, which is, it's amazing by the way, you guys, I can't wait for this book to come out. It's going to come out this winter, but beautiful photography is, you know, 120 plus recipes of books. Like how many pages is it? It's almost like 250, something like that. Getting close to 300 pages. Um, just it's gorgeous. I'm really, really excited. It's going to be a hard cover book. It's coming out this winter and we'll tell you more about that as we get closer, but we're in the middle of trying to just tie it up right now and finish it. And there's a couple of text sections that have to be, that I've got to write and just kind

of, we're passing pages back and forth and dialing it up. And Julie's process is different than mine. And I have like, you know, my struggle is, you know, I've never written a book with anyone else before. Like, you know, like this is the thing that I do when I go into my Ted Kaczynski hole. You know, this is not something that I do in collaboration with other human beings. We did write a book together before. We did an e-cookbook. Yeah, I know.

But that's like the amount of time and effort that went into that versus what we're doing now. It's not even in the same universe, right? So this is a much more intensive, you know, we've been working on this thing for how many, you know, like almost a year now, right? This has been a long time coming. I developed the recipes before then. Right, of course. This right? This has been a long time. Well, and I developed the recipes before then.

Right, of course. This has been going on for a long time. But anyway, so, you know, Julie has her style and I have my style and sometimes it works great. And sometimes like, you know, it's just, yeah, there's friction. So the other day, I was like, I don't understand, you know, like, how are you doing that?

I want to do it like this. And we had like a little thing and we got through it. It's fine. This is, you know, this is how how are you doing that? I want to do it like this. And we had like a little thing and, and we got through it. It's fine. This is, you know, this is how we're on the podcast. We made it. Julie and I, you know, we, we go through our stuff and then we're always able to like really have like a post game on it and talk it all the way through and get into like a really good place.

So if there's one thing that, you know, we've really been successful at in our marriage and on our relationship is having that kind of open communication so that when we do have disagreements or, you know, spats over, it's always little stuff, but we're always able to kind of communicate enough to get to that place where we understand where each of us was coming from, what we were trying to express and kind of get to a good place on the other side. But anyway, so we had, we had a little bit of that the other day and it was awesome. And then, but the best part of the whole thing of that the other day and, uh, it was awesome. So good. And then the, but the best part of the whole thing was that the next morning I go into

work and I open up my computer and, uh, I subscribe to James Altucher's, uh, newsletter. And if you listen, if you've been listening to the podcast, James was a guest on a while. He was a brilliant writer, blogger. He's so funny and so insightful. I just love listening to him talk on his podcast and reading his stuff. And so I got his daily email of his newest post. And the title of his post was, How to Write a Book with Your Wife Without Getting Divorced. And I was like, oh my God, I can't believe that this is like the article.

I was like, why didn't he send this to me yesterday? I wish I could have really used James. If you're listening, I could have really used it one day earlier. But anyway, so I sent it to Julie and I was like, ha ha. I know that was funny. And at first I was slightly annoyed. I knew you might be, but then I read it and he's so funny and it's so, you know, beautifully and authentically expressed.

And anyway, I thought it was actually this week on his podcast he had his wife on because they wrote this book the the power of no and so he had she co-wrote it and he had her on his show that's also funny the power of no what are you trying to grab at let's give me that what this no what are you doing? So what were we talking about? We were talking about not getting divorced. Oh, okay. So we're definitely not. No, because we're getting actually in a week,

we're going to renew our vows. 11 years married, 16 years together. I think we're going to start on our 16th maybe. Oh my goodness gracious. I know. So that's going to be really cool. We're just to start on our 16th, maybe. I can't remember. Oh, my goodness gracious. I know. So that's going to be really cool. We're just doing it ourselves. It's a very intimate private ceremony with just the six of us.

And it's all about the ceremony. And our daughter, Mathis, made my wedding dress. My renewal vow dress. She won't let me see it. It's really, really beautiful. No, and the girls, too. So it's hilarious. It's kind of cute because. No, and the girls too. So it's hilarious. It's kind of cute because the little girls were not around when we got married.

The older boys were. So they're all excited about it. But anyway, it's super sweet. And I'm, you know, again, it's like your life is what you make it, right? And a marriage is what you put into it and what your intentions are for it. And if you care for it in a sacred way and in a way where it matters and put it first, then it will fruit that way. It will be that way. And I'm extremely grateful and feel very blessed that you've, you know, signed up to do this with me

and be with me in this way. Absolutely. Me too. It's been a, it's been quite the journey. Quite the journey for sure. It needs to evolve. That's right. Um, but I want to talk about your new album a little bit. So you just finished this new record. I did. Yeah, we did. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, it's called Jai Home is the name of it. And, uh, it's, it's actually going to be digitally released, I think july 9th so this will probably post after that yeah this will post after that so it'll be up by then yeah well it'll be up on itunes and all that by then it'll be on cd baby so it'll be on itunes and amazon and we're also going to put it back up on bandcamp and then i'm having a new website design that's

going to be srimati.com so i finally have everything in one place and is that going to be ready by that yeah yes it will i mean i'll still be working on it but we'll have this is like your cd release nati.com so i finally have everything in one place and is that going to be ready by that yeah yes it will i mean i'll still be working on it but we'll have this is like your cd release website you know re reintroduction well podcast yeah well and also yeah exactly yeah thanks um it's uh it's also going to be the place where i have you know food blog so i'm going to start you know blogging about food which everybody's so interested in They always want to know what I'm making. I got asked, actually, I got a marriage proposal from a straight woman last week. She said, marry me. Yeah. When I posted, it was actually Aaron, it was Aaron from Aaron and Bobby,

our favorite cutest couple ever. You have to, we have to photograph them. They're just the most beautiful couple ever. So anyway, um, yeah. Every time you post a recipe, you post it, you just post a picture of something that you made and it's like recipe, please. Like people really just immediately need to know how to make this. Everybody's into food in a really big way, which is really cool. But no, the, the album is really, um, which is really cool. But no, the album is really, really dear to me.

It's the second installment in the boys and my seven year journey and becoming musicians together. And, you know, when we released the first album, Mother of Mine, we actually had enough for a double album, but we decided not to do it at that point. And then we sat on these songs, um, that were really, you know, uh, from that period, from that seven year period. And, and then, uh, you know, I just talked to the boys and I said, you know, if I don't, um, document them and record them, I'm going to, you know, I'm not going to feel happy about that in my life. And, uh, so anyway, so we jumped back in the studio and reworked them. And we're really, really, really happy with how the record came out. And it's a little sweeter than the first one, a little bit more upbeat and has, you know, still a lot of emotion in it.

And the title track is actually a love song that I wrote for our home. Jai Home. Jai Home. Jai home. That's right. And there's a little bit of the humming meditation on that as well. I think it's like a minute, 13 seconds. It's a humming meditation, but I've put actually a swarm of bees on top of it and some birds. It's pretty trance-like and pretty groovy. Yeah, it's a beautiful record, and it is trance-like and pretty groovy yeah it's a beautiful record and it's very

it is trance-like and it's just soothing, it's heartfelt it's I don't know, it's calming it just makes me feel like I'm home when I hear it because it's Jai Home it should make me feel that way but of course it reminds me of my family

because I was here through all the rehearsals and all that kind of stuff, but it's really cool. So yeah, we could take the show out with one of the songs. Which one do you want me to put up at the end? I don't know. Maybe Jai Hum since we talked about it. So I'm just thinking about that. Yeah.

And then we're getting ready to go to Vegas. We're going to be playing a gig there at the end of the month. Oh, the Catalyst week. Yeah, Catalyst. Is that open to the public? I don't know if it is. Maybe. I don't know.

I don't know how they run that. I'll have to talk to Amanda and find out. Maybe we can post it. And then we had a super cool listening party here at the house last month. And it was really sweet. It was sort of like a CD release party, listening party that we had. And you guys played a bunch of songs and we had in queue come and introduce you and do a poem to open up the evening. And it was, it was magical. It was great. It was really great. And I got to cook for

everybody. So we had a big vegan spread. So lots of food, good food, music, family, love. It was really great. So what's next with the music? Well, we've got that one gig, and then we're actually really, really excited, the boys and I. They're working on some other projects with their other band, and I'm going to be developing a mantra album, but it's kind of in a new way. So I've had a little taste on, on both of these records. There's a little mantra in them and in a couple of cuts, you know, you'll hear it. Actually Ramayana on this track is actually a language from another realm. And, uh, speaking in tongues, kind of. Um, so, uh, so I, you know, it's obviously in there, obviously, you know, I'm a spiritual, uh, uh, healer and a guide, uh, in that way. And it comes out through my music, but I'm excited

for it's some chance that we actually wrote before and, you know, I'm doing a lot more meditation practice now. So we'll see what comes in and we'll see what's, what's delivered me. But I keep teasing people and saying that I'm going to go, I'm going to go all Bjork now. Just going to go whack. Yeah. No, but I love, I mean, I love her last album and I love her website. It's pretty incredible. Yeah. So that's what's going on. You got the one name thing going for you. I guess I do. Srimati. So you're halfway there. And then Bjork. Yeah. And you have the Alaska thing. So you kind of share that glacier iceberg situation. I still want to go to Iceland too. I keep submitting to Icelandic airwaves,

even though my music is like nothing like they have over there. But I really want to play that festival. Icelandic airwaves? It's airwaves. What is that? It's an amazing music concert that they have there. It's like a festival. They have it in October.

And the whole, you know, like the whole city. The Reykjavik. Yeah, totally. However you pronounce that. Reykjavik. Reykjavik. Totally turns into, you know, a big techno music thumping situation. But they've got to have some cafe there that's like hungry for some spiritual folk.

All right. Well, if anyone out there is listening to the podcast who lives that's like hungry for some spiritual folk. All right. Well, if anyone out there is listening to the podcast who lives in Reykjavik. Please invite me. And then listen to Julie's music. Please invite us. She would like to be invited to Reykjavik. I would. I really would.

I'll go. Hey, I'd like to go speak there too. No, it's amazing. I would love to go there. Yeah. I would love to go to that part of the world. Definitely on my list for sure. Cool.

All right. Well, I think we got to wrap it up here. Did we do it? I think we did it. All right. We've gone an hour and a half. Definitely on my list for sure. Cool. All right. Well, I think we got to wrap it up here. Did we do it? I think we did it on an hour and a half. It's pretty good. Okay. Awesome. That was pretty good. Did we talk enough about balance? I think we gave all we had, honey. How do you feel? I feel all right. I feel pretty good. Hopefully people find it useful and helpful. Well, we'll see. Leave a comment on the blog page, on the episode page and let us know what you think. And if you're digging Julie, you can check her new website out. You got to make sure it's up by the time this goes up, but it's going to be Srimati, S-R-I-M-A-T-I.com.

And she is, you've now like got your brand. I am unified now. It used to be, you had a different name on every account, but now you're, you're Srimati on Instagram, Twitter, got your brand. I am unified now. It used to be you had a different name on every account, but now you're Srimati on Instagram, Twitter, and your website. So that's pretty cool. And also now next week you can change your name again. I can never, because I have a new, I have a new guru that I'm meditating on. Yeah, he's going to give you a new name.

No, no. I once said to a friend of mine that if I didn't completely transform every seven years, then I was not really truly living. Right. All right. Well, then I guess you got to change your name. Never know. No, I'm not going to.

Anyway, so it's Srimati. And I do want to ask if anybody out there feels aligned, it would be great if you liked my Srimati music Facebook page. Yeah. So Facebook on Facebook, it's Srimati music. You started posting from there. You should just basically use that. I'm trying to, I'm trying to do that and I will be. Yeah. I just started using like my Facebook page is really the only one I use now. Right. Yeah. But I didn't really put that much effort into it because I was doing other things. And so now I'm getting more focused. All right.

So go check her out on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, the website, and then Bandcamp and iTunes. That's a lot of places to go. But probably your website would be the first good place to check it out. Yeah, it's remonti.com. You can see what I'm going to be doing. I'm going to be blogging, sharing more. And before I launch the podcast, because Rich and I are still getting in balance.

So if we added another podcast to our family, it might be disruptive. But I'm going to be doing some- It has nothing to do with me. You got to, it's your business. No, because I need producer. I'm not producing it. I need Tyler.

Yeah, well, he can do it, but I'm not, you know. Yeah, everyone's waiting for you to do your own podcast. They're like, when is that going to happen? So I'm going to make the decision. I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it. But I think it's good that you've waited because you can't, if you're going to make that decision

to do it, you got to do it. You can't be flaky about it. Like, Oh, one week I did it one week. I didn't like, you got to commit. No, it's true. And that's, and I'm finishing my book book also as well as the cookbook. So, you know, I've got two albums that I just released. Then I have the cookbook.

Then I have book book. Um, and then I'll do the podcast. So, but it's coming. You need more projects. No. All right. Let's get out of here. All right.

Thanks for having me on your show. Rich Roll. It's always nice to get intimate. Blessings, Julie Pahet. Thank you, darling. I'm looking forward to getting married to you again in a week. Oh, thank you. Thank you.

I'm looking forward to it as well. All right, everybody. Thanks for listening, you guys. All right. Peace. Namaste. Plants. Sweet pepper life Jacaranda ties life Jack-o-ran-da

ties I'm here with you tonight I'm home feels like home. Majestic mountain nights. Moonlight in your eyes. in your eye I'll stay with you

tonight I'm home feels like home home is where I'm close to you Jai, home is where Aurora hues Greet the skies And I can smile for a while Let me smile

I'll smile for a while Let me smile for a while, let me smile. For a while, I'll smile. For a while. All right, that's our show. Hope you guys enjoyed it. Check out Julie's music at srimati.com. Check out her blog there.

It's a brand new site. So she probably only, by the time you're listening to this, she probably only has one or two posts up there, but she is committed to blogging consistently. Lots of recipes, lots of food stuff, lots of spiritual nuggets of wisdom. So you can subscribe to her offerings there and check it out.

Listen to her music, download it, all that good stuff. So that's it. If you're feeling stuck in your life, if this discussion about life and balance, spirituality, meditation, all these sorts of things have you confused, but you know that you need to kind of tune things up, dial up your life a little bit. Well, you might want to check out my new course at MindBodyGreen. It's called The Art of Living with Purpose. It's all about kind of creating new trajectories in your life, strategies, tools to effectively kind of shift and move in a new and more productive way, how to set goals,

how to achieve them, lots of downloadable tools, an online interactive community where you can ask me questions, all kinds of good stuff. It's really great. I'm happy with it, proud of it. So you can check that out there, as well as our other course at MindBodyGreen, The Ultimate Guide to Plant-Based Nutrition, which is a little bit of a different course. But both of them are hours of video content broken down into little nuggets, chunks, like five to 10-minute sections. And it's really great. The quality is really high. The production value is really high. And the information is excellent. So dig that. And of course, go to richroll.com for all your plant power provisions, our new Runrp t-shirt and our other plant power t-shirts which are really cool our nutritional products our vitamin b12 supplement our new

ion electrolyte supplement and of course our gy repair the post workout athletic recovery supplement plant-based proteins and antioxidants and tons of good stuff in that. Signed copies of Finding Ultra, our downloadable e-cookbook, Jai Seed, our meditation program, Jai Release, and more good stuff coming in the works, including an iPhone, iPad app, which is done, it's complete, it's locked and loaded. We're just having some hassles with the Apple developer kind of program,

getting the paperwork approved and all that kind of stuff so we can get it up on the app store. It's taken way longer than I would have thought or anticipated, but we just got through a couple of snags and I think it's going to be up pretty soon. So keep an eye out for that. And of course, I'll make a post or let you guys know when it's up. I want to support the show. Keep telling your friends. We love it. Use the Amazon banner ad at richroll.com. Bookmark it. That way it's easy.

Every time you go to Amazon to get something, you can use that link. It will not cost you a cent extra, but Amazon kicks us some commission change, and that has been paying the bills over here. So thank you. If you want to take it to the next level, you can donate to the podcast. You can do it on a subscription kind of basis, any amount you wish. Thank you so much for people that have done that, like reaching into their pockets to help support this. That's amazing. Because again, the show is free, will always be free. So the fact that people are doing that is really amazing and warms my heart. Share your experience of listening to the

show on Instagram. Just tag me, hashtag Rich Roll or at Rich Roll or RRP or Plant Power or what have you so I can find it. I'll repost it. I'll comment on it. I'll like it, all that good stuff. And again, follow me on Snapchat. I am Rich Roll and I'm on Twitter and Instagram, both at Rich Roll.

It's a little bit different. All right, that's it, everybody. Thank you again for tuning in and I'll leave you with this week's assignment. Take out a notepad, a journal, and make a point of jotting down how you spend your time each day. Break it down by the hour or the half hour or even better yet, every 15 minutes. minutes. Then after a week of doing that, or even a couple days, take an objective look at how you're actually spending your time or maybe wasting your time. And I've done this. It's been revelatory and helping me realize when I think I'm really busy and can't do anymore, don't have any time to kind of do other things in my life, I realize how much time I waste on stupid stuff, which activities are really incongruous with my goals for betterment. So do that, evaluate it for yourself, and then pick one or two and eliminate

them. Yeah, it's going to be a little uncomfortable, but I can guarantee you, if you do that, you will begin to observe how it's changing your life. All right, you guys. See you next week. Peace. Plants.